Special Monday Bulletin - One Campaign Comes to an Ugly End

Well I suppose it had to happen eventually. The Guardians of the Vale are no more. They were exploring the Barrow of the Ogre King not far from Loudwater in the Gray Vale when it happened.

Entering the Barrow had begun with a really tough fight against some goblins in an excellent defended position. They eventually won through and took time to recover before proceeding. Moving into a long hallway they were attacked by zombies and a pair of goblins and those were dispatched in short order. They proceeded down a long stairway, kicked in the double doors at the end, and seeing only 2 goblins before them (one clearly a shaman of some type) they charged in. They then realized that there were two hobgoblin soldiers flanking the doors behind them so two of the party peeled off to fight them while the other two charged ahead. Things got ugly from there. The hobgoblins gathered in the center of the room, reinforcing each other with 2 forming a front line while 1 stayed in the back firing arrows from his longbow and preventing access to the shaman. That shaman fired off an obscuring cloud that interfered with the party's vision then began systematically blinding the members of the party, greatly hampering their fighting capability. In the confusion the heroes each began attacking separate targets and didn't bother to try and shake off the various magical effects that swirled around them. Heroes fell and were revived several times but they gradually wore down. until finally only the Druid and the Goblin Shaman were left standing and unfortunately the Shaman was in far better shape. Darkness closed in and the heroes never returned from the Barrow of the Ogre King.

DM Notes: I haven't presided over a TPK in several years and I don;t like them any better in 4E. The apprentices blew right through the first encounter with moderate damage to 1 or 2 characters. After a short rest they were in excellent shape. That next encounter though...

What can I say? It was 5 Level 3 monsters against 4 Level 2 characters, and the adventure is supposed to be for level 1 characters so it should have been fairly easy, right? Well it might have been, except that they utterly failed to concentrate their fire on one target and the most dangerous target -the shaman- was not attacked until everything else was dead! They also bickered over tactics, and worst of all, they kept forgetting to roll their saving throws! I eventually got tired of reminding them and simply asked "Are you done with everything" at the end of their turns and moved on. We ended up at one point with  out of 4 badguys bloodied and 3 out of 4 characters bloodied, then it went downhill. Just as an example, the Elf Ranger fired off his daily at one of the hobgoblin soldiers while he was blinded and rolled a nat 20 - Epic! It was something like 38 points of damage in one shot and it took the soldier from unbloodied to 4 hit points, and he would stay there for about the next 10 rounds as no other attacks were made against him! One round later the Dwarf Warlord activates his daily and gives the Elf Ranger a shot (still blinded) and he rolls ANOTHER nat 20 - for another 30-odd points of damage! Against the other hobgoblin soldier! Sigh. Also while he's high fiving and enjoying these moments he's forgetting to roll his save against the blindness from the shaman, and that soldier ends up sticking around for another 8 or 9 rounds with 6 hit points too. It was touch and go for a while but in the end the Shaman was nearly undamaged when all of his goblin buddies finally fell and the heroes were all bloodied and mostly in the single digits so he simply picked them off one by one and never even reached bloodied status.

I will say that the opposition here is tough - hobgoblin soldiers start with a 20 AC which goes up to a 22 if they are next to another hobgoblin, and then the shaman (a Goblin Hexer) can throw out a cloud that nearly fills the room and gives his allies cover, effectively making them a 24 and that cloud is a sustain minor! So he fired it off in round 1 and simply maintained it for the rest of the battle!. Even at 2nd level AC24 is a a tall order. He can also hit individual targets for 2d6+1 damage and blinding as an at-will which is also nasty as it's a -5 to everything. Of course, forgetting to roll your saves against these things makes it that much worse. At one point the poor Dragonborn Paladin was Blinded, Slowed, Marked, Hexed, and Bloodied - we use pipe cleaner rings to mark status effects and we couldn't see the mini as he was buried in little colored rings!

