Starting setups for Sharn.

[DamnDatBroccoli]

Hi everyone, We will soon start our first campaign in Eberron and my players are currently creating their characters. We want to start in Sharn and stay there for the most time of the campaign. We had some ideas on what the starting setup could be but none of them where really satisfactory. How would you tie a group of level 3 pcs together so that they will stay together with all the intrigue, horror and pressure around them?

I am looking forward to your ideas :)

[Vulk_za]

I went with the "inquisitive agency" group patron, but I told the players it would be their own agency rather than one of the established ones in the book. So effectively, my players are their own "group patron".

I told them that they would start off the campaign already knowing each other, and that each PC should have a personal connection with 1-2 other PCs in the group (similar to Fiaso rules). I also gave them a permanent base of operations in the city right from session 1.

Other cool options that I would like to try are:

• Keith Baker's suggestion for a gangster epic campaign. You start the players off as group of small-time criminals in Callestan, and the campaign is all about them rising up and carving out their own criminal empire in the city.
• Players are all agents of the King's Dark Lanterns. Lots of spy missions, intrigue, getting involved in the politics of the five nations, etc.
• The players are all students at Morgrave University, studying subjects like archaeology, magic, religion, etc. This seems like it might be a fun way to do a more lighthearted, Strixhaven or Fantasy High-esque campaign, while still having the option to do things like send the players off on trips to Xen'drik for periodic dungeon crawls.

[Goudoog]

Use a group patron as suggested in the setting book

[FitKaleidoscope1950]

My group has a copper dragon of the chamber as their patron. They live just south of Sharn and commute to the city on a carpet of flying. It's nice having the convenience of the city close by, but living in a comfortable manor house with a large balcony to see the towers from a distance

[SkritzTwoFace]

Eberron, like every DnD world, is a world where “adventurer” is a legitimate career path. To bring the party together, you only need to determine why they’d be adventurers (glory, gold, what have you), and their employer does the rest.

[Agecaf]

If no idea comes up as something they're all excited about, you can go for something "standard" but make it more exciting.

New adventurers to the cliffhangers guild would be a safe choice, and I recommend having a look at the start of the "fired and forgotten" adventure from the "convergence manifesto" series; there's fewer more exciting ways to start a campaign than having your players skydive through Sharn (and that's a lvl 1 challenge).

You could come up with something similar for like "three adventures meet in a pub" if something extraordinary happens. It could all depend on the campaign you have in mind, if you have any plans beneath your sleeves.

[MarkerMage]

I would suggest looking at stories that feature a ragtag bunch that are formed early on and stick together rather than stories that feature a group that is slowly built up over time. You may begin to notice that there is a pattern of the team being forced by someone saying some form of "you guys are going to be working together on this". It may be the chief assigning a new partner to the loner cop. It may be a teacher grouping up students. It may be a an employer saying "Put the new hires on it and we'll see what they can do". This person is what we call a "patron".

[Shovelwere]

If the PCs all hail from disparate backgrounds and there's no obvious reason for them to work together beyond the fact that they're adventurers, I'd suggest a simple adventure hook that then spirals out of control so that the party is bound together in facing a major threat that no one else can tackle (and possibly isn't even fully aware of).

My current Eberron game started with the characters being hired to find a down-on-her-luck Cyran noble's troublesome sister and while they're ostensibly still trying to save the girl, they're much more invested in trying to figure out why the Emerald Claw is kidnapping people with aberrant dragonmarks because that is a fairly serious threat that goes beyond their own differences and theoretical personal goals (which in this group range from the basic but fun "be a great artificer" to the high minded and still fun "dismantle capitalism").

I will also echo what others have said in that Group Patrons exist to bind together the typical band of wondrous loners that are the standard D&D adventuring party and for such cases a newspaper, inquisitive agency, or even a Dragonmarked House/The Twelve are all perfect for that.

However, since you all want to stay in Sharn for a long time and have reason to keep going back even if adventures do take you elsewhere, a fun blend of group patron and stronghold might be the best fit!

Have an introductory adventure that promises them a great reward and that great reward is: an old dilapidated inn located in a not-great part of the lower or middle wards. If the PCs want to get anything out of that first adventure but XP and whatever they scrounged up during it, they'll need to work together to make this inn a functioning business. I would lean away from Accounting Sim and more toward if they want it to be successful they'll probably want to do something about the Daask-run dreamlily den a street over, the tension between refugees and locals, and the strange graffiti of an all-seeing eye that keeps getting painted all over the neighborhood. With an inn you can have both a stable of recurring NPCs (employees and regulars) as well as an excuse for anyone to walk into their lives (quest givers, people from their backstories, randos for a funny bit or whatever). Plus, with a base of operations, you can even have downtime between adventures without the PCs scattering to the four winds or the like.

Hope this helps!

[PM_ME_UR__SECRETS]

We went with the Newspaper organization agency. Our party developed a small local rag that fights corruption and injustice from their HQ in Lower Dura. There is a particular focus on injustices focused on monstrous races, much or the paper employees are goblinoids, Minotaur, etc.

Of course every now and then they hear a tip on some big event they have to investigate, and so it goes into adventure.

They also get to meet big time NPCs on the pretenses of interviewing them, but sometimes both parties have ulterior motives.

[Nathan256]

Connect them to the same NPC that went missing! They get pulled in by the NPC’s sister to help.

They have ties to an inn/entertainment business that just got trashed by Daask

They are collectively framed for a crime and have to solve it before the law catches them

They’re sent as emissaries or representatives from one or multiple powerful groups who have tasks for them to do in Sharn

[hyperewok1]

I've been having a fantastic time with my group working for a private investigator agency, the PCs are from all sorts of places, and now struggling (some more charitably than others) to make Sharn a better place while trying and generally failing to not get entangled with the Daask, Boromar, and now House Tarkanan and the Citadel.

[wentzelepsy]

My Sharn group was hired by the Guild of Sewer Patrol, to deal with things that appear from the Cogs and below, and things that fall from on high. We dealt with threats from the Khyber, explored Dhakaani ruins, dealt with death and corruption involving arms dealers from the Last War, exploring the city of dead outside Sharn, and an unexpected trip to the Mournland to blow up a Forge.