I was thinking of running a pretty out there spelljammer campaign as soon as the books come out and I was wondering if I could get some feedback.
So, first of all, this campaign would lean heavily into MindFlayers, the Githyanki, and Githzerai. If you don't know the Lore, this campaign idea might not make sense.
So one of the ideas for the campaign is that Some say that Mind Flayers come from the future. Others say they come from the far realm. Well I put the two ideas together and decided that the Illithid DID originally come from the far realm, and created an ancient empire. But they were overthrown by an UNKNOWN race, and went into hiding. Then, they discovered that some race had made a scepter of time, a powerful artifact that allowed time travel. They seized it from the creators, went back in time, and restarted the empire, with future knowledge they managed to extend their empire longer, but eventually were defeated again. So they waited again, and again the Scepter of Time was created, and again they stole it and went back in time.
Each time they do this their empire lasts a little longer and they get closer to complete control over all prime material planes for all time. Luckily for them, as long as there are other species, the creation of the Scepter of Time always seems to happen.
The latest go around is the history we know, with them creating the Gith Servitor race, the rebellion, and the split between the Githzerai and Githyanki peoples. And time has come again for the Scepter of Time to be created (it's kind of a temporal fixed point.) Only, when the Mind Flayers descended to steal it, they were confronted by large warbands of both Githyanki and GithZerai. In the ensuing battle (which took place somewhere familiar, I'm thinking Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep) the scepter was shattered into several different pieces. The result was similar to destroying a Staff of Power, it plane shifted everyone in a large area to some different locations. The PCs were just innocent bystandars in all of this.
So the PCs wake up in a random prime material world (one with a spelljammer port) and a lot of questions as they don't know the backstory. Oh, and a shard of the scepter as well. The rest of the campaign involves roving bands of Gith (both yanki and zerai) after them for the shard, as well as Mind Flayers and their agents who also wand the piece back so they can reassemble the scepter of time and maybe complete their grand design this time.
The campaign would revolve around finding a way to end the mind flayer threat once and for all, prevent them from using the scepter, and maybe end with killing Vlakkith (if I can find a way to work that in) and free the Githyanki from her tyranical reign.
Are these pre-existing characters? If they’re new characters, I’d drop the battle/amnesia/Forgotten Realms thing and just start them off as natives of the Spelljammer environment. It doesn’t seem relevant that they have this mysterious past in which they’re just bystanders. They’re going to want to dive into that mystery when you already have subplots galore.
Also, I’d personally make one of the gith groups an ally. Three different bad guy factions with distinct goals is a lot to process.
The circular history thing sounds complicated, but potentially fun. I normally hate time travel in D&D because to get the fun sci-fi timey-wimey effects you have to constrain your players’ choices. Time travel stories are all plot and players go through plot like a wrecking ball. But this kind of circular history setup, where characters are only going forward, trying to break a cycle, would probably work a lot better.
Yeah, there is room for the PCs to befriend the Githzerai, or maybe even the githyanki later on if the PCs are charismatic enough.
As for starting them out as characters that don’t know about starjamming, I’m trying to create a sense of wonder and allow for some great role-playing. I know the players will know, but it is a fun thing for the characters to gawk at and also you get to treat it as the crazy thing it is and not just a mundane thinf
One thing I was thinking of introducing late into the game is the concept that the Mind Flayers will succeed on their next go-around.
One thing that has always intrigued me about mind flayers is that they canonically are never into self-improvment. Why would they, compared to an average human (CR 1/8th) they are practically gods, able to devour their brains with ease within twelve seconds. If you read about the history of Mind Flayers, almost none of them learn magic or learn how to fight for themselves or anything like that. Well I was thinking of working that into the campaign, that the concept of self-improvement is so foreign or alien to them (being from the far realm) that they just can't conceive of doing it.
