The Adventure Hook:A fortress in the West has fallen under attack and has sent out a call for those with strength of arms to lend aid.Knowledge (arcana)- Powerful magic and ancient lore is said to be stored in the fortress, which doubles as a monastery.
Knowledge (architecture)- The fortress is famed for its intricate stoneworks, its beautiful cathedral, and its extensive catacombs.
- A great gate was erected in a site nicknamed the "stony field," which bars passage to the monastery and serves as its first line of defense.
Knowledge (dungeoneering)- Nestled in a pass in one of the largest mountain ranges in the nation, the area is known for its numerous natural cave complexes.
Knowledge (geography)- The fortress sits in a very lucrative spot at a mountain pass that's the fastest place to travel from the East to the West, and vice versa.
Knowledge (history)- The site is known to have been controlled by several different groups in the past and is currently under the control of a benign cult known as the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye, an organization sworn to fight evil and demonic corruption.
- Numerous crypts and ruins are known to be scattered throughout the area, where previous forts and settlements existed.
Knowledge (nature)- The fortress is in a very defensible location. Forests and swamps lead into the foothills and segue into the mountains. The pass itself is narrow and not an easy place to stage an attack.
Knowledge (the planes)- The fortress is at a dimensional weak point, where crossing the planar boundaries would be very easy.
Knowledge (religion)- This fortress is known as the Citadel of the Sightless Eye and is a monastery owned and operated by an organization known as the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye.
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This is an E6 game using the gestalt rules. All characters begin at ECL 1. The setting is based on
Diablo 2, and as such, the game will be primarily hack-n-slash. However, being the DM I am, there will also be ample opportunities to interact with other characters, solve puzzles and riddles, etc, etc. A constant stream of combat is boring anyway. All characters receive +12 bonus hit points at 1st level.
The types of encounters you can expect are thus:- 1/3 of monsters will be chaotic evil outsiders and their minions
- 1/3 of monsters will be undead
- 1/3 will be made up of an assortment of other creature types
Usable material:Anything core is cool. All published v.3.5 non-setting material is also cool. Any
Dungeon/Dragon magazine or homebrew shenanigans must go through me, along with any setting-specific material.
Level Adjustment:I thought it would be cool to do something different, but it seems like most are in objection to that, so we'll just go by the point-buy adjustments for E6/level adjustment rules. I don't really care how you build your character, as long as you wind up with a completed character that you're actually going to want to play. If you build a boring invincible character and you aren't having fun playing the character, that's your fault, not mine.
Background:Access to the rogue's camp, which is where we will beginning the game, is available via merchant roads. The camp is small and cramped, and is based on an old fortification from several decades earlier. There are 300-odd people in the camp. You should come up with a reason for why your character has come to the rogue's camp (possibly based on the "knowledge hooks" I provided above) and how/when they arrived.