Zarus Campaign

[jguy]

I've been writing up world building note for a campaign where Zarus, God of Humanity, united all humans in the world and they thoroughly conquered the world. With the death and enslavement of the other races, Zarus was able to kill nearly every other god in the pantheon, being the sole source of arcane and divine magic. The campaign takes place 250 years after the world has been conquered and humanity is now working on conquering other planets and even other planes of existence.

The plan for this campaign would be for the PC to be non-humans who are trying to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. For spells, they would need to focus on psionics, incarnum, binding, or alchemy, so it is doable. Here is what I am having issues with; How would they accomplish much of anything? I planned on starting the party out at level 3, perhaps raid some places for basic gear and escape into the wilderness to survive...but then I come to a big writers gap. The PC's would need to have something to strive for but not just basic survival. Currently all I can think of is for them to find a way to Planeshift to Nirvana to live in peace.

[Nettlekid]

How did Zarus get rid of arcane magic? That tends to be evoked by blood in dragon ancestors, or some permeating field in the natural world (often credited to the Serpent, a proto-deity not unlike the Lady of Pain. Kinda cool.) (Of course if you want to get rid of arcane magic, fine. I really like the "alternative magic focus" campaign idea.)

You may not like this take on it, but I would say that if the PCs know that magic exists (and see their human oppressors using magic) then they would know that regaining magic is their key to rebellion. They have their own alternate magic abilities, but these are uncommon, while regular magic was once usable by a large percentage of the world. So their goal is to reclaim magic.

My suggestion is to have the PCs start soliciting the help of other creatures with magic in their blood, which is basically any creature that has natural SLAs. They won't be able to do much at first, but they can climb the ladder. Party it up and maybe go on a quest with a band of Gnomes, and get the secret of illusion magic. Have murder mysteries and attempted assassinations in a secret Drow society and gain powers of darkness. Charge into the unknown wilderness and fight with brawny Ogres to meet the Ogre Mages and the Giants and gain wild elemental magic. Brave the Underdark to enhance psionic ability by uniting with Aboleths and Mind Flayers. When they're strong enough take to the planes and encounter Angels, Archons, Inevitables, Slaadi, Demons, and Devils and tie together the alignment magic. The final goal would be to kill Zarus, naturally. I suggest that you guide them in some way to the Lady of Pain (the uberGod watcher of the planar metropolis Sigil,) the aforementioned Serpent (perhaps when he was killed as a god, Vecna's Lich qualities respawned him somewhere, and the players can quest for the Eye and Hand of Vecna to find him. It's said that Vecna is whispered to by the Serpent, and through that you could reclaim magic in the world), or the Elder Evil Pandorym who was contracted to kill gods (and could probably take Zarus).

So this way, the PCs would explore many different lands and have different adventures (any monster group with an SLA is an adventure hook), could gain magic items to use (fueled by Spirit of Gnome Illusion, Spirit of Drow Shadow, Spirit of Pixie Enchantment, etc) in case they want spells after a while, but their main strength must still come from their alt. magic stuff. How does that sound?

[Zombulian]

How did Zarus get rid of arcane magic? That tends to be evoked by blood in dragon ancestors, or some permeating field in the natural world (often credited to the Serpent, a proto-deity not unlike the Lady of Pain. Kinda cool.) (Of course if you want to get rid of arcane magic, fine. I really like the "alternative magic focus" campaign idea.)

You may not like this take on it, but I would say that if the PCs know that magic exists (and see their human oppressors using magic) then they would know that regaining magic is their key to rebellion. They have their own alternate magic abilities, but these are uncommon, while regular magic was once usable by a large percentage of the world. So their goal is to reclaim magic.

My suggestion is to have the PCs start soliciting the help of other creatures with magic in their blood, which is basically any creature that has natural SLAs. They won't be able to do much at first, but they can climb the ladder. Party it up and maybe go on a quest with a band of Gnomes, and get the secret of illusion magic. Have murder mysteries and attempted assassinations in a secret Drow society and gain powers of darkness. Charge into the unknown wilderness and fight with brawny Ogres to meet the Ogre Mages and the Giants and gain wild elemental magic. Brave the Underdark to enhance psionic ability by uniting with Aboleths and Mind Flayers. When they're strong enough take to the planes and encounter Angels, Archons, Inevitables, Slaadi, Demons, and Devils and tie together the alignment magic. The final goal would be to kill Zarus, naturally. I suggest that you guide them in some way to the Lady of Pain (the uberGod watcher of the planar metropolis Sigil,) the aforementioned Serpent (perhaps when he was killed as a god, Vecna's Lich qualities respawned him somewhere, and the players can quest for the Eye and Hand of Vecna to find him. It's said that Vecna is whispered to by the Serpent, and through that you could reclaim magic in the world), or the Elder Evil Pandorym who was contracted to kill gods (and could probably take Zarus).

