Greetings fellow Pathfinders. We're getting ready to have the second session of my very first campaign and with it, the lore of what has happened in the past, and the forshadowing of what is to come in the adventure is about to come to bare. The first session involved our party (who has traveled together in the past) met up with a very nervous Dwarf in a harbortown tavern. The Dwarf is very anxious to return home to the Dwarven capital with a small chest, but he will not say why, nor what is in the chest. Thankfully no one was able to roll high enough CHA to get him to spill the beans, so with promise of great reward, the troupe prepares to head to sea. Just before the ship leaves the harbor (an after an unplanned bar fight that WILL come back to haunt them), a half-dragon dressed in dark robes marked with a bleeding eye, launches onto aboard hell bent on killing the Dwarf.
The party succeeds not in killing him, but knocking him overboard just as the wind catches the sails and takes them out to sea. End session, tomorrow night I forsee the Dwarf having ALOT of explaining to do. What I intend on him saying goes something along the lines of this...
~~~~~
There is not one world, but many. We call these ‘worlds’ planes, because they encompass not just the land we walk on, the seas we sail, and the skies above, but also the stars in the night and what lies beyond them. Each plane encompasses an element; fire, water, wind, earth, good, evil, law, and chaos. Our own plane is the Material Plane, such that all we know and can comprehend exists here.
The clerics would have you believe that this has always been so, and in the planes of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos this is true. If they have a beginning, there are none alive nor stories survived that would tell of their births. However; the planes of Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and our own Material Plane share a common ground. They were born of the same day millennia ago, and should The Shattering come to bear, they will perish the same way they were given birth.
Imagine an eight pointed star. At each of the points, a Plane exists, and in the center sits the Material Plane. The planes are so close that they can influence on another, thus why we have elements of all others within our own reality. The opposing Planes occupy opposite sides of the star, Fire and Water, Earth and Wind, Good and Evil, Law and Chaos. Because these planes do no touch, they do not affect one another, save for the conflicts created when their influences collide in the Material Plane. It is because of these oppositional forces that we have war and famine, as well as love and prosperity. All that we know in life is a struggle between these forces, seeking equilibrium.
Now imagine a four pointed star. At each of the points resides Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos, and in the very center lies the miasma of the four elements. Each waging a never ending war with the other. Fires that burn so hot they melt the earth. Winds so fierce that they cut like a thousand invisible knives. Waves of tidal water that blot out the sun and swallow whole continents. Great earthquake that turn the mightiest of oceans into barren deserts. And mighty Djinns that tear existence apart with their rage.
It was in this eternal conflict that the Darfellan, Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs first rose. Mishapen children of the Djinns that sundered reality, they clung to life in small wandering tribes, reality itself keeping them from prospering. Children born starved as feeble crops withered or went up in flames. Aspiring heroes crushed by the very earth or rended to bone by the wind. It was out of this immortal war that the bastard children of the Djinns took a stand against their fathers and crafted the Material Plane.
Gorm Gulthyn, he of the Fire Eyes, the Golden Guardian, the Sentinel, the first Dwarf crafted the first Anchor, a mountain whose peak scraped the heavens, leaving the capstone unplaced so that only a single step remained in it’s completion. Hanali Celanil, she of the Heart of Gold, the first Elf crafted the second Anchor, a song of such beauty that all who hear it forget all desires but to join her in chorus. She sings it to this day. Dakuwaqa, the Maelstrom, the Rip Tide, the first Darfellan crafted the third Anchor, a fountain of water, encapsulated in a pocket of air at the bottom of the sea, who’s current was so pure that it could wash away even death . Gruumsh, the One-Eye, Gnasher of Souls, the first Orc, created the fourth Anchor when he spat the lifeblood of his father into the heart of the fire mountain Golaad, forging a tower of obsidian deep within it’s core just as Gorm placed the capstone.
