How to stop a planet - Atropus

[Captainspork]

I am in process of planning the end of a long running 3.5 campaign (going on 3 years I believe), and believe I have found the perfect way to do it. What's scarier than an undead planetoid coming to destroy your world? ??? (Aside from a level 20 wizard... anyways).

One problem I'm having, however, is how does one defeat Atropus? Even if a party were able to defeat the aspect of Atropus and his army of undead, there's still this giant planetoid ready to come crashing into their world (Gravity is a harsh mistress). Aside from including the likes of Ben Affleck Bruce Willis Owen Wilson and Liv Tyler as NPCs, I really don't have any good ideas. Any suggestions or alterations are welcome, thanks in advanced GITPers! :smallbiggrin:

[CRtwenty]

Open up a giant Epic level portal and punt that sucker into the Positive Energy Plane. Keeps it from crashing into your world AND most likely destroys the thing entirely.

[Captainspork]

Side note: we play pretty loose with the rules, so any ideas, as long as they make sense from a magical-world flavor perspective are also welcome :smallsmile:

[IronFist]

Supercharged disintegrate, maybe?
You could probably wish it to be somewhere else.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I am in process of planning the end of a long running 3.5 campaign (going on 3 years I believe), and believe I have found the perfect way to do it. What's scarier than an undead planetoid coming to destroy your world? ??? (Aside from a level 20 wizard... anyways).

One problem I'm having, however, is how does one defeat Atropus? Even if a party were able to defeat the aspect of Atropus and his army of undead, there's still this giant planetoid ready to come crashing into their world (Gravity is a harsh mistress). Aside from including the likes of Ben Affleck Bruce Willis Owen Wilson and Liv Tyler as NPCs, I really don't have any good ideas. Any suggestions or alterations are welcome, thanks in advanced GITPers! :smallbiggrin:

Defeating the aspect is supposed to send the planetoid into retreat, that technically speaking a wall of force is invulnerable except for disintegrate placed in the path of the planetoids decaying orbit it could cause it to bounce off.

[PaintByBlood]

Of course, for some fun, you could have the planet crumble as Atropus's Aspect is defeated... and still come raining down to the planet, destroying everything as negative energy meteorites plummet into it. I believe a couple of the other Elder Evil campaigns end with "great job, the world is still destroyed!"

But the above poster is correct, the planetoid retreats. Very quickly, too, if I recall. I think you only have a few moments to get yourself off the surface before it takes you away with it.

[HunterOfJello]

Contact all of the most powerful non-Chaotic Evil NPCs on the planet and inform them of the situation. Then start getting as creative as you possibly can.

Getting a ton of powerful spellcasters to Wish it into a star is probably the best method.

However, you can always try to make a black hole with Genesis, then just teleport that onto the same location as Atropus, let it eat him, then teleport it away again before it reaches your planet.

[Ashtagon]

In D&D-land, gravity doesn't (have to) work that way.

[Sith_Happens]

Get a Sphere of Annihilation into its core, gravity will do the rest.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Get a Sphere of Annihilation into its core, gravity will do the rest.

Gravity is weakest at the center of a body. If you could somehow move a bunch of stuff out of the way in the middle of the Earth, you could float in zero-G.

That said, the book explicitly says that Atropus just up and leaves when you beat the Avatar. If the PCs are still on it, they get carried off with it, so you need to scram pretty quick.

[Spuddles]

Gravity is weakest at the center of a body. If you could somehow move a bunch of stuff out of the way in the middle of the Earth, you could float in zero-G.

That said, the book explicitly says that Atropus just up and leaves when you beat the Avatar. If the PCs are still on it, they get carried off with it, so you need to scram pretty quick.

D&D is so goofy:

Wise old sage: "how do you defeat death itself?"

Wizard: "you kill it"

Old sage: "kill...death?"

Barbarian: "yeah bro just hit it a bunch until it dies"

Rogue: "I once saw the barbarian hit a sentient and hungry spell so hard it died!"

Wizard: "just look at his str score in a rage. 62!"

Old sage "....ok that is kind of excessive"

[Alex Xeno]

I think it retreating is kind of anti-climatic. I say they have to do something to stop the planetoid, say indeed like the someone else said, have them activate a giant portal to the positive energy plane.

Or for added suspense, the planet breaks up, dropping, not rock, but undead. Who doesn't love killing more undead?

