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View Full Version : DM Help Everyone loves cultists! Story suggestions



Erk
2015-12-01, 09:07 PM
My players just finished blowing up a goblin infested mine and are about to start hunting a demon worshipping cult. The only problem is, I haven't really got any idea what the story is with this cult.

If you're revisiting this thread, I keep updating this first post with where suggestions have got me thanks to the kind feedback of others.

The Players
William Two, a ranger from the Frostrime (a tundra plane) is a level-headed, serious dude who was a leader among his people. He came here to the land where the heat is stifling and the water is runny like urine, in search of a sorceress who betrayed him and his clan and led to all his warriors getting killed. He's been tracking her all across the continent for months and he's finally hot on her heels after a tip-off in the last quest. William has good leadership qualities and tends to make good decisions.
Marcon is a shapeshifting druid who grew up a street urchin, wound up accidentally leaving the city and almost dying in the forest, and was taken in by a druid mentor. He's generally the party's moral compass and voice of reason, but he also often shows a selfish streak. Spends most of his time knitting (a time honoured druidic tradition).
Alanna is a human paladin of the Forgemother, a traditionally dwarven goddess with plenty of human followers. She grew up noble and generally expects things to work out for her. She makes brash, impulsive decisions and usually makes them with the business end of her hammer. She keeps things from getting boring. Thankfully her player is not as disruptive as the character, and keeps Alanna's decisions on the "fun" side of "plot derailing". She has still blown up a lot of things.
Sabina is a sorceress and scholar of planar geometry and demonology (she plays more like a wizard despite being the sorcerer class). She's widely discredited for publishing papers that fly in the face of modern magical theory. Most of these papers are, in fact, probably wrong. Some likely aren't, and she's here trying to prove that. She's studying a force called the Planar Knot, a strange coalescence of reality fibres that has created a sort of unstable local phenomenon mainly responsible for a river that just springs out of the middle of nowhere in the city where the current quest takes place. In the previous quest with the goblin mine, the players kinda sorta exploded the knot, but it has raveled itself back together. A little explosion doesn't destroy a twist in the very fabric of existence.
Sadie is a bard who was trapped in stasis for the last five or so years. I have no idea how she's going to play. The player is ten and is still figuring things out. I suspect chaos is going to ensue. She likes backflips, sneaking, playing the drum, and shooting things with crossbows. I'm not sure how she's going to handle social interaction, she's not good at in-character roleplay yet.
Dara is a wood elf rogue who worked as a goblin hunter in her youth, a smuggler until quite recently, and an ex-smuggler on the run from her former employer because she stole something insanely valuable from him most recently. She needs cash and took on a big goblin hunting gig (the last quest). She is a loner character who has, despite knowing it is not in her best interests, kinda started to like the idiots she has fallen in with. Against her best judgment she is continuing to follow them around to see what happens, and because having already saved Alanna's life three times in the last twenty four hours she's pretty sure that if she leaves they will die. If Dara doesn't want to be seen, Dara is not seen. If Dara wants an arrow in your eye, you have an arrow in your eye. Dara is not very book-smart but she is by far the most sensible party member; however, she almost never says anything (I think she enjoys watching the others get into trouble). She generally just pulls people out of trouble. By shooting an arrow with a rope tied to it through their legs and yanking.

The Villains
Anya is a warlock of an entity of pure Order, the Serelenth. The Serelenth is not a nice thing, and if it had its way everyone would die. However, the Serelenth is a long way away and this world is in the grips of its greatest enemy, an entity of madness. it is unlikely the Serelenth itself will be the main enemy of this campaign. Anya is a BBEG right now, but if the players don't kill her she could become an unreliable ally.
The Cult serves the entity of madness that Anya is opposed to. The local cultists are too backwater to know this though; they're basically a version of the KKK, worshipping dark demons that they think are gods, and punishing nonhumans.
Some terrifying half-formed demonic creature was going to be the macguffin of this quest. It was trapped in the planar knot, and the players found it powering a sort of weird goblin-generating system. However in order to destroy the goblin-generating system they decided to free the creature. Not, maybe, the smartest move; Alanna had a fair bit to do with it. This is going to have repercussions later, but not right now. currently the creature has its own agenda to attend to and this stuff is well beneath it.
The Cult Leader is a fellow who just showed up in town. Anya has been tracking him for some time, hoping to learn more about the cult's real organisation through him. However, he is also a high cleric of the Forgemother (Thanks Freelance GM). This guy is going to try to xanatos gambit the players into finding Anya (who has hella good illusion/disguise powers) among the cultists, and in the process probably ferret out any disloyal cultists. That's the plan anyway.

