Okay, I feel I should cough up some suggestions to help out, even though they're half baked.
Monster Mercenary Faction:
As much as I want to see a PC mercenary faction (Is there one called Iron Crown or something?) do really well and take the fort in Lower, how about an opportunistic monster tribe who move in as the "lawkeeping" force? It could give PC kobolds or goblins (or something else?) a faction to join. Maybe it's not necessarily limited to one monster race but is more diverse.
Illegal Animatron Salvagers:
Really not au fait enough with the new setting to know if this is okay given the changes in the Spellguard relationship to the machine but maybe some resourceful outsiders who are trying to cobble together malfunctioning and frankenstein's monster-esque animatrons. They could be immediately in conflict with the Spellguard as an illegal salvage operation and as dangerous meddlers. Maybe they splice animatron parts onto their own bodies? Am I getting too carried away?
Church of Psionics:
A group of desperados and madmen, perhaps many of them fallen faithful of the silent Gods that have been traumatised by recent events, that think they can develop or already have mind powers on par with aberrations. They dabble and experiment dangerously with captured aberrations and it's unclear to what extent they've been overcome by thralldom.
Essentially I've tried to line up 3 interest groups that could provide real antagonism for the Watchers, Spellguard and Society of the Ordered Mind.
Some kind of small, ragged band of "Chosen Hunters" might be cool to see, given the long and bitter feud with the wererats it stands to reason that at some point some of the residents of lower and elsewhere might have banded together to try and wipe these out once and for all, without resorting to gassing the entire area. Could be anything from just a few NPC's in a ruined building, to seeing a these spawn sometimes in the machine, ostensibly hunting chosen or even a small association.
I really like the last two and think a player driven group could excel with both of those ideas!!
Sewer town :(
A gang of gas-poisoned Chosen who are quite sickly, but spread disease and give small coughs of acidic red or green smoke in combat. Perhaps a two-option low level quest, where particularly insane CE characters could actually heal them somehow and let them loose on the community; while everyone else could stomp them down ignoring their pitiful coughs and snivelling whimpers.
Oh, some of your suggestions has given me an idea:
What about gas purges that come about now and then for whatever reason (rare + random or triggered by another quest, etc.) and it forces Chosen from the sewers up and out in an invasion wave style.
Could the quest level limit for rat meat be raised to 5? It's not like it's Wormingers, but in Lower, considering there's Chosen to contend with in the Sewers.
A few more spawn points scattered throughout the Sewers, Lower-Southern Alleyways, the Canal Ward and so forth to prevent people from spawning in the Crone on top of their arch-rivals and so forth. Adding some places for scavenger minded PC's to dig among the rubble seems like a good idea too.
As an alternative to Chosen Hunters, a sewer-based gang of NPC's wearing ratcloaks and Chosen skulls who believe themselves to be children of the Appetite and wish to restore their fallen god to glory. Chosen should be hostile to them as well as PC's.
I think this
Quote from: Ladocicea;351766Illegal Animatron Salvagers
and this
Quote from: Ladocicea;351775gas purges that come about now and then
... both already exist in the setting. I guess it might be spoilerish to say what they are, but they're in there and not especially difficult to find.
Quote from: Ladocicea;351766Okay, I feel I should cough up some suggestions to help out, even though they're half baked.
Monster Mercenary Faction:
As much as I want to see a PC mercenary faction (Is there one called Iron Crown or something?) do really well and take the fort in Lower, how about an opportunistic monster tribe who move in as the "lawkeeping" force? It could give PC kobolds or goblins (or something else?) a faction to join. Maybe it's not necessarily limited to one monster race but is more diverse.
Illegal Animatron Salvagers:
Really not au fait enough with the new setting to know if this is okay given the changes in the Spellguard relationship to the machine but maybe some resourceful outsiders who are trying to cobble together malfunctioning and frankenstein's monster-esque animatrons. They could be immediately in conflict with the Spellguard as an illegal salvage operation and as dangerous meddlers. Maybe they splice animatron parts onto their own bodies? Am I getting too carried away?
Church of Psionics:
A group of desperados and madmen, perhaps many of them fallen faithful of the silent Gods that have been traumatised by recent events, that think they can develop or already have mind powers on par with aberrations. They dabble and experiment dangerously with captured aberrations and it's unclear to what extent they've been overcome by thralldom.
Essentially I've tried to line up 3 interest groups that could provide real antagonism for the Watchers, Spellguard and Society of the Ordered Mind.
You honestly don't need a dm for any of these ideas. Get a group together and do it in all honesty. Lower has life but its all hiding, it needs players to wake it up again. The current pcs in lower are all terrorist stealthy types who are never seen unless they are fighting someone. Maybe a less aggressive faction to even it out in lower?
You don't "need" a DM for any ideas at all. You're missing the point. This is a suggestions thread for content for Lower. PCs aren't content.
These don't even need to be joinable factions, they can be questgiving factions and provide structure to the alternative society in Lower by presenting tangible interest groups, to encourage players to make PCs in order to "wake it up again", like you said.
They're not great ideas, but I expect only to get the ball rolling so that someone else can come up with something more sophisticated as it is definitely needed. I'd like to hear more about your less aggressive faction.
I could move into lower if you really want me to?
Quote from: Ladocicea;351834You don't "need" a DM for any ideas at all. You're missing the point. This is a suggestions thread for content for Lower. PCs aren't content.
These don't even need to be joinable factions, they can be questgiving factions and provide structure to the alternative society in Lower by presenting tangible interest groups, to encourage players to make PCs in order to "wake it up again", like you said.