The birth of our world was like any birth. It was painful and slow. The elements drew towards the Anchors and were cast out… but they were not destroyed. Each of the cast out elements gave birth to their own planes, and in their depart, this world, the Material Plane rose from the ashes. The kingdoms of the four races rose from those ashes. The race of Man was born from them, never knowing the hell that had existed before them. Tens of thousands of years passed, and with the exception of the guardians, The Chains of the Anchor, all history of it has been forgotten.
The Sons of Gorm Gulthyn have built their kingdom within the Earth Anchor, their impenetrable defenses keeping it safe. Hanali Celanil still sings the ballad of The Wind Anchor today atop the World Tree Yggdrasil. The Darfellan are extinct, product of the genocide the Sahuagin wroght upon them… but they took with them the secret of the Water Anchor’s location. The Orcs have all but forgotten their part in creating this world, preferring to believe it a lie made up by the other races than to believe they had an one point worked togeather, but the heart of Golaad still burns, and within it the Fire Anchor.
~~~~~~~~
If you are still reading this... kudos. I'm VERY new to Pathfinder, and I didn't want not knowing the lore to hold me back in having a campaign so I created my own.
What isn't there, but plays a part, the creators on the Anchors never imagined civilization would flourish as it did, and no one could have imagined the expansionist Human race. Elemental magic is performed by 'reaching' into the elemental planes and drawing essence, with so many magic users in the world the threshold for influence from the planes has been far exceeded (think a garden hose trying to handle the pressure of a fire hose). Burning down swaths of forest to expand empires, irrigating the barren deserts, harnessing the wind to grind grain, all of these things would be fine if not done at the grand, and exponential rate that the humans have.
The half-dragon is a member of a cult called The Prime Renewal, who seek to shatter the Anchors and bring the world back to how it was. They don't see what they are doing as wrong, in fact, they believe it is going to happen anyway. They are just speeding up the process. What the Dwarf has in his possession is the hammer used to craft the capstone for the Earth Anchor. His purpose is to return it to the capital so that the Anchor can be strengthened... which of course the cult does NOT want to happen.
Realizing that I have now written an entire book, I'll leave it at that. Any suggestions? Any glaringly obvious holes that I have over looked?
None that i can tell. Go for it man.
1. That is an awesome, epic creation story! I love the imagery and the vivid use of detail while also maintaining mysticism. The best lines were about the FOUR - these primeans who crafted the anchors.
2. If it had been me, I would've made the Dragon Disciple a Protean-Blooded sorcerer. An entire cult of Proteans (beings imbued with the primal stuff of before the anchors), monstrous demon/Lamashtu worshippers and general nihilists who want nothing more than to hasten the Inevitable Unmaking of the Anchors.
3. This is going to sound harsh but: what reasons are you giving the PCs to care about all this lore? I ask b/cause it might instead be cooler and more tantalizing to feed it to them a bit at a time. Example:
"Ok dwarf: start talking! Why did that dragon-guy leap onboard and try to tear off your beard at the roots? And what's in the box?" The doughty traveler looked about nervously; his four would-be saviors were covering all exits...save over the rail. "Well...I suppose now that we're a'sea and it's clear you're not with the Renewal..." and with that, the earthborn master opened the gilded chest.
Within was little more than a common chisel, worn at the tip with the leather grip cracked and peeling. Beside that lay a laborer's mallet, still fresh with dust but otherwise equally unremarkable. "THAT'S the great prize that fiend tried to steal? He must've been after the box instead" proclaimed the incredulous heroes.
The dwarf looked at each one sternly as he slammed the chest closed once more. "You ignorant fools! Don't you know what this is? This Gulthyn-Mal! This 'great prize' you sneer over chiseled the Capstone of the Dwarven capitol, the Anchor of Earth!"
Now it was the party's turn to act surprised. "Anchor of what-now?" The dwarf heaved a sigh. "The Anchor of Earth. One of the 4 elemental anchors which acts to stabilize the warring elements of our world. This mallet and chisel helped carve the very fabric of our whole plane! And it is my sacred duty to see it safely to the capitol..."
