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obstructor
2017-02-06, 07:32 PM
http://i.imgur.com/IcX6dlt.png

I have been working on creating a new campaign for a few days and realized I was running short on ideas, so I decided to appeal to the brilliance of the giantitp community. This seemed like more of a general roleplaying idea than specifically 3.5/pathfinder so I posted it here.


The basic idea of the campaign is that the party is a group of artifact hunters, each ideally seeking a different artifact (to create some sort of party conflict/dynamic). Why they came on the expedition to the "Isle of Bahamtol" is up to them. The campaign is a Pathfinder E6 campaign (max level of 6) so a decanter of endless water or invisibility cloak could be the artifact.

History:

The kingdom of bahamtol is brought down from within by some malevolent force roughly a thousand years ago, my first idea was to have an ex-advisor to the king swear revenge (he would have been denounced for some mistake) perhaps forming a cult. The players could discover all sorts of cultist symbols and such.

Artifacts and Relics:

Artifacts are the things the players are on the island for, relics are used to magically seal the artifacts. Not all the artifacts have to be sealed. My guideline is: "Relics have at least three clues and can be found with one clue, artifacts require multiple clues to find and should probably have at least 7 clues."

Relic example:


Chalice of the dragon king:


location: in the dining hall of the castle

clues: a note in the dragon shrine specifying it was returned to the king after the shrine was attacked, the king's agenda had a feast the day of the fall, record of the king arriving at the hall of damocles with nothing but his chariot and some guards.

Artifact example:

Invisibility amulet:



location: the king's invisible corpse in the hills

clues: a cultist note that the king fled to the southeast of the hall of damocles after being attacked by a cultist disguised as a priest, the kings robes existing within a secret room in the mines of mory, and his royal boat still being docked in the bulwark.



Golden orb of dragonkind:


location: sealed within the dragon shrine

relics: chalice of the dragon king, tooth of bahamut (steel tooth), eye of bahamut (diamond), wings of bahamut (cloak). Once returned to the dragon statue in the shrine the seal can be broken by using a ritual.

The orbs of dragonkind: each of these allows one to dominate the dragon of that color

Map Regions:

The map has no scale, everything is a days travel back and forth from the dragon shrine.

The castle: I have been calling it Caer Cuadui for now, the kings castle.
The city of Bahamtol: A large overgrown ruin with many places to find random encounters or buildings with clues and history in them.
The preserver: The fortress built to protect the north end of the island.
The silent library: An old still standing library that is home to a lich who is apathetic to the expedition unless threatened.
Hall of Damocles: The cathedral of Bahamut, with expansive catacombs.
Mory: The mines for the island, the deeper mines and tunnels now connect to the catacombs and the bulwark
Mt. Ember: Volcano with a shrine in the center
Dead Marshes: Home to a black dragon.
Bulwark: The first line of defense and fortress defending the harbor, the players will have to fight its current inhabitants while their boat enters the harbor.
Teremas Tower: The ancient home of the archmage Teremas creator of the philosopher's stone.
Wastes: Inhospitable desert with a few caves, home to a blue dragon.
Dungeons of Akasha: anciently used to imprison the enemies of Bahamtol, the deepest dungeons housed dragons and many anti dragon weapons exist within.
Dragon Shrine: Anciently used to house the orbs of dragonkind, all of them lost during the fall except the golden orb.
The camps: Coming with the player is going to be a group of magi, a small crusade, and some historians; they will reside within camps near the shrine and the landing of the ship.


Forces

Allied: The crusaders trying to retake the island, the magi trying to study the ancient magic, and the historians to figure out exactly what happened.
Enemy: Undead of the silent library, kobolds, goblins, a criminal group who fled to the island.
Dragons: Blue dragon (wastes), Black dragon (Dead Marshes), White dragon (Mt. Ember), Red dragon (Bahamtol Keep), Green Dragon (Ruins of Bahamtol). The dragons are 'ancient' but around CR 10, tolkien-esque the age of dragons is long over they can't get any larger than adult size.


I have thought about having a gold dragon sealed in the dragon shrine to perhaps give clues if the players get lost. It would want to be free, but to protect the golden orb of dragonkind first and foremost; trying to keep the players from getting it.

So far I have:

The map.
A couple artifacts worth finding. Class specific would be cool.
Relics for breaking the seals around artifacts.

