Originally posted by WotC_Rodney:
As per Anondson(x)'s request, I’m going to provide you guys with a little insight into some of the Dark Sun games I’ve run recently, in the run up to 4E.
The first adventure I ran was “In the Service of the Sorcerer-King,” which I crafted for a local gaming convention Andy Collins runs out of his house. In that adventure, the heroes were recruited in Nibenay by one of the city’s templars, a shadow bride named Fyrelle. They were led out into the desert where they were supposed to help her find the ruins of a long-lost city-state called Alakesh (one I just made up for the adventure), inside which rests an artifact from a past age, a single piece of a powerful seven-segmented staff (wink wink nudge nudge). Here’s the History lore I wrote up for the city:[quote]Alakesh was a third city-state in the Ivory Triangle, but it was destroyed hundreds of years ago by the Shadow King and his armies. The name of Alakesh’s ruler has been stricken from recorded history, but it has been said that she was once one of Nibenay’s templars who raised Alakesh from the desert with arcane magic.[/quote]
Anyways, Fyrelle had paid an elf tribe leaving Nibenay to allow the party to travel with them. Once well outside of Nibenay, I threw an Athasian curveball at the party. During the first night of camping, the party was approached by an elf who offered to lead the party, sans templar, to the location of Alakesh that very night, so that they can keep the treasure for themselves and not bring it back to Nibenay. While they are mulling over his offer, they also learn that the wife of the tribe’s chief has it in for the shadow bride, and is planning to kill her. At this point, the players basically had three big options in front of them:
[LIST][*]Help the chieftain’s wife kill the templar (or at least stand by while she attempts it), on the promise that they go to Alakesh together and retrieve the treasure within.
[*]Stop the chieftain’s wife from killing the templar, further endearing themselves with Fyrelle but likely making enemies of the elf tribe.
[*]Sneak off in the middle of the night with the elf dune runner, and flee to the ruins of Alakesh under cover of darkness…hoping that the scout isn’t just leading them out into the desert to rob and kill them in an ambush.
[/LIST]
Of course, other plans and scenarios were discussed, and I was ready to roll with them should they pop up. One of my favorite ideas was when the players of the second group started to believe that the whole scenario was a loyalty test that the templar was putting them through, and decided to side with her. For the record, the first group that ran through the adventure killed Fyrelle in secret and then made the elf scout lead them to Alakesh. More on this guy later.
Once the party arrived in Alakesh (one way or another), they made their way to the ruined palace of the former sorcerer-king and began exploring. In the courtyard they encountered silt pit traps (pits in the ground where trees of life stood but were uprooted and carted off when the city fell to Nibenay’s armies, then filled with silt over the years) and spirits of dead servants that could possess the fragmented statues still standing in the courtyard (I used the monsters I designed for my Scales of War adventure, Den of the Destroyer, for these guys).
Inside the palace, the party encountered a band of thri-kreen scouts that had stumbled upon the ruins and were pillaging them for supplies. One of the two groups attacked outright, and we had an awesome fight with the thri-kreen jumping all around the large palace chamber as chunks of the cieling collapsed down into the room and blood-drinking plants grasped at anyone who got too close to holes in the walls). The other group instead bargained with the thri-kreen, and offered to trade them their elf guide (who had waited at the gates of Alakesh on their return) in exchange for the thri-kreen letting them through. Of course, delighted by the idea of a delicious elf waiting for them, the thri-kreen left.
As the party progressed through the palace, they eventually found a secret stairway down into the palace’s underbelly hidden underneath the sorcerer-king’s former throne. Below was a massive antechamber with two, huge stone doors leading to a vault beyond–presumably where the artifact was hidden. Unbeknownst them (both groups failed their Perception checks) a pair of cilops (cilopses? I can never remember) had taken up residence and were wrapped around the large statues holding up the ceiling. Though both groups eventually prevailed, night had started to fall in the city above, and the undead that lurked in the shadows were beginning to come out. When they attempted to open the vault, long-forgotten wards on the vault sent off warnings above…and drew the zombie hordes like flies. One of the two groups managed to re-seal the hidden passageway with the throne, but the other group could not…and ended up creating one of the most memorable scenes I’ve ever had in a D&D game. One of the players (dwarf warlord) had Pike Hedge (auto-damage anyone that comes adjacent), and, in concert with the half-giant gladiator, plugged the narrow passageway leading into antechamber and basically acted like a woodchipper as dozens of zombie minions streamed to their deaths over the course of several minutes. I just love the image of the two warriors, standing at the threshold of the stairwell, refusing to budge an inch as wave after wave of zombies impaled themselves on their weapons. Classic!
