What was the coolest most unique plot in any game you have either played in or ran?
I ran game where the main plot was Christian-style Elves went on a Crusade against Muslim-style Dwarves. The party was made up entirely of Dwarves. They ended up having to forge an alliance with Giants in order to stop the Elven Crusade.
I know its not exactly original (being based on the Crusades) but the players all enjoyed it.
One of my favorite DMs is gearing up to run City of the Spider Queen backwards. Start along the River of Blood and follow it up to where that touches the Prime and make the main motivation getting home. At least that's as far as he's told me.
Ah - so your DM did have some reasoning to want to intrude on what kinds of characters you could have.
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I once ran a short adventure where everything was about helping a region to get rid of a green dragon. The players prepared very well for the fight with the dragon and where kind of surprised when it wasn't that big as all the settlers told them it would be. They were almost dissappointed that the fight had been this easy... and than Mom was coming home... ;)
The party, almost all spells and resources spent, had a hell of a time running into safety ;)
Not much of a plot, but a nice twist in the adventure!
I ran a Top Secret RPG game back in the mid 80's where the characters stepped through a gate into the World of Greyhawk, near Highport. They survived for a little while. No one could speak with anything they encountered and their 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistols ran out of ammo fairly quickly. They did have a submachinegun along that helped them drive off an orc platoon, but the small warhead on their Redeye handheld surface to air missile was not powerful enough to knock down the small red dragon that eventually got them (although they had no trouble getting a heat signature lock!).
It was goofy, but a blast and the players still occasionally talk about it even today.
I had a player (cleric) who was absent for a couple of games. So the character was “left behind” to do “a mission” for his church. When the player came back, I had his character rejoin with the party as if nothing happened. But what the players didn’t know, was that I decided that the real character was abducted by a powerful wizard, and replaced him with a clone. Not even the clone knew he was a clone.
I just told the cleric that, for some unknown reason, he seemed to be “farther” from his god (I gave him a 5% chance of spell failure every time he casted a spell). He wasn’t to happy about that but I told him to just bear with it.
So everything was back to normal until, a few games later, an enemy put a spell on the group. When the party’s wizard cast a Dispel Magic on the cleric, I told them the cleric fell to the ground, agonising in pain. From that point on, I told the player that his clerics’ skin was cracked at various points (-2 charisma) and that he now had a 10% chance of spell failure.
While trying to find out what this affliction was, the group discovered that the cleric himself was radiating magic when detected for.
It took a few months and a couple of adventures to discover that it was a powerful wizard who had taken the cleric’s body for his own (since his was sick and dying and the cleric had an 18 constitution). So the group had to confront the wizard, take him down without damaging the body and replace the cleric’s mind in the right place.
During the battle, I had the wizard throw a couple of nasty Dispel Magics at the cleric, reducing his charisma greatly (it was down to 5 at the end) and removing his ability to cast clerical spells. The PCs were nevertheless successful in returning the cleric’s body to the cleric.
Ultradan
A long-dead (and forgotten) high priestess of a heretical sect of Ilmater had been turned to gemstone as a way to keep her from rising to power. The party was searching for parts of her gemstone body to stop the sect from rising again.
The only problem was that any divination cast near one of the parts would cause excruciating pain to the caster in the least, and his death in the worst. A paladin casting detect evil, a wizard casting detect magic... all caused problems. Especially when the dwarf fighter was hiding a gem in his money pouch and we quickly found out was a piece of her when his groin started throbbing with pain when we cast a detect magic in his presence.
Thanks for the plot twist idea, Ultradan. ~cackles evilly as I plan my players doom~
I figured I'd add one of my own.
A small town begins having a series of murders in which parents are being stabbed to death in their sleep. Their children sleep through the attackes and there are no signs of forced entry or magical entry.
The killers are the children themselves. Their school teacher was killed and replaced by a succubus, who has been controlling them with a psionic artifact (A world globe) the effects them with Domination and a post hypnotic suggestion).
Each child had a small soul feeding dagger that they hid in their room inside one of their toys.
The kicker is that when the party finally figured out what was going on, the succubus had gathered all of the towns children together and had two dozen children thralled ready to defend her to the death. Watching the group try to figure out a way to fight the demon with out hurting the children, while the children though not fighters still have a chance of hitting the PCs on a 20 (and given 24 children attacking once per round, that chance improves). Special note. Any player who intentionally kills any of the children automatically gain an evil alignment.
Years ago the DM ran us through "Against the Giants" with a twist. My characters sister was being manipulated by a Beholder who turned out to be the "Puppetmaster" behind the whole adventure. Made for a shocking twist to the plot at the end as we discovered that it was all just a "family affair".