What I need

Ideas for set pieces: places to find, battle in, or hide things.
Ideas for Relics and artifacts: Clues to find them, ideally a lot of subtle clues and one really obvious one like a journal entry if the players get lost.
Ideas for the history: How did bahamtol fall? Was it demons, undead, rebellion, a mixture? Who has moved in since?
Ideas for enemies: How to take down monsters that exceed the party level. Who rules what?
End goal: Should the island be on a time limit? (e.g. the island will sink into the depths of the sea after a month, the dragons run the players off the island, etc.) or should I write it so the artifacts are always one step out of the player's reach, should it end after one player gets an artifact or should every player get their artifact?

daniel_ream
2017-02-06, 10:31 PM
Ideas for Relics and artifacts: Clues to find them, ideally a lot of subtle clues and one really obvious one like a journal entry if the players get lost.

http://st-im.kinopoisk.ru/im/kadr/2/5/7/kinopoisk.ru-Relic-Hunter-2570646.jpg

ATHATH
2017-02-06, 11:30 PM
I've actually been cooking up some custom magic items recently; here the are (slightly modified for your campaign):

The Orator's Ring:

The first time each day that the wearer of this ring says the command word "people", See Invisibility (CL 5) is cast on the wearer and Invisibility (CL 5, DC 15 Will Save Negates) is cast on the wearer's clothes (only the ones being warn by him, of course), if he is wearing any.

Two (now long-forgotten) noble houses were in a terrible feud. A member of one house hired an assassin who was well-versed in the magical arts to publicly humiliate and kill the head of the other house. This head was to make an important speech soon, and the assassin devised a devious plan. He forged this ring and swapped it (whether he used mundane or magical methods to do this is unkown) with the target's signet ring (the rings looked identical) and bribed the guards that were closest to the the victim (so that they would not inform him of his present state when the ring triggered). After the ring triggered halfway through the head's speech and the victim, after a minute or so, discovered the trickery, the balcony that he was standing on was collapsed, and he died in the ensuing fall. One of the members of the construction team assigned to digging his corpse out of the rubble pocketed the ring while no one was looking, and many pranksters have used it since.

If taken to an expert artificer, the triggering conditions and targets for the spells of this ring might be able to be changed, although it would be costly.

This item radiates minor illusion and divination magic.

Cursed Necklace/Collar of Law:

When this seemingly-ordinary iron necklace is donned, it transforms into an iron collar. Whenever the owner of the necklace/collar commits an act of chaos, Heat Metal (CL 5, DC 15 Will Save Negates) is cast upon it. Note that the necklace/collar need not be in collar form or even worn by its owner for this effect to take place.

Formerly a tool used to keep unruly slaves in line, after the kingdom fell, goblins recovered some of these collars and affixed them to metal weapons with insulated handles (typically stone ones). They would then intentionally commit acts of chaos just before or during battle in order to drastically increase the effectiveness of said weapons.

This item radiates minor divination magic and major transmutation magic.

I might think of more of these later.

obstructor
2017-02-07, 03:13 AM
The Orator's Ring:


I love how this one gives character to the past, very show not tell. Its something that the players won't think is useful until they suddenly need to humiliate someone.



Cursed Necklace/Collar of Law:


This is the most perfect idea to have hiding in the dungeons. The players would probably put it on and run around trying to get it off for several sessions. Also like the idea of the monstrous races macgyvering ancient magical items into their weapons and living conditions.

Definitely have to incorporate these two items.


large image

Took some research to figure out what that was, the image led me to the Russian version. I will have to watch that or perhaps read the synopsis. After watching the first episode, it definitely seems like a source for clues, relics and puzzles.

daniel_ream
2017-02-07, 06:37 PM
Took some research to figure out what that was, the image led me to the Russian version. I will have to watch that or perhaps read the synopsis. After watching the first episode, it definitely seems like a source for clues, relics and puzzles.

I was being a little facetious; the name of the series is "Relic Hunter". That said, because the writers had to churn out an artifact and a bunch of Indiana Jones-esque puzzles every week, there's a lot of good ideas that can be mined.

Also Tia Carrere.

obstructor
2017-02-07, 07:10 PM
That said, because the writers had to churn out an artifact and a bunch of Indiana Jones-esque puzzles every week, there's a lot of good ideas that can be mined.


I wish they would spend more time in puzzle dungeons instead of running around finding pawned guitars and baseball gloves. The first two episodes had several things I pulled straight out of it, I liked the map in the third episode. I watched up to episode 9, so we'll see, I may just skip to the episodes that are about ancient relics.

The only problem with looking at Indiana Jones, relic hunter or Sherlock Holmes is: most the clues are either completely arbitrary and only make sense to the protagonist (e.g. the ground spells arthur and he was an alchemist, so clearly you have to push Au down because its the periodic symbol for gold) or they are so obvious a child could have solved them (e.g. a picture of a crusader walking across the gap in mid air).

Its a problem with the medium, film tells a story and the characters can serve whatever purpose to get that story told. Perhaps I need to look into puzzle video games.

daniel_ream
2017-02-07, 08:10 PM
I wish they would spend more time in puzzle dungeons instead of running around finding pawned guitars and baseball gloves.

