This is what I have so far. I am hoping to get volunteers to help me improve upon it. It is meant for four 25-pt. buy, 7th-level characters (starting out).
1. The PCs’ town is invaded by minor devils (a small swarm of lemurs and imps), which the PCs have to fight off to protect themselves and their neighbors. The attack is considered a random incident by the populace and now that the threat has been dealt with, most villagers return to their normal lives.
2. A few days later more fiends show up in the middle of the town (this time an enriyes and her two bearded devil companions). Again the PCs must defend their loved ones from disaster. Having been attacked twice in rapid succession, the townspeople are now suspicious of recent events, and the PCs, having twice proven themselves capable and intelligent, are asked by the mayor to investigate the matter further.
3. Fortunately for them, the town healer and midwife, Hama, has recently returned from a trip to the nation of Dorter. She offers her services to the PCs after each battle, though she refuses service to at least one PC because of his relation to her pregnant daughter in law (the PC’s niece), whom she loathes. Hama believes that, shortly after marrying her son, her daughter in law convinced him to join the military, where he was killed in action. His ashes still reside in a jar on Hama’s fireplace mantle. With reluctance, she can be convinced to heal the ostracized PC as well.
4. Hama advises the PCs to seek out an old hermit to the North by the name of Peagin, which she has heard about, a famed scholar of other worlds and of strange creatures from outside the mortal realm.
5. After traveling a few days to the north, the PCs encounter a vicious band of gnoll marauders on the road. After defeating the gnolls, they realize that the gnoll’s leader (who participated in the attack against them) is the scholar that they seek. As it turns out, Paegin is not only a gnoll, but a diabolist sorcerer too.
6. In return for sparing his life, Paegin agrees to help the PCs, provided they all sign a magical contract stating that, in return for his help, they will be forever forbidden from killing him. The contract is legitimate, and the PCs (or even Paegin himself) will be struck with a curse of the ages should they break it (“Your bones will slowly turn to dust” he tells them). Only then does he inform them that the creatures that attacked their town are devils (imps, lemurs in the first attack and an enriyes and its summoned beard devils in the second attack), minor fiends from the realms of the damned. “If they are attacking the town, it is because somebody with greater power than I has been calling them forth for reasons I cannot fathom. If this person has a grudge against your town, its citizens won’t last another fortnight.” Should the PCs kill him, they return home with nothing (and quite possibly cursed).
7. Upon returning to the town, the PCs find that over half of it has been burned to the ground—a product of the barbed devil currently running amok at its center. As the PCs race to the scene, they come across Father Grigori of the Church of the Stars, who lies barely conscious, having been half-buried underneath the rubble of his own temple. With his last breath, he gives the PC’s holy oils that, when placed on their weapons, works as the align weapon spell.
8. After defeating the horrific fiend (and possibly his summoned clone), the PCs find a blood pact contract (like the one Paegin used). Upon reading it, they find that the monster was promised its freedom (as well as free reign over the mortals in the town) in return for capturing the PC’s niece. The document is signed by Hama herself.
9. It would appear that all the recent fiendish activity is coming from the town’s herbalist, healer, and midwife: Hama. The PCs later learn that she has been experimenting with the dark arts of witchcraft for years. The called fiends are incidental products of her experimentation with witchcraft. A withering hag, she seeks immortality by breeding a powerful half-fiend from her daughter in law’s loins, which she can then take possession of as her own powerful, youthful body.
10. When the PCs go to confront Hama in her home, they find a summoning circle hidden underneath her carpet. Not yet knowing that they know her secret, Hama greets them kindly and asks them if they need healing after saving the town from the horrible monsters. Especially perceptive PCs might notice a small trail of blood dripping a trail behind Hama. Should the PCs confront Hama about her crimes, she grabs a butcher knife and attempts to kill them.
11. Only after the PCs successfully slay her do they realize that the body left dead at their feet is not Hama, but her daughter in law and the PC’s once pregnant niece (the illusion fading with her death). The fireplace then animates and laughs at them in Hama’s voice and promises them all death (via magic mouth). Hama then attempts to magic jar one of the PCs and forces them to fight one of their own comrades while the others must search the building for Hama’s true body (hidden beneath the floorboards) and/or the magic jar (a jeweled war medal pinned to the jar of ashes on the fireplace mantle).
