So I’ve been DMing a long-term campaign for four pre-teen boys. They are all very mature with it and appreciate the lore and characters, and there are a few NPCs that they are particularly fond of that are sticking with the party, who I’m struggling to keep fresh and interesting. I would love some advice and ideas from other DMs! The setting is high fantasy, the BBEG is a corrupted god that controls “pawns” via a purple crystalline disease. The party has recently travelled to a new continent to try and find a cure to this disease. They’re on a bit of a side quest at the moment to visit the five towns that have been surrounded by the diseased. Three out of five of said towns have been abandoned/died off, and they’ve just visited the fourth, which is a town in complete lockdown but evidently losing the fight to the illness. The illness takes 1-5 days to start showing symptoms and victims turn incredibly violent when infected. Due to this, nobody is allowed in or out of the gates. The plan is to let the whole town die off. Since the local authorities are reluctant to take any drastic measures, the party have left to visit the main city to get some help quarantining the residents. That’s where the first NPC comes in.
It’s a female Dragonborn who is the love interest of one of the party members. She works for a religious hospital in the main city and was unfortunate enough to get stuck inside the gates when the fourth town shut down. The party is going take 4 days to make the trip to the city and back, and I’m torn on whether to let this NPC live or to become infected. Infected NPCs die suddenly once the god had no need for them anymore, but the guards would probably kill her before she reached that point. If she is going to become infected, I want to make it dramatic and something the players will feel responsible for, as they had a chance to break her out but decided not to take it. I feel like both choices have pros and cons.
Second NPC is a goblin child who they rescued and then adopted (of course) very early on in the campaign. I’ve let her have a few bits, but she mostly stays inside one of the players backpacks. They absolutely treasure this goblin. I’m pretty sure they would riot if I killed her. This NPC’s motivation is based entirely around her twin brother, who also stayed with the party for a while but lived in a different players backpack. The brother was tricked into a pact with a dead god. Basically the god made pacts with all sorts of different humanoids and then promised to give all his power to the last remaining one. The warlocks then could hunt each other down and fight to the death. I got this idea from another DM but I can’t remember who :(. Anyway, goblin child number one has devoted her whole life to protecting her mute, highly wanted brother. One day, party is visiting an elven town with a big old pit that leads to the under dark. One party member wants to go down there.
Other party members say “good luck with that one buddy” and stay in the town. The singular party member, who still has the goblin brother in his backpack (my fault for forgetting it was even in there), goes down to the under dark, successfully blends in with the drow for several days and learns all about their city, then decides he wants to awaken the ancient spider goddess. I gave him a fair warning that this is, in fact, a god, but he still wants to do it. So I let him fireball the sleeping goddess’s chamber, which wakes her up, and she absolutely murders this level 6 PC. The player wasn’t too upset, he was known to kill of his PCs when he wants to make a new one. Now the rest of the party has moved on, assuming he’s dead, and only bother to mention this to the goblin sister recently. Of course, goblin child is outraged, she has spent her whole life protecting her brother and then a party member just goes and gets him killed. Now I’m debating whether I should make goblin child go beserk and turn on the party, or maybe make the spider goddess emerge from the under dark and force the players to fight her, which could possibly encourage them to go and look for goblin number two. This goblin does have warlock capabilities so still could potentially have escaped the PCs death.
I would love any ideas or feedback, but I think I mostly just need to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. Thank you!
It’s a female Dragonborn who is the love interest of one of the party members. She works for a religious hospital in the main city and was unfortunate enough to get stuck inside the gates when the fourth town shut down. The party is going take 4 days to make the trip to the city and back, and I’m torn on whether to let this NPC live or to become infected. Infected NPCs die suddenly once the god had no need for them anymore, but the guards would probably kill her before she reached that point. If she is going to become infected, I want to make it dramatic and something the players will feel responsible for, as they had a chance to break her out but decided not to take it. I feel like both choices have pros and cons.
I would not have her become infected, but she might, quite reasonably, be kind of upset about being left behind like that.
Also, her presence in the town is a good thing to use to increase the players' sense of urgency.
Other party members say “good luck with that one buddy” and stay in the town. The singular party member, who still has the goblin brother in his backpack (my fault for forgetting it was even in there), goes down to the under dark, successfully blends in with the drow for several days and learns all about their city, then decides he wants to awaken the ancient spider goddess. I gave him a fair warning that this is, in fact, a god, but he still wants to do it. So I let him fireball the sleeping goddess’s chamber, which wakes her up, and she absolutely murders this level 6 PC. The player wasn’t too upset, he was known to kill of his PCs when he wants to make a new one. Now the rest of the party has moved on, assuming he’s dead, and only bother to mention this to the goblin sister recently. Of course, goblin child is outraged, she has spent her whole life protecting her brother and then a party member just goes and gets him killed. Now I’m debating whether I should make goblin child go beserk and turn on the party, or maybe make the spider goddess emerge from the under dark and force the players to fight her, which could possibly encourage them to go and look for goblin number two. This goblin does have warlock capabilities so still could potentially have escaped the PCs death.
My thought: the goblin sister obviously gets upset. And then she starts leaving the party when she has a chance to go looking for her brother. (Given the description, she seems to be very young, or at least Baby Yoda-like.) They'll have to go looking for her each time. (Don't do it too often, or they'll get annoyed, but it's another thing to worry about when they camp.)
