Filling out a world: A DM's request.

[Ranting Fool]

Hello playgrounders! I was hoping you could help me populate an area as of yet unexplored by my PC's but not yet fully sorted out by me.

*spoiler* Voidling and Mortuus please do not read any more as while your characters may have found out some info knowing the rest will spoil things (and cause books to be thrown at you*


Right I have an area of a few hundred square miles and I haven't decided what monsters could be bumped into. The land in question is often referred to as the "Cursed land" or something along those lines by NPC's but the PC's have taken to calling it "The Mage wasteland".
The whole land is meant to be fallout from a epic magic style civil war. It's not a waste land as such but the land is meant to be highly dangerous and death to low level NPC's who go near there.

Things known about it:
There are living spells floating around.
Giant (dire) animals. (Maybe Titanic)
Elementals have been talked about.
Random spell effects such as walls of fire stretching for miles.
The Wizards who had the civil war were known for using a lot of Necromantic magic and pacts with Devils (But were destroyed in the end by themselves and a Demon invasion)

So what I'd like is a bit of help filling in the world, as I've got the main plot arc encounters and BBEG + Minions but would like to have some random encounters or just sights to make this place seem like a crazy magic gone wild area.

Good templates?
Monsters that really should make an appearance?
Crazy encounters you've used that could work?
Random crap to mess with my PC's (Such as talking rocks)

Thanks

[avr]

Rather than talking rocks, animated objects or mindless undead perfoming the tasks they did before the war. The dangerous version involves them firing siege engines or similar as they did during the war.

What sort of level/CR are we talking about here?

[Ranting Fool]

What sort of level/CR are we talking about here?

Party will be levels 9-10 when they go here but I'm happy for CR to be from 5-15 (The big scary things shouldn't be that common)

[hoverfrog]

I suggest having templated regions within the Cursed Land. Say an area where everything has the Horrid template or are Giant forms or where everything has a mouth and gibbers wildly and Gibbering Mouthers wander freely. Another area could be burning hot and populated by Azer, Fire Elementals, Salamanders, etc. Another could be deep in perpetual shadow and home to undead of all kinds, maybe even ordinary peasants, knights, etc but skeletons who rise up after they are killed to continue with their "lives".

Do you want spooky, scary, disturbing, horrifying, threatening or what from the region?

[killianh]

warptouch from BoVD as an airborne disease in certain areas.

Spellstitched undead EVERYWHERE

Warriors of Darkness from the war left behind that have gone feral.

No natural wild animals: only pseudonatural, tauric, or chimeras, or all three!

zombified treants (not necessary they be undead mind you)

Spell turrets that have been treated as shrines to the feral mineral warrior barbarians that were left behind in the wasteland

That's the best I can come up with without more info on setting style, CR, etc etc

EDIT: just read the CR and the like

[avr]

By that level the party really should be able to fly, so giant animals and static walls of fire are not that big a deal. Perpetual storms could have an effect on that in some areas.

Actually - you've got a perfect excuse to have a decrepit castle on a hill surrounded by a perpetual storm and inhabited by vampires. Do it and then play against the stereotype somewhere within...

Since I'm on the subject of storms, rain doesn't have to be water in this place. It could be icky (e.g. blood), passively dangerous (ice, fire, etc), or actively dangerous (e.g. elementals, or frogs which grow/voltron into slaadi).

Vampires are the best bet for pre-war survivors. They don't have to be suave and gothic. The scruffy hermit who has some information they want could be originally a wizard who dump-statted charisma and who hasn't talked to anyone in a century.

A bone devil collecting a tremendous number of bones for some obscure or artistic purpose could create some weird visuals. Especially with its' at-will wall of ice and major image. If the players want to negotiate with it, it might want some special bones.

[Gotterdammerung]

I had a similar opportunity as a GM.

For the monsters, I used d&d's flexible nature to create my own monsters (it was easy, the monster manual explains it all real well), reskin monsters (example: it looks like a gargoyle but its actually a lvl 7 warlock), and cyborg monsters (example: take a cockatrices petrifying peck and add it to a grey render).

The end result actually took me less time to fill out than if I would have dug for normal monsters and dug for weird appropriate templates and then tried to put them together. AND it was way more fun.

The world had a unique and fantastic feel. And it really helped to sell the story to the players. These long time D and D aficionado's had to respect the dangers of the world.

