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View Full Version : 4.0 DnD: Ideas for Paragon level campaign (VERY long OP)



Akulatraxis
2010-09-22, 07:05 PM
Got a bit of a DMing question, more about story than actual crunch. It needs some serious back story though so sorry for the long post in advance.

I’ve recently finished DMing a 4.0 campaign from levels 1 to 8 where the party of 4 (Female Half-elf Paladin of Khord; Female Half-elf Bard; oft drunk Male Tiefling Wizard Summoner and Male Dwarf Warlord) all went on a crusade to wipe out various abominations that were coming from the swamps near their home cities. It is set in Faerun in the very north of the Shining South though most of the lore I use and know is from 3.X.

They went forth into the swamps and tracked the abominations into some ruins that were slowly sinking away into the bog. Eventually they overcame the horrors of the ruins and the abominations that lay within eventually finding out that while the monsters originated from the ruins in the swamp they were simply the work of one insane Sorcerer called Malcolm West.

Malcolm West has some back story as a basically good man who turns his mind to working out some way to raise the dead without the use of necromancy or divine intervention. He eventually came up with a way to chemically reanimate the dead with arcane concoctions of his own design. However he was frustrated by his work since he was unable to bring soul and body together without forcing the spirit to return through the use of necromancy. His ultimate aim is immortality without the use of necromancy. He fears his own fate should he die, he is effectively a catch 22 atheist (he doesn’t believe that mortals should follow the path gods set them and so to worship any god would just be lip service on his part). He knows the gods exist but cannot commit himself to any of them since he knows that he could not worship them wholeheartedly… he still fears The Wall of the Faithless however.

In the end Malcolm’s obsession sent him slightly insane, he was forced to constantly practice on the dead and dieing to try to perfect his arcane serums and normally met with only partial success. Many of the abominations he created were simply abandoned and left to roam the swamps. Others that he could control were sent out to bring him more fresh materials.

Our heroes eventually fight their way to his laboratory and force a final confrontation. In their battle they destroy much of the underground lab (mainly due to the summons of the intoxicated wizard) including several furnaces and a few structural pillars. They knock out Malcolm West and the whole place starts coming down around them. The heroes flee and ace a skills challenge to get out before they are crushed or incinerated.

I played the last battle and skills challenge hardcore and fluffed none of my roles… the Dwarf Warlord died in the final battle with West but the rest survived the campaign relatively unscathed (though the Paladin is now horribly scarred.).

And finally we come to the point of this post. I want to, at some point, bring Malcolm West back into our campaigns. However he is dead (crushed in the middle of the destroyed ruins), and should by all rights be headed for the wall. I’ve got a few half baked ideas but would be interested to know what the playground thinks on it all.

Do you have any ideas for West’s return? Paragon tier BBEG preferably.

(P.S this is a little bit of a request for critique, I’ve been DMing for years and always get positive feedback from my players but they are all my friends and I sort of want to know what a fairly neutral crowd think of the story I’ve come up with. The whole campaign had a fairly creepy abomination theme, and I wont lie about being inspired by H.P Lovecraft in more than one area. Malcolm West’s laboratory was meant to be a very disturbing and horrid place. The ruins were based on those of the Id from Lovecraft’s short stories in the Neconomicon and such. It may also be interesting to know what people think on the idea of running the last battle of any campaign hardcore, not fluffing any roles and just seeing if the PC‘s can survive.)

Hzurr
2010-09-22, 08:10 PM
First off, your plot so far sounds good. The more Lovecraftian you are, the better.

