SangoProduction
2016-09-23, 03:00 PM
Situation so far:
This is a Pokemon game in a 3.5-esque world. Pokemon are being attributed to the Undead Cult's activities.
So far, the party is protecting a border town of Historia from an perceived eventual war with the Undead Cult. In their first mission, they found that the Undead Cult's borders were surrounded my some sort of miasma, which appeared to be killing plants, though they suffered no ill effects themselves (as far as they know). They also measured the growth of the miasma to be about 2 inches outward per hour.
As they were looking for the blacksmith's lost child, they rooted out a former farmer, who was a skeletal creature when they got to him. He was taking others secretly to perform experiments on them, turning them in to werewolves, subservient to him. The party doesn't think that this skeleton was actually acting on its own will, and I've not decided for certain if it was, either.
As they arrived at the skeletal farmer, they encountered a Firewall Elemental (this campaign's Inevitables (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/inevitable.htm)-equivalents), trying to purge the farmer's existance They finished the job for it, and obtaining a Firewall Elemental egg for their trouble (don't question it).
One of the werewolves the party fought was the skeletal farmer's child (and seemed to be slowly turning undead). Another Firewall Elemental (let's abbreviate to F.E. for now) purged the child, which they left with a witch doctor, allowing the others who were turned to werewolves to wake up after nearly 2 days of being unconscious.
Then, as they were returning the blacksmith's child, an enemy wizard slipped in to town and animated a house to kill people and destroy buildings in the city. With the help of the party, and rest of the "Hunters" in town, they kept the losses to a minimum - 7 civilians dying, 10 injured, and a city block destroyed.
After destroying the house, the wizard appeared before them (stopping time for everyone other than the party), congratulating and taunting them, saying something to the effect of "Ah, the Undead Cult was just having fun. It was so boring." Afterwards, neither they nor the Diviner could find traces of the wizard, even with tracking and scent. They think it could be an Illusion-type spell.
The players are expecting some sort of conspiracy, so I'll give it them.
------------------
Information the players don't have
The Undead Cult is actually an organization that's figured out that they were in a simulation, and worked out how to not only get around the system safeguards (firewall elementals) with their miasmic field, but also to punch a hole in to "reality", for people to escape from the simulation, by releasing Pokemon (aka viruses...many acting as Trojans, flying under the F.E.'s radars) in to the world. [How that works, idk. It's magic.]
The planned conspiracy is actually that the "Undead Cult's actions" are actually a system administrator trying to get the units of the simulation to fight the UC. I am undecided as to whether the F.E. are actually in league with this administrator or if he was just able to delay the F.E.'s purging until the party saw the "Undead Cult" stuff.
At the very least, the Firewall Elemental egg will not be in league with him at least directly, as the party has demonstrated the ability to turn spirits in to pokemon (acting as viruses themselves), and the F.E. Egg will link directly with them, forming a secluded network (and acting as a Pokedex for all intents and purposes).
They also don't really know what the F.E.s are doing, nor why.
--------------------------
So...
My party is highly cooperative, and likes the adventure, but they don't seem to take much initiative to discover hooks or drive their own actions. Which is great, it means I can prepare more fully, and with greater confidence...but it also means I need to prepare or else the game will be slow (as demonstrated by last session).
I need to decide on which path to take (at least for now) so I can elaborate on the idea. I can't seem to decide. I would also gladly take suggestions.
I was thinking that maybe that a mine in the south gets taken over by a nest of bug-type pokemon, perhaps with some rock type mixed in, causing the town to panic. Maybe even getting to talk to the Queen, if only by proxy, depending on what they do. Should I pull up a random dungeon generator and use that for the "hive" if they go in? It would seem appropriate. I was thinking that the Queen was concerned that her "family" was being used by the Undead Cult, without knowing much about it, and decided to take them and leave. It would probably draw the attention of at least 1 F.E.
I was also thinking that the Diviner would assign the party to attempt to make contact, and disrupt the Undead Cult's activities, since it's already "proven" that they are acting against the Kingdom of Historia. This could provide an avenue for them to talk with a group of the cult if they don't attack at first sight. The Firewall Elemental egg would be able to pass through the veil because of it being not exactly a Firewall Elemental now that it's connected with the party. It might also work as fuel to spark actually conflict between the UC and Historia.
I also was thinking that, because the party expressed interest in the Firewall Elementals, that they might want to be able to investigate that further. But I haven't the slightest idea how to start with that.
