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View Full Version : Good Guys Bringing About Armageddon (Idea)



Leliel
2007-12-05, 05:07 PM
Being the fan of "World Ending" plots that I am, I have noticed that for fairly obvious reasons, that it's never the "good guys" trying to bring about the apocalypse. So, I decided to be innovative and decided to make a game about a group of people that I have decided to call "Endkindlers" whose destiny (chosen of their own free will) is to be the agent that "pushes the world's Reset button" as it were. The kicker? The particular Endkindlers who are also the PC's happen to be non-evil in alignment. So...

How would you, the posters, go about creating a non-evil campagin where the PCs ultimate goal is to "End the World"? What would be the ritual needed to do this? What are the componets of that ritual? How about some good villian ideas? What powers should be granted to the PCs as Endkindlers? What about other, not-so-nice Endkindlers? How much angst should be appropriate from the PCs, and how much is deserving of a slap across the face?

Of course, this version of the end isn't the end all be all. The world will live after its destruction as we know it, and the PCs will be tasked with beginning the recontruction of it in the epilouge of the campaign. I was also thinking that the Endkindler's would be given powers based on the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse (control over weapons for War, becoming a culture of all sorts of nasty microrginisms for Pestilence, necromancy for Death...) as well as supportive ones to sybolize their dual nature as enders and beginners (ability to heal wounds, cure diseases, white necromancy respectively). The trouble is, I have no idea what fuctional ability to grant for Faimine (inability to die from starvation? Ability to conjure food?), nor do I have any idea how to implement any of them. Little help?

RAIN FIREY RAGNAROK ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF EARTH!!!!:furious:

In other words, thank you for your responses.:biggrin:

Hunter Noventa
2007-12-05, 05:09 PM
Famine isn't just starvation. Whoever became famine would likely not need to eat or drink, and at the same time would be able to bring ruination to any farmland or water supply. Not poisoning it as pestilence might, but just ending it. Wells dry up, crops wither and die. Food that is eaten never satifies people's hunger, that sort of thing.

Prometheus
2007-12-05, 06:27 PM
I'm getting a sense of Deja Vu with this thread, but in any event, this is how I always wanted to do it.

Long ago, the magic of the world slowly condensed and billions of years later earth and life sprouted out of nothing. As time progressed intelligence beings were born of beasts (kind of like evolution), conjuration magic, or necromancy magic. The world was paradise, but then something went horribly wrong. Famine, disease, natural disaster were all tolerable, but the worst was War. Whole nations slaughtering millions over the small squares of earth, religions losing all their faith to fanaticism, the poor doomed to a life of drudgery. So we wonder, if long ago things could have happened differently, if there might be a way to make it right...The players find that the only way to save mankind is to destroy it using a powerful artifact (or insert plot device here). All the planes crumble and collapse into themselves. Life, material, magic, all alike unravel and are scattered across the remnants of existence. But bit by bit, it comes back together, over billions of years but also in an instant, for it was in no living things consciousness. Until today...(which is either you're next campaign world or alternatively, the very world in which your gaming table sits).

Jerthanis
2007-12-05, 06:56 PM
The Creator of the Universe created beings so that they would suffer, because it was a mean and terrible god, mad with power, and inhuman. The world is correspondingly dark and depressing, monsters roam the countryside, seemingly sprung full flesh from H.R. Geiger's sickest nightmares. Disease spreads like wildfire and kills without mercy. People generally barely avoid outright starvation when they even manage that. It's a dark, sad world, and the PCs, through trial and struggle discover that they could find some way to appeal to the dark and terrible god who made all of them, and by appealing to the Creator, by offering him the soft hand of forgiveness, and sacrificing their own lives to show him what love and caring felt like, would convince the dark god to change his ways, wipe the world clean and create one where his creations can enjoy a more peaceful life.

I played a game like that once. It also had time paradoxes... it was a weird game.

