Return to Karak Kaldrak 3.5 Campaign

[bltzkrg242]

I am starting a new Campaign on my homegrown world of Taern centered around the disgraced and homeless Land Dwarves of Dargoth Plain. They have been driven from thier homes in the Worlds Pole Mountains generations ago by an unknown source. They have been afraid of delving underground since and this fear has been instilled in all Dwarves of this group ever since.

The ancestors of the heroes have pledged Birth Oaths that this group will learn more about their lost ancestral home Karak Kaldrak which is the Dwarven city in the Southernmost of the Worlds Pole Mountains...

This is the teaser document I sent out to generate interest:
--- Merged from Double Post ---
The Calling

You are from Tor Goran ak Karak Goranthal, Clan QuartzTooth. The elders of your clan have, at last, gathered you back together. You had grown up together but have been trained by masters in your field; some of you perhaps even sent beyond the clan to learn your trade. Your parents have given Birth Oaths that you will be the hope of the clan. Your clan has spent nearly their entire fortune equipping and training you all in the hopes that you will be able to help them reclaim Karak Goranthal. The fear that has been instilled in you since birth of the underground has been lessened by exposure to a small cave complex found near Tor Goran but you know that with thousands of pounds of rock above you and no near escape that it will be difficult to enter the true mountain, but you will try.
Your families are depending on you to gather information and assist in repossessing your ancestral home and your clan birthright. Other clans have indicated that they too have sent small groups to search the mountain and most have not returned. Clan BluePick was the most recent and their younglings have not been heard from since last winter.
The clan council has provided you with very little information about what may lie ahead of you but you have the honor of the clan upon you and your parent’s Oaths that you will succeed where others have failed.

You have been generously outfitted and have been given a map made from the patched together memories of stories told by elders two generations ago. Your first task will be to visit the living ancestor of Tor Kald ak Karak Kaldrak. Gehzgrim Bronzehair is the oldest living dwarf among the land dwarves and even he wasn’t present when the dwarves left the mountain. He has gathered the tales as best he can from different clans but his life is failing. When he was younger he took the tales to the various Tor but has been hobbled by age and illness to Tor Kald and his life is near its end. He has begun to lose the oral histories he has learned and has taken several apprentices who have each been able to learn portions of Gehzgrim’s tales but none have learned them all and his telling of them has been going further and further from the mark each time during the retelling so that the remembering of them has become difficult.
The map indicates approximations of certain features of the under mountain but is by no means complete. There are several points of interest and some notes about hazards you may face.


Clan QuartzTooth has sent their children to the best mentors of every class available in order to make the success of their children’s task more likely.

The elders will have planned for a good mix in your group. Please try and make your party with a mix of abilities and skills. The Dwarven halls are full of old traps and at least one focused trapfinder will be near imperative. Healers and a cleric would be a great boon to the company as well. Since you are being sent underground, be aware that you will want to focus on underground skills.

All characters will be Dwarves from the Clan QuartzTooth
Every class printed in a WOTC book is available as a starting class. Discuss with me how to tailor to Clan QuartzTooth.


All weapons and armor will be Dwarvencrafted
Each of you is fitted with Earthsilk Jersey (DR1/bludgeoning or slashing)
Each of you is provided with a Goliath (Dwarf) healing kit (+4 to check 10 uses)

I would like continuous feedback from any and all that find this an intriguing idea. I would like to bounce ideas off one or more people to improve the adventure and storyline.

[Thriondel Half-Elven]

i like it! cool idea with the clan training the players and outfitting them with gear.

no more "hey your level 1 and have all this crap"

[Riftwalker]

Sounds interesting so far. I assume this is for an in-person game you're planning on having and you're bouncing the ideas off of us on the board? If that's the case, can you show us what's behind the DM screen? I.e., what drove the dwarves out, what fragmented them into the various clans, what the rest of the world is like (if it's relevant), what you expect the party to find while down there, any planned encounters you're thinking about, villains, story arcs, etc.

[bltzkrg242]

Yes it's a Play at the table game and any ideas for adventures etc that you might have, interesting encounters etc would be a welcome addition.

I have to create 4 major dungeons and 1 ULTRA huge dungeon for the center peak.
Plus there will be side quests to get info, items, and spells.

The problem with spilling too much here is that a few of my players frequest this site and I don't want to spoil it for them.

Lets just say bad Juju is under the mountains and the Land Dwarves have forgotten what it was.

[Riftwalker]

I'd go a step farther and say the Dwarves have forgotten more than that. They're from a civilization that has declined slightly, having lost or regressed in terms of some of the things that people take for granted in Dwarves (such as training vs. giants, weapon/armor crafting, runic magic, carving architectures out of stone). Perhaps fragments of these skills have been spread around to the various clans in bits and pieces. For example, maybe one of the clans still has a smattering of talent with runic magic, although the bulk of that knowledge was lost during the mass exodus from the mountain. Perhaps as part of the party's journeys they can stumble upon some dwarven runes or runic magic tomes and over the course of the adventure, and figure out how to use them. And have your players earn their +4 vs. giants racial talent back over the course of the adventure (if the Big Juju is a giant, say).

It might also be interesting for the party to come across a "splinter colony" of dwarves that, instead of fleeing the mountain when the original badness happened, went deeper underground and evolved their culture in a completely different direction. They could end up being something like the duergar or something or you could take them in a different direction, entirely, granting them affinity to earth and fire elementals as they've learned to live with, near, or close to rivers of magma and adjust to more frequent earthquakes and plate tectonics-related phenomena.

[bltzkrg242]

They may fall further from thier pinnacle if left unchecked but it's only been 3 generations since the were driven out. If the heroes succeeed then the Land Dwarves will be reunited with thier ancestral homes and all will be well. If they fail then it's bad JuJu for the Land Dwarves. Other Tor have sent their young into the mountains and they failed.

[nijineko]

sounds like an interesting exploration idea with potential to become an epic story.

[bltzkrg242]

The heroes have completed the testing by thier elers and have trekked accross the Dargoth Plain towards the ruins of Tor Thrana in Shadow Fen. They hope to find there some clues as to what the great evil that drove them out might have been.