I want to use this form to ask more experienced players for pleasure as I´m a very newbie in the world of this amazing game.
I have already created my own map which is not important for this case but the main thing I´m concerned about is the type of enemies, villains I should put in.
In this world, there is a vast luminescent orb that is continuously changing its color and is lying in an enormous crater in one of the kingdoms in which the people living there have built their main city around it and kind of worship it. My idea is that the orb fell from a place in Abyss during a battle between demon lords many years ago. Even if some strong mages can sense its demonic power the people and other mages living in the city are just ignoring it because they just adore the orb beyond rational limits.
My question is regarding what main villain or enemies do you suggest that should be connected to that. I mean which demon lord it should be. I wanted to make the campaign as a dark theme campaign maybe using some undead forces or some very demonic based hordes of enemies that will be very frightening and serving the demon lord who is secretly the master of the orb. He will then during the storyline reveal its purpose and perhaps also turning those who worship it or use its power as his somehow mutated minions that are spreading over the kingdom.
I know I could explore the lore beyond it and choose whatever I think is relatable to that by myself. I have already read through some lore as well but still wanted to ask for your advice of people that know about most or all the lore and monsters in the game and can help me to finish the main point of the story in the 5e of DnD. (Ps. Sorry for my level of English)
So, it's just some massive orb? Well, I think the first thing to do is to determine what the orb actually is. Perhaps it could be some sort of prison, containing a particularly powerful demon or demon lord. Or, maybe it's a gigantic egg, that has the potential to hatch into a massive, world ending demon baby. Maybe it's a crashed ship or home belonging to a powerful demonic hermit. Whatever it is, it radiates demonic energy, and is quite magnificent.
As for the BBEG, I think it might be interesting if it wasn't just some demon lord or another hoping to destroy the world because rar chaotic evil. Rather, it could just be a mortal. A mortal with big dreams and access to a giant demon ball. Perhaps he actually has good intentions, though.
For example, if you go with the egg thing, he could be siphoning off demonic energy to delay its hatching. However, it could slowly corrupt him and drive him to use the energy for himself, growing his power and twisting others into his mindless demonic minions.
If you go with the prison thing, the villain could be a mortal that the imprisoned demon has contacted, and who is attempting to free it.
Or, if it's a demon's home, perhaps it could reveal what it has been working on all this time, be that the worldo-destructo-lasero-3000, or perhaps something less straight up explodey. Or maybe the demon just wants to be left alone, and the real bad guys are those who manage to break in and harness whatever he's got in there.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
I agree with the above that first you should figure out what the orb actually is. I like the suggestion of some sort of prison.
If you look into the lore being the plane Pandemonium, there are caverns deep under it that contain demiplanes that cannot be accessed because they contain "things that should never be unleashed." Perhaps this orb is something similar that a powerful mage in a long-forgotten time once used to seal away a great demon. Perhaps it was buried for a long time, but over the years people began exploring the area because of "residual magic" in the region and began digging and started finding this orb. Now, 100 years later or some such, people have fully uncovered this orb and began building a settlement around it. Over time, they have made up various religious edits surrounding it. They have become zealots in their own way. And, throughout all this time, the demon inside has been slowly - ooooooh so very slowly - siphoning off energy from these people, so little at a time that it's barely noticeable at first. Little details that could permeate the setting that could hint and foreshadow at the orb having something to do with things. Perhaps sick people have a harder time recovering in this town, so there's a bigger need for medicine (fetching medicine from a nearby town could be an adventure of its own). Perhaps long-living races don't live as long here, perhaps they find that they only live a little longer than humans. This doesn't need to be said outright but can be hinted at by the PCs never meeting elders in this place. Perhaps it even affects humans. Perhaps children are born with strange features sometimes, and that is hinted at by mothers tending to go to the next nearest town to birth their children - or perhaps, very rarely, children are born tieflings with no tiefling heritage, and are considered special because of it, perhaps idolized or are higher in society because of this subtle dark magical influence.
Now, you probably want your BBEG to be a clever and intelligent foe, so that limits it a little bit. My suggestion from the above list would be an Erinyes, Rakshasa, Ultroloth, or Wastrilith.
An Ultroloth would be interesting because they have an ability called Hypnotic Gaze. Perhaps over the course of the campaign there is a section of this orb that is thinning, and the Ultroloth is capable of staring through it and hypnotizing people - which people are calling "religious experiences". As a BBEG, it has Magic Resistance, which is fun in a battle, and can cast some interesting spells such as Mass Suggestion, Fear, Invisibility at will on itself, and more. And as a BBEG you can always increase its HP as needed to be fitting - or not, as your PCs may likely have to fight off some crazed cultists that are devoted to this thing before they can fight the BBEG itself, or might have to fight some simultaneously (they should be low-level and not too many in the latter case).
Mind that most campaigns don't last long enough to get much higher than level 5-7 especially if you start at 1, and 10 is considered fairly high level play for most games. BUT if you do get lucky and get a group that can stick with it and plan to go for even higher-level play, you can adjust the CR of the creature accordingly. Just look for similar things out of what creature you pit them against - intelligent, cunning, and interesting abilities.
Best of luck!
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Hi everybody,
I want to use this form to ask more experienced players for pleasure as I´m a very newbie in the world of this amazing game.
I have already created my own map which is not important for this case but the main thing I´m concerned about is the type of enemies, villains I should put in.
