Necromatic healing. Probably at lest 3rd level. The target gets all your lethal damage, half if they con save. You are dead on about spell resistance, if it transfers damage instead of magic.
A large, black spot on the night sky, devoid of stars, flies in the face of scholars attempting to study it. Some have claimed to see long tendrils, like tentacles, sprouting off of the thing to block out more stars. All attempts to divine it have met with failure.
Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan? (if not look it up!)
She unleashes her magic to destroy the demon then rips open a gate to another plane and steps through. The gate stands empty for long moments after the sorceress steps through granting those brave, stupid, or bored enough a means to escape the endless waiting of the dead.
F...ing BRILLIANT :)
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242) Several murders have been reported in a city, and the culprits all have been caught inconscious... with no memory of the events. The thing is that a tavern bartender, who's actually a shapechanger, is serving drinks that erase momeries for the last 8 hours spent. Once the drinker leaves the tavern, he knocks him out and then assumes the drinker's form, only to finally kill whoever the drinker would wish dead on that same night.
Been toying with this idea for some time now. It involves the bane of all high level PCs. Something so wicked I'm not sure I would ever use it in game play.
243. A vampire plague has been unleashed on the land. The PCs renowned Vampire hunters have been called in. Little do they know that this coven of vampires are only the minions of something far more dangerous. A vampire that feeds on magic. With the ability to absorb spells, drain artifacts, turn magical weapons, and hell bent on enslaving magical races, she is something no high-level party would ever want to encounter.
244 - After finishing a job for a very pleasant old lady, she decides to take you to a secret room filled with antiques. You marvel at the items as you walk through the room, when finally she leads you to a relatively large item covered by a sheet.
She pulls the sheet off to show a beautiful mirror. You each take turns looking into and at the mirror and when you look into the mirror you feel odd. After the last one has examined the fine specimen of a mirror, the old woman cackles, raises her cane and shatters the mirror.
Besides the odd display, nothing seemed to happen, so you leave with the original reward you and the old woman agreed upon. After exiting her home however, you are confronted by somewhat familiar looking warriors. In fact, they look exactly like you, only a bit darker and disturbing. You may want to figure out what's going on.
[Sorry about going more in depth than needed. In the future I'll try to back down on the details and keep my suggestions more "seed" like.]
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245. You have been hired to investigate the ruins that were recently unearthed during a rock slide. Entering the ruins you find a series of rooms each with guardian, traps, puzzles and monsters. At the end of the tunnel you come upon a large room, far to large to make sense of but from out of the darkness you are attacked by Allips. When defeated you realize that they emerged from a well in the midst of the giant room. Looking down the well you see a giant eye flicker open and the room/complex/earth begins to shake. It appears that you and your party may have just unleashed a very powerful evil on the earth. And those Allips where the only thing keeping it down.
In the thread this monster was the tarrasque. The allips continually feeding on it would it was theorized keep it unconscious but it could be any monster you want. I just like the idea of the characters having to clean up a mess they caused.
257. A forest fire creeps toward a forest-side town. When the PC's try to stop it, they find that it has an intelligent force within. When they defeat the malevolent force within the fire, it howls in anger. The PC's investigate to see what could have caused such a thing and discover a conspiracy to destroy the natural world...
258. a small but prosperous village hides a den of corruption. The local priest has unleashed a deadly virus to end the corruption once and for all. Thing is; none of the victims want to be cured. Now the leader of the syndicate wants the party to save his village of slaves so that the evil guild's prosperity will continue.
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259 - The party wakes in an extremely dimly lit cavern; all of them feeling more stiff than when one normally wakes up. When they finally get the lights up they are all surprised and relatively freaked out that they are each dead. Well, they were dead, now they are undead. Not long after this realization they hear a person shouting into the cavern.
"This is Van Helsing, destroyer of the undead. With me is the townspeople you heartless, mindless retches sundered not a week ago. Your heads are forfeit."
