I would love to crowdsource the potential "key" plot points, I'm mostly struggling with the higher level "Dude behind it all". I assumed that's be CR15-18. I have only a smidge of experience at high level play.
Show me what ridiculous conspiracies y'all come up with.
I think I kind of do this onion with my free roaming game style but instead of a mystery I try to achieve something I want to accomplish and if I succeed
hows about this, its a game where you go through a door from fourth dimension that opens into a third dimensional realm
and this theme echo's throughout the game.because of its dual nature of what is done in the fourth dimension can have effects on the third dimensional and vice versa.
the people are sent through from a realm that can be evil, good, or neutral and any of the sub alignments lawful chaotic. and whatever they do be it fellowship journey or adventure would correlate with getting a item for their alignment with their realm but there would be a alignment with what they were doing and its part of the fun to figure out which diety they have to go up against and which one they get the favor of based on there alignment they choose and what diety is their opposite alignment and does the opposite of favoring them if they don't succeed and instead causes there starting area to have to restart instead of continuing on.
so the goal of the game is to getting three magic items while there running around like those could be neccessary to remove the forgiveness from the characters so that they can escape the grasps of age over the 50 years of the beginning of the game. . Its nice to have 3 items for a rule after the beginning stage is over because you only need 1 item to make a rule for yourself 2 for a rule for a couple of people no more than 5 sound good? and 3 for a whole town and the surrounding area its in.
defeat as many monsters as all three quests combined to get boss to show himself and defeat him to get to return to the fourth dimension realm only to find out that there was a stronger dragon just using the first dragon and is four times as strong as he was. to defeat for the middle of the game to survive another 50 years do the same thing but you can fiddle around with how many quests are needed to do to get to dragon.
I recommend using one more quest than the number of players in the game that way the person who gains favor of their diety has done one more quest than everybody else to break the tie.
Something I am working on I guess falls into the Onion category.
It was basically about lizard folk becoming an issue in one area, various groups mobilizing with one group being outside the badguys and with a treaty with a nearby settlement. It seems that the Yuan-ti have something to do with their unrest but they were performing some unknown ritual might have been some kind of portal. Digging further the yuan-ti recently were involved in the destruction of a whole group of trainees of a good aligned church. There also seems to be an uptick of smuggling of various artifacts and creatures in Daggerford near to the swamp, and Merrow seem to be behind the smuggling up river from the coast. They are also transporting goods further down the coast to the swamp to the lizardfolk (or is it the yuan-ti?) and also communications
To make matters stranger and stranger the smuggling groups have all been found with what appear to be newly minted coins with the mark of waterdeep. Who would have access to these resources and reason to stir up various 'evil' races. On the way to Waterdeep another area dealing with something causing animals and creatures in the woods to go berserk and rampage through the surrounding area. A cult is stirring in the town but they are basically being told that they will be protected from these creatures as long as their faith is strong. The source of the scourge is another yuan-ti ritual that has been completed recently, corrupting the land with a portal to an intersection of the plane of water and the Slime Pits of Juiblex. The cult is being deceived by a yuan-ti infiltrator delaying knowledge of the ongoing events from leaving the area to delay a response as long as possible. Again the coins are showing up in the town in the possession of the main town merchant. All signs are still pointing to Waterdeep.
In Waterdeep the source of the coins must be from either the treasury or the mint itself. In Waterdeep there is some big news, it seems like one of the prime merchant houses with loads of money and political influence has their heir apparent involved with a woman from a semi disgraced house and they are on the road to an engagement in the near future. The disgraced house was known for its potent sorcerers and wizards (the women are sorcerers and the men are wizards). It seems like the woman to be engaged to the lord is nearly unknown in court for unknown reasons. She is trying to gain power back for her house that has fallen out of favor in the last century, with a new alliance with a powerful and rich lord. She was kept hidden because her powers were weak, but she has been working diligently to improve them (To put her in perspective I started her as nothing over 12 in any stat, all her ASIs have been into charisma through her hard work). Nobody seems to believe her when she talks about a rising darkness coming to the land, and she intends to fight it with the resources of the Waterdhavian lord.
