So I have a major epic level plot that I am designing.
There are four main factions:
Ancient futuristic elves who used to live on the material plane who wish to return home
A gnome illusionist who is actually A Demon Lord who wishes to plunge all dimensions into the abyss
An empire bent on conquering the continent
An eco terrorist group who want to return the world back to its original state of nature and destroy civilization
What binds them all together is where I ran myself a bit into a corner.
The plot:
Originally, the plot was, the empire, on its continental conquest, is being sold weapons from the ancient elves from another plane of reality, the elves used to live on the material plane, but have had to leave for unknown reasons to the players at the moment during ancient times. The demon lord masquerading as the gnome illusionist, is the link between these two planes. He is propagating the wars and selling the futuristic arms of the elves to the human-centric empire and giving the empire so much power they are going to overwhelm the continent. Imagine if you will, the party, level 4 at present, thinks this is a medieval world, but then suddenly see a giant robot in empire colors off in the distance.
The empire, in return to the gnome illusionist, is searching for ancient elven artifacts that act as waypoints. When all are found and activated, the ancient elves, thinking they have manipulated the empire from another dimension will be able to invade and return home from their dimension. The gnome illusionist however, is going to find them for his own purposes, to plunge the entire dimension into the abyss, thereby growing his slice of the abyss for him to achieve his ambition of challenging demogorgon as the greatest demon lord.
The party has run into one ancient elven relic already. I wanted to make the relics stationary, like archeological dig sites, so that even in my sandbox world (which I believe very much the players should feel they have total control over what happens in the world) the players would not be able to hold the relics in their hand to prevent the major factions from claiming them, otherwise, it would be impossiblle to tell the story.
This is where I made a booboo. So I had a separate idea, these eco terrorists, who wants to reverse the way the material plane went and they want the feywilds and other planes to combine together to return the material plane to a pure version of the wilds. Kind of like a surreal magical feywild, because they hate civilization. The party, while during a sidequest to recover a giant green magic orb stolen from a forest from an aristocrat's estate, ran into the eco terrorists, the eco terrorists and the party fought over the orb and the eco terrorists said that they need that orb to save the world, the party ended up befriending them and they are off on a way to hang out with the eco terrorists at their camp.
Now I have run into a problem without thinking it through. If I make the green magical orb a dimensional way point, like the ones the empire was looking for, then that muddies things up. Originally, the waypoints were stationary archeological dig sites of ancient elven technology. I am stuck thinking, 'how does this green orb and potentially others fit into the overarching plot devices of these unearthed relics if they both have the same power?"
The party has not been told why the green orb is needed, but i said it is meant to 'save the world' because i was in improv mode and didn't think things through. I don't want the party to have access to preventing the major plot from unfolding by collecting the stones, they will be able to prevent everything I had planned from occuring. Everything in my world is a sandbox except the major plot throughline and I want to emphasize I woud like nothing more than seeing the party make their own choices and allow them to manipulate what happens, but I still want the villain (the gnome illusionist) to be able to have the opportunity to succeed at his plan, because he is the big baddie at the end of the campaign.
Do I make these orbs like the keys to the relics? If I do, then if the party collects them, the major villain will have to approach the party directly or I'd have to do something cheese like steal them away from the party after they worked so hard to collect them which I don't want to do. I basically added a new faction and plot device into my story that muddies everything up.
Session is happening tomorrow and I am wracking my brain to make everything tie together. Any ideas?
I'd say run with it for now. The orbs are McGuffins really, the reason why the party is going on a adventure but not the journey itself. It's the journey that matters. I'd have them collect all but one of the orbs with the gnome illusionist capturing the last one. Then you can force that final encounter if you like.
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Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric. Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
How should I make the empire's digging for those ancient relics combine with it? It seems to me like there's too many mcguffin's in that case :P
I'd say have the Empire believe those relics are part of a superweapon, if they go after them as well you got several factions in a 3 way race. You could have the players forge strange alliances that way.
How should I make the empire's digging for those ancient relics combine with it? It seems to me like there's too many mcguffin's in that case :P
I'd say have the Empire believe those relics are part of a superweapon, if they go after them as well you got several factions in a 3 way race. You could have the players forge strange alliances that way.
Ah that's such a good idea! The original idea for the eco terrorists was to change the whole realm into the wilds, but that would encroach on the epic terrtitory of the big baddie, so I can change this orb to be somethhing related to a weapon, I wonder then how they would use it to effectively meet their goals meanwhile not removing from the epic plot about dimensional gateways that will happen much later on in the game
Haha well, the elves use magitek weaponry (similar to final fantasy 6) They use spells enchanted into their technology so they don't use up their spell slots and can install them into vehicles. Basically high tech meets arcana
Haha well, the elves use magitek weaponry (similar to final fantasy 6) They use spells enchanted into their technology so they don't use up their spell slots and can install them into vehicles. Basically high tech meets arcana
High end Artificers then? Nice!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric. Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
Haha well, the elves use magitek weaponry (similar to final fantasy 6) They use spells enchanted into their technology so they don't use up their spell slots and can install them into vehicles. Basically high tech meets arcana
High end Artificers then? Nice!