Spend some time thinking creatively about what kind of monster would survive the area, and see what you come up with. Then use one of these 3 afore mentioned tools (create from scratch, re-skin, or cyborg) to give the idea life.

Example, maybe Dire Cockroach

Using the "monster manual"

Assign an elite array of stats, 15,14,13,12,10,8 (make sure to end with - for int because bugs is dumb, and most insects have a cha of 2-3ish) [I recommend 15, 12, 14, -, 13, 4
+1 CR for elite array

Increase it to large size
23,10,18,-,13,4
+1 CR for large

Give it +6 str +4 con +2 wis and +2 cha and all good base saves for being dire
29,10,22,-,15,6
+1 CR for dire

Give it special attacks
Stench- save based on con
A paralyzing proboscis- +5 foot further reach than normal attacks, no damage, can be used as part of a full attack like the morgh, Fort negates, save based on con
+2 CR for special attacks that significantly improve combat effectiveness

Special qualities and modes of movement.
Go with what makes sense.
Scent, tremorsense, flight, dark vision, vermin traits
Now add things that make sense to the world. Maybe low SR to represent the adaption to a magic infused hostile area. Maybe 5+ HD SR?
+1 for special qualities that improve combat effectiveness in a minor way

So with a little bit of work we have a CR 6 0 hit dice chassis.

Now we have a quick choice. We get 4 hit dice for every one CR we add from this point. So do we want lower CR for swarming power, or higher CR for big scary monster.

Lets do both
8 hit dice = CR 8
30,10,22,-,16,6

16 hit dice = CR 10
30,10,24,-,16,6

24 hit dice= CR 12
30,10,26,-,16,6


Now you are just left with some quick fill in the blanks clerical work. I.E. assigning bite damage, calculating numbers based on animal hit dice, figuring out saves, assigning a natural armor bonus, ect ect.(dont do feats or skills, remmeber, bugs is dumb)

Then the last step is to compare what you made to other similar CR's to see how close you got to balanced.

That is the create it from scratch ,method.

Pro's- if done well you can keep this monster and use it again someday.
It holds up better under scrutiny over the other methods.
Con's- it is the most time consuming of the 3 methods. (but still quicker than diggin in a bunch a books imo)

Example of same idea but using re-skin
Change a morghs undead hit dice to vermin hit dice and switch out the claws for a bite then call it a dire cockroach.

Pro's- it is quick
Con's- there will be compatibility hiccups that you will have to fix on the fly.

Example of Cyborg
Take the underdarks Giant cockroach and give it all good saves+ Stench+ a paralyzing tentacle+ SR then adjust the CR a reasonable amount.

Pro's/Con's- it is sort of in the middle between the other 2 methods on all issues.

Have fun.

[DeusMortuusEst]

Perhaps a city/fortress where the inhabitants tried to save themselves by messing with time magic. The result is a giant invisible bubble covering the entire area and everyone who were inside by the time of casting are affected by a time stop spell. This means that the players can't really affect anyone, they're like statues, frozen in time.

Anyone who enters the bubble starts to slow down as the magic tries to get a hold of them. First, perhaps reduce speed and force them to make fort/will saves. For every failed save give a new penalty, perhaps fewer actions/turn etc. If the PC:s fail too many saves they too are frozen and must be carried out of the bubble in order to un-freeze them.

If the PC:s manage to break the spell the everyone inside just rots away as the normal time stream catches up with them.

[Orsen]

How about a soldier, or maybe even a full unit, that are trapped in a loop repeating their actions, conversations and thoughts from the final day of the war. They seem blind to the real world, only seeing the past, but if they are physically interacted with, they act as if something invisible has moved them.

Additionally, I really like this template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/diamond-cr-2), it's meant for pathfinder but I see nothing in it that won't allow it to be switched to 3.5 perfectly.


zombified treants (not necessary they be undead mind you)

One up this idea. It just sounds awesome to me!

[Kol Korran]

ok, several thoughts and ideas:

1) your idea has some semblence to Eberron's Mournland- a land devastated by Epic Magic, in it there are strange and weird magical effects. some people on the wizards boards did a thread called 1001 Morunland Horrors (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19785742/1001_Mournland_Horrors) which has some mediocre ideas, some bad ideas, but here and there some really true gems. i'd suggest you look it over.

