Phoenix Rising (D&D 3.5)

[Chamomile]

I mentioned some of the campaigns I've run in the D&D morality thread, and someone said they'd be interested in hearing about more of them. Unfortunately, I think I may have accidentally oversold myself, since I was only discussing my campaigns as relates to moral narrative, which is easily my strong point. But there's no harm in throwing it up and see if anyone's interested.

There is a bit of background necessary on my old gaming group, though, if only so I can rant about how much one of my players sucked as a DM. The guy who would eventually play Ajetta (referred to henceforth as AJ based on his character name, no relation to his real name) was the group's DM when I joined.

Not to put too fine a point on it, AJ is a terrible DM. In the game I joined, he was setting up some campaign that appeared to be a pretty standard evil empire vs. rebel alliance kind of thing. He'd recently seen James Cameron's Avatar, so I kept trying to draw comparisons between the rebel alliance and the Navi. Most of them were a huge stretch, but you make stupid jokes around a gaming table. Next session, AJ had decided that clearly his plot was too derivative since one player was making bad jokes about the biggest movie in theater at the time, and decided that what his plot needed was time travel. He also poisoned my Paladin, and since all my previous experience in TTRPGs had been with Star Wars d20 and the CODA system, I didn't even realize there was something up with that. AJ, who'd been playing D&D for several years, probably should've caught it. He also had a nasty habit of making exaggerated yawning motions whenever my Paladin discussed morality for more than five words, which seems pretty in-character to me. Particularly egregious is when he did this right after a solid three-paragraph monologue from his time wizard.

I didn't really like the direction the campaign was going in, so I told the group I wanted to try my hand at GMing D&D, and asked if I could run a one-shot sometime. The idea was I'd set it up as a self-contained story but leave plot hooks dangling in case they wanted to continue, my intention being to reel them in with a spectacular first adventure. Short on time, I quickly repurposed a fantasy world I had on hand to serve as my new campaign setting, and set up the first adventure to end with spectacular emotional punch. I was going to write my favorite kind of tragedy, the kind where the heroes have the best of intentions but end up doing something terrible because they don't know exactly what's going on until it's too late. Better yet, they think they know exactly what's going on because of a series of false assumptions. Since the heroes were not under my control, this was going to be tricky. Which is what makes it fun.

I told the two players who'd been able to come over to AJ's house that the characters they were playing could pretty much run the gamut of morality, but they'd have to be okay with doing mercenary work for a besieged nation because my plot kind of hinged on that. They came up with Ajetta, a Half-Orc Barbarian (keepin' it bland with MC Generic!) and Mortis, a Human Fighter played by a guy who I'll refer to as the Russian, by virtue of his awesome last name (as far as I know he's never even been to Russia, let alone get born there).

The Republic of Rabarac was under attack from Kobolds, who I'd rewritten as basically humanoid puppies because that worked better for my purposes. The Kobolds were being employed by the Tenebrous Imperium, a united empire of Orcs, Ogres, Drow, Goblins, and Kobolds who had returned to menace the Western Alliance after two centuries of peace and don't tell the Tokien Estate and etc. etc. The players went to the town of Lusak and accepted a job to get rid of the Kobolds, who were raiding their supplies and slowly starving them out.

There was an introduction to this set to some music from Final Fantasy II, but I can't find that track on YouTube, so I can't link it. If I link to a YouTube track, it's probably the music I played at that point in the session.

The players found the Kobolds near their latest successful attack and captured one of them, just as planned. And now came the tricky part. In order to give the adventure proper tragic punch, the heroes had to have had a chance to see their folly coming and completely ignore it because they were convinced they already knew exactly what was going on. This is why Nethmaethor, the leader of Lusak's Guard, suggested they capture and interrogate a Kobold to find the location of their main camp, which they would then assist the Lusak Guard in attacking. The key point here is that they actually had a captured Kobold and talked to him. They intimidated him into telling them whatever they wanted. They could have asked for more details if they wanted to, but they didn't, because they assumed that Nethmaethor, a man who very clearly wanted to kill all of the Kobolds, had given the heroes the full truth about them.

Fortunately, they didn't ask any questions with potentially interesting answers. They extracted exactly the information they were told they needed and offered nothing more. Then they took the Kobold back to Lusak and told Nethmaethor they wanted him treated well, because he was a terrified puppy and they felt sorry for him. Nethmaethor shrugged his shoulders and said sure, because it was only going to be for one night anyway. This is how Vek the Kobold became my player's mascot in the first game of D&D I ever DM'd, and also how he became like Cid from Final Fantasy, reincarnated as a similar but distinct character in every D&D campaign I've ever run.

Regardless, the players rushed off to the camp, which was populated with 400 inhabitants. At this stage, the players were already committed to their attack, so I dropped a few more subtle clues into the behavior of the Kobolds, the size of their encampment matching a tribe in the Monster Manual as opposed to any kind of warband or other military unit, and the dissonant soundtrack.

