How to deal with Elminster and other powerful "Good Guy" NPCs

Many settings have powerful NPCs that are more or less supposed to be "on the same side" as the player characters, or at least not outright Bad Guys that are supposed to be defeated. The Forgotten Realms is especially well-known for this - Elminster, Khelben Arunson, the Simbul and many others - but they are hardly the only ones. Aberrant has Divis Mal and Caestus Pax, Trinity has the Proxies, and the old World of Darkness also had its share of extremely powerful NPCs.

Many players - and quite a few GMs - worry that these NPCs will constantly overshadow the PCs and "steal their thunder", solving every problem for them and showing the player characters how useless they are.

But that doesn't need to be the case. Properly handled, these NPCs will not harm the campaign and instead be a useful asset to the game.

I've formed these opinions after (a) reading David Rothkopf's book Superclass, which describes the livestyles of the 5,000 most powerful and influential people on the planet and (b) the past three years of my work life - I am now working as a project manager, and this certainly has given me quite a lot of insight into power hierarchies.


First of all, you need to realize that the more powerful and influential people are, the more busy they tend to be - and the most powerful people are incredibly busy. The scarce free time is highly cherished, and they go to extreme measures to make sure they aren't bothered about inconsequential stuff. This means that they will have flunkies - also called "gatekeepers" - who do little else than make sure they aren't bothered for trivial reasons. This is even canon with Elminster, whose scribe Lhaeo takes perverse delight into making visitors fill out obscure forms in triplicate!

In other words, for low-level or inexperienced parties, such powerful people should be figures that are almost never seen, only occasionally glimpsed from afar. Even a short appearance should add importance to a scene, but they will soon be gone again and leave the PCs to their own affairs - in other words, the PCs remain the protagonists of their own story.


Of course, sometimes the PCs do stumble across extremely dangerous threats where it is entirely reasonable to notify the most powerful people they can find, and where it is entirely reasonable that said people would take an immediate interest in intervening.

In that case, let them meet with the powerful NPC. And let the NPC take them seriously.

"All right, you have convinced me. I will look into this and take care of it."

But... look at this from the POV of the NPC:

"Okay, these are obviously resourceful people, to have stumbled across this problem and survived to tell me about it. I have... uses for resourceful people like that."

So after that, the NPC tells them:

"By the way, there is a small problem I can't spare the time for right now. Would you mind looking into it?"

This is not presented as a trade - the NPC will help with the first problem no matter what. There is no obligation on the part of the playercharacters. Rather, this is a test of character - and the possible start of a mutually beneficial relationship.

If the PCs say "No", then it's that - the NPC will deal with the immediate problem (though inevitably there will be a few loose ends), but he won't show them any special favors later on. If they do say "Yes", and resolve the second problem to the NPCs satisfaction, then they have just joined his informal "network". He won't be constantly there to hold their hands, but he will pass useful information to them from time to time (especially when that information is about a mutual foe) and introduce them to all sorts of useful people. Of course, he will also continue to ask the PCs for all sorts of "minor favors" - dealing with problems which he doesn't have the time for. If the PCs attempt to get too much out of their relationship, he will become more distant again - only helping out with a genuine emergency.

What the PCs gain out of this is primarily a wealth of information - and if the PCs have a problem that is outside of their own expertise, the powerful NPCs might be willing to hand it to some of their other flunkies. The PCs should always feel that they are getting a lot out of this exchange of favors - and the GM can use this to hand out the next adventure seed.

Of course, if the PCs ask for more material assistance, then that's also an option.

"Okay, let me think - there is this magic sword that I don't have any personal use for, but I think you might find it useful.

Oh, and if you find any really oddball magical stuff, be sure to show it to me, hmmm?"

Again the PCs are given a favor in advance, with hints that the NPC would like to see some favors in return in the future. If they refuse to participate, future favors will start drying up, but if they do return the favor, the trades will likely work out beneficially for both of them.

If it's money they are after:

"Hmmm... what do you need all that money for?"

If they hint that the costs of living in the area are too expensive:

"Oh, that's no problem. I have a friend in the town who would probably allow to live in one of her building practically for free if I asked her! In fact, she would be happy to do so if you helped her with a little problem..."

And now the GM has another adventure to throw at the PCs - and if they go along, they will get something useful at a vastly cheaper price than otherwise.

