Starting a campaign soon, looking for some thoughts/feedback

[Leviathan]

First up, I have no idea if anyone looking at playing in my game looks at these forums, but if you recognise this username and are in my game, go away

So! My game should finally be getting off the ground soon, and I figured I'd put down my plans here for people to critique and give ideas/advice on.

Around fifty years before the events of the books, the Head of a moderately successful house purchased a large amount of land near the outer edge of the inner dominances and moved out there, putting out a call to his House for those who wanted to seek their fortune to follow him.
What he had bought was a large piece of land (plantation, small mine, mansion etc) belonging to another house that was destroyed a century ago for attracting the ire of the Lord Ruler. At his word nobody had been permitted to inhabit it for the last century, as a symbol of what happens to those who displease him. While most snapped up the fertile lands and large mines that the family used to own, this house head (really do need to come up with names) bought the now decaying and crumbling 'personal retreat' of the house head, located away from his productive lands, though the rest of the house doesn't understand why.

The PCs will be (some of) those members wanting to seek their fortune who follow him, and each will have some kind of conflicting/contrasting loyalty than that of the party/house, just to keep things interesting.

What the PCs don't know is that the person who attracted the Lord Ruler's ire was an extremely intelligent Mistborn heretic who went mad in his later years. His house achieved wealth by running the Pits of Hathsin for the Lord Ruler (the head of the PCs house is aware of this part, and believes there to be an Atium cache hidden somewhere in the land he's bought) but he wasn't happy with TLR's restrictions, researching forbidden technology, trying to find new Allomantic metals, discovering rudimentary Hemalurgy and most grievous of all, cutting free a number of Atium crystal nodes from the Pits and secretly transporting them to his retreat to see if Atium would grow there.
Ruin's subtle influence, combined with the distance from Luthadel, meant that these things remained hidden from TLR for decades, allowing him to develop his skills, a number of Hemalurgic creatures, discover some "New" Allomantic metals, and some "rudimentary" technologies like crossbows, gunpowder, electricity etc

All these are sealed in a complex multi-layered vault with clockwork locks keeping each section separate. The party will no doubt find this vault, and spend a chunk of their time decrypting each lock to get in and take a look at what's inside, and then deciding what should be done about it.

There will also be some sluething, general archaeology stuff, and dealing with the occasional Hemalurgic creation running around the countryside.

What do people think? Sound workable?

[Aminar]

Very cool.  Mistborn Haunted Mansion.   Just make sure you throw your hemalurgic beasties into my thread.  Id like to see that bestiary grow.

Also can't believe nobody ever tried removing the Atium geodes.

[tecslicer]

Sounds like there should be plenty of good opportunities to script some disturbing horror tableau. (If your group would appreciate that sort of thing. I.E. Open a locked door and find the skeleton of someone that was trapped inside with the treasure. A diary with devolving madness of the mistborn. etc)

Anyway, What kinds of new metals are you thinking? New cannon metals? or new alloys that you make the rules for? Because I was thinking if there are hema-mon running around, a metal to detect Hemalurgy would be boss! Though you might need a built-in way for them to discover what the metal does. I tried a metal that detects Feruchemy, but my Feruchemist keeps giving good reasons why he is making pulses... Maybe a notebook...

Sounds like a great adventure to me, a lot of work setting it all up, but that is all part of the fun.

[Leviathan]

Very cool.  Mistborn Haunted Mansion.   Just make sure you throw your hemalurgic beasties into my thread.  Id like to see that bestiary grow.

Shall do
I think for at least one chamber, in true Archaeological style, I *have* to have some Hemalurgic snakes...

Also can't believe nobody ever tried removing the Atium geodes.

Well.. I can see why it wouldn't, those who look after the Pits normally wouldn't want to even think about risking their position by getting caught doing something like that.
Madness is so useful for this kind of plan, reasons why *not* to do something just go away...

