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The Dread Naught Campaign Summary

This is a brief summary of the 11 month campaign that I GMed and recently ended. I have left out the bulk of details about the party, which changed several times over the 11 months, but rather captured the framework of the plot used. I thought other GMs might find this inspiring. As with most of my campaigns, this one focused on epic deeds, not just humdrum bandit-bashing. There are, of course, added to this framework, a number of character specific plot lines which are mostly not discussed here. If you reuse any of this, definitely considering customizing it for the motivations of your party.

For reference this campaign took about 33 sessions. Each session took about an average of 3 hours, meaning that the campaign was about 100 hours of play. The party started at level 1 and fought the last battle at level 12. It was played using D&D 5E.

The Dread Naught Campaign continued a previous year and a half campaign that I ran in Pathfinder in the Forgotten Realms. Though the lore continues, the party is completely new and unaware of most of what happened in the previous campaign. The story starts out in the woods very near the small town of Grievance, just south of Baldur's Gate.

The party is started using the adventure "A Dark and Stormy Knight". This adventure find the various adventurer's taking shelter in an old tomb built into a hill. Inside they fight rats, they discover trapped treasure, they socially interact with a quasit named Merf, they fight hobgoblins, they fight off some spiders, and eventually they face off against a big bad undead Knight. The story introduces the characters to each other and takes them through all of the major rules of the game. Merf joined the party by choice of the party through strong social interaction.

From there, the party was off to Grievance. It was attacked by "cultists" and a blue dragon just after their arrival.  The party saved as may people as they could, took out some cultists, and then went after them. After infiltrating their lair, they stole back a bunch of the loot, freed a gold wyrmling and an elf named Varn, and started tracking down the bandits who had been masquerading as cultists.

The party infiltrated a caravan shipment of "cultist" loot headed for Baldur's Gate. The caravan was attacked before reaching Baldur's Gate, and all of the normal crew were killed. The party continued with the shipment into Baldur's Gate and found themselves suddenly in charge of a warehouse with a bunch of riches and blackpowder. Further investigation showed they were now in charge of a massive fortune being used to build something.

The something being built was completed under direction of the party. It was a massive warship called the Vengeance. The plot became clear. The "cultists" were actually bandits, mercenaries, and and others from Skullport. Skullport had been invaded by a warforged army commanded by evil gnomes. The party and the Skullport crew of the Vengeance were going to take the city back. Though the evil nature of Skullport was troubling, the party knew their actions would protect Waterdeep above.

Under the command of a beholder named Gurag, the party sailed into Skullport and started an assault on the warforged army. Leading groups of fighters, rangers, and other folk, the party forced the warforged to retreat back into the mysterious tunnel from where they came.

The Vengeance was left in Skullport, most likely to be dismantled for materials to rebuild the city. The party went after the gnome-controlled warforged army in the tunnels. They went through a rather large underground complex, clearing a path, and enabling power for some sort of magical tram.  There they found the first indications of the technological and magical advancements of these gnomes. Journals even spoke of Dreadnaught being completed and the bridge builder. These clues didn't really paint the whole picture though.

The party got underway on the tram, following the path of retreat of the warforged army. In the tram tunnels they experienced goblins, beholders, and other adventures. Above ground they tended to other cities attacked by the warforged army.

In Athkatla, they found a city that had disabled the warforged and used them for their own purposes. Unfortunately, tracking down this power was held up by various political entanglements with one of their own being framed for murder, and another member being put under a geas to kill the party's noble. In the end, evils were defeated, and some secrets of the warforged were uncovered. The party left the city, leaving behind one of its own as a new member of the city's government.

In Zazesspur, the party found a large crater formed by the unexpected explosion of a gnome-built mythallar. In this crater, the dead came back, and several lost party members and family members appeared to the party. The party also found the commoner population under attack by a plague. Through smart investigation, the party determined that Aluando and his band of mages and alchemists were the source. They were making plague potions from the dead remains of a sleeping tarrasque killed by a shard from the exploding mythallar. They also found a baby tarrasque that they added to the party.

