I want my players to destroy the World

[Draco_Lord]

So I have an odd desire, I want my players to be responsible for the destruction of the world. I created a world for my campaign uses, it was easier on me to have full control over the world rather then using a campaign setting. But I am now kind of done with it and I want to move onto something else. That said the world has been the setting for a number of campaigns that I have run, and I don't just want to shelf it for ever, I'd rather see it go out in something big! To that end I want to create a situation where the players could, and probably will, destroy it. I am in the middle of reading my next campaign, so I am mostly looking for ideas on how to do it. No idea is too crazy, as the campaign has very little set in stone, I will post more about what is set in stone down below. It uses Pathfinder so I will need things from there, or at least a heads up if it is from D&D.

The Party
The Party itself will be members of a Noble House, from the noble children, people hired, or people who end up under their banner, etc. So far the two members I believe I will have are the two noble children. A magus and a rogue. I will have other players, but they don't have concepts yet, and plan on seeing what the rest of the party does and fill gaps.

The Villain
The Villain I have in mind is a Drakainia. She was once a person thousands of years ago, grew to power, took over a country, decided she'd rather own the world and tried to recreate the universe. Plan failed, she fell into wells of creation and turned into a Drakainia, and was basically sealed away/recovering from the damage.
Her second in command is a Doppelganger with some levels in a spell caster (Not sure what yet) she birthed, who has spent his years building up a house and a trading company. Basically acting as a steward himself, while mentally manipulating who ever was in charge. Names of the company might change, people die, but he stays there, keeping track of it all. He also has a bit of a tenancy to turn into people he needs to manipulate, using their faces for his own gain. He will serve as the main antagonist, basically the one plotting against the PCs the entire time.

The Setting
I have an pair of islands this will take place on, one big kingdom separated into lands. I am currently debating if I let the party be one of the major houses, or a minor house who will rise up the ranks. Anyways, the main weird feature of these islands are the ley lines, the place is lousy with them. Basically crisscrossing all over the place, causing some fun stuff. Haven't got them all worked out yet, still in planning phase after all, but one idea I had was the party's castle being built on top of several crossed lines, and gaining some weird power from that.

Otherwise I still have things to work out, so feel free to ask questions if you have them. Otherwise the sky is the limit, I'd love to hear any idea on how to get to my end goal! Have fun with it!

[Gildedragon]

Have them be the villains. Try to precipitate an Elder Evil's appearance.

[Braininthejar2]

The leylines remind me of a concept from Kindred of the East - where Zaibatsu ( an eastern branch of Technocracy) tried to control construction projects in Japan to affect the leylines and get more power from them - and ended up messing up the feng shui of most of Tokyo.

That's definitely something that could get both:

1 engage the players in the story (the BBEG is trying to free/ascend his boss, and getting rid of the party's family castle is required for getting the lines just right. They'd start discovering plots against their family from an unknown enemy, and then stumble upon the reason somewhere half way through the campaign - from thwarting a secondary villain that is trying something similar)

2 and potentially end it too (the plan has taken centuries to accomplish, and dozens of leyline nexus spots are now properly attuned - with properly designed buildings, and / or artifacts redirecting their energy to the primary ritual site. different bosses are guarding key points; fanatics brought up and leveled up just for this purpose, promised a place in their master's new world. Now, as a rare conjunction of the planets approaches, the ritual is ready to complete - and the bbeg has already taken measures to turn any potential allies against the party - it is up to them to thwart the villains. )

They can crash the party at the main ritual site, and probably perish against a very well prepared foe. Or, they can thwart his plans by attacking one of the other key sites, defeating a lesser boss there and messing up the setup, leaving the BBEG to deal with the mess he created. The problem is, you shouldn't stop a nuclear science experiment by throwing a wrench in and watching what happens :belkar:

That's a lot of energy going somewhere it shouldn't. The effects of the setup being messed up at the night of the conjunction might include any of the following:

1 Energy flows into the ground, rising millions of undead/deathless across the whole continent.
2 The local laws of magic are disrupted, causing catastrophic magical mishaps everywhere ( up to and including Karsus' folly on the BBEG )
3 Cataclismic earthquakes wreck the surface, followed by a nuclear winter caused by volcanic eruptions
4 The barrier between the prime material and etheral/shadow place collapses, and ghosts walk in the flesh among men.
5 The main ritual site becomes a tear in reality, through which nameless horrors pour in to devour everything.
6 The BBEG succeeds partially - his boss is summoned to destroy the world - but the faulty ritual wrecks her mind, and she's to crazy to do the 'create anew' part.
7 Positive energy is pulled into the leylines, wiping all life, and leaving the planet a barren wasteland.
8 The planet is wrecked with pain and awakens as a genius loci, hostile towards the creatures that hurt it.

