Story help for 1st DM session.

[Valtu]

Hey everyone, I posted a while back about a campaign idea I had for when it became my turn to DM for our party (we're switching who is the DM about every 3 sessions).

Anyway, I think I may table that original for a future session down the road, as it will be tough to make engaging during the first half of the story, and hard to make without it relying too much on exposition.

The new idea I have is this: Prison riot/break. Our party is sort of a swat team for our continent, dispatched by various nobles to help throughout the realm, when things are just too dangerous or overwhelming for the normal authorities. So we'd begin by hearing about a prison break, in which several extremely dangerous prisoners have escaped, and must be rounded up and either brought back or killed.

One twist I was wanting to include is that not necessarily all of the prisoners are as awful as we've been told, and that regardless of their guilt/innocence, they've been experimented upon during their time in the dungeons. Eventually, like way down the road, after the DM rotation has come back to me a couple of times and a few prisoners have been encountered, I want the party to become aware of this and eventually return to the prison and confront the warden.

Now here's where I'm stuck. . . forget the evil warden sub-plot for a moment, this is even more basic: why would a "maximum security" sort of prison even exist in a realm like this? If a prisoner was (or was said to be) extremely cruel and violent, wouldn't they most likely just be executed? I want a plausible reason for such a prison to exist, even if the prison itself has to be a secret from the general populace (an idea I kind of like). Any thoughts?

[HighWater]

Now here's where I'm stuck. . . forget the evil warden sub-plot for a moment, this is even more basic: why would a "maximum security" sort of prison even exist in a realm like this? If a prisoner was (or was said to be) extremely cruel and violent, wouldn't they most likely just be executed? I want a plausible reason for such a prison to exist, even if the prison itself has to be a secret from the general populace (an idea I kind of like). Any thoughts?

Have you considered "housing" the prison on a different plane or demi-plane? This can make the authorities feel comfortable that they've dealt with the problem sufficiently (out of sight, out of mind), while also giving the warden free reign on his own plane. The prisoners can then start escaping through portals leading to different cities.
Executing isn't always the best method, remember Obi-Wan:


If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Some threats you do not want to execute, because once you got rid of their mortal coil, you lose all ability to control them.

Besides, who are you going to experiment on?

[Drachez]

The ruler of a kingdom that most cared about his people (The "hard working" people), everyone had food, education and work, but how he could afford that to everyone?
Every single thief, murderer, enemy of the state, etc. would be sent to his prison where they would be indescribable tortured and serve as slaves, labor for free to pay for the kingdom expenses.

Everyone in the kingdom loved the Ruler and the Utopia he created, even the majority that knew what happen inside the great prison.

While the Ruler would not harm innocents (unless really had to), the people in charge of the prison started to take advantage of his system, paying to incriminate others, like rivals or just because they needed more "slaves to sell/work".

Then there are choices for adventures, take down the prison that let good people live in peace and evil deeds are heavily punished, let it keep going going even when innocents are incorrectly punished and having their lives stolen, or try to cleanse the corrupted wardens.

PS: My English is bad, Sorry if any mistakes.

[Valtu]

Thanks for the help, guys. I always forget that with resurrection not being terribly hard to come by in D&D, it might be a lot safer to simply trap someone who is extremely powerful rather than kill them and basically wait around for someone to bring them back or reanimate them.

[HighWater]

Thanks for the help, guys. I always forget that with resurrection not being terribly hard to come by in D&D, it might be a lot safer to simply trap someone who is extremely powerful rather than kill them and basically wait around for someone to bring them back or reanimate them.
Glad to be of help! Death is just so different in D&D that it's hard to account for the consequences. Looks like you did it though, by accident! :smallwink:

[JusticeZero]

Thanks for the help, guys. I always forget that with resurrection not being terribly hard to come by in D&D, it might be a lot safer to simply trap someone who is extremely powerful rather than kill them and basically wait around for someone to bring them back or reanimate them.
Well, yes, but you can effectively imprison their souls from most anything that isn't powerful enough to yank the prisoners out of whatever prison plane etc. by main force anyways by turning them into lowly skeletons. Just the basic Animate Dead is plenty to imprison the soul and make it inaccessible from anything shy of a level 18+ Cleric. Even if you only animated part of the body. Which by the way is a common explanation for why necromancy is [evil]...

