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Hello everyone, names John/Steven R. Schutt (depending on which name I give the publisher). You might have seen my stuff on NevermetPress.com and Weredragon Magazine #1 (my adventure was the big one, with the Otanshu).
Oh, and I want to write a super adventure. So yay for that! However, I don’t want to write one that sucks or one that no one would have any interest in, so I thought I’d ask the wonderful and experienced gamers on these boards for their opinion on my ideas.
To begin, I’m not asking for anything but words. This isn’t patronage, since I don’t think I have nearly the clout to even try it, and it’s not something I even want money for. I’ll probably finance it out of my own pocket (though that’ll be an interesting trip, seeing as I’m broke). Your opinion is all I need.
Below I’ve presented one possible super adventures. Take a look, if you could, and tell me what you think. Anything is great. A word or two is appreciated, more words more so. Tell me also if the word count is wonky, so I can adjust it to better fit my proposal. Granted, of course, that things are subject to change in the writing process.
Finally, all of these are probably going to be written with Pathfinder RPG rules, so if I ever get around to finishing one, I’ll need to sign that little contract Paizo has up on this site.
I plan on putting more ideas up as they come to me, but for now, take a look at this.
And I don't know which forum to put this in, so it went here. Mr. Wertz or the Postmonster (or whoever has the power of post moving) can move it where it belongs.
Yes? Good? On we go!
Rupture of the Tower of Valneeth
Level: 12th-16th
Length: ~50,000 words
Setting: Generic Fantasy
None know where the Tower of Valneeth came from, who built it, or why, but all are sure of one thing: it is the key to the lock of something unimaginable.
Some time in the past, after Valneeth’s construction but before history began, a citadel grew up around its strange, adamantine base. Nothing ever breached the walls of the citadel, which seemed built of the same material as the tower. However, when the adamantine’s sheen fades and the walls of the citadel crack, the world takes notice. When a strange mist begins pouring from the cracks, warping reality around it, a crack team of mercenary mages give everything they have into somehow containing the mist. Their efforts hold of the smoke for a month, while the citadel walls crumble, releasing the warped bodies of the guardians of Valneeth. The PCs tangle with several of these monsters as they travel through what should be serene countryside. Farmsteads are razed and covered in flames of indescribable color. Trails of blood lead towards the citadel, and an army of all races and creeds seeks to hold off the swarm of reality-warped monsters.
The party, along with several others, are sent into the Citadel to investigate while the reality warped creatures battle the main force outside. Within the citadel, the party and their companions face horrid aberrations and constructs warped by Valneeth’s breath. Fighting their way to the tower itself, a huge, multi-locked puzzle-door bars their way. The clues lie scattered throughout the citadel, hidden in simple items of living. Beyond the doors a sea of liquid malevolence waits, and in the sky above eight strange apparatuses hand, chains extending from them towards a central figure: Valneeth.
With his infinite power, even bound as he is, Valneeth summons the party and their surviving companions before his face and entreats them to reinforce the bindings in three of the eight strange devices. He does not want freedom, for he knows that his freedom means the death of untold billions. Far from benevolent, Valneeth relishes dominating a world, and feels that his imprisonment is a far better way of controlling people than wantonly destroying them or throwing warriors at them. He tells the party that their first mission, the repair of the Godlink Binding, the strange object directly behind him, takes them into the depths of the sea, where a strange creature spawned from Valneeth’s flesh holds the needed part. Second, he says, takes them into his mind, where he does not have high hopes for their survival, but desires it greatly. Last, the party must edge the path between dimensions and go to the Fundamental Holdfast, which hold all reality in place. Only there can they repair the final apparatus and seal the bindings once and for all. Unfortunately, the contents Holdfast remain unknown even to Valneeth, and once the time comes to enter it, he fears something far worse than even himself awaits.
He could not be more right.
First off, it sounds whacked out and over the top - which is exactly the kind of adventure I love!!
