Storyline suggestions needed

[Muddman72]

Story so far: the heroes have spent their time on the side of the crown princess who was supplanted by a younger brother on a false charge of cult worship. They have befriended foreign powers and internal factions to build and fund an army and they are currently preparing for civil war.

A side story has been a strange and powerful cult has been finding and stealing ancient texts, though the characters have no idea why. The books are part of a ritual to call the attention of a world eating deity sleeping in the void of space.

Anyone have any ideas how to weave these two stories together?

[boring7]

Well you haven't mentioned which cult the princess was accused of working for, but I supposed it doesn't really matter.

The obvious choice is that the Prince was a projection master and is a member if not the leader of the Spacegod Cult (hereafter referred to as "Azzies"). He or some other high-ranking Azzie let the princess and the PCs escape and has been hoping/helping them gear up to get the civil war kicked off because part of the ultimate ritual involves a civil war worth of concentrated bloodshed as sacrifice to get the spacegod's attention. Even if the princess turns away, the prince himself can just declare war on a neighbor and kick-start the apocralypse.

But that's traditional and maybe I need to challenge myself creatively (or you just think it's stupid). How about the Texts being prophetic? Perhaps the next book the cult needs determines a very SPECIFIC sacrifice or component person that the Azzies need for the final calling. Obviously the prophecy is going to be worded to refer to one of the royal kids, bonus points has it refer to BOTH, triple-word score words it such that if either one dies violently (say in battle or assassination) their death can be used, and crazy twist ending has a royal bastard (half-brother to the royal kids) coming in and making a problem just when they thought it was safe.

But what if we don't want something so specific to the royals. How about option #3? Azzies doesn't need or care about who's in charge, they just need the war. Aside from using the sack of a castle to loot the Final Black Book of Bloody Doom, they're feeding something. The last spawn of the spacegod, a monster of unfathomable horror, it needs the horror and pain of war and the piles of meat and blood from the dying and wounded soldiers on the battlefield to finish awakening and assisting the Azzies in their goal of calling him from beyond to devour. The war is all that matters, and the blood and cover that it provides. Bring in some off-brand abberation (or even just a regular critter with a bunch of templates and tentacles) as a boss fight or even a diplomancy tour where the party manages to avert a war and turn both armies against the Azzies secret base where the monster sleeps. Nothing quite like having two armies surround and besiege a cultist crypt while you "solve practical problems." Fun half-twist; the Azzies sacrifice themselves, leaving The Beast awake but unable to complete the ritual (needs more cultists) and trying to kill its way past the two armies and the PCs so it can set up shop elsewhere.

[Eltacolibre]

just a suggestion:

-One of their foreign leader, is actually sending them information about the whereabouts of the cult and guiding them on how to stop the ritual, little did they know that they are actually doing all the steps to complete the ritual and killing the cultists would complete the ritual. As the foreign leader reveals himself to be the high priest of the cult. Usually when you set it up as a quest, most adventurers will just do it out of good faith without wondering what are the true intent of the patron beside saving the world.

[boring7]

Or he could be the head of an opposing but also crazy-evil cult.

In which case, sounds like a job for Old Man Henderson.

[Goth Guru]

Every human, Orc, or goblin they kill is strangely drained of blood. Cult headquarters has a pool of blood that when filled creates an egg that hatches. Unless the horrible caterpillar thing is killed, it will burrow into the world and start eating it out. Breaking out of the now hollow world, in 60 years, it will be a super sized death's head moth.

[Muddman72]

boring7 wrote:

Well you haven't mentioned which cult the princess was accused of working for, but I supposed it doesn't really matter.

Sorry, I didn't mention which cult because thats a function of the campaign. The Elder Evils are not bound strongly to the material plane. Even knowing their name creates a maddening resonance in the knowers mind that can drive one insane over time as the knowledge of the evil's name can call the attention of that power, so no one actually speaks the names of the individual powers. Any cult worshiping any elder power is called "Chaos" worship, so shes been accused of that.

[Rabbiteconomist]

1) The Chaos cult leader is related or connected to the Princess or Prince somehow. Cult leader could be an exiled or presumed dead sibling, bastard half-sibling, a lover, or a lieutenant or adviser to a monarch.

2) The Chaos cult is blackmailing either royal. The cult is gathering ancient texts in their search, which they probably looked through lots of others sources. They could have discovered scandalous, criminal, magical or mundane information that one or both royals don't want known. Random thought: Perhaps the cult leader is in fact the legitimate heir to the throne?