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Danzaver
2009-01-06, 10:19 AM
IMPORTANT: If you are a player in my game (you know who you are) and I find out, or even suspect that you have read ANY of this post beyond this sentence, I will kill 1d4+1 characters with no opportunity for resurrection; you have been warned.

Ok, so what I am looking for here is feedback, advice and ideas on how to make this the best conclusion to a 5-year (real time) campaign ever.

Setting: Forgotten Realms
System: Dnd 3rd edition, with adaptations from 2nd ed and 3.5
Current Level: Mostly 14, with one 15

Characters

Link - 15 elf ranger with some deepwood sniper. The only character to be in the game since level 1, and unofficially the party leader. Played by my sister, who only seems to play damaged tragic androgynous prettyboys, and this one is gay to boot. Been searching for his drow boyfriend Tom (a very Drow name, I know) since level 1. Was raped and tortured by humans (naturally) and now hates them all and wants revenge of some undisclosed variety. Is somewhat unhinged and potentially dangerous to himself and others. Emo tear.

Khaless - Female Drow Druid of Mielikki - some druid variant which lets them specialise in one shapeshifted form and cast spells while in it - in this case is a Dire Wolf. Once of a noble family which was destroyed, she seeks to someday rule the underdark or at least see it burn

Aeron - A half human half air elemental rogue / Royal Herald. Was saved from a hanging to work for the Cormyrian Royal Heralds - the spies and secret police who answer directly to the Queen Mother. Has become a Baron, ruling a coastal trading town and married into a wealthy merchant family. Wields an intelligent short sword called 'Imp' who openly wishes him great harm, but has become to grudgingly respect him out of common love for the pilfering of gems.

Vestel - female elf cleric of the god of learning, history, and the moment of choice. Kind of a violent mace-wielding librarian. Off with the faeries a lot.

Versos - male Human Warmage. Just joined the party, a horribly wealthy and influential warmage, who has spent the last 10 years tracking down and destroying a criminal organisation called 'the unblinking eye'.

Leakhim - Male Human Monk. A shocking unbalanced and violent killer, but easy to manage if you know how becasue his reactions are fairly predictable. Hideous to behold as he has no nose or lips, having had them cut off at some point. About to arrive back from a interdimensional joy-ride he has been taking in an intelligent evil temple capable of plane shifting that was fashioned from a god's fingerbone.

...and the NPCs in the party

Xuthra - female human psion specialised in divinations. A blind tatooist, who through extensive use of the 'hear light' power is able to sense things better than many humans.

Tom - Male Undead Drow. Link's boyfriend, now dead and raised as a revenant. He is even more tragic with link, being forever bound to an artefact which is responsible for his death - the God-killing stone (more on this later). Secretly being manipulated by at least one god or god-like entity.

Velinax - Elder Orb Beholder, disguised as a human male wizard. Versos' old arch-enemy and prisoner, having been bested and his criminal organisation 'the unblinking eye' scattered to the winds. Little does anyone know that everything is continuing according to his plan perfectly...

The story so far:
The characters have come to great fame in the kingdom of Cormyr, which started the game in a massive war against orcs stirred up by a great wyrm red dragon. They found all the parts of a massive artefact sword which the king of cormyr used to slay the dragon at the cost of his own life, ending the war, and then tracked down the dragon's interdimensional hoard.

While visiting the Dragon Coast, they rescued Xuthra from a prison beneath the city, and she told them the whereabouts of Tom - he was held prisoner by the Temple of Kiaransallee, the drow goddess of undeath. It seesm that while investigating the deeper levels of Myth Drannor which were only opened up when the Phaerimm returned to Toril, they discovered a stone circle of immense power. A weapon of mass destruction to psionic races, and it is rumoured, capable of killing a god if you can get close enough to striek them with it. Xuthra believes she accidentally awakened a sentience and hunger within it which influenced Tom to join up with a group of Phaerimm masquerading as Drow to enter the Daemonweb Pits, and there to slay Lolth.

The party entered the underdark and fought their way through two drow cities and miles and miles of tunnels (at the first city Khaless ended up marrying a Drow Blackguard of the Assassin god, who shared her political aims), finally destroying the high priests of Kiaransalee and shattering her temple. Leakhim even made off with the intelligent temple after striking a deal with it. They got Tom back, but found him to be a shattered shell of a man, though he still wields the god-killer, as kiaransalee did not wish it to fall into the hands of any of her followers, lest they get ideas - better for it to remain in the hands of an undead, which she can control as she wills. Tom insists that he only wounded lolth, and she is deep beneath the earth recovering her strength, the party must take him there to destroy her for good.

