Intro to the Valley Part 2 - PC involvement

Being a DM can be pretty rough. You can put so much work into a campaign or module, but if your players don’t like it, then you’ve wasted your time.

For that reason alone, there was no way I was going to create every little thing in the game world, even though I wanted to do just that. It was simply an impractical thing to attempt.

Having that much planned out can give you just as much headache as too little planning. If you change X, then Y and Z may be impacted making work you’ve already done a waste of your time because now you have to revise things.

So for the Valley, I chose to have the basic information covered and fill in the rest later as I needed it; kind of like how TV shows fill in a character’s background when the need arises.

Example: Flying creatures, especially intelligent ones, such as dragons, never found the Valley. Why? For now, they just didn’t. And until the players pursued those reasons, or I felt the story justified it, I was never compelled to develop a reason why. Why back your story into a corner when there’s no need? Just think of many possible reasons and then pick the best one when the time is right.

Overall those who have played in the Valley have enjoyed it, mainly because it’s open enough that it can be what I need it to be and has the potential to be as much role-playing the players want.

The first campaign in the Valley lasted less than a half-dozen weeks and was really an intro to third edition for the three of us playing in the group at the time. But those few weeks showed how the Valley could fit the role-playing needs of two players easily.

Unfortunately we found out how much deadlier 3E fights were from 2E fights; specifically 2E grimlocks are pansies when compared to the 3E version.

The second campaign was started at the last minute thanks to a DM dropping out of running without warning. So I started the campaign again, this time with 4 players to start with and more added over the next few weeks. We started right where the last campaign left off. We even had a story line to find the missing PC’s from the previous campaign.

With more players it was not as easy to go into each PC’s role-playing set up, but there was enough.

Well, since this campaign was more of a filler campaign, I soon got the bug to play the game rather than run it. So after a bad game night where I killed off most of the party, I decided to take a break from DM’ing.

Dale was itching to run the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, so it was an easy switch.

A couple of years later and I was ready to run the Valley again; this time from the perspective of the people of the outside world having found out about it. And this time I would start the campaign as a result of wanting to do it rather than needing to do it.

The following bit is a heavily condensed summary of what happened over several months of gameplay.

The party was gathered by King Mehrik of Endaria and he asked them a favor; escort the wizard Nafterran to the Valley.

Nafterran had found out about a couple of people that had shown up at a fishing village, claiming to be from an isolated valley that had been cut off from the rest of the world for centuries.

Unfortunately the two citizens of the Valley were just as afflicted with lycanthropy as their ancestors were. In mid-story, both men were exposed to the full moon.

Many people lost their lives that night.

If not for a few elves that had been carrying silvered arrows the rampage would have continued for some time.

Using his extensive library, his great intellect, and various bits of evidence, Nafterran pieced together the origins of what happened and formed a plan to fix the Valley.

So the King gathered the party of specific people Nafterran asked for, all of whom accepted their new task.

Then the aged wizard teleported everyone as close to the Valley as he was able and then polymorphed himself into a necklace. The party had to walk the rest of the way to the Valley.

Among other things not worth mentioning here, the party came across the ruins of Silverhome, and found the Hammer of Silverhome – an intelligent and talking hammer that was bound to Silverhome. The hammer had some strong magic, but it didn’t accept any of the PC’s as there were no dwarves among them.

After clearing out the strange beasts living in the ruins (modeled after the Basic D&D module, Thunderdelve Mountain), they had to fight their way through a small horde of strange, slime-covered clan of goblins known as the Dead Dwarf Clan.

As luck would have it a dwarf, Rushgar Hammersmith, found the party as they were leaving the goblins’ caves and wouldn’t you know it, he was the rightful heir to Silverhome.

The party gave him the Hammer of Silverhome, giving them a lifelong ally.

Rushgar escorted the party to the Valley’s city council where Nafterran resumed his normal shape and convinced the city council to accept his plans.

So over the next three days, at high noon, Nafterran cast three separate spells at the spot he believed the original spell was cast that created the Valley.

The first day was a simple spell that prepared the Valley for the next two spells. Many people attended this, if only just to see outlanders. The populace saw the PC’s as richly dressed. The PC’s saw people who were dressed barely better than beggars.

The second day Nafterran appears a bit weaker and needs assistance in walking to the place where he needs to cast the second part of the spell.

Halfway through the minute-long spellcasting nearly every human, elf, dwarf, and half-elf born and raised in the Valley goes through a 10 second long series of muscle spasms as the spell destroys the lycanthropic beast laying dormant inside of them.

Though quite scared, everyone affected by the spell feels as if some dark spirit had been excised from them.

Later that evening the city has a celebration the likes they’ve not had in centuries. Nafterran and the PC’s are treated as heroes. That is until Gangrel, an evil dwarf with disgusting tastes, shows up with a message.

Two centuries prior, a trio of wizards was losing a political power struggle against the clergy of Brekaneth. They assassinated the top members of the clergy and then fled the city, never to be seen again.

They found a way out of the Valley, but chose to stay to further study the special magicks of the land. Their magic also led them to the unlife of lichdom.

They were content to leave the “sheep” of the city to rot in their prison indefinitely, but Nafterran’s magic was an unknown variable that could ruin their studies, so they sent their undead-loving freak of a dwarf to deliver a message – “Do not cast the final spell or the Dark Tribunal will sentence you all to death.” (Don’t make fun of the name; I couldn’t come up with anything better at the time.)

For reasons I’m not going list here, the city council almost asked Nafterran to not cast the final spell, but timely intervention on behalf of the revered Lord Velserrad switched a 3-4 vote to a 5-2 vote in favor of continuing.

The next morning most of the city’s defenders were assigned as protection for Nafterran.

As promised, when Nafterran began casting his spell a horde of undead appeared. The living defenders of the city were outnumbered seven to one, with over 2000 undead in all involved.

The standard undead were nothing to the liches, just fodder to keep the defenders busy while they dealt with their main target, Nafterran.

After one minute Nafterran caused time to stop and explained to the PC’s that he has done this because he has seen the future and it is dark and horrible. A long dead creature of great evil will be found and resurrected, but with the actions he took on that day he set in motion events that may give the world a chance of survival.

He then refreshed the PC’s (full hp, restored spells, etc.) and asked that they keep the Dark Tribunal at bay for another minute while he finishes the spell and the Silver Veil is lifted forever.

The PC’s barely succeeded in their task. Nafterran finished the last of the spell and his body exploded in a flash of searing light.

The liches, having failed, casually left the battlefield while their hordes continued to wreak havoc while the Silver Veil disappeared from the land.

Then Polaris arrived. His mind and body rapidly recovered and he took out most of the horde on his own.

Thus began the rise of the Valley.

The PC’s had a few more adventures in the Valley itself, but soon they left the Valley for adventure elsewhere.

(Then the WLD came out and I “paused” the campaign. That point of history can be read from my first blog entries almost 5 years ago.)