2) some ideas from the time my PCs traveled through a similar landscape:
- huge trees, who seem to have partial features of humanoids, singing ina a low melancholic voice. you may give the songs some meaning, or perhaps some effect on the listeners. i'll leave it to you.

- at a certain battlefield, the party is suddenly attacked by soldiers, thinking they are the enemy from the war, only to fade into mists once they are defeated. but perhaps they brand the characters some way? in the marks of their side of the war? this could enable the party entrance to several places, but also haunts them with memories, visions and the like.

- In The Forge of War (an Eberron book), there is the lovely Mystling template, which enables you to seriously corrupt a fey. one of the itneresting abilities is to cause a spell to become a living spell! i used it with a dryad who caused a lightning storm (energy substitution fire storm) with several shambling mounds. (or whateverthe plant creature that heals from electricity is called). you can read about it on this page (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11386689&postcount=64) though the log doesn't give much descriptions about the encounter.

- the party also had an interesting encounter with the... "organ seller". a mysterious being that offered to sell them parts of different creatures, bestowing some of their powers, for a... price. it is one of the most remembered encounters in the campaign. it's on the same page as above, under "May i interest you in a small purchase?"

- earlier in the Mournland the party encountered MASSIVE grave yard, with strange crows. the crows hackled them, but once they were attacked, the attacking figure fell to the floor rigid. what really happened is that it was transported wrapped up and bound, underground, in a coffin. what was left above was it's duplicate. the party then had to rush and find which grave it was in, before the character suffocated. a bit of an odd encounter, to be sure, but it had left it's mark on the party, mostly on the entombed character. the player considered it a turning point. under The Epitaths (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11219233&postcount=53)

3) Hotel California: i was inspired by this amusing idea (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170215&highlight=hotel+california), but i haven't got to run it yet. but the idea could be interesting- at some point an inn where they might rest (give it a plauisable excuse for existing) but they can't seem to leave, unless they solve some weird and strange mystery...

4) other ideas:
- there is a place of solace, of refuge, of rest. the place is guarded by Gargoyles, but not the usual gargoyles, but guardian gargoyles. here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4351479&postcount=8) and here (http://http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4351489&postcount=9). the gargoyles have some mission, some code protecting this specific area, and may allow the characters to rest there, IF they keep to some rules. but what are those rules? how can you converse with the stoic silent gargoyles? how many are there here? how many types? and we keep finding their strange cryptic gargoyle script.... it seems to be getting more urgent, what does it mean?

as well as a safe house, the place (possibly a small ruind city? village? temple?) can be used as a site for a parley, negotiations and such...

- the flying fortress:at some points the party might see a flying fortress, but when approached it may employ many mundane and magical defenses. the fortress is a wizard who got his wish: "be as safe as in the world's safest fortress". what the wizard does i leave to you- maybe he's looking for a way to free itself? perhaps it seeks domination? perhaps it seeks the demon to reverse the spell? perhaps it is just bored? perhaps it is crazy? perhaps it seeks love? directly trying to dispatch of the fortress should be difficult. but i suggest even LEARNING the truth of the fortress should prove hazardous.

- the webs we weave... a strange bradn of Aranea arcanist have found a way to let their webs reach far, fast, and between dimensions. a place could have a small webe, with a string leading into... nowhere. those in the know might use this knowledge, to tap to the thread and travel through the web (which should have some guards) to distant locals. the Araneas are... diffuicult at best to deal with, and will guard this secret with their lives. if the party decides to porve difficult, they may have spidery mage assasins on their trail. you could put some strange template on them to make them creepier, like an undead template or shadow/ dark templates. i made some work of the aranea, here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6928935&postcount=30) and http://http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6928942&postcount=31

hope this helps!

[Gotterdammerung]

Consider haunting the place with broken warped spirits of mages claimed by the lands. Instead of turning this concept into creature encounters, make them a part of the challenge of the landscape.

Maybe when the parties wizard tries to summon a celestial rhinoceros, a twisted conjurer spirit decides it likes snakes better and summons a constrictor snake.

Maybe when someone casts a fireball, a twisted pyromaniac spirit excitedly adds widen, maximize, and empower to the spell. If the unexpectedly big area catches some party members or even the caster, the spirit cackles with glee. Either way the party can hear a subtle soft maniacal chant of "Burn, burn, burn!"

