The End - tying up the tangle of loose threads [Help!]

[Altair_the_Vexed]

(Daremonai, Helios, Sizbut, Mike - stay out please.)

My current high level campaign is nearing the end. The PCs are soon to get their hands on the prize - an artefact level staff - they're going to kill the bad guys, and then decide what to do with their prize. Probably they'll destroy it - I'm dropping plenty enough hints that way.
All well and good - but there are lots of unresolved stories left.

Thing is, along the way they've got involved in many side quests and intrigues, and blabbed about their quest with the wrong people, and generally behaved like blundering PCs do.
Just about every power in their continent is trying to get their hands on this prize, too. There's the evil elven supremacists, the fundamentalist theocracy, the magocratic superpower - not to mention the lich who held the staff for many centuries.

Having ALL of these factions show up to try to get the prize, while awesome, is a bit contrived. The PCs have taken great pains to be untraceable. They have a item of False Vision constantly running on their transport, and they'll be doing their climactic stuff on other planes than their pursuit.

• The lich could manage to do it with his sort-of-time-travelling-sort-of-parallel-universe-sliding magic (I'm thinking he could wait to see where they come back to the Prime, through rumour and history, then go back to that moment to sick them).
• The magocracy could do it - it was one of them who made the Item of False Vision in the first place: the articficing mage could have put a back door on it to allow him to track the party. Also, this bunch would let me reintroduce an NPC ex-ally that the party fracked over back in the early days of the campaign.
• The elves are recurrent antagonists. The players almost certainly want to finish them off for good. But they're almost the least capable of tracking the PCs.
• The theocracy are almost completely forgotten by the players, I think. Also, they're not so hot on the tracing of people. I'll probably not use these guys.

So - my question to the Playground: given the parties that want to attack the PCs, regardless of their success in seizing the prize, what would be the coolest epilogue to the climax?

[Protecar]

I would say have the lich appear just as they approach the artifact and think they've one--epic battle ensues. Then, when the rubble clears and they take hold of the artifact, the mage who created their false-vision-ma-bobber-thing shows up behind them, and demands forfeiture of the artifact. Cue epic battle dos just when they thought it was all over!

Edit: Or have their ex-ally lead a surgical strike force of mages for an even more headache inducing combat!

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I would say have the lich appear just as they approach the artifact and think they've one--epic battle ensues. Then, when the rubble clears and they take hold of the artifact, the mage who created their false-vision-ma-bobber-thing shows up behind them, and demands forfeiture of the artifact. Cue epic battle dos just when they thought it was all over!

Edit: Or have their ex-ally lead a surgical strike force of mages for an even more headache inducing combat!

Well... the point is that they are supposed to get the staff, do their extraplanar thing with it, then return to the Prime Material - so I'm not going to have the lich arrive while they're on another plane.

What I'm looking at is what happens after the heroes think they're done. They've finished with the staff, but the rest of the world hasn't.
The staff is also one of the lich's phylacteries (he has three, and the party have two of them without realising it) - so he definitely wants it back.

I like the ex-ally attack - I can combine him with the anti-trace device making mage (they're from the same country, and the ex-ally needs al lthe help he can get).

I'm thinking that the lich could use the elves as shock troops, tricking them into doing his dirty work, with a plan to sick them when they're most depleted - and then the ex-ally and item making mage turn up to "Save the day" and defeat the bad guys, but then demand the staff is handed over.

Too complicated? Too cheaty? Would you feel done over if it was you?

[erikun]

Sorry if I'm missing something - I'm up later than I should be.

So the Lich has the prize, and everyone wants to get it? And you want all these various factions to be involved in the final battle? That sounds like a relatively simple solution, actually. When the PCs take the time to plan out their final attack, just make sure the Lich is most vulnerable at a specific time and place.

All the other nations, unable to spy on the PCs, took to spying on the Lich instead. And all of them have decided to jump the Lich at the specific time and place. The trick, though, is that the Lich is intentionally making himself vulnerable to lure the PCs out, and thus has prepared for uninvited guess. Of course, he probably hasn't prepared for several dozen uninvited guess from all across the continent...

