But all we are is dust in the wind.

I really like the map tiles as well I have two sets of the Athas Desert tiles ready to go for the campaign I am building and itching to use them.  The Dark Sun Campaign Guide and the Creature Catalog are awesome and are worth the money.  I picked up the Demonomicon as well and really enjoy it and hope to incorporate some of the ideas into my Dark Sun game to give it a sinister twist.  Also as a totally frivolous want, I want this Ravenloft boxed game like whoa.

So yeah I love D&D.

Ravendale

The village of Ravendale sits in the shadow of and ancient forest simply called the Raven Wilds, rough land with ancient primeval forest spilling forth to the north and west of the village. A brisk business of woodcutting and fishing is done in the village to supplement the various farms that make up the village of some 800 or some souls. On the edge of what was once the Kingdom of Nerath, the citizens are considered simple and often backwater by more civilized folks.

The nominal leader of the village is Lady Helen Jonas, once a human adventurer in her youth she has long since retired and the gray in her hair and her plump frame attest to the good life she has led from her adventures. Her left eye is covered in a patch, an injury she earned in her youth fighting gnolls in the local woods. She still keeps much of her gear on her farm and is a decent shot with a bow, but her skills have long since diminished. Her elf husband, Barius runs the local smithy and was also an adventurer but settled down with Helen many years ago. They have two half-elven daughters named Summer and August; ages sixteen and twelve respectively.

Seeing to the defense of the village is “Captain” Jared Barnes a rough and tumble dwarf ex-soldier. The rank is self-appointed but Lady Jonas allows him the affectation since he has done a modest job of keeping the peace and maintaining security in the region. He has at most twenty men, and usually only half that at any given time for most daily business. He distrusts outsiders and does not think highly of adventurers or the Rusty Legion. He tolerates there presence because Lady Jonas speaks highly of them.

There is a temple to Pelor in the village circle, the heart of the settlement. Attended to by three priests of the sun god; the lead priestess is Sister Agnes Darkheart a tiefling hailing from the far-off city of Fallcrest. Sister Agnes as most call her is a young priestess who is still having trouble adjusting to this rustic life far from the comforts of the city. She is good natured, but she does not enjoy nature at all and is easily frightened by bugs and small animals. She is a recent arrival, six months at the most arriving after the last priest, Brother Burkel passed on from natural causes. She is gifted with rituals and does her best to help those in need.

The only inn in town and the best place to rent a room for a night is Raven’s Haunt, a two story tavern and inn combined. Run by a trio of Halfling siblings; two sisters and a brother by the names of Mindy, Cindy, and Masco Rumbelly. The Rumbelly name is an old one in the village and the family has run the tavern for as long as any can remember. The patriarch of the family, Bando Rumbelly usually sits on the large porch of the wood and stone structure smoking pipe weed and gossiping with any that will listen. His hearing has diminished so getting his attention tends to be difficult. But he is an excellent source of local stories, rumors, and flavor. The Rumbelly farm is known for its plump grapes and Rumbelly wine is some of the finest in the region.

King’s Tower is the home of the local branch of the Rusty Legion, an old dilapidated structure built back during the reign of the Nerathian Kings. The old structure now serves as something of a headquarters for High Captain Torrin Irons and his men. Captain Irons as he is more commonly called by his men and the villagers is an accomplished dragonborn warlord. He is good natured but serious and tends to weigh a situation carefully before committing to an endeavor. Despite his good nature he knows he has a difficult task ahead of him and not enough men to do it. He does his best though and tries to keep the morale high as best as he knows how. He does not get along well with Jared Barnes, he considers the dwarf a nuisance and best avoided. He has four other Legionnaires under his command besides the party.

• Marcus: A half-orc mercenary soldier before he joined the Legion, he is a lecherous scoundrel with a love of wine, women, and blades. His ranger skills have proven useful and he is often scouting the local forest for trouble. He is nominally the second highest ranking behind Captain Irons. Marcus is not overly handsome but he is muscular and he keeps himself well groomed when not on patrol.

