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Mission to improve Mission to the Monastery of Two Winds
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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8799777" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>Let’s look at the plot of Mission. The plot kinda doesn’t make sense.</p><p></p><p>There’s this monastery where Pilus – a high level mage – is working on his big doomsday weapon, and apparently he’s got a trillith chilling out in town calming folks down, when the Ragesian army rolls up hoping to strongarm the air monks into using weather magic to clear the path to Korstull Castle so Leska’s folks can retrieve the Torch. Pilus’s response is . . . ignore it, let the trillith calm people down, and focus on his biomancy. If anyone comes knocking he has Caela tell them to piss off. Every once in a while Caela sends an invisible stalker to abduct someone to experiment on. This has apparently been going on for over a week!</p><p></p><p>Kinda weird, right? Like, if the invisible stalkers can abduct people in town, why does Pilus let the Ragesians just hang around? What’s his long-term plan?</p><p></p><p>And if he’s going to be willing to team up with the Resistance against Ragesia, when the PCs come to his doorstep, why does he insist on keeping them away until they deal with Balance? Sure, he wants to keep anyone from discovering his laboratory in the Valley of Storms, but people will snoop if you don’t give them something to focus on. <em>Stone</em>walling the PCs isn’t very on-brand for air monks.</p><p></p><p>What the adventure needs is an antagonist that isn’t working at Pilus’s orders, and it needs the situation in Ostalin overall and Eresh specifically to be more dynamic.</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>Rewrite Overview</strong></span></p><p>In my rewrite, I’m making Caela a turncoat working for the Ragesians, making her responsible for Lee giving the Orb of Storms to the inquisitor in adventure 3.</p><p></p><p>I’m giving the party more opportunities to have social interactions with Onamdammin, Balance, the locals and Ragesians in Eresh, the leaders of the monastery, and even Caela.</p><p></p><p>At the risk of creating work for the GM since I’m not <em>actually</em> writing encounters, I’d use Eresh as a hub for the party to explore the environment in about a 3-mile radius, and give them a couple days to investigate before General Signus returns.</p><p></p><p>I’m providing an alternative solution to the Ragesian hostility other than combat.</p><p></p><p>I’m making it an option to just steal an orb of storms from Caela at the laboratory and then leaving, instead of having to get Longinus and Pilus to help.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">Small Background Change</span></strong></p><p>The intro overview of the war’s status stays the same, but when Katrina talks about Eresh, things are different because their sendings to the group have gone unanswered ever since the day after the group reached Eresh.</p><p></p><p>The way things went down in this version is that the Resistance group (Eril, human ranger; Metran, dwarf paladin; Klezmer, dwarf bard; Shelton, human wizard; and Misreth, dwarf cleric) came to town and were refused an audience with the masters of the monastery by Caela. They asked about the storm that hit Seaquen, but were told their questions were insulting and warned not to come back.</p><p></p><p>They stayed in the town, wondering if they had other options, and eventually learned from another monk of the monastery that normally Caela <em>wouldn't</em> be responsible for denying entry. They tried to send the monk to deliver a message to Longinus and Pilus, but they never heard from him, and suspect he was killed. They tried sending to Seaquen, but got no response. (This is due to Caela's interdiction magic. Now that I think about it, there should be actual physical focuses for this magic for the party to stumble across; they take a long time to attune to an area, so despite their strategic value, they won't be common during the war.)</p><p></p><p>They tried to investigate the Valley of Storms and were attacked. Invisible stalkers picked off most of them. One survivor hid. Shortly thereafter Signus rolled into town and then Balance's magic pacified everyone.</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>NPC Motivations</strong></span></p><p><strong>Longinus</strong> understands what’s going on in Eresh, and knows generally what Balance is. He has encouraged the trillith to use their power (I’m using they/them, because it’s 2022) to forestall violence, because he doesn’t want his monks to fight, and he’s trying to avoid giving his brother Pilus an excuse to finally attack the Ragesians.