My next campaign

[Crazypostal]

Thought I would throw this out and see what people thought of it and if anyone had any comments or suggestions.
My next campaign, which will start after 1 more session of Red Hand of Doom is a Birthright version of the CRPG 'Baldurs Gate'. I'l be subbing in various places for the normal Forgotten Realms names, such as Illien for Baldurs Gate, Proudglaive for Beregost, and the region of Bellam for the mining region of Nashkel.
It is my plan to play thru all of BG 1 and 2, including the expansions. There will be 4 PC's, plus 1 NPC (Imoen). Blood abilities will be substituted for the whole Chosen of Bhaal thing.
The whole campaign will take place in the Medoere/Illien/ Roesone region, at least the BG 1 part that is.

I realize this is a very brief synopsis, but thoughts anyone?

[AndrewTall]

Presumably the potential 'child of bhall' would be someone with the potential for a great - or even true bloodline?

Perhaps spawned by the Gorgon, who plans to harvest his progeny after they grow sufficiently strong to merit his attention and strengthen his own bloated bloodline?

The Throne of Bhall expansion then being the assumption of the Gorgon's place / converting the scions bloodline to that of one of the good gods and building one of the 5 tribes to greatness?

(Presumably if the Magian can corrupt a bloodline of another god to that of Azrai, some way exists to purify a scion of his taint by using one of the 'pure' bloodlines to purge the scion of the taint? Although this would be harder - Azrai was the god of corruption after all and still lives on in a form)

Hmmm, sounds intriguing...

[Crazypostal]

The PC's will all be technically "Bhaalkin", though only one will ever have a shot at a true bloodline. That of course is an extremely long range plan, having to do with chasing down the missing bloodline of Roele, which would be held deep underground. This would then lead (hopefully) to even further reaching plans to remake the empire. (HA!)

The 4 PC's are a human knight, a dwarf cleric, an elf ranger, Imoen the human scout, and somekind of arcane caster. I have more or les decided on the bloodline power progression for the 1st three PC's, and may have ? what?
imoen actually go down the "Bhaalkin" path. The knight is prolly the best choice of any of them to "get" the true bloodline thing, and I have had thoughts of having her become an Ershie, most likely going down the dragon path.

Sarevok would be someone "harvesting" bloodlines so as to wrest control of the country of Illien, with dreams of empire aglow in his head.

The Gorgon, and the other bigname Anshies would be known but really play no part in the BG1 part of the campaign, with only the forces of the spider making an appearence. Now....BG2 and sequel... thats a different story. Of course, the campign needs to last that long

[Elton Robb]

I say go for it.

[ryancaveney]

The 4 PC's are a human knight, a dwarf cleric, an elf ranger, Imoen the human scout

I thought it was a great idea, right up until I read this. In Cerilia, dwarves actively avoid the other races, and elves seek them out only to kill them, especially humans! In Cerilia, far more than any other campaign setting, I strongly advise against mixed-race parties. In fact, If you're going to find a non-human group to mix with humans, by far the best bet is goblins from Thurazor.

How would these people have met each other under conditions in which they might someday become friends rather than bitter enemies? The dwarf might conceivably be a very open-minded sort, but more likely is an outcast, or -- especially as a cleric -- is an agent of the regent of Baruk-Azhik, who has been instructed to manipulate these promising humans in a way beneficial to dwarves.

The elf is much worse. No elf, especially an inherently tree-hugging ranger, is going to help humans do anything, especially not reform the empire! The only reason I can see for an elf to be involved is if the plan is to betray the party, and lead their bloodlines to Isaelie of Sielwode for Gorgon-style harvesting. Since this is presumably not the sort of party you want to run, I urge you to leave the elf out of it. If you absolutely must have an elf-type, for Haelyn's sake make it a half-elf, who will be distrusted and discriminated against by every human you meet, and would be executed as an extremely dangerous traitor if ever captured by actual elves.


Ryan

[AndrewTall]

a bit harsh to both dwarves and elves possibly Ryan...

To me the Dwarves are mostly dis-interested in humans - they don't particularly think much of them at all but certainly wouldn't complain about a dwarf making an alliance with a potential ruler - that's almost an investment i future trade...

Similarly to me a young elf could easily go through a phase (of a decade or two) of hoping to forge a new harmonious union between humans and elves before bitter experience taught them better.

Politically several realms are trying to forge alliances due to hostile neighbours - Cwmb Bhein elves for example are currently being deliberately outgoing, Tuarheviel permits guild holdings by humans, etc, etc.

The Gheallie Sidhe would demand otherwise - or at best deride the elf as a foolish youth though.

but yes, I'd have the elf and dwarf face prejudice - in my view a lot of humans would refuse to believe that they weren't just humans though - 'elves crop their ears and lie that they're immortal - it's just so that they can feel superior...'

[irdeggman]

I see dwarves as semi-isolationists having only "recently" opened up some of their borders. They, in general don't face a lot of prejudice - in fact most human cultures would readily welcome their presence seeing them as a potential source of great trade. The dwarves, on the other hand are not readily trusting of other races - seeing as how the elves "turned" on them and had a war.

Elves have been at war with every race and culture at one time or another, well maybe not Orogs but all of the main surface ones as well as with the dwarves.

The fact that they live forever, casts a new meaning to the term "young elf". A young elf could very easily be older than Avan.

All human cultures are distrusting of the elves and so adding an elf to a party of humans is at best very "risky". For one how did the elf make it through all of the humans in the area to meet up with the PCs? Not all humans are as open-minded as PCs tend to be.

BR is very human-centric as a setting and thrives on prejudice and racial and cultural tension. These are very important aspects of the setting and should not be readily dismissed or a lot of the "flavor" of the setting is lost.