Ok i will admit that at least a part of this is fishing for ideas. That said, it is a real question. I'm always curious what unique story beats people come up with.
Myself, I have a sizeable town that is controlled by a group of vampires. Depending on how the players get to this point in the game, they are usually confronted with two paths. Side with the church and the descendent of the lord who ruled these lands before the vampires took over. Or back the vampires, helping them secure the means to rule the town in perpetuity.
Both end states can be tailored to have "good" ends, while also leaving the door open for long term "bad" ends (should the party ever return the to the town)
Well, on the low level side, there was a town experiencing a savage series of attacks that by all appearance were the work of a werewolf. But in reality there was both a werewolf and a serial killer on the loose and the most likely outcome had the players killing the werewolf but letting the serial killer escape for a possible appearance at a later date - but not without leaving a cheeky note behind.
Currently I'm working on an adventure where the Players start as prisoners of the Neogi in either Carceri or the Astral Plane, and work their way out into a conspiracy set against the backdrop of the Blood War. But it's still very early stage planning. I expect mapping this out will be extremely challenging for me.
A Tabaxi player got a castle from a Deck of Many Things, and when he went to it, he learned that his aunt was still alive, and was the latest in a long line of wives of the Emperor who rules over the region (A Rakshasa who'd ruled for thousands of years). The party spent a long time collecting allies and eventually led the entire kingdom in a revolt against the Rakshasa. After they succeeded the Rakshasa's castle was looted to pay the forces of the many allies that had joined them, and the castle the player-character had gotten from the Deck of Many Things was given to his Aunt, as the party set out to continue their adventure.
I haven't had the chance to run it, nor will I for a very long time, but I set up in my homebrew setting that elementals (and therefore genies) are sort of emissaries of the gods that generally keep everything in the natural world balanced. One of the players is going to be playing a warlock with a djinni patron, who is also her mother.
Anyone who knows anything about the actual djinni in the actual mythology will know that they actively want to usurp the gods for putting them into slavery. That is going to play out in front of the party, as the warlock's own mother is going to try to kill her in an effort to slay one of the gods while they're distracted by the high-level party doing awesome things.
Assuming the party doesn't die (because it's gonna be a difficult fight), the fight will end with the other gods coming to the rescue and trapping the genies in the iconic lamps, where they will serve as (surprise, surprise) slaves for the rest of eternity as punishment.
As you might have guessed, I am one evil DM.
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Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
Currently the one which I have interwoven for the solo campaign I am running for my fiancee.
She has made contact with an artificer who is a warforged, who converted herself to rid herself of the curse of Lycanthropy. She lost her son to the curse and has dedicated her life ever since to creating a cure for Lycanthropy, which she was working on when she was kicked out of a magical research facility, and lost her equipment to them.
Now Molly, the ranger and PC of the campaign, is helping her to assemble new equipment to cure Lycanthropy from the world in one fell swoop. She is on her first quest of 4 to achieve this.
What she doesn't know:
Firstly, that the Artificer is quite mad. As in, evil genius with no empathy mad.
Secondly, that the reason she was kicked from the magical research facility was because she blew a colossal chunk out of a mountain with her research.
Thirdly, and most impoartantly, she is not creating some magical aura which will ripple outwards, curing everyone of their monthly affliction. She is going to blow up the moon - no more moon, no more full moons, no more werewolves. This will hopefully result in a time-limited fight sequence, which will be (hopefully) awesome!
Currently the one which I have interwoven for the solo campaign I am running for my fiancee.
She has made contact with an artificer who is a warforged, who converted herself to rid herself of the curse of Lycanthropy. She lost her son to the curse and has dedicated her life ever since to creating a cure for Lycanthropy, which she was working on when she was kicked out of a magical research facility, and lost her equipment to them.
Now Molly, the ranger and PC of the campaign, is helping her to assemble new equipment to cure Lycanthropy from the world in one fell swoop. She is on her first quest of 4 to achieve this.
What she doesn't know:
Firstly, that the Artificer is quite mad. As in, evil genius with no empathy mad.
