allgeektout

Scarrport: City of Secrets is a “Campaign Cutout” for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, introducing the seedy, steampunk city of Scarrport, that lies on the convergence of two rivers. The supplement comes with an adventure for low-level characters, but what do you do once your players have solved the mystery of the stolen iron lumberjack? The City of Secrets is rife with places to go, people to see, and (of course) plenty of trouble to get yourself into; here are some adventure hooks to get started with.

GENERAL HOOKS

• High Lord Kranak has been facing opposition from within the city, and has hired your PCs for protection.

• The Unbidden is a cult that enjoys raising havoc in the city, but the Cult of Stone Dogs needs to preserve the city in order to carry out their sacred rituals. The conflict of interests could lead to an interesting adventure, or even an entire campaign arc.

• Your party is called to the Isle of Stone Dogs, where they are led down to the Underwarrens – and forced to take part in a gladiatorial fight for their lives.

RACES OF SCARRPORT

City of Secrets introduce three new races to the ones featured in the core rulebooks. The gremlins,  known for their magical inventions, took center stage in the introductory adventure, but what about the ghodon, elemental descendants of giants, or otterkin, the swashbuckling anthropomorphic otters? Here are some interesting ways to incorporate those races into your adventures.

• The ghodon’s three tribes are currently at peace with one another, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Have a member of one tribe recruit the players to strike at another. If your party has a ghodon PC, make it that PC’s tribe you have been hired to attack. This allows for interesting roleplaying as he/she is forced to decide what is more important; allegiance to the tribe, or gold.

• Additionally, should the players refuse the earlier hook because of the ghodon PC’s allegiance, then they could certainly become a target of the hiring tribe.

• If you don’t want the strife between the ghodon tribes to take center stage in your campaign, instead you could use the interracial tension. Have your players hear rumors of a ghodon plan to go skinning some of the otterkin, or, if you have a ghodon PC, have him/her invited to it.

• The otterkin sometimes live in burrows underneath the city; what would happen if these burrows weakened the structural integrity of Scarrport?

• Gremlins come from the underground land of Grixx, the City of Gears. One gremlin could have hired the party to venture there in order to find an ancient artifact said to have been invented by the gremlins.

EPIC DESTINIES OF SCARRPORT

A city full of elementalists, Scarrport introduces the “Master of the Primordial” and the “New Primordial” epic destinies, but there’s no reason why players should get all of the fun. Introduce these plot hooks to get your players thinking about the much bigger picture.

• Let an NPC become a Master of the Primordial or a New Primordial, and attempt to take over the city; this could easily become your PCs’ Destiny Quest.

• If one of your PCs chooses the New Primordial destiny, have the NPC become a rival to that PC. Who will become the true master in the new regime of the gods?

• Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; what if the raw power of the Primordials overtook one of your players?

GAMES OF CHANCE

In the last appendix, three games of chance, popular in the taverns of Scarrport, are detailed. You can use these as more than just fun ways for the players to earn money using these hooks.

• Demon Bones is an innocent enough game where the players roll dice against the house, but the name hints at darker past… and there are rumors that the Isle of Stone Dogs is haunted…

• The results of the tavern games can be manipulated by magic, even at lower levels (especially if you have a wizard that knows prestidigitation). Perhaps the players discover that an NPC at the table is cheating.

• Better yet, have an NPC discover that one of the players is cheating; each time one of your players cheats, have them roll a Bluff check against the other players. If they win, play continues as normal, but if they don’t… let’s just say that the citizens of Scarrport don’t take kindly to cheaters.

Want to learn more about Scarrport? Read on…

• Atomic Array: Scarrport (Atomic Array 022)
• Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin
• allgeektout: Call to Adventure in the City of Secrets
• Dice Monkey: Scarrport: City of Secrets
• The Core Mechanic: Review by Jonathan Jacobs
• Kobold Quarterly: Why I Like Scarrport, City of Secrets
• Critical Hits: Get Some Steampunk in your 4e

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