So this way, the PCs would explore many different lands and have different adventures (any monster group with an SLA is an adventure hook), could gain magic items to use (fueled by Spirit of Gnome Illusion, Spirit of Drow Shadow, Spirit of Pixie Enchantment, etc) in case they want spells after a while, but their main strength must still come from their alt. magic stuff. How does that sound?

Hell, if you want a godkiller go find Zargon. I'm sure Asmodeus will excuse you releasing him if someone screwed up the divine balance that badly.
It'd probably also be cool if the players found an enclave of renegade Ur Priests that continued to worship the old gods.

[jguy]

Arcane magic is restricted because Zarus slew the God of Magic and took on his/her portfolio and he only grants it to humans. Now when it comes to inherit magic like spell-likes or supernatural I think I will leave them as is because otherwise it is a lot more book work for me. I do want my players to try other sources of magic because I think it will be more interesting and fun to have Binders and Totemist around then just Wizards and Clerics.

Asmodeus will be one of the few remaining God's around and in fact he is battling Zarus. Problem is nearly every soul now on the planet is going to Zarus so the the numbers of Devils is being reduced.

Many of the Giants sided with the Humans as I've themed Giants as off-shoots of Humanity and Zarus is bringing his wayward children back into the fold. Many Giants are now simply giant humans for all intensive purposes. Same with Titans.

Oges are extinct.

Drow are either enslave, are second-class citizens, or are dead. Lloth was slain a long time ago.

Oni are hard to include at the moment. Mostly they are just kind of chilling and enjoying the show.

I -love- the idea of Ur-priests as it really fits the setting.

The Angel's serve Zarus, along with Archons. Azata and Agothians are fighting back.

Vecna is tricky, he might be one of the few remaining Gods but he would be in hiding.

I like the idea of Zargon and Pandorym

[Vhaidara]

I would be inclined to disallow psions/erudites/ardents. They can do 90% of what castwrs can do. Wilders are okay because they get so few powers and no discipline powers. Psychic warriors are similar, with the limited access to powers.

Are you allowing shadowcasters? Please be allowing shadowcasters. They so badass.

If you want to allow as many not-magic options as possible, look up a truenaming fix. There are 3 or 4 good fixes just on gitp.

Otherwise, nettlekid's ideas are pretty much right. Restore magic bit by bit, pull allies from every alignment and every race, all united against a common enemy. Maybe try getting some of that opposition in the party. Have some evil aligned member, then have a paladin (ease the code up a little).

[jguy]

Psions will be allowed but not erudites. None of my players play Psions like some of the min-max boards do so it will be fine. Shadowcasters are allowed but highly doubt anyone would play one, same with truenamer.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Surely a few gods fled?

Anyway, for something beyond simple survival to be reasonable there has to exist a culture outside of the human culture. Without such a support network to lean on there's simply no way for a handful of characters to do more than annoy the humans until they're martyred for the cause. Even then they wouldn't stand a chance without psionics being available in full; psionic items and all. There must exist at least a few secret cities hidden away where the players can trade magical and psionic goods and commission new gear.

If that's the case, they can act as operatives in a secret war to throw down the city that is the crowning jewel of human civilization and the seat of power for the church of Zarus. If that city falls it could galvanize non-humans the world over to rise in revolt -if- there exists a network of non-humans to confirm the rumors their people will undoubtedly hear from the humans. If the revolution's body count is high enough Zarus could be weakened enough to diminish his power. The final goal of this game is to divide the world into the segment under control of the non-humans and the segment under the control of the humans; those segments ideally being of at least near-equal size.

