Any creative ideas for a plot twist in my upcoming campaign?

[Harlot]

Hello fellow playgrounders

I've outlined an upcoming D&D 3.5 campaign, but think it needs some Ooomph or surprise element.

This is the plot so far:

Good vs. evil are fighting over an epic magic item, a gemstone that boost the magic powers of whoever wields it. You get to control it by fusing your soul with the stone. It cannot be undone. Losing the stone means losing your soul. (The stone is powered by the souls of former owners )

Now a good wizard has had the stone for a few years and has used it for doing good - he is specialised in weather and made the harvest good etc, making the region - his fifedom, peaceful and prosperous.
But the villain, his arch enemy, closed in on him, and as a final act the wizard chose to defend the stone and the good, by terraforming the fifedom he rules into a sort of giant elemental maze, with good and awesome creatures for protection. He then HIDES stone there with his soul in it, just before he is killed by the villain.

Now the villain and his goonies are seaching the fifedom for the stone, and the good side is doing the same.

The wizards grandson hires the PC's to find and kill the wizard so that the magic in the fifedom will go away, returning his heritage to 'normal'. (the grandson is not very smart and does not know that the wizard is dead. The fifedom is sort of closed of behind a magic barrier)

The good side contacts the group and asks them to locate the gem and bring it to them.

The villain will first try to kill the party but might try to pursuade them/force them to hand over the stone to them, if the party finds the stone before they do (Knowing my players well, they will most likely consider doing this.)

Now, thats all pretty straight forward. And maybe too much so. I feel the whole story needs a plot twist to take in a unexpected direction but I lack ideas.

Its supposed to be a rather short campaign and in general the players don't do extensive background stories for their characters, so building a surprise around family treason or the like will be hard to pull off.

Anyway, hoping for some inspitration from you people.
Thank you so much in advance.
/Harlot

[Blackhawk748]

Simple, the "stupid grandson" is actually working for the villain and has been promised his families fiefdom as well as several neighboring lands. A nice simple betrayal that they may not see coming.

[Lightlawbliss]

"the wizard is actually alive, is guarding the stone with his life, and is not in the maze."

"the wizard is alive, has the stone but doesn't know what it is or who he is or what he can do, and is an npc running around the maze looking for the stone."

[Blackhawk748]

"the wizard is actually alive, is guarding the stone with his life, and is not in the maze."

This actually sounds like something a wizard would do.

[Harlot]

Simple, the "stupid grandson" is actually working for the villain and has been promised his families fiefdom as well as several neighboring lands. A nice simple betrayal that they may not see coming.

Yes I have considered this exact idea but cannot fathom why the grandson would ask them to hunt for the wizard, if he knows the villain has slayed him already...?

I agree that the wizard fooling the world to believe he is dead, is a pretty good idea. I think, however, that I am looking for something even more crazy ...

[Blackhawk748]

the Wizard fooled the world by turning himself into a Horrid Warbred Rabbit? :smallconfused:

And maybe the grandson, knowing how much wily wiliness his grandad had, just wants to be sure.

[Alent]

Perhaps the elemental maze itself is the gem, having been turned inside out like a portable hole, and thusly protected by manifestations of every single soul trapped in the gem, good or evil? The original land is still there, unchanged, in stasis, "outside" of the gem.

I would personally manifest them as elementals, to keep up the illusion.

Edit: Also, the wizard might be animating his corpse on the "outside" with the intention of turning the gem rightside out once all of his enemies are inside the maze, to trap them as souls in the gem.

[Harlot]

@Norren: Thats pretty freaking fantastic - yes they'll be running around in the gem iteself.

Also@Blackhawk748. thought some more - makes sense that the grandson would betray his grampa to get the stone for himself or whatever. That's so obvious I'm ashamed I didn't see it. Sorry.

[Blackhawk748]

Its ok Harlot, sometimes we think so hard we miss the really obvious backstab, its what usually gets the players :smallwink:

[Captnq]

Nuke the site from orbit: Nobody will see a giant comet blowing up everything for a hundred miles coming.

The name of the gemstone is rosebud.

Kill everyone in the party and the last guy suddenly wakes up out of a cold sweat, it was all a dream.

Jason Voorhees' mother is the one doing all the killing.