Whatever happens, there is the last tack for the party to do. Perhaps, switching the scheduled end of the world for a random one means there is something that can be saved? Perhaps there is a way to save at least some refugees as they try to reach a place that would remain safe in all this madness. And perhaps they've only succeeded at taking the BBEG with them, and the last thing to do is a heroic last stand, as he uses what remains of his time in this world to have his revenge?

[Bakkan]

Does your afterlife work like standard D&D? If so, you might be able to construct a situation in which the suffering of the sentient races is so great that sending everone to their deserved end is preferable (c.f. Osterhagen Key). You might even get a Good party to deliberately destroy the world.

The two considerations are that most parties will assume there's an "out", so you'll need to find a way to convince then that destroying the world is the best solution, and this scenario only results in the destruction puff the planet, not the whole cosmology.

[Geddy2112]

Have them be the villains. Try to precipitate an Elder Evil's appearance.

Second this. Insert whatever elder god, horror, demon lord, world destroying monster abberation whatever. You can have the PC's work for the Drakainia, freeing her and creating her goal of recreating the universe, I.E. destroying it.

[Garktz]

Just go for a "regular" campaing but twist the end in this manner

BBEG wants to unleash the "Ancient creature of doom" that once released from its prision, would destroy the world.

however, the bbeg has set some artifacs that would weaken said creature and its actually releasing it so he (bbeg) can kill it before it raises to full power.

the party will destroy those artifacs because they think that i will slow down the awakening so when they fight (and defeat) the bbeg, they have unleashed (bbeg had it under some kind of controll to prevent a full awaken because the party destroyed the artifacs) the ancient creature with its full power by mistake and now no one can kill it

[Mystral]

If you have them do it "by accident" and trick them into destroying the world they invest their characters in and enjoy playing in, expect your players to riot.

I would. It would propably the last time you gamed with me.

[AslanCross]

If you have them do it "by accident" and trick them into destroying the world they invest their characters in and enjoy playing in, expect your players to riot.

I would. It would propably the last time you gamed with me.

True, I suggest being upfront with them instead.

What I suggest is that instead of telling them "Hey save the world" and then "oops you broke it instead," set up a situation where even if they did save the world's existence, the event (Elder Evil awakening, for example) has altered the world so much that the campaign setting as everyone knows it has ceased to function. Of course, there should still always be the possibility that the Elder Evil does win, and the setting otherwise gets blown up.

You could do something like this mission (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DYZBNj0ipQ) from Starcraft II, where you lure the bulk of the enemy forces (in the billions) to the temple that has a world-breaking mechanism. It could be an invasion of a celestial Elder Evil ala Atropus, or maybe an aberrant swarm of monsters like the Kythons (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?154971-Kython-Campaign-3-5).

[Braininthejar2]

If you have them do it "by accident" and trick them into destroying the world they invest their characters in and enjoy playing in, expect your players to riot.

I would. It would propably the last time you gamed with me.

That's a valid concern. It is better if they do it on purpose.
What could your Drakainia intend that just killing everyone would be prefferable?

[SwordChucks]

You could try "The Apocalypse Stone" adventure from 2e and adapt it to your setting. The whole point of that adventure is to destroy the world on accident.

[Zanos]

If you have them do it "by accident" and trick them into destroying the world they invest their characters in and enjoy playing in, expect your players to riot.

I would. It would propably the last time you gamed with me.
I agree. If invested an entire campaign trying to accomplish something, only for the DM to go "congratulations, you played yourself" at the end, I'd probably never want to play in that DM's campaigns again. Pyrrhic victories, or perhaps not having a complete understanding of the consequences of your actions is fine, but actually working against yourself the entire time with no hope of correcting it should probably be saved for very specific Call of Cthulhu tables. The scope of that also necessitates that the PCs never discover their mistake either, so you essentially have to railroad them onto it and ban pretty much every divination spell and even knowledge skills, spellcraft, and gather information.

I highly recommend that you get your players to be fully on board with your world destruction plot. Sending everyone to the afterlife because the material plane is a craphole that Bakkan suggested sounds pretty cool, but you should still make sure that the players agree with the core premise.

[Rawrawrawr]

You could always try to make the world ending a good thing?

For example, you could take a page from the Mayan's book and say the world is supposed to be 'reset' periodically. World is born anew, all that jazz. Only, when Drakainia fell into the Well of Creation, she mucked everything up. Now, the world has lived far longer than it should. Reality itself is wearing thin and fraying at the seams. New, aberrant leylines are popping up where reality tears, where the laws of physics go out the window and nearby creatures are turned into warped abominations that hate their existence, looking to destroy everything to end their suffering. If this goes too far, the world will dissolve and reality will become no more.
Enter PC's: they purge Drakaina's influence from the Well, restart the universe properly - cue segue into new campaign world. (This also gives you a way to port references you/your PC's favorite characters to your new campaign world, if you're into that kind of thing - you could just say they were reincarnated in this iteration of reality, Legend of Zelda-style).