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So I want to create a Campaign where the party dies. And they stay dead. D-E-D, no lichdom for you, dead. But their adventure doesn't stop.
The afterlife seems like an untapped store of adventure material. Sure, some adventures may boast a trip to the hells, or the celestial planes, but how many have taken place exclusively in the afterlife. With the ultimate goal of passing on, (or another crack at life), i think i'd be cool. Plus i think the Psychopomps from Beast4 would be underused elsewhere.
Course my knowledge of the Golarion afterlife system is limited to the stat blocks of Petitioners. So any help in this regard would be most helpful.
Ground rules: Normal Resurrection/Reincarnation wont be accessible. I plan on killing the party around level 3-5 so cool ways to do that are welcome. The Party WONT be given the Petitioner template(EDIT: I mean stats for Petitioner).
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So, no Petitioners. This implies you'll be sending the PCs as they were (with equipment?) to an Outer Plane. Not sure about how this will work out, given that they won't be doing much on a Good-aligned plane and would be facing constant terror with little rest or recuperation time on an Evil-aligned one. Obviously, that should be tweaked a little. With Petitioner-like rules, you could do a cool thing where they come back as aligned outsiders to do battle with whatever high-level caster who blasted them to bits earlier (intentional). That would run the risk of splitting the party if they weren't all of the same alignment, though. My idea is to just run appropriate challenges for their level on another plane, without it getting monotonous...perhaps they could be taken under the wing of some powerful outsider? Or they could live as ghosts on the Material Plane, finding some Ghost Touch weapons so as to not screw over your Big Stupid Fighter types.
Well like i said, my afterlife knowledge is next to nil for Golarion. So to clarify, they are petitioners, if in name only and no extra stats. (old DnD experience left Template PCs giving me a bad taste in the mouth. [Half celestial, half dragon tiefling anyone?]) But for whatever reason, they cannot pass on to their final judgement.
Course the "powerful outsider employer" thing could something to look into. Maybe the party has to work off some debt to the powers that be. Or the circumstances that left a lot of collateral damage, and the PCs are "Deputized" in collecting the recently deceased.
Could be something to work with initially.
Okay, I purchased The Great Beyond source book. Gave it a once over and i think after the party's collective death i can shove them in Pharasma's Boneyard as a sort of hub for their adventures.
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As for how i kill them, I think i have a clever way to go about it. The party are Mendevian Crusaders, are to recover a Numerian artifact that supposedly can "Purify the Land". They get it, bring it back to Mendev, and use it against the Worldwound hordes. It works, and destroys that army of demons. But the PCs and the Crusaders assisting them are also destroyed in the process.
The Numerian Artifact is a Terra-forming device, that functions like a bomb. It takes apart all living things in a several mile radius and remakes them into lush, farmable landscape.
Cut to the afterlife, The PCs cant fully enter the afterlife because they weren't KILLED, they were just REMADE into that landscape. So until EVERYTHING that was made by the Artifact is dead, they PC's are still technically alive and can't pass on.
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What do you guys think?
The idea is interesting, but seems a little dry. Destroying a landscape seems funny for a few adventures, maybe adding the moral quarrel of farmers trying to live on this new soil, but it doesn´t seem to be.
Here´s a suggestion: The demon flesh corrupted the whole new landscape, with twisted alien plants, and new abyssal predators. This new land reaches directly into Mendev, thus creating a path through the wardstones.
Several fiends take interest into this terrible new land, taking pieces of it into their domains (this might be the excuse for plane-hopping)
Because their souls are still entagled with their bodies, which are part of the new soil, the PC´s might expirience various forms of corruptions, giving them a reason to hurry, before they skip jugdement and become demons.
The idea is interesting, but seems a little dry. Destroying a landscape seems funny for a few adventures, maybe adding the moral quarrel of farmers trying to live on this new soil, but it doesn´t seem to be.
Here´s a suggestion: The demon flesh corrupted the whole new landscape, with twisted alien plants, and new abyssal predators. This new land reaches directly into Mendev, thus creating a path through the wardstones.
Several fiends take interest into this terrible new land, taking pieces of it into their domains (this might be the excuse for plane-hopping)
Because their souls are still entagled with their bodies, which are part of the new soil, the PC´s might expirience various forms of corruptions, giving them a reason to hurry, before they skip jugdement and become demons.
That's certainly a way to give them a sense of urgency. I know for a fact that at least one of the PCs is going to be Evil. (more concerned with profit than morality.) So demonic corruption may make him sing a different tune.
I hate to say this; Pathfinder might not be currently equipped to deal with what you want to do.
I would personally say that your best bet might be AD&D 2nd Edition, with a full suite of Planescape material to see your vision come to fruition.
The difficult part is aquiring said material.
I hate to say this; Pathfinder might not be currently equipped to deal with what you want to do.
I would personally say that your best bet might be AD&D 2nd Edition, with a full suite of Planescape material to see your vision come to fruition.
The difficult part is aquiring said material.
Ahh Planescape, good memories. I guess the Major focus of the afterlife campaign is planes hopping with a heavy slant towards the outer sphere. Just need some "Hubs" for their adventures. I don't suppose there is a Sigil analogue in the Galorian Cosmology.
So the PCs must curry favor with the powers that be to either bypass the normal judgment system to their afterlife, or another crack at life. They also need to unravel the mystery of their "mostly dead" status, before their souls erode to nothing for lack of proper maintenance.
I think i can use the Taint System from Good old 3.5 Heroes of Horror, to simulate Soul Erosion.
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If you're looking for plot material, and reasons for the players to be in something of a limbo...
Might I suggest you look into developing a campaign around Groetus?
He's prophesied to bring about the end times once every mortal soul has been judged, and is kept from the Bone Yard by being fed the souls of atheists.
Have the party consist entirely of people from Rahadoum, and upon their deaths be sent off by Pharasma to Groetus to run some "errands" for him. The rest of this post is just throwing stuff at the wall to help you get your own creative juices flowing.
Have Groetus be in some way connected to the process of new souls being created. He's not just the end point of the whole process the universe is in, he's the starting point as well. From his being the souls which originate from the positive energy plane can coalesce into something useable by the material plane. The distance of his orbit from the Boneyard is directly correlated to how many more souls Groetus will produce. After that, no more new souls, no more new births, and from there the time of all mortals slowly dwindles down.
To reset the cycle, the heroes have to get him something, or do something.
One suggestion I have: The elemental planes are theorized by some Golarion scholars as having been original "material planes" that built atop one another, and that Golarion is set to become the next elemental plane while a new material plane develops.
Fifth Element shenanigans may ensue at GM discretion.