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Tosk posted:So I'm running a campaign that had 5 players, but one couldn't continue and we decided not to look for a replacement at the moment. He was, unfortunately, the group's healer and their party now consist of a level 2 Warlock, Wizard, Rogue and Barbarian. if you’re playing 5e use the sidekick rules from Tasha’s, pick something cool/fun/flavorful (at a glance myconid adult or a friendly sprite would rock), and have the party jointly control their new mascot in combat. they can level with the party but they’ll never be as strong as a full-fledged PC…which is good, because it means they’ll never outshine one.
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Sep 1, 2022 02:28
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Tosk posted:So I'm running a campaign that had 5 players, but one couldn't continue and we decided not to look for a replacement at the moment. He was, unfortunately, the group's healer and their party now consist of a level 2 Warlock, Wizard, Rogue and Barbarian. Let a player control them, but roll Morale Checks in combat whenever the NPC takes damage or is used for something dangerous. You should role-play them outside of combat, but don't make them a particularly interesting character. Just a dutiful hireling who wants to get paid. Depending on how well he is paid you should also do Morale Checks at the end of every adventure. Give a modifier if the PCs mistreat the hireling or put them in danger. If the hireling fails the Morale Check they leave the party, or maybe even attack them or poison them in the night if you roll really badly  You can find actual rules for this system in OSRIC, or just wing it! https://osricrpg.com/product.php?id=138
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Sep 1, 2022 03:07
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Thanks guys, great stuff. I think I will use the Sidekick rules from Tasha, tweaked here or there. Insight from other GMs is always helpful, so thanks for that.Rutibex posted:You can find actual rules for this system in OSRIC, or just wing it! Really enjoying this book! Thanks for the link. I'm going for a sort of blend between the theater of mind 5e style I'm used to and introducing a lot more classic, dungeoncrawly elements into the campaign (tension dice, more structured timekeeping and resource tracking and the like) and it has a lot of very helpful mechanics and tables to draw from for that without losing the DnD vibe.
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Sep 1, 2022 12:49
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Are there any published adventures that are mostly based around arena/gladiatorial combat? Any system. Not even necessarily adventures, I'd take articles and any advice as well. My players have expressed an interest in a gladiatorial style campaign, probably in Pathfinder 2e. I think if the campaign revolves around just arena combat and then some political intrigue it's going to get boring and repetitive quick. Ideally I'd find a way to mix arena combat with exploration and adventuring, but part of the appeal for them is to do the whole Spartacus thing so I'm scratching my head at how to mix the two. The one idea I had is maybe they've been marked by a god and the god occasionally summons them to take parts in fights in order to train them, and then they're just set free and can spend their time trying to figure out what the gently caress this god wants or see if there's a way to block their number.
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Sep 2, 2022 00:14
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Are there any published adventures that are mostly based around arena/gladiatorial combat? Any system. Not even necessarily adventures, I'd take articles and any advice as well. My players have expressed an interest in a gladiatorial style campaign, probably in Pathfinder 2e. I think if the campaign revolves around just arena combat and then some political intrigue it's going to get boring and repetitive quick. Ideally I'd find a way to mix arena combat with exploration and adventuring, but part of the appeal for them is to do the whole Spartacus thing so I'm scratching my head at how to mix the two. The one idea I had is maybe they've been marked by a god and the god occasionally summons them to take parts in fights in order to train them, and then they're just set free and can spend their time trying to figure out what the gently caress this god wants or see if there's a way to block their number. I suggest you watch every season of original Dragonball
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Sep 2, 2022 00:21
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Are there any published adventures that are mostly based around arena/gladiatorial combat? Any system. Not even necessarily adventures, I'd take articles and any advice as well. My players have expressed an interest in a gladiatorial style campaign, probably in Pathfinder 2e. I think if the campaign revolves around just arena combat and then some political intrigue it's going to get boring and repetitive quick. Ideally I'd find a way to mix arena combat with exploration and adventuring, but part of the appeal for them is to do the whole Spartacus thing so I'm scratching my head at how to mix the two. The one idea I had is maybe they've been marked by a god and the god occasionally summons them to take parts in fights in order to train them, and then they're just set free and can spend their time trying to figure out what the gently caress this god wants or see if there's a way to block their number. watch the STARZ spartacus show
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Sep 2, 2022 00:35
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Are there any published adventures that are mostly based around arena/gladiatorial combat? Any system. Not even necessarily adventures, I'd take articles and any advice as well. My players have expressed an interest in a gladiatorial style campaign, probably in Pathfinder 2e. I think if the campaign revolves around just arena combat and then some political intrigue it's going to get boring and repetitive quick. Ideally I'd find a way to mix arena combat with exploration and adventuring, but part of the appeal for them is to do the whole Spartacus thing so I'm scratching my head at how to mix the two. The one idea I had is maybe they've been marked by a god and the god occasionally summons them to take parts in fights in order to train them, and then they're just set free and can spend their time trying to figure out what the gently caress this god wants or see if there's a way to block their number. X-Crawl! The dungeon is the arena! Unfortunately I remember hearing the official campaigns were pretty bad.
