I am looking for ideas for trials of Hoar, the god of poetic justice. It doesn't have to be a perfect fit, as the overall theme of the adventure fits the poetic justice side of things, but I would like a mix of puzzles, riddles, traps, shenanigans, and combat to mix through the dungeon.
Essentially, the god Hoar has been invoked to protect the Macguffin, which (if recovered) will itself cause poetic justice, and the party need to satisfy Hoar to be allowed safe passage.
I am completely at a loss as to how to produce Ironic and Poetically-Just traps and the like. Drawing an absolute blank. Got Nuffink.
Poetic justice, in my understanding, deals with moral balance.
So the PC that does evil will, eventually, have evil done to them. The poisoner will be poisoned. The schemer will be duped by a scheme. The arsonist will be killed by fire. Etc.
I think I need to know more about the party going into the situation and their past history of moral decisions.
It could be upon recovery to have the mcguffin to cause a loss of material or motivation necessary to the plot, or the party could have ti give away somethign they had to acquire for the plot device to be allowed safe passage by Hoar. Without knowing more about the mcguffinand your plotline it's hard to say.
Lord of the Rings and the Witcher both have some themes of poetic justice you can call on. E.g. undead cowardly soldiers who are forced to fight in their afterlife, evil actions causing curses to befall those who commit them, the arrogant being slain by the humble that sort of thing.
You could have things like:
Mirrors that show your reflection as beautiful/ugly depending on whether you are good/evil.
Souls of those who previously tried to loot the place trapped as guardians.
Treasure that curses those who steal it.
A test where they must give up their weapons in order to earn the new weapon - the mcguffin.
A sphinx-type creature that will either tell the players the correct way to go in the dungeon if they honestly explain what they want, or tell them the wrong way if they try to lie to it -> this could even be a recurring Cheshire-cat type character.
A victim of a trap that if they save grants them resistance to future traps or if they leave to die grants them vulnerability to future traps.
Some sort of arena or magic arch where they must face their greatest past mistake, and can only progress if they put it right.
Poetic justice is a hard one, it is essentially just well written justice in a story . It can be argued that poetic justice is when some one receives a deserved reward or punishment in a logical way that is memorable entertaining or humorous. It is sometimes used to mean irony which is also hard to define but in it's simplest form is saying one thing while meaning it's opposite but even that is disputed . You could have a real hard time to defining the terms in a way everyone agrees with so you either need to make a definition up or play into the ambiguity.
There are a few directions you can go with this
You can play into the ambiguity and show all actions have consequences by making the players make choices and showing consequences in particular unintended ones .
As an example an apparition of the god may seemingly transport the party to a store being robbed. The god sits writing a poem as a robber breaks into the store the party can choose to stop the robber in which case it's revealed they are stealing medicine for a sick family member, or they can let it happen in which case a fight occurs and the robber kills the store owner, if they try a compromise like paying for the drug themselves then it simply isn't enough and more drug is needed later.
You can have a specific idea of justice that the party needs to fulfill
For example there is an idea in some ethical systems that you should never lie even to save a life. This is because if one person cannot trust what you say then no one can even the person you are lieing to protect A trap/ puzzle based on this could be a room with 3 small rooms each with a button inside and a button outside. Holding the button outside keeps the 3 doors open when a player enters the room and pushes the button that door closes close and a console appears that says punish the trespasser with a button for each room. The trap assumes they will lie about where their ally is so the door to the next area opens only if the button the person outside picks matches the room the other player is in. When they pick a room to punish that door opens and all the others have a trap go off. The whole thing is reset if the person outside repents for lying.
Another ethical idea is called the veil of ignorance. This is essentially the idea that to make a fair society you should ignore your position in it. This could take a few forms
Barrier for entry. To pass a force field they need to adopt priestly robes that hide entirely their identity
Enforced defense mechanism. The temple may have a magical effect or creatures that prevent knowing who is who allowing people to impersonate party members
I am writing this as a part of a christmas-themed oneshot, and do not know what the players will make for the game!
I am thinking of running this at about level 12 so they will have a lot of shenanigans for me to have to deal with.
But, I have had an idea for the irony of it.
The story (without revealing too much in case my players, who both live in Nottingham and are expecting us to come up this weekend for an early christmas, so if this is you, N & W, stop reading!) involves saving Santa. The premise of the setup is that Santa is a great toymaker and the party are led there by a toy, so I have decided that the party will have to fight & puzzle their way past giant magical toys. This worked really well for plot exposition too, because they will actually be delving into Santa's old home, so it works well across the board!