I figured I'd add one of my own.
A small town begins having a series of murders in which parents are being stabbed to death in their sleep. Their children sleep through the attackes and there are no signs of forced entry or magical entry.
The killers are the children themselves. Their school teacher was killed and replaced by a succubus, who has been controlling them with a psionic artifact (A world globe) the effects them with Domination and a post hypnotic suggestion).
Each child had a small soul feeding dagger that they hid in their room inside one of their toys.
The kicker is that when the party finally figured out what was going on, the succubus had gathered all of the towns children together and had two dozen children thralled ready to defend her to the death. Watching the group try to figure out a way to fight the demon with out hurting the children, while the children though not fighters still have a chance of hitting the PCs on a 20 (and given 24 children attacking once per round, that chance improves). Special note. Any player who intentionally kills any of the children automatically gain an evil alignment.
Thats a great one.
Director of Game Development
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One of my favorite DMs is gearing up to run City of the Spider Queen backwards. Start along the River of Blood and follow it up to where that touches the Prime and make the main motivation getting home. At least that's as far as he's told me.Ah - so your DM did have some reasoning to want to intrude on what kinds of characters you could have.
Indeed, which makes me want to trust him for this endeavor.
There was a room, with some pie in it, and an orc protecting it. It was pretty sweet.
There was a room, with some pie in it, and an orc protecting it. It was pretty sweet.Was it a cherry pie? or maybe a Half-Dragon/Pecan Pie fighter4/barbarian3.....now that would be twisted! Killer pastry!
FH
... A MIMIC Baklava! (Eat it before it eats you!!!)
Ultradan
There was a room, with some pie in it, and an orc protecting it. It was pretty sweet.
*Groan* THe worlds shortest adventure.
Actually there was an adventure couple years back in either in Dungeon or at WotC website with a baked golem of some kind. The wizard married a baker or something and started experimenting on pastries or something. Can't remember where I read it..
FH
"Something's Cooking" by Andy Collins. A great little side adventure to run... it's a free download from Wizards. Here's the link:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20010413a
Now, which miniature do you use for a Calzone Golem?
Hmm...my coolest plot would probably be different than what my players' favorite plot is, but I have two of them.
The Shield of the Seven Nezumi
I was running an Oriental Adventures/Rokugan campaign. Party members included a human sorcerer, human fighter, drow rogue/psion, drow fighter and dwarven cleric. The players had just finished solving a murder mystery where a nezumi holy man was discovered murdered and there was a claim by two tribes of nezumi to his body. It turns out this holy man had been using his body to block the influence of the Shadowlands in the area. The players find out that more is at stake than the simple claim of a body - the holy man had been murdered to ensure that the Shadowlands' hold on the area was complete and corrupting. (For those that know anything about the Shadowlands, I set it up so that the Shadowlands was a coterminous plane, a nastier dimension coexisting with the material plane, as well as a physical location.) The players had to return the holy man's body to his home in a swamp in order to complete the activation of a ritual that would cleanse the area of the Shadowlands Taint. The players succeeded in this, quite well, in fact, so the nezumi tribe rewarded them with magical tattoos that granted them a special ability (the dwarf got one that allowed him to breathe fire, for instance). They all thought this was the bomb, and asked how they might receive another.
The events that followed was probably the best game I ever ran in my life. We had already ran the adventure I had planned that night, but everybody was amped up and running on high emotion after the initial murder mystery plot. So, I came up with The Shield of the Seven Nezumi, an artifact dating back to the time when the Nezumi had their own empire, before the kami fell to the earth and destroyed it all. The tribes concluded that the party must retrieve the Shield, which was held in a fortress within the Shadowlands. Catch? Oh, there were several. :-D Time limit: maybe 4 hours before they would start to succumb to the Taint. Distance to the fortress? Two hours minimum, plus walking through unfamiliar territory. Of course, the fortress was guarded, trapped and puzzled. The dwarf managed to charm a monstrous centipede and get the express route to the fortress. The characters noticed that they saw a patrol of oni coming their way, and two of the party members (both of the drow) decided to hold the gates of the fortress and give the other three characters time to get through the fortress. After getting through several element-themed traps and puzzles, the party triggered a contingent trap that created shadow duplicates of themselves - all of their talents and skills fighting against them. (Heh heh heh...) I had ruled that violent actions would increase your chances of succumbing to the Taint while in the Shadowlands and thusly the characters defending the gate & bridge were in serious trouble. The trio that had gone inside the fortress managed to quickly dispatch their duplicates, thanks to a timely use of a transmute rock to mud spell (their duplicates were standing near the edge of a cliff). The duo in the gatehouse area battled their duplicates and the oni patrol that had arrived. The charmed centipede was helping the duo in the courtyard. The whole party managed to hightail it the heck out of there and to the portal back to the Real World just as a swarm of oni was coming over the hillside. After soaking in the Healing Waters of Angkar-ran, the party cleansed themselves of the Taint and received their tattoos. The drow psion/rogue, who had received most of the Taint, defacto leader of the party, said to the dwarf, "We are NEVER doing that again."
