I am about to begin a new D&D campaign and Im thinking of making the first bad guy a Vampire Kobold. One of my players is likely to be a Kobold and has a rivalry with another kobold. They would both leave the colony at an Ancient dragon's lair at different times.
The backstory and start of the campaign: (explanation of what is going on) The Non playable Kobold (NPK) would have been guarding an entrance of the green dragon lair as a group of treasure hunters would enter it. A Tiefling of that party would end up killing him. Upon killing him the NPK would be filled with so much hatred and anger left in his spirit that Orcus would turn the NPK into a Kobold Vampire. The NPK would then viciously kill all the treasure hunters and run off into the woods abandoning his post to satiate his bloodlust.
At the same time the Player Kobold (PK) would be sneaking into the Ancient dragon's lair to attempt to satiate its curious mind. The Ancient dragon upon realising this as well as the commotion outside of its lair would change into one of the treasure hunters (evil dragons, especially extraordinarily ancient ones like this one have the ability to polymorph into humanoid forms in my world). He would approach the PK and promise the PK Riches and other curiosities if it helped him escape the lair and get back to a major city in this country. Leading the PK past all the dead bodies, seeing a Tiefling body missing its head. The hidden dragon would want to hunt down the missing dangerous NPK. Knowing that such creatures though not extremely dangerous to the dragon themselves, are a chaotic wildcard the dragon wouldn't want anywhere near its lair. At the same time the Dragon would want to have the PK far away from the colony as it doesn't like its minions trying to snoop around its hoard.
While the dragon is travelling with the PK they would stop at the place where they would meet some of the other players. This is where the campaign begins. The dragon, in disguise, will tell them of a dangerous murderous kobold (NPK) that is killing travellers and has killed one of his "friends" (meaning the tiefling that tried breaking into its lair). He, now disguised as a semi-wealthy treasure hunter and merchant would hire the party to track down the NPK. Eventually, the party would find this kobold has been turning the dwarves that live around the forest into undead slaves and has started attacking travellers to kill them. The party would eventually track it down to a small cave where they face off against a few of the dwarven zombies before eventually fighting the NPK. The NPK would, at this point, look like he drowned in blood. While he is fighting the party he will curse at them saying "the horned one came for me, he will come for you all". This, at face value, could be pointing at the horned Tiefling head thats mounted on a spike that has carved "murderer" into it. After being killed he would rise again but as a Slithering Tracker made out of blood. After this boss battle the party would be able to find some treasure that it had gathered from its victims.
The Dragon, still hidden would thank the party and, now having seen the skill of this group, will hire them to escort him back to the nearby city where the Dragon will pick up its part-time humanoid life where it tries to manipulate the kingdom that lives outside of the forest to attack the one that lives in the forest. Both these kingdoms have a magical arms race to try and destroy the other as they have been in conflict for many years. The Dragon would always follow and kill parties of treasure hunters that are send into the forest to retrieve magical artifacts from ruins or steal them from the other kingdom. The dragon would then take whatever these parties had and take it back, making sure the one side knows that the Out of Forest Kingdom tried to steal from them, but let the other know the In Forest Kingdom killed all of its treasure hunters. Then he would present himself as now owning this item and would sell it to the Out of Forest Kingdom. This would cause trouble to start brewing between the two nations and that would be something the dragon thoroughly enjoys. The only one to suspect the dragon of being up to no good would be the Bladesinger Archmage of the city who might become an ally of the party at later levels.
The Dragon would mark the Kobold, to be sure it knows where it is and would send out the party on a quest that will lead the party into the next step of the adventure. Requesting it to return at one point to work for it on a few jobs when the party is of higher level. He will request the party to find an item known as The Horn of Dragons which is a horn that, once blown, will summon a group of extremely powerful ancient dragons together who will take over most of the civilised world for a while (kinda Chroma Conclave from CR).
This would tease/introduce a few of the major villans of the campaign (First, the Ancient Dragon who will become a big villan at one point and Second, Orcus who has become more powerful thanks to a major nation of evil beings worshipping him and building massive undead forces). At the same time this would engage in one part of the PK's backstory where they have a fierce rivalry with the NPK that has boiled to the point of them wanting to kill eachother.
I think this could be an interesting introductionary story that provides a decent challenge for a level 2/3 4 man party. (I will be lowering the power of both the vampire kobold and the slithering tracker to make it a more level-appropirate fight)
Please let me know what you think or what you would add/change.
