If your character is named Amadi, Seivarden or Theraerys, stop reading this!
After playing D&D for about 18 years or so, I am now for the first time DM'ing my own campaign. Very exciting, but also kinda nerve-wracking! We're a few nights in, the first story arc is completed, and I need some help getting the next arc setup. I don't really have anyone to brainstorm with apart from my own players, which I don't want to do of course.
We're playing in the Menagerie Coast, of Critical Role's Wildemount setting. The overal campaign is about the Ki'Nau people (Mayan-likeYuan-ti in my version of the world) trying to free the evil demi-god Uk'otoa from his prison deep under the ocean, and the party will need to stop this. The first story, that they've now completed, was the pre-made adventure "Frozen sick" from the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, but heavily modified to start near Nicodranas, the disease is called Jungle Fever and turns you into wood instead of ice, and the antidote was found in an old Ki'Nau ruin on the jungle island of Urukayxl. The party now has the antidote and is on their way back to the village near Nicodranas where that antidote is needed. Once there, the party will also go to the mother of one of the characters (she lives in the same village), who they want to question about some things.
You see, that mother used some "weird blood magic" in the past on her own son, one of the other characters is a Blood Hunter (Lycan), and they want to ask the mother about what happened in the past.
My idea is that the mother is secretly a Blood Hunter, of the order of the Profane Soul, and long ago made a pact with Uk'otoa (as the Great Old One). She stole the vial of Jungle Fever that was left in the village with Elro the village elder, and somehow used that to go to one of the seals of Uk'otoa's chains and unlocked it. Like, she used it to kill the guards at the seal for example. The party will need to prevent the unlocking of the other seals by permanently breaking them.
So that's the general idea of the overall campaign: Ki'Nau are trying to free Uk'otoa, the mother of a character is evil and also worshipping Uk'otoa, and the party needs to stop all this from happening. But I am having a hard time coming up with the very next steps. Okay so the party is going to village where the mother lives and the antidote is needed, and they want to talk to her. She will be gone, they will find out that the vial with Jungle Fever was stolen, maybe somebody got killed in the process. But... what then? How do they find out where to go? They will need to travel to the same seal to see with their own eyes what happened. They will need to figure out where the other seals are, and how to break them. But I just can't come up with a logical way how the party would find a trail from the village to some well-hidden far-away place where one of the seals of Uk'otoa was unlocked.
I also kinda want to hide the involvement of the mom for as long as possible. The player is convinced that the mother of his character is a very good person, even though weird shit happened in the past, and I want to keep the player believing his version of reality, until she is finally unmasked as a Big Bad Evil.
I hope it all made sense so far. I'd love to know how I get over that initial hump, to get the party on the right track. Once they're aware what is going on, what they need to do, where those other seals are, I think it will be quite easy to get the campaign done without too much trouble, I have plenty of ideas for the seals, their locations, cool fights, etc. But boy I just don't know how to get to that point!
If the mother isn’t going to be there, they could find information in her house or whatever (maps, journal, letters, etc). I know you want to keep her evilness a secret, maybe you shouldn't. Or if you can find a way to make it look like she is trying to stop it all herself, that might be an option.
Maybe she should be there when they arrive, and ask for their help “trying to stop uk’otoa” then she will betray them at one of the seals. Maybe she can’t do it alone, or needs a human sacrifice to unlock a seal. The more involved they get, the more attention they draw to themselves, once they defeat the mother (hopefully) after she attempts to betray them, now they have caught the attention of uk’otoa themself.
perhaps her pact with uk’otoa is becoming detrimental to her and she is trying to break the pact, that could be a good excuse to find some maps and info on uk’otoa in her home, or be the beginning of a new quest given by her.
I don’t know if these are good suggestions but hopefully it can spark some ideas of your own.
Or if the mother already has a pact with uk’otoa, and did “some weird blood magic” on her son, perhaps the son is already connected to uk’otoa and doesn’t know it. When they arrive at their mother’s, a voice echoes in their mind “kill her”. She is in possession of something required to break the seal “bring it to me” and if they choose not to bring it to uk’otoa, they will send agents after the party to retrieve *the thing* or take the mother hostage and use her as leverage.
After the party left the Ki'Nau ruins, they all get the same dream with Uk'utoa promising riches and other rewards in return for their loyalty and help unlocking the seals. When they talk to the mother a few days later, it turns out she had the same dream and asks for their help to destroy the seals so they can't be unlocked. She will of course betray them once they reach a seal, unlocking it, gaining more powers.
There will be 3 or 4 seals, one of which is already opened by Fjord (I'm not including Avantika in my world).
Maybe a course of action is to make the party track the mother (who has left the village if I understand your story correctly). Aside from obvious survival checks, you could make some sort of twist here, make the village have cast her out since she was starting to ramble and they accused her of witchcraft? Hopefully, the party will believe the village to be some sort of superstitious lot, but after meeting the mother and her betrayal find out that the village was right after all. Afer finding some 'rambling' in writing or so, they could get some sort of clue as to which direction the mother took.
Alternatively, the Ki'Nau could've raided the village (or raid it with the mother still there), ostensibly for some other purpose but in reality to bring the mother back with them, which might lead to tracking, fighting scouting parties, etc. Maybe play into some of the party members' abilities or backstory. In my current campaign I have something similar (the party needs to find pieces of an amulet) which are all related to their backstories. Eventually, it'll lead them, hopefully, to the realisation that they were brought together without their knowledge for this purpose.
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If your character is named Amadi, Seivarden or Theraerys, stop reading this!