But that's where you END it (the lore anyway). Now the party knows that the world was hewn from chaos, this crafting was done by beings of this world and that it was forged by artifacts, one of which is sitting in a gilded pewter box a few feet from their hands.
They can also infer then that the draconic sorcerer and whoever he's working for want the artifacts for some nefarious purpose. But you've also left it vague enough so that, when they meet a pretty girl in the next port who is secretly an agent of the cult and tries to sway them to the side of the Renewal, the PCs might actually believe her when she says "we aren't evil, nor were we trying to murder the master dwarf. But we do intend to take the artifacts. You see, the races seek to scatter them, to weaken their power by secreting them away and thus allow them to be forgotten. We are proud of their might and seek to reveal it for the betterment of all! Believe me: once the Renewal has these devices the world can be reborn into a greater place than this..."
4. Where will you take the adventure after the lore is revealed? What's the style of the game (sandbox, railroad, non-linear...how do you reveal conflicts)? I'd be interested to know what happens next...
1. Thanks!
2. As for the cult, I do have an idea. I was digging through the bestiary books and I fell in love with the Genie races for the primary denizens of the elements. Djinni for wind and gave birth to elves. Efreeti for fire, and siring the Orcs. Marid of water, mothers of the Darfellan. Shaitan for earth, carvers of the Dwarves. I'm thinking that the head of the Cult will be one of the races in disguise. The Bestiary I have specifically states that Marid come over to the Material Plane in disguise looking for new audiences to admire their arts so maybe...
3. No offense taken! I asked for honest advice and that's a great one. I'm all for making the cult say... Neutral Chaotic, as we have a Paladin in our ranks, and foiling Detect Evil could keep out too many plot spoilers. I dig the idea of piece mealing it out bit by bit, keeps the players guessing and contemplating. We have only had one session so far and even though it was two weeks ago (every other Friday) it has been the constant topic of discussion, where to put skill points, what new spells to take, etc. This will give them a whole new thing to babble about on smoke breaks.
4. Some of that is still to be decided. They won't reach the capital this session by any means. I misjudged my players last time and made combat waaaaay to easy and the story advanced farther than I anticipated (Druid summoned a squid that picked off Hadozee Pirates faster than they could jump on ship). There will be another ship battle, probably a pack of Sea Wolves that will damage the ship and force them to limp to a harbor or attempt repairs, that will eat up some time.
I am still unsure how I will go about what happens when they actually GET to the capital. Only a direct descendant of Gorm may properly craft the capstone, so the King himself will have to do it... but what if they arrive in the throne room only to find the Cult Leader sitting in his gore covered throne?
As for what the party will do? Three of them will gallantly go forth to protect the world... the fourth will just happily tag along. (And apparently we are getting a fifth :p)
Nice DS! So if it was the Djinni who first sired the races and these races went on to craft the Anchors, here's another twist for you: the anchors didn't have anything to do with stabilizing the world. They are in fact prisons.
The cult meantime has 2 different cells, both working toward the same goal. One side takes the direct approach, overtly attacking folks with the tools to craft the Anchors. This side's goal is to get the tools, unmake these prisons and free the Djini Scions.
The OTHER side is taking a much longer-game approach. They are instead infiltrating the capitals of the races who harbor the tools. The endgame here is that they will coerce the races to unite the tools, make certain "modifications" to the Anchors (which are naturally failing with the passage of time) in order to strengthen them. In the end of course these changes will result in destruction and the Djinni Scions will be free.
Think of it like this: in the Golarion mythos you have the gods, and they create the First World; a wild, anarchic place of roiling change. Into this they put beings of immense power they call the Eldest and these beings are able to rule nodes of stabilized land. Unfortunately for the gods their experiment results in the capricious fey and a wild, feral world of mischief and mayhem, so they refine their blueprint and overlay the First World with the Material Plane. Some of the Eldest and certain areas of the First World survive, squidged out the edges of the Material and synchonus with the wilds of the PCs known world.
