First of all, if you're a Cheese Chaser from North Devon who helped slay Kerlenthraz the Dragon in the town of Steepfield, then please, for your own sake, look away now and stop reading!
Ok, I have 5 players in an awesome long-term campaign which is starting to come together from the original humble origins and dramatic start into an epic which I am carefully weaving into place around the players choices.
The 5 characters are:
A Neutral Good Artificer Paladin, who's the son of Thor and has an excellent bit of plot woven into the story
A Lawful Good Cleric Dwarf who had their whole life snatched away by a BBEG in the world, and who has a lot of plot woven in as well
A Were-Bear Barbarian with very little backstory but who follows the Cleric everywhere, and is content being a support character in the world with minimal of their own plothooks.
A Shadar-kai Warlock who is in a pact with the Raven Queen, who has a lot of plot woven in as well
and the Elven Monk from a distant, forgotten dragon-worshipping land, who seeks to return the Dragons to the world from where they have been hiding.
The problem is that I've created a swathe of plot, and I am concerned that this recent development in the Monk's story (wanting to find the dragons) could feel a little... shoehorned in. I'm probably overthinking, but I'd appreciate ideas!
The premise thus far, summarised (sorry it's a lot):
Important note: Dragons are very rare, mostly extinct, and extremely reclusive where they do survive in this world.
The party slew a Blue dragon called Kerlenthraz, who had a half-frostbitten face, and saved the town. This was their opening act at level 8. The dragon was tied into the monks backstory, where he meditated in an abandoned cave of a Silver dragon, which had clearly fought a Blue dragon, which I lined to Kerlenthraz with the frostbitten face. It went unnoticed, but may come back to bite them in the future. The party then found the dragons horde being stolen by Giants, who they tracked through a mine to the manor which turned out to be the family home of the Cleric, who was abandoned at birth due to calamity (in every life, this happens). They discovered that the manor had been corrupted by the clerics uncle, who was worshipping Dagon, the leviathan prince of the sea of stars in the abyss, and tried to use Dagon to free an ancient snake-god called Mizlavurm, who he thought would help fight off the Giants which had taken the dwarven homeland to the north.They also found that the family had a silver mace and a shrine to Bahamut, the cleric's deity.
Once hte manor was found they then embarked on a quest to make the land-ship they stole from a drunken giant into a skyship. They travelled to The Tower (infinite floors 10 miles wide), and on the way, the monk did some research and found that there may be a gateway to the Eyrie (dragon home-plane) in The Tower. They also learnt of other types of dragon existing than just colours. This was when they declared their quest to find the dragons.
Now, the dragons helped the Dwarves to fight the giants, but were unsuccessful. They were also slain by an ancient hero (before the giants came), killing all the greatwyrms.
The current plot I have before them involves finding the giant king and slaying him (many motivations, including the avengement of the clerics family, the inherent hartred for giants of Thors bloodline, the whims of the Raven Queen, and the fact that he stole a dragons horde from the party).
Possible links I can see are:
The Cleric worships Bahamut, so can have assistance from there in finding the dragons
The Metallic dragons are imprisoned in the Eyrie by the chromatic dragons.
But I am struggling to weave the dragons into the plot proper. They need a place so that the Monk has good reason to continue the quests the party approach, but I don't want to make it feel patched onto the game. So, here's the loose premise that the game could go down, using the Raven Queen's position as goddess of fate to tweak the world to further her ends:
The Raven Queen seeks to use the party to kill the giant king, who is a lich and also the god Baldur of the Norse Pantheon, which will initiate Fimbulwinter and then lead to Ragnarok, where she will sweep in to claim the power of the entire norse pantheon and become a monotheistic deity. She has guided the Warlock to pick up a wooden statue, made of mistletoe, which is the giant king's phylactery. This was in the dragons horde, and is why he was after the horde.
Once Fimbulwinter begins, the temple of Mizlavurm (dwarven for "World Serpent", or Jormungandr) will seek to unlock the gates to the abyss, because Dagon holds Mizlavurm in the Sea of Stars. At the same time, a cult of Werewolves will become prevalent, and begin digging in an offshore research facility for Fenrir. The Cleric will discover the silver mace is because the family he was born to were werewolf hunters.
If they succeed, Ragnarok happens, and they will become involved in those events, which I've not planned too much yet because that's putting waaay too much faith in their following the hooks laid by the raven queen. During Ragnarok, the barbarian will discover that Tyr is the one who shot his mother (his only backstory is that he is the son of himself, who became a war-god by killing a war god, and his bear-mother was slain by a one-armed man with a bow firing obsidian arrows). He will get his chance to fight Tyr and complete the loop, becoming the war god.
