So brief summary of current events in my Homebrew campaign:
The 9 gods of the material plane were sealed away and forgotten about thousands of years ago. They're each based on an aspect of the material plane (light, dark, life, death, water, fire, earth, air, will). They are all individuals with their own agenda. The Dark one is the BBEG (the players already faced off against her and lost).
The players have been tricked the whole campaign into performing a world wide ritual to unleash them (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but the Dark one who brought it on had them go the wrong way about it forcing them to inadvertently bring about the end of the world.
Their current goal has them trying to get the other Material Gods to get on their side to take down the Dark one. They already have the Light one (the party warlock's patron) and are currently working towards the Life one (close to the light one so an easy convince).
Each of the Material gods have an object called their "Anchor" that is a very powerful legendary magic item (some are weapons/armor, some are more flavor-y)
I want each of the 5 anchors available to the to be their own special quest (the party is level 15, so 5 quests for the last 5 levels) but I don't want each one to be a "you must PROVE yourseves!!!" type quest because that doesn't really align with their personalities too much (well it does the Fire one, but that one is already planned for)
So Here's what I got so far!
Fire: "Prove yourself and fight me" it will be a bit more nuanced than that but that's pretty much the essence of it
Water: ??? This god is cool, calm, collected and probably in the "true-neutral" alignment (Anchor is a Trident with crazy ice powers)
Earth: ??? Stubborn and calloused. will be hard to convince cause she believes "mortals need to toughen up anyway" (Anchor is crazy set of armor)
Will: ??? LOVES trials because they are indicators of willpower. Very capricious and whimsical (Anchor is.... an amulet [redacted for the SLIGHT chance that a player of mine reads this])
Life: Her anchor actually needs to be broken and the party is heading to the place to do that.
So what are some quests I can send them on for each of the "???"s? Its hard because some of them would just be a good argument and a high persuasion check if I was going for "what makes sense" but I feel like a legendary magic item from the gods should come from more than a well worded "pretty please??"
Water: The trident is the central piece of an ongoing war between different underwater beings... maybe merfolk against tritons. The test would be less about pure combat and instead requires careful negotiation or perhaps espionage. Neither group is necessarily villainous, so the party can't just comfortably ally with the "good guys" and attack the other. That's my best approximation of a test that prioritizes balance over raw strength.
Earth: I'd say make the armor buried in a collapsed mine. The test is just getting to the damn thing. The players would have to either invest the time and energy to actually digging it up... maybe making alliances with a mining company to reach it. Maybe even just needing to increase their magical abilities to be able to reach it. Of course, there's some Earth elementals (or something similar) guarding it at the end, because who doesn't like a good fight? But this could either really push your players to think more creatively about this problem... or at the very least motivate them to unleash some fun power to try and just strong-arm their way through the problem.
Will: This seems fairly easy... like Fire, this seems like something where the God of Will themselves would simply put the party into a challenge. If anything the biggest problem is that you have too many options for what you could possibly do at this point. Maybe this is sillier than you want for your setting, but the first thing that came to mind was some sort of "Legends of the Hidden Temple" style gameshow run by a flamboyant god :P
All good!! It even works that in my world, the Dwarf civilization has completely locked themselves themselves away for like the past 150 years or so, so just getting in will be a task itself! This plays in really well with the mine quest!
The gods have been locked away for a long time, so their anchors(which I assume remained in the physical world this whole time) would most likely be scattered to the wind. Like Transmorpher said, they could each have their own thematic little quests, not given by the gods, however(though the gods could help them to find them, as they would have a link to the artifacts). You could make each of these quests by thinking of where the gods would have stored their artifacts, then what could have happened to them while the gods were gone. This is going off of the assumption that the anchors are something that the gods need to keep safe.
Fire: The artifact was kept in plain sight in one of the god's temples, but the god had cast a massive, persistent flame spell over it, trusting in his own strength to keep it safe. The ancient temple was found by a league of mages investigating a powerful magical source. They were unable to dispel the flame, but they came up with another use for it. They could siphon its magical power, using it to fuel their own magical capabilities. While using the power, however, they are filled with an overwhelming feeling of confidence and power, which tends to make them act foolishly and recklessly. The players will most likely be unable to convince the mages to give up the artifact, and they will fight to protect it. The mages are incredibly powerful, unnaturally so, even, but much of their power comes from the raw magic kept in a thick glass container on each of their backs. If the container is shattered, they will be weakened significantly.
