My First Campaign, PEACH, and need some help/ideas

[RadioThief]

So i am starting to design my first campaign, world, story. Everything. Its going to be a rather large build that encompasses a lot to it. The world will be a homage to my favorite RPGs. it Will have references to games such as, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Baldur's Gate, Breath of Fire, Secret of Mana, Archanum, and a few others included some movies as well. Im thinking of taking certain cities from various games, NPCs that are main characters in some of the games. Examples: a warforged named Robo(Chrono Trigger) a Zeplin called the Millenium Falcon (star wars) a Location, The mana tree (secret of mana) Etc.

Those ideas will just be a fun exta in my world, most wont be direct links to the campaign. So the main quest line will be that the PCs will stumble across a dwarf near death somewhere near the starting town who gives them a cut Diamond Prisum and tells them to keep it safe. The Diamond eventually gets stolen and is used in new Dwarven technology to focus light beams and create a sort of laser rifle, which they use to assasinate either multiple people or someone really important with no hope of ressurection. So what the PCs have to do is figure out a way to stop this. In my wolrd there will be a portal that brings them back to a specific point in time, but first they must find the 8 keys from 8 different kings to unlock this portal to be able to travel back in time and either stop the creation of this gun, or kills the assasins etc. So the main challenge will be when they go into the past, anything they do will have consequences on the future (the present time for the PCs). So i need some ideas on ways i can play with this, or anythign you think i should add, take away, change, im up for all comments.

Just as a note, we will be playing D&D 3.5, and i an very open to a lot of different races living in my world. I will also consider a lot of playable races, classes, prestige classes. So if you have some good homebrew stuff you would liek to suggest that is for the most part balances, please feel free link them. For starters i know i will have 2 races of Goblins, one playable and one as enemy. Thanks in advance.

[The Dragon]

You really need to consider what happens if the pc's are disinclined to let you steal the prism. Players can get creativewhen it come to hiding things, and if they have the resources (i.e. a spellcaster of some experience) they can make it pretty hard on you to steal it without resorting to
-"It's gone."
-"What? How!"
-"Because plot..."

"Because plot" grates on the player's senses. Just something to be aware of. Beyond that, it looks pretty cool.

[RadioThief]

I do agree with you, i'm not going to be like, oh yeah its gone there was nothing you could do, i have to figure out a way for them to give it up, or some sort of Paralyzation spell, that will give them no choice.

[JeminiZero]

Those ideas will just be a fun exta in my world, most wont be direct links to the campaign. So the main quest line will be that the PCs will stumble across a dwarf near death somewhere near the starting town who gives them a cut Diamond Prisum and tells them to keep it safe.
For some reason this sounds like its taken from Arcanum. :smallwink:

On a side note, the Dwarf should probably also them WHERE to bring the diamond to. Otherwise the would-be-assassins could simply walk up to the PCs and ask for it nicely, pay them for their troubles, and they would think it was just another side quest.

The more magically inclined PCs (Wizards and Artificers and the like) will probably try to identify (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/identify.htm) the Prism and figure out what it does. And it is highly probable that should they figure it out, they will either:
1) Try to use its powers for themselves.
2) Sell it to the highest bidder, perhaps even offer to join their organization (i.e. join the assassins, also see further below)
3) Alternatively, upon learning that it is merely a soul-destroying tool, rather a key to stopping the apocalypse, the paranoid PC's might simply destroy the prism to ensure it "never falls into the wrong hands", if not given some further objective on what to do with it.


The Diamond eventually gets stolen and is used in new Dwarven technology to focus light beams and create a sort of laser rifle, which they use to assasinate either multiple people or someone really important with no hope of ressurection.
How does this works? In core, the only way to kill a person with no hope of resurrection, involves trapping their soul (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/soulBind.htm). Outside of core, methods involve destroying the soul outright (e.g. an Aleax can send the soul of its target to its deity). So this new Dwarven Prism can kill a person so hard that it destroys their soul?

The other thing to keep in mind is that rich important people may have clones (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clone.htm) and astral seeds (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/astralSeed.htm) sitting around as backups in case they die. How does the prism interact with that?


So what the PCs have to do is figure out a way to stop this. In my wolrd there will be a portal that brings them back to a specific point in time
Time travel being such a powerful tool, the question arises on why did the makers of the time portal not use it secure wealth and power for themselves (or maybe they did, which is why their descendants are now the 8 kings!)


but first they must find the 8 keys from 8 different kings to unlock this portal to be able to travel back in time and either stop the creation of this gun, or kills the assasins etc.
Who are the assassins working for (given what they have managed to accomplish, there must almost certainly be either a powerful organization or indivudual backing them up). If they are working for one of the 8 kings, there is no way that King would agree to help.

Another question to consider: What is to stop the PCs from joining the assassins. As you are aware PCs tend to be a greedy and bloodthirty lot. They are not called murder-hobos for no reason. WHY would they be loyal to any of these 8 kings? Why not join the "winning side" as it were. In fact, why not get the 8 keys and THEN join the assassins, and combine the soul-destroying prism with time travel to secure great wealth and power for themselves?

The easiest way is for the assassins to be working for something so abhorrent that nobody in their right mind would join, like one of those cults dedicated to bringing in an Elder Evil and ending the world.


Just as a note, we will be playing D&D 3.5, and i an very open to a lot of different races living in my world. I will also consider a lot of playable races, classes, prestige classes. So if you have some good homebrew stuff you would liek to suggest that is for the most part balances, please feel free link them.
*Gestures wildly at link in Sig* :smallbiggrin: (You don't have to allow the whole class, just tell your players to run anything they generate past you first.)