The next step would be to go off-world through one of the transitive planes to try and find new gods to bring back to oppose Zarus. Asmodeus is a bad dude but even he can't win a war on two fronts. The blood-war must be fought and not all who oppose Zarus are evil. There -must- be gods of light to oppose Zarus -and- the influence of Baator. The whole of the world should already be shifting toward evil as it is.

This leads me to a very important question: how did Zarus manage to slay or route -all- of the other gods? It seems to me there must be some other force at work beyond just Zarus himself. He was only a lesser racial god. Discovering and neutralizing this force is also of key importance to returning the world to the equilibrium necessary to prevent its ultimate collapse; a collapse that's already begun.

Minor nitpick: why are the angels, creatures of pure elemental good, serving Zarus? That doesn't make any sense. I could see the archons siding with him if I squint hard enough since they're lawful and so is Zarus but I just don't get it with the angels.

Edit:

Naturally if the supposition of the first paragraph isn't true, then making it true is the obvious goal for the PC's. One or another NPC can be used to plant the idea and then you can let them run with it.

[Vhaidara]

Zarus is actually a greater god. I believe he's divine rank 16 or 17.

I have the same objection to angels working with him. If anything, angels would oppose him and Asmodeus would join him. Unlikely, but more likely than angels. I mean, Zarus is still a LE deity, and if he controls all magic Asmodeus would see where things were going. It's also worth noting that Asmodeus is notactually a god, and would be crushed if he fought one. He's really just a superpowered renegade angel.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So he is. Must've been thinking of Urbanus.

Asmodeus wouldn't work with any god except on a short-term basis for his own gains. He duped the lot of them into giving him Baator and the right to corrupt mortal souls to fuel the infernal machine. Gods and baatezu don't mix any more than they must.

[jguy]

A lot of this world isn't pure Greyhawk or pathfinder. The reason it takes 250 years into future is because I don't know a lot of campaign settings well enough to do them justice so this is my way of being able to use a lot of maps but no have to focus too much on backstory.

Zarus was able to kill so many gods because when the humans united they waged war on the rest of the civilized lands and eventually won. With the lack of followers many Gods lost power and Zarus killed them and took their portfolios. Think Thieves World

The Angels being corrupted was something I pulled from 4e. In 4e angels or archons serve their respective god regardless of alignment. With Zarus being the only big dog in down, they are now LG towards worshipers of Zarus and LE against the rest. The NG and CG outsiders have resisted corruption and fight back. This is also to give some more unique challenges since my players have rarely, if ever, fought any non-evil outsiders before.

I will look into the underground resistance because otherwise my players would be up a creek without a paddle.

[Psyren]

Note that "dead gods" aren't necessarily useless. Some can still grant spells or even power artifacts that they had previously created; others can become vestiges and support an entire cabal of Binders/Occultists.

(Actually this could be pretty interesting - you could have an "Ur-Priest" in a setting like this who is actually a good guy because he is fighting against the oppressive hitler-deity.)

In addition to the 4 magic types you mentioned, I would throw in invocations - while most fiends would side with Zarus, some would resent his orderly nature, particulary demons, and so grant warlocky powers to some of the non-humans. Also, those non-humans with fey ties like Elves and Gnomes may also become warlocks by tapping into a distant ancestral heritage, or be blesssed by the few eladrins that escaped the purge. And finally, I can't imagine dragons being too thrilled about this state of affairs, so the few that remain might be secretly training Dragon Shamans and Dragonfire Adepts among the nonhuman races.

Also, keep in mind that humans are known for their diversity more than anything else. It's highly unlikely that every single human on the planet will have been okay with what Hitler Zarus has done, particularly those who had friends or lovers among the other races (those half-elves, half-orcs, half-giants and muls had to come from somewhere.) Strategically place some sympathizers that the PCs have to locate, rely on or even protect.

[jguy]

I do like the idea of warlocks, dragon shamans, and dragondire adepts being more prevalent. For the case with dragons some sided with humans, others didn't. Many travelled off world to escape as the sheer amount of humans would even over power a great wyrm. All the half races are straight up extinct, along with orcs just being gone. Any half race born currently is a kill-on-sight kind of thing. Players could play one but it would be extremely difficult. Would make for some interesting role playing though. I will definitely be putting in some sympathizers but finding them and keeping them secret will be a challenge. A great story arc!

