I'm working on a psionics themed game using the fantastic Dreamscarred Press products, and borrowing a bit from old AD&D lore. I have a basic outline on the story and setting but could use a few suggestions to make it more interesting.
Here's the basic outline for the setting. Years ago (I haven't set an exact time frame yet) an Illithid Dreadnought spelljamming ship (with illithids replaced by phrenic scourge and friends) was carrying a large supply of slaves of various races to an outpost when it was attacked by Automatons (constructs created to defeat the phrenic hedgemony in psionic bestiary). The dreadnought crashed on a barely habitable world where the survivors of the crash spread out and multiplied, populating the world (or at least part of it). A lone phrenic scourge survived the crash by placing itself into stasis, and has remained in stasis ever since.
The various races spread out, a few branching off and creating their own societies, some of the more tolerant races banded together and have built cities. The plan is for there to be no strong nations, just independant city states, this will be a points of light style world, where the world is extremely dangerous and populated by all kinds of psionic monsters and other dangers. Over the years the races have forgotten much of their history due to the need to overcome such extreme hardships, so there will be some lore letting them know that they are not originally from this world, but they won't have many details. Since their ancestors were enslaved and experimented on by the phrenic, they will have no knowledge of arcane or divine magic, or the gods, psionics will be the only source of power.
At some point the players will be lead to the crash site and will explore it and it's surroundings (I'll be building that up into a sort of super-dungeon crawl). While exploring the crash they will discover the lone survivor and "accidentally" release it from stasis. It will then escape, and start implanting various humanoids who will grow into a sizable force of the various types of phrenic. The players will have to stop the phrenic from spreading and taking over.
I thought I might kick the game off by having a force of goblins, lead by a blue, stumble across some phrenic based psionic technology that is above the level of what is normally available and start causing problems. But I'd like to use something a little more creative than the stereo typical goblin activity to start things off.
So what do you think? Have any suggestions for ways to make things more interesting?
|
You can still use the goblins but would be more interesting if they had someone guide them in these endeavors. An Aboleth for example could be requiring said crystal for his research and is helping the goblins by providing them equipment they don't have access to.
Alternatively if you don't want to use goblins, Dromites might be collecting the crystals for their dromite queen to bring the dromite king to life. is it the beginning of new era?
Psionics connection with Lovecraft mythos and cultist is another possibility too.
Never really been a fan of aboleths, plus they're pretty powerful and if they are involved that would be a major plot line. I already have the basics of my plot line planned and it's focused on the phrenic hegemony. A minor side plot line might not be a bad idea, but aboleths, or your dromite idea I think would be major plot lines and would detract from my story.
Thanks for the suggestions though, just not really where I want to go with it.
|
Has your society banned and hunt down all Psionic manifester s due to their former slavery from them or have they choosen to emphasize Psionic research and development so they can be ready for it should they need to confront it again? Maybe their is a underground movement pushing for secret Psionic advancement and understanding, or trying to rediscover how to use Psionics to become new slave masters themselves.
The plan is for psionics to be somewhat common due to their exposure to it. Kind of like how the Gith are naturally psionic because of all manipulations at the hand of illithids they've suffered over the years.
I'm considering having a militant order dedicated to protecting the common man and using that as a tool to bring the characters together and get them started. Something along the lines of having there be a law that all children are tested when they reach adulthood and any that are found to possess psionic talent are required to serve in this order for a specified amount of time.
The psionic races from ultimate psionics are going to be the prevalent races other than human. And all the pc's will be at least a wild talent if not a full psionic character. Given the fact that this world was seeded with intelligent life by this crashed spelljammer vessel, probably a thousand years ago, there won't have been a long enough time for the longer lived races like elves, gnomes and dwarves to flourish and multiply. So those races will be very rare. As an example, if you consider an elf's lifespan, and how slowly they produce children, any given elf would likely know every other elf on the planet. That's how few there would be.
I am toying with the idea of there being a group of nomadic humans, maybe with some half-giants sprinkled in, that live away from the other communities that live a more barbaric lifestyle. And these people would likely hate and fear psionics.