Dreams in Glas - Adventure in planning

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Kaeptn
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:17 am

Hello!

To those who follow the facebook pages regarding WH 4E: You might have read about my ideas. I came here, because i want to reflect with others over my scenarios and how to make them better. Also i'm german and only half fluent in english, so excuse me, if i get something wrong. If someone wants to use my ideas - please go for it and let me know, how it went. :)

So i'm planning a three part campaign (in which i will tie in some little scenarios on the fly) about a journey from Reikland to Sylvania. I play this with two different groups of which the first one has already completed the first scenario. Some scenes are tailored to the skills of my PCs, so they may seem a bit specific.

A short synopsis of the first one:
It starts in Bögenhafen where a vampiress made people sleep, to catch their dreams in glas (windows, glasses,…). She learned that from a chaos wizard of Tzeentch in her life-life time and tried to recreate the spell in the vampire lore in her death-life time. To the end she tried to trap the dreams of the whole city in the temple windows of the temple of Bögenauer. The characters have a bit to investigate, kill the zombies, she uses to collect the glas, get sidetracked by an alchemist and his pet ogre and defeat the vamp in a showdown in Bögenauer's temple. The vamp flees in the end. It has much more detail to it which i can provide, if wanted.

Now i'm about to finish the second one. Plan is as follows:
She flees to a herd of beastmen (beastmen are a wish by my players) in Averland, to consult with the shaman over tzeentch magic. When the original Tzeentch wizard was alive he had an agreement with the beastmen shaman. The PCs follow by river and see in the night a green comet in the skies. To get access to the heard the Vamp kidnaps a child in a nearby village as offering. That kid, born in the night of the green comet, is a mutant and the parents are quite happy she stole it, but of course cannot express it. So they hire the PCs to get after their "beloved" baby. The infos by mother and father contradict each other, so it may seem fishy to the PCs. They should guess, that something is off. Through other villagers they can learn the real way, the vamp took off. When they question the parents about the inconsistencies they claim that they are in shock and didn't get a good enough look.
(WIP 1: How to make the investigation in the village more interesting?)

As soon as the PCs find the right way, they stumble across some encounters.
1. An alchemist who will tell them the right way, if they rescue him from collecting the wrong mushrooms, e.g. by showing them that all birds seem to fly to a specific point in the forest. He could also tend to their wounds.
2. The men of straw. Straw puppets in the woods, tall like a human, that are designed like beastmen. The PCs can utilize them as costumes.
3. An amulet on a tree with a skeleton beneath. There are clues on the dead and on the tree, that the amulet (it has a shard of glas in it) was an artifact of the Tzeentch wizard. If taken, it makes casting spells more easy, but the mage has to throw for corruption each time. If left there, they get a temporary Luck point till the end of the adventure.

Following the vamp they stumble upon a meeting, where the vamp offers the kid to the shaman, who sees the little mutant as an omen from the gods, and take the vamp to their herdstone. The heardstone is made of glas, of course.
The shaman takes the child inside his tent (the only one, that isn't makeshift) and then a big party starts as the beastmen regard the birth of the child as omen of their dark gods. Part of the party, the beastmen are getting pissed drunk, is that the shaman shows the Vamp how to draw shadowy creatures out of the glas herdstone.
The PCs have to get the child out of the tent.
(WIP 2: How to make the sneak mission to get the child more interesting?)

After they got to the child (it's up to them, whether they bring it or leave the demon spawn) the heard wakes up and chases the PCs through the forest back to the village. Here a minigame beginns. The PCs have to solve three stations. After each station they get attacked by a very small force of enemies, if they didn't take precautions. The PCs have a base chance of 30% to escape an encounter in the first station (river), 20% for the 2nd (field of bones) and 10% for the 3rd (old ruin). The chance goes down, because the herd catches on. Every station has a obstacle to fulfill and an option to mask the tracks. Above that the PCs can come up with creative ideas themselves.
For every fulfilled option they get +10% to escape the encounter, that can be taken to the next station.
So if they come to the river and manage to get across, leave no clues and do so by exploding a tree in a nice action scene, they get all 30% extra chance. To escape the beasts for this station, their chance is 60%. The 30% get transmitted to the next station, so that they have 50% base chance instead of just 20% for the field of bones. The encounters are just to keep the sense of danger and urgency going. A lonely Gor or a few war hounds. That sort of thing.
(WIP 3: Are the rates reasonable? Is the idea compelling?)

