Mind Games

[phaedrusxy]

RISE MY CREATION!

*Ahem*...

Going to re...visit this game... The kids wanted to go back to it. I had some ideas I wanted to throw down here.

1) I'm going to have the entire thing about freeing Tiamat be a "ruse" by the Cult of the Eye/Rierdrans to start a war between the 5 kingdoms, and bankrupt Aundair in the process. This will lead House Kundarak to seize the crown's assets to pay their debts, effectively marking the first takeover of a kingdom by a House (they will not depose the Queen, but instead send a "Trustee" to "manage" the assets of the kingdom, basically directing all taxes from the farms and vineyards of Aundair directly to Kundarak to pay off the debts, and selling off some of their other capital assets). The other kingdoms will no doubt balk at this. This will of course lead to the war switching from Kingdom vs Kingdom to Kingdoms vs Houses... with Droam allied with the Rierdrans behind it all. (It's not that the Red Hand wasn't actually working toward freeing Tiamat, nor that she was actually helping them... but they were ultimately deceived by the Quori/Inspired). The houses will not win this war via force, but via economics (i.e. embargoes, cut off communications and transportation, etc).

2) During this all, the Rierdrans have been setting up "dream houses" where people can participate in shared lucid dreams (think Opium houses of the 17th century). The popularity of these soared as the gloom and poverty of the war drove the civilian populace to desperation. The devices used in these houses will of course secretly let the Rierdrans eventually take over the minds of those using them. Eventually this will lead to those high in power being taken over (or assassinated and replaced). They will use this to have a kingdom or two back the Houses (and hence their "side").

3) Their plan is to eventually have the populace turn against the idea of feudalism, and instead turn to the Houses for Leadership (which they will secretly manipulate and/or outright control). Eventually, once the power of the kingdoms are destroyed, the armies of Rierdra will come in and take over officially weakened Khorvaire. Their puppets (those controlled via the Dream devices) will proclaim the Reirdrans offer the opportunity for a true and lasting harmony, something that will no doubt appeal to many who have lived through the 100 years war and the brief "peace" that followed it.

4) Another key part of the Inspired's goals is to use the tools and assets uncovered during the Red Hand campaign to bring Dal Quor closer to Eberron again. They will use the tools and locations taken over by the Red Hand in their efforts to breach the planar prison of Tiamat to instead bring the two planes closer again, so they can once again bodily invade Eberron.

[phaedrusxy]

So we finally got back to this, and it went well, but did require a bunch of me checking old notes when they asked me questions, and them studying their character sheets to even remember what they could do, heh. It was just me and my two kids, which hasn't happened in a while. My son is 16 now and is extremely busy and rarely plays at all, but they had the day off school because of all the rain from the hurricane and so he felt he was caught up enough on schoolwork, etc.

We started off with a recap, then they teleported back to Aundair where they found things were not normal. First, there were House Kundarak guards everywhere, including outside the palace gates (replacing the normal guards). Secondly, there were WAY more of the Dream Houses, and the streets were nearly empty, as most of the populace was lying around in cots with these dream helmets on, living a fantasy life instead of reality.

They made their way to the castle, and spoke to the Queen, who told them that basically the Kingdom was bankrupt, and House Kundarak was there to make sure she didn't basically try to liquidate as many assets as possible and flee or something. They have also imposed basically an economic version of martial law where all funds are locked down, and she's not allowed to take any actions that might further upset the economy of the kingdom. This is a temporary situation, but of course she's not happy about it.

The PCs decided that the dream houses were the priority, and set out to investigate. The kalashtar psion, since he can't dream, opted to do real world investigation, while the changeling mind pirate went into the dreamscape. The psion eventually made his way up the distribution chain for these devices until he reached a local minor nobleman. He was using Detect Thoughts while questioning him, and found his memories to be strangely vague and the nobleman himself seemed confused when he couldn't answer basic questions like what did the people selling him the devices look like, etc. (His memory has been modified, and I plan to use a lot of stuff like this to keep them chasing their tails because although they are insanely good at reading and stealing people's memories... they're up against the dreaming dark... who knows all about their methods, and how to counter them).

The mind pirate's adventure started out with her just invading the dream of a random nearby person. This turned out to be a battered woman dreaming of murdering her abusive husband. The woman was disturbed to find her dream invaded, and after a couple of lucky checks realized she was dreaming and intentionally woke up. I described this as ejecting the mind pirate (who goes by Spyder) into a vast space populated by the dreams of many people floating around in bubbles. She made a couple of good Spot and then Lucid Dreaming checks and said she wanted to "Look for a Quori"... so I said she found one...

She saw an odd dream where there was a very tranquil lake, but the surface looked incredibly busy with hundreds of different reflections on its surface that didn't match the rest of the tranquil forest of the dreamscape. As she entered it and looked at the lake, she realized these reflections were all basically active scrying windows onto the real world, after seeing the psion in one and the queen in another. Then she saw her own reflection, running in terror, with a shadowy figure with red eyes behind her. Then I said... roll initiative. 

I had her face off solo with a Hashalaq Quori which I found some homebrew stats online for. I also gave it full ranks in Lucid Dreaming with a +10 racial bonus, and had it use the skill to emulate some wizard spells in their fight. It was a great battle, with her getting it near death only for it to heal (and injure her) with a Hostile Empathic Touch. She decided that turnabout was fairplay, and hit it with a couple of emulated Vampiric Touch spells.

When she finally finished it off, I described her finding a confused and cowering man hiding in a bush. When she approached, she saw that it was the "abusive husband" from the first dream... and with a good check on her bardic knowledge, she realized that she'd just killed a quori that had been possessing and controlling him in the real world. And that's where we left off.