The party must find out who resurrected them and what happened to make Van Helsing think they were the ones that destroyed the town.
260 - It's been months since the parties been captured and it has felt like ages due to the alchemical experimentations and torture that have been done to them during that time.
[Each player is given a weakness and some sort of ability per the DMs choice as well as probably a physical deformity.]
One night while that wretched alchemist that's been torturing you was off at some sort of meeting, a werewolf breaks into his lab, killing any guards that were holding the fort. Without saying a word he slashes at the locks of each of the parties cells and nods for them to follow with a sneer.
261. you all meet in a bar...in the abyss
262. the party awakens in a series of cages, missing any of their gear. the cages are free standing in a dark room. Beyond the darkness they hear a voice calling out "Ladies and germs, I give you: UPWORLDERS!" and then a curtain is pulled to reveal they're on a stage on display for a bunch of evil humanoids
263. on a routine check of a local ruin the party has been shrunk by an artifact an must make their way through a deadly garden to where the artifact lies in a flowerbed to shut it off
264. gargantuan psionic apes have dominated a tribe of natives who worship them as gods. The party has been sent into the jungle to put down the cult uprising.
265. a little boy finds the party and asks them to come check on his sick mother. When they find the "lady" it turns out to be an ambush by a group of small-sized thieves. The party awakens however to find that in the course of the ambush and their subsequent melee they have themselves been transformed into the shapes of their attackers. They are now wanted thieves at the heart of the city while their own bodies leave to commit more mayhem elsewhere.
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266. The PCs arrive at a ghost town... literally. Corpses are scattered across every street and building of the city, as if they died all at once while doing their regular routine. As the PCs progress into the city, some of the villagers manifest themselves as ghosts, but they are not violent. They are tormented that they died and would like to know what caused their sudden death.
267. A magician's trick goes awry one night at the magician unwillingly kills his two female assistants with a guillotine that was supposed to be tricked so the blade doesn't cut heads. Horrified, the magician fell into a deep depression and trauma. The assistants, however, returned as ghosts and are inquiring the PCs to discover the truth. In reality, the culprit is the magician's wife, who grew jealous of the assistants and decided to kill them. If the ghosts learn this, they viciously attack the wife, much to the horror of the magician. Killing the wife or bringing her to justice releases the ghosts. Resurrecting or raising the assistants from the dead is also possible.
268. A dryad is encountered by the PCs... with her awakened oak tree by her side. She demands their services to investigate her tree's new sentience. What the PCs discovered is that a dying druid cast a more powerful version of Awaken as his last spell (think Mass Awaken)... and the oak tree wasn't the only creature who became sentient. As it turned out, several awakened creatures got corrupted due to an unknown force and their morality shifted to a cruel demeanor.
269. A new expansion into the wilds is currently underway. Three different brothers, all noble and all quite portly, have begun clearing the land for development. The project has stalled for the time being however while the porcine trio debate the most cost efficient and durable building material for the eventual hall from which they will rule the new demense. This gives the local werewolf and his minions the chance to begin creeping back into the area, trying to utilize a wind-based artifact to disrupt construction efforts.
270. an abandoned well near the outskirts of the village is all that remains of a previous settlement on this site; none know the exact nature of those who came before, only that the place was abandoned when humans came to settle the region. The well has never been a good source of water, so it has been ignored for decades. As such is now carpeted with moss, weeds and winding vines. Just this morning a singing could be heard from somewhere within, which has never happened before in anyone's memory. At the same time faint rivulets of what villagers think is blood have seeped from the foliage to pool on the ground around the well.
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271. You are asked to check up on a city that has not been heard from in some time. When you get there, you find out why. Completely surrounding the city is a gigantic arm. It appears a giant / titan has fallen into a deep slumber and apparently likes to curl up with something while sleeping. Supply lines dare not approach the giant, the city dare not make any loud noises, else their city be ripped and trampled when the giant wakes.