After playing D&D for about 18 years or so, I am now for the first time DM'ing my own campaign. Very exciting, but also kinda nerve-wracking! We're a few nights in, the first story arc is completed, and I need some help getting the next arc setup. I don't really have anyone to brainstorm with apart from my own players, which I don't want to do of course.
We're playing in the Menagerie Coast, of Critical Role's Wildemount setting. The overal campaign is about the Ki'Nau people (Mayan-like Yuan-ti in my version of the world) trying to free the evil demi-god Uk'otoa from his prison deep under the ocean, and the party will need to stop this. The first story, that they've now completed, was the pre-made adventure "Frozen sick" from the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, but heavily modified to start near Nicodranas, the disease is called Jungle Fever and turns you into wood instead of ice, and the antidote was found in an old Ki'Nau ruin on the jungle island of Urukayxl. The party now has the antidote and is on their way back to the village near Nicodranas where that antidote is needed. Once there, the party will also go to the mother of one of the characters (she lives in the same village), who they want to question about some things.
You see, that mother used some "weird blood magic" in the past on her own son, one of the other characters is a Blood Hunter (Lycan), and they want to ask the mother about what happened in the past.
My idea is that the mother is secretly a Blood Hunter, of the order of the Profane Soul, and long ago made a pact with Uk'otoa (as the Great Old One). She stole the vial of Jungle Fever that was left in the village with Elro the village elder, and somehow used that to go to one of the seals of Uk'otoa's chains and unlocked it. Like, she used it to kill the guards at the seal for example. The party will need to prevent the unlocking of the other seals by permanently breaking them.
So that's the general idea of the overall campaign: Ki'Nau are trying to free Uk'otoa, the mother of a character is evil and also worshipping Uk'otoa, and the party needs to stop all this from happening. But I am having a hard time coming up with the very next steps. Okay so the party is going to village where the mother lives and the antidote is needed, and they want to talk to her. She will be gone, they will find out that the vial with Jungle Fever was stolen, maybe somebody got killed in the process. But... what then? How do they find out where to go? They will need to travel to the same seal to see with their own eyes what happened. They will need to figure out where the other seals are, and how to break them. But I just can't come up with a logical way how the party would find a trail from the village to some well-hidden far-away place where one of the seals of Uk'otoa was unlocked.
I also kinda want to hide the involvement of the mom for as long as possible. The player is convinced that the mother of his character is a very good person, even though weird shit happened in the past, and I want to keep the player believing his version of reality, until she is finally unmasked as a Big Bad Evil.
I hope it all made sense so far. I'd love to know how I get over that initial hump, to get the party on the right track. Once they're aware what is going on, what they need to do, where those other seals are, I think it will be quite easy to get the campaign done without too much trouble, I have plenty of ideas for the seals, their locations, cool fights, etc. But boy I just don't know how to get to that point!
If the mother isn’t going to be there, they could find information in her house or whatever (maps, journal, letters, etc). I know you want to keep her evilness a secret, maybe you shouldn't. Or if you can find a way to make it look like she is trying to stop it all herself, that might be an option.
Maybe she should be there when they arrive, and ask for their help “trying to stop uk’otoa” then she will betray them at one of the seals. Maybe she can’t do it alone, or needs a human sacrifice to unlock a seal. The more involved they get, the more attention they draw to themselves, once they defeat the mother (hopefully) after she attempts to betray them, now they have caught the attention of uk’otoa themself.
perhaps her pact with uk’otoa is becoming detrimental to her and she is trying to break the pact, that could be a good excuse to find some maps and info on uk’otoa in her home, or be the beginning of a new quest given by her.
I don’t know if these are good suggestions but hopefully it can spark some ideas of your own.
Or if the mother already has a pact with uk’otoa, and did “some weird blood magic” on her son, perhaps the son is already connected to uk’otoa and doesn’t know it. When they arrive at their mother’s, a voice echoes in their mind “kill her”. She is in possession of something required to break the seal “bring it to me” and if they choose not to bring it to uk’otoa, they will send agents after the party to retrieve *the thing* or take the mother hostage and use her as leverage.
Great ideas and suggestions, thanks!
You gave us a great starting point. Good luck, that sounds like a really good adventure!
I came up with the following idea.
After the party left the Ki'Nau ruins, they all get the same dream with Uk'utoa promising riches and other rewards in return for their loyalty and help unlocking the seals. When they talk to the mother a few days later, it turns out she had the same dream and asks for their help to destroy the seals so they can't be unlocked. She will of course betray them once they reach a seal, unlocking it, gaining more powers.
There will be 3 or 4 seals, one of which is already opened by Fjord (I'm not including Avantika in my world).
Nice, hope it goes well!
Maybe a course of action is to make the party track the mother (who has left the village if I understand your story correctly). Aside from obvious survival checks, you could make some sort of twist here, make the village have cast her out since she was starting to ramble and they accused her of witchcraft? Hopefully, the party will believe the village to be some sort of superstitious lot, but after meeting the mother and her betrayal find out that the village was right after all. Afer finding some 'rambling' in writing or so, they could get some sort of clue as to which direction the mother took.
Alternatively, the Ki'Nau could've raided the village (or raid it with the mother still there), ostensibly for some other purpose but in reality to bring the mother back with them, which might lead to tracking, fighting scouting parties, etc. Maybe play into some of the party members' abilities or backstory. In my current campaign I have something similar (the party needs to find pieces of an amulet) which are all related to their backstories. Eventually, it'll lead them, hopefully, to the realisation that they were brought together without their knowledge for this purpose.