Sounds like there should be plenty of good opportunities to script some disturbing horror tableau. (If your group would appreciate that sort of thing. I.E. Open a locked door and find the skeleton of someone that was trapped inside with the treasure. A diary with devolving madness of the mistborn. etc)

Oh yes, people trapped inside, a weird haunting or two, these things shall most definitely need to be used
Diary of the Mistborn may take a while to try and write, but diaries of people trapped inside should be easy

Anyway, What kinds of new metals are you thinking? New cannon metals? or new alloys that you make the rules for? Because I was thinking if there are hema-mon running around, a metal to detect Hemalurgy would be boss! Though you might need a built-in way for them to discover what the metal does. I tried a metal that detects Feruchemy, but my Feruchemist keeps giving good reasons why he is making pulses... Maybe a notebook...

Admittedly I'd been thinking of new cannon metals like Bendalloy and such, though there's always the possibility of new Atium alloys.. hrm...
Discovering what the metal does should be easy, in most cases there will be extensive notes on things, and maybe a "I know something is happening because I don't get sick when I burn this, but I just *can't* figure out *what*" or two.

[Aminar]

The diary entry on Cadmium could be hilarious. 
"I locked myself in my study and began burning the new metal I'd discovered.  Nothing happened.  I kept burning it hoping something would happen, but nothing did.  It took almost four hours to burn through all the metal.  When I came out Fredrick, my dog, was dead and partially decayed.  I'm still not sure what happened.  I believe it sucks the caloric energy out of all nearby beings."

[Akerbos]

The diary entry on Cadmium could be hilarious. 
"I locked myself in my study and began burning the new metal I'd discovered.  Nothing happened.  I kept burning it hoping something would happen, but nothing did.  It took almost four hours to burn through all the metal.  When I came out Fredrick, my dog, was dead and partially decayed.  I'm still not sure what happened.  I believe it sucks the caloric energy out of all nearby beings."

Haha, awesome. Not quite plausible, but fun.

Leviathan, what is your plan for the middle- and endgame? Do you expect/encourage conflict with their boss? Does TLR catch wind of the situation?

[Leviathan]

Leviathan, what is your plan for the middle- and endgame? Do you expect/encourage conflict with their boss? Does TLR catch wind of the situation?

I'm not entirely sure on those ones. Middle game there will be more levels/layers of the 'vault' to be opened, but as to if there will be conflict with the house head/TLR or if another house will get wind and attack them etc, that's not planned thus far.
I'll have a better idea once people have given me their characters and I have a better idea about their loyalties.

I'm forseeing the following possibilities though:
1) Another house gets wind of things and attacks them, so they need to 'break' the other house
 - This will likely draw TLR's attention unless other reasons are fabricated for the conflict
2) TLR finds out about the caches etc. I'm reluctant to use this one since I don't want to turn the game into 'chosen one takes on the lord rule and overthrows society' type of thing
 - Ruin's subtle influence could actually stop this from happening for quite a while, at least until messengers are sent to Luthadel with memorised messages rather than written ones
3) The players try and organise a coup and take over their house
4) The players carefully utilise some of the tech they're finding to raise their house to prominence

I must admit I haven't really figured out an 'endgame' for this story, I think I'll tailor that once I find out what the other players' characters, motivations etc are.
It may go from anything to "secure our house as is" to "personal glory" to "science vs magic: lets use this new tech to take over the world... or at least carve out our own country somewhere."

[Akerbos]

2) TLR finds out about the caches etc. I'm reluctant to use this one since I don't want to turn the game into 'chosen one takes on the lord rule and overthrows society' type of thing

I think the more plausible of TLR noticing is the "run for your life and don't be caught" story. Depending the perceived level of threat, he will send a herd of Koloss, or a crack team of Inquisitors. I think the heros will have enough trouble surviving so that they won't dream of challenging TLR. I would imagine this option (only) makes sense if the characters make a (couple of) big mistake which lets TLR know.