Orcus Campaign Ideas

[Wheaton's Whelp]

Hello all, I am reaching out for some assistance in brainstorming idea for a campaign I'm currently running. The player's just reached Lvl 2, so when thinking of ideas try to hit all tiers of play.

Setting and Story:
Set in Faerun along the Sword Coast, the player's are currently in Waterdeep. The general idea going forward into the campaign steals a bit from the Planescape adventure of The Great Modron March. I will give more details within a spoiler tab in case you'd like to remain unaware of the main story points.

In the original, Orcus, having broken out of his Limbo prison and assuming an alternate form, kills Primus the God of Mechanus. Normally, the Modrons complete multi-plane wide Great March on a very precise schedule, however in this module they being the March way too early. The players eventually find out that Orcus is behind the early march as he is using them to search for his Wand.

Changes made:

No plane hopping, Orcus is using the Modrons purely to search the Material Plane for the Wand of Orcus.
Very few know of Modrons or the Great March.
Limbo is in turmoil as Orcus controls the Spawning Stone and therefore the Slaadi.
Orcus also killed the Mind Flayer deity, and afterward formed an alliance with the Githyanki.


I will post some of the concepts I'd like to incorporate, but please feel free to post ideas to help me with this campaign.

Stuff to build on:

Modrons are relentlessly searching for the Wand of Orcus. Legions are entering the Material Plane and wrecking havoc.
Githzerai are fleeing Limbo and coming to the Material Plane as refugees
Githyanki are working with Orcus to bring an end to the Githzerai, Mind Flayers, etc
Orcus is tempting evil spellcasters with the secrets of Lichdom. This is reviving the Cult of Orcus, but also causing powerful casters to create great works, plagues, etc to gain Orcus' favor.
Slaadi invasions are starting under Orcus' direction.
Death and the dead are beginning to get wacky. The dead sometimes randomly rise (zombies or just back alive), undead are popping up with greater frequency, etc


Thanks for the help!

[Kane0]

Okay so minor background question, how does Orcus do all this? Killing off two deities, getting control of the spawning stone and striking up an alliance with the Githyanki seems like a lot to do without being noticed and/or opposed. Are these points supposed to occur during the campaign or prior? It definitely sounds like it should be going on currently, like the old writing advice goes "is this the most interesting part of the character's lives, and if not why aren't you telling us about that?")

[Unoriginal]

5e Orcus is strong, but not "kill two real gods" strong (especially not without his Wand).

Also, the Mind Flayers' deities are less entities and more ideals.

Furthermore, if the Githyanki ally with Orcus, the Dragons Tiamat loaned them are going to report to her, and the Dragon Queen is going to pissed beyond belief.

So you need to address how those things have happened and come up with an explanation, I think.

[Wheaton's Whelp]

Okay so minor background question, how does Orcus do all this? Killing off two deities, getting control of the spawning stone and striking up an alliance with the Githyanki seems like a lot to do without being noticed and/or opposed. Are these points supposed to occur during the campaign or prior? It definitely sounds like it should be going on currently, like the old writing advice goes "is this the most interesting part of the character's lives, and if not why aren't you telling us about that?")

Using the Great Modron March story from 2AD&D (which my one read through is probably flawed, but we're going with it), the heroes join the story as Orcus is searching for the wand. In the setting the God's are rather quiet, and I was thinking one way to explain Orcus' difficulty in reaching the Material Plane being that the God's created some ward/barrier/restriction to deity involvement on the Material Plane. With the Wand Orcus believes he can gain the power to do so, which the players learn and it becomes a campaign goal to reach and find the Wand before Orcus' agents. (Rough draft of course)


5e Orcus is strong, but not "kill two real gods" strong (especially not without his Wand).

Also, the Mind Flayers' deities are less entities and more ideals.

Furthermore, if the Githyanki ally with Orcus, the Dragons Tiamat loaned them are going to report to her, and the Dragon Queen is going to pissed beyond belief.

So you need to address how those things have happened and come up with an explanation, I think.

He may not be in canon, but he is in the Great Modron March. I imagine he was rather cunning to pull it off.

Nothing canon is concrete, especially since none of the players (and admittedly the DM) are too familiar with the story thus far. More so was looking for cool baddies and a general reason why they might be interacting with these creatures. But to your point, I see the dragons being pissed off as an awesome chance for the players to gain dragon allies.

[Unoriginal]

If you want the players to have allies against Orcus, you could have Doresain shows up. He was the first Ghoul and a servitor of Orcus, until Orcus left him to die against Yeenoguh, after what the elven deities granted him salvation when he begged for their mercy.