Need some help with a story

[Engineer1371]

Hey y'all hopefully I'm posting this right Form. (I'm new to Order of the stick). I'm pretty new to running campaigns I'm running a homebrew and I’ve kind of hit a but of a wall and I was hoping y'all could help.
My players consist of 1 experienced player (4th level bearfolk cleric) 3 fairly green players (4th lvl theifling warlock, 4th lvl half orc fighter, 4th lvl half elf soccer) and one complete newbie (4th lvl Halfling monk, probably going to switch characters).

So far the story goes they were gifted a mysterious snow globe with a living village inside it, by a group of kobolts they helped. And then were on there way down the road to a major city when they were attacked by increasingly powerful fiends (imp, spined devils, a babau) then an assassin all working for a mysterious entity or group (I haven’t decided) called "M" who were after the globe. Well do to some players decisions they were forced to feel from the city away from the guards. They were attacked by a wight and some zombies they managed to make it to the next large city. Where they started doing some research into the snow globe. They learned the snow globe was created by a litch. That night a wizard teleported her tower to the city they were staying at. And found them and wanted to study the globe. The players were hesitant to give her the globe but eventually agreed making her sign a magical contract that would kill her if she misused the globe.

Now I'm looking at what comes next I’m thinking of trying to get my players start to work for the wizard. Recovering other items the litch made. Maybe going after "M". I'm just not sure how to play it. Any help or suggestions on where to take the story would help. A well as some ways to help get get my players to trust the wizard. Thanks for all the help.

[D&D_Fan]

Idea:

The globe was not the only item crafted by the lich.
M is after other items as well.

Rumors emerge from that a mystical item resides in an ancient dungeon on a faraway isle.

This time, M sends a hunter/archaeologist to track down the item, and the party must reach it first to prevent the item from tumbling into the grasping hands of evil.

Items:

a sword that is made of unmelting ice.
a golden skull amulet that allows its bearer to steal souls.
a robe that allows for teleportation on a galactic scale.
a scroll bearing unmatched necromantic power.


Villain of the Arc

a powerful undead warrior who has been reanimated by M and acts as a vessel for the enigmatic archvillain.
M's former friend who is trying to regain favor with M.
a construct built by M to track down all items linked to the lich.
M?

[Yanagi]

Hey y'all hopefully I'm posting this right Form. (I'm new to Order of the stick). I'm pretty new to running campaigns I'm running a homebrew and I’ve kind of hit a but of a wall and I was hoping y'all could help.
My players consist of 1 experienced player (4th level bearfolk cleric) 3 fairly green players (4th lvl theifling warlock, 4th lvl half orc fighter, 4th lvl half elf soccer) and one complete newbie (4th lvl Halfling monk, probably going to switch characters).

So far the story goes they were gifted a mysterious snow globe with a living village inside it, by a group of kobolts they helped. And then were on there way down the road to a major city when they were attacked by increasingly powerful fiends (imp, spined devils, a babau) then an assassin all working for a mysterious entity or group (I haven’t decided) called "M" who were after the globe. Well do to some players decisions they were forced to feel from the city away from the guards. They were attacked by a wight and some zombies they managed to make it to the next large city. Where they started doing some research into the snow globe. They learned the snow globe was created by a litch. That night a wizard teleported her tower to the city they were staying at. And found them and wanted to study the globe. The players were hesitant to give her the globe but eventually agreed making her sign a magical contract that would kill her if she misused the globe.

Now I'm looking at what comes next I’m thinking of trying to get my players start to work for the wizard. Recovering other items the litch made. Maybe going after "M". I'm just not sure how to play it. Any help or suggestions on where to take the story would help. A well as some ways to help get get my players to trust the wizard. Thanks for all the help.

Okay, there's three plots that need to advance, and it's a matter of preference how that happens.