So some lessons learned:

For the players:

• ROLL YOUR SAVES!
• If there's a guy in the back shooting you every turn and really messing you up then SHOOT HIM! They had a Druid and a Bow Ranger...
• Running away is OK - you don't have to stay and die together
• Healing Potions are worth it

For the DM:

• Look a little harder at synergies between monsters even when the encounter is supposed to be level appropriate in published adventures. I didn't really see that escalating armor class thing with the hobgobs and the hexer. Of course the hexer was only AC 17 so the best answer there is to shoot him full of holes, but still, it can get nasty in a hurry.
• Stick to my guns - I reminded them for the first few rounds and even gave them an "are you done" prompt after that but bad things happen when you don't pay attention and use bad tactics and sometimes that bad thing is a total party wipeout.

So there it is, my first TPK of 4th Edition. See, it's more like old school D&D than some of you probably thought. Now of course my dilemma is where to go next. The apprentices have already made up ne characters and they have some ideas about what they want to do. I'll talk about that later this week.

Guardians of the Vale - Session 4 - Into the Barrow of the Ogre King

Setting out from Loudwater the party follows a very obvious trail left by the goblin raiders. Moving almost directly south they soon come to an area of forest known as the Southwood. Soon enough they find the trail leads into an area of tumbled stone ruins. The work is clearly dwarven and the barrow is rumored to be part of the old dwarven kingdom of Ammarindar.

As they venture into the ruins Apollo (the Elf Ranger) notices that something doesn't look right about a large area ahead and warns the party to skirt around it. The Druid then spots a loose stone near where the tracks stop and moves it, revealing a ladder that descends into darkness. After a brief discussion the party climbs down.

At the bottom is a small dark room which seems to be a dead end but they soon feel a draft coming from one end and discover a secret door which they open. Ahead is a large rubble-choked room which slopes up to their right. There is some indirect light but the area is not well-lit. At the top of the slope stand 3 large dwarven statues. between those statues stand a pair of goblins who have not yet noticed the party. The group stealthily moves out and prepares to take out the guards

Charging forward the Dragonborn Paladin slices into the nearest goblin to open the battle. He strikes hard but the goblin does not fall - clearly these are not the rabble they fought back in Loudwater. The Elf begins firing in support while the Dwarf moves to engage and the the Druid begins casting storm spike. A vicious melee erupts as  more goblins move in from out of sight including some kind of wizard who blasts from a distance with stinging and blinding spells.This fight goes hard for the heroes as the Paladin goes down and the Elf is constantly fighting off blind spells, interfering with his archery. The dwarf takes a beating until he eventually goes down after using up his healing abilities (Inspiring word from dwarf to Paladin- "By the gods you suck! Get back in the fight!) and even the ranger drops at one point, leaving the bloodied druid in beast form trying to slay the last goblin warrior and drive off the wizard before he drops and his friends all die. After many exchanges (and much dodging of wizardly blasts) he  rips into the last armored goblin for one final time, slaying him, and causing the hexer to flee through a set of doors at the other end of the room. He quickly attends to his companions and they stagger to their feet, wondering if this was such a good idea after all.

DM Notes: This was another very long fight, 13 rounds, and was almost a TPK. Part of the problem was that the players last fight against goblins included some minions and this one did not. Plus it is intended for 5 PC's and we only have 4. Now that being said it's also intended for a level 1 party and ours is level 2. Either way it's a level 4 encounter which seems awfully tough for the second encounter of a new campaign. So it's higher level AND the party is outnumbered by 1 and there are no minions. The party was also reluctant to use their dailies because of the easier fight last time against the goblins - we don't need to use them they're just goblins! Of course by the time 3 of them were on the floor they were thinking a little differently but it was too late by then. Scouting this one out earlier I had not really thought this would be a super tough fight but the restricted terrain - there is really only 1 square clear for movement between each pair of dwarf statues so if the goblins block them the Goblin Hexer can stand back and blast pretty much at-will. He managed to keep the elf in enough distress that there was no return fire. The party's decision to fight in between the statues made a big difference here. It's an interesting but very dangerous tactical situation. Hopefully they are learning.

