An Epic Game in Progress (my players avoid) New Request: 03/31/04

[WizarDru]

Welcome back my friends,
to the game that never ends,
we're so glad you could attend,
step inside,
step inside.

It's that time again, me lads and lassies. I've reached a new plateau in my game, and I'm seeking ideas and suggestions. As you may or may not via my Story Hour, my players are now Epic characters. They are enjoying the game, and so am I. I believe that I've set-up several plot threads to carry the game in Epic for a while, but I'd like some brainstorming, too.


Topics I need help or suggestions with:

1. The Githyanki Incursion
Frankly, it's going fine...but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get the players to continue the battle, per se. At the first battle of the Incursion, the players engaged 2 CR 19 Bak'lash Dreadnoughts, 2 CR 17 Blackguards riding CR 8 dragons, 10 CR 6 Duthka'Gith warriors, 75 War 2 Gith warriors, 2 CR 15 Blackweave Warlocks and one CR 19 undead Gith Warlock. This force got it's clock cleaned pretty handily by the Meepites.

The ultimate goal is to force the players to travel to Tu'narath to rescue the hostages taken following the destruction of the Shadowtaker's prison (for those unfamiliar with the story, many NPCs are currently being held captive after the downfall of a powerful NPC), infiltrate the city and destroy the Githyanki Queen in a battle of hopefully epic proportions.

The real question is how? Throw some hand-waving battles at them? Have a powerful force target them? Threaten the NPCs? The players are sure to want to drive the invasion force back...but I"m not sure how that'll play out, or how to arrange it. I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear yours.

My goal is to give the players a chance to feel their oats, to some extent, and show off their high-level powers. For one, it lets them flex their muscles, something they don't always get to do. For another, it lets them feel that they are really making an impact on events and the world, and as 21st level characters, that's a serious issue. This means I don't want to short-circuit the war, just make it more than just 'and then you destroy the enemy forces...next?'

How would the Githyanki protect themselves? What would a Githyanki Interplanar beachhead or base of operations be like? For that matter, what do they hope to gain by killing Aran'gel, other than destabilizing the elven forces?

2. Fraz'Urb Luu and the his evil machinations

I haven't quite figured out what Fraz'Urb Luu is entirely on about, other than getting revenge on the players and attempting to use the three keys to Tharizdun's prison to enrich his own power (and destablize the Prime). The fallen one mentioned in a recent story post is an old villain remade by Fraz as an epic foil for the group, name the Fellsoul, plucked from his just rewards to be a horrific half-fiendish blackguard nightmarish thing. What he is, exactly, I'm not sure. Ideas?


3. The Underdark
One of the last great frontiers for the players. I've never run an underdark adventure, and travelling the vault of the Drow for a showdown with some of their horrors would be a lot of fun. However, I don't want to rip of Piratecat. His underdark stuff looks like fun, but it's not really what I want to do, per se.

For one, I want the opportunity to use things like the 'beetle subway' and strange underworld establishments to create a really creepy, somewhat upsetting atmosphere. The Underdark is a place the players should not feel comfortable in, especially since it's on the Prime, where things shouldn't be so alien and so close at the same time.

This gives me a chance to bring Meepo back on-stage, too, as the party's guide in the underworld, and possibly as their liason. We've often joked about Meepo's current stats, and what he's been up to (Meepo, King of the Kobolds has been joked about more than once). It also gives me a chance to use some of the odd races that I don't get to use nearly enough, like the Kuo-Toa, Drow, and more so forth. The newness of the options is what I'm searching for, and ways for the party to do different things.


4. Chavram d'Chandangac and the Binders

Well, this is somewhere at the top of the player's 'To Do' list, but I've let it slip for about a year, in favor of other stories (and I don't regret that, but I'd like to get it back to the fore). Chavram has been very busy, building alliances and making plans...but not capturing as many binders as the players may suspect.

I need to make Chavram an epic being, instead of the 17th level cler/wizard animus-templated bastage he once was. Further, I need to figure out what Dravot's father has actually been transformed into, and how to proceed with several threads from this. Oh, and I need to actually stat out the binders, something I haven't yet done. That's 9 artifacts of the ancient Suel empire, right there.


5. St. Kargoth, Orcus and the City of Rauxes

The undead legions are massing, but what to do with them. I have something very specific planned for Brindinford in the near future (and not another 'sack the town' type scenario), but what are the undead doing in there. What's Orcus up to, and is Ivid the Fifth still in Rauxes, as one of the evil Undead's overlords? What sort of terrors can I use against the group, when one of them can greater turn very powerful creatures?

6. The Primals

Beings of incredible power, they are Nine primal beings that created the Prime from the stuff of pure chaos. I've envisioned some of them as pure monsters, like Primal Elementals, to challenge the group. I figure at least one will be neutral, and another friendly to the group. I haven't worked out exact details, though, yet.


7. The Shadow King and the Spectral Citadel

One day, the players will be ready to battle the biggest of the bad....the shadow of a major god. I'm not too worried about this one, as it's a long way off...but I'm not sure what I'll do here, yet.


So, that's the first slot of things I'm looking for suggestions on. Any ideas are appreciated. As I develop some new ideas, I'll post them and their stats right here.

Thanks!

 

[Greybar]

Wow. I guess I have to break down and read your Story Hour now. Good lookin' stuff here.

So, first thing that catches my eye: The Primals... here goes flow of consciousness...

Nine primal beings that created the Prime from the stuff of pure chaos.