One quick thought

- sticking with the whole Lovecraft theme, what if as he was dying, he made a pact with one of the entities of the Far Realms in order to save his own life? (mechanically, this would make him a star pact warlock, but whatever.) Essentially, since he's turned his back on the gods, he's now looking for other sources of power and he's found one in the Far Realm entities. His new plan could be to open up a portal to the Far Realms to be able to directly channel in some of that energy so he can use it to grab the souls of creatures he wants to bring back. Whether or not this will work is irrelivant, but this could lead to a number of adventures in the Paragon tier where the party is racing against him to recover/secure artifacts that could help him in this goal. If they succeed, there's one more big confrontation at the end of Paragon, and you're good. If they fail, this could lead to the epic tier consisting of fighting...eh, cthulu and his minions more or less. This also has the advantage of letting you take the players all over the place (underdark, feywild, elemental chaos, astral sea) during the paragon tier as they try and recover these artifacts before Malcolm does.

The J Pizzel
2010-09-22, 08:20 PM
First off, your plot so far sounds good. The more Lovecraftian you are, the better.

One quick thought

- sticking with the whole Lovecraft theme, what if as he was dying, he made a pact with one of the entities of the Far Realms in order to save his own life? (mechanically, this would make him a star pact warlock, but whatever.) Essentially, since he's turned his back on the gods, he's now looking for other sources of power and he's found one in the Far Realm entities. His new plan could be to open up a portal to the Far Realms to be able to directly channel in some of that energy so he can use it to grab the souls of creatures he wants to bring back. Whether or not this will work is irrelivant, but this could lead to a number of adventures in the Paragon tier where the party is racing against him to recover/secure artifacts that could help him in this goal. If they succeed, there's one more big confrontation at the end of Paragon, and you're good. If they fail, this could lead to the epic tier consisting of fighting...eh, cthulu and his minions more or less. This also has the advantage of letting you take the players all over the place (underdark, feywild, elemental chaos, astral sea) during the paragon tier as they try and recover these artifacts before Malcolm does.

So yeah. I live in Lake Charles, Louisiana (about 2 hours from you) and I'm begging you to run this. My entire group will car-pool over there and play it. And no, I'm not joking.

Akulatraxis
2010-09-22, 08:46 PM
An interesting concept Hzurr, sparks a few ideas. Maybe even have them not know they are facing West? I really like the idea that West makes a pact with something in the far realm. You’ve hit the nail on the head with the idea of West not really knowing about the true causality of his actions. A race to defeat him is a really solid idea. Should he beat them in the race they would have to face some creature that makes it through from the far realm, a sort of Cuthulu type beast.

Anyone have anything else?

Hzurr
2010-09-22, 09:21 PM
So yeah. I live in Lake Charles, Louisiana (about 2 hours from you) and I'm begging you to run this. My entire group will car-pool over there and play it. And no, I'm not joking.


Unfortunately, I recently had to give up my RL game (where the plot was actually going to be very similar to this) because my work schedule got a bit crazy; so I can't really run any games at the moment, but I'll take it as a complement. :smallsmile:


@Akulatraxis

One general rule I like to keep in mind for campaigns that you're planning on taking up through paragon & epic (and I think this was mentioned in one of the DMGs), is that Paragon is a great time to start branching out of the prime world, because at that point, PCs are getting to be some of the most powerful creatures on the material world; so anything that will take them to the feywild, underdark, possibly sigil or the elemental chaos I highly encourage.

Once you get to Epic, that's when you start doing things like raiding the Abyss or storming the gates of hell. Y'know, fun stuff like that; because Epic Tier characters should be interacting with Archfiends and dieties and such. I tend to like the Far Realms monsters, because that helps me justify why the gods don't just step in and end these universe-threatening events; since divine power is a bit wonky when it comes to the Far Realms. (Other really good end-game bosses are either dieties themselves, like Tiamut or Torog, or Primordials, or Demon Princes. Also, the second Mephistopholes has stats, He's going to become an end villain in some campaign I run).

Mando Knight
2010-09-22, 09:25 PM
so I can't really run any games at the moment, but I'll take it as a complement. :smallsmile:

Except, y'know, this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165206).

...Right? :smallamused:

Hzurr
2010-09-23, 02:24 PM
Except, y'know, this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165206).

