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FlyMolo
2008-05-12, 08:22 PM
The other day I was thinking about DMing and I realized I was always forgetting the awesome plot hooks I come up with and half-baking ones instead.

So when you need a plot hook or sub plot or side quest or even campaign idea, come here. If you have one of the above, come here to drop it off so someone else can use it, even if you can't.

A couple of ideasan idea I had a while ago:
The flesh colossus from ELH. It regenerates when it takes negative energy damage. Long Ago, a wizards used a Flesh to Stone spell (disregarding spell immunity. A Wizard Did It.) on the colossus. It crashed to earth and a village grew up in and around the body. It's still "alive", and has the mind of the necromancer inhabiting it still trapped inside. A cult has grown up around freeing this necromancer, earning his favor and power. The cult(lots of them) all take levels in Dread Necromancer, and spend much of their time channeling negative energy into the stone corpse. Eventually, the negative energy will let the colossus break the enchantment on itself, and the necromancer will walk again, with obvious negative consequences.

Ways the party can stop this: Take out the cult, or build their own colossus, then engage in epic city-stomping mano-a-mano combat.

The other idea: Functions best as a short side quest.
6 walls of force make a lighter-than-air balloon, and can lift an airship. If the cube flies off, you're toast. The party are hired to go get it back, somehow getting it back down to ground level. Creatures with fly speeds are a necessity, and maybe smoke or air elemental creatures.

Post your own ideas, stop by to borrow someone else's. Go on.

Edit: title changed to be more pretentious.

sonofzeal
2008-05-12, 08:46 PM
Here's a trick of mine for making BBEGs that don't act completely braindead when it comes to the PCs: manufacture the situation such that the BBEG has more to gain from a living rival than from a few dead adventurers. Maybe the BBEG needs to capture high-level souls to power his doomsday device, or requires vast amount of magic items (such as would be collected by the PCs in their mission to kill him), or is hoping to use a Magic Jar trick to take permanent posession of a PCs body and wants it as strong as possible. In all of these cases, the BBEG has sufficient reason to spare their lives and send them off, so that they'll come back stronger and wealthier and better-trained. The BBEG might even serve as a Deus Ex to get them out of trouble when necessary, only to taunt them and tell them they're still far too pathetic to be worth his time. Note that this technique only works if the BBEG is relatively isolated and not dependant on a large network of allies and minions that the PCs can disrupt.

In my current campaign, the BBEG "Nedeva" has figured out the nature of the xp system, and is manipulating it for ungodly power. In her first real confrontation with the PCs, she realizes that while they're low-level right now, they gain strength very quickly (because they're heroes) and would make ideal xp-food later. So, she lets them in on the whole secret, taunts them a bit about how much more powerful she is right now, and demands that they use this new knowledge to gain more and more power so that they'll be "ever so much more tasty" when she kills them later.

Xuincherguixe
2008-05-12, 08:50 PM
In order to prevent adventuring parties from forming to defeat him, the BBEG starts destroying all the Taverns.

AngryRussian16
2008-05-12, 08:58 PM
Ive always wanted to run a BBEG Bard that fights in a cathedral using the animate spell to fight with the pipes of an organ.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-05-12, 09:04 PM
1: Thank you for this thread, it is needed and deserves a stickey.

2: Alethar, STOP HERE.

Stealing SonofZeals idea for my upcoming campaign, going to have my BBEG pull a Jade Empire-esque setup, where the PCs fight to reach him(the overriding goal of their characters even while going after other LBEGs) is merely so there will be a being with enough power that a sacrifice of them can break the barrier between Celestia and the Abyss so that the Solars and Good Gods willl be forced to join the Blood War on the Devil's side, causing their eventual fall in the same way the Devils fell originally.

JeminiZero
2008-05-13, 12:52 AM
The story goes of a bunch of (reasonably) high level chaotic good-ish PCs who have a nigh impossible goal (it should be a personal goal of the group rather than an assigned task for reasons that will become obvious later), probably of plane shattering proportions at the end of a Campaign (why this should only be done at the end of the campaign will also become obvious later).