Next time - behind the big doors...

Guardians of the Vale - Session 3 - Raid on Loudwater!

Returning to Loudwater the party brings in the kobold heads as proof of their deed and a the dragon head as well. Gratified, the head of the town watch rewarded them well and included a bonus for slaying the dragon.

Now before they departed the dungeon the team had also cut out some of the dragon's major organs and they soon found a buyer for those and a dragonhide discovered in the lair AND the dragon's head, which was soon mounted over the town's gate. All in all it was quite a profitable expedition for the group.

The team's relaxation and money-counting in the town square was rudely interrupted when a section of the town's defensive wall blew apart and a force of goblins scampered in. Townspeople -and our heroes- stood in place open mouthed then began to run screaming from the scene. The party recovered and moved to engage.

The paladin and the druid moved to engage one cluster of goblins while the dwarf and the elf moved to stop another. A well in the center of the town square along with numerous trade wagons made moving and fighting somewhat more complicated but the goblins were not going to get by without a fight.

The paladin took down a couple of goblins then moved to block a few more. The druid took down one then was wounded and then wounded again and had to drop back out of the fight to recover. The paladin thought the fight was going his way until he was bull-rushed by one of the goblins, pushed back, and went plummeting into the well, crashing into the water 20' down. Wounded, soaked, and generally bedraggled he was very unhappy with this new situation. With the paladin stuck and the druid wounded this side of the fight was not looking good.

Meanwhile the elf ranger was dropping goblins quickly, firing away into the mob swarming through the square from atop a trader's wagon. The dwarf warlord was holding his own in hand to hand, letting the elf's powerful bow do it's work. This worked well until a goblin dressed in robes pointed a rod at the elf and blinded him with some kind of magic while the dwarf faced off with a bigger and meaner goblin who was clearly not afraid of one dwarf.

The combat swirled around the eastern half of the square as the goblins moved towards the curiosity shop. The elf shook off the blindness and jumped into hand to hand combat alongside the dwarf. The druid recovered and moved to join them, shifting into beast form and slashing up some goblins along the way. The three remaining heroes formed a rough line and attempted to block the goblins off but had a rough time of it as the goblin wizard blasted and blinded them, opening a path for his minions to kick down the door to the shop. The fighting raged until only the wizard and one bodyguard were left. The bodyguard toppled over at the hands of the dwarf. Then the goblin wizard tried to escape but was slain, ending the raid.

The Paladin had been trying to climb out for some time and finally he gave up and called for help. Two villagers hiding under a nearby wagon heard him and pulled him up out of the well but the fighting was over before he could rejoin.

In the aftermath of the raid the team talked to Garwain, owner of the shop that had been targeted by the goblins. He identified the item that the Goblins had picked up, a magic item brought in for trade by a wizard who picked it up in a nearby dungeon. Lady Moonfire  showed up as well to survey the damage and find out what had happened. She identified the dungeon as the Barrow of the Ogre King and offered the PC's 100 gold apiece to seek out the barrow and stop the goblins from any further raids. They accepted and prepared to move out.

DM Notes: This is the adventure in the FR Campaign Guide. I thought it would be a good companion to the starter adventure in the DMG and fighting outside would be a nice change to fighting in the tunnels and rooms of Kobold Hall. The incident with the Paladin being shoved into the well nicely illustrated what all those push, pull, and slide powers are for and then it turns out he isn't trained in athletics nor does he have a great STR bonus. He eventually quit trying to climb and used diplomacy which worked better for him although it was a little slower than climbing out directly would have been.

I let the apprentices rebuild their characters when they levelled up to 2 as they now have a better grasp of how the game works and what certain powers do and what is good and what they like. They are much happier now.

So the party has moved up a level, earned some gold, and picked up a few magic items and they are ready for their next big quest. Stay tuned for Session 4 - Into the Barrow of the Ogre King!