Water: What is the ocean known for if not giant creatures? The sea god's artifact was placed in the belly of a massive leviathan, and... there it remains to this day! Everyone has long since given up on slaying this mighty beast, and for the past several hundred years it's slowly drifted along the bottom of the ocean. However, over those years, its strength has diminished greatly, for it is not immortal. Of course, that doesn't mean it's a pushover, but it's not what it used to be.
Earth: The artifact was originally buried under a mountain, relying on the mountain' s toughness to keep it safe, but since then a dwarven mining clan has dug it up. Currently, it is worn by the clan's king, an old and fragile dwarf who would have died years ago, had the armor's strength bolstering properties not kept him alive. Unfortunately, while it's preserved his strength, it's not preserved his mind, and he is quite mad. Around the area where the dwarf king reigns, there have been rumors of dwarven raiding parties, lead by a dwarf wearing armor that should be too thick and heavy for any normal person to wear, wielding weaponry seemingly fashioned out of solid stone. No one has seen his face, but his long white beard can be seen spilling out from under his helmet.
Will: What greater test of will is there than a dungeon? A dungeon that just goes on, and on, and on, a seemingly infinite spiral staircase into the earth. Most who try and make their way through it eventually give up, happy with the riches and wounds they've accumulated along the way. The key, however, is to ignore all those side rooms, and just keep heading down, never stopping until you eventually collapse from exhaustion, and wake up to find yourself at your destination, finally.
Life: I'm getting tired now, I dunno, throw it in a big tree or something and have them cut it down. The spirits of the forest won't be too happy with anyone who tries that, though.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
I know there wasn't a question by the life quest BUT- I was thinking for the light mission (if you haven't thought about it yet) the party could be sent to destroy a flower. Maybe that is the anchor? And the party is sent to destroy this flower and the people or guardians protecting it may be attempting to stop you without violence but they won't leave without dying. It'll create a tense moment and a great way to create emotion as well as the party has to plow through these innocent guardians who just want to protect this flower. This could be modified to fit another dungeon if you like the idea but I just thought of it and it might be useful to someone!
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So brief summary of current events in my Homebrew campaign:
The 9 gods of the material plane were sealed away and forgotten about thousands of years ago. They're each based on an aspect of the material plane (light, dark, life, death, water, fire, earth, air, will). They are all individuals with their own agenda. The Dark one is the BBEG (the players already faced off against her and lost).
The players have been tricked the whole campaign into performing a world wide ritual to unleash them (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but the Dark one who brought it on had them go the wrong way about it forcing them to inadvertently bring about the end of the world.
Their current goal has them trying to get the other Material Gods to get on their side to take down the Dark one. They already have the Light one (the party warlock's patron) and are currently working towards the Life one (close to the light one so an easy convince).
Each of the Material gods have an object called their "Anchor" that is a very powerful legendary magic item (some are weapons/armor, some are more flavor-y)
I want each of the 5 anchors available to the to be their own special quest (the party is level 15, so 5 quests for the last 5 levels) but I don't want each one to be a "you must PROVE yourseves!!!" type quest because that doesn't really align with their personalities too much (well it does the Fire one, but that one is already planned for)
So Here's what I got so far!
Fire: "Prove yourself and fight me" it will be a bit more nuanced than that but that's pretty much the essence of it
Water: ??? This god is cool, calm, collected and probably in the "true-neutral" alignment (Anchor is a Trident with crazy ice powers)
Earth: ??? Stubborn and calloused. will be hard to convince cause she believes "mortals need to toughen up anyway" (Anchor is crazy set of armor)
Will: ??? LOVES trials because they are indicators of willpower. Very capricious and whimsical (Anchor is.... an amulet [redacted for the SLIGHT chance that a player of mine reads this])
Life: Her anchor actually needs to be broken and the party is heading to the place to do that.
So what are some quests I can send them on for each of the "???"s? Its hard because some of them would just be a good argument and a high persuasion check if I was going for "what makes sense" but I feel like a legendary magic item from the gods should come from more than a well worded "pretty please??"
Water: The trident is the central piece of an ongoing war between different underwater beings... maybe merfolk against tritons. The test would be less about pure combat and instead requires careful negotiation or perhaps espionage. Neither group is necessarily villainous, so the party can't just comfortably ally with the "good guys" and attack the other. That's my best approximation of a test that prioritizes balance over raw strength.