272. You and your allies are walking past a large, old and decrepit looking mansion when a man rushes towards you from behind the mansions gates.
"Good people! Good people! May I ask for your aid? I've spared no expense in transforming that old home into a haunted house and everything was going great; business was booming. Not but two days ago however, powerful fey entered the mansion and turned all of it's false horrors into reality. Traps and creatures of nightmare now run the place. If you would rid the mansion completely of its now living denizens without harming the mansion, I would offer you a percentage of the profits each month."
273. A kingdom rules by an oppressing religious organisation (church or sect) has been overthrown by a group of mercenaries. The citizens' joy quickly turned sour when the mercenaries revealed themselves as Thanatotic titans, and are demanding allegiance, tribute and support against other significant religous organisations.
274. The appointed bodyguards of a king have been turning heads lately: they display immense strength, very little care for the law and almost consider it like a game. A spellcaster just happened to cast True Seeing near the king... and the bodybuards were revealed, to him at least, as Elysian titans.
275. An orphaned child with a certain birthmark is fated to bring great darkness to the world. Can the PCs prevent her prophetic transformation and save the lives of those who would be killed by such evil? (Note - this works great in a game where some players would want to kill the child outright to prevent the events and others want to redeem her, unable to bring themselves to kill a child. Make the kid nice and cute for double-secret guilt trip).
276. The PCs are living normally, since they just came back from an expedition. However, the next day, they wake up only to realize that the ENTIRE world has changed. Their gear are missing as they are slaves. Their friends and families act as if they always lived like this. The PCs, however, for an unknown reason, remember every little detail of their past; their own identities didn't change. What happenned?
It turns out that a powerful enemy got his hands on an major artifact called the Book of Ages, a large tome that records each and every element in history. That enemy got his hands on it and rewrote history so he would conquer and dominate the world.
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277. A prophecy, said to bring hope and peace, fails to occur due to the PCs' actions, branding them as traitors and harbringers of doom.
278. An old woman in a traveler's caravan reads the fate of one of the PCs; she collapses to the floor and when inspected her eyes have filmed over. She merely mutters "The whispering doom is coming...the whispering doom is coming..."
279. A being from another plane materializes before the party on the road. He offers them a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit a store of magic delights; anything they find there "that agrees with you" shall be theirs. These items turn out to be both blessed and cursed.
280. A handful of goblins have gotten their hands on an amulet to control a golem. Handing this off to a warchanter the golem's master promptly used it to destroy half his own tribe. A civil war now erupts in the land with civilization caught in the crossfire.
281. The PCs are invited to a tournament inside a demi-plane with a Coliseum.
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282. A slain pyrohydra's severed heads transform into actual fiends, as the creature wandered too close to a lava pit with a hidden portal to the Lower Planes... and each head got possessed by a fiend.
283. A vivsectionist with a very twisted artistic vision kidnaps people, kills and uses their corspes to make mannequin-like statues. The victims can be resurrected or raised form the dead, but they might be too mentally scarred to help the PCs due to the trauma.
(Yes, this is based on a few episodes of the anime series Psycho-Pass, so sue me...)
284. A jorogumo and her army of spiders has taken over a city. Now the buildings are covered in spider webs, citizens are cocooned and many arachnids roams the area.
(I actually like that idea in Darksiders 1, where a spider demon took over a huge cathedral as its lair)
285. A planar rift or leak from a heavily chaotic plane (similar to Limbo) causes wild magic zones to spread across the world.
286. A sword, lodged into a stone pedestal, is said to seal a powerful fiend and removing it would bring chaos and suffering to the world. The sword has been removed by one of the fiends' minions, shattered into pieces and scattered them across the world. The fiend goes rampant and only the sword can lock it back.
287. A planetary/lunar/solar alignment sends a huge concentrated beam of light in the surface of the world and causes massive ancient temples to rise from the ground.
