ILM
2013-06-27, 10:35 AM
So I'm preparing a campaign, which shouldn't start until September. I have a concept, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it.
We're doing 3.5e with homeruled patches that basically aim to prevent a full-on Tippyverse (plus other things to balance the actual game, but irrelevant here). Essentially, while it is possible for dedicated mages to have local impact on the area they inhabit, it is much harder for an individual to just reshape the world (e.g: dropping Teleportation Circles all over the place, chain-gating Solars, infinite loops, etc.). Magic is therefore very significant but the basic world paradigm still largely follows traditional medieval fantasy tropes. Kings, nations, wars, seedy undercities, commerce and caravans, what have you.
Powerful mages can make a significant impact on areas they inhabit, most easily by blasting through a kingdom and claiming it for their own, but are impeded by the Covenant, an old agreement between the hundred most powerful magic users in the world or so (give or take, all level 15+ mages, to give you an idea of the population distribution), that basically states that mages must stay out of politics - in the broad sense. No warmongering, no taking out heads of state, no standing behind a figure of power and winning all their bets for them. This is enforced by a cadre of, I guess, 5 to 7 of the very strongest mages, who have the authority under the Covenant to sanction those who step out of line, with the explicit support of the rest of the mage community, who will if necessary be called upon to hunt down the offenders.
A point about divine magic: it exists, though gods have a far less direct approach than in traditional D&D material; however I anticipate that NPCs will stay closer to the archtypal support guy, and therefore have little impact on world affairs. A level 20 NPC cleric would, for instance, buff and heal the crap out of an army, but they won't be gating CR26 monstrosities or freezing everything in a hundred-mile radius repeatedly, causing a whole continent's crops to fail. PCs will still have the option, if that's their inclination, but by default only arcane magic will be influential in the setting.
Anyway. Here's how I see things begin.
The PCs are members of a ("The", really) thieves' guild headed by one of those top 100 mages, escorting her as she joins the others for their 10-yearly general meeting. This happens, conveniently, in the middle of a dead magic zone the size of a small country (in fact, it is a small country). A while ago, the initially distrusting guys who started the Covenant decided it'd be safer to meet in a place where they were all pretty much useless, and then I guess tradition just kept it going. Anyway, meeting takes place behind closed doors with the PCs out, but then a mysterious third party organization decides to slaughter all the mages, old-school style. The PCs' guild leader somehow makes it out, and the adventure begins for realsies.
Now, the arcane world is mostly decapitated. Nobody else escaped from the slaughter, but not everyone went in the first place, so there is still a handful of really badass mages who know someone's out to get them. Some are in hiding, but a lot are going to be looking for payback. I'm envisioning that since the PCs' guild leader made it out, the bad guys frame her for the whole affair (in fact, they may have let her go on purpose just to have someone to pin it on, and the head of a thieves' guild sort of sounds like a likely character). She may be pretty powerful, but having a bunch of equally powerful mages on her tail, plus being branded public enemy n°1 in most countries, should keep her busy (just so that she can't just handle all the stuff the PCs are going to do). As a first arc, I'm planning to have the PCs carry out an exfiltration from the dead magic zone (with a largely useless high-level caster), only to get back to base and realize that word's already out that she's the prime suspect. The vast majority of the guild got offed and a few bad guys are waiting for them. Short NPC battle between the enemy mages and the leader, who maneuvers them into teleporting somewhere else, taking them out of the picture for a while - I can just make up some other stuff if things don't go that way, but the plan is definitely to take the guild leader out of the picture so that the PCs can shine.
Whew! Long introduction there, sorry.
What I need help with is the following:
- Consequences: how does the world react to losing basically anyone who can cast 8th and 9th level spells? Assume that pretty much any leader of a major magical organization is down for the count. On a side note, losing all the wizardly ICBMs means that any beast horde or demon invasion becomes significantly more of a problem. Should that come into play or is it over the top?
- What are the remaining wizards likely to do?
- Motivations: why did the bad guys off all the wizards in the first place? I know, that's kind of a big deal and I should have that down already but I'm drawing a bit of a blank. I'm thinking cabal of three; one opportunistic, "might makes right" flunkie, one good guy gone bad (grew up in the slaving pits of some distant land that basically lives off selling people, now that he's badass he wants to wipe them out but no dice, said the Covenant), but I can't figure out the motivations of the leader. The prior two seem a bit petty: perfect for sidekicks but not for enough the boss. Bonus points if he has a personal beef with our PCs' leader.
- What are the objectives of the PCs? Of course in the end they'll do whatever they want, but I'd like to have some likely ideas to stay a step ahead of them. The obvious path is to attempt to a) escape death, b) rehabilitate said guild leader, c) figure out who did what and why, and finally d) put an end to all that mess, but maybe there are more creative avenues.
