Hi everyone! I'm a relatively new DM and am trying to start a campaign with a group of friends who have never played the game before. I'm starting off with the campaign "Lost mine of Phandelver", but I wanted to create a side quest for the players or just a potential story idea for in the future. What are your thoughts on this idea?
The Curse of Svarga
Summary: A mysterious curse has inflicted the kingdom of Svarga. The adventurers must uncover the secrets of the curse and find a way to end it.
Background:
King Mirad was a loving king to the citizens of Svarga and a loving husband to Queen Asaria. His love for the queen was extraordinarily strong and brought great fortune to the city. The Queen was blessed with bearing a child but tragedy struck when she died during childbirth. King Mirad in such despair could not lay eyes on the child that killed his wife. He abandoned the infant at night in the city crypts where no living eyes would see. The infant lasted 6 days alone in the crypts before dying. A curse then fell upon the city. The king in despair locked down his castle and fell into madness. The king has told the city that an evil curse has killed the queen and her child. Only his royal advisors and the nurse know the truth.
The Curse:
Every night the townsfolk are plagued by nightmares of their loved ones dying. A wraith emerges at night and feeds off this dread thus driving people into madness, and possible turning them into specters. If a wraith is killed a new one will arise 10 days later. It is created by the suffering and dread of the people.
Ways to end the curse:
King Mirad must personally carry the bones of his wife and child to the cherry blossom tree that he spoke his wedding vows at. He must bury the bones next to the tree and repent to his child’s spirit that appears. The curse will then be lifted.
The king has gone into madness therefore making him perform the ritual and repent exceedingly difficult.
During a full moon, a sacrifice of someone sharing the same blood as King Mirad must be made in the crypts where the child was abandoned. A cursed revenant of the child will inhabit the body. King Mirad has a sister, Princess Freyja, who is loved by all. She tends to the orphanage and helps in the hospital.
The revenant will try to kill King Mirad. If it succeeds then it will vanish, and the curse will end. The king’s death will only end the curse if he is killed by the revenant. If the revenant is killed it will possess a new body. If the king is killed by a different means then the Revenant will vanish, but the curse will remain.
If the king is killed and no royal successor appointed, then the city falls into anarchy with each of the 5 dukes waging war on each other for control of the throne. Thousands of people die in the conflict.
Sacrificing 6 children or babies in the crypts (one for each day the royal baby lived) will summon a Flameskull. Killing this monster will remove the curse from the city.
The nightmares have caused paranoia in the city with some citizens murdering others out of fear. Convincing a parent to sacrifice their child will be extraordinarily difficult and will cause extreme resentment and hostility from all the citizens even after curse is removed.
A Green Hag will disguise herself and attempt to deceive others into handing their children to her. A child sacrificed to the Hag does not cure the curse.
flameskulls reanimate after 1 hour, and this is a very cool, and dark, adventure idea. The hardest part is getting the players to learn how to solve the problem -- without railroading them. I look forward to seeing how this will turn out.
I did not notice that fact about the Flameskulls. Thank you for pointing that out.
I was thinking about requiring the players to learn about the nature of curses and how they work. They would need to go around the city investigating and learn about what could have caused this curse. As they uncover the truth the players will need to figure out how to lift the curse. I could have them learn different solutions of lifting curses and have the players decide what method they wish to try. The 3 methods of curing a curse they would learn would be : Have the sinner repent, allow the spirit of the victim claim vengeance on the sinner, and draw out the heart of the curse and destroy it.
For the first solution they could learn that a curse can be lifted if the sinner truly repents and rights their wrongs. If they learn what the king did they could try to convince the king to repent and make things right (The king would know what he needs to do not the players).
For the second solution they could learn that if a curse comes from a person doing something evil to another. Then allowing the spirit of the victim to claim vengeance could end the curse. The players would then need to learn how to summon the spirit of the child to claim vengeance. I could come up with a story quest to uncover this knowledge. At the end they could learn that a vengeful spirit of a newborn can be summoned by offering it a body with the same blood (A relative). All the players would then need to do is just summon the spirit and let it claim vengeance.
For the third solution I could have the players learn that they could try to draw out the heart or soul of the curse. To do this would require a blood sacrifice significant to the crime that was committed. The players would need to figure out that the crime was the abandoning/ killing of the child so the sacrifice would also need to be of a child. I don't know yet how I could get the party to learn that 6 children are needed for a sacrifice. Maybe I could give hints to the number 6? Like when the party goes to the crypt they could see 6 blackened candles on the ground. I could have 6 skeletons roaming the crypts. Or just keep hinting at the number 6?
