Jeff and Clinton, stay the heck out of this thread lol
I'm looking for ideas for future story hooks and/or encounters. I'll give a breakdown, and I will try to keep in short.
-- Both players (a fighter and monk) live on a coastal kingdom that is only called "the Citadel." The Citadel has a lot of power, because they control the coast and all overseas commerce comes through them. There are several other species-based kingdoms on the land. They are all named and there is a kingdom for Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Orcs and Tieflings. The Citadel is racially mixed, because it's a hub for travel.
For the past year, random people have been going mad all over the land and turning into murder hobos (about 20 in the past year in the Citadel alone). Nobody had been able to figure out why. The reason turns out to be two (made up) gods warring. Shen is the goddess of compassion, and she gains her strength from expressions of empathy and compassion in the material plane. Ghrom is the god of chaos, and he gains strength from chaos and disorder. Ghrom has found a way to drain empathy from the world, little by little, person by person. This simultaneously weakens Shen and strengthens himself.
There is a Level 20 chronurgy wizard who died centuries ago, his spirit ending up in the celestial plane. But he was sent back to the material plane by Shen to be a conduit between herself and the goings on in the material plane. He's acts as her liaison and he serves her. He can only reside in a tower deep in a deadly, swampy place that nobody goes called "the void." It was named such because when people enter, they never come back. The inside of his tower is essentially a localized extension of the celestial plane, which is why he can't leave the tower. But he can send familiars and messengers and such, to communicate with others in the land. He is known throughout the land simply as the oracle. He is so powerful his legend has persisted for hundreds of years.
SO... the oracle sent a message to the king of the Citadel summoning my two PC's. They have been chosen by Shen and the oracle to unite the lands, enter the outer planes and mount an attack against Ghrom and his army. This of course will be the very high level, final battle. Shen came to them in a dream, called them to her aid, and put a burn mark of her teardrop symbol on their right palm. The king summoned them, and ordered them to their task the find the oracle. They went on their long trek into the void, found the oracle, and the oracle explained their task. They now must convince each kingdom, one on one, to join the fight. The kingdoms will have various other quests they must do before they are willing (or able, depending on the kingdom) to joint the cause.
And finally, any ideas for side quests, plot twists, combat encounters, or any other suggestions?
So IRL psychedelic research there's a lot of findings postulating overlapping between compassion/empathy (some folks try to reterm psychedelics as "empathogenic"), and entropy (the falling down of systems and structures or boundaries) at the sweet spot of not only psychedelic experience but also advanced meditation practitioners' brain states, "or as some Bards once sung "I am he and you are he as you are me and we are all together"). Psychedelic art has been saying that for decades (and it's speculated for centuries or more where psychedelic experiences were thought to be part of some cultures' spiritual pathways).
I preface with that not as an endorsement of psychedelics, just acknowledging that this is a current of thought present in a lot of discussions today and "serious looks" at it in terms of personal and social healing, and what it may say about empathy and chaos.
So, as a potential deeper layer to your campaign, or maybe a red herring or heretical position to confront, maybe Shem and Ghrom aren't really at war. Maybe something as "law bound" to the extent that it calls itself The Citadel see whatever is going on between Shem and Ghrom as a war. In my game world what the really powerful extraplanar entities seem to be doing is often a matter of perspective (even with lesser fey, like faeries, I take that 'move through anything so long as there's 1" of space' thing they do I think in the MM and did controversially do as a UA race and usually describe different characters seeing different things. Sometimes the fairy is suddenly "just there", some see a grotesque contortion through that 1" space, some see something more Disney cute with sparkles, some see a sort of phase shift with the 1" space acting more like a keyhole granting the fairy access, it's all mortal minds trying to make sense of a being who interacts with physics in an entirely different way from most PCs ability to comprehend or even perceive). So in reality, or maybe "surreality" (folks think surrealism just means "weird" but the actual philosophy behind surrealist art postulated they were trying to get at a "higher reality" which one could run with quite literally in a world of gods and magic) maybe the mortal world identifying on the side of Shem actually are too coarse and profane in their thinking to understand the sacred goals of what is actually happening and are rather being called to arms by other gods that want to keep the present stasis, or arrested state of nature (while Shem and Ghrom are catalytically/catastrophically trying to literally bring together life in a way that liberates it from present hierarchies).
Law and Chaos can be fun things to D&D differently than traditional good guy bad guy conflict on good/evil presumptions. A YouTuber I semi follow, was not the first to say this, but recently put up a "Beyond Good and Evil" vid where they illustrated their point if you look at Bahamut as a warden of the world, using warden in its prison sense, and how that sense might lead some to see Tiamat as the "chain breaker".
Whether any of that explains why my parties have started finding "Eggman" scrawled with increasing frequency in ruined and broken places they visit, I'm not sure.
As a suggestion, you could add plot twist where there is an informer within the Citadel that your players have to unveil by completing side quests. What I would do is send my players on a quest to find a clue for this informer. They eventually do find a clue to the half of the identity of the informer. The players then repeat this until they have enough clues to piece them together and find out who it is, where they are, and what do they plan on doing next.
For the side quests for each of your kingdoms, you could add in about 2 to 4 side quests before moving on to the next kingdom if the current kingdom has decided whether to join the cause. For combat encounters, you could add in a few half-orcs, a dragonborn or even a couple of sorcerers.
