Brainstorms : Off the beaten paths
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I volunteered to take a stab at making some random exploration map areas to help the DM's out and I'm looking for some ideas for little off the beaten path/secretive palces for a forest, mountain range, swamp, and Underdark.
Nothing overly specific like The Lost Temple Of Selune's Seventh Son or straight out of canon, but stuff like a birch grove, or a valley of peach trees, or a flooded over ruined outpost.
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Stuff themed like the Haunted Halls various levels though would be ideal.
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I liked the old monastery that was in the area that led to the lake created by the Netherese (edit: sorry, Shadovar!).
Good ambience, good music, nice place to wander around. Stingers included.Bring that thing back!
And more desert please!
I liked a lot the jumping paths and the library even if no one was going there! -
Yeah, were missing the desert theme. Too much stormholms and thundergap and snow. Im sure the deserts were more visited than thundergap+Dwarves were.
On topic:
Hidden Valley - Valley that is hidden!
Ghost Town - A small ghost town that appears in the middle of nowhere.
Thick Forest- You've tumbled down a hill, landing in a thick part of the forest. You need to make your way out.
Tropical cove - A shore hidden by high cliffs and trees (Near immersea)Not sure if those are the kind of idea's your looking for if you need more descriptions.
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The old crafting system is on the way out, which should leave a great deal more room for expansion without fear of killing the module.
I love the Anauroch desert areas myself.
I think I'll put a couple back in once we get a little more of the dust and debris swept out of the system. -
Maybe you could make Eagleman a secert layer on some mountain top, "The Eagles Nest" perhaps? :wink: Haha.
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Though Eagleman was -clearly- joking, I reckon it would be pretty sweet to have some places about that people -could- use as 'lairs'
It would be mental to make it so they can somehow 'take over' the monsters there, and so make them neutral to them and thier party, thats going too far, but, if you were creative, and the monsters were placed cleverly, it -would- be possible to set up a lair, complete with monsters, and then challenge the good guys to fight their way to you, before you kill the innocent maiden you captured.
Some hostile, but 'good' aligned 'monsters' could also be used in the same way for good guys.
Admittedly, it would involves some serious invisibilty potions/charges/spells, or some serious stealth, and possibly some 'leading' of monsters, before quaffing that invis and leaving them standing in the spot you want them…. er... I think I just went vastly off topic, sorry....
Er anyway, yeah, some lairs would be good, place that good, or bad guys, could just, commandeer, outside the city, with interesting stuff in, like the weird machines that are dotted about the module, that do cool stuff, like make people into undead, or make them sprout tentacles etc.
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I support "The Eagle's Nest." (Fortress of Solitude)
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Seconded.
On topic:
Maybe add an abandoned Netherese fortress complete with still-working crafting stuff.
Just sayin'.
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An old fort at the top of a pass, guarding it. The pass road winding along though the fort that it guards and a hidden valley behind where they would have had their supply of water, firewood and possibly some stock of animals, all long since dilapidated.
Opportunities for dungeons, battlements, the valley behind, that can only be accessed by a secret door in the fort, or perhaps there is a little known mountain trail that could be found to sneek in th eback way?
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Yeah, forts, lairs, set up so you could actually set up a siege scene or something. Or even just war games.
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Having been playing the exile for a while now, I have a few suggestions…
Forest campsites. As in, Kings Forest perhaps? A place that is not so easily accessed, but would allow a little exile a place to regroup. In short, a few places with a spawn point added, somewhat like a certain place in the ruins.
These places would be very benefitial, as they can be "claimed" by pc groups who might not recieve a faction HQ all on their own, but which would also allow it to be taken over by others, if such needs arose.
More villages. There are alot of canon villages around the module.
Perhaps even add actual cities, around the dragon coast?
Or Suzail?
Stuff like Elf hold. A place or two that actually holds some of the CoA history, of long forgotten heroes and villians.
Otherwise, more places to explore. The haunted halls are awesome, but have a strong tendency towards demons or undead.
Expand the Hullack Forest. That map is awesome, but, doesnt hold much in terms of exploration, as far as i know. Perhaps make the inner Hullack much more like the underdark. The forest is suppose to be freaking huge, and currently only consist of three known areas. Would be sweet to have several more.
Same goes for Kings Forest. Places filled with old history, and perhaps with several ties to current or future plots?
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Cursed wizards tower would be fun. Pops up in random locations and is basically a mini exploration quest-thing.
You'll have multiple levels of the tower getting progressively harder.
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@Kicknzjuznutz:
Cursed wizards tower would be fun. Pops up in random locations and is basically a mini exploration quest-thing.
You'll have multiple levels of the tower getting progressively harder.
Perhaps even making the stairs down a low level quest, and the stairs up a high level one?
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Isnt the random thing extremely hard to script?
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The Haunted halls were randomised.
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Having a transition take you to random places, is different to having a tower appear randomly in certain area, with a transition to the inside I would think.
Only way I could think of doing it, is by having two versions of the areas in which the tower could appear, and randomising the transitions to these areas. Resource hungry.
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You could have portals to a wizard's tower in a strange place. Those can be randomized.
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or you could have towers all over the place, and randomly have the door transition take you to a single room shell, all dusty and empty, with bats or rats, or to the real wizard's tower. Perhaps the wizard had five tower shells built in different places, and he had the magic to enter any one of these shells and port to a pocket plane that was the real tower. He could then exit via any other tower.
//edited. While a Pocket Plain might be fun, it's probably too large and more likely that we should have a Pocket Plane.
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A pocket plane.
