Wanted to share an idea I had, and maybe bounce some ideas off of you folks. It's a little bit like Cabin in the Woods meets Arcade from Xmen.
So a TBD BBEG, builds a meat grinder of a dungeon to lure adventurers to, and use their souls to fuel some dark magic stuff (again - tbd)
- Goes so far to build a fake village, and to get actors (cultists) in on it as well. With some keen eyes they can see the buildings were hastily and cheaply built.
- events are set up for the adventurers to succeed. Like a thief running off with satchel and is easily caught. The adventurers are lauded (maybe a little too much) for their efforts, and treated like kings.
-in the tavern the crowd kind of purposely parts, so the party sees a mysterious man in the corner who beckons them and proposes the prospect of exploring this dungeon that he thinks is the source of a lot of local trouble.
- the adventurers notice at some point several large wagons carrying crates (containing dungeon monsters) passing through town.
- the party easily finds the dungeon. Almost as if there was a well trodden path through the woods leading right up to it.
- they enter the dungeon, and the first part is maybe a standard dungeon, a few traps, some easy monsters.
- they start to notice that some of these are just cultists in disguise, actors portraying orcs, goblins, some in drow-face. Maybe even see a janitor cleaning up behind the last adventuring party that failed.- enter a hub where there are doors leading to different themed lands almost. Like the Ooze caverns, or The Devil's playpen, and when they open the door a magic mouth loudly announces the name of the area. Particularly perceptive adventurers can notice a scrying sensor. Maybe a group is watching in a separate location placing bets.
-as the party progresses, the veil is pulled back more and more and they realize that this was made to kill them. There will be a boss monster at the end which manages to break the binding magic and break out of the dungeon.
-now the party needs to deal with the boss monster now that it's on the loose and can kill innocents, and the BBEG who built the dungeon and has lost control of the inhabitants.
Anyways this is just kinda raw notes. I'd love some notes from fellow DMs.
1) what levels are you thinking the campaign would start and end at?
2) how long do you think this will run? (number of sessions, not time)
One challenge would be something that keeps the players in the town until you can get them into the dungeon itself. If I came into a town where everything looked fake, the people were too nice, and the quests too easy/disproportionately rewarded, I'd be reallllly suspicious of an invitation from any of them to go into a dungeon, and might try to either escape the town or confront the villagers themselves, which might derail the whole thing.
I'd either ease up on all the hints something is amiss (or make them really hard to spot, so the party is not likely to catch all of them), or be prepared for something to go down in the village itself, prior to any dungeoneering.
One thought would be, if they get too suspicious, would be to set them up with a "friend" who shares their suspicions. He would secretly be an agent of the BBEG with a few mental protections ([spell]mind blank[spell] or something) to keep the PCs from figuring him out (or he could be the BBEG himself in disguise).
He could agree with the suspicions, purposefully uncover a few of the hints that something is amiss, and try to convince them that he has uncovered the secret lair of the evil being that has set this fake town up to kidnap/kill/rob travelers, and if they would help him. (this is a riff on your "mysterious person" but without the pageantry of the crowd parting (itself a pretty suspicious occurrence).
Once they follow him to the dungeon, have him continue to be an ally of the party, but then kill the "friend" in a way that seems final and doesn't allow the party to recover the body or heal him (monster pushes him over a super deep abyss, monsters "kill" him and drag him off, collapsing their escape tunnel as they leave, etc...) then reveal him to be alive and an agent of the BBEG (or the BBEG himself) at the end.
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Wanted to share an idea I had, and maybe bounce some ideas off of you folks. It's a little bit like Cabin in the Woods meets Arcade from Xmen.
So a TBD BBEG, builds a meat grinder of a dungeon to lure adventurers to, and use their souls to fuel some dark magic stuff (again - tbd)
- Goes so far to build a fake village, and to get actors (cultists) in on it as well. With some keen eyes they can see the buildings were hastily and cheaply built.
- events are set up for the adventurers to succeed. Like a thief running off with satchel and is easily caught. The adventurers are lauded (maybe a little too much) for their efforts, and treated like kings.
-in the tavern the crowd kind of purposely parts, so the party sees a mysterious man in the corner who beckons them and proposes the prospect of exploring this dungeon that he thinks is the source of a lot of local trouble.
- the adventurers notice at some point several large wagons carrying crates (containing dungeon monsters) passing through town.
- the party easily finds the dungeon. Almost as if there was a well trodden path through the woods leading right up to it.
- they enter the dungeon, and the first part is maybe a standard dungeon, a few traps, some easy monsters.
- they start to notice that some of these are just cultists in disguise, actors portraying orcs, goblins, some in drow-face. Maybe even see a janitor cleaning up behind the last adventuring party that failed.- enter a hub where there are doors leading to different themed lands almost. Like the Ooze caverns, or The Devil's playpen, and when they open the door a magic mouth loudly announces the name of the area. Particularly perceptive adventurers can notice a scrying sensor. Maybe a group is watching in a separate location placing bets.
-as the party progresses, the veil is pulled back more and more and they realize that this was made to kill them. There will be a boss monster at the end which manages to break the binding magic and break out of the dungeon.
-now the party needs to deal with the boss monster now that it's on the loose and can kill innocents, and the BBEG who built the dungeon and has lost control of the inhabitants.
Anyways this is just kinda raw notes. I'd love some notes from fellow DMs.
Two questions for you:
1) what levels are you thinking the campaign would start and end at?
2) how long do you think this will run? (number of sessions, not time)
One challenge would be something that keeps the players in the town until you can get them into the dungeon itself. If I came into a town where everything looked fake, the people were too nice, and the quests too easy/disproportionately rewarded, I'd be reallllly suspicious of an invitation from any of them to go into a dungeon, and might try to either escape the town or confront the villagers themselves, which might derail the whole thing.
I'd either ease up on all the hints something is amiss (or make them really hard to spot, so the party is not likely to catch all of them), or be prepared for something to go down in the village itself, prior to any dungeoneering.
One thought would be, if they get too suspicious, would be to set them up with a "friend" who shares their suspicions. He would secretly be an agent of the BBEG with a few mental protections ([spell]mind blank[spell] or something) to keep the PCs from figuring him out (or he could be the BBEG himself in disguise).
He could agree with the suspicions, purposefully uncover a few of the hints that something is amiss, and try to convince them that he has uncovered the secret lair of the evil being that has set this fake town up to kidnap/kill/rob travelers, and if they would help him. (this is a riff on your "mysterious person" but without the pageantry of the crowd parting (itself a pretty suspicious occurrence).
Once they follow him to the dungeon, have him continue to be an ally of the party, but then kill the "friend" in a way that seems final and doesn't allow the party to recover the body or heal him (monster pushes him over a super deep abyss, monsters "kill" him and drag him off, collapsing their escape tunnel as they leave, etc...) then reveal him to be alive and an agent of the BBEG (or the BBEG himself) at the end.