Hullo, D&D Beyond! I'm an intermediate DM getting ready to run a Level 1 campaign at my university for a group interspersed with veterans and newbies. My very loose plot hook idea is that a prophesy goes awry. A man enigmatically known as The Knight of Firmament was chosen by a council of deities to champion them in the battle against a growing force of darkness that threatened to drown the world in shadow. The Knight of Firmament won in his battle against this force of darkness and banished it long before the people of the world had a chance to even so much as see a monster, banishing it to the depths of a blessed chasm in the farthest corner of the world.
However, 10 years later, the forces of darkness seem to be crawling out of the chasm and leading yet another assault on the world. Only this time, The Knight of Firmament is nowhere to be found. The time until humanity's reign over the world ends is marked by a clock floating high in the sky, and as the hands tick ever towards destruction everyone has the same thought: has our hero forsaken us?
Task forces are created and sent out in order to hunt for The Knight of Firmament. Rescue him, and escort him to the being now unoriginally nicknamed "The Dark One" so that may The Knight may complete his prophecy before the clock strikes its metaphorical midnight. This is where the players come in...
Very traditional stuff. A battle between the forces of good and evil, a chosen one, the end of the world looming over the horizon. However, I'm worried that perhaps it makes the player characters' contributions feel less meaningful. At the beginning of the campaign, their mission isn't to save the world, but to save the man who is going to save the world. I'm a bit worried it'll make the players feel like secondary characters in a story that is, ultimately, all about them and their journey. What do you think, D&D Beyond?
I would include a twist, where the knight is either permanently dead, too old and weak to fight, or is incapacitated in some way. Instead of using the knight to defeat the evil, the players must defeat the evil itself, as they somehow gain the knight's powers. Perhaps the knight was not able to accomplish his feat via innate power, but instead was able to do it by gaining some power that he now cannot use?
Oh, perhaps in sealing away the evil, the knight had to trap himself as well. After many, many years of being sealed up with these evil horrors, he became corrupted as well, becoming the Dark One.
I'd solve that by making the Knight a false hope -- either he's already been slain by the Dark One's forces, or he actually is the Dark One -- and then the rest of the campaign is trying to solve the problem without the hero of prophecy.
I think it's better to have the Knight exist but be powerless. Just the right guy in the right place at the right time. You know the type - a Home Simpson that stopped the Nuclear Accident. He is hiding because he knows he doesn't live up to everyone's expectations.
What if when they find him, he is unable or unwilling to take the fight to the enemy, and the PCs have to do it in his place? Depends on whether they will be powerful enough to do this by the end of it.
I did something like this in Champions. I had the DC god Darkseid team up with my world's chief evil god Set (the Egyptian god). Their goal was to kill Osiris (god of the dead), usurp his power, and complete the anti-life equation. The idea was that the anti-life equation (a DC mainstay that is talked about much but has never really been explained in a clear way, or at least hadn't up to that point) would kill everyone, and with everyone now dead, and Osiris' power in their hands, Set and Darkseid would rule "everything" (rule death, everything's dead).
There was NO WAY the individual PCs would have been powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with Darkseid. They were at the time around 300-325 point heroes, and Darkseid was built on like 1,400 points. This is the Champions equivalent of level 5s going up against level 20s. And there were TWO of them.
My solution was to send the heroes on a quest to get some Ankhs of power -- there were seven ankhs (one, coincidentally, for each PC, and no it wasn't really a coincidence, LOL). They were able to use the Ankhs to merge themselves temporarily into two beings - one being of light (to combat Set's darkness) and one of life (to combat Darkseid's anti-life). I made up two character sheets, one for each being, both of whom were built along the same lines as the gods (1,000+ points) and more importantly, had powers to which the gods were vulnerable. I handed control of the light and life beings to the players, and said, "Three of you play one, four play the other." So they worked together to decide what powers to use and how to execute the combat, and quite satisfyingly, kicked Set and Darkseid's butts, saved Osiris, and halted the anti-life equation. It was pretty epic. After the battle was over, the characters un-merged and became themselves again.