[Sith_Happens]

Gravity is weakest at the center of a body. If you could somehow move a bunch of stuff out of the way in the middle of the Earth, you could float in zero-G.

Until the walls fall into you.

[Slipperychicken]

Wise old sage: "how do you defeat death itself?"


Warblade: "Like this, let me show you: Iiiiiiiirrrroooonnn... HEEEEAAAARRRRT.... SUUUUURGE!!!"

[Alleran]

Hit it with another planet. Or the sun.

In fact, what you could do is go to another plane and set up a forcecage. Open a gate (as big as possible) aimed at the oncoming Atropus, specifically at the spot where the Aspect is. Then open another gate into the heart of the sun, and get the hell out of dodge ASAP while all that pure plasma, hydrogen and whatever pummels it. Hopefully that will make it blink twice.

[tiercel]

Presumably the gods have an interest in the world not getting all blowed up. Maybe they can't intervene directly when it's Atropus itself, the anti-god, but once the PCs "kill Death" the gods might be able to contribute to doing something about the lifeless oncoming lump o' rock.

Feel free to rip off any number of relevant movies here, whether it's an avatar of St Cuthbert setting off a PC-acquired artifact (yippee-ki-yay) or a female avatar of Pelor setting off a divinely fueled Turn Undead once she is supplied with the other Four Elements (thanks to another PC quest).

If that's too hokey, allow the PCs to invoke a miracle and have the gods intervene in some other fashion, i.e. opening a giant gate that spares the PCs' world by dumping the lifeless rock onto Evilus, the Bleak World of Darkness, home of mind flayers, aboleths, and puppy-kickers. (This is a plan that can in no way go horribly wrong or invite massive retribution :P in case you don't necessarily want your campaign to end with Atropus.)

[0Megabyte]

How to stop it?

A level-or-two long quest across the entirety of the planes, into some of the most dangerous and otherwordly dungeons imaginable, to gather the components for a great spell:

Not a spell to defeat the planet, but a spell that will allow your PC's to grow to the size of moons so they can battle the planet on their own terms... naturally, this would mean you would use the stats for Atropus' avatar as a relative scale for the actual Atropus. No, that attack isn't using d6 damage dice. It's actually doing d6^18 damage!

[Doorhandle]

3 step plan for kicking atropus' miserable ass.

1. Find Ragnorra's comet.
2. Steer her into Atropus
3. D-DOUBLE KILL.
4. (Optional) Watch fireworks with popcorn.

[AuraTwilight]

Haven't you ever seen Futurama? You make a big ball of undead and shoot it at the other ball of undead.

But AuraTwilight, what'll you do when both balls come back in a thousand years?

Who cares.

[Doorhandle]

Haven't you ever seen Futurama? You make a big ball of undead and shoot it at the other ball of undead.

But AuraTwilight, what'll you do when both balls come back in a thousand years?

Who cares.

Most elves and dragons would probably care since they'd still be around then. :smalltongue:

[FireJustice]

I'm with AuraTwillight here, nothing more awesome than deflecting a planet with another planet.


That said, there's always the standard:

find a "planet-wrecking doomsday reality-ripping device/spell/thingie",
transport it to said target
find the sweet spot
detonate
Ride the shockwave like a boss.


Other things that may work:
The deathstar (supercharged disintegrate, as said by someone before)
Make your entire planet etheral for a few seconds (saw it on Danny Phantom)
Summon the anti-anti-planet (a la lifestream from Final fantasy 7)
Create retro-thrusters on your planet (old cartoon, can't remember the name)
Call for gallactus or equivalent planet eater, that said, Reed Richards used in the ultimate universe a way to summon superheated plasma from a just-formed star from another universe as a way to scare the ultimate gallactus hive-fleed thingie, so you know, open a gate from a big explosion right in to Atropos

what more, what more.
Make your own planet charged with undead energy and claim that equal charged particles repel each other (kinda like electromagnetism, but with zombies)

[Gemini476]

3 step plan for kicking atropus' miserable ass.

1. Find Ragnorra's comet.
2. Steer her into Atropus
3. D-DOUBLE KILL.
4. (Optional) Watch fireworks with popcorn.

Oh wow. Is there any way to bring in the rest of the Elder Evils as well? I suppose you could have those giants pretend they're in Majora's Mask, and the psychic guy really hates gods...

