Everyone's been attacked my the plane of evil, but what if pure Law decides to invade.
Looking to try to come up with set pieces, events, and obstacles for the players.
Justification: The gears of Mechanus have to be maintained, so Primus occasionally needs to strip mine a plane for its resources. My game's setting is a multiverse where there are many planes like the "prime material" which, on an astronomical time scale, are constantly forming and being destroyed. So one of them being destroyed early doesn't necessarily get the major deities up in arms.
Setting: A plane that Primus is well on his way to turning into a factory world. It has been a few generations since the invasion. Long enough to be the new norm, but not long enough that everyone's will is completely broken. The player characters are recruited by various parties who feel that Primus ought to be taken down a peg or two. The protagonists are sent in as basically dimensional paratroopers to go into the factory world and sabotage things to prepare the way for a full invasion. At the start of the campaign the player character have been slipped through the "iron curtain" around the invaded plane during a "dimensional convergence" (or yaknow, whatnot). They are recruited rather than being born and raised agents of their patron, and they are low level to ensure that they can be disavowed if things go wrong. So for instance, a plane of good wouldn't send an angel, they'd recruit a paladin they liked, and the plane of fire might send a rogue who happens to be an arsonist, stuff like that.
So, having said all that. I'm looking to brainstorm some things that would exist on a world controlled by Law itself.
Primus does not own everything yet: There are still independent kingdoms on the plane. There are giant mechanized city states on the world that are polluting and strip mining everything around them as they expand.
People are treated like cogs: Basically the citizens are generally seen as interchangeable parts. Following the creed of Mechanus that states "When all consciousness is completely subsumed into the whole, perfection follows" This causes extreme policies such as eugenics, euthanizing the elderly and disabled, and other dystopia things. It is not "evil", it is just perusing a goal, and thoroughly does not care about the people's welfare or happiness.
Warforged are in development: Primus is prototyping Warforged as a replacement for mortal laborers. They will likely appear later in the campaign as shock troopers.
Mortal leaders are also subjugated: The modrons are not creative so they need a mortal leader to run things. However, the modrons will fact check their decrees to make sure they are being an effective leader. So even a leader can't go against the grain, and could well be stuck enforcing rules they hate. I think this could create an interesting situation where the mayor of a city is part of the resistance, but has to be very careful about how they help. Granted there is also potential for villains to manipulate the letter of the law to do all sorts of things in their favor.
Invade Mechanus: When a gear of Mechanus is at it's 12:00 position a portal appears between it and the material realm. How long it stays open usually depends on the gear's turn speed. In this case however, several gears have been stopped while undergoing maintenance. The portal is the main access point between Mechanus and each conquered city. Going through the portal, destroying or re-starting the gear, and then escaping, will be a major blow to Primus's invasion.
Process is messy: Removing a tyrannical government doesn't just result in peace immediately. Players will have to deal with fallout of their overthrow if they don't do it carefully.
Patron goals: Depending on who sends each of the player characters they will have different, but not opposed, goals they prefer their agent to pursue. The plane of chaos might want you to stir up rebellion, the plane of fire might want you to destroy infrastructure, and evil might just want you destroy as many modrons as you can. And the more you further their goal, the more likely they are to give the party a new ability, buff, or magic item.
Open world: I'm planning to raid all the free resources I can to assemble a bunch of dungeons that can be adapted for use depending on where the players go. Some thing will undoubtedly have to be imagined on the fly, but I hope to have a collection of things ready to go. The players probably won't know that the mine has a lot of the same guards that the steel mill would have had.
Players have options to pursue their goals. They can try to stoke a rebellion inside the conquered cities, try to ally with free cities, assassinate leaders, just try to get super powerful, or whatever strange things D&D players come up with to derail a campaign.
I'll probably add more soon, but that's most of what I have planned.
Everyone's been attacked my the plane of evil, but what if pure Law decides to invade.
Looking to try to come up with set pieces, events, and obstacles for the players.
Justification: The gears of Mechanus have to be maintained, so Primus occasionally needs to strip mine a plane for its resources. My game's setting is a multiverse where there are many planes like the "prime material" which, on an astronomical time scale, are constantly forming and being destroyed. So one of them being destroyed early doesn't necessarily get the major deities up in arms.
Setting: A plane that Primus is well on his way to turning into a factory world. It has been a few generations since the invasion. Long enough to be the new norm, but not long enough that everyone's will is completely broken. The player characters are recruited by various parties who feel that Primus ought to be taken down a peg or two. The protagonists are sent in as basically dimensional paratroopers to go into the factory world and sabotage things to prepare the way for a full invasion. At the start of the campaign the player character have been slipped through the "iron curtain" around the invaded plane during a "dimensional convergence" (or yaknow, whatnot). They are recruited rather than being born and raised agents of their patron, and they are low level to ensure that they can be disavowed if things go wrong. So for instance, a plane of good wouldn't send an angel, they'd recruit a paladin they liked, and the plane of fire might send a rogue who happens to be an arsonist, stuff like that.
So, having said all that. I'm looking to brainstorm some things that would exist on a world controlled by Law itself.
Primus does not own everything yet: There are still independent kingdoms on the plane. There are giant mechanized city states on the world that are polluting and strip mining everything around them as they expand.
People are treated like cogs: Basically the citizens are generally seen as interchangeable parts. Following the creed of Mechanus that states "When all consciousness is completely subsumed into the whole, perfection follows" This causes extreme policies such as eugenics, euthanizing the elderly and disabled, and other dystopia things. It is not "evil", it is just perusing a goal, and thoroughly does not care about the people's welfare or happiness.
Warforged are in development: Primus is prototyping Warforged as a replacement for mortal laborers. They will likely appear later in the campaign as shock troopers.
Mortal leaders are also subjugated: The modrons are not creative so they need a mortal leader to run things. However, the modrons will fact check their decrees to make sure they are being an effective leader. So even a leader can't go against the grain, and could well be stuck enforcing rules they hate. I think this could create an interesting situation where the mayor of a city is part of the resistance, but has to be very careful about how they help. Granted there is also potential for villains to manipulate the letter of the law to do all sorts of things in their favor.
Invade Mechanus: When a gear of Mechanus is at it's 12:00 position a portal appears between it and the material realm. How long it stays open usually depends on the gear's turn speed. In this case however, several gears have been stopped while undergoing maintenance. The portal is the main access point between Mechanus and each conquered city. Going through the portal, destroying or re-starting the gear, and then escaping, will be a major blow to Primus's invasion.
Process is messy: Removing a tyrannical government doesn't just result in peace immediately. Players will have to deal with fallout of their overthrow if they don't do it carefully.
Patron goals: Depending on who sends each of the player characters they will have different, but not opposed, goals they prefer their agent to pursue. The plane of chaos might want you to stir up rebellion, the plane of fire might want you to destroy infrastructure, and evil might just want you destroy as many modrons as you can. And the more you further their goal, the more likely they are to give the party a new ability, buff, or magic item.
Open world: I'm planning to raid all the free resources I can to assemble a bunch of dungeons that can be adapted for use depending on where the players go. Some thing will undoubtedly have to be imagined on the fly, but I hope to have a collection of things ready to go. The players probably won't know that the mine has a lot of the same guards that the steel mill would have had.
Players have options to pursue their goals. They can try to stoke a rebellion inside the conquered cities, try to ally with free cities, assassinate leaders, just try to get super powerful, or whatever strange things D&D players come up with to derail a campaign.
I'll probably add more soon, but that's most of what I have planned.