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Okay so to answer this question first? Will the heroes win? i don't plan on really letting them win, the goal\ driving force of this will be preventing the big bad from becoming a god, shes is collecting fragments of a powerful jewel that have such a power. the reason she is establish a empire for this is to have the moneey and power backing her to find them and prevent would be heroes from stopping her. so they will win in a sense but it's going to be pretty much impossible to change this nation. second i am aware there are other places that are evil in this world, your cheliax's, world wounds, etc this place is devoid of the influence of gods or demons iwith why it's evil, its also just one nation in the present golarion timeline whereever that be. it's evil because it's headed by someone whose purposefully establishing a kingdom where she can't be opposed by just anyone (aka the pcs) it will also force the pcs in a way to work together and trust eachotherr because if they don't they could very well fall just as the heroes who failed stopping her the first time...
I should also clarify that the reason there is very little divine or or otherwise higher power is due to something preventing them from having direct influence. this also gives paladins, clerics, inquisitors, and other divine classes reason to adventure here to investigate why.
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You want grim dark, ill give you grim dark.
At one point, have your PCs interact or encounter Death's Choir.
What is Death's Choir? An encounter I ran in my grim dark setting. It is an army or simply squads of children of civilized races brainwashed ( through non-magical and/or magical means) into becoming Child soldiers with fanatical loyalty. They are called Death's choir because they sing f-ed up songs about unspeakable acts. I used goblin stats as a short cut. Then mass bull strength+ mass enlarge + greatswords.
Also, Tucker's Kobolds.
Edit: the face on my paladin player's face was priceless. Party nearly lost against Deaths choir because the person insisted on knocking every child out and used positive energy to heal them when people used lethal force. A PC, and a beloved DMPC were killed on the battle. Lol
Gonna be honest that deaths choir thing sounds brilliant and brutal. i woulddve love to see the paladins face at sight of such a horror.
Okay so to answer this question first? Will the heroes win? i don't plan on really letting them win, the goal\ driving force of this will be preventing the big bad from becoming a god, shes is collecting fragments of a powerful jewel that have such a power. the reason she is establish a empire for this is to have the moneey and power backing her to find them and prevent would be heroes from stopping her. so they will win in a sense but it's going to be pretty much impossible to change this nation. {. . .}
This sounds a LOT like Razmiran . . . Face of Divinity Adventure Path, anyone?
Okay so im going to do a quick recapp of ideas i am going to be using almost definetly. So we have what im amounting to assassin ninja kobolds drow and elves fighting together against an organized army of orcs,humans, gnolls, hobgoblins, etc. an anti-higher power fog surrounding the nation preveting the intereference of demons, gods, etc. evil or the very least neutral gnomes, legalizing murder to keep the nation in fear. a team of evil badguys working for the big bad.
Okay so to answer this question first? Will the heroes win? i don't plan on really letting them win, the goal\ driving force of this will be preventing the big bad from becoming a god, shes is collecting fragments of a powerful jewel that have such a power. the reason she is establish a empire for this is to have the moneey and power backing her to find them and prevent would be heroes from stopping her. so they will win in a sense but it's going to be pretty much impossible to change this nation. {. . .}This sounds a LOT like Razmiran . . . Face of Divinity Adventure Path, anyone?
i know it sounds alot like razmiran im also trying to find a ways to make it different.
Gonna be honest that deaths choir thing sounds brilliant and brutal. i woulddve love to see the paladins face at sight of such a horror.
My druid player thought my campaign was hilarious and upbeat. The paladin player said it was the darkest m&#$#-@/&#$@* he'd ever been in. That paladin had to deal with realpolitik of trying court the allies he could get, including Ogres and a dynasty of Green Dragons. He was also horrified when he was forced to fight and kill an Ghaele Azata that was killing his evil-but-slowly-being-civilized-and-turned-good Ogre tribe he saved from the prison camp.
... And this is supposed to be a BAD thing, eh?
Only if it's put before everything else.
Weapon factories would have worker deaths daily. Star athletes might have hobbies where they murder beggars and arrange them as art. The good guys will be framed for such murders and wanted dead or soon to be dead.
Basically what i'n gathering is thee only people that recieve attention are people with connection, power, or something like that right ? like if a guard or something gets killed its off to court or something for the offender, but if random peasant number 20,685 is kill nobody care. overall i like the ideas
^Oooo! I like this! Face of Divinity gets a Shattered Star twist, and puts in a twist of its own!
