Hey everyone. Sorry for the long text and spelling errors
Recently i have gone back and revisited my first campaign in an attempt to see if i could improve it. And i was wondering if anyone could help me come up with a more clear concept for my old villain, called The Nameless.
Backstory for The Nameless.
The Nameless are wraith like creatures that once was a guild of evil lawyrs, who had mastered dark magic and curses, and used it to torment people in debt to them, but they became so despicable in bending the law to their own ends, that the god Tyr cursed them with undeath, removing their names from history, and sealing them in a prison.
The curse contained 3 commands they have to follow.
By this command, your power will be your prison
Thou must never attack a stranger.
Thou must never leave the fog of oblivion.
Thou must never break a contract.
Eventually the Nameless escaped their prison, and used their knowlegde to twist the rules of the curse.
The rules
1. They cant attack strangers, so they must always know their victims name to directly harm them. Once they know a victims name, they curse them with a soul draining curse, that over time drives them mad and kills them
2. They cant leave the ``the fog of oblivion´´: This was their prison, a deep fog in a sealed room, and since they could not leave the fog, they instead used magic to expand it.
3. They cant break a contract, so they always look for loopholes
Their goal
The Nameless wants to steal the souls of people to power the spell that maintains the fog that they have created, thus increasing the area they can roam.
What i need help with.
I have a few question i have not managed to answer properly, and i was hoping that someome could help me get a few ideas for improvements.
1: What happens if a player gets cursed? Originaly i just sent a few bad dreams and visions their way, but i want to improve on this without destroying the players enjoyment (its not fun to be cursed for an entire campaign)
2: Why curse people and not just kill them outright?
1. The campain was mostly low level, and since the we were all new to the game, Remove curse did not come into play. My players assumed that it was a divine curse that couldent be removed unless the Nameless was defeated, and it sorta became the truth after that.
2. Thats a good idea that i will most likely use, explains why the players dont just die after being cursed.
3. The contract was mostly a part of their backstory as lawyers, but it dident come much into play. The point of it was that you could make deals with them, but that they would always try to bend the written word.
Usually with this sort of thing live souls are worth much more then dead ones, Additionally souls that are given willingly are also worth much more then souls that are taken by force.
I suppose in this case the souls value would probably be like a magical supplement, like the creatures don't have any magic of there own so they take it from the people they make contracts with as payment, so the dead soul is actually worthless because they need a living individual to take magic from. This leads into the effects of the curse, losing some of your magical capabilities for short periods of time (Like losing spell slots or something), or even gaining "Magical sickness" which would be like, disadvantage against magical effects or something like that.
Okay. That's a cool basis for a bad guy. The first question you need to ask yourself is - What is their Final Goal??? What do The Nameless want to accomplish in the long run? World domination? Revenge against Tyr? Tort reform?
Once you know their goal, you'll know their motivation.
So, let's start with #2. Why curse people instead of killing them? Because dead people can't do anything. Cursed people can do things for you. They can fight, steal, recruit others, etc. It's better to have an army of servants than a pile of corpses. So that leads to #1 - what does the curse actually DO? Well, since the Nameless want to feed on people to expand their territory, a player who gets infected or who fails a certain saving throw might feel compelled to leave in the middle of the night and just take off while the party is sleeping. At this point they effectively become an NPC for a few short hours. As far as they travel is that much farther that The Nameless can travel to search out more victims. So the player is basically mind-controlled, and will move as fast as possible toward the nearest large population area. Maybe the player can reroll that save at the end of every long rest, and once they succeed they are immune. But by that point the party has been split, that character may be many miles away, and the rest of the party may not know what happened to them. That alone will make the party very nervous.
So it kinda makes sense that The Nameless will want revenge against Tyr. So maybe cursed players - or other cursed NPC the players happen across - will feel an unrelenting need to locate and destroy followers of Tyr, or to desecrate temples to Tyr. Also, the commands say that The Nameless cannot attack a stranger, but it doesn't say that the servants of The Nameless can't! That's why they keep their cursed servants alive.
But yeah, there needs to be a way for players to break the curse on their teammate so that the entire party doesn't fall apart and get enslaved. But that solution can't be so easy that the players just go around the countryside freeing all the cursed people. So, "Greater Restoration" is the go-to solution for problems like this. If you want to make it tougher, say the Greater Restoration has to be cast at a certain higher spell level - like 6th or 7th - a level the party has access to, but the top level of spells they have access to. This will give the players a chance to succeed, but it'll make that success challenging and expensive. (G.R. costs 100gp worth of diamond dust per casting!!)
In the big picture, what you're setting up is an eventual showdown between the cursed army of The Nameless and the forces of the Temple of Tyr. That should be an epic battle!
