If anyone from my "Aul for One" campaign is reading this.... please don't?
Hey all! I've been running an original campaign for over a year, and with my players about a third of the way through the story I realized that while I know the who and the what of the BBEG's plan.... I have unfortunately left the how a hair half-baked. I would love to source some inspiration from your brilliant minds, so here's some context:
Tl:dr The BBEG (Mr. Reach) is trying to bring about the apocalypse by causing a destructive world war. Mr. Reach knows that if the gods lose faith in the people of the world they'll start over, reset everything, and try again (it's happened many times before unbeknownst to most people). Mr. Reach's plan is to escape into the Feywild when that happens to be unaffected by the reset, come out and guide the next reincarnation of the world into an enlightened age of peace (that they would rule of course).
So my question is: How does Mr. Reach alert the otherwise less-than-present gods that this iteration of the world has failed in a way that the players can learn/be aware of and either stop entirely or interfere with? Mr. Reach's whole plan has been to destabilize and arm the world so a bunch of paranoid and angry nations have powerful weapons pointed at each other. Now either there could be some ritual needed to call the gods down, or some holy relic(s) that need to be destroyed to get their attention, or it's as simple as the nukes start flying as Mr. Reach escapes into the Feywild and that alerts the gods. But either way what are some things to get the party involved? To stop the destruction, or at least petition the gods to spare this iteration of the world for now? I'm open to any and all suggestions.
I can provide more information/context on request, but it would be a lot of lore to type out initially!
How about, the party gets framed for the theft of the "MacGuffin Relic," some sort of divine "Book of Peace" that is both a symbol of the world's peace, and a pact between humanity and the gods. The BBEG has stolen the book in order to tip the world into chaos and begin tumbling all the houses of cards that were undermined as part of the plot. The final nail in the coffin will be to ritually destroy the book, sundering the pact between mortals and gods, drawing the attention and ire of the gods. This ritual will take time and require very special conditions, giving the party room to clear their names by tracking down the book and stopping the BBEG from destroying the world.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Ooooh this is really great and would require very little in-world editing to have make sense. There was nearly a world war 150 years ago (The Never-War) that ended before the first shot was fired. After this war the Treaty of Contrition was drawn up between nations as a sign of peace and cooperation. Wouldn't be a stretch to say it was also blessed by clerics of the Church of the Five Lights. This is brilliant, thank you.
Along those lines, the seven seals (physical or metaphorical) could represent a pact between the world and the gods. Alternatively, the world could be a prison to an incredibly dangerous threat and the gods may remake the world to contain it if it begins to stir. Mr. Reach could be trying to prod that entity into awakening.
Mr Reach gets the gods attention in different ways according to each god.
1). Destroys a holy artifact to that god
2). Defiles a location essential to that belief
3). Kills or converts a high ranking member of that deity
4) Causes a core constituency for abandon their faith
For example, he could get the Goddess of Beauty’s attention by stealing and publically defacing a beautiful statue (I.e. chopping the head off Michaelangelo’s David) or flooding the deep forges of a Dwarven city (Moradin) or murdering the High Paladin of Justice during a public ceremony at the eve of embarking on a just war, etc.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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If anyone from my "Aul for One" campaign is reading this.... please don't?
Hey all! I've been running an original campaign for over a year, and with my players about a third of the way through the story I realized that while I know the who and the what of the BBEG's plan.... I have unfortunately left the how a hair half-baked. I would love to source some inspiration from your brilliant minds, so here's some context:
Tl:dr The BBEG (Mr. Reach) is trying to bring about the apocalypse by causing a destructive world war. Mr. Reach knows that if the gods lose faith in the people of the world they'll start over, reset everything, and try again (it's happened many times before unbeknownst to most people). Mr. Reach's plan is to escape into the Feywild when that happens to be unaffected by the reset, come out and guide the next reincarnation of the world into an enlightened age of peace (that they would rule of course).
So my question is: How does Mr. Reach alert the otherwise less-than-present gods that this iteration of the world has failed in a way that the players can learn/be aware of and either stop entirely or interfere with? Mr. Reach's whole plan has been to destabilize and arm the world so a bunch of paranoid and angry nations have powerful weapons pointed at each other. Now either there could be some ritual needed to call the gods down, or some holy relic(s) that need to be destroyed to get their attention, or it's as simple as the nukes start flying as Mr. Reach escapes into the Feywild and that alerts the gods. But either way what are some things to get the party involved? To stop the destruction, or at least petition the gods to spare this iteration of the world for now? I'm open to any and all suggestions.
I can provide more information/context on request, but it would be a lot of lore to type out initially!
How about, the party gets framed for the theft of the "MacGuffin Relic," some sort of divine "Book of Peace" that is both a symbol of the world's peace, and a pact between humanity and the gods. The BBEG has stolen the book in order to tip the world into chaos and begin tumbling all the houses of cards that were undermined as part of the plot. The final nail in the coffin will be to ritually destroy the book, sundering the pact between mortals and gods, drawing the attention and ire of the gods. This ritual will take time and require very special conditions, giving the party room to clear their names by tracking down the book and stopping the BBEG from destroying the world.
Ooooh this is really great and would require very little in-world editing to have make sense. There was nearly a world war 150 years ago (The Never-War) that ended before the first shot was fired. After this war the Treaty of Contrition was drawn up between nations as a sign of peace and cooperation. Wouldn't be a stretch to say it was also blessed by clerics of the Church of the Five Lights. This is brilliant, thank you.
Glad to help. ^_^
Along those lines, the seven seals (physical or metaphorical) could represent a pact between the world and the gods. Alternatively, the world could be a prison to an incredibly dangerous threat and the gods may remake the world to contain it if it begins to stir. Mr. Reach could be trying to prod that entity into awakening.
Mr Reach gets the gods attention in different ways according to each god.
1). Destroys a holy artifact to that god
2). Defiles a location essential to that belief
3). Kills or converts a high ranking member of that deity
4) Causes a core constituency for abandon their faith
For example, he could get the Goddess of Beauty’s attention by stealing and publically defacing a beautiful statue (I.e. chopping the head off Michaelangelo’s David) or flooding the deep forges of a Dwarven city (Moradin) or murdering the High Paladin of Justice during a public ceremony at the eve of embarking on a just war, etc.