Of course, you HAVE to make possession of old lost journals of the Big Bad highly illegal, and the Big Bad should have a team hard at work searching for them almost the way Sauron had the Ringwraiths searching for the One Ring, with the difference that this is the Big Bad's B team, while the Big Bad's A team is primarily searching for the parts of the jewel.
I have some ideas for the background for your big bad. Feel free to discard
Long ago the the land was wracked with turmoil and civil war. Back then Big Bad wasn't so bad. She was a typical person living a normal life. Until the day her village as destroyed by a warlord and she was the only survivor.
As she lay in mostly buried the rubble of her house a voice in the back of her mind offered her power. The power to fight, the power to bring order and stability the land. As her power and influence grew so did her ambitions and the whisper in the back of her mind grew stronger.
She came to believe this voice was her own inner-self driving her towards her destiny.And now her final goal is to become a god and turn her empire into a religion with her at the center... but she is deceived. The voice in her head isn't her own inner-self but a God of Tyranny from another world who seeks to gain a strong foot hold in the world. So the Big Bad is in the end a pawn. The jewel will not actually make her a god it will allow the foreign god to enter the world through her.
Now here's where things get twisted, you could put a voice in one of the PC's heads that claims to be helpful and at times it does provide them with useful information. This is the same entity that influenced the Big Bad.
If the PC's gather all the pieces of the Jewel the voice will insist said player use the jewel to become a god himself in order to end the Big Bad's reign of terror. This has the same end result of the Big Bad using the jewel. However I would presume your players are wise enough NOT to fully trust a mysterious voice in their head.
Old journal recovered some some ruined fort belonging to the Big Bad could reveal to the PC's that she has a voice in her head driving her ambitions.
I do like some ideas in it actually, it works well with the idea I am using for the class. Its a class called the Harlequinn made by green smashomancer . Part of the idea where there's some force who gave her the power works nicely , but her being controlled by it is a part I most likely won't be using maybe said power more inspired this plan of hers. Point being it gets me think and if you wanna keep throwing ideas out feel free cause I need inspiration for important characters.
A really smart and insidious Big Bad would find a way to spin the tragedy for General Uno as being due to rebels/terrorists/traitors conspiring to hide from General Dos the fact that General Uno's family member was there. The Big Bad gets the benefit of retaining the services of both, while ensuring that the two (who will still hate and fear each other) will never cooperate in any conspiracy to overthrow the Big Bad. As a bonus, they get the excuse to go trash some other town on suspicion of harboring said rebel/terrorist/traitor conspiracy, or even just to increase surveillance and general oppression on everyone.
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A twist on the General Dos - scenario would be making that event the one that made him fully committed to the BBEG's agenda. Maybe he was "just doing his job" before then, being a family man an ensuring the prosperity and safety of his family. When he was told that the among rebels prisoners they had found his wife and daughter he was consumed by a sorrow and despair, that quickly turned to rage and an unnerving loyalty to the BBEG. He now hates all rebels and lead the BBEG forces with a blind loyalty and hateful intensety.
Plot twist: his family were not the rebels prisoners, they were among the leaders. The BBEG knows this and used General Dos' grief as a tool to twist him into a eternally loyal pawn.
If the general were to get proof of this, he would have a crisis of faith, and even possibly turn on the BBEG.
inspiration taken from star wars.
Edit: note that in this scenario there is only one general.
I also like the name, other variations are General Dios or General Deos, for a more greek reference (to hide frm the players that he started as a number ;) )
I see you point its just i feel that making the big bad the pawn of a high being or whatever it is take away the other establish thing that i'm trying to set the otherr diety's ,demons, devils, etc have very little power here. although i do appreciate the help from everyone let me say that again before continuing. so here's the ideas i'm having for a big bad team A :you have a mage hero whose been driven insane and now worships the big bad, a knight whose honor has been twisted forcing him to work for the big bad, General Trei de facto leader of the big bad horde who handle issues involving the rebellion. thats what i have at the moment, ill most like end up giving a larger post tommorow to show my tottal work as of right now
General Dos still burned the entire city to the ground and executed everyone. There is no way to spin that in a good way to please Uno unless that spin is your welcome to Dos's head. He already knows Dos did it to kill any possible rebels in the town doesn't change the fact a beloved family member is dead.