12. Once the PCs save their humble town, yet again, they are forced to leave. Many of the villagers refuse to believe that their beloved Hama was an evil witch. The town mayor, attempting to prevent a riot against them, strongly encourages the PCs to leave their town forever (after all their homes had been destroyed) and join their country’s military (seeing as they are strong and capable, and the military can see to their needs). In fact, the mayor has already contacted the local general and the PCs are expected to report to the nearby town of Ranburry by the end of the week or else risk becoming criminal deserters (they must leave by evening of the following day if they wish to make it on time).
13. The PCs go through rigorous military training.
14. The PCs are tasked with hunting down and obliterating a large band of gnoll marauders, led by their ruthless leader, Paegin. This presents a problem as the PCs are magically bound against killing him. Though they may mention this to their superiors, their officers will hear none of it. “Consider it a test of loyalty to your emperor” they are told. Refusing the mission is tantamount to treason.
15. The PCs can choose to kill Paegin, spare him, or capture him for execution. The latter two options uphold their end of the contract.
16. As Paegin lies dying (either by the PCs hands or that of an NPC archer who followed them/archer firing squad), he predicts that the PCs will bring a great and terrible doom upon the world. If the PCs slew him personally, then they begin to age and must find a way to stop it. Furthermore, Paegin further curses them with his prophecy. If they spared his life, but he is slain by NPC archers, then Paegin thanks his “friends,” but curses the world with his prophecy as he dies, citing that the PCs shall themselves be the world’s harbingers of doom. What’s more, the PCs face court martial for disobeying direct orders.
17. If the PCs are court-martialed, they are sentenced to death and are forced to escape for their lives. Depending on how and when they go about it, they may face trial, may lose their gear, and may have to flee the area as wanted criminals.
18. After a few small adventures, the PCs find themselves as refugees in the capitol city of Grayhem in the rival nation of Dorter. At the city’s center is a giant statue of an ancient hero named Gilgeam Grayhem (the “Guardian Statue” as it is called). It is rumored that the statue is so old that it comes from a time before there were stars in the sky. As legend has it, the world was being invaded by horrible monsters from other worlds, and the world’s greatest hero, the wizard Gilgeam, sacrificed his very life force to hold the invading forces at bay for all eternity. No one knows if the legend is true, but what is known is that the statue is magical and that its magic makes it impossibly heavy and enduring.
19. A few weeks after the PCs have relocated to Dorter, they hear reports of their former homeland mounting an invasion of their new home. They may choose to intervene is some way, or ignore the threat. Either way, the invading forces eventually reach the metropolis of Grayhem.
20. During the attack on the city the PCs are forced to fight for their lives against a powerful military spellcaster in the middle of the city. Slaying the spellcaster sets off a chain reaction that destroys several buildings and cracks the Guardian Statue. As the smoke clears and builders repair the city in the days to come, the Guardian Statue’s crack grows larger with each passing day despite attempts to stop it.
21. Because they are held personally responsible for the statue to the national monument, the PCs are forced to find a way of repairing it (indeed, many of the country’s citizens are superstitious and fear what may happen if the statue continues to crumble).
22. The PCs are approached by a trio of the King’s personal oracles, who sense that the PCs are touched by destiny. The PCs are told of a far off land ruled by cyclopean tribes. There they can recover an ancient artifact of healing called “Heaven’s Jewel,” said to have fallen from the heavens long ago (“It can heal any wound, cure any disease or ailment, and grant long life. Its healing energies also magically invigorates flora for a hundred leagues and promises magical protection to any city in which it resides.”). It is the only known thing that can keep the guardian monument’s magic from failing entirely. What’s more, it may help protect the capitol in the ongoing war.
23. Along the way, the PCs are lured into a trap by the hag covey that had sent them on their quest to begin with. The hags seek revenge for the PCs having murdered their most promising pupil, Hama. The situation is made all the more difficult by the fact that the hags really are the King’s personal oracles (though their true race is kept secret even to the king as they rule from behind the throne). Even if the PCs survive the trap of the hags going on ahead and lying to the Cyclopean tribes about the PCs true reason for visiting (turning the monsters against the PCs, at least initially) they must still find Heaven’s Jewel and either convince the Cyclopean tribes to let them have it (a tricky endeavor as their land used to be a barren desert before it came along and turned it into a tropical paradise) or else steal it from its rightful owners.
