So I was thinking, since I'm now building a campaign where there are multiple mini-campaigns, about how dark can the setting get?
It is well known that Drow abduct people and force them to work as slaves, but the implied information is that these slaves are kept in concentration camps. Auschwitz, or more of Drowschwitz, is a theme I am rolling around in my head, but I am wondering: is that too much? Is that too far?
In many of the mini-campaigns involving villain groups the PCs can join them, as a faction of sorts, in order to achieve their goals. Join The Elzmaria to collect the Nethysian artifacts, join Maheto's Bane to eventually buy the Nethysian artifacts from its members, but this is one area where the PCs would have to be truly depraved.
The overarching idea is this:
Much like The Elzmaria have feared some of these artifacts have fallen into the wrong hands. The dread mistress of Drowschwitz (working name) has been actively abducting surface dwellers to Explore, Fight, and Mine for her. When the PCs show up they find the slaves having slave rings and collars that cast Detonate on the slaves (mostly 1-6 hd in commoner or expert) and the caster level for the spell is 10. Meaning they will not survive. The spell goes off if the bearer dies as well, meaning all of the slaves are living bombs.
The grim reality becomes that in order to kill the drow, take the artifacts, and free the slaves the PCs will have to massacre innocent people who are simply trying to survive until just tomorrow, until just after this fight, hell just until next round. They know that with a command word the collars will explode.
There are ways around it, of course, such as anti-magic fields. When the slaves charge into the field the collars and rings can be removed. A spellcraft check would suffice as well, but in the heat of battle this would have to be lightning quick or suffer 10d8 damage when the slave explodes.
Is it too much? Mechanically it would be fine. However, would it push the morality of the players too much to encounter this? What do you think?
Ever watch Jacob's Ladder? No such thing as too dark.
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It' too dark the moment the game stops being fun for the players. Which is going to vary depending on your players. There's no real universal answer, because what makes the game fun is all about the dynamics of your individual table
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I wouldn't set the slave rings to explode on death of the wearer. Because as soon as one of the slaves dies (not unusual in a concentration camp), it'll cause a chain reaction that will nuke the entire camp, probably including all the guards. Also, substantial property damage and possible cave-ins.
Another problem is that if the slave is desperate, he could turn himself into a suicide bomber. Do you really want to outfit your unhappy slave population with that?
That said, it wouldn't be out of character for drow to implement something like a collar that will saw off your head if you try to remove it. Something that doesn't cause collateral damage to the slave's owners or their property. It could also be a special form of Animate Dead, that immediately does an alive-to-zombie on the slave.
Dark is only dark in the presence of light...so what light will this campaign have, if its all shades of black, they will get use to it and the game will either stabilize, or the players will escalate the dark tone (likely), and if that's what you and your players find appealing have at it.
But as to the slave collar (running man thingy), slaves are property and valuable, since it takes work to capture them, or money to buy them, maybe have a very nasty poison that debilitates and paralyzes while causing intense pain..maybe even a random perm stat point decrease.
then the slave can be collected and returned to work after a antidote is administered and much painful re-education is inflicted.
Many slave would welcome a easy way to kill themselves if given the choice..truly evil is to deny that, and perpetuate the slavery..
Zombification collars :) that way they don't have to feed them.
Its too dark when you have to ask a bunch of internet strangers if its too dark...
Too dark does not really exist, but honestly going into detail on certain things is discomforting...
Also i'd advise against rape, with the sole exception of it happening to non-player in an "Off-screen" fashion which is only vaguely described if at all.... as a plot hook for vengeance or something
It's too dark when the players decide it is. Do you think your players will think this is too dark? You know them better than we do.
Not necessarily since the PCs would ultimately be liberating the slaves en-mass.
I like the idea of the collars being zombification collars. Even better make it so Detonate does only cold damage with these collars, and only on a command word from the Drow mistresses. Since zombies are immune to cold, this makes them far more dangerous.Kill them while they are alive and after 1d6 rounds they arise as the undead. Detonating them then isn't a problem, and committing suicide to try and escape only leads to being enslaved as the undead.