Of course, later in the campaign, they did. :-D
Evacuation
Different campaign, set in the Forgotten Realms. One of the players finds out that he is the subject of a prophecy that is held by the Ghost Elves (a race covered in a Dragon magazine, I forget which), an elven subrace that was held in slavery by the baatezu for ages. The Ghost Elves had sought him out so that they could help their people escape the bonds of the Ethereal plane, where they had fled after escaping the baatezu. The party had to gather up all the remnants of the Ghost Elves and create a portal big enough for them to exit the Ethereal, but the baatezu had sniffed out their refuge and were coming for them. The ghost elves had created a city out of a floating rock within the Ethereal plane and heavily defended it, but the baatezu were coming to them with a plane-shifting crawling castle that was packed to the rim with some very bloodthirsty and angry baatezu. The players knew there was no way they could defeat the army, so they had to evacuate ASAFP. It was a mad dash to get everybody out, and that's when they first saw the castle. The description and the mental image of the castle still gives one of those players the heebie-jeebies.
My memorable moments that I've ran.
I always wanted to make a calzone golem, complete with gooey hot tomato insides. :-D
"Something's Cooking" by Andy Collins. A great little side adventure to run... it's a free download from Wizards. Here's the link:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20010413a
Now, which miniature do you use for a Calzone Golem?
I think as far as long term plot threads coming together, my favorite was a DragonLance campaign that I was running where the PCs started finding out that the Dragon Armies were starting to have interaction with one another. This was just after the War of the Lance, and such coordination was against the Whitestone Treaty.
Initially they found out about spies and the like talking to each other, and fought off bands of goblins, and hobgoblins, and minotaur mercenaries, and fought a few smaller dragons. Eventually they presented the Knight's Council with evidence that the Dragon Armies had been planning major coordinated offensives, and then beefed up their patrols and warned the elves and dwarves about this collusions.
But the PCs then found out that several patrols that should have been monitoring the border regions weren't there, and they started to find out that several patrols had been reordered from fairly high up in the organization, order that had come from a Rose Knight.
While the PCs found out that the Rose Knight had indeed issued the orders, and they called for a Trial, the Rose Knight had managed to cover his tracks and come up with reasons for all of the reassignments, even though they left the Dragon Armies wide open to communicate with one another.
At the end of the trial, the Rose Knight was found to be innocent of all charges, and when the coucil came back with the red rose at the Rose Knight's seat, my PCs nearly mutinied. Not only was the party's Crown Knight in disgrace for brining the charges, but everyone was just livid, even though they had left some crucial evidence behind in one adventure.
My (now) ex-wife managed to rip my shirt while role-playing her character threatening the Rose Knight, and the Crown Knight's player, when asked why they would bring charges against such a highly placed Rose Knight with such flimsy evidence, responded, "because he was . . . because . . . because you're and a!!*!$!, thats why!" and stormed off.
It was great.
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Actually there was an adventure couple years back in either in Dungeon or at WotC website with a baked golem of some kind. The wizard married a baker or something and started experimenting on pastries or something. Can't remember where I read it..
FH
"Something's Cooking" by Andy Collins. A great little side adventure to run... it's a free download from Wizards. Here's the link:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20010413a
Now, which miniature do you use for a Calzone Golem?
Cool, thanks. I'ma gonna hafta keepa dis one fo one of me half-baked schemes. Get it?!? Half-baked!?! Oh, man I'm good!!!
FH
I once GMed a sci fi campaign (Alternity A game I love from the 90s) for two years. In this campaign, an alien intellegence, which implanted itself into the inter-planetary internet, plotted to implode the sun and destroy our solar system. This alien intellegence planned to use humanties first FTL space ship, developed by the PCs in the game.
In the campaign, humanity had already journeyed into space 10,000 years ago. The ice age destroyed human culture on earth, and space travel became a forgotten dream.