The planet is rules by apes.

They find a box with Gwyneth Paltrow's head.

One of the characters that is female is actually male and was raised that way. His male personality manifests and starts killing the other players.

The villian is one of the player's father.

The players are all dead and really ghosts.

M. Night Shyamalan is the wizard.

Pyramid Head Shows Up.

The Bolivian army shows up.

Suddenly... Penguins.

Turns out there is no gem, the whole thing is just the God's Idea of a Reality TV show. Sort of like the truman show, but with monsters and Kate Upton in a 'nun-kini'.

The Gemstone breaks as soon as you touch it.

Rocks fall, everyone dies.

[Harlot]

@captnq: Thanks for this mindboggling piece of supreme creativeness. I think I'll be able to work Pyramids, Penguins (YES!) and Gwynneth Paltrows head into the mix.

[Bronk]

How about the old switcheroo?

The gem could be the true villain, powerful and sentient, enticing powerful wizards and the like into giving it their souls in return for a period of enhanced powers. In that case, the wizard might not be as good as people think, and has disrupted the world in an attempt to hold onto the power of the gem in the face of the villain, who the gem has targeted as its next wielder.

On the other hand, the wizard might be the true villain, knowingly using a terrible gem that is powered by souls. The 'villain' would really be someone who is using every means at his disposal to find and destroy the gem, freeing the souls within, possibly including someone important to him/her.

Or, you could go with the inside out gem idea, where each monster is a representation of a soul inside, and make it so that although they are guardians, they are also at heart either good or evil monsters (based on their soul), bound to serve whether they like it or not, and that binding also represents their continued bond to the gem. Now that the wizard has turned the gem is 'inside out', he has introduced a weakness... killing the monsters or freeing them from their bondage now lessens the total power of the gem! Now, the villain is still the bad guy here, but he/she can't just go around killing off these monsters, or the gem will be powerless when he finally finds it. In this case, the villain might selectively target some guardians to curse them into powerlessness (which the PCs can find and heal) in order to get them out of the way while still powering the gem, and break the bonds of a select few and recruit them for their knowledge and power. There could be a lot of spying and sneaking around on the part of both sides as they try to undo each other's work.

Maybe at the end the villain can have a plan to power up the gem using the souls of disposable thralls, and the PCs can halt that threat. This could be in addition to everything else... the gem could have been depowered, or the villain could just want it more powerful anyway.

[Segev]

From what you know of your players, would they be "okay" with taking a job from somebody who wants them to murder his grandpa? What is the grandson's justification for his grandfather's death being not an evil thing to seek? Or are your players more typically of the "sure, we'll be assassins for hire" sort when they play games?

[Amphetryon]

It would help if you could clearly define what you or your group considers 'creative.'

[Harlot]

Thank you all for helping out.

Its supposed to be a fairly short campaign (we do a 72 hours gaming+beer weekend in a cabin once a year) but the campaign may take an extra 8-10 ordinary gaming sessions (app. 4 hours) after that to finish.
Meaning that since it is supposed to be somewhat short, the characters will most likely not be played for long, thus creating long background stories or being selective about what missions they'll take is not really what theplayers do - it'll be 1-2-3 GO!

@Amphetryon: For these weekend campaigns the other DMs tend to do simple dungeon crawls or simple scenarios. And my original - non-original - idea is just that. And that is really OK, only I wanted to make it more surprising. Mix up villains and heroes, messing up the world, making traitors of people they trusted. So my 'creative' is just something that twist this ordinary 'he is the villain - reach his lair' - that the players expect.

@Segev. Yes, they'll be OK with it: My basic idea was that the wizard had made a magic barrier around the family fifedom, sending the commoners fleeing and destroying the land, and as there was no easy way to contact him, and he had been increasingly distressed the months prior to that, his family would conclude he'd gone senile or crazy or both, and that the only way to save the grandsons heritage/the fifedom is to kill the grandfather wizard, thus stopping the magic. (Logic of the somewhat dense and greedy grandson.)

The party will agree to this because A) he offers them 'a princess and half the kingdom', B) Killing a mad wizard would save the fifedom - it would be a good deed C) I'll make someone try to assassinate the party quite early in the game as my PC's are quite predictable regarding REVENGE...

