I have a player who joined my campaign at level 6 and part of their backstory is that they have had parts of their memory (which I am interpreting as parts of their soul) transferred to phylacteries and their personal quest is to find these phylacteries and retrieve the memories/parts of their soul. I can easily work in to the campaign how they find them and what these phylacteries are, what I am slightly stumped by is how to retrieve the contents of the phylacteries. One route to go down is to find a wizard capable of casting a kind of reverse version of Magic Jar, which as a level 6 spell could tie in to the campaign easily enough, but that feels like it's too easy, even if they would have to find a Level 15 wizard and pay for the spell. Another route is to find a lich and persuade them to cast a reverse Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery which could be an interesting side quest but seems difficult - I don't imagine there are many amenable liches! Another option is to find someone (or get them to find a spell scroll for) to cast Wish.
How would you go about this? Any suggestions gratefully received! I want this to be difficult (but not too difficult!) but above all fun and interesting!
I can easily work in to the campaign how they find them and what these phylacteries are, ....
Wait for the answer and let the future episodes solve this. The Player needs to find them 1st, so that will take awhile, I assume? Try to get an NPC or 2 involved with the party somehow. When the player finds the 1st one, have an NPC ask what it is. This allows the entire party to understand what is going on and also ensures you and the PC are on the same page. The answer just needs to simple and big picture.
After the second or third, have the NPC ask about the total number and what happens if the PC finds them all. Depending on the answer the PC gives, now you have a direction and can also set up finding the supporting items (e.g. cash/spells/components/etc.)
Assuming you are not giving all the phylacteries to the PC at once, stretch it out as a secondary adventure and let the story dictate how he connects to the jars.
The one thing is, does the PC need all of them before he can be "restored"? Does he need a few and/or there must be an order of how the PC "absorbs" them? That might influence how to use them? If you want an order, be explicit and put a number on the Jar, even have his name. (it can be a language that needs a "spell" to decipher.)
I might just let it happen. They crack it open or they touch it and it melds into them or something. If I wanted something extra, maybe say they take on a level or three of exhaustion to reflect the psychological impact as they process the information over a couple days. I’d put the challenge into finding them instead of layering another challenge into opening them. Doing too much risks having this character take over the story.
The real challenge to me is what is in them? What was so horrible that this character had their memory of it removed? Seems like the player is just begging to find out their character was a very bad person. Or suffered something awful. Or saw something they shouldn’t have (which happens to be key to defeating the BBEG). Finding these memories is more like the start of the character’s side quest, not the end.
I agree with Xalthu, it would be much more interesting for the character to have their memories restored bit by bit as they find the phylacteries one by one, potentially out of order, so they then have to decipher the fragments to try to figure out what happened. Any sort of quest to release them is going to get extremely boring the 3rd or 4th time they have to go do it because they found another phylactery.
The mechanics of the phylacteries is far far less important than how interesting the story is that is contained in the memories. So spend time coming up with a really interesting back story locked in those memories that might change the character's perspective on themselves.
Hi, I'm hoping someone can help with this.
I have a player who joined my campaign at level 6 and part of their backstory is that they have had parts of their memory (which I am interpreting as parts of their soul) transferred to phylacteries and their personal quest is to find these phylacteries and retrieve the memories/parts of their soul. I can easily work in to the campaign how they find them and what these phylacteries are, what I am slightly stumped by is how to retrieve the contents of the phylacteries. One route to go down is to find a wizard capable of casting a kind of reverse version of Magic Jar, which as a level 6 spell could tie in to the campaign easily enough, but that feels like it's too easy, even if they would have to find a Level 15 wizard and pay for the spell. Another route is to find a lich and persuade them to cast a reverse Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery which could be an interesting side quest but seems difficult - I don't imagine there are many amenable liches! Another option is to find someone (or get them to find a spell scroll for) to cast Wish.
How would you go about this? Any suggestions gratefully received! I want this to be difficult (but not too difficult!) but above all fun and interesting!
Wait for the answer and let the future episodes solve this. The Player needs to find them 1st, so that will take awhile, I assume? Try to get an NPC or 2 involved with the party somehow. When the player finds the 1st one, have an NPC ask what it is. This allows the entire party to understand what is going on and also ensures you and the PC are on the same page. The answer just needs to simple and big picture.
After the second or third, have the NPC ask about the total number and what happens if the PC finds them all. Depending on the answer the PC gives, now you have a direction and can also set up finding the supporting items (e.g. cash/spells/components/etc.)
Assuming you are not giving all the phylacteries to the PC at once, stretch it out as a secondary adventure and let the story dictate how he connects to the jars.
The one thing is, does the PC need all of them before he can be "restored"? Does he need a few and/or there must be an order of how the PC "absorbs" them? That might influence how to use them? If you want an order, be explicit and put a number on the Jar, even have his name. (it can be a language that needs a "spell" to decipher.)
I might just let it happen. They crack it open or they touch it and it melds into them or something. If I wanted something extra, maybe say they take on a level or three of exhaustion to reflect the psychological impact as they process the information over a couple days. I’d put the challenge into finding them instead of layering another challenge into opening them. Doing too much risks having this character take over the story.
The real challenge to me is what is in them? What was so horrible that this character had their memory of it removed? Seems like the player is just begging to find out their character was a very bad person. Or suffered something awful. Or saw something they shouldn’t have (which happens to be key to defeating the BBEG). Finding these memories is more like the start of the character’s side quest, not the end.
I agree with Xalthu, it would be much more interesting for the character to have their memories restored bit by bit as they find the phylacteries one by one, potentially out of order, so they then have to decipher the fragments to try to figure out what happened. Any sort of quest to release them is going to get extremely boring the 3rd or 4th time they have to go do it because they found another phylactery.
The mechanics of the phylacteries is far far less important than how interesting the story is that is contained in the memories. So spend time coming up with a really interesting back story locked in those memories that might change the character's perspective on themselves.