Humanities cousins in space evolve into a cybernetic enhanced space traveling race (the Mechalus from Alternity). The wisest and most charismatic leaders have their conscious ar immortalized in a computer program. One of these ancestral spirit/ programs is the alien intellegence implanted into the inter planetary internet. After Observing humanity for centuries the spirit/ program desides that these (ancient less evolved) humans are a threat to the rest of humanity in the galaxy and should be destroyed. Since these "ancient" humans are now spread through the solar system, the whole solar system should be destroyed.
THe PCs start out as a news reporter, a spaceship captain and the ship's crew. These news hound chase stories accross the solar system. The have reported news stories from new life forms on Venus, vampires on the moon to powerful industrial magnets on Mars seeking immortality. Through out the campaign they cover news stories about the development of FTL drive and viable inter stellar travel. Eventually the stumble and slavage an ancient human spaceship on a Jupiter moon and enter the race to develop FTL space travel.
It is the PC's proto-type FTL spaceship which is chosen by the alien intellegence to start off a chain reaction to implode the Sun. This campaign is so memerable for me because it is the only campaign that I GMed that actually came to a conclusion.
I had a player (cleric) who was absent for a couple of games. So the character was “left behind” to do “a mission” for his church. When the player came back, I had his character rejoin with the party as if nothing happened. But what the players didn’t know, was that I decided that the real character was abducted by a powerful wizard, and replaced him with a clone. Not even the clone knew he was a clone.
Ultradan
WHat a great idea. You most be a good DM to have the faith of your players like that
I figured I'd add one of my own.
A small town begins having a series of murders in which parents are being stabbed to death in their sleep. Their children sleep through the attackes and there are no signs of forced entry or magical entry.
The killers are the children themselves. Their school teacher was killed and replaced by a succubus, who has been controlling them with a psionic artifact (A world globe) the effects them with Domination and a post hypnotic suggestion).
Each child had a small soul feeding dagger that they hid in their room inside one of their toys.
The kicker is that when the party finally figured out what was going on, the succubus had gathered all of the towns children together and had two dozen children thralled ready to defend her to the death. Watching the group try to figure out a way to fight the demon with out hurting the children, while the children though not fighters still have a chance of hitting the PCs on a 20 (and given 24 children attacking once per round, that chance improves). Special note. Any player who intentionally kills any of the children automatically gain an evil alignment.
WOW! and I mean it.
WHat a great idea. You most be a good DM to have the faith of your players like thatBut what the players didn’t know, was that I decided that the real character was abducted by a powerful wizard, and replaced him with a clone. Not even the clone knew he was a clone.
Ultradan
Oh, it wasn't easy. The player in question barked and cried for about twelve sessions that I was punishing him for no reason, that I was unfair (until his character re-integrated his body). Then he sort of saw that the story was actually all around HIS character. THEN he liked it.
Ultradan
(I posted this on another thread a few months ago...)
I once DMed a game in which the overall story-arc was about the rise and fall of a Lich-King and his undead legions slowly overtaking kingdom after kingdom. This story-arc lasted well over five years, and it took nearly the two first years to introduce this Lich-King.
He was a royal advisor/wizard in one of the kingdoms at the beginning. His king, who was power hungry and always wanted more, told his reluctant advisor/wizard to make a pact with Orcus for him to give him an unstoppable army to vanquish his foes, a neiboring kingdom on another continent. Orcus agreed, but for a terrible price, ten million souls had to be sacrificed on the same day.
So the king ordered the bulk of his troops to spread out to supposedly seek out the enemy. He also sent out a double-agent to tell his enemies of the relatively unprotected state of the kingdom. The enemy hit the kingdom with everything they had, killing many civilians in the process, he then ordered his troops to come back and defend what was left of the kingdom. The casualties of men from both armies AND the casualties suffered by the peasants and commoners breached the ten million cap, and Orcus delivered on his deal.
The dead corpses were raised as undead and a ten million strong army was created. But there was a turn of events that the king had not anticipated. Since the advisor/wizard was the one who actually made the deal, it was he who had control of this new army. The advisor killed the former king and became undead himself, known now as the Lich King.
The characters in this campaign had SOME doing in this plot… they were part of this kingdom’s army at one point. They were even summoned by the advisor/wizard to help put a stop to this tragedy in motion. But they were obviously too late.
The main plot after this was to find a way to stop this undead army, and destroy the Lich-King, and even put a stop to Orcus who was actually planning to turn the Prime Material Plane into the 667th layer of the Abyss.
Ultradan
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So, here is an idea that I came up with, but as I suck as a DM, I've never run it. If anyone wants to use it, feel free.
