D&D 5E Blowing up my campaign

[robus]

The rumblings of dissatisfaction have gotten stronger and I'm getting bored too of my high level reboot of OotA. It's just too samey and the grand finale is basically more of the same with knobs on.

The wizard in the party has access to wish (and as he was involved - in my version of events - in enabling the demonic incursion) he's contemplating using it to wish the whole thing never happened! Talk about a plot point!

Anyway, we're discussing options and the wizard most likely will become an NPC and the player will roll up a new level 19 character. The new finale will connect to an alternate timeline and the objective for the players will be to find and rescue said wizard who has recently gone missing. Planning to have his wizard's tower send out a pre-recorded message to the other PCs because the wizard has been absent too long and this is probably a bad thing

My question for the forum. What/who would be a good foe for a mini-campaign at this level? Note - I don't want it to be some massive dungeon delve, we've spent too long in the Underdark and we're looking for some fresh air and fantastic scenery

My first thoughts are some plane hopping jaunts to crazy places as they try to track him down. Perhaps he was abducted while visiting Sigil and taken some place else - but for what purpose and by whom?

 

[Mort]

My first thoughts are some plane hopping jaunts to crazy places as they try to track him down. Perhaps he was abducted while visiting Sigil and taken some place else - but for what purpose and by whom?

Plane hopping is a good choice.

My first thought would be the City of Brass in the elemental plane of fire: powerful Djinn, weird politics, fantastic and evocative scenery. Maybe the effeet imprisoned him in one of their bottles and the group has to bargain him out?

Or prisoner of the lich queen on the Astral plane - that could be an interesting and very difficult challenge.

 

[Draegn]

Charmed and enamored by Iggwilv who wants the wizard to break/limit the power of some demon lords and increase the power of others.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The rumblings of dissatisfaction have gotten stronger and I'm getting bored too of my high level reboot of OotA. It's just too samey and the grand finale is basically more of the same with knobs on.

Why not start with new characters at lower level - and play through some of the fallout from the uber-PC's past actions?

The wizard in the party has access to wish (and as he was involved - in my version of events - in enabling the demonic incursion) he's contemplating using it to wish the whole thing never happened! Talk about a plot point!

Oops, wished us all back to 1st level...

 

[robus]

Charmed and enamored by Iggwilv who wants the wizard to break/limit the power of some demon lords and increase the power of others.

Really wanting to wish those Demon Lords away so this is reboot.

 

[robus]

Why not start with new characters at lower level - and play through some of the fallout from the uber-PC's past actions?

Players want to get all the way to 20 - first time ever for all of them. Just weren't loving the Underdark (and the somewhat repetitive plot - my doing, but I also thought we'd be done by now but we've switching to every other week so things have dragged on...) so going back a few levels is not going to fly.

 

[robus]

Or prisoner of the lich queen on the Astral plane - that could be an interesting and very difficult challenge.

I see there's a Lich Queen adventure on DMs Guild by M T Black. That might be a good resource (as well as Mordenkainan's of course). But I don't want things to get too dark and dreary

 

[Tony Vargas]

Players want to get all the way to 20 - first time ever for all of them.

Really wanting to wish those Demon Lords away ....

You could move the action to the Abyss. Lots to do there.

Maybe they can make/acquire an artifact with the power to kill Demon Lords and take the apocalypse to them? Give it an attribute that a given mortal can only use it once. After killing a Lord or few, they discover a side effect: that they take on the portfolio, and start hearing the calls of the worshippers, of the one they destroyed.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Wish does interesting things if worded incorrectly. Maybe, in the new time-line, he’s just a regular Joe and that’s why no one has heard from him. He’s a farmer in Kansas.

I also like the idea of him having his own demesne (a super huge and elaborate pocket dimension)on some plane and it’s been taken over by another entity and he’s been imprisonned (by the spell imprison). His demesne can be as wildly scenic and as large or small as you want. It can have fantastic properties like reverse gravity or be innately magical which makes all spells empowered. Which would make it inherently more dangerous if it’s been taken over by a devil or some other entity. And maybe that’s how the wish made things ‘never happen’: In this reality, he gave himself to a demon prince to prevent the demon incursion.

 

[robus]

I also like the idea of him having his own demesne (a super huge and elaborate pocket dimension)on some plane and it’s been taken over by another entity and he’s been imprisonned (by the spell imprison). His demesne can be as wildly scenic and as large or small as you want. It can have fantastic properties like reverse gravity or be innately magical which makes all spells empowered. Which would make it inherently more dangerous if it’s been taken over by a devil or some other entity. And maybe that’s how the wish made things ‘never happen’: In this reality, he gave himself to a demon prince to prevent the demon incursion.

Yeah - a similar thought came to mind too. That would be very cool - trying to avoid demons being the big bad though

My current thought is that in the new time-line he "borrowed" the "tome of all knowledge" from Ioun and thence had it stolen. He's now been imprisoned by Ioun in Carceri and will be released only when the "tome" has been returned to its proper home. So some arch-lich is the big bad in this story - and perhaps they have the pocket dimension? - and perhaps that pocket dimension is in some magic artifact back in the original wizards study - (the arch-lich snuck out, took the book and is now plotting some big return?) Oooh - perhaps it's in some crystal ball/snowglobe type of thing?