A party member needs to be raised? Again, another contact of the NPC - a priest this time - will come to the rescue and do it for free, but he, too, will expect a favor.

Do they want a noble title? A "unfortunate misunderstanding with the authorities" cleared up? That, too, the NPC can arrange - by simply dropping the right word with the right people that the PCs are just the right adventurers for some highly specific jobs.

The PCs get what they want - not for free, but considerably easier than if they didn't remain in the good graces with the powerful NPC. The NPC gets what he wants - all sorts of little problems solved that he doesn't have to deal with any more, and thus can focus on other things. And all the contacts of the NPC also get useful contacts in the form of the player characters...

Eventually, as the PCs become stronger, the relationship becomes less one of patronage than one between peers. Then the PCs might meet not only with their former patron, but invited to meetings with other powerful people. By this time, the PCs probably have developed expertise with a particular "problem", and these powerful NPCs will only be too happy to hand any pertinent information about this problem to the PCs so that they don't have to deal with it - "It's a drow problem, let's hand it to these guys". The PCs, in the meantime, can try to foist dangling problems that they can't deal with themselves over to them. But ultimately, they have some of the most powerful people in the setting as peers and allies - and be counted as peers and allies by the great and powerful in return.

Where I read the Bible for Gaming Inspiration - Genesis 2:18-25

Continued from here.

"[18] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
[19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
[20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him."

I am not sure what to do about the "out of the ground" phrase - perhaps the aboleth bio-factories I mentioned also seeded the land with animal life? However, this "naming of every beast" business strikes me a lot like a grand biological survey of all life forms on the planet. The aboleth presumably didn't have to survey the planet since they created all the life forms in the first place (unless they stuck around for long enough that evolution became a serious factor). So let's make the survey the work of a later civilization - in particular, the mythical Oreanor which is also called the First City. As they were masters of magical biotechnology, searching the world for life that might be useful for their research seems appropriate. Perhaps there are still some hidden repositories with samples somewhere in the world... such as in the Cold Frontier, where the First City certainly had active outposts.

"[21] And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
[22] And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
[23] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

When I read that women were designed later - and as "help meets" to boot - I am immediately reminded that the First City basically created all the nonhuman races with their bio-magics as helpers (except for the elves, who were an experiment in genetic transhumanism). But it would be fun if a garbled account of this process survived somewhere in mythology. But garbled to what degree, and in whose deity's mythology?

Let's pick the deity Ouneiros, who is basically a demigod worshiped only in the ancient city-state of Ouneirotur in the Lake of Dreams region - which just happens to be the same city that the First City was allegedly in (though nobody has identified its precise location). Let's go with this idea:

Ouneiros was also the patron deity of the First City (or so he claims). And after the people of the First City "took stock" of all the animals in the world, they begged him for helpers that could help them in a way that the beasts could not. So Ouneiros took various body parts from various human inhabitants of the city and turned them into various nonhumans:

• Elves (role as "companions"): Hair from the fairest maiden.
• Halflings (role as "domestic servants"): A foot from the most good-natured household slave.
• Gnome (role as "artisants"): An eye from the best artist.
• Dwarf (role as "laborer"): Testicles from the most hard-working worker.

But then, in their hubris, the people of the First City attempted to create further servant people and combined humans with animals (for example, orcs with wild boars), which of course went terribly wrong. This was one of the reasons why Ouneiros turned his back from the First City, cursed it, and went to build a new city-state with his few loyal followers elsewhere before the First City suffered its inevitable doom.

At least, this is what his Book of the First City claims - one of the few texts describing Oreanor, which is why it is of so much interest to scholars, despite its often dubious contents. Ouneiros rules his city still, as he has done for millenia, and the city remains unchanging. Elves, halflings, gnomes, and dwarves are the only nonhuman races allowed to exist in the city, and they fulfill their ancient roles as servants - though since many of them object to this subservient role and flee, slavers occasionally capture members of these races from elsewhere and sell them here.

"[24] Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
[25] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

My key phrase here is "shall be one flesh". Perhaps the First City also dabbled in combining men and women into hybrid critters? Whether this is something as simple as a hermaphrodite or as complex as an artificial intelligence formed out of multiple brains, Ouneiros probably disapproved either way. Though the latter are probably more interesting if the PCs encounter them in a long-abandoned First City lab...