Eventually, the party managed to enter the vault, and inside they find not a piece of the rod, but instead a massive fountain that, even after all these years, seemed to brim with fresh water. They also discovered that Alakesh’s sorcerer-king had retreated to the vault when the city fell to Nibenay, and had sealed herself in. She died a slow, lingering death, unable to free herself from the vault after much of her power had been stripped from her, and she had become a ghoulish undead, a shadow of her former self. When the party entered, both groups were pretty well tapped out of resources, and the sorcerer-king’s ghoulish remnant made her offer: join her, and help restore her to her former power, in exchange for their lives. One group said, “Hell no, we’ll just take your water!” and attacked, winning the day only after two of their five had died to the ghoul. In the other group, two of the party members accepted the ghoul’s offer, and turned on their comrades…only to change their stripes again when the undead sorcerer-king was bloodied (“That was my plan all along!” “Yeah, right.”).
In the end, both groups got out (some more alive than others), and (thanks to the flowing fountain in Alakesh’s vault) had the supplies to get themselves to a nearby trading post, avoiding the wrath of the elf tribe and Nibenay alike. Of course, they’re all wanted criminals in Nibenay now, but I hear Balic is nice this time of year…
The characters I used in the adventure were a half-giant fighter (ex-gladiator), a human warlock (a templar of Gulg, undercover in the city), a human psion (a nobleman being blackmailed by Fyrelle who bought the half-giant’s freedom), a half-elf wizard (a member of the Veiled Alliance), a dwarf warlord (a former dune trader and caravan guard leader), and an elf rogue (a minstrel who deals in assassinations as much as in petty theft and grifting).
Originally posted by pukunui:
Very cool, Rodney. It’s interesting to see what you’ve been up to post-Star Wars. How’s that errata coming along, though? 
Originally posted by toriel:
Very interesting. I really enjoy the choices the PCs had to make. These choices ensure that every group will have a different experience.
Can we hope to see that adventure in Dungeon magazine at some point?
Originally posted by big_goon:
Sounds like they were really fun games and that both you and the players had a load of fun. Kudos to the players for throwing you back some Athasian curveballs.
Originally posted by Grummore:
I am interested in why you call it a half-giant? Shouldnt it be a goliath or you really created an half-giant race for the setting?
Thanks.
Originally posted by WotC_Rodney:
Because I like half-giant better than goliath? Because it’s more in-setting? No mechanical reason, I just like half-giant better than goliath, and we use them interchangeably for the most part.
Originally posted by big_goon:
Did anyone defile? Did you try out the defiling rules previewed recently by Bill, and did either of your two arcane users give in to temptation (despite one being from the Veiled Alliance)?
…just curious.
Originally posted by WotC_Rodney:
[quote]Did anyone defile? Did you try out the defiling rules previewed recently by Bill, and did either of your two arcane users give in to temptation (despite one being from the Veiled Alliance)?
…just curious.
[/quote]
There was some defiling, and yes I used an early version of the defiling rules (not quite the same, but pretty close). The templar of Gulg, of course, didn’t care once they were outside of Nibenay and away from the elf tribe, so he didn’t feel bad about defiling at all. Lucky for him, no one was playing the Veiled Alliance character in that game, so there was no one to really stop him.
In the other game, the Veiled Alliance character had one of those soul-testing moments during the fight against the sorcerer-king’s vestige. After the wizard completely whiffed on her daily power with the ghoul about to coup de grace the unconscious noble, the half-giant fighter was trying to goad the wizard into defiling so that they could get out of there alive. Of course, the sorcerer-king’s vestige pulled an Emperor Palpatine, saying stuff like “Give in to your greed! Take a taste of the power of defiling magic, and become my new head templar!”