The players, along with an NPC guard and cleric to help pad out the fact that half the party didn't show, were confronted with thirteen Kobolds who, unlike the Kobolds fought at the ambush on the way to Lusak and the band they attacked with intent to capture and interrogate, did not run away even after it became clear they were on the losing end of the battle. When they saw the NPC wizard preparing to fireball their encampment, they ran straight past the players, risking attacks of opportunity to try and bring him down, entirely heedless of their own survival. And this is after Ajetta had used his maxed Intimidate skill to demoralize them. The wizard's fireball attack was cued to begin at about 5:24 on the linked soundtrack. The strange behavior of the Kobolds didn't seem to strike them as odd, nor the tragic crescendo at the point of their ultimate triumph, nor the absurd size of the Kobold encampment. It had never crossed their minds to doubt the word of an Elven captain of the guard on his Kobold enemies, nor to imagine that what they knew of Kobolds might amount to propaganda and racial hatred in this new setting.

In the rubble, they found a letter.

Captain Alek,

As I am sure you are well aware, representatives of the Tenebrous Imperium have been recruiting Kobold clans into their growing alliance, in the hopes that we might finally shatter the tyranny of Alra. They make a compelling case. For generations, we have been oppressed and rejected by the peoples of the west, and since the end of the Demon War we've been forced into a land all but completely wasted. And worse still, even among the easterners, the Kobolds are scum. And it's true, this could be our chance to change that forever.

But I write this letter to you urging you to come to the gathering of the Kobold tribes at the Imperium, not that you might persuade us to go to war, but that you might prevent it. It is true, without us to hamstring the Rabaraci forces, the Imperium invasion will likely fail. But what will the Imperium want with us once their conquest is complete? Are we really willing to send ourselves to the slaughter of war just to exchange Human oppressors for Drow? You are the only voice of peace left that the Kobold people will listen to, Alek. This war will destroy the Kobold people. The Templar will hunt us down and exterminate us to a man. The Kobold people must not be annihilated, known to history only as the meatshield of the Imperium. The only hope to continue our existence, even the meager existence we have, is if the Kobolds back out of this war.

I know I can trust you to make the right decision.

Your brother,
Ven

[Avoraciopoctules]

Interesting. I can see a number of ways PCs might react to such a discovery. In my games, the players usually create PCs with some kind of political agenda, and figuring the way they'd likely react to such a scenario is an entertaining exercise. I get the feeling that at least 1 person would see this event as ammunition for intimidating other kobold groups into some kind of surrender or neutrality, but display relatively little remorse.

How would you react if the PCs went back to their employer and demanded additional "atrocity" pay, then dropped heavy hints in-character that they were thinking of switching to work for the Empire?

[Chamomile]

Actually, a bit later on I offered them the opportunity to switch sides when they met with an Imperium ambassador named Phoenix, for whom the campaign is named. They didn't take it, but I had every intention of allowing them to do so if they wanted.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hmm. Sure, but what about in a more immediate sense? What does the captain do when his mercenaries come back and laugh in his face about how he "sucks at genocide", then demand an incentive not to switch sides right then and there?

[Grek]

I'd like to point out that it was not immedately clear to me why you would side with the Imperium after finding out that even their own allies think that they're just as bad as the guys you're working for. Learning that the people who you're being paid to fight are shit to their allies is not any real incentive to betray your current boss and work for your former enemies instead.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Perhaps I misunderstood. My assumption was that the PCs have been made aware that their employer has been deliberately keeping significant information about the political situation from them.

I am looking for the biggest potentially problematic PC I might have to deal with in such a situation, and I came up with the mercenary who tends to side with factions weak enough to be desperate and wealthy enough to pay freelancers highly. Such a character would look for excuses to gouge more money out of its employers when it found an excuse. A threat to go over to the other side might or might not be a bluff.
EDIT: BRB, looking for good Schlock Mercenary quotes.
EDIT 2: There we go:

[Chamomile]

Hmm. Sure, but what about in a more immediate sense? What does the captain do when his mercenaries come back and laugh in his face about how he "sucks at genocide", then demand an incentive not to switch sides right then and there?

They were a level one Fighter and a level one Barbarian. Nethmaethor was a level three Paladin with a dozen level one warriors at his beck and call. So, his response would've basically been "come at me, bro."

I'd like to point out that it was not immedately clear to me why you would side with the Imperium after finding out that even their own allies think that they're just as bad as the guys you're working for.

Well, AJ's only real ethics are an emotional, impulsive sort of conscience, fueled by the cultural conditioning of what kind of person he should be as opposed to any actual desire to do the right thing (or at least he was as of ~2 years ago). So, he felt like Captain Nethmaethor was automatically villainous because Nethmaethor had tricked Ajetta into betraying an arbitrary moral code against genocide.