But after being defeated time and time again in this time loop, they have discovered that they might need to in fact do that. So they start training. Towards the end of the campaign, PCs notice maybe mind flayer Abbarent Mind sorcerers, Mind Flayer Psi Warriors, Mind flayer soulknifes. . . maybe even great old one warlocks representitive of Mind Flayers making pacts with their giant brain colony things for more power. So if the PCs don't stop them this time around, they may well take over the entire multiverse the next time . . . for all time.
Sounds like you have your, very ambitious work, cut out for you. The details of temporal tampering can get crazy. Adding multiple groups and its off the charts, then along comes your PC’s with a “weird hammer +5” and creates 7 wrinkles you didn’t consider. Good luck!!
Ive been looking everywhere for something I read about 2 weeks ago regarding a new, splinter group, of Illithids. It was a secret base. The Illithids had captured, and promptly blinded, several beholders. They were breeding the beholders and feeding on them, keeping them alive with healing magics etc, to experiment with what effect this would have on them.
The effect was, they grew another organ, which gave them some of the beholders powers and they grew a third eye. They think, and wrongly so, they have to keep feeding on the beholders to maintain this power, and view themselves as superior to other Illithids.
They are smarter, their powers are stronger and they have some beholder abilities as well. Should they ever discover they no long need to feed on the beholders, and that their powers, organ etc are now genetic, they could lead a whole new sect of Illithids along the lines of what you are looking for.
This would be the new, great threat, or unifying threat, getting the other races and the gith or githerazai to work together to defeat. Considering failure would severely impact no only humanoid existence, but time itself.
if I find the article again, Ill post.
The only thing I would suggest, work more on the beginning. This is a great premise for a long running campaign. Don’t ruin it by rushing into it. There are so many Spelljammer modules, easily converted to 5E you could run as introductions to spelljamming for your players. Polish up the beginning and you’ll have a campaign that could run for years.
I was thinking of running a pretty out there spelljammer campaign as soon as the books come out and I was wondering if I could get some feedback.
So, first of all, this campaign would lean heavily into MindFlayers, the Githyanki, and Githzerai. If you don't know the Lore, this campaign idea might not make sense.
So one of the ideas for the campaign is that Some say that Mind Flayers come from the future. Others say they come from the far realm. Well I put the two ideas together and decided that the Illithid DID originally come from the far realm, and created an ancient empire. But they were overthrown by an UNKNOWN race, and went into hiding. Then, they discovered that some race had made a scepter of time, a powerful artifact that allowed time travel. They seized it from the creators, went back in time, and restarted the empire, with future knowledge they managed to extend their empire longer, but eventually were defeated again. So they waited again, and again the Scepter of Time was created, and again they stole it and went back in time.
Each time they do this their empire lasts a little longer and they get closer to complete control over all prime material planes for all time. Luckily for them, as long as there are other species, the creation of the Scepter of Time always seems to happen.
The latest go around is the history we know, with them creating the Gith Servitor race, the rebellion, and the split between the Githzerai and Githyanki peoples. And time has come again for the Scepter of Time to be created (it's kind of a temporal fixed point.) Only, when the Mind Flayers descended to steal it, they were confronted by large warbands of both Githyanki and GithZerai. In the ensuing battle (which took place somewhere familiar, I'm thinking Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep) the scepter was shattered into several different pieces. The result was similar to destroying a Staff of Power, it plane shifted everyone in a large area to some different locations. The PCs were just innocent bystandars in all of this.
So the PCs wake up in a random prime material world (one with a spelljammer port) and a lot of questions as they don't know the backstory. Oh, and a shard of the scepter as well. The rest of the campaign involves roving bands of Gith (both yanki and zerai) after them for the shard, as well as Mind Flayers and their agents who also wand the piece back so they can reassemble the scepter of time and maybe complete their grand design this time.
The campaign would revolve around finding a way to end the mind flayer threat once and for all, prevent them from using the scepter, and maybe end with killing Vlakkith (if I can find a way to work that in) and free the Githyanki from her tyranical reign.