Meanwhile, on the surface, the gods walk the earth as it was in the Time of Troubles, but will not speak of why. Rumour abounds as to why, if the god-killer is on earth, do the gods flee from heaven? Only Mystra remains guarding heaven, and her star shines twice as bright. The world's greatest theologians and astronomers try to analyse her will. All over the world, old places are re-opening, such as the prison of the phaerimm, out of which came the god-killer, and the re-emergence of the city of shade. Astronomers observe a build-up of Mystra's power at such times, and it seems to be focussed at the site of where the old things emerge. They have detected such a focussing of her will into a space so deep below the earth that even drow do not tread for the darkness has become so thick their darkvision is useless. The ancient city of beholders has emerged in the Abyss of Darkness, but theologians believe that Mystra is trying to break the gods' silence and send a message guiding man out of this global crisis. Therfore they send Versos to the party along with his 'prisoner' Velinax, who claims to have been to the beholder city once.

So, back in the underdark the Characters have just come under direct attack from a group of Phaerimm attempting to take the god-killer, and then from the goddess Kiaransalee herself, who need not fear anything from the artefact as long as it was in Tom's hands, but as she was about to start flaying skin from bone, she seemed to recongise something new in the artefact and fled saying something like "but you're meant to be dead!".


SO. That brings us up to speed. What happens from here is still in the works, but here are some of the things I have planned:

- The entrance of an Illithid king in a crystal palace who claims to have been manipulating the thread of fate to bring the characters to this exact moment. His motivation is that he is cursed to live as long as the earth, but he desires death. Therefore, he sees the players as a way to destroy the world. I need to flesh out what role he will play more fully.

- The death of Tom, and the point where the characters have to decide what to do with the artefact

- The beholder city, which velinax wishes to use the players to destroy the present rulers so he can take over. He knows nothing about the clues at to the danger the world is in, left by Mystra throughout the city.

- Visions and riddles left by Mystra, suggesting that Lord Ao (the supreme being who gives the gods their rules) is dying - in truth he has long been dying, for the more his rules are stretched through the use of magic, the less strength he has - the mortal blow he suffers now comes from the shattering of his most cardinal of laws - that gods may not die.

- The truth about lolth - that she was trying to ascend beyond godhood, to replace Lord Ao as ruler of the universe, and that part of her lies dying in the centre of the beholder city, part of her is fused with the awakened intelligence of the god-killer. All she needs is to reunite the two...

- A Mystra-powered trip back in time to the first empire of man, of which the city of shade is the last remnant. There, infiltrating the trust of the mage who sought to become a god and thus brought about the end of that great empire and the retreat of magic from the world. A battle with a tarrasque (I've always wanted to do it), and returning to him its still regenerating heart, they get to witness the nature of a man ascending to godhood. I still have to clarfiy what lessons Mystra is teaching them here, becasue even though it really fits with what is coming later, it might seem unusual to the players now.

- A vision of the world if things continue the way they are going - a world without magic or any intelligence other than humans. A sick world of greed and reliance on technology (our world!).

- A great bloated Phaerimm, feasting on the corpse of Lolth until is has become titanic is size and power, bursting open the underdark, obliterating the dale-lands, and wreaking havoc on the world. Only through the intervention of Elminster do the PCs survive its emergence

- The possibility I have tossed around of the sentience of the god-killer being the will of Lord Ao, who is scheming on a level far beyond what any of the others are capable of.

- Some gods begin to combine into single entities to consolidate their power. They become creatures anew, but their followers do not necessarily agree with the changes.

- I have the idea of if the characters are about to use the artefact to 'destroy' lolth (making her the most powerful being in the universe - in theory), the goddess Mielikki steps in and speaks a word of vile speech to the carrier of the god-killer, filling him with such revulsion that he must attack her intead - fusing her essence into the stone and potentially changing the balance of things.

- The characters (hopefully) emerging back to the surface reborn and enlightened as to what is at stake here, travelling around the world and summoning all the worlds' armies and leaders who will fight against Lolth in whatever form she is in now - as supreme being, as part phaerimm abberation, or as a great malicious and powerful stone circle.

- Lolth has been busy, absorbing any god who she can submit to her will so as to increase her power.

- An epic battle between good and evil straight out of the pages of the birthright campaign setting - where all the gods are destroyed and their champions (the players) become the new gods, and all thos present at the battle are suffused with the essence of gods, to become the rulers of the new world.

Where is this all going?
I run another game with the same players, in which I use the birthright rules. The world is set on a parody of medieval Europe. I want my character to come to realise that they came to shape this world - they averted the future which is the reality we live in today and managed to instead steer the world (earth) to a world of fantasy and magic. That the entire campaign was setting up the world of the new campaign, and that the gods they worship are actually their old characters.


THERE WE HAVE IT. Or at least, what I have done so far. Still needs work, but I am often pretty good if I have a basic framework, to fill in the blanks off the top of my head.

Please feel free to comment or suggest anything. As this is the concluding campaign to a game which has lasted over five years, I want to make it special.