Essential plot
Marcon was called to this area because the sacred trees of the Elven Grove (the third of the city populated by sylvan elves) have been dying, and the elves can't figure out why. For them to call a druid is a big deal. This is Marcon's first real job as a solo druid, so it's a pretty big deal for him too.

Anya showed up in town around the time the trees started dying, following that priest who is secretly a cult leader. When she found out he'd taken up a semi permanent post here she used her disguise powers to infiltrate the cult and is now posing as a cultist. I want the players to believe that she is in league with the cult.

I think Anya may well be responsible for the trees dying, or it could be part of the cultists' plot. I just don't know yet because I haven't decided the significance of this. Anya does have a history of sapping (hurr hurr) the life force from creatures to enhance her powers, and it may be that she's using the trees because they have an equivalent power and make poor witnesses.

As for the cult leader, he came to get that demon out of the knot to see if it could function as a gate. See, the only other stable planar knot known to exist is the Balefire Gate, a gigantic portal to the far planes through which constantly swarms nasty stuff. An entire civilisation (the one Sabina comes from, called the Dathay) has formed to keep that thing in check. Now this knot has shown the capacity to bring things, big things, in from the far planes... the cult leader came to try to find that out but the players have proven it for him without him even needing to find a bunch of sacrificial victims. So his job now is not to free the creature, it is to reverse engineer the knot and open it fully so that it forms another stable hellgate. (thanks to Kopout for pointing this line out)

---

So, that's the story so far.

The thing is, I want to run some kind of investigative game, but honestly I've never tried to do that with so many players nor with such engaged roleplayers as I've got now. Can anyone offer suggestions or resources? My plot is getting pretty fleshed out, but I don't really know a good way to structure a mystery theme. Normally when I have before, I've had one or two players, or three or four who pretty much just wanted me to hand them the story on a platter. These players are really detail oriented, listen carefully to my plots, and roleplay well. I would like this to be pretty smooth.

Freelance GM
2015-12-01, 10:19 PM
Here's what I do know. The current big bad, a warlock named Anya, has to appear to be working with these cultists. She is in fact a mutual enemy. The party ranger has been hunting this woman for years and finally tracked her here.

Sacred trees in the elven Grove (a forest that occupies about a third of the city, in which the elves build their homes) have been falling inexplicably ill. The party druid was sent to investigate this.

The town is built on a planar knot (think Buffy hellmouth in many ways) and the incident in the goblin mine messed with it something fierce.

Other party members include a paladin of the forge goddess (she'd rather smack you with a hammer than chat), a rogue on the run from an organised crime syndicate who just wound up here by accident (lone wolf, sensible, master of stealth), a sorceress here to research the planar knot (bookish, academic, good leader), and a bard who was stuck in magical stasis for about five years (played by a kid, wildcard). The ranger is a stoic party leader and the druid is kind of the moral compass although he's generally in it for himself.

I want to run some kind of investigative game, but honestly I've never tried to do that with so many players nor with such engaged roleplayers as I've got now. Can anyone offer suggestions or resources?

How are these things connected?

Answer that question, and the plot will come.

Perhaps the Demon worshipped by the Cult represents the exploitation and pollution of nature, and the Cult is behind the Grove's sickness. That demon could has some association with a darker aspect of the Forge goddess, one representing industry, perhaps, to add some drama to the Paladin's story. The Warlock can bridge those two together by worshipping the demon, the dark Forge goddess, or some intermediary between the two.