You could easily do something like that. The knight won't or can't do it (or maybe, was killed by the Dark One already!). However, his shield and helmet and armor are scattered about and the heroes can go get them and put them on and one of them can take the place of the knight. Maybe doing this requires sacrifice -- you have to die to defeat evil-boy. The person putting those things on would know that it makes you powerful for a little bit but then you won't be coming back. Kind of like Thomas Covenant turning himself into a part of the Arch of Time at the end of the 2nd chronicles to stop Lord Foul.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Much like the replies before me, make it so the knight is unable to fight this dark evil, either through physical capability or maybe...he only managed to banish the dark forces 10 years ago by striking some sort of nefarious deal allowing them to come back now, with the Knight basking in the temporary glory and running away from the danger. Maybe he's actually just a coward who potentially may wish to seek redemption by aiding the party but not directly fighting the darkness.
That being said, I am a Level 1 DM running my first ever campaign so take this with a few grains of salt.
What if a plucky band of adventurers stopped the Dark One last time, and the Knight is a coward and either abandoned them or did nothing to help them? They all died in the fight, and the Knight took the credit. And now when they find him he perhaps initially agrees but then keeps trying to take off and not wanting to do things, and eventually they find out he is a fraud.
But maybe they also find out that although as a party they can stop this guy, it's going to cost them their lives (or probably will). Then you have a study in contrasts... the powerful but cowardly knight who took credit for the heroism of others, and the weaker adventurers who (hopefully) are brave enough to do what the knight is not.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Neither the knight nor the dark one actually exist. They're both just stories told to help the gods maintain order and keep people worshiping (if they get people to believe in an apocalyptic devil, and that they are the only ones who can create the answer to this devil, then they become the only game in town). The clock has been misinterpreted. It's the countdown to a time when a force that will act as a balance to the gods will be released. The PCs have to decide if its better to help maintain order and the status quo by shutting down the force, or to free it and see what happens in the new world they create.
A few people actually hit the nail halfway on the head. My rough idea for the big twist was in fact that The Knight of Firmament is a pseudo-big bad this time around. It's a whole character arc centered around the fact that The Knight of Firmament made his whole identity about being a hero, so he struggled to live with a peaceful world where he couldn't save anybody. So... he goes out of his way to create a threat that he has to save the world from. He ends up working with the big big bad, the "Dark One", to create the ideal heroic journey for himself but somewhere along the line he allowed the holy force inside of him to be grasped by the Dark One, corrupting him and his motivations beyond recognition.
There is, of course, a dramatic battle between the player characters and The Knight of Firmament planned.
I was mostly worried that it would make the players initially feel like they're less important than they really are, since I feel like most PC's would like to be told they're in the position of world-saviors. Even though they do eventually become the heroes that save the world, it takes some time.
I wouldn't worry about them feeling small initially. They're supposed to feel small initially. it's called being level 1 -- at level 1 a couple of big rats in the basement can bring you to your knees.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well... you could have told people about that in the prompt...
I don't think it undervalues the players at all, then. If it was "find the Big Good Nice Guy and have him fight the Big Bad Evil Guy", then it would be a problem. But it's not like that. It might look like that, yes, but that's okay, as long as it doesn't actually end up like that.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Im not sure how much the players know about the prophesy having gone awry, but if in the course of finding the guy you drop some hints that the prophesy might have been misinterpreted, or they find the guy and he keep leaning on the players to pull of his tasks "we need to get my special sword from the demons of over there" show off that he is over hyped, the players passed him in 'power' a level or two ago and make the players decide if they will solve the big problem and say it was the knight, or try and take the credit themselves.
that is how i would run it, but there is of course the playing it strait path: finding him IS the big adventure and the campaign wraps up nicely with him defeating the darkness and proclaiming the players hero for having made it possible for this victory to happen, as long as you let the players do heroic things along the way and you deliberately hype up the dark one into something god-like, do the players need to kill it or just find the other god-like thing that does it. they still made it happen.
It may be possible that the Knight was chosen incorrectly. He was the wrong prophesied one who coincidentally fit the criteria and that's why he wasn't able to banish them permanently. I'd look at or work on the wording of the prophecy so that it may actually refer to the party as a whole, or about particular equipment, or something like that.