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Jeff and Clinton, stay the heck out of this thread lol
I'm looking for ideas for future story hooks and/or encounters. I'll give a breakdown, and I will try to keep in short.
-- Both players (a fighter and monk) live on a coastal kingdom that is only called "the Citadel." The Citadel has a lot of power, because they control the coast and all overseas commerce comes through them. There are several other species-based kingdoms on the land. They are all named and there is a kingdom for Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Orcs and Tieflings. The Citadel is racially mixed, because it's a hub for travel.
For the past year, random people have been going mad all over the land and turning into murder hobos (about 20 in the past year in the Citadel alone). Nobody had been able to figure out why. The reason turns out to be two (made up) gods warring. Shen is the goddess of compassion, and she gains her strength from expressions of empathy and compassion in the material plane. Ghrom is the god of chaos, and he gains strength from chaos and disorder. Ghrom has found a way to drain empathy from the world, little by little, person by person. This simultaneously weakens Shen and strengthens himself.
There is a Level 20 chronurgy wizard who died centuries ago, his spirit ending up in the celestial plane. But he was sent back to the material plane by Shen to be a conduit between herself and the goings on in the material plane. He's acts as her liaison and he serves her. He can only reside in a tower deep in a deadly, swampy place that nobody goes called "the void." It was named such because when people enter, they never come back. The inside of his tower is essentially a localized extension of the celestial plane, which is why he can't leave the tower. But he can send familiars and messengers and such, to communicate with others in the land. He is known throughout the land simply as the oracle. He is so powerful his legend has persisted for hundreds of years.
SO... the oracle sent a message to the king of the Citadel summoning my two PC's. They have been chosen by Shen and the oracle to unite the lands, enter the outer planes and mount an attack against Ghrom and his army. This of course will be the very high level, final battle. Shen came to them in a dream, called them to her aid, and put a burn mark of her teardrop symbol on their right palm. The king summoned them, and ordered them to their task the find the oracle. They went on their long trek into the void, found the oracle, and the oracle explained their task. They now must convince each kingdom, one on one, to join the fight. The kingdoms will have various other quests they must do before they are willing (or able, depending on the kingdom) to joint the cause.
And finally, any ideas for side quests, plot twists, combat encounters, or any other suggestions?
So IRL psychedelic research there's a lot of findings postulating overlapping between compassion/empathy (some folks try to reterm psychedelics as "empathogenic"), and entropy (the falling down of systems and structures or boundaries) at the sweet spot of not only psychedelic experience but also advanced meditation practitioners' brain states, "or as some Bards once sung "I am he and you are he as you are me and we are all together"). Psychedelic art has been saying that for decades (and it's speculated for centuries or more where psychedelic experiences were thought to be part of some cultures' spiritual pathways).
I preface with that not as an endorsement of psychedelics, just acknowledging that this is a current of thought present in a lot of discussions today and "serious looks" at it in terms of personal and social healing, and what it may say about empathy and chaos.
So, as a potential deeper layer to your campaign, or maybe a red herring or heretical position to confront, maybe Shem and Ghrom aren't really at war. Maybe something as "law bound" to the extent that it calls itself The Citadel see whatever is going on between Shem and Ghrom as a war. In my game world what the really powerful extraplanar entities seem to be doing is often a matter of perspective (even with lesser fey, like faeries, I take that 'move through anything so long as there's 1" of space' thing they do I think in the MM and did controversially do as a UA race and usually describe different characters seeing different things. Sometimes the fairy is suddenly "just there", some see a grotesque contortion through that 1" space, some see something more Disney cute with sparkles, some see a sort of phase shift with the 1" space acting more like a keyhole granting the fairy access, it's all mortal minds trying to make sense of a being who interacts with physics in an entirely different way from most PCs ability to comprehend or even perceive). So in reality, or maybe "surreality" (folks think surrealism just means "weird" but the actual philosophy behind surrealist art postulated they were trying to get at a "higher reality" which one could run with quite literally in a world of gods and magic) maybe the mortal world identifying on the side of Shem actually are too coarse and profane in their thinking to understand the sacred goals of what is actually happening and are rather being called to arms by other gods that want to keep the present stasis, or arrested state of nature (while Shem and Ghrom are catalytically/catastrophically trying to literally bring together life in a way that liberates it from present hierarchies).
Law and Chaos can be fun things to D&D differently than traditional good guy bad guy conflict on good/evil presumptions. A YouTuber I semi follow, was not the first to say this, but recently put up a "Beyond Good and Evil" vid where they illustrated their point if you look at Bahamut as a warden of the world, using warden in its prison sense, and how that sense might lead some to see Tiamat as the "chain breaker".
Whether any of that explains why my parties have started finding "Eggman" scrawled with increasing frequency in ruined and broken places they visit, I'm not sure.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
As a suggestion, you could add plot twist where there is an informer within the Citadel that your players have to unveil by completing side quests. What I would do is send my players on a quest to find a clue for this informer. They eventually do find a clue to the half of the identity of the informer. The players then repeat this until they have enough clues to piece them together and find out who it is, where they are, and what do they plan on doing next.
For the side quests for each of your kingdoms, you could add in about 2 to 4 side quests before moving on to the next kingdom if the current kingdom has decided whether to join the cause. For combat encounters, you could add in a few half-orcs, a dragonborn or even a couple of sorcerers.