[Information] The past 10 years

[PsionicRanger]

This is where we're posting lots of the past together, eventually, what we post here will become the canon of the past. This is where you will post your personal Contact and your old adventure. I will constantly post and use a certain color to achieve the goal of what we all understand to be the past for the party of adventurers. I hope this makes sense. I will put a template up for how this is supposed to look.

A lot has happened since you retired from adventuring. Here's what's gone on over the last 25 years:

• 976 YK Regent Moranna of Karrnath outlaws the Order of the Emerald Claw.
• 980 YK Queen Aurala’s reign of Aundair begins.
• 986 YK A trio of hags known as the Daughters of Sora Kell arrive in Droaam with an army of trolls, ogres, and gnolls.
• 987 YK King Boranel pulls settlers back and seals off the land west of the Graywall Mountains. The Daughters of Sora Kell declare the sovereignty of the nation of Droaam.
• 990 YK The first elemental airships go into service for House Lyrandar.
• 991 YK Kaius III’s rule of Karrnath begins.
• 993 YK Jaela Daran assumes the power of the Keeper of the Silver Flame.
• 994 YK Cyre is destroyed; the Mournland is created.
• 996 YK The Treaty of Thronehold officially ends the Last War. The treaty officially recognizes the nations of Aundair, Breland, Thrane, Karrnath, the Talenta Plains, Zilargo, Q’barra, the Lhazaar Principalities, the Mror Holds, the Eldeen Reaches, Darguun, and Valenar. House Cannith is ordered to destroy all creation forges; the remaining warforged are granted the rights of sentient beings.
• 998 YK The campaign begins…

Let's say you adventured for about 5 years together. We'll come up with a better answer to that question when we start...
Here's what happened while you were adventuring together:

• 972 YK House Thuranni splits off from House Phiarlan.

Thrust into Retirement It was a battle of legend that bards still sing about from time to time. Since then, though, the heroes from it have gone into some level of obscurity. Gather 'round and listen, lest you fall into the same trap. There's a tale be told of a band of adventurers set from all over Khorvaire. Their hearts were stout as were their skills with both sword and sorcery. It happened on the Eastern border--in a small village in Aundair--a place called Bluevine. Mostly an average border town. Not much to write home about, but on that fateful day in 972, there was much bloodshed wrought. You wouldn't think that such a normally peaceful place would be a manifest zone for Shavarath, the Battlefield, but during the last War, it was. A group of soldiers from Fairhaven itself was staying in the village. They were set to fight the next day. That night the entire squadron was killed by a small band of demons while they were sleeping. It was terrible. The only thing that kept the townspeople and the town itself from becoming extinct was a group of adventurers like yourselves. They fought long and hard against the small, but substantial demon horde that had come into the world. You see, they had weapons and items that held the power of the ancients. These weapons and items were powerful--more powerful than most things coming out of Arcanix, that's for sure. Threats were made on either side and the demons killed many innocents--even children like yourselves. It made the leader of that group sad, that's to be sure...it made the rest of them sad as well. In fact, one of the adventurers, the druid in the group ended up loosing his closest friend in a fight against a Vrock, a uh, big vulture demon...Another of them...the toughest in the bunch, a bruting half-orc named Roc even turned against the party that day. He was turned against them long enough that he was able to destroy about 3 farm houses and burned a few fields in the process. They were lucky though. Dawn, one of Roc's closest friends was able to bring him back down to reality that day. Roc still had some power left and turned it back on the demons. I'm sure that he felt like a failure that day...I'm sure they all did... What's that? What happened to them? They passed on the mantle. They got rid of their most powerful gear and went home. They won the fight, you see, but the losses weren't worth it. Who'd they pass the mantle to? Oh, a really promising young group...I'm not really sure what happened to them though...but their seal looked something like this (see attachment). And I'm sure they're doing just fine. Barret gets up and walks away from the hostel on his property, leaving the children by the fire just outside. He takes another sip of coffee and starts back to his place. This was two years ago.

