BerzerkerUnit
2021-08-22, 09:53 AM
My players had a “bad time” with my last one shot. I want to redeem myself so I’m going full speed.
They’re taking existing level 10 PCs and leveling them to 20. They’ll get 180000 gp and 1 year of down time to spend it as they see fit. (I’m giving them 3 weeks of real world time to do all this.)
They’ll also get 1 artifact or 2 legendary items, 1 very rare, 1 rare, and 3 Uncommon ones (down trading is 1:1). They can exchange any item for 5 consumables of equivalent rarity. (No custom items but permanent versions of Artificer infusions are open).
Scene 1:
We open on the climax of the Thoon War. Heroes from across the multiverse are fighting against a seemingly endless wave of cult like Mindflayers touched by something wholly outside existence, feared even by the Elder Brains.
The heroes have received a summons from the gods of Faerun themselves to depart the field at once, just as 5 Nautiloids drag an Asteroid onto the engagement area. The mightiest Spelljammers and countless slips and shuttles continue to fight as one by one, Ulitharids descend to the asteroid with their servants, climb onto these tuning fork shaped racks and let themselves be flayed alive to produce psychic screams of such intensity they crack the asteroid in two to reveal a very angry Tarrasque. The titanic creature, complete with crystalline growths that radiate psychic rage that propel it through space, starts demolishing ships.
The party can stop to fight the Tarrasque first or immediately flee to answer the summons of the gods. (This just determines when they fight the Tarrasque).
In either case the edge of reality is where all planes overlap (allowing for hazards they have to navigate in combat but that can also be used against the space tarrasque). But this prevents planeshifting and teleport from being used. They need to Spelljam for a year to get someplace the planes differentiate and their escort can gate them to the gods.
Scene 2:
The gods explain the Winter Empress, an Arch Fey, has disappeared and the whole of her domain in the Feywild has been swallowed by a Shadowfell manifest zone. The gods maintain cosmic order by insuring the lesser powers are pitted against each other in a balanced fashion. The disappearance of the Winter Empress will lead to chaos on a cosmic scale. Orcus already moves on her domain through the merging of the Shadowfell, he must be stopped immediately.
Scene 3:
Cut to the party being gated directly into the Demon Prince’s path. This “Persian armies from 300” battle is waves of undead. The party has several days to prep (summoning creatures and binding them, building traps and recruiting units of locals (werecreatures, some of the eviler fae, and some monsters).
I have a quick resolution system for mass combat where units are dice, quality is determined by die size, History is used for Initiative (winning initiative means terrain can be used for a bonus). PCs can lead units or operate as irregulars. Expending resources gives bonuses to the die rolls or may eliminate the need to fight at all. Example: PC leads a d4 group of peasants vs a d8 horde of ghouls. If he casts Meteorswarm the fight is just over and the ghoul unit is obliterated. If he instead casts Divination for intel on their movements, that would be a +4 for the spell level turning the opposed roll from D8 vs d4 to d8 vs d4+4.
Losing the opposed check reduces die size, losing by more than half the die max value is a rout and 2 size steps are lost. Below D4 is defunct but the unit is left in the area and can be rallied with a persuasion check to improve another unit.
Success in this army battle divides the forces, Orcus’ lich and mummy lord generals are left with just a few wights and a stone golem. Defeating them allows for a short rest as Orcus races ahead to deal with the threat himself like Megatron, wanting to gloat at the incompetence of his right hand lich(a weakened Vecna).
Losing the mass battle forces the PCs to face Orcus and the Lich and a small army of ghouls and zombies. However, if Orcus is weakened before the Lich is defeated, it turns on him, revealing itself to be Vecna, rendered “mortal” by the return of his hand and eye.
Provided they defeat Orcus they receive orders to find out what happened to the Winter Empress. Her palace is devastated and sleeping in its remains is a grotesque “artificial Tiamat.” Five Ancient Dragons stitched together in an alchemical abomination of suffering and power. The Dragons reveal they were kidnapped as wyrmlings, transformed into this, and dragged through mad realms where time flowed differently. They explain the madness is triggered by fear or pain and they were used to destroy this palace and weaken the one that ruled here. If the players have a Wish or Divine Intervention they want to use, they can unravel the abomination and gain 5 “summons” they can call upon. Otherwise the creature begs for death and forces a fight.
After the resolution to Faker-mat the party discovers a clue in the wreckage of the Palace, a vault, almost like a fallout shelter. In addition to a bunch of treasures it contains the contracts for all the Winter Empress’ warlocks, all but one of which has a silver cage containing a bird of various varieties.
The birds are souls. Sensing the Thoon war was the end of Reality the Empress stopped allowing her warlocks to be resurrected and claimed their souls, like a harvest, hoping to carry her through to the next iteration of Reality. The missing soul belongs to a Warlock whose friends decided they’d do -anything- to get her back.
Tracking the cage and the bird leads them to Stygia in the 9 Hells where they find another adventuring party. These 5 heroes have just traded the Winter Empress to a Pit Fiend staging a coup. Her fairy stuff will be forged into a suit of armor rendering him immune to the command of greater devils. She’s the payment in exchange for unlocking the cage and resurrecting their Warlock friend.
Now they have to fight the Pit Fiend, a couple Ice Devil Lts, and the level 16 party knowing if they win they’ll have to return the Warlock’s soul to the Winter Empress and return her to power.
If they didn’t already kill the Tarrasque, it shows up on Toril having decimated both the defenses and the Thoon that awakened it. It’s only upgrade from default is a fly speed during its turn.
