Hi all, I am writing up a campaign that should be a rather long one, taking my party through almost all the countries of a Homebrew continent. The biggest overarching plot is that there is one big bad orchestrating a massive continent wide war by manipulating the leaders of each individual country, but the war is only a front for his biggest goal: unleashing an ultra Tarrasque on the continent. However he must first take out the five creatures in the land that are capable or would have interest in stopping the Tarrasque, namely:
Ancient Silver Dragon
Ancient Gold Dragon
Empyrean
Duke Pit Fiend
Kraken.
How would this main villain go about removing these beasts from play? He would need to not kill them as the PCs will be aiding them or releasing them from whatever they were sedated/trapped/distracted with. This guy is also not a magic user or all that special, only excellent at manipulation and deceit, has a dazzling intellect, and with loads of money.
The dragons he could pit against each other by tricking them into thinking that the other is moving in on their territory, so they're too busy fighting each other to pay attention.
Don't know much about Empyreans.
The Pit Fiend could be persuaded to stay out of it by making some sort of barter in its favour, such as for the souls of the fallen or for the villain's soul.
The Kraken could be trapped in a cage on the ocean floor.
If the dragons fight, perhaps the villain has manipulated some adventurers to be ready for the end of the fight and take out the survivor or both the weakened dragons, handing them a powerful Imprisonment artefact to help. The dragons are trapped in two matching gemstones, mounted at the end of staffs or rods carried by two of the villain's lieutenants. (party can find a way to free them both by getting both crystals and smashing them together or whatever)
The Empyrean is a sort of god/angel, here to protect all that is good in the world? Perhaps it is surrounded by devout religious followers and innocent common folk that rely on it and such. The villain could infiltrate the religious organisation and corrupt it, sort of ruin it all and show the Empyrean the deepest depravity at the heart of humanity. He causes it to lose faith in mortals and withdraw to the Celestial realm (party has a chance to contact the Empyrean and draw it back to help after restoring the goodness of the people somewhat).
Agree to bribing the Fiend. (party could find a way to bribe it more to join the fight, or at least betray some of the villain's secrets)
To trap the kraken, perhaps there's some complex plot using the Sahuagin to fake kraken attacks on the local merfolk population. Then he plays the other side, providing the materials needed for the underwater cage to the merfolk and helping their army rally for that battle. Finally some agent of the villain sneaks in after the fact to add more secure (magical) locks to the cage to prevent anyone releasing the kraken later on (keys stealable from villain's lair, of course).
I really like the ideas for the Empyrean, Fiend, and Kraken, thank you! Would the dragons be willing to fight each other if they are both metallic dragons? If so that makes sense, but I would separate the artifacts so the PCS would find them at separate times.
Metallic dragons are generally good aligned and less rash and aggressive than their chromatic counterparts, but they are still susceptible to misunderstandings and bad relationships. Perhaps the Big Bad TM has sent assassins and killed people close to each dragon and framed the other, or similarly stolen from their hoards, or simply spread rumors with that are believable enough that they don't trust each other. Alternatively, he could have used an artifact like the Mindsunder (stolen shamelessly from DDO (itself based in Eberron, a giant crystal that basically has mind control enhancing effects) to weaken the will of one or both of the dragons to pit them against each other. If that fails, depending on what resources the villain has access to, he could use something like Enemies Abound to cause the dragons to attack each other at one point, and neither truly trusts that the other doesn't desire to harm them. Play up the conflict between them, but also make it painfully obvious to the party that the source of the problem is something fixable so they don't just kill one and be done with it.
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Hi all, I am writing up a campaign that should be a rather long one, taking my party through almost all the countries of a Homebrew continent. The biggest overarching plot is that there is one big bad orchestrating a massive continent wide war by manipulating the leaders of each individual country, but the war is only a front for his biggest goal: unleashing an ultra Tarrasque on the continent. However he must first take out the five creatures in the land that are capable or would have interest in stopping the Tarrasque, namely:
How would this main villain go about removing these beasts from play? He would need to not kill them as the PCs will be aiding them or releasing them from whatever they were sedated/trapped/distracted with. This guy is also not a magic user or all that special, only excellent at manipulation and deceit, has a dazzling intellect, and with loads of money.
The dragons he could pit against each other by tricking them into thinking that the other is moving in on their territory, so they're too busy fighting each other to pay attention.
Don't know much about Empyreans.
The Pit Fiend could be persuaded to stay out of it by making some sort of barter in its favour, such as for the souls of the fallen or for the villain's soul.
The Kraken could be trapped in a cage on the ocean floor.
If the dragons fight, perhaps the villain has manipulated some adventurers to be ready for the end of the fight and take out the survivor or both the weakened dragons, handing them a powerful Imprisonment artefact to help. The dragons are trapped in two matching gemstones, mounted at the end of staffs or rods carried by two of the villain's lieutenants. (party can find a way to free them both by getting both crystals and smashing them together or whatever)
The Empyrean is a sort of god/angel, here to protect all that is good in the world? Perhaps it is surrounded by devout religious followers and innocent common folk that rely on it and such. The villain could infiltrate the religious organisation and corrupt it, sort of ruin it all and show the Empyrean the deepest depravity at the heart of humanity. He causes it to lose faith in mortals and withdraw to the Celestial realm (party has a chance to contact the Empyrean and draw it back to help after restoring the goodness of the people somewhat).
Agree to bribing the Fiend. (party could find a way to bribe it more to join the fight, or at least betray some of the villain's secrets)
To trap the kraken, perhaps there's some complex plot using the Sahuagin to fake kraken attacks on the local merfolk population. Then he plays the other side, providing the materials needed for the underwater cage to the merfolk and helping their army rally for that battle. Finally some agent of the villain sneaks in after the fact to add more secure (magical) locks to the cage to prevent anyone releasing the kraken later on (keys stealable from villain's lair, of course).
I really like the ideas for the Empyrean, Fiend, and Kraken, thank you! Would the dragons be willing to fight each other if they are both metallic dragons? If so that makes sense, but I would separate the artifacts so the PCS would find them at separate times.
Metallic dragons are generally good aligned and less rash and aggressive than their chromatic counterparts, but they are still susceptible to misunderstandings and bad relationships. Perhaps the Big Bad TM has sent assassins and killed people close to each dragon and framed the other, or similarly stolen from their hoards, or simply spread rumors with that are believable enough that they don't trust each other. Alternatively, he could have used an artifact like the Mindsunder (stolen shamelessly from DDO (itself based in Eberron, a giant crystal that basically has mind control enhancing effects) to weaken the will of one or both of the dragons to pit them against each other. If that fails, depending on what resources the villain has access to, he could use something like Enemies Abound to cause the dragons to attack each other at one point, and neither truly trusts that the other doesn't desire to harm them. Play up the conflict between them, but also make it painfully obvious to the party that the source of the problem is something fixable so they don't just kill one and be done with it.