Wanted: feedback and ideas to help fleshout a world.

[KnotKnormal]

Starting next semester I will be starting a new campaign. It will be my first high level campaign and I want to make sure I'm doing everything right. Sorry if these posts get annoying but i really would like some feedback on my ideas and find some inspiration from you.

This is just the background of the world, something I can give my players so that they have something to base their background stories off of. The campaign is a god slaying campaign. This in mind, I've perverted the gods a bit to fit my needs, as I believe is my right as DM. correct me if I'm wrong please. I'll also include how I plan to roll in my players.

In a time of peace, gods reined supreme. Followers from all walks of life flocked to their deities like moths to the purest of lights. Worldwide festivals were held on a regular basis to praise them. The gods would walk amongst the mortals, blessing them with their presence and honoring those deemed worthy. But like all things the peace came to an abrupt end.

Signet, First son of Pelor, had fallen in love with an elvin woman named Elara. Unknown to Signet, Elara was to be a sacrifice for Zeus, Feeling the sudden love for Elara, Signet interrupted the ritual. Zeus became enraged by Signet's actions, and sought to make an example of him. Zeus murdered Elara and struck down Signet leaving him severely wounded and scarred forever. Pelor, seeking vengeance upon Zeus, asked his followers to aid him in punishing Zeus for what he had done to his son. Pelor's followers began destroying anything that represented Zeus; some even saw Zeus's priests as evil and killed them. Zeus saw this as an act of war, and responded in kind. Many cities were destroyed in the resulting conflict. The death toll quickly rose into the hundreds of thousands, many of them followers of gods previously not involved in the war. However it was not until the death of Thor that the war truly escalated.

Before Thor's death there had been 2 distinct sides in the war. Immediately following, the gods began to question the loyalties of their allies and act on their own accord. It was not often that any two gods, and their followers, world work together to eliminated a common threat, even when they did, they would soon be fighting each other again. Many mortals began to renounce their deities as a result of the chaos, in the hopes that their lives would be spared. It was not long after that political officials followed suit and banned the worship of gods as a whole, in an effort to reduce the conflict.

Resistance groups quickly formed with the intent to bring down the gods. At first these groups were small, unorganized, and untrained. Their attempts were futile and usually ended in little to no success. However they rapidly grew into large guilds dedicated to the research and elimination of gods. Most notable of these groups are; The Signet Sect, which stands to honor the last wishes of Signet, one of the few gods who fought solely for the mortals. The Raven Clan, an elite group of assassins, that have the most success in track down and killing the remaining gods thus far. And the Canavar Guild, that have seemed to have acquired strange creatures that seem to be uniquely suited for challenging gods. Together these 3 as well as some other groups have found much success in their mission.

It has been 20 year since the beginning of the war. Many of the gods have already been killed but those to come are stronger than ever. The path of mortals has been laid, and the actions taken cannot be undone.
S, The Eternal

In a nutshell, Signet dies and parts of his soul seek out and merge with the PCs, giving them a massive power boost, the Signet Sect collects them and aid them through the transition of becoming awesome. This allows me to yank them from where ever they happen to be in my world, and also give them a common bond, and explains why epic level charterers could fly under the radar of gods. I personally like it because it allows the Players to focus entirely on who their character is, instead of forcing them to write in why they were in a specific location at a specific time, I can just steal them from their homes if i need to.

What do you guys think?
Would this be something you would consider playing?

[Brookshw]

I need to think about this but it has potential. The reason for posting now is this: you're the dm, don't doubt your right to tweak things to make it fit. Focus on a game that you think your players will enjoy and a setting that intrigues you.

/open window
/throw out inconvenient rules
You were saying?

[KnotKnormal]

I need to think about this but it has potential. The reason for posting now is this: you're the dm, don't doubt your right to tweak things to make it fit. Focus on a game that you think your players will enjoy and s setting that intrigues you.

/open window
/throw out inconvenient rules
You were saying?

Thanks, would love to know what you would change and how to make it better when you get the chance.

[Red Fel]

As a general matter, I would advise you against assigning a fixed number of people who have pieces of the Signet-Soul (Scions of Signet, perhaps?), due to the logistical concerns it creates. Specifically: If you say, for example, that the soul broke into five pieces (conveniently, there are five party members) and then one of the characters either dies or his player leaves the campaign, you have to come up with an in-continuity consequence. That's a pain. But leaving it vague allows characters to come and go, and allows you additional plot devices (example: an enemy Scion of Signet).

Also, out of curiosity, what kind of boosts in power will these pieces present, mechanically speaking? Will they be uniform across the characters? Will they be unique to each one? Will they be tailored to what the characters already do, or will they have specific functions independent of the character's abilities? This could be a very immersion-breaking factor if poorly executed. For example, something that makes the Party Face more charming while adding fire damage to the Beatstick's attacks may make sense. Similarly, giving everyone +2 to all ability scores is an across-the-board bonus everyone could enjoy. But giving the Rogue the ability to speak to birds - even if you plan to make explicit use of that power in the plot - seems random and a bit jarring.

