A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

[Alibear]

So here is the deal. Now afer a long hiatus i'm about to GM again, with two new players who haven't played for years and were DnDers. So, I want to keep it to stuff they know and like without being too cliched.

 

I want my young lads to locate an ancient tomb in a desert in the Empire of Kesh (Persia really). Once in they have to dodge a trap or two, battle a guardian monster, grab the loot and leave. On the way out they need to battle a tribe of warriors who historically protect the tomb. All very straight forward so far.

 

Now, the two players have no experience with Hero so I will design characters for them and have decided on a Ranger type and a Rogue for them to play. The Ranger will be the guide in the desert and the Rogue will be the tomb robber - give them both a chance to shine.

 

Now onto the complications - I want to use the desert itself as an enviromental obstacle but am not sure how. I thought perhaps a sandstorm perhaps?

 

1. Meet in a the city

 

2. Ranger gathers supplies for desert treck (fuzzy on what they might need) Tents, dried food, loads of water and perhaps some camels or horses?

 

3. Scholar/ Rogue tracks down location of tomb (fuzzy on the details on this) Either wizard tracks it down in library or rogue hears about it from ex tomb robber? Whatever sounds less cheesy.

 

4. Get attacked by nomad warriors who have heard of adventurers about to rob tomb. perhaps at a well known watering hole.

 

5. Out and about in desert, perhaps encounter local wildlife or friendly locals? (ranger shines)

 

6. Find tomb but tomb is buried under sand. PC's get worked up and start to dig perhaps.

 

7. Nomad conjurer summons efriit (air elemental) to attack party, it uses sand attacks and in the process reveals entrance. Defeat efriit and drive off conjurer

 

8. Enter tomb, dodge traps (Rogue shines)

 

9. Find maguffin.

 

10. Leave tomb and fight rest of nomads and conjurer or flee.

 

 

Now, none of that is particularly imaginative or inspiring. What could I change to make it more.... memorable? Any ideas?

[kahuna's bro]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

you might check fantasy hero for their equivilents to rogue and ranger it will help them get used to HERO terminoligy

[Markdoc]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

Here's a suggested timeline - it's a scenario I ran in my game (inspired by an REH story in Swords of Sharazar), which I later cut down and used as a Con game. It went well, in both cases.

 

1. Characters get together - somehow

2. Characters stumble across a guy being beaten up - and heroically intervene!

3. If the characters do intervene the beating-up people run off: they not armed and armoured for a full-on confrontation. If they are not the intervening type, the victim makes dash for freedom, brushing against one of them and depositing something on their person before disappearing, thugs in pursuit. Either way (Grateful victim or thing stuffed in sleeve) they end up with a ragged piece of parchment on which is indicated a route to the site of interest. However most of the details on it are jotted in some unknown tongue with only more recent, sketchy translations to indicate that there is treasure! If the victim survives, he can explain he found the treasure map in an old book and when he showed his translation to a group of adventurers to try and assemble a party, they tried to just beat him up and take the map.

4. Site of interest is across the desert and up in some rocky hills - you can make survival rolls to get there, climbing rolls to cross the trackless crags, swimming tests to cross the swift bridgeless rivers, etc. Throw in a few fights with one or two minor threats (snakes, scorpions, a pack of wild dogs or something more fantastic) Make 'em work for their travel.

5. At some point they realise that they are being shadowed - by somebody - but their attempts to set ambushes, etc will fail. (in fact, they are being watched by two groups: the adventurers who tried to steal the treasure map and the hill tribes for whom their destination is sacred).

6. Use the conjurer/afrit thing as described, if you want - at the point some remaining tribesmen will head home for reinforcements.

7. Enter tomb, steal McGuffin (in my case it was a statue encrusted with garnets - the bloodstained god)

8. When the players come out they find the way out blocked by the other adventuring party (in my case the temple was carved into a crag - the only way out was by a narrow ledge, making fighting your way out near impossible with archers covering the path, forcing them into a sniping fight .... with a limited number of arrows

9. The fight is interrupted by the arrival of more tribesmen. The players - there are only two of them after all - should be clear that they probably cannot deal with all these guys alone and of they get trapped in the tomb, they are toast. The smart option is to team up with the other group - in the sure knowledge that at some point, the others will probably turn on them - for a series of running fights out of the tribe's territory.

