I could use some extra storylines as a DM, suggestions?

[MichielHagen]

So, i am currently running a 3.5 homebrew superhero campaign.

The campaign has been running for a few months.
In short, the party of superheroes have recently discovered that in 15 years the world will be attacked by demons.
They are now preparing for that attack. I have asked what they want to do in the next 5 years.
- They have asked the NPC-king to create some sort of fortifications at the location the demons will probably launch their attack
- They have asked the NPC-king to somehow recruit more people with special abilities through his kingdom and beyond
- They themselves will mostly train their abilities

Now what i have planned so far is the final battle, which will obviously happen in the end.

Before that, they will have to deal with an organisation that is set out to kill any "Special" people, because they feel they are a threat to the world. All i have so far is that they have the ability to neutralise the special powers of others, i was thinking within 10ft or something. They will be some kind of monks with martial training who are currently killing their students/potential allies one at a time.
A recurring character who has the ability to duplicate any other power will have joined them. She was attacked by them, but automatically copied their ability to nullify powers and thus has no other powers, nor will she gain any other, except that one and was therefore accepted within their group.

Now as requested by the group, they want to play this campaign for a while, and so i need more story-arcs.
The only thing i have so far is that they will help with recruiting more specials, which would easily create numerous more sessions depending on how many specials i feel like they will recruite. But i think these recruiting missions should be kept to a minimum, i think only 2 or 3, because they did not even mention they wanted to recruit themselves.

What other sidequest can i give them?
- A new world ending threat? I know superheroes are constantly saving the world, but i feel one world ending disaster is enough.
- Maybe a quest for more magic items (they have only acquired a few magic items each from one place only, because there is no "magic" in this world)? It's kind of repeating that previous side-quest, i wonder how i can make this one feel more special or epic.
- Maybe recruiting a new race? The legendary trolls who were thought to be a myth, but might live in a cold cold land far to the north which they will have to convince to join their cause?

[tedcahill2]

So, i am currently running a 3.5 homebrew superhero campaign.

The campaign has been running for a few months.
In short, the party of superheroes have recently discovered that in 15 years the world will be attacked by demons.
They are now preparing for that attack. I have asked what they want to do in the next 5 years.
- They have asked the NPC-king to create some sort of fortifications at the location the demons will probably launch their attack
- They have asked the NPC-king to somehow recruit more people with special abilities through his kingdom and beyond
- They themselves will mostly train their abilities

Now what i have planned so far is the final battle, which will obviously happen in the end.

Before that, they will have to deal with an organisation that is set out to kill any "Special" people, because they feel they are a threat to the world. All i have so far is that they have the ability to neutralise the special powers of others, i was thinking within 10ft or something. They will be some kind of monks with martial training who are currently killing their students/potential allies one at a time.
A recurring character who has the ability to duplicate any other power will have joined them. She was attacked by them, but automatically copied their ability to nullify powers and thus has no other powers, nor will she gain any other, except that one and was therefore accepted within their group.

Now as requested by the group, they want to play this campaign for a while, and so i need more story-arcs.
The only thing i have so far is that they will help with recruiting more specials, which would easily create numerous more sessions depending on how many specials i feel like they will recruite. But i think these recruiting missions should be kept to a minimum, i think only 2 or 3, because they did not even mention they wanted to recruit themselves.

What other sidequest can i give them?
- A new world ending threat? I know superheroes are constantly saving the world, but i feel one world ending disaster is enough.
- Maybe a quest for more magic items (they have only acquired a few magic items each from one place only, because there is no "magic" in this world)? It's kind of repeating that previous side-quest, i wonder how i can make this one feel more special or epic.
- Maybe recruiting a new race? The legendary trolls who were thought to be a myth, but might live in a cold cold land far to the north which they will have to convince to join their cause?
What about steering them toward a quest for a holy relic, like a demon slaying blade, but deep in the ruins they find the blade is gone, but it should a huge mosaic of an army of angels (celestials) fighting an army of demons and one of them wields the blade. If someone has the proper knowledge maybe they recognize the celestial from myths and, with any luck, they set out to try contacting said celestial. This could open up some interest plane hopping arcs. They could go to the celestial plane to find this hero, and maybe get wrapped up in another world threatening battle (the fact that the "world" in question is not their own plane might help it feel more fresh).

[Geddy2112]

When in doubt, have them encounter a rival party.

There is the antihero party-they agree with the PC's goal but disagree with their methods. Maybe they are a bunch of anarchists or oppose the NPC king's reign, or believe that the demon attack will be empowered by the crown yadda yadda yadda. This quest could end in combat, but has a lot of potential to end peacefully, possibly with an alliance, or what have you. Maybe the factions have to clash before the 15 year deadline if they can't reconcile their differences.