As things continue it looks like the lords house is in charge of the mint, is he involved in the evil races rising? Following the trail of money leads back to other yuan-ti groups funneling money and magical items to unknown locations. One of which is to somewhere near the swamps south of Waterdeep. It seems the Yuan-ti have promised the lizard folk to help revive their ancient king Sakartha (taken from an old DnD module) in exchange for aid in some future event. Things are getting more muddled, the portals being opened, alliances among evil races along the coast, money disappearing straight from the mint into the pockets of evil.
Things start to come together that the portals the yuan-ti are creating are supposed to be staging areas for them to strike at the human world with the lizardfolk being the cannon fodder for their plans. Plans to recruit some of the other reptilian races are also underway. The wedding comes to pass and shortly after it a number of the disgraced house end up dead. Investigating them shows that they have been doing some sinister things to gain their sorcerer powers, namely they have imprisoned a silver dragon and have been using its essence to create Draconic sorceress' in an attempt to increase their houses power. The forces that have been raised by the newly wedded Lady go off to root out the forces of lizardfolk that are on the move. As she has victory after victory with her mercenaries backed by her magically potent house her star is on the rise in Waterdeep. An assassin somehow manages to kill the husband, and she narrowly avoids meeting a similar fate as him. With Waterdeep incensed by a popular lords death, they begin more preparations for war. Before the main troops arrive from Waterdeep the disgraced house and all their mercenaries are nearly wiped out to the last man, assaulted by dragons lizardfolk and snakelike abominations. The battlefield becomes a nest of undead rising and causing even more chaos.
This was where I was having a hard time with what to do next. The eventual plan is to have the sorceress who married the waterdhavian lord be the culprit behind the movement of coin and the like to gain access to powerful magic items to protect herself after being constantly paranoid of attack from her own house. Always gathering more power to try and prove herself and becoming a little twisted in the process. She hated her family and made certain of their destruction as a sacrifice to gain more power for herself because something has been whispering in her ear about life everlasting, and unimaginable power. The power of lichdom. A lich has been giving her advice and has been setting the stage for her ascension to lichdom with the sacrifice of her whole family as part of the process. The lich wants all the fighting to leave waterdeep weak so he can further his own plans which involve some ancient elven magic in the roots of waterdeep.
This being an example... What are your ideas so far?
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
This being an example... What are your ideas so far?
That's a pretty intense example, super cool. I don't have a ton thus far. Currently my world has been crippled by the death of dozens of gods, leaving three remaining. These three gods are in a time of a weak peace. However the common people of the world have noticed the absence of the gods, clerics and paladins especially. With the powers of Law and Good being heavily weakened, evil is on the rise.
That is the beginning premise. Essentially demons, devils, and other monstrosities age finding it considerably easier to enter the Material unchecked.
I'm thinking I want the ultimate end to be a Demon Lord, or corrupt Celestial, or something like that to have sparked this slaughter of the gods. Someone with a heavy investment in claiming the material plane for themselves.
Seeing how other people plan/run these types of games is definitely helpful.
Had no ideas what “Peeling the Onion” was. Apparently, it’s, like, all I know how to do. Look at the big questions right off the bat...
How did the Gods die? Did somebody kill them? Who killed them? Was it the Devils, Demons, a mortal? Why did they kill them? Are there agents for these evil forces on the material plane? It really depends,on how deep you want the rabbit hole to go. The conspiracy could start with street level cult members and ascend all the way up to the biggest, baddest evil being of all time. Figure out the major players and their motivations. The rest usually falls right into place for me after that.
IF you are looking for some things to ad the layers with, consider your idea about a fallen angel of some sort. A celestial could be a contact with the group (perhaps through a third party or visions to a warlock or aasimar) sending you around to find out what is going on. Helping, and sending you into danger in equal parts, when it gets a little later perhaps this celestial has been working with the big bad devil to bring about new faith from humanity. If you have seen the movie Constantine or read the comic this might sound familiar. Something akin to working with Lucifer just before the fall.