Maybe a depressed diviner spirit piggybacks in on your divination spells and poisons them with her negativity. Whenever someone attempts a divination, they might only see glimpses of the worst future possible.

Leave clues of their sinister influence over spells, and when the party clearly figures out their existence and nature, let them make caster lvl checks, or a will save, or an opposed charisma check to break the spirits influence.




Consider letting the cursed land rub off on one or more of the players in a sort of boon/curse.

Take a look at intelligent magic items and how ego works. And then use those rules to create some sort of intelligent tumor or living shadow to infect a player with.
Give it a low ego and some nifty defensive abilities. Give it some temptingly potent offensive abilities.
It will use the defensive abilities on its own to protect its host. And it will tempt the owner to call for it to use its more potent arsenal.
If the player uses the more potent abilities the creature gets a larger ego. As its ego gets larger it gets more and more abilities. But if the player continues to give in to temptation the creatures ego will get so big it will take over the players body.

If the player does not ask it to use the more potent stuff, it will remain small and powerless to take over the player.

Make sure and give the player an opportunity to purge the creature in the beginning if they decide they don't want it.

[Schylerwalker]

I don't know if you've already thought of it, but I recommend a stronghold near the border of the Cursed Lands, populated by friendly paladins, clerics, rangers, an wizards. These men and women scout the Cursed Lands, patrol its borders, and provide a place to rest and resupply for brave souls on ventures into the wasteland. Wizards there might reward adventurers for bringing them back samples of strange magical creatures, and the holy warriors could give quests to retrieve ancient artifacts lost in the waste.

There are many underused creatures in the Monster Manuals (Many with good reason). Go for the strange and bizarre but still mildly plausible. Take the yrthak, for example. A dangerous creature, but a blind flying predator just doesn't make that much sense. Give it an environment to hunt in; say a series of winding canyons littered with caves and box crevasses where it can lie in wait, then partially bury people with cave-ins and avalanches. The rifts could be populated with similar monsters as its normal food supply and additional wandering encounters. Toss in some ropers (Disguised as rock formations), some ankhegs and stirge swarms, and you've got a whole little magical beast ecosystem!

As for living spells, they're kind of old hat. An interesting concept, but most everyone prefers to think of them as horrible ravaging atrocities that rampage across the countryside. Look to the roleplaying aspect them. Think of a major image that's an imprint of one of those ancient mages; he wanders the wastes, saying the same messages over and over again. Or a whispering wind spell that whistles across the waste, making one last defiant gesture or a plea for mercy. A living faerie fire may look dangerous, but it only wants to cuddle with and illuminate you!

The Cursed Lands are treacherous and angry, and the dungeons and ruins you populate them with -- if any -- should reflect that. Imagine an overgrown castle, with advanced assassin vines that grab party members and their equipment and hold them in place while traps tear them apart, undead druids horrified with their condition, and parts of the castle just getting up and walking away, causing the party to become horribly lost.

When I hear "the Cursed Lands," I think of curses and the people who inflict them. Historically, witches and hags. Why not have several coveys of hags wander the wastes? They'd communicate with each other with brooms of flying and by "taming" the living whispering wind spells. The hags could even be the descendants of female sorcerers and wizards, doomed to roam the lands in their twisted forms.

That's all I've got for the moment. Tell me what you think, and tell me if you use any of them!

[Ranting Fool]

Thank you all for the wonderful advice, your posts helped give me ideas and remind me of a few old ideas that I never got around to using. All the advice on templates and monsters has given me lots to think on and plan, since having a short brake on this campaign due to people going on holiday I've got time to do some real detail.

I don't want to have it TOO overpopulated with wondering monsters but there will be a fair few ruined watch towers (Those long dead mages are already known to have a bunch of them) as well as the main city (which as of yet isn't part of any main plot hook)


Do you want spooky, scary, disturbing, horrifying, threatening or what from the region?
@hoverfrog my games tend towards a lot of light hearted adventure. Heroic action hero types slinging one liners happily slaying evil until they bump into something rather horrific such as a mutilated man whose been kept alive by magic so he can suffer for his "Crime" of defying an Archmage (Well the poor guy did kind of start the civil war but it wasn't his fault) and the poor man sobs quietly begging the PC's to kill him.
So a bit of gothic horror vampire action could be done... though my sense of humor must be stopped as I can envision a vampire with a cursed item of glitter dust so he... sparkles....