Plus, keep in mind what got the party into this mess was trusting the Western Alliance to tell them the truth about someone they bore an open racial hatred for, when the truth was the Kobolds aren't even solidly in the Imperium yet, since apparently there's still debate going on. Trusting Ven, an isolationist Kobold, to give you the accurate picture on the pro-Imperium Kobolds would be making the same mistake again.

Regardless, they resolved to work for neither faction initially, and a major reason of why this didn't hold true was simply because the Imperium saw white guys and shot to kill, while the Alliance didn't. Immediately after the revelation of the Kobold Genocide Ploy, they resolved to take some of the trinkets found with the letter (a few personal belongings of Alek's which they assumed were of great significance, when they were originally intended as just treasure) and take Vek with them to find Ven and then, I presume, ride right over the Imperium and the Alliance on a rainbow made of My Little Ponies to the promised land of friendship and joy.

I am looking for the biggest potentially problematic PC I might have to deal with in such a situation, and I came up with the mercenary who tends to side with factions weak enough to be desperate and wealthy enough to pay freelancers highly.

Actually, that would be Rabarac. They're a desert republic whose primary income is gold mining, their army is nothing before the might of the Imperium, and they've been completely abandoned by the Western Alliance except for the Templars of Alra, who are really not exactly an army on their own. Just a single elite unit currently stretched really thin. The Imperium could pay more, but they're also winning, so why would they?

The second session wasn't much to write home about through the first 80%. They convinced Vek to tell them where Ven is and learned that Vek is actually Alek's son and, thus, Ven's nephew. Also, in retrospect Vek warmed up to them way too quickly, but I guess I can chalk that up to Stockholm Syndrome, particularly since he'd been raised to believe that they'd kill him unconditionally and instead they've demanded he be treated humanely. Regardless, Ven's clan was hiding out in some abandoned Dwarf mines in the nearby mountains. The Dwarves were in the midst of a civil war, half of them wishing to join the Imperium and the other half wishing to stay sided with the Alliance, since Dwarves were racially neutral in this setting (I grew up with Narnia's Red Dwarves and Black Dwarves, which is where this came from).

Unsurprisingly, the Imperium Dwarves were attacking the mine when the heroes arrived, so they cleared them out. It was an interesting dungeon crawl because every room of it was filled with an ongoing fight between Kobolds and Dwarves, but in terms of narrative, the good guys won, hooray.

The interesting part came at the celebratory feast. During the feast, Vek is terribly glum, and the heroes are terribly nervous, because it's actually them who exterminated Alek's clan.* Vek is also partly responsible for selling them out, not to mention raiding Lusak's caravans against Alek's orders because their clan was starving.

Fortunately for the heroes, Ven is a really level-headed guy. Also, in retrospect, kind of gullible. When the players gave the explanation that they'd been tricked by the Lusaki Guard into thinking that Alek's clan was a purely military camp working for the Imperium, Ven promised not to let word of their hand in things reach other parts of the clan, who might react more poorly.

Vek ran out of the feast and Ajetta chased after him. Vek's thing here is that he was feeling a lot of guilt over having contributed to the demise of his own clan. I wanted him to get over it, too much actually, because Ajetta did an absolutely terrible job of handling things and that should've affected the way things went. This would actually be a running problem throughout Phoenix Rising. I was really reluctant to let my players fail. My new group can tell you how thoroughly I've since learned from that mistake.

*Incidentally, if you're wondering how Alek and Ven can be brothers and yet run separate clans, they get split when they get too big. Alek's was about ready to be split again when it was destroyed.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Immediately after the revelation of the Kobold Genocide Ploy, they resolved to take some of the trinkets found with the letter (a few personal belongings of Alek's which they assumed were of great significance, when they were originally intended as just treasure) and take Vek with them to find Ven and then, I presume, ride right over the Imperium and the Alliance on a rainbow made of My Little Ponies to the promised land of friendship and joy

Haha. I am fighting the temptation to drop a similar letter into a lower-key conflict in one of my games, then see how far PCs plan ahead if they decide to react to it.

The interesting part came at the celebratory feast. During the feast, Vek is terribly glum, and the heroes are terribly nervous, because it's actually them who exterminated Alek's clan.

When moments like this can be arranged, they are almost always hilarious.

[Chamomile]

Full update isn't coming for another ~12 hours, but here's something from the chatlogs of my latest group that I thought was funny.

[11:53:48 05/07/11] Rowanthepreacher : using tome half orc
[11:53:57 05/07/11] Rowanthepreacher : rather than the shitty standard half orc
[11:54:26 05/07/11] MrWillis : okay the bard.edu one?
[11:54:39 05/07/11] Rowanthepreacher : yup
[11:54:44 05/07/11] Rowanthepreacher : well, it's your choice
[11:54:48 05/07/11] Rowanthepreacher : but seriously, choose tome