Secondly, that the reason she was kicked from the magical research facility was because she blew a colossal chunk out of a mountain with her research.
Thirdly, and most impoartantly, she is not creating some magical aura which will ripple outwards, curing everyone of their monthly affliction. She is going to blow up the moon - no more moon, no more full moons, no more werewolves. This will hopefully result in a time-limited fight sequence, which will be (hopefully) awesome!
If she fails, some other party playing in the same setting will just have to live with the fact that there is no moon. They won't get an explanation either, anyone they ask will just be like "Have you been living under a rock? How did you not notice the moon vanish?" because only the ranger and the artificer were there when the moon got Thanos Snapped.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
Currently the one which I have interwoven for the solo campaign I am running for my fiancee.
She has made contact with an artificer who is a warforged, who converted herself to rid herself of the curse of Lycanthropy. She lost her son to the curse and has dedicated her life ever since to creating a cure for Lycanthropy, which she was working on when she was kicked out of a magical research facility, and lost her equipment to them.
Now Molly, the ranger and PC of the campaign, is helping her to assemble new equipment to cure Lycanthropy from the world in one fell swoop. She is on her first quest of 4 to achieve this.
What she doesn't know:
Firstly, that the Artificer is quite mad. As in, evil genius with no empathy mad.
Secondly, that the reason she was kicked from the magical research facility was because she blew a colossal chunk out of a mountain with her research.
Thirdly, and most impoartantly, she is not creating some magical aura which will ripple outwards, curing everyone of their monthly affliction. She is going to blow up the moon - no more moon, no more full moons, no more werewolves. This will hopefully result in a time-limited fight sequence, which will be (hopefully) awesome!
If she fails, some other party playing in the same setting will just have to live with the fact that there is no moon. They won't get an explanation either, anyone they ask will just be like "Have you been living under a rock? How did you not notice the moon vanish?" because only the ranger and the artificer were there when the moon got Thanos Snapped.
I'd actualy considered having it occur during a separate game, with the same player but a different character. Just carrying on as normal, then boom, the moon just exploded. everyone else is asking "what the hell?", and she would be like "oh, wow, that actually happened then..."
Currently the one which I have interwoven for the solo campaign I am running for my fiancee.
She has made contact with an artificer who is a warforged, who converted herself to rid herself of the curse of Lycanthropy. She lost her son to the curse and has dedicated her life ever since to creating a cure for Lycanthropy, which she was working on when she was kicked out of a magical research facility, and lost her equipment to them.
Now Molly, the ranger and PC of the campaign, is helping her to assemble new equipment to cure Lycanthropy from the world in one fell swoop. She is on her first quest of 4 to achieve this.
What she doesn't know:
Firstly, that the Artificer is quite mad. As in, evil genius with no empathy mad.
Secondly, that the reason she was kicked from the magical research facility was because she blew a colossal chunk out of a mountain with her research.
Thirdly, and most impoartantly, she is not creating some magical aura which will ripple outwards, curing everyone of their monthly affliction. She is going to blow up the moon - no more moon, no more full moons, no more werewolves. This will hopefully result in a time-limited fight sequence, which will be (hopefully) awesome!
If she fails, some other party playing in the same setting will just have to live with the fact that there is no moon. They won't get an explanation either, anyone they ask will just be like "Have you been living under a rock? How did you not notice the moon vanish?" because only the ranger and the artificer were there when the moon got Thanos Snapped.
I'd actualy considered having it occur during a separate game, with the same player but a different character. Just carrying on as normal, then boom, the moon just exploded. everyone else is asking "what the hell?", and she would be like "oh, wow, that actually happened then..."
