Vagnarok
2010-03-04, 05:07 PM
SERIOUSLY DUNCAN. STOP READING THIS NOW.
Hello all! I am in need of some inspiration. I am about to introduce the BBEG into my campaign and I need some supplemental side-quests for future use.
The BBEG is a very old man who has discovered how to extend his life through magical means (arcane magic is next to nonexistant in my campaign). When he was 25 some crazy events happened and he survived while his wife and children were tortured and killed in front of him. Basically, he started out trying to find a way to prevent all future tragedies like his, but over the years his grief and pain twisted him. He has lost sight of why he began his search for knowledge and now is searching for as much as possible, no matter the cost.
So he still looks like a 45 year old, but over the past 700 years or so he has been conducting extremely unethical experiments to further his own knowledge. Now I need ideas of terrible things that he could do that the PC's could discover and fix!
An example of one of the experiments that I thought up is:
Note: I haven't decided on any names, so I just refer to the characters as nouns.
So ~300 years ago the BBEG manipulated a knight into raping the woman that he loved (she loved him too). She was emotionally traumatized by this, and wanted nothing more to do with him. After the woman had his child, naturally she didn't want to share custody or give him the child, but the knight wanted his baby. After further manipulation by the BBEG and other events he ends up chasing her into the forest. The woman manages to lose the knight temporarily as, unbeknownst to her, the BBEG covers her tracks or something. Then the BBEG approaches the woman, telling her that he can save her baby from the now murderous knight, telling her that if the knight catches her, he will kill both her and the baby. The BBEG gets her to agree, then takes the baby from her; she stays behind because she thinks she would just slow them down.
Next the knight finds her, (rapes her again?) and kills her. However, before leaving her to her death, the BBEG had left her an enchanted pendant that he spent years developing. As her blood soaks into the ground, the pendant forces her soul to be transferred to the tree that "drinks" her blood. Thus, she becomes the center of the forest and over the centuries she spent alone grieving for her lost baby, she goes quite insane. The PCs will need to find her and save her due to the phenomenon below:
Gradually she begins to sprout wooden rings as "fruit." She produced the rings to hopefully entrap the BBEG one day and force him to return the baby to her so that she may rest in peace. They are of braided wood, and look to be quite cheap, but naturally they're quite magical and indestructible. About a month after someone puts one on, the woman-tree is able to communicate telepathically with them. However, since she's gone a bit batty, she is beyond meaningful communication outside of stuff like "bring me back my baby, return to me what was mine, come home child."
Apart from being telepathically bonded to the tree, just before the first message is sent from the tree, the braids in the ring sprout little wooden tentacles and burrow into the wearer's hand. They weave their way up the arm, forming a layer of very hard wooden armor under the skin, improving ac and reducing cha. The process continues after 4 weeks, the weave going up to the shoulder and locking the elbow in place, increasing the ac bonus and cha penalty as well as rendering the arm fairly useless. There are a couple other stages with similar results, with the end result of the wearer being transformed into one of those strange trees that the PCs have been seeing around. The ones with the images of horrified faces colored into the bark at around head level. The wearer has about 3 months to figure out what is going on and bring his party to the forest to speak with the treewoman.
I've already gotten one of my PCs to wear one and he has reached the second stage of the encasement. He feels a compulsion to head towards the forest in the north east. I might through some time consuming moral decisions at them to see how long he'll let the transformation go. Hahaha! :smallbiggrin:
So, does anyone have an idea for an experiment? You don't need to be nearly as detailed as my example, just give me the basics. You can elaborate as much as you want though, I don't mean to limit your creative process!
Thanks to any who reply!
Hello all! I am in need of some inspiration. I am about to introduce the BBEG into my campaign and I need some supplemental side-quests for future use.
The BBEG is a very old man who has discovered how to extend his life through magical means (arcane magic is next to nonexistant in my campaign). When he was 25 some crazy events happened and he survived while his wife and children were tortured and killed in front of him. Basically, he started out trying to find a way to prevent all future tragedies like his, but over the years his grief and pain twisted him. He has lost sight of why he began his search for knowledge and now is searching for as much as possible, no matter the cost.
So he still looks like a 45 year old, but over the past 700 years or so he has been conducting extremely unethical experiments to further his own knowledge. Now I need ideas of terrible things that he could do that the PC's could discover and fix!
An example of one of the experiments that I thought up is:
Note: I haven't decided on any names, so I just refer to the characters as nouns.
So ~300 years ago the BBEG manipulated a knight into raping the woman that he loved (she loved him too). She was emotionally traumatized by this, and wanted nothing more to do with him. After the woman had his child, naturally she didn't want to share custody or give him the child, but the knight wanted his baby. After further manipulation by the BBEG and other events he ends up chasing her into the forest. The woman manages to lose the knight temporarily as, unbeknownst to her, the BBEG covers her tracks or something. Then the BBEG approaches the woman, telling her that he can save her baby from the now murderous knight, telling her that if the knight catches her, he will kill both her and the baby. The BBEG gets her to agree, then takes the baby from her; she stays behind because she thinks she would just slow them down.
Next the knight finds her, (rapes her again?) and kills her. However, before leaving her to her death, the BBEG had left her an enchanted pendant that he spent years developing. As her blood soaks into the ground, the pendant forces her soul to be transferred to the tree that "drinks" her blood. Thus, she becomes the center of the forest and over the centuries she spent alone grieving for her lost baby, she goes quite insane. The PCs will need to find her and save her due to the phenomenon below:
Gradually she begins to sprout wooden rings as "fruit." She produced the rings to hopefully entrap the BBEG one day and force him to return the baby to her so that she may rest in peace. They are of braided wood, and look to be quite cheap, but naturally they're quite magical and indestructible. About a month after someone puts one on, the woman-tree is able to communicate telepathically with them. However, since she's gone a bit batty, she is beyond meaningful communication outside of stuff like "bring me back my baby, return to me what was mine, come home child."
Apart from being telepathically bonded to the tree, just before the first message is sent from the tree, the braids in the ring sprout little wooden tentacles and burrow into the wearer's hand. They weave their way up the arm, forming a layer of very hard wooden armor under the skin, improving ac and reducing cha. The process continues after 4 weeks, the weave going up to the shoulder and locking the elbow in place, increasing the ac bonus and cha penalty as well as rendering the arm fairly useless. There are a couple other stages with similar results, with the end result of the wearer being transformed into one of those strange trees that the PCs have been seeing around. The ones with the images of horrified faces colored into the bark at around head level. The wearer has about 3 months to figure out what is going on and bring his party to the forest to speak with the treewoman.
I've already gotten one of my PCs to wear one and he has reached the second stage of the encasement. He feels a compulsion to head towards the forest in the north east. I might through some time consuming moral decisions at them to see how long he'll let the transformation go. Hahaha! :smallbiggrin:
So, does anyone have an idea for an experiment? You don't need to be nearly as detailed as my example, just give me the basics. You can elaborate as much as you want though, I don't mean to limit your creative process!
Thanks to any who reply!