Multiple cults popping up could be a fun plot to investigate, allows for some detective work and tracking down their locations, maybe each group is part of a larger ritual that needs to be disrupted. Hotspots of corruption where devils are coming over to this plane. Working with people who seem to be fighting the forces of evil but maybe only doing it because its not "Their version" of evil (ie. A cultist of Asmodeus going against a cult of Orcus). Same can be said with a fallen angel maybe they are helping to destroy the evil coming but only to leave the way open for something bigger in the future.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I'm doing 1-17ish. So far, I've been working from the top down. Still working on connecting all the broad strokes together.
There is this long sleeping dragon, unlike any other dragon. More powerful then most Gods. Dragon is the opposite of pure magic. A void that desires to erase all magic. A large kingdom in my setting has long desired to have magic tightly controlled or eradicated. Their upper ranks vome upon ancient writings describing a purge of all magic that has happened in the ancient past of the world.
This is where the conspiracy starts. King "hatesmagic" learns that in order to begin this purge, magic will need to be very strong. This means using a ton of magic and collecting lost magic relics/items.
King "Hatesmagic" begins nearly bankrupting his kingdom to subtly spur the other people of the world into a golden age of magic.
(I need to figure out who the middleman is that supplies the money without tying it to the Anti-magic kingdom)
The schools of magic suddenly receive a huge boost of funding, adventurers are hired to retrieve magic items
King "hatesmagic's" plan doesn't seem to be working, the dangerous and vile arcane magic is on the rise, with no sign of a purge of any kind.
However, the God of magic is ready to make a play. Stronger then ever, he begins to carve away some of the evil gods. Even the lawful evil gods receive his cleansing blade.
This sparks war between the gods, sides are chosen and when the smoke clears, three remain. The god of Magic, the god of death, and the god of Nature.
The grand scale use of magic, and the diminishing of the gods bumps everything into motion. This is where the characters start at level 1.
So, already this world is messed up. I'm wanting the dragon to be the endgame situation if the players fail to stop the magic pileup / king "hatesmagic"
The first few things the players will probably end up dealing with is noticing that the difficulty of realm travel is dropping. More and more enterprising devils/demons/celestial
(I still need a middleman, I'm trying to make someone who is taking directives from higher up to cause conflict. Anything that might see people using more magic to address the concern.)
Ideas for lower level conflicts so far:
-A devil who is causing a plague in a large town, his plague hits anyone who doesn't swear allegiance to him. Once you work for him, the plague grants extra power and bonuses. Cults rise up that aid the spread of infection until a defense is mobilized. (This'll see clerics/Paladins/Druids spamming healing magics and items)
- a coutier double agent attempting to incite a war between the two most magically adept nations
Lemme know what y'all think!
TLDR: gods died, heavy magic will summon Terrasque-ish power anti-magic dragon. Need mid level connections to bad dude McHatesmagic
They're going to be dealing with cults most of the campaign i'm sure. They're also going to need to make allies, and work with people to investigate/combat the conspiriacy.
King Hatesmagic has to have some heirs right? They would make for a good person that genuinely believes that magic will solve all the worlds woes. They are potentially the one actually doing all the pushing for magic use with the king having given him just enough push in the right direction to start him off.
If you need a scenario where this might happen, queen Hatesmagic got killed by some magical effect. The King now hates the magic that took his love away, where as her son sees that magic could have saved her too. The King finds his prophecy of magical cleansing and encourages the son to start bringing about a golden age of magic.
Celestials might be trying to resurrect the dead gods through the power of worship and be trying to make people believe in them again. They might even try somewhat forceful means to do so (for the greater good). Maybe they even know that if this magical trend continues it will unleash the dragon.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I personally love Aboleths as a mid-tier big bad. Their history is frickin sweet, and their Lovecraftian feel makes them perfect for mystery/ borderline horror stuff. I have one in my campaign right now (but nobody knows it *yet* muahaha) and it's been great planting the seeds and motivations for the eventual big payoff.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thats not a bad idea, maybe make the creature somehow related to the Great Dragon. Both have a very otherworldy feel to them, maybe the Aboleth is making its presence know because of the high use of magic, a precursor of sorts. Other magic eating creatures like Nothic might be good creatures to feature in the story, being drawn through planes to consume the magic being used carelessly in the material plane. Creatures of shadow and creatures that are associated with the Old Gods, like Star born would also be good places to look into for inspiration.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I added the Aboleth, that was a perfect fit. The Nothic will be a good creepy low CR monster.
