u/walkc66

(Ezeer, Finrich, or Pyrrhos don't read this).

So new DM running Tyranny of Dragons, and been having so far. 2nd campaign I've DMed. 6 sessions in, and PCs have cleared Chapter 2 and are now in the in-between time reporting back to town, escorting Leonsin back, etc. But during the Greenest section, my PCs became convinced that there must be a Spy in Greenest somewhere, thats how the guard was caught so off guard and how the attackers become aware of the adventurers to then set up the Mill ambush. Went what the heck, lets run with it.

So some background to set up the situation. Two of the 3 PCs are associated with certain...grey?....organizations. One is an assassin with the Fire Knives, the other an enforcer/guard/operative for the the Zhentarim. I set it up so that they each have a ranking member of their organization that was present at the start of the siege of Greenest, and hadn't gotten involved to avoid revealing themselves instead posing as just traveling merchants (the Fire Knives guy was looking to set up a safe house/expansion following the purge in Cormyr and in my mind is about the equivalent of a lvl 10-12 arcane trickster, and the Zhent is a about 12-14 wizard who reports directly to the Waterdeep Manshoon (only one in my version, as didn't know about others when started building my take on the story) who was there to meet a caravan carrying some of Manshoon's own goods and investigate what happened to some of their caravans). So the 2 PCs told their current "managers" about the spy, and the managers already knowing about each other officially revealed and were working together to investigate the spy. Set some distractions by having a Kobold that surrendered try and attack the Guard Medic saying the cult would find out he betrayed them (going to have the real spy reveal he used Suggestion on the Kobold to try and distract). But the two managers eventually figure out the spy is meeting their handlers, and when and where. They come to the PCs to ask if they would like to help "hunt a rat?"

This brings me to my question. The Spy is going to be Guard who was passing messages during the siege by attaching notes to crossbow bolts. His handler though, my plan is to have it be a Simluacrum of Rath Modar. Basically since he is involved more in managing the whole Rebel Thay movement and its interactions with the Cult, that he creates a few Simulacrums to aid in other places. This lets me introduce Rath a bit earlier since he plays a big role in the campaign overall, and lets me have powerful foil to the 2 powerful managers (PCs by comparison are lvl 4). So my plan is to have the Zhent Wizard and Fire Knife assassin focussed on fighting the simulacrum while they tell the PCs to wipe out the guards, which will be a group of DragonClaws i think (still doing the encounter math). But that leads to my questions below:

1. What stat block should I use for the Simulacrum? Rath Modar's since its supposed to be him? A lower level Mage or Archmage? Something else?

2. Going to have the managers capture the Simulacrum not knowing its a simulacrum to question. Going to have it have Otilluke's Frozen Sphere "poison pill" that it pops when they start questioning it. What happens to a Simulacrum when it dies? does it crumble? Turn back to reagents? Dissolve?

3. Any other suggestions thoughts? Have you done something similar?

Hello! While my group is currently running our 2nd module (Ezeer, Finrich, and Pyrrhos if you’re reading this stop haha), I am slowly building a world in the background, and looking for some help on a couple ideas, basic background first.

It is intended to be a Forgotten Realms style realm, blended with real world. My plan is to create a massive world that can place different campaigns all around without PCs always tripping over themselves and be a world if any of players want to DM they can use this world too. So multiple continents, islands, an under dark (the hollow), a hell, a celestial space, a fey space, etc. Knights/Castles/tc stylings, but with other influences in places so this world feels realistic with multiple cultures.

The world is formed by 3 all powerful entities (power scale is like Ao in Forgoteen realms) each representing a guiding theme. While still working on names the plan is essentially Order, Chaos, and Balance/Freedom something like that. Wanting to capture that theme, but not wanting to lean on Eastern ideology as I prefer more European and gothic stylings, nothing against any others.

Essentially, the world is created, and has happened multiple times before the 3 entities start arguing over how to shape and grow as life develops. And as many times before, the 3 start fighting, dragging different “followers” of th species into the fight. And the war between these entities is threatening to rip the world apart. Balance (just for quick typing) decides enough is enough and he is ending the war. He gathers most of the living beings on the world together, and teaches them a ritual that will tear Order and Chaos, and their own separate planes, from the world. And to power this ritual without destroying the world, Balance breaks himself apart imbuing fragments of power into some of the living beings, creating the Gods, Archfey, Devils etc, turning mortals into immortals. The plan works, and suddenly there are now two new “moons” in the sky, though with their position it takes awhile for people to realize there are two.

Later, species thrive, and large kingdoms and empires grow, gods/devils/archfey forget, and the empires get greedy. Several wizards/Artificers/Clerics figure out that fragments of power created the gods/devils/archfey, and figure out a way to extract those fragments. So begins an arms race for each nation too kill the opposing gods/devils/archfey and gather their power. However they unknowingly are weakening the prisons, and corruption seeps back in and the world is almost destroyed again. Eventually the process is stopped, fragments scattered, hidden, or used to empower new gdf, but a cataclysm is set off that leaves the world devastated, and almost all records of the past eliminated. The lands are ripped apart, and corruption now flows and covers chunks of the world that once held too many fragments. Out of this rises 1 (maybe more) empire whos gods will not let this happen again, outlawing all magic other than that used by their clerics and paladins, and that used by Artificers or men and women of science. This lead to magical knowledge shrinking and being lost. The empire then starts conquering the world. This all sets up the world as lowish-medium magic wise, figuring strongest magic user at point PCs start playing being 10ish outside the PCs. From here PCs actions and campaigns would effect the future, though have possibilities in mind.

All that to setup some questions I could use help with.

So TLDR:

1. What would Order corruption look like? Media and novels are full of samples of chaos, but having a hard time deciding what Order corruption would do to the land and people living there.

2. With lower magic levels, and Artificers and DnD item creation rules in particular, how would you balance this to fit the lore? Because for Artificers especially, it is very easy for them to create so many items that would grow magic power way way quick. And since plan to have Artificers play a big role in a major power (essentially they find a way to turn a crystal found in chaos corrupted spaces into a magic battery/firearm tool. So are able to create musket style guns firing magical energy, cannons, very limited airships, and eventually use it to power Warforged. Plan to make this all very expensive due to hard to mine the crystal, part of the empires desire to rule the world), don’t want to nerf too much, but also not as strong at creation as they are.

Those are two I have right now, and I know tons of gaps and potential issues here, still very early days. All comments, suggestions, criticisms welcome!

Hopefully this type of post is ok. Currently running a tyranny of dragons campaign, still early as group just rescued Leonsin from raiders, but starting to plan bones for and organize potential side quests down the road. I am slowing down parts of Tyranny to allow for more side quests and character quests.

Once the party gets to Elturel, my plan is for them to do 2-3 side quests. One of those while be for character backstory and personal weapon. But I want a selection of others the PCs can choose from. One idea I have is for them to be protecting a wedding.

My thought was to have a character form Elturel who is investigating or campaigning against the corruption that leads to it being pulled to Avernus. Thinking politician or religious figure. Their child is getting married, and given what they’ve been doing they decide to hire more security.

Of course the attack happens, demons and cultist, and hopefully the PCs save the bride groom and families, but play out and see.

I like building world continuities and having old PCs and NPCs show up in campaigns in same world. We did Dragon of Icespire Peak prior, and those PCs are making appearances and including lore established in that campaign for our group

Is there an existing character in Descent already that would fit this or would be easily modifiable? Or would it be better to create and then just remeber and use them if we end up doing descent next?