Word count seems decent - since feels combat heavy, not as much background and exposition needed, so should be good. However, you are going to some strange locations which may or may not require more environmental mechanics and explanations. So I could see the adventure easily getting a bit longer, but I don't think it's out of whack to aim for 50,000.
Something I like to do is to break the adventure down pretty much along level lines. So if the (typical) PCs are going to start fresh at level 12, then progress all the way through 16 (so that after the final encounter they level to 17), that's 5 levels of adventuring and I would break the module up into 5 parts. Two benefits of this are: 1) It breaks a larger adventure into logical smaller parts that are easier to grasp, and 2) Easier for DMs who want to use just pieces of the adventure.
As for the plot, it sounds exciting (from the opening encounters where I envision PCs trying to break through bizarre enemy lines while a massive battle rages all around to the twisted reality inside the tower). However, I would be cautious with thandling Valneeth. On the one hand, I think it's great getting past a cliche "I'm a master villian, you must stop me!", but many players might be too paranoid to trust Valneeth that their actions will keep him imprisoned and not make matters worse. So I'm not saying don't do that, just it will be VERY tricky to pull off properly.
Plus, I'm not sure I understand it anyway. Valneeth prefers to control people while imprisoned rather than wantonly destroying everything. But how exactly is Valneeth controlling anything? He is just sitting in a tower that, from the sound of it, has been sitting as a quiet curiosity. But this is just a brief summary, so that's fine.
However, just digging further into the whole "helping Valneeth" issue, the more I think about it, probably most PCs when faced with a powerful villian who says "It is better to keep me imprisoned so I can control others than for me to be freed and destroy things" would probably answer with "Uh... none of the above. Roll initiative!" I know groups that I have played with would want the 3rd option of destroying him so that he can't control anything. Option A is "He's too powerful to destroy", but that's old and cliche and wouldn't fit well in an otherwise very original plot. Option B is "The players come to the conclusion that it's better to keep him imprisoned." Now THAT would be a great twist, but would also be difficult to pull off well. If you did, however, it would help the adventure be truly great. Maybe he's the lock holding back the unspeakable monstrousity at the end or something. (Which, oddly, I think might be ok to be "too powerful to ultimately defeat". It's good to have a main, identifiable villian that can be defeated. Having something beyond comprehension that can only be contained past that main villian is alright.)
But overall, as I said at the beginning, it sounds like a great adventure and I'd love to see how it shapes up!
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Said some really constructive stuff.
Thanks for the reply! Commentary and clarification time.
First, yeah, I'm a sucker for combat, and the first part certainly is focused on combat, since that's really the only way to get a bunch of mutants with only the will to destroy to stop. However, the puzzle door acts sort of a transition from COMBAT MODE to diplomacy and cleverness as they work for an ancient god.
And the breaking up into parts I think is a good thing, and something I usually do, so we're sharing a mind in that. I want each section of the adventure to be modular, beyond the opening, perhaps. The dungeon of the citadel can be dropped into any campaign with aberrations. The underwater based stuff and the beyond reality stuff too I want to have the ability to come outside the adventure without taking away from it. That's the theory, anyway, and I'll try my darnedest to follow it.
As for Valneeth, reading again, I didn't explain real well why he wants to stay imprisoned. Essentially, he's an overgod of tyranny. Think Asmodeus if could fight Rovagug one on one and was less worried about contracts. However, his method of control isn't a peaceful one. Another side of his portfolio is torture (less enjoyment and more pain), and unfortunately, both he and his worshipers take too much joy in the agony they cause, killing both themselves and their victims. However, through some mechanism I haven't nailed down yet, Valneeth got on the bad side of something worse than even he and realized that he didn't want whatever this was interfering in his plans. In a calculated move, he played the other gods against himself, and had them seal him behind his tower. He corrupted some of their chains to better hold back this thing and took his position as its eternal guardian. Over the millenia, he found that the fear and respect people felt for his tower, the impenetrable barrier erected to protect said tower, and that he alone prevented something stronger than himself from getting in was a far better way to control things, even if it's more indirect.