[Kelb_Panthera]

Zarus was able to kill so many gods because when the humans united they waged war on the rest of the civilized lands and eventually won. With the lack of followers many Gods lost power and Zarus killed them and took their portfolios. Think Thieves World

Not familiar with Thieves World.

This still stretches disbelief kinda thin but it's your campaign. The difference between a rank 16 god and a rank 20 god isn't that big and using magic to overcome the god of magic just outright doesn't make sense. I really think the inclusion of some other acting force that Zarus was using or used by would be a good idea. Perhaps some god-slayer artifact or far-realms entity?

In any case, if humans have all the other races combined outnumbered by more than a trifling margin then the PC's are fighting what is likely to ultimately be a losing battle. This doesn't mean you can't still have a campaign though. A mass exodus from the prime to seek out another world to inhabit could also work. The PC's could lead such an exodus or they could hear of it and join in as defenders of the people or assistants to the leader or leaders.

Also realize that if the PC's can overthrow humanity and throw down Zarus, you're still going to be living in a nearly godless campaign setting with the only remaining power in the outer realms being the king of devils. That plane-hopping campaign to seek out new gods or to find the old gods that fled should make an interesting, and very necessary, arc to the campaign or follow-up campaign.


The Angels being corrupted was something I pulled from 4e. In 4e angels or archons serve their respective god regardless of alignment. With Zarus being the only big dog in down, they are now LG towards worshipers of Zarus and LE against the rest. The NG and CG outsiders have resisted corruption and fight back. This is also to give some more unique challenges since my players have rarely, if ever, fought any non-evil outsiders before.

Well there's one more reason for me to dislike 4e. Such a shift in allegiance hasn't happened since the signing of the pact primeval and the founding of the nine hells near the beginning of time. It's not completely implausible but the war in the celestial realms that resulted and likely continues could be an interesting source of plot-hooks. I can only imagine that the river oceanus ran red.


I will look into the underground resistance because otherwise my players would be up a creek without a paddle.

Like I said, if you can plant the idea then founding such an underground resistance is a possible campaign.

[Psyren]

I agree that Angels and Archons serving him is a huge stretch. A much more plausible scenario is that they are devils, but he is able to restore to his elite hand-picked few a measure of the angelic power they held before Asmodeus' coup. This lets you use the stats of a Solar, Planetar etc. while still making them hardline villains. The Archons he would then simply wipe out, since if they are incapable of being LG they are incapable of existing at all.

Depowering the other gods by stealing their worshipers is more plausible, just again keep in mind that even a "dead" god can have considerable play and this will keep the elves et al. in the game.

I could see evil Aasimar strutting around as his chosen elite, particularly with distinctly Aryan features - platinum blond hair, olive-toned Grecian physiques, and intense sapphire gazes. They would loudly and proudly claim to have no elven, orcish, or other diversity "tainting" their pure blood.


This still stretches disbelief kinda thin but it's your campaign. The difference between a rank 16 god and a rank 20 god isn't that big and using magic to overcome the god of magic just outright doesn't make sense. I really think the inclusion of some other acting force that Zarus was using or used by would be a good idea. Perhaps some god-slayer artifact or far-realms entity?

Eh, given that a mortal is capable of canonically taking down the god of magic I don't see why another god couldn't do the same. That's not a big leap to me.



In any case, if humans have all the other races combined outnumbered by more than a trifling margin then the PC's are fighting what is likely to ultimately be a losing battle. This doesn't mean you can't still have a campaign though. A mass exodus from the prime to seek out another world to inhabit could also work. The PC's could lead such an exodus or they could hear of it and join in as defenders of the people or assistants to the leader or leaders.

You could also do this in reverse - a sizable contingent of the other races having fled the plane to avoid Zarus' followers. In Golarion's history for example, all the elves retreated from the planet through their Elfgates to avoid the Earthfall, staying away for several thousand years while more barbaric races (like orcs) took over, and only recently reappearing. The PCs' mission in that case wouldn't be retreat - it would be finding the key to limit Zarus' power, and then when his followers are reeling, bring the other races back to restore balance.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As I recall Mystra's death had special circumstances surrounding it; assuming that's who you're talking about. It wasn't just god A decides to gank god B and goes to town.

[Vhaidara]

Yeah, Faerun doesn't count since that was a case of the Overgod kicking everyone to the mortal curb. and saying "deal with it".