Perhaps they feel the Wall of the Faithless is an Affront to justice and seek to tear it down, but must face off against Greater Dieties to do so. Perhaps they require a certain artifact, but must storm the Fortress of Asmodeus himself (on his home plane no less) to get it.

Anyway, they are sitting in a Tavern mulling over how to accomplish such a feat, when a young girl bursts in through the doors, panting from exhaustion, and is shortly followed by what appears to be the combined forces of Church-Troops serving several Dieties (BOTH Good and Evil), burst into the Tavern. The girl pleads for help, and the Angry Army that was chasing her obviously wants to kill her, claiming she is a "threat to cosmic balance and order".

What *should* happen next is that our PCs decide to help the young girl (which is why they should be Chaotic Good-ish), and fight off the Angry Army, which turns out to be one hell of a fight. The girl might lend a hand, shooting off a few level 1 Wizard spells here and there.

Anyway, upon victory, a *ding* sound is heard from the Girl (a subtle hint that she just leveled up). She thanks the PCs for their help, promises that if they needed her's in the future (such as accomplishing the nigh impossible goal highlighted at the start), they may approach her. She shifts to her true form (a Kobold), and says "By the way, my name is Pun Pun", before teleporting away.

OK, that was a crazy idea. Pretend that you never read that. This is why I don't DM.

Reinboom
2008-05-13, 01:10 AM
This idea requires a bit of houseruling in to the party's favor:
Reduce vampire LA to +2. Or adjust it entirely to be lower. Then reduce the skill bonuses appropriately.

Anyways, the idea:
Once, a long time ago, there was a grand adventuring party. Big name adventurers and saviors of many a land. They slew beasts of ancient times throughout.. however... inevitably, they messed up and were TPKed by a vampire BBEG.
That was a long time ago.

Now, the world is a different place. A new great savior walked the land a few centuries back and provided a new benefit to the land - he blackened the sky as to let the people live safely where the sun doesn't shine. Now that everyone in this great land is a vampire, though a kind nation that lives happily off the feasts of cows, the sun is a thing of fear. A system has been worked out to let the nation strive - You are raised normal until the time of birthing, where you must give birth (or father a birth of) at least 1 child. Once you have birthed a child (or father a child), you must join in the ritual of the blood feast, where you are bitten and become a vampire. Then you return to the child to raise it. The child goes through the same.
To bite someone unwillingly is a crime worse than murder, you are not jailed, you are slain instantly.

This strange nation has thrived healthily like this. It is the way of things. The young never grow old, they just move on to new ideas. A finely crafted nation, reminiscent of even the greatest of elven courts. The greatest pass time is ballroom dancing, of course, or races are a common sport.

However, another nation, seeing the growing black clouds over the horizon sees something else - a vile nation full of murderous undead. The holy nation views the vampiric nation as nothing more than a land wretched of creatures ready to be smitten, and are now sending in their strongest of heroes in order to rid the land of this vampiric horror.

The party? Well, they are vampires. Their ultimate goal? Stop the "holy crusade" upon their land.

Randel
2008-05-13, 02:45 AM
In relatively small village the village church has a magic goblet that creates water when shone upon with sunlight and if enough water is produced to make it overflow, then the water that spills over has the power to cure diseases.

A team of goblins (each with pc levels that more or less make them a decent match for the PC's) steal the cup and take a long journey back to their home tribe to heal their fellow goblins of a sickness. Running into bands of wild goblin raiders and dodging the soldiers from the so-called 'civilized races'. They make their way to the mysterious Goblin Labyrinth, which surround the city and lands their civilized tribe live in.

The players have to go get it back from the depths of the goblin city, or they could go the other way and head to a human city and get another magic goblet (because frankly these things are fairly cheap to make... you think something found in a quaint old village church was epic or something?)

***

Another town has a church of an unnamed healing god in charge of it. The priests there have healing magic a little more readily available than most other churches and will gladly accept live farm animals as payment in exchange for their healling.