The cult of Dagon, which is corrupting the cult of Mizlavurm, is led by Modi, the brother of the paladin and also son of Thor, who bound himself to Dagon for knowledge.
The problem is, where the heck do I fit dragons into this!
So if Bahamut is in your world, being a deity, bestowing power to clerics and paladins, does that mean Tiamat is in Eyrie, being the reason the Chromatic Dragons are dominating over the Metallic dragons there?
If there's some sort of magic portal between the prime realm of your story and Eyrie, it could be that Tiamat and Bahamut control each end of the portal, and the party would need to appease Bahamut to acquire the means of going through the portal.
Maybe part of the reason Bahamut hasn't opened the portal is because of the state of the world, if the dragons were to return, they'd destroy everything, so Bahamut is attempting to shift the state of things to one where the Dragons and lesser races can live side by side. Or maybe he already decided that wasn't possible, and was a factor in the dragons being religated to their own realm.
There's a lot of ways you could take this, but I think most of them point back to Bahamut being the key, and with him being the patron of one of your other characters, you should be able to tie his approval to the party's completion of tasks he gives them through his Cleric.
So if Bahamut is in your world, being a deity, bestowing power to clerics and paladins, does that mean Tiamat is in Eyrie, being the reason the Chromatic Dragons are dominating over the Metallic dragons there?
If there's some sort of magic portal between the prime realm of your story and Eyrie, it could be that Tiamat and Bahamut control each end of the portal, and the party would need to appease Bahamut to acquire the means of going through the portal.
Maybe part of the reason Bahamut hasn't opened the portal is because of the state of the world, if the dragons were to return, they'd destroy everything, so Bahamut is attempting to shift the state of things to one where the Dragons and lesser races can live side by side. Or maybe he already decided that wasn't possible, and was a factor in the dragons being religated to their own realm.
There's a lot of ways you could take this, but I think most of them point back to Bahamut being the key, and with him being the patron of one of your other characters, you should be able to tie his approval to the party's completion of tasks he gives them through his Cleric.
I knew there was a reason I put my questions up on here!
Thankyou first for wading through my mountainous first post!
I love your idea of Bahamut being the key. I have already placed Bahamut, and he's also on The Tower. a minor detail missed in my first post is that the party cashed in what they did get from the dragon horde with the Banking House of Valiant and Kline, which is in fact run by Bahamut from one of the floors of The Tower. They will be having some interactions with this bank over the course of the adventure, so that ties in beautifully!
Baldur (the giant lich king) has given the giants powers (an excuse for me to make new giants) of ice and necromancy, by means of "the light of Balthaz" (Balthaz is the name of the giant king, and is also another name for Baldur). So, I can have Bahamut concerned that if the Dragons were to return, they would be slaughtered by the giants of Ormnir (the northern mountains, previous homeland to the dwarves) and so further compel them on their quest to slay Balthaz. It's perfect!
First of all, if you're a Cheese Chaser from North Devon who helped slay Kerlenthraz the Dragon in the town of Steepfield, then please, for your own sake, look away now and stop reading!
Ok, I have 5 players in an awesome long-term campaign which is starting to come together from the original humble origins and dramatic start into an epic which I am carefully weaving into place around the players choices.
The 5 characters are:
The problem is that I've created a swathe of plot, and I am concerned that this recent development in the Monk's story (wanting to find the dragons) could feel a little... shoehorned in. I'm probably overthinking, but I'd appreciate ideas!
The premise thus far, summarised (sorry it's a lot):
Important note: Dragons are very rare, mostly extinct, and extremely reclusive where they do survive in this world.
The party slew a Blue dragon called Kerlenthraz, who had a half-frostbitten face, and saved the town. This was their opening act at level 8. The dragon was tied into the monks backstory, where he meditated in an abandoned cave of a Silver dragon, which had clearly fought a Blue dragon, which I lined to Kerlenthraz with the frostbitten face. It went unnoticed, but may come back to bite them in the future. The party then found the dragons horde being stolen by Giants, who they tracked through a mine to the manor which turned out to be the family home of the Cleric, who was abandoned at birth due to calamity (in every life, this happens). They discovered that the manor had been corrupted by the clerics uncle, who was worshipping Dagon, the leviathan prince of the sea of stars in the abyss, and tried to use Dagon to free an ancient snake-god called Mizlavurm, who he thought would help fight off the Giants which had taken the dwarven homeland to the north.They also found that the family had a silver mace and a shrine to Bahamut, the cleric's deity.
