I am going to be starting a PbP thread for some friends, and one of the types of campaigns we are considering is a dungeon crawl campaign. Rather than just informally agreeing with the players that their characters are going to spend most of their time traveling from dungeon to dungeon for loose change, I'd like to offer more of a motivation for the characters to justify the dungeoneering, but not have it be so binding that the campaign can't have a few other types of adventures thrown in.
So, here's my idea, and any criticism or suggestions to help develop it would be appreciated:
About 15 to 20 years ago, the Empire sent a large regiment of soldiers into hostile lands to deal with a barbarian threat. The soldiers were efficient and ruthless, destroying villages and communities in their pursuit of the enemy, specifically a popular shaman leader, named ToBeDetermined. :)
A small detachment of the regiment's leadership finally cornered the shaman leader and his retinue deep underground in some ancient barrows that the barbarians considered holy. The shaman leader knew that he was cornered, and spent the remaining few hours of his life performing a ritual that would curse the invading soldiers and their descendents.
The Curse of ToBeDetermined affects every living member of said regiment and their descendents. Since ToBeDetermined (and most of the barbarian hordes) viewed the empire as greedy and decadent, the curse is designed to force the soldiers to find an enormous amount of money, and "spend" it in a ritual to try and wear away the curse. When enough money is given to pay off the curse, the curse will be lifted for all of the soldiers and all of their descendents, whether living or dead. It's sort of like punishing a glutton by forcing him to overeat. Since the regiment destroyed whole families and tribes, the curse is extended to the soldiers' families.
The immediate consequences of the curse are ill-defined at this point, but the lasting consequence is that the souls of those affected aren't sent to an afterlife. They're not undead, but they are enslaved in a sort of limbo ruled by ToBeDetermined. So, the PCs will be those soldiers or their descendents going into dungeons to get cash to work off the curse. I envision that at the end of every dungeon, the PCs will perform the ritual and then head out to possibly another dungeon. All over the world, others also affected by the curse are attempting to do the same. This provides an easy entry for new PCs to come into the party in case of player death or if more of our friends want to play.
The mechanics are where this idea has issues, and I'm especially open to suggestions. As we all know, 3.5 and PF rely on the PCs getting more and more wealth, and telling them that they have to give that wealth away is contradictory. While it could provide for an interesting decision over how much to give vs. keep, having to make the same decision every dungeon (and the extra bookkeeping) would grow tiresome. The option that I'm considering is stating that the details of the curse only allow for 10% of the wealth gained to be spent towards the curse (to make the curse harder, maybe?), and then just give 10% more wealth to the PCs.
The campaign will be set in Praemal, which is the name of the world for Monte Cook's "Ptolus: City by the Spire" campaign setting, but this campaign doesn't necessarily have to be strongly tied to that. The empire obviously has to be the Tarsisian Empire, and the curse could have taken place during the invasion by the Eastern Hordes.
I'd really appreciate any comments!
I think it's a great idea. Find a place other than a tavern to meet in and you are set.
I suggest an addition: The treasure must be piled in the shaman's barrow to lift the curse, and the trapped souls guard the barrow as wights. Now you have the Barrow of ToBeDetermined as an extra dungeon, and a strong recurring location at which to meet new friends and enemies involved with the curse as they come to pay the debt.
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The use of money to lift a curse has to be handled carefully. As Tinalles noted, if it could be taken by force of arms alone, an army would have done it. Perhaps the curse dictated that "not the smallest bit of wealth can be taken from any man, nor dwarf, nor elf, nor gnome, nor halfling, nor their kin, nor..." Fill in the rest of the sentence as you need to. That would force the characters to seek out monstrous sources of wealth.
Next, consider if the sacrifice will be required in coins or if items of value can be substituted. What about magic items? Since they're so valuable could the curse be lifted by destroying a few powerful items? Perhaps the curse needs a series of rituals to remove it, depending on how long you want this to last. Something like "a thousand gold coins must be buried and forgotten inside the borders of (name of destroyed nation) under one thousand consecutive full moons" would take an awful lot of effort, while "as much gold as ten men can carry must be given to the descendants of those you have murdered" would take a bit less time. Maybe the curse requires "seven priceless treasures" to be buried in the barrow mound and left there. Gathering something considered priceless would likely require a lot of effort, even if the item isn't really valuable beyond a unique historical significance.
Consider also the penalty of the curse. There has to be some problem, some reason that people seek to overcome this curse. If it's too terrible, the players may not want to accept it without gaining something in return (which is reasonable). If it doesn't affect them at all, they may not care. It could be something that manifests over generations. Perhaps the soldiers involved are cursed to have only one child each, and those children shall have only one child each, and so on. And each of the children of each generation shall hate the empire and seek to live as a member of the culture that was destroyed. Now that could be a curse that would make an empire take notice. If they do nothing, they have thousands of citizens who seek to topple the government. If the empire acts against those children, they will certainly arouse the anger of their own troops -- the other soldiers will likely feel betrayed, causing even further discontent.