The priests actually worship a relatively unknown diety of life and undeath who was weakened when other deities took his domains. His followers sacrifice the livestock and turn them into zombies in exchange for their great healing power. The priests naturally keep this thing secret and secretly take the zombie animals out, bring them to an old locked-up dungeon, and stuff them into it so they don't stink up the basement.

So when the heros walk into a dungeon filled to the brim with undead chickens and decaying goat zombies... they might start to think about these places they get their healing at.

(actually inspired by noticing a Divine Metamagic, Fell animate combo that could let someone make free zombies at lvl 1)

***

In a fairytale land, there is a large city surrounded on all sides by a bed of thorns. The magic thorns resist fire and can only be cut through with metal weapons after a great deal of work. The people inside the city are perfectly happy with this because the thorns help protect them from all the monsters and armies that would try to attack them. Their city is prosperous and secure.

However, the thorns are the result of a curse placed on the last princess in the old royal family (stories disagree on whether or not the royals were tyranical monsters who were cursed to sleep forever by the gods, or if they were fairly decent royalty who were cursed by a powerful spellcaster of some sort... it was a very long time ago and the place has a mayor now) the curse supposedly can only be broken by the kiss of true love, but the city officials would have none of that because if the curse is broken they would lose the barrier that helps keep them safe... or worse yet they would get stuck with a monarchy again!

Meanwhile, a very old prince is out looking for the princess and an army of orcs and monsters are willing to help him get into the secured chamber the sleeping princess is kept. Will true love triumph and the city fall to the sword? Or will our heros be able to track down this prince guy and keep him from breaking the enchantment that keeps so many people from getting killed in their sleep?

Grug
2008-05-13, 07:05 AM
So, she lets them in on the whole secret, taunts them a bit about how much more powerful she is right now, and demands that they use this new knowledge to gain more and more power so that they'll be "ever so much more tasty" when she kills them later.

I never understood the mentality that would cause someone to let their enemy grow stronger. But I recently read a quote from the manga Gintama that makes sense. IIRC: "Why strip the fruit off the tree so quickly? You nurture it, cultivate it, allow it to ripen. And when it has grown large and healthy, you eat it."

As for my contribution:
The players need medicine to stop the king from dying. The main and rare ingredient, however, is a common kind of flower grown at exactly 544 ft above sea level. The players must head into the mountains, set up a camp, and protect the flower from the elements, enemies of the state, and fearsome herbivores until it can grow.

The players are members of a remote fortress. One day contact with the outside world ceases, and they can see an army on the horizon. how do they survive?

The players get attacked at home by another adventuring force.

I had my friend say one word and I'd make an adventure around it.

Zen: The players are hired by monk disciples to transport their master to another temple to protect him from ninjas. I say transport because the master is currently in a meditation marathon and is mostly dead weight. If he's hurt, he wakes up and doesn't achieve salvation.

Lake: someone is filling up the local lake with salt. Find out why before everything dies.

Shoe: A thief gained a magical pair of shoes that make him run four times as fast and is stealing everything. Make a groovy trap to stop him.

Monkey: A wizard's pet monkey has gotten foul tempered and broke out. In his rage he drank a potion that let him duplicate himself. Soon the streets are being flooded with monkeys, and no one knows why.

Physics: An insane but brilliant professor has gathered a group of followers to engage in a huge experiment: roll a colossal boulder down a mountain toward the city to see what happens. Extra twist: the math has been worked out to make the boulder roll harmlessly through the streets and out the other side, but influence by the PCs screw up everything.

Medic: The players are all given wands of CLW and sent into a battlefield. Do they make a difference?

Clocks: All of the clocks in the cities have stopped, even the sundial. What dire threat does this portent?

Gatorade: The popular new beverage in town has begun poisoning some people. The giant reptile that normally secretes the main ingredient has become sick.

senrath
2008-05-13, 07:14 AM
The players need medicine to stop the king from dying. The main and rare ingredient, however, is a common kind of flower grown at exactly 544 ft above sea level. The players must head into the mountains, set up a camp, and protect the flower from the elements, enemies of the state, and fearsome herbivores until it can grow.

That is one short mountain.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-13, 07:21 AM
This idea requires a bit of houseruling in to the party's favor:
Reduce vampire LA to +2. Or adjust it entirely to be lower. Then reduce the skill bonuses appropriately.