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Sep 2, 2022 09:05
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World Wide Wrestling
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Sep 2, 2022 11:21
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Are there any published adventures that are mostly based around arena/gladiatorial combat? Any system. Not even necessarily adventures, I'd take articles and any advice as well. My players have expressed an interest in a gladiatorial style campaign, probably in Pathfinder 2e. I think if the campaign revolves around just arena combat and then some political intrigue it's going to get boring and repetitive quick. Ideally I'd find a way to mix arena combat with exploration and adventuring, but part of the appeal for them is to do the whole Spartacus thing so I'm scratching my head at how to mix the two. The one idea I had is maybe they've been marked by a god and the god occasionally summons them to take parts in fights in order to train them, and then they're just set free and can spend their time trying to figure out what the gently caress this god wants or see if there's a way to block their number. The Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is an AP that's based around a martial arts fighting tournament, it leans very heavily into anime/JRPG tropes and not ancient Rome gladiators though. There's also an adventure by basically the same name from PF1, but I haven't read it. I ran the AP and thought it was OK, but if your players aren't into a DBZ/final fantasy styled campaign it'll go pretty poorly. I'm sure Dark Sun must have some official adventures from 2e that are gladiator based, you all start as gladiators is basically the "You meet in a tavern" of the setting.
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Sep 2, 2022 13:49
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M. Night Skymall posted:The Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is an AP that's based around a martial arts fighting tournament, it leans very heavily into anime/JRPG tropes and not ancient Rome gladiators though. There's also an adventure by basically the same name from PF1, but I haven't read it. I ran the AP and thought it was OK, but if your players aren't into a DBZ/final fantasy styled campaign it'll go pretty poorly. I'm sure Dark Sun must have some official adventures from 2e that are gladiator based, you all start as gladiators is basically the "You meet in a tavern" of the setting. The first scenario of Darksun is a about gladiators assassinating one of the Sorceror Kings during a ritual he was conducting to sacrifice the arena crowd. Then the gladiators form a new society and ban slavery. Darksun would be a great place to look for material.
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Sep 2, 2022 16:09
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Thanks for the suggestions! A discussion on the Spartacus TV show is actually what started this whole interest in gladiatorial combat. I have to admit I never thought of doing it anime tournament arc style but this actually would probably be right up my players' alley. One of the things that interests me about this arena combat idea is that I'd like to set up recurring adversaries or hosts with their own gimmicks, like oh you're up against the mad scientist next, remember him, he's the guy who likes to combine two monsters together. Last time you had a Bullette Rust Monster, wonder what it's going to be this time.
