Hey other DM's. I'm posting here because I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of that's not already in my campaign (spoilers for them!! and sad for me). I just need other awesome creative DM's like you guys to help me make sense of my campaign/story/plot/continuity/whatever-you-wanna-call-it. *group hug*
So the campaign I'm running is a completely homebrew world called Spiralia. I didn't go so far as to homebrew classes and spells, but there are some unique things like a different pantheon of gods. I also steal ALOT from the amazing community of creators who share their ideas when I'm feeling lazy and can't plan for every possibility (sometimes being a DM feels like being Dr. Strange). There are 4 regular players and a cast of rotating guest players in the game and we play every Sunday (going on for almost a year now).
The party is nearing the end of their fourth story arc at level 8 on the island of Librany (a big mining/shipping plateau with tunnels and levels and a giant city on top). There is a Variant human Wizard/Cleric who is basically a reluctant necromancer who can see dead people, A Triton Monk who is super socially awkward and exiled from her city under the sea, a Wyrwood Warlock who doesn't know why he's alive but is obsessed with alchemy, and a Halfling Cleric urchin from an orphanage in a poor mining colony who is searching for her parents.
I'll probably be posting lots of story beats and issues I have in this same forum, but I can't really tell you the entire year's worth of plot...so I'll try to speed things up! Here's my current predicament: there's a lot going on and I'm trying to tie all these plots together! PLEASE HELP.
There was a harvest festival and the group played games and tried a mysterious elixir called 'Snowpeak Miracle Ale'. They had incredible luck that evening, winning a bunch of games. However, something sinister was at work...They went to bed at the inn, none the wiser. They awoke to a bard singing loudly in the street, then proceeded to relive the same day over and over again! (Groundhog's Day! Got it from a d100 random encounter list on the internet that I actually rolled! Props to whomever made that list.) Each day the party discovered little clues, leading them to a sinister plot!
A woman named Mildred Hopsmiller, the Librany council chair of Food and Drink, has had her eye on a prime piece of real estate in the Librany Harbor. Owned by her business rival Ardel, the Flatland Brewhause and Inn is one of the most prosperous places on Librany. Ardel is getting old and wants to pass the business on to his son Gallant. But Gallant has a curiosity with alchemy and experimental brews that 'enhance' the drinker. He was banned from brewing after he poisoned a group of powerful merchants by accident with one of his experimental drinks (a decision spearheaded by Mildred). But she sought to destroy the business completely. She found an indirect ally in a Spirit Naga that resides in the sewers beneath the Flatland Brewhause. (I know it's already getting complicated.)
Grimmfang, the spirit naga, is struggling to breed. The runoff from the Brewhause has poisoned its eggs and only two offspring have survived in the last 20 years. Grimmfang has been seeking revenge on Ardel, meanwhile trying to protect her latest hatchlings from the biproducts Ardel dumps into the sewer. Creatures like this have been struggling to survive in the subterranian tunnels beneath Librany since they started mining the island nearly 200 years ago. She has been teaching her two offspring powerful illusion magic to disguise themselves and infiltrate the surface dwellers, as well as mind control techniques to charm their prey and lure them into Grimmfang's sewer lair. (Alright, there's only one more simultaneous story, but I promise it will all tie together.)
Prunys, the Librany council chair of Antiquities and the Historical Society, has already hired the party to clear out an old mine that had been turned into a tourist attraction. (They found a dinosaur bone!) So she has a good report with them. But what they don't know is that Prunys was in the possession of a magical hookah from the desert island of Saoin. It was in a museum on the surface, until Mildred stole it. BECAUSE THERE IS A GENIE INSIDE! Mildred is the genie's master and stole some of its blood. She gave the blood to Grimmfang. Grimmfang hypnotized Ardel's son Gallant. Gallant (under hypnosis) used his alchemy skills to make a brew with the genie's blood. (I know, it's getting ridiuclous!) He had his girlfriend sell the 'Snowpeak Miracle Ale' at a festival booth to test its properties on unassuming people. At first, it just makes them super lucky...until they fall asleep. Then it traps anyone who drank it in a repeating day/dream world while they fall into a coma-like sleep.
I've already gotten myself in wayyy too deep into this crazy story and now I'm trying to dig my way out of it into a grand finale! So the bard that sings outside the Inn every day they wake up IS the genie (named Foreteller the bard). He's mostly in-control of the world except when they get close to figuring things out. Then Mildred steps in (psychic link since she's the genie's master?) and makes him cast spells and hinder their progress. If they die in the dream, they die in real life (Matrix ripoff!). So whenever one of them gets dangerously close to death, the genie resets them and they start the day again. The party has figured out that Gallant is involved, that something bad is in the sewers, and that Foreteller is a genie who isn't completely in control and doesn't want them to die. They also figured out that Mildred is the true enemy and have escaped the dream world by saying her name three times! (Such a simple way out...you should have heard them all scream when they figured it out!).