[PsionicRanger]

Apparently, I didn't make myself clear as to the "adventure" part of the collaboration, so while it will certainly helped your characters get accepted, I didn't penalize anyone for just saying "I adventured lots" or the equivalent of something like that. Here's where we'll clean that up. An important NPC, at least at the start of the game was someone that will have functioned as the leader of the group while you were all together. Here's the template for what goes here:

Character Name: Barrett Johnson

Party Role: Leader, face, and planner

Former Adventure: Easily referred to as "the big one" by some of the other members of the group. There was that time that everyone chartered the boat to Xendrick on a lead that there was a huge Khyber crystal in an ancient temple that was given to the party via coordinates on a map that they had procured. How they procured it is not entirely important, suffice to say that there's a museum in Korth that's one artifact lighter. Following the lead of this map, the party arrives at this ancient temple, go in, and after breaking into the tomb of an ancient fire giant, fighting his mummy, coming out in taters with the Khyber Crystal in hand, the party reaches the surface only to have it taken out of their hands along with the map fragment by a crew of Emerald Claw operatives being led by some witch loyal to the crown there, supposedly, but Barrett has his assumptions that she's more loyal to the Blood of Vol. So while referenced as "the big one" by some, it's more referenced as "the big one that got away" by others.

What Have you been Doing the Last 25 years? With his retirement earnings, Barret bought the farm, literally and owns a place several miles outside of Sharn. It's actually on the road to the city from the North. He gets lots of foot traffic and takes in quite a few travelers that just can't make it there before nightfall and don't want to chance the roads. That said, he built a hostel on his property to handle the extra foot traffic. Through this, he's been no stranger to information coming down the pipe and has been waiting for the "next big thing" to come his way so that he could get the old crew back together. Now, the word has come and retirement is over at least for the time being.

Contact: One of the travelers that makes his way through Barrett's doors at least yearly is a pixie druid from the Eldeen Reaches. She calls herself Shengri. Shengri is an expert in all things natural and even in magical beasts. She's also an expert healer and great conversationalist. She's often told Barrett if he needs anything by way of information about the reaches or the realms, she knows lots of folks that would probably be willing to lend a hand.

[Huhart]

Charater Name: Phineus Grabblegrax

Party Role: Healer, Animal Handler, Front line Support

Past Adventure: "The Monkey and the Princess" from the journal of Phineus Grabblegrax

We were up in the Shadow Marches and ran into a band of barbarians. Negotiations weren't going well. Their leader howled with rage and made for the party, intending on killing us all single handed. Hairy stepped in front and with a lucky swipe, ripped the big orc's throat out. He spun around, fell down, twitches twice and was still. It got real quiet for a second, then the rest of the band turned tail and ran away. All except one.

This tribe had some strange traditions. Apparently, if you kill someone in fair combat, the winner gets the loser's kin as slaves. At least, that was how "Princess" Uhwondra explained it. She was the leader's concubine. Now she belonged to Hairy. And she was okay with that.

Well, we took her with us and soon found out why she was called princess. She refused to help out with anything. She said she would only do what her master told her. Hairy, being the strong silent type, gave her no orders. Uhwondra complained constantly about everything. All she really ever did was comb Hairy's fur. The monkey loved it.The rest of us did not. After three days, we decided to ditch her.

The mage hit her with an extended sleep spell and we made a run for it. Some barbarians were good trackers, so to be safe we took a circuitous course back to town. We figured she would get the message and go back to her tribe. But when we got to town, a fellow told us about an orc female who was looking for a group of travelers with a monkey. He sent her up north. Needless to say, we went south...

Last 25 years: Phineus went back to his little hut in the forest and started a small garden. He gradually enlarged it and took an unnatural interest in one particular plant: hops. He constructed a small brewery and made his own special brand of beer, which he calls Monkey Brew. He sells it to a nearby tavern, where his friend Filtzwaddler is the entertainment. He also raises exotic animals, specializing in griffon and hippogriff. He lives with a halfling servant woman named Tulip, who is an excellent cook. As a result, Phineus has gotten quite fat. He is nearly as round as he is tall. His hair has receded quite a bit, but what remains is as unruly as ever, despite Tulip's best efforts to tame it. He became a member of The Wardens of the Wood.

Contact: Nebble Filtzwaddler, gnome Level 8 bard - Phineus long-time friend, who always happens to show up from time to time in an inn or tavern where the group was staying. He was collecting stories of the band to make into an epic tale. He is partially responsible for the party's notoriety. Most of the group find him quite annoying and each have threatened his life at least once.

