Ok, many thanks
First, then, I'll try to sum up my campaign so far
Some premises:
- I use the d20 system manual from Moongose, plus the standard D&D manuals (for what can be easily adapted to Lone Wolf's world or to the story, so no cleric PNG and so)
- I have just re-read the novels by Dever and Grant, and only now I'm starting to get back to the gamebooks
(and, well, many choices I made sound not very wise in retrospect, but when I started the campaign I was in a hurry so what I did was frantically reading through the manual, and then for many things I was like "Sure, let's go with this!"... not a smart move, I know)
Since me and my friends have always played in the Dragonlance setting and not everyone of them knows LW, I came up with this mixed campaign.
The heroes are a group of people recruited by the Dragonlance gnomes to aid in a research about the Graygem and the fabulous universes of the after-Caos from which it is said that the Great Dragons came. (for those not accustomed with Dragonlance, its planes are surrounded by an apparently infinite sea of Caos, and from beyond it came the Great Dragons of another "universe" to mess up things; the gnomes are a race of crazy science obsessed guys constantly "improving" their inventions, where improving means "seeing how many malfunctions they can get in order to stimulate their creativity, since something that works is just plain boring")
The experiment effectively transported the players in another world, in the middle of a pianure but the return-devices, surprise, did not work. They were attacked by a group of grey and squat creatures (Giak), and later discovered in a village that they where in a world called Magnamund, more specifically in the Principality of Eru (from the Wiki and the manual, a "mountainous and forested country on the coast of the Tentarias in Northern Magnamund" which possesses great mineral and agricultural wealth but unfortunately suffers from incursion from drakkars).
In the very period during which the heroes arrived the country was suffering an increasingly dangerous series of raids, which made a large part of the population take shelter in the few major cities. In the capital, Humbold, the players found an old mage of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, whom when asked for help said them that their problem was fascinating, but he would have been capable of doing very little without the nyneril that is extracted only in Eru's mines (according to the manual it is a crystal necessary for the fabrication of wands), mines that have been abandoned because of the attacks.
The party then headed to a mine in order to retrieve a bit of the material, guided by a female apprentice of the mage (a new player, not that she played much till now...), but there it was mentally enslaved by a race of underground man-sized ants (Formian), except for one of them who succeeded at the saving throw, deciding to fake servitude in order to get the time to free his companions. I treated their mind control as a stronger charm, with the characters in love with the anthill and willing to do anything they could in order to help it, but possibly broken by a well convincing argument that shows that such love is only an illusion (a good enough Diplomacy check from someone trying to expose the spell granted a new saving throw, max once per day). So, while the one not controlled slowly tried to return his fellows to their free wills, the ants used them as tunnels sweepers, making them patrol the working zones and attack the hostile creatures. Another slave was added to the group, an half-crazy dwarf of Bor (another player).
By accident the ants discovered some apples in the heroes rations and found them extremely exquisite and then their Queen requested them to go in the outside world and bring back some more. Some other things happened which deserve to be told, exposing the monumental lack of common sense that my players can show, but for the sake of brevity I limit myself to the key points.
This mission let the free ones bring the others to the mage, who dispelled the enchantment (the dwarf, Pierorlorg, seeing them as his saviors decided to follow them). Once their story was reported to the Eruan government, it decided that even if it sounded not really plausible it was worth to ask the adventurers to guide and to escort (because of the lack of forces) an old diplomat to the anthill to try to get an useful treaty (offering... well, apples). During their way however they where attacked by a drakkar assassin, who poisoned the ambassador. Running back to Humbold, the heroes found it under siege by a small army of giaks and drakkars (most of the Eru military was far from the capital). After they got the help of an Ishir priestess specialized in medicine to fight the venom (another new player, I took the class from the Ishir Priest by Marco Conti), they went to the anthill and convinced the Queen that the drakkars would make toothpicks from the apple trees if given the opportunity. She immediately cured the old diplomat and sent its fighters to fight the invaders.
This is the story so far.
The next session will be probably centred on the battle at Humbold and on the reward gained by the heroes (not much, since they are of 2°/3° level... err, since the country is impoverished by the attacks). Moreover the characters from Dragonlance will discover that they are slowly fading away, which actually means that any attack the do/suffer has a chance to pass through which increases with time. This is meant to give them some more urge to find a way to return back, since till now they have show quite a casual attitude toward the "Duh, we are lost in another universe" stuff, and I will address this as caused by an incomplete transportation of their essence, which being still partly in the old world grants them their old powers (one of my players just doesn't want to change class to his cleric, even if without this explanation it doesn't make much sense that he can still use his Reorx's prayers) but slowly weakens.
But then... what?
I have not many brilliant ideas on what my group could do... it would seem natural that the old mage send them to his brothers of the Crystal Star, since he is a lone emissary, but where?
I have this dim idea: there could be a group of mages in Bor (which confines with Eru) studying their science (muskets and so), and this could tangle with the backround of the dwarf character.
So far what his player and me have defined is that Pierorlorg is a paranoid that fears anything that flies (because of a nasty incident during his childhood involving his aunt and an Itikar) and the possibility that everyone is plotting behind his back. Because of this and of the consequent attritions with his relatives he decided to abandon his clan (are thy in clans?) and look for a place free from intrigues.
I was thinking that in the encounter between Pierorlorg and his clan the group could be dragged in a series of events which culminate in the reveal that the character is not fully paranoid, potentially with the implication of some relative corrupted by Naar/an helghast (in particular, I was thinking of having them framed for the homicide of an uncle which leaves his heredity to the dwarf, heredity which is later discovered being more than what meets the eye, maybe by the means of a locked room mystery, Detective Conan FTW)
My principal problems are:
1) I don't know much about LW dwarves. I tend to assume that they are not much far from the classic ones, apart from a somewhat higher tecnological level.
2) I am not sure of how to handle the part in which they should be arguably arrested: of course it would be way funnier if they can escape, but how? (with the help of some long time friend of Pierorlorg that believes in him?) How can they move while wanted in a country of dwarfs? And how can they discover the true culprit while on the run?
3) Should I start from scratch with another idea/country to visit?
Do you have any suggestion?
Sorry for the sloppy english, when I'll have time I will correct it. Thanks for the patience!