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Hullo, D&D Beyond! I'm an intermediate DM getting ready to run a Level 1 campaign at my university for a group interspersed with veterans and newbies. My very loose plot hook idea is that a prophesy goes awry. A man enigmatically known as The Knight of Firmament was chosen by a council of deities to champion them in the battle against a growing force of darkness that threatened to drown the world in shadow. The Knight of Firmament won in his battle against this force of darkness and banished it long before the people of the world had a chance to even so much as see a monster, banishing it to the depths of a blessed chasm in the farthest corner of the world.
However, 10 years later, the forces of darkness seem to be crawling out of the chasm and leading yet another assault on the world. Only this time, The Knight of Firmament is nowhere to be found. The time until humanity's reign over the world ends is marked by a clock floating high in the sky, and as the hands tick ever towards destruction everyone has the same thought: has our hero forsaken us?
Task forces are created and sent out in order to hunt for The Knight of Firmament. Rescue him, and escort him to the being now unoriginally nicknamed "The Dark One" so that may The Knight may complete his prophecy before the clock strikes its metaphorical midnight. This is where the players come in...
Very traditional stuff. A battle between the forces of good and evil, a chosen one, the end of the world looming over the horizon. However, I'm worried that perhaps it makes the player characters' contributions feel less meaningful. At the beginning of the campaign, their mission isn't to save the world, but to save the man who is going to save the world. I'm a bit worried it'll make the players feel like secondary characters in a story that is, ultimately, all about them and their journey. What do you think, D&D Beyond?
I would include a twist, where the knight is either permanently dead, too old and weak to fight, or is incapacitated in some way. Instead of using the knight to defeat the evil, the players must defeat the evil itself, as they somehow gain the knight's powers. Perhaps the knight was not able to accomplish his feat via innate power, but instead was able to do it by gaining some power that he now cannot use?
Oh, perhaps in sealing away the evil, the knight had to trap himself as well. After many, many years of being sealed up with these evil horrors, he became corrupted as well, becoming the Dark One.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
I'd solve that by making the Knight a false hope -- either he's already been slain by the Dark One's forces, or he actually is the Dark One -- and then the rest of the campaign is trying to solve the problem without the hero of prophecy.
I think it's better to have the Knight exist but be powerless. Just the right guy in the right place at the right time. You know the type - a Home Simpson that stopped the Nuclear Accident. He is hiding because he knows he doesn't live up to everyone's expectations.
What if when they find him, he is unable or unwilling to take the fight to the enemy, and the PCs have to do it in his place? Depends on whether they will be powerful enough to do this by the end of it.
I did something like this in Champions. I had the DC god Darkseid team up with my world's chief evil god Set (the Egyptian god). Their goal was to kill Osiris (god of the dead), usurp his power, and complete the anti-life equation. The idea was that the anti-life equation (a DC mainstay that is talked about much but has never really been explained in a clear way, or at least hadn't up to that point) would kill everyone, and with everyone now dead, and Osiris' power in their hands, Set and Darkseid would rule "everything" (rule death, everything's dead).
There was NO WAY the individual PCs would have been powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with Darkseid. They were at the time around 300-325 point heroes, and Darkseid was built on like 1,400 points. This is the Champions equivalent of level 5s going up against level 20s. And there were TWO of them.
My solution was to send the heroes on a quest to get some Ankhs of power -- there were seven ankhs (one, coincidentally, for each PC, and no it wasn't really a coincidence, LOL). They were able to use the Ankhs to merge themselves temporarily into two beings - one being of light (to combat Set's darkness) and one of life (to combat Darkseid's anti-life). I made up two character sheets, one for each being, both of whom were built along the same lines as the gods (1,000+ points) and more importantly, had powers to which the gods were vulnerable. I handed control of the light and life beings to the players, and said, "Three of you play one, four play the other." So they worked together to decide what powers to use and how to execute the combat, and quite satisfyingly, kicked Set and Darkseid's butts, saved Osiris, and halted the anti-life equation. It was pretty epic. After the battle was over, the characters un-merged and became themselves again.
