RangerWickett
Legend
If somehow Sam, Lydia, Stoyan, or Ben stumble across this thread, know that if you read it, Zon-Kuthon shall sew your eyes shut with cat hair.
[sblock]The players all wanted to be paladins, since that's weird and novel. I'm going to start at 3rd level. So far we have a few general ideas for the gods they want to worship and the archetypes, but we haven't gotten to character backstories yet.
The first adventure of the campaign has the four PCs find their way to Taldor after each receiving a dream that showed four coins with different faces at the four ends of a cross. They'll each receive some other personalized vision. The adventure will start with each of them on horseback, arriving - for their own reasons - at a crossroad all at the same time, somewhere in Taldor. There they find a dead, recently-pregnant woman hung from a tree, buzzing with flies, and a loyal dog sitting beneath her despite having a mortal gut wound. As they try to figure out what's happened, they realize she's been painted with an unholy symbol of the goblin hero-god Zarongel. There's a town nearby, and the dog can (if healed) provide some guidance to help track down who killed the woman and stole her newborn baby.
Tracks lead to a goblin warren in the nearby woods, where a priest of Lamashtu intends to sacrifice the baby to curse the area and transform all the dogs within 30 miles into goblin dogs. Townsfolk report a strange group of three riders showed up in town a few days before the abduction and murder. Before they left they were joined by a goblin riding a huge goblin dog, and they headed south, toward the capital city, Oppara.
The core idea of the campaign is that there are four antipaladins riding around the area, recruiting cultists of Zarongel, Ghlaunder, Zon-Kuthon, and Lamashtu. They need to cause enough suffering to offer to their gods, who are preparing a trap for Desna in the dimension of dreams. A few sessions into the campaign, Desna falls for this trap, but pulls Ghlaunder in with her, which causes dream magic, teleportation, and any sort of magical disease to not work right.
But before that, the PCs follow some clues to Oppara, where there are rumors of political upheaval coming. The local Pathfinder Lodge has been forced to ally itself with the King or be made illegal, and he has demanded they explore the various ruins of his kingdom to locate treasures and magic that he can use to consolidate his power. I need to find a way to link the paladins into this -- I'm thinking there's a cadre of Hell Knights who show up to "help," and if the PCs want to be in a position to keep an eye on them and to take advantage of all the info the Pathfinders have on local goings-on so as to locate the antipaladins, they'll want to agree to do some work for the the lodge.
Maybe the Pathfinders have some try-outs, and there will be a variety of interesting characters and red herrings and clear villains, except it's a big city and you can't just go smiting folks who are politically connected. You need to focus on the real threats.
I've got one adventure in mind, where the party - en route to a ruin - escorts a Desnan butterly-breeder to deliver butterflies to a small town for a holy festival. The local Desnan priest is actually leading a cult of Ghlaunder, and it should be SUPER obvious to a party of paladins when the guy pings like nuts under detect evil. He has minions and a lair out near one of Taldor's old abandoned canals, and at night when the Desnan ritual is going on, the cultists are performing a ritual they expect to just spread some disease, but they happen to be doing it the very night Desna and Ghlaunder fall into a trap. A portal opens, and an immense infernal mosquito flies for the town. I'd love to get the PCs chasing it on horseback, trying to stop it before it lays waste to townsfolk.
Eventually I want the PCs to find the portal to the Dimension of Dreams, and enter (before or after the antipaladins do) to try to find a way to help free Desna. Meanwhile, the antipaladins want to keep the goddess trapped for as long as possible, and possibly steal some of her power before her more powerful extraplanar minions come to her aid. The Hell Knights, meanwhile, detected the planar incursion and want to control access to the erratic plane of dreams -- they're evil, but maybe the paladins can ally with them for the greater good.
I know it might be a bit too high stakes for a low-level party, but I figure I can give them time to level up while they track down leads with the aid of the Pathfinders, and possibly try to steer the imminent coup in Taldor so innocent people don't get hurt. I've still got a lot of brainstorming to do.
[/sblock]
[sblock]Brainstorm part two.
Apsu and Tiamat had two first children. Everyone knows about their son Dahak because he persists to this day. But they do not know about Trilla, their first daughter, whom Dahak wounded in a childish spat. Near death, Trilla crashed into Golarion and first created the chasm that today is known as the Pit of Gormuz. Her parents wove magic to put her into a dreaming sleep, while Dahak fled to Hell, feeling like he deserved punishment. His parents could not draw him out, and so he languished in torment for untold time, becoming twisted and destructive, for he believed he had set his fate by nearly slaying his sister. He turned his hatred of himself into a rage against his father, and began an unending feud.
Apsu moved on, but when he learned that Rovagug was going to destroy all creation, he sought to help. No godly power could contain the monster, because even gods have limits. But the dreamscape of Trilla held infinite possibilities. Asmodeus and his fiends tormented Trilla's dreams until in her nightmares she manifested a prison so unassailable it could trap even Rovagug. The gods drove the beast into the pit, and Asmodeus sealed it, trapping both Rovagug and the poor tormented Trilla.