Setting: a world I came up with, a small sized city on the borders of a kingdom. It works best if you're in a region of hills.
The party gets called to the mayor's office for a secret meeting one evening. The mayor and captain of the watch tell them about a murder that has occured, one that matchs a similar rash of murders that took place about twenty years before. The victim is killed with a knife, and the killer leaves behind one thing - a black, hooded mask. They direct the PCs to an elderly woman named Clarissa, who owns a local inn. Clarissa was a with the adventuring company that hunted down the previous murderer all those years ago. Her group lost one of their own, the halfling Bickel Badgerwink, in the process, and they broke up soon afterwards.
When the PCs talk to Clarissa she at first refuses to believe that another murder has taken place, telling PCs that its impossible. When the PCs have worked on her enough, she breaks down and tells them the terrible truth - Bickel was the murderer. They discovered this while following a false trail he had laid out for them. Out in the wilderness, he attempted to lead them into a trap and murder them all. They foiled his plan, were forced to kill him, and then buried his body in a hidden cave. Before they sealed the cave, Clarissa recalls, she tossed the mask he used onto the top of his body. Clarissa will give the PCs a map to the cave, and urge them to go there and try to learn the truth.
When the PCs get to the cave, they find the rocks it had been sealed with removed. Inside, they find the mummified corpse of the halfling, and a lot of dust distrubed by tiny footprints. There is also a dust-free spot on the body (where the mask used to rest). If the PCs use magic to speak with Bickel's spirit, they learn an even more terrifying truth. The Mask is actually possessed by a demon (using the rules of possession in the Book of Vile Darkness). When a suitable candidate touchs it, the demon takes them over and uses them to commit the murders. Bickel got hold of the mask because his group were the first to investigate the last of the murders 20 years ago. The demon used him to try to kill his friends because they might prove an obstacle. Because his friends thought he was guilty, they did not think to question his spirit afterwards. He does not know who took the mask off of his corpse.
Now the PCs get to race back to town just in time to prevent the Captain of the Watch, who found the mask at the latest crime scene, and is now possessed, from killing Clarissa because the demon thinks she knows the secret of the mask.
This can be expanded further with some simple questions. Why was the demon commiting these crimes? Why didn't he just find a new mask when the old one was locked in the cave? Why wait twenty years to continue?
Anyway, that is my idea. Like I said, if anyone wants to use it, feel free.
Wow, that's actually a really good mystery plot! I may try my hand at it, someday. Thanks for the ideas!
I thought this one up as an introductory mini-campaign for a new group I was starting.
The group had ties to the leadership of an Elven outpost, guarding the fringe of the Elven Forest. They had an agreement with the Wemics (Lion-Centaurs) who lived on the plains bordering them, allowing caravans to cross thier territory in exchange for a few trade goods. The Wemics recently attacked and destroyed two caravans, leaving only one living to take the message that this was vengence for Elven treachery and the Pact was finished! The PC's had also finished off a Wyvern that had attacked the town, one that was wounded and crazed with pain from his septic wounds.
The PCs are charged with discovering the cause of the Wemics change of heart and setting things right if they could.
The causes are two-fold. The Wemics are being attacked on two fronts. The first is the result of their attacking and driving off a Wyvern from their lands several days ago. The Wyvern was being ridden by a Mage who used to be a freind of the Elves, but who was driven insane by an evil Psion and now wanders looking for revenge and killing all who stand in his way. He has decided that the Wemics are "evil beasts that are obviously in need of correction" and is sending magically corrupted beasts against them every night. (I was using DarkenBeasts.) If the PCs find him, capture him (clues are given to hint he's not evil) and return him to sanity, Elves are extremely grateful.
The second is due to a nearby sect of Storm God priests that were too successful in summoning a storm and drowned in their underground lair. (They weren't too bright.) They got cursed by their God as a result, who turned them into Heucuvas. These creatures wander the surrounding plains, looking for sacrifices to appease their god and lift the curse. These undead have caused the first attack on the caravans, as well as killing one of the Wemics "toll collection" groups, which happened to contain the Leader's son on his first foray as a man. If the PCs bring proof to the Wemics that the Heucuva and not the Elves are responsible, they are mortified and make amends to the Elves, as well as making the PCs honorary Wemics.
The beauty of the adventure (which sadly was never completed) was in the two interweaving plot-lines, with the two sets of clues leading in two different directions. Neither was a red-herring and both were needed solved to finish the adventure.