Bit of a simplification, but true.

[Captnq]

I made this campaign

It was beautiful. It was a work of art. it was sublime in it's beauty and perfection. It's flawlessness was only matched in it's utter monumental failure.

Now, I don't know your players. Maybe they requested this. But it's not fun. I had a setting where an entire plane of the Abyss became self-aware and tried to eat the multi-universe and was tricked into devowering itself. The players got to live inside an imploding universe of dwindling magic.

It was supposed to be an epic heroic journey to save a reality and it was a complete and utter failure. The only real limitation: No Psionics, clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers or Magic Users. I planned on new spontanious classes to replace paladins, rangers, and druids. But no clerics or magic users. Only Sorcerers and Favored Souls.

It ended in a most horrible fashion. Barely made it through the first session.

[Zombulian]

I made this campaign

It was beautiful. It was a work of art. it was sublime in it's beauty and perfection. It's flawlessness was only matched in it's utter monumental failure.

Now, I don't know your players. Maybe they requested this. But it's not fun. I had a setting where an entire plane of the Abyss became self-aware and tried to eat the multi-universe and was tricked into devowering itself. The players got to live inside an imploding universe of dwindling magic.

It was supposed to be an epic heroic journey to save a reality and it was a complete and utter failure. The only real limitation: No Psionics, clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers or Magic Users. I planned on new spontanious classes to replace paladins, rangers, and druids. But no clerics or magic users. Only Sorcerers and Favored Souls.

It ended in a most horrible fashion. Barely made it through the first session.

Right. No magic, but Sorcerers are cool.

[TuggyNE]

Right. No magic, but Sorcerers are cool.

"Magic-User" is an old term for Wizard, but I have no idea why anyone would use that term in the same ruleset as Sorcerers.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I looked up that create device feat in that ravenloft book.

Even ignoring, for a moment, that it's a feat in a 3rd party sword and sorcery book; it's laughably inadequate.

The devices don't function unless attached to a power supply so using charged items requires a second item that costs several thousand gold. That goes for -every- charged item. Permanent items are even worse. The cost table for magic items in ch 7 of the DMG tells us that permanent items are the equivalent of items with 100 charges. None of the power supply devices provides more than 8 charges at most. It'd take 13 such devices to power a permanent item; enough so that trying to move the device would be, at best, impractical.

So you're stuck with spending inordinate amounts of cash in an ongoing fashion or you're stuck with these massive contraptions and working from some sort of vehicle.

When you then also consider the relative fragility and unreliable nature of those power supplies, create device comes out to be nothing more than a red herring.

I'll say this much in its favor though: it'd make an awesome way to do a kind of steam punk setting with little to no traditional magic in it.

[Psyren]

As I recall Mystra's death had special circumstances surrounding it; assuming that's who you're talking about. It wasn't just god A decides to gank god B and goes to town.


Yeah, Faerun doesn't count since that was a case of the Overgod kicking everyone to the mortal curb. and saying "deal with it".

Bit of a simplification, but true.

Actually, I was talking about Mystryl's death there, not Mystra's. Ao was not involved - she got ganked by a mortal. A very powerful mortal, true, but still a mortal.

[TuggyNE]

Actually, I was talking about Mystryl's death there, not Mystra's. Ao was not involved - she got ganked by a mortal. A very powerful mortal, true, but still a mortal.

If I recall correctly, that was using a magic hack that got bugfixed later, precisely to prevent that very thing from happening. (Also, Zarus probably would not have the spellcasting ability to pull it off in the first place.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

A quick look-up tells me this about the death of Mystryl.


When the Phaerimm, a race dwelling under the surface of the earth, began to cast spells draining the empire of Netheril of its magic, a powerful mage named Karsus created a link to Mystryl in an attempt to steal her power, become a god and save his empire. This caused a great rift in the Weave, and Mystryl was so weakened that she sacrificed herself to save the world. Since she was the Weave, magic immediately ceased all across Toril. A new goddess of magic named Mystra was born, and she was able to repair the weave in a way that such powerful spells could never be used against it again.

That's hardly a normal human going toe to toe with a god of magic. As I recall anyone that could be called "powerful" in Netheril was an epic caster and creating a link to a god through the weave is -definitely- epic magic. So weakened god vs epic mage who -stole part of her power- while likely being shielded from Mystryl's portfolio sense by her eternal enemy Shar.