You could easily do something like that. The knight won't or can't do it (or maybe, was killed by the Dark One already!). However, his shield and helmet and armor are scattered about and the heroes can go get them and put them on and one of them can take the place of the knight. Maybe doing this requires sacrifice -- you have to die to defeat evil-boy. The person putting those things on would know that it makes you powerful for a little bit but then you won't be coming back. Kind of like Thomas Covenant turning himself into a part of the Arch of Time at the end of the 2nd chronicles to stop Lord Foul.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Much like the replies before me, make it so the knight is unable to fight this dark evil, either through physical capability or maybe...he only managed to banish the dark forces 10 years ago by striking some sort of nefarious deal allowing them to come back now, with the Knight basking in the temporary glory and running away from the danger. Maybe he's actually just a coward who potentially may wish to seek redemption by aiding the party but not directly fighting the darkness.
That being said, I am a Level 1 DM running my first ever campaign so take this with a few grains of salt.
Or maybe... What if the Knight is a fraud?
What if a plucky band of adventurers stopped the Dark One last time, and the Knight is a coward and either abandoned them or did nothing to help them? They all died in the fight, and the Knight took the credit. And now when they find him he perhaps initially agrees but then keeps trying to take off and not wanting to do things, and eventually they find out he is a fraud.
But maybe they also find out that although as a party they can stop this guy, it's going to cost them their lives (or probably will). Then you have a study in contrasts... the powerful but cowardly knight who took credit for the heroism of others, and the weaker adventurers who (hopefully) are brave enough to do what the knight is not.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'm going to go really far out on mine.
Neither the knight nor the dark one actually exist. They're both just stories told to help the gods maintain order and keep people worshiping (if they get people to believe in an apocalyptic devil, and that they are the only ones who can create the answer to this devil, then they become the only game in town). The clock has been misinterpreted. It's the countdown to a time when a force that will act as a balance to the gods will be released. The PCs have to decide if its better to help maintain order and the status quo by shutting down the force, or to free it and see what happens in the new world they create.
Ooh I like that one too.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
A few people actually hit the nail halfway on the head. My rough idea for the big twist was in fact that The Knight of Firmament is a pseudo-big bad this time around. It's a whole character arc centered around the fact that The Knight of Firmament made his whole identity about being a hero, so he struggled to live with a peaceful world where he couldn't save anybody. So... he goes out of his way to create a threat that he has to save the world from. He ends up working with the big big bad, the "Dark One", to create the ideal heroic journey for himself but somewhere along the line he allowed the holy force inside of him to be grasped by the Dark One, corrupting him and his motivations beyond recognition.
There is, of course, a dramatic battle between the player characters and The Knight of Firmament planned.
I was mostly worried that it would make the players initially feel like they're less important than they really are, since I feel like most PC's would like to be told they're in the position of world-saviors. Even though they do eventually become the heroes that save the world, it takes some time.
I wouldn't worry about them feeling small initially. They're supposed to feel small initially. it's called being level 1 -- at level 1 a couple of big rats in the basement can bring you to your knees.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well... you could have told people about that in the prompt...
I don't think it undervalues the players at all, then. If it was "find the Big Good Nice Guy and have him fight the Big Bad Evil Guy", then it would be a problem. But it's not like that. It might look like that, yes, but that's okay, as long as it doesn't actually end up like that.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Im not sure how much the players know about the prophesy having gone awry, but if in the course of finding the guy you drop some hints that the prophesy might have been misinterpreted, or they find the guy and he keep leaning on the players to pull of his tasks "we need to get my special sword from the demons of over there" show off that he is over hyped, the players passed him in 'power' a level or two ago and make the players decide if they will solve the big problem and say it was the knight, or try and take the credit themselves.
that is how i would run it, but there is of course the playing it strait path:
finding him IS the big adventure and the campaign wraps up nicely with him defeating the darkness and proclaiming the players hero for having made it possible for this victory to happen, as long as you let the players do heroic things along the way and you deliberately hype up the dark one into something god-like, do the players need to kill it or just find the other god-like thing that does it. they still made it happen.
It may be possible that the Knight was chosen incorrectly. He was the wrong prophesied one who coincidentally fit the criteria and that's why he wasn't able to banish them permanently. I'd look at or work on the wording of the prophecy so that it may actually refer to the party as a whole, or about particular equipment, or something like that.