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Sep 2, 2022 18:42
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So one of my current GMs (Who is wonderful) gets her players to fill out a form to decide the direction of the campaign and get to know their characters. I really like the idea and decided I'd share it. "Describe your character’s appearance: clothes, armor, hair, skin, eyes, body type (the artists in the group thank you for any and all details)" "Are there any game settings that you are interested in? Mystery, heist, war, high magic, politics, business, planar adventure, regular adventures? Etc " "Are there any topics or parts of your character/the world that you want to explore or find interesting? " "What skills, abilities or spells are you excited to use from your race or class?" "Where are they from and what kind of childhood did they have?" "Name the most notable people in your characters life. Please give a brief description of each. " "Do they dislike anyone?" "What has your character achieved to reach level X?" "What is your character’s opinion on nobility? On authority? On the lower classes?" "What deity, if any, does your character worship? What’s their opinion on other people’s worship?" "Is your character willing to risk the well-being of others in order to achieve their goal? What is your character’s opinion on killing others?" "What is your character’s current goal, summed up in one sentence?" "How important is the accumulation of wealth for your character?" (Scale of 1-5) "How important is the accumulation of fame for your character?" (Scale of 1-5) "What does your character think they are good at? and/or What do they believe to be their best trait?" "What is your character the most insecure about/believes they are bad at/worst trait?" "Fears?" "Hopes?" "Loves?" "Dislikes?" "What creature is your character the most intrigued by?" "What is a happy memory your character has?" "What is something your character regrets?" "Any hobbies? " "What is their guilty pleasure?" "Who does your character look up to?" "Who does your character revile?" "Is there anything specific that you want your character doing during the adventure?" "We want to have a safe fun time, are there any topics for you that should be avoided or approached sensitively? "
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Sep 4, 2022 08:34
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I need to mine goons for cool ideas because my brain is not producing. I have a dragon that ages ago ruled over a kingdom dominated by two tribes, she did as dragons do and did a hubris: claiming her kingdom would last as long as the halls of the gods and got herself cursed. The curse took the form of the two primary tribes feuding for eternity, as well as any of her dragon offspring feuding for the same period. In addition, her realm was frozen over as one of the cursing gods has a domain of weather/wind. Setting/system is Ars Magica 5th and this particular adventure line takes place in/near northern Rus. Over time, the feud has attracted the attention of Infernal elements. I've got a few 'standard' ways of breaking this curse: 1. The obvious 'ha gently caress you', of killing the whole line of both the tribes and her dragon children. 2. Doing a favour/task for another god (currently Baba Yaga in her role as god of death, rather than the modern bad press versions - the souls of the feuding are going to support the infernal bits of the feud, rather than the proper afterlife) who can then go 'hey guys, it's been a while, your power isn't what it used to be, do yourselves a favour and lift this dumb curse'. 3. Giving the two gods who gave the curse atomic wedgies and forcing them to lift it. The non-existent #4 is the one I need help with. The two gods are fae so I'd like some kind of other smart/tricksy method to lift the curse that I can drop breadcrumbs to so the players can figure it out and have it as a big brain option should they wish, but despite all my toilet thinking time, I can't think of anything cool enough. Any suggestions?
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Sep 10, 2022 19:03
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The players could go around smashing up the gods' temples so that the kingdom does in fact last longer than the halls of the gods, thereby proving the dragon correct and breaking the curse? As a solution it's sure to cause even more problems but them's the breaks.
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Sep 10, 2022 19:13
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Maybe there’s a way to tie the lineage of the two fey gods to that of the tribes, thus revealing that the fey have actually been punishing their own line unknowingly. And maybe if the people of the tribes themselves discovered they had fey god blood, there’d be a whole new can of worms to be opened, like maybe they’d collectively be in a position to directly challenge the two gods for the right of rulership over their domains. I guess what I’m thinking is, make it political and personal to the fey. That sort of poo poo is extremely on brand for those types.
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Sep 10, 2022 19:22
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SalmanBashi posted:I need to mine goons for cool ideas because my brain is not producing. The tribes have spent generations at constant war in inhospitable climes - meaning that, by necessity, they have become the two biggest sources of purestrain distilled badassery in the world Some other entity, we'll call it Looming Threat X, is on its way and it's gonna gently caress a lot of the setting up (there are no shortages of Looming Threats to choose from) You know what might help defend against Looming Threat X? Two tribes of incredible badasses who aren't at war anymore Pull the two gods aside and, instead of giving them atomic wedgies, just quietly note "Hey, you know what I bet might get you a lot of credit, in the 'worship of mortals' department? Lifting this curse so that these two tribes can form the core of the defensive army that saves all of humanity from Looming Threat X. Might work out pretty good for you, I'm just saying. Especially since any future worshippers can point to it and go 'see, our gods are merciful gods' and that always makes a god an easier sell." EDIT: but the gods can't make it too easy, so they go "we'll lift the curse if you help ensure this blatant Romeo & Juliet ripoff happens without a hitch" except it turns out to have multiple hitches because of course it does DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Sep 11, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 23:42
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Fey love a good rigged wager, usually its rigged in their favor but if the players are crafty enough....