So you have the Lich, the party, and all the national antagonists in one location, complete with excuses for them to suddenly appear out of nowhere during the final battle. Have fun (assuming it will work).

[Killer Angel]

They probably expect a fight with the lich.
Use the magocracy, this faction has the perfect Troy's horse (the Item of False Vision), so it's perfectly justifiable. you should do it BEFORE they eventually destroy the staff.

The lich can enter AFTER the Staff's destruction (after all, they have the other 2 phylacteries...).

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Sorry if I'm missing something - I'm up later than I should be.

So the Lich has the prize, and everyone wants to get it? And you want all these various factions to be involved in the final battle? That sounds like a relatively simple solution, actually. When the PCs take the time to plan out their final attack, just make sure the Lich is most vulnerable at a specific time and place.

All the other nations, unable to spy on the PCs, took to spying on the Lich instead. And all of them have decided to jump the Lich at the specific time and place. The trick, though, is that the Lich is intentionally making himself vulnerable to lure the PCs out, and thus has prepared for uninvited guess. Of course, he probably hasn't prepared for several dozen uninvited guess from all across the continent...

So you have the Lich, the party, and all the national antagonists in one location, complete with excuses for them to suddenly appear out of nowhere during the final battle. Have fun (assuming it will work).

No, the lich had the prize, but some extraplanar forces took it off him. The PCs are now catching up with these extraplanars on their home plane.

When they return is when the stuff I'm on about should be kicking off...

But your reasoning of "party are hard to scry, so we'll look for the lich" and "lich is playing easy to find to lure the antagonists to him" makes some sense - he knows that the party are trying to find the staff, and he knows that they're being pursued... So he's going to use the forces of the party's other antogonists against the party in the hope of retrieving the staff when it's done.

That will do nicely for an after-climax showdown.

For the climax showdown - I'll have the anti-scry device makers 'port in to attack before the party destroy the staff. These guys don't really want to slaughter the PCs unless they have too - they're sort of good guys - but they really feel the need to have that staff.
With the ex-ally in tow, this becomes a good role-playing fight.

TL,DR:
Ex-ally and gang try to snatch the staff from the PCs.
PCs destroy staff.
Lich tricks elves into attacking PCs on his behalf to soften up PCs. When he finds the staff is destroyed he goes crazy and unleashes all he's got.

[Ceaon]

I was more thinking of a climactic battle BETWEEN these four factions of yours.
The evil elves, the members of the theocracy, the lich and a possible army and the members of the magocracy ALL want the staff, and they are all easier to trace than the PCs. Ex. the Lich follows the mages, the elves scout the lich, and the theocracy teleports in after the elves. Huge battle ensues, PCs get to help out one or more of the sides, then get another climactic showdown with whoever still wants to fight the PCs for the staff.
Could work.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I was more thinking of a climactic battle BETWEEN these four factions of yours.
...
Could work.

Yeah... I thought about it, but I really don't want to try a multi-way battle.
While it'd be awesome to watch, I don't want the PCs to just do that - watch.

Now, I don't want to kill the party off, but I do want to give them a run for their money.
I'll give them some time to recover from the ex-ally attack, before I hit them with the elves and the lich.

The lich is a git, though. He's not going to play nice - that would make him into a Bond villain, which is lame. He's going to wait till the party are done defeating the elves, and then he's going to attack, while they're weakened.

[Bharg]

I think Party vs Lich vs Magocracy would be the best way to go...
What does the artifact do anyway?

[erikun]

No, the lich had the prize, but some extraplanar forces took it off him. The PCs are now catching up with these extraplanars on their home plane.

When they return is when the stuff I'm on about should be kicking off...

Then change it so that everyone is using divination to keep track of the undisguisable, epic-level magic item which is running around the planes. Once that item begins returning home, with the extraplanar unexplainably dead, everyone is going to take the chance to jump in and try to snatch the artifact away from whoever has it.

And I also recommend the Party vs Lich vs Magocracy, if nothing else because nobody knows the party well enough to show up and attacking them directly. Heck, as new people show up, their first priority will probably be "attack the strongest to soften everyone else up" or "just start blasting everyone."