Well, your Djinni Scions could be like those Eldest. Only unlike those beings, your Djinni Scions invoked their own devestation in crafting slave races to serve their needs. In this scenario these ancient elemental lords made dwarves, orcs, darfellan and elves because their own, natural children (djinni as they exist in the bestiaries), when disciplined or cantankerous, simply were destroyed and reborn in the miasma; there was no resolution and therefore no emotion.
Craving someone to root for, or punish, or care about in some way, the Djinni Scions crafted these mortal races. This would be their undoing. The mortals loathed the overlords and eventually imprisoned them. This had the added SIDE EFFECT of stabilizing the planes, thus birthing the world as it's known today.
This also leaves the door open for common djinni to be around, hating both the mortal races and, to a lesser extent, the Scions. You see most djinni have forgotten the truth of the creation and just instinctively know that mortals hurt their races in some way, or they feel an instinctive superiority over them. A few learned djinni however remember how they were cast aside by the Scions in favor of these weak, imperfect beings for the attentions of their parents.
It's sort of like how angels are imagined in modern mythology. Some angels hate mankind supposedly because god chose mortals over his perfect host. Other angels however rebel against god as a means to wrest this attention BACK to themselves, and thus are cast out.
In this way the elemental cities could be like the hells of your world. The cast out djinni, in their hatefully shunted out planes, tempt mortal souls to come to them upom the moment of their death with moral corruption in life. Once siezed, these elementals torture these souls into demons, devils or what have you.
Anyway, so now you've got the party headed for the capital. It would be cool if one of the party were secretly a descendant of Gorm themselves. It wouldn't even need to be a dwarf; maybe the old rock-squeezer got a little randy with a stable of different races. Anyway, drop some hints to that PC if you want to use this idea and give them the urge to use the mallet for something. But if they do set up some kind of long term consequence like "Yes, you made a fortress over night that saved us all but you stole the device to do so. Now you face the law of the capital; the punishment for this offense is death."
Keep us updated...
I hope you don't mind if I steal a few of your ideas (and forgive me for being n00bish and not knowing what DS stands for).
I like the idea of the Djinns being rebirthed over and over agian, this would give them a finite number, and as the elements equally oppose one another, there is no way that one element could ever truly outclass the other. Every soldier that falls in battle is simply reborn to rejoin the fray.
Something else I read in the bestiary, one of the Titans (the one with fifty heads and a hundred arms) is reborn each time it is destroyed with only fragments of it's past memory. Think of a document photocopied, then photocopy the photocopy each time over and over. Eventually you can only make out bits and pieces of what was originally there, but if you can pick out a few key words you can get a VERY vague idea of what the prime intent of the message was. Djinns are elemental beings, they do not succumb to things such as age or sickness (though madness is possible), they can only be vanquished through physical or magical trauma to the body, though the soul simply leaves the prison of the flesh and returns to the source to be reformed.
This idea gives me two paths that coincide with your ideas. First, if the 'genetic memory' is only smudged by reincarnation, one who has managed to maintain his/her original form throughout the ages would still have his/her mind intact. This would make for one seriously BA (an acronym I know) elemental warrior who was able to go undefeated for time unrecorded. That's one heck of a feat, so we can easily assume there are perhaps only a small handful of them, and for the sake of Lore and holding to FOUR as a symbolic number, there can be one of each element.
I actually drafted out the 8-point and 4-point stars that I mentioned in the original post (the four star will be the symbol of the cult), and things fell neatly into place. Air and Water are seperated by Chaos, but this does not mean they are all mad. Quite the opposite, just like water around a rock or wind flowing around objects, the Marid and Djinni are highly adaptable to change, thus making them unlikely antagonist.
Earth and Fire; however, border along with Law. Earth is strong and unmoving, treating change with great upheavals of the earth and a rending of the land. Fire holds true to the universal law of all reality, given an inferno hot enough, everything burns.
Good falls between Earth and Water, because I like the cleansing aspects of both, and that when combined they birth new life (plants) that sustain all other life.