BRC
2007-12-05, 07:05 PM
Entropy is hitting the universe hard and the world is going to end of it's own accord, after which there will be nothing but pure oblivion and torment as demons take over, gates are opening up as the fabric of reality is tearing apart. However, there is a way to destroy the universe in one go, by destroying [macguffin] the universe will end, but rather then deamons running the show and torturing souls for all eternity, the demons are sent back to the lower planes and whoever pushed the kill switch becomes the next set of gods and sets about creating the next world, which they rule over for x millenia until the same thing happens. After the campaign ends you have the players design their old characters as dieties and a new campaign setting which you then play in.

Werewindlefr
2007-12-05, 07:11 PM
Being the fan of "World Ending" plots that I am, I have noticed that for fairly obvious reasons, that it's never the "good guys" trying to bring about the apocalypse.
If I remember correctly, in the bible it's the good guy that does :p.

Arakune
2007-12-05, 07:16 PM
If I remember correctly, in the bible it's the good guy that does :p.

After all hell break free. They more likely clean up the mess and push the 'reset button'. Not pleasant for someone who likes his flesh self, but if you have a 'go to earth 2.0' ticket then your gold.

Kenbert
2007-12-05, 07:22 PM
Ideas for villains could potentially be just ... the same old villains that you'd normally see. The evil emperors, the bloodthirsty warlords, the greedy dragons, the dark sorcerers of the world. They all have power, they all have ambition, and they'll be damned if they'll sit by and let some group of do-gooders go and make them lose everything they've worked so hard to horde.

Others could be other non-evil characters who believe the world can be saved, or at least, that the world should not be destroyed by the PCs. This can introduce an amazing moral consideration that might even make your PCs turn away from that path.

Hope that helps, I like the idea a lot and i'll post more as it comes to me.

Prometheus
2007-12-05, 07:39 PM
I've had an NPC that held the world hostage anytime anyone threatened him (he was charged with the task of maintaining the portals and barriers of the planes and merely asked what would happen if Fire and Water, Earth and Air, Positive and Negative, Celestia and Abyss, were all allowed to spill into each other). They manage to convince him that they were both suicidal and hateful of him, and wen they went after him, they called his bluff.

Serpent Stare
2007-12-05, 07:54 PM
This is neat. I might use this sometime. However, I also have an idea in the back of my head, a property of own campaign world, for how this might be accomplished, for whatever reason (several interesting ones have already been suggested).

The very nature of the world is tied to a sentient living creature.

There you go. It's a simple basic thought, but you can have so much fun with it. This creature (in my campaign it is a great dragon of no single color <its scales change according to its wishes and feelings> living at the center of the world) is kind of like the soul of the world - if it is killed, the world as it exists now will deteriorate, rotting and falling apart until it is entirely unrecognizable. The creature is essentially immortal, in that it will never die of age (unless the world would have anyway - DM's call), but it can be killed. That doesn't mean it will be easy. It may be as hard to destroy as the terrasque - or even harder. If you're short of ideas, it could even BE the terrasque. (I mean, why not? There's only one of it and it's nigh-invinvible, after all. It's even enough of a menace that it could, itself, be the reason to end the world - because that's the result of killing the horrible creature).

The nature of the world creature it entirely up to you. It could be incorporeal, truly a spirit (and thus very hard to track down and kill, which is why it hasn't been accomplished yet).

It could be, as in mine, a great dragon (with scales that can only be pierced by the legendary Pickaxe of Yowloth, the god who made men out of stone, at the eclipse of the full moon).

It could be a shapechanger, wandering the world in many forms and enjoying being part of this glorious world it embodies (again, viciously difficult to track down, and probably hugely difficult to kill... maybe, if it's being a rabbit and a wolf eats it, it simply takes over the wolf, etc - so don't eat it).

It could be a hero itself, or, even better, a progression of them. Yes, this hero was born and honestly was meant to be the incarnation of the world, for when its last incarnation died, the essential spirit of the thing moved to this new body. The new embodiment probably had to live until adolescence at the latest to actually start remembering it's true nature and power (if it ever did - an unknowing spirit works too, and it would make the task of having to kill the 'innocent' fellow all the more tragic and wrenching), but then it took up the path of destiny and became a hero, wielding extraordinary power to defend creation (whether knowing or not that it was, essentially, creation).

