skotothalamos
formerly roadtoad
Alright, the group is back underway again. They've encountered some traveling Mind Flayers Gidim who have left the hivemind and taken up living in physical bodies. These travelers are reasonably friendly for brain eaters, but they claim to have been on the way through the system but found themselves unable to leave. The group speculates that the solar system is not providing the protective measures it once did, perhaps even trapping people from leaving, like a mini-Gyre.
I lured them into the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and, after Zeitgeist, they could not resist a ziggurat. However, I was under-prepped for their many lore questions and the answers were less than satisfying as they expected BIG PLOT POINTS to come from exploring the ziggurat.
This week is being spent trying to mold Mesoamerican myth into a mythology for the pre-Axis Seal world. Which is fun, but has an even more interesting wrinkle.
The open-world semi-random explorations of various D&D adventures seems to have run its course with this group (they have Hidden Shrine to finish up and the anti-Sahuagin raid at the end of the main Saltmarsh plot). I talked to some of them about their engagement with the plot and I realize they are super spoiled from having played through Zeitgeist already. My ad-hoc content cannot hold a candle to @RangerWickett's intricate plotting. I figured what they needed was some War of the Burning Sky content grafted onto their post-Zeitgeist world. I discussed this with the player who dives into the lore the most, and they suggested that simply having another conflict over control of the world wouldn't feel big enough after having been to the Gyre at the end of Zeitgeist and having spent a couple of levels adventuring on Jiese this time around. We're already interplanar at 7th level, with some nautically-themed PCs and some allied Mind Flayers. I've already thought about doing some Spelljammer-style stuff to get them to travel to the various worlds of the solar system.
Now I'm considering a War of the Burning Sky plotline spread throughout the solar system.
WAR OF THE BURNING SKY SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
I'm already mashing up their two previous campaigns for this (4e Scales of War and 4e/5e Zeitgeist). I'm looking at having the various adventure locales of WotBS be different planets. Shahalesti as Av, Jiese as Ragesia (Ra-Jiese?), Caeloon as the site of the monastery of the two winds, Ascetia (in a shared orbit with Av) as Taranesti, but with the drow changed to be the returned Eladrin women who were dead for 500 years. Apet as the place where the Obelisk of infinite-range magic is being built. Trillith as the effect of wild Gidim interacting with the dreams of Bhoior the space turtle or something. It's pretty exciting but also a lot of homework to make sure I have all the right elements in place.
I still haven't completely figured out who my main belligerents are, but I have some notions. It's possible that "Coaltongue" will be Ashima-Shimtu. She's already made an impression by being behind the intro to Descent to Avernus/Jiese. That could just have been the first contact the PCs had with her system-wide war of conquest, (basically standing in for Gate Pass and the fire forest). Then I need some Vekeshi assassins to "kill" Ashima-Shimtu and have a "Leska" take contol. I'm halfway to having that be a conveniently-immortal Lya Jierre, since they never got any resolution with her in the Zeitgeist campaign and it seems pretty easy to tie in Danoran power with "Hell" and "anti-magic" themes..
It's nice that most of the pre-campaign timeline in WotBS is 100 years long, as it lets me fit all those events into the time jump from the previous game. I now need to reconcile the cosmology of both worlds, which (thanks to Toteth Topec) shouldn't be too hard but is interesting. It's pretty easy to tie the elemental dragons to the elemental planets of the same names, though my party kicked Avilona out of the system... We'll see if that's a problem later, I guess.
Anyway, potentially exciting developments ahead!
I lured them into the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and, after Zeitgeist, they could not resist a ziggurat. However, I was under-prepped for their many lore questions and the answers were less than satisfying as they expected BIG PLOT POINTS to come from exploring the ziggurat.
This week is being spent trying to mold Mesoamerican myth into a mythology for the pre-Axis Seal world. Which is fun, but has an even more interesting wrinkle.
The open-world semi-random explorations of various D&D adventures seems to have run its course with this group (they have Hidden Shrine to finish up and the anti-Sahuagin raid at the end of the main Saltmarsh plot). I talked to some of them about their engagement with the plot and I realize they are super spoiled from having played through Zeitgeist already. My ad-hoc content cannot hold a candle to @RangerWickett's intricate plotting. I figured what they needed was some War of the Burning Sky content grafted onto their post-Zeitgeist world. I discussed this with the player who dives into the lore the most, and they suggested that simply having another conflict over control of the world wouldn't feel big enough after having been to the Gyre at the end of Zeitgeist and having spent a couple of levels adventuring on Jiese this time around. We're already interplanar at 7th level, with some nautically-themed PCs and some allied Mind Flayers. I've already thought about doing some Spelljammer-style stuff to get them to travel to the various worlds of the solar system.
Now I'm considering a War of the Burning Sky plotline spread throughout the solar system.
WAR OF THE BURNING SKY SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
I'm already mashing up their two previous campaigns for this (4e Scales of War and 4e/5e Zeitgeist). I'm looking at having the various adventure locales of WotBS be different planets. Shahalesti as Av, Jiese as Ragesia (Ra-Jiese?), Caeloon as the site of the monastery of the two winds, Ascetia (in a shared orbit with Av) as Taranesti, but with the drow changed to be the returned Eladrin women who were dead for 500 years. Apet as the place where the Obelisk of infinite-range magic is being built. Trillith as the effect of wild Gidim interacting with the dreams of Bhoior the space turtle or something. It's pretty exciting but also a lot of homework to make sure I have all the right elements in place.
I still haven't completely figured out who my main belligerents are, but I have some notions. It's possible that "Coaltongue" will be Ashima-Shimtu. She's already made an impression by being behind the intro to Descent to Avernus/Jiese. That could just have been the first contact the PCs had with her system-wide war of conquest, (basically standing in for Gate Pass and the fire forest). Then I need some Vekeshi assassins to "kill" Ashima-Shimtu and have a "Leska" take contol. I'm halfway to having that be a conveniently-immortal Lya Jierre, since they never got any resolution with her in the Zeitgeist campaign and it seems pretty easy to tie in Danoran power with "Hell" and "anti-magic" themes..
It's nice that most of the pre-campaign timeline in WotBS is 100 years long, as it lets me fit all those events into the time jump from the previous game. I now need to reconcile the cosmology of both worlds, which (thanks to Toteth Topec) shouldn't be too hard but is interesting. It's pretty easy to tie the elemental dragons to the elemental planets of the same names, though my party kicked Avilona out of the system... We'll see if that's a problem later, I guess.
Anyway, potentially exciting developments ahead!
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