• Bindi Brassbottom: A plucky and optimistic gnome trained in the arcane arts, she has a tendency to speak very quickly and become over excited about all things magic and mystery. She tends to be oblivious to most social conventions and spends most of her time around the tower working as something of a scribe and sage. She enjoys her work immensely, the only thing she loves as much as magic or her work is her precious little kitty named Huggles. She has sandy blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail, a bright smile, and tanned skin often smudged with ink.

• Duncan Smith: A native to the region Duncan is the newest recruit, a headstrong male youth hailing from Restwell Keep. His father adventured in his youth and enamored the young man with his tales. He joined the Legion to follow in his father’s footsteps and have his own adventures but currently he spends most of his time helping farmers with lost livestock or patrolling the village circle. He wants some action and is probably over eager to find it. He is a dark skinned youth with a shaved head and piercing eyes, he is handsome and strong. He is a natural born fighter learning at his father’s feet from a young age.

• Orlandra Moonsea: An elf hailing from the south, she is a woman of little words. She does not speak of her time before the Rusty Legion and tends to try and stay in the background. She is not an angry person just simply one that likes to keep to herself and enjoy simpler pleasures. The only member that seems to know her well is Marcus and the two have an on-again and off-again relationship often tumultuous though secret. She tends to be the least social of the group but is an excellent cook, one of the few times one can see her smile is when she is cooking.

DM Notes

This is my basic notes for the main settlement of Ravendale, this will serve as the home base of sorts for the heroes and is placed somewhere in the Points of Lights setting, I decided to do this to make things easy on myself. So if I need a larger city I can always send the heroes to Fallcrest have a complete mini-setting ready to go. I don’t really have any huge nefarious plots ready to go other then my usage of the main villain and some of the sub-villains. I do have some inklings for some anti-gnoll sentiment in many f the villagers which if my story goes as planned will cause some conflict down the road.

Bolded names are points of interest or important NPCs in the setting, either to the village, story, or as subplots to develop down the road. This is pretty bare bones but I will probably fill in more once the heroes actually arrive. I plan to have them stay at the tavern, there is not enough room in the tower so Captain Irons has gotten them semi-permanent rooms. Two fold purpose here to keep them closer to the villagers and to use what I think will be a fun little setting the homey inn as a place of relative safety.

Origin Hooks Notes

• Noble Blood: Last born in a noble family you had little chance of gaining anything other then a small inheritance and perhaps a title.  You could choose a life living in the shadow of your elders or take the path of the Rusty Legion and forge your own path.  The Legion grants you the opportunity to see the world, adventure, and most importantly find your own place in the world.  Despite your “newfound” freedom you still have ties of blood that could entangle you in the politics of court.
• Outcast (Primal Classes): You were responsible for some terrible act by your people.  You were spared from execution by the Rusty Legion, instead you were exiled, a fate worse than death for most but you are made of stronger stuff than most.  Before you left your tribe the shaman of the clan/tribe read your future and saw that you would be responsible for great change to your people, but the signs were mixed on the outcome being harmful or beneficial.  Now you have dreams that plague you of your terrible destiny.
• Blank Slate: Your first memories are waking up in a small village not far from the main settlement.  You did not remember who you were or where you came from.  The village was attacked and you sprang into action using you skills you had no idea you possessed.  Luckily a local Rusty Legionnaire was in the area and heard of your prowess and condition; you were recruited and given a name and a place in society.  But your lack of memories gnaws at you.  Your only clue is a tattoo of a two coiled serpents over a black disk on your left shoulder.
• Strange Bloodline (Psionic Classes): You were born different, always touched and always aware of the psychic energies that course through the world.  From a young age you knew things that children should never know, some say you got it from your missing parent, raised as an only child by the surviving parent you were always told that the other died before you were born.  It was not until a terrible plague took the life of your surviving parent that you found out the truth, that the parent you thought was dead could still be alive and had at one time been a Rusty Legionnaire.  Emboldened by this you sought membership to track down this parent who abandoned you and find out more about your bloodline.
• Plague Born: You were born during a terrible plague and were the only child to survive the terrible sickness.  Orphaned and alone you grew up fast and did what you had to do to survive.  It was not until you were much older that you heard of the prophecy of the Plague Child, one who would be born into an age of strife surviving when others would not and destined for a future that could usher in a reign of darkness.  Some religious orders seek your death, to avert this tragedy making your life needlessly difficult.  You joined the Legion for protection and a chance to do some good with whatever power may or may not be inside you.
• Sins of the Father (Martial Classes): The hero’s father or mother was once a Rusty Legionnaire, an individual of worth who was both skilled and well respected.  But the name was tarnished when they betrayed the order, becoming an outcast and criminal… eventually becoming one of the monsters that the Legion is sword to destroy.  Now the parent is an unliving monster an object lesson in the fall from grace.  The hero joined the legion to clear the stain from the family name.  The character has an uphill battle to earn the respect of his peers as the parent casts a long and bitter shadow.

