Far North Lunar/Solar Travel Adventure: Help me brainstorm

[Jutlander]

I have promised to run a mini series of Exalted over two days and three nights for two players. Characters have not been made yet, and I will be able to influence but not dictate what sort of characters they are making.


One of the players will be portraying a Lunar Exalted and the other will portray either a Lunar or a Solar Exalted. He has said that he would prefer to play a Solar, but that he will not mind if he has to play a Lunar. This will be the first experience any of us have with playing or running a Lunar game.


To get the Icelandic Saga feel of the Lunars, I have decided to set my game in the Far North and glancing through Bastions of the North I have gotten hooked on the idea of using the lost city of Opal Spire (pages 39-43).


I have considered running two parallel stories during the game:


1) An action packed buddy movie/road movie style series with the Solar and the Lunar character travelling to Opal Spire.


2) A more intrigue based series detailing flashbacks to the earlier incarnations of the Lunar and Solar from when they lived in Opal Spire.


What I need to figure out:


:arrow: What sort of relevance could the flashback have to the current day? What dark secret of the past will the flashbacks reveal and how will this influence the current incarnations?


:arrow: Why are the current incarnations of the Solar and the Lunar travelling to Opal Spire?


Help me brainstorm, please.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Consider this, Opal Spire is PACKED with First Age artifacts, untouched essentially. Their memories would reveal that it was once a glorious harbor and the forefront of Solar expansion of Creation. It is home to the massively powerful reality engines that stabilize and allow the Creation to expand. If they may have been there at the Usurpation, they know that Vorvin Derlin, or at least the feeling of a foreboding.


Use imagery and stark light, portray the North as a lonely place, because they will be FAR from civilization. Far, far from it. It's a place of wonder and extreme dread. The Fae linger only loosely around the area because of Vorvin Derlin. Lunar's may wish to reclaim the city, it's all up to you. But they will remember it's glory if nothing else, or perhaps it's terrible last night if they were there when the Usurpation happened.

 

[Jutlander]

Thanks for the input.


I have gotten a little further since my last update in that one of the characters have been detailed plus I have developed a couple of details tieing the two plot-lines together.


The first character is an Eclipse Caste Solar who was adopted by a spirit court when he was an infant. He now serves as liason between the spirits and the humans worshipping them. I am thinking that through the flashbacks he will realize that his "family" was present in Opal Spire at the time of the Usurpation.


I have an idea that the catalysator starting this plot will be the arrival of an unknown spirit; a mad wanderer. He desperately wants to go to Opal Spire to warn his Celestial patrons before they are betrayed and he wants the Solar and the Lunar to go with him.


In reality, the spirit has lost his mind after having been imprisoned under a mountain for 1,500 years. Mad with guilt he has forgotten that it was himself who helped the Sidereal and Dragon-Blooded Exalts in Opal Spire betray Oe-Té and the others. There is no one to warn for they are already dead and Opal Spire has long since been destroyed.


I will switch back and forth between the two plot lines. One detailing the Lunar, the Solar and the spirit as they travel towards Opal Spire; and the second telling the story of the last days and nights of Opal Spire featuring the former incarnations of the Solar and the Lunar, the present-day mentor of the Lunar when he was just a young whelp, the spirit family of the Solar before they were driven away from Opal Spire, and of course the spirit that killed one of them and was later imprisoned for 1,500 years.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Excellent  8)


Play that last plot line up big time. Make it grand, more epic than epic. Be grandoise about it. Hold nothing back, the wholesale slaughter that occured on that last night was incredible. MOST of the city population escaped amazingly, but the DBs and Siddies...welllllll let's say they didn't make it out so well. At least one Siddie dead and well, DBs are cannon fodder, use 'em like Stormtroopers