I had a campaign idea that takes place after the Blood War concludes (yes, I know that isn't ever going to happen, but I really wanted to try this out) in Asmodeus' favor. After his victory, he begins using demons of the Abyss and binding them to his minions' service to move his conquest to the material plane. One such minion, a warlock who I plan to have as the BBEG, has been manipulating events on my world behind the scenes for centuries, ensuring that the nations of the world never unite, like they have in the past against extraplanar threats, utilizing several sects of evildoers. These include the Dragon Cult (led by a group of chromatic ancient dragons each vying for greatwyrmhood), an evil elf sorceress who controls over half of the elven nation, a lich who seeks to bring Vecna back to the material plane, and a colony of mind flayers led by an elder brain dragon. This is all still in progress and is subject to evolve or change, seeing as how this campaign hasn't even started, so whatcha think?
When you have manipulation and politics as a highlight of your campaign - as is the case here - you need to make sure you do not focus only on the “sects of evildoers” and make sure you have some deep seeded resentment fostered within the non-evil factions as well.
Make sure you add history of conflict between the factions that could either have been fomented or stoked by your BBEG. Past history of wars that reshaped the borders, so some folks who are ethnically from country A are territorially within country B. Smaller-scale events like resentment over a stolen sacred item that the alleged thieving nation insists they never took. Divides in how to worship that might not have created hostility, but do cause a lack of trust (not all divides must be wrathful). Etc.
It is also important to note, “muahaha I was behind all of these divides!” is just bad writing and a feels bad reveal. For the most part, a manipulator is not likely to set events in motion - just help try to make sure those events create a big divide. So, for example, he might not have created the territorial situation described above, but he might funnel resources to rebels within the culturally A section of B, and to politicians in A and B with strong opinions on what to do with the region.
Related to that, you do not have to have the party discover every single machination. If they discover a few are the BBEG’s fault and see other divides (even if they have also discovered some were not tied to him, but he is taking advantage of them now), they might assume anything could be the BBEG’s fault and start to be paranoid and see his hand everywhere.
Well, lets see... Let's start at the top with the Eldar Ascendancy, a conglomerate pseudo-empire of different elven races which are ruled by a council comprised of the monarchs of the high elves, wood elves, and foreclaimer elves, which I transferred over from 3.5e. I'm considering throwing drow in there, but given they're mainly subterranean, and generally insane/evil, there may be some tension with them. The main focus with this nation, however, is that the reigning house of the foreclaimers was all but destroyed after being accused of necromancy. This accusation was given by the second wife of the lord of the house, who is a high elf who married into the house after the original wife died (secretly death hexed by this same woman). She was backed by the heads of the other Foreclaimer noble houses in the accusations for no other reason than they believed that the current generation of Foreclaimers has been 'poisoned' by emotion and empathy, which many believe impede their magical and technological progress. She now rules the foreclaimers while also having some powerful standing within the high elves, giving her effective control of half of the elven nation. This has caused schisms within as she works to bring the others under her thumb. She is, of course, the same elven sorceress that I mentioned in OP, and her objective (aside from her personal objective of gathering more power for herself) is to fuel the fires of internal strife between each elven kingdom, as each one is rather proud and already feels like they're entitled to a lot, while also pushing for war with the human nation across the sea, relations of which are already tense because this human nation believes that the elves are abusing their arcane gifts, which was responsible for a catastrophic event way in the past.
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I had a campaign idea that takes place after the Blood War concludes (yes, I know that isn't ever going to happen, but I really wanted to try this out) in Asmodeus' favor. After his victory, he begins using demons of the Abyss and binding them to his minions' service to move his conquest to the material plane. One such minion, a warlock who I plan to have as the BBEG, has been manipulating events on my world behind the scenes for centuries, ensuring that the nations of the world never unite, like they have in the past against extraplanar threats, utilizing several sects of evildoers. These include the Dragon Cult (led by a group of chromatic ancient dragons each vying for greatwyrmhood), an evil elf sorceress who controls over half of the elven nation, a lich who seeks to bring Vecna back to the material plane, and a colony of mind flayers led by an elder brain dragon. This is all still in progress and is subject to evolve or change, seeing as how this campaign hasn't even started, so whatcha think?
When you have manipulation and politics as a highlight of your campaign - as is the case here - you need to make sure you do not focus only on the “sects of evildoers” and make sure you have some deep seeded resentment fostered within the non-evil factions as well.
Make sure you add history of conflict between the factions that could either have been fomented or stoked by your BBEG. Past history of wars that reshaped the borders, so some folks who are ethnically from country A are territorially within country B. Smaller-scale events like resentment over a stolen sacred item that the alleged thieving nation insists they never took. Divides in how to worship that might not have created hostility, but do cause a lack of trust (not all divides must be wrathful). Etc.
It is also important to note, “muahaha I was behind all of these divides!” is just bad writing and a feels bad reveal. For the most part, a manipulator is not likely to set events in motion - just help try to make sure those events create a big divide. So, for example, he might not have created the territorial situation described above, but he might funnel resources to rebels within the culturally A section of B, and to politicians in A and B with strong opinions on what to do with the region.
Related to that, you do not have to have the party discover every single machination. If they discover a few are the BBEG’s fault and see other divides (even if they have also discovered some were not tied to him, but he is taking advantage of them now), they might assume anything could be the BBEG’s fault and start to be paranoid and see his hand everywhere.
Well, lets see... Let's start at the top with the Eldar Ascendancy, a conglomerate pseudo-empire of different elven races which are ruled by a council comprised of the monarchs of the high elves, wood elves, and foreclaimer elves, which I transferred over from 3.5e. I'm considering throwing drow in there, but given they're mainly subterranean, and generally insane/evil, there may be some tension with them. The main focus with this nation, however, is that the reigning house of the foreclaimers was all but destroyed after being accused of necromancy. This accusation was given by the second wife of the lord of the house, who is a high elf who married into the house after the original wife died (secretly death hexed by this same woman). She was backed by the heads of the other Foreclaimer noble houses in the accusations for no other reason than they believed that the current generation of Foreclaimers has been 'poisoned' by emotion and empathy, which many believe impede their magical and technological progress. She now rules the foreclaimers while also having some powerful standing within the high elves, giving her effective control of half of the elven nation. This has caused schisms within as she works to bring the others under her thumb. She is, of course, the same elven sorceress that I mentioned in OP, and her objective (aside from her personal objective of gathering more power for herself) is to fuel the fires of internal strife between each elven kingdom, as each one is rather proud and already feels like they're entitled to a lot, while also pushing for war with the human nation across the sea, relations of which are already tense because this human nation believes that the elves are abusing their arcane gifts, which was responsible for a catastrophic event way in the past.