Brainstorming a campaign idea

[NRSASD]

Hello Playgrounders! I have an idea for a campaign but it’s missing a couple pieces. Allow me to explain:

Long ago, there was a creature we’ll call the Lizard King. He and his kind created the lizardfolk, dragonborn, kobolds, and dragons we see today. The Lizard King’s species went extinct, but deep in the jungle he held on.

The Lizard King figured out a way to become a living god; obscenely powerful and functionally immortal. One of his advisors, a kobold, had figured out a way to use this process to benefit all the various peoples and the land itself, but the Lizard King dismissed that idea and soul-trapped the advisor so no one could know about this other method.

2000 years ago, 5 mortal adventurers found the Lizard King and defeated him. He had been a tyrant and was slaughtering the adventurers’ peoples, so it was kinda warranted. The five adventurers figured out how the Lizard King became immortal and replicated the process, turning the mortal heroes into living gods.

They also sacrificed the Lizard King brutally and used his life force to fertilize their homeland, setting themselves up as gods to their people. As this happened, the Lizard King revealed that their ritual wouldn’t work forever: in 2000 years the land would become infertile and one of them would need to be sacrificed to renew the magic.

The new gods laughed this off as an idle threat and built a utopia in the meantime. To their credit, it mostly worked. That said, those 2000 years have now passed and the land is turning to dust. And now, the gods are jockeying for power, sizing one another up and determining which one is going to be the unlucky one. Deep in the jungle, meanwhile, the Lizard King is beginning to reform.

My questions for you fine fellows:
A. Are there any fun positive energy lich equivalents?
B. Any suggestions as to what the immortality process/device is? And how one could use it to either enrich the land or turn you into a “shoots-lightning-from-your-fingertips” god?

This is a system-agnostic question, so feel free to suggest. Thanks!

I’m currently thinking some sort of tree-of-life thing but I’m not completely sold on it.

[Notafish]

a: Positive-energy liches... for fictional inspiration, I would think any mortal who becomes immortal but not undead could work. Dorian Gray is the example that leaps to mind for me - he even basically has a phylactery. I don't think there is any reason that a lich-type character needs to be undead.

b: the powers are granted by an external entity or artifact - either a benign one that was trapped by the Lizard King and used for selfish gain by him and his successors, or a neutral/malevolent one that grants power in exchange for sacrifice. If the Lizard King wasn't truly sacrificed, but only temporarily dead, perhaps the exchange isn't powered by sacrifice, but by conflict. This does lead to the question of what secret the King's advisor uncovered - if the artifact is destroyed/entity freed or banished, will the power be distributed equally across the land? will the cycle of famine and conflict end?




I’m currently thinking some sort of tree-of-life thing but I’m not completely sold on it.

Can you explain more about this? Is this a means of immortality/godhood?

[TyGuy]

How I would go based off your inspiring starter.

Gods inhabit the outer planes. They can not inhabit the material realm, though they can influence it and temporarily exist as an avatar on the material.

Demi-gods are god-like entities that inhabit the material realm.

Souls are energy/ power in the spiritual realm. They provide power in four main ways.
1) Captured and consumed. Can only be done on the material realm, e.g. liches.
2) Sold/traded and consumed. Usually in devil contracts.
3) Prayer/ worship. This is the main way deities, especially good deities, harvest power. The residual soul energy given off through faith is small, however. Which is why greater deities require followers in the millions to become relatively powerful.
4) Death & passing on. Upon death, the souls of mortals pass on to the plane that represents their morality in life. Some continue to exist as individuals in the afterlife, some are absorbed by the realm and their deity itself.

King lizard created a way to create a "catalyst" in the form of altars that allow for methods 3 & 4 on the material plane. Allowing king lizard to become a greater demi-god on the material itself. A god for all intents and purposes, but not bound to the outer planes.

The phylactery is a minor type of this catalyst divined by powerful magi that discovered elements of the lizard king's ascension. However, it uses method 1 and comes with limitations, undeath and power limitations to name a couple.

Kobold advisor discovered the method and understood that a greater demi-god created in this fashion could act as a conduit to give much of that soul energy back to make the lands productive and fertile. Demi-gods don't typically suffer the same competition and existential threat from rivals as the gods of the outer planes. But king lizard didn't want any competition at all in the realm of greater demi-gods.

The 5 that followed are still suffering from the selfishness of hoarding the soul power for themselves. In a Mexican stand-off where none of them want to replenish the land willingly, weakening themselves, and making them vulnerable to the others.

P.s. to answer the question of the positive energy lich, I would suggest the empyrean stat block

[KorvinStarmast]

My questions for you fine fellows:
A. Are there any fun positive energy lich equivalents?
I'd suggest against that. Lich is a term loaded with negative energy connotations (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lich). (see David Drake's first Lord of the Isles book as but one example). One of the (IMO) most misguided in FRPGs ever was the 'positive energy lich' that IIRC cropped up during AD&D 2e's bloat phase. Worse than Kender, that was, and I have no use for Kender.

B. Any suggestions as to what the immortality process/device is? How much detail are you looking for.

And how one could use it to either enrich the land or turn you into a “shoots-lightning-from-your-fingertips” god? I'd suggest you take a look at the Dark Sun Defiler scheme of magic. Seems to fit where you are going thematically.

Also, take a look at a 40 year old movie called Excalibur, with Gabriel Byrne, Nigel Terry, and Nicol Williamson; a retelling of the Arthurian legend that emphasizes "the king and the land are one!" which you can parley into "the {deity} and the land are one!" Add to that a bit of any reference you like as regards blood sacrifice, the blood of the deity refurbishes the land ... the examples are numerous.

Maybe something like this? (https://diablo4.blizzard.com/en-us/#story)

[Bulhakov]

A. Archliches, the Deathless of Eberron and the Undying Court
B. Look for the Undying Court for ritual ideas (they're basically positive energy mummies). Since you're looking for something connected with the land, maybe there were some prehistoric deities that actually created the lands (think Dafiti from Moana) and the immortality process actually leeches onto them?