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View Full Version : Getting player involvement on a grand scale



Natael
2009-07-23, 10:55 AM
First off, hey, I'm Natael, second post on the forum, been reading the comic for a while as well as lurking a fair bit.

3.5 as a note

Current plot on the prime material plane:

Continents have been mostly isolated from each other through internal wars. Over seas and far reaching land trade has not been an option as resources have been placed into attack and defense of territory, magic has been focused on this as well, so very little is available for player resources. Recently, the land where the PCs are has come to a peace treaty very recently.

The PCs are working on removing an orc tribe that has refused to adhere to the treaty from a mountain near a small town (Forge of Fury, PC level 4 now). I am going to lead this into Red Hand of Doom by linking the Duergar in the forge to a weapons shipment to Vraath Keep. The PCs know of the local politics of the land overall, but don't know much about anywhere foreign, with the exception of a bit of a secluded peninsula with some merchant city states to the south that has continued some trade throughout the war, to both sides.

After Red Hand, I plan on having a wizard there, who will either be a follower of an Arch-Fiend or a devil, give the party some communication orbs to give to the major powers around the world, so that the world leaders can set up communication and hopefully stop the fighting through diplomacy. He will send out some NPCs for the local kingdoms, and send the PCs to foreign ones to help establish diplomacy. The ringer is that once the leaders are all in communication, the orbs will let out a hellfire fireball and a wail of the banshee (or maybe a different death effect), likely killing most of the present in the communications, leaders and top advisors, hopefully pinning it on the heroes and starting an even worse, more world wide war than before.



Extra-planar politics:

I am mostly making use of Hell, the Abyss, and Celestia, with some of the other upper and lower planes being more minor players. Much of the politics and of course the Pact Primeval are taken from FC2, with some from FC1. To the pact, I am adding a provision of Asmodeus being allowed back into Celestia once the eternal chaos is quelled.

Dieties are the main ones from the PHB, Tiamat, Bahamat, Lolth, ~Asmodeus, and Tharizdun. I might wind up with a couple others, but fairly unimportant to my plans.

Asmodeus is recovering quite well, and wants to finish up the blood war ASAP, as if he does that, he can safely regenerate himself with the souls of his arch-fiends. Expediating the wars on the prime, along with some assistance from Grumsh, Lolth, and Tiamat (who have agreed to help end the blood war, as well as then go after the good pantheon. Lolth betraying the other demons), in which he is fine with letting the evil gods obtain more souls out of the wars than he may be getting. The plan is to get rid of most of the inhabitants on the prime, with war increasing the number of unintentional evil, giving more souls to hell and the evil gods. Most of Asmodeus' followers are devoting the death and destruction to Tharizdun. The plan is to devistate the abyss (so a lock down can be placed on all the layers, technically stopping the abyss, allowing Asmo into Celestia again), while the good gods are locked into war with Tharizdun, kill off most of his arch-fiends and evil god "allies" to steal their power, then wipe out the battle weakend celestial gods and Tharizdun, thus being able to take claim to the multi-verse.


I'm not sure exactly where to go from after the comm orbs have done their job. As a finale, I think that having some high level clerics and wizards creating a binding summon to bring a portion of hell, along with Asmodeus to the prime material plane, then along with a divine sacrifice (I'm thinking a voluntary one from St. Cuthbert, and maybe a couple others may well be appropriate) to significantly reduce Asmodeus' power to a player killable CR (such as perhaps Asmo's aspect from FC2) as a final battle would be good. Other prime material wizards/clerics (as few as there are of high level) would be required to concentrate on the planar binding, while the forces of Celestia and Hell would be busy battling each other/Tharizdun.

Depending on when Asmodeus is bound or his plot stopped, the abyss may be able to make a come back (though likely will be gone), Tharizdun, if fought by most of the pantheon (as it is more powerful/numerous now than when Thariz first was around, and he is weakened from just waking), can be stopped.

Of course, being able to quickly stop the wars would put a bit of a damper on Asmodeus' ability to reliably attack the Abyss, or at least weaken his assault on Celestia.


Alright, I guess this was a bit more winded than I originally planned, but any critique is welcome, and it is good for me to have it typed out.

My main issue is trying to take the step from the world leaders dying/being critically injured to the party finding out about the extra-planar/divine plan.

Melamoto
2009-07-29, 11:10 AM
Seems good enough to me, but 2 things:

A: The PCs might seem curious and suspicious of the orbs. Try to find a way to convince them they are genuine and hide their killer property.
B: Make sure that they aren't in the room when the orbs go off. Maybe have the communication private.