Working on a new campaign

[the_david]

I stumbled across the tesseract dungeon (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?78915-Piratecat-s-dungeon-design-fun-with-tesseracts!) and I immediately wanted to use it for a oneshot, or probably a couple of sessions. I started looking for more info on tesseract dungeons and I found a thread where people discussed the inhabitants. One person wanted to use chaotic creatures that were either spawned or attracted by the tesseract, another felt Inevitables were more appropriate. As a tesseract is a 4 dimensional structure, I started to get the idea it had elements of law and chaos. I was trying to think of an excuse to have creatures of law and chaos roam inside the tesseract when it suddenly hit me.

The Axiomites and the Proteans created the tesseract together to imprison an Aeon that was about to bring balance to all of creation.

All of a sudden, I had a plot for a campaign. Ideas started flowing and now I'm gonna have to write them all down so I won't forget them. I might as well do it here, so other people might chip in.

The tesseract. My main concern is that it will be hard to keep track of the location of the PCs. The problem with a tesseract is that it's hard to imagine an entrance. In essence, it's a demiplane, so a door wouldn't really work. Some kind of magical key would work, and it would add a quest. The alternative would be that anyone who touches the tesseract would enter immediately. Likewise, you can't just leave. The exit should be hard to find, indentify and open.
Fluffwise, it just happened to fall out of the sky.

The Aeon. An outsider focused on bringing balance to the universe. I want this campaign to be short and awesome, so the BBNG doesn't have to have a very high CR. A Theletos Aeon with at least 3 mythic ranks would do. Why Mythic? Because 3 mythic ranks can give you clerics. So that means I've got a Theletos Aeon demigod with 3 or 4 mythic ranks and a challenge rating of 8 or 9. I could make a new kind of Aeon with a CR of 6 and give it 3 mythic ranks for a total CR of 7 or 8, but I like the Theletos at CR9 as that seems like a good point to end the campaign. It should also have 2 domains, based on the portfolio of freedom, fate and slavery.
Other than bringing balance to the universe, I still have no idea of how. The why is obvious, it's an Aeon. I'll probably have to add a mcGuffin.
Another problem is that CR9 is not really epic enough. It doesn't seem that a CR9 Aeon could endanger everyone in the multiverse. In fact, it could have been easily killed by a horde of Inevitables and Proteans. Why would it have been locked up?

Inevitables. You know, I think I prefer Modrons, so I might as wel use them instead. They fit better with the powerlevel of the PCs too. I don't really like their appearance as it doesn't really make sense to me. I might have them look like the platonic solids instead.

Races. Humans are naturally first choice. I might want to deviate from the standard races depending on what the players like. I'd like to add chaotic gnomes, and some lawful race. That would make humans neutral. I might add some hybrid races too.

NPCs. I'd like to have a village idiot who just happens to be a cleric of the Theletos. The Evangelist Cleric archetype seems to fit perfectly.
Another NPC would be a rival. I'm thinking of a handsome arrogant young man wielding a rapier, and he might be capable of casting spells. He's always trying to work against the players. I'm not sure what his class should be, but he might be a gnome. (Half-Gnome?)

[the_david]

Shameless bump, with some new info.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out that a Theletos Aeon (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/aeon.html#aeon,-theletos) would be ideal as the BBNG. As the Theletos wants to create a balance between freedom and fate. Imagine one of these creatures entering Regulus and witnessing the hierarchy of the Modrons. Now, the Modrons wouldn't see themselves as slaves. They would simply accept their fate and do as they're told. They might even be unable to grasp the concept of free will. The Theletos would see an entire city enslaved to fate and would try to liberate as many Modrons as best it could.
Now I have to say that the plot hits a snag here. Even with 4 mythic ranks a Theletos is still a CR9. It wouldn't be powerfull enough to threaten Modron society without some sort of artifact that boosts it powers, and even then it would be easier to destroy than to imprison in the tesseract.
Although the Modrons could have created the tesseract by themselves, I still want to introduce an alliance with the more anarchic denizens of the outer planes. I can't get rid of the idea that this Theletos threatens the entire universe.

[Hazrond]

reading the Aeons entry here is a thought, instead of making the campaign low-level and trying to explain why these creatures couldnth andle a CR 7 creature, why not start the game at higher levels, and instead of adding mythic tiers to an Theletos, add them to an Pleroma instead? it would also help with the whole "if left uncaged, this creature would destroy the universe" thing since the duality in a pleroma is Creation/Destruction, it may have found one day that these creatures had grown too powerful, and decided to wipe out, then recreate them, essentially sending them back to square one

[the_david]

Well, that's mostly because I haven't GMed for high level play that much, and because the players are also inexperienced at high level play.
Beyond that, I actually love the slavery/freedom angle, and I think the end-of-the-universe is a bit cliché. I also want to include Modrons, and while I could use the Hierarch Modrons, I'd prefer to use the lower level Base Modrons. Especially the singleminded Monodrones.
The Theletos would be a demigod. 3 mythic ranks would give it the ability to grant divine spells to followers. This allows me to use a few clerics without resorting to DM-fiat. I also don't like to use monsters straight out of the box, though I could do the same with a Pleroma.

But thanks for the suggestion. At least a Pleroma does look a lot cooler than a Theletos.

[tsroark]

What if the Aeon truly had gained god-like power and the tesseract was created as a temporary prison while they came up with a method of finishing him off. The tesseract had a form of level draining property explaining why the Aeon is of a lower CR. Somehow the artifact that was created was lost and forgotten about, maybe sabotage? Maybe the level drain effects of the tesseract are starting to wear off, allowing the Aeon to regain his strength and take control of whatever creatures were left inside the dungeon as guards. The PC's could be part of the mining company that stumbles across the artifact and through the power of right place and time learn this and are tasked to destroy the Aeon with the artifact ala shoving the all spark in Megatron's chest.

Bonus points if you theme the Modrons as transformers.

[the_david]

Well, the drained demigod idea did enter my mind. That probably means it's some kind of trope, and it would still feel like it wasn't the real challenge anyway.

Somehow I see this appear in adventures from time to time. The ultimate threat is defeated while in a weakened state. Cough*Sauron*cough. It's... Lame. I can't make anything else out of this.

Or in other words, if the ultimate threat doesn't pose a threat anymore, why bother?

[the_david]

And I'm necroing my own thread... Classy.

I still haven't done very much with this idea, but it just dawned on me that his CR wouldn't be his biggest power. His following would be his biggest power. The modrons and the proteans feared him because he already freed so many modrons and enslaved many proteans, not because he was about to do it.