*mwah* chef's kiss!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
In the Elemental plane of Air, my players go undercover in an underground fighting ring where the get hired by the ring leader (secretly a black dragon) to steal a gem from the tallest tower in city. They accept, stealing it and selling the gem to the leader. They soon realize that the gem's power is the only thing keeping the island afloat. So everything suddenly goes to h*ll. They run around attempting to find the leader, and succeed only to find that thier enemy is a Black Dragon. (Got a lot of dark looks from that plot twist :)
My favorite campaign I've ever run was a love story. The main villain was a Beautiful Orc that lost the love of her life to the cruel fates of the gods who stuck him down. She just wanted to talk to him one more time. So, she hired the party to find these rare pieces of a stuff of the dead, that would allow her to raise a single soul bring them back to life.
Now because I know my players, I made sure the loved her, she had the right attitude, the right looks, they right everything... Even the story is mostly true, so unless they asked specific questions, she would pass any deception checks. What was really going on though... The Beautiful Orc fell in love with a half elf, and he was struck down by the gods, but this was many, many, many years ago. The Orc became a lich and wore a cloak that disguised her. She sought this staff, but the gods broke it apart and hid it in places she could not enter.
The staff also did raise one soul back to life, but at the cost of 100 living souls. So, when the players eventually gathered all 5 parts of the staff and gave them to her, then helped her start the ritual. They got to watch as the orcs lover was brought back to life and listen to the crying sounds of the people in the village as their life force was drawn out of them.
All questions the players asked, were about things she said were true. They never sought more knowledge about the staff. They never even checked to see if her identity was real.
I had a home-brew ending cooked up for a LMoP+DoIP campaign. I planned on having the Black Spider and the Talos-worshipping orcs lay siege on Phandalin (separately). Venomfang would follow suit, hoping to feed on the corpses of the battle, and secure her dominion over the region. Then Cryovain would appear, scarred and wounded from the player's endeavors, and fight Venomfang to the death, leaving the victor to be finished off by the players. A big, climactic ending for some 8th level characters.
A new rabid spreading cult is trying to restore their patron to his once truest form. Kazeroth is the first shadow, the most ancient of demons. The ancestral fear of the dark held by most creatures is a direct result of the death, destruction and chaos he caused.
The cult is attempting to release the abyssal ties that bind the Abyss and Kazeroth by completing a dark ritual of the sacrifice of the innocence at each tie. With each tie released Kazeroth gets stronger and more of his form may seep through if called from the demonic depths. While Kazeroth is in his weakened form he is protected by Umbra Canis his shadow dog.
Pelor and his Immortal Enemy
In the time before mortals Kazeroth sought to encompass the material plane in complete shadow wanting the entire realm desolate and barren of light.
Pelor the god of the sun, summer and the harvest, directly opposed this and pleaded with other deities for their aid. Many bound together forcing the ancient evil back into the abyss and it was Pelor himself who cast the light that allowed Bahamut to connect Kazeroth to the Abyssal ties.
The Abyssal Ties
To prevent the Abyss from pouring every demonic concoction it can manifest into the material plane the old gods created three binding ties. These ties bind the Abyssal plane so tightly that currently only small fissures can ever be evoked initially, and without closure these fissures could enlarge over time. This does happen from time to time, but the window to close the portal between planes is long enough that action can be taken to close it. Without the binding ties, the Abyss could be poured into the material plane at the drop of a hat, leaving no time for the good in this world to close the tear before it grows.
Many years after the creation of these ties as Bahamut fought to save the material plane against Kazeroth with the aid of Pelor, in a last ditch effort he split and bound the shadow lord to the very ties holding the Abyss, trusting the work of the old gods. Thus binding Kazeroth eternally to the same fate of the Abyss.
This cult if they do succeed will not only unleash Kazeroth back into this plane, but open a channel to the Abyss so wide that not all the heroes in the realm could hold back the demonic tidal wave pouring from within.
Three ties exist, one fastened to the spine of the world, another tie lies where the material planes echoes drown in darkness and yet delight in manic ecstasy, and finally where one of the ancient gods sacrificed himself and bound the final tie to his own skull.
The Cult of Shadows
A fairly new cult has taken the Sword Coast like wildfire. They call themselves the Cult of Shadows. Spearheaded by a fallen Paladin of Pelor this cult indoctrinates some but many are lured by the Shadow Trance.