So the next session is the boss fight. They are all chained to pillars deep in the sewer below the Flatland Brewhause, coming out of their deep drug-induced sleep. All of their gear has been confiscated and their HP is drained to half. (dire circumstances!) Grimmfang's children have taken the form of Ardel and Mildred, using illusion magic, and are brewing a massive batch of potent miracle ale to poison the Harbor's water supply and finally get their revenge.
So here's some things I need help with to make this danged complicated plot come together:
Is Mildred a Yuan-Ti or something that makes her sympathetic to the spirit naga?
Is Mildred actually dead in the dungeon and Grimmfang's children have been impersonating her the whole time?
Maybe Ardel is also dead and impersonated, or should there be a happy ending where Ardel can take over the Flatland and get his brewing permission back from the council?
Spirit Naga return after being killed and the only way to prevent it is with a wish spell. So the party needs to free Foreteller and get wishes to prevent that from happening...where is Foreteller's hookah prison?! I had the idea to put it in Leomund's Secret Chest (cast by Grimmfang?), with the mini chest being in the dungeon as loot, or Mildred's vinyard compound on the surface. Freeing Foreteller could be the next story arc that takes them to a new island to discover how to bypass the Leomund spell or something like that? Prunys might be able to help the party figure it out, or point them in the direction of an Indiana Jones-style quest? I don't know, this one is hard.
Should Ardel get Mildred's council seat? Maybe the next story arc is the party gaining some renown with the Librany council and its other members?
Is a Spirit Naga and 2 Naga-ling too much for a boss fight against 4 players, 2 npcs when they are at half life with no items? I decided to put their gear in a couple of crates outside the lair (near prison cells that may house Mildred and Ardel).
Are there any other loose ends and plot holes I'm missing? (definitely)
I'm so excited to see what people come up with, if any of you made it to the end of this stupidly-long post about my ambitious homebrew world. Welcome to Spiralia! Thank you in advance!
Hey other DM's. I'm posting here because I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of that's not already in my campaign (spoilers for them!! and sad for me). I just need other awesome creative DM's like you guys to help me make sense of my campaign/story/plot/continuity/whatever-you-wanna-call-it. *group hug*
So the campaign I'm running is a completely homebrew world called Spiralia. I didn't go so far as to homebrew classes and spells, but there are some unique things like a different pantheon of gods. I also steal ALOT from the amazing community of creators who share their ideas when I'm feeling lazy and can't plan for every possibility (sometimes being a DM feels like being Dr. Strange). There are 4 regular players and a cast of rotating guest players in the game and we play every Sunday (going on for almost a year now).
The party is nearing the end of their fourth story arc at level 8 on the island of Librany (a big mining/shipping plateau with tunnels and levels and a giant city on top). There is a Variant human Wizard/Cleric who is basically a reluctant necromancer who can see dead people, A Triton Monk who is super socially awkward and exiled from her city under the sea, a Wyrwood Warlock who doesn't know why he's alive but is obsessed with alchemy, and a Halfling Cleric urchin from an orphanage in a poor mining colony who is searching for her parents.
I'll probably be posting lots of story beats and issues I have in this same forum, but I can't really tell you the entire year's worth of plot...so I'll try to speed things up! Here's my current predicament: there's a lot going on and I'm trying to tie all these plots together! PLEASE HELP.
There was a harvest festival and the group played games and tried a mysterious elixir called 'Snowpeak Miracle Ale'. They had incredible luck that evening, winning a bunch of games. However, something sinister was at work...They went to bed at the inn, none the wiser. They awoke to a bard singing loudly in the street, then proceeded to relive the same day over and over again! (Groundhog's Day! Got it from a d100 random encounter list on the internet that I actually rolled! Props to whomever made that list.) Each day the party discovered little clues, leading them to a sinister plot!
A woman named Mildred Hopsmiller, the Librany council chair of Food and Drink, has had her eye on a prime piece of real estate in the Librany Harbor. Owned by her business rival Ardel, the Flatland Brewhause and Inn is one of the most prosperous places on Librany. Ardel is getting old and wants to pass the business on to his son Gallant. But Gallant has a curiosity with alchemy and experimental brews that 'enhance' the drinker. He was banned from brewing after he poisoned a group of powerful merchants by accident with one of his experimental drinks (a decision spearheaded by Mildred). But she sought to destroy the business completely. She found an indirect ally in a Spirit Naga that resides in the sewers beneath the Flatland Brewhause. (I know it's already getting complicated.)