[Urbis] Locations of the Cold Frontier - Azoth Refinery, Treaty Stone, Ghost Boat, and Star Tower

In the heart of this volcano, the First City colonists built a refinery which used the heat of the magma to create azoth - pure, distilled magic in liquid form, which serves as "universal ingredient" for most magical rituals and whose production in nexus towers serves as the cornerstone of the economy of the Flannish Cities. The refinery is heavily damaged, and will only produce one drop of azoth every 36 hours. If fully repaired - which would be quite expensive and require importing a number of experts on magical engineering from the homeland - the refinery could produce as much as 1 drop per hour. Possibly more important, in the process said engineers could learn how to apply these principles for building future refineries, turning volcanoes into a new power source. Unfortunately, the structure and its environs are swarming with thoqqua and similar creatures of fire coming from the depths of the planet below - they would have to be kept away during both the repairs and the refinery's operation.

Near where the rivers meet, a (now fallen) monolith has been enchanted against the ravages of time, which makes its inscriptions still readable. The top side shows the script of the Old Native people, which has largely vanished from modern-day usage. The down side, now buried in the Earth, displays the same text but in the language of the now-vanished Naxal Empire of the Far Coast. If translated magically, the text says:

"We affirm the eternal brotherhood between the Naxal Empire and the Tribes of the North, pledging to stand firm against the monstrous brood of the Chasm of Filth and any other enemies of our people."

This refers to the war against the would-be god who attempted to reactivate the God Chamber at the center of the continent and who released hordes of alien creatures in order to fight the Old Native civilization.

Downriver of the Canyon of Faces there is a ruined cliffside settlement. One of the few recognizable remnants is an old, crumbling stone pier. During the day, sensitive people approaching it might sense an otherworldly presence. During the night, while the moon is shining, a large ghostly boat (capable of housing up to six passengers) with an equally ghostly navigator will appear. The navigator will be clad in native garb and will not speak, for while he has eyes, he has neither mouth nor nose. If spoken to, he will carry passengers to other parts of the river system, at a speed of 10 miles per hour - but he is unstable, and there is a cumulative 1:6 chance per hex that he will suddenly disappear, dumping his passengers and their cargo into the river.

South of the Bird Lakes, a half-ruined stone tower is covered with grass and shrubs. The tower is approximately 10 yards high and constructed in a conical shape, with a spiral ramp leading to the top. If examined closely, various star constellations can be seen chiseled in the wall, and somehow protected against the decay of the rest of the tower. Interacting with them via magic or other mystical means threatens to summon abominable creatures from beyond the stars. However, if the tower were to be restored, the proper rites could also create powerful wards against such creatures or help with banishing them.


Note: A list of all Urbis-related posts can be found here.

[Urbis] Locations of the Cold Frontier - Canyon of Spiders, Bird Lakes, Giant Frog Swamp, and Bat Caves

Downriver of the Crystal Falls, numerous insects, large and small, congregate to feast on the plant and algae growths emerging from the mineral-rich waters of the canyon. These, in turn, are preyed upon by a multitude of spiders, some of which can reach the size of a large dog. Their nets cover the canyon walls, and anyone who gets entangled in them will quickly be swarmed by them. None of the spiders are intelligent.

These marshlands south of the volcano are fairly shallow and are subdivided into innumerable small lakes which are bordered by fairly low-growing vegetation. During the warmer seasons, large flocks of water fowl make their home here, preying on the numerous insects and fish and building their nests in the hedges.

The warm swamplands downriver from the First City Spa are home to a species of giant frogs. While they are not averse to make a snack of halfling-sized snack (they will leave larger creatures alone), their main problem is the noice they are making. Their croaking will thunder around the area, sounding like the call of a much larger creature. Sleep is next to impossible within this hex.

The small caves dotting the sides of this small canyon are used as refuge for a large number of bats who prey on the insects in the swamps to the south. Most of the caves are too small for a full-grown human. Still, for those who can gain access, large amounts of bat guano can be harvested for both alchemical and magical purposes.


Note: A list of all Urbis-related posts can be found here.

[Skyrim] Black Horse Dispatches 11 - Messages

Continued from Dispatch 10 - The Way of Shouting.

Before we reached Ivarstead, we saw a lone figure running up the 7,000 steps to High Hrothgar.