It would seem to me the formula must be Repentance & an act of Contrition as a minimum. The only other way I can imagine is defeating the deity that is fueling the curse. This would probably be a good deity because an evil deity would be pleased as punch the King acted this way toward the innocent. As a parent I find the premise of the curse difficult to believe.
So in one option, the party could question folks and read all sorts of research until someone tells them the truth about what really happened. Then they need to appeal to the King to do the right thing.
A second option is to find a party that will compound the evil and kill or at least defeat the good deity that is fueling the curse. This would cause a new problem of sending the town further down a path of evil.
A third path I see, which probably doesn't work for most folks is to see the party seek wiser council in another town or city. This may be a quest, or include a quest to get the answer they need. Then it is back to getting the king to do the right thing.
Getting the king to do the right thing will be something of a quest in itself.
If the king dies, then yes, evil descends on the land while the claimants to the throne fight it out, and possibly allow an outside nation to try to conquer the land as well.
I might run this as a campaign during the campaign. Allow the PCs to pursue another goal while using this town as a base. The background noise of the curse will eventually compel them to set aside their other interests and solve the mystery.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
You could also add some time pressure by combining the Revenant trying to kill the King with the Repentance part. So the PCs have to get the King to bring the remains to the cherry tree while being hunted by the vengeful spirit.
Adding time pressure would be interesting and add more stress/ suspense to the quest. Though in my original idea the players are the ones who summon the Revenant so it wouldn't make much sense for them to do that if they were planning the repentance solution. I like the idea though so maybe I could have some other force trying to kill the king. If he dies by anything but the Revenant and before he repents then for the players the only solution left to cure the curse would be sacrificing the children.
I'm not sure how defeating a deity would work, and I don't want my campaign to be an evil player one. But it does make me think about what the source of the curse is. I was just thinking that no deity created the curse, but rather it was created and fueled by the angry and broken spirit of the child. I'm not sure if that's possible in the world of DnD though, but I could just home-brew that aspect. I know the cruelty of abandoning a newborn infant to die alone in a crypt over 6 days sounds like something no parent would ever do. But maybe that kind of evil can make it difficult for the players to want to help the king.
I'm really trying for making the repentance path the most difficult otherwise everyone would just pick that solution over the grittier other ones. I was originally just thinking of making it super hard so the party likely will not succeed and therefore must pick a darker solution. I want there to be a moral dilemma problem where the party will have a difficult time choosing which solution to try. I feel like the king would take his own life after having to repent because of the extreme guilt he would feel, and he would pick a successor before ending his life. Thus preventing a civil war. But I still need to come up with a reason why the players would not pick the repentance path (The players would not know he would take his own life). I want there to be no clear path they should choose.
Any ideas on how to dissuade the party from taking the repentance path? Something that would make them consider the more darker options?
Hi everyone! I'm a relatively new DM and am trying to start a campaign with a group of friends who have never played the game before. I'm starting off with the campaign "Lost mine of Phandelver", but I wanted to create a side quest for the players or just a potential story idea for in the future. What are your thoughts on this idea?
The Curse of Svarga
Summary: A mysterious curse has inflicted the kingdom of Svarga. The adventurers must uncover the secrets of the curse and find a way to end it.
Background:
King Mirad was a loving king to the citizens of Svarga and a loving husband to Queen Asaria. His love for the queen was extraordinarily strong and brought great fortune to the city. The Queen was blessed with bearing a child but tragedy struck when she died during childbirth. King Mirad in such despair could not lay eyes on the child that killed his wife. He abandoned the infant at night in the city crypts where no living eyes would see. The infant lasted 6 days alone in the crypts before dying. A curse then fell upon the city. The king in despair locked down his castle and fell into madness. The king has told the city that an evil curse has killed the queen and her child. Only his royal advisors and the nurse know the truth.
The Curse:
Every night the townsfolk are plagued by nightmares of their loved ones dying. A wraith emerges at night and feeds off this dread thus driving people into madness, and possible turning them into specters. If a wraith is killed a new one will arise 10 days later. It is created by the suffering and dread of the people.
2 things:
flameskulls reanimate after 1 hour, and this is a very cool, and dark, adventure idea. The hardest part is getting the players to learn how to solve the problem -- without railroading them. I look forward to seeing how this will turn out.
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
I did not notice that fact about the Flameskulls. Thank you for pointing that out.