Also, Valneeth isn't a forgotten god, but he doesn't go by his given name anymore. Again, I don't have a name for either he or his worshipers in this new guise, but it'll be a much lesser, and significantly altered, version of his real self.
Finally, as to the "Let's kill him!" thing, I do rely a little on the "He's too powerful to kill." idea. He's thousand of feet tall to start with, and his head is almost a hundred. Secondly, he's completely contained. He can't even move, let alone attack. He invests most of his unfathomable power in keeping the outside at bay, relegating him to around demi-deity (lesser at best) in power. Last, and I didn't mention this in the preview (should have), it's not him that's sending out the mist that warps reality. There's a small hole in his chest that oozes indescribable mist. Essentially, the outside is acting like a bacteria and eating Valneeth from the inside out. If the party still wants to fight him, they'd have both more than ten thousand hit points to burn through (cliched, I know), but also the weight of reality on their shoulders.
Whew! I hope that clarifies things a little.
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I'm also not sure high level PCs can be relied to travel on foot through the countryside, so that they can be conveniently ambushed by monsters and hooked into the adventure. Teleport, shadow walk, wind walk, carpets of flying, and various other means of getting about are all options.
It might be an idea to include at least a variant hook into starting the adventure along the lines of an NPC pleading for help: 'Your reputation proceeds you, please help us great lords and ladies. Your standings will only be enhanced by coming to our aid, and the reward will not be inconsequential...'
Good point, and I considered that, but in writing it went to the back of my brain and decided to hide. With reality warping and all that, I suppose I could say even high level teleportation is wonky and doesn't work on first blush, but that's probably a little cliche. Again, this is a pitch and some explanation of points brought up, but when I get to the actual adventure section I'll have to come up with some viable answers. I'll start now.
1. The teleportation takes an unusually long time to actually function and so even though the party continues to travel at near light speed (or some derivative thereof), they manage to catch glimpses of their surroundings as they near the town.
2. A giant occlusion field which contains any teleportation to within its own boundaries and negates any from outside forces the party to either go through point 1 again or keep them from going in at all through magic, and so they have to see at least some of the chaos.
3. Finally, perhaps the reality warp (this is getting old, I'm sure) screens the Tower from scrying and wipes important details of it from mortal memory, making direct teleportation dodgy at best, and scrying all but impossible. The general area remains known, down to maybe a fifty square mile area, and the tower is pretty big (but not skyscraper), so flying towards it still awards the party the horror of seeing the burning houses and towns. I haven't ruled out flying aberrations, either, so the fights can still happen. This also gives the spread of the creatures a little time as the armies scramble to contain them and find the location of the Tower and its citadel.
As for level range, the party starts at 12th and should end around 16th by adventures end, if all goes to plan.
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(edited)
Query:
'Level: 12th-16th'
Does this mean that the adventure is for characters of anywhere between levels 12 and 16, or that the characters will advance from level 12 to 16 over the course of the adventure? If the latter, I'm concerned that high level stat blocks and unique creatures might well take a lot out of your intended word count, given the numerous battles that implies to me, not leaving many words for anything else.
I don't really need unique monsters. Monte Cook said in a DungeonaDay.com blog that he doesn't always stat up new monsters when there's a whole slew of them already done. He just adds some new abilities, different looks and a little equipment and modifies the CR from there. That will probably be how I do things.
Also, the battles while numerous, aren't all encompassing. The first part of the adventure certainly is combat intensive, but I might make it a minigame, seeing as there are so many monsters to deal with. And again, the PCs won't find the horde themselves, and they'll have help from other parties of similar level, and a whole army, so the hordes are cut down a bit.
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Adventure Background: Here
I'll post the stuff I find really cool, which may or may not be a lot, and update it here. If you're interested, give it a look and a read and comment, or just a look and a read if nothing comes.
Thanks!