It was Lydia - alive and well, though a bit bruised.

"But... how?"

"Well, first I landed in a massive snowdrift and had to dig myself out...

...and when I had done that, a huge pile of dragon bones landed on top of me."

"Uhm..."

"Which pissed me off even more, since it meant that I couldn't carve that overgrown lizard's heart out for knocking me off the mountain. So the next time we fight one, save a piece for me!"

"...sure. Glad to have you back."

"See? He does care!" said Vrija from behind me. I gave her the Glare of Death, but it did nothing.

I was shivering heavily as we entered Ivarstead, and that the snowfall had turned to rain did not help. I wanted nothing more than warm myself by the inn's fireplace, but just before we reached it two strangely-garbed figures wearing bizarre and identical masks approached me.

"You there. You're the one they call Dragonborn?" Morrowind accent. Curious...

"The Greybeards seem to think so..."

"Then it is too late. The lie has already taken roots of the hearts of men. So we shall expose the falseness in their hearts by tearing out yours, Deceiver!"

I swear, I could hear the capital letter in "Deceiver".

"When Lord Miraak appears all shall bear witness! None shall stand to oppose him!"

With that, they started to throw bolts of fire around - from close range. And while I was too busy freezing to death to put up much of a fight, they were still facing three of the deadliest warriors I've known (and Vrija). A short time later, and their corpses presented yet more evidence that fanaticism doesn't compensate for combat experience, let alone brains.

They were indeed dunmer. And one of them had a note with them. But wasn't there something else I was supposed to do? Oh, right - get inside and not freeze to death.

As I sat down so close to the central fire as to be practically on top of it, I pulled out the note.

"Board the vessel Northern Maiden docked at Raven Rock. Take it to Windhelm, then begin your search. Kill the False Dragonborn known as Araneus Venator before he reaches Solstheim.

Return with word of your success, and Miraak shall be most pleased."

Well, well, well, now isn't that interesting. I only learned that I was a Dragonborn two days ago, when I absorbed that first dragon's soul near Whiterun. Which means that this "Miraak" either became supernaturally aware of this event and was capable of learning my own name at the same time, or that he knew that I was a Dragonborn before I did and kept careful track of my movement before I even reached Skyrim. And quite possibly both.

As the puddle of molten ice and snow forming around me began to cover more and more of the floor and earned me dirty looks from the barkeeper which I studiously ignored, I pondered the decision I had to make. Continue to Ustengrav to get that Horn for the Greybeards, or go to Solstheim and conduct an interview with this Miraak, quite possibly involving the Mace of Truth?

Ultimately, it was no contest. "Interview with a dragon" will beat "interview with some deranged sorcerer" any day of the week.

Fredas, 22nd of Last Seed, 4E 201.

According to what the Greybeards told me, Ustengrav was northeast of Morthal, where the swamps of the region meed the hills west of Dawnstar. Looking at my map, I could either return to Whiterun and follow the road north, or travel into the direction of Windhelm and then move up the river Yorgrim. The latter would lead me through Stormcloak-held territory - probably a bad idea at the moment, as I was still wearing the light imperial armor I had taken from Helgen. I needed to replace that at the earliest opportunity...

As I stepped out the inn, I encountered a courier who handed me a letter - allegedly from "Siddgeir, Jarl of Falkreath" who claimed that my "reputation" had attracted his notice, and invited me to visit him if I was "interested in becoming Thane of Falkreath". The letter also insinuated that "a choice parcel of land" would be available for purchase if my "services would prove useful" to him.

Well, far be it for me to speculate on the Jarl's character. But, well, back when High Rock was about a hundred thousand independent principalities, sending such letters to rich people in Cyrodiil who were greedy for some aristocratic title were a major industry. Just allow these merchants and shopkeepers to pay you large sums of money for some petty noble title, and you have enough funds for throwing the next sybaritic orgy or two, while the merchants could brag about their new title to all their friends while becoming the laughing stock of the actual Cyrodiilic aristocracy. Even after the Warp in the West,when there were only five kingdoms left, this scam didn't stop - the only thing that changed was that the kingdoms the letters were allegedly from were as fictional as the titles themselves.

Anyway, the Courier.

"Listen, this is important. Do you go to Cyrodiil? Maybe even to the Imperial City?"