And maybe, this hero fell from his glorious aims and started to succumb to greed and cruelty, if not outright evil. Maybe, that's what happened to every single incarnation since the dawn of time (or maybe some have been good, some bad, but the current one really nasty). In the beginning, they were innocent and good, but despite all efforts, they became tarnished and eventually this led to their downfall, and likely the downfall of entire nations. More than likely, even the non-permanent 'death' of the incarnation would cause severe natural disasters (especially <only?> if it was a violent death). Now, the Endkindler PCs must destroy him permanently before he can put the world through another round of havoc, for if he is completely and truly destroyed, the world essence will dissipate in a catastrophic annihilation and then resettle into the matter of the New World, with no single incarnation and thus no more horrifying minor apocalypses wracking the world over - the suffering caused by death is much more personal and limited, the world much more stable.

The snag is that the incarnation can only be destroyed by having a drop of magma from the center of the deepest volcano, the heart of the world, touch his heart - while it is still beating and he is still alive, for otherwise, the essence will have moved on already. Again, you can have fun with PCs who feel pity for the poor fool and the pain he has to go through to restore the world's proper equilibrium.

Want another snag? There's plenty of heroes in the world, and several of them seem to possess otherworldly power. You can even have more than one believe that they are the incarnations. Which one is it really? Or, to further complicate things, you could have it split into two this time, and they have to get both of them - but if the first is killed without (or even with???) the ritual, it's essence flows to the second (making that half-incarnation the full one and thus doubling his power in one fell swoop)

If you want to include an undo button FOR THE UNDO BUTTON (and who doesn't :smallbiggrin:) Have another ritual, a very nasty one, which could recollect all of that essence into a single person - something which must never, ever happen... again.

Oh, and if you want to be really, REALLY nasty (and sneaky), randomly roll to choose a member of the PC party. That PC doesn't know it, but he/she IS the incarnation. Oh, expletive, eh?

This would also open the gate for other Endkindler parties to realize it (though it may be presented as senseless ranting) and try to destroy them through this horrible, painful ritual him/herself.

Also: I guess every Endkindler party would have a War member, a Famine member, a Pestilence member, and a Death member.

Maybe, the only way for the incarnation to be held helpless (and thus for the ritual to take place) is to weaken it with their powers: horrible internal struggles (War) weaken its will, it is unable to restore or heal itself by any means (Famine), it becomes terribly physically weakened (Pestilence)... And Death must be the one to deliver the magma's strike, once the other three have done their work.

Okay, I'll stop talking now, but this is such a neat idea that I'm gonna have thoughts for it stuck in my head for a while.

Naihal
2007-12-05, 08:36 PM
The problem with the good guys bringing around the end of the world is that you're pretty much changing the fundamental nature of the universe, and in most campaign worlds, the fundamental order resists change. Very, very strongly. Most campaign worlds are focused on stability, with the concept that you've got one multiverse and if the Macguffin blows up then that's it, poof, you're gone. Clearly, what you need is not most campaign worlds.

A different way to organize the campaign world might be one focused on a Trimurti, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti) a trio of spirits focused on creation, preservation, death, and rebirth of the universe. (In Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.) In this multiverse, chaos is the fundamental order, not law. The world is created, goes through cycles of life, and is ultimately destroyed so a new world can be brought into being. In one cycle, maybe some group dedicated to order tries to halt the cycle of death and rebirth for some reason (to gain ultimate knowledge, absolute power, or other nefarious purpose). The PCs have to somehow destroy the world so that the cycle of life can continue.

Sstoopidtallkid
2007-12-05, 08:39 PM
You could give the PCs magic. One school and one domain.
Necro/healing for Death, evocation/strength for war, ?/plant for famine, ?/death for pestilence.
Or, even better, build your own lists. Give famine create food/drink, while death gets resurrection and healing and pestilence gets the cure condition spells. The ones I listed are pretty good for the contrast, though. You'd still have to homebrew a class, but it is possible. I'd say talk to your players beforehand and assign them a class based on what they want to do.

Azukius
2007-12-05, 08:49 PM
just my idea of what class would be appropriate
War: Fighter (obviuos)
DEATH; CLERIC (OR MAYBE A WIZARD SPECIALISING IN NECRO, BUT CLERICS DIG UNDEAD
Famine; Druid (control over natural order of things and how to screw them up, plant growth etc)
Pestilence; tricky, maybe a variant of assasin/ rogue who poisons and infects people.