Haha, right? They think they are going to return home to their original dimension, and the empire thinks they are getting the opportunity to conquer the continent, but the arms dealer (the demon masquerading as a gnome) is going to be the real winner there.
I think I'll go with the object being a power source of sorts made by the ancient elves that the empire wants to use to create some kind of flying fortress, and the terrorists want to use its natural magics to overwhelm cities. The party is right now by my own surprise fled the scene of the crime with the eco terrorists and so the party will have the opportunity tonight to hear what their intentions are, it is very doubtful the party will be able to keep their possession of the object, since they are surrounded by potential enemies who want it, but we'll see how things go!
Haha well, the elves use magitek weaponry (similar to final fantasy 6) They use spells enchanted into their technology so they don't use up their spell slots and can install them into vehicles. Basically high tech meets arcana
High end Artificers then? Nice!
Haha, right? They think they are going to return home to their original dimension, and the empire thinks they are getting the opportunity to conquer the continent, but the arms dealer (the demon masquerading as a gnome) is going to be the real winner there.
I think I'll go with the object being a power source of sorts made by the ancient elves that the empire wants to use to create some kind of flying fortress, and the terrorists want to use its natural magics to overwhelm cities. The party is right now by my own surprise fled the scene of the crime with the eco terrorists and so the party will have the opportunity tonight to hear what their intentions are, it is very doubtful the party will be able to keep their possession of the object, since they are surrounded by potential enemies who want it, but we'll see how things go!
Keep us posted!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric. Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
So the session went alright, they came back to the center with the eco terrorists. I decided to switch things up a bit. The party is getting a bit antsy to bite into something. They ended up giving the orb to the eco terrorists and abandoning the idea of returning the orb to its rightful home. They came across an ancient magic book from an archmage and they were explained that the orb is a portal gateway to the feywilds.
Now this is where I am thinking of twisting things together - so I think going with a mcguffin is a wise idea. I'm going to make it so there are more than one orb. Seven of them (such a trope I know), the relic the empire was looking for was to find these so that'll cover that up. Inside the old archmage's book are written texts that are unreadable and so the party will have to go find some kind of amazing scholar to decipher it, but what is written is a blood magic ritual involving the 7 orbs and 8 caster's sacrifices to open up the power of all dimensions and access them. The ritual grants anybody any single wish of supreme power they could want... or so it says, but a page was ripped out. In fact, this is the ritual to plunge the multiverse into chaos (into the abyss) by collapsing all dimensions in on each other. Everything is being manipulated by the demon including the party at this point, as the demon wanted the party to find that book.
Now, the question is, how do I fool the party into attempting an epic level quest to collect each of these dimensional orbs? On the one hand, I want the party to be afraid of what happens if these orbs get in the wrong hands, on the other hand, it would be really fun to have the party attempt to collect them all.
Hey there!
So I have a major epic level plot that I am designing.
There are four main factions:
Ancient futuristic elves who used to live on the material plane who wish to return home
A gnome illusionist who is actually A Demon Lord who wishes to plunge all dimensions into the abyss
An empire bent on conquering the continent
An eco terrorist group who want to return the world back to its original state of nature and destroy civilization
What binds them all together is where I ran myself a bit into a corner.
The plot:
Originally, the plot was, the empire, on its continental conquest, is being sold weapons from the ancient elves from another plane of reality, the elves used to live on the material plane, but have had to leave for unknown reasons to the players at the moment during ancient times. The demon lord masquerading as the gnome illusionist, is the link between these two planes. He is propagating the wars and selling the futuristic arms of the elves to the human-centric empire and giving the empire so much power they are going to overwhelm the continent. Imagine if you will, the party, level 4 at present, thinks this is a medieval world, but then suddenly see a giant robot in empire colors off in the distance.
The empire, in return to the gnome illusionist, is searching for ancient elven artifacts that act as waypoints. When all are found and activated, the ancient elves, thinking they have manipulated the empire from another dimension will be able to invade and return home from their dimension. The gnome illusionist however, is going to find them for his own purposes, to plunge the entire dimension into the abyss, thereby growing his slice of the abyss for him to achieve his ambition of challenging demogorgon as the greatest demon lord.
The party has run into one ancient elven relic already. I wanted to make the relics stationary, like archeological dig sites, so that even in my sandbox world (which I believe very much the players should feel they have total control over what happens in the world) the players would not be able to hold the relics in their hand to prevent the major factions from claiming them, otherwise, it would be impossiblle to tell the story.
This is where I made a booboo. So I had a separate idea, these eco terrorists, who wants to reverse the way the material plane went and they want the feywilds and other planes to combine together to return the material plane to a pure version of the wilds. Kind of like a surreal magical feywild, because they hate civilization. The party, while during a sidequest to recover a giant green magic orb stolen from a forest from an aristocrat's estate, ran into the eco terrorists, the eco terrorists and the party fought over the orb and the eco terrorists said that they need that orb to save the world, the party ended up befriending them and they are off on a way to hang out with the eco terrorists at their camp.