For the full plot (in case it gives people more ideas):
My concept is that the party starts off as children and do a short adventure together, which lays the groundwork for the town and the friendship. The town has stories of Santa, who used to come and deliver presents, but stopped coming years ago. They also say they used to be attacked by a dragon, and that the Fey Folk who lived with them went North to fight it, and never returned - but neither did the dragon.
They will then return to the town as adults, and will be led to Santa's home & workshop (which is run by Mice) by a magical toy, and discover that Santa has been cursed by the Imprisonment spell, which was cast on him by a sorceress. The Mice ask the party to fight the sorceress, and this will lead them to a dragons lair on the south end of the island. It is cold, and dead, and there are frozen Yuan-Ti huddled in the corners. The party will fight their way through a series of traps which take the form of magical toys (all of which were foreshadowed in their childhood by the stories of the woman who ran their orphanage), and will eventually come to the dragon's hoard, and the sorceress. She will be a Yuan Ti, and will explain that the spell will be broken if Santa remembers who he is, and to do that, they have to take a coin from the hoard and lay it on Santa's chest. Doing so will break the spell, but (unbeknownst to the party unless they work it out), Santa is actually a red dragon who was befuddled by the Fey (Mice) to become a gift-giving good guy. The Mice, knowing this, wanted the party to kill the Sorceress, but killing her won't end the spell - only the coin will, and if she's slain, she will use her dying breath to tell the party thus. If the party approach with the coin, then the Mice will assemble to fight back against them, forming the main boss of the game - the NutKraken, a mechanical creature which the party will have to get past to save Santa.
If the party do get to Santa, there will be a big reveal as they discover him to be a Dragon, and he will declare that he remembers everything, and thank the party. He will restore the heat to his lair, defrosting the Yuan-Ti, and will then return to wreak vengeance on the Mice, before landing in front of the party. He will tell them that he remembers everything - that he was tricked by the Fey into giving them his name, and that he was made to build toys for the town he had been raiding for years. And that he remembers every laugh from those children. Ever letter written to him. That he has never been worshipped so avidly, and that he likes it. He is Cinder Claws once again, but he will remain Santa Clause as well.
(A little bit cheesy, I am open to ideas as to how to wrap it up without the party having to kill Santa!)
Sorry, but why is every character in your plot a villain? Does your party like stories where they simply kill everything?
Spoilers!
The plot doesn't really make sense. Why do the mice want the party to kill the sorceress if they don't want the spell to be broken? Why do the mice attack the party rather than just telling them that Santa is a Red Dragon that would attack the town if freed? Who actually cast Imprisonment on Santa? If the Sorceress wants Santa freed it can't be her, if the Fey had him enchanted anyway it can't be them, so who was it? How will Cinder Claws remain Santa if the mice were the ones who made the toys and run the workshop and the dragon killed them all?
Some suggestions: Keeping the premise of Cinder Claws a red dragon enchanted by Fey mice to be Santa Claus:
1) Rather than Santa being imprisoned, Santa is sick (this could be physical or mental or both) because after many years the dragon is becoming resistant to the enchantments and his sickness has infected the magical toys causing them to attack anyone who enters the workshop. The mice thus want to "cure" Santa to restore the workshop to proper functioning, but to do so they need firstly something from the dragon's lair and secondly to fight their way through the workshop to get to Santa to "cure" him.
2) They are afraid to go to the dragon's lair because it has been taken over by some kind of creature that is immune to being charmed. When the party goes to the lair they find evidence that it used to be the lair of a red dragon, and various old bodies of the fey who were killed during their previous attack when they charmed the dragon. When they reach the dragon's horde, they find a frail old member of the fey to originally captured the dragon living there but was spared by the red dragon during the battle - hence they believe the dragon could be redeemed. They explain what the fey-mice did and give the party two items - the thing the Fey-mice requested to keep the dragon enchanted, and something that would free the dragon entirely.
3) The party return to the workshop and have to fight their way through the corrupted toys to reach 'Santa' and choose whether to release him or help the mice keep him enslaved forever. If they release him, the old frail fey reappears having followed the party and tries to convince the Red Dragon to change their ways with the help of the party. Possible outcomes: - The dragon agrees to stay as Santa and forces the Fey-mice to continue working in the workshop to make up for what they did, - the dragon kills the fey mice and leaves, - the dragon fights the party & fey and goes back to raiding the town Depending on how convincing the party is.
I agree that it felt like I had too many villains in the story - though I had intended the sorceress to be neutral, as she wanted the dragon to be free. The mice wanted to have her killed because they thought it would free Santa, and because she was a member of the people who woshipped the dragon before. Essentially, the Fey-Mice made him abandon them, which left them all freezing to death.
I do like your approach for the story though! I will definitely utilise elements of it, and will post back once I have a new, revamped plot!
Hi all!