I've got CR1-5, and 10-20+ covered and well tied in now.
Now I just need a CR6-9ish villain. I've been basically looking at anything that would benefit from the new torn up, magic-less world the the dragon would create.
How about someone who wants to stop the spread of magic because they are aware of what will happen should the dragon arise? They don't necessarily have to even tell the party about this, maybe something vague like they are dangerous for what they seek to protect (assuming they are fighting to protect the kingdom advancing magic use). This could bring the realm of death in with some Lich type enemy like an Alhoon, would allow you to use some other creepy critters in conjunction with it, Boneclaw, and Deathlock Mastermind could be worked into something along that same plot line. Forces from the god of death trying to prevent the destruction of magic.
Would make for fun because they get to fight evil creatures while still being bad-ish guys overall.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
To the point of using an Aboleth in the campaign Web DM apparently just did a video about the Aboleth. Like JUST posted it. Even if you only watch the first five minutes it could give you some material with how to use it in a campaign.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
The God of Death's followers and minons getting involved makes a lot of sense. I currently have the God of Death imprisoned, Making resurrection and necromancy spells occasionally fail to cast. I was thinking the God of Magic would do this on purpose, understanding that the death of Death would be bad times. It also forces people serious about getting those spells to work to cast them more often / multiple times.
The players can always do their research and make a play to free Death, who would be quite interested in helping them out.
Web DM! Good stuff, I watch all their videos. I haven't been able to watch the Aboleth one yet. I have to watch it when my wife is not home (she's playing in this campaign).
This campaign is going to be one hella deep rabbit hole. I love it.
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Hello people.
I'm looking to fabricate a good outline for a peeling the onion campaign.
https://theangrygm.com/peeling-the-onion-campaigns/
I would love to crowdsource the potential "key" plot points, I'm mostly struggling with the higher level "Dude behind it all". I assumed that's be CR15-18. I have only a smidge of experience at high level play.
Show me what ridiculous conspiracies y'all come up with.
I think I kind of do this onion with my free roaming game style but instead of a mystery I try to achieve something I want to accomplish and if I succeed
hows about this, its a game where you go through a door from fourth dimension that opens into a third dimensional realm
and this theme echo's throughout the game.because of its dual nature of what is done in the fourth dimension can have effects on the third dimensional and vice versa.
the people are sent through from a realm that can be evil, good, or neutral and any of the sub alignments lawful chaotic. and whatever they do be it fellowship journey or adventure would correlate with getting a item for their alignment with their realm but there would be a alignment with what they were doing and its part of the fun to figure out which diety they have to go up against and which one they get the favor of based on there alignment they choose and what diety is their opposite alignment and does the opposite of favoring them if they don't succeed and instead causes there starting area to have to restart instead of continuing on.
so the goal of the game is to getting three magic items while there running around like those could be neccessary to remove the forgiveness from the characters so that they can escape the grasps of age over the 50 years of the beginning of the game. . Its nice to have 3 items for a rule after the beginning stage is over because you only need 1 item to make a rule for yourself 2 for a rule for a couple of people no more than 5 sound good? and 3 for a whole town and the surrounding area its in.
defeat as many monsters as all three quests combined to get boss to show
himself
and defeat him to get to return to the fourth dimension realm only to find out that there was a stronger dragon just using
the first dragon and is four times as strong as he was. to defeat for the middle of the game to survive another 50 years do the same thing but you can fiddle around with how many quests are needed to do to get to dragon.
I recommend using one more quest than the number of players in the game that way the person who gains favor of their diety has done one more quest than everybody else to break the tie.
Something I am working on I guess falls into the Onion category.