You may now applaud wildly or stand mutely with slack-jawed amazement showing on your face, your choice... ;-)
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There was a room, with some pie in it, and an orc protecting it. It was pretty sweet.
Sweet?
The pie, or the orc?
One time to stave of starvation my players butchered and cured an orc party to make 'orc jerky'. This was classically set in the mountains during the winter, of course.
It set me about creating an adventure where a cities meat supply industry was being run in this fashion. It had a Necromancer and trained Ware-Rats, some sewers, a royal family (specifically the princess), and a port were the meat was going to start being shipped 'internationally' (or maybe extra-planar.) In the end it had too much of a "Soylent Green" theme and I scrapped it.
Plus, it was just gross.
One time to stave of starvation my players butchered and cured an orc party to make 'orc jerky'. This was classically set in the mountains during the winter, of course.
It set me about creating an adventure where a cities meat supply industry was being run in this fashion. It had a Necromancer and trained Ware-Rats, some sewers, a royal family (specifically the princess), and a port were the meat was going to start being shipped 'internationally' (or maybe extra-planar.) In the end it had too much of a "Soylent Green" theme and I scrapped it.
Plus, it was just gross.
If I had players trying to eat sentient flesh (Orc) and the didn't have an evil alignment, I probably would have had one of the orcs infected with wereboar lycanthropy, just to teach them not to be lazy about their food supply. (There are too many spells that can create food). That and eating sentient flesh even if it is an orc is still an evil act. not quite cannabalisim but close.
One of the best (IMO) ideas I have run was to have the party hired to discover a pass through the mountains. The back story was in this home brew world, the major city Khmer is built on the confluence of three rivers. Khmer is a trading city, but one side of the city quickly becomes rugged and mountaineous. While much of the trade is on the rivers, certain items are traded by caravan through key passes. These passes are all controlled and passage through them taxed. A local bureaucrat gains intelligence that some big event, landslide, earthquake, magic potentially opened a knew pass through the mountains. If this bureaucrat can lay claim to the pass for Khmer - he will earn promotion, potentially make a lot of money, and be able to improve grow his power in Khmer. Of course the parties sponser is not the only one with this idea.
The party then began to work there way into the mountains. Passing through different towns, villages etc.
Eventually, the party finds that the pass leads to what appears to be a ruined lake city inside the basin of a dormant volcano. The city discovered was elven city an lost during a great war, a center of elven high magic, the war decimated the city. The magic however has been unmanaged and has for the last several centuries seeping into the waters of the lake, changing the plants and animals. These lost city and its relics were the big treasure payoff.
Anyway I liked it a scenario - no save the world crap, and the scenario would take months to accomplish, and brough the party back to my hub city at the end.
I also like that it is a "classic" real world adventure, the search for trade routes along the lines of quest for the mythical Northwest Passage. Commerce, unexplored lands, lost cities, even a hint of intrigue with the involvement of vying bureaucrats.
A large floating city appears of the shores of the realm. Bards and sages tell stories of an ancient race of winged elves who lived in such cities that floated over the great ocean. It was said that these winged elves were enslaved by cloud giants who conquered their cities?
What lies in this city, winged elves, the conquering cload giants thier ghosts or something else?
Aberzombie, I like this alot.
I can see some cool potential here.
With a plot like this and some of the previous murder mystery adventures in the last year's Dungeons, (Shut In, Murder in Oakbridge, etc) I'm tempted to bring them all together and craft a murder mystery themed campaign in Eberron.
I'll call it - "CSI: Sharn"
So, here is an idea that I came up with, but as I suck as a DM, I've never run it. If anyone wants to use it, feel free.
Setting: a world I came up with, a small sized city on the borders of a kingdom. It works best if you're in a region of hills.
The party gets called to the mayor's office for a secret meeting one evening. The mayor and captain of the watch tell them about a murder that has occured, one that matchs a similar rash of murders that took place about twenty years before. The victim is killed with a knife, and the killer leaves behind one thing - a black, hooded mask. They direct the PCs to an elderly woman named Clarissa, who owns a local inn. Clarissa was a with the adventuring company that hunted down the previous murderer all those years ago. Her group lost one of their own, the halfling Bickel Badgerwink, in the process, and they broke up soon afterwards.
When the PCs talk to Clarissa she at first refuses to believe that another murder has taken place, telling PCs that its impossible. When the PCs have worked on her enough, she breaks down and tells them the terrible truth - Bickel was the murderer. They discovered this while following a false trail he had laid out for them. Out in the wilderness, he attempted to lead them into a trap and murder them all. They foiled his plan, were forced to kill him, and then buried his body in a hidden cave. Before they sealed the cave, Clarissa recalls, she tossed the mask he used onto the top of his body. Clarissa will give the PCs a map to the cave, and urge them to go there and try to learn the truth.