Thoughts?
Are these pre-existing characters? If they’re new characters, I’d drop the battle/amnesia/Forgotten Realms thing and just start them off as natives of the Spelljammer environment. It doesn’t seem relevant that they have this mysterious past in which they’re just bystanders. They’re going to want to dive into that mystery when you already have subplots galore.
Also, I’d personally make one of the gith groups an ally. Three different bad guy factions with distinct goals is a lot to process.
The circular history thing sounds complicated, but potentially fun. I normally hate time travel in D&D because to get the fun sci-fi timey-wimey effects you have to constrain your players’ choices. Time travel stories are all plot and players go through plot like a wrecking ball. But this kind of circular history setup, where characters are only going forward, trying to break a cycle, would probably work a lot better.
Yeah, there is room for the PCs to befriend the Githzerai, or maybe even the githyanki later on if the PCs are charismatic enough.
As for starting them out as characters that don’t know about starjamming, I’m trying to create a sense of wonder and allow for some great role-playing. I know the players will know, but it is a fun thing for the characters to gawk at and also you get to treat it as the crazy thing it is and not just a mundane thinf
Any other thoughts?
One thing I was thinking of introducing late into the game is the concept that the Mind Flayers will succeed on their next go-around.
One thing that has always intrigued me about mind flayers is that they canonically are never into self-improvment. Why would they, compared to an average human (CR 1/8th) they are practically gods, able to devour their brains with ease within twelve seconds. If you read about the history of Mind Flayers, almost none of them learn magic or learn how to fight for themselves or anything like that. Well I was thinking of working that into the campaign, that the concept of self-improvement is so foreign or alien to them (being from the far realm) that they just can't conceive of doing it.
But after being defeated time and time again in this time loop, they have discovered that they might need to in fact do that. So they start training. Towards the end of the campaign, PCs notice maybe mind flayer Abbarent Mind sorcerers, Mind Flayer Psi Warriors, Mind flayer soulknifes. . . maybe even great old one warlocks representitive of Mind Flayers making pacts with their giant brain colony things for more power. So if the PCs don't stop them this time around, they may well take over the entire multiverse the next time . . . for all time.
Salutations,
Sounds like you have your, very ambitious work, cut out for you. The details of temporal tampering can get crazy. Adding multiple groups and its off the charts, then along comes your PC’s with a “weird hammer +5” and creates 7 wrinkles you didn’t consider. Good luck!!
Ive been looking everywhere for something I read about 2 weeks ago regarding a new, splinter group, of Illithids. It was a secret base. The Illithids had captured, and promptly blinded, several beholders. They were breeding the beholders and feeding on them, keeping them alive with healing magics etc, to experiment with what effect this would have on them.
The effect was, they grew another organ, which gave them some of the beholders powers and they grew a third eye. They think, and wrongly so, they have to keep feeding on the beholders to maintain this power, and view themselves as superior to other Illithids.
They are smarter, their powers are stronger and they have some beholder abilities as well. Should they ever discover they no long need to feed on the beholders, and that their powers, organ etc are now genetic, they could lead a whole new sect of Illithids along the lines of what you are looking for.
This would be the new, great threat, or unifying threat, getting the other races and the gith or githerazai to work together to defeat. Considering failure would severely impact no only humanoid existence, but time itself.
if I find the article again, Ill post.
The only thing I would suggest, work more on the beginning. This is a great premise for a long running campaign. Don’t ruin it by rushing into it. There are so many Spelljammer modules, easily converted to 5E you could run as introductions to spelljamming for your players. Polish up the beginning and you’ll have a campaign that could run for years.
Great ideas! Good luck!!
Known in other realms as Ranxaeroth.
“Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with bar-b-que sauce.” ~Cheshire Dragon
”You can fool most of the people most of the time, but a Sphinx….never.” ~Torwyn Vantalion.
“When the DM smiles, its already to late.” ~many a player.