They're not great ideas, but I expect only to get the ball rolling so that someone else can come up with something more sophisticated as it is definitely needed. I'd like to hear more about your less aggressive faction.
So what I'm finding out here, is you want more /Quests/ for lower. Not exactly more life in it.
But if you want a less agressive faction. A group of people who attempt to make peace with upper not in a way that "We lub you spellguard" but in a way that would allow for workmill products to be sold in it, or to get clerical representatives from spellbeggers lane to help with your withered.
The current setting for lower is "Come here and get robbed." so you need to make it more enticing to go there, to over come the "Get robbed" aspect. Because at the moment all you have is "red" factions. People who hate everyone.
I don't think more /Quests/ was the intention of the original post. From what I've gathered Ladocicea is merely offering up suggestions on how to give Lower a more "visible" presence via a variety of NPC suggestion.
For example:
Monster Mercenary Faction: NPCs similar to the NPC Watch found in Upper. You might see one occasionally on a corner, perhaps they push narcotics, poison or other "contraband"?
I could be missing the intention, but I understood this as suggestions for other types of "encounters" to be found in Lower, the Canal Ward, and perhaps the In-Between rather than true factions/associations and/or quests.
lol
9lives will get on it ASAP look at the good job he did with Vradzn.
It's slow down there but with a nice player group I'm sure PC's can make something happen. Sort of silly to make huge changes for a place no one goes very much. In time I'm sure it will be flushed out more.
It's nostalgia that brought me back to Lower Sanctuary, but the whole place is just feeling like a shell of what it once was. Lower's basically unchanged in its layout, but it's just generally an uninteresting place to creep around atm. A lot of potentially interesting areas have been shut down or removed, and while it's something of an over-time progress, it just isn't quite there yet.
It's not even to say that players haven't tried to live it up some. The Mongrels & Charles' arena events have both been succesful in drawing a lot of attention towards Lower.
Perhaps it is my own lack of creativity, but I don't know how to administer growth to Lower where our population is around an odd 15 people (PCs/NPCs).
I'm trying to make a change though, and in time I'm sure we'll see improvements (such as the recently implemented NPC merchants spawning in the Crone. Awesome!).
What I'd really love above all other things is more anxiety (and perhaps DM-promoted frequency) of the gas attacks, and clearer representation of its effects on people.
The merchants are a good step forward. When I've had chats with people ICly about why they were hotdogging between Lower and Upper, merchants was one of the reasons. I think the lack of a stable player base is the other reason, OOCly, and a lot of that has to do with how little there is to see or do in Lower Sanctuary.
What I feel Lower is needs are a few areas or more NPC-life in general that could provoke a few interesting concept ideas like the ones that have been suggested so far. Maybe a tribe of Kuo-toa exiles settle along the Canal Ward. Maybe the Ooze has taken up a new home among the Chosen, deep below the Pumphouse. Maybe a cult of Dendar springs up in the back alleys, open only to those who show their devotion. Bottom line is that though Lower is in ruins, it doesn't need to literally be a mass grave. Make the sewers, or the Southern alleys, or further, viable spots for PC groups to gather, grow and rock out- which is why I proposed more spawn points.
A lot of the ideas proposed might make for...alright NPC groups, but I could see them having a lot more success as PC groups, as Zango said. That's not a bad thing- PC's might come for new quests, but they stay for the interesting concepts and groups of PC's, even those that appear to want nothing to do with Upper Sanctuary. Lower doesn't have to become what it used to be, and it doesn't need to have an analogue to Upper's factions either. The Mongrels came about because of what Lower used to have- a lot of gangs. Crone fight-night is also a throwback, as well as the employees of the Crone that nearly started up.
Lower should be awash with opportunities for Chaotic-aligned players with groups or goals to accomplish. I understand that some patience is needed to wait for change to be made, and it's not entirely on the shoulders of DM's either. Be the change you want to see, and shit.
I would like a lower faction that wantonly handed out DM loot and attention...?
I think the DMs wanted to get away from another upper vs lower. Docks vs Dominion, the best way to do that is to not even consider giving a population to Lower.
A few merchants are fine, maybe some crazy NPC dialogue, but I don't really think returning the days of Old is necessarily a positive thing.
Quote from: Spiffy Has;351918I think the DMs wanted to get away from another upper vs lower. Docks vs Dominion, the best way to do that is to not even consider giving a population to Lower.
A few merchants are fine, maybe some crazy NPC dialogue, but I don't really think returning the days of Old is necessarily a positive thing.
Lots of good ideas, but I'm going to second this. To some extent I think its really effective as a sparsely inhabited area poised to become the sandbox of whatever chaotic player factions crop up much in the vein of Old Stones. There's definitely cool stuff to find in Lower and the Canal Ward if you look hard enough. The one thing that really compels me, as a player who has only experienced EFU:M, are a lot of these ruined shops that are otherwise inaccessible.
Maybe some lower-sanctuary-oriented exploration areas, much like the Worminger explorations, could pump some life into the area while still making it feel more like you're exploring a ruin?
The ideal of lower vs upper is something best left to be worked out as the story unfolds. It doesn't exactly seem inherently bad to me, to have that dividing line that unites people on either side against some bigger boogeyman that lives below/above them though.
I think the best idea for Lower content is for players with cool ideas to make groups that make sense in Lower and do something more interesting than just the occasional thugging and pvping. Though with the high amount of brutality in the area it might be difficult to last long enough to see change. I guess that's part of the challenge? The way Lower felt was not for me though I have no doubt in time through both player and DM initiatives it will grow into something more than it is now.