New campaign idea and help building the bbeg

[CMagnum]

Hi all,

I will be Dming my second ever campaign starting next week and I had a few ideas I could use some input on. If anyone in my group is here please stop reading or you will not enjoy this adventure as I have intended. This is Carey if you aren't sure (I'm looking at you Trevor).

First off I want the bbeg to be a Lich 20 or even with a few epic levels. He lost the love of his life many years ago who was in service to a God. At this point in his life he didn't have the power to bring her back to life and now it's too late. He (the Lich) blamed his lover's death on this God and had sworn vengeance upon them. He's been building an army and has begun training an elite array of adventurers to infiltrate certain places in order to obtain the means necessary to exact his revenge.

In come the players, they will start at level 1 and until level 5 I will have them in arena like combat in the Lichs stronghold. They won't know why they are there but they will be treated well by servants and not even meet the Lich until after this training is complete.

So into my questions:
What exactly would be a way to kill a God? Would you need to get the support of another God?
How do you suggest I get a party of mixed alignment to continue with this plan? Keep them in the dark for a long time or make the Lich seem like a decent if heartbroken individual?
And finally, making a Lich if anyone has any already made characters fitting his profile. He can be any class but I was leaning towards the raw power of a sorcerer.

Any ideas or thoughts are welcome,
Thanks again 😀

[Karl Aegis]

20th level characters can revive the dead. Why would someone dying on a 20th level character do anything?

[CMagnum]

Let's say the body got destroyed completely with no way of revival. This happened way before the Lich was a Lich or even a remotely powerful individual.

[flappeercraft]

There are two ways to treat a god and killing them depends on each.

1.) They are statted: This would be by following the statistic blocks of the deities which are in Deities and Demigods and having a fight with them. Obviously, you can increase their stats or reduce them but the concept is the same, you kill them like with anything else, just that they are tougher.

2.) They are unstatted: This would be more of a fluff one than a mechanics one, just a handwaving of you will not kill them in combat and can't but you have to use other methods such as making their religion go extinct and them having no followers, have another more powerful god kill them or the like. Something such as destroying their whole portfolio might work also or just severely damaging it.

[CMagnum]

Ok looks like I will be buying a new book for this adventure! Thanks for the info

[Venger]

Ok looks like I will be buying a new book for this adventure! Thanks for the info

the content from deities and demigods is available on the srd (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm)

[FelineArchmage]

And finally, making a Lich if anyone has any already made characters fitting his profile. He can be any class but I was leaning towards the raw power of a sorcerer.


Some class options:

Dread Necromancer - honestly, probably your best bet because you actually BECOME a lich at 20th level. It's also a VERY awesome class (Heroes of Horror book).
Pair any spellcaster with the lich template - just need to create a phylactery

[Karl Aegis]

Honestly, this sounds like it would be a wonky build. Something like Hexblade into Blackguard into Nar Demonbinder wonky.

[flappeercraft]

Ok looks like I will be buying a new book for this adventure! Thanks for the info

There is really nothing truly special from the Deities and Demigods book. I would say use the stuff from SRD that is from the book such as divine ranks and just stat the gods yourself. The ones in the book aren't that powerful and are rather weak for what they should be at least. A 17th level party would wipe a god from there without a problem in a single round. I would reccomend just slapping unique, thematic and powerful abilities to each god that differentiates them from a mortal instead of buying a whole book.

For example: A god of magic can deduce the exact casting abilities of someone with only seeing them and as a swift action may remove their ability to cast the highest level of spells they can cast. A god of smiths gets quadruple damage when sundering and can ignore half of the armor and shield bonuses to AC, and so on.

[PacMan2247]

I like the tragic backstory for the lich, humanizing something that's classically depicted as a power-hungry monster. The specific approach he takes may need to depend a little bit on the party composition- if they lean good he may choose to hide his nature and deceive them, while if they're neutral or lean evil, he can probably dispense with misdirection and appeal to their treasury. The nature of the god in question may also be relevant to these considerations. flappeercraft's suggestion of eliminating the god's followers appeals to me; the lich would have the option of employing multiple groups with different tactics- maybe some are just out to kill the followers, maybe others are out to persuade them away (perhaps citing the deaths of other followers as proof of their god's inability to accomplish things in the material). It would be particularly fun for the lich to prefer using the corpses of that god's followers to build his army.

The lich's actual build could go any way you like, really. Sorcerer, wizard, cleric, and dread necromancer are all good foundations. I've heard of using a bard as the base (with the Requiem feat from Libris Mortis allowing it to boost its undead minions), though I don't now how functional it is. Depending on your build, the necromancer specialist wizard variant from Unearthed Arcana could be fun with the skeletal minion.

Overall, it sounds like a fun campaign. Good luck!

[CMagnum]

Awesome! Thanks to almost everyone for the thoughtful comments, ideas and support! Looking forward to getting this campaign rolling!

[TheYell]

What if the Lich was a sorcerer in service to a Neutral Deathgod who culls power of souls to bind the dead to death and prevent them from rising as undead or being resurrected.

And he had the power to spare the lover, but did not, because he's a Neutral Deathgod without mercy.

And his godly power is largely the culmination of soul power he culls from the dead.

A mixed party, being fed a carefully limited version of the facts, might conclude that a Deathgod who gets power by stripping resurrection from the dead, is something worth fighting.

The Lich, who being Undead, is a direct slap at the authority of the Deathgod, has figured out two things.
He is going to stop the temple rituals of culling the dead that add to the power of the Deathgod.
He is going to reverse the accumulation of soulpower that he already has and will weaken him to the point he can be bound to Death by his own rituals.

To assist him in these things, he is making attacks on the temples of the Deathgod, and he is acquiring rare materials for his rituals of weakening and binding.

The party can be duped into helping with these chores. At some point they will find out that they are working for the Undead against the binding power of the Deathgod. They can have a moral argument about what side to line up with, and maybe how far they go to help -- do they diminish the power of the Deathgod and try to stop the Lich from binding him to Death, or will they help kill the Lich, or kill the Deathgod, or both?

[CMagnum]

That's a pretty nifty plot woven there Yella, I like the idea but my group usually needs a fairly open concept because they end up doing all types of weird stuff that upsets those surrounding them and it can easily devolve into a troupe of murder hobos. I do like the idea though.

[Blu]

... make the Lich seem like a decent if heartbroken individual?

I wouldn't pursue this aproach actually. Even tough lichdom does not necessarily mean evil, it is a pretty big statement in cosmic terms, since you are going against the natural way of things.
Also, giving the way how easy bringing someone back from the dead at high levels, it seems like a bad idea to just handwave his lover to not be able to come back because of reasons.

Altough bringing this two points gives me an idea. What about this: the lich actually has the power to bring his lover back, but the time and rage he spent, while thristing for power to enact his revenge made him not realize something so simple.
And then when lichdom came and the decades starded passing the combination of his thrist for power and revenge stript away the humanity(or humanoidity?) of him leaving only a shell of his former self that wants to kill a deity for reasons he long since forgotten.
It makes an interesting backstory, keeps the character relatable BUT... you can still smite him without hesitation.