D&D 4E Adapting Scales of War to the Nentir Vale

[Jacob Lewis]

My issue with the Daggerburg goblins is the same that with the Gorizbad/Kiris Dahn goblins: they are not as relevant to the Nentir Vale as the Red Hand was for the Elsir Vale. While keeping goblins would make the adaptation easy, it makes no sense, at least to me.

There are a few reasons I think the goblins will work for the opening act.

1. The Daggerburg goblins should be more relevant to the Nentir Vale as a plausible (albeit minor) threat, at least in the area they inhabit. Between the western edge of the Harken Forest and the nearby Withchlight Fens, the group has been harassing the Elves and Druids of Harken, while simultaneously battling the lizard folk for more territory in the swamps. Let's not forget all the roads traveled by merchants running through and in between.
2. Sinruth could be a potential rival looking to build his own forces and take over Warlord Delderosh's as the leader. So he may not be explicitly part of the Daggerburg faction, he could be building a name for himself (maybe the Red Hand?).
3. Removing the forced ties to the Red Hand module, the goblins would have their own motivation for being involved. Perhaps the same villains that helped the orcs with their plans in the west provided assistance (or at least motivation) to support the goblins in the south. The fact that they get crushed in the first adventure makes the characters look like heroes and cements their reputation at the start.
4. If you start using orcs now, that means the party will be fighting orcs for the first 4-5 levels of the campaign. So if not goblins or orcs, what else? Goblins are already there, in the setting and the adventure. It could work.

 

[Zeromaru X]

There are a few reasons I think the goblins will work for the opening act.

1. The Daggerburg goblins should be more relevant to the Nentir Vale as a plausible (albeit minor) threat, at least in the area they inhabit. Between the western edge of the Harken Forest and the nearby Withchlight Fens, the group has been harassing the Elves and Druids of Harken, while simultaneously battling the lizard folk for more territory in the swamps. Let's not forget all the roads traveled by merchants running through and in between.
2. Sinruth could be a potential rival looking to build his own forces and take over Warlord Delderosh's as the leader. So he may not be explicitly part of the Daggerburg faction, he could be building a name for himself (maybe the Red Hand?).
3. Removing the forced ties to the Red Hand module, the goblins would have their own motivation for being involved. Perhaps the same villains that helped the orcs with their plans in the west provided assistance (or at least motivation) to support the goblins in the south. The fact that they get crushed in the first adventure makes the characters look like heroes and cements their reputation at the start.
4. If you start using orcs now, that means the party will be fighting orcs for the first 4-5 levels of the campaign. So if not goblins or orcs, what else? Goblins are already there, in the setting and the adventure. It could work.

Those are really good points

 

[Zeromaru X]

Someone here is good making PDFs?

Anyways, at the Piazza forums they gave me the idea of leaving the references of Red Hand as part of the story of the Nentir Vale, as a potential hook for adapting that adventure in the future (maybe, if this conversion is good enough)

It will be so much if we make the original Red Hand attacking the Nentir Vale? (in addition to all the forces that have attacked the Nentir Vale in canon). According to Rescue at Rivenroar, the Red Hand of Doom attacked ten years ago, and this would help to explain why Fallcrest hasn't been rebuild yet (as I feel that the city should be in a better shape after nearly a century of the Bloodspear horde attack).

Edit:
I've found an article with character backgrounds specific for Scales of War ("Characters of War", Dragon 366). Should we edit these backgrounds to the format of the PHB2 backgrounds? Or leave them as they are? Should we create more backgrounds? (as those backgrounds are specific for PHB1 races and classes).

 

[cavalier973]

Kalton Manor is an abandoned manor house, as I recall. One would need to build a village nearby.

Harkenwold is also an option.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Kalton Manor is an abandoned manor house, as I recall.

Much like the Rivenroar crypt in the original adventure. And it's close enough to Fallcrest for this conversion to work as intended. Rivenroar was located away from Brindol, in some mountains. The skill challenge for getting there must be changed from exploring the mountains to exploring a marshland (the Witchlight Fens), but otherwise the places serve their purpose.

which have never been expanded upon (at least, not to my knowledge).