Then you have the villain party-somewhere in your world are another group of adventuring PC's working for the side of evil. Their quests include stopping the heroes, recruiting more mooks to the demon cult, what have you.

You could have these be a one day wandering encounter, as both parties just stumble onto each other. Or you could go with full out intrigue, investigating strange cultlike activity/sudden rabble rousing etc. Or any mix in between.

[Uncle Pine]

When in doubt, add lycanthropes. Monstrous lycanthropes, in this case: the Advanced Bestiary (3rd party, but actually a good book) has rules for making werecreatures out of any sort of living creatures instead of only animals. Maybe the demons realized that it would be faster to produce weredemons than more demons, or even half-demons.
Speaking of half-demons, depending on the actual level of the party you could have the demons go merry rounds making half-fiend versions of people without actually sitting down and breeding with said people. There's a sperm-hurling spell in Dragon Magazine #300 that does exactly that, it's called Searing Seed. It's an 8th level spell though, so it might be too powerful as an option. Bonus points since the first goal of the new half-fiend is to kill its original copy, similar to an Ice Assassin, so you can sorta have a "rival party" without going through the rather cliche phase of presenting the rival party. Because it spawns in the middle of the combat!

Remember that there's more than one kind of half-fiends. Generally speaking, everyone seems to love half-goristros (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a), but others are cool as well.


Before that, they will have to deal with an organisation that is set out to kill any "Special" people, because they feel they are a threat to the world. All i have so far is that they have the ability to neutralise the special powers of others, i was thinking within 10ft or something. They will be some kind of monks with martial training who are currently killing their students/potential allies one at a time.
This reminds me a lot of the first story arc of Avatar: the legend of Korra, so unless you were actually inspire by that I suggest you give it a watch for some additional inspiration.

If you really want to use a lot of Monks and have them challenge the PCs not just by outnumbering them 8 to 1, you can also get some ideas from this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?285801-Tippy-s-Terrifically-Terrible-Trial). Tune down optimization level to whatever you're comfortable with.

As always, if you're just looking for a fresh change of pace, you can always get inspiration for a standalone one-shot with a good story generator (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/storygen.php).

[MichielHagen]

What about steering them toward a quest for a holy relic, like a demon slaying blade, but deep in the ruins they find the blade is gone, but it should a huge mosaic of an army of angels (celestials) fighting an army of demons and one of them wields the blade. If someone has the proper knowledge maybe they recognize the celestial from myths and, with any luck, they set out to try contacting said celestial. This could open up some interest plane hopping arcs. They could go to the celestial plane to find this hero, and maybe get wrapped up in another world threatening battle (the fact that the "world" in question is not their own plane might help it feel more fresh).

They already acquired a Demonbane Sword in their first dungeon which is where they first heared of the coming Demon-invasion.
However some exploring among planes to find allies might prove an interesting concept.


When in doubt, have them encounter a rival party.

There is the antihero party-they agree with the PC's goal but disagree with their methods. Maybe they are a bunch of anarchists or oppose the NPC king's reign, or believe that the demon attack will be empowered by the crown yadda yadda yadda. This quest could end in combat, but has a lot of potential to end peacefully, possibly with an alliance, or what have you. Maybe the factions have to clash before the 15 year deadline if they can't reconcile their differences.

Then you have the villain party-somewhere in your world are another group of adventuring PC's working for the side of evil. Their quests include stopping the heroes, recruiting more mooks to the demon cult, what have you.

You could have these be a one day wandering encounter, as both parties just stumble onto each other. Or you could go with full out intrigue, investigating strange cultlike activity/sudden rabble rousing etc. Or any mix in between.

In the last session they encountered an antihero party, altough their intent was personal gain, not really opposed to the party. In fact the survivors of the party joined their cause.
I guess the rival party that disagree with the method does resemble the confrontation with the group that negates superpowers i already have planned.
So the second part, a group that actually wants to help the Demons is a better option. I think i will have that "Demonic Cult" be able to summon demons and let those lose on the world. The party will investigate those demons.


This reminds me a lot of the first story arc of Avatar: the legend of Korra, so unless you were actually inspire by that I suggest you give it a watch for some additional inspiration.

If you really want to use a lot of Monks and have them challenge the PCs not just by outnumbering them 8 to 1, you can also get some ideas from this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?285801-Tippy-s-Terrifically-Terrible-Trial). Tune down optimization level to whatever you're comfortable with.



I was not aware of the Avatar similarities, i will look into that.
The loss of their powers would probably make them a lot weaker (some more than others), so i might not need to upgrade those monks that much, but i will look into the link to see what it offers.