Anyways, the idea:
Once, a long time ago, there was a grand adventuring party. Big name adventurers and saviors of many a land. They slew beasts of ancient times throughout.. however... inevitably, they messed up and were TPKed by a vampire BBEG.
That was a long time ago.

Now, the world is a different place. A new great savior walked the land a few centuries back and provided a new benefit to the land - he blackened the sky as to let the people live safely where the sun doesn't shine. Now that everyone in this great land is a vampire, though a kind nation that lives happily off the feasts of cows, the sun is a thing of fear. A system has been worked out to let the nation strive - You are raised normal until the time of birthing, where you must give birth (or father a birth of) at least 1 child. Once you have birthed a child (or father a child), you must join in the ritual of the blood feast, where you are bitten and become a vampire. Then you return to the child to raise it. The child goes through the same.
To bite someone unwillingly is a crime worse than murder, you are not jailed, you are slain instantly.

This strange nation has thrived healthily like this. It is the way of things. The young never grow old, they just move on to new ideas. A finely crafted nation, reminiscent of even the greatest of elven courts. The greatest pass time is ballroom dancing, of course, or races are a common sport.

However, another nation, seeing the growing black clouds over the horizon sees something else - a vile nation full of murderous undead. The holy nation views the vampiric nation as nothing more than a land wretched of creatures ready to be smitten, and are now sending in their strongest of heroes in order to rid the land of this vampiric horror.

The party? Well, they are vampires. Their ultimate goal? Stop the "holy crusade" upon their land.


So, a party of LoTR elves?

Expect someone to play a nonbitten halfling. Who carries an artifact ring. And has a gigantic Will save.

Reinboom
2008-05-13, 08:06 AM
So, a party of LoTR elves?

Expect someone to play a nonbitten halfling. Who carries an artifact ring. And has a gigantic Will save.

...no.
How did you get that from my post at all, other than basic social structure? "Unlife Forever" and "reformed society" does not immediately make Lord of the Rings elves.
Given, you're a life draining abomination to the significant portion of the world.

It would also make no sense for someone to try to match a hobbit without a mordor, or equivalent.

If you thought my idea was so bad as to just simplify down to such a basic level, just say so.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-13, 08:15 AM
No the idea, was good. But it recalled how the DMG mentioned one of the possible fluffy changes to the races was to make elves immortal. Said text went on a lengthy explanation on how you should offer an explanation so as to why the world hasn't collapsed, using, as an example, wars against evil creatures and low birth rates to keep a small population. Since vampires are much like LotR elves (Big ability boosts, many strange powers, though of a more direct variety), I associated them.

Speaking of which, small question. How is overpopulation stopped? Why has no one though of using, I dunno, Deep Darkness spells and permanence them to make shelters from the sun?

Be prepared to answer that kind of questions. As is, a single mid level wizard will render all your nice setting moot with a few spells, much like a single guy who has a few items of Create Food and Water throws a few Eberron or FR kingdoms into bankruptcy.

Reinboom
2008-05-13, 08:19 AM
No the idea, was good. But it recalled how the DMG mentioned one of the possible fluffy changes to the races was to make elves immortal. Said text went on a lengthy explanation on how you should offer an explanation so as to why the world hasn't collapsed, using, as an example, wars against evil creatures and low birth rates to keep a small population. Since vampires are much like LotR elves (Big ability boosts, many strange powers, though of a more direct variety), I associated them.

Speaking of which, small question. How is overpopulation stopped? Why has no one though of using, I dunno, Deep Darkness spells and permanence them to make shelters from the sun?

Be prepared to answer that kind of questions. As is, a single mid level wizard will render all your nice setting moot with a few spells, much like a single guy who has a few items of Create Food and Water throws a few Eberron or FR kingdoms into bankruptcy.

Age.
You have only two centuries with couples birthing a single child for that couple at a time (except for the random set of twins). And even then, children can die young.
You have random adventurers attempting to kill vampires throughout this time.
But most importantly, the age, it hasn't been around long enough for overpopulation to occur.

