I got 2 problems. Some background, So I was Running an Amnesia based One shot that is now turning into a full campaign. Long story short, The Players Woke up with no memories on a flying prison ship that is being attacked by Githyanki. They find out that as a point of policy that all prisoners have their memories wiped while in a prison transfer. They failed to get their memories back, but there is a question of whether they even want their memories back given some of the crimes that they found out they are in prison for are pretty horrendous. But they are now in the possession of the Airship they woke up on.
My Big Issue in the campaign is my plan is that the Githyanki are invading from another dimension and they are going to be the main antagonists in this story. My issue is that at this point as far as they know they are fugitives of the law. I need to give them a reason to care about the Githyanki invading. Why would these mind wiped criminals want to "Save the World" when they are being hunted by that same world.
my Second issue (though this is smaller) I'm worried that by giving them an airship I made travel too easy. So I'm trying to figure out the limitations of this Prison airship. I gave myself some time because the ship was badly damaged in the battle. so They are going to have land somewhere to make repairs in order to get it in working order. Which none of them will know how to do.
In reality they are mind flayer spies polymorphed into their own bodies. If they don't stop the Githyanki, they will face extermination. It's the Gith, they hate the mind flayers, if they are invading a world to conquer it, the world has mind flayers.
Or you could go they were thralls of the mind flayers doing high crimes planning for an attack by the mind flayers and the Gith are there to stop the mind flayers and can detect thralls and want to kill the players.
Hell you could have some fun, during one session have all the players roll a d20, the highest on "wins". He now has a tadpole in his head, give him some extra abilities but don't tell him what they are. Give him one or two mind flayer like abilities, when he drops to zero have an ability manifest and maybe a stat bump and tell him he's becoming something else, essentially letting him know that if he keeps going down he won't be ressable/alive. Maybe give him some nightmares etc. Give him enough to where he'll logically think something is wrong and that could be part of the adventure to get the tadpole out - it would also explain why the gith are trying to kill him - plot twist its a tadpole that will form an elder brain. When the party runs into mind flayers they are obsequies to the player but attack and subdue the party for "food" for the "mamma", think of how the aliens treated Riely. The Gith really, really wants that player dead.
Gith then to do hit and run attacks to gather slaves and treasure, they don't tend to conquer planets by most lore, that being written you can rewrite it but you'll have to give the Gith a reason to conquer or just turn them into world conquerers if you want.
Are they really guilty of those crimes? Or was it some sort of stitch-up, like political prisoners? Will the general population recognise them as the perpetrators of those crimes?
If they were stitched up, could those who did the stitching up be in league with the Githyanki (either willingly, or unknowingly [psionic powers can play havoc in dreams and such])?
Who does the "mind wipes" for the government? Could it be more gith, in the guise of something else?
If they have no memories, how do they have the skills to fly or repair an airship? If it is a traditional airship, then it needs to be filled with helium or hydrogen - if that has leaked out, then where are the party going to get more of it? (replace hydrogen/helium with some magic-based floaty stuff, which would still be difficult to find)
Will the original owners of the airship want it back? How long before it gets blown out of the sky by better armed airships (after all, a prisoner airship might not carry much weaponry).
If their minds are wiped, they're now blank slates. Give them something to care about in the campaign; let them have investment of their own. You've made a bit of a rock for your own back, since from the setup you took away their ability to have things to care about. So you'll need to ask the players what their characters are invested in.
Re: airship - just destroy it. Gaining an airship at level 10 is fine. Before that it breaks too much of the game.
That sounds almost exactly like the plot to a Canadian show, based on a comic, called Dark Matter. You might want to check it out, because it was a pretty good show, and hit a lot of the same notes: waking up with amnesia, and slowly finding out who they were, and deciding if they still wanted to be those people.
Crap, I just looked it up. Welp, I did not know that. Oh, well its what we are doing so there you go.