[MorganLockbreaker]

Name: Kelvin Goodhill

Party Role: "The Potion Guy" Party Buffer, Backfield Artillery, Cheerless Interrogator

Past Adventure: When the other party members call Kelvin "a little prick", he often smiles because he knows it was his blowgun dart laced with Drow Sleeping Poison that incapacitated Captain Aridell d'Lyrandar so that Lady Kai could impersonate her. With Aridell out of the way, Lady Kai was able to obtain a ship's log that revealed the location of unknown safe passage to Xendrik. Kelvin also provided the distraction in the ship's rigging that allowed Kai to make a hasty exit when Aridell's Firstmate started asking too many questions. As the crew was busy putting out the fire, the rest of the party made off with several crates of the ship's unloaded cargo which turned out to be bobble-headed geisha dolls. People love those dolls. Several days later, the real Aridell showed back up to her ruined ship with a splitting headache and no idea what had happened. Three weeks later, our party was making its way to Stormreach.

*edit* While in Xendrik, we managed to convince a tribe of giants that the bobble-headed geisha dolls were fertility idols. The tribe gladly accepted them in exchange for their guidance through the jungle. As a result, the tribe's shamans have taken to wearing white facial makeup and bright robes when performing weddings.

Retirement years: After the party bisbanded, Kelvin took a teaching position at one of Korranberg's colleges. In his spare time, he experiments in his basement hoping to one day perfect his techniques and create a philosopher's stone.

Contact: Nolan Cantar- N (Half-elf Magewright/wizard) owns a magic shop in the Everbright district (Sharn:City of Towers pg.73) of the Middle Menthis Plateau in Sharn. A fellow student with Kelvin in Arcanix, Nolan periodically obtains hard to find alchemical materials for Kelvin and shares gossip from Morgrave University.

[Pilgrim]

Name: Andreas Denneson
Party Role: Scout, Summoner, Illusionist, Scholar

Previous Adventure: "The night was cold as the ship sliced through Eldeen Bay," said Andreal, his students listening in rapt attention. "Some barbarians of one of the Carrion Tribes had fallen under the leadership of some demon or another. I don't know what kind - it had since moved on to other evils, but its legacy remained. These demon worshipping barbarians turned pirates were raiding - and worse - along Aundair's northern coast."

"So, we chartered a ship and left for the Demon Wastes, figuring we'd go in, find out where these pirates were operating from, and take them out. We didn't expect them to come to us! One night, as the Aurora anchored so the crew could sleep, we were awoken by the sound of men yelling. Quickly I rushed on deck, many of my companions not far behind me, to find that we were being rapidly approached by a nightmarish ship."

"Someone had created a floating depravity - part ship, part trophy hall, part altar to dark beings. The smell of blood grew stronger as it approached, and even with only the moon to light it up you could tell there wasn't a surface not smeared with blood. Skulls of past victims studded the thing."

"It probably would have been easier on them if they had met us on land - we weren't as easy prey as they expected. First off, there tribe wasn't usually nautical, and they weren't experienced sailors. Second, they were all clustered together on a wooden frame, so they couldn't come at us until they got closer. Roc was the first to act, sending a sheet of flame over the bow of their ship. It caught on fire, of course. You could accomplish the same with a fireball or the like. When Roc was done, I cast darkness on a crossbow bolt head, wrapping it in some cloth so that I could aim, and fired it into the middle of the ship. Now the pirates couldn't see to put out the flames. I added some ghost sounds of crackling flames to further disorient them, and some celestial octopodes to the water to catch any who dove overboard."

"Of course, some few still managed to get to the Aurora, where the rest of my party dealt with them - quite easily, in fact. There weren't many left. Now, who can tell me how we could have increased our spell utilization? We used a fireball, a summon monster III, and a darkness... how could we have achieved the same effect on their forces using lower level spells?" Andreal surveys the class, seeing a few students raise their hands. He doesn't smile - he rarely smiles - but he is pleased that some of them are already seeing possibilities.

Last 25 years: After the adventuring company broke up, Andreal went home to Thrane, becoming a teacher in Sigilstar's arcane universities. He teaches courses in practical magic, planar cosmology, and basic reconnaissance. While some among the wizard staff found the idea of a sorcerer as a teacher laughable, Andreas proved that he had more practical experience than most of them; magical theory was all well and good, but the students would be well served by knowing when and where to cast, not just how.

Andreal has also taken the opportunity to spend more time with his family - his mother is now dead, but his father still lives, and the family line will continue through Andreal's younger brother and "baby" sister, both of whom have families of their own now. (In fact, Andreal recently became a great-uncle, and his oldest niece has just begun courses at the university.)
(Location of university may need to change.)