Back in the village they have only a short time to prepare the defense against the herd. They can organize the villagers, make barricades or prepare other measures of defense. That part i have not yet written so i am most thankful for any advice.
(WIP 4: How to make a mini siege more interesting?)

Last WIP
: How to make a connection to Sylvania, where the sire of the Vamp resides? Maybe the shamen could tell her after he shows her the ritual on the heard stone "Make Lord in Schwartzhafen remember. He make wait he die. For real now. No there is waiting for god with raven head."

I don't want to make the encounters to much of a dice party, but also don't want to leave them out as we love both. If anyone has helpfull advice or experiences they can share, i would be extremely happy. :) Thanks for reading all that!
Kaeptn
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:17 am

Sadly, the responses are fairly sparse. I get, that i might have overwhelmed you a bit. I use this thread to reflect with myself since tomorrow is the first session of this scenario.

WIP 1:
What actually happend:
  • The child was born four days ago under the comet
  • The Vamp came a night after into the village and heard of the birth - she took it as luck, that the child was a mutant
  • She sneaked into the house of the Bürgermeister (village Mayor) and took it
  • The father heard her, but couldn't see her. She fled through the backdoor where she came in
  • She ran towards the woods up north

What the father tells:
  • The child has black hair (like him) and blue eyes (like his wife)
  • He heard the baby scream
  • He saw a winged demon sitting in the window, holding the child
  • The demon flew south, into the open fields
  • The kids name is Markus and is their firstborn.
  • The kid was born a day before the comet
  • He ran after the demon in the middle of the night, but couldn't catch it
  • He is willing to pay a big reward, to big for a village mayor in the middle of nowhere (knowing, that he won't get the child back anyway)

What the mother tells:
  • The child has blond hair (like her) and green eyes (like him)
  • She heard a scream, but it could have been from the demon
  • She is absolutely heartbroken
  • Asked why they didn't tell the village about the birth she says, that she was to tired after

What the PCs can hear in the village:
  • The Bürgermeister's wife was not seen for a few days
  • She was pregnant, but the pair didn't annouce the birth
  • In the morning of the present day the Bürgermeister ran up and down the village and screamed of kidnapping


It still needs a bit of polishing. How to find out more:
In the fields there are no clues, "the demon flew anyway". But on the backdoor can be found a broken lock and tracks in the mood, that could fit a light person with small feet. The tracks leed up to the forest. A child in the village claims, that it saw an eerily beautiful woman the last few days, but no one else. It can tell, that the woman seemed to be very interested in other peoples houses.
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Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

1) To make the investigation more interesting, you could add a few red herrings, like interviewing the midwife who didn't notice anything mutation with the baby in question, but did notice some strange things with another family who also gave birth on the same day.

2) Add lots of things that *can* set off the beastmen. Don't have the beastmen be so drunk that they're passed out. But to make any sneak good, you have to have many routes and many many things for the PCs to interact with. Go play (or watch a play through of) some of the Splinter Cell games. I think the Hokkaido level from SC: Chaos Theory is probably one you want to look at specifically.

To make the tie-back to Sylvania, maybe they find a letter in the Vampire's tent. Maybe he's sent agents to buy property in the area (Karfix Abbey?) and is pressuring someone to sell which is inconvenient because they just gave birth to a mutant baby?
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
Kaeptn
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:17 am

Thanks, that's good input. I especially like the idea of the midwife and will certainly use it. :)
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