And then, one time, she comes back with her brother. He doesn't remember what happened, and seems to be Perfectly Normal. Maybe he's even lost his connection with the dead god. (What's actually going on with him and how he showed up again is up to you. Possibly the most fun option if you can make it believable is that there's absolutely nothing going on. They will never believe that.)
For the first NPC, I would not make her become infected and incurable. If she is discovered to be in the early stages of infection, the party might be able to go on a quest to treat it (or not, if your disease in incurable once contracted) within a certain amount of time. But I would not kill off that NPC. You can if you want to, and there would be nothing wrong with doing that. It's just that personally, I would let her live.
For the second one, trying to recover their relationship with the goblin could be an interesting social arc for everyone in the party. I wouldn't make the goblin attack or anything, but she might express the truth to only one party member, or even run away and have the PCs try to find her again.
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Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
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So I’ve been DMing a long-term campaign for four pre-teen boys. They are all very mature with it and appreciate the lore and characters, and there are a few NPCs that they are particularly fond of that are sticking with the party, who I’m struggling to keep fresh and interesting. I would love some advice and ideas from other DMs! The setting is high fantasy, the BBEG is a corrupted god that controls “pawns” via a purple crystalline disease. The party has recently travelled to a new continent to try and find a cure to this disease. They’re on a bit of a side quest at the moment to visit the five towns that have been surrounded by the diseased. Three out of five of said towns have been abandoned/died off, and they’ve just visited the fourth, which is a town in complete lockdown but evidently losing the fight to the illness. The illness takes 1-5 days to start showing symptoms and victims turn incredibly violent when infected. Due to this, nobody is allowed in or out of the gates. The plan is to let the whole town die off. Since the local authorities are reluctant to take any drastic measures, the party have left to visit the main city to get some help quarantining the residents. That’s where the first NPC comes in.
It’s a female Dragonborn who is the love interest of one of the party members. She works for a religious hospital in the main city and was unfortunate enough to get stuck inside the gates when the fourth town shut down. The party is going take 4 days to make the trip to the city and back, and I’m torn on whether to let this NPC live or to become infected. Infected NPCs die suddenly once the god had no need for them anymore, but the guards would probably kill her before she reached that point. If she is going to become infected, I want to make it dramatic and something the players will feel responsible for, as they had a chance to break her out but decided not to take it. I feel like both choices have pros and cons.
Second NPC is a goblin child who they rescued and then adopted (of course) very early on in the campaign. I’ve let her have a few bits, but she mostly stays inside one of the players backpacks. They absolutely treasure this goblin. I’m pretty sure they would riot if I killed her. This NPC’s motivation is based entirely around her twin brother, who also stayed with the party for a while but lived in a different players backpack. The brother was tricked into a pact with a dead god. Basically the god made pacts with all sorts of different humanoids and then promised to give all his power to the last remaining one. The warlocks then could hunt each other down and fight to the death. I got this idea from another DM but I can’t remember who :(. Anyway, goblin child number one has devoted her whole life to protecting her mute, highly wanted brother. One day, party is visiting an elven town with a big old pit that leads to the under dark. One party member wants to go down there.
Other party members say “good luck with that one buddy” and stay in the town. The singular party member, who still has the goblin brother in his backpack (my fault for forgetting it was even in there), goes down to the under dark, successfully blends in with the drow for several days and learns all about their city, then decides he wants to awaken the ancient spider goddess. I gave him a fair warning that this is, in fact, a god, but he still wants to do it. So I let him fireball the sleeping goddess’s chamber, which wakes her up, and she absolutely murders this level 6 PC. The player wasn’t too upset, he was known to kill of his PCs when he wants to make a new one. Now the rest of the party has moved on, assuming he’s dead, and only bother to mention this to the goblin sister recently. Of course, goblin child is outraged, she has spent her whole life protecting her brother and then a party member just goes and gets him killed. Now I’m debating whether I should make goblin child go beserk and turn on the party, or maybe make the spider goddess emerge from the under dark and force the players to fight her, which could possibly encourage them to go and look for goblin number two. This goblin does have warlock capabilities so still could potentially have escaped the PCs death.
I would love any ideas or feedback, but I think I mostly just need to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. Thank you!
I would not have her become infected, but she might, quite reasonably, be kind of upset about being left behind like that.
Also, her presence in the town is a good thing to use to increase the players' sense of urgency.
My thought: the goblin sister obviously gets upset. And then she starts leaving the party when she has a chance to go looking for her brother. (Given the description, she seems to be very young, or at least Baby Yoda-like.) They'll have to go looking for her each time. (Don't do it too often, or they'll get annoyed, but it's another thing to worry about when they camp.)
And then, one time, she comes back with her brother. He doesn't remember what happened, and seems to be Perfectly Normal. Maybe he's even lost his connection with the dead god. (What's actually going on with him and how he showed up again is up to you. Possibly the most fun option if you can make it believable is that there's absolutely nothing going on. They will never believe that.)
For the first NPC, I would not make her become infected and incurable. If she is discovered to be in the early stages of infection, the party might be able to go on a quest to treat it (or not, if your disease in incurable once contracted) within a certain amount of time. But I would not kill off that NPC. You can if you want to, and there would be nothing wrong with doing that. It's just that personally, I would let her live.
For the second one, trying to recover their relationship with the goblin could be an interesting social arc for everyone in the party. I wouldn't make the goblin attack or anything, but she might express the truth to only one party member, or even run away and have the PCs try to find her again.
Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair