D&D Campaign

[Spee]

Anyone here play D&D? If so, read on, as this is the only forums my friends dont go to. Feedback is appreciated on the idea.


I was reading the monster manual last night, and came across an Eye of Gruumsh. An eye of gruumsh is an orc who, in thier fervor for thier religion, gouge out thier left eye, and can only do so while remaining completely silent. If they make a noise, they fail the test, and are out an eye. this results in the eye's of Gruumsh being a large horde of pure asskicking.


Thus, I had an idea. all the player character wake up in a castle hall, which is littered with the bodies of orcs and humans. Blood is sprayed everywhere, etc. The characters are in relatively good armor, but wounded heavily, thus the cause for thier unconciousness, and amnesia. at most, theyd have 2 HP. At least, 0. it would be interesting for a large group of active people to carry around an unconcious, but alive, body.

Anyhow. Im going under the assumption that the eyes of gruumsh are moving in a bid to expand the orc world's borders, and this castle was in thier sights, thus the cause for major bloodshed. Considering the frontlines of the battle have moved far awya from this isolated, but important structure, there are only a few orcs left, and those are the scavenging small ones that pose as much of a threat as a small pack(3 or 4) cave rats.

So, these characters have to find a way to heal. If there is no cleric in the party, Im going to place a cure light wounds object somewhere in the cellars of the basement. If there is a cleric, Im going to increase the general strength of the monsters still present in the castle.

Once moving from the castle towards the town that the building watched over, they find it is under orc occupation. Not heavy presence, but enough to make one worried. It's the players' goal to infiltrate a humans house, which is devoid of any orcs, and grill them for information regarding wtf is going on.

Once satiated with information, they can choose to go about trying to remove the orc presence from the city and liberate the townsfolk for the time being, and reap the rewards of the mayor's gratitude, or they can simply leave. If the former, they shall have to do so under cover of night, using stealth and shadow, along with brute force and surprise(Slitting ones throat in a dark alley, versus breaking through a window and cleaving 4 orcs in half with a broadsword before they can react)

The buy/steal some horses, and go southbound, and go by a makeshift temple, erected hastily, for the purposes of wounded orcish warriors and to help the spirits of the orc townsfolk. Choice of either burning it down/slaughtering everyone inside(who brings weapons into a church?!) or just leaving it alone, and leaving relatively unknown.

Now, stealing an idea as to why Rome was built where it was, Im going to say that the Orc Capital, lets call it... Gul-Nazkipp, or some other gutteral assname, is surrounded on three sides by mountains which stretch at least a mile into the sky. the terrain is mostly volcanic rock, and the one side that isnt covered by a mountain is sloped downhill, this giving attackers a disadvantage. Here, at the capital of the Orc world, they sneak in, take any supplies that are needed, and search for the centre of the city, for there is a massive temple located there, and the eyes of Gruumsh are trained there.

Needless to say, infiltrating the main temple will be either an excersize in complete brute force, or neigh-paranoid sneaking about. Through eithe rmethod, they gain entrance to the catacombs of the temple, which lead down a good 400 feet or so. One they reach the bottom of, essentially, a massive circular staircase with floors branching off of it, there is a long stretch of hallway, perhaps about 400 meters, ending in a glowing red light. There are no other doors in the corridor, so the only choice to proceed is forward.


There, after they reach the main chamber, Will be The Eye of Gruumsh, the deity himself. I plan on levelling up the spellcaster only to a sufficient level where if he sends other people into the astral plain, where the gods live, that sorcerer will die. So, he does, and the fighters and party members are sent through that portal to fight Gruumsh, who is responsible for fueling his champions' urge to expand thier borders, thus resulting in the boundless slaughter of hundreds of thousands. Towns, etc. Gruumsh is a tough motherfucker, and I will not be satiated until at least 2 members die, leaving only 2 survivors in the group.

Now, heres the interesting thing - I plan to give them all MASSIVE bonuses in innocuous skills - 40 points to rope skills, 30 points to riding, knowledge of all languages, etc. These mundane skills will come in extraordinary use later in the campaign.


Im leaving out a few cities, but what do you all think?