I think you've got second season, then. First season was entirely ancient artifacts, second season they started branching out because they were out of ideas.


most the clues are either completely arbitrary and only make sense to the protagonist (e.g. the ground spells arthur and he was an alchemist, so clearly you have to push Au down because its the periodic symbol for gold) or they are so obvious a child could have solved them (e.g. a picture of a crusader walking across the gap in mid air).

You can go the GUMSHOE system route, but all that really does is turn every puzzle into category #2. This is the problem with any kind of in-game puzzle, and mystery scenarios in general - there's no way to "balance" them against your players skills. Add to that the two additional problems that unless you actually build a model of the puzzle (which is awesome but time-consuming) the players are working through a layer of abstraction and ambiguity, and the Standard Solution to the Gordian Knot class of problems, and puzzles are one of those things that belongs in the "works on screen, not so much on the table".

One possibility is to look into that class of mathematical puzzles which are guaranteed to have a brute force solution that anyone can eventually get, but that you can solve more quickly if you're clever. This way you can always just say "two days later, after trying every combination, you unlock the puzzle" if they get stuck.

obstructor
2017-02-07, 08:59 PM
I think you've got second season, then. First season was entirely ancient artifacts, second season they started branching out because they were out of ideas.


You may have those backwards the first season has al capone's gun, elvis' guitar, jimmy jonesboro's glove, flag of california. After skimming wikipedia it seems season 1 is the only one where they hunt items from the 1900s.

It will be good if the show goes back in the direction of the first couple episodes, I got 6 solid ideas in the first 2 episodes, 1 in the 3rd and not much since. Turned into a bit of an action and trap fest.



This is the problem with any kind of in-game puzzle, and mystery scenarios in general - there's no way to "balance" them against your players skills.

One possibility is to look into that class of mathematical puzzles which are guaranteed to have a brute force solution that anyone can eventually get, but that you can solve more quickly if you're clever. This way you can always just say "two days later, after trying every combination, you unlock the puzzle" if they get stuck.


I am trying to shy away from the straight up puzzle as like you said, they don't work in tabletop very well. Putting the red coy fish statue into the fountain in its proper place is more the direction I am going, if they examined the fountain they could see that it isn't symmetrical, read/hear something symbolic about the 9 coy fish, see a diagram that an ancient cultist drew, or someone points out its a fish and probably belongs in some sort of water shrine.

Ideally examining the fountain would be obvious; and I could make it so obvious as a DM, "it seems like one is missing." Should be easy enough to adjust to the players, hoping subtle works if not obvious is fine.

The best idea someone suggested to me was to have other artifact hunting parties come with the expedition, that way they could discuss with the other parties what they had found and vice versa. Or if the players never figured out the clues the other parties would, and take the relic.

As for balancing against the players skill, I am really shooting for finding one clue might be the "need to be Sherlock Holmes" moment but by the time you have all 3+ it becomes the "picture of crusader walking across gap" moment.

I was really considering making each official clue into an index card, so that when the players investigate something to the extent of knowing its a clue I can give them the card to keep and remind them.

daniel_ream
2017-02-07, 10:02 PM
It will be good if the show goes back in the direction of the first couple episodes

They definitely do. I'm wondering if the episode order has been shuffled around between the original local air date and the release into syndication.

ATHATH
2017-02-10, 10:46 PM
Orb of Persuasion:

All commands and suggestions directed at any creature within 60 ft. of this item are treated as Suggestion spells (CL=HD, DC 10+1/2 HD+CHA Bonus Will Save (HD and CHA bonus are of the commanding/suggesting creature; if the commander/suggester does not have one or both of these scores, treat them as 0 and +0, respectively). These Suggestion spells are targeted at their intended recipient(s), and multiple Suggestion spells can be caused by a single command or suggestion.

A bard crafted this item to aid his attempt to seize power. He attempted to use it to order the king to give him the throne, but the king (or one of his guards; different tellings of the story vary on this detail) succeeded on his save and ordered the bard to stop whatever he was trying to do and surrender. The bard obeyed.

Have you considered leaving spellbooks as loot? Here's a collection of some pre-made ones (with some unique spells!): http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archfr/mb

Of note is this one: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20041215a

marycrook
2017-02-11, 01:10 AM
Thanks for the information.

Herobizkit
2017-02-11, 06:39 AM
This photo (it's from the Relic Hunter TV series) is the first thing I thought of, too.

Also Tia Carrere. ^_^

Other shows in that ilk include Warehouse 13, The Librarians (British and NA), and kinda Stargate SG-1.

Too bad they're all modern-day shows.