Putting Crown Ideas Into Play

I'm running H2 right now. The players are known as orc slayers and are seeking higher and higher patrons to do their work.

One of the things interesting about the Silver March, an old softcover 3.0 book, it notes that Silverymoon has a church of Lathander that is leaderless. One of the players in my game is a deva Invoker who follows the 'Risen Sun' heresy that stats that Lathander is another god and indeed, during the 4e timeline, becomes that other god.

So I've had fun using that character as a spring board for the various 'conflicts'. He mocks the church for not doing enough. For being safe in the city. They mock him for travelling alongside a cleric of Bahamut and a paladin of Torm, asking him how loyal is he to this false god under the Risen Sun if he can't even convince his comrades who are on this dangerous road of his to join him.

In doing so though, I've added NPC's that are lesser nobles and introduced the concepts that the churchs are a political power of their own due not only to the wealth and power they have, but due to the people who make up some of the higher ranks of the church, second and third born nobles who stand to inherit very little. The players have also befriended some of the 'lesser' brothers who come from the ranks of the peasants who have to struggle for survival and have provided the church with many a fine worshipper in exchange for the blessings and protection given to them from the church.

While it certainly doesn't have the depth of Crown of Stars, it does add other elments to the campaign outside of the hack and slash that comes when the characters go into the Nether Mountains to explore that ancient city with its strange magics.