They’re taking existing level 10 PCs and leveling them to 20. They’ll get 180000 gp and 1 year of down time to spend it as they see fit. (I’m giving them 3 weeks of real world time to do all this.)
They’ll also get 1 artifact or 2 legendary items, 1 very rare, 1 rare, and 3 Uncommon ones (down trading is 1:1). They can exchange any item for 5 consumables of equivalent rarity. (No custom items but permanent versions of Artificer infusions are open).
Scene 1:
We open on the climax of the Thoon War. Heroes from across the multiverse are fighting against a seemingly endless wave of cult like Mindflayers touched by something wholly outside existence, feared even by the Elder Brains.
The heroes have received a summons from the gods of Faerun themselves to depart the field at once, just as 5 Nautiloids drag an Asteroid onto the engagement area. The mightiest Spelljammers and countless slips and shuttles continue to fight as one by one, Ulitharids descend to the asteroid with their servants, climb onto these tuning fork shaped racks and let themselves be flayed alive to produce psychic screams of such intensity they crack the asteroid in two to reveal a very angry Tarrasque. The titanic creature, complete with crystalline growths that radiate psychic rage that propel it through space, starts demolishing ships.
The party can stop to fight the Tarrasque first or immediately flee to answer the summons of the gods. (This just determines when they fight the Tarrasque).
In either case the edge of reality is where all planes overlap (allowing for hazards they have to navigate in combat but that can also be used against the space tarrasque). But this prevents planeshifting and teleport from being used. They need to Spelljam for a year to get someplace the planes differentiate and their escort can gate them to the gods.
Scene 2:
The gods explain the Winter Empress, an Arch Fey, has disappeared and the whole of her domain in the Feywild has been swallowed by a Shadowfell manifest zone. The gods maintain cosmic order by insuring the lesser powers are pitted against each other in a balanced fashion. The disappearance of the Winter Empress will lead to chaos on a cosmic scale. Orcus already moves on her domain through the merging of the Shadowfell, he must be stopped immediately.
Scene 3:
Cut to the party being gated directly into the Demon Prince’s path. This “Persian armies from 300” battle is waves of undead. The party has several days to prep (summoning creatures and binding them, building traps and recruiting units of locals (werecreatures, some of the eviler fae, and some monsters).
I have a quick resolution system for mass combat where units are dice, quality is determined by die size, History is used for Initiative (winning initiative means terrain can be used for a bonus). PCs can lead units or operate as irregulars. Expending resources gives bonuses to the die rolls or may eliminate the need to fight at all. Example: PC leads a d4 group of peasants vs a d8 horde of ghouls. If he casts Meteorswarm the fight is just over and the ghoul unit is obliterated. If he instead casts Divination for intel on their movements, that would be a +4 for the spell level turning the opposed roll from D8 vs d4 to d8 vs d4+4.
Losing the opposed check reduces die size, losing by more than half the die max value is a rout and 2 size steps are lost. Below D4 is defunct but the unit is left in the area and can be rallied with a persuasion check to improve another unit.
Success in this army battle divides the forces, Orcus’ lich and mummy lord generals are left with just a few wights and a stone golem. Defeating them allows for a short rest as Orcus races ahead to deal with the threat himself like Megatron, wanting to gloat at the incompetence of his right hand lich(a weakened Vecna).
Losing the mass battle forces the PCs to face Orcus and the Lich and a small army of ghouls and zombies. However, if Orcus is weakened before the Lich is defeated, it turns on him, revealing itself to be Vecna, rendered “mortal” by the return of his hand and eye.
Provided they defeat Orcus they receive orders to find out what happened to the Winter Empress. Her palace is devastated and sleeping in its remains is a grotesque “artificial Tiamat.” Five Ancient Dragons stitched together in an alchemical abomination of suffering and power. The Dragons reveal they were kidnapped as wyrmlings, transformed into this, and dragged through mad realms where time flowed differently. They explain the madness is triggered by fear or pain and they were used to destroy this palace and weaken the one that ruled here. If the players have a Wish or Divine Intervention they want to use, they can unravel the abomination and gain 5 “summons” they can call upon. Otherwise the creature begs for death and forces a fight.
After the resolution to Faker-mat the party discovers a clue in the wreckage of the Palace, a vault, almost like a fallout shelter. In addition to a bunch of treasures it contains the contracts for all the Winter Empress’ warlocks, all but one of which has a silver cage containing a bird of various varieties.
The birds are souls. Sensing the Thoon war was the end of Reality the Empress stopped allowing her warlocks to be resurrected and claimed their souls, like a harvest, hoping to carry her through to the next iteration of Reality. The missing soul belongs to a Warlock whose friends decided they’d do -anything- to get her back.
Tracking the cage and the bird leads them to Stygia in the 9 Hells where they find another adventuring party. These 5 heroes have just traded the Winter Empress to a Pit Fiend staging a coup. Her fairy stuff will be forged into a suit of armor rendering him immune to the command of greater devils. She’s the payment in exchange for unlocking the cage and resurrecting their Warlock friend.
Now they have to fight the Pit Fiend, a couple Ice Devil Lts, and the level 16 party knowing if they win they’ll have to return the Warlock’s soul to the Winter Empress and return her to power.
If they didn’t already kill the Tarrasque, it shows up on Toril having decimated both the defenses and the Thoon that awakened it. It’s only upgrade from default is a fly speed during its turn.