Asklepian
2011-09-13, 12:45 AM
Forgive me for what follows: it's about my home game, so the tendency is to run long in my descriptions. I will try to keep this under control. :smalltongue:
Background:
So, the group I DM for has just broken through into Paragon tier, and they're all very excited about their new abilities and where the story is headed. The first act was a huge success, starting with them on the run from the bad guys and ending with them assembling an army from all the allies they had accrued and storming their headquarters and laying it to waste. Some of the enemy leaders escaped, however, and there are hints of a much larger conspiracy than they originally believed.
So, I laid out several plot hooks for them at the beginning of the new act, giving them some options on where to take the campaign. One of them was the discovery in ancient records of the existence of a single archangel left in a demiplane attached to this world when the gods otherwise withdrew from it. This being can only be reached by those who gather a specific key from the high priest of a faith in which they have true belief. I won't get hugely into why they want to talk to this archangel so badly. Short version: knowledge, mostly, since he was there when something very important happened at the beginning of recorded history.
Now, my (foolish) thought when I laid out this hook is they would get one key for one person, who would go in an talk to the archangel and then emerge and tell the others of fabulous revelations and whatnot. In a move I should have anticipated, the group instead decided to get a key for every single one of them, so they could all go in and talk to him.
Obviously, this turns the plot for the next few sessions into pretty much a fetch quest: collect the keys, unlock the gate, whathaveyou. I mentioned outright that I wasn't wanting to trap them in a cliche, but they all actually seemed very excited about the prospect of doing this, since religion is very important to most of their character concepts. So, I'm going to try and run with it and make a cliche as cool as I can.
So, I have to come up with (hopefully) awesome quests related to garnering the favor of the high priests of six gods, each in turn. The gods and ideas I currently have are as follows:
The Raven Queen - The group will arrive at the temple to find that priests and mourners alike have been going missing in the vast, labyrinthine catacombs beneath the temple. Solving the mystery will earn them this key. It will turn out that a person, infused with demonic essence as part of a dark experiment, has made a deal with Orcus, on the promise that the demon lord will remove the essence when the deal is fulfilled. The man is essentially conducting a massive ritual involving corrupted elemental manifestations wreaking havoc in the catacombs, which will eventually both desecrate the entirety of the surrounding lands, and punch a hole through to the Abyss at the center. This is the sort of thing that should probably be prevented, and hopefully they will.
Bane - A Blackguard of Gruumsh has raised a dark crusade to lay siege to the high temple of Bane. His armies must be fought through and the blackguard defeated before the defenses of the temple finally crumble beneath the onslaught. (This may seem simple, but it will appeal to the player of the character who worships Bane.)
Erathis - ? Not sure? I'm thinking maybe something like Croatoan has happened at a frontier colony, and they church wants them to investigate and save the colonists... but that's all I've really got here. I could just skip this one, really: the character is a powerful priest of Erathis, it wouldn't be unthinkable for them to just hand the key over in this case.
Sehanine - A grand, traveling circus dedicated to Sehanine seems to have fallen under dark influences of late, with people in the visited towns disappearing and horrifying rumors wafting about. Investigation by the group will unveil a monstrous creature they allowed to escape in an earlier adventure, an exalted brain in a jar, has seized control of the circus leaders and begun to turn it into his own private freakshow of experimental subjects. The group must figure out what is going on, and destroy the brain, before the circus's and thus the church's reputation are tarnished forever.
Melora - ? Just... not a clue here, honeestly. Could desperately use some help.
Avandra - ? Again, short on ideas. The character this one is for is the rightful heir to the throne of a great empire, and the current king has a tendency to enslave those who cannot pay their extortion-level taxes. So I'm thinking maybe the church will send them to destroy a slave ring where these people are being sold off? I don't know. Open to suggestions.
So, that's what I have so far. Any help with brainstorming would be appreciated. I'll happily provide any other information anybody needs to come up with an idea, I just didn't want to spam this first post with loads of unnecessary background.
Background:
So, the group I DM for has just broken through into Paragon tier, and they're all very excited about their new abilities and where the story is headed. The first act was a huge success, starting with them on the run from the bad guys and ending with them assembling an army from all the allies they had accrued and storming their headquarters and laying it to waste. Some of the enemy leaders escaped, however, and there are hints of a much larger conspiracy than they originally believed.
So, I laid out several plot hooks for them at the beginning of the new act, giving them some options on where to take the campaign. One of them was the discovery in ancient records of the existence of a single archangel left in a demiplane attached to this world when the gods otherwise withdrew from it. This being can only be reached by those who gather a specific key from the high priest of a faith in which they have true belief. I won't get hugely into why they want to talk to this archangel so badly. Short version: knowledge, mostly, since he was there when something very important happened at the beginning of recorded history.
Now, my (foolish) thought when I laid out this hook is they would get one key for one person, who would go in an talk to the archangel and then emerge and tell the others of fabulous revelations and whatnot. In a move I should have anticipated, the group instead decided to get a key for every single one of them, so they could all go in and talk to him.
Obviously, this turns the plot for the next few sessions into pretty much a fetch quest: collect the keys, unlock the gate, whathaveyou. I mentioned outright that I wasn't wanting to trap them in a cliche, but they all actually seemed very excited about the prospect of doing this, since religion is very important to most of their character concepts. So, I'm going to try and run with it and make a cliche as cool as I can.
So, I have to come up with (hopefully) awesome quests related to garnering the favor of the high priests of six gods, each in turn. The gods and ideas I currently have are as follows:
The Raven Queen - The group will arrive at the temple to find that priests and mourners alike have been going missing in the vast, labyrinthine catacombs beneath the temple. Solving the mystery will earn them this key. It will turn out that a person, infused with demonic essence as part of a dark experiment, has made a deal with Orcus, on the promise that the demon lord will remove the essence when the deal is fulfilled. The man is essentially conducting a massive ritual involving corrupted elemental manifestations wreaking havoc in the catacombs, which will eventually both desecrate the entirety of the surrounding lands, and punch a hole through to the Abyss at the center. This is the sort of thing that should probably be prevented, and hopefully they will.
Bane - A Blackguard of Gruumsh has raised a dark crusade to lay siege to the high temple of Bane. His armies must be fought through and the blackguard defeated before the defenses of the temple finally crumble beneath the onslaught. (This may seem simple, but it will appeal to the player of the character who worships Bane.)
Erathis - ? Not sure? I'm thinking maybe something like Croatoan has happened at a frontier colony, and they church wants them to investigate and save the colonists... but that's all I've really got here. I could just skip this one, really: the character is a powerful priest of Erathis, it wouldn't be unthinkable for them to just hand the key over in this case.
Sehanine - A grand, traveling circus dedicated to Sehanine seems to have fallen under dark influences of late, with people in the visited towns disappearing and horrifying rumors wafting about. Investigation by the group will unveil a monstrous creature they allowed to escape in an earlier adventure, an exalted brain in a jar, has seized control of the circus leaders and begun to turn it into his own private freakshow of experimental subjects. The group must figure out what is going on, and destroy the brain, before the circus's and thus the church's reputation are tarnished forever.
Melora - ? Just... not a clue here, honeestly. Could desperately use some help.
Avandra - ? Again, short on ideas. The character this one is for is the rightful heir to the throne of a great empire, and the current king has a tendency to enslave those who cannot pay their extortion-level taxes. So I'm thinking maybe the church will send them to destroy a slave ring where these people are being sold off? I don't know. Open to suggestions.
So, that's what I have so far. Any help with brainstorming would be appreciated. I'll happily provide any other information anybody needs to come up with an idea, I just didn't want to spam this first post with loads of unnecessary background.