Birthright

Birthright

The cliff notes version:
At the end of the dread lord wars the dragons gathered and turned some of their eggs into humans so they’d be immune to the power of the dragon orbs. These humans have no knowledge of this but due to the machinations already in place they manage to acquire the orbs anyay. These are the characters. This is the story of how it all happens.

Character creation: standard ability score, any race, any character class, any alignment. Characters start with 3 total levels. Unless you’re human, than you start with 5 total levels.

Background:

To defend from the vile conquest Litch Lords and their bestial servants the good races and Orcs allied to turn back the forces of death. The Dread Lords sought nothing other then the end of all life. The servants of death fought to snuff all life and remake the earth as an undead hell. The Orcs were unreliable allies but their numbers were vast and they don’t want to live in an undead world of ash. Grumsh gave his clerics power so his children could resist the commands of the Litches. Other humanoids were not so lucky.

The war is over. The last and greatest of the Dread Lords, Vecna, has been dismembered if not destroyed and his parts scattered to the far corners of creation. Although life will continue it’s the twilight of the Alliance of Light and the start of a harsh, dark, age. Both Law and Goodness are hard to come by. Simple survival is challenge for most.

The characters are all associated with the Army of the Alliance of Light. The Alliance has crumbled and its leaders can see their end. The great lords of the Alliance have sent out their final command to the far reaches of their army. Their last goal is the destruction of the great weapons of the war. The Dragon Orbs, The Great Staves, The Rings of Power and myriad other artifacts are all in the hands of mortals. Unless they’re recovered, hidden and destroyed they’ll end in the hands of tyrants. Victory would be little better than defeat.

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Part 1 Gathering the Pieces

Adventure 1 Get the Box

When the campaign starts the characters are in the band of the Red Cloaks under the command of Captain Trekand. Standard equipment includes plenty of magical gear, mostly useful against undead. They’re sent to find the ‘Box Of Mystery’. It was known to have been in the possession of Alistair Crown-Sworn who fell in the battle of two valleys. Their orders are simple. Travel to the two valley region, find the box, and bring it back to the Band without opening it. (This is a shakedown run for everyone to get used to the game, and new characters. This will also establish the world as a grim and dark place. It’s hard to be kind to strangers when you’re worried about feeding your family.)

Characters: Unknown but if I had to guess
Jack: Well balanced fighter with something to make him ‘different’. Sarcastic and violent.
Jim: something new, bard, ranger, monk, multi-class.
Simon: Another fighter. Less balanced than Jack but much easier to make.
Lunchbox: Sheckel.
Cpt. Trekand. High level ex-paladin/fighter. Sometimes to win a war you have to things that aren’t good or right. But his heart is in the right place.
NPC1: Bard or ranger as needed. (If either of those are covered than it’ll be a cleric) NPC 1 has lots of lore and info gathering ability but very little fighting ability etc.

The plot of this is simple. Go to the site of the battle. Fight undead on the way. Search the battle field. There’s lots of good loot to be found. Players are free to try and cart it around with them. They may meet NPC 1 at this point. Box isn’t at the battle field. Neither is the ‘crown-sworn’ or his corpse. Players have a number of options for finding out where he/it went.

1. Tracking. This will be hard.
2. Ask locals. This will be annoying. A nearby townsman has clues but pretty much everyone here is mean, poor, and selfish. They have a grudge about the battle, and the state of the world in general. They’re happy to blame the characters. They blame all well fed strangers.
3. Use Magic. Raise dead, legend lore, omens, etc.

No matter how the players learn that after the battle a large number of undead left the site of the battle. (What they don’t know: A necromancer in the service of the Dread Lords raised a force of undead and marched them into the mountains.)
End Session 1.

The purpose of Part one is lots of fighting and experience points. At the end of this everyone should be L7-9. Everyone should have a magical weapon, armor and at least two other bits of coolness.

