Wandering Monsters (D&D 3.5 Campaign)
Contents
Setting
This is a 15th level D&D 3.5 game with monsters as PC charcters. This is intended as a dark but witty game, akin to Black Adder and some of the Terry Pratchet books. Character species and classes and other whatnot are from offical WoC D&D source books, unless otherwise stated.
The Players have been recruited by the newly reconstruct but still fragile Benzedone Combine to act as a fifth column and ensure the Combine runs smoothly. What that entiles remains to be seen.
If not, well lets just say when it comes to methods of punishment, these "soft" humans could make the cruelest Drow inquistor turn white.
What a deal.
Characters
- Coelocanth - Aranea Illusionist (Edain Duskblossom)
- Unka Josh 10th lv Bard/5th lv Ghoul (Layla abd'al-Azrad)
- JeStor - 15th Level Lizardfolk Druid (Haro the Green)
- Loki Dodges-Their-Claws -Hunter Feral Anthopomorphic Tiger (Rurik)
- Nalyd - male Kenku Duskblade 5/Green Star Adept 10 (Rak),
- BulgeBroMike - Rust Monster/psionic
- Rolzup - PsuedoDragon (Necromancer?) (Cenncroith)
- Caias Ward TBA
- Psychophant as DM
History
It has been years since the Great Battle where the forces of good destroyed the entire army of darkness, and the Face Of Milspec was shattered when the Necklace of Five Sorrows was cast into the pit of Badab'om. You are the last few scattered remains of an army so vast that its campfires darkened the skies. And army from so far way you marched through three portals to reach this isolated world in search of the Necklace. But things have changed. What was supposed to be aneasy victory over the puny humans and reclaiming the Necklace of Five Sorrows was anythingbut easy. The deviced human nations united under one banner, and even managed to recruit the usually reclusive elves and dwarves to aid in their battle. Now all that left is few scattered forces of a once proud army of darkness. That includes you. You reduced to a rag tag team of mercenaries trying to survive in world filled with humans. Humans honed by generation of conflict into killing machines that want you and your kind dead. The Humans don;t seem to care if you were Lord high General or you were just a cook forced to join at swordpiont. You them you are all just monsters. But over time, you and your team began to become pragamatic, and learned to live amoung the humans in an uneasy truce. Some even tried to settle down and resume their lives as farmers and cobblers before being drafted in Milspec's Horde with varing degrees of success. The hardcore amoung you called this "going soft." By those who did not "go soft" soon "got dead." It turns out humans are not nearly as soft as they look.
The Whirld
The place where the adventure taled place is called the Whirld. The Wirld is so remote from the Nexus that it is almost impossible to find unless you know where it is and what pathways to take. Infact the Wirld is populated almost exclusively with humans. Elves and Dwarves are so rate they are stuff of legend. Also most of the Elves left the Whirld after the Great War. Those that remain became mortal. As for the dwarves, they returned to thier massive underground cities, rarely to be seen. When the only non-humans they ever heard of were elves and dwarves you coudl imagine thier reaction to the Army of Darkness.
Common still exist in a changed form called "Royal Cant" If you speak Common you can be understood in Royal but it not pretty. Also some of the peasants in long isolated lands speak thier own dialects.
The Combine
Almost one thousand years ago the nations of the world were united under th eone flag of the Benzidone Combine by one man. The legendary ruler Kayzar Alzos - Sage, Wizard, King, and inventor of the waffle iron. Unfortunatly in the hundreds of years of followinghis death, the greatest empire the world had ever see crumbled due to incessant taxation, internecine squabbles, and no small ammount of inbreeding. It took a foe of immeasurable horror to unite the Combine once again under the flag of a new Kayzar - Naisos the Unifier. His reign was long and he was well loved. His son, not so much. Nor his second son. Or the third for that matter. To make a long story short, his eigth son, the current Kayzar Guzulos the Rotund, is in precarious position and faces ruling a very fragile Combine. Granted he spends most of his time in a druken stupor at his beach house in the city of Port Passat, but if were to ever to sober up, he would be quite disturbed.
People, places and objects of note
People
Jonos Alceptos - Spadones of the House of the Kazar (Summer Home). He is kind of a major domo to the Kayzar, and your piont of contact. Although youthful looking, baby faced and possessing perfect manners, he has a certain edge that make him more terrifing than a horde of rabid driders with the feral template.
Places
Port Passat - Defacto capital of teh Combine and your base of operations think of New Orleans on the Mediteranian and you are not far off.