Oh, and Leviathan is so huge it might actually be able to fight the moon on it's own terms.

[CN the Logos]

Since Atropus is basically the unliving severed head of God and probably the first undead being in the universe, you could maybe say that when the avatar dies, the entire planetoid dissolves into nothingness; it's so old that when it's finally slain, its molecules don't even hold together anymore, or maybe it isn't quite that old, but the massive amount of negative energy does what time alone couldn't. That way you don't have the goofy image of a moon somehow deciding to fly away from the planet it was going to crash into, but you keep the "OH **** THE FINAL DUNGEON IS SELF-DESTRUCTING RUN!" moment.

Or you could just take the extended video game reference to its logical conclusion and have one of the PCs summon Holy while wearing the Fierce Deity's Mask. :smalltongue:

[AuraTwilight]

Most elves and dragons would probably care since they'd still be around then. :smalltongue:

Excuse me, but who cares about what elves and dragons have to say? Everyone hunts the latter and finds the former to be immensely stuck up and ignorable anyway.

Also if Atropus is being treated as the first undead....

Get all the good clerics in the world. Have someone with Epic Spellcasting and Divine Metamagic.

TURN. UNDEAD.

[Radar]

The funny thing about shoving PCs into impossible and epic struggles is that they usualy do find a plan crazy enough to work - you just need to give them a wee bit of time to prepare. All you really have to do is set up the situation, forewarn the PCs (astrologers, seers and other such people all over the world start to panic due to the Atropos coming), sit back and watch the show.

If you want to involve an epic artifact, then maybe pull all the stops and go with Core Drill (hint (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l__jSgTAmQ) or two (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0X5NClBzWc)), which is powered by sheer willpower and spirited scenery chewing. Something like this:
Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb! Whether it's impossible or laughable, this is the path that all great men walk! If there's a wall in our way, we will break it down! If there's no path, we will make it with these hands! The fighting spirit is like magma in our hearts, an ever-burning blaze that cannot be put out! JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?

[Slipperychicken]

d6^18 damage!

>Roll d6^18.
>Roll a 1 on the d6.
>1^18 =1.
>Deal 1 damage.
>Atropus is too busy laughing to counterattack.

[Eldan]

Maybe it's not (d6)^18, but d(6^18). An average 50 trillion damage.

[Feytalist]

I thought that too, but honestly the first option was just too amusing to correct :smallbiggrin:

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe it's not (d6)^18, but d(6^18). An average 50 trillion damage.

Good luck finding a 101,559,956,668,416-sided die.

That's right. You'd need a One-Hundred-Trillion-sided die to roll that damage.

[Grod_The_Giant]

How to stop it?

A level-or-two long quest across the entirety of the planes, into some of the most dangerous and otherwordly dungeons imaginable, to gather the components for a great spell:

Not a spell to defeat the planet, but a spell that will allow your PC's to grow to the size of moons so they can battle the planet on their own terms... naturally, this would mean you would use the stats for Atropus' avatar as a relative scale for the actual Atropus. No, that attack isn't using d6 damage dice. It's actually doing d6^18 damage!
Beautiful.

[Feytalist]

Good luck finding a 101,559,956,668,416-sided die.

That's right. You'd need a One-Hundred-Trillion-sided die to roll that damage.

Random number generator says hi.

[Slipperychicken]

Random number generator says hi.

RNG doesn't roll. It generates.

Besides, I want to see that die now :smallbiggrin:

[Rubik]

Maybe it's not (d6)^18, but d(6^18). An average 50 trillion damage.An appropriately optimized character can already manage numbers like that, as we all know.

Maybe it's time to pull off the kid gloves.

[forsaken1111]

Gravity is weakest at the center of a body. If you could somehow move a bunch of stuff out of the way in the middle of the Earth, you could float in zero-G. Perhaps, but gravity isn't the only force active at the center if a planetary body. PRESSURE would be your most immediate concern. If you removed a 10ft sphere of material from the center of the earth, you would indeed float there in microgravity right up until the point where the rest of the inrushing pressurized core material crushed you into plasma.

[AuraTwilight]

Why hasn't anyone suggested re-enacting the plot of Armageddon frame-by-frame?

[flare'90]

How to stop a planet?

You PUSH (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kT8hdAwh6Y)!

[IronFist]

Why hasn't anyone suggested re-enacting the plot of Armageddon frame-by-frame?

Yeah. The OP did.