During the battle, Dahak could have interrupted his father and doomed creation, but for a moment he glimpsed his sleeping sister, and his guilt prevented him, a weakness he hates in himself to this day.
Meanwhile, Asmodeus is pretty chill about the whole thing. He's got his utopia in the planes of Hell, and he's got the gods and mortals distracted fighting over this unimportant bit of chaos they call reality. The only thing that really concerns him is that Rovagug might be released, so any time the Dimension of Dreams starts manifesting in the real world, he wants that nipped in the bud.[/sblock]
[sblock]Brainstorm part three.
If the campaign seems to have legs, I can expand the plot.
Plot arc 1. Eerie omens. Pursue evil horsemen. Get help from Pathfinders. Thwart Ghlaunder ritual right as Desna gets trapped. Learn there are portals showing up and evil people want to find and control them.
Plot arc 2. Head into mountains, find a portal in a long-empty dragon lair, and a paladin of Apsu pops out of the portal, along with an evil spirit that animates the dead dragon's skeleton. Defeat it together, and the paladin can offer some exposition. These portals tend to appear near dead dragons.
Plot arc 3. Back to Oppara, have some picaresque journeys, in the vein of Kwai Chang Caine showing up and helping people. Cross paths with ethereal psychic beings that assume humanoid draconic forms, who refer to themselves as tarrasques. One of them tries to steal something from a temple to one of the PCs' gods.
Plot arc 4. Reach Oppara, research where one might find dead dragons in the region. This sort of secret knowledge would be held by priests of Norgorber, who are finding active work assassinating folks as the Prince and his daughter maneuver politically. Hopefully some of the earlier groundwork about Taldoran politics comes to a head. I'd like to see four paladins try to minimize how much chaos and evil there is during a coup. The Hell Knights might side with a faction opposite the PCs, but could possibly switch sides for the sake of stability. I'm thinking of ending with a raid on a Norgorber base to both root out the villainy and recover secrets.
Plot arc 5. ? Maybe head to Osirion and learn about Spawns of Rovagug. Something personal for Stoyan's character.
Plot arc 6. Into the Darklands to find a full entrance to the dreamscape.
Plot arc 7. Contest with others to gather magical power.
[/sblock]
Remember from 7th Sea: Risks, Consequences, and Opportunities. Yeah, those rules aren't in PF, but you can use that philosophy.
[sblock]Session One plans.
Visions, meet on the crossroads, tension with the hellknight. Hear buzzing and whimpering. Find body. Options? Go after tracks, or follow dog?
[sblock]The players all wanted to be paladins, since that's weird and novel. I'm going to start at 3rd level. So far we have a few general ideas for the gods they want to worship and the archetypes, but we haven't gotten to character backstories yet.
The first adventure of the campaign has the four PCs find their way to Taldor after each receiving a dream that showed four coins with different faces at the four ends of a cross. They'll each receive some other personalized vision. The adventure will start with each of them on horseback, arriving - for their own reasons - at a crossroad all at the same time, somewhere in Taldor. There they find a dead, recently-pregnant woman hung from a tree, buzzing with flies, and a loyal dog sitting beneath her despite having a mortal gut wound. As they try to figure out what's happened, they realize she's been painted with an unholy symbol of the goblin hero-god Zarongel. There's a town nearby, and the dog can (if healed) provide some guidance to help track down who killed the woman and stole her newborn baby.
Tracks lead to a goblin warren in the nearby woods, where a priest of Lamashtu intends to sacrifice the baby to curse the area and transform all the dogs within 30 miles into goblin dogs. Townsfolk report a strange group of three riders showed up in town a few days before the abduction and murder. Before they left they were joined by a goblin riding a huge goblin dog, and they headed south, toward the capital city, Oppara.
The core idea of the campaign is that there are four antipaladins riding around the area, recruiting cultists of Zarongel, Ghlaunder, Zon-Kuthon, and Lamashtu. They need to cause enough suffering to offer to their gods, who are preparing a trap for Desna in the dimension of dreams. A few sessions into the campaign, Desna falls for this trap, but pulls Ghlaunder in with her, which causes dream magic, teleportation, and any sort of magical disease to not work right.
But before that, the PCs follow some clues to Oppara, where there are rumors of political upheaval coming. The local Pathfinder Lodge has been forced to ally itself with the King or be made illegal, and he has demanded they explore the various ruins of his kingdom to locate treasures and magic that he can use to consolidate his power. I need to find a way to link the paladins into this -- I'm thinking there's a cadre of Hell Knights who show up to "help," and if the PCs want to be in a position to keep an eye on them and to take advantage of all the info the Pathfinders have on local goings-on so as to locate the antipaladins, they'll want to agree to do some work for the the lodge.
Maybe the Pathfinders have some try-outs, and there will be a variety of interesting characters and red herrings and clear villains, except it's a big city and you can't just go smiting folks who are politically connected. You need to focus on the real threats.
