I’m struggling with an idea of how my villain can release a God. In my campaign, the mythology is that the god of death was chained to the centre of the world by the other gods. The villain can communicate with the dead god and must release the god from her chains. I am thinking of having three locations in my campaign that the villain must go to to release the chains. The problem I am having is thinking of what those three locations might be (dungeon, abandoned castle etc.), and if some kind of ritual has to take place or the villain can acquire an item that could destroy the chains. Does anyone have any ideas?
A ritual would make sense: it would give the characters a time limit to breach each location and defeat the villain before it takes place. Each could even take place over a few days if you want to extend the adventure. A ancient necropolis (mausoleum city) would make a good location to chain the God of Death to. An underwater “ship’s graveyard,” think Davy Jones’ Locker, would be another. And maybe there could even be an extraplanar fortress in the Shadowfell or Domains of Dread. (Based on the plot, I’m assuming these are very high level characters!)
I would suggest you're approaching the problem from the wrong direction. From a campaign perspective it doesn't really matter what the villain needed to do, what matters is what the PCs need to do to stop him and/or deal with the consequences.
Are these physical chains or metaphorical? It may be that story and myth has made them out to be physical where as actually they are 3 parts of a spell of binding that was cast, each part when released weakens the bond allowing the god to have more influence on the world, affecting the balance maybe the 3 parts need to be re sealed, but, in order to compete the ritual all 3 parts must be broken, they can’t be part sealed. That leads to a great dilemma the party rushing to get the parts they need to complete the ritual, the bbeg trying to stop them while also trying to free the god? They need the gif to be freed but only at the right moment when they can re seal him.
I like this idea of the myth being misinterpreted as time went on. In the campaign there's lots of undead and other monsters running about, so perhaps the villain has already weakened two of the bonds and is trying to find a third before the players can stop him? With two of the chains gone that would give the god influence over the material realm to allow the monsters to run around, the third would allow the god to release all her powers.
Firstly, I would hypothesize (without knowning all the details of your world) that such a "chaining" would require immense magical power, arcane or divine or both. Therefore the locations need to support this. Perhaps they are each at a nexus of ley lines or an equivalent of the Weave. These places are likely therefore to already have some kind of developed magical presences unless they are far beyond the reaches of the peoples of the time. A suggestion therefore would be that each chain is actually beneath or within the bounds of a powerful arcane city or religious site. These could now be long lost and ruined and be a dungeon, or even beneath a powerful and populous city with the inhabitants not knowing what is below.
Also, how well known at the time of the "chaining" was the ritual by the civilisations of the world? If it was well known, it would suggest those peoples would have taken the charge to protect these locations and/or the knowledge of the ritual. In this case, you might find a militant religious group guarding a keep upon the site, or even actively working in the world at large to destroy all traces of the knowledge, and kill anyone who gains it.
As for the ritual itself, and how to break it, I would suggest that the original ritual may have been different in each location based on the local population. For example, a nature loving elven population in a deep forest would do something different to a large city ruled by a magiocracy.
It sounds like the people (or gods) in the past may have been quite desperate, and so the act of chaining the god could have been (if I may use the phrase!) morally ambiguous. Perhaps the aforementioned wood elves destroyed an ancient tree to bind the god, or the mages created some kind of abomination (perhaps a spell plague) or gave up the greater part of their arcane power from which humanity has never recovered.
In this way, there are varied story opportunities and the player characters could in fact decide to try and break the chains themselves thinking they have done "good"? In fact, as I type this, that might be a good way to introduce the adventure? Perhaps the players accidentally break one of the chains when completing a quest, thus revealing the true grand plan of your campaign.
Sorry that went on a bit longer than I planned, got a bit carried away.
This has got me thinking of running a campaign similar to this, only the god the players think needs re sealing is actually a good god who’s release would bring balance. Myth and story perpetuated by the evil gods who won. The players will actually be employed by the real bbeg and spend most of the campaign in knowingly advancing the aims of evil. Then towards the end will discover the truth about the land they have been raised in.
Perhaps I should give a brief summary of the campaign I have in mind. The players (Level 6 Halfling Rogue, Level 6 Dwarf Cleric) are contacted by a mysterious order that watches over and ensures no evil power comes into too much power. They are then sent over the ocean to a new location (creating my own maps) where darkness has been growing. They need to discover what is happening and who is behind it. The villain I have in mind is a Dragonborn Warlock who has entered into a pact with the God of Death in this region. It's him who has been breaking the 'chains' to release the hold on the god.