Kalton Manor was briefly explored in the Mark of Nerath novel. It seems that Emperor Magroth (the very first emperor of Nerath) sent a military expedition to conquest the Nentir Vale, and the soldiers built a fort in the place where Kalton Manor woulld be built in the future. The fort had an underground chamber where the Nerathans put a teleportation circle to a chamber in his palace of Nerathum (the old name of the city that would be later known as Nera, the capital of the empire). For some unexplained reason, the expedition failed and it took many centuries before the Nerathans returned to the Nentir Vale.

It was during this second expedition that the Kaltons built their manor there. The room with the teleportation circle became the basement of the manor. In the novels, only Magroth knew about the teleportation circle, so I guess the undead from the original adventure (that would be the Kaltons in our conversion) are completely unaware of the teleportation circle and the history of the place where they decided to build their cursed home.

Anyways, I was thinking what to do with the gnomes. I have two ideas:

1. Change them with some goblins, perhaps from Gorizbadd or the Banite goblins of the Chaos Scar, as it makes sense that Sinruth would search for help from tribes outside Daggerburg if he wants to become a warlord himself, and perhaps even usurp Delderosh at some point.

2. The undead in the original adventure are worshipers of Vecna. According to Monster Vault, Vecna is the "patron" deity of the gnomes. Perhaps the gnomes are some Vecnites that work with the undead. It would help explain how Sinruth became an ally of living-eater undeads...

Any suggestions on the topic will be appreciated.

 

[cavalier973]

Some time back, I ran a small adventure for the tax deductions, with Kalton Manor (basically) as the focal point. I was trying for a Faulknerian Southern Gothic feel, since the manor is near the swamp—Witchlight moss (Spanish moss), giant mosquitos (reskinned stirges), a creepy family cemetery behind the manor house, etc. They floated down the river with swamp elves on flatboats, had an encounter with a crocodile, and eventually explored the abandoned house, which I based on a real house in Memphis, TN (the Hunt-Phelan home).

The main hall in the Hunt-Phelan home has a mural painted on the walls; one side is of the Mississippi River bank on the Mississippi side, the other is of the Arkansas side. I had it where a character staring at the Kalton Manor mural would see images, like those “Magic Eye” books, of a secret door in a particular large tree that grew along the river.

The main antagonist was going to be a bog hag, but we didn’t get that far into the adventure.

 

[Peace Cleric Ken]

I realize this is several months later, but I'm possibly looking to doing this same thing. Looking through the adventures and reading reviews, it seems there is quite a lot of good here but also a lot of discontinuity for the story, and since there are so many different authors, a lot of the adventures run almost as stand-alone modules rather than a cohesive whole. But here is what I would do using the Nentir Vale:

1. Set Fallcrest as the starting town instead of Brindol. Reading the town's description in the 4e DMG, the south gate was never fully repaired from the Bloodspear Orc invasion, so that gives the opening attack of the town a legitimate way to happen. Ultimately, the town leadership cares a lot more about "Hightown" which is above the cliffs than they do about "Lowtown," so the lower part of the city is left with fewer guards. Eventually, the town's forces marshall and repel the attack, but not before a lot of damage is done and kidnappings have taken place.

2. Instead of goblinoids, use orcs as the villains, and have Sinruth be an upstart fashioning himself as a new Warchief of a new Bloodspear army. You can continue to use the orcs in the second module as well, especially if you find a way for Sinruth to escape and gather more forces. You could have him gain new "shadowy" abilities each encounter to emphasize that some more sinister enemy is behind him and granting him gifts of power. One of the 5e books had a lot of cool orc variants you could bring in to challenge players as they reach higher levels. I have also used npcs like scouts, spies, etc. and just said they were orc scouts, spies, or whatever.

3. There are a few options for the location of Rivenroar. You could use Kalton Manor, but the reason I am not is because I had another party of adventurers who did an adventure there and then rebuilt the place as their base. I had it a ruined keep instead of a manor. Lord Faren of Fallcrest awarded one of the PCs the title of Baron of that area and charged him with keeping an eye on the Witchlight Fens and the Harken Forest. But most people could use Kalton manor who aren't worried about that specific continuity in my world.