I was thinking about requiring the players to learn about the nature of curses and how they work. They would need to go around the city investigating and learn about what could have caused this curse. As they uncover the truth the players will need to figure out how to lift the curse. I could have them learn different solutions of lifting curses and have the players decide what method they wish to try. The 3 methods of curing a curse they would learn would be : Have the sinner repent, allow the spirit of the victim claim vengeance on the sinner, and draw out the heart of the curse and destroy it.
For the first solution they could learn that a curse can be lifted if the sinner truly repents and rights their wrongs. If they learn what the king did they could try to convince the king to repent and make things right (The king would know what he needs to do not the players).
For the second solution they could learn that if a curse comes from a person doing something evil to another. Then allowing the spirit of the victim to claim vengeance could end the curse. The players would then need to learn how to summon the spirit of the child to claim vengeance. I could come up with a story quest to uncover this knowledge. At the end they could learn that a vengeful spirit of a newborn can be summoned by offering it a body with the same blood (A relative). All the players would then need to do is just summon the spirit and let it claim vengeance.
For the third solution I could have the players learn that they could try to draw out the heart or soul of the curse. To do this would require a blood sacrifice significant to the crime that was committed. The players would need to figure out that the crime was the abandoning/ killing of the child so the sacrifice would also need to be of a child. I don't know yet how I could get the party to learn that 6 children are needed for a sacrifice. Maybe I could give hints to the number 6? Like when the party goes to the crypt they could see 6 blackened candles on the ground. I could have 6 skeletons roaming the crypts. Or just keep hinting at the number 6?
It would seem to me the formula must be Repentance & an act of Contrition as a minimum. The only other way I can imagine is defeating the deity that is fueling the curse. This would probably be a good deity because an evil deity would be pleased as punch the King acted this way toward the innocent. As a parent I find the premise of the curse difficult to believe.
So in one option, the party could question folks and read all sorts of research until someone tells them the truth about what really happened. Then they need to appeal to the King to do the right thing.
A second option is to find a party that will compound the evil and kill or at least defeat the good deity that is fueling the curse. This would cause a new problem of sending the town further down a path of evil.
A third path I see, which probably doesn't work for most folks is to see the party seek wiser council in another town or city. This may be a quest, or include a quest to get the answer they need. Then it is back to getting the king to do the right thing.
Getting the king to do the right thing will be something of a quest in itself.
If the king dies, then yes, evil descends on the land while the claimants to the throne fight it out, and possibly allow an outside nation to try to conquer the land as well.
I might run this as a campaign during the campaign. Allow the PCs to pursue another goal while using this town as a base. The background noise of the curse will eventually compel them to set aside their other interests and solve the mystery.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
This is a good plot, I dig it my man! Run with it!
Just spicen it up with some encounters along the way and you're set!
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.
You could also add some time pressure by combining the Revenant trying to kill the King with the Repentance part. So the PCs have to get the King to bring the remains to the cherry tree while being hunted by the vengeful spirit.
Adding time pressure would be interesting and add more stress/ suspense to the quest. Though in my original idea the players are the ones who summon the Revenant so it wouldn't make much sense for them to do that if they were planning the repentance solution. I like the idea though so maybe I could have some other force trying to kill the king. If he dies by anything but the Revenant and before he repents then for the players the only solution left to cure the curse would be sacrificing the children.
I'm not sure how defeating a deity would work, and I don't want my campaign to be an evil player one. But it does make me think about what the source of the curse is. I was just thinking that no deity created the curse, but rather it was created and fueled by the angry and broken spirit of the child. I'm not sure if that's possible in the world of DnD though, but I could just home-brew that aspect. I know the cruelty of abandoning a newborn infant to die alone in a crypt over 6 days sounds like something no parent would ever do. But maybe that kind of evil can make it difficult for the players to want to help the king.
I'm really trying for making the repentance path the most difficult otherwise everyone would just pick that solution over the grittier other ones. I was originally just thinking of making it super hard so the party likely will not succeed and therefore must pick a darker solution. I want there to be a moral dilemma problem where the party will have a difficult time choosing which solution to try. I feel like the king would take his own life after having to repent because of the extreme guilt he would feel, and he would pick a successor before ending his life. Thus preventing a civil war. But I still need to come up with a reason why the players would not pick the repentance path (The players would not know he would take his own life). I want there to be no clear path they should choose.
Any ideas on how to dissuade the party from taking the repentance path? Something that would make them consider the more darker options?
This sounds really cool. I would definitely try to get this to work.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
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i'm new to this but i like the idea and how there are multiple ways to stop the curse