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Scathain
2016-07-31, 03:30 PM
Hey y'all, I've hit another snag in my city building. My two PC's are unbelievably evil: one is a necromancer/cleric/thrall to a lich, while the other is a trigger happy eldritch-abomination-loving warlock.
Both are seeking to weaken "wizard city" for the inevitable invasion of the aforementioned lich.

The problem: I have most of the necromancer's quests down, but the warlock's should culminate in calling down the harbingers of his dark god Tharizdun, the Kaorti. The two will delve into forbidden sections of "wizard city" libraries to find hints at a ritual that will accomplish just this, but...what should the ritual itself be??

Massive death in the name of Tharizdun is obviously an aspect to this, and an ultra complex summoning circle will also undoubtedly be involved, but is there anything else y'all can think of?

As always, any help is much appreciated.

GuzWaatensen
2016-07-31, 03:51 PM
That sounds like something that would require a specific planetary configuration or at least a full or new moon. Though I'm not sure you want to make your players wait a month or two of ingame time for the next right moment...

Scathain
2016-07-31, 03:57 PM
That sounds like something that would require a specific planetary configuration or at least a full or new moon. Though I'm not sure you want to make your players wait a month or two of ingame time for the next right moment...

Actually that's the beautiful part, I can have them wait. This invasion will begin whenever I see fit, and I've told the party that this city and the surrounding area will be their quest hub for as long as I can entertain them. At the VERY LEAST, they can spend downtime making magical items. So yeah, time is not an issue.

OldTrees1
2016-08-01, 12:54 PM
Definitely have some celestial arrangement but twist the knife a bit:
The absolute or even relative position of the celestial objects doesn't matter. What matters is which part of the circle they are aligned with. However the alignment never happens naturally. So the PCs have to figure out some way to force the unnatural solution (move moon, destroy moon, thinking with portals, knot the circle, ...). But do say yes to whatever solution they come up with.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-01, 02:18 PM
Pull a Full Metal Alchemist and have the summoning circle be HUGE; make it encompass several city blocks or an entire district of the city, and it sacrifices the life force of all within the circle to fuel the spell. This then raises several isses the PCs need to address, such as how to create a circle that size without it being disrupted? How do the ensure accuracy in creating the circle? Should they try to make it permanent (rearranging the ciry's construction and architecture), or a quick but temporary circle they can complete before anyone can interfere (using spells like prestidigitation, arcane marke, shape stone, etc to "draw" quickly).

I second the idea of a cosmic/celestial condition. I wouldn't make it a "once in a thousand years" type condition, though, in case they happen to fail. Unless you want it to be high stakes?

Perhaps include some rare ingredients and material components that need to be collected. Things that are generally mundane or otherwise overlooked, but with the right knowledge and combination they create a powerful effect. I'm thinking like mistletoe harvested under a full moon, blood of a virgin, that sort of stereotypical item that is both uncommon to find for sale but obtainable.

Scathain
2016-08-06, 09:03 AM
Yalls suggestions are great! I love the idea of my party subtly manipulating the geometry of the city streets to form the ritual circle (perhaps through creative wall of stone use).
It's definitely going to rely on a celestial alignment, no thousand years crap, but a simple proximity to another celestial body. Reason? They're going to pull the Kaorti home world through several portals made by this ritual, to a point where it will literally replace one of the moons of my planet, launching the other out of orbit. That way when paranoid wizards look through their telescopes, they won't notice a new celestial body.

Follow up question: the players are going to have to open and maintain these several portals, in order, Material -> Ethereal -> Shadow -> Demiplane of Nightmares, with the Kaorti home world being a small world in the last.
How shall they hold these portals open long enough to accomplish this? I have a good idea of the material aspects involved, but I'd love to hear more advice on anything I have planned here.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-06, 02:42 PM
How shall they hold these portals open long enough to accomplish this? I have a good idea of the material aspects involved, but I'd love to hear more advice on anything I have planned here.

My suggestion would be to either make it a one-and-done deal, they complete the ritual and it just happens. Or, they need to establish a cult with a large enough following to allow for constant chanting or somesuch during the ritual, however long that takes. I'm thinking Call of Cthulhu style here. As long as one cultist (in each key location) continues chanting, the ritual succeeds. This would both give the party incentive to split (need a PC to oversee each site), and create tension. Maybe an order of Good knights are trying to prevent the ritual from being completed (whether they know the full extent or not) and are trying to apprehend or slay thr chanting cultists, putting an end to it. The PCs would then need to protect the cultists or spend time chanting themselves.

Just an idea.