~Corvus~
2020-01-16, 02:18 AM
I've been designing a D&D story for a little bit, but I don't know where, exactly, to position such a story within the setting, and also thus I don't know how to give good names to the people. Here's the background story:
A middle-aged knight has spent the last two decades bringing relative peace to his region of the country, and has recently been blessed with the title of Nobility, along with his own region and castle; He even brought a few other nobles' regions into greater peace and prosperity, and so has become known as "[Noble] the Kind & Wise." Last year, however, his son disappeared soon after visiting their ancestral home. He wrote to the High Cleric, who was a tutor to "Squire the Wise," and he was just as mystified by his absence.
Not long after this, Noble the Wise had a terrible ordeal, after which his actions and orders were anything but wise and just. Incensed at not being able to find his son, he pushed his fellow Knights and militia to find his son at any cost. The High Cleric proposed that Noble the Wise join him and a few of his knights in their Mountain home, and search the ruins of the Forgotten Church at the edge of the town. All did not go well.
Noble the Wise arrived at the town in a fury, and when a cursory search of the Church yielded nothing, he turned on his townsfolk and kinsmen, the community from which he'd grown to become a great man, and even tortured a few of them before he was confronted by the High Cleric and his fellow knights. A long debate among each other devolved into a pitched battle between Noble the Wise and his devoted Knights, and they were forced to slay him and those loyal to his unusual actions. With his dying breath, Noble the Wise cursed his remaining fellow knights, making a wish to any Dark Power that could hear him, that his town, his knights, and the High Cleric would come to terrible ruin for resisting his attempt to find his son.
Those of you that haven't yet fallen asleep already might be thinking Gee, this sounds a lot like the story from Diablo I and you'd be right! It's certainly inspired by such a grimdark origin, but I don't want the game to just be a dungeoncrawl, and I want to make enough changes to the story to allow this kind of story not only to be a dungeoncrawl but also fit comfortably into the D&D setting.
The demon to replace Diablo will be Areex, an obscure demon Prince who, although mentioned in the 1983 Monster Manual II, only has connections to lore through Gibberlings in Sigil that say he'd left to "journey beyond the stars to honor a pact with Bollothamog." The latter personality--Bolothamogg--is an Elder Evil of the Far Realm, and the D&D equivalent of Yog-Sothoth, the primal Guardian of the Far Realms.
Areex, by my own estimation, is overdue for a return to the D&D realm, but not without significant powers. His journey indeed gave him great power, but his entrance into the Mortal realm taxed him far more than he'd thought. He sought to possess a mortal--Noble the Wise--but that didn't entirely work, and his gamble has left him weakened. Therefore, of course, he kidnapped Noble the Wise's son, and has set to work in the underground church.
Areex's influence has begun to twist and turn the Church and even the caves around the area's mountains into terrible Labyrinth-like depths, and has even made the weather foul, thus completing our "conversion" of the (simpler) Diablo plot and setting into one we can fit into a D&D setting.
If this story could actually work in the Forgotten Realms, I'd love to hear a suggestion as to where. If it would best be set somewhere else (Is there another setting for 5E?), let me know that, too.
Thanks to any that respond~
A middle-aged knight has spent the last two decades bringing relative peace to his region of the country, and has recently been blessed with the title of Nobility, along with his own region and castle; He even brought a few other nobles' regions into greater peace and prosperity, and so has become known as "[Noble] the Kind & Wise." Last year, however, his son disappeared soon after visiting their ancestral home. He wrote to the High Cleric, who was a tutor to "Squire the Wise," and he was just as mystified by his absence.
Not long after this, Noble the Wise had a terrible ordeal, after which his actions and orders were anything but wise and just. Incensed at not being able to find his son, he pushed his fellow Knights and militia to find his son at any cost. The High Cleric proposed that Noble the Wise join him and a few of his knights in their Mountain home, and search the ruins of the Forgotten Church at the edge of the town. All did not go well.
Noble the Wise arrived at the town in a fury, and when a cursory search of the Church yielded nothing, he turned on his townsfolk and kinsmen, the community from which he'd grown to become a great man, and even tortured a few of them before he was confronted by the High Cleric and his fellow knights. A long debate among each other devolved into a pitched battle between Noble the Wise and his devoted Knights, and they were forced to slay him and those loyal to his unusual actions. With his dying breath, Noble the Wise cursed his remaining fellow knights, making a wish to any Dark Power that could hear him, that his town, his knights, and the High Cleric would come to terrible ruin for resisting his attempt to find his son.
Those of you that haven't yet fallen asleep already might be thinking Gee, this sounds a lot like the story from Diablo I and you'd be right! It's certainly inspired by such a grimdark origin, but I don't want the game to just be a dungeoncrawl, and I want to make enough changes to the story to allow this kind of story not only to be a dungeoncrawl but also fit comfortably into the D&D setting.
The demon to replace Diablo will be Areex, an obscure demon Prince who, although mentioned in the 1983 Monster Manual II, only has connections to lore through Gibberlings in Sigil that say he'd left to "journey beyond the stars to honor a pact with Bollothamog." The latter personality--Bolothamogg--is an Elder Evil of the Far Realm, and the D&D equivalent of Yog-Sothoth, the primal Guardian of the Far Realms.
Areex, by my own estimation, is overdue for a return to the D&D realm, but not without significant powers. His journey indeed gave him great power, but his entrance into the Mortal realm taxed him far more than he'd thought. He sought to possess a mortal--Noble the Wise--but that didn't entirely work, and his gamble has left him weakened. Therefore, of course, he kidnapped Noble the Wise's son, and has set to work in the underground church.
Areex's influence has begun to twist and turn the Church and even the caves around the area's mountains into terrible Labyrinth-like depths, and has even made the weather foul, thus completing our "conversion" of the (simpler) Diablo plot and setting into one we can fit into a D&D setting.
If this story could actually work in the Forgotten Realms, I'd love to hear a suggestion as to where. If it would best be set somewhere else (Is there another setting for 5E?), let me know that, too.
Thanks to any that respond~