Drake S.
2014-12-06, 01:08 AM
I'll preface this by saying that I am still fairly new to D&D. I was only introduced a couple of months ago, and 5e is the only edition I know. I've always wanted to get into tabletop RPing, but I've never had the chance to until recently. I will say that I love it so far.
That said, I have always been a huge storyteller at heart. I currently am in the process of writing a book series, but here and there, I have so many stories and worlds that I've built upon from numerous Word Docs as well as ideas that have been swimming around in my head.
When I first joined my group, the DM told us that if we'd like to, we can come up with campaigns and stories of our own to play as well. I started coming up with one idea and I wanted to throw it to you to get your opinion on it so far. It is still a work in progress of course, so there will be details here and there missing. And again, remember, I am new to D&D, so even though this will be more of a storyline focused discussion, I wouldn't mind hearing any details on how you could see some of the mechanics when playing it. I've never DMed before and frankly, I'm not sure if I could. Whereas I am comfortable writing and telling stories, I'm just not sure how I would handle having people play it.
Story Background:
1. An ancient seal is broken by an unfortunate group of adventurers and a dark demi-god is released from the magical chains that once held him bound. Now, he wishes to exact revenge upon the world that hated and despised him so. Determined to succeed at all costs, he first slaughters the ones who accidentally freed him and descends from his former mountain prison. With fiery vengeance in his eyes, he massacres the entire village that rests in the shadow of the mountain. He enacts a dark ritual and pulls forth an evil blade from the Void. With the dark sword in hand, he hopes to seek out 7 more ancient artifacts and seeks to prepare another dark ritual that will blot out the sun and raise his Mother, an Elder God, from the Pit where she lies trapped. When his Mother rises, both of them together wish to bring about the ruin and complete destruction to the world of the living, and wage an everlasting war against the gods.
Only the power of the 7 artifacts will be enough to end the life of the demi-god and effectively seal or open the Pit. Since the demi-god works his dark arts on the corpses of the townsfolk in order to perform the blood spell and create vicious monstrosities, to perform the ritual to raise his Mother from the Pit, he hires several parties of unknowing adventurers to seek out the artifacts. Recruited by a man possessed by a demon, your party is one of 3 others he has tasked and given instructions and maps to find the artifacts.
So, the party must discover who it is that they are working for as they go on their quest and uncover the truth behind its purpose.
1. Along the way, they will actually encounter good people and have to work their way past divine mandates in order to find the artifacts that were never meant to be disturbed. Will they defy the gods who keep these objects hidden?
2. They will need to learn who the person who hired them really is and find a way to expel the demon inside of him, or destroy them both.
The party will also meet the other two groups who have been hired for the task and will need to take back the artifacts from them if they are to ever hope to have a chance to defeat the demi-god and his Elder God Mother.
1. One of these groups will be a very good aligned and noble group. They will be under the impression that what they are doing is for the benefit of all mankind since they have been seduced by the demon who hired them. The other group will be an evil-aligned group and will easily know the purpose behind the artifacts. They hope to retrieve all of them and deliver them into the hands of the Demi-God in order to gain his favor and help him reign death and destruction upon the land as heralds to the Old Mother.
a. Each group has been tasked with finding 2 of the artifacts. The final artifact is set to only be available at a certain time, and only when the others are gathered near it. As such, your party, just like the other two, believes that there are only three artifacts. After finding the first two, the third is to be found at the end. It is then, when all the parties meet together and realize there are more than they thought. Not only do they have to contend one with another, but the Demon sends a hideous aberration gifted to him by the Demi-God to retrieve all of the artifacts from each of the adventurers as they all seek after the final one. The party must choose whether to kill the other groups, good or bad and claim their artifacts, or convince them to hand over the artifacts(explanation of this will be later).
i. The good aligned party of adventurers can either be killed outright, or convinced to hand them over.
ii. The evil aligned party can also either be killed outright for their artifacts, or they may be able to be convinced also. The sending of the abomination to destroy all three of their groups might hint at the evil-aligned party that they will never gain the favor of the priest anyway and were destined to die as were they all. That might convince them to hand over the artifacts rather than die for them.
