CSI: Sharn

On the German RPG blog “Limited Edition – Gedanken zum Rollenspiel” I discovered a very intersting post called “CSI: Sharn“.

Sharn is one of the most iconic cities in Eberron and a great place for urban adventures. In his last Eberron campaign fellow blogger and roleplayer callme_ishmael had created a necromancer NPC that worked as coroner for the Sharn city guard. She used her spells to question dead crime victims in order to help the city guard with their investigation. And this NPC lead callme_ishmael to the idea of an urban campaign modelled after the popular TV series CSI.

The basic premise of a CSI: Sharn campaign would be that the players are members of a special group sponsored by the King of Breland himself to help the city guard solve crimes. Although some meta plot could be easily introduced into such a campaign, most adventures should be closed episodes which usually start with a dead body where the circumstances of death are unclear or even outright mysterious. Callme_ishmael even provided us with a few story hooks:

• A man has been found dead, obviously he died by falling from a great height. The problem is that shouldn’t be possible because of the feather fall enchantments that are in effect.
• A serial killer is stalking the warforged of Sharn, causing them to stop working in the local foundries, which will lead to an economical crisis in the near future.
• A countess has been killed by an unknown aberration that obviously used the plumbings to escape.
• In a gang fight several gang members from both sides are killed. When the guard rounds up the surviving combatants they deny being responsible for the deaths of their fellow gang members.

Since the members of the CSI team are working for the king the player characters get a steady income and their equipment is provided when needed. Ideally the group should be assembled from a lot of different races living in Sharn, perhaps even goblins and orcs. Sharn is a cosmopolitan city after all.

This is a really interesting idea on how you could do an urban campaign in Eberron. The next time I run an Eberron campaign I will surely give it a try.