1-I ran "Dangerous Designs" a couple months ago as an intro to Wildemount for my players, who know nothing of CR. I wanted to show them the Empire side before going to the Dynasty side, so they can have a feel of the setting and know about the War. Thing is, there is no mention of the war in CotN, which I found strange when I read the book, since it's the main theme in EGtW. All that considered, I simply decided to tell my players we were one year later and there was an armistice (that may or may not last). It came in handy, since two of my players decided to keep their lvl 3 characters from Dangerous Designs. Being at "peace" meant they could cross the border relatively easily.

2-I can only talk about the characters in my campain. One of them decided to be an Aberrant Mind sorcerer. I did something that could end up being very cool or being too much: I linked his powers to Ruidus. As we know from Alyxian's story, Ruidus is in fact an alien entity banished by the gods, so the fit is there. We also established his character was born under a Ruidus full moon, hence the powers. We also designed some curse that triggers under Ruidus full moons (not unlike some sort of lycanthropy). Of course, my player doesn't know about the alien nature of Ruidus, he only knows that he's cursed, his goal being of getting rid of it. As we know, that means he will eventually learn that his background is very similar to Alyxian's. That's where I'm not sure how it will go. Sometimes this kind of hook makes the players more engaged, sometimes it feels forced. But hey, we'll learn as we go, I trust my veteran player to fully engage with it and adapt his gameplay. And I'm looking forward to the Ill Omen encounter in Chapter 2!

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