Shadow Trance -
The cultists targets one humanoid it can see within 30 feet of it. If the target can see the cultists, the target must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw against this magic or be charmed by the cultists. The charmed target regards the cultists as a trusted friend to be heeded and protected. Although the target isn't under the cultist's control, it takes the cultist's requests or actions in the most favorable way it can, and it is a willing to sacrifice itself for any ritual or sacrifice.
The effect lasts 24 hours or until the cultist is destroyed, is on a different plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus action to end the effect.
This forbidden magic is taught only to the most dedicated members and the top council has perfected a way to remove the time limitation allowing them to amass a large following either with or against the members will.
The only way to tell if someone is under the trance is to see if their shadow is present when one should be. The trance binds their consciousness to their shadow and banishes the shadow to a demi plane prison.
I used a coven of hags as the background antagonists for a major story arc in a homebrew game. They were making all kinds of twisted deals that they knew people couldn't fulfill, and had terrible payments enacted when people didn't fulfill the bargains. I had the party terrified of a CR3 hag when they were like, level 7 or 8 and they didn't even want to try to fight her. That felt good, and was a great example for me of how power sometimes isn't just derived from the stat block. This coven had power through connections, and their power was hugely exaggerated through the populace's fear.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The one that my party have just worked through from levels 1-6.
The town of Wanbourne, previously the nearby Sisara mine used it as the main trading nexus, sending gold, mithril and other rare materials through it's river side port on into the nation it is in, but, in the past 3 years trade has dried up, the Dwarves running the mine have reported the seams have been fully worked and so the town has fallen into stagnation.
Into this a Wizard, old, harmless, has opened a shop in the middle of town.
Our party met and merged in the town and, over the course of several weeks helped the town deal with a number of threats.
Various criminal gangs drawn to the town to cause mayhem, including kidnapping the brother of a key member of the town council. The party found him, rescued him and then identified someone was paying these gangs to attack the town.
Dead rising in the outskirts from the cemetery, leading to the party investigating and finding an ancient Dwarven temple and a strange crystal that was giving off necrotic energy making the dead dwarves rise again. The Wizard was called in by the council to deal with this crystal, a teardrop of Orcus. A cult worshipping the Eldest seemingly had triggered this ancient evil artifact.
Events in the sewers, the party investigated having been hired by a group of smugglers who used the tunnels to manage there business, this turned out to be a host of oozes and a gelatinous cube, summoned from the demonic plains again by this cult worshipping the eldest. At both locations strange vials where found, empty.
An attack by a strange creature in the docks, this turned out to be a Chuul and it's hideout was found, along with 2 more. A strange alter was set up, worshipping some eldritch horror.
Strange behaviour amongst the town council and other town individuals, personalities seemingly changing and shifting, the head of the council struck down by a strange affliction, headaches and migraines, which the Wizard assisted in curing.
Eventually after about 6 months of game time, the party started to piece together what was going on.
The Wizard had come to the area seeking knowledge and information from a being older then time itself, an Aboleth, trapped deep below the mine, locked away, in stasis. Quite insane from 1000 years with no interactions. The party still don't know what information the Wizard was seeking, but, in return for that information the wizard had offered 2 things
1) To help the Aboleth form the start of a new empire, using the mine and the town. Between them they enslaved/imprisoned the miners and forced them to work, the mine was not running out, the Aboleth just didn't want to see all that material sent away when it could be used to arm and armour an army. 2) To perfect a potion that, on drinking, would allow the Mind Controlling effects of the Aboleths Enslave to be more easily applied, and, increase the range of such effects from 1 mile to 100. This allowed the Wizard to relocate from the mine once it was under the full control of the Aboleth and it's minions and move to the town. There he hired a shape shifter. The Wizard would pick an individual to be enslaved, the shape shifter would take there form, the wizard would teleport them to the Aboleth, Aboleth enslave, potion drunk and then teleported back and shape shifter then move onto the next target. Rinse repeat every day or so as required.
