Ideas for a Worldwound (Demonic Invasion)

Ash Mantle · Mar 15, 2019

So, was thinking of running a short campaign for my friends that predominately revolves around the eruption of the Abyss into the Mortal Coil.
Inspired by the Worldwound of Pathfinder lore, their characters will encroach into that Abyss-haunted wasteland where crusades are being persecuted by shining knights and resplendent paladins. These lands are ruinous however, and the corruption of the Abyss is both tainting the land and the people living within it. Now more often than not, the crusades are also being persecuted against innocents accused of witchcraft or the struggling remnants of the original inhabitants who are accused of collaborating with the demons.
This is not helped by the political machinations of neighbouring lands who are sending their criminals into the crusades as a form of severe punishment, or who are send their spies and agitators to cause chaos.
The players could play as knights and paladins of holy conviction but they could also play as criminals or agitators from other countries sent to stir trouble.

There'll be demons of course, but I'll also take care to describe the visible results of the taint and corruption by the Abyss on the land.
What sorts of things would be awesome to be included do you think?

Was thinking of starting them off at 3rd level and having them access to all UAs as well as the usual classes.

aco175 · Mar 15, 2019

Sounds like it could be fun. You need some cool ideas other than grand fights with demons and monsters. Maybe there is a castle that has never fallen to the demons, but now lies closed off after giving land to the enemy forces. Only a band of heroes can sneak in to deliver saving medicine, or sabotage the patrols on the road to make safe the good army to come back in. An enemy keep that never has fallen would work as well, but the PCs need to take it.

An open no-mans-land between two large armies where each force is in a stalemate until someone can break through. A movable castle- a giant juggernaut construct on rollers flattening all in its way or a floating castle being pulled by giant beasts like in LotR. A prison where captured soldiers are turned into a undead or half-demon army to send back against the forces of good.

Sadras · Mar 15, 2019

Having to secure deals with opposing Demonic forces or suspicious Planar Beings for the benefit of the greater good;

Having to make hard moral choices for the benefit of the greater good (death of a few to save the many);

Taint spreads to a prominent leader/face of the forces of good, whose actions begin to undermine the Pc's progress;

Quest to summon forth a celestial being to assist in the war;

Succubus love-entanglement with PC, the creatures seeks redemption and to escape her demonic masters, but can they trust her?;

Organising Councils, rallying Allies (Fearsome Dragons, Recluse Giants, Racist Elves, Misunderstood Orcs...etc);

Hear about and eventually rescue a trapped celestial within the Abyss, only to find out it is corrupted (a secret weapon by a cunning Demonic Lord);

Increasing Fear/Horror/Despair/Inability to Focus mechanics due to exposure to Taint.
i.e. Loss of Inspiration, Full Rest requires a week, Short Rest a day, Wild Magic potential increases, Duration of Concentrated arcane spells halved, Divine Casters require 50-100% more time for preparation (morning prayer), Forced Marched at Disadvantage, Food and Water tastes bland, HD Maximum Reduction, Death Saves reduced to 2, Increase Animal Handling DC checks by 5...etc

Use Faith mechanic to counter Taint affected areas or symptoms.

Increasing costs of basic materials (food and equipment), double the average daily gold spend as materials become scarce;

Seek help from the Feywild to restore natural order, or push back against the Taint/Corrupted Land, having to secure agreements with fickle untrustworthy Fey Lords;

As the Taint spreads the very elemental foundation of the world begins to twist wildly as properties change - Flames no longer gives light, but still burn, Air begins to poison and suffocate, Earth begins to crumble as the ground gives way (difficult terrain, long distance travel speeds decrease), Water turns to acid. Pockets of elemental instability begin to form. The ground splits and begins bleeding blood, birds fall from the sky....etc;

Demons begin mass kidnapping to spread their foul seed, a long ago prophecy of a Dark Queen that will rise begins to surface once more;

In a quest to find a powerful relic to push back the demonic hordes a fight ensues between the major faiths who will claim/use the relic. Good vs Good;

Armour and weapons rust, clothing fades, unless at full health wounds flare and open up and bleed once more, senses begin playing tricks, maladies and disease spread;

Background Feature: Divine casters lose access to their power temporarily, clergy unite to discuss the shutout....

Spell casting material components become incredibly expensive and rare.

Natural disasters increase including the supernatural (Psionic Storms).

Krachek · Mar 15, 2019

You can use some inspiration from the Game of thrones setup.
Their undead invasion is much like a demonic invasion, killing everything on its path.

Answer yourself some questions, why? Where? What purpose? How it start? How it possibly ends?
Does it spread like an invasion, a pandemic? Does it have a leader?

Ash Mantle · Mar 19, 2019

aco175 said:
Sounds like it could be fun. You need some cool ideas other than grand fights with demons and monsters. Maybe there is a castle that has never fallen to the demons, but now lies closed off after giving land to the enemy forces. Only a band of heroes can sneak in to deliver saving medicine, or sabotage the patrols on the road to make safe the good army to come back in. An enemy keep that never has fallen would work as well, but the PCs need to take it.

An open no-mans-land between two large armies where each force is in a stalemate until someone can break through. A movable castle- a giant juggernaut construct on rollers flattening all in its way or a floating castle being pulled by giant beasts like in LotR. A prison where captured soldiers are turned into a undead or half-demon army to send back against the forces of good.

Thanks heaps, dude. Yeah, other missions to break up the constant and grueling nature of the massive battles would definitely be something to introduce. And those are awesome ideas! The PCs may just have to sneak in to deliver life-saving medicine to a castle under siege, or sabotage demon patrols and demon ambushes, or somehow have to break through into no-man's land to deliver reinforcements, or somehow capture that massive juggernaut construct, or free captured soldiers who are being turned into things that break their mind and body.