Guardians of the Vale - Session 2

Last time an impetuous dwarf charged down a secret tunnel and found himself face to face with a white dragon. This time...the fight!

The rest of the party moved in and an epic combat followed. The heroes opened with movement and ranged attacks while the dragon closed in and unleashed it's freezing breath on them. Staggering, the team spread out and began trying to carve up the beast. The Elf Ranger stayed back firing arrow after arrow into the thing. The Shifter Druid blasted it with lightning (Storm Spike!) several times as the Dragonborn Paladin and the Dwarf Warlord moved to surround it and engage it in melee from opposite sides. This was working alright until the paladin took a terrific beating in a flurry of claws and teeth and fell to the ground. The dwarf redoubled his effort and the druid shifted into beast form and charged in to attack. The druid did manage to pour a healing potion down the paladin's throat and he revived in short order, rejoining the fight. As the beast staggered under the renewed assault it lashed out in a fury with tooth, claw, and breath. One by one the heroes fell out of the fight until the bloodied and battered dragon was facing only the Elf Ranger. Realizing the fight was coming down to a one-on-one duel the wounded ranger dropped his bow, drew both swords, and charged the mighty beast. As it struck at him, he plunged both swords deep into the dragon, driving past white scales and into the heart of the beast. With a final groan it leaned over and collapsed, slain at last. The bloodied elf moved to each of his companions, reviving them one by one (though not before finding a treasure chest and some loot and picking out his own favorite piece) and soon a battered and weakened party of heroes could be seen leaving the small complex known as Kobold Hall, headed for Loudwater.

DM Notes: This was an epic fight that lasted 15 rounds, the longest 4E combat we have had in any campaign. Part of this was because there are only 4 characters in the party (not 5), part of it is because they are still relatively new to the game, and part of it is because they had already used their dailies and some action points against the kobold chief and did not take a long rest before facing the dragon. It was looking a little grim during some of the fight as the paladin dropped and at one point the druid dropped and in the end the paladin, druid and warlord were all down leaving a not-undamaged ranger to face off with the dragon alone. Fortunately the damage had already piled up and the dragon didn't have much left but the players didn't know that and I'm glad he took the right approach - charge!

Overall I was happy with the way the fight went and especially with how it ended but it did drag on a bit. Having only recently learned about action points themselves they were surprised to find out that some monsters get them too - that was fun. Maybe next time they will be better prepared and will tear through things a little faster. A solo fight at 1st level can clearly be a little tough but they survived while feeling like they overcame a real challenge and that's how it's supposed to be.

After this the party returned to Loudwater and advanced to 2nd level, ready to embark on a new quest.

Guardians of the Vale - Final Placement of the Campaign

So I've had a fair amount of placement chaos with this campaign. In the end I've placed it in the sample starting area from the FR Campaign Guide. Why? Well...

The generic campaign Nentir Vale idea was one I liked but it really isn't compatible with a Forgotten Realms campaign as the history and the gods are incompatible. Yes I could convert them but what's the point of converting a nice little start area that much? Plus I figure I can use it as-is in my Legendary Greyhawk idea whenever I finally get to run that. So, no Nentir Vale in Faerun.

Damara has potential as it's close to Vaasa (Warlock Knights and the Witch King) and not terribly detailed. The geography is close enough to the Nentir Vale that I could almost fit it in. The land has ties to Orcus cultists going back into history so it fits well with the main theme of the 4E Adventure Path. The great glacier to the north could allow for some good adventures too. I even found a nice supplement that adds more of an Orcus theme to the first 3 adventures and I really liked the way it was shaping up - the fight against Orcus, the other stuff...wait Orcus is trying to take the power of the Raven Queen? FR doesn't have a Raven Queen. The usual substitute is Shar, but she's a greater goddess that's a pretty big player in things. Really? This isn't going to work real well in my head. Let's save it for the Ancient Greyhawk campaign or until I rework it to better fit in Damara.