</p><p></p><p><strong>Balance</strong> came here years ago, and in their time here, they have attained a bit of enlightenment to their origins, and knows that they are born from a dream of Trilla, and in turn that Trilla sometimes experiences what the trillith are up to as her own dreams. Balance has sensed Trilla’s suffering and torment, and they stayed in the serene village of Eresh out of a desire to grant Trilla as much reprieve from her suffering as possible.</p><p></p><p>Balance trusts Longinus, and is focused on maintaining peace for Trilla’s sake, so they are trying to stop all violence. But this is not Balance’s <em>true</em> nature. True balance requires active work to create harmony, rather than mere detachment from the woes of the world. There will be NPCs around Eresh that the party can interact with while Balance’s power is in effect, each a little vignette.</p><p></p><p><strong>Pilus</strong> is often up on the Tempest, putting the finishing touches on the flying leviathan, though he comes down to the monastery regularly. He’s loyal to his khagan’s command to not attack the Ragesians. He knows his brother is using Balance to try to hold back hostilities, and he's okay with it, for now, since he wants the Tempest to be perfect. But he's also <em>really</em> itching for a fight, and would not be angry if hostilities broke out sooner.</p><p></p><p><strong>Caela</strong> is our villain of the adventure. She's your typical ambitious apprentice who wants to surpass her master. When she realized Pilus’s plan to bring Ostalin into the war, she decided to ally with the Ragesians. It was she who made the orb of storms and sent it to Lee Sidoneth in Seaquen for testing, intending to showcase its power to the inquisitors. She’d trade it to them (and help them retrieve the Torch from the firestorm at Korstull) in exchange for being installed as new master of the east wind and given protection from the scourge.</p><p></p><p>(She also lied to Lee and told him the mission came from Pilus. The <em>real</em> clever trick she has managed is setting up an interdiction spell to intercept <em>sending</em> messages so she can modify them to maintain her cover. Pilus has been too busy with the Tempest to notice.)</p><p></p><p>But when the orb of storms in Seaquen was destroyed and Lee died, Caela needed to make a new one. Signus came to Eresh to try to motivate her, but neither he nor Caela knew about Balance, and so the strange calm scared Signus off. Caela is trying to a) finish her second orb of storms, b) figure out how to end the calm over Eresh, and c) be ready to steal a bunch of Pilus’s biomancy research and nope out if she’s caught.</p><p></p><p><strong>Onamdammin</strong>, ruler of Ostalin, is something of a bit player for now. He wants to avoid being seen as a threat to Ragesia for now, but he’s enamored of Pilus’s plan to let him launch a surprise strike. He has forbidden Pilus and Longinus from working with the Resistance, but he could be persuaded.</p><p></p><p><strong>Second General Signus</strong> doesn't have good inquisitorial backup, so he's wary of magical stuff afoot in Eresh, but he also thinks he can be the big hero of the empire if he secures Caela's orb and is able to get the Torch from Korstull. He's a loyal soldier, and basically impossible to turn into an ally, but he could be convinced to abandon his mission with a sufficient show of force. This is sort of exactly why Balance is wrong to focus so much on non-violence: without fear of a counter-attack, Signus just needs time to gin up his courage to sack the village.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and <strong>Three Weeping Ravens</strong> is mostly just a guide to answer PC questions and contrast some of his order's beliefs from the Two Winds monks' beliefs. He can be a voice questioning Balance, to sort of indicate that the adventure isn't <em>expecting</em> the party to be pacifists.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>Clarified Mission</strong></span></p><p>The leaders of Seaquen suspect that Onamdammin may have ordered the monks not to help, and realize that it was a miscalculation to send the first group straight to the monastery, instead of seeking the blessing of Onamdammin. So the party’s mission is:</p><p></p><p>First, travel to Ostalin’s capital Yen-Ching and get on Onamdammin’s good side.