Campaign Idea

[Sigreid]

So,another thread on here today made me think of a campaign idea I thought I'd share.

The setup: Someone is hunting down and killing heroes and stealing their bodies. It seems only the noblest and bravest are being taken.

The fear: An evil power is ridding the world of its protectors. The party must find and stop them before the world is defenseless before the darkness. Perhaps a lich is taking them to convert them into powerful undead servants!

What's really going on: A death cleric of noble intent has been shown visions of a time in the distant future when the world will need heroes. To prepare for this time he and his cult are killing the best heroes they can find, taking their bodies back to a hidden temple where their bodies are to be carefully preserved by divine magic so the can be raised from the dead when they are needed. The priest believes he can't wait for the heroes to die as they will be needed in their prime of power.

Anyway, I thought it was a need idea and thought I'd share.

[Man_Over_Game]

Interesting concept.

Players go do some campaign stuff, get to about level 7, get caught in a TPK, tell them to write up new characters of the same level for the next session. Next session starts, revive the party several years later, tell them they can either play their new characters or their old ones, continue the campaign from the new point in the timeline. Maybe have some of the old/new characters that are unused to form an alternate party that's doing their own stuff.

Right about level 6, I'd start making TPK threats occur pretty often. Nothing that says that it's impossible to win every fight, but definitely making survival incredibly difficult. If they somehow manage to survive every one of your deadly encounters, they're strong enough to change fate and deal with the Cleric's threat problem before it reaches fruition.

[MilkmanDanimal]

I wouldn't TPK the party, as that's the sort of thing I'd hate as a player. It'd be like one of those adventurers where you build a character, figure out all your details and equipment, and the DM tells you you've just woken up on a desert island with no stuff. Everybody hates those. Now, if you want them to be a party of formerly-dead adventurers, the first line out of your mouth is "You are dead". That will get everyone's attention with overt railroading.

Otherwise, yeah, I like the idea. Make the players fledgling adventurers, maybe they get to know the Great Heroes of the land in a starter adventure or two, and they witness them killed off, and suddenly they're the new protectors. That's basically the introduction to both the first Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, right?

[Man_Over_Game]

I wouldn't TPK the party, as that's the sort of thing I'd hate as a player. It'd be like one of those adventurers where you build a character, figure out all your details and equipment, and the DM tells you you've just woken up on a desert island with no stuff. Everybody hates those. Now, if you want them to be a party of formerly-dead adventurers, the first line out of your mouth is "You are dead". That will get everyone's attention with overt railroading.

Otherwise, yeah, I like the idea. Make the players fledgling adventurers, maybe they get to know the Great Heroes of the land in a starter adventure or two, and they witness them killed off, and suddenly they're the new protectors. That's basically the introduction to both the first Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, right?

I don't necessarily mean a straight up "Rocks fall, everyone dies" style of TPK, just ramping up the difficulty from 6 to 12 on a 10 point scale. Tomb of Annihilation levels of painful. Maybe have them know that they are fated to die, and that surviving this far is going against fate.

As a player, I'd like the ramped up challenge. As long as I know that my DM is just making things incredibly difficult rather than impossible, I'd be very down for the challenge.

[Sigreid]

It's definitely in the thought process that eventually the character's deeds would get them on the list.

[ImproperJustice]

I like the idea that tge future crisis is caused by the deatg cleric.

See, there is something flawed in his divine preservation ritual, and the great heroes rise as twisted abominations, and the reason there was a a future need for great heroes in the first place is that he killed about 80% of them leading up to that point.

[Sigreid]

I like the idea that tge future crisis is caused by the deatg cleric.

See, there is something flawed in his divine preservation ritual, and the great heroes rise as twisted abominations, and the reason there was a a future need for great heroes in the first place is that he killed about 80% of them leading up to that point.

Neat twist. I was thinking more of the crisis arises because he's removed all of the great heroes from their proper times.

[MilkmanDanimal]

Neat twist. I was thinking more of the crisis arises because he's removed all of the great heroes from their proper times.

So he creates a stable time loop, effectively; he needs all the great heroes because all the great heroes are gone, and all the great heroes are gone because he stole all the great heroes. If you really want to mess with the players, have them be the ones doing this; they're informed of a great crisis and are traveling through time, capturing great heroes in soul gems or whatever, and, later, they realize they caused it all anyways.

[Vogie]

I like this idea, as it gets rid of most of the issues on why a group of nobodies are being heroic - all the heroes are gone!

If there is a true TPK (not a railroaded Rocks fall event), you could also have a time travel story, where the heroes also wake up in the future with the rest of the heroes to help defeat the future evil.

[ImproperJustice]

What if the only way to truly stop it, is that the PCs have to kill themselves at some earlier point?

Ie. they keep fighting a mirror version of themselves and presumably winning against them (unknowingly collapsing whole timelines), until they realize they have to stop themselves?