Another_Poet
2009-01-06, 11:09 AM
Dude, that's a lot of stuff.

It's a lot of good stuff, but it's a lot of good stuff.

spoilered in case your players stop by:



If you're planning an eneding that will take place over the next year or so, it looks like you have a good outline. But if you're planning an ending within the next few sessions or even the next couple of months, I would whittle it down a lot. You have, what, a half-dozen boss battle ideas in there? Plus political intrigue with not one but three separate god-beings? That's on top of at least two major places to explore, an NPC betrayal and a backstory of cosmological proportions.

Frankly I would lose the ilithid world-killer, even though it's an awesome idea, just to cut down on the number of plot threads. Unless you can make him a minor NPC who offers some useful info to the PCs before they kill him. Also, I'd strongly consider losing the "various gods meld into new gods" plot thread, again because it just adds needless complication. You can establish as much (or more) awe-factor just by having some NPC priest, seer or quest-giver mention the possibility. "The world as we know it will fall... healing magic will be lost... the dying gods will merge into strange new beasts, and what will become of their followers? Please, you must help us!"

I'm tempted to say I'd cut out the time travel to the first human empire, too--but it's so cool! In general, time travel in D&D is a horrible idea. The way you present it, it seems more like a one-scene vision of the past where they just so happen to get to fight a tarrasque. I like it, just try to keep it short and have the divine transformation at the end grant some vital piece of info to the PC's so the vision stays salient. Perhaps it will teach them how to defeat a god, or how to revive a god - either of which would be useful in this campaign.

So, mostly my suggestions are just cutting the whole idea pile down to size and trying to keep it focused on the heroic saving of the cosmos. I do have one GMing suggestion, though, which is this:

Don't call the tarrasque a tarrasque.

You wanna see your players duke it out and stretch their imagination, have the quest-giver call it something different. "There is a beast of the gods, a demon-slayer, an eater of dreams and souls. It is said that even if beheaded, the beast will continue to fight. Bring me its heart, fresh and still-beating.... then I will show you the secret of the gods."

It might take them a battle or two just to figure out what this thing's regen capabilities are, before they come up with a strategy to beat it. That's way better than "Dude, a tarrasque? Awesome! I read that if you put walls of force around it and fill them with water...."

JaxGaret
2009-01-06, 11:15 AM
I stopped reading at the point that I saw that there were one or more DMPCs in a party with six PCs.

Good luck though! And good gaming.

Danzaver
2009-01-06, 11:41 AM
Dude, that's a lot of stuff.

It's a lot of good stuff, but it's a lot of good stuff.

spoilered in case your players stop by:



If you're planning an eneding that will take place over the next year or so, it looks like you have a good outline. But if you're planning an ending within the next few sessions or even the next couple of months, I would whittle it down a lot. You have, what, a half-dozen boss battle ideas in there? Plus political intrigue with not one but three separate god-beings? That's on top of at least two major places to explore, an NPC betrayal and a backstory of cosmological proportions.

Frankly I would lose the ilithid world-killer, even though it's an awesome idea, just to cut down on the number of plot threads. Unless you can make him a minor NPC who offers some useful info to the PCs before they kill him. Also, I'd strongly consider losing the "various gods meld into new gods" plot thread, again because it just adds needless complication. You can establish as much (or more) awe-factor just by having some NPC priest, seer or quest-giver mention the possibility. "The world as we know it will fall... healing magic will be lost... the dying gods will merge into strange new beasts, and what will become of their followers? Please, you must help us!"

I'm tempted to say I'd cut out the time travel to the first human empire, too--but it's so cool! In general, time travel in D&D is a horrible idea. The way you present it, it seems more like a one-scene vision of the past where they just so happen to get to fight a tarrasque. I like it, just try to keep it short and have the divine transformation at the end grant some vital piece of info to the PC's so the vision stays salient. Perhaps it will teach them how to defeat a god, or how to revive a god - either of which would be useful in this campaign.

So, mostly my suggestions are just cutting the whole idea pile down to size and trying to keep it focused on the heroic saving of the cosmos. I do have one GMing suggestion, though, which is this:

Don't call the tarrasque a tarrasque.

You wanna see your players duke it out and stretch their imagination, have the quest-giver call it something different. "There is a beast of the gods, a demon-slayer, an eater of dreams and souls. It is said that even if beheaded, the beast will continue to fight. Bring me its heart, fresh and still-beating.... then I will show you the secret of the gods."

It might take them a battle or two just to figure out what this thing's regen capabilities are, before they come up with a strategy to beat it. That's way better than "Dude, a tarrasque? Awesome! I read that if you put walls of force around it and fill them with water...."


Cheers for your comments, and yeah, the things you picked out to lose are the weakest plot links, so I tend to agree with your judgment, conditionally. I shall lose them if I cannot make them stronger.

