Serpents Camapaign - Sequel

During the time Sir Stewart and his group were out making Tarn Solvaney a safer place, King Barov Von Zarovich married Aurora Shadowborn. Because of the loss of the Paladins that once ruled Avonleigh (using Fallcrest from the 4E DMG), Queen Aurora appointed Lord Mayor Warren Markelhay as the new ruler of the city. A man by the name of Isten works under the Lord Mayor as his advisor and has been off on diplomatic meetings all over Tarn Solvaney and has been disposed for some time, but he’s recently returned to Avonleigh. Isten is actually Linoth returning to Avonleigh and working towards a quick way in which the Serpent Army can invade and take over ruler ship. Isten knows that something happened to his sister since she never reported back after invading Castle Ravenloft and now he hopes that taking over Avonleigh will be the nail in the coffin for him to be the ruler of Avonleigh.

Isten set a plan into motion after he returned that involved staging of a Serpent Army siege on a nearby town in which would pose a threat to Avonleigh and cause the Lord Mayor to send a group of warriors to help with defending the people of the town. Isten’s plans are generally not as straight forward as his Sister Rowan, she would have had a hidden group of fighters invade Avonaleigh after the Lord Mayor sent out his troops, but Isten has hidden a small number of Blais Boxes within a large and familiar war wagon that will be confiscated and brought back to Avonleigh. Within the Blais boxes are Yaun-Ti and Snaketongue cultists that will be able to invade the Lord Mayor’s compound once the war wagon is brought inside.

Isten has one other plan, he has a small creature that he’s paid to enter the Lord Mayor’s estate while the fight is going on to find and steal a soul sword that was found recently that Isten believes belongs to Gauntlet of the Doom Brigade. Returning the sword to Gauntlet should help Isten regain the knight as an ally.

This is where the new player characters will enter the campaign at 11th level, they are part of the warriors that are returning to Avonleigh with the captured war wagon. It will be rainy stormy night while the wagon and supplies are being off-loaded and the characters are unpacking their things and getting ready to report to the Lord Mayor when they’ll learn that the compound is being invaded by Serpent Army forces.

I want to bring Morgoroth back into the campaign by allowing the players to go by the location where his home used to be and find a mirror standing out in the middle of the field. Messing with the mirror will allow the players to see that Morgoroth has returned to the world somehow. The great battle in Castle Ravenloft between Rowan and Sir Stewart’s group as well as the two artifacts has weakened the barrier between Ravenloft (the Shadowfell) and allowed Morgoroth to escape his realm.

At this point I plan to run the Dungeon Magazine adventure Last Breaths of Ashenport while the players our out in the rainy wilderness. It would be more interesting if Isten somehow gets caught up and transported to the horrific fishing village along with characters.

From here the campaign can move into different directions, one being the character’s visiting a monastery dedicated to the Raven Queen to talk to an albino profit that is rumored to live there and trying to piece together what’s going on and what direction they need to go in. This idea comes from a Dungeon Magazine adventure called Sleeper in the Tomb of Dreams.

Hopefully more to come soon...