An additional question: What happens to Clerics? Admittedly, some divine spellcasters - like Druids and Rangers - don't explicitly need deities to work their magic. And there are Clerics of "ideas" instead of followers of actual deities. But given that the worship of gods has been banned, how does this impact Clerics? More specifically, how does this impact those spells which explicitly call for divine intervention, such as Resurrection, which basically requires a deity's permission to take a soul back from his domain?

[KnotKnormal]

As a general matter, I would advise you against assigning a fixed number of people who have pieces of the Signet-Soul (Scions of Signet, perhaps?), due to the logistical concerns it creates. Specifically: If you say, for example, that the soul broke into five pieces (conveniently, there are five party members) and then one of the characters either dies or his player leaves the campaign, you have to come up with an in-continuity consequence. That's a pain. But leaving it vague allows characters to come and go, and allows you additional plot devices (example: an enemy Scion of Signet).

Also, out of curiosity, what kind of boosts in power will these pieces present, mechanically speaking? Will they be uniform across the characters? Will they be unique to each one? Will they be tailored to what the characters already do, or will they have specific functions independent of the character's abilities? This could be a very immersion-breaking factor if poorly executed. For example, something that makes the Party Face more charming while adding fire damage to the Beatstick's attacks may make sense. Similarly, giving everyone +2 to all ability scores is an across-the-board bonus everyone could enjoy. But giving the Rogue the ability to speak to birds - even if you plan to make explicit use of that power in the plot - seems random and a bit jarring.

An additional question: What happens to Clerics? Admittedly, some divine spellcasters - like Druids and Rangers - don't explicitly need deities to work their magic. And there are Clerics of "ideas" instead of followers of actual deities. But given that the worship of gods has been banned, how does this impact Clerics? More specifically, how does this impact those spells which explicitly call for divine intervention, such as Resurrection, which basically requires a deity's permission to take a soul back from his domain?

To solve the 1st problem. I've chosen to have that part of Signets soul leave the dead body and enter the new PC or if a player leaves, join with the other pieces. and i plan on leaving it vague. the soul of signet is very much a living thing.

2nd question:this is actually effects the roll ups of the character. for their back ground stories I'm having them write up a standard lvl 5 character. however for character stats it's a starting level 15 campaign 4D6, keep all, re-roll 1s and 2s, 6s explode. so signets soul provides a 10 lvl jump and massive stat bumps, that the player themselves choose.

3rd: It would in fact be similar to Druids in that clerics get their divine magic from an idea. but as a whole clerics are pretty well missing from my campaign. as for resurrection and spells of the like, there are more then enough arcane means to do the same thing and I'll write in a few extras for emergencies.

[KnotKnormal]

(example: an enemy Scion of Signet).


I really like this idea... ill have to keep him in the background for a bit, silently sabotaging the party before they figure what is actually happening.

[Winds of Nagual]

Two thoughts. Why not start as lvl. 3 or 5 or whatever - and have the soul pieces grow over time. Let the PCs really be under the radar. Also, I don't like to specifically number my power items. As was stated earlier, PC death and losing players can cause havoc with storytelling. Also it takes away from meeting a reoccurring enemy with a soul shard. My two-cents. Has potential! Could also be quite gritty.

[Lightlawbliss]

...
3rd: It would in fact be similar to Druids in that clerics get their divine magic from an idea. but as a whole clerics are pretty well missing from my campaign. as for resurrection and spells of the like, there are more then enough arcane means to do the same thing and I'll write in a few extras for emergencies.

actually, arcane has, iirc, one method of restoring life.

also, have you thought about how this affects some prestige classes and feats? worshiping a god is a requirement for many things.

I would also recommend that the shard improves them slower then just an instant jump. Maby it just improves there stats and makes them gain 2 levels when they would have gained 1. OR maby as they improve it gives them some week divine power, effectively some of the stuff divine rank gives, and protects them from divine attack until they are ready.

Also, remember that a 10 level jump would be a traumatic experience, imagine going from normal to SupperMan overnight. Everything you used to fight hard to hold back just became a bump in the road. Things you didn't know were possible just became your everyday.

[KnotKnormal]

thank you very much Lightlawbliss and Winds of Nagual for your input. as far as leveling slowly goes I wanted to avoid that for a couple reasons, first I'm only running the game for one semester and I'm kind of on a time crunch in that sense and want to jump right into the main story. it hurts immersion a tad but i think i can make up for it with a little bit of creative story telling.
Also it makes sense (to me at least) that a god power would be absorbed almost instantaneously do to the level difference but then the body would slowly adjust to the new power either through going into a small coma until it repairs itself or feeling awkward if not painful to move for a while until the body adjusts. i will be implementing both, in the introductory part of the campaign (sessions 1 and 2) as for the mindset of the characters, the players themselves have to role play that. I can't force that upon them and tell them what their characters think or feel.

As far as the Divine Power dilemma, i want an environment like this where you can't rely on the gods divine power to help you or bring you back. I want to make the players feel as though they are mostly on their own to get the job done. at least until later in the campaign were they will require help from the other guilds. It's kind of a bleak campaign setting.

I'm not giving a set number on how many pieces signet split up into, this allows for things to come and go.

[KnotKnormal]

Thank you to everyone who replied, you helped out tremendously, if you guys have anything else to add please do.