</p><p></p><p>Second, go to the monastery and find a way to use the air monks’ knowledge to open a path to Castle Korstull through the firestorm (which will unlock adventure 6), even if that means using subterfuge or theft.</p><p></p><p>Third, if possible, discover what happened to the initial group of Resistance operatives sent there.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>That's our main cast, and the PCs' mission. Okay, but what's the actual plot of the adventure? I'll get to that tomorrow.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 8799777, member: 63"] Let’s look at the plot of Mission. The plot kinda doesn’t make sense. There’s this monastery where Pilus – a high level mage – is working on his big doomsday weapon, and apparently he’s got a trillith chilling out in town calming folks down, when the Ragesian army rolls up hoping to strongarm the air monks into using weather magic to clear the path to Korstull Castle so Leska’s folks can retrieve the Torch. Pilus’s response is . . . ignore it, let the trillith calm people down, and focus on his biomancy. If anyone comes knocking he has Caela tell them to piss off. Every once in a while Caela sends an invisible stalker to abduct someone to experiment on. This has apparently been going on for over a week! Kinda weird, right? Like, if the invisible stalkers can abduct people in town, why does Pilus let the Ragesians just hang around? What’s his long-term plan? And if he’s going to be willing to team up with the Resistance against Ragesia, when the PCs come to his doorstep, why does he insist on keeping them away until they deal with Balance? Sure, he wants to keep anyone from discovering his laboratory in the Valley of Storms, but people will snoop if you don’t give them something to focus on. [I]Stone[/I]walling the PCs isn’t very on-brand for air monks. What the adventure needs is an antagonist that isn’t working at Pilus’s orders, and it needs the situation in Ostalin overall and Eresh specifically to be more dynamic. [SIZE=5][B]Rewrite Overview[/B][/SIZE] In my rewrite, I’m making Caela a turncoat working for the Ragesians, making her responsible for Lee giving the Orb of Storms to the inquisitor in adventure 3. I’m giving the party more opportunities to have social interactions with Onamdammin, Balance, the locals and Ragesians in Eresh, the leaders of the monastery, and even Caela. At the risk of creating work for the GM since I’m not [I]actually[/I] writing encounters, I’d use Eresh as a hub for the party to explore the environment in about a 3-mile radius, and give them a couple days to investigate before General Signus returns. I’m providing an alternative solution to the Ragesian hostility other than combat. I’m making it an option to just steal an orb of storms from Caela at the laboratory and then leaving, instead of having to get Longinus and Pilus to help. [B][SIZE=5]Small Background Change[/SIZE][/B] The intro overview of the war’s status stays the same, but when Katrina talks about Eresh, things are different because their sendings to the group have gone unanswered ever since the day after the group reached Eresh. The way things went down in this version is that the Resistance group (Eril, human ranger; Metran, dwarf paladin; Klezmer, dwarf bard; Shelton, human wizard; and Misreth, dwarf cleric) came to town and were refused an audience with the masters of the monastery by Caela. They asked about the storm that hit Seaquen, but were told their questions were insulting and warned not to come back. They stayed in the town, wondering if they had other options, and eventually learned from another monk of the monastery that normally Caela [I]wouldn't[/I] be responsible for denying entry. They tried to send the monk to deliver a message to Longinus and Pilus, but they never heard from him, and suspect he was killed. They tried sending to Seaquen, but got no response. (This is due to Caela's interdiction magic. Now that I think about it, there should be actual physical focuses for this magic for the party to stumble across; they take a long time to attune to an area, so despite their strategic value, they won't be common during the war.) They tried to investigate the Valley of Storms and were attacked. Invisible stalkers picked off most of them. One survivor hid. Shortly thereafter Signus rolled into town and then Balance's magic pacified everyone. [SIZE=5][B]NPC Motivations[/B][/SIZE] [B]Longinus[/B] understands what’s going on in Eresh, and knows generally what Balance is. He has encouraged the trillith to use their power (I’m using they/them, because it’s 2022) to forestall violence, because he doesn’t want his monks to fight, and he’s trying to avoid giving his brother Pilus