I am a relatively new DM and am making my own campaign. Currently I am along the lines of thinking of a portal to something like Hell opening up in the world and demons and demonspawns making there way into the world. I was thinking of some way that there was a rune that kept the portal locked and someone broke the rune (possibly a main evil character) and now it is spread out across the world and the PCs need to seek and fine them all.
I am having trouble trying to make this work and am asking for ideas. I am willing to get help in other aspects of the campaign as well and would be open to discussing more via Discord or something else if anyone is willing.
In what way do you need help "making it work?" Because, as the DM, it's your privilege to say whether or not it works. If the rune is spread out over the world, then that's what happened. If you're looking for mechanics on hell-warding runes being broken, there are none, that's something you'll have to come up with.
My main advice would be to borrow elements from something that you like that does something similar and go from there. Like, is this a Hellmouth situation a la Buffy? Or are these more Oblivion Gates (from Elder Scrolls IV)? How are they the same? How are they different? Is it more similar to something else entirely? That's where you wanna start.
To me, it just wasn't making sense. I was trying to find ways to link it together and make it seem "believable". How could I make it so the group finds the locations of these runes? On paper I have these locations, but what options can I use to have the PCs locate the pieces?
I was definitely looking at the portal being like an Oblivion Gate.
Devils come from the Nine Hells, Demons come from the Abyss.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Start with your Gillian. Why did (s)he open the gate? Was it an accident and the resulting explosion of energy blew the bits of runs to the corners of the world. Now they want to help close it and can offer the information needed to get the PCs started.
Or if it was on purpose, they maybe couldn’t destroy the rune, so they broke it and hid the bits (Harry Potter horcrux style). They put the parts in all kinds of places (maybe one or two on other planes for when the party is high enough level). The magic of the runes has some kind of corrupting effect. One of them happens to be near the hometown of a group of 1st level adventurers who investigate the corruption. When they realize what’s happened, they start looking for reports of similar corruption to track down the other bits of runes. Have each one guarded by a mini-boss. Make there be as many as you like to have the campaign last as long as you want.
As for how the players track them down, maybe you have a McGuffin/npc that can trace the fragments' relative location, maybe the fragments each emit magical phenomena so the party has to follow rumours of strange happenings and investigate which ones lead to a fragment, or maybe like an Oblivion Gate you can find them out in the world and the Rune fragments have been absorbed into them, so you have to recover the fragment to close it, like a sigil stone. Lots of options.
Could have a group that was working together to break the rune, each of them took a piece of it (however many you want for the length of the adventure.) Each piece of the rune could have a connection with the gate to hell and could have roomers of bad things happening wherever the rune fragments have been taken to. Could have 2-5+ different locations that could turn into 2-5+ different dungeons (cave/castle/maze/lair/etc.) each guarded by its own unique monster/demon/cultist. You could have the adventurers go to each location, obtaining each rune, culminating to an epic fight at the portal itself in a struggle to re-combine the rune and re-seal the gate, defeating the BBEG.
You could go with the idea that some organization, like a circle of druids, tends these runes. It's safe to say that a portal to hell might well be guarded by some group or other. This group has back up runes, but maybe they need to be empowers at certain sources. The players are given the runes but need to travel your world to charge them up. Then fight there way to the gate and reseal it.
Maybe even the group was wiped out by who ever broke the gate in the first place, so first the pcs need to find the last group member, and maybe bring him or her what they need to redo the runes?
And if you want to add a bit of theater, you could actually make the rune on a piece of wood, or cardboard if you’re not a woodworker, and cut it into parts. Then give the players the parts as they find them.
The Abyss was locked by Ea, shortly after it was created. He made the heads of each pantheon, good and evil, work together to bind it with a rune of great power, but one of them betrayed Ea, putting a flaw in the rune. Something time based on phases of the moon blah blah and this god told his followers. It took 10 (or however many pieces of the run you have) of their mightiest wizards to perform the ritual that would break the seal. But in an odd synchronicity, one of them betrayed their god, and has brought this tale, and his piece of the broken rune, to the someone good aligned, who has brought it to you. Now you have to find the remaining parts of the rune, which will be guarded by the remaining wizards. Take the pieces of rune, put it back together and lock the abyss again.