I am looking for ideas for trials of Hoar, the god of poetic justice. It doesn't have to be a perfect fit, as the overall theme of the adventure fits the poetic justice side of things, but I would like a mix of puzzles, riddles, traps, shenanigans, and combat to mix through the dungeon.
Essentially, the god Hoar has been invoked to protect the Macguffin, which (if recovered) will itself cause poetic justice, and the party need to satisfy Hoar to be allowed safe passage.
I am completely at a loss as to how to produce Ironic and Poetically-Just traps and the like. Drawing an absolute blank. Got Nuffink.
Please help!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
It could be to compose a justice warrant in the form of a rhyming limerick.
Please elaborate.
Poetic justice, in my understanding, deals with moral balance.
So the PC that does evil will, eventually, have evil done to them. The poisoner will be poisoned. The schemer will be duped by a scheme. The arsonist will be killed by fire. Etc.
I think I need to know more about the party going into the situation and their past history of moral decisions.
It could be upon recovery to have the mcguffin to cause a loss of material or motivation necessary to the plot, or the party could have ti give away somethign they had to acquire for the plot device to be allowed safe passage by Hoar. Without knowing more about the mcguffinand your plotline it's hard to say.
Hoar makes them suffer EVERY act of evil they've done.
I make strange but effective solutions to your DM problems!
Homebrew: Monsters Species Spells Background(s)
I am secretly a green dragon. Also a Demon Lord.
Lord of the Rings and the Witcher both have some themes of poetic justice you can call on. E.g. undead cowardly soldiers who are forced to fight in their afterlife, evil actions causing curses to befall those who commit them, the arrogant being slain by the humble that sort of thing.
You could have things like:
Mirrors that show your reflection as beautiful/ugly depending on whether you are good/evil.
Souls of those who previously tried to loot the place trapped as guardians.
Treasure that curses those who steal it.
A test where they must give up their weapons in order to earn the new weapon - the mcguffin.
A sphinx-type creature that will either tell the players the correct way to go in the dungeon if they honestly explain what they want, or tell them the wrong way if they try to lie to it -> this could even be a recurring Cheshire-cat type character.
A victim of a trap that if they save grants them resistance to future traps or if they leave to die grants them vulnerability to future traps.
Some sort of arena or magic arch where they must face their greatest past mistake, and can only progress if they put it right.
Poetic justice is a hard one, it is essentially just well written justice in a story . It can be argued that poetic justice is when some one receives a deserved reward or punishment in a logical way that is memorable entertaining or humorous. It is sometimes used to mean irony which is also hard to define but in it's simplest form is saying one thing while meaning it's opposite but even that is disputed . You could have a real hard time to defining the terms in a way everyone agrees with so you either need to make a definition up or play into the ambiguity.
There are a few directions you can go with this
As an example an apparition of the god may seemingly transport the party to a store being robbed. The god sits writing a poem as a robber breaks into the store the party can choose to stop the robber in which case it's revealed they are stealing medicine for a sick family member, or they can let it happen in which case a fight occurs and the robber kills the store owner, if they try a compromise like paying for the drug themselves then it simply isn't enough and more drug is needed later.
For example there is an idea in some ethical systems that you should never lie even to save a life. This is because if one person cannot trust what you say then no one can even the person you are lieing to protect A trap/ puzzle based on this could be a room with 3 small rooms each with a button inside and a button outside. Holding the button outside keeps the 3 doors open when a player enters the room and pushes the button that door closes close and a console appears that says punish the trespasser with a button for each room. The trap assumes they will lie about where their ally is so the door to the next area opens only if the button the person outside picks matches the room the other player is in. When they pick a room to punish that door opens and all the others have a trap go off. The whole thing is reset if the person outside repents for lying.
Another ethical idea is called the veil of ignorance. This is essentially the idea that to make a fair society you should ignore your position in it. This could take a few forms
Thank you all for the responses!
I am writing this as a part of a christmas-themed oneshot, and do not know what the players will make for the game!
I am thinking of running this at about level 12 so they will have a lot of shenanigans for me to have to deal with.
But, I have had an idea for the irony of it.
The story (without revealing too much in case my players, who both live in Nottingham and are expecting us to come up this weekend for an early christmas, so if this is you, N & W, stop reading!) involves saving Santa. The premise of the setup is that Santa is a great toymaker and the party are led there by a toy, so I have decided that the party will have to fight & puzzle their way past giant magical toys. This worked really well for plot exposition too, because they will actually be delving into Santa's old home, so it works well across the board!