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Sep 10, 2022 23:53
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SalmanBashi posted:I need to mine goons for cool ideas because my brain is not producing. Since there's two gods and two tribes, maybe they can trick the two gods into each picking a side in the feud, causing them to become part of the curse unless they break it?
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Sep 11, 2022 00:21
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A couple of ideas: - Since the curse is on the dragon’s lineage/kingdom specifically, pass the succession on to a new one and rename the kingdom, persuading the offspring to leave and taking their ‘kingdom’ with them, leaving the tribes to rule in peace. - Trap the bickering dragon offspring in some kind of powerful Bag of Holding-esque arcane sanctuary (their ‘kingdom’ - could be a snowglobe) for all eternity so that the tribes can get on with their lives in peace. - Find a adventure-driven way to turn back the endless winter (presumably the original dragon’s corpse or lair could be at the heart of this?) Then use this as ‘proof’ to the tribes and an effective piece of blackmail to the gods themselves that there never really was a divine curse. “Oh, mighty X, we know that your blessings and your curses are all-powerful and eternal. And since the endless frost has been lifted, all men must see that this wasn’t truly your work, but superstitious fools only believed it to be so to further their own feuds.”
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Sep 11, 2022 07:56
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arrange a diplomatic marriage between the two tribes and establishing a new dynasty. no more tribes.
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Sep 11, 2022 13:20
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Rebrand the feud as a never-ending winter olympics.
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Sep 11, 2022 21:33
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Thanks for all the responses! Can abolutely take some of these and fit them in. Or all of them, and have the temple smashing fae sex olympics to get swole enough to defeat the Mongols in 30 years.
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Sep 13, 2022 00:16
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Oh, you're using F.A.T.A.L.?
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Sep 13, 2022 01:57
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How concrete should I make the storyline(s) of my campaign? Should it be something I initiate from the start or is it possible to ease into different storylines you have prepared letting the players pick the one they like the most? At around what level should the main quest line start to become a clear-cut thing? (Planning on DMing my first game in the future)
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Sep 15, 2022 04:01
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trapstar posted:How concrete should I make the storyline(s) of my campaign? Should it be something I initiate from the start or is it possible to ease into different storylines you have prepared letting the players pick the one they like the most? At around what level should the main quest line start to become a clear-cut thing? (Planning on DMing my first game in the future) Keep it flexible. You can start out with a storyline like "Kobold cult going to take over villages through underground tunnels," but if your players like getting into political intrigues, then you'll need to ditch your storyline plans and pivot. Maybe 3rd level for pushing the storyline once you've gotten the idea that the players will synch with it? All depends on what you expose them to in levels 1 & 2. (Best answer: a variety of themes so you can see what resonates) On the other hand, if your players are more passive, then you sort of need to ram that storyline from level 1 (or be ok with running disconnected adventures).
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Sep 15, 2022 04:45
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Admiralty Flag posted:Keep it flexible. You can start out with a storyline like "Kobold cult going to take over villages through underground tunnels," but if your players like getting into political intrigues, then you'll need to ditch your storyline plans and pivot. Thank you for the advice!! It's nice to know I can have a bit of flexibility with what I do as a DM!
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Sep 15, 2022 05:45
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Think of 2-3 large forces that are acting logically to achieve goals, and have those goals conflict with stuff your players care about. Then you don't have to have a plot, the plot is whatever the players do in response. If the players decide to settle down and start a pub in their home town instead of stopping the kobold invasion that's great! The plot is now running a pub in the face of a kobold invasion!
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Sep 15, 2022 06:59
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Does anyone have any tips for coming up with interesting layouts for dungeons and other encounter areas?
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Sep 15, 2022 11:26
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trapstar posted:How concrete should I make the storyline(s) of my campaign? Should it be something I initiate from the start or is it possible to ease into different storylines you have prepared letting the players pick the one they like the most? At around what level should the main quest line start to become a clear-cut thing? (Planning on DMing my first game in the future) you do bookends. start with a small, local conflict, and create a big defining threat later -- plan nothing about how these two connect, and only vaguely figure out the plan of the defining threat. leekster posted:Does anyone have any tips for coming up with interesting layouts for dungeons and other encounter areas? look at video games for example, see what dungeon layouts are cool and which are wack. for encounter design the biggest thing you can do to level up your game is to add some form of stage hazard. i had encounters where the floor breaks apart mid battle creating multi level counters, encounters where the room was slowly flooding, you can have encounters set in an inherently dangerous space such as a volcano, etc.