Additionally I started thinking and I'm not sure I want the Apprentices' first big campaign to center around a demon prince...it's just not my favorite theme for the youngsters. Tiamat maybe - big evil dragons are cooler than the demon undead guy at their age. This totally blows my original plan. Great.

So I started looking at the Scales of War adventure path - it's built around dragons and things. The first adventure is...not impressive. The raid part is fine but the dungeon is kind of a mess. The second adventure though is very cool and looks like something straight out of Lord of the Rings - I can use that. But I still need a setting.

I re-read Loudwater in the FR Campaign Guide and it's good. It has a nice little map with just enough detail to be useful. So there, goodbye Fallcrest, hello Loudwater. It's also located in a very interesting part of Faerun locally, plus it's within a fairly short journey of Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep. and the Moonsea (where the other game is located). Forest, Mountains, Desert, Badlands are all close by. This looks like a nice region to start in with a lot of small areas I can put my own spin on.

So the plan is this: The campaign will be centered in the Gray Vale Region. Loudwater will be the starting town but they can wander wherever they want.  They will finish up the Kobold Hall trip and still be at level 1. This will roll right into the raid encounter and the Ogre Barrow adventure which should put them at 2nd. This will lead into whatever part of the Rivenroar scenario I decide to steal and the Icy Spire adventure from the Dungeon Annual which is set nearby and looks pretty cool. This should put them up around 3rd level. At that point I will run them through Siege of Borodin's Watch (Scales of War #2) or the Scepter Tower of Spellgard, whichever they choose to do. After that it's probably Thunderpsire Labyrinth which will be located under the Star Mounts. We may do Pyramid of Shadows or we may do more Scales of War after that, it really depends on what they decide to pursue - which is as it should be.

So I still get to work in some of the adventure path. If we have enough low-level time I may end up running the Realms conversion of Keep on the Shadowfell which I disliked originally but I may be OK with now since I'm reserving the Orcus version for another campaign.  It may come into play along with Scepter Tower if I have another group start up in the same area - a handy option to have.

One campaign plotted out for the first 5 levels, the groundwork for another campaign laid - that's some good work. One of the Apprentices is now reading the 4E FR Player's Guide and the other one will read it afterwards so their dip into Realmslore has begun. With the first adventure underway we're off to a good start.

Guardians of the Vale - Session 1

It is Spring, 1479 D.R. - The Year of the Ageless One. In the town of Loudwater trade caravans begin to arrive as winter fades and with them the itinerant adventurers that always seem to be a part of trade and travels. A new band steps forth - an Elven Ranger, a Dragonborn Paladin, a Dwarven Warlord, and a Shifter Druid. No one knows their names yet but they will - destiny awaits!

Seeking opportunity they speak to Captain Harrowleaf, captain of the local guards. He has been trying to deal with kobold activity along one of the trade roads and, seeing opportunity here himself, offers the adventurers a 10gp bounty for each dead kobold and a 100gp bonus if they can slay the leader of this band and bring back his signature bone mask. The party agrees, hands are shaken, and they head out down the road where the raids are taking place, seeking a burned out manor house known locally as "Kobold Hall".


Locating the ruins with no difficulty the group descends a stone staircase into darkness. Inside there is a good-sized stone room with a pool of glowing slime and several surprised kobolds. The group charges the scaled ones and things seem to be going well until the paladin finds himself cut off from the rest, surrounded and being attacked from all sides. Both the paladin and the druid are hit with entangling glue pots from kobold slings, which doesn't help matters.The ranger fires shot after shot into the kobolds but things still look grim until the dwarf launches himself into the fight and relieves the pressure on the paladin. The remaining enemies are quickly slain and the party pauses to catch their breath.

Down another short stairway the party sees another large room with an altar in one corner, some stone coffins in the center of the room, and a couple of suits of armor in niches along th walls. Having been warned by the survivors of a previous expedition, the party knew this area was trapped and dangerous so they moved in with great caution. Three kobolds were in the room and they moved to engage. The heroes made an effort to track where the creatures moved but in the heat of combat it was nearly impossible. Reluctantly they moved to engage, virtually cringing as they did so. Combat was short once they did take it to hand to hand. The paladin was hit by a paralyzing dart as he attempted to disable one trap, but the group was otherwise in good shape. A bag of gold was found on the altar as wound were bound, then the team moved on.