If you went with a wiz for DEATH you would have the classic party

[Insert Neat Username Here]
2007-12-05, 09:17 PM
It's not really ending the world, but my webcomic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62762)'s backstory includes a character -- definitely a good guy -- who saved the world by completely destroying his own race (including himself). He's seen in comic #5. (http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x299/Insert_Neat_Username_Here/Generica/0005-1.png) More details will be revealed later.

WrstDmEvr
2007-12-05, 09:53 PM
Concept behind destruction - all planes are tied to one another. If one fails, all of them shut down.

1. Evil gods conquer the good gods.
2. All other people on Earth turn nongood
3. In order to destroy, you need to systematically erase any one plane by alienating it from all the others. To do this you need several rare components from that plane that cannot be found in other planes(symbolizing it's difference from the other ones, thus why it should be cut off.
4. Material Plane shuts down. Do some cool cinematic.
5. End of campaign/PC's teleport into alternate reality.

Neon Knight
2007-12-05, 10:03 PM
Gnosticism. Or, at least, something superficially similar to it. This world, this reality, is a prison, a facade. Destroying it is no sin, but instead a great enlightening and liberation.

Khosan
2007-12-05, 10:11 PM
If you've played a campaign in the past that ended in a TPK, you could go one step further on that and say that this is a future version of that campaign. Evil's completely taken over, most of the Good/Neutral Deities have been killed or severely weakened.

In that case the actual good guys could be enacting some ritual that leeches power from the Gods in order to bring about some sort of vast Armageddon that puts everything back on to an even playing field.

Jothki
2007-12-05, 10:36 PM
You could have it so that ages ago, a hole was opened between their world and some sort of plane of pure magic, which caused magical storms to ravage the world and left everything imbued with magic. Since then magic has been very slowly fading, and they have to reopen the portal before magic fades completely and the means of regaining it is lost forever.

Mando Knight
2007-12-05, 11:03 PM
You could make the entire world a paradigm shift... whereas most campaign worlds have generally neutral or good alignments for the townspeople, have your NPCs basically evil, (or at most true neutral) for the entire world (except for the PCs). Not that the people necessarily realize that they're evil, but that they essentially don't recognize the difference between good and evil, and in this world, much of what we would call evil is actually quite commonplace and desirable (except to your heroes)!

However, you could have the main deity be of Lawful Good alignment, thus despising all forms of evil and Chaos, which may be what your world could have broken down into. Thus, the deity sends his (or hers, if you swing that way) greatest champions, Death, Famine, Pestilence, and War, to destroy the current world so that he may begin anew with a perfect paradise.

Also, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse could have backstories in which they were originally the Guardians of Life, Abundance, Health, and Peace but were forced into their opposite roles in order to cleanse the world of evil; death, famine, pestilence, and war not being evil in and of themselves, but as righteous and just punishments for the evils of the world.

Furthermore, you can introduce lesser deities that are against your patron god's plan, even to the extent that they themselves are the cause for the state of the campaign world. You'll need to have some pretty high level PCs for that, though... fighting a deity is no small matter!

Grey Watcher
2007-12-05, 11:40 PM
The very nature of the world is tied to a sentient living creature.

If you go with this idea, try modifying this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/geniusLoci.htm) creature. Seems like an intriguing starting place.

Anyway, I think that, to make the idea that the world is beyond saving a palatable one to players playing non-Evil characters, there has to be something SERIOUSLY wrong with the world as it is.

Also, just how widespread is the destruction we're talking about? Will this just destroy and rebuild the home planet of the player characters? The entire plane (most campaign settings won't make that distinction, but still)? The home plane plus a few of the more closely connected ones (ie the etheral plane in the DMG cosmology)? All the planes?

It seems to me that the question of scope and the question of why the world needs to be destroyed and rebuilt are closely linked.

As for antagonists, well, ANYONE who's got anything they value in the current world will oppose this plan, whether that something valued is wealth, power, a loved one, a landscape, one's own life, etc.