LumenPlacidum
2018-12-26, 12:28 AM
Hi all,
I'm starting a game tomorrow. The idea is that the party is the crew of a planar ship traveling to and from the Prime to acquire the emotions of mortals for sale in the Outer Planes. For this campaign, I suppose the party might be considered successful when they save the town from the goblins, but if the party saves the town in a very remote way, and doesn't manage to acquire some of those potent feelings of Relief, Triumph, Grief, or what-have-you from the townsfolk, then they are ultimately not entirely successful in accomplishing their material goals as per their job.
So, I'm trying to come up with good situations that the party can drop in on to harvest strong emotions OR to engineer situations that will lead to strong emotions. I have some ideas, but I'm not sure that these are going to be level-appropriate. The party is starting at level 1 (a necessary part of the game since it's a campaign that is intended to appeal to new players).
Some of my ideas:
The Wet Masters of the Desert
In this bright desert, there are floating jungle island temples inhabited by grung. The grung worship their hellish deity of water. Through the grung's sacrifices, the grung have managed to dessicate the land around the temple, making it so that the befouled waters that flow from their temple are the only waters in a week's ride in any direction. Using this lack of readily-accessible water, over time the grung have managed to enslave elves that live in the shadow of their temple. The elves are dependent on the mist falling from the floating jungle island to survive in the desert. The grung use the elves as blood-sacrifices to appease their god and to maintain their tyrannical control.
What can the players do?
They can side with the elves and try to free them from the grungs' sacrificial blades. There would be strong feelings of Righteous Anger, Vengeance, Relief, Exultation, etc. to be gained from this avenue (from the elves). There would also be strong feelings of Incredulity, Indignation, Desperation, and Fulfillment (of duty) from the grung.
They could also side with the grung if they want (I don't know what alignment they are yet). There are probably strong emotions to be gained directly from the slaves who are very Desperate in their current set of circumstances. Despair, Frustration, and Cruelty go for a moderate price in Baator.
A Wet Cough
In this mining village, there is a sickness that is spreading among the miners. The sickness manifests as a coughing fit. The village has a priest capable of healing disease, but unfortunately, the disease is tied to the fate of a fiend that lives in the mine. The sick villagers will not get better while the demon lives, though mundane methods can suppress the symptoms temporarily. The fiend (probably a Bulezau or Oblex), uses minions to protect itself.
What can the players do?
They can try to heal the villagers. There are some gains to be made in the form of Relief and Hope if they manage to suppress the symptoms of the disease and the villagers appear to improve. In fact, there are also gains to be gotten from when the disease comes back in full force. If the party plays this in a particular way, they could end up facing an Outraged mob of villagers (a rare emotion to find in great magnitude).
They can try to slay the demon. However, there is little to be gained other than mild Hope from accepting the quest. If the party just dives into the mine and kills the demon, then there is likely to be a Happy, but only moderately-happy, reception to the news. Better would be for the party to shelter one of the NPCs for whom this is a personal quest and kill the demon with this NPC in tow. There are powerful emotions to be gotten from such a NPC as the demon is destroyed.
So, what am I hoping for from you? Just more ideas! The Wet Cough plan is probably closer to being on-level. It would be better for the party to be level 2 before facing a CR 3 Bulezau, but if I play the creature stupidly, CR 3 isn't really THAT hard. What I'm hoping for are some ideas that would only take one or two long (4-10 hours) sessions to resolve to completion. I don't need proximal continuity, since the party gets to hop from world to world looking for these situations. So, these adventures can take place at icy crags and summits, fiery volcanic islands, salty spraying seas, etc. But, I'd really like for there to be THOUGHT-BASED approaches that might yield interesting results for their specific goals. They could always just harvest the emotions and LEAVE, perhaps dooming a bunch of fools to a messy fate. But, for a quick score, that might be great! Also good would be some situations that may require a greater emotional intelligence than you usually see in D&D parties. I have a bunch of people who are going to join the game who are not already murder-hobos. I would rather keep them that way.