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Hi there,
I’m struggling with an idea of how my villain can release a God. In my campaign, the mythology is that the god of death was chained to the centre of the world by the other gods. The villain can communicate with the dead god and must release the god from her chains. I am thinking of having three locations in my campaign that the villain must go to to release the chains. The problem I am having is thinking of what those three locations might be (dungeon, abandoned castle etc.), and if some kind of ritual has to take place or the villain can acquire an item that could destroy the chains. Does anyone have any ideas?
A ritual would make sense: it would give the characters a time limit to breach each location and defeat the villain before it takes place. Each could even take place over a few days if you want to extend the adventure. A ancient necropolis (mausoleum city) would make a good location to chain the God of Death to. An underwater “ship’s graveyard,” think Davy Jones’ Locker, would be another. And maybe there could even be an extraplanar fortress in the Shadowfell or Domains of Dread. (Based on the plot, I’m assuming these are very high level characters!)
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I would suggest you're approaching the problem from the wrong direction. From a campaign perspective it doesn't really matter what the villain needed to do, what matters is what the PCs need to do to stop him and/or deal with the consequences.
Are these physical chains or metaphorical? It may be that story and myth has made them out to be physical where as actually they are 3 parts of a spell of binding that was cast, each part when released weakens the bond allowing the god to have more influence on the world, affecting the balance maybe the 3 parts need to be re sealed, but, in order to compete the ritual all 3 parts must be broken, they can’t be part sealed. That leads to a great dilemma the party rushing to get the parts they need to complete the ritual, the bbeg trying to stop them while also trying to free the god? They need the gif to be freed but only at the right moment when they can re seal him.
I like this idea of the myth being misinterpreted as time went on. In the campaign there's lots of undead and other monsters running about, so perhaps the villain has already weakened two of the bonds and is trying to find a third before the players can stop him? With two of the chains gone that would give the god influence over the material realm to allow the monsters to run around, the third would allow the god to release all her powers.
Firstly, I would hypothesize (without knowning all the details of your world) that such a "chaining" would require immense magical power, arcane or divine or both. Therefore the locations need to support this. Perhaps they are each at a nexus of ley lines or an equivalent of the Weave. These places are likely therefore to already have some kind of developed magical presences unless they are far beyond the reaches of the peoples of the time. A suggestion therefore would be that each chain is actually beneath or within the bounds of a powerful arcane city or religious site. These could now be long lost and ruined and be a dungeon, or even beneath a powerful and populous city with the inhabitants not knowing what is below.
Also, how well known at the time of the "chaining" was the ritual by the civilisations of the world? If it was well known, it would suggest those peoples would have taken the charge to protect these locations and/or the knowledge of the ritual. In this case, you might find a militant religious group guarding a keep upon the site, or even actively working in the world at large to destroy all traces of the knowledge, and kill anyone who gains it.
As for the ritual itself, and how to break it, I would suggest that the original ritual may have been different in each location based on the local population. For example, a nature loving elven population in a deep forest would do something different to a large city ruled by a magiocracy.
It sounds like the people (or gods) in the past may have been quite desperate, and so the act of chaining the god could have been (if I may use the phrase!) morally ambiguous. Perhaps the aforementioned wood elves destroyed an ancient tree to bind the god, or the mages created some kind of abomination (perhaps a spell plague) or gave up the greater part of their arcane power from which humanity has never recovered.
In this way, there are varied story opportunities and the player characters could in fact decide to try and break the chains themselves thinking they have done "good"? In fact, as I type this, that might be a good way to introduce the adventure? Perhaps the players accidentally break one of the chains when completing a quest, thus revealing the true grand plan of your campaign.
Sorry that went on a bit longer than I planned, got a bit carried away.
This has got me thinking of running a campaign similar to this, only the god the players think needs re sealing is actually a good god who’s release would bring balance. Myth and story perpetuated by the evil gods who won. The players will actually be employed by the real bbeg and spend most of the campaign in knowingly advancing the aims of evil. Then towards the end will discover the truth about the land they have been raised in.
Perhaps I should give a brief summary of the campaign I have in mind. The players (Level 6 Halfling Rogue, Level 6 Dwarf Cleric) are contacted by a mysterious order that watches over and ensures no evil power comes into too much power. They are then sent over the ocean to a new location (creating my own maps) where darkness has been growing. They need to discover what is happening and who is behind it. The villain I have in mind is a Dragonborn Warlock who has entered into a pact with the God of Death in this region. It's him who has been breaking the 'chains' to release the hold on the god.