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View Full Version : Scheming up a One-Off (revisiting a favourite setting/character)



unimaginable
2010-07-28, 03:29 AM
I ran a campaign a little over a year ago set on a homebrewed plane from which all magic originates, which I made by taking the Outlands and inverting it (magic gets more powerful toward the centre, not less, and instead of the Spire there's the Fountain, a massive beam of energy from which all forms of magic on all other planes originate). Rilmani took a much more active role than in Outlands as written: they're there to protect the Fountain from those who would use it for their own ends, and to guide those who would attempt the many rituals necessary to fuse with its energy. Campaign concept was relatively straightforward: whoever controls the Fountain will become the single most powerful entity in the multiverse, stronger than all the gods. It can be one of the party, but only one. Party must work together to overcome other rivals and enemy factions, and to get into a position where ascension is possible, but then party will be expected to turn on each other in one session of all out, high level, magic enhanced battle royal to see who ends up controlling everything.

Most of the PCs were pretty interesting... I was following a "rule of awesome" guideline and steering people towards the most badass things they wanted, and then helping make them even better. My favourite of the PCs, though, was an Avatar of the Sun -- Favoured Soul built as a melee powerhouse, specializing in gauntlets as a weapon. Gauntlets being a crappy weapon, I gave him a ridiculously badass pair that would glow like the sun and do quite respectable damage when clasped together, and could also assume a brilliant energy form for a short amount of time per day. As an added bonus I made it so that if he ever increased in size, the powered up version would be even more badass.

One of the NPCs was the Avatar of the Black Flame -- based approximately on the Order of the Black Flame, referred to in passing in Complete Divine, the idea was that the leader of a cult of a dead god had found a girl with extraordinary powers and convinced both her and the rest of his cult that she's the physical incarnation of their god. She was classed as a gestalt warlock//monk, with only subtle invocations (skill bonusing stuff, for instance), and using Eldritch Glaive in combination with Flurry of Blows for terrifying (only moderate) cheese.

She was supposed to be a recurring villain and fight with the party but then escape on a number of occasions... instead of fighting her, though, the player with the Favoured Soul immediately became enamoured with her, and the idea of sex between avatars of the Sun and the Black Flame was just too awesome for me to question, and thus she went from enemy to lover. Worked in a plot where the cult leader (an Ur Priest) tried to kill the PC for "corrupting" his avatar... she just stood back, laughed, and said she'd go with whoever won; the PC solved this by bribing a Sun Dragon (contacted elsewhere on the map -- when he met the Sun Dragon his immediate reaction was to gouge out his eye and offer it as a sacrifice) to slaughter the Ur Priest (fight begins: dragon in brilliant energy form rises out of the ground and one hit KO's the priest with breath weapon).

Anyway, when that campaign eventually fizzled due to schedule problems and a falling out between a couple of the players, where we'd gotten was that he'd gained permission from the Rilmani to construct a temple to himself and the Black Flame inside the Rilmani controlled "Forbidden Zone," and wanted to start using the cult to recruit a following for himself.

Now, a bit over a year later, I'm reminiscing fondly about that whole affair, and thinking there's potential to revisit it. For one thing, I never ended up getting a chance to use the girl in combat, and I'd like to because I think she's totally cool. Also, my roommate and his brother want me to run a one-off for them, and using stuff I've already figured out the concept for makes prep a lot easier.

So... any ideas?

What I'm leaning toward is having the PCs be a team of assassins given the assignment of killing the heretic Avatars. Question is, what religious order should have given the kill order? A branch of the Black Flame who opposes the new direction the cult is taking and wishes to avenge their leader is a possibility, as is any group that takes seriously that one or both of the two Avatars might actually ascend to godhood and wants to prevent it from happening.

Mm... delicious potential...

unimaginable
2010-07-28, 11:22 AM
*bump* Nobody has any thoughts?

By the way, I talked to the player whose PC it was and he said he'd be totally down for playing the character as a villain, saying that was the direction he was going in anyway. One idea is to have him there for the game, mainly just chilling out and helping DM, but specifically making decisions for the villain where relevant.

Brings new meaning to DM as referee... actually have one player playing "against" the others.