More notes after the jump:

These are some of the origin hooks I want to use inspired by the DMG2 and this post on hooks.  Not a new idea but one I wanted to do for my last game but never really got around to.

The following is a brief write up of the Rusty Legion organization:

“One Rusty Legionnaire is worth ten fighting men, ten of those bastards are worth an army…”

- Old Proverb

The Rusty Legion

Goal: The Rusty Legion is an organization dedicated to destroying the evils that plague the free peoples of the known world.  It is an elite group of heroes and specialists that dedicate their lives to protecting those that cannot or are unable to defend themselves.

Size: Small and Widespread, most regions have less than twenty or so members at any given time and death is common among the Rusty Legion.  They recruiting process is difficult and few make it to the end or have what it takes to take their place amongst their brothers and sisters.

Alignment: Unaligned with leanings to Good.

Philosophy: “To serve as a shield to those that cannot defend themselves is the highest honor any free person can achieve.  To slay the evils that threaten us is our charge and victory must be achieved, even at the cost of our lives.”

History: The history of the Rusty Legion is a long and storied one that dates back to the close of the Age of Sorrows.  Though the actual founding is lost to time, most scholars believe that the Legion was founded just before the death of the first Sorcerer-Lords of old.  The order has faded into and out of history over the last thousand years, but always rising when needed giving their lives so that the known world can stay free from the evils that plague it.  They are an apolitical organization and have the respect of the common man in the known world.  Most ruling authorities have long standing treaties with the Rusty Legion that grant them the right to hunt down monsters and evil creatures within those respective lands.

Leadership: First General Vanifae Moonblade is the highest authority in the Rusty Legion, an elf paladin she is dedicated to keeping the Rusty Legion in the field always alert for dangers.  Beneath her are a council of Generals drawn from the most experienced legionnaires.  Beneath the Generals are High Captains who have direct authority over a given region centered on either a remote defensible outpost or more often attached to the most prominent settlement in the region.  High Captains are responsible for the recruitment of new members in their respective regions.

Headquarters: Each region has it’s own headquarters for the local branch of the Rusty Legion, these tend to be either remote military outposts, usually becoming small townships as local residents gravitate to the safety had being near the Rusty Legion.  These are less common in the modern era.  More often the Legion establishes a base in or near a local prominent settlement for the region.  The High General and her council make their home in the Avernus Fortress overlooking the ruins of the city that also bore its name in ancient antiquity.

Membership Requirements: The Rusty Legion has strict recruiting processes and despite their small numbers they rarely recruit members en masse unless under dire circumstances.  On average a given region may recruit five to eight new members every few years to replenish their numbers.  The main requirement is a willingness to defend the free people of the known world versus the evils that plague it.  But although the tent seems simple the recruitment process is very demanding.

Activities: The Legion is a proactive organization at its best.  They tend to give members wide berth in how they go about their individual investigations and promote a culture of alertness.  They fund much of their operation through adventuring, supporting the local populace, and often land ownership rights.  They receive donations as well, though this practice has diminished in the modern era.  Many people don’t see much of a purpose for the Legion and think that the old tales are greatly exaggerated.  With their small numbers and ancient pacts the organization can stay well equipped.