The best defiling story I have comes from the convention game I ran at GameStorm in Portland back in March. I’ll post that one later…
Originally posted by Pennarin:
It all sounded like classic fun! Looking foward to more, Rodney 
Now if I could actually play D&D and Dark Sun… /sigh
Originally posted by big_goon:
Since you want it to be more in-setting, was your half-giant “goliath” large and how did you handle it?
Thanks you for your fast answer!
Originally posted by WotC_Rodney:
No, just standard goliath mechanics. Making Large-sized PC races has too many cascading design implications and radically alters the way certain classes perform. I just emphasized their “bigness” with flavorful descriptions–ducking to fit under a doorframe, towering over the other party members, barely lifting their eyes to look at someone on a second story balcony, etc.
Originally posted by beej_silver:
Oooh, this is interesting. If you don’t mind, Rodney, I’ll put in your fallen city-state as one of my 25 rumors in Nibenay(x). I’ll possibly peg it in as one of the potentially false ones, though. It’ll just help them meet the slave tribes in that part of the Ivory Triangle if they think there’s a buried, loot-worthy city over there. XD
Originally posted by flip:
Much as the purist in me hates to admit it, this is the right decision. Making large half-giants, as we did with DS3, is troublesome in the extreme, for all of the reasons Rodney lists. I never really felt like they worked well. Brokenly overpowered for some classes, and uterlly useless for others. And that was with 3e’s Monster race and ECL mechanics, which (thankfully) it seems that 4e is forgoing.
Large half giants are more trouble than their worth – and that’s from someone who spent years determined to make the things work. As long as we’re retconning in Tieflings and Eladrin, and rewinding the timeline by years, I’m afraid to say that I’m alright with dropping a few feet off the half-giants.
Originally posted by formosus:
[quote][quote]As long as we’re retconning in Tieflings and Elan, and rewinding the timeline by years, I’m afraid to say that I’m alright with dropping a few feet off the half-giants.
[/quote]
Not to derail the thread, but, what exactly are they doing with Elan?
I ask this because Elan are very important in a campaign world of mine, and I’ve re-skinned the Deva as Elan in order to make it work for 4e. If Wizards is doing something officially with them somewhere, I’d like to know .
[/quote]
Originally posted by Pennarin:
Wouldn’t that be Tiefling and Eladrin?
What about Large size “monster” half-giants? Soldiers, city guards, etc
Originally posted by EhtoZed:
[quote][quote]
Much as the purist in me hates to admit it, this is the right decision. Making large half-giants, as we did with DS3, is troublesome in the extreme, for all of the reasons Rodney lists. I never really felt like they worked well. Brokenly overpowered for some classes, and uterlly useless for others. And that was with 3e’s Monster race and ECL mechanics, which (thankfully) it seems that 4e is forgoing.
Large half giants are more trouble than their worth – and that’s from someone who spent years determined to make the things work. As long as we’re retconning in Tieflings and Elan, and rewinding the timeline by years, I’m afraid to say that I’m alright with dropping a few feet off the half-giants.
[/quote]
Wouldn’t that be Tiefling and Eladrin?
What about Large size “monster” half-giants? Soldiers, city guards, etc[/quote]
In 4E ‘normal’ giants are large so I doubt we’ll see large half-giants. Though Titans are huge so maybe a half-titan could be large. Or would a half-titan just be a giant? 
Originally posted by flip:
The inclement rules police that haunt these boards will have your head for one of Wizards’ own to be so flippant towards the printed rules!
I jest.
Outstanding story and thank you for sharing.
Originally posted by big_goon:
Hah!
I just read the Sun Warped flats article, and I must say there are some striking resemblances between your game and the article. I loves me some aberrations mutated by defiling/red sun combo radiation. I’m tooling my Gith after the same warp (consider it stolen).
Good article. Might I inquired whether Alakesh = "Among the slave tribes of the desert, a legend tells of a city-state now completely absorbed by sunwarped flats"? Magic powered by the red sun? I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that there are some examples of “red sun-powered” bad guys in the Creature Catalog.