Don't worry about it. Just don't tell your players about it, and you can steal the way the show developed each of the characters. Everybody steals ideas sometimes. Sometimes, they don't even mean to.
You ever read X-Men? Their whole thing is people fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them. So why do they do it? Because they are heroes.
I guess you are going to find out whether your players are heroes, or the scum that everyone thinks they are.
(Sounds awesome to me tbh)
But as has been said, you need to throw a LOT of things/situations at them to find things they care about. It they don't have anything to care about, well they ain't going to be the good guys.
OR/AND have someone in law enforcement offer them a deal - fight the gith we give you your memories back. They could be like the expendables or the suicide squad.
Everything you said was a lie, not a prison ship. They were hiding from the Gith, who do not want to rule the world, they just want to find the party who did something to the Gith. They are scouring the world looking for the party. Perhaps to kill, perhaps to capture and retrieve.
Those are the 3 main hooks typically used for something like this. If the party does not want to clear their name and/or does not care about their memory loss, then you should go with option 3.
Things the party could have done to piss off the Gith: Stolen some Gith artifact, infected a royal with the illithid tadpole, or perhaps they have hidden magical abilities related to a prophecy.
i can give you some general ones off the top of my head to help you start thinking
Criminal plot hooks for wars:
A black market contract to assist the war effort
A crack down by an occupying force
Conscription or an offer of absolution for crimes if enlisting
Memory wipe plot hooks for wars:
A hint to your past is tied up with the military like a person or place you recognize
The military has resources or experts related to memory magic/ technology you may be able to use or may be responsible
You are tormented by visions or dreams related to the war
One of the sides is out to get you for some reason
Other plot hooks
Some one contracts you about some job or meeting you were meant to complete
As for the airship:
Create places they can't go like areas with anti air cannons, no where to land or under the sea.
Create aerial hazards, githyanki ride dragons and could have spell jammers, the sky is not conflict free in inter planar war
My personal suggestions. I love the elder tempest its a giant living storm you can plop it down as a big old hazard some where and it would annihilate an air ship but doesn't have to be a fight because its stupid. If you aren't up in it's face it wont bother you.
I also like the idea of gith flying on dragons or in a spelljammer to attack the air ship too.
A city siege could also have no where to land, you cant land in the city its too crowded and out side is going to be in the middle of an army. They'll have to sneak in through the sewers or an escape tunnel
I got 2 problems. Some background, So I was Running an Amnesia based One shot that is now turning into a full campaign. Long story short, The Players Woke up with no memories on a flying prison ship that is being attacked by Githyanki. They find out that as a point of policy that all prisoners have their memories wiped while in a prison transfer. They failed to get their memories back, but there is a question of whether they even want their memories back given some of the crimes that they found out they are in prison for are pretty horrendous. But they are now in the possession of the Airship they woke up on.
My Big Issue in the campaign is my plan is that the Githyanki are invading from another dimension and they are going to be the main antagonists in this story. My issue is that at this point as far as they know they are fugitives of the law. I need to give them a reason to care about the Githyanki invading. Why would these mind wiped criminals want to "Save the World" when they are being hunted by that same world.
my Second issue (though this is smaller) I'm worried that by giving them an airship I made travel too easy. So I'm trying to figure out the limitations of this Prison airship. I gave myself some time because the ship was badly damaged in the battle. so They are going to have land somewhere to make repairs in order to get it in working order. Which none of them will know how to do.
Any ideas?
In reality they are mind flayer spies polymorphed into their own bodies. If they don't stop the Githyanki, they will face extermination. It's the Gith, they hate the mind flayers, if they are invading a world to conquer it, the world has mind flayers.
Or you could go they were thralls of the mind flayers doing high crimes planning for an attack by the mind flayers and the Gith are there to stop the mind flayers and can detect thralls and want to kill the players.