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288. The city of Indewick, though isolated, is still supported by outlying villages and small towns on the far side of the forest. Recently no caravans of food, livestock or goods have appeared and reports back are slow in coming. Those few members of the Lantern Watch dispatched beyond the hinterlands of the city through the wilds return with strange tales of fey revels gone horribly wrong; whole towns are overrun with manic pasisons bordering on psychosis, folk are woven into the very fabric of the wilds or some of the smaller settlements have just simply been rendered ghost towns with the dead propped in a mockery of life.
227. The PCs have been taken prisoner by an ambush of drow. Instead of killing the PCs the Matron decides that they should be thrown into the Darklands Pyramid for entertainment. Should the PCs make it to the Bottom where the exit is, they are to be set free. The PCs are stripped of all gear and clothing aside from a loin cloth and thrown in the top of this pyramid like dungeon. The PCs must start from scratch and get to the exit to survive, if the drow matron keeps her promise.
Are you trying to replace 227? Otherwise this should be 289.
261. you all meet in a bar...in the abyss
Wow! I've played this one before. It was my little brother's game. Was fun while it last (and not to mention, creepy).
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290. All the rum's gone.
292. The only thing you have left to drink is rum. Unfortunately you're floating on a keg of it in the middle of the ocean. Besides that and detritus from the ship that just went down, you (and your party - optional) its just miles of blue in every direction.
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293. Identity Theft: The party had entered a new town. Decides to canvas the locals for info. Standard SOP. The party rogue goes rogue, does some B&E, sticky fingers, empty pockets etc. The rogue (and her party members, especially if similiar race/build) are shaken down and questioned for alibis. Finally provided escorts and encouraged to depart.
Background:
Unbeknownst to her, she is treading on another's hard-earned turf, interrupting a job in progress. The resident cat-burglar spies the whole event trying to firgure out who the trespasser is. The local constable rounds up the usual suspects, of whom the resident matches a close description. Going into hiding, he stumbles across the party's rogue and sees the resemblance. No honor among thieves. It was in fact, so lucrative he makes a career of it. Learning details, picking up henchmen of similiar build to the other party members. Leadership feat and max disguise skills.
10. In a world were magic is a thing of the past and legends and magicians perform mostly parlor tricks the first dragons reawake and magic returns just in time to face the armies of the long forgotten enemy. [Think Dragonlance or A Song of Ice and Fire)
11. Driven and hunted a carawane of former slaves tries to find a new home, as their parents have died to secure their chance of freedom it falls to their children to prove that their sacrifice was not for nought. (Think Darksun)
DARKSUN!! OMG, that's one of my favorites from 2nd Edition. P.S. Paizo, that would be an awesome reboot! I'd totally buy it...
In keeping with the thread:
294: A disease in your hometown turns the infected into zombies! When you flee the destruction you find your village was not alone -- civilization as you know it has collapsed. The heroes must survive the apocalypse and rebuild society.
295: You wake up and half of the town is missing. Literally, people and the houses they occupied just dissapeared and left vacant lots. when you question the rest of the town, everyone thinks that you've gone mad because apparently that portion of town and the people that inhabited it never exsisted. Is there some foul play at work or have you gone mad?
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296. As the group settles into a routine at latest way point village, there is rumor of a disease that struck their most recent departure. A contagion affects a portion of the population. Assuming they are safe, within three days arrival, these villagers come down with same symptoms. Sure they can be cured, but after another three days it returns. The adventurers themselves are carriers of the contagion. They become saviors for all their help at first then pariahs as these adventuring strangers remain untouched. Soon, they are run out and prohibited from entering any town, greeted by angry fearful mobs.
Stealthy incursions into town to seek help cause contagion cases within days. Soon, vengeful families, bounty hunters, adventurers are seeking them to permanently put a stop to their wanderings.
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12. The world is about to end in 10 years time if something is not done to stop an evil power that is destroying the six energy crystals that power the world.