For the full plot (in case it gives people more ideas):
My concept is that the party starts off as children and do a short adventure together, which lays the groundwork for the town and the friendship. The town has stories of Santa, who used to come and deliver presents, but stopped coming years ago. They also say they used to be attacked by a dragon, and that the Fey Folk who lived with them went North to fight it, and never returned - but neither did the dragon.
They will then return to the town as adults, and will be led to Santa's home & workshop (which is run by Mice) by a magical toy, and discover that Santa has been cursed by the Imprisonment spell, which was cast on him by a sorceress. The Mice ask the party to fight the sorceress, and this will lead them to a dragons lair on the south end of the island. It is cold, and dead, and there are frozen Yuan-Ti huddled in the corners. The party will fight their way through a series of traps which take the form of magical toys (all of which were foreshadowed in their childhood by the stories of the woman who ran their orphanage), and will eventually come to the dragon's hoard, and the sorceress. She will be a Yuan Ti, and will explain that the spell will be broken if Santa remembers who he is, and to do that, they have to take a coin from the hoard and lay it on Santa's chest. Doing so will break the spell, but (unbeknownst to the party unless they work it out), Santa is actually a red dragon who was befuddled by the Fey (Mice) to become a gift-giving good guy. The Mice, knowing this, wanted the party to kill the Sorceress, but killing her won't end the spell - only the coin will, and if she's slain, she will use her dying breath to tell the party thus. If the party approach with the coin, then the Mice will assemble to fight back against them, forming the main boss of the game - the NutKraken, a mechanical creature which the party will have to get past to save Santa.
If the party do get to Santa, there will be a big reveal as they discover him to be a Dragon, and he will declare that he remembers everything, and thank the party. He will restore the heat to his lair, defrosting the Yuan-Ti, and will then return to wreak vengeance on the Mice, before landing in front of the party. He will tell them that he remembers everything - that he was tricked by the Fey into giving them his name, and that he was made to build toys for the town he had been raiding for years. And that he remembers every laugh from those children. Ever letter written to him. That he has never been worshipped so avidly, and that he likes it. He is Cinder Claws once again, but he will remain Santa Clause as well.
(A little bit cheesy, I am open to ideas as to how to wrap it up without the party having to kill Santa!)
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Sorry, but why is every character in your plot a villain? Does your party like stories where they simply kill everything?
Spoilers!
The plot doesn't really make sense. Why do the mice want the party to kill the sorceress if they don't want the spell to be broken? Why do the mice attack the party rather than just telling them that Santa is a Red Dragon that would attack the town if freed? Who actually cast Imprisonment on Santa? If the Sorceress wants Santa freed it can't be her, if the Fey had him enchanted anyway it can't be them, so who was it? How will Cinder Claws remain Santa if the mice were the ones who made the toys and run the workshop and the dragon killed them all?
Some suggestions:
Keeping the premise of Cinder Claws a red dragon enchanted by Fey mice to be Santa Claus:
1) Rather than Santa being imprisoned, Santa is sick (this could be physical or mental or both) because after many years the dragon is becoming resistant to the enchantments and his sickness has infected the magical toys causing them to attack anyone who enters the workshop. The mice thus want to "cure" Santa to restore the workshop to proper functioning, but to do so they need firstly something from the dragon's lair and secondly to fight their way through the workshop to get to Santa to "cure" him.
2) They are afraid to go to the dragon's lair because it has been taken over by some kind of creature that is immune to being charmed. When the party goes to the lair they find evidence that it used to be the lair of a red dragon, and various old bodies of the fey who were killed during their previous attack when they charmed the dragon. When they reach the dragon's horde, they find a frail old member of the fey to originally captured the dragon living there but was spared by the red dragon during the battle - hence they believe the dragon could be redeemed. They explain what the fey-mice did and give the party two items - the thing the Fey-mice requested to keep the dragon enchanted, and something that would free the dragon entirely.
3) The party return to the workshop and have to fight their way through the corrupted toys to reach 'Santa' and choose whether to release him or help the mice keep him enslaved forever. If they release him, the old frail fey reappears having followed the party and tries to convince the Red Dragon to change their ways with the help of the party.
Possible outcomes:
- The dragon agrees to stay as Santa and forces the Fey-mice to continue working in the workshop to make up for what they did,
- the dragon kills the fey mice and leaves,
- the dragon fights the party & fey and goes back to raiding the town
Depending on how convincing the party is.
Thankyou for the response!
I agree that it felt like I had too many villains in the story - though I had intended the sorceress to be neutral, as she wanted the dragon to be free. The mice wanted to have her killed because they thought it would free Santa, and because she was a member of the people who woshipped the dragon before. Essentially, the Fey-Mice made him abandon them, which left them all freezing to death.
I do like your approach for the story though! I will definitely utilise elements of it, and will post back once I have a new, revamped plot!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!