It was basically about lizard folk becoming an issue in one area, various groups mobilizing with one group being outside the badguys and with a treaty with a nearby settlement. It seems that the Yuan-ti have something to do with their unrest but they were performing some unknown ritual might have been some kind of portal. Digging further the yuan-ti recently were involved in the destruction of a whole group of trainees of a good aligned church. There also seems to be an uptick of smuggling of various artifacts and creatures in Daggerford near to the swamp, and Merrow seem to be behind the smuggling up river from the coast. They are also transporting goods further down the coast to the swamp to the lizardfolk (or is it the yuan-ti?) and also communications
To make matters stranger and stranger the smuggling groups have all been found with what appear to be newly minted coins with the mark of waterdeep. Who would have access to these resources and reason to stir up various 'evil' races. On the way to Waterdeep another area dealing with something causing animals and creatures in the woods to go berserk and rampage through the surrounding area. A cult is stirring in the town but they are basically being told that they will be protected from these creatures as long as their faith is strong. The source of the scourge is another yuan-ti ritual that has been completed recently, corrupting the land with a portal to an intersection of the plane of water and the Slime Pits of Juiblex. The cult is being deceived by a yuan-ti infiltrator delaying knowledge of the ongoing events from leaving the area to delay a response as long as possible. Again the coins are showing up in the town in the possession of the main town merchant. All signs are still pointing to Waterdeep.
In Waterdeep the source of the coins must be from either the treasury or the mint itself. In Waterdeep there is some big news, it seems like one of the prime merchant houses with loads of money and political influence has their heir apparent involved with a woman from a semi disgraced house and they are on the road to an engagement in the near future. The disgraced house was known for its potent sorcerers and wizards (the women are sorcerers and the men are wizards). It seems like the woman to be engaged to the lord is nearly unknown in court for unknown reasons. She is trying to gain power back for her house that has fallen out of favor in the last century, with a new alliance with a powerful and rich lord. She was kept hidden because her powers were weak, but she has been working diligently to improve them (To put her in perspective I started her as nothing over 12 in any stat, all her ASIs have been into charisma through her hard work). Nobody seems to believe her when she talks about a rising darkness coming to the land, and she intends to fight it with the resources of the Waterdhavian lord.
As things continue it looks like the lords house is in charge of the mint, is he involved in the evil races rising? Following the trail of money leads back to other yuan-ti groups funneling money and magical items to unknown locations. One of which is to somewhere near the swamps south of Waterdeep. It seems the Yuan-ti have promised the lizard folk to help revive their ancient king Sakartha (taken from an old DnD module) in exchange for aid in some future event. Things are getting more muddled, the portals being opened, alliances among evil races along the coast, money disappearing straight from the mint into the pockets of evil.
Things start to come together that the portals the yuan-ti are creating are supposed to be staging areas for them to strike at the human world with the lizardfolk being the cannon fodder for their plans. Plans to recruit some of the other reptilian races are also underway. The wedding comes to pass and shortly after it a number of the disgraced house end up dead. Investigating them shows that they have been doing some sinister things to gain their sorcerer powers, namely they have imprisoned a silver dragon and have been using its essence to create Draconic sorceress' in an attempt to increase their houses power. The forces that have been raised by the newly wedded Lady go off to root out the forces of lizardfolk that are on the move. As she has victory after victory with her mercenaries backed by her magically potent house her star is on the rise in Waterdeep. An assassin somehow manages to kill the husband, and she narrowly avoids meeting a similar fate as him. With Waterdeep incensed by a popular lords death, they begin more preparations for war. Before the main troops arrive from Waterdeep the disgraced house and all their mercenaries are nearly wiped out to the last man, assaulted by dragons lizardfolk and snakelike abominations. The battlefield becomes a nest of undead rising and causing even more chaos.
This was where I was having a hard time with what to do next. The eventual plan is to have the sorceress who married the waterdhavian lord be the culprit behind the movement of coin and the like to gain access to powerful magic items to protect herself after being constantly paranoid of attack from her own house. Always gathering more power to try and prove herself and becoming a little twisted in the process. She hated her family and made certain of their destruction as a sacrifice to gain more power for herself because something has been whispering in her ear about life everlasting, and unimaginable power. The power of lichdom. A lich has been giving her advice and has been setting the stage for her ascension to lichdom with the sacrifice of her whole family as part of the process. The lich wants all the fighting to leave waterdeep weak so he can further his own plans which involve some ancient elven magic in the roots of waterdeep.
