Premade Campaign 20: The Shipwreck (2/3)
After cleaning up Urbeth and assuring that no one’s loop is going to end in their own death, the party can move out of the city and explore the rest of the island. There are plenty of places to visit during the Paragon tier, and between the levels of 11-20 there isn’t much they shouldn’t be able to handle. The two remaining cities on the island are areas the party will likely explore, and the mysterious castle to the west is another area of interest. Either way they should make their way south at one point, maybe after someone unaffected by the time-loop tells them of a group of Barbarians moving around near the coast. When they make their way to the ocean they see dozens of footprints and a group of adventurers face-down in the sand, slowly being dragged back to sea (and their clock should be going backwards, slowly). the bits of broken boat around them are also being pulled back, and some of the splintered wood and ripped sales are being mended by mysterious means. If the party is able to pull them away from their location and revive them from unconsciousness they can find that the party on the shore is the group from “Premade Campaign 17: The Book of Time.”
They say that their ship was followed by a strange woman with wings, and that in their attempts to escape their wizard friend, Marcelin, attempted to ward her off by reading from a magical book they had found. That was six months ago, hundreds of miles away, and no one knows where Marcelin is.
There are several key locations that can be visited at this point as well as limitless encounter and dungeon opportunities. Since time is completely screwed up, some areas no longer follow the actual flow, warping backwards or forwards. Show the players this by having their clock let out a whistle, drawing their attention to an area where they can communicate with their past selves. Sure, this opens up all sorts of metagaming options, but it also gives the players a chance to earn extra experience for good roleplaying. If there was ever a random monster that you have always wanted your party to fight, or an interesting dungeon that couldn’t be shoved into another campaign, the excuse of “it has been warped from another point in time” is as good of an excuse as any to have gnomes riding velociraptors jumping out of the trees.
It is hard for me to list actual encounters for this campaign because they are completely dependent on where your players want to go, and how your players want to act. If they are totally into the idea of time-travel than it makes sense to give them every opportunity to hide from their past selves while slicing assassin’s necks, but they may just want to crawl in dungeons, and if that is the case than so be it. Even so, the players can explore several key areas of the island, some of which are detailed below:
Urbeth: The party may want to return to Urbeth at some point, and will be met with the city exactly as it was as they left it. The only point of interest here is that on their way out of the town the Red Dragon that was attacking the clocktower should reappear, smashing through the building and into the ground. It roars, spins around, and flies away, obviously confused. It flies west, in the direction of the Gravelands.
Nintar: The city of Nintar has been taken over by a militant group that was not effected negatively by the time-loop and has been hired to make sure that no one leaves or enters the city. The actual town itself has been ravaged by whatever is messing up time, and every few feet someone travels it feels like they are entering the city in a different area, complete with its own weather, citizens, and year. From any given spot it may look like it was summer in the entire city, but after walking a few feet it may be a blizzard in the middle of the winter. The players can take advantage of this by jumping in and out of an area to lose the mercenaries, who are trying to lock them in the prison.
Funearil: The city of Funearil, which is known for its beautiful market and large military, is completely gone. Where it once was there is grass and large, overgrown trees, indicating that nothing was in the area for thousands of years.
Barbarian Territory: The barbarian territory is very well guarded, and the only way to get in without being found would be go enter with a disguise, because before long there is a good chance that a group of orcs will ride up, attacking anyone they see. There are splinter groups of barbarians that have left the main tribe after the time incident, but none know the cause.
Druidic Grove: The grove is home to a group of Druids who were not effected by time-loops, but are actively looking for a solution to fix the problem. They should be very friendly to the party, offering a place to sleep and any items they can spare, as well as any knowledge they have. They should also have one of their seers show the party the root of all of the problems in a vision…
You see the man described to you as Marcelin running from the shipwreck yelling for help before being captured by barbarians. You see those same barbarians torturing him, threatening to kill his friends, and trying to take the book. In an act of desperation, Marcelin pulls out the book and screams “STOP” in a language you know you don’t understand, and a pulse of nothingness extends in every direction. You know now that it is Marcelin who unknowingly destroyed the fabric of time, Marcelin who is being held captive by the Barbarians, and Marcelin who is the only one who can revert things to the way they should be.
If the party explores the forest they will find many groups of barbarians actively searching for the watch the party found in the first session. Time is spotty in these areas, with certain areas giving players an extra standard action every turn and others taking away their move action. Other spots will allow for a player to spend an action point and take two full turns, back to back.
Gravelands: The Gravelands, as of now, are completely empty. There are a few chests with hundreds of gold worth of gems sitting around, but no monsters in sight.
Also, while I am bolding random words and listing things, below are some cool uses of the time in this campaign.
- Player Death: Have a player die an extremely unpleasant death for being dumb. It doesn’t matter how, but make sure they (and the party) feels incredibly salty about it. After they start to get annoyed, let them hear a whistle and see that there is an area nearby where they can send a letter to their past selves, warning them of whatever killed the idiot.
- Items: Have them receive high-level items and a note from themselves in a unique looking chest, and later have them see the chest in an unlikely area, empty. When I ran this campaign, I had them see it behind a Hobgoblin Warlord who had just begun to like them, only for them to have to make off with his chest during the night for fear of losing their loot.
- Plot Holes: Leave one glaring plot hole in the campaign for every character, it will work it’s way into the finale. Have an arrow come from out of nowhere and kill an enemy, have an NPC in a cloak yell out the location of their quarry, or have a building they are going into explode, sending them flying to their backs. The more confusing (and important) the better, I promise.
Check back tomorrow for the Epic conclusion to this Premade Campaign! The prologue can be found here, and part one is here.