The problem with that scenario is the PCs won't be actively affected by the curse. After all, why would they do anything to stop the curse when it will hurt an empire they hate? The PCs would then be agents of the empire or the cursed soldiers themselves (if they live) who want to lift the curse to regain the loyalty of their children. Perhaps no one cared until now because they were, after all, just soldiers, and therefore expendable. If their children left the empire to become barbarians, who cares? But one of them, either a surviving officer or family member, finally gains a level of political power and wants it to end. Maybe it's a man who wants his son back before he dies. Maybe it's a woman who wants to have more than one child. Maybe it's just a political figure who is seeking a way to widespread popularity. Perhaps it's even done out of true kindness - a general who has a fearsome loyalty to his brothers-in-arms?
Whatever the situation, a curse affecting PCs is a tricky thing to weave into the story in a way that will be accepted. Forcing such a thing upon players is probably not a good idea. Even if they accept it, they may change their minds later, especially if they feel railroaded at any point. Though I'm not familliar with the setting you noted, I hope these ideas provide some help.
Or, they could be the dead soldiers trying to escape Limbo to save their souls. At first it is about "freeing" themselves of the curse, only to find that they are trapped in a cunning Matrix like Labrynthe designed by the Shaman. I would go over Random MacGuffin Artificats to be destroyed route that Tinalles mentioned.
I find myself wondering why an entire LEGION of soldiers didn't finish chopping up the barbarians, then instantly go home and start earning wads of cash to pay off the curse.
I was thinking that there was such a delay because nobody fully understood what the curse was supposed to do, right away. The regiment, having completed it's objectives, returned home. I was toying with the idea of even having the regiment disbanded in shame because of the curse, but I don't want the curse to be a collection of unrelated effects. But having the regiment disbanded could account for the delay in mounting a response, so maybe it was disbanded for another reason.
Being experienced soldiers, the easiest way these people can make money is to raid less powerful peoples.
Another excellent point. Part of the reason of having the curse activated in a dungeon is that it's a thematic tie-in to the party members having to recover the necessary wealth from dungeons. I see now that it's going to take more work to have that make sense.
So, rather than worrying about the mechanical implications of a wealth based curse, I would change how the curse works.
You listed some solid suggestions (and I absolutely LOVE the idea of servants of an empire having to destroy symbols of said empire [or their descendants having to destroy symbols revered by their elders]), but that turns the curse more into the focus of the campaign, rather than an overarching backstory. (But now that I've typed that out, I can see that difference is pedantic and might be too subtle for a player to care about. Hmm....)
I think it's a great idea. Find a place other than a tavern to meet in and you are set.
Thanks! I was thinking that even if the regiment is disbanded, the remaining armies of the empire still support their former brothers and sisters in arms by acting as a sort of social network so that those who are cursed can coordinate.
I suggest an addition: The treasure must be piled in the shaman's barrow to lift the curse, and the trapped souls guard the barrow as wights. Now you have the Barrow of ToBeDetermined as an extra dungeon, and a strong recurring location at which to meet new friends and enemies involved with the curse as they come to pay the debt.
I like that a lot! A climactic encounter where it all started sounds like fun.
The use of money to lift a curse has to be handled carefully. As Tinalles noted, if it could be taken by force of arms alone, an army would have done it. Perhaps the curse dictated that "not the smallest bit of wealth can be taken from any man, nor dwarf, nor elf, nor gnome, nor halfling, nor their kin, nor..." Fill in the rest of the sentence as you need to. That would force the characters to seek out monstrous sources of wealth.
I agree 100%. The method of controlling what wealth is allowable but in a way that makes sense for the curse still needs to be worked out.
Next, consider if the sacrifice will be required in coins or if items of value can be substituted. What about magic items? Since they're so valuable could the curse be lifted by destroying a few powerful items?
I go back and forth on that. I really don't want to frustrate players by having them constantly have to make a decision like, "Dang! This +4 axe is a nice upgrade for our fighter, but it would put a nice dent into what we owe for the curse...." I think that limiting it to cash is much more straightforward. On the other hand, it would be a nice way for players to get rid of unneeded items instead of selling them for partial value.
Perhaps the curse needs a series of rituals to remove it, depending on how long you want this to last.
I'd like it to last until the campaign would end. When they reached a certain level (or when players felt like they wanted to move on to something else), a message would come down the pipeline that enough wealth had been gathered, and that the final requirement of the curse that needed to be met was ready in the initial barrow dungeon. Oh, by the way, everyone else who was afflicted is dead or dying, so it comes down to you! :)
To be able to do that, though, the exact amount of wealth needed to be gathered would have to be unknown. Only the steps needed to work off the curse would be known.
Consider also the penalty of the curse. There has to be some problem, some reason that people seek to overcome this curse. If it's too terrible, the players may not want to accept it without gaining something in return (which is reasonable). If it doesn't affect them at all, they may not care.
I agree. The immediate consequences of the curse are still undefined. I wanted to work out the overall mechanics of the curse to select thematically appropriate immediate consequences that wouldn't hurt a PC's performance, but would still provide a role playing motivation.
Though I'm not familliar with the setting you noted, I hope these ideas provide some help.
They did! Thanks!
In fact, I want to thanks all four of you for your excellent ideas. Ironically, mere hours after I started this thread, the players got excited over an Adventure Path that I had earlier suggested, so it looks like that's the route we'll be taking. Still, this is an idea that I will certainly revisit for future campaigns, and I hope others can take something from this thread, also.