[sideswipe]

original idea... they all start in a tavern... wait! they all wake up and remember nothing..... and more! they are all naked and have been taken captive in said tavern.

genius :smallcool:

[Nightcanon]

The man in the iron mask- the prisoner is an important person (in the Dumas story the youger twin of the King) who for some reason can not be killed (again, in the original because royalty was ordained by God and thus regicide was taboo), but needs to be out of the way. Perhaps your captives are in protective custody and they don't know it?
TBH I only came here to suggest starting in a tavern, so that's all I've got for now.

[Safety Sword]

It could be interesting plot-wise to have the warden have his own agenda with regards to ascending (descending) to divinity, or have him just be an agent of a cruel divine being.

He's rounding up the prisoners for his own nefarious purposes (sacrifice, ritual, forced labour, research, etc). Plot twist, the *whatever* he's planning will actually bring a short term gain for the forces of good (stopping a power gain by an even greater evil, blocking a potent realm wide enchantment, etc) to make your characters think about their role in a rescue/jailbreak. Perhaps the bigger evil is the one who gets the characters involved through his own agents and that is discovered just before the said jailbreak.

Then, you have plot leads to continue with and hooks to other adventures.

[HighWater]

Well, yes, but you can effectively imprison their souls from most anything that isn't powerful enough to yank the prisoners out of whatever prison plane etc. by main force anyways by turning them into lowly skeletons. Just the basic Animate Dead is plenty to imprison the soul and make it inaccessible from anything shy of a level 18+ Cleric. Even if you only animated part of the body. Which by the way is a common explanation for why necromancy is [evil]...
Animate Dead is Evil because the Descriptor says so. The most common explanation is that it's evil because it uses Negative Energy. Actually, the Animate Dead spell says nothing regarding imprisoning souls and whathavenot, I'm curious as to where this story comes from. As far as I know, it's just Negative Energy animating the body and there is no soul involved whatsoever (hence the animated dead are mindless)...

Of course, Animate Dead does cause some trouble for bringing a person back to life, but do note that Reincarnate (Druid 4th level spell) and Resurrection (Cleric 7th level spell) require only a small part of the original body to function. Reincarnate seems to require a bit of the body that was part of it when it was killed, but not part of it when it was made undead. (Luckily, most execution-methods are somewhat sloppy, so something could be palmed and smuggled out.) Resurrection (available at level 15 without shenanigans) explicitly works on destroyed undead, as well as only requiring some dust of the body to function. Again, very easy to smuggle. I'd call Animate Dead a less secure option than completely destroying the body and very carefully hiding whatever you can't get rid off (don't forget to encase it in lead), if you're concerned about the person coming back in a mortal body.

Still, even if those spells did not work, Animate Dead does not imprison the soul and does not prevent the soul from coming back through other means, like:
- turning into a ghost, or several other kind of (incorporeal) undead that can haunt you, or worse, spread your secrets,
- finding an occupation as a devil or demon,
And even if they do nicely depart to the afterlife, there are ways to get them to talk, which can also be problematic enough if they know sensitive information!

If you want to go as far as imprisoning or even outright destroying souls, you have to go into very costly and very evil spells, like Trap the Soul (lvl 8), or Soulbind (lvl 9). Wait, did I say evil? Ha, there goes the "imprisoning souls is evil"-theory, these spells aren't even evil! They do not have the evil descriptor.
And then still, the soul is only bound and can be set free again. You can try and "sphere of annihilation"-someone, but that's a dangerous method and it's not entirely clear what exactly happens to the soul (though the text implies that only Divine Intervention can ever let that character come back).

Conclusion: S
urely there are ways to permanently dispose of someone. But it is something that is very hard to do in DnD if others are motivated to undo someone's death. There is plenty of merit in keeping someone alive, confined and stripped of all powers as it arguably grants more control than you get for anything less than costly 8th level spells. And now that they're imprisoned, you get to punish them through torture, interrogate them for useful info, etc. etc.
Now, if you further reduce your imprisonment costs through corporate deals, or outright blackmail...