The party ran Alaundo off after a short battle. They also infiltrated the city government fortress which was being run by shapeshifted gnomes. They retook control of it for the people. They also fought off a destructive religious order that was killing people in the city.  Unfortunately in the chaos of Zazesspur, the party lost Merf, their quasit party member, who disappeared after potentially tracking down Alaundo.

In Zazesspur they also found the Vengeance again, heavily damaged from battle with the Dreadnaught and with only one hidden crewman left alive. The description of the battle was troubling -- the Vengenace had been bombed and attacked by airships. They funded The Vengeance's repair and a new crew, and sent it to Calimport to assist in the future battle. With help from one of the party's friends, the battleship would sail to assist them once again.

Then the party headed on to Calimport. Along the way they learned their helpful friend Varn wasn't all he seemed to be. Varn, in fact, was a dragon, who told the story of the gnomes. The gnomes started north of Waterdeep in the mountains where they were guarded over by Palarandusk, an ancient gold dragon. During a previous battle (from a previous campaign) a magical anomaly was unleashed on the gnomes, causing them to enter hypertime and twisting their nature. The sped-up gnomes built airships and flew away to Chult, getting hundreds of years in hypertime to advance their tech and magic in only a few short years. More troubling though was that Palarandusk, friend of Varn, later disappeared, presumably at the hands of the gnomes. Varn was determined to find his ancient gold dragon friend and save him from whatever evil the gnomes had unleashed upon him. The magical secrets Palarandusk holds could be the death of all.

The party continued to Calimport where they joined forces with genasi rebels in the city.  The city was in ruins, with all normal folk leaving. Warforged and airships and lizardmen and dinosaurs took control of the city for the gnomes. Reconnaissance showed a large bridge being slowly built from Chult to Calimport, inching closer every day, with a walking city behind it. This walking city was the Dread, the first, serial number 0, the Dread Naught (a terrible pun). Airships guarded it and the bridge.

Unfortunately, while sneaking through the city, the party lost "Tarry", the baby tarrasque, to the gnome army. The stakes were greatly raised considering the destructive force the party had just given to the gnomes.

In the city, the party captured a downed airship which they took as their new battle platform. The party infiltrated the main base and determined the location of the tech center. There they battled a much stronger Alaundo and tracked down the information on the Dread Naught. Unfortunately, there, they also found Merf, who had been transformed into a terrible beast of destruction by Alaundo. The party was unable to save poor Merf, who mustered enough power to help the party before disappearing.

Using the recovered tech information, a plan was formulated to infiltrate the Dread Naught and explode the mythallar inside it. With support from Varn, the Vengeance, and other allies they had gained in the city, the party planned an attack to give the party cover for their operation.

The final battle was intense, with Varn battling airships in the sky and the party infiltrating the mechanical guts of the Dead Naught to plant an explosive device.  Merf made a brief appearance to assist the party, but was later lost to an unknown end. The Dread Naught and bridge builder were destroyed by the mythallar explosion. The Vengeance was sank with only some crew recovered. Varn took out most of the local gnome air fleet. Golaiths and genasi stormed the bridge builder, but escape before the final explosion. With the destruction of so much of the gnome army, the rest retreated back into the underground tunnels. The party barely escaped with their lives, hanging from ropes from the airship Menace as it flew clear of the explosion.

The Sword Coast was saved from the invasion, but the war is not over. The gnomes still lurk, learning and rebuilding in the jungles, mountains, and savannas of Chult. The bulk of the party left for safer lands and safer times. Cieran, as the remaining dedicated member and captain of the Menace airship, gathers a crew to head for Chult to start the new campaign: Nightmares of Chult. Deep in the jungles of Chult, the new party hopes to recover the Tarrasque that was lost, find Palarandusk, and stop the dangerous gnome enemy before all of Faerun falls to their diabolical plans.

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