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Sep 15, 2022 15:04
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pog boyfriend posted:look at video games for example, see what dungeon layouts are cool and which are wack. for encounter design the biggest thing you can do to level up your game is to add some form of stage hazard. i had encounters where the floor breaks apart mid battle creating multi level counters, encounters where the room was slowly flooding, you can have encounters set in an inherently dangerous space such as a volcano, etc. Without taking this statement too literally, an easy way to help you get into this mindset is thinking of the space that the fight is happening in as potentially another mob in the fight. What/how/why is it participating in the combat and how could/will it get nullified? And for some encounters you can just decide that the room doesn't get to +1 the fight while for other fights the room does. Design enough encounters like that and you'll stop needing to prompt yourself with that framing and just naturally see opportunities everywhere.
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Sep 15, 2022 15:17
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My players really like if it they know I've got multiple threats or circumstances building, and they can pick and choose what to deal with, and anything they don't deal with is going to get worse (and be dealt with when they're higher level). There's a lot of good natured faux despair over "oh no, we should have done something, now look!". In a game I was playing in, the GM was like: "The planet that has your secret vault of terrible relics has been conquered by the Tau and is now occupied, a planet that's reporting gene stealer cults operating openly in the underhive, and a planet where your major campaign nemesis, the rogue inquisitor turned Chaos worshipper, has been seen. Which planet do you want to go to directly, which one do you want to send your NPCs to start on, and which are you going to have to leave unaddressed?" Lot of pleasant hand wringing over that. (By the time we got to the hive world it was full on Tyranid hell)
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Sep 15, 2022 15:21
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sebmojo posted:Think of 2-3 large forces that are acting logically to achieve goals, and have those goals conflict with stuff your players care about. Then you don't have to have a plot, the plot is whatever the players do in response. If the players decide to settle down and start a pub in their home town instead of stopping the kobold invasion that's great! The plot is now running a pub in the face of a kobold invasion! I really like this approach. Having the world kind of move along despite what the players do sounds really interesting to me. pog boyfriend posted:you do bookends. start with a small, local conflict, and create a big defining threat later -- plan nothing about how these two connect, and only vaguely figure out the plan of the defining threat. I like the idea of keeping things open-ended. Someone told me you have to have an overarching concrete story from the get-go to keep the players motivated but that just seems a little daunting to me. Jack B Nimble posted:My players really like if it they know I've got multiple threats or circumstances building, and they can pick and choose what to deal with, and anything they don't deal with is going to get worse (and be dealt with when they're higher level). There's a lot of good natured faux despair over "oh no, we should have done something, now look!".
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Sep 18, 2022 01:46
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trapstar posted:I really like this approach. Having the world kind of move along despite what the players do sounds really interesting to me. Yeah, this is always the approach I've had most fun with as a DM - figure out who your Big Important Forces are and figure out what they're going to do... if the PCs don't do anything. Then, when the PCs do in fact do things, you work out what that does to their plans. For instance: King Rodney The Fat is launching an invasion of the peaceful nation of PCtopia. At the same time, the cult of Evilicus the Demon Overlord is preparing for a ritual to summon lots of angry demons. If the PCs didn't exist, the cult would be able to utilize the necromantic energies released by all the battles King Rodney's army is fighting to give the demons undead assistance, unleashing a demonic invasion just before the fall of PCtopia's capital which would tear through Rodney's army - which is a real problem for him, as the cult's agents in his country have been inciting a revolt while he's been off campaigning; the demons will then go and counter-invade Rodney's homeland, taking advantage of the civil unrest to overwhelm any defenses. Thus do two nations fall. If the PCs focus on defending against the invading army, the cult gets to do its thing largely unopposed, except for whatever curveballs the PCs are able to throw at them between military excursions. But if the PCs focus all their efforts on stopping the cultists, let them hear about outlying towns falling before the invading army. This way you make your players' choices impactful to the game - they get to see how their decisions on who to attack matter, and can prioritize one threat over another to whatever criteria they see fit. It also means that you can make one of your big antagonists get defeated, and hey look, you have this other big threat that's been building in the background the whole time, and now your PCs can deal with it! And they get to feel like Big drat Heroes for vanquishing not one but two existential threats! All of which, I find, makes for a more interesting experience, both for the players who get to decide how to prioritize threats, and for the DM who gets to look at what the PCs are doing every step of the way and go "okay, now how does this affect the other guys?" Like, if the PCs go out on a mission behind enemy lines to raid Rodney's supplies, do they learn about the unrest back home? If they're killing a mid-level cultist, do they find letters he's been sending back and forth to the cult provocateurs? Heck, could they find (or fabricate?) evidence that the cult was behind whatever prompted King Rodney to attack, and not only end the threat of his invasion but gain him as a powerful ally in the struggle against the cult? The possibilities are endless, and this kind of flexibility lets a GM be surprised and have to improvise as much as a player does.