The events taking place in town, the gangs, the undead, the oozes, where all to distract and create confusion amongst the populace, but also, to encourage the town council to seek the aid and advice of the powerful wizard that had moved in only a few years before. The wizard however had an ulterior motive as well, he did not wish to leave an Aboleth and his burgeoning empire to affect his long term plans so, he equipped the party, gave them clues and hints and directed them eventually to the mine, his goal, for the party to find and destroy the Aboleth and allow him to then slip away.
The whole story played out like invasion of the body snatchers, slowly over time key NPC's the party interacted with a lot where replaced and their behaviour changed enough that the players and characters noticed. They figured out what was going on when they caught the shapeshifter and identified the Wizard as a threat, but, he kidnapped one of the parties mothers and placed her in the mine at the whims of the Aboleth to ensure they still went through with that part of his plan.
There where other things going on, little red herrings to throw the players and characters off the scent for a while but the above was the main story.
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Ok i will admit that at least a part of this is fishing for ideas. That said, it is a real question. I'm always curious what unique story beats people come up with.
Myself, I have a sizeable town that is controlled by a group of vampires. Depending on how the players get to this point in the game, they are usually confronted with two paths. Side with the church and the descendent of the lord who ruled these lands before the vampires took over. Or back the vampires, helping them secure the means to rule the town in perpetuity.
Both end states can be tailored to have "good" ends, while also leaving the door open for long term "bad" ends (should the party ever return the to the town)
Well, on the low level side, there was a town experiencing a savage series of attacks that by all appearance were the work of a werewolf. But in reality there was both a werewolf and a serial killer on the loose and the most likely outcome had the players killing the werewolf but letting the serial killer escape for a possible appearance at a later date - but not without leaving a cheeky note behind.
Currently I'm working on an adventure where the Players start as prisoners of the Neogi in either Carceri or the Astral Plane, and work their way out into a conspiracy set against the backdrop of the Blood War. But it's still very early stage planning. I expect mapping this out will be extremely challenging for me.
A Tabaxi player got a castle from a Deck of Many Things, and when he went to it, he learned that his aunt was still alive, and was the latest in a long line of wives of the Emperor who rules over the region (A Rakshasa who'd ruled for thousands of years). The party spent a long time collecting allies and eventually led the entire kingdom in a revolt against the Rakshasa. After they succeeded the Rakshasa's castle was looted to pay the forces of the many allies that had joined them, and the castle the player-character had gotten from the Deck of Many Things was given to his Aunt, as the party set out to continue their adventure.
I haven't had the chance to run it, nor will I for a very long time, but I set up in my homebrew setting that elementals (and therefore genies) are sort of emissaries of the gods that generally keep everything in the natural world balanced. One of the players is going to be playing a warlock with a djinni patron, who is also her mother.
Anyone who knows anything about the actual djinni in the actual mythology will know that they actively want to usurp the gods for putting them into slavery. That is going to play out in front of the party, as the warlock's own mother is going to try to kill her in an effort to slay one of the gods while they're distracted by the high-level party doing awesome things.
Assuming the party doesn't die (because it's gonna be a difficult fight), the fight will end with the other gods coming to the rescue and trapping the genies in the iconic lamps, where they will serve as (surprise, surprise) slaves for the rest of eternity as punishment.
As you might have guessed, I am one evil DM.
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
Currently the one which I have interwoven for the solo campaign I am running for my fiancee.
She has made contact with an artificer who is a warforged, who converted herself to rid herself of the curse of Lycanthropy. She lost her son to the curse and has dedicated her life ever since to creating a cure for Lycanthropy, which she was working on when she was kicked out of a magical research facility, and lost her equipment to them.
Now Molly, the ranger and PC of the campaign, is helping her to assemble new equipment to cure Lycanthropy from the world in one fell swoop. She is on her first quest of 4 to achieve this.
What she doesn't know:
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread - latest release; the Harvest Sprite, a playable Jack-o-Lantern Race!
Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: The College of Fisticuffs Bard!
