Homebrew [Tales of the Valiant] Suggestions for Continuing High Tier Play

I just finished GMing a 13 month semi-homebrew campaign in Kobold Press' Midgard and Labyrinth. Blog posts with all 14 sessions: Tales-of-the-Valiant-Campaign-01-Recap

We started at level 1 and ended at level 11. Next time we play with these characters in this world they'll be level 12. Brief synopsis of the characters and their journey in this first campaign:

• Appaluna (fiend warlock) - is a daughter of semi-royalty. Her family is cousins w/ a Duchess. She is caught toying with demonic magic and is kicked out. Eventually she finds out her sister was kidnapped by the Servants of Nidhogg (void cult from Tales of the Valiant) The campaign ends with her rescuing her sister, getting accepted back by her family, and being made a baroness in Dornig (where her family is from)
• Ariana (Leaf druid) - was given up for adoption as a baby. Joins the others on adventure after their first adventure together. Discovers her parents were druids in service of The Elders on Oakroot in the Old Ring. They died on a campaign to prevent a void cult from tainting their worlds. She ends the campaign living on Oakroot and helping them with "druid stuff"
• Jackal (Weapon Master Fighter) - was a soldier. Friend died in war and eventually he meets up with the other two. Adventures with them. At the end he learns he was created by a wizard who wanted to do something more amazing than his ancestor who created the owlbear.

Asking for suggestions because I know that higher tier play starts getting harder and harder as the players get closer to god-level powers. And almost none of the publishers put out high level adventures that I could use as templates or steal as adventures to slot into my homebrew game. One thought I have at the moment is that in the world of Midgard the county next to Dornig has been taken over by Vampires. In our game, that's why Appaluna's family moved to Dornig as exiles. I'm thinking at least one possibility is trying to overthrow the vampires. (Or at least getting back part of the county)

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I try to put together smaller arcs that last only a couple levels. 11th level is powerful, but not overpowerful yet. they can still take on a problem with giants or vampires lead by a lich- which could lead into the next arc of going after the lich.

You can tie smaller pieces of background into the story, but I always have had problems with this. My thoughts and the players do not always mix and asking for more detail might not work as well. You can take the soldier dying in war part and link a general that died by having the PCs need to go to his tomb and find a McGuffin that will need later.

djotaku said:

Thoughts? Suggestions?

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Hmm. So you'll need ideas that account for demonic magic, adventuring as a viable career, world tainting, and a county run by vampires.

How about the world blows up, and the PCs land on a tainted planet in a saucer-shaped globe of invulnerability, which includes red blankets that each PC uses for warmth. Then a farmer discovers them and adopts them as his own. Later, an evil genius uses pieces of the cursed vampire county to weaken them, because their levels got too high in the meantime?

aco175 said:

I try to put together smaller arcs that last only a couple levels. 11th level is powerful, but not overpowerful yet. they can still take on a problem with giants or vampires lead by a lich- which could lead into the next arc of going after the lich.

You can tie smaller pieces of background into the story, but I always have had problems with this. My thoughts and the players do not always mix and asking for more detail might not work as well. You can take the soldier dying in war part and link a general that died by having the PCs need to go to his tomb and find a McGuffin that will need later.

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I like the lich idea as an escalation either with the vamps or post vamp. Your mention of the dead friend also made me think of him being resurrected as an undead of some sort.

GMMichael said:

Hmm. So you'll need ideas that account for demonic magic, adventuring as a viable career, world tainting, and a county run by vampires.

How about the world blows up, and the PCs land on a tainted planet in a saucer-shaped globe of invulnerability, which includes red blankets that each PC uses for warmth. Then a farmer discovers them and adopts them as his own. Later, an evil genius uses pieces of the cursed vampire county to weaken them, because their levels got too high in the meantime?

Click to expand...

It....took me way to long to realize what this was a reference to. LOL.