Hurry Starblazers! You only have 245 days left to save the Earth!
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297. 3 months ago a mysterious stranger arrived in town, opening a curio shop of archaic odds and ends. Since then some townsfolk have experienced wild windfalls of luck while others have met gruesome deaths. Someone close to one of the PCs has been killed and darker forces are beginning to converge on the town, so the campaign is about connecting these seemingly random maladies to the stranger and uncover his origins.
298. Some children have been born with special powers, such as foresight and telekinesis. Many evil organizations would like to get their hands on them, not to mention that some of these children are prone to violent behavior.
299. A golem has been going on a rampage through a city and its creator is missing. What's unknown to everyone is that the creator is inside and fused with the golem.
300. Spells have started to take a life on their own... literally. Due to wild magic zones, some spells fizzle out and become sentient creatures.
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300C. A mirror image, one of them, ran away and is surviving by stealing magic items and eating them.
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Not sure how I missed this thread for so long… here are a few:
301. The Bookburner’s Crusade – The PCs have been inducted into the greatest and most dangerous conspiracy, a war against otherworldly opponents who are able to gain power over those who are aware of them. The only true defense is ignorance and their followers seek to spread the knowledge of their names and rites throughout the world. The world will be unmade should enough of the world know the six secret names of the apocalypse.
302. The Turning Point – the PCs live in a world where good has long triumphed, the lower planes safely locked away and the dark powers are barely a myth. Their destiny is to change all of that. In “perfect world” where good has triumphed for so long, the golden glow of purity has begun to show a bit of taint. Tradition and law hold greater sway in the name of the “greater good” than acts of charity, kindness or comfort. Reform is anathema as it is believed to show weakness against the dark powers.
303. The Restoration of Life – PCs live in world where the living have long been enslaved by the dead. As the Long Night continues, the wise amongst the dead have realized that their hold over the living is spelling the doom of all the world – those few who are turned are lackluster idiots and even in death there is attrition – they fear their empire will crumble and oblivion will take all. PCs are the last of the “young elite” amongst the dead and are charged with leading the living to revolution and perhaps even restoring themselves to life in order to restore change and hope to the world and interesting enemies to their undead masters.
304. Breaking the Seal – the Thousand-Thousand years are almost at an end and the PCs are part of a small order or monks (not necessarily the class) who are responsible for maintaining the Records of the Sanctum. They are amongst the few who are told the great secret – that their world is but a hidden place within the depths of the Abyss and that in the next 10 years the wards holding out the hordes of the Abyss will fail. The PCs must find a way to journey to the Prime Material plane, discover how to return their wold to the Prime, and journey back to the Abyss to restore their world to the Prime before the Abyss consumes their world and all of the souls who have been born and died there are consigned to its torment.
305. Through the Mirror Wall – the PCs have discovered that they are merely reflections for that which lies on the other side of the mirror and that something is destroying Those Who Cast. Something from their side of the mirror. PCs must find a way to journey to the other side of the Mirror Wall and then make sure that their doubles on the other side remain alive so that they don’t fade into oblivion. Extra fun if they are opposite alignments of their doubles.
306. The Forging of Legacy – the PCs are actually intelligent magic items who were created at the same time for the same purpose. Each is to groom a champion of the great purpose subtly in order bring their mission to completion. They were not the only items created, however, and something has gone wrong – some of the others have turned and now go against the Purpose. Items advance in a manner similar to Weapons of Legacy in 3E, based on the power of their wielder, but they are also able to discard, recruit and maybe even “steal” champions of other items..
* variant – the PCs are all imps who are seeking to gain power by corrupting mortals or bonding to powerful wizards or other mortals to climb the “infernal ladder”.