Once hte manor was found they then embarked on a quest to make the land-ship they stole from a drunken giant into a skyship. They travelled to The Tower (infinite floors 10 miles wide), and on the way, the monk did some research and found that there may be a gateway to the Eyrie (dragon home-plane) in The Tower. They also learnt of other types of dragon existing than just colours. This was when they declared their quest to find the dragons.
Now, the dragons helped the Dwarves to fight the giants, but were unsuccessful. They were also slain by an ancient hero (before the giants came), killing all the greatwyrms.
The current plot I have before them involves finding the giant king and slaying him (many motivations, including the avengement of the clerics family, the inherent hartred for giants of Thors bloodline, the whims of the Raven Queen, and the fact that he stole a dragons horde from the party).
Possible links I can see are:
But I am struggling to weave the dragons into the plot proper. They need a place so that the Monk has good reason to continue the quests the party approach, but I don't want to make it feel patched onto the game. So, here's the loose premise that the game could go down, using the Raven Queen's position as goddess of fate to tweak the world to further her ends:
The Raven Queen seeks to use the party to kill the giant king, who is a lich and also the god Baldur of the Norse Pantheon, which will initiate Fimbulwinter and then lead to Ragnarok, where she will sweep in to claim the power of the entire norse pantheon and become a monotheistic deity. She has guided the Warlock to pick up a wooden statue, made of mistletoe, which is the giant king's phylactery. This was in the dragons horde, and is why he was after the horde.
Once Fimbulwinter begins, the temple of Mizlavurm (dwarven for "World Serpent", or Jormungandr) will seek to unlock the gates to the abyss, because Dagon holds Mizlavurm in the Sea of Stars. At the same time, a cult of Werewolves will become prevalent, and begin digging in an offshore research facility for Fenrir. The Cleric will discover the silver mace is because the family he was born to were werewolf hunters.
If they succeed, Ragnarok happens, and they will become involved in those events, which I've not planned too much yet because that's putting waaay too much faith in their following the hooks laid by the raven queen. During Ragnarok, the barbarian will discover that Tyr is the one who shot his mother (his only backstory is that he is the son of himself, who became a war-god by killing a war god, and his bear-mother was slain by a one-armed man with a bow firing obsidian arrows). He will get his chance to fight Tyr and complete the loop, becoming the war god.
The cult of Dagon, which is corrupting the cult of Mizlavurm, is led by Modi, the brother of the paladin and also son of Thor, who bound himself to Dagon for knowledge.
The problem is, where the heck do I fit dragons into this!
Any ideas gratefully recieved!
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!
So if Bahamut is in your world, being a deity, bestowing power to clerics and paladins, does that mean Tiamat is in Eyrie, being the reason the Chromatic Dragons are dominating over the Metallic dragons there?
If there's some sort of magic portal between the prime realm of your story and Eyrie, it could be that Tiamat and Bahamut control each end of the portal, and the party would need to appease Bahamut to acquire the means of going through the portal.
Maybe part of the reason Bahamut hasn't opened the portal is because of the state of the world, if the dragons were to return, they'd destroy everything, so Bahamut is attempting to shift the state of things to one where the Dragons and lesser races can live side by side. Or maybe he already decided that wasn't possible, and was a factor in the dragons being religated to their own realm.
There's a lot of ways you could take this, but I think most of them point back to Bahamut being the key, and with him being the patron of one of your other characters, you should be able to tie his approval to the party's completion of tasks he gives them through his Cleric.
I knew there was a reason I put my questions up on here!
Thankyou first for wading through my mountainous first post!
I love your idea of Bahamut being the key. I have already placed Bahamut, and he's also on The Tower. a minor detail missed in my first post is that the party cashed in what they did get from the dragon horde with the Banking House of Valiant and Kline, which is in fact run by Bahamut from one of the floors of The Tower. They will be having some interactions with this bank over the course of the adventure, so that ties in beautifully!
Baldur (the giant lich king) has given the giants powers (an excuse for me to make new giants) of ice and necromancy, by means of "the light of Balthaz" (Balthaz is the name of the giant king, and is also another name for Baldur). So, I can have Bahamut concerned that if the Dragons were to return, they would be slaughtered by the giants of Ormnir (the northern mountains, previous homeland to the dwarves) and so further compel them on their quest to slay Balthaz. It's perfect!
Thank you so much!
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!