In this world, there is a vast luminescent orb that is continuously changing its color and is lying in an enormous crater in one of the kingdoms in which the people living there have built their main city around it and kind of worship it. My idea is that the orb fell from a place in Abyss during a battle between demon lords many years ago. Even if some strong mages can sense its demonic power the people and other mages living in the city are just ignoring it because they just adore the orb beyond rational limits.
My question is regarding what main villain or enemies do you suggest that should be connected to that. I mean which demon lord it should be. I wanted to make the campaign as a dark theme campaign maybe using some undead forces or some very demonic based hordes of enemies that will be very frightening and serving the demon lord who is secretly the master of the orb. He will then during the storyline reveal its purpose and perhaps also turning those who worship it or use its power as his somehow mutated minions that are spreading over the kingdom.
I know I could explore the lore beyond it and choose whatever I think is relatable to that by myself. I have already read through some lore as well but still wanted to ask for your advice of people that know about most or all the lore and monsters in the game and can help me to finish the main point of the story in the 5e of DnD. (Ps. Sorry for my level of English)
Thank you very much.
So, it's just some massive orb? Well, I think the first thing to do is to determine what the orb actually is. Perhaps it could be some sort of prison, containing a particularly powerful demon or demon lord. Or, maybe it's a gigantic egg, that has the potential to hatch into a massive, world ending demon baby. Maybe it's a crashed ship or home belonging to a powerful demonic hermit. Whatever it is, it radiates demonic energy, and is quite magnificent.
As for the BBEG, I think it might be interesting if it wasn't just some demon lord or another hoping to destroy the world because rar chaotic evil. Rather, it could just be a mortal. A mortal with big dreams and access to a giant demon ball. Perhaps he actually has good intentions, though.
For example, if you go with the egg thing, he could be siphoning off demonic energy to delay its hatching. However, it could slowly corrupt him and drive him to use the energy for himself, growing his power and twisting others into his mindless demonic minions.
If you go with the prison thing, the villain could be a mortal that the imprisoned demon has contacted, and who is attempting to free it.
Or, if it's a demon's home, perhaps it could reveal what it has been working on all this time, be that the worldo-destructo-lasero-3000, or perhaps something less straight up explodey. Or maybe the demon just wants to be left alone, and the real bad guys are those who manage to break in and harness whatever he's got in there.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
I agree with the above that first you should figure out what the orb actually is. I like the suggestion of some sort of prison.
If you look into the lore being the plane Pandemonium, there are caverns deep under it that contain demiplanes that cannot be accessed because they contain "things that should never be unleashed." Perhaps this orb is something similar that a powerful mage in a long-forgotten time once used to seal away a great demon. Perhaps it was buried for a long time, but over the years people began exploring the area because of "residual magic" in the region and began digging and started finding this orb. Now, 100 years later or some such, people have fully uncovered this orb and began building a settlement around it. Over time, they have made up various religious edits surrounding it. They have become zealots in their own way. And, throughout all this time, the demon inside has been slowly - ooooooh so very slowly - siphoning off energy from these people, so little at a time that it's barely noticeable at first. Little details that could permeate the setting that could hint and foreshadow at the orb having something to do with things. Perhaps sick people have a harder time recovering in this town, so there's a bigger need for medicine (fetching medicine from a nearby town could be an adventure of its own). Perhaps long-living races don't live as long here, perhaps they find that they only live a little longer than humans. This doesn't need to be said outright but can be hinted at by the PCs never meeting elders in this place. Perhaps it even affects humans. Perhaps children are born with strange features sometimes, and that is hinted at by mothers tending to go to the next nearest town to birth their children - or perhaps, very rarely, children are born tieflings with no tiefling heritage, and are considered special because of it, perhaps idolized or are higher in society because of this subtle dark magical influence.
Now, as for what it is, that actually can depend entirely on how long you want the campaign to last, level-wise. It doesn't have to be some big bad evil archdemon from the 9 Hells to be a huge force of evil. Figure out what level your PCs will be at when they fight this BBEG and see what CR of creature they can face based on their party size (I love this calculator here https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html ). For instance, if the final battle will come at level 10, and you have 4 players, the max CR for a "hard" encounter is CR 12-13. Here's a list of fiends that would be fitting of that: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=9&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=16&filter-cr-max=17&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-has-lair=
Now, you probably want your BBEG to be a clever and intelligent foe, so that limits it a little bit. My suggestion from the above list would be an Erinyes, Rakshasa, Ultroloth, or Wastrilith.
An Ultroloth would be interesting because they have an ability called Hypnotic Gaze. Perhaps over the course of the campaign there is a section of this orb that is thinning, and the Ultroloth is capable of staring through it and hypnotizing people - which people are calling "religious experiences". As a BBEG, it has Magic Resistance, which is fun in a battle, and can cast some interesting spells such as Mass Suggestion, Fear, Invisibility at will on itself, and more. And as a BBEG you can always increase its HP as needed to be fitting - or not, as your PCs may likely have to fight off some crazed cultists that are devoted to this thing before they can fight the BBEG itself, or might have to fight some simultaneously (they should be low-level and not too many in the latter case).
Additionally, being a yugoloth type fiend, there are many other yugoloths out there that could come into play. (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=&filter-cr-max=&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-has-lair=&filter-sub-types=8&sort=cr)
Mind that most campaigns don't last long enough to get much higher than level 5-7 especially if you start at 1, and 10 is considered fairly high level play for most games. BUT if you do get lucky and get a group that can stick with it and plan to go for even higher-level play, you can adjust the CR of the creature accordingly. Just look for similar things out of what creature you pit them against - intelligent, cunning, and interesting abilities.
Best of luck!