Earth: I'd say make the armor buried in a collapsed mine. The test is just getting to the damn thing. The players would have to either invest the time and energy to actually digging it up... maybe making alliances with a mining company to reach it. Maybe even just needing to increase their magical abilities to be able to reach it. Of course, there's some Earth elementals (or something similar) guarding it at the end, because who doesn't like a good fight? But this could either really push your players to think more creatively about this problem... or at the very least motivate them to unleash some fun power to try and just strong-arm their way through the problem.
Will: This seems fairly easy... like Fire, this seems like something where the God of Will themselves would simply put the party into a challenge. If anything the biggest problem is that you have too many options for what you could possibly do at this point. Maybe this is sillier than you want for your setting, but the first thing that came to mind was some sort of "Legends of the Hidden Temple" style gameshow run by a flamboyant god :P
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All good!! It even works that in my world, the Dwarf civilization has completely locked themselves themselves away for like the past 150 years or so, so just getting in will be a task itself! This plays in really well with the mine quest!
The gods have been locked away for a long time, so their anchors(which I assume remained in the physical world this whole time) would most likely be scattered to the wind. Like Transmorpher said, they could each have their own thematic little quests, not given by the gods, however(though the gods could help them to find them, as they would have a link to the artifacts). You could make each of these quests by thinking of where the gods would have stored their artifacts, then what could have happened to them while the gods were gone. This is going off of the assumption that the anchors are something that the gods need to keep safe.
Fire: The artifact was kept in plain sight in one of the god's temples, but the god had cast a massive, persistent flame spell over it, trusting in his own strength to keep it safe. The ancient temple was found by a league of mages investigating a powerful magical source. They were unable to dispel the flame, but they came up with another use for it. They could siphon its magical power, using it to fuel their own magical capabilities. While using the power, however, they are filled with an overwhelming feeling of confidence and power, which tends to make them act foolishly and recklessly. The players will most likely be unable to convince the mages to give up the artifact, and they will fight to protect it. The mages are incredibly powerful, unnaturally so, even, but much of their power comes from the raw magic kept in a thick glass container on each of their backs. If the container is shattered, they will be weakened significantly.
Water: What is the ocean known for if not giant creatures? The sea god's artifact was placed in the belly of a massive leviathan, and... there it remains to this day! Everyone has long since given up on slaying this mighty beast, and for the past several hundred years it's slowly drifted along the bottom of the ocean. However, over those years, its strength has diminished greatly, for it is not immortal. Of course, that doesn't mean it's a pushover, but it's not what it used to be.
Earth: The artifact was originally buried under a mountain, relying on the mountain' s toughness to keep it safe, but since then a dwarven mining clan has dug it up. Currently, it is worn by the clan's king, an old and fragile dwarf who would have died years ago, had the armor's strength bolstering properties not kept him alive. Unfortunately, while it's preserved his strength, it's not preserved his mind, and he is quite mad. Around the area where the dwarf king reigns, there have been rumors of dwarven raiding parties, lead by a dwarf wearing armor that should be too thick and heavy for any normal person to wear, wielding weaponry seemingly fashioned out of solid stone. No one has seen his face, but his long white beard can be seen spilling out from under his helmet.
Will: What greater test of will is there than a dungeon? A dungeon that just goes on, and on, and on, a seemingly infinite spiral staircase into the earth. Most who try and make their way through it eventually give up, happy with the riches and wounds they've accumulated along the way. The key, however, is to ignore all those side rooms, and just keep heading down, never stopping until you eventually collapse from exhaustion, and wake up to find yourself at your destination, finally.
Life: I'm getting tired now, I dunno, throw it in a big tree or something and have them cut it down. The spirits of the forest won't be too happy with anyone who tries that, though.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
I know there wasn't a question by the life quest BUT- I was thinking for the light mission (if you haven't thought about it yet) the party could be sent to destroy a flower. Maybe that is the anchor? And the party is sent to destroy this flower and the people or guardians protecting it may be attempting to stop you without violence but they won't leave without dying. It'll create a tense moment and a great way to create emotion as well as the party has to plow through these innocent guardians who just want to protect this flower. This could be modified to fit another dungeon if you like the idea but I just thought of it and it might be useful to someone!