Fall From Heaven D&D

[Camulus]

I'm preparing to start a 3.5 Edition Fall From Heaven campaign. The players are the following:
Lawful Good Ljosalfar (Elf) Wizard
Chaotic Good Luchuirp (Dwarf) Ranger
Chaotic Neutral Kuriotates (Gnome) Fighter

I used the research of Vorshlumpf to structure the campaign. I also threw in my conlang to serve as words for spoken spells. I was considering in starting the game in Dunwich or Ithralia. Either fighting Lovecraftian cults or evil Khazad tycoons. I'm also going to introduce a Balseraph villain who I put a little Joker spin on at higher levels. He'll start out playful but turn into a seething villain later. Does anyone have any ideas how I can improve the campaign and story? Or any plot ideas?

By the way, does anyone think kobolds could fight into the setting? I was imagining the evil tycoon using them as cheap labour and thieves.

 

[Kael]

No real great advice for you. If you are going to go with cult/balsearph characters I would recommend doing some google searches on mental illnesses to find some interesting personality quirks to give your characters.

Hemah is always a fun character for a D&D campaign. It my be worth reading the Beltane cycle entries about his and Alazkan's theft of the Black Mirror, and the following disease in the forest.

Alternatively running a game from the perspective of an elven tomb warden that begins to hear/have visions or otherwise assume that someone is trapped in the royal tombs after the "defeat" of the Svartalfar could be interesting.

Personally Im not a fan of differentiating monsters by stats (I know tsr/wotc has made millions with this strategy). Before introducing kobolds I would wonder what really makes them different than goblins. Personally I would make them a goblin clan unless there is something truly interesting or unique about your implementation of kobolds (but thats just my opinion, i like big historys behind my monster species, but im probably unusual in that regard).

 

[Camulus]

Actually, I use Kobolds because I have a good amount of Kobold miniatures. Here's my explanation for Gnomes existence.

Spoiler :

When Kheldon Ki created the Dwarves and their life came from Kilmorph at his death, they escaped the dungeons. Some smaller sculptures dug down, deep into Erebus. Eventually, they reached a vein in the earth where water flowed through and the roof was stable. These beings became known as Gnomes by the inhabitants of the deeper world. Slowly, their people grew larger and expanded into many tunnels. The surface dwellers became aware of Gnomes when they finally reached the surface. They saw a safe haven for themselves in the Kuriotates many years later, when the first city of the Gnomes was built under the sky instead of earth.

I was planning an adventure where the players are trapped in a dream of Hemah with Perpentach and he's causing total chaos. The goal is to escape the dream and wake up Hemah. As for Goblins, I'm going to introduce a clan called the Stoneflayers who are corrupted by a cult of Hastur. I don't care for small villains. I like starting big. Political intrigue and the Ashen Veil will run rampant.

 

[Verdian]

I was recently thinking about putting kobolds into a FFH game, and wondering if they could or did exist in Erebus. The main reason I wanted kobolds is their relationship to dragons. I like the idea of primitive, distant cousins to dragons, and was going to have a large clan of them guarding/worshiping a dragon skeleton. I suppose I could just as easily have a race of goblins that worship a dead dragon, but the whole blood-relative thing makes it more interesting.

I try to stick to canon as much as possible, though, so if they don't exist, I won't use them.

 

[Kael]

Dragons in FfH aren't a species. They are the war machines of the gods. The only blood-relative they would have would be the indirect link to other war machines created during the godswar (kobolds are unlikely).

During the Age of Magic archmages created a variety of life (perversions of life) back when Arawn help the dominions of life and death and exerted very little influence on either. Now that Sucellus has taken over the dominion of life it cant be created as it was then.

Lizardmen were created during the Age of Magic, humans, elves and aifons mixed with various lizard species. It wouldnt be hard to imagine that these creatures would have a mythology that claimed they were descended from dragons. Kobolds could be another of the species created during that time.