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Sep 18, 2022 03:02
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Also PCs loving love it when powerful forces start trying to get them on side, because they've been such badasses they preen
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Sep 18, 2022 03:09
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trapstar posted:I really like this approach. Having the world kind of move along despite what the players do sounds really interesting to me. Make sure to throw in a rival adventuring party, who quickly clear out any dungeons or ancient ruins the PCs neglect. Always coming back to town decked out in their fantastic new magic items, throwing gold pieces around at the bar bragging about how rich they are.
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Sep 18, 2022 03:16
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Rutibex posted:Make sure to throw in a rival adventuring party, who quickly clear out any dungeons or ancient ruins the PCs neglect. Always coming back to town decked out in their fantastic new magic items, throwing gold pieces around at the bar bragging about how rich they are. Note: this can be both a useful source of enemies or a great scene when the PCs end up rescuing their rivals, who it turns out have been pretending to be a lot tougher than they really are for several levels now
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Sep 18, 2022 03:40
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Rutibex posted:Make sure to throw in a rival adventuring party, who quickly clear out any dungeons or ancient ruins the PCs neglect. Always coming back to town decked out in their fantastic new magic items, throwing gold pieces around at the bar bragging about how rich they are. Reminds me of this guy. 
trapstar fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Sep 18, 2022 |
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Sep 18, 2022 03:48
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I'm taking my two groups of players through the same campaign world concurrently, and could use some advice. Group 1 is on the eastern continent ; Group 2 is on the western continent. General setting is DND 5E 'Generic Medieval Fantasy ; very low magic (magic is considered an incredibly rare gift or terrible curse)' A few in-game days into the campaign, the players start to hear rumors about one of the constellations in the sky disappearing at night, only to show up again right before the dawn. The players investigate but due to bad weather, aren't able to find a conclusive answer. They go about their adventures, helping out people in need and doing hero-y things, until they are camped out in some foothills one night and they see the constellation wink out of existence. They stay up all night drawing maps of the sky and taking notes. As dawn breaks, the constellation is still gone. Fast forward a day or two and they see streaks of light in the sky. A meteor shower! Everywhere in the cities, villages, rural towns stops what they are doing and watches as several meteors break off from the flight path of the swarm and crash down onto the planet. There are several cities utterly destroyed, and both parties of players render aid where available. The survivors of the cities and surrounding countryside start speaking in gibberish tongues and repeating the same phrases over and over, each group of players experiencing a different effect to the local area, but the survivors are going mad/in shock/hyperfocused. (Think: The burned man in the hospital "Keyser Söze" scene from Usual Suspects [1994]). DM Notes: Each meteor site was one of the Forsaken (ancient scholarly accounts consider the forsaken to be a group of 8 that attempted to overthrow the gods; thrown into a celestial prison) crashing down to the planet. The constellation winking out was a magical barrier failing in the firmament of the sky, which acts as a celestial prison for some real bad mamma jammas. Each constellation is considered a 'cell block' and each star is an imprisoned ... thing. One group of players encounters a town in ruin, near an impact site but not directly struck. As they approach, they see injured people milling about. When they get closer, they realize the town has been overrun by the undead. The people they see are just shells of themselves, zombie-like husks that are mumbling quietly. When the party is spotted, the zombie-townsfolk turn and start sprinting toward the players, screaming "Run. RUN. OH NO,- YOU HAVE TO RUN. RUN AWAY - IM SO SORRY - YOU HAVE TO RUN". The other group of players have been helping rescue and triage a city struck by one of the meteors. Almost everyone they pull from the rubble has been blinded, with burn marks coming from their eyes and expanding out in a radial burn pattern. The townsfolk are murmuring about 'the shining eyes' and that they can 'see the truth'. A few in