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| Wolfgang |
 Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:41 pm Post subject: Court of the Shadow Fey |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4988
Location: The Mines
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Court of the Shadow Fey
The party visits the Plane of Shadow and becomes embroiled in dueling, attempted assassinations, and infiltration of the Queen's bedchamber to defeat the Queen of Night and Magic and her Moonlit King. This builds on some themes first brought up in Castle Shadowcrag). In the grand finale, the party defeats the Queen and her Moonlit King, and then must flee the wrath and wreckage of the shadow plane, scarred somehow by the price of the high magic they invoked. The adventure includes at least a half-dozen Shadowfell Shadow plane locations, a new type of badass fey, as well as riddle and trickery encounters, lots of stealth and social skills, and a major dueling scene versus a shadow fey master of the blade or a shadow fey sorcerer.
About third of this is planar journeying, such as visiting the Sun God for help. Other encounters involve disguises and court politics around figures such as the Blind Seer and the Black Prince, and the last third of it requires fighting the unique monstrosities that lie just behind every shadow, from the Snake-Godling of Eternal Darkness to the Black Crone and the million-footed Lord of Roaches. Layers of dark fey nastiness present the party with some tough trade-offs ("Should we really be bargaining with this twisted servant of evil?").
What other sorts of encounters would you like to see? What stealth or political elements might you want or NOT want? And what makes a trip to the Shadow Plane memorable?
Minimum length of about 50,000 words (about ~72 pages). Everyone who has participated in the past knows by now that every project I write in this format seems to run over... Court of the Shadow Fey also includes FOUR design essays on the Fey, planar adventures, social encounters, stealth, or other topics as chosen by the senior patrons.
All senior patrons will have the option of contributing a Courtier or Servant of the Queen as part of the NPC roster for the Court.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4988
Location: The Mines
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This could build on the Castle Shadowcrag material pretty neatly, since the Black Prince appears there, as do the base stats for the shadow fey.
And generating the veil between worlds to get PCs into the shadow plane should be interesting... I'm very pleased with the votes it has gotten so far.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Wolfgang wrote: |
This could build on the Castle Shadowcrag material pretty neatly, since the Black Prince appears there, as do the base stats for the shadow fey.
And generating the veil between worlds to get PCs into the shadow plane should be interesting... I'm very pleased with the votes it has gotten so far. |
It is attractive for that reason! It builds on the investment one has made in the previous Project, and can even be used as something of a sequel.. for on going adventures.
Do you think that would be cause for concern though? That there would be call for the re-release of Castle Shadowcrag.. or that the completist instinct some of us have wouldn't be driven mad by the prospect that Castle Shadowcrag is just not available?
Not exactly my problem because I do own it.. but I know how keenly I personally resent the unavailability of the first Project.
You do make for a romantic description. Very evocative of the Unseelie Court, or Changeling's Shadow Court. The prospect of meeting these entities and interacting with them in a medium other than combat is cool (though battle should be ultimately inevitable when good and evil clash). |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject: Collectors and Sequels |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
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Location: The Mines
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Watcher, you raise an excellent point:
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something of a sequel.. for on going adventures.
Do you think that would be cause for concern though? That there would be call for the re-release of Castle Shadowcrag.. or that the completist instinct some of us have wouldn't be driven mad by the prospect that Castle Shadowcrag is just not available? |
As a designer, I want Court to stand alone and be useful independen of Shadowcrag. It would require reprinting one NPC and one monster, plus recasting some of the history of the Shadow Fey, so that no one would feel they were missing any pieces.
To be fair to Court, though, it's a VERY different animal than the Gothic horror of Shadowcrag. It's planar, it's courtly, and it's meant to throw the party into territory very far from Zobeck and mortal concerns. The person who said it was like Amber pretty much nailed it. Innercaine, I think.
As for the collector/completist bug.... Well, that's a problem of limited editions, definitely. As long as the adventure is good, I don't have a lot of concerns about the rather slight overlap from a play perspective, though.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Eyebite |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 14 Jan 2008
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Wolfgang, shhh
Watcher is Innercaine
He's just sneaky like that |
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Eyebite wrote: |
Wolfgang, shhh
Watcher is Innercaine
He's just sneaky like that |
Eyebite is quite correct! We are one in the same.
Innercaine was the LiveJournal ID had before I started playing DnD again.. and Inner Caine is no coincidence to Roger Zelazny's work.