I also dabble in art on here (my art thread)
If she fails, some other party playing in the same setting will just have to live with the fact that there is no moon. They won't get an explanation either, anyone they ask will just be like "Have you been living under a rock? How did you not notice the moon vanish?" because only the ranger and the artificer were there when the moon got Thanos Snapped.
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
I'd actualy considered having it occur during a separate game, with the same player but a different character. Just carrying on as normal, then boom, the moon just exploded. everyone else is asking "what the hell?", and she would be like "oh, wow, that actually happened then..."
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread - latest release; the Harvest Sprite, a playable Jack-o-Lantern Race!
Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: The College of Fisticuffs Bard!
I also dabble in art on here (my art thread)
*mwah* chef's kiss!
Being gender-fluid and pansexual makes roleplay a lot easier!
In the Elemental plane of Air, my players go undercover in an underground fighting ring where the get hired by the ring leader (secretly a black dragon) to steal a gem from the tallest tower in city. They accept, stealing it and selling the gem to the leader. They soon realize that the gem's power is the only thing keeping the island afloat. So everything suddenly goes to h*ll. They run around attempting to find the leader, and succeed only to find that thier enemy is a Black Dragon. (Got a lot of dark looks from that plot twist :)
I am a sucker for a cliche.
My favorite campaign I've ever run was a love story. The main villain was a Beautiful Orc that lost the love of her life to the cruel fates of the gods who stuck him down. She just wanted to talk to him one more time. So, she hired the party to find these rare pieces of a stuff of the dead, that would allow her to raise a single soul bring them back to life.
Now because I know my players, I made sure the loved her, she had the right attitude, the right looks, they right everything... Even the story is mostly true, so unless they asked specific questions, she would pass any deception checks. What was really going on though... The Beautiful Orc fell in love with a half elf, and he was struck down by the gods, but this was many, many, many years ago. The Orc became a lich and wore a cloak that disguised her. She sought this staff, but the gods broke it apart and hid it in places she could not enter.
The staff also did raise one soul back to life, but at the cost of 100 living souls. So, when the players eventually gathered all 5 parts of the staff and gave them to her, then helped her start the ritual. They got to watch as the orcs lover was brought back to life and listen to the crying sounds of the people in the village as their life force was drawn out of them.
All questions the players asked, were about things she said were true. They never sought more knowledge about the staff. They never even checked to see if her identity was real.
AKA, My players trust nothing anymore.
Now thats a cliche
I had a home-brew ending cooked up for a LMoP+DoIP campaign. I planned on having the Black Spider and the Talos-worshipping orcs lay siege on Phandalin (separately). Venomfang would follow suit, hoping to feed on the corpses of the battle, and secure her dominion over the region. Then Cryovain would appear, scarred and wounded from the player's endeavors, and fight Venomfang to the death, leaving the victor to be finished off by the players. A big, climactic ending for some 8th level characters.
But then the campaign was cut short.
A new rabid spreading cult is trying to restore their patron to his once truest form. Kazeroth is the first shadow, the most ancient of demons. The ancestral fear of the dark held by most creatures is a direct result of the death, destruction and chaos he caused.
The cult is attempting to release the abyssal ties that bind the Abyss and Kazeroth by completing a dark ritual of the sacrifice of the innocence at each tie. With each tie released Kazeroth gets stronger and more of his form may seep through if called from the demonic depths. While Kazeroth is in his weakened form he is protected by Umbra Canis his shadow dog.
Pelor and his Immortal Enemy
The Abyssal Ties
The Cult of Shadows
Shadow Trance -
The cultists targets one humanoid it can see within 30 feet of it. If the target can see the cultists, the target must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw against this magic or be charmed by the cultists. The charmed target regards the cultists as a trusted friend to be heeded and protected. Although the target isn't under the cultist's control, it takes the cultist's requests or actions in the most favorable way it can, and it is a willing to sacrifice itself for any ritual or sacrifice.
The effect lasts 24 hours or until the cultist is destroyed, is on a different plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus action to end the effect.