When/If the demon’s abomination is defeated as well as the other groups of adventurers, and the artifacts are collected. The party must then return to the possessed priest with each artifact in hand. Knowing that they were betrayed because they only previously believed there were three artifacts, they decide to discover the true purpose of their mission and what the artifacts mean. The demon, in the guise of the priest, tries to convince them that they do not need to know and they must hand over the artifacts without question and get paid for their services. The artifacts are of such that they can only be given to another willingly or through the death of its owner. Each artifact bonds temporarily to the first person who touched it. It is possible that the party discovers this in their travels. For instance, if one of the members takes the artifact from another and goes to sleep, the next morning the artifact will always be back in possession of the first person.
a. When the party members refuse to hand them over willingly without answers, the priest leads them into a room where there are altars set aside for each of them. Undead monsters attack the group and try to place them on the altars where the priest will call upon lesser demons to possess each party member and force them to give up their artifacts.
i. The party contends with the undead and maybe even one of the group gets possessed temporarily, before they have to deal at last with the priest, and ultimately the demon.
b. When the demon is at last defeated, they find the spellbook of the demon and learn the horror of what the demi-god wishes to accomplish. They must then make the decision to scatter and hide the artifacts once more, or to make their way into the belly of the beast. Go to the place which was once a tranquil village, witness the horrors of the blood magic ritual, face the terrible aberrations, and use the artifacts to take the life of the demi-god and finally seal the door to the Ancient Pit locking away the Ancient Horror once and for all time.
Each of the seven artifacts can represent some sort of virtue, or power. They can even have some sort of elemental properties about them that transfer to the bearer. The bearer can call on these abilities for short amounts of time.
Sample Ideas (I'll give each one better names, but for simplicity's sake we'll call them Eathstone, Waterstone, Etc.):
1. Earthstone—Grants the bearer temporary great strength when he/she calls upon this power. After the power is used, the artifact and the ability power down for a bit only to be available much later.
2. Firestone—Enhances one’s weapons to make them strong enough to kill even a god. This is the one that must be used to deliver the final blow to the demi-god. When used against normal creatures, the weapon is completely normal. Think of it like a “poison tipped” effect where it doesn’t exactly shatter armor or shields, but rather, if it hits the person, then it is capable of delivering that divine death.
3. Waterstone—Can enhance the bearer’s magic greatly. Spells are supercharged, defensive spells enhanced, enchantments stronger than normal.
4. Windstone—Grants the bearer incredible stealth and super light feet. Leaps and jumps are greatly enhanced making the user almost appear to fly. Furthermore, when this power is called upon, one can sneak past another almost as if they were invisible.
5. Lightstone—Greatly enhances the intellect and insight of the bearer for a brief time. With this stone, the wearer can see ten moves in advance, can command armies with expert precision, or even find the most effective attack possible or discover the perfect spell for the right occasion.
6. Lightning Stone—Temporarily gives great speed to the bearer. A person in command of this ability can deliver a flurry of lightning swift attacks, or they can quickly get to where they need to in an instant.
7. The Dark Stone—Can cloud the judgment of another to take command of them, or confound them if their will is strong enough to avoid total control. It can also induce temporary blindness to a single powerful foe, or a group of enemies.
Altogether, these stones can combine to form a seal. They must be combined willingly by each bearer and placed on the altar of summoning. Each bearer must decide to seal the barrier or break the barrier thus destroying each stone in the process to lockdown or release the Elder God from her Prison. Also, no one mortal can be in possession of more than one stone at a time. When together in the hands of a single bearer, it will corrupt the mind of the one who holds it and they will go completely insane. Only the Demi-god has the strength of will and mind to hold each of the artifacts and use them together. Think of each stone as if it were pieces of the Demi-god’s own soul extracted when he was first imprisoned over a Millennia ago.
I'll go ahead and stop right there for now. I have already come up with the locations of where each stone will be and the types of stones that the party will need to collect. I even made a few notes on the other parties and the 2 stones that each of them will have collected by the time they all sort of run into one another for the final stone. I also have a few notes jotted down about the Demi-God himself and his Mother.
Let me know what you think so far. Again, I am completely new to this, so I don't know if there have been any stories like this already. We are currently playing HotDQ, but I started writing this before I even knew we'd be doing that campaign. If the whole "Elder Goddess" theme in my story sounds a bit too close to the Rise of Tiamat storyline, please let me know as well.