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Session 2

When they get to the mountains the characters learn that the force they’re following was crushed by a wing of Dragons. (At this point the characters learn about the Dragons part in the War with a successful lore check. Or they can ask at another town, get more crap from the locals and learn it that way) When they head into the mountains there will be lots of Orcs to fight. That part of the alliance is over and Orcs now consider humans as an excellent solution to famine. Unfortunately there is still some military discipline left in the Orcs and they’re all well equipped. These fights will be tough.

Eventually the characters get to the remains of the undead force. The dragons left nothing by ash and ruin. Nothing survived except the box. The characters will have to search for 2 days. Eventually the characters find the box under a pile of dissolved and rotted corpses. The trip back is uneventful.

The next several adventures and sessions show the players more of the world as they recover several powerful items that were lost. All items are destroyed or hidden by the band. They learn that the four main political forces in the region are Cpt. Trekand who wants to make the world a better place, help the helpless and if possible redeem his sins from the war. Banner General Asinawa is another ex-paladin. Unlike Cpt. Trekand the banner General doesn’t want redemption. What he wants is order and an end to the fighting. He’s merciless and unwavering in his pursuit of order. Between the two of them they’re attempting to control a region of vast planes and forests. The Archmage Sebastian Door has begun administering what few people live in the badlands and swamps to the north. From the behavior of his men he seems to have few goals beyond the accumulation of power. Finally there’s Duncan The Giant Slayer. He’s a half-orc barbarian that’s actually doing a decent job of ruling a small coastal area. His men are undisciplined and greedy but seem competent and willing devoted to their ‘Mayor’. Each of these leaders has teams doing the same thing the characters are. This leads to rivalry and possibly violence. This should take about 5 adventures. At 1 level a session everyone should be 12-14 level by the end or part 1. Also in this part of the story it becomes obvious that the dragons were key to winning the war. There will be plenty of clues that the dragons weren’t acting in of their own free will. Smart players will figure out the dragon orbs were used. No one has seen a dragon since the end of the war. Several hordes have been found unguarded.

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Part 2

Several sessions where the characters have to kill people who are using great weapons to make themselves into petty tyrants. The owners of the artifacts have all been corrupted by power. Or else the artifacts have been inherited by heirs who use them to enslave their people. 3 adventures, 5 or 6 sessions and the characters hit 15nth level. There will be direct conflict with the archmage’s men. It’s obvious he’s hoarding the weapons for himself. Also in part two it becomes obvious that the characters are connected with dragons in some way.

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Part 3

In part 3 Duncan kills Cpt. Trekand. Cpt. Trekand is avenged by Duncan’s cousin, Sean. Sean is no match for Duncan and defeats him with an orb of annihilation. (The character tried to find the orb and failed earlier. It was stolen from them be the archmage’s men.) Claiming that Duncan was a murderer Sean takes his place as mayor. He quickly swears allegiance to Banner General Asinaw. The players may blame Asinaw. If they don’t connect the sphere to the Archmage then Asinwa proves that he wasn’t behind what happened and that it’s all a plot by the Archmage Sebastian. (The mage used a Helm of command to dominate Duncan. Asinaw suspects this and doesn’t care. All he wants is order and he didn’t like the captain or the half orc.) Asinwa is honorable and will let the character’s go if he has to. But if they give him any excuse at all he tries to arrest them as rebels. Since they’re all 15nth level or higher they escape. Hopefully the players decide to kill the archmage. They should all be between 16 and 19 level by now. Also by this point the players should know their characters are actually dragons. Several of the characters should know as well. How they react should be fun.

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Part 4

In part 4 the characters go to kill the Archmage. If they’re winning he breaks a staff of unmaking. (A staff of unmaking casts dispel magic on a successful touch attack and has similar, greater powers when charges are spent. When broken it destroys every magical item or effect within 100ft. Artifacts are unharmed.) This permanently breaks all magic items. It also turns the characters back into dragons. They can then take the dragon orbs and hide them. They get the rest of his horde as well. That was the plan all along, to get the dragon orbs. At this point the players can either call it a story, seek out other dragons for more answers, or go on a rampage in their new forms and get vengeance on all the annoying NPC’s I’m going to put in this world. Woo Hoo.