"Mister, if I get paid enough, I will go anywhere in Tamriel."

"Good." I stuffed my notes of the last four days into a watertight bag, and pressed it into his hands.

"Take this to the offices of the Black Horse Courier, Market District, Imperial City on the fastest way possible. Give this to the hands of editor Dro'Bassa only. Do this, and he will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Tell the furry bastard I said so."

"You said so? Well, who in Oblivion are you?"

"I am Araneus Venator, the best damn writer his rag has. I've seen the first dragon to rise, and the first dragon to fall, and once this hits the press, everyone will want to read about it. Now run, little man, as if all the dragons in Skyrim are bearing down on you!"

Continued in Dispatch 12 - Tears of a Clown.

My Gaming Projects, Part III: The Arcana Wiki

"The Wikipedia - written by gamers, for gamers!"

That was the basic idea when I created the Arcana Wiki six years ago, and that remains the goal to this day. As any veteran game master or teller of stories knows, pretty much anything can serve as an inspiration for stories if you just look at it from the right angle. The trick is then to find the right inspiration for your current needs and start thinking in the right directions. Streams of high-inspiration material like the Suppressed Transmissions Community are useful, but the posts soon vanish into the archives and are forgotten by most readers. Therefore, trying to sort all this inspirational stuff into a wiki only made sense - it would allow proper indexing, cross-referencing, and brainstorming among its readers.

Most entries in the Arcana Wiki have a fairly standard layout. A good example of this is the entry for the Kowloon Walled City, a former slum region in Hong Kong.

As you can see, this page includes a hierarchical navigation bar, which shows that the Kowloon Walled City is within Hong Kong, which is within China, which is within the "Countries" hierarchy, which in turn is within the "Places" hierarchy. Not all pages of the Arcana Wiki - 4380 pages as of this writing - are included in such a hierarchy, but it does making navigation easier.

Though some pages (see the "Love Potion" entry for an example) start with an inspirational quote, most will start with a "Basic Information" section which tries to explain the basic concept of the entry in a fairly factual manner (though not usually as dry as the Wikipedia, and we don't concern ourselves with citations as much, either).

Incidentally, the blue links refer to existing Arcana Wiki entries, while the red links refer to entries which do not exist yet - a good place to get started when writing new stuff!

This includes a short "Sources" section with links where readers can get more information. Often this will only mean the relevant Wikipedia entry, but frequently contributors came across other interesting links that would contribute to the reader's understanding - and inspiration.

Below that, there is a "Game and Story Use" section where both the creator of the entry and others can add their own story ideas in the form of bullet points. The formatting is intentionally looser here, as the ideas can be highly subjective and idiosyncratic - in fact, this part was inspired by the TV Tropes Wiki, which uses the same format when discussing tropes. If someone wants to elaborate on another idea or add variants, they can do that via higher-order bullet points, which can get some lengthy discussions going.

This is the basic formatting for most Arcana Wiki entries. So, what subjects does the wiki cover?

Plenty. While it is nowhere near as exhaustive as the Wikipedia (and how could it be, considering it doesn't have the latter's zillion contributors?), some of the highlights include a Geography section listing real world locations around the world, famous real-world People, Mythological Creatures, a List of Mythologies (which admittedly needs some work, but it does include a basic page for the Cthulhu Mythos), Organizations, sections on Science, Technology, and Magic, a Tropes section loosely based on the aforementioned TV Tropes Wiki, and a Historical Timeline which, especially in newer years, links to all sorts of fascinating news stories (which use a slightly different formatting than the standard entries described above). There are also some tools which use random wiki entries to generate ideas - like the Random Adventure Seeds (which pick three random entries for adventure inspiration), or the Random Nations Generator (I've used the latter to generate villages for my Cold Frontier campaign - see here, here, and here for examples).

But while there is a fair amount of decent material on the wiki, most of the contributions came from a very small number of people. And I'd like to change that - which is where you come in.

The Arcana Wiki needs more contributors on just about any conceivable subject imaginable - and everyone is an expert on something that can be used for gaming. Do you know a lot about fantastic or cryptozoological creatures? Write it up. Do you know about really strange places in or near your hometown? Write it up. Do you have some favorite conspiracy theories? Write them up. Have you studied some particularly fascinating periods of history? Write them up. Inspiration is everywhere, and the goal of the Arcana Wiki is to find it and make it accessible to everyone.