 

cheers, Mark

[Alibear]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

Yeah, I wasn't clear. I have two new players and two old ones.

[Cancer]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

Items which might convey the idea of a less linear plotline:

• There might be lore/history giving hints that the warrior/defender clan have instructions to permit strangers into the tomb if they have the right "credentials". Might be a password or other token, might be a ritual, might be correct offering at the altar (at the proper time/day/astrological conjunction etc.) at the tomb entry.
  
• False leads to "information sources" in town that might range from dumb red herrings (local bozos simply making cash on the side by selling fake wooja-woos to out-of-town rubes) to deep hints of massive evil (Agents of the Golden Pheasant, highest and most ruthless arm of the Sultan's Secret Police? Prophet of some evil deity that they are trying to rise from slumber out in the Sand Sea?).
  
• Might take on a diversion/side quest to smuggle some desperado/hotly pursued political figure/holy man for an unpopular (or deprecated, or inconvenient) temple out of town before sultan's/satrap's/etc. forces catch up with him/her/them, with extra fights and/or pursuit/evasion. Could be as major as a pretender to the throne with a legitimate claim, could be as minor as the guy who knocked up the mayor's daughter.
  
• Blunder into an irrelevant/mundane pack of thieves' hideout while trekking around the desert; Fight? Talk? Buy Off?
  
• Accept a parcel to be delivered to another place more or less in the same direction as their temple quest, with delivery fees paid half on acceptance, half on delivery. Parcel might be contraband, might be an omen, might be merely worth a lot to the purchaser in the other town. Minor attempts by pursuing thieves (or duty collectors, if it's contraband), both in town and in the desert, to snitch the delivery parcel.
  
• Guardian clan might have their own dissidents/sons/daughters who want out of the clan but can't under pain of death?
  

[Shadowsoul]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

All I can think of is that you should use the desert to the utmost. It's extremely difficult to navigate through the desert. Visibility can be very poor, everything looks the same and strong winds can actually make superficial changes to the landscape. How do they manage it?

 

Then there are the twin dangers of dehydration and heat exhaustion.

 

Have some evil character, (whom they can track down later in the adventure or the campaign), commit the ultimate desert sin of poisoning an oasis so that the party has to stumble deliriously through the sand to even reach the tomb. Then, when they spot potential attackers, they shall have to try and work out if their opponents are real or just hallucinations brought about by the harsh environment. Same goes for the tomb.

 

This may seem harsh but completing the quest will be more satisfying if they feel that their characters have endured a lot to get their loot.

[Mirgos]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

To steal an idea from the 1st Ed of WFRP, the PCs could be recruited by someone who actually worships the dark entity that inhabits the tomb & needs assistance to get past the guardian tribe - plus the PCs will make a convenient sacrifice.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: A senario: ideas and help me flesh it out.

 

Some ideas to add with what was said.

 

For an intro have all the characters in a caravan traveling to "x". The caravan is attacked by desert rogues/nomads.

 

After fleeing into the desert (or even if they win) you can have them deal with the heat and limitated resources. A camel could fall in one of the sand pits, which swallows it and alot of supplies. Maybe an encounter with giant scorpion(s). I think just ding them x2 end for heat. Something that costs them, but nothing too horrible. About this time, have them come across some benefactor. This benefactor gives them the quest to the ancient tomb. One thought I had, if it is a demon, then here are two possibilities, why its in the desert. First one is that the demon is an ocean/water demon, and its condemed to the desert where its powers are weak. Second, that the temple/tomb was originally in the jungle a millenia ago, which now it has become desert. Also with option one, perhaps the benefator is the demon (although it is just a weak old man while imprisoned.) And sends hapless travelers to their doom in the hiopes that its imprisonment will be broken.