This is a Pokemon game in a 3.5-esque world. Pokemon are being attributed to the Undead Cult's activities.
So far, the party is protecting a border town of Historia from an perceived eventual war with the Undead Cult. In their first mission, they found that the Undead Cult's borders were surrounded my some sort of miasma, which appeared to be killing plants, though they suffered no ill effects themselves (as far as they know). They also measured the growth of the miasma to be about 2 inches outward per hour.
As they were looking for the blacksmith's lost child, they rooted out a former farmer, who was a skeletal creature when they got to him. He was taking others secretly to perform experiments on them, turning them in to werewolves, subservient to him. The party doesn't think that this skeleton was actually acting on its own will, and I've not decided for certain if it was, either.
As they arrived at the skeletal farmer, they encountered a Firewall Elemental (this campaign's Inevitables (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/inevitable.htm)-equivalents), trying to purge the farmer's existance They finished the job for it, and obtaining a Firewall Elemental egg for their trouble (don't question it).
One of the werewolves the party fought was the skeletal farmer's child (and seemed to be slowly turning undead). Another Firewall Elemental (let's abbreviate to F.E. for now) purged the child, which they left with a witch doctor, allowing the others who were turned to werewolves to wake up after nearly 2 days of being unconscious.
Then, as they were returning the blacksmith's child, an enemy wizard slipped in to town and animated a house to kill people and destroy buildings in the city. With the help of the party, and rest of the "Hunters" in town, they kept the losses to a minimum - 7 civilians dying, 10 injured, and a city block destroyed.
After destroying the house, the wizard appeared before them (stopping time for everyone other than the party), congratulating and taunting them, saying something to the effect of "Ah, the Undead Cult was just having fun. It was so boring." Afterwards, neither they nor the Diviner could find traces of the wizard, even with tracking and scent. They think it could be an Illusion-type spell.
The players are expecting some sort of conspiracy, so I'll give it them.
------------------
Information the players don't have
The Undead Cult is actually an organization that's figured out that they were in a simulation, and worked out how to not only get around the system safeguards (firewall elementals) with their miasmic field, but also to punch a hole in to "reality", for people to escape from the simulation, by releasing Pokemon (aka viruses...many acting as Trojans, flying under the F.E.'s radars) in to the world. [How that works, idk. It's magic.]
The planned conspiracy is actually that the "Undead Cult's actions" are actually a system administrator trying to get the units of the simulation to fight the UC. I am undecided as to whether the F.E. are actually in league with this administrator or if he was just able to delay the F.E.'s purging until the party saw the "Undead Cult" stuff.
At the very least, the Firewall Elemental egg will not be in league with him at least directly, as the party has demonstrated the ability to turn spirits in to pokemon (acting as viruses themselves), and the F.E. Egg will link directly with them, forming a secluded network (and acting as a Pokedex for all intents and purposes).
They also don't really know what the F.E.s are doing, nor why.
--------------------------
So...
My party is highly cooperative, and likes the adventure, but they don't seem to take much initiative to discover hooks or drive their own actions. Which is great, it means I can prepare more fully, and with greater confidence...but it also means I need to prepare or else the game will be slow (as demonstrated by last session).
I need to decide on which path to take (at least for now) so I can elaborate on the idea. I can't seem to decide. I would also gladly take suggestions.
I was thinking that maybe that a mine in the south gets taken over by a nest of bug-type pokemon, perhaps with some rock type mixed in, causing the town to panic. Maybe even getting to talk to the Queen, if only by proxy, depending on what they do. Should I pull up a random dungeon generator and use that for the "hive" if they go in? It would seem appropriate. I was thinking that the Queen was concerned that her "family" was being used by the Undead Cult, without knowing much about it, and decided to take them and leave. It would probably draw the attention of at least 1 F.E.
I was also thinking that the Diviner would assign the party to attempt to make contact, and disrupt the Undead Cult's activities, since it's already "proven" that they are acting against the Kingdom of Historia. This could provide an avenue for them to talk with a group of the cult if they don't attack at first sight. The Firewall Elemental egg would be able to pass through the veil because of it being not exactly a Firewall Elemental now that it's connected with the party. It might also work as fuel to spark actually conflict between the UC and Historia.
I also was thinking that, because the party expressed interest in the Firewall Elementals, that they might want to be able to investigate that further. But I haven't the slightest idea how to start with that.