When the PCs get to the cave, they find the rocks it had been sealed with removed. Inside, they find the mummified corpse of the halfling, and a lot of dust distrubed by tiny footprints. There is also a dust-free spot on the body (where the mask used to rest). If the PCs use magic to speak with Bickel's spirit, they learn an even more terrifying truth. The Mask is actually possessed by a demon (using the rules of possession in the...
Aberzombie, I like this alot.
I can see some cool potential here.With a plot like this and some of the previous murder mystery adventures in the last year's Dungeons, (Shut In, Murder in Oakbridge, etc) I'm tempted to bring them all together and craft a murder mystery themed campaign in Eberron.
I'll call it - "CSI: Sharn"
Considering that by next season they'll have CSI- Utah, I think you might have the next hit TV show.
My players called themselves the CTU (from 24).
"Counter Thayan Unit"
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I had another bare-bones, idea that involved the whole "possession" thing. It basically involved a powerful fiend, Yg Nagar, imprisoned long ago on a demiplane. Before it was locked away, however, Yg Nagar sent one of its minions to a loyal follower on the material plane. The minion dictated a book of vile rituals and secrets of power to the follower, among which was a ritual to call forth Yg Nagar's spirit from his prison so that it can possess a chosen host. The book thus written came to be known as the Nagaran Grimoire.
The Grimoire was lost soon after, but the cult of Yg Nagar lived on. In today's day, the PC's would come up against the cult, which has finally learned the book's location after several centuries. The PC's must get to the book before the cult does, and if they do not, they must then follow some clues to discover the identity of the chosen soon-to-be-victim of Yg Nagar's possession.
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This thread is so awesome.
I'm running an Eberron campaign, and so far it's the usual kinda stuff. However, in a few levels (probably 8), I've been thinking about totally tripping out the PCs.
The PCs walk into their usual tavern in Sharn, and get approached by a shadowy figure. He is just about to speak, when the entire tower violently shakes for several seconds. As the PCs rush outside, they notice chaos and destruction. Towers are in flames and crumbling, and the invasion force has well and truly caught the city unprepared.
This takes a lot from the Incursion feature from Dungeon 100 and Dragon 309. I'm thinking the portal to Xoriat (the plane of madness) will re-open, and will lead to the Daelky being released to wreck havoc. I've already started dropping hints about stirrings with the Cults of the Dragon Below.
Since this is our first Eberron campaign, I wanted people to get a feel for it and feel attached to the world. Hence why I'm waiting a few levels to turn everything upside-down. I just hope I don't destroy the campaign setting for future use by doing this.
This thread is so awesome.
I'm running an Eberron campaign, and so far it's the usual kinda stuff. However, in a few levels (probably 8), I've been thinking about totally tripping out the PCs.
The PCs walk into their usual tavern in Sharn, and get approached by a shadowy figure. He is just about to speak, when the entire tower violently shakes for several seconds. As the PCs rush outside, they notice chaos and destruction. Towers are in flames and crumbling, and the invasion force has well and truly caught the city unprepared.
This takes a lot from the Incursion feature from Dungeon 100 and Dragon 309. I'm thinking the portal to Xoriat (the plane of madness) will re-open, and will lead to the Daelky being released to wreck havoc. I've already started dropping hints about stirrings with the Cults of the Dragon Below.
Since this is our first Eberron campaign, I wanted people to get a feel for it and feel attached to the world. Hence why I'm waiting a few levels to turn everything upside-down. I just hope I don't destroy the campaign setting for future use by doing this.
I like it. Give them a taste and then destroy it.
Aberzombie, I like this alot.
I can see some cool potential here.With a plot like this and some of the previous murder mystery adventures in the last year's Dungeons, (Shut In, Murder in Oakbridge, etc) I'm tempted to bring them all together and craft a murder mystery themed campaign in Eberron.
I'll call it - "CSI: Sharn"
I've done that. Although we called it Dungeons and Dragnet: Sharn Freelance Police. It was awesome - my longest running campaign yet. I heartily recommend the Sharn + mystery combination.
i want to give the plot to my current campaign, i think i've created a nice twist on the 'Dragon demands tribute' theme, but i think some of my players may read the boards here, so i'll keep quiet on that until much further along in that compaign.