This is more a nod to the previous group and since some of my players are from the last game will give them a sense of familiarity to the setting.  I am leaving the majority of the details pretty loose at this point I have my main villain, the basic plot flow, and the idea that the world resembles the “standard” Points of Light default setting.

Campaign Arc Villain

The main villain I am thinking is a vengeful druid, who believes that the feywild is in danger from the encroaching advance of the civilized world and is doing her best to disrupt the intrusion of civilization into the wild lands.  I see her trying to rile up native tribes of humanoids and fey creatures against the main campaign town, first through guile and behind the scenes but then perhaps more overtly with the conflict coming to a head with a final showdown between the Rusty Legion new recruits and the unhinged druid.

I want to make this villain memorable, I chose a female role because I wanted a woman of strength to oppose the heroes I have not determined the race though I am thinking a wilden would be interesting.  I also want to put a visible face to the threat early on in the campaign and I will probably have her show up during the first adventure as a sinister element.  Something I felt my current campaign lacked was a strong visible enemy the heroes could learn to hate early on and work to defeat as they grow in power.  I want to also use her as a solo boss for the campaign climax with a focus on shape changing into a vicious dire animal and controlling the environment through her primal magic.  I figure they will be about 4-5th level maybe 6th by the end of the campaign and she will probably be a solo encounter of about 7-8, but this is all early speculation.

Story Flow

I want to start small and focus on the dangers of the region.  I think my introduction will be that the heroes are being assigned to the town as new recruits to bolster the forces of the Rusty Legion in the region.  Probably with a road-side encounter to open the campaign and get the theme or motif of the primal wilds and the remoteness of the location into the game.  Probably open with a role-playing encounter, I want to have more moral choices and impact of those choices.  Another strong element will be two local tribes of gnolls, the Festerpaw and the Verdant Fang tribes; the Festerpaw are the more typical and evil gnoll raiders while the Verdant Fang will be perhaps more noble, still wild and primal, but not overtly evil either.  They do not follow Yeenoghu and instead venerate the Verdant Mother, a primal spirit of the natural world.  I plan to play up the distrust between the two warring tribes of gnolls and the town; and make the players take sides.

Most of the adventures will somehow tie back into the motif and theme of the villain and the feywild encroachment.  That will be the general start, the flow will go from first contact to an escalation on both sides with the players acting as intermediaries, and then a resolution as they find out that the vengeful druid was behind much of the intrigue and plots that plague the region.  But still a loose framework to allow contact with my players.

Should be a fun time.  Hopefully I can catalog the sessions into short little stories as well.

I am a lazy DM, I need to get that out of the way.  I like things that make my life easier and don’t require me to have to do an inordinate amount of preparation work and planning.  To that end I picked up Dungeon Delve and I am making prodigious use of my D&D Insider account to amass a nice collection of adventures and encounters to abuse for when I run my next campaign.  I know that my current game is coming to an end, most of my players are young college students and the they are returning home for the summer so I will have time to plan out my Dark Sun campaign and hopefully run a fun mini-campaign for the summer using the Chaos Scar articles from Dungeon.

If all goes well I can run a small group through some quick adventures and have a fun time while I prepare for Dark Sun which is what I really want to run and can’t wait to get my hands on.  My current campaign is a loosely based desert world on Dark Sun but without much detail and isn’t exactly what I want.

My plan is to use the adventures that come out in Dungeon, plus Dungeon Delve, and my imagination to create a fun campaign with minimal preparation and a large amount of fun.  I don’t really have any campaign ideas yet but I figure once I have had a chance to go through the books I will be bursting with ideas to torment my players and have a good time doing it.

I don’t have too many inferences yet on where they will take us but there is some writing on the wall:

- I expect them to make changes to Hammer of the Righteous or Seal of Command and even possibly both.  I think the fact that our threat rotation is exactly the same in single target and AoE is just boring.  I look forward to this.

- The Dispel mechanics will definitely change some of how I play at least when it comes to dispelling my own magic effects like on Steelbreaker.