LuxuriantOak has an answer to this in between our messages.
What you purpose is the same spin Palpatine tried that when he blew up Alderaan. It didn't stop tens of thousands of Imperial officers from Alderaan from defecting to the rebellion. Your spin also completely ruins the story why bother with the background if the story didn't actually change anything. Instead of an interesting dynamic you have no dynamic.
This is true, but all this proves is that Emperor Palpatine could have benefited from some on-the-job training at Fox News . . . .
And the failure of either general to defect or engage in open warfare against each other, which does not exclude very nasty behind-the-scenes maneuvering and sniping, creates a dynamic of its own, and also creates an opportunity for the PCs, pointed out by LuxuriantOak above (although it certainly won't be easy for them to take advantage of).
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Somehow I skipped this before:
The greatest Evil, and the one most likely to make for a stable power base is the universal constant.
Bureaucracy. {. . .}
You need to see this movie. Brazil (1985 film) is Monty Python meets Nineteen Eighty-Four, set in a hyperbureaucratic and hyperconsumerist dystopia.
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Also, if you are going to have a Big Bad like Razmir, see this thread.
Actually that sounds like a really good thing to do, the big bad maybe tricks the PCs who at this point are either working for her or being a real pain in the fanny. I could have them tricked into fighting it for her or something it also sets up a nice mid-boss fight.
In the TV show Angel, a beloved character was used to provide the body for a dead evil god. The actress did a wonderful job. Having one of the PCs or one of their loved ones be the "Perfect Vessel" would fit the title of this thread. The big bad would get rewarded with immortality (but they could still die from violence).
Okay so maybe not a demon lord specifically.... just saw how powerful they are. I need something for them to fight that would work... any ideas on that? I'm think some demon or devil unless there are better suggestions.
That actually does give me an idea for them to be split racially some are evil, while some are as you say hold away in lairs that would "make tomb of horrors look like a joke"
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Use Isger. The hobgoblins of the goblinblood wars were being directed by said big bad. Orc mercenaries from Belkzen were hired as well, and the forces of Andoran, Cheliax, and Druma failed at saving the nation. This also puts the new evil nation in control of the main trade route between Lake Encarthen nations and the Inner Sea nations. Forces other nations to treat it as a legitimate power.
I use it this way in my version of Golarion, with another subrace of goblins, from deep in thef darklands, is behind the hobgoblins of Isger.
I actually looked at the ice devil just know I might use that as a base and give it a small team for said encounter.
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came in expecting a fist of the northstar campaign ah well guess I will say it...
You're already dead
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue,
Omae wa mo, Shindeiru
Not that I'm trying to be a downer and I love good anime references but let's try and keep posts relevant the thread please
Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy. The setting is similar in many ways to the one you describe.
The world is ruled by an immortal tyrant. As the trilogy progresses you learn that all of his oppression is to prevent his eventually foretold downfall. The reason he wants to prevent his downfall is because he is the only thing keeping an even bigger evil in check.
The murder thing is definetly something I need to work on, its a good idea I need to work on because it could really set the scene well to have a peasant executed by a soldier for no reason or something and nobody doing anything about it as if normal.
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The "murder is legal" thing wouldn't be that hard. No LEGAL consequences doesn't necessarily mean no consequences whatsoever.
If you kill someone, that someone may have had friends, family, business partners, or any sort of people that needed that guy alive and won't be happy with you. If you have enough of those people, or one such person in a high enough place, than suddenly murdering you isn't so easy.
Everybody wants to kill their boss, but bosses get to BE bosses by making the higher-ups respect and value them more than they do you. Doubly so in a meritocracy. Real-life street gangs and crime organizations don't flinch at leaving a random punk in the dirt, unless they know that punk has a gang of his own, in which case they lay off to avoid all-out war.
I think what we'd really see in such a situation is a culture built around clannishness and vigilante justice. Much like in Ravnica, the best way to thrive in this world would be to join a guild. That way you can scare off potential murderers with the threat of retaliation. In truth, most folks would never actually contribute to their guild besides lip service, and each guild would have plenty of members whose murders it wouldn't actually bother following up on, but the illusion of protection would be there.
