Flickerdart
2009-01-16, 09:07 PM
My DMing style of "making stuff up as I go along" has left me somewhat (read: completely) lost as to how to continue my plot. This is a rather freeform PbP game...I do have a certain system of magic, as it were, in place, as well as other rules, as I am using RPs for building a setting. Anyways, on to the point.
The players apprehended a MBEG, who had a magic item that, as a side effect of its abilities, raises undead. They screwed up the non-specific ritual he was about to enact in order to control the raised army. As it is, the zombies will simply converge on to the item, tearing through anything in their way. However, before they could kill him, a BBEG showed up and demanded the item. The combined forces of the MBEG and the party managed to shoo him away, and then they decided to join up and protect the nearby town from the horde.
Except of course, the MBEG just pretended to so he could use one of their horses and not get killed by the arising zombie army. When they brought him back to the city, after having them tell the city guard that they're about to be invaded, he sent them off to find a way to control the item's power and possibly suppress it (as they couldn't just chuck it somewhere for fear of the BBEG taking it). Of course, he just sent them to another BBEG, a 100-years-dead wizard ghost who was the perpetrator of the plan in the first place. He nearly killed them before they managed to distract him with some other ghosts and escape.
Now, the MBEG's shtick is simple. He just wants the many powerful artifacts the second BBEG had on him before he died, and is willing to do some pretty immoral things to get them. He's not evil per se...just unscrupulous. They're some pretty sweet magic items, and it's a low-magic setting.
So now, the players are back in town, looking for the guy to tear his head off. The other BBEG had been disabled due to another party miles away blowing up a temple dedicated to a dark source of magic. Since he was just a guy before possessed by the BBEG, he's now lost and temporarily traveling with the party.
Problem is, with the BBEG neutralized, the other BBEG has to have some sort of motive for destroying the city beyond "I need new troops to go kill something elsewhere and you were closest" because the item can't let him control the horde anymore. But I want the threat of the undead to persist.
Thing is, the MBEG doesn't know that the BBEG that isn't his master is deposed. He sent the PCs to look for one of his master's powerful items, hoping that they'll get him what he wants without having to serve any longer. Win-win, except he didn't expect them to escape with their lives.
tl;dr - Ghost necromancer raised a horde to kill a town, but lost control of it due to the heroes, so now the army is going toward the MacGuffin that raised it, which is inside the town. The MBEG has the MacGuffin, but the players have good reason to kill him and toss the MacGuffin in a ditch somewhere, but then the town won't be attacked by the undead, and I want that to happen, because otherwise there isn't a plot.
So...why would the surviving BBEG want to raze the town? It's a nowhere place, and I don't have much setting around it yet. He's got no reason to hate the heroes except that they killed his corporeal body that he possessed. The town isn't responsible for his original death. He died before it was founded, even.
The players apprehended a MBEG, who had a magic item that, as a side effect of its abilities, raises undead. They screwed up the non-specific ritual he was about to enact in order to control the raised army. As it is, the zombies will simply converge on to the item, tearing through anything in their way. However, before they could kill him, a BBEG showed up and demanded the item. The combined forces of the MBEG and the party managed to shoo him away, and then they decided to join up and protect the nearby town from the horde.
Except of course, the MBEG just pretended to so he could use one of their horses and not get killed by the arising zombie army. When they brought him back to the city, after having them tell the city guard that they're about to be invaded, he sent them off to find a way to control the item's power and possibly suppress it (as they couldn't just chuck it somewhere for fear of the BBEG taking it). Of course, he just sent them to another BBEG, a 100-years-dead wizard ghost who was the perpetrator of the plan in the first place. He nearly killed them before they managed to distract him with some other ghosts and escape.
Now, the MBEG's shtick is simple. He just wants the many powerful artifacts the second BBEG had on him before he died, and is willing to do some pretty immoral things to get them. He's not evil per se...just unscrupulous. They're some pretty sweet magic items, and it's a low-magic setting.
So now, the players are back in town, looking for the guy to tear his head off. The other BBEG had been disabled due to another party miles away blowing up a temple dedicated to a dark source of magic. Since he was just a guy before possessed by the BBEG, he's now lost and temporarily traveling with the party.
Problem is, with the BBEG neutralized, the other BBEG has to have some sort of motive for destroying the city beyond "I need new troops to go kill something elsewhere and you were closest" because the item can't let him control the horde anymore. But I want the threat of the undead to persist.
Thing is, the MBEG doesn't know that the BBEG that isn't his master is deposed. He sent the PCs to look for one of his master's powerful items, hoping that they'll get him what he wants without having to serve any longer. Win-win, except he didn't expect them to escape with their lives.
tl;dr - Ghost necromancer raised a horde to kill a town, but lost control of it due to the heroes, so now the army is going toward the MacGuffin that raised it, which is inside the town. The MBEG has the MacGuffin, but the players have good reason to kill him and toss the MacGuffin in a ditch somewhere, but then the town won't be attacked by the undead, and I want that to happen, because otherwise there isn't a plot.
So...why would the surviving BBEG want to raze the town? It's a nowhere place, and I don't have much setting around it yet. He's got no reason to hate the heroes except that they killed his corporeal body that he possessed. The town isn't responsible for his original death. He died before it was founded, even.