You've established a MacGuffin...the snowglobe...an antagonistic, organized force seeking the MacGuffin...M...and a potential ally and source of exposition...the wizard in the teleporting tower. If the MacGuffin's handed over to an ally NPC, some version of "I'll research the globe in the lab, you go look for X" is a very easy way to set the players off on a new path.

Things is, you should show rather than tell, so the ally NPC shouldn't be making big discoveries, just adding fill-in on details, while also being a kind of second-tier mystery: teleporting a tower to make contact is a power move, but it's also a sign that the NPC feels this is important...so the question is why the characters knows what they know, and what they want to do with the information.

So the advancement of the plot has to braid together the three elements: the story of the snowglobe, the identity of M, the question of the tower wizard's information and motives. Ideally, this means that each quest is like a chapter...the central thing is done, but also the issues that drive the plot of the later chapters are introduced. A search for information on the snowglobe means encounters with M that provide further information about the entity/group, and the next chapter active search for M provide insight into the snowglobe (or its creator) or the tower wizard.

Each of these things needs to be fleshed out in your head, so that you can decide how much information to parcel out to the players, how to distribute new revelations to achieve the best reactions, and to make everything feel like a smooth narrative. Because of player choice, all three of these elements need to be thought about ahead of time, though the first two are the ones more likely to advance the plot.

Plot element #1 is developing the mystery of the snowglobe.

What is its function? What significance did it have to the lich that created it beyond its function...is there some kind of biographical detail or overstory that explains this distinct device? Liches are very closely connected to the idea of soul storage devices--phylacteries--so a natural avenue of thought is that the snow globe is some kind of unusual, having-special-properties soul container?

Somewhere in here, a loose biography of the lich and a picture of their motives and drives has to be established...both generally and with regard to the snowglobe's occupants. Liches are often presented as obsessives, and as powerful spellcasters their obsessions tend to be grandiose experiments...but a twist could be that the lich has created this device for more personal, human reasons. If the village is a real place the lich knew in life, but has now trapped because there is secret they wish to discern (but keep from everyone else)...well, it creates a breadcrumb trail of things for the party to look for.

What are the full implications of the village in the snow globe, and how does this relate to the intended function of it? Are the people some kind of power source (for example, as they live and die their souls are captured, so they're like battery cells), or are the being studied because they possess some kind of unusual property or trait? Is the village and its people a pre-existing population that were placed in the globe, or has the lich somehow created a kind of pocket world to which the people are autochthonous? Can the rhythm of their lives be sussed out by observing the snowglobe--does time travel at the same pace, are there seasons or weather, how do the people subsist?

Plot advancement on these subjects could look like:

- the characters are in some way inserted into the snowglobe and given a chance to explore the environment.
- the characters are instructed to find further information out in the world: finding the site where the village once was, finding a lab or tower controlled by the lich, to advance their information (and that of their putative guide, the tower wizard)
- the characters attempt to find other devices created by the lich in the hopes that they provide insight into the snowglobe's value.

That last one bears further exploration, since the other items should provide new ways of exploring that mystery. If the next thing to fetch is another snowglobe, or another version of "magic enclosed space" it says one thing about the lich's plans, but it says something different if all the subsequent go-fetch items modify the snow globe. The former indicates the lich has a general plan involved artificial spaces, the latter suggests the snowglobe is the central mystery. I personally think the latter is the better option: Imagine the snowglobe as Petri dishes, and other items as tools to examine and alter the conditions within the dish: a scrying mirror that lets you zoom in and watch the tiny people, a set of magnets and an elaborate circular pegboard that lets you "program" the conditions inside the globe...that kind of thing.

Plot element #2 is expanding on who M is.

You need to define M, at least in your head: Entity, group, entity running a group. From a nuts and bolts perspective the last one gives you most flexibility, depending on how long you want to stretch this story. If this story is supposed to be brief, M is an entity that acts as the boss fight but still has underlings/summons to populate the encounter tables. If this is a story that supposed to stretch for levels and levels, making the organization broader and having more resources creates a pool of opponents who have enough time that they become characters rather than obstacles.