Contact: Between the time he left his first adventuring company, and the time he joined the party, Andreal spent some time with a different group. While that company didn't stay together long, Andreal had a brief romance with another member, a changeling woman named Derissa. It ended, primarily due to Andreal's distance and feelings of disconnect, but they parted as friends and kept in touch. Derissa is a "passer" who masquerades as a half-elf woman, and Andreal only found out by accident that she was a changeling - his willingness to keep her secret, and lack of persecution, is part of what lead to Derissa's initial attraction to him. (Derissa is was 2nd level when Andreal met her, grew to 3rd level while they adventured together, and rose to 8th level during her own adventuring career away from Andreal. She is a rogue of the scout archetype).

[Acheron]

Name: Kai

Party Role: Spy, Rogue, Disguise Master, Smooth Talker

Previous Adventure: As of yet still in progress.

Last 25 years: After the Adventuring party went their separate ways Kai changed personas, as she was apt to during their adventuring times, to "Cole" once again and traveled by lightning rail to Aundair. In returning to her home she delivered what she had been charged with to the Royal Eyes and accepted her newest title of Elite Agent. From that position she was working directly with the spymaster and had under agents herself. To some she retired into the country side to live as Lady Kaithrine d'Svoi, but she used her ability to change shape to take frequent outings amongst others to add her own intelligence to the information gatherers of the Royal Eyes.

When Aurala took the throne, Lady d'Svoi was present, along with other elite agents. In a private ceremony the agents swore their loyalty to the newest queen and continued to go about their business. Kai, as both Lady Kaithrine and as others, have added many stamps to her various traveling papers as she was present in Thrane for the investiture of the newest Keeper of the Silver Flame

Still in progress

Contact: Jenna Arvi (Bard 7), a Half-elf that actually knew Kai as her “partner in crime” when she was a street performer. Kai, at that time was in the persona of Cole Genisis, a male human who wooed the young Jenna into becoming his lover for a period of time before they mutually decided to split it off. However they were both working the streets at the time and made a particularly good team, with Jenna working distraction and Kai (Cole) working pickpocketing, they had amassed quite a fortune. That was when Cole decided to leave for a time to find better pickings than the simple towns and villages they stayed in on their circuits. And since Kai still takes the form of Cole (or one similar to him)whenever he feels like being in a slightly roguish state to woo the ladies, he isn’t so hard to find.

[Jai]

Name: Dawn Davidson-Antairus
Party Role: Front-line fighter, Cheerful jokester, Roc wrangler

Former Adventure: Never a group to idle away, the group managed to stumble upon a small army of gnolls readying for to take over yet another small town in their path of invasion. Knowing they were outmanned by their forces, the party turned to the town to warn them and gather aid. When they reached the town, they had an unfortunate run-in with a cart of cabbages, and instead of raising the town to arms, they ended up trying, in vain, to convince the local constable not to arrest any of them. Indeed, what was, at the time, a frustrating, anxiety-producing battle against the clock, a dense lawman, and a cart of cabbages, was later deemed a comedy of errors in recollection. Needless to say, the gnolls were dealt with, their path of destruction stopped in its tracks. But getting Andeal out of jail....

Last 25 years: Twenty-five years ago, Dawn decided that she was madly in love. She and Endar Antairus, her handsome elf husband, settled down in the mid-sized city of Pullen where he was a town guard. They had three children, two boys and a girl. Elec, her oldest, chose to go into the service of the Temple of Desna. Ellen, the middle child, married a soldier and settled down, working as a merchant when her husband was off fighting somewhere. Her youngest, Edward, fell in love with a beautiful plot of land in the west hills and tilled the soil to his heart's content, setting up a quaint farmstead. After a couple decades of raising their children, Dawn and Endar, who had long ago realized that they were much better as just good friends, went their separate ways. Settling down had been a good thing—she had three beautiful children, and Ellen even hinted that she'd have a grandchild soon enough. But now, with the nest empty and nothing holding her down, the adventure bug has bitten Dawn yet again. It won't take much to convince her to join up with the old party yet again. Although working off those extra fifteen pounds—that might take a bit more

Contact: Endar Antairus: Elf cavalier, captain of the guard of Pullen. Dawn met Endar during an adventure that brought them to Pullen. No matter what you need, he knows a guy. Dawn was married to him—technically, is still married, though neither seems to be holding the other to it. They simply decided that they weren't madly in love any more, and with the kids grown, they both do as they will. They run into each other every once in a while and are still good friends.