Grimmfang, the spirit naga, is struggling to breed. The runoff from the Brewhause has poisoned its eggs and only two offspring have survived in the last 20 years. Grimmfang has been seeking revenge on Ardel, meanwhile trying to protect her latest hatchlings from the biproducts Ardel dumps into the sewer. Creatures like this have been struggling to survive in the subterranian tunnels beneath Librany since they started mining the island nearly 200 years ago. She has been teaching her two offspring powerful illusion magic to disguise themselves and infiltrate the surface dwellers, as well as mind control techniques to charm their prey and lure them into Grimmfang's sewer lair. (Alright, there's only one more simultaneous story, but I promise it will all tie together.)
Prunys, the Librany council chair of Antiquities and the Historical Society, has already hired the party to clear out an old mine that had been turned into a tourist attraction. (They found a dinosaur bone!) So she has a good report with them. But what they don't know is that Prunys was in the possession of a magical hookah from the desert island of Saoin. It was in a museum on the surface, until Mildred stole it. BECAUSE THERE IS A GENIE INSIDE! Mildred is the genie's master and stole some of its blood. She gave the blood to Grimmfang. Grimmfang hypnotized Ardel's son Gallant. Gallant (under hypnosis) used his alchemy skills to make a brew with the genie's blood. (I know, it's getting ridiuclous!) He had his girlfriend sell the 'Snowpeak Miracle Ale' at a festival booth to test its properties on unassuming people. At first, it just makes them super lucky...until they fall asleep. Then it traps anyone who drank it in a repeating day/dream world while they fall into a coma-like sleep.
I've already gotten myself in wayyy too deep into this crazy story and now I'm trying to dig my way out of it into a grand finale! So the bard that sings outside the Inn every day they wake up IS the genie (named Foreteller the bard). He's mostly in-control of the world except when they get close to figuring things out. Then Mildred steps in (psychic link since she's the genie's master?) and makes him cast spells and hinder their progress. If they die in the dream, they die in real life (Matrix ripoff!). So whenever one of them gets dangerously close to death, the genie resets them and they start the day again. The party has figured out that Gallant is involved, that something bad is in the sewers, and that Foreteller is a genie who isn't completely in control and doesn't want them to die. They also figured out that Mildred is the true enemy and have escaped the dream world by saying her name three times! (Such a simple way out...you should have heard them all scream when they figured it out!).
So the next session is the boss fight. They are all chained to pillars deep in the sewer below the Flatland Brewhause, coming out of their deep drug-induced sleep. All of their gear has been confiscated and their HP is drained to half. (dire circumstances!) Grimmfang's children have taken the form of Ardel and Mildred, using illusion magic, and are brewing a massive batch of potent miracle ale to poison the Harbor's water supply and finally get their revenge.
So here's some things I need help with to make this danged complicated plot come together:
Is Mildred a Yuan-Ti or something that makes her sympathetic to the spirit naga?
Is Mildred actually dead in the dungeon and Grimmfang's children have been impersonating her the whole time?
Maybe Ardel is also dead and impersonated, or should there be a happy ending where Ardel can take over the Flatland and get his brewing permission back from the council?
Spirit Naga return after being killed and the only way to prevent it is with a wish spell. So the party needs to free Foreteller and get wishes to prevent that from happening...where is Foreteller's hookah prison?! I had the idea to put it in Leomund's Secret Chest (cast by Grimmfang?), with the mini chest being in the dungeon as loot, or Mildred's vinyard compound on the surface. Freeing Foreteller could be the next story arc that takes them to a new island to discover how to bypass the Leomund spell or something like that? Prunys might be able to help the party figure it out, or point them in the direction of an Indiana Jones-style quest? I don't know, this one is hard.
Should Ardel get Mildred's council seat? Maybe the next story arc is the party gaining some renown with the Librany council and its other members?
Is a Spirit Naga and 2 Naga-ling too much for a boss fight against 4 players, 2 npcs when they are at half life with no items? I decided to put their gear in a couple of crates outside the lair (near prison cells that may house Mildred and Ardel).
Are there any other loose ends and plot holes I'm missing? (definitely)
I'm so excited to see what people come up with, if any of you made it to the end of this stupidly-long post about my ambitious homebrew world. Welcome to Spiralia! Thank you in advance!