Trying to remove the collar grants negative levels on the wearer unless a specialized incantation is used first (spellcraft 25 to discover, then spellcraft 15 to perform), but dispel magic and an anti-magic field suppresses it so the collar can be removed.
Think about the Drow, they massacre and betray each other all the time. Throwing slaves away when raids on the surface world are constant would be a given.
However this all said, since the Elzmaria is filled with Paladins and goodly types it is overwhelmingly possible that if the PCs went out of their way to get the primary villain's attention, then point out what is going on with these Drow that they two groups would temporarily team up to rescue the people.
In that event one of the leaders of that group would likely appear and be there for the charge. The PCs could skip the felling of Drowschwitz and take on the villain encounter at the end. A free skip, and possibly with one of their primary adversaries aiding them.
So I was thinking, since I'm now building a campaign where there are multiple mini-campaigns, about how dark can the setting get?
It is well known that Drow abduct people and force them to work as slaves, but the implied information is that these slaves are kept in concentration camps. Auschwitz, or more of Drowschwitz, is a theme I am rolling around in my head, but I am wondering: is that too much? Is that too far?In many of the mini-campaigns involving villain groups the PCs can join them, as a faction of sorts, in order to achieve their goals. Join The Elzmaria to collect the Nethysian artifacts, join Maheto's Bane to eventually buy the Nethysian artifacts from its members, but this is one area where the PCs would have to be truly depraved.
The overarching idea is this:
Much like The Elzmaria have feared some of these artifacts have fallen into the wrong hands. The dread mistress of Drowschwitz (working name) has been actively abducting surface dwellers to Explore, Fight, and Mine for her. When the PCs show up they find the slaves having slave rings and collars that cast Detonate on the slaves (mostly 1-6 hd in commoner or expert) and the caster level for the spell is 10. Meaning they will not survive. The spell goes off if the bearer dies as well, meaning all of the slaves are living bombs.
The grim reality becomes that in order to kill the drow, take the artifacts, and free the slaves the PCs will have to massacre innocent people who are simply trying to survive until just tomorrow, until just after this fight, hell just until next round. They know that with a command word the collars will explode.
There are ways around it, of course, such as anti-magic fields. When the slaves charge into the field the collars and rings can be removed. A spellcraft check would suffice as well, but in the heat of battle this would have to be lightning quick or suffer 10d8 damage when the slave explodes.Is it too much? Mechanically it would be fine. However, would it push the morality of the...
Seems pretty tame to me.
Less crass would be to trick the party into killing an "evil overlord" and then watch the look of horror as they slowly realize that all their efforts the past year were to help the bad guys and that they are the true monsters of this tale.
@marthkus..
I had that happen once where i was supposed to help the bad guy... but I called it pretty early and had some wolves eat him....
I sometimes wish i didn't roll high wis characters constantly.
@marthkus..
I had that happen once where i was supposed to help the bad guy... but I called it pretty early and had some wolves eat him....
I sometimes wish i didn't roll high wis characters constantly.
The trick is to center the whole campaign around it. And to make sure that the "overlord" is in a morally grey area and does do evil things. What the party doesn't know is all the details of those "evil" things and how the people they are working for forced the situations.
Introduce the greatest evils. Politicians and propaganda.
@marthkus..
I had that happen once where i was supposed to help the bad guy... but I called it pretty early and had some wolves eat him....
I sometimes wish i didn't roll high wis characters constantly.
The trick is to center the whole campaign around it. And to make sure that the "overlord" is in a morally grey area and does do evil things. What the party doesn't know is all the details of those "evil" things and how the people they are working for forced the situations.
Introduce the greatest evils. Politicians and propaganda.
i've also played two infiltrator types where i was the villain/ect One where I died at the hands of a "Party civil war (Whether or not to accept the help of a user of necromancy)"So i played as his son posing as a mercenary who sought vengeance on his killers but needed to figure out why his father was involved. He decided to aid the party's goal before he turnedon them (As decided by my "Don't turn on them til the campaign is about over" policy)
The other character was a war criminal guilty of human experimentation and genocide/crimes against humanity regaining access to his totalitarian government.... posing as an old scientist and had it on my bucket list as a character to end game get them to take me back to my government.
It's really a constant state of worrying about doublecrosses