Dungeon’s Master does a monthly series called “RPG Blog Carnival”, and although I generally don’t write about D&D stuff, this month’s topic intrigued me, and I felt compelled to participate.

The article asks blog authors to look at a real-life person, living or dead, and re-imagine him or her as a character in an RPG. I’d briefly considered George Plimpton, and a friend had suggested Pat Morita as a good candidate, but in the end I chose Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla and made them into villains.

In reality, their “The War of the Currents” is well known, deciding whether alternating current or direct current would prevail as the dominant means of electrical delivery. Tesla was a brilliant scientific mind with poor business sense, and Edison was a brute force inventor with many unscrupulous practices. Whereas their main scientific forays in reality were electricity, in a fantasy setting they can be made into magical innovators.

Edison the Villain

To make Thomas Edison a true villain, he has to be guilty of more than simply burdening his rivals with expensive lawsuits and monopolizing the fledgeling movie industry. So my version of Edison is more akin to a mob boss – a classical Lawful Evil villain. My Thomas Edison is a vampire.

Edison has been infected with the vampire’s curse for only twelve years, but in that time, he’s accomplished quite a lot. Before being infected, he’d already made a name for himself as a wizard of no small power. He devised rituals that gained him the attention of archmages throughout the realm and pioneered the first permanent teleportation chamber, although it was rumored that many of his assistants were killed in the chamber’s earliest tests. Today, he’s used a combination of charm magic, vampiric domination, and vampire spawn minions to take control of the city of Menlo Park.

Edison keeps slaves largely for magical experimentation, and although slavery is not technically legal, Edison has never been called to answer for his crimes. This is partially due to his secrecy, and partially due to his influence in Menlo Park. The slaves double as a discreet means for Edison to feed. Unlike many vampires, Edison is not discriminating in his victims, and is careful not to create vampire spawn that would betray his true nature.

Menlo Park is a marvel of magical progress. An intricate underground sewer system excavated by enslaved earth elementals and powered by enslaved water elementals channels away the city’s waste, and solid waste is collected at a central point where enslaved fire elementals burn it away. Travelers visit frequently to purchase the strange and wonderful magical goods for sale here, but only the wealthy can afford them. Competitors who would create the items at a lower price have suffered strange disasters, and some have mysteriously disappeared.

Edison has been careful to conceal his nature and the fact that he holds as much power as he does in Menlo Park. Many of the citizens regard him as a great man who has turned the once mediocre city into a wonder of modern magic. But there are those who suspect, and there are some few who know.

Tesla the Villain

Nikola Tesla is a githzerai born in the elemental chaos. His parents fled some unknown power, settling in the secluded mountains west of Menlo Park. Young Nikola spent his youth studying and learning magic.

Tesla was already creating his own magic items when well-established wizard Thomas Edison invited him to Menlo Park. Tesla would be one of the wizards working directly under Edison, creating magic items in Edison’s laboratory. Tesla’s work ethic was second only to his magical ingenuity. He’d spent many years curating new magical concepts that he finally now had the resources to develop. After his first month of employment, Tesla had created a number of items whose power and creativity startled Edison himself. An argument about payment ensued, and quickly escalated to a magic duel. The workers took the side of their employer, and Tesla found himself outnumbered and forced to flee the city.

Following Tesla’s departure, Edison co-opted his ideas and began reproducing Tesla’s inventions. A bitter Nikola Tesla cloistered himself away in the mountains of his youth, conducting his own research into greater, more powerful, and more dangerous forms of magic. He began summoning demons regularly, and experimenting with infernal energy and psychic enslavement. He later aquired two illithid slaves, using them to carry out his plots.

His research has culminated in an artifact of his own creation: The Tesla Teleportation Coil. This massive device is based on Edison’s teleportation chamber, but does not require source and destination chambers. Located in his remote mountain lair, Tesla’s Teleportation Coil can transport many creatures from itself to any location within hundreds of miles instantly. Those teleported arrive on a bolt of lightning which strikes from the sky, laying waste to anything in the immediate area. This makes it the perfect tool for a surprise attack.

But research of this scope does not come inexpensively. Tesla has long been using his teleportation coil to transport his demonic servants and illithid slaves all over the realm to obtain the materials he needs for his research, often leaving towns and villages devastated. Recently, Tesla has taken to singling out Edison’s supply trains and Menlo Park’s magical exports. This has led to a proxy duel between the two powerful wizards, with Edison’s well-supplied guard forces fighting off ambushes by Tesla’s demons. More than once, these battles have taken place in populated areas, and have had terrible collateral damage.

Encounters

Caught in the Crossfire
After repeated attacks on his supply trains, Edison is eager to find out where Tesla’s base of operations is located. To this end, he’s having Tesla’s demonic raiders trailed. Players happen across a seemingly random encounter with demons in the wilderness. Oddly, the demons all seem to be carrying chests and sacks. Midway through the battle, a group of wizards join the fight. They’ve been following the demons and are upset that the players attacked, because now they can’t follow the demons back to Tesla’s base. A three-way battle is always pleasantly hectic.

Caravan Ambush
Players travelling between towns as part of a small wagon caravan are suprised when the wagons in front of them are destroyed by a giant bolt of lightning which leaves behind attacking demons! The larger demons target the people on the wagons, while smaller imps focus on stealing supplies and fleeing. Players’ reward varies on how many people and supplies they’re able to save. If they bother to dig, PCs can find that the supply wagons were carrying magical items produced in Menlo Park.

A Daring Rescue
While visiting Menlo Park, a child falls into an open gutter down into the city’s deep sewer system. The dirty waterslide quickly turns into a swift current propelled by water elementals. PCs who choose to save the child must navigate a skill challenge in which they navigate the waterways and save the child before he’s swept into the city center to be incinerated by fire elementals. Failure at this skill challenge leads to the child’s death and a battle with fire elementals. Should PCs kill the fire elementals, they’ll have an angry township to contend with.

Unraveling Edison’s Mystery
PCs are hired to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy merchant’s daughter. Oddly, they find that her location has been magically obfuscated and scrying will not work. Only old-fashioned sleuthing can do the trick. Clues eventually lead to an old warehouse which is unusually well-guarded by wizards and vampire spawn. Within are dozens of slaves, including the merchant’s daughter.