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I am about to begin a new D&D campaign and Im thinking of making the first bad guy a Vampire Kobold.
One of my players is likely to be a Kobold and has a rivalry with another kobold. They would both leave the colony at an Ancient dragon's lair at different times.
The backstory and start of the campaign: (explanation of what is going on)
The Non playable Kobold (NPK) would have been guarding an entrance of the green dragon lair as a group of treasure hunters would enter it. A Tiefling of that party would end up killing him. Upon killing him the NPK would be filled with so much hatred and anger left in his spirit that Orcus would turn the NPK into a Kobold Vampire. The NPK would then viciously kill all the treasure hunters and run off into the woods abandoning his post to satiate his bloodlust.
At the same time the Player Kobold (PK) would be sneaking into the Ancient dragon's lair to attempt to satiate its curious mind. The Ancient dragon upon realising this as well as the commotion outside of its lair would change into one of the treasure hunters (evil dragons, especially extraordinarily ancient ones like this one have the ability to polymorph into humanoid forms in my world).
He would approach the PK and promise the PK Riches and other curiosities if it helped him escape the lair and get back to a major city in this country. Leading the PK past all the dead bodies, seeing a Tiefling body missing its head.
The hidden dragon would want to hunt down the missing dangerous NPK. Knowing that such creatures though not extremely dangerous to the dragon themselves, are a chaotic wildcard the dragon wouldn't want anywhere near its lair. At the same time the Dragon would want to have the PK far away from the colony as it doesn't like its minions trying to snoop around its hoard.
While the dragon is travelling with the PK they would stop at the place where they would meet some of the other players. This is where the campaign begins. The dragon, in disguise, will tell them of a dangerous murderous kobold (NPK) that is killing travellers and has killed one of his "friends" (meaning the tiefling that tried breaking into its lair). He, now disguised as a semi-wealthy treasure hunter and merchant would hire the party to track down the NPK.
Eventually, the party would find this kobold has been turning the dwarves that live around the forest into undead slaves and has started attacking travellers to kill them. The party would eventually track it down to a small cave where they face off against a few of the dwarven zombies before eventually fighting the NPK.
The NPK would, at this point, look like he drowned in blood. While he is fighting the party he will curse at them saying "the horned one came for me, he will come for you all". This, at face value, could be pointing at the horned Tiefling head thats mounted on a spike that has carved "murderer" into it. After being killed he would rise again but as a Slithering Tracker made out of blood.
After this boss battle the party would be able to find some treasure that it had gathered from its victims.
The Dragon, still hidden would thank the party and, now having seen the skill of this group, will hire them to escort him back to the nearby city where the Dragon will pick up its part-time humanoid life where it tries to manipulate the kingdom that lives outside of the forest to attack the one that lives in the forest. Both these kingdoms have a magical arms race to try and destroy the other as they have been in conflict for many years. The Dragon would always follow and kill parties of treasure hunters that are send into the forest to retrieve magical artifacts from ruins or steal them from the other kingdom. The dragon would then take whatever these parties had and take it back, making sure the one side knows that the Out of Forest Kingdom tried to steal from them, but let the other know the In Forest Kingdom killed all of its treasure hunters. Then he would present himself as now owning this item and would sell it to the Out of Forest Kingdom.
This would cause trouble to start brewing between the two nations and that would be something the dragon thoroughly enjoys. The only one to suspect the dragon of being up to no good would be the Bladesinger Archmage of the city who might become an ally of the party at later levels.
The Dragon would mark the Kobold, to be sure it knows where it is and would send out the party on a quest that will lead the party into the next step of the adventure. Requesting it to return at one point to work for it on a few jobs when the party is of higher level. He will request the party to find an item known as The Horn of Dragons which is a horn that, once blown, will summon a group of extremely powerful ancient dragons together who will take over most of the civilised world for a while (kinda Chroma Conclave from CR).
This would tease/introduce a few of the major villans of the campaign (First, the Ancient Dragon who will become a big villan at one point and Second, Orcus who has become more powerful thanks to a major nation of evil beings worshipping him and building massive undead forces).
At the same time this would engage in one part of the PK's backstory where they have a fierce rivalry with the NPK that has boiled to the point of them wanting to kill eachother.
I think this could be an interesting introductionary story that provides a decent challenge for a level 2/3 4 man party. (I will be lowering the power of both the vampire kobold and the slithering tracker to make it a more level-appropirate fight)
Please let me know what you think or what you would add/change.