Since the weave isn't a thing in most settings, it's more than a little questionable if that would even work elsewhere.

In any case it highlights, rather than discredits, my point that something unusual has to be going on for a god of magic to get taken down by magic.

[Platinum Piece]

Zarus may control all arcane and divine magic, but what about the Shadow Weave? Shadowcasters might still be around.

[Psyren]

If I recall correctly, that was using a magic hack that got bugfixed later, precisely to prevent that very thing from happening. (Also, Zarus probably would not have the spellcasting ability to pull it off in the first place.)

She specifically blocked mortals from using that exploit again. Zarus is not a mortal.



In any case it highlights, rather than discredits, my point that something unusual has to be going on for a god of magic to get taken down by magic.

A god going after you isn't unusual?

For that matter, greater deity < epic mage?

[Kelb_Panthera]

She specifically blocked mortals from using that exploit again. Zarus is not a mortal.

As I said, the weave isn't necessarily a thing anywhere but Abier-Toril. Zarus using a similar exploit may not have been an option.


A god going after you isn't unusual?

As a god? Not really. In most campaign settings it's more MAD that keeps the gods in check than some over-deity. Even on Abier-Toril a lot of the gods are out to get each other.


For that matter, greater deity < epic mage?

Apparently badly weakened greater deity maybe < epic mage that stole a significant portion of her power. She apparently sacrificed herself, so he didn't really beat her anyway and, as I recall, Karsus realized the error he had made just prior to taking her down as well, not that it did him or his descendents any good (ToM reference :smallwink:)

[Psyren]

As I said, the weave isn't necessarily a thing anywhere but Abier-Toril. Zarus using a similar exploit may not have been an option.

But the reverse is also true - no weave here means that the specific method by which Zarus defeated this setting's god of magic is irrelevant. All I was pointing out was that "god of magic" does not make you invulnerable. (Quite the opposite in fact, Mystra has died more than any deity in FR history.) So the claim that the OP is somehow wrong or straining disbelief for having Zarus take down whoever holds that title in his setting is unsupported.



As a god? Not really. In most campaign settings it's more MAD that keeps the gods in check than some over-deity. Even on Abier-Toril a lot of the gods are out to get each other.

Succeeding however is unusual indeed.


Apparently badly weakened greater deity maybe < epic mage that stole a significant portion of her power.

The point being though that he was able to weaken her in the first place. Everything after that is irrelevant - once you weaken a major deity you can justify anything.

[Aolbain]

Did humanity go Austrian Corporal before of after Zarus killed his peers? If before, it would be rather simple to justify his domination. After humanity genocided and/or assimilated all their worshipers the other gods should be rather weak.

[jguy]

Did humanity go Austrian Corporal before of after Zarus killed his peers? If before, it would be rather simple to justify his domination. After humanity genocided and/or assimilated all their worshipers the other gods should be rather weak.

What happened was Zarus was gone for a long time after he created Humanity, but his essence flowed through every single one, as Moradin does through dwarves. On the day of The Revealing, he returned and filled every human on the planet with a singular purpose, unifying them into one solid force. For 20 years humans remained silent, positioning themselves everywhere and in one day, they attacked. (Everything changed the day the fire nation attacked...) War raged for decades but it was a simply a manner of numbers at that point. As each race was conquered, slaughtered, and enslaved, the powers of the God's dwindled and the power of Zarus grew. Eventually he was strong enough to start slaying the racial gods, taking on their strength, then moved on to gods of larger spheres. When he killed the god of magic and became the sole source of Arcane, it was the death toll for everyone else.

[bigstipidfighte]

So, did Zarus turn humanity into a poor man's Borg, with something akin to a hivemind and more or less slavish devotion to him? Cause I could see that being a pretty major coup in a strongly human-dominated setting, to the point that driving away the majority of other deities could be an achievable goal.

[jguy]

Pretty much but with more free will. I put it like this; Humans have been divided so long because they always felt incomplete because they don't know truly where they came from. Dwarfs know Moradin made them, Gnomes know Garl Glittergold made them, but humans are left in the dark to find themselves. When Zarus revealed himself every human felt complete for the first time. Every man was his brother and woman his sister, Zarus was their father who completed them, filling them with glorious purpose. Humans didn't really question anything and after a few decades of war they won.