@DeusMortuusEst. The "City trapped in time" was one of my original notions for this area but now have changed the main plot a bit so it wouldn't work quite so well (Survivors from the civil war would be a bad thing) though one idea I've been tempted to use for an encounter...

PC's come across a Archmage completing some vast and complex spell/ritual. Just before the final utterance another future version of the Archmage appears and stabs/disintegrates his younger self saying something along the lines of "Fool! The consequences are too great"... then being all paradox ridden the whole event resets itself. Though I couldn't decide what would happen if the PC's get involved.

@Kol Korran: Lots of nice ideas thanks, I like the "Organ seller" as that would fit very nicely with some established lore within my world.

@Schylerwalker: I've planned to have a Stronghold within the wastes. These people have gotten there via a gateway from the coast (the waste are quite inland) and the gateway was left over from the dead mages (all sorts of funky stuff has been found) the people in the stronghold think they are either in another world/hell place and are suffering attacks from an as of yet unthought-of Evil. But hey the gateway led to an old mine rich in rare magic metal (thinking mithral or something) so it's worth the risk.

I've also got a main-ish plot point encounter with an elvish druid that has been trapped/banished to the waste for the last few hundred years. I want him/her to be trapped within a grove which is hard to get to/hard to find but still somehow signal when the PC's get near (Can't be sending spell OR any form of animal messenger, main plot reasons) something like a flashing light in the sky to draw the PC's off course to go see it (If they want to check it out)

Oh and Yes the PC's can fly very well by level 9-10 and will have no trouble bypassing walls of fire or other such hazards but I wanted to put them in to show how scary/hard it would be for any non-PC awesome types to come wondering this land.

A few examples of places that our PC's have found that was built by the dead Archmage.

An underground ship building plant for small (4 man-ish) magic enchanted boats to sail underwater so the mages could study the life circles in a bit of comfort.

A 50 floor tower, each tower a mini-dimension to explore some aspect of the planes/effect of different magic. One floor having an entire world built by one arch mage, the floor titled "Manpower solutions" was filled with clones of the Archmage... and Goblin versions of his cloned self as well as hill giant versions of his cloned self. They even came across what they thought to be "native" life in the land of the clones which turns out to be a descendent of a female version of his clone self breeding with a male clone. Most the clones were quite mad and fanatically about how their God (the Archmage) made them in his image. Oh also they all had the same name.

A "Watch tower of force" which couldn't be seen (unless you put some dirt on it) a small staircase in the middle of a valley led up 250ft to a platform with a signal fire in it

among other things.


Also I was thinking of a "Clear lake with something seen in the middle under water" the lake being acid. Question: Does acid have a clear smell? a bit of illusion magic could easily make it look like water.

Again thanks for the ideas, even if they don't get used now they will be saved for later.:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[Gotterdammerung]

awe :frown:

No @Gotterdammerung

I didn't make the cut ; ;

Anyway sounds like you got helped good and found whatcha needed. Win for the playground.

Stop back by and let us know how it goes.

[hoverfrog]

So many good suggestions. Can I play in your game? :smallcool:


So a bit of gothic horror vampire action could be done... though my sense of humor must be stopped as I can envision a vampire with a cursed item of glitter dust so he... sparkles....You fiend.

Carrying on from Schylerwalker's suggest of a nearby keep (which is excellent and so obvious I don't know why I didn't think of it) you might consider some "safe" havens within the cursed region. A keep protected by a knight, an abandoned cave with a magical pool that heals people who drink from it, a (not undead) treant who offers his grove for use by those who would lift the curse from his brothers, etc.

[Ranting Fool]

How could I forget you Gotterdammerung! ALL HAIL Gotterdammerung! :smallbiggrin: and yes thanks to you too :smallbiggrin:


So many good suggestions. Can I play in your game? :smallcool:

You fiend.

Carrying on from Schylerwalker's suggest of a nearby keep (which is excellent and so obvious I don't know why I didn't think of it) you might consider some "safe" havens within the cursed region. A keep protected by a knight, an abandoned cave with a magical pool that heals people who drink from it, a (not undead) treant who offers his grove for use by those who would lift the curse from his brothers, etc.