Does the Planar Knot tie (pun intended) into the Demon's plan? If it does, how?

If I were running this campaign, I'd use the Warlock as an introductory enemy; a recurring low-level villain. The player's actions in the mines "loosened" the planar knot. Suppose the Sorceress discovers, in her research, that there's a Very Bad Thing imprisoned inside of it (the Warlock's patron, perhaps?). When the Warlock is finally defeated, it's just in time for things to go from bad to worse, as that Very Bad Thing finds a chance to escape.

Then, boom. By stopping the Warlock and the Cult, you save the Grove and tie up that plot arc. However, the Planar Knot subplot sets up a bigger, badder villain for the next arc of your campaign. The plot kernel of the demon being connected to the Forge goddess could foreshadow a chance to get the Cult on the player's side in the second act, but only if the Paladin is willing to accept the darker side of her goddess.

What I just whipped up is just one possible way you could go with this. Maybe the Warlock's actually trying to spy on the cult. Maybe the trees are being poisoned as part of a Crime syndicate scheme. Your plot has a ton of potential here. I'm sure you've got a lot more information than the summary you gave us. Go back through your notes. Try and find places where the separate plots overlap. Find ways to connect them, and the story will practically write itself.

Erk
2015-12-01, 11:20 PM
How are these things connected?

Answer that question, and the plot will come.

Perhaps the Demon worshipped by the Cult represents the exploitation and pollution of nature, and the Cult is behind the Grove's sickness. That demon could has some association with a darker aspect of the Forge goddess, one representing industry, perhaps, to add some drama to the Paladin's story. The Warlock can bridge those two together by worshipping the demon, the dark Forge goddess, or some intermediary between the two.

Does the Planar Knot tie (pun intended) into the Demon's plan? If it does, how?

If I were running this campaign, I'd use the Warlock as an introductory enemy; a recurring low-level villain. The player's actions in the mines "loosened" the planar knot. Suppose the Sorceress discovers, in her research, that there's a Very Bad Thing imprisoned inside of it (the Warlock's patron, perhaps?). When the Warlock is finally defeated, it's just in time for things to go from bad to worse, as that Very Bad Thing finds a chance to escape.

Then, boom. By stopping the Warlock and the Cult, you save the Grove and tie up that plot arc. However, the Planar Knot subplot sets up a bigger, badder villain for the next arc of your campaign. The plot kernel of the demon being connected to the Forge goddess could foreshadow a chance to get the Cult on the player's side in the second act, but only if the Paladin is willing to accept the darker side of her goddess.

What I just whipped up is just one possible way you could go with this. Maybe the Warlock's actually trying to spy on the cult. Maybe the trees are being poisoned as part of a Crime syndicate scheme. Your plot has a ton of potential here. I'm sure you've got a lot more information than the summary you gave us. Go back through your notes. Try and find places where the separate plots overlap. Find ways to connect them, and the story will practically write itself.many of your ideas mirror my own, but I can see I'm going to need to expand on my world. I was trying to keep things brief at first. This is likely going to sound more well formed than it was in my head, because reading your suggestions gave me some ideas and because thinking of why some connections wouldn't work has helped gel some ways they could.

The warlock serves a mysterious and distant force of pure Order called the Serelenth. This thing is not strictly good nor evil, but it's not really friendly. Kind of an elder god sort of thing; if it ever got its way it'd probably end all life, but it's not likely to become a big player in the campaign's timeframe. Anya is its chosen emissary for now. She is going to be a low level bbeg, and if she lives she'll probably spikify later on to be an unreliable ally. Or she might die a tragic, partially redeeming death.

The cult represents one of several chaos forces that collectively form a lovecraftian force of madness. These are fairly pathetic cultists though and they know nothing of the big picture. Anya opposes them because her patron is diametrically opposed to the madness god, and this world is almost completely within the grasp of that entity (this is eventually the overarching plot). Anya is trying to figure out the cult system to figure out where to attack. Keep in mind this lady is very much lawful evil, she's not nice. She just has an end goal that currently aligns with the best interests of life on Primus.