Now fastforward 200+ years and things have cooled down more. Now, very few humans know a life outside of Zarus being their father (perhaps a lich here or there but maybe hand full of people in the world). They are now starting to question some of the methods and the stance on non-humans. This gives rise to sympathizers in the community for the players to interact with.

[Zweisteine]

Ideas:

1. The Annulus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicArtifacts.htm#annulus) is a major psionic artifact capable of destroying anything psionic, such as, for example, a god that has taken on the portfolio of all others, including psionic deities such as Ilsensine. It has a 10-minute warm up for that ultimate 1/year power, and destroying a god destroys the artifact as well, but if he is convinced that you are not a threat (there're quite a few god ways to hide), you could kill Zarus.

2. Zargon, as mentioned above, is specifically a god-slayer. Problem is, Zarus has servants who can take it down. Maybe find a way to strike a deal with it. You protect it from non-deities that might harm it, and it kills Zarus for you. Afterwards, stop protecting it and hide from Asmodeus after he retraps it.

3. For a fluffier campaign, seek out the remnants of the dead gods, and maybe even gods that escaped (gods of sneakiness, perhaps, and probably many lesser-known deities). Convince them to work together, and destroy Zargon. for extra fun, Kurtulmak escaped. His demand for payment? Equality for Kobolds. This is especially fun if his rivals escaped as well.

4. I assume no overdeity exists to call for help, because if there was, they would have intervened when Zarus went and upset the deific balance.

5. Find other god-killing mechanisms. Ancient artifacts, Elder Evils, other deific powers, etc.

6. There is a layer of the Abyss occupied by a creature from before the Great Wheel existed. The Abyss sort of grew around it. Have it eat Zarus (by getting him there, and having him hit it by dodging his attack).


The real problem is this: Once Zarus is dead, what is to keep fiends from invading and conquering the material plane? The forces of Good once did, but with those and the threat of Zarus gone...

[TuggyNE]

The real problem is this: Once Zarus is dead, what is to keep fiends from invading and conquering the material plane? The forces of Good once did, but with those and the threat of Zarus gone...

Well now, I suppose someone, or perhaps more than one, will have to take Zarus' portfolio(s) and divine power, won't they? Conveniently, the PCs are right there….

[jguy]

Killing Zarus is a possibility, it would depend on how long the game would go since that would seem to be an Epic quest. If they hunted down Zargon or released Pandorym they might be able to do it before level 20.

Zarus doesn't hold sway over psionics. In this campaign it just sort of exists without a god overseeing it. I wanted to give the players access to at least some form of higher magic, just not arcane or divine.

Correct, no overdeity in this setting.

[hamlet]

I want very much to steal this setting. Don't think I could make it work very well in AD&D, but it might induce me to break out the 3.5 books for a spin and blow off the dust.

[jguy]

I want very much to steal this setting. Don't think I could make it work very well in AD&D, but it might induce me to break out the 3.5 books for a spin and blow off the dust.

Feel free to steal the idea. If you do, I highly recommend you look at this (http://community.wizards.com/forum/other-published-worlds/threads/989226) for some ideas and world consistency. The commandments and corollaries are a great way to flesh out how people act in a Zarus based world.

[jguy]

For the first few levels it appears the main campaign will focus on a single city. The PC's will be recruited into the underground rebellion whose main goal is to put sympathetic people(s) into positions of power. In the city everyone is elected or appointed but anyone can challenge someone for their position every 6 months through a open debate and then honorable combat. The main idea so far is to shame/embarrass them to the point where a challenger can win a debate and the hearts of the people and then hope to win in one-on-one combat. This will mean there will be a lot of subterfuge from the PC's because they will start out at level 1 and every major player is from level 7 to 11.

I am having some issues thinking up missions for the PC's since I've never done a real subterfuge based game. It is mostly hack/slash with a plot holding it all together. So far all I can think of is civil unrest or perhaps even terrorism. How do I balance a city based encounter around the fact that most the city guard is level 6 and are in 4 man squads when the PC's are level 1? What would good early stage quests be to get them sufficiently high? Keep in mind they will be using PF's fast XP progression.