I don't want to have TOO many safe places when the PC's first go there... it's meant to be bloody dangerous. That said there are a few factions who wouldn't mind some sort of outpost near the edge (this is a "new" land that has been "Discoved" so lots of land grabbing though only the PC's and a few others have realised that it's a demi-plane with a massive rift in the ocean of both worlds) there is an Artificers guild that are just turning up who would love little outposts to steal/harvest any magic they can from the place.

[Gotterdammerung]

(this is a "new" land that has been "Discoved" so lots of land grabbing

Hmmm, newly discovered yet inhospitable land...

You could probably get a few bits of inspiration from a louisiana history book (Louisiana is the under F.U.P.A. of the U.S.). It was quite inhospitable when first discovered, BUT because of the mississipi river it was incredibly valuable as a port to whoever held it. It was basically the on ramp to the highway of America.

Countries would flat out lie and tell people it was a paradise then award them land and titles for moving there, and because the trip was so expensive by the time they arrived and saw the lie for what it was, they couldn't afford to leave.

It has also been used for holding prisoners throughout time. (And to this day still holds on to that heritage, leading the nation in number of prisons).

Oh, and Pirates/thieves would hide out there too. It was the kind of place the law did NOT want to chase you into. (a lot of the politicians from Louisiana keep that heritage alive).

Meh, maybe...maybe not...either way
Now you know

[The Redwolf]

Haven't read through, so some of these things may have already been suggested, but illusions could be good such as what the armies used to look like or some of the combat, traps placed in the area between where they supposedly fought, strange weather patterns (either often changing weather or different types of weather on different sections of the plain) ghosts/skeletons/zombies of former soldiers, some sort of curse to break, natural disasters, extraplanar beings or templates (implied they were summoned during the war or that the area is unstable and crosses over with other planes maybe), stuff like that.

[ima donkey]

I haven't read all the previous posts but if you have the BoVD you should look into evil weather, that could be alot of fun you could go with the raining frogs and fish. Or perhaps have them wander across some sort of magic item that creates a field that turns things inside its radius into a random animal but they turn back when they exit its radius. Or perhaps have some sort of monster who attacks every night but even when they kill it it continues to come back.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

Have Cadaver Collectors just roaming the wastes. Make most of them non-aggressive, but have a few that will try to make fresh corpses to collect. That should add a weird feel to the place.

[Ranting Fool]

Well my players have been to the waste (though not yet went to the core part I had planned so this was very helpful :smallbiggrin: ) a rather long account of what happened and a few questions at the end if anyone feels like helping out some more :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:


Have Cadaver Collectors just roaming the wastes. Make most of them non-aggressive, but have a few that will try to make fresh corpses to collect. That should add a weird feel to the place.

One Giant Corpse Collector walking around a ruined keep (which just happens to have a 1000ft wide ring of magic blood about 2 inches thick) endlessly digging up bodies and having bodies fall of itself. Worked out quite well as scary / creepy :smallbiggrin:

Things they have seen:

Around the "Border" or the waste is 500 foot-ish strip of land that has been turned into glass. No explanation. Just broken glass with blackened soil under it. Set the mood nicely as the PC's crossed on hyper paranoid mode :smallbiggrin:

The land is hilly and slightly wooded. The NPC Ranger they got to come along tells them that the trees all SEEM normal, but totally in the wrong environment.

A small white rabbit hopped right in front of the party. Bounced. Ran away. Stopped. Turned round and bounced again. waited until a PC moved closer then ran away and hopped again. PC's have been dealing with lots of Druids and Casters so think, well either a Druid or pet/familiar. Follow to a hidden grotto overgrown with giant thorns (My trapped druid idea) who sent them off to find the heart of a Belor to free him in exchange for knowledge (since it was a very old elf they REALLY wanted him to answer some questions)

which leads to the corpse collector and moat of blood. Old Armory, top half totally disintegrated and everything including some bodies have been turned to stone. rather creepy. lots of long dead bodies clearly lined up to defend the place. The find a cellar and go down. The door opens but there is some sort of "Wall of blood" after a bit of poking and "oh **** it lets charge through" the PC's enter some small command bunker type place (magic table which shows a top down view of the area but is broken) with some dead bodies (hung themselves) words written in blood "no escape" they find a room with a magic locked door they get passed and see...