Starsinger
2008-05-13, 08:24 AM
The priests actually worship a relatively unknown diety of life and undeath who was weakened when other deities took his domains.

Pelor's evil side?

I agree with the sentiment that this thread has the potential for many amazing things, and later I'll probably come up with something for it.

SweetRein, I rather enjoyed your vampire-nation idea. In a game one of my friends ran that I got to take part of, there was a nation run by sentient undead who were mostly nuetral in alignment, the Undead Democratic Republic. Not really related to your idea in any way, but the idea of an all vampire nation reminded me of it. Also, for some reason the forced breeding thing before you joined the ranks of the undead sent a shiver down my spine.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-13, 08:30 AM
So, people are, without exceptions, going to have a single child?

And adventurers are going to be so misinformed so as to try and tackle a whole nation?

And said nation is going to have no police, right?

I also hope you either like lots of disasters or all campaigns running on a very short time period, 'cause given that everyone who hears of immortality is going to run for that country, plus the fact that vampiric resilience reduces accidental deaths to near zero, plus people don't die...in a matter of half a century, population could easily double. Or more. Give it a century and you'll have a small kingdom. Give it two and you'll have a big one. More and you get an empire.

Essentially, that world is going to be frozen on it's spot. You have to consider that.

Blanks
2008-05-13, 10:02 AM
in a matter of half a century, population could easily double. Or more. Give it a century and you'll have a small kingdom. Give it two and you'll have a big one. More and you get an empire.

Essentially, that world is going to be frozen on it's spot. You have to consider that.
As we all know, most campaigns last more than a century in game :smalltongue:

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-13, 10:17 AM
High level campaigns do. People want to see the effect their characters have on the setting. The "Hey, didn't the paladin I played last campaign reduce the crime rates to 0 in this town? Why are we facing thugs AGAIN, when you said this new campaign starts a fortnight after the first one kicked off?" scenario is a very uncomfortable one.

sonofzeal
2008-05-13, 10:35 AM
I never understood the mentality that would cause someone to let their enemy grow stronger. But I recently read a quote from the manga Gintama that makes sense. IIRC: "Why strip the fruit off the tree so quickly? You nurture it, cultivate it, allow it to ripen. And when it has grown large and healthy, you eat it."
Well, it generally comes down to a risk/benefit scenario. If the BBEG has more to gain from fighting strong adversaries than weak ones (not counting the chance of losing, because we KNOW most BBEGs are egomaniacs), then it makes sense to spare them and let (or even help) them gain more power. Most traditional BBEGs have little or no reason to act like that, but it's not hard to alter your premise until there is such a reason.

Blanks
2008-05-13, 12:40 PM
High level campaigns do. People want to see the effect their characters have on the setting. The "Hey, didn't the paladin I played last campaign reduce the crime rates to 0 in this town? Why are we facing thugs AGAIN, when you said this new campaign starts a fortnight after the first one kicked off?" scenario is a very uncomfortable one. And most campaigns are high level? :smalltongue:

Seriously, I agree with you that such topics are important (even in a vampire setting, we want realism, the irony is staggering). But i think the poster had a valid point:
yes there will perhaps be overpopulation, but it havent gotten to that yet.


Oh, and a more legitimate question:
How many people have their campaigns "build upon" older ones?
When i start a new campaign i the world is "back to where it was" - you know, the Donald duck routine (gain a million bucks, having lost them before next story...)

Aquillion
2008-05-13, 12:43 PM
Be prepared to answer that kind of questions. As is, a single mid level wizard will render all your nice setting moot with a few spells, much like a single guy who has a few items of Create Food and Water throws a few Eberron or FR kingdoms into bankruptcy.Doesn't work in Eberron, does it? I mean, they have people with spells like that as SLAs as part of the setting... and those people form huge nasty cartels that don't particularly appriciate random adventurers trying to cut in on their business.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-13, 01:02 PM
I posted this over on /tg/, but I am seriously considering running it here at some point.