All of you: I a very grateful for your help - you have certainly made this campaign a lot more interesting already. I am very, very keen on the inverted Gem maze idea, and I LOVE Bronks addendum - centering the game around the balance of the souls powering the stone, and that the stone WILL always turn on the wielder/absorb the wielders soul - just makes it much more of a riddle, lots of potential for diplomacy and sneak, less obvious which side wants what result, and what result is even desireable is very much up to debate. I like that there's no obvious solution, and I like that the wizard vs. Villain is all in shades of grey, not black and white. And yes ... I will add penguins.

Thanks again
/Harlot

[Shining Wrath]

The good wizard found that the gem had properties akin to Tolkien's Ring; the more you use it, the more you become like the power source. That is, all the trapped souls. Who are, on the average, more evil than good, and more chaotic than lawful. And he was drifting that direction.

When he realized his enemy was closing in on him he surrendered to the gem and did something evil - he became a lich. And the gem is his phylactery. And therefore the stupid grandson is likely to get his wish - the party will have to kill the "good" wizard, now a lich, and destroy the gem in order to Save The World (or at least the fiefdom). The putative Evil Wizard will join them at the end and assist them in doing so, because he's no match for the lich once the lich masters the power of the gem in his new form, and liches are not known for their forgiving nature toward someone who intended to kill them and still wants to steal their phylactery.

[zyggythorn]

Have the gem be an intelligent item, and fuse with the most 'out there' party member.

Everyone gets a level in a Lovecraft inspired class at that point. (Alienist, warshaper, illithid savant, etc etc)

Watch as the party breaks the world in wonderful ways.

Reveal the Fiefdom's name to be 'Netherill' at the end and only at the end.

Watch as your players beg for more.

[Immabozo]

The wizard PAO'ed the stone into one of the NPCs that are searching the maze for the stone. It takes a high spellcraft to notice and, being epic spells, is immune to disspell. Anyone who tries to use the stone, loses their soul when the "stone" tries to run off. The only way to turn the stone back to normal, is to "kill" it, returning it back to normal.

[Amphetryon]

And that is really OK, only I wanted to make it more surprising. Mix up villains and heroes, messing up the world, making traitors of people they trusted.
See, all of those things are pretty much standard fantasy trope fair; I've known creative writing professors who docked points on all of them for not being creative.

That said, if these things are unexpected among those you game with, it seems you have some fine ideas for twists already.

[Harlot]

See, all of those things are pretty much standard fantasy trope fair; I've known creative writing professors who docked points on all of them for not being creative.

That said, if these things are unexpected among those you game with, it seems you have some fine ideas for twists already.

Yeah. You're right, that is pretty standard. Sigh. The group is old, I am sort of new-ish to it, and we seem to always run pretty standard adventures, I guess. Treason is ofcourse standard, as is the villain actually being the hero and vice versa - anything more exciting than that ... not so much.
If we were their pupils, your professors would probably reconsider their careers and start skateboarding professionally or whatever, in utter despair.. I'm glad that I could - as always - count on the playground to help me out.

An inverted soulsucking stone illusion/plane with randomly aligned creatures and a villain who'll try to stop you killing any creature in there for fear of weakening the power of the stone.... That is just so very outlandish in our group, that yes, it is 'mission accomplished - I got exactly the inspiation I hoped for. I will also make a horde of attacking penguins. I don't know what they'll be doing inside the stone, but they'll be there.
This will be SO MUCH FUN!

Thanks again!
/Harlot

[malonkey1]

I got one: The wizard and the stone never existed, and the past "holders" of the stone are in fact a single immortal shapeshifter that has been manipulating adventurers into voluntarily giving him their souls in exchange for the power of the stone, instead taking their shapes and using the soul to continue its own lifespan. The villain is also this shapeshifter, getting close to the end of his current lifespan and needing a new soul.

[Bonzai]

1. The Gem is actually a Lich's phylactery. The whole soul bonding and caster boosting was part of their defense mechanism.

2. Glenda appears and tells you that the power was within you all along....

3. The Gems are worthless, and an elaborate ruse set in motion to lure his arch enemy into the maze... an elaborate deathtrap of his devising.