101 Epic Adventure Ideas

[Reynard]

In celebration of the recent realease of the Epic SRD, I would propose an ENWorld list of cool adventures for characters of at least 20th level.

Here's mine (probably for 30th level characters):

In their long history of adventuring, Epic PCs likely have accumulated at least one powerful enemy. Also, they are sure to be important characters in the game world. When an enemy strikes back, it can cause not just problems for the PCs, but for the entire world.

THE SETUP
A powerful, epic level wizard or sorcerer (prestige classes and templates to taste) has been thwarted by the PCs one too many times. More than merely killing them, he wants to destroy them, and those who benefit from their power and goodwill, as well.

THE PLAN
The BBEG has a plan that runs in four stages:

1) Attack the PCs with a swarm of invisible, ethereal, ghost touch stirges with True Strike cast upon them. there dozens of the things, and after each spends a round sucking blood from a PC, it immediately flees and returns to its master. Even if the PCs manage to kill most of them, enough should escape so that the Wizard has blood from every PC.

2) Using powerful sorceries to clone the PCs, the BBEG creates reflections of the characters subservient to the his will.

3) Create a distraction on a demi-plane of the BBEG's own creation -- essentially a trap (Example: a creature native to the plane, who does not know its origin, comes to beg the PCs aid because a Tarrasque is ravaging the land, etc...) When the PCs travel to the plane, it shuts off from the Prime and all the nasties crawl out of their hiding places to destroy the PCs.

4) Have the PCs clones take their places and begin mucking with all that is right and good, destroying the characters' personal, professional, and social lives.

Of course, the PCs will escape and have to face down their own reflections in a battle that will shake the pillars of the earth.

Next?

 

[Mystery Man]

This is not mine:

er...8?)
There is a rift in the chamber that holds the last 5 Hecatoncheires.. the only thing that can patch it is the skin of a Paragon Behemoth Tarrrasque (the only Tarrasque that can produce offspring). To bad he rules the plane of the Tarrasque, or it would have been easy kill..

Oh, and there is also the problem with the 3 guardians of the Hecatoncheries prison. Made to stop even the greatest god of entering and opening the gates of doom. Lets say.. a Colossus Adamantine Golem, a Primal Quasi Element Acid, and last but not least.. a Ancient Prismatic Dragon.

Also you can have lots of test and such, with riddles and fights, where only 1 character can fight against some monster to "prove his heart is in the right place" and all that..

I'd say that's high 30's to 40'ish level adventure

 

[Zad]

3. Orcus stages a bid to invade the Prime Material Plane. Armies of undead pour out of Rauxes threatening the Great Kingdom

4. The githyanki stage an invasion of the Prime. (Well covered in Dragon and Dungeon Magazines) The githyanki queen is stealing the souls of others, particularly elves, to fuel her mad attempt to re-awaken a dead god on which her fortress is built.

5. Therizdun was contained long ago by the other gods. But in his prison he casts a shadow and it leaks out into the multiverse. The shadowy reflection of Therizdun starts on the Shadowplane, slowly taking over from the political forces there currently (nine seperate Shadow Princes) and works towards his eventual release.

6. An animus created by Ivid the Undying escapes his prison and slowly works to regain temporal power. He starts by coverting other members of his family to animuses, and then begins quietly securing nine powerful magic artifacts - each one the key to a seperate kind of magic - the Binders.

And lastly...

7. Fraz Erb Lu, the demon prince of deception, embarks on a sinister plan in which he manipulates all the other powerful forces above at the same time to further his agenda.

These aren't plot ideas - I just told you some of what was happening in our epic level game

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, half of what makes a game 'epic' in the eyes of the SRD is what level it is, so I'll toss out some interesting ideas, and let others applies the fifteen templates and the levels in blackguard.

8. An ancient psionic dragon's dreams are trying to sever the plane's link to the elemental forces that keep the world from flying apart. The dreams are tangible, and have taken control of the dragon, tormenting her in her sleep so she produces more and more dangerous entities. They want not to destroy the world, but simply to make it fall to pieces, such that only spiritual entities such as themselves can exist. Their lives are metaphor, so the real world is anathema to them. The PCs could try to kill the dragon, but they'd have to fight through three millennia's worth of dream-monsters, and if they actually reach the dragon, she becomes possessed by her dreams, who infuse her with greater strength while dominating her free will.

 

[the Jester]

A mad druid, tired of the depredations of civilization, seeks to end all civilization. Taking the view of nature as being much bigger than a single world, the druid has somehow created a fortress on the surface of the sun and is trying to trigger an enormous solar flare that will scour the pcs' home planet clean.

 

[Mystery Man]

11) an artifact the PC's need to prevent a Paragon White Slaad/Epic Necromancer from opening a rift in the elemental plane of fire (or whatever) causing it to spill out into the prime is located in the plane of shadow guarded by a field of Mu Spore.

 

[Liolel]

12) A god has taken intrest in using the party as his/her champions. But first he wants to test them. To do so he transports them to a demiplane (willing or unwilling Dm's choice) which is an archepiligo with a different test on each island.

 

[Reynard]

13) In her bid to rise to the status of godling, a Paragon Great Wyrm blue dragon begins forcing worship from the Lawful Evil humanoid races. those that do not convert are destroyed. An alliance of humanoid priests dedicated to the gods of the LE humanoids approaches the gretest warriors in the land (the PCs) to destroy the dragon. Their deal: stop her, or we will marshall our hordes and crush civilization. With the power of the LE humanoid gods behind them (who risk losing perhaps millions of worshippers) they might just be able to do it. Now, the Epic PCs must choose between two great evils.

 

[RangerWickett]

14. An Elf PC's cousin used to be good friends with the party, but now he's started to try to make a climb in the politics of his homeland, and is developing strong opinions against foreigners. Ambassadors, traders, and even simple travelers from other nations are being arrested, civilly, but the PC's cousin has stopped associating with the other PCs, and is starting to grow apart from his PC cousin. I know it's not full of monsters, but this would make for an interesting story, if people cared about their friends.

 

[demiurge1138]

15. The party finds a strange book, detailing in horrible detail a sleeping being named Cthulhu who lives in an underwater city deep in the ocean. And the stars are coming to resemble the alignment detailed in the book's pages, and strange cults are beginning to become active (ran this, the party got bored and decided to go off on tangents).

16. The party, who's scruples are low when the money is high, are payed by Asmodeus' daughter to stage an invasion of the Third Hell, in order to overthrow Mammon and install a Lord more to her liking (this was one of their tangents).

17. The ki-laran gargoyles, an honorbound race created during the Time of Troubles and the avowed enemies of the gods, have discovered religion (this was one of the cults of Cthulhu).

18. The party finds themselves hunted by the Executioner of Hell (again, a tangent, same campaign).

Demiurge out.