town who survived the initial impact and subsequent fires and building collapses have emerged and have effectively become wild/chaos magic sorcerers, Some have grown wings, others have turned into living beings of water, others have multiple heads/arms/legs, some have become spider-like. A whole range of WTF - and remember, this is an entire world where maybe 1 in 500,000 people can use some sort of magic, so it's an incredibly rare gift. What I'm trying to work out, and would like some advice/input on THE TWIST I would like each of the Forsaken to be an ancient adventuring party who became incredibly powerful and sought to change the world for the better. They saw that some of the gods themselves were hoarding magic and keeping technology down in order to siphon off the energy of the downtrodden mortals to enhance themselves, and wanted to put an end to it. Because they fought the gods and lost, they were cursed. In the example above, the zombies-who-feel-bad-and-apolgize-all-the-time come from a Cleric who has her mouth sewn shut when she tried to call upon her god for aid during the final battle. Her punishment / curse was to re-live all her most painful tragedies, and dream of her companions being slaughtered every time she fell asleep. As she slept, her divine energy was twisted, and she begins to infect those around her, who turn into these zombies who apologize for her perceived flaws. In the other example above, the wild-magic-people , a sorcerer was party of the party that fought the gods and lost. He wanted to bring magic back into the world in order to make the world a better place. Now he walks around, blind, and as he walks, beautiful flowers grow from his footsteps, and birds and butterflies surround him, like a Disney princess. But anyone who gazes upon him has a chance of having the "truth of the weave" revealed to them, instantly opening up their minds to magic in a usually fatal or drive-them-to-insanity way. I'm trying to figure out some heroes-turned-forsaken backstories and punishments, and how I can make the players believe these are really the villains they need to seek out and deal with, and a way to keep the forsaken wandering around. Is it part of the curse? So far I have: Xerk the filthy - Paladin turned ... something? The Titan - A giant (maybe a halfling with Bruce Banner syndrome? something that causes him to lose control?) Nord the Devourer - a goblin - alchemist maybe? someone *Elessi of the Shining Eyes - Sorcerer who blinds people and gives them access to magic which causes most to be driven insane Garn the Cube - a literal cube, about 1 meter squared. It hovers. No idea on this but I like the concept. Nekafali - the leader of the party, I'm thinking a druid? The Abomination - No idea. *Oboe the Static - Cleric turned Regretful zombie maker Any ideas for these heroes-turned-cursed-(unwilling?)baddies, or suggestions on anything I've written above, please feel free to spitball or make suggestions. I'd love to have a few twists in here for the player groups to ultimately uncover.
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Sep 18, 2022 13:44
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cool concept, though it'll be interesting to see how you stop the campaign from getting too dark, given that one group of heroes has already hit the glass ceiling of what is possible. maybe xerk the filthy was a paladin of the ancients, sworn to uphold the purity and sanctity of life, but in their quest to improve the health of the world's people they confronted the gods of healing and were cursed to spread illness and disease wherever they go, tainting the land and the people they swore to protect. for added flavour they could be visibly infected with several diseases themselves and, to keep with your theme of body parts, syphilis could have rotted away their nose/face. if you're worried about that purity/corruption paladin clashing thematically with a fallen druid, you could go the other way with nekafali and have them be rendered almost thoughtless in their exaggeration of nature. as in, they loved animals so much that they were mutated into some enormous beast with an endless appetite and no self-reflection or regret at following its instincts.
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Sep 18, 2022 14:56
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If Garn the Cube isn't gelatinous I don't even know what's the deal Alternatively (or additionally!), he's an avatar of perfect order, predictability and fairness. And I feel like a lot of what's going on with him should depend on d6 rolls. He doesn't move or actively do anything, but the effects radiates out from him; people rebuild their city with perfect preciseness and logic, but devoid of emotion or creativity. Maybe it attracts some modrons.
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Sep 18, 2022 15:07
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