I don't think the cultists have any organised plot. I think they're just backwater devil worshippers. Maybe someone recently arrived though who has taken on a leadership role and changed that. Yeah. And Anya is here because she's been tracking that cult leader. Now we're onto something.

As for the planar knot, it did have something demonic imprisoned in it actually. It was supposed to stay imprisoned and the cultists were going to try to release it... But in the final battle with the goblins the players released it on their own. It has taken off to enact vengeance on the dragon that imprisoned it in the knot in the first place, one of the possible mid-to-late game bbegs. How that pans out is going to come up later, the ramifications will be far-reaching.

The forge goddess is a pretty chill lady, she doesn't have a real dark side per se (her husband is the hearthfather and he's big on trees, he'd get mad if she didn't support sustainable industry). The 'lesser' gods of my world are basically ex-mortals with divine power (they were once literally humans in a modern tech world, their world was destroyed by the arrival of the lovecraftian entity, and the few who survived were infused with incredible magic), so she is guilty of all of a mortal's fallibility, but her aspects are lg/ng/ln. However I like the idea of tying her church to the cult: there's no reason there couldn't be cultists among the forgemother's clergy.

And... Aha. So Anya shows up (tracking a member of the forgemother's church who recently arrived into town). All this cultist stuff picks up right as Anya gets here. This is a good opening. Anya infiltrates the cult which to the players looks like she is in cahoots with them. The itinerant priest slash high cultist tells this to the paladin because he knows he's being followed by a witch, but Anya has a lot of disguise abilities and he doesn't know who she is.

Still haven't figured out what's the deal with the trees. The cultists kinda tend to hate nonhumans so it might be just an older plot to piss off the elves, before the new boss showed up with a better plan. I kinda like the idea of the trees being something of a red herring but also a lead to finding the cult.

Thanks for the idea bouncing. I'm good at overall plots but the details often slow me down.

Still missing: What is the cult doing now? I suspect it still has to do with the Knot, but I'm not sure how. Maybe the players won't find out, I can give them enough fragments that I can put it together later. I do enjoy that sort of thing.

Erk
2015-12-02, 12:16 AM
I have updated the first post with a much more organised version of the story so far.

What I'm hoping for now is for someone to have some good tips on how to build up this plotline into a mystery story. When I've done investigative RPGs before, it's usually been one or two players and me, or it's been a few players who basically just want me to tell them a neat story between exciting fights. These players want to roleplay and pay lots of attention to the details of the plot. I want to do right by them.

kopout
2015-12-02, 12:26 AM
Well, the leader wanted to release the thing in the knot right? Now that its out maybe he wants to follow it and serve it, possibly brining the cult with him. This may split the cult, with some of them refusing to leave and sticking around to keep messing with the elves' trees instead of chasing a demon across the world to help it kill a dragon. Alternatively they may note that leader man had nothing to do with the demon's release in which case he might have trouble controlling them.

If you want to keep them in the area they may try to put something into the knot now that its empty, maybe even an entire town full of pointy eared tree hungers? Or perhaps they think that now that the demon has come through they can draw through bigger and bigger badies to keep the punture hole from closing and destabilize reality.

Erk
2015-12-02, 12:35 AM
Or perhaps they think that now that the demon has come through they can draw through bigger and bigger badies to keep the punture hole from closing and destabilize reality.

Ooh. Ooh.

yes. See, the only other stable planar knot known to exist is the Balefire Gate, a gigantic portal to the far planes through which constantly swarms nasty stuff. An entire civilisation (the one Sabina comes from, called the Dathay) has formed to keep that thing in check. (I hadn't thought of the Balefire Gate as a planar knot before but hey, why knot?)

Now this knot has shown the capacity to bring things, big things, in from the far planes. The cult leader came to try to find that out and now the players have proven it for him. Yes. So his job now is not to free the creature, it is to reverse engineer the knot and open it fully so that it forms another stable hellgate.