Evil falls between Fire and Air. Fire, while can be seen as cleansing as well as destructive, is commonly revered in the latter light throughout most religions and societies. Air was a bit trickier to justify, but if one considers disease as an element, carried by the winds and the breath of the living (yes I know water does this too... taking some artistic privilege here) then there is your Evil aspect of it.
Taking ALL of that into mind, an Efreeti born of the first flicker of flame, is the perfect antagonist.
The second idea plays off of what you said with the anchors being prisons. The elements are reborn when their spirits return to their source... but if those souls were somehow locked away...
I'm sure you smell what I'm stepping in here.
Finally, the decsendant of Gorm thing could be taken a smidge further. Perhaps the four members of the party all share a trace of the bloodline with one of the Four. One of our characters is a Gunslinger named Roland (so very original) who has this King without a Kingdom dream of grandure, and this would satisfy that. It would also give our Halfling Rogue a more concrete reason for sticking to the mission than just for the adventure of it... and it gives a reason for them to have united in the first place. The faint trace of that blood in their veins called them to one another without them even knowing it.
You might want to take a look at the genies for some ideas on how to divide the alignments, though that might be headache inducing...
Is there a reason why there are alignment based planes? It seems the story is about the elemental planes so it seems redundant to add 4 more. (Except to create a little bit of order in the multiverse maybe) Your setting could do perfectly fine with just 5 planes, the elemental and the material. This would mean that it used to be one big chaotic elemental plane and that order and law eventually sprang from chaos and started dominating the multiverse. (Like an infinate number of monkeys with typewriters typing up the complete works of Shakespeare in an infinate amount of time)
@David
The reason I have the other planes, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos, is that it gives my campaign a chance to expand. Say the heroes save the Material Plane from The Shattering which would have collided the four elemental planes, now they have drawn the attention of the four others, older than the elemental. I like the Star Trek idea of First Contact, where we have not met members of other species because we have not discovered warp speed. In this, we do not have enough understanding of the other planes to warrant their attention... however, by not only creating four other planes by the hands of mortal races, but fending them off, they attract attention. Perhaps at one time even those four were one, seperated by some greater power that the heroes must then contend with.
Expanding on that, beyond the Eight, there are the all powerful planes of Positive and Negative, or Life and Death. These planes are unique as they effect ALL planes, not just the ones they touch... and thus a third concurrent campaign could spawn.
I admit, Final Fantasy got me into the fantasy realm, so saving the world from utter destruction is far more attractive to me than preventing a herd of giant slugs from over running a village. What came before Life and Death? The Void. Campaign number 4.
@Everyone Else
So the party, still aboard their ship enters a fog that the Druid at once realizes is not natural. Gimli, the dwarf (once again, original I know) as usual is quiet. A sense motive check shows he knows more than he is letting on, but no diplomacy roll will pry it from them. Boom! Crash! They make land fall. (Forgive my lack of description, one of the perks of coming to our sessions is homemade wine and I have had a few glasses of several available varieties.)
What is unique about this fog is it seems to extend almost exactly 15 feet from the shore of the island all the way around. The land itself is devoid of the fog. The Gunslinger, set up in the crow's nest of the ship with a +4 Perception (to sight) sight glass, is able to discern a trail leading up the central mountain on this island, and what appears to be stone carved wave like pillars that flank the path.
The first day, the group spends time gathering materials to bolster the ships food stores and aide the crew in unbeaching the ship. On the second day, they notice that the Dwarf patron of their quest is nowhere to be found. The Druid, a natural tracker, discovers that his tracks lead towards the mountain, no doubt towards the trail and the cavern at it's peak.
The party follows the trail uneventfully, entering the cavern which appears to be a temple with aquatic statues and carvings all along the way. Even the torches that light the path, flicking on as they approach, dimming as they get farther away, look more like eddies of glowing water than blue flames. The come upon the Dwarf, who pinned between darkness and the four adventurers, opens the box... and a tale very similar to what Mr. Hoover originally detailed spills forth. They now know that what he holds is NOT the Earth Anchor, but the tools used to craft it and what he believes will strengthen it. The place they stand is a temple for the Water element, and while not the resting place of the Water Anchor, it must house one of the Guardians of it (He shows them a drawing of the 8 and 4 point star, which a successful spot check reminded the Druid that he had seen the latter on the hood of the Half-Dragon's robe).