However, i think one of my favorite earlier campaigns was a world in which an order of well-connected paladins had gotten a bit too self righteous and were imposing a repressive society on anything that wasn't lawful good. (Loosely based on a theme in one of the old Planescape books).
Ok, bear in mind this was back in the days where articles in Dragon talked about Cylon Base stars being taken over by players and allowing them to rule Greyhawk City..
me and some other players successfully figured out all the colour keys on the Barrier peaks spaceship and meticulously killed everything on board and gathered up every laser gun, grenade, dart gun on the ship.
We hired and trained a mercenary army in the use of the weapons. We then went to the Pomarj and took control of the town of Blue and the gold mines north of the city.
However, when the grenades ran out we left town very quickly on several very heavily loaded treasure galleons.
Ah fun..
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I would have loved to be a part of this campaign. Ultimately cool.
Thoth-Amon
(I posted this on another thread a few months ago...)
I once DMed a game in which the overall story-arc was about the rise and fall of a Lich-King and his undead legions slowly overtaking kingdom after kingdom. This story-arc lasted well over five years, and it took nearly the two first years to introduce this Lich-King.
He was a royal advisor/wizard in one of the kingdoms at the beginning. His king, who was power hungry and always wanted more, told his reluctant advisor/wizard to make a pact with Orcus for him to give him an unstoppable army to vanquish his foes, a neiboring kingdom on another continent. Orcus agreed, but for a terrible price, ten million souls had to be sacrificed on the same day.
So the king ordered the bulk of his troops to spread out to supposedly seek out the enemy. He also sent out a double-agent to tell his enemies of the relatively unprotected state of the kingdom. The enemy hit the kingdom with everything they had, killing many civilians in the process, he then ordered his troops to come back and defend what was left of the kingdom. The casualties of men from both armies AND the casualties suffered by the peasants and commoners breached the ten million cap, and Orcus delivered on his deal.
The dead corpses were raised as undead and a ten million strong army was created. But there was a turn of events that the king had not anticipated. Since the advisor/wizard was the one who actually made the deal, it was he who had control of this new army. The advisor killed the former king and became undead himself, known now as the Lich King.
The characters in this campaign had SOME doing in this plot… they were part of this kingdom’s army at one point. They were even summoned by the advisor/wizard to help put a stop to this tragedy in motion. But they were obviously too late.
The main plot after this was to find a way to stop this undead army, and destroy the Lich-King, and even put a stop to Orcus who was actually planning to turn the Prime Material Plane into the 667th...
I had a player (cleric) who was absent for a couple of games. So the character was “left behind” to do “a mission” for his church. When the player came back, I had his character rejoin with the party as if nothing happened. But what the players didn’t know, was that I decided that the real character was abducted by a powerful wizard, and replaced him with a clone. Not even the clone knew he was a clone.
I just told the cleric that, for some unknown reason, he seemed to be “farther” from his god (I gave him a 5% chance of spell failure every time he casted a spell). He wasn’t to happy about that but I told him to just bear with it.
So everything was back to normal until, a few games later, an enemy put a spell on the group. When the party’s wizard cast a Dispel Magic on the cleric, I told them the cleric fell to the ground, agonising in pain. From that point on, I told the player that his clerics’ skin was cracked at various points (-2 charisma) and that he now had a 10% chance of spell failure.
While trying to find out what this affliction was, the group discovered that the cleric himself was radiating magic when detected for.
It took a few months and a couple of adventures to discover that it was a powerful wizard who had taken the cleric’s body for his own (since his was sick and dying and the cleric had an 18 constitution). So the group had to confront the wizard, take him down without damaging the body and replace the cleric’s mind in the right place.
During the battle, I had the wizard throw a couple of nasty Dispel Magics at the cleric, reducing his charisma greatly (it was down to 5 at the end) and removing his ability to cast clerical spells. The PCs were nevertheless successful in returning the cleric’s body to the cleric.
Ultradan
This is STILL awesome four years later.
First edition D&D, the players are all the brightest and best from a fishing village that always has bountiful catches, and is a beacon of calm on a forbidding northern coast.
A 300' monolithic statue of a fish headed woman rises from the waves on the summer solstice, and the village elders call the pcs together, arm them as best they can, and set them in a small skiff to investigate the strange statue.
It is a brutal deathtrap, in true OD&D style, but the kicker is that the party discover the animated corpses of other parties that have been there before, and fallen. They attempt to leave through the same crack they came in, and are unable to.
After battling their way to the apex, they fight an aspect of the fish goddess, and prevail, the tower starts to sink, they manage to leave, and are faced with the elders who are distraught to find they have survived. None of the previous sacrifices did.