Now I have run into a problem without thinking it through. If I make the green magical orb a dimensional way point, like the ones the empire was looking for, then that muddies things up. Originally, the waypoints were stationary archeological dig sites of ancient elven technology. I am stuck thinking, 'how does this green orb and potentially others fit into the overarching plot devices of these unearthed relics if they both have the same power?"
The party has not been told why the green orb is needed, but i said it is meant to 'save the world' because i was in improv mode and didn't think things through. I don't want the party to have access to preventing the major plot from unfolding by collecting the stones, they will be able to prevent everything I had planned from occuring. Everything in my world is a sandbox except the major plot throughline and I want to emphasize I woud like nothing more than seeing the party make their own choices and allow them to manipulate what happens, but I still want the villain (the gnome illusionist) to be able to have the opportunity to succeed at his plan, because he is the big baddie at the end of the campaign.
Do I make these orbs like the keys to the relics? If I do, then if the party collects them, the major villain will have to approach the party directly or I'd have to do something cheese like steal them away from the party after they worked so hard to collect them which I don't want to do. I basically added a new faction and plot device into my story that muddies everything up.
Session is happening tomorrow and I am wracking my brain to make everything tie together. Any ideas?
I'd say run with it for now. The orbs are McGuffins really, the reason why the party is going on a adventure but not the journey itself. It's the journey that matters.
I'd have them collect all but one of the orbs with the gnome illusionist capturing the last one. Then you can force that final encounter if you like.
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric.
Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum
Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid
Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
How should I make the empire's digging for those ancient relics combine with it? It seems to me like there's too many mcguffin's in that case :P
Tell me: do the Elves have laser rifles?
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
I'd say have the Empire believe those relics are part of a superweapon, if they go after them as well you got several factions in a 3 way race. You could have the players forge strange alliances that way.
Yes, make them Eldar! The ones who ride dinosaurs to!
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric.
Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum
Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid
Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
Ah that's such a good idea! The original idea for the eco terrorists was to change the whole realm into the wilds, but that would encroach on the epic terrtitory of the big baddie, so I can change this orb to be somethhing related to a weapon, I wonder then how they would use it to effectively meet their goals meanwhile not removing from the epic plot about dimensional gateways that will happen much later on in the game
Haha well, the elves use magitek weaponry (similar to final fantasy 6) They use spells enchanted into their technology so they don't use up their spell slots and can install them into vehicles. Basically high tech meets arcana
High end Artificers then? Nice!
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric.
Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum
Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid
Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
Haha, right? They think they are going to return home to their original dimension, and the empire thinks they are getting the opportunity to conquer the continent, but the arms dealer (the demon masquerading as a gnome) is going to be the real winner there.
I think I'll go with the object being a power source of sorts made by the ancient elves that the empire wants to use to create some kind of flying fortress, and the terrorists want to use its natural magics to overwhelm cities. The party is right now by my own surprise fled the scene of the crime with the eco terrorists and so the party will have the opportunity tonight to hear what their intentions are, it is very doubtful the party will be able to keep their possession of the object, since they are surrounded by potential enemies who want it, but we'll see how things go!
Keep us posted!
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric.
Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum
Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid
Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
So... the Eldar from Warhammer 40,000?
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
Actually never played Warhammer xD
Me neither. I want to start playing, but it is more expensive than D&D, and it's not like I have anyone to play with right now.
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
The video games are pretty cool!
Highly recommend Dawn of War, Space Marine and Mechanicus.
Hadgar Greystone, Lv 10 Duergar Death Cleric.
Call of Cantraxis campaign, Moonshae.
DM: Imperia Regnum
Ancient Rome Theros Homebrew.
Gri'im the Red, LV 7 Orc Druid
Rime of the Frost Maiden Campaign.
I've seen them, but I live with my parents right now, and they don't like me playing games with blood and gore.
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
So the session went alright, they came back to the center with the eco terrorists. I decided to switch things up a bit. The party is getting a bit antsy to bite into something. They ended up giving the orb to the eco terrorists and abandoning the idea of returning the orb to its rightful home. They came across an ancient magic book from an archmage and they were explained that the orb is a portal gateway to the feywilds.
Now this is where I am thinking of twisting things together - so I think going with a mcguffin is a wise idea. I'm going to make it so there are more than one orb. Seven of them (such a trope I know), the relic the empire was looking for was to find these so that'll cover that up. Inside the old archmage's book are written texts that are unreadable and so the party will have to go find some kind of amazing scholar to decipher it, but what is written is a blood magic ritual involving the 7 orbs and 8 caster's sacrifices to open up the power of all dimensions and access them. The ritual grants anybody any single wish of supreme power they could want... or so it says, but a page was ripped out. In fact, this is the ritual to plunge the multiverse into chaos (into the abyss) by collapsing all dimensions in on each other. Everything is being manipulated by the demon including the party at this point, as the demon wanted the party to find that book.
Now, the question is, how do I fool the party into attempting an epic level quest to collect each of these dimensional orbs? On the one hand, I want the party to be afraid of what happens if these orbs get in the wrong hands, on the other hand, it would be really fun to have the party attempt to collect them all.