| Glycan |
Hello. I'm making a pathfinder campaign of epic proportions, and I'd like some help.
I have a general layout and world, but I'm missing a lot of gaps. This is mainly what I'd want help with. The world is not mine, another guy made it up. It has 1000+ years of history. Here's a map: http://mrizen.com/a/revenge/Sientmir.png
Backstory:
In the beginning there was the void. In the void was an abundance of magical energy. After some time, this energy became conscious, and named itself Zial. Zial grew restless, and divided himself into fragments of various ambition, power, and size. These created the worlds, and became the Gods of their respective creations (the bolder ones made earth, fire, water, and air, middling ones made magic and the various races, and lesser ones made things like knives, grass, and so forth). And thus, in the year zero, the world was created. The animals and races wandered, stupid and emotionless. The Gods then grew bored and bestowed intelligence, magic, and, eventually, in the second year, emotions. Then, all that separated the races from the gods was merely power.
The races fought various wars to the amusement of the Gods, and there was no advancement or improvement, only continuous razing and leveling of what the other sides had manged to raise. Except for one side: the Drakes. These, prideful to a fault, shut themselves off, not willing to engage in any combat they could possibly loose. They thus grew and practiced their skills, until they became as powerful as the Gods themselves. At this point, they decided that they'd waited enough, and set about conquering the world. The other war-weakened races quickly succumbed to their unstoppable onslaught, and the gods, seeing their entertainer rapidly vanish, decided to put a stop to this, and tried to destroy the Drakes. These, logically, decided to wage another war - on the Gods. Some gods were imprisoned, some were killed, but in the end the Drakes were all either killed or exiled. However, in the climax of the divine war, there was a parley between the two. During said parley, a weapon was dropped. Unfortunately for all concerned, this was interpretted as an ambush, and all heaven broke loose (as this took place on the plane of the Gods). In the confusion, the Drake leader stabbed Zial in the back with an magical dagger, imprisoning Zial within.
A thousand years later, after innumerous Apocalypses, preventions, and re-populations, someone found and broke the dagger, liberating Zial. Zial, rather upset about his imprisonment, decided to undo the world. To his dismay, having divided himself into separate entities, he was but a normal God, near-equal of the others, unable to revoke his decisions. Meanwhile, from almost the very start, a Mafia formed - the Clenching Fist [original: "le Poignet Fermant"]. They changed the outcomes of several wars in their favor, averted inconvenient apocalypses and generally knew everything and had some degree of control over all. Zial, seeing no other way, ambushed the Fist's Godfather and took his body, hoping to manipulate the Gods into killing each other (returning their energy and power to himself) and/or forming an apocalypse of some sort or other.
Plot:
Now, our heros (roughly true neutral mercenaries) find themselves in possession of an artifact of some power that they were hired to retrieve by someone-or-other. A Fist agent approaches them, and out-buys their employer by a considerate amount, enough for it to be obvious for them that they should work for the Fist (and therefor deliver the artifact to them). They continue to do various missions (involving, say, creating a lich), stepping on the toes of those bellow them, grasping for the feet of those above, and pleasing those even higher above them. At some point they attain positions of serious power, and become political players. They then play with the fates of gods, etc, trying to achieve the goals of Zial. At some point, they attempt to usurp power or something like that, realize the Godfather's true identity, and mount some manner of plot to save the world, hopefully by manipulating the other gods in some way or another.
Questions:
- What can the exact missions be?
- What's the intro story? Why do they get an artifact?
- How can I make appealing political/manipulative possibilities without railroading?
- How can the players find out Zial's Identity without me railroading?
- Is there anything I missed, or forgot about?
- How can I ensure that the players keep together despite being forcibly chaotic or evil towards others?
- Is there any way to ensure they enter the Fist without railroading?
- Can anyone offer any suggestions about making sub-campaigns/missions (monster difficulty, loot, etc)
Thank you!