Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So of late I have been uninspired with Pathfinder, my group has been their usual attempts at adventurers but I have felt different and not so involved in my games. So I took a break and exclusively war gamed for a few months.

Now I am back and excited about an idea for a campaign.

the PC's start as half levels of a normal character, apprentices that aren't training full time because they have other duties to attend in their small villages such as farm duties and helping local loggers.

On one of these such duties the PC's stumble upon a small opening, barely enough of a opening to fit a book but on the other side they can see an illuminated room, like a berried complex.

They enter the complex and move through a small dungeon full of traps only to find a drained and old clockwork creature, the last of it's kind, damaged and near drained of it's essence it puts up a decent fight but eventually falls reveling that it was holding a key the entire fight. The Key unlocks a box containing a book, like a diary of an elderly dwarf crafter and his human companion. After the book is removed the dungeon starts collapsing and the PC's make a desperate escape.

After leaving the dungeon the PC's return to their normal lives, although now a full level 1 character and the game can truly begin. A traveling circus arrives unexpectedly in the town after two weeks and is set to stay in the area for a full three weeks to rest it's horses make repairs and perform for the region.

After the first three days the town starts experiencing odd happenings. A man thought dead rose from a corpse cart before falling dead again as fast as he rose, a coffin being buried wreathed with life and those in attendance swear by the gods that the body inside was scratching to escape and most puzzling of all were the disappearances of townsfolk.......

BACK TO THE BOOK! In the two weeks following the books discovery the PC's have had time to start reading it, keeping it secret from their elders. They learn much about the dwarf and his travels, that he was a great adventurer and that he hunted monsters in the dark. They learn of a great evil that the dwarf was trying to destroy from the world but in the end he aged and his foe did not, he locked all his knowledge away, hidden around the land in his holds, guarded by creatures that could not be corrupted by evil, or used to power evil because they themselves ad no soul, this of course being his clockwork creations. The book itself can be described as a cross between a bestiary and a myths and legends compendium combined with his life experience and secret thoughts.

.....As the PC's start investigating these occurrences they see that there are similarities between these events and the events that took place in a similar sized town two hundred years prior when the diary was written. They learn that the Dwarf went to this town in search of a single monster that he thought was terrorizing the population only to find the first of many clues that led him to the greater evil truth.

If the PC's fail to find the source of the evil spreading (A low level adept using necromancer magic to summon his greater master to this place after believing it was the final resting place of the Dwarf they have been sent to find) then their entire village will be destroyed and turned into the mindless beings from the book, if they succeed and stop the adept they will realize the danger and leave in search of this greater evil.

This path will lead them on a journey trying to decipher the clues in the journal to find the Dwarfs other holds and with them the technology and weapons to finally stop the greater evil. In these holds they will find more clockwork warriors who have gone mad without their master command and lead them while also having to continue to move and avoid the tings in the night, because now the greater evil knows that the book has been found he will accelerate his plans to sacrifice the entire world to ascend to the greatest levels of god hood.


Greater evil will be a high level vampire or Lich while other boss battles will include things like Grave knights and undead dragons etc.....thoughts?

Well, if you use miniatures a Dracolich would make an impressive Greater Evil...

I use miniatures and paper pawns so a this would be an awesome idea!!!! Cheers