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Joined: Sep 23, 2013
Posts: 6317
Location: New York
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Here is a draft, I figure it's important for the players to get some input. How's this everyone?
The Talcar Campaign is a low-level campaign that uses most of the rules from Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition, and is set in the fantastical metropolis of Talcar, a massive port city surrounded by ocean to the east, mountains to the north and west, and plains that eventually lead to the forest to the south. Magic runs rampant throughout the city, as well as many curious races—it is common knowledge Talcar is a hubbub of interplanar trade. Given the chaotic and wonderous nature of Talcar, adventurers can only expect one thing: the unexpected.
Our heroes are junior members of a small mercenary guild called The Tower, and they live on the outskirts of Talcar in—you guessed it—a tower. A rather dilapidated tower. The kind of tower that, if it could speak, would earnestly campaign to be put out of its misery and have its stone repurposed into an oven, or a fine set of stone steps winding through a manor garden, or, failing that, polished rocks with inspirational messages carved onto them that serve to prevent stacks of parchment from escaping open office windows.
The heroes are thus: a corpulent elf wizard named Aregano, a well-mannered half-orc barbarian named Tovar, a mysterious, leather-clad assassin by the name of Libi, and the leader of the group, a disdainful tiefling bard that goes by the name of Lucian. Their mercenary leaders left on a mission some three months ago, and haven’t been heard from since. A fierce Talcarian winter pummels the landscape; Aregano’s body type, given the quickly diminishing pantry, has shifted from “obese” to “more to love.”
Then there’s a knock at the door, and a Halfling that goes by the name Flint enters, carrying a fresh box of delicious pastries as an incentive for the heroes to take on a job. Flint’s master is a pastry chef named Croi, and someone seems to be raiding shipments of his “secret ingredient.” It’s nearly putting him out of business. The heroes agree to escort Croi’s band of halflings, lead by the gruff Halfling Spitwick and Flint, to pick up their next shipment. A week later, the party finds themselves in the Dwarven mountains, stuck in a tavern because a sudden winter storm has made travel impossible.
A duo of dragonborn approach the group. The storm, it turns out, is being generated by a machine imprisoning a baby ice dragon, guarded by a small tribe of ice goblins that have no interest in Spring every arriving again. On the way to dispatch the tribe, the heroes meet Nolan, a human cleric mourning the loss of his party. The heroes slay the goblins, their masters, and kill the baby dragon. The next morning, Libi is nowhere to be found—it appears she vanished in the night with Flint, taking the party’s gold and silver to boot. Disheartened, the party continues deeper into the mountains. Eventually, they arrive at a curious ranch: humans seem to be raising Oozes in small pits—and it turns out, these Ooze heifers are the secret ingredient in Croi’s pastries! The heroes escort the ooze-filled caravans back to Croi’s bakery, but on the way are stopped by a band of Ooze-Rights-Activists set on freeing the errant Oozes. They succeed, and chaos ensues, ending in a massive battle between activists, our heroes, and the oozes. Our heroes survive, but not unscathed.
They return to the Tower to find it in shambles. Aregano speculates it might be the fault of Libi and Flint—but why, it is hard to say. Croi, with his deepest gratitude, assigns each hero a Halfling helper, and the group begins rebuilding the tower anew. A couple weeks go by, and the party is contacted by a Lord Potamus. He is furious that the city’s sewer dryad, Rhodinia, seems to have forgotten how to manage her horde of fungal zombies, the ones tasked with keeping the city’s sewers clean. His wife, it seems, was innocently going about her business in the bathroom when one of the said fungoids attempted to crawl up her… well, you can imagine how upset she was. The party, in search of Rhodinia, descends into Talcar’s underground and quickly becomes lost. They dispatch a group of raging fungal foes, and then come upon two assassins—a human and an orc—who make reference their boss “Pot” and how his wife’s fanny was attacked. It appears they’re in the sewers to dispatch Rhodinia, but, like the party, they are lost as well. A small battle ensues between the groups, ending with the assassins fleeing into the dark. Our heroes agree this sewer job is beneath them, and find a way out of the sewers. On their way back to the Tower, they pass Potamus’s manor. A woman screams from inside the manor, and the manors guards rush to her aide. The heroes continue on without investigating.