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Hey everyone. Sorry for the long text and spelling errors
Recently i have gone back and revisited my first campaign in an attempt to see if i could improve it. And i was wondering if anyone could help me come up with a more clear concept for my old villain, called The Nameless.
Backstory for The Nameless.
The Nameless are wraith like creatures that once was a guild of evil lawyrs, who had mastered dark magic and curses, and used it to torment people in debt to them, but they became so despicable in bending the law to their own ends, that the god Tyr cursed them with undeath, removing their names from history, and sealing them in a prison.
The curse contained 3 commands they have to follow.
By this command, your power will be your prison
Eventually the Nameless escaped their prison, and used their knowlegde to twist the rules of the curse.
The rules
1. They cant attack strangers, so they must always know their victims name to directly harm them. Once they know a victims name, they curse them with a soul draining curse, that over time drives them mad and kills them
2. They cant leave the ``the fog of oblivion´´: This was their prison, a deep fog in a sealed room, and since they could not leave the fog, they instead used magic to expand it.
3. They cant break a contract, so they always look for loopholes
Their goal
The Nameless wants to steal the souls of people to power the spell that maintains the fog that they have created, thus increasing the area they can roam.
What i need help with.
I have a few question i have not managed to answer properly, and i was hoping that someome could help me get a few ideas for improvements.
1: What happens if a player gets cursed? Originaly i just sent a few bad dreams and visions their way, but i want to improve on this without destroying the players enjoyment (its not fun to be cursed for an entire campaign)
2: Why curse people and not just kill them outright?
Remove curse in 5e is simply put. Now you no longer have said curse?
Live souls increase the power more than outright killing them? Killing them would mean less power is gained.
How does the contracts come into play, can you curse yourself by accepting a contract and gaining power?
1. The campain was mostly low level, and since the we were all new to the game, Remove curse did not come into play. My players assumed that it was a divine curse that couldent be removed unless the Nameless was defeated, and it sorta became the truth after that.
2. Thats a good idea that i will most likely use, explains why the players dont just die after being cursed.
3. The contract was mostly a part of their backstory as lawyers, but it dident come much into play. The point of it was that you could make deals with them, but that they would always try to bend the written word.
Usually with this sort of thing live souls are worth much more then dead ones, Additionally souls that are given willingly are also worth much more then souls that are taken by force.
I suppose in this case the souls value would probably be like a magical supplement, like the creatures don't have any magic of there own so they take it from the people they make contracts with as payment, so the dead soul is actually worthless because they need a living individual to take magic from. This leads into the effects of the curse, losing some of your magical capabilities for short periods of time (Like losing spell slots or something), or even gaining "Magical sickness" which would be like, disadvantage against magical effects or something like that.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
Okay. That's a cool basis for a bad guy. The first question you need to ask yourself is - What is their Final Goal??? What do The Nameless want to accomplish in the long run? World domination? Revenge against Tyr? Tort reform?
Once you know their goal, you'll know their motivation.
So, let's start with #2. Why curse people instead of killing them? Because dead people can't do anything. Cursed people can do things for you. They can fight, steal, recruit others, etc. It's better to have an army of servants than a pile of corpses. So that leads to #1 - what does the curse actually DO? Well, since the Nameless want to feed on people to expand their territory, a player who gets infected or who fails a certain saving throw might feel compelled to leave in the middle of the night and just take off while the party is sleeping. At this point they effectively become an NPC for a few short hours. As far as they travel is that much farther that The Nameless can travel to search out more victims. So the player is basically mind-controlled, and will move as fast as possible toward the nearest large population area. Maybe the player can reroll that save at the end of every long rest, and once they succeed they are immune. But by that point the party has been split, that character may be many miles away, and the rest of the party may not know what happened to them. That alone will make the party very nervous.
So it kinda makes sense that The Nameless will want revenge against Tyr. So maybe cursed players - or other cursed NPC the players happen across - will feel an unrelenting need to locate and destroy followers of Tyr, or to desecrate temples to Tyr. Also, the commands say that The Nameless cannot attack a stranger, but it doesn't say that the servants of The Nameless can't! That's why they keep their cursed servants alive.
But yeah, there needs to be a way for players to break the curse on their teammate so that the entire party doesn't fall apart and get enslaved. But that solution can't be so easy that the players just go around the countryside freeing all the cursed people. So, "Greater Restoration" is the go-to solution for problems like this. If you want to make it tougher, say the Greater Restoration has to be cast at a certain higher spell level - like 6th or 7th - a level the party has access to, but the top level of spells they have access to. This will give the players a chance to succeed, but it'll make that success challenging and expensive. (G.R. costs 100gp worth of diamond dust per casting!!)
In the big picture, what you're setting up is an eventual showdown between the cursed army of The Nameless and the forces of the Temple of Tyr. That should be an epic battle!
Good luck!
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
Thanks for the reply, it contains alot of good ideas i can work with :)