Thoughts? :)
We're doing 3.5e with homeruled patches that basically aim to prevent a full-on Tippyverse (plus other things to balance the actual game, but irrelevant here). Essentially, while it is possible for dedicated mages to have local impact on the area they inhabit, it is much harder for an individual to just reshape the world (e.g: dropping Teleportation Circles all over the place, chain-gating Solars, infinite loops, etc.). Magic is therefore very significant but the basic world paradigm still largely follows traditional medieval fantasy tropes. Kings, nations, wars, seedy undercities, commerce and caravans, what have you.
Powerful mages can make a significant impact on areas they inhabit, most easily by blasting through a kingdom and claiming it for their own, but are impeded by the Covenant, an old agreement between the hundred most powerful magic users in the world or so (give or take, all level 15+ mages, to give you an idea of the population distribution), that basically states that mages must stay out of politics - in the broad sense. No warmongering, no taking out heads of state, no standing behind a figure of power and winning all their bets for them. This is enforced by a cadre of, I guess, 5 to 7 of the very strongest mages, who have the authority under the Covenant to sanction those who step out of line, with the explicit support of the rest of the mage community, who will if necessary be called upon to hunt down the offenders.
A point about divine magic: it exists, though gods have a far less direct approach than in traditional D&D material; however I anticipate that NPCs will stay closer to the archtypal support guy, and therefore have little impact on world affairs. A level 20 NPC cleric would, for instance, buff and heal the crap out of an army, but they won't be gating CR26 monstrosities or freezing everything in a hundred-mile radius repeatedly, causing a whole continent's crops to fail. PCs will still have the option, if that's their inclination, but by default only arcane magic will be influential in the setting.
Anyway. Here's how I see things begin.
The PCs are members of a ("The", really) thieves' guild headed by one of those top 100 mages, escorting her as she joins the others for their 10-yearly general meeting. This happens, conveniently, in the middle of a dead magic zone the size of a small country (in fact, it is a small country). A while ago, the initially distrusting guys who started the Covenant decided it'd be safer to meet in a place where they were all pretty much useless, and then I guess tradition just kept it going. Anyway, meeting takes place behind closed doors with the PCs out, but then a mysterious third party organization decides to slaughter all the mages, old-school style. The PCs' guild leader somehow makes it out, and the adventure begins for realsies.
Now, the arcane world is mostly decapitated. Nobody else escaped from the slaughter, but not everyone went in the first place, so there is still a handful of really badass mages who know someone's out to get them. Some are in hiding, but a lot are going to be looking for payback. I'm envisioning that since the PCs' guild leader made it out, the bad guys frame her for the whole affair (in fact, they may have let her go on purpose just to have someone to pin it on, and the head of a thieves' guild sort of sounds like a likely character). She may be pretty powerful, but having a bunch of equally powerful mages on her tail, plus being branded public enemy n°1 in most countries, should keep her busy (just so that she can't just handle all the stuff the PCs are going to do). As a first arc, I'm planning to have the PCs carry out an exfiltration from the dead magic zone (with a largely useless high-level caster), only to get back to base and realize that word's already out that she's the prime suspect. The vast majority of the guild got offed and a few bad guys are waiting for them. Short NPC battle between the enemy mages and the leader, who maneuvers them into teleporting somewhere else, taking them out of the picture for a while - I can just make up some other stuff if things don't go that way, but the plan is definitely to take the guild leader out of the picture so that the PCs can shine.
Whew! Long introduction there, sorry.
What I need help with is the following:
- Consequences: how does the world react to losing basically anyone who can cast 8th and 9th level spells? Assume that pretty much any leader of a major magical organization is down for the count. On a side note, losing all the wizardly ICBMs means that any beast horde or demon invasion becomes significantly more of a problem. Should that come into play or is it over the top?
- What are the remaining wizards likely to do?
- Motivations: why did the bad guys off all the wizards in the first place? I know, that's kind of a big deal and I should have that down already but I'm drawing a bit of a blank. I'm thinking cabal of three; one opportunistic, "might makes right" flunkie, one good guy gone bad (grew up in the slaving pits of some distant land that basically lives off selling people, now that he's badass he wants to wipe them out but no dice, said the Covenant), but I can't figure out the motivations of the leader. The prior two seem a bit petty: perfect for sidekicks but not for enough the boss. Bonus points if he has a personal beef with our PCs' leader.
- What are the objectives of the PCs? Of course in the end they'll do whatever they want, but I'd like to have some likely ideas to stay a step ahead of them. The obvious path is to attempt to a) escape death, b) rehabilitate said guild leader, c) figure out who did what and why, and finally d) put an end to all that mess, but maybe there are more creative avenues.
Thoughts? :)