This being an example... What are your ideas so far?
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
That's a pretty intense example, super cool. I don't have a ton thus far. Currently my world has been crippled by the death of dozens of gods, leaving three remaining. These three gods are in a time of a weak peace. However the common people of the world have noticed the absence of the gods, clerics and paladins especially. With the powers of Law and Good being heavily weakened, evil is on the rise.
That is the beginning premise. Essentially demons, devils, and other monstrosities age finding it considerably easier to enter the Material unchecked.
I'm thinking I want the ultimate end to be a Demon Lord, or corrupt Celestial, or something like that to have sparked this slaughter of the gods. Someone with a heavy investment in claiming the material plane for themselves.
Seeing how other people plan/run these types of games is definitely helpful.
What level are you planning on starting the party and how long do you plan to go?
Had no ideas what “Peeling the Onion” was. Apparently, it’s, like, all I know how to do. Look at the big questions right off the bat...
How did the Gods die? Did somebody kill them? Who killed them? Was it the Devils, Demons, a mortal? Why did they kill them? Are there agents for these evil forces on the material plane? It really depends,on how deep you want the rabbit hole to go. The conspiracy could start with street level cult members and ascend all the way up to the biggest, baddest evil being of all time. Figure out the major players and their motivations. The rest usually falls right into place for me after that.
IF you are looking for some things to ad the layers with, consider your idea about a fallen angel of some sort. A celestial could be a contact with the group (perhaps through a third party or visions to a warlock or aasimar) sending you around to find out what is going on. Helping, and sending you into danger in equal parts, when it gets a little later perhaps this celestial has been working with the big bad devil to bring about new faith from humanity. If you have seen the movie Constantine or read the comic this might sound familiar. Something akin to working with Lucifer just before the fall.
Multiple cults popping up could be a fun plot to investigate, allows for some detective work and tracking down their locations, maybe each group is part of a larger ritual that needs to be disrupted. Hotspots of corruption where devils are coming over to this plane. Working with people who seem to be fighting the forces of evil but maybe only doing it because its not "Their version" of evil (ie. A cultist of Asmodeus going against a cult of Orcus). Same can be said with a fallen angel maybe they are helping to destroy the evil coming but only to leave the way open for something bigger in the future.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I'm doing 1-17ish. So far, I've been working from the top down. Still working on connecting all the broad strokes together.
There is this long sleeping dragon, unlike any other dragon. More powerful then most Gods. Dragon is the opposite of pure magic. A void that desires to erase all magic. A large kingdom in my setting has long desired to have magic tightly controlled or eradicated. Their upper ranks vome upon ancient writings describing a purge of all magic that has happened in the ancient past of the world.
This is where the conspiracy starts. King "hatesmagic" learns that in order to begin this purge, magic will need to be very strong. This means using a ton of magic and collecting lost magic relics/items.
King "Hatesmagic" begins nearly bankrupting his kingdom to subtly spur the other people of the world into a golden age of magic.
(I need to figure out who the middleman is that supplies the money without tying it to the Anti-magic kingdom)
The schools of magic suddenly receive a huge boost of funding, adventurers are hired to retrieve magic items
King "hatesmagic's" plan doesn't seem to be working, the dangerous and vile arcane magic is on the rise, with no sign of a purge of any kind.
However, the God of magic is ready to make a play. Stronger then ever, he begins to carve away some of the evil gods. Even the lawful evil gods receive his cleansing blade.
This sparks war between the gods, sides are chosen and when the smoke clears, three remain. The god of Magic, the god of death, and the god of Nature.
The grand scale use of magic, and the diminishing of the gods bumps everything into motion. This is where the characters start at level 1.
So, already this world is messed up. I'm wanting the dragon to be the endgame situation if the players fail to stop the magic pileup / king "hatesmagic"
The first few things the players will probably end up dealing with is noticing that the difficulty of realm travel is dropping. More and more enterprising devils/demons/celestial
(I still need a middleman, I'm trying to make someone who is taking directives from higher up to cause conflict. Anything that might see people using more magic to address the concern.)