Descending another set of stairs the group found another large room with another slime pit and some more stone coffins. It also contained 6 more kobolds who started shooting at the party as soon as they entered. The elf ranger quickly dropped one of the slingers with a pair of well-aimed shots. The dwarf burst into action and charged the raised platforms at the end of the room, climbed up the platform, and slew a kobold atop it! The dragonborn paladin moved to the other side of the room and charged the platform there. As he reached the stage instead of climbing up he blasted the area with his lightning breath, blowing one kobold away. The shifter druid was unfortunate enough to be hit by another glue pot and pinned in place for almost the entire battle, though he did fire off his firebird several times.
Having cleared the platform of kobolds the dwarf was met by a guard drake charging up a set of stairs behind the platform. In a short fierce combat the beast was slain by the dwarf with fire support from the ranger and the druid. He charged down another set of stairs and was met by another charging guard drake that proceeded to savage his leg while a wounded kobold took shots at him from behind the beast. Frustrated by the platform, the paladin hacked down a door with his battle axe to aid the dwarf and the elf moved to get a clear shot into the melee. In the end the heroes prevailed with a battered dwarf and a sticky druid, dejected by his ill luck with the glue shots from the kobolds. After this the party decided to post a guard and catch some shuteye, worn out from their battles this day.

Following their break the team moved up a long hallway and encountered a room with a high ceiling and some kind of platform in the center. As they entered a huge boulder rolled out of a chute in the ceiling and  began circling the room, heading right for them - some managed to scramble out of the way but many of the party members were hit by the giant rock and knocked aside. Right after this a small flying lizard darted out and attacked the dwarf, who was farthest into the room. Two kobolds also appeared atop the platform and began raining shots down into the party, immobilizing the dwarf and the druid in short order. Stuck in place, the dwarf is nearly hit by the boulder again but manages to break free and leap aside just in time. The druid gets pinned in one corner and is subject to repeated attacks by the flying lizard which he cannot seem to fight off. He does however see the kobold leader and his bodyguards up on a platform on the other side of the room and calls out to the rest of the team what he sees.
Leaping into action the ranger is quickly atop the platform and fires off a mighty shot striking the kobold leader and nearly slaying him! Staggering, the kobold fires back with a spell that does nothing, only to be struck again by an arrow from the ranger which puts him down for good.
Enraged, the bodyguards wade in to avenge their leader. The paladin engages them and takes a serious beating, as does the ranger who is forced to fight hand to hand instead of leaping around firing off shots from his bow. In the end though the party fights through to victory, slaying everything in the room as the boulder finally comes to rest.
Searching the bodies turns up a silver key and a note about a secret door. The dwarf decides to explore a bit after a short rest and the rest of the party hurries to keep up with him. Descending a long flight of stairs, they find the air growing cooler as they emerge in a large natural cave. There is a frozen pool in the center of the room and the dwarf charges forward to investigate. As he does, a large white dragon uncurls and emerges from behind a large stone, looking none too happy at the intruders in his lair...

DM notes: This was actually spread over two sessions but they were pretty close together so I lumped them into one. This was the apprentices' second attempt at 4E and it went much much better for a few reasons - One, the DM knows a lot more about the game now. Two, they know a lot more about D&D too. Three, they have their own copies of the PHB and used the character builder to make characters, ensuring that the numbers are all on their character sheets and eliminating a lot of  page-flipping during combat but giving them time to read the rules between sessions.

One thing I've noticed is that I always have rules to look up after a session with them because they try some crazy stuff.  Shooting into melee, fighting around corners, nitty-gritty cover rules, using acrobatics instead of athletics to get up on a 10' ledge. I like it - it keeps me on my toes and shows they are thinking about the game. They are also diligent about collecting weapons from their enemies, a nice old-school touch.