I look forward to hearing from everyone though.
That said, I have always been a huge storyteller at heart. I currently am in the process of writing a book series, but here and there, I have so many stories and worlds that I've built upon from numerous Word Docs as well as ideas that have been swimming around in my head.
When I first joined my group, the DM told us that if we'd like to, we can come up with campaigns and stories of our own to play as well. I started coming up with one idea and I wanted to throw it to you to get your opinion on it so far. It is still a work in progress of course, so there will be details here and there missing. And again, remember, I am new to D&D, so even though this will be more of a storyline focused discussion, I wouldn't mind hearing any details on how you could see some of the mechanics when playing it. I've never DMed before and frankly, I'm not sure if I could. Whereas I am comfortable writing and telling stories, I'm just not sure how I would handle having people play it.
Story Background:
1. An ancient seal is broken by an unfortunate group of adventurers and a dark demi-god is released from the magical chains that once held him bound. Now, he wishes to exact revenge upon the world that hated and despised him so. Determined to succeed at all costs, he first slaughters the ones who accidentally freed him and descends from his former mountain prison. With fiery vengeance in his eyes, he massacres the entire village that rests in the shadow of the mountain. He enacts a dark ritual and pulls forth an evil blade from the Void. With the dark sword in hand, he hopes to seek out 7 more ancient artifacts and seeks to prepare another dark ritual that will blot out the sun and raise his Mother, an Elder God, from the Pit where she lies trapped. When his Mother rises, both of them together wish to bring about the ruin and complete destruction to the world of the living, and wage an everlasting war against the gods.
Only the power of the 7 artifacts will be enough to end the life of the demi-god and effectively seal or open the Pit. Since the demi-god works his dark arts on the corpses of the townsfolk in order to perform the blood spell and create vicious monstrosities, to perform the ritual to raise his Mother from the Pit, he hires several parties of unknowing adventurers to seek out the artifacts. Recruited by a man possessed by a demon, your party is one of 3 others he has tasked and given instructions and maps to find the artifacts.
So, the party must discover who it is that they are working for as they go on their quest and uncover the truth behind its purpose.
1. Along the way, they will actually encounter good people and have to work their way past divine mandates in order to find the artifacts that were never meant to be disturbed. Will they defy the gods who keep these objects hidden?
2. They will need to learn who the person who hired them really is and find a way to expel the demon inside of him, or destroy them both.
The party will also meet the other two groups who have been hired for the task and will need to take back the artifacts from them if they are to ever hope to have a chance to defeat the demi-god and his Elder God Mother.
1. One of these groups will be a very good aligned and noble group. They will be under the impression that what they are doing is for the benefit of all mankind since they have been seduced by the demon who hired them. The other group will be an evil-aligned group and will easily know the purpose behind the artifacts. They hope to retrieve all of them and deliver them into the hands of the Demi-God in order to gain his favor and help him reign death and destruction upon the land as heralds to the Old Mother.
a. Each group has been tasked with finding 2 of the artifacts. The final artifact is set to only be available at a certain time, and only when the others are gathered near it. As such, your party, just like the other two, believes that there are only three artifacts. After finding the first two, the third is to be found at the end. It is then, when all the parties meet together and realize there are more than they thought. Not only do they have to contend one with another, but the Demon sends a hideous aberration gifted to him by the Demi-God to retrieve all of the artifacts from each of the adventurers as they all seek after the final one. The party must choose whether to kill the other groups, good or bad and claim their artifacts, or convince them to hand over the artifacts(explanation of this will be later).
i. The good aligned party of adventurers can either be killed outright, or convinced to hand them over.
ii. The evil aligned party can also either be killed outright for their artifacts, or they may be able to be convinced also. The sending of the abomination to destroy all three of their groups might hint at the evil-aligned party that they will never gain the favor of the priest anyway and were destined to die as were they all. That might convince them to hand over the artifacts rather than die for them.