Ideas for lower level conflicts so far:
-A devil who is causing a plague in a large town, his plague hits anyone who doesn't swear allegiance to him. Once you work for him, the plague grants extra power and bonuses. Cults rise up that aid the spread of infection until a defense is mobilized. (This'll see clerics/Paladins/Druids spamming healing magics and items)
- a coutier double agent attempting to incite a war between the two most magically adept nations
Lemme know what y'all think!
TLDR: gods died, heavy magic will summon Terrasque-ish power anti-magic dragon. Need mid level connections to bad dude McHatesmagic
They're going to be dealing with cults most of the campaign i'm sure. They're also going to need to make allies, and work with people to investigate/combat the conspiriacy.
King Hatesmagic has to have some heirs right? They would make for a good person that genuinely believes that magic will solve all the worlds woes. They are potentially the one actually doing all the pushing for magic use with the king having given him just enough push in the right direction to start him off.
If you need a scenario where this might happen, queen Hatesmagic got killed by some magical effect. The King now hates the magic that took his love away, where as her son sees that magic could have saved her too. The King finds his prophecy of magical cleansing and encourages the son to start bringing about a golden age of magic.
Celestials might be trying to resurrect the dead gods through the power of worship and be trying to make people believe in them again. They might even try somewhat forceful means to do so (for the greater good). Maybe they even know that if this magical trend continues it will unleash the dragon.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I love all of that. The heir is a good idea for sure. It'll be especially good once he figures out that he's causing a much greater problem.
I'll add the Celestials, they'll definitely be involved following such a big incident. Especially with easier planar travel.
I personally love Aboleths as a mid-tier big bad. Their history is frickin sweet, and their Lovecraftian feel makes them perfect for mystery/ borderline horror stuff. I have one in my campaign right now (but nobody knows it *yet* muahaha) and it's been great planting the seeds and motivations for the eventual big payoff.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thats not a bad idea, maybe make the creature somehow related to the Great Dragon. Both have a very otherworldy feel to them, maybe the Aboleth is making its presence know because of the high use of magic, a precursor of sorts. Other magic eating creatures like Nothic might be good creatures to feature in the story, being drawn through planes to consume the magic being used carelessly in the material plane. Creatures of shadow and creatures that are associated with the Old Gods, like Star born would also be good places to look into for inspiration.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I added the Aboleth, that was a perfect fit. The Nothic will be a good creepy low CR monster.
I've got CR1-5, and 10-20+ covered and well tied in now.
Now I just need a CR6-9ish villain. I've been basically looking at anything that would benefit from the new torn up, magic-less world the the dragon would create.
how about a young green dragon lives in a star tower and is a challenge 8
How about someone who wants to stop the spread of magic because they are aware of what will happen should the dragon arise? They don't necessarily have to even tell the party about this, maybe something vague like they are dangerous for what they seek to protect (assuming they are fighting to protect the kingdom advancing magic use). This could bring the realm of death in with some Lich type enemy like an Alhoon, would allow you to use some other creepy critters in conjunction with it, Boneclaw, and Deathlock Mastermind could be worked into something along that same plot line. Forces from the god of death trying to prevent the destruction of magic.
Would make for fun because they get to fight evil creatures while still being bad-ish guys overall.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
To the point of using an Aboleth in the campaign Web DM apparently just did a video about the Aboleth. Like JUST posted it. Even if you only watch the first five minutes it could give you some material with how to use it in a campaign.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
The God of Death's followers and minons getting involved makes a lot of sense. I currently have the God of Death imprisoned, Making resurrection and necromancy spells occasionally fail to cast. I was thinking the God of Magic would do this on purpose, understanding that the death of Death would be bad times. It also forces people serious about getting those spells to work to cast them more often / multiple times.
The players can always do their research and make a play to free Death, who would be quite interested in helping them out.
Web DM! Good stuff, I watch all their videos. I haven't been able to watch the Aboleth one yet. I have to watch it when my wife is not home (she's playing in this campaign).
This campaign is going to be one hella deep rabbit hole. I love it.