- I think paladins in general will get a low level instant attack ability to add to the low level experience and make it more interactive.  At least more interactive than auto-attack and judgement.

- More of a wish and inferred guess based on similar vanity shaman changes; but I suspect that the varying paladin races may get race specific mounts in Cataclysm.

The 16th will be a good day, I look forward to the new class changes being posted today!  And now some Thom Yorke to soothe your weary soul.

The soundtrack for Mass Effect 2 is a stellar follow up to the first game’s soundtrack.  Where the first game emulated Bladerunner and the 80′s synth pop sounds, the second goes for a more gentle melding of darker tones and aggressive synth sounds for an overall more epic score.  I really prefer the second soundtrack to the first though both are excellent there are many songs that have a more diverse and aggressive sound, not to say that Mass Effect 1 OST was not aggressive but it had a very different tone than the second game sound wise.  I will list my favorite songs and what I liked or disliked after the jump.

Favorites

Tali

I found Tali’s song to be an awesome mix, it starts fairly slow with a good depth of sound and a heavy use of synthetic sounds.  It really evokes a mood of space and technology and I find it fits her as a character and her related missions quite perfectly.  Just take a listen right here for yourself and enjoy what I feel is one of the stronger songs on the album.  It also helps that Tali’Zorah vas Normandy is one of my favorite characters.

Thane

Thane’s theme is one of the best in the game, and is actually used quite a bit beyond his recruitment stage.  This song starts slow and eerie feel which grows into a very synthetic heavy piece.  It has a great build up throughout the song that climaxes at 6:54 and really brings out all the stops.  Incidentally this is also the same part that plays when you are crossing the bridge during his recruitment mission.  The ending is okay, not my favorite but it works.  Check it out here.

Jacob

As a character many people find Jacob to be dull, I thought he was awesome personally and his Loyalty mission has one of the best songs on the album in my opinion.  A perfect blend of synthetic sounds plus a more orchestrated epic feel.  Wonderful buildup that grows in complexity and presence during the duration of the song.  It fits the dark mood of his loyalty mission perfectly and reflects the growing horror of what exactly is happening.  The use of the traditional and the synthetic sounds is in a word sublime and really gives the piece a solid sound that bridges the gap between the first game and the second game musically.  At 3:14 is my favorite part of the song and it sounds horrific and emulates the gravity of the situation of the loyalty mission perfectly at the end as you reach the conclusion.  Check it out right here.  I don’t have anything negative to say about this piece, it is just that good in my eyes.

Jack

Jack’s theme possesses probably the most change ups out of all of songs and can at first seem jarring but it emulates her character a great deal.  It starts off relatively slow and has a great combination of synth pop and traditional orchestra which really makes the song intense.  The song is constantly changing with several rhythm and tempo changes throughout the piece.  Synthetic sounds tend to dominate the latter part of the song but not to its detriment.  As far as songs go this one can feel choppy but it works if you listen to the whole song and give it a chance.  Have a listen right here.

The End Run & Suicide Mission

This may seem like cheating since I am listing two songs here but these songs are very similar in scope, sound, and how I feel about them.  These two songs incorporate what I consider Shepard’s theme beautifully into them and are very orchestra heavy.  Both are excellent songs and I have nothing really negative to say about them.  Both have an epic sound to them and would fit nicely into any epic cinematic and heroic sequence.  Suicide Mission especially is a very powerful song and is my probably my favorite of the two but both are awesome.  End run is right here and Suicide Mission is here.

Summary

This isn’t to say that I didn’t like the rest of the songs, I think the soundtrack as a whole is awesome, but these particular songs are my favorites and what I feel are the strongest songs.  of course your opinion may vary I highly encourage everyone to check out this soundtrack and Mass Effect 1 if they have not done so.  Both are excellent and probably one of the best soundtracks in video games today.  The music on Ilos and the Therum battle music are probably two of my favorites as well and I am still sad they were not on the Mass Effect OST.

Edit: Found the club songs for Mass Effect 2 via the Mass Effect wiki, they are all awesome and contemporary works.  I especially like Club Dark Star and Club Eternity.