Some of you may also notice I moved the campaign once again. More on that tomorrow.

Further Details on the Guardians of the Vale Campaign

I had a crisis of placement over the weekend as I started doing some prep work on the Nentir Vale campaign. I wanted to set it in the Realms as that's where the other group is playing and I wanted to at least entertain the possibility of crossovers. I was going to place it near Cormyr and the Daleleands as that's one of the recommended locations for the vale and the Keep on the Shadowfell. The problem came up after I read through the FR conversion of the adventure from WOTC - it totally screws things up! It changes the villain from a priest of Orcus to a priest of Shar. Considering that Orcus is the recurring theme/badguy of this 4E "adventure path" it seems ridiculous to me to present a change where he's removed from the starting adventure. Now we may not play straight through all of them in a row but I think it's fitting that something from first adventure should show up in the epic tier as the major opponent - I like that kind of thing. Now Shar is fine and is a much more of a villainous force in the 4E Realms with returned Netheril and all, but I don't particularly like her or the whole Shade thing. She's not Orcus, however and I'm not as interested right now.

So I don't like the "Realms Conversion" document. I also want to use Nentir Vale as-is and looking at the maps I realize it takes up a bigger chunk of real estate than I expected. It's going to be tough to fit it in to the Thunder Peaks/Dalelands/Cormyr/Sembia intersection as-is. Plus, that's in the middle of some of the most detailed sections of the Realms, so I have to decide how much un-detailing I want to do which is "little to none". I'm Ok with that part of the game world. Plus it's not exactly post-apocalyptic even in 4E, which the Nentir Vale kind of is. Hmmmm.

So I flip through the 4E Player's Guide and Campaign Guide for inspiration. I looked back at some of the 3E and even 2E Realms stuff. Then I looked through some of the adventures themselves and started thinking about long-term campaign options beyond those modules. I seriously considered chucking the whole thing back into my Lost Empires/prehistoric Greyhawk concept and just giving up on the same-world-multiple-groups idea. Then I thought about dropping the whole concept and going with the FR starter adventure + Scepter Tower of Spellguard to begin as it has a set place in the Realms and it works. But I still wanted to run through these things - I'll save the FR published stuff for a later campaign - so I need to find a place for it in the Realms. Maybe Returned Abeir? Less canon stuff there. No, there's nothing that's a good fit geographically without major refits. Then, finally, I recalled Bloodstone Pass and looked up Damara, Vaasa, and Impiltur. Jackpot!

These areas have a history of turmoil, a history of Orcus problems, and are not super-detailed in Realms canon. There's a war with a lich 100 years ago that wrecks the kingdom - awesome. The lich is beaten by adventurers who become the rulers of the kingdom - fine - but the 4E book has the last heir being assassinated years ago and a usurper on a somewhat limited throne - OK that's going out but the geography is reasonably close, the history works well with that one small change, and it doesn't screw up a bunch of other material. Additionally there's a new set of badguys next door in Vaasa called the warlock knights who give me a little bit of a bad-Jedi vibe which is something that will go a long way with the Apprentices. Plus there's always the chance the old witch-king could return. I have the 4E FRCG, the 3E FRCS, and the 2E FR9 The Bloodstone Lands for history and inspiration with an unfettered wide-open future situation.

In the end my players will not care, this is solely a mental thing with me, but it's important enough in my head that I thought I would share the process with anyone who cares. No one else in either campaign is a Realms scholar, and really neither am I. I have played in them extensively and read some of the novels so I have a pretty good picture of how things are and have been but I do not argue over timeline details on messageboards nor do I consider it a holy text - game worlds are meant to be used. I just wanted to fit the thing in with the minimum amount of disruption possible and I think this will work out just fine.  So yes, the Nentir Vale in MY Forgotten Realms is now located in Damara, 1479 D.R. The Bloodstone Lands await!