an excuse to finally attack the Ragesians. [B]Balance[/B] came here years ago, and in their time here, they have attained a bit of enlightenment to their origins, and knows that they are born from a dream of Trilla, and in turn that Trilla sometimes experiences what the trillith are up to as her own dreams. Balance has sensed Trilla’s suffering and torment, and they stayed in the serene village of Eresh out of a desire to grant Trilla as much reprieve from her suffering as possible. Balance trusts Longinus, and is focused on maintaining peace for Trilla’s sake, so they are trying to stop all violence. But this is not Balance’s [I]true[/I] nature. True balance requires active work to create harmony, rather than mere detachment from the woes of the world. There will be NPCs around Eresh that the party can interact with while Balance’s power is in effect, each a little vignette. [B]Pilus[/B] is often up on the Tempest, putting the finishing touches on the flying leviathan, though he comes down to the monastery regularly. He’s loyal to his khagan’s command to not attack the Ragesians. He knows his brother is using Balance to try to hold back hostilities, and he's okay with it, for now, since he wants the Tempest to be perfect. But he's also [I]really[/I] itching for a fight, and would not be angry if hostilities broke out sooner. [B]Caela[/B] is our villain of the adventure. She's your typical ambitious apprentice who wants to surpass her master. When she realized Pilus’s plan to bring Ostalin into the war, she decided to ally with the Ragesians. It was she who made the orb of storms and sent it to Lee Sidoneth in Seaquen for testing, intending to showcase its power to the inquisitors. She’d trade it to them (and help them retrieve the Torch from the firestorm at Korstull) in exchange for being installed as new master of the east wind and given protection from the scourge. (She also lied to Lee and told him the mission came from Pilus. The [I]real[/I] clever trick she has managed is setting up an interdiction spell to intercept [I]sending[/I] messages so she can modify them to maintain her cover. Pilus has been too busy with the Tempest to notice.) But when the orb of storms in Seaquen was destroyed and Lee died, Caela needed to make a new one. Signus came to Eresh to try to motivate her, but neither he nor Caela knew about Balance, and so the strange calm scared Signus off. Caela is trying to a) finish her second orb of storms, b) figure out how to end the calm over Eresh, and c) be ready to steal a bunch of Pilus’s biomancy research and nope out if she’s caught. [B]Onamdammin[/B], ruler of Ostalin, is something of a bit player for now. He wants to avoid being seen as a threat to Ragesia for now, but he’s enamored of Pilus’s plan to let him launch a surprise strike. He has forbidden Pilus and Longinus from working with the Resistance, but he could be persuaded. [B]Second General Signus[/B] doesn't have good inquisitorial backup, so he's wary of magical stuff afoot in Eresh, but he also thinks he can be the big hero of the empire if he secures Caela's orb and is able to get the Torch from Korstull. He's a loyal soldier, and basically impossible to turn into an ally, but he could be convinced to abandon his mission with a sufficient show of force. This is sort of exactly why Balance is wrong to focus so much on non-violence: without fear of a counter-attack, Signus just needs time to gin up his courage to sack the village. Oh, and [B]Three Weeping Ravens[/B] is mostly just a guide to answer PC questions and contrast some of his order's beliefs from the Two Winds monks' beliefs. He can be a voice questioning Balance, to sort of indicate that the adventure isn't [I]expecting[/I] the party to be pacifists. --- [SIZE=5][B]Clarified Mission[/B][/SIZE] The leaders of Seaquen suspect that Onamdammin may have ordered the monks not to help, and realize that it was a miscalculation to send the first group straight to the monastery, instead of seeking the blessing of Onamdammin. So the party’s mission is: First, travel to Ostalin’s capital Yen-Ching and get on Onamdammin’s good side. Second, go to the monastery and find a way to use the air monks’ knowledge to open a path to Castle Korstull through the firestorm (which will unlock adventure 6), even if that means using subterfuge or theft. Third, if possible, discover what happened to the initial group of Resistance operatives sent there. --- That's our main cast, and the PCs' mission. Okay, but what's the actual plot of the adventure? I'll get to that tomorrow. [/QUOTE]
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