Damien Steinrich
I used a coven of hags as the background antagonists for a major story arc in a homebrew game. They were making all kinds of twisted deals that they knew people couldn't fulfill, and had terrible payments enacted when people didn't fulfill the bargains. I had the party terrified of a CR3 hag when they were like, level 7 or 8 and they didn't even want to try to fight her. That felt good, and was a great example for me of how power sometimes isn't just derived from the stat block. This coven had power through connections, and their power was hugely exaggerated through the populace's fear.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The one that my party have just worked through from levels 1-6.
The town of Wanbourne, previously the nearby Sisara mine used it as the main trading nexus, sending gold, mithril and other rare materials through it's river side port on into the nation it is in, but, in the past 3 years trade has dried up, the Dwarves running the mine have reported the seams have been fully worked and so the town has fallen into stagnation.
Into this a Wizard, old, harmless, has opened a shop in the middle of town.
Our party met and merged in the town and, over the course of several weeks helped the town deal with a number of threats.
Various criminal gangs drawn to the town to cause mayhem, including kidnapping the brother of a key member of the town council. The party found him, rescued him and then identified someone was paying these gangs to attack the town.
Dead rising in the outskirts from the cemetery, leading to the party investigating and finding an ancient Dwarven temple and a strange crystal that was giving off necrotic energy making the dead dwarves rise again. The Wizard was called in by the council to deal with this crystal, a teardrop of Orcus. A cult worshipping the Eldest seemingly had triggered this ancient evil artifact.
Events in the sewers, the party investigated having been hired by a group of smugglers who used the tunnels to manage there business, this turned out to be a host of oozes and a gelatinous cube, summoned from the demonic plains again by this cult worshipping the eldest. At both locations strange vials where found, empty.
An attack by a strange creature in the docks, this turned out to be a Chuul and it's hideout was found, along with 2 more. A strange alter was set up, worshipping some eldritch horror.
Strange behaviour amongst the town council and other town individuals, personalities seemingly changing and shifting, the head of the council struck down by a strange affliction, headaches and migraines, which the Wizard assisted in curing.
Eventually after about 6 months of game time, the party started to piece together what was going on.
The Wizard had come to the area seeking knowledge and information from a being older then time itself, an Aboleth, trapped deep below the mine, locked away, in stasis. Quite insane from 1000 years with no interactions. The party still don't know what information the Wizard was seeking, but, in return for that information the wizard had offered 2 things
1) To help the Aboleth form the start of a new empire, using the mine and the town. Between them they enslaved/imprisoned the miners and forced them to work, the mine was not running out, the Aboleth just didn't want to see all that material sent away when it could be used to arm and armour an army.
2) To perfect a potion that, on drinking, would allow the Mind Controlling effects of the Aboleths Enslave to be more easily applied, and, increase the range of such effects from 1 mile to 100. This allowed the Wizard to relocate from the mine once it was under the full control of the Aboleth and it's minions and move to the town. There he hired a shape shifter. The Wizard would pick an individual to be enslaved, the shape shifter would take there form, the wizard would teleport them to the Aboleth, Aboleth enslave, potion drunk and then teleported back and shape shifter then move onto the next target. Rinse repeat every day or so as required.
The events taking place in town, the gangs, the undead, the oozes, where all to distract and create confusion amongst the populace, but also, to encourage the town council to seek the aid and advice of the powerful wizard that had moved in only a few years before. The wizard however had an ulterior motive as well, he did not wish to leave an Aboleth and his burgeoning empire to affect his long term plans so, he equipped the party, gave them clues and hints and directed them eventually to the mine, his goal, for the party to find and destroy the Aboleth and allow him to then slip away.
The whole story played out like invasion of the body snatchers, slowly over time key NPC's the party interacted with a lot where replaced and their behaviour changed enough that the players and characters noticed. They figured out what was going on when they caught the shapeshifter and identified the Wizard as a threat, but, he kidnapped one of the parties mothers and placed her in the mine at the whims of the Aboleth to ensure they still went through with that part of his plan.
There where other things going on, little red herrings to throw the players and characters off the scent for a while but the above was the main story.