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Hello all,
I am a relatively new DM and am making my own campaign. Currently I am along the lines of thinking of a portal to something like Hell opening up in the world and demons and demonspawns making there way into the world. I was thinking of some way that there was a rune that kept the portal locked and someone broke the rune (possibly a main evil character) and now it is spread out across the world and the PCs need to seek and fine them all.
I am having trouble trying to make this work and am asking for ideas. I am willing to get help in other aspects of the campaign as well and would be open to discussing more via Discord or something else if anyone is willing.
Thanks
In what way do you need help "making it work?" Because, as the DM, it's your privilege to say whether or not it works. If the rune is spread out over the world, then that's what happened. If you're looking for mechanics on hell-warding runes being broken, there are none, that's something you'll have to come up with.
My main advice would be to borrow elements from something that you like that does something similar and go from there. Like, is this a Hellmouth situation a la Buffy? Or are these more Oblivion Gates (from Elder Scrolls IV)? How are they the same? How are they different? Is it more similar to something else entirely? That's where you wanna start.
To me, it just wasn't making sense. I was trying to find ways to link it together and make it seem "believable". How could I make it so the group finds the locations of these runes? On paper I have these locations, but what options can I use to have the PCs locate the pieces?
I was definitely looking at the portal being like an Oblivion Gate.
Devils come from the Nine Hells, Demons come from the Abyss.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Start with your Gillian. Why did (s)he open the gate? Was it an accident and the resulting explosion of energy blew the bits of runs to the corners of the world. Now they want to help close it and can offer the information needed to get the PCs started.
Or if it was on purpose, they maybe couldn’t destroy the rune, so they broke it and hid the bits (Harry Potter horcrux style). They put the parts in all kinds of places (maybe one or two on other planes for when the party is high enough level). The magic of the runes has some kind of corrupting effect. One of them happens to be near the hometown of a group of 1st level adventurers who investigate the corruption. When they realize what’s happened, they start looking for reports of similar corruption to track down the other bits of runes. Have each one guarded by a mini-boss. Make there be as many as you like to have the campaign last as long as you want.
I meant start with you villain. Unless you want to name the villain Gillian. Which could always work.
As for how the players track them down, maybe you have a McGuffin/npc that can trace the fragments' relative location, maybe the fragments each emit magical phenomena so the party has to follow rumours of strange happenings and investigate which ones lead to a fragment, or maybe like an Oblivion Gate you can find them out in the world and the Rune fragments have been absorbed into them, so you have to recover the fragment to close it, like a sigil stone. Lots of options.
Could have a group that was working together to break the rune, each of them took a piece of it (however many you want for the length of the adventure.) Each piece of the rune could have a connection with the gate to hell and could have roomers of bad things happening wherever the rune fragments have been taken to. Could have 2-5+ different locations that could turn into 2-5+ different dungeons (cave/castle/maze/lair/etc.) each guarded by its own unique monster/demon/cultist. You could have the adventurers go to each location, obtaining each rune, culminating to an epic fight at the portal itself in a struggle to re-combine the rune and re-seal the gate, defeating the BBEG.
You could go with the idea that some organization, like a circle of druids, tends these runes. It's safe to say that a portal to hell might well be guarded by some group or other. This group has back up runes, but maybe they need to be empowers at certain sources. The players are given the runes but need to travel your world to charge them up. Then fight there way to the gate and reseal it.
Maybe even the group was wiped out by who ever broke the gate in the first place, so first the pcs need to find the last group member, and maybe bring him or her what they need to redo the runes?
And if you want to add a bit of theater, you could actually make the rune on a piece of wood, or cardboard if you’re not a woodworker, and cut it into parts. Then give the players the parts as they find them.
The Abyss was locked by Ea, shortly after it was created. He made the heads of each pantheon, good and evil, work together to bind it with a rune of great power, but one of them betrayed Ea, putting a flaw in the rune. Something time based on phases of the moon blah blah and this god told his followers. It took 10 (or however many pieces of the run you have) of their mightiest wizards to perform the ritual that would break the seal. But in an odd synchronicity, one of them betrayed their god, and has brought this tale, and his piece of the broken rune, to the someone good aligned, who has brought it to you. Now you have to find the remaining parts of the rune, which will be guarded by the remaining wizards. Take the pieces of rune, put it back together and lock the abyss again.