CHAPTER 6 | STARTING POINTS 147Starting Points ..........................................................
Sharn holds the potential for endless adventures.
The City of Towers can serve as the foundation
of a single adventure or an entire campaign.
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focus to the campaign—setting a tone and giving
players an initial investment in the story. The
player characters may be meeting in a tavern—
but it’s their NI^WZQ\Mtavern. The bard performs
twice a week and the barbarian has a huge bar
tab to resolve.
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points.
- Callestan is in Lower Dura. It’s a
dangerous district riddled with crime and
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dark neo-noir story. - +TQٺ\WXin Upper Dura is a district
catering to established adventurers. This
is a place for pulp heroes, established
explorers whose services are in demand. - Morgrave University is in Upper
Menthis Plateau. This is a college for
adventurers, and an opportunity to add a
little levity to your story.
Choosing and developing a starting point should
be a collaborative process between the players
and the DM. A starting point sets a tone; if
half of the players want a light-hearted romp,
Callestan is a poor choice.
Once you’ve agreed on a starting point, the
next step is to work together to develop the story.
This section provides details about each district,
including prominent NPCs and locations. Using
this as a foundation, each player should work
with the DM to answer the following questions.
Why Are You Here? What has drawn your
character to this place, and what keeps you here?
The idea of using a starting point is that it’s your
PWUM—what does it say about your character that
this place is your home?
Friends and Rivals. Who do you know in
the district? The DM should work with each
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or both. A character’s background is always
a good place to start. If you’re a criminal, do
you have a friend in a local gang? If you’re an
entertainer, do you have a professional rival?
If you’re a folk hero, did you deal with a thug
causing trouble in your favorite tavern—earning
you the gratitude of the owner and the enmity of
the villain?
This is a collaborative process and the goal is
to enhance the story, not to spoil it. You may
be friends with a Morgrave professor, but that
doesn’t mean they’ll magically solve all your
problems; more likely, they might ask you to
help solve one of \PMQZproblems. If you’re having
trouble coming up with ideas, the DM can
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details: “AW]¼^MUILMIVMVMUaWNI,II[SWOZMVIUML
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You Meet at a Tavern ... But Which
Tavern? ?PMZMLWaW][XMVLaW]ZWٺPW]Z['
As a group, once you settle on a location, each
player can add one cosmetic detail about it. This
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WTLL_IZNVIUML+TIVSa#PM¼[OW\IXZW[\PM\QKIZUº).
It might be something about the food, or about
events hosted at the location (“7VKMI_MMS\PMTWKIT
UMLQ]U[PWTLIX]JTQK[MIVKMº). All of these ideas are
subject to DM approval.
You don’t have to have a starting point, and
even if you pick one, you don’t have to answer
all of these questions. The goal of this is to set a
tone—if this campaign is a movie, what kind of
movie is it?—and to give each player a personal
investment in that story.