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Aquillion
2008-03-31, 10:33 PM
Way back when, I was flipping through the 3.0 DMG with a friend and noticed a table to roll on for random adventures. Yes, random adventures, or at least as much of an adventure as you could put in one short sentence. Most of them were generic, but one in particular leapt out at me:

"The high priest is an illusion."

How would you make an adventure based around this? What should the PCs do about it?

(As an aside, for a while after this came up, whenever a high priest was introduced in a game someone in the party would inevitably try to find an excuse to touch him, just in case.)

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-31, 10:43 PM
Be honest. The party would attempt to touch everyone, which could be an adventure all it's own. But no, have the High Priest actually be a Permanently Reduced and Invisible Halfling Beguiler in the corner, level 5, with Silence and Still spells, and have him be a major player in the campaign. Don't actually plan a reveal, just have him functioning as a spy, and if the party finds him, he activates his 1-time use item of Phantasmal Steed, uses his Permanent Rory's Telepathic Bond to call for help, then the entire session is a chase scene, with summoning spells, illusions over doors, and a few similar things. And mention to the party afterwards that they were fooled for 6 months by a guy 10 levels lower than them.

May actually be better as a Sorcerer, though the fluff doesn't fit as well. Then he could use scrolls instead of items.

LibraryOgre
2008-03-31, 10:50 PM
Way back when, I was flipping through the 3.0 DMG with a friend and noticed a table to roll on for random adventures. Yes, random adventures, or at least as much of an adventure as you could put in one short sentence. Most of them were generic, but one in particular leapt out at me:

"The high priest is an illusion."

How would you make an adventure based around this? What should the PCs do about it?

(As an aside, for a while after this came up, whenever a high priest was introduced in a game someone in the party would inevitably try to find an excuse to touch him, just in case.)

Money (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20000621.html).

Read about a week and a half after that one.

RTGoodman
2008-03-31, 10:52 PM
The High Priest is actually dead, and has been replaced by a Doppelganger with some levels in Ur-Priest. Nothing says false High Priest like stealing divine power from the gods themselves!

nerulean
2008-04-01, 09:09 AM
The Premise:
The high priest is an illusion! The high priest has been incapacitated for whatever reason, but some sly, conniving person found out first and realised that he could create an illusory double of said high priest to manipulate the whole community into doing his bidding.

The Plot:
The PCs are contacted by a lower-ranking member of the clergy (who they don't know is acting on the orders of the high priest) who wants them to kill someone. This someone is a small child who he claims is being prepared by beings of absolute evil to be the host of some sort of terrible apocalyptic force that will possess him and tear the universe to shreds. The money is good, and the PCs do the job. As they're walking away after killing him, however, an old, wise sage runs up and tells the PCs that they've doomed the whole world, that that child was prophesied as the one who would save the world from a being of pure evil.

The PCs return to their clerical friend for payment and hopefully challenge him about his information and dastardly actions. At this point, it is revealed that he was working for the high priest. This will immediately set their alarm bells ringing, so they go off to see the high priest... except as we all know, he's an illusion. The PCs are good to discover this - they're already embroiled in the bad guy's evil plan and must undo the terrible wrong they've caused, while at the same time tracking down the evil perpetrator of the impersonation. Any attempts they make to reveal the high priest's illusory nature is poo-poo'd by everyone else; the PCs will hopefully guess that they're all either mind-controlled or their will saves are too low.

(At this point, insert as much storyline as is required to make the adventure as long as you like. Perhaps the PCs only have to rustle up the cash to have the boy saviour resurrected by a member of another church, thus leading to a single little side quest, or perhaps he can't be raised by normal means, dragging the PCs into a huge long adventure to repent for the crime they initially committed. Thread in appropriate encounters with the 'high priest's minions trying to stop them and plenty of doom and gloom about a potential coming apocalypse.)

The boy raised, the PCs must now turn their efforts on uncovering the secret behind the high priest and seeing if they can find some pointers as to exactly how they're supposed to be stopping the spread of evil. The boy will tag along with them, adding a nice protection element to their fights.

The Plot Twist:
Eventually, through much digging and investigation, the PCs get to the heart of the matter, and discover that the person who's behind the illusion of the high priest is none other than... the high priest! He was happily priesting away for Pelor or some other happy god when an evil god turned up and gave him a better offer: "the apocalypse is coming. Help me out, and you'll survive it." He agreed.

But high priests of gods don't just suddenly change their alignment, so he had to do things subtly. First, he set up the illusion of himself, telling some of the priests - the ones who could be easily manipulated - that this was a ruse for his own protection as he feared he was the target of assassins. These are the priests who have been working for him, furthering his evil intentions without knowing it. Second, he sent away all the brightest priests, "promoting" them to positions where they would take charge of other churches rather than being some little underling in this church.

Lastly, he began to feed information to the remaining group of priests that he was being captured against his will and that the high priest who was giving them orders was a fake. He told them, in broken Sendings and troubled words, that they must find him and free him from his captivity without his captor knowing that they were onto anything, because anything powerful enough to incapacitate him must surely destroy them. This last group were specially chosen as the ones bright enough to be trustworthy, but too stupid to actually work it out and were intended to be the high priest's backup plan in case the evil god didn't deliver.

Anyway, now the PCs know his terrible secret, there is nothing left for them to do but die. Cue boss battle, happily ever after, or TPK. Either is good.