[PsionicRanger]

Monday's question, what would it take to thrust your characters into early retirement? This is kind of a brainstorming session, but you were all young adventurers that made it into fairly high levels fairly quickly. I am asking that we come up with an answer together, and try to get that out by Wednesday. I think it will take at least that long to discuss it, but it could be anything--bear in mind this, it required your legacy items to become lost. So, if you guys could all come up with theories, this will give us a good starting point for next week when we start the actual adventuring at level 10.

[Jai]

So we need a situation that was bad enough that we lost our legacy stuff (which is pretty bad!) and stopped adventuring, but not so bad as to kill us or hurt the team dynamics. We need drift, not rift. Correct? And we were together from 968 to 973?

[PsionicRanger]

You're right on when you were together, and the thing that led to retirement doesn't have to be something that was necessarily a "fail" but could have been something that you needed to do by "sacrificing" your legacy weapons.

[Pilgrim]

I submit for consideration...

It somewhat ties into why we started adventuring in the first place, and there are likely two possibilities here. One, we just like the adventure, or two, we wanted to become very wealthy. To make us retire, then, you'd need to satisfy our adventuring needs for a while, and have us make lots of money while doing so. This is certainly consistent with a rapid rise in levels, the gaining (and subsequent losing) of legacy items, and our starting wealth. Essentially, what I'm saying is that we need to have gone through so much that we are just plain sick of putting our lives on the line, at least for a while.

I'm thinking our last adventure should have culminated in a battle with multiple high CR enemies that we barely survived, but in the process stopped some great evil.

My initial thought: during a conjunction with Shavarath (probably more common in the Last War), a group of demons entered Eberron and tried to set up a base of operations. Our last fight (which brought us to Level 10) was against the Nalfeshnee in charge, plus a pair of Vrock, a Succubus, a Shadow Demon, and a small horde of Dretch. An epic battle, to be sure!

Note that this would be an encounter between 15 and 16 EL. Very tough for a party of level 9s.

[MorganLockbreaker]

Originally Posted by PsionicRanger

Monday's question, what would it take to thrust your characters into early retirement? This is kind of a brainstorming session, but you were all young adventurers that made it into fairly high levels fairly quickly. I am asking that we come up with an answer together, and try to get that out by Wednesday. I think it will take at least that long to discuss it, but it could be anything--bear in mind this, it required your legacy items to become lost. So, if you guys could all come up with theories, this will give us a good starting point for next week when we start the actual adventuring at level 10.

I think we made enemys of the Order of the Emerald Claw after they stole "the big one." In pursuing retribution, we may have been captured and relieved of our legacy items. Or in our escape from capture, we became a target when they (or another group i.e. the lords of dust) discovered that we possessed these items.

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by MorganLockbreaker

I think we made enemys of the Order of the Emerald Claw after they stole "the big one." In pursuing retribution, we may have been captured and relieved of our legacy items. Or in our escape from capture, we became a target when they (or another group i.e. the lords of dust) discovered that we possessed these items.

My concern with this scenario is that, for Eberron, we are extremely high level; it would take quite a bit to capture us or steal our stuff. Certainly, there are a few entities out there that could do so (the aforementioned Lords of Dust), but that wouldn't also make us split up - we'd just try to find a way to get our things back.

[Jai]

I wasn't thinking failure so much as pyrrhic victory. Won, technically, but still got our hind-ends handed to us, or lost the village, or suffered some sort of disheartening tragedy. Perhaps even blamed for not doing enough? For example, we stopped the enemy but while we were fighting the city burned; as heroes why didn't we stop the fire? People expecting too much from mere mortals.

[MorganLockbreaker]

PsiR: What if in the final fight described by Pilgrim, the legacy items were rendered dormant/inactive instead of lost? Barrett could have found out about a way to reactivate them or they could mysteriously begin to work again.

As for retirement: I would probably quit "heroing" too if people started being nitpicky about how you saved their bacon. I didn't sign on for this $#!* Or maybe we broke the law in the process of saving (insert generic city here) and we fled and bisbanded in order to avoid prosecution. We would then be outlaws in that city and country.