I've got one adventure in mind, where the party - en route to a ruin - escorts a Desnan butterly-breeder to deliver butterflies to a small town for a holy festival. The local Desnan priest is actually leading a cult of Ghlaunder, and it should be SUPER obvious to a party of paladins when the guy pings like nuts under detect evil. He has minions and a lair out near one of Taldor's old abandoned canals, and at night when the Desnan ritual is going on, the cultists are performing a ritual they expect to just spread some disease, but they happen to be doing it the very night Desna and Ghlaunder fall into a trap. A portal opens, and an immense infernal mosquito flies for the town. I'd love to get the PCs chasing it on horseback, trying to stop it before it lays waste to townsfolk.
Eventually I want the PCs to find the portal to the Dimension of Dreams, and enter (before or after the antipaladins do) to try to find a way to help free Desna. Meanwhile, the antipaladins want to keep the goddess trapped for as long as possible, and possibly steal some of her power before her more powerful extraplanar minions come to her aid. The Hell Knights, meanwhile, detected the planar incursion and want to control access to the erratic plane of dreams -- they're evil, but maybe the paladins can ally with them for the greater good.
I know it might be a bit too high stakes for a low-level party, but I figure I can give them time to level up while they track down leads with the aid of the Pathfinders, and possibly try to steer the imminent coup in Taldor so innocent people don't get hurt. I've still got a lot of brainstorming to do.
[/sblock]
[sblock]Brainstorm part two.
Apsu and Tiamat had two first children. Everyone knows about their son Dahak because he persists to this day. But they do not know about Trilla, their first daughter, whom Dahak wounded in a childish spat. Near death, Trilla crashed into Golarion and first created the chasm that today is known as the Pit of Gormuz. Her parents wove magic to put her into a dreaming sleep, while Dahak fled to Hell, feeling like he deserved punishment. His parents could not draw him out, and so he languished in torment for untold time, becoming twisted and destructive, for he believed he had set his fate by nearly slaying his sister. He turned his hatred of himself into a rage against his father, and began an unending feud.
Apsu moved on, but when he learned that Rovagug was going to destroy all creation, he sought to help. No godly power could contain the monster, because even gods have limits. But the dreamscape of Trilla held infinite possibilities. Asmodeus and his fiends tormented Trilla's dreams until in her nightmares she manifested a prison so unassailable it could trap even Rovagug. The gods drove the beast into the pit, and Asmodeus sealed it, trapping both Rovagug and the poor tormented Trilla.
During the battle, Dahak could have interrupted his father and doomed creation, but for a moment he glimpsed his sleeping sister, and his guilt prevented him, a weakness he hates in himself to this day.
Meanwhile, Asmodeus is pretty chill about the whole thing. He's got his utopia in the planes of Hell, and he's got the gods and mortals distracted fighting over this unimportant bit of chaos they call reality. The only thing that really concerns him is that Rovagug might be released, so any time the Dimension of Dreams starts manifesting in the real world, he wants that nipped in the bud.[/sblock]
[sblock]Brainstorm part three.
If the campaign seems to have legs, I can expand the plot.
Plot arc 1. Eerie omens. Pursue evil horsemen. Get help from Pathfinders. Thwart Ghlaunder ritual right as Desna gets trapped. Learn there are portals showing up and evil people want to find and control them.
Plot arc 2. Head into mountains, find a portal in a long-empty dragon lair, and a paladin of Apsu pops out of the portal, along with an evil spirit that animates the dead dragon's skeleton. Defeat it together, and the paladin can offer some exposition. These portals tend to appear near dead dragons.
Plot arc 3. Back to Oppara, have some picaresque journeys, in the vein of Kwai Chang Caine showing up and helping people. Cross paths with ethereal psychic beings that assume humanoid draconic forms, who refer to themselves as tarrasques. One of them tries to steal something from a temple to one of the PCs' gods.
Plot arc 4. Reach Oppara, research where one might find dead dragons in the region. This sort of secret knowledge would be held by priests of Norgorber, who are finding active work assassinating folks as the Prince and his daughter maneuver politically. Hopefully some of the earlier groundwork about Taldoran politics comes to a head. I'd like to see four paladins try to minimize how much chaos and evil there is during a coup. The Hell Knights might side with a faction opposite the PCs, but could possibly switch sides for the sake of stability. I'm thinking of ending with a raid on a Norgorber base to both root out the villainy and recover secrets.
Plot arc 5. ? Maybe head to Osirion and learn about Spawns of Rovagug. Something personal for Stoyan's character.
Plot arc 6. Into the Darklands to find a full entrance to the dreamscape.
Plot arc 7. Contest with others to gather magical power.
[/sblock]
Remember from 7th Sea: Risks, Consequences, and Opportunities. Yeah, those rules aren't in PF, but you can use that philosophy.
[sblock]Session One plans.
Visions, meet on the crossroads, tension with the hellknight. Hear buzzing and whimpering. Find body. Options? Go after tracks, or follow dog?
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