Hi! So... I'm currently running my first game. My players are in a sandbox module that I purchased to make the first go around easy while I write a larger campaign for them in my (ambitiously) homebrewed world.
So.. I'm originally from the New Orleans area and have an affinity for swamp culture and superstition because: I grew up around a lot of it. This includes the occasional research foray into Haitian Vodun. Haiti and New Orleans are old pals with many cultural cross-overs.
I had the idea to send my players on a trip through the Southern swamps of my world to stop a necromancer who is intent on imprisoning Baron Samedi (or something like him) who is the vodun keeper of the crossroads and the one who accompanies your soul to the afterlife. He thinks that by imprisoning the Baron he can steal his lucky coin (a fiction by me), which he shows to the ferryman on his journey in order to secure passage down the abyssal bayou, part of the journey of the soul (that I made up). With this coin, he could dress as the Baron, travel down the bayou and return with more souls and ghouls to join his undead army than he could possibly ever want. Once his army is raised his plan is to seize power of the known world and force all to bend the knee (because I dunno... momma didn't hug him enough as a child).
I don't think it's too involved. It sounds like you have a thorough and consistent perspective of the world you've created. I think there's just a few questions to answer for your big bad:
1: What does he want to accomplish with his army of the undead? Power for power's sake isn't an interesting goal. There has to be something he wants to use that army of the undead for.
2: What personal investment do the party have in foiling the big bad's plan? What do they stand to loose if he succeeds?
3: Why are the PCs the best force to stop the big bad? If there are more powerful people in the setting, for what reasons are they not confronting this rising threat? (I've run my own homebrew campaign in which the party immediately tried to recruit high-level NPCs to fight the BBEG instead of doing it themselves, and I didn't have an answer ready.)
Hi! So... I'm currently running my first game. My players are in a sandbox module that I purchased to make the first go around easy while I write a larger campaign for them in my (ambitiously) homebrewed world.
So.. I'm originally from the New Orleans area and have an affinity for swamp culture and superstition because: I grew up around a lot of it. This includes the occasional research foray into Haitian Vodun. Haiti and New Orleans are old pals with many cultural cross-overs.
I had the idea to send my players on a trip through the Southern swamps of my world to stop a necromancer who is intent on imprisoning Baron Samedi (or something like him) who is the vodun keeper of the crossroads and the one who accompanies your soul to the afterlife. He thinks that by imprisoning the Baron he can steal his lucky coin (a fiction by me), which he shows to the ferryman on his journey in order to secure passage down the abyssal bayou, part of the journey of the soul (that I made up). With this coin, he could dress as the Baron, travel down the bayou and return with more souls and ghouls to join his undead army than he could possibly ever want. Once his army is raised his plan is to seize power of the known world and force all to bend the knee (because I dunno... momma didn't hug him enough as a child).
My questions are:
A) Does this sound good enough to be a BBEG?
B) Is it too involved?
C) Am I overthinking this?
I don't think it's too involved. It sounds like you have a thorough and consistent perspective of the world you've created. I think there's just a few questions to answer for your big bad:
1: What does he want to accomplish with his army of the undead? Power for power's sake isn't an interesting goal. There has to be something he wants to use that army of the undead for.
2: What personal investment do the party have in foiling the big bad's plan? What do they stand to loose if he succeeds?
3: Why are the PCs the best force to stop the big bad? If there are more powerful people in the setting, for what reasons are they not confronting this rising threat? (I've run my own homebrew campaign in which the party immediately tried to recruit high-level NPCs to fight the BBEG instead of doing it themselves, and I didn't have an answer ready.)
Thank you so much! I'll definitely give these questions some thought and try to flesh it out a bit further.