Hell you could have some fun, during one session have all the players roll a d20, the highest on "wins". He now has a tadpole in his head, give him some extra abilities but don't tell him what they are. Give him one or two mind flayer like abilities, when he drops to zero have an ability manifest and maybe a stat bump and tell him he's becoming something else, essentially letting him know that if he keeps going down he won't be ressable/alive. Maybe give him some nightmares etc. Give him enough to where he'll logically think something is wrong and that could be part of the adventure to get the tadpole out - it would also explain why the gith are trying to kill him - plot twist its a tadpole that will form an elder brain. When the party runs into mind flayers they are obsequies to the player but attack and subdue the party for "food" for the "mamma", think of how the aliens treated Riely. The Gith really, really wants that player dead.
Gith then to do hit and run attacks to gather slaves and treasure, they don't tend to conquer planets by most lore, that being written you can rewrite it but you'll have to give the Gith a reason to conquer or just turn them into world conquerers if you want.
Are they really guilty of those crimes? Or was it some sort of stitch-up, like political prisoners? Will the general population recognise them as the perpetrators of those crimes?
If they were stitched up, could those who did the stitching up be in league with the Githyanki (either willingly, or unknowingly [psionic powers can play havoc in dreams and such])?
Who does the "mind wipes" for the government? Could it be more gith, in the guise of something else?
If they have no memories, how do they have the skills to fly or repair an airship? If it is a traditional airship, then it needs to be filled with helium or hydrogen - if that has leaked out, then where are the party going to get more of it? (replace hydrogen/helium with some magic-based floaty stuff, which would still be difficult to find)
Will the original owners of the airship want it back? How long before it gets blown out of the sky by better armed airships (after all, a prisoner airship might not carry much weaponry).
If their minds are wiped, they're now blank slates. Give them something to care about in the campaign; let them have investment of their own. You've made a bit of a rock for your own back, since from the setup you took away their ability to have things to care about. So you'll need to ask the players what their characters are invested in.
Re: airship - just destroy it. Gaining an airship at level 10 is fine. Before that it breaks too much of the game.
That sounds almost exactly like the plot to a Canadian show, based on a comic, called Dark Matter. You might want to check it out, because it was a pretty good show, and hit a lot of the same notes: waking up with amnesia, and slowly finding out who they were, and deciding if they still wanted to be those people.
Crap, I just looked it up. Welp, I did not know that. Oh, well its what we are doing so there you go.
Don't worry about it. Just don't tell your players about it, and you can steal the way the show developed each of the characters. Everybody steals ideas sometimes. Sometimes, they don't even mean to.
You ever read X-Men? Their whole thing is people fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them. So why do they do it? Because they are heroes.
I guess you are going to find out whether your players are heroes, or the scum that everyone thinks they are.
(Sounds awesome to me tbh)
But as has been said, you need to throw a LOT of things/situations at them to find things they care about. It they don't have anything to care about, well they ain't going to be the good guys.
OR/AND have someone in law enforcement offer them a deal - fight the gith we give you your memories back. They could be like the expendables or the suicide squad.
Typical plot hooks for this kind of thing are:
Those are the 3 main hooks typically used for something like this. If the party does not want to clear their name and/or does not care about their memory loss, then you should go with option 3.
Things the party could have done to piss off the Gith: Stolen some Gith artifact, infected a royal with the illithid tadpole, or perhaps they have hidden magical abilities related to a prophecy.
i can give you some general ones off the top of my head to help you start thinking
Criminal plot hooks for wars:
Memory wipe plot hooks for wars:
Other plot hooks
As for the airship:
My personal suggestions.
I love the elder tempest its a giant living storm you can plop it down as a big old hazard some where and it would annihilate an air ship but doesn't have to be a fight because its stupid. If you aren't up in it's face it wont bother you.
I also like the idea of gith flying on dragons or in a spelljammer to attack the air ship too.
A city siege could also have no where to land, you cant land in the city its too crowded and out side is going to be in the middle of an army. They'll have to sneak in through the sewers or an escape tunnel