Aw yiss. This is appropriately sinister. Thanks kopout. Adding to first post.

Arbane
2015-12-02, 03:09 AM
What I'm hoping for now is for someone to have some good tips on how to build up this plotline into a mystery story. When I've done investigative RPGs before, it's usually been one or two players and me, or it's been a few players who basically just want me to tell them a neat story between exciting fights. These players want to roleplay and pay lots of attention to the details of the plot. I want to do right by them.

Always remember the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule).

Erk
2015-12-02, 09:59 AM
Always remember the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule).

Perfect, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

Freelance GM
2015-12-02, 07:34 PM
Anya has been tracking him for some time, hoping to learn more about the cult's real organisation through him. However, he is also a high cleric of the Forgemother (Thanks Freelance GM).


Hey, I'm glad I could help!

Psyren
2015-12-03, 03:01 PM
Always remember the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule).

This is good stuff!

LnGrrrR
2015-12-03, 04:18 PM
I'll echo tying the cultists to the death of the trees. It could be an active thing (somewhat like the Dark Sun Defilers), or it could be that the trees are "intelligent" in the sense that they respond to the evil rituals the cultists are holding somewhere in the woods. Maybe the cultists are committing evil ceremonies to power up some artifact that will expand the hole wide open to demon-world.

Erk
2015-12-04, 01:46 AM
I have a bit more to add to this thread now but I'm still working it out.

The trees are dying because Anya has a pactblade that can store souls to cast high level spells. The trees are sacred because they contain ancestor spirits, which she's been stealing. She needs the spells to maintain her ruse, she's casting modify memory and things that she can only do that way.

The cultists are a group called the Soulkin. They have a reputation for protecting outlying farmers from goblin attacks and are seen as vigilante heroes by many rural humans. The halflings have noticed that when the Soulkin protect their farms, someone often still gets taken by "goblins"...

Racial tensions are high in the town as the watch has been accused of viciously beating nonhumans. Despite the Lord recently cracking down and discharging many guards, the violence continues. As a result the normally blended city has seen harmonious races retreat to their own bailiwick (elves to the wood, dwarves to the mine). Rumours have it that the Lord has taken up with the Soulkin, or at least sympathizes with them. Although nothing has shown the Soulkin are bad, many find this uncomfortable as they're technically an illegal militia, and the secrecy around them makes people (particularly nonhumans as it's a human only club) uncomfortable.

Sabina is going to be hired to figure out how to open the knot, but isn't going to be told that's the objective. This gives me a plan d if the players fail at the clues I'm laying out: if they get stymied, Sabina's notes can either be stolen or reveal a clue to the plan. The Soulkin will take her notes once they think she's close enough to answering the question without figuring out what she's doing. Because she's not human they will quite desperately underestimate her.

Some plot events that are likely to happen:
Anya will come to William (her nemesis/hunter) in a dream sequence and try to warn him that they have a common enemy. Depending on whether or not William passes a will save, he may wake up enough to realize he's not dreaming and she's actually there, or he may stay asleep and... Well, depending on how uncomfortable the player is with the concept I'll consider having Anya pregnant later should she survive. This has some precedence, they were just starting to get romantic in their backstory when her path forced her to betray him.

At some point either the Soulkin or the players will release something big and awful from the gate and it will rampage through the city, more interested in collateral damage than fighting the players. My objective will be to soften them up enough that the Soulkin can come in, take their stuff and take them to be sacrificed. Either Anya or the Soulkin leader who is posing as a cleric will rescue them just in time, depending on which character needs more development and hasn't yet been killed.

Dharenis
2015-12-04, 04:17 PM
I'm not certain if it's been suggested but I'm on my phone atm and don't want to read it all right now but some of the more devoted cultists could end up becoming willing vessels for demons coming through the gates. Whether they know they're doing it for demons or believe they're doing it for someone or something else is a different matter though, depending on the kind of affiliation you want them to have.