The PCs are the bizarre companions of a rogue gonzo journalist, swept away on a series of increasingly rash, ill-advised adventures taking them through dictatorships, despots, mind-wrenching road trips, cannibal pygmy tribes, and police conventions - and all the while the world becomes stranger and stranger (and the journalist more and more debilatatingly drugged out) as they start to realise that the entire universe is just a hallucination of the journalist and the weird stuff is his attempts to fight boredom.

I call it the Melancholy of Hunter S. Thompson.

Grug
2008-05-13, 04:23 PM
Hey Azerian! When are you going to tell me how the campaign is going?

Tough_Tonka
2008-05-13, 07:48 PM
More than a century ago a evil druid that slaughtered several farming communities on the outskirts of the local forest. Eventually he was put to defeated by a militia of farmers and frontiersmen aided by a band of adventures. As punishment for his deeds the farmers put his corpse at the base of a cavern and sealed him up so his body would never return to the forest he killed these people in the name of.

Over time the malevolence of his spirit manifested in the form of a strange fungus that sprang from his corpse. Eventually a pack of rats that squeezed through the stones that sealed off his corpse began feeding off the blasphemous fungus, causing them to turn into dire rats tainted with the dark druids soul.

Now these dire rats to the biding of the druid spirit and have begun stealing children from the local communities and using them to feed the fungus in the cave chamber.
__________________

A fun trick to use on this adventure is offer the PC silver pieces and dagger early on to make them think they are fighting were rats.

Wraith_Lord
2008-05-14, 07:36 AM
And most campaigns are high level? :smalltongue:
Oh, and a more legitimate question:
How many people have their campaigns "build upon" older ones?
When i start a new campaign i the world is "back to where it was" - you know, the Donald duck routine (gain a million bucks, having lost them before next story...)

I build my new campaigns on older ones with the retired characters from the last campaign occasionally cropping up for the new PCs... I'vbe always found that it helps to reinforce the atmosphere of the world and also makes players feel proud when they see the effects of their actions in the last campaign on the world as a whole.

xPANCAKEx
2008-05-14, 07:54 AM
im planning on starting my next/first campaign with all the PCs thrown in a jail with an anti magic field, run by corrupted paladins (think paladins who have been unknowingly tricked into braking their code, don't realise it, but think they have been stripped of their powers as a test by their deity). They may or may not have commited the crimes they have been accused of -[leave that detail up to each individual player for background] - but there is an explosion, and the players have a chance to escape. In the process they help the other prisoners escape... one of who turns out to be the BBEG. He decieves them into thinking he two was being held falsely. He then gives them the offer of "decent" work. Players think they're doing good deeds - its actually assisting BBEG

Xuincherguixe
2008-05-14, 08:29 AM
Awhile back in a dream of mine (you know this is going to be bad :P) I had come into posession of a candle made out of the fat of hybrid deep ones who commited suicide, being unable to live with their heritage. It had absorbed the hatered of their own race, and helped to power psychic attacks against them.


Would work best for a Call of Cthulhu game, naturally, but it could be adapted.

Ecalsneerg
2008-05-14, 10:12 AM
This game to me upon acquisition of a PDF of the old Marvel Superheroes RPG, but it could work well in D&D.

Basically a student (in the concept it was a Biology student, but a wizard or warlock trainee could work) is confronted by a nearly-destroyed demon. it's mind and powers are nearly completely gone, but it can still annihilate the whole campus if not stopped. And the thing is nigh-invulnerable.

So this student makes a deal with The Devil. If he strips it of its remaining mind and most of its powers, he'll stop it. But the bargain does look too easy: it's stopped by the demon's husk binding to the student's skin, making him look like a demon. So, he has to go on the run, ironically thought to be his own killer.

RS14
2008-05-14, 03:01 PM
A crime-lord blackmails the PC's into breaking into a wizards' college and "fixing" his son's final exam results.

xPANCAKEx
2008-05-14, 05:52 PM
This game to me upon acquisition of a PDF of the old Marvel Superheroes RPG, but it could work well in D&D.

Basically a student (in the concept it was a Biology student, but a wizard or warlock trainee could work) is confronted by a nearly-destroyed demon. it's mind and powers are nearly completely gone, but it can still annihilate the whole campus if not stopped. And the thing is nigh-invulnerable.

