Help for the DM this week please?

[GreyBlack]

Okay, so I may have gotten myself into some trouble this past week DMing.

So the story started off rather ordinary, the PCs were in town and co-opted into helping discover information about some disappearances which have been happening in town. They track down a lair of cultists performing a summoning ritual.

Now comes the fun part. So I've been sick and my illness is beginning to clear, so I wasn't contagious and I was able to DM, or so I thought. I may or may not have been a little bit loopy at the time and decided that, after a cultist rolled a 1 to maintain concentration to summon a demon onto the plane, that the spell actually reversed and sucked the PCs onto another plane. Now... I'm a little screwed up with my thoughts going forward. Anyone wanna provide me with some insight of what to do? I REALLY don't want to do a scratch.

[BowStreetRunner]

That's not really as big a problem as you might think. The other planes are enormous, so the players could end up just about anywhere you want to put them on the other plane - including right next to a portal. In fact, that could even be the explanation for why the spell went haywire - the demon being summoned was standing near to a portal that interfered with the summoning. It may seem like DM fiat but that's kind of how they ended up in this situation in the first place.

Just give them a decent encounter or two on the other plane with a way back to their own plane at the end - and maybe some nice swag to keep as mementos of their experience.

[nedz]

Does the party have the means of returning by themselves ?

[Troacctid]

Planar Handbook has a chapter full of planar touchstone locations for players of all levels. Check it out. You can pick a level-appropriate one, have a quick encounter, and then have them activate the touchstone to send them back home. (Which isn't how touchstones work, but as the DM, you're allowed a bit of license.)

[Bobby Baratheon]

The level of the party does matter somewhat here; it would be rather . . . rude to drop a low level party right in the middle of the Blood War. If I were in your position, I'd send them to some strange demiplane (maybe the demon in question's personal plane?), and have them connive their way out. They could fight the demon, sneak around until they get the info they need to return (maybe a scroll of teleport?), or just straight up trade the demon a favor for a teleport back. Just my two cents.

[nedz]

If they get into a fight you could just have some demon span Banishment spells at them. Bonus points if you make them think it's disintegrate.

[GreyBlack]

The level of the party does matter somewhat here; it would be rather . . . rude to drop a low level party right in the middle of the Blood War. If I were in your position, I'd send them to some strange demiplane (maybe the demon in question's personal plane?), and have them connive their way out. They could fight the demon, sneak around until they get the info they need to return (maybe a scroll of teleport?), or just straight up trade the demon a favor for a teleport back. Just my two cents.

.... I like this plan. I don't know why I didn't consider having a demon create a personal demiplane. Hmmm....

This is especially a fun idea because one of the characters is a Paladin, and I may or may not have originally said that they're going through a gothic style campaign. Guess I'm changing the aesthetic from Diablo to Silent Hill.

[Inevitability]

If they get into a fight you could just have some demon span Banishment spells at them. Bonus points if you make them think it's disintegrate.

The hilarity of the PC's getting zapped into 'oblivion' one by one notwithstanding, I'm not sure why the demon would actually do that.

I mean, we're talking a literal incarnation of Chaos and Evil here. A demon powerful enough to spam Banishment can just kill, loot, and eat the PC's. Why would it waste time and resources on allowing prey to escape?

[nedz]

The hilarity of the PC's getting zapped into 'oblivion' one by one, I'm not sure why the demon would actually do that.

I mean, we're talking a literal incarnation of Chaos and Evil here. A demon powerful enough to spam Banishment can just kill, loot, and eat the PC's. Why would it waste time and resources on allowing prey to escape?

For the hilarity of the situation, and the panic of the ones who remain. Also, there might be too many of them for him to handle.

[GreyBlack]

For the hilarity of the situation, and the panic of the ones who remain. Also, there might be too many of them for him to handle.

No, we understand the "why". More of a "what rational reason is there?"

[daremetoidareyo]

Derail the campaign! Now all the pcs want to do is travel home, but daggnabbit, every portal they get to takes them to a randomly determined region in conflict, and then...

Basically steal the entire concept of quantum leap. When PCs enter a portal they take over the lives of people on another plane. In order to "jump" they need to find the portal, and leap again. Hopefully, one day they'll get back to their homeworld.

Like just let them move their entire class into different bodies. Within a few days the form that they join with begins to take on the PCs stats. (some may even have to race the clock before they return to good stats). Give the PCs a second adventure where they get a personal demiplane storage bag that allows them to keep gear along with their leaps.

Adventure 1: They replace the corrupt sheriffs and mayor of rinky dink backwater town. They must meet some sort of NPC "ziggy," A lantern archon, a rogue modron, a wizard that is really into hallucinogens, something. This NPC basically explains the premise: The PCs bodies will fuse with the forms of the people that they replace. Thay have 48 hours before their stats are reset. The Chaos portal shows up when they arrive. They have to find the chaos portal before 1 year is over or it will abandon them and snap up other creatures that it randomly selects. Right now, their real bodies on their homeworld have been replaced by others caught "in the leap." Once the PCs move on, the bodies get their old control back.

The Portal is in the local jail cell. They have the keys to this rink a dink town. What do they do?

Adventure 2: PCs replace followers of a neutral bugbear warlord who rose to the challenge of defeating all competition in single combat, and he has plans to make bugbears the richest and most respected race on the plane. Portal is in elven fortress's throne room 200 miles to the south. PCs earn their magical demiplane haversack this jump so they can carry gear between planes. Casters get a scroll with the spell to allow them to make other sacks like this. How will they get to jump.

Adventure 3: 1/2 PCs replace leaders of the thieves guild the other 1/2 of PCs replace Sahuagin diplomats. The portal is in an aboleths brainstem.

Adventure 4: Gladiatorial arena? Dinosaur world? Refugees from the war between goblin super soldiers and mechagnomes? replace a team of dragons in a game of xorvital? replace the lowest ranking spell jamming ants in an astral hive-colony?

Adventure 5: A clue about how to use the chaos portal to go home. A prestige class that gives you a choice of who you replace in the next jump? An item that allows them to bring people with them on the next jumps?

Depending on the alignment, you set the PCs up to do a bunch of amazingly evil or stupendously effective dogoodery.

[SangoProduction]

No, we understand the "why". More of a "what rational reason is there?"

Because demons. They aren't all amused by the same thing...kinda by definition. Perhaps this one just got the idea in its head all of the sudden, and thought it was really funny to scare mortals - to panic them - but leaving them a meal to be enjoyed multiple times. "Oh, but woe is me. I will never find..." And then the miracle happens.