24. The PCs bring Heaven’s Jewel back to their country and place it upon the failing guardian monument in hopes that it will repair the crack and boost whatever defensive magic the statue may possess. It does so quite dramatically, the effects becoming immediately evident as a shockwave ripples through the immediate area and out of sight (knocking everyone down). Once things begin to settle down, the statue is made whole and the stars in the sky shine noticeably brighter. Heaven’s Jewel, much like the statue it now resides upon, becomes absolutely immovable.
25. The artifact works too well. A week after it is placed, its restorative properties ends Gilgeam’s petrified affliction and revives him from eons of entrapment. The once great hero, though alive, is left powerless from his endeavor and is far too weak to do anything meaningful. The PCs unwittingly destroy the monument protecting their country from otherworldly forces in the process. The stars in the sky literally begin to fall to the earth causing great swaths of destruction as the land. Two horrific monsters (a flying aboleth and a retriever) appear from one such fallen star and attacks the PCs and the city of Grayhem. The city military, still weak from the previous battles, are no match for the arrival of the alien beings, leaving only the PCs capable of saving everybody (again). The retriever grabs Heaven’s Jewel from the remains of the Guardian Statue and retreats from the battle while the aboleth holds off the PCs.
26. After the battle, Dorter’s king, at the behest of his hags, blames the PCs for bringing this woe upon the world and they are again exiled from their home.
27. The divisive countries of the world must unite against an army of aboleths, their evergrowing slave armies, their retriever construct guardians, and the Church of the Stars who betray humanity, believing the abolethi lords to be their gods. The PCs, belonging to no country at this point, must continue their questing in the hopes of finding a way to bring the world leaders together in a joint effort against the aboleth invaders to save the world. The hag covey once again interferes with the heroes and they must first be removed from Dorter if there is to be any chance at peace. Success means the PCs and the allied armies of the world stall the invaders for several years more as war rages on.
28. Eventually, after several adventures against the invaders, the PCs are given a break. A beam of light to the heavens appears, culminating in a shockwave that travels the world, a phenomenon not seen since years earlier when the PCs first brought down the magical barrier holding the abolethi star ships in the sky. Sages calculate the exact location of the event and the heroes, long since having become heroes of the world, must investigate it. What will they find? The last time the phenomenon occurred, it brought down the very stars from the sky!
29. The heroes must fight their way across the sea, into an underwater abolethi fortress, recover Heaven’s Jewel, and slay the impossibly powerful abolethi leader with it (it is anathema to the abolethi, which is why they constructed the retrievers to handle the artifact’s power).
I'd make one of the PCs related to Hama, maybe a 2nd cousin or nephew. This will tie in later in part 9.
I'd also make one of the pcs background tied in with the people at a military barracks. This will tie in later with part 13.
During 1 and 2, people or PCs with knowledge planes or knowledge religion may begin to suspect things. Perhaps there is a prophesy mentioned in the local church, but in more detail in a nearby town. Or perhaps a Gypsy relative of a PC has had dreams of darkness coming, warns PC 1 but falls in love with PC 2 (a curve ball to lighten the tone)
Regarding 5 & 6, perhaps the Gnoll could abyssal allies, and this is part of the Bloodwar (Demons vs Devils fighting for control/domination of the multiverse)
For 7, i'd say let it be burning when they come back so they have a chance to rescue a few people. This ties them to the event more and they may gain friends and allies in the region for this.
For 17, perhaps a rival fiendish creatures fears the invasion and assists them in fleeing. Or a thieves guild rescues them in return for help with a fiend problem of their own.
Perhaps the rival fiend or thieves guild have been hassled by this Church of Stars which is growing members recently. Which ties in with part 27.
For 20-25, aasimmar or even a phoenix could assist them with information or direct combat assistance. Note this should be assistance not overpowering. They have been watching the events with magic or in dreams and seek to assist the PCs against the threats to the world.
For 21 you can have people known to the PCs join the Church of Stars, and members of the Church start being seen around with notables of the town at EVERY public event and in each tavern, watching. Which ties in with part 27.
You could have the spirit of Hama arrive for the final battle and aid the PCs with magic. She is remorseful for what she started and is redeemed and carried off to the Heavens etc.