You're definitely right about not using the T word. I'll let them know afterwards what it was, even it even comes up.

...and yes, I am expecting that it will take at least a year to finish this all up, but hey, after five years of going strong, it deserves to be stretched out a bit longer.

Danzaver
2009-01-06, 11:48 AM
I stopped reading at the point that I saw that there were one or more DMPCs in a party with six PCs.

Good luck though! And good gaming.

That's nothing - at one point, the party was a sizable mercenary company - 4 PCs and 7 DMPCs. It worked fine though, other than making me slightly schizophrenic. XD

At the moment, the DMPCs are in a minor role - generally not engaging in combat unless really needed.

Egiam
2009-01-06, 09:14 PM
Wow. THAT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
The only thing that I would consider is how to cope if they fail.
(shudders)

Danzaver
2009-01-07, 02:05 AM
Wow. THAT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
The only thing that I would consider is how to cope if they fail.
(shudders)

I... had no even thought of that possibility.... :smalleek:

Epic_Wizard
2009-01-07, 03:58 AM
Dude, that's a lot of stuff.

It's a lot of good stuff, but it's a lot of good stuff.

spoilered in case your players stop by:



If you're planning an eneding that will take place over the next year or so, it looks like you have a good outline. But if you're planning an ending within the next few sessions or even the next couple of months, I would whittle it down a lot. You have, what, a half-dozen boss battle ideas in there? Plus political intrigue with not one but three separate god-beings? That's on top of at least two major places to explore, an NPC betrayal and a backstory of cosmological proportions.

Frankly I would lose the ilithid world-killer, even though it's an awesome idea, just to cut down on the number of plot threads. Unless you can make him a minor NPC who offers some useful info to the PCs before they kill him. Also, I'd strongly consider losing the "various gods meld into new gods" plot thread, again because it just adds needless complication. You can establish as much (or more) awe-factor just by having some NPC priest, seer or quest-giver mention the possibility. "The world as we know it will fall... healing magic will be lost... the dying gods will merge into strange new beasts, and what will become of their followers? Please, you must help us!"

I'm tempted to say I'd cut out the time travel to the first human empire, too--but it's so cool! In general, time travel in D&D is a horrible idea. The way you present it, it seems more like a one-scene vision of the past where they just so happen to get to fight a tarrasque. I like it, just try to keep it short and have the divine transformation at the end grant some vital piece of info to the PC's so the vision stays salient. Perhaps it will teach them how to defeat a god, or how to revive a god - either of which would be useful in this campaign.

So, mostly my suggestions are just cutting the whole idea pile down to size and trying to keep it focused on the heroic saving of the cosmos. I do have one GMing suggestion, though, which is this:

Don't call the tarrasque a tarrasque.

You wanna see your players duke it out and stretch their imagination, have the quest-giver call it something different. "There is a beast of the gods, a demon-slayer, an eater of dreams and souls. It is said that even if beheaded, the beast will continue to fight. Bring me its heart, fresh and still-beating.... then I will show you the secret of the gods."

It might take them a battle or two just to figure out what this thing's regen capabilities are, before they come up with a strategy to beat it. That's way better than "Dude, a tarrasque? Awesome! I read that if you put walls of force around it and fill them with water...."


I would suggest doing any 'time travel' scenes the way that the Age of Worms campaign from Dungeon and Dragon magazines did their bit. Have it basically be a huge replaying of past events with the characters taking the place of ancient hero's ... or maybe not. Leave that bit unclear and maybe have Mystra wink at them sometime later =3

Oh yeah and I want to see this whole thing written up as a series of novels. Seriously :smallbiggrin:

Danzaver
2009-01-07, 07:52 AM
I would suggest doing any 'time travel' scenes the way that the Age of Worms campaign from Dungeon and Dragon magazines did their bit. Have it basically be a huge replaying of past events with the characters taking the place of ancient hero's ... or maybe not. Leave that bit unclear and maybe have Mystra wink at them sometime later =3

Yeah, that's an interesting idea. Yeah, that would be very cool - have them wake up suddenly in someone else's life.


Oh yeah and I want to see this whole thing written up as a series of novels. Seriously :smallbiggrin:

Thank you, that's very kind of you to say, but it already infringes on far too many copyrights and re-writes the 'canon' version of the forgotten realms timeline.

For example, the whole war in cormyr at the start of the campaign was the same war that was in some trilogy of novels, though I totally changed the entire ending and kept the events in the story only as a backdrop to the story of the PCs. Also, the disappearance of Lolth is the plot of the War of the Spider Queen series by Salvatore, but as at least one of my players had read that series I used nothing form it except the fact of Lolth's silence and made my own explanations.... and from there it just kind of snowballed....

evil-frosty
2009-01-07, 08:28 PM
well tell us how it goes whatever u decide to do it sounds like an awesome campaign that your players will enjoy immensely