Dr. Yes
2013-08-29, 08:26 PM
My group is nearing the home stretch of a campaign I've been running for about six months now, and it's about time to start building toward the climax. I'm having some issues bringing it back around smoothly, though, and I wonder if the Playground can help. Some background:
The material world is split into a number of habitable planes linked by permanent portals. The game started as a hex-unfogging adventure in a newly-discovered jungle plane, which the players quickly found out was already inhabited. One faction in the new world overruns and blocks the portal; the other faction helps the PCs find another way back home in exchange for promising to kill the first faction's leader: a big ol' mean linnorm. Fast foward a bit and the PCs are back in the inhabited worlds, trying to recruit allies to run back in and attack the wyrm. Lately they have been running around doing this and that for regional nobles in an effort to curry favor and secure military support, and just last session made nice with the local church.
Here's the tweest, and if any of my players are reading I would ask that you stop now: the big secret of the setting is that the material planes are basically eggs for the gods, which are "fertilized" by a sentient mortal being tapping directly into the plane's energy font and merging with it. This causes the physical plane to disintegrate, and the newly born god may then rebuild the world in whatever way it pleases. The players have essentially stumbled on a conflict between two different parties who want to ascend using the same plane, and at the end the one that they don't kill will claim the world for itself and grant them a boon for their help before scooting them back home.
The risk here is that this all ends up coming out of left field, basically just ending the campaign on a big "Huh?" moment for the players. I'm struggling to think of ways to get them asking really big-picture questions like "Why is the world here?" and "Where do gods come from?" Any advice?
The material world is split into a number of habitable planes linked by permanent portals. The game started as a hex-unfogging adventure in a newly-discovered jungle plane, which the players quickly found out was already inhabited. One faction in the new world overruns and blocks the portal; the other faction helps the PCs find another way back home in exchange for promising to kill the first faction's leader: a big ol' mean linnorm. Fast foward a bit and the PCs are back in the inhabited worlds, trying to recruit allies to run back in and attack the wyrm. Lately they have been running around doing this and that for regional nobles in an effort to curry favor and secure military support, and just last session made nice with the local church.
Here's the tweest, and if any of my players are reading I would ask that you stop now: the big secret of the setting is that the material planes are basically eggs for the gods, which are "fertilized" by a sentient mortal being tapping directly into the plane's energy font and merging with it. This causes the physical plane to disintegrate, and the newly born god may then rebuild the world in whatever way it pleases. The players have essentially stumbled on a conflict between two different parties who want to ascend using the same plane, and at the end the one that they don't kill will claim the world for itself and grant them a boon for their help before scooting them back home.
The risk here is that this all ends up coming out of left field, basically just ending the campaign on a big "Huh?" moment for the players. I'm struggling to think of ways to get them asking really big-picture questions like "Why is the world here?" and "Where do gods come from?" Any advice?