When/If the demon’s abomination is defeated as well as the other groups of adventurers, and the artifacts are collected. The party must then return to the possessed priest with each artifact in hand. Knowing that they were betrayed because they only previously believed there were three artifacts, they decide to discover the true purpose of their mission and what the artifacts mean. The demon, in the guise of the priest, tries to convince them that they do not need to know and they must hand over the artifacts without question and get paid for their services. The artifacts are of such that they can only be given to another willingly or through the death of its owner. Each artifact bonds temporarily to the first person who touched it. It is possible that the party discovers this in their travels. For instance, if one of the members takes the artifact from another and goes to sleep, the next morning the artifact will always be back in possession of the first person.
a. When the party members refuse to hand them over willingly without answers, the priest leads them into a room where there are altars set aside for each of them. Undead monsters attack the group and try to place them on the altars where the priest will call upon lesser demons to possess each party member and force them to give up their artifacts.
i. The party contends with the undead and maybe even one of the group gets possessed temporarily, before they have to deal at last with the priest, and ultimately the demon.
b. When the demon is at last defeated, they find the spellbook of the demon and learn the horror of what the demi-god wishes to accomplish. They must then make the decision to scatter and hide the artifacts once more, or to make their way into the belly of the beast. Go to the place which was once a tranquil village, witness the horrors of the blood magic ritual, face the terrible aberrations, and use the artifacts to take the life of the demi-god and finally seal the door to the Ancient Pit locking away the Ancient Horror once and for all time.
Each of the seven artifacts can represent some sort of virtue, or power. They can even have some sort of elemental properties about them that transfer to the bearer. The bearer can call on these abilities for short amounts of time.
Sample Ideas (I'll give each one better names, but for simplicity's sake we'll call them Eathstone, Waterstone, Etc.):
1. Earthstone—Grants the bearer temporary great strength when he/she calls upon this power. After the power is used, the artifact and the ability power down for a bit only to be available much later.
2. Firestone—Enhances one’s weapons to make them strong enough to kill even a god. This is the one that must be used to deliver the final blow to the demi-god. When used against normal creatures, the weapon is completely normal. Think of it like a “poison tipped” effect where it doesn’t exactly shatter armor or shields, but rather, if it hits the person, then it is capable of delivering that divine death.
3. Waterstone—Can enhance the bearer’s magic greatly. Spells are supercharged, defensive spells enhanced, enchantments stronger than normal.
4. Windstone—Grants the bearer incredible stealth and super light feet. Leaps and jumps are greatly enhanced making the user almost appear to fly. Furthermore, when this power is called upon, one can sneak past another almost as if they were invisible.
5. Lightstone—Greatly enhances the intellect and insight of the bearer for a brief time. With this stone, the wearer can see ten moves in advance, can command armies with expert precision, or even find the most effective attack possible or discover the perfect spell for the right occasion.
6. Lightning Stone—Temporarily gives great speed to the bearer. A person in command of this ability can deliver a flurry of lightning swift attacks, or they can quickly get to where they need to in an instant.
7. The Dark Stone—Can cloud the judgment of another to take command of them, or confound them if their will is strong enough to avoid total control. It can also induce temporary blindness to a single powerful foe, or a group of enemies.
Altogether, these stones can combine to form a seal. They must be combined willingly by each bearer and placed on the altar of summoning. Each bearer must decide to seal the barrier or break the barrier thus destroying each stone in the process to lockdown or release the Elder God from her Prison. Also, no one mortal can be in possession of more than one stone at a time. When together in the hands of a single bearer, it will corrupt the mind of the one who holds it and they will go completely insane. Only the Demi-god has the strength of will and mind to hold each of the artifacts and use them together. Think of each stone as if it were pieces of the Demi-god’s own soul extracted when he was first imprisoned over a Millennia ago.
I'll go ahead and stop right there for now. I have already come up with the locations of where each stone will be and the types of stones that the party will need to collect. I even made a few notes on the other parties and the 2 stones that each of them will have collected by the time they all sort of run into one another for the final stone. I also have a few notes jotted down about the Demi-God himself and his Mother.
Let me know what you think so far. Again, I am completely new to this, so I don't know if there have been any stories like this already. We are currently playing HotDQ, but I started writing this before I even knew we'd be doing that campaign. If the whole "Elder Goddess" theme in my story sounds a bit too close to the Rise of Tiamat storyline, please let me know as well.
I look forward to hearing from everyone though.