So, GITP Forums... what can you come up with?
I'm starting a game tomorrow. The idea is that the party is the crew of a planar ship traveling to and from the Prime to acquire the emotions of mortals for sale in the Outer Planes. For this campaign, I suppose the party might be considered successful when they save the town from the goblins, but if the party saves the town in a very remote way, and doesn't manage to acquire some of those potent feelings of Relief, Triumph, Grief, or what-have-you from the townsfolk, then they are ultimately not entirely successful in accomplishing their material goals as per their job.
So, I'm trying to come up with good situations that the party can drop in on to harvest strong emotions OR to engineer situations that will lead to strong emotions. I have some ideas, but I'm not sure that these are going to be level-appropriate. The party is starting at level 1 (a necessary part of the game since it's a campaign that is intended to appeal to new players).
Some of my ideas:
The Wet Masters of the Desert
In this bright desert, there are floating jungle island temples inhabited by grung. The grung worship their hellish deity of water. Through the grung's sacrifices, the grung have managed to dessicate the land around the temple, making it so that the befouled waters that flow from their temple are the only waters in a week's ride in any direction. Using this lack of readily-accessible water, over time the grung have managed to enslave elves that live in the shadow of their temple. The elves are dependent on the mist falling from the floating jungle island to survive in the desert. The grung use the elves as blood-sacrifices to appease their god and to maintain their tyrannical control.
What can the players do?
They can side with the elves and try to free them from the grungs' sacrificial blades. There would be strong feelings of Righteous Anger, Vengeance, Relief, Exultation, etc. to be gained from this avenue (from the elves). There would also be strong feelings of Incredulity, Indignation, Desperation, and Fulfillment (of duty) from the grung.
They could also side with the grung if they want (I don't know what alignment they are yet). There are probably strong emotions to be gained directly from the slaves who are very Desperate in their current set of circumstances. Despair, Frustration, and Cruelty go for a moderate price in Baator.
A Wet Cough
In this mining village, there is a sickness that is spreading among the miners. The sickness manifests as a coughing fit. The village has a priest capable of healing disease, but unfortunately, the disease is tied to the fate of a fiend that lives in the mine. The sick villagers will not get better while the demon lives, though mundane methods can suppress the symptoms temporarily. The fiend (probably a Bulezau or Oblex), uses minions to protect itself.
What can the players do?
They can try to heal the villagers. There are some gains to be made in the form of Relief and Hope if they manage to suppress the symptoms of the disease and the villagers appear to improve. In fact, there are also gains to be gotten from when the disease comes back in full force. If the party plays this in a particular way, they could end up facing an Outraged mob of villagers (a rare emotion to find in great magnitude).
They can try to slay the demon. However, there is little to be gained other than mild Hope from accepting the quest. If the party just dives into the mine and kills the demon, then there is likely to be a Happy, but only moderately-happy, reception to the news. Better would be for the party to shelter one of the NPCs for whom this is a personal quest and kill the demon with this NPC in tow. There are powerful emotions to be gotten from such a NPC as the demon is destroyed.
So, what am I hoping for from you? Just more ideas! The Wet Cough plan is probably closer to being on-level. It would be better for the party to be level 2 before facing a CR 3 Bulezau, but if I play the creature stupidly, CR 3 isn't really THAT hard. What I'm hoping for are some ideas that would only take one or two long (4-10 hours) sessions to resolve to completion. I don't need proximal continuity, since the party gets to hop from world to world looking for these situations. So, these adventures can take place at icy crags and summits, fiery volcanic islands, salty spraying seas, etc. But, I'd really like for there to be THOUGHT-BASED approaches that might yield interesting results for their specific goals. They could always just harvest the emotions and LEAVE, perhaps dooming a bunch of fools to a messy fate. But, for a quick score, that might be great! Also good would be some situations that may require a greater emotional intelligence than you usually see in D&D parties. I have a bunch of people who are going to join the game who are not already murder-hobos. I would rather keep them that way.
So, GITP Forums... what can you come up with?