Sure enough, as they enter the nexus of the temple a massive Darfellan appears, stating that it is "not yet time." The Dwarf attempts to express that the race of Man has quickened the Shattering far more than any of the Four races had anticipated... and the Darfellan attacks, aided by three medium Water elementals.
The enemies are dispatched with moderate difficulty (The Gunslinger rolled a wonderful crit as he entered the room, completely destroying one... only to be bull rushed by the Darfellan) and just before the killing blow to the Darfellan could be laid... he submits. He reaches into a pillar of water that stood in the center of the room, drawing out a box identical to the one the Dwarf carried. Inside is a golden ring with a crisscross work of baleen (I explained that mariners carry a similar construct of iron and wood that filters the salt from sea water and makes it potable, and that they had seen it on the ship.)
The Darfellan agrees to surrender the key to the Water Anchor, with the stipulation that he must travel with them to ensure it's safe keeping.
Shoddily repaired, the ship sets sail once more. They are confronted by a pack of Were-Sea Wolves (of which three of the crew were a part of. Searching their belongings reveled a cloth bearing the Four Pointed Star) and finally a group of Sahuagin board, looking for the Darfellan... they are also dispatched... and the crew is but a day's sail from the nearest port where they must make more permanent repairs than the make-do work they were able to cobble on the beach of the fog shrouded isle.
End Session.
Where it goes from here is up for grabs. I must confess (due to the bickering of another) that I am NOT the GM, however since I have a greater ability to craft Lore, and he trusts me not to spill the beans, I have done so in collaboration with him. In truth, I am the Gunslinger. Thankfully, I chose my low CHA roll to mean he is a man of very few words, so he never even gets the opportunity to give his two cents worth.
The rest of our party consists of a Hound Archon Paladin (race was given to him to bolster EVERY roll <12) who was charged with protecting the Kingdom of Gilead. He arrived too late, and as punishment has been banished from his own Plane. He follows the Gunslinger as penance, his memory of before almost completely wiped, guarding him with his own life. A human Druid who felt compelled to follow the two after witnessing them lay waste to a group of Half-Orc poachers in his forest. Sensing something is amiss, he decides it is time to enter the outside world, and that they are worthy companions. And finally, a Halfling Rogue who craves adventure... and what is more adventure aspiring than a full plate wearing dog-man thing and a man who carries a wood and iron stick that spits fire and thunder?
Huh, I kinda like your idea of further campaining in the "outer planes". I'd dislike the GMPC dwarf leading me by the nose though.
DirtSailor wrote: (and forgive me for being n00bish and not knowing what DS stands for) DS is short for DirtSailor! :P
Thanks for the definition TK Ho!
(get it? TK for Thanis Kataleon, and ho is kind of like a technical knock out or TKO, but also combines with Lion-o's "HO" as lord of the Thundercats? Wow, that sounded WAY better in my head...)
Anyway Dirty Sailor Moon, I'm liking the way you're going here. Hopefully you keep the updates rolling. Oh, and let everyone know when Ang and the other elemental masters show up.
I'm seeing a lot of "mountain" imagery in this game. A mountain as the earth anchor; the mountain at the heart of which is the obsidian fire anchor; a mountain where the temple of water was. My advice in further games is to ONLY explore the mountains you find.
Seriously though what level are we talking here? Did I miss it somewhere in your posts? It seems higher than first. So that begs the question: what do the characters already know about everything that's going on? Also, it doesn't take high character stats to metagame at the table and reveal all the lore. What steps are you taking as the Gunslinger not to shoot your mouth off about all of this?
If it were me I'd have them put into port. Here I'd have the aggressive version of the cult go hard at the 2 pieces they've gotten so far. If they lose one; great! Now they can spend the rest of the time recovering it.