Personally, I'm going to put Rivenroar either in the Old Hills or the forest next to the Old Hills, which isn't given a name on the map. In the past, I have called it the "Wolfwood" and put the Wolf Runner bandits there from Threats to the Nentir Vale. They could become allies of the party since I run those bandits as "Robin Hood" style who happen to be led by a good aligned werewolf.

4. After the first adventure, I plan to have the party at level 3 and be given the opportunity to rebuild and use Rivenroar as a base of operations, with some downtime before the next adventure in the series to let players pursue personal goals and/or build up their base and meet local allies and enemies who might appreciate or not appreciate a new local ruler.

Beyond the first adventure, I haven't worked out where to locate Overlook and the other locations just yet, but I'm thinking about it. I plan to have Sarshan be the main villain, dropping the whole Githyanki invasion and Tiamat thing. I want it to be about Sarshan and his goal to cause chaos in the world and ultimately invade with his own forces from the Shadowfell/Elemental Chaos.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I realize this is several months later, but I'm possibly looking to doing this same thing.

Don't worry, I'm still working on this. My ADHD brain is just working on many things at the same time, so I take turns on my projects so I keep my focus and motivation without burning myself (besides real life stuff, so far I'm working on this conversion, a guide to Tymanther that may be published on DM's Guild [maybe!], an update to my map of the Nerathan League, and a dragonborn city for the Blackmoor setting). We can even exchange ideas, if you like. Just let me read your ideas first.

 

[Peace Cleric Ken]

Don't worry, I'm still working on this.

Good to hear! I've greatly appreciated your work over the past few years as I have run some of my adventures in the Nentir Vale. As for me, I've recently welcomed a new tiny human into the world, so my D&D play time has been zero. When I'm going through withdrawals, it helps to world build, so that's what I've been working on. My world is a mix between the official Nentir Vale and my own homebrew world.

I've run a sandbox style adventure for a group of students that included using the dungeon beneath the Ghost Tower from Dungeon 182, which I placed beneath Kalton Manor (Keep). That group also rooted out Kelson, the leader of the River Rats, who I made a were-otter (yes I said were-otter). They also encountered the Raven's Roost Bandits, who I tied to Kalarel, and they had a siege battle against the Daggerburg Goblins, who did not like having a new occupied keep and village near their territory.

My other group has been my wife and another married couple, who are doing Reavers, and I have also run my wife through some solo adventures, including Kobold Hall. I have read through tons of stuff on the Vale and enjoy using the work of those great writers alongside my own creativity. That's the reason I love the Vale. There's tons of material and not a lot of people know about it, so it's all new even if I were to run for seasoned 5e players.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Your ideas are really good. I'm also using Lowtown as the attacked place exactly for the same reasons (is less defended, the high-money people of Fallcrest care little about it, etc.), but my idea is that Sinruth is a hobgoblin from the Daggerburg tribe that wants to strike on his own and made deals with orcs from Gardmore Abbey (justifying the orcs that appear later) and the wights living in Kalton Manor (the place is too perfect to not use it as Rivenroar's replacement).

As for Overlook, I'll just use Hammerfast. I've always have added Overlook's stuff to Hammerfast, anyways, as I've always feel Hammerfast (as presented in the sourcebook) is way too small for housing 12000 inhabitants. Anyways, Bordrin's Watch would be located to the east of the Nentir Vale, protecting the Vale from the more dangerous creatures of the eastern Dawnforges.

In my idea, Tusk is the leader of a small group of orcs who splinter from Bakrosh's horde (the orcs of Gardmore Abbey) due disagreements, and so Tusk went east to look for the orcs living there (as they can't deal now with orcs of the Bloodspears) - explaining why the attackers come from an outside area like in the original adventure, while leaving the Bloodspear horde, Bakrosh and Msuga free for future uses.

I also like the idea of Sarshan being the main villain, or at least his own thing, to give him more agency, though I'm not sure if dropping the Githyanki plot entirely.