The Mage Trapped in Time.
A 40ish old Arch Mage (the ones who were in the civil war that messed this place up in the first place) in some sort of lab. half the room is rotted and old, the other half is new and clean. The mage isn't looking at the party, focused upon his work. He raises a crystal ball up and laughs "at LAST now I'll fix this whole mess!"
A moment later a "Tear" in the world appears and an older (60-70) version of the same mage charges forward screaming "You FOOL!" and stabs his younger and totally shocked self in the face with a very heavily enchanted dagger. Then the whole scene resets itself. The PC's are nicely freaked out and being rather big science fiction fans grin happily at the paradox.

They decide that they need to stop the mages older self from killing the younger one and they might be able to question the mage. So after watching this whole even a fair few times (Lasts only 3 rounds) the knight readies himself to charge forward and disarm the Old Mage when he appears.

Knight charges forward. Younger Mage seems him (A big plated guy COVERED in dried blood with a great sword running forward appearing out of no where) and does the sane thing.. blasts him with a Sudden Quickened Disintegrate (Which the knight saves and uses his eye of dampening or what ever it's called to take min damage) Old Mage pops up and is disarmed by the knight. Younger Mage TOTALLY freaks out. Old Mage casts disintegrate (which knight saves again) and Power Word Death (but knight had just enough HP to live as he made both saves)

PC's all try to counter spell stuff and use hurried diplomacy to stop the fight (The younger one cast defensive spells and backs off, also True Sight and freaks out even more when he sees it's all real) the Older one shouts that they are fools and this is the "only way to stop it!" they knock him out (Mostly because of the surprise of being there) there are a bunch more "Tears in reality" and demons start coming in (Which the PC's heard happens when very high level mages used to live in this land)

The younger mage shatters his crystal ball that he was about to use for some unknown reason. Old guy + Deamons disappear. PC's rejoice. After some very good diplomacy they manage to calm the Young Mage down enough to chat.

(Finally they have a living member of the Long Dead Mages who might be able to help them save the world) and get a whole host of plot info from this guy since he was around before the civil war. He seems shocked there WAS a civil war... there were only "Sanctions against the mages" but "I was about to fix that... err...."

lots of other stuff happens.

They get the Still Beating Heart of A Belor back to the Druid and after some diplomacy gets him to agree to a truce with the mage since the world is in danger.

Turns out mage is known to the Druid (who is a very very old elf but was only born near the very end of the civil war) and knows the mage as "The destroyer" and was the his parents said drew first blood in the civil war... which the mage hasn't yet done (yay Time Paradox's never avoid hurting your brain)

Right Questions:

Time paradox: The Mage hasn't done the things he is blamed for "yet" but happened over 700 years ago. He was known to have been destroyed by some magic that "Destroyed the natural order of the world" says the Druid in the Civil War. Shall I keep the mage as if he were on a totally separate timeline (The PC's believe that he might be the only one with the knowledge to fix the demi plane they are on, because he helped his masters build it) Mage is currently level 11 or should I have him gain the power to go back in time to destroy the town like he was meant to because of some reason?

The Plane is fading The PC's have found out (finally) that the Demi-Plane they are on is very slowly decaying (or very quickly if someone uses the Keystone Artifact to change reality) because there are no longer Arch Mages to use arcane spells slots to feed it power. A ritual using a level 8 or 9 arcane spell slot (with minions with the cooperative spell feat) channeled into the keystone stops the plane shrinking ( could even make it bigger if you had the power) anyone who falls of the edge falls into the plane of deamons.
Problems are: No arcane user who can cast level 8 or 9 slots (though PC's will get there soon enough)
Haven't got the keystone, though someone used it and a few hundred miles of the plane disappeared and many many people died.
Anyone who can cast level 8 or 9 arcane spells have deamons braking into this realm to eat them (long plot reason for this) so there are none left alive.
The Druids who lived through the civil war long ago made a pact with the only force they felt could help them... Devils. If they got a ritually picked person to kill 100 sentient creatures then they would add a bit of power to the plane so it doesn't shrink... for a time. Now this goes against what the PC's think druids should be about, also why this very old druid is jailed for (or so he says) which is why there have been these kill happy people who are on "Culls" though they only just found out why the druids are doing this, no one else seems to know.
I have an idea how I want to handle this but any input would be welcome :smallbiggrin:

Druid brakes free: He has been trapped here for many hundred years because his druid brothers didn't like the fact that he tried to rebuild a college of mages after the last one died off in order to have people with arcane learning to help maintain the plane (or so he says) he was helpful and answered questions the PC's had, even reincarnated their NPC ranger friend.. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252505) after which he starts to eat the Belor heart. All sorts of magical alarms go off.
What should happen to the Druid? Gain some sort of fiendish / half devil template and go crackers or try and use his deamon power to help save the world (yes yes I play warcraft, sush)

A home for the mage
The mage came along with the PC's because he is slightly freaked out by events. He doesn't believe that his whole people are long dead, he thinks/hopes they evacuated to another demi-plane and wants to find out where. He has Gemjump spell (Spell Compendium) and wants the PC's to teleport with him "back to his home" which he fears may be looted or have other dangers also is very eager to find out information about high level clerics who can cast True Resurrection (in case his wife is really dead) the Gem isn't at his home. But I've yet to decide where it is, and where the PC's will end up if they take this jump. Odds are they will go (as they are high enough to have the teleport spell, they just haven't gotten around to it yet) to the mages "home"

Odds are the PC's will want to explore the wastes a bit more before going to the "pit" where they know is the last known place of the Key Stone (At least it was there a few months ago) and a Divination spell told them it would be "Worth the risk to go there" (Nice and vague, their own fault :smallbiggrin: )

Any other suggestions / advice.

Sorry for the long rant :smallbiggrin:

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

One Giant Corpse Collector walking around a ruined keep (which just happens to have a 1000ft wide ring of magic blood about 2 inches thick) endlessly digging up bodies and having bodies fall of itself. Worked out quite well as scary / creepy :smallbiggrin:

Honestly that was my first idea, but I couldn't think of a RAW way to do it. I was originally hoping that the Titanic Template would fit onto a Cadaver Collector but alas, it doesn't. Just imagine, off in the far out edges of your sight you see a giant moving mountain appear for a few seconds through the clouds of dust and debris and then it vanishes back into the fog. Creepy.

[DemonRoach]

Am I blind, or has no one mentioned the Spellwarped template yet? Seems it should be slapped on everything :smalltongue:

[hoverfrog]

One Giant Corpse Collector walking around a ruined keep (which just happens to have a 1000ft wide ring of magic blood about 2 inches thick) endlessly digging up bodies and having bodies fall of itself. Worked out quite well as scary / creepy :smallbiggrin:Nice


Shall I keep the mage as if he were on a totally separate timeline I don't think that you have a choice about this. He's either a distinct person separate from the mage of 700 years ago or he's still trapped in the time loop but it's been extended to include his current existence and he is simply going through the motions until he can return to his previous timeline. If he's Mage2 with his own timeline then he is free to live his life and try to fix the things that Mage1 did wrong. If he's still Mage1 then anything he does will cause the problems that he is trying to fix and it's better to kill him now for the greater good. The players don't know and can't know what will happen so they will have to treat him like he is Mage2. Maybe the Mage (with an 18 or higher intelligence) is considering this and is desperate to stop himself from becoming the Mage1 who caused so much havoc. He still needs to break the paradox somehow to stop himself from returning and causing the chaos all over again.

But how to do this. Even death won't fix it because someone could resurrect him later and send him back. Perhaps a clone could be sent back or some other magical experiment so that the events continue as seen but he is removed from the loop?

The Plane is fading Could this be an effect of the time paradox? Now that the event that caused the chaos hasn't happened time is resetting itself. The spells maintain the paradox and anything within it. Could using the keystone be damaging the fabric of spacetime even further?

Either way they need to get the keystone back. Either to finish the work of time correcting itself or to complete the enchantment and fix the paradox.

Devils. No good comes of messing with the infernal planes. I would suggest getting the party to find the original agreement and try to find a loophole. Devils always put loopholes into their agreements, usually to aid them in their evil plots but sometimes they can be exploited.

Druid breaks free: Perhaps this druid knows the original contract and is trying to break out of it using the heart. He can't or won't stop to explain. It might be interesting to have him take on an infernal appearance and power set but be working for the good against the devils. So if the party go after him they are doing the work of the devils for them. That should make a really interesting reveal.

A home for the mage Looks like he's stuck for a little while but these other demi planes might contain alternate versions of history where he lived and died peacefully or went on to become a monster and do even worse things. Exploring them might provide hints to the larger story arc that you're running.