I'd also intro an agent of the other side of the cult; the subtle side that manipulates the races into using the tools that forged the anchors. A super-knowledgeable sage and planar guide perhaps. If they lost one of the tools, this person is helpful in recovering it. If they retained both, this person has knowledge on how to use the items in ways OTHER than building anchors, like using the water tool to tsunami a rival ship or the earth tool to build a bridge.
Every time one of the tools is used, it hastens the Shattering. If combined, the tools can craft even greater things doing that much more damage in the process.
@David
Thanks! In most of history I don't believe Evil is truly predominant (Jeffry Daumers and Hitlers aside). The history books are written by the victors. The "Good Guys" always win... because it is only through their eyes that we see how the war unfolded. Had England won the Revolutionary War, no doubt we would read about the great terrorist George Washington and his treasonist acts.
The Genie races are not motivated by evil. To them, the mortal races are the evil ones. Hell, they are trapping the souls of their brethren within the Anchors. In the further campaigns I want to further expand on this school of thought. The prime antagonist of the second campaign could be an Archon from the Plane of Lawful Good (going to muddle the lines between the four alignment planes and make them combinations instead of seperate).
Hound Archon Paladins are the leaders of the Lawful Good Plane's armies, and by his actions in this campaign, ours redeems himself, thus regaining his connection with his Plane... and immediately sensing something is very, very wrong.
The Planes of Alignment are as much at conflict as the elements are, but due to their power, it is thought an outright war between them would sunder reality itself. Instead, they created the Prime Plane to exist as a chess table. Playing the Genie races as pawns. When the mortals altered their creation, they were not angered, rather they were amused. The creations of their creations held far more power than they had thought, and simply took it on as a new game. The Mortals were inadvertently given Free Will, but the influence of the Alignment Planes is strong. Our laws, religions, art, war... all just movements on the board, and every soldier, scholar, artisan, and king just a pawn in their game.
But what fun is a game if the toys know they are puppets? Our Paladin, having grown close to his mortal companions, sees the virtues of their hearts and rebels against the Gods by telling them what he has known all along, but forgot when he was banished. The Gods see this act, as they see every thing, and strike his name from the ranks of the armies of Lawful Good, permanently taking away his freshly reclaimed immortality.
What does one do when a game of chess looks like it will end in stalemate? Either play to the already known outcome... or wipe the board clean and start anew. Where the Cult of the Prime Renewal sought to plunge the Material Plane into elemental chaos, the Gods of Lawfull Good (I WILL come up with better names for these... Valhalla maybe for that one) seek to undo their creation entirely and start the game up fresh.
(btw, screw you guys for inspiring me to write a book with every reply)
As for the campaign after that? Like I said, not all antagonist are evil. The Gods of Valhalla sought to cleanse the Material Plane and thought themselves justified to do so... but to coin a phrase from Commissioner Gordan, "Some men just want to watch the world burn." What lies in the slim pockets between the Planes where no influence can touch? What lies beyond? Why... the Void of course. Older than the elements, older than the Gods of Alignment, even older than the God of Life and the Goddess of Death, there is the Void. It always has been, and always shall be. It reaches out beyond the multiverse into infinity, and all of creation is simply a blimish upon the lightless silence of the Void... and it is hungry.
@MH (3U)
The group started at level 4, progressed to 6 after the first session since we went much farther in the story than I anticipated. At the end of last night's session everyone dinged to level 7. The Captain of the ship is a lvl 12 Duelist/Swashbuckler/Legendary Captain (haven't had to pin it down yet.) The Dwarf is a lvl 10 Cleric. And the Darfellan is a lvl 12 Barbarian. As for what they know now, they know vaguely what the chisel and hammer are, if not quite what they accomplish, and they know that the golden circle screen thing is somehow involved with the Water Anchor
As for the Gunslinger... he's not that bright. Don't get me wrong, he isn't an idiot by any means. He is actually quite wise and he is the only man alive (that he knows of, atleast) that can not only skillfully operate his musket, but can also repair and modify it. Roland takes things at face value and tends to see things in terms of black and white. Even if the Dwarf were to sit him down and go over the entire creation mythos from beginning to end, he would likely be unable to grasp it all, possibly even getting a headache along the way. He doesn't need to know the whys or hows... he cannot place those in the sights of his rifle. He needs to know only the who, and have a solid belief that the hows and whys will fix themselves once the who is filled with lead.