From a GM standpoint? You could give the PCs the names of a few local gangs and their insignias with a Knowledge (local) check, and if they happen to cross an influential member, you've now got all the hook you need to throw combats with gang enforcers at them. For extra credit, make sure they have reason to cross swords with a person of note in just about every gang. As the PCs gain notoriety, perhaps gangs they haven't yet angered will offer to let them join. This provides them with connections for any "favors" they need (magic items to purchase, information, sanctuary, etc.) as well as helps drive the plot (as they grow in power, their gang leaders will have "tasks" for them that may advance their own agenda or get in their way).
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^Some societies on Earth even today in fact function like this in practice, even if they have laws against murder on the books.
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The "murder is legal" thing wouldn't be that hard. No LEGAL consequences doesn't necessarily mean no consequences whatsoever.
If you kill someone, that someone may have had friends, family, business partners, or any sort of people that needed that guy alive and won't be happy with you. If you have enough of those people, or one such person in a high enough place, than suddenly murdering you isn't so easy.
Everybody wants to kill their boss, but bosses get to BE bosses by making the higher-ups respect and value them more than they do you. Doubly so in a meritocracy. Real-life street gangs and crime organizations don't flinch at leaving a random punk in the dirt, unless they know that punk has a gang of his own, in which case they lay off to avoid all-out war.
I think what we'd really see in such a situation is a culture built around clannishness and vigilante justice. Much like in Ravnica, the best way to thrive in this world would be to join a guild. That way you can scare off potential murderers with the threat of retaliation. In truth, most folks would never actually contribute to their guild besides lip service, and each guild would have plenty of members whose murders it wouldn't actually bother following up on, but the illusion of protection would be there.
From a GM standpoint? You could give the PCs the names of a few local gangs and their insignias with a Knowledge (local) check, and if they happen to cross an influential member, you've now got all the hook you need to throw combats with gang enforcers at them. For extra credit, make sure they have reason to cross swords with a person of note in just about every gang. As the PCs gain notoriety, perhaps gangs they haven't yet angered will offer to let them join. This provides them with connections for any "favors" they need (magic items to purchase, information, sanctuary, etc.) as well as helps drive the plot (as they grow in power, their gang leaders will have "tasks" for them that may advance their own agenda or get in their way).
In some ancient societies such things took the form of feuding along family and tribal lines, with any rulers likely only imposing property laws, with almost nothing with regards to matters of assault, kidnapping, rape and murder.
Okay so here's what I've decided to go with regarding the murder law. It isn't a law for anyone of "lower class". Soldiers only pay attention to those who can pay for their services. As such problems must be solved by guilds and such themselves. As such everyone sort of has to joina guild because it's the only protection that they have. The soldiers basically protect the successful, who can afford their services, other than that they obey only the Empress A.K.A the big bad
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The main thing is the context of what happens after. If the heroes fail to stop the big bad from attaining godhood, then you have an empire with an evil god on the throne, which could be very bad, or just bad. How does godhood affect her? Can she control the power she has attained or will it erode away at her mind, driving her mad? Does she physically ascend from the mortal world into another plane? If so then who rules in her stead?
On the other end of the scale, if the heroes succeed in stopping her, she is either still around(so status quo of the world being run by evil) or she is killed. Knowing the players might kill her, think about what happens after. The big bad was evil, but consider that, without her, the empire might collapse into a mass of warring factions, fighting over the throne. Might equals right could lead to a worse and more dangerous person taking the throne, or the empire could dissolve into a series of evil nations-all fighting for control over the empire of the person the players just killed.
Suddenly there are many possibilities on how things could go south for the heroes. They might win the battle, but still have lost the war anyway. It's all about what you do with this.
So, the campaign is in full swing as our current gm needs a break due to school things as such I have taken over. I have successfully established the fear my PCs should be feeling in regards to the government consisting or kobold assassins with petrification poison, hobgoblin monks, great axe wielding bull orcs, and a sadistic but not completely evil empress (decided on going with a greater good thing, along the lines of good can't stop bad guys forever so I'll become the greatest evil sort of thing she just happens to enjoy certain acts that are evil). To no surprise the PCs have join one of the two rebel faction choices, unfortunately for them his rebellion is that of a 15 level witch and that's about it... one PC has broken the mind control the empress has on one of the 10 assassins sent after them . All in all things are going well, anyone have dungeon ideas for mines, urban settings, anything? I need them to get some fame or importance before I star sending truly horrifying things at them.