...Right? :smallamused:

PbP is different from real life, MORAN!:smallfurious:


:smalltongue:

Mordokai
2010-09-23, 02:52 PM
(P.S this is a little bit of a request for critique, I’ve been DMing for years and always get positive feedback from my players but they are all my friends and I sort of want to know what a fairly neutral crowd think of the story I’ve come up with. The whole campaign had a fairly creepy abomination theme, and I wont lie about being inspired by H.P Lovecraft in more than one area. Malcolm West’s laboratory was meant to be a very disturbing and horrid place. The ruins were based on those of the Id from Lovecraft’s short stories in the Neconomicon and such. It may also be interesting to know what people think on the idea of running the last battle of any campaign hardcore, not fluffing any roles and just seeing if the PC‘s can survive.)

To me, it sounds like you put a lot of work and thought in your campaigns and I like that in DM. If players enjoy it, your work is done and done well. I like the creepy and aberrant themes and H.P. Lovercraft is probably one of the best inspirations you can get. I would love to play in a campaign like that.

As for killing PCs in the last battle... mixed feelings there. I never like my characters dying, but I guess if it's done correctly and not out of spite or something similar that would be actually kind of cool. If my character dies in a glorious way (if there is such thing as glorious death) and his/her death has meaning, I find that cool and satisfying. If you killed him/her just for your sick amusement (which doesn't seem to be the case with you), then get ready for castration :smalltongue:

Meta
2010-09-23, 03:04 PM
You could have him come back as a revenant. The raven queen is known to make people revenants for various reasons. Given his lack of faith and the fact that she hates necromancy and other means of avoiding death, I could see her screwing with this character by making him a revenant but on her terms. Like he doesn't remember his past-life, or she did it to mock him because she just accomplished resurrection soul and all, or various other appropriate reasons.

Sipex
2010-09-23, 03:09 PM
In another vein, he was destroyed in his lab full of various chemicals and what have you that are made to raise the dead (and results in abominations).

He's affected on death and turns into a sort of primal creature ala resident evil nemesis. This means he is sentient but only JUST and is very single minded so give him a goal to mindlessly work towards, maybe combine it with the above ideas. He met with the gods of the Far Realm and now must complete his goal to gain his original body back. He doesn't know much about his goal except 'go here, do this, gather that' and doesn't realise that the end will result in his demise as his already altered body is warped and turned into a horrible monstrosity.

For the character, have him start out warped and human sized, shambling along to whatever goal. As he goes along he evolves into a much more horrible and formidable foe. Parts of him fall off and turn into monstrosities with their own minds (Gibbering Beasts might be an idea). He needs a way to avoid death though, either by avoiding a direct confrontation with the party (constantly leaving surprises for them instead) or having a good escape route (being able to morph into an undescribable puddle and seep into things would fit the theme).

Meta
2010-09-23, 03:14 PM
In another vein, he was destroyed in his lab full of various chemicals and what have you that are made to raise the dead (and results in abominations).

He's affected on death and turns into a sort of primal creature ala resident evil nemesis. This means he is sentient but only JUST and is very single minded so give him a goal to mindlessly work towards, maybe combine it with the above ideas. He met with the gods of the Far Realm and now must complete his goal to gain his original body back. He doesn't know much about his goal except 'go here, do this, gather that' and doesn't realise that the end will result in his demise as his already altered body is warped and turned into a horrible monstrosity.

For the character, have him start out warped and human sized, shambling along to whatever goal. As he goes along he evolves into a much more horrible and formidable foe. Parts of him fall off and turn into monstrosities with their own minds (Gibbering Beasts might be an idea). He needs a way to avoid death though, either by avoiding a direct confrontation with the party (constantly leaving surprises for them instead) or having a good escape route (being able to morph into an undescribable puddle and seep into things would fit the theme).

this is a good idea methinks