307. Dragon’s Hope – all PCs have some sort of dragonic bloodline background or potential. The world is similar to Golarion several hundred years in the future and the race of dragons have all but been eliminated. Alkenstar (or its variant) is, unknown to most, a vast citadel of might for the nine hells. The discovery and proliferation of firearms has been a fiendish plot to eliminate most of the fiends’ enemies upon Golarion and force those who remain to bind themselves forever. PCs are on a quest to find a way to change the very fabric of reality so that the Dragons’ Bane (firearms) either no longer function or are unable to harm those of dragons’ blood. Epic wishes or time travel may be required.
308. The Other Side of Oblivion – PCs are struck by the dreaded sphere of annihilation – they are not however, dead, but rather transported to a strange new world where not even their souls seem able to escape. They must find a way to reverse the sphere to allow them to return, but many threats also reside within the sphere and the PCs must either stop them from escaping as well or find a way to deal with them once they all escape together.
309. Second Chances – PCs have the memories of great heroes from days of yore, but they are only low level characters to begin with. Some great events are stirring, but no one knows why or how they have been restored. Shadows of memory and shards of mostly forgotten dreams must guide them to places where momentous events in their past lives occurred so that they can find the pattern in order to save not only their world but their souls. Unfortunately, many of their enemies were either also reincarnated or remain from their ancient times and will not sit idly by…
* variant PCs were actually relatively recent high level adventurers with clones or raise dead awaiting, but who for some reason were not brought back in sufficient time and are now lower level without access to their high level things – only allies and enemies – they must find a way to restore themselves before it is too late
-TimD
310 - As the party wanders into a city they notice a few citizens floating off into the sky, screaming their lungs out in fear. When they investigate further, they find the entire town (themselves included) are abandoned by gravity. The effect, much to the dismay of the floating people ends abruptly just outside of the towns borders, letting them plummet to their dooms. Maybe the party can help out and get a cities thanks and reward.
TimD, that's some darn good stuff right there!
311 - You are in a ship, going about your business, when suddenly the boat is attacked by unseen foes. The ship is completely destroyed by fireballs within seconds. In the distance, you can see a lighthouse, just floating in the middle of the ocean. There is no door inside of it, but instead a runic portal. Through the portal is a demi-plane that a deranged wizard made so that the morals of society did not restrain his experiments. Supposed to be a utopia, it quickly devolved into anarchy and horror, as unfinished experiments now wander the labyrinth-like plane.
Why yes, I have been playing Bioshock.
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312. An outsider (good or evil) presents itself to the party and single out one of the party members and says, "Prophecy has dictated that you are to be my husband/wife, or the fury of the planes shall be unleashed"
What do you do?
313. Someone in the city is causing trouble. Using his persuasive abilities he forces people to pull from the deck of many things. When the Skull card is drawn, and the dread wraith attacks, the town guard attacks, spawning more dread wraiths. What do you do? Fight and try to stop this guy or allow him to go to the next city to continue his antics?
314. So the party finds some decent loot after a job/adventure and begin to divy things up. Among the loot is a magical rod. When two people touch the rod at the same time they immediatly fall unconcious. The rod then falls to pieces. When the two wake up 1d6 days later...they soon realize that they somehow swapped bodies.
#314: That's freaky. Did it happen on a Friday? If one of the PCs is an inquisitor with Judge in their name, the rod should instead be an idol.
@TimD - wow. Is Awesterrifying a word? If not, it should be trademarked for your post.
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#315: A little girl wants to play! Yep. Just a little girl. Totally not secretly a demideity with a 5-year-old's maturity that plans on shrinking the party down to really freakin' tiny and toying terribly with them sending rats and bunnies at them or whatever a demideity little girl's creativity plans to be doing. Yep. Just a little girl.
#316: Uncle Wane told you ghost stories where the hero reaches into the thing and rips out the root, causing second death. The root, located where the spine once was, keeps the mind, soul, spirit, and ectoplasm together. Now that you are first level, you realize the ghost ripping is a feat, and some undead are hunting everyone who knows about it. Can you find a ghost touch weapon or power before they track you down?