Initially, I was either thinking of having the PCs start off in the middle of a mass-scale battle, with monstrous things around them coming ever closer and aberrant things shuddering onto the earth, and find out who they are and/or what they're doing there through flashbacks. Otherwise, they could be on an escort mission taking a convoy of known criminals or escorting a contingent of fresh reinforcements to the Worldwound. Then things go horribly, horrifically wrong along the way.

A random idea was to also have a film-crew, more arcane eye and mirage arcane (and similar spell) capable spellcasters with their own escort, follow them around to capture their exploits.

Ash Mantle · Mar 19, 2019

Sadras said:
Having to secure deals with opposing Demonic forces or suspicious Planar Beings for the benefit of the greater good;

Having to make hard moral choices for the benefit of the greater good (death of a few to save the many);

Taint spreads to a prominent leader/face of the forces of good, whose actions begin to undermine the Pc's progress;

Quest to summon forth a celestial being to assist in the war;

Succubus love-entanglement with PC, the creatures seeks redemption and to escape her demonic masters, but can they trust her?;

Organising Councils, rallying Allies (Fearsome Dragons, Recluse Giants, Racist Elves, Misunderstood Orcs...etc);

Hear about and eventually rescue a trapped celestial within the Abyss, only to find out it is corrupted (a secret weapon by a cunning Demonic Lord);

Increasing Fear/Horror/Despair/Inability to Focus mechanics due to exposure to Taint.
i.e. Loss of Inspiration, Full Rest requires a week, Short Rest a day, Wild Magic potential increases, Duration of Concentrated arcane spells halved, Divine Casters require 50-100% more time for preparation (morning prayer), Forced Marched at Disadvantage, Food and Water tastes bland, HD Maximum Reduction, Death Saves reduced to 2, Increase Animal Handling DC checks by 5...etc

Use Faith mechanic to counter Taint affected areas or symptoms.

Increasing costs of basic materials (food and equipment), double the average daily gold spend as materials become scarce;

Seek help from the Feywild to restore natural order, or push back against the Taint/Corrupted Land, having to secure agreements with fickle untrustworthy Fey Lords;

As the Taint spreads the very elemental foundation of the world begins to twist wildly as properties change - Flames no longer gives light, but still burn, Air begins to poison and suffocate, Earth begins to crumble as the ground gives way (difficult terrain, long distance travel speeds decrease), Water turns to acid. Pockets of elemental instability begin to form. The ground splits and begins bleeding blood, birds fall from the sky....etc;

Demons begin mass kidnapping to spread their foul seed, a long ago prophecy of a Dark Queen that will rise begins to surface once more;

In a quest to find a powerful relic to push back the demonic hordes a fight ensues between the major faiths who will claim/use the relic. Good vs Good;

Armour and weapons rust, clothing fades, unless at full health wounds flare and open up and bleed once more, senses begin playing tricks, maladies and disease spread;

Background Feature: Divine casters lose access to their power temporarily, clergy unite to discuss the shutout....

Spell casting material components become incredibly expensive and rare.

Natural disasters increase including the supernatural (Psionic Storms).

These are amazing ideas, dude, thanks heaps! I'll definitely need to find a way to include these in.

Ash Mantle · Mar 19, 2019

Krachek said:
You can use some inspiration from the Game of thrones setup.
Their undead invasion is much like a demonic invasion, killing everything on its path.

Answer yourself some questions, why? Where? What purpose? How it start? How it possibly ends?
Does it spread like an invasion, a pandemic? Does it have a leader?

Thanks heaps, dude. I'm not that familiar with the whitewalkers from Game of Thrones, but they're basically an unstoppable, unrelenting horde of death? So definitely could use that inspiration.

And those are definitely excellent questions!
Basically, the prime material world the PCs are on is more susceptible to influence from the Outside, rendering some of its inhabitants on constant vigil (while others remain blissfully ignorant), and incursions from things from outside the bounds of reality are relatively common. Curiously devils and angels and their ilk are strangely absent from this conflict into that prime material world. What this means could be something the PCs find out. And I'm also thinking of including power-players like a space-faring Lovecraftian-influenced empire of horrific things taking an interest in that world as well, they may even lend their tentacle in support of their PCs but at cost?

The Worldwound erupted from a corner of the Atlantean civilisation mucking about with the fabric of the barrier between worlds, they inadvertently called down a meteor that devastated the world and that also planted the seed of abyssal influence, allowing this influence to spread like a virulent plague throughout the surrounding lands (but which now has been curiously stopped and confined into its current boundaries). The Worldwound stops at nothing, though, to invade its surrounding territories.
The Worldwound has several leaders - mainly balors and mariliths but also incredibly powerful humanoids - and true to demonic nature work at cross purposes. How much this limitation of theirs remains a limitation is something that only the future will tell.

Sadras · Mar 19, 2019

Ash Mantle said:
These are amazing ideas, dude, thanks heaps! I'll definitely need to find a way to include these in.

My pleasure, this inspired me so that I know what I'm running after my table's current campaign

Quartz · Mar 19, 2019

Sadras said:
Succubus love-entanglement with PC, the creatures seeks redemption and to escape her demonic masters, but can they trust her?;

You could base a truly epic campaign off that one alone.

Sadras · Mar 19, 2019

Quartz said:
You could base a truly epic campaign off that one alone.

Tales of the Wyre

Ideas for a Worldwound (Demonic Invasion)

Ash Mantle

Adventurer

aco175

Legend

Sadras

Legend

Krachek

Hero

Ash Mantle

Adventurer

Ash Mantle

Adventurer

Ash Mantle

Adventurer

Sadras

Legend

Quartz

Hero

Sadras

Legend

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