The backstory will require establishing what and why the entity or group knows about the snowglobe. If the lich is a well-documented figure, then they can just be power hungry. If the lich/snowglobe thing is a total mystery, then it makes more sense if they have an extended backstory that intersects with that of the lich.

M is going to have a motive that reflects whatever purpose the lich created for the snowglobe: (1) a parallel similar trajectory, aka do the same thing as the lich, (2) the opposite trajectory, aka stop the thing the lich was doing, (3) a glancing trajectory, aka the thing the lich did has some unanticipated property that has utility to M.

(3) is the most work because it's an added narrative, but it's probably the best option because it's richer and another layer of things for characters to discover or be surprised by. It works especially well if the lich's motives were smaller and more "human" and M's motives are more grandiose and inhumane. So the snowglobe can be a terrarium full of delicious souls for an archdevil, the perfect bottle existence a cult and their deity craves, the perfect hiding place for a wizard who's leveraged their soul too much, re-wireable into a terrifying WMD that could scrape a city off the face of the planet.

Since M has already pelted the PCs with fiends, the implication is that there's either a caster involved (if they were summons) or some kind of entity--like a bigger fiend--that can command or bind devils. The snowglobe is ripe with implications--a perfect magic enclosed space equivalent to a demiplane, a container full of souls, a carefully-tuned bottle reality that can sustain life--that make it something exciting for other casters, servitors of malevolent deities, and extraplanar entities like devils.

To advance this plot the PCs are going to need leads: something that lets them speculate or feel like they're making progress about discovering M's identity. Consider:

- the PCs try to bait M agents and either capture someone or back trace them to a base.
- another clash with an M agent provides a clue. An assassin paid with an obscure coin that points to a specific location, untended dying words, a spiteful devil chafing at their bonds provides a cryptic hint.
- something in the back history of the snow globe points to a possible identity of M.
- one of more of the other times related to the snow globe has a known owner, who is potentially M.
- M establishes a line of communication with the characters, probing their motives and trying to make them doubt their new ally the tower mage.

Plot element #3 is the tower mage.

Is tower mage a benevolent actor? What do they want? Are they playing completely straight with the PCs, or do their motives permit them to, say, be less than forthcoming or deceptive? Where does their knowledge of the snow globe come from?

This plot element is the least important...barring twists where the tower wizard is a hidden antagonist...since there's already so much going on, but it still has to be braided with the other two plot elements. The wizard shouldn't just...be there...particularly given how dramatic their entrance was. The tower wizards motive doesn't actually have to be directly about the snow globe--they could be someone deeply worried about the proliferation of dangerous magic items in general, or have a particular fixation on protecting some person or location and view the snowglobe as a threat. Or they could have had a brush with M and are trying to make an ally with the only other people that have encounter M.

Because of player choice though, you need to have the character have explorable elements. The PCs have already created a contract with this person: are they going to follow up with further questions or explorations? What does the tower contain that might pull their interest?

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Fitting all these bits together and accounting for the number of new players, it's probably best if you use the tower wizard to direct their focus rather than rely on them exploring the sandbox.

I'd work it like this:


- initiate a quest--the tower wizard has a location that needs scouting (the lich's abandoned lair) or wants the players to collect an item (another piece of the lich's collection)

- another collision with agents of M occurs, at an unexpected moment in the quest. This time, there is some kind of lead or hint to pursue.

- returning to the tower wizard, the players' efforts allow them to understand the snowglobe better--perceive what is happening inside, learning that there is some kind of interface rather than it being a passive container. Not a full exposition drop, just some more information.

-the PCs are then left with two paths: pursue yet another piece of the snow globe puzzle or follow up on M.


So...that's general guidance on what to think about and potential paths. If you want specific propositions, I have those too, but I like to provide options and ways to think about the problem first.