So this student makes a deal with The Devil. If he strips it of its remaining mind and most of its powers, he'll stop it. But the bargain does look too easy: it's stopped by the demon's husk binding to the student's skin, making him look like a demon. So, he has to go on the run, ironically thought to be his own killer.

there isa prestiege class perfect for this in tome and blood

could certainly be a fun one to run

FlyMolo
2008-05-14, 10:33 PM
It's in complete Arcane too. Acolyte of the Skin, I think. Not that interesting except fluffly.

I especially like the exam results one. That has serious potential. It could go all kinds of ways, and there's nothing more fun than making up abominations locked in the cellar of a mage's college.

And don't tell my players, (this means you, players) but my current campaign revolves around A custom demiplane. It's round and flat, and all the air is kept in by a huge bubble. The players had to go retrieve a cube of 6 Walls of force that some guy was using to hold up his airship (it was weightless with no air in the middle). While they were up there, they realized that the entire plane is at war all the time. There's the forces of LE and CG on opposite sides, and they're bashing at each other constantly. I set off a locate city bomb below them, (they don't know that) mostly for dramatic effect. 100s of miles completely destroyed? Cool. I'm making a collection of epic chaotic/lawful monsters to pit against one another on the battlefield. lava/winter wights and their progenitor epic beastie, Chaos beasts and inevitables duking it out on the battlefield. It's going to be awesome. In the meantime, the players are investigating a keep taken over by a rogue cleric. He's only rogue because he's not taking orders, not because he worships Olidammara. This keep, unbeknownst to anyone at the moment, is perched right over the Chaos node. There's a law node on the other side of the world, embedded in a mound of cold crystal. (thermodynamics, doncha know.) I'm thinking really random monsters, with a fire theme. Thermodynamics again. :smallwink: The larger campaign also has a CG/LE theme. An epic sorcerer and Asmodeus facing off. The sorcerer has more or less ascended to godhood, and he's bored. So they're playing chess. With people instead of pieces. The PCs are a crack commando team, sort of. In charge of cleaning up messes.

Blanks
2008-05-16, 04:56 AM
Im considering doing an "XCOM1/UFO - Enemy unknown" type of campaign:

A group of evil wizards have found a cheap way of making gates to [some evil plane] and are proceeding to summon devils/demons in huge quantities. The players race against time to:

Shut down the gates when they pop up

Find the wizards and kill them

find a solution to block the gates.



It still needs a bit of work ;)

Jonesh
2008-05-16, 03:45 PM
Here's one idea I've been playing around with using in my d20 modern campaign.
The PCs are contacted by their employers to recover an item along with a few other NPCs in a district/city with significant unrest. As barricades are built and mobs are forming in the streets, the PCs link up with the NPCs and begin the trek back to a safe location. This would mean possibly many encounters with rioters who seem inexplicably drawn to the group, riot police and Men In Black.
Along the way, their car(s) may give out or crash (the barricades serve their purpose), forcing the PCs to find alternate transport or get out on foot (may be a wee bit hard considering mobs and police can still run you know).
Lastly, this item may be almost anything significant.

In my campaign I'm on the fence if I should go with the Illithid Alien Mind Control Device, Neutral Sympathetic Cybernetic Alien (Aleerin, spelling? d20future) or Illithid :smallamused:
I hope somebody can draw inspiration from this, I've seen some very good ideas here myself :smallsmile:

FlyMolo
2008-05-16, 10:03 PM
Illithid. It doesn't even matter what for. The flavor, the setting, the mechanics. They all rock. Except the illithid racial class. That one's dumb.

Stupid exercise in optimization:

Thri-kreen Barbarian 1/Monk 18. 23rd level. With the quick trait, speed of thought feat, Run feat, and A potion of expeditious retreat and boots of dexterity (the epic ones.)

A 300 foot base land speed. 1500 feet in a sprint. A 21 second mile, in 3.5 rounds. That's about 180 mph.

He jogs faster than a horse sprints. He sprints faster than your average CAR.