Another week passes, and the heroes’ routine of fixing up the tower is interrupted when they receive a rather bizarre object—a piece of parchment titled ‘THE WEEKLY HERO’. The Weekly Hero lists active jobs within the city, and this week’s edition lists the following:
1. Orc Bandits Pillage Small Village! Request for Help!
2. Lost: Angel Wings looking for its wings. Can’t pay but will bless.
3. Love: Lonely goblin of clerical persuasion seeking to save you
4. Help: Talcar is awful, please help me find a way back home
5. A generic request for Halfling workers
Turning The Weekly Hero over reveals THE WEEKLY MERC, which also lists:
1. Wanted – Two Dragonborn last seen heading south
2. Missing – Halfling named Flint last seen in Western Mountains
3. Wanted – small group of fierce warriors to clean out dungeon basement filled with rats
On each side, there are instructions to a small shop in Talcar owned by a gnome named Feldagriff. Feldagriff’s shop is just opposite the Talcar Volunteers’ Barracks, and Tovar, seeking stability in his life, decides to join. Almost magically, a hero in full-plate walks into Feldagriff’s shop, seeking employment. Seeing they need a new bruiser, the heroes add this newfound member to their fold—the clumsy paladin Algotin!
The party agrees to look into the orc raids, and Feldagriff gives them the commission. The heroes travel north on the Halfling Stub’s river barge, heading toward the city of Adset. On the way, a boat full of orcs approaches them—at first the party thinks to raid them, but then it turns out these orcs are simply looking for trade. Stub and the orcs are exchanging weapons for gold when they’re attacked suddenly by a school of orcish-looking fishmen. A massive battle ensues, with many halflings and orcs dying. Nolan, curious about the nature of these more gentle orcs, decides to abandon the party’s quest and join the orcs on their mission to protect the coast.
Finally, the heroes reach land, where they’re met by a confusing sight: a beastly giant-child girl is chasing after a pug in a pink collar. In the ensuing battle/confusion, the party learns that the child is a Formorian, and has been keeping the pug Spike—a shifter—as a pet slave. The heroes free Spike, and in his gratitude, he joins the party… though it appears he prefers his pug form over any other. The party makes its way into Adset, a small town perched over a river, filled with unfriendly townsfolk living in shuttered, tall homes. The party finds its way into The Herder’s Thirst, where they meet the town’s half-orc mayor Dukgan, who explains the orcs raiding the village want control of the river, because the river serves as a common trade route for the Dwarves coming eastward down the mountain. Dukgan explains that the orcs north of the city have committed some sort of alliance to a fish-like tribe, and their interbreeding has created a super-tribe of water-dwelling orcs to guard the seas, along with land-dwelling orcs to raid the town. Dukgan says the orcs and their spawn are living in a hot springs cove north of the city, and the heroes head there. On their way, they encounter a band of orcs hauling a troupe of chained-up dwarves. Lucian, ever-mindful of his gilded tongue, approaches the orcs, engaging with them using words, not steel and spells. The orcs explain that the villagers of Adset and their dwarven friends took the land from them, and so the orcs are exacting their revenge on the villages and the dwarves, and eventually plan to rule this area of the Talcarian continent and seas. Lucian explains to them out stupid of an idea that is, and convinces them to take him to their leader. On their way, the group is set upon by a trio of frost elementals. The orcs and heroes work together to dispatch them, as well as mysterious newcomer Narolin, a swashbuckling thief who joins the party out of pure impulse, it seems.
The band of orcs takes the heroes to their leader Dord, a fat and enthusiastic orc who seems genuinely interested in opening a spa and not slaughtering villagers and making slaves of dwarves. He frees the dwarves and sets the party up with a suite, only to begrudgingly disappear as the sea creature lady of his life summons him for more baby-making. While the party lounges in their spa room, they hear a sudden exclamation from down the hall, only to find the dwarves have a room and are being roasted alive by a cherub-like fire elemental. Another of the fire elementals seems to be crawl out of the unit being used to heat the heroes’ Jacuzzi, and our adventurers are currently in a half-naked battle for their lives.
We shall see what happens next!
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