Cornet Blat - Offical Capital of the Combine. However since teh Kayzar has not been there in fifteen years, there is poower struggle between them and Port Passat
Hilrossat - This small mountain town really has nothing to do your adventure, but they are famous for their fried sauage fritters, and are really worth a try.
Objects
Blolobled - Royal Cant for sausage fritters. (See Hilrossat)
Gameplay
Running The Game
GM is Pyschophant. Most rolls will be by the GM on Invisible castle
Character Creation
There are no class restictions due to race. Of course races and classes must be approved. WoC D&D books and SRD are considered canonical.
Players can roll for stats using the race recommended stats from the applicable sourcebook, can roll 4d6 and drop the lower die for each stat as the would for a normal humaniod character. The DM can assign plusses and penalities to stats.
Players get an additional +4 to distibute to stats for reaching level 15. (or 5 if they enter at level 16 ir more)
House rules
Definition of monster A monster is defined as anything that would cause a normal human to run away shrieking, "Ahhh! Monster! Run away!"
Posting Frequency I hope everyone would be able to post once a day. If not I would be forced to unleash my team of drow assassins to hunt you down and force you write a post with your character doing emarassing things with sheep.
Equipement House Rules. Because high powered magic items can over a campaign, and some monsters are incapable or limitied in magic items, I've decide dto keep a tight reign on magic items. Everyone can have one item that provides up to +5 total in stat boosts and up to +5 in AC and Save bonus and one magical weapon either +5 or +4/3 with special abilities. They also get one misslanous useful item and two marginally useful items. (Peopel forget for every +5 Sword of Awesome Awesoemness, there are dozens of Bag of Tricks, Marvoeus Pigments and eveful Spoons out there. So I urge charcters to take a couple. Both for realizim sake, and it helps round out charcters. That and a really ingenious player could come up with great uses for these things.) To buy more requires a level sacrfice. If someone want to forgo magic equipement they get a +3/4 Level bonus. GM always has the final say.
Familiars If you want to tweak a familar and pick it with a another 1HD creature pick a famialr species it resenebles and use teh bones from that. (IE a bird eating spider is liek a snake and a bat liek an owl.) If you wnat soemthing more exotic Take the "Iproved Famailar" Feat and offer suggestion to the GM. Bribes Help. And he likes Nachos.
Skill pionts Feats and Stat Bonuses Some creature come with predermined skills. If this is the case use those skills and award skill point for PC classes. If no skills are listed for monster type give it 2pt+Int Bonus per monster level. You get oen feat per 4 PC class Character also get +1 to one attribute for every 4 levels in a PC class. Feats are awarded on basis of character levels Monsters with +0LA are treated as regular PC for skills and stats.
Size Charcter can be large but I am willing to go something larger if you can justify a way, by ability/spell/item, how you fit in a house or tight squeeze dungeon.
"Hey Fritz, any idea how did this ancient red dragon ended up in 10x10 room a mile underground?"
Alighnment and Tone "It's fun to be "evil" if you're constantly making a mockery of the concept."-Rolzup Someone could run a evil game where monsters rape pilage and revel in their evilness, with occassional bouts of agnst. But thats not my style as a GM. (That style tend to attract wanna-be who take pride in calling themselves "evil" and "anarchists" and thinking they are tough, but in reality would not last ten minutes in prison much less a truely anarachistic society.) It seems that just about everyone is on the same wavelenght here. I am leaning toward a "Dark and Witty" and "Mocking Evil" but a combination of the "post LOTR" background and being recruited by a political mastermind. There are plenty of ideas at TV tropes for "evil but not necessarily compent" vein to keep the game going for decades, and provide moments of seriousness as well. I was going to suggest the oft mentioned "Blackadder" for evil and slapsticky and add in "House, MD" for darkly witty. (They seem an odd pair but then I remembered that Hugh Laurie played several roles in Blackadder.) Other examples "Tales from the Crypt" "Monsters" (not to be confused with "The Munsters") and one of my favorites and a holloween classic "Arsenic and Old Lace"
I am not sure this actually clarifies anything but this is my thought process
Remeber an increase of one level gives BAB bonus of +1 and +2 to various saves and one minor special ability/spell.
- One AC level is similar to +1 BAB
- +2 BAB is worth about one major special ability/spell.
- To put it in perspective, and this is not a perfect analogy, that it means characters should be able to have a 50% chancee of defeating a young (13d12) red dragon single handedly (ECL 18), and conversely that means they would also have a 50% of getting defeated.
"Don't worry about the paladin, boss. I tied him up to a rope and Fritz hung him over a pit with filled spikes. Then we left him alone with a candle to burn through the rope. NO WAY he could get out of that alive"