Also I've been trying to find more ways to humanize the empress, something to make them actually think before they try and face her. She is a custom race called bio form, basically she is an artificially made person, her DNA made her body unstable and as such her "father" deemed her incomplete and threw her out all in the trash style. Any ideas for that would help as well.
Probably going to reverse my decision of none of my legend of Zelda races thing in favor of adding some in the before time stuff using kokiri , giant komodo dragon people, and evil murderous fairies or something close to that, maybe evil kokiri instead.
I like the alchemy lab idea, and I have a mine in city that I had haunted and has a lizard folk shrine spewing out undead, I had mine as a coal mine but onyx could be a better idea
I would make the kobolds in charge of the dragons. No one could arise to power while the dragons were around, so the kobolds sealed them in a demiplane. The evil overlord gets kobolds that ride dragons as enforcers. Apart from that the kobolds are rarely seen because they are too busy lording over the dragons in another plane. That would make a good plot actually. Open up the dragon plane and they Kill the BBEG? Rule the world? Any other ideas?
Good idea, I've been trying to figure out what to do with local dragons. And the PC's feel sympathy for a dragon that said evil overlord has basically enslaved . So working with the demi plane and enslaved idea could work.
If it's maps you're looking for, you might want to check out Council of Thieves (The Sixfold Trial, What Lies in Dust, and The Twice Damned Prince), and Serpent's Skull (Racing to Ruin, and Vaults of Madness), Carrion Crown (Trial of the Beast, Wake of the Watcher, and Ashes at Dawn) for inspiration.
The idea of The Sixfold Trial is an exceedingly dangerous play the PCs partake in that praises Asmodeus and foils the plot of a (never proven, but supposed) demon-conspirator to frame them - certainly a valid-sounding play for your world - for the express purpose of being invited to a mansion...
Meanwhile, Racing to Ruin has a pretty decent mine map (a salt mine in the AP, but it doesn't need to be), as well as a whale processing plant and several very interesting one-off encounters that could be turned into different adventure ideas.
Carrion Crown is simply chocked full of urban goodness - really, if you're looking for urban dungeons, pick up pretty much any installment except Shadows of Gallowspire, but they have some great ideas there, which can be heavily adapted to your own campaign.
Obviously, if you do this, you'll get some spoilers.
If you're willing to go a bit "old school" (as it were), you can pick up the 3.5 product Mysteries of the Moonsea which (among other things) has you invade up to two wizard enclaves (depending on how you handle things), a senechal's tower, various caverns and caves (which could be perfect mine-sites) a volcano, and a series of fortresses stretched across a mountain range.
Similarly, City of the Spider Queen represents a drow settlement (later a city, buuuuuuu~t it's not exactly the best example, although it could be used, if you wanted) that adventurers are effectively treated as hostile invaders for.
Sons of Gruumsh is a great level four adventure (that has an adjustment up to 8th level available), while Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land features a prominent quest to build up a resistance movement in a small settlement to overthrow an invading force.
Going back to PF, Kingmaker represents rules to create your own cities and kingdoms, eventually allowing you to take on rival armies (though I've not gotten to that part, yet). The rules for this are available in d20pfsrd, if you'd like them sans AP (though it's a great AP!).
Finally, one really interesting city in a 3.5 book was Pal Ador (found in Races of Destiny) which features a high and sharp racial divide between elves and humans (with lots of prejudice)... and the largest prejudice of all going against those filthy half-blooded half-elves. So much so, that a half-elf movement known as the Scars have forsaken both parent races to become a pro-half-elf guild bent on tearing down the local power structure and replacing it with half-elves (with their own prestige class, the Scar Enforcer, which culminates with the half-elf taking it ceasing to be either human or elf, and allowing them favored enemy and smites against those two races).
Something like Pal Ador - a wealthy, if decayed metropolis - might be a perfect "what happens after" to the "good people" who were not destroyed by the "benevolent evil" rulers: effectively, when the Big Bad rose to power, (s)he shoved the "good races" (or rather strong examples of them) all into a kind of faux-utopian city which was supposed to be a shining example of good, except that, due to the evil pressures from the outside, slowly spoiled and corrupted itself, becoming deeply prejudiced (as the two "races of light" each blamed the other for the weakness and inability to stop the rise and spread of evil) so that there truly are no more heroes to look up to.
Or something. Hope that helps!