D&D General Campaign Idea Heart of the Obyrith

[Tyler Dunn]

I have an interesting idea for a campaign and I would like to see what you guys think of it
A powerful wizard created a powerful artifact known as the Heart of the Obyrith. It was sought out by the cult of a demon lord to be used in a ritual to make said demon lord incredibly powerful. An organization of good mages found it instead and, upon learning of what it was capable of doing, set out to create a different artifact to destroy it. Before they could, the cult attacked their home base and nearly claimed it for themselves, but one mage used the incomplete artifact to shatter it and send its pieces to random parts of the world.
The party would stumble across one of the fragments by accident and be contacted by the organization of good mages. They would task them with finding the other fragments. After the party finds them, the organization would task them with finding the final component of the artifact meant to destroy it. Before they return with it, however, the place the shards were hidden would be attacked by the cult and the shards would be transported to the demon lord. The party would then have to talk a couple of other demon lords into attacking the demon lord's layer of the abyss in order to give themselves a chance to infiltrate his lair and destroy the Heart of the Obyrith before the demon lord can use it in a ritual to make himself incredibly powerful.
What do you guys think?

 

[Doug McCrae]

The basic idea of Evil Artefact opposed by Good Artefact, Good Artefact disassembled, and demon lord involvement is sound.

You could give your story a bit more heft and grandeur by replacing the wizard and mages with the good and evil gods of your world. The Evil Artefact was created by Vecna, Lolth, Tiamat and Bane (or whoever) working together. Maybe the demon lord was in on the action too as a minor player. He got a taste of being near the Evil Artefact and now he craves it, like Gollum. Maybe the Heart of the Obyrith is the actual heart of an actual god. The Good Artefact was created by Pelor, Bahamut, St Cuthbert etc. The good guy organisation looking to put the Good Artefact back together are a ragtag band of eccentric archaeologists and antiquarians. Most people these days don't believe in fairy stories about Good Artefact and Evil Artefact so they think the ragtag band of nerds are full of it.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The party would then have to talk a couple of other demon lords into attacking the demon lord's layer of the abyss in order to give themselves a chance to infiltrate his lair and destroy the Heart of the Obyrith before the demon lord can use it in a ritual to make himself incredibly powerful.

I'd leave your plot details a bit more open than this. The PCs should be free to come with whatever crazy scheme they want. So long as they're engaging with your prepared content in some way, it doesn't matter what they do.

 

[Tyler Dunn]

I'd leave your plot details a bit more open than this. The PCs should be free to come with whatever crazy scheme they want. So long as they're engaging with your prepared content in some way, it doesn't matter what they do.

Good point, perhaps they could try to talk the angels of mount celestia into helping them, or they could try to infiltrate the demon lord's lair using stealth, or they could get a dragon who owes them a favor to give them a hand.

Its always a good idea to let the PCs do whatever crazy thing they want, it makes for a better story.

 

[Tyler Dunn]

The basic idea of Evil Artefact opposed by Good Artefact, Good Artefact disassembled, and demon lord involvement is sound.

You could give your story a bit more heft and grandeur by replacing the wizard and mages with the good and evil gods of your world. The Evil Artefact was created by Vecna, Lolth, Tiamat and Bane (or whoever) working together. Maybe the demon lord was in on the action too as a minor player. He got a taste of being near the Evil Artefact and now he craves it, like Gollum. Maybe the Heart of the Obyrith is the actual heart of an actual god. The Good Artefact was created by Pelor, Bahamut, St Cuthbert etc. The good guy organisation looking to put the Good Artefact back together are a ragtag band of eccentric archaeologists and antiquarians. Most people these days don't believe in fairy stories about Good Artefact and Evil Artefact so they think the ragtag band of nerds are full of it.

I always thought of the heart of the obyrith to be more related to the Obyriths, hence the name.

I feel like its demonic nature means Iggwilv would be the the most likely person to be associated with it.

 

[Tyler Dunn]

I have decided to make a few revisions to this campaign idea
The Heart is now whole and the players are only tasked with locating and retrieving the components of the artifact meant to destroy it (They could learn information from informants and make plans to retrieve the components from hostile enemy strongholds or wherever else they may be).
The attack on the Abyss is completely up to the party. The NPCs helping the party will make some suggestions (such as asking for help from the upper planes), but it will be ultimately up to the players
What do you guys think?