I made the Watcher identity at Paizo, never thinking the two would ever mesh.
Because we all know Caine is the true hero of the piece, despite Wujcik's over-exaggeration of the archtypes. After all, at the Edge of the Abyss, even Fiona begged, but Caine knew just what to do. |
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| grodog |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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I'm very interested in this proposal, in particular the idea of exploring other-planar courtly intrigue on/around the plane of shadow, with fey overtones (Unseelie Court, perhaps?).
The Plane of Shadow, much like the Empire of the Ghouls, could have a lot of subtle references to the World of Greyhawk's planar cosmology, since Shadow played a large role in one of the versions of the setting (Gygax's Gord novels).
Allan. |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 5:34 am Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4988
Location: The Mines
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| Watcher wrote: |
| Eyebite wrote: |
Wolfgang, shhh
Watcher is Innercaine |
Eyebite is quite correct! We are one in the same. |
I say, I have been bamboozled!
Gotta keep a sharp eye out around here, ya take a couple months off the Open Design and ya lose all yer discerning skeptical-type caution.
(Thanks!)
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 5:37 am Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
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Location: The Mines
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| grodog wrote: |
I'm very interested in this proposal, in particular the idea of exploring other-planar courtly intrigue on/around the plane of shadow, with fey overtones (Unseelie Court, perhaps?).
The Plane of Shadow, much like the Empire of the Ghouls, could have a lot of subtle references to the World of Greyhawk's planar cosmology, since Shadow played a large role in one of the versions of the setting (Gygax's Gord novels). |
Yep, I've been a sucker for Shadow ever since the Greyhawk days. This one is very much as you describe, an alternate fantastical landscape. The adventure setting does feature shadow creatures, a fey court, and so forth, and could match up with Greyhawk fairly neatly.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 5:38 am Post subject: |
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Wolfgang,
What did you think of the Zelazny undertones that seemed to become popular with some other patrons, after they were brought them up... did that dovetail with what you were thinking of in terms of an adventure with a strong social alongside traditional themes? |
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| Armoury99 |
| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: |
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I'd just like to interrupt at this point to say that the challenge of creating dramatic and realstic political conflict immediately interested me in becoming a patron for this project. The chance of "Zelazny undertones" however, has me literally cackling with glee, rubbing my hands with anticpation, and (to suddenly switch source material) saying "eeeeeeexcellent..." in my best Mr. Burns voice.
So I'd be in favour of that.
As to Caine himself - best not to get me started on that black-hearted rogue...
One potential concern however, would be how much access I'd have to the shadow fey background materials. As a new patron, I wouldn't want to feel stymied in my knowledge or ability to contribute to the proper feel just because I wasn't around the last time you delved into the shadows... |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
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Posts: 4988
Location: The Mines
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| Watcher wrote: |
| What did you think of the Zelazny undertones that seemed to become popular with some other patrons, after they were brought them up... did that dovetail with what you were thinking of in terms of an adventure with a strong social alongside traditional themes? |
I haven't read my Zelazny in more than 10 years, but I'm a fan and I think those overtones could fit in very well. It certainly meshes well with the pitch's emphasis on intrigue, stealth, and assassination. I'd say those could be called "antisocial undertones". 
So, absolutely, I think Court of the Shadow Fey would offer some nods to the Princes of Amber. That's not too far from the current conception of the shadow fey houses, from Shadowcrag.
Not sure that there would be any pattern magic, mind you, but killing and replacing the ruling powers might be one possible ending.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| varianor |
| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:03 am Post subject: |
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| You know, all of your proposals are tempting. All the time. Additional details like this just add to the dilemma of choosing! |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
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Location: The Mines
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| varianor wrote: |
| You know, all of your proposals are tempting. All the time. Additional details like this just add to the dilemma of choosing! |
I should seriously make two pitches suck and one awesome, just to make it easier all around.
But I fear that patrons would vote for the "nation of blink dogs" adventure just to watch me squirm.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Eyebite |
| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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Nah, we wouldn't do that.
And I certainly wouldn't form a coalition of OD patrons to privately commission you for a 100,000 word, Red Hand of Doom style sandbox campaign, dealing with a massive war between krenshars and shocker lizards.
...and the PCs all play flumph negotiators.
Nah, I'd never do that to you.
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