But how do you get started? Well, first of all you need to register - in the beginning I allowed anonymous edits, but sadly the wiki eventually attracted sufficient spammers to force me disable that option. You can register via the link at the top and right.

After that, all you need to do is to click on the edit button at the bottom of the page and start editing.

I would recommend starting small - go to existing pages first and add some gaming ideas of your own. The wiki code is fairly easy to understand - for example, the "Game and Story Use" section of the Kowloon Walled City entry looks like this:

The main code to remember here is:

• Lines starting with "* " are bullet points, and if the "*" is moved further to the right (for example, " * ", these are turned into
• higher-level bullet points.
• Words in //double slashes// are turned into italics.
• Words wrapped in **double asterixes** are written bold.
• Worlds written in [[[triple square brackets]]] are links to other Arcana Wiki entries.
• Words written in single [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_brackets#Square_brackets square brackets] with URLs are links to external (non-Arcana Wiki) pages.

 After a while, you will probably click on one of the red links, which will bring you to a page like this:

Click on the link, and a new page will be generated based on a template of your choosing (the "standard" template is the default, but there are also templates for news stories, calendar entries, and so forth) - you only need to fill in the details and save the results.

After that, the next step is to read the following essays at the wiki:

• What To Add To The Arcana Wiki
• What The Arcana Wiki Is Not 
• Arcana Wiki Style Guide 

Furthermore, the wiki has its own forum on which you can ask questions if anything is unclear.


That's it - for now! I hope to see you there, and I will be looking forward to your contributions.

Running the Forgotten Realms as a Superhero Campaign

It has often been remarked that high-level D&D campaigns often approach superhero campaigns in power level and scope - the PCs can mow down lesser mooks in large numbers, and the threats they face are often world-shattering, and essentially unstoppable by less experienced characters.

So... why not run such campaigns as superhero campaigns in the first place? The Forgotten Realms, in particular, seem well suited for such a campaign, as it is positively awash with high-level characters and threats.

There would have to be some changes in gameplay, of course. First of all, the usual profit motive - "kill monsters and take their stuff" - would have to be deemphasized. The PCs aren't roving murderhobos, they are heroes and protectors! If you use some iteration of D&D, it makes sense to just give the PCs some "level-appropriate" funds to get magic items and gear, while assuming that any stuff they find during actual play (apart from unique artifacts) is spent on research/home base/lifestyle/parties and so on. That will hopefully help the players to get into the proper frame of mind. If you are using a different system, assume the PCs can get "mundane" gear and pay for especially fancy stuff or prominent magic items with character points (or whatever the system uses).

Then you have to give some thought to the character's "home base". While there are "roving superheroes" who travel the world, most of them tend to stay close to a particular region. What would Batman be without Gotham City? For the Forgotten Realms, you can either pick a particular region (the Silver Marches, the Moonsea, and so forth), or a particular city - and there is no shortage of cities in the Realms with detailed city plans (although few can approach Waterdeep, which holds the same spot as New York City in the Marvel universe). And just like superheroes, heroic adventurers will often have rather ambivalent relationships with the local authorities. They may well be feted when they thwart the latest threat to the region, but the authorities are also too aware that the heroes aren't really under their control, and that they would have difficulties stopping them, should the need arise...

Secret identities probably won't translate very well, since adventurers are generally assumed to be famous - though the odd "mysterious masked wizard" is certainly appropriate. Do encourage the players to come up with interesting nicknames, as well as a good name for their group as a whole (which also is tradition in the Forgotten Realms).

Then it's only a matter of having Bad Guys show up in their territory and be up to no good - and here is where the richness of the Forgotten Realms setting really shines. The Red Wizards of Thay! The Zhentarim! The Dragon Cult and the Kraken Society! The Empire of Shade! Add to that various powerful monsters, both organized and unorganized, and you will be able to copy most comics plots with ease. Even tales of Science Gone Wrong can simply be converted into Magic Gone Wrong.

And it is easy to increase the power level further, leading to continent- or even world-spanning team ups, with the heroes standing side by side with NPCs like Elminster and the Simbul, creating their own equivalent of the Justice League and the Avengers to deal with world-shaking threats...

Your thoughts?