Think of it like this. Roland is a man who can close his eyes and count a minute down to the millisecond and can, on the fly, calculate trajectory, ricochet angles, windage, barometric pressure, and any multitude of mathematical problems that lie between the barrel of his gun and the center of his target's eyes... but if you gave him a math test he would likely just toss it aside and continue on his way. It's not that he is an idiot... it's just to him that those things are not important.
As for the Port, that IS coming up next. Thinking of them heading to a Tavern while the ship is dry docked, and meeting with a seductive female bard who know far more than she should about their quest. Perhaps she even tells them where they can find a vial of blood that was used to create the Fire Anchor, or mentions that over the thousands of years that Hanali Celanil has been singing, she has grown weary... and that water purified with the circle the Darfellan keeps would cool her throat and restore her song, essentially the Wind Anchor. (Bare in mind, unless HC is a ventriloquist, she would have to STOP singing to drink).
I do like your idea of being able to use the tools but at a great unknown cost. The hammer and chisel could be used to cause earthquakes, sunder stone walls, and the like (albeit in unskilled hands so there IS a chance for a backfire). In a time of great peril, the screen (that's what I'm calling the circle thing now) could be used to purity ordinary water into a restorative, the more time the Darfellan has to process the water the greater the restorative effects... but of course, just like Roland's gun, it's a VERY bad idea for anyone else to try and touch it.
Fresh idea for the tool in the box for Wind, gonna post it here before I forget it.
Inside the box appears to be nothing at all, but if one holds it close to their ear they can hear a faint whisper that only the holder can distinguish. The voice is in the common language of whoever is listening, simultaneously speaking in every language. The whispers are only the truth, incapable of deception, and speaks to the holder's true desire.
With that in mind, if an Elf and an Orc both stuck their ears to the box, they would each hear whispering in their native tongue and be unable to hear the other. The box speaks in every language and none at the same time.
This is an amazing tool, allowing the holder to hear everything their heart desires. The past. The future. Forgotten Lore. Ancient Spells. What could have been, what was, and what is yet to come... but omniscience is not something the mortal mind has the ability to comprehend... and it is addictive.
When hearing the story of one's heart's desire, the words are so flowery, the imagery so great that the person actually believes he is she is there, be it watching passively through the eyes of another or actively reenacting say... their life with their wife and children had war not taken them.
To the outside observer, the holder's eyes grow lifeless, their jaw goes slack, their body limp, but not so much that they would fall away from the box; conversely, despite the seemingly comatose state, they grip the box with many times their natural strength.
Should one be pulled away from the box, it is like waking from a dream. Fragments of what was remain, but entire lifetimes in the story world can pass in an hour of real time. Kingdoms can rise and fall in a day. All the while, the body still has needs for food and water... that go unattended. The body wears away to a husk... and perhaps the next person who listens hears the voice of the last one to hold it.
The Hammer & Chisel, the Sieve, the Vial, and the Voice...
Oh. And forgot to elaborate on the additive nature of the damned thing. Once you have had a taste of it... your mind constantly wanders back to it. Like a heroin addict constantly thinking of needles... or a smoker, holding a pen to her lips as if it were a cigarette, depending on how bad the addiction (and the withdraws) the usuer may even begin to hallucinate, believing that they hear the voice calling to them, even though it is all in their own minds... the box may always tell the truth, but the voices we create ourselves have no such limits.
This is riddled with Will Saves. And of course the player will have no idea if they succeeded or failed the save. It's up to them to determine if the box truly is speaking to them or if they are going mad.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
|