So how do these compare to the Gods? Same level of power, but uncaring of worship?
Why did they create the Prime?
The "one is neutral" and count of nine makes me wonder if there is one of each alignment.
Have they been sleeping?
Did they find that they were imprisoned in their creation (the Prime), either as an un-intended side effect or by trickery? Were they tricked by the Gods? Maybe a Greekish Gods vs. Titans, Parents vs. Children idea here. If they are imprisoned in the Prime by the creation, perhaps they are inching their way free - and their freedom means the doom of all living creatures in the prime. But don't all beings deserve freedom, particularly from eternal (and painful) imprisonment?

may be way off base of what you want, but there you go...

john

 

[WizarDru]

So, first thing that catches my eye: The Primals... here goes flow of consciousness...

Stream of Consciousness is always good.

So how do these compare to the Gods? Same level of power, but uncaring of worship?
Why did they create the Prime?
The "one is neutral" and count of nine makes me wonder if there is one of each alignment.

Quick summary of the Primals, as far as the players know, so far:

At some point, the Cosmology came into existence. Nine Primal beings, powerful aspects of, well, Primal forces came into existence. These beings manufactured the Prime and it's twin, the Mirror Prime. Why they did it is a mystery, but the prevailing opinion is that it was just their nature (Fish gotta swim and all that).

As time passes, the Dragons enter the picture. I haven't figured out exactly where or from whom. However, they are creatures of the Prime, and they thrive there. The Primals, however, haven't stopped wielding chaos in their wake, and the Dragons try to avoid them whenever possible. The dragons, good and evil, adapt to the constantly changing environments (reds and golds to fire, for example). The dragons grow more powerful, and invent magic (or discover it).

The leshay come next, and their inheritors, the elves. As the world has now become more solidly formed, the primals are now house-wreckers, intermittently appearing out of nowhere, and ruining anything the dragons, leshay, elves or others create. The Primals do not care, apparently.

For the safety of every living thing on the Primes, a great alliance is formed (that is all but forgotten today) and with the aid of the dieties Pelor, Ehlonna and Heironeus, the primals are battled, contended with and ultimately imprisoned. Each prison is sealed deep under the earth and protected by powerful wards from each of the three dieties, their locations erased from the minds of all invovled as a protection. Essentially asleep, their prisons are weakening, due to interefernce from others, such as Fraz'Urb Luu.

The Primals aren't entirely 'thinking' beings, per se. They are like super powerful primal elementals, to some extent. When they escape, revenge won't be a motivation...their thoughts are too alien to even encompass the concept. The Fire Primal lives to burn, to smolder, to melt things and to consume. He is the essence of FIRE, and his nature is what he is. The problem is his nature is horribly lethal, and he doesn't know or care, as far as the mortal races know.

Maybe a Greekish Gods vs. Titans, Parents vs. Children idea here. If they are imprisoned in the Prime by the creation, perhaps they are inching their way free - and their freedom means the doom of all living creatures in the prime. But don't all beings deserve freedom, particularly from eternal (and painful) imprisonment?

This is partly what I'm shooting for, here. I'm somewhat influenced by the Scarred Lands here, in that my thoughts are that at least one Primal helped the mortal races stop the others, and another would probably be indifferent.

In truth, I haven't even defined all the Primals, though I'm working on a list like so:
FIRE
WATER
EARTH
AIR
LIGHT/POSITIVE
SHADOW/NEGATIVE
POISON/?

Why nine? Well, they are all Neutral, alignment-wise, but Nine is something of a magic number for the game. Nine Binders (ancient artifacts), Nine blades of Vitaesis (which ARE alignment related) and a few others.

As for that Mirror Prime I mentioned? It's now the Shadow Plane, dominated by the Shadow King, who draws all color and light into his Citadel at the center of the plane (and who is, in fact, the Shadow of Tharizdun, himself).

Which just created an interesting possibility that you set off in my head...what if the event that transformed the Shadow Plane from the Prime was actually tied to the Shadow Primal? I never considered the possibliity, but some of the Primals could be on the Shadow Plane, as well. How that would interact with the Shadow King, I'm not sure.

Hmmm......

 

[WizarDru]

Oh, and their relative power level is undetermined. In my mind, they're beneath actually dieties, but are still insanely powerful beings that are ultimately indestructible, just dispersable or imprisonable.

In other words, you can't destroy the fundemental forces of the universe. Not even the dieties can do that, except perhaps for one.

 

[Destan]

Personally, Dru, I’d love to see you take the ol’ heroes down into the Underdark. I think there’re enough possibilities down that vein to fill a sinkhole. Ahem.

At any rate, Piratecat shows in his own SH how a single tunnel can be extremely important for any number of races, groups, clans, etc. Chokepoints are very easy to recognize and defend. You could expose the players to a completely foreign world of shifting alliances, political intrigue, and various groups vying for underworld dominion. I’m not certain if your group enjoys the “strategic” aspects as much the “tactical” ones – you would know, certainly.

I’ve found some of the most fun, as a DM, comes from putting the PC’s in situations wherein they don’t know who’s “good” and who’s “bad”. Moreover, it’s great to have dozens of shades of gray so that even the “good” guys have “bad” streaks, histories, or tendencies. A group of 21st level epic adventurers would be a highly valuable entity for various underdark organizations to ally themselves with – perhaps give the PC’s a number of choices, each equally interesting and equally intimidating.

Finally, the underdark allows combat in a whole new dimension – e.g., vertical. Place them in combats wherein they must fight up, down, or around a chimney, sinkhole, slope, etc. The underdark conveniently nerfs some of the of higher-level PC powers such as teleportation, a tangent that I, for one, am thankful for. Forces the PC’s back to their Meepo routes of picking a marching order and burning some boot leather enroute to their goals.

I think the Underdark – particularly the lower recesses – gives the DM a lot of freedom he otherwise might require planar travel to exercise. You could have new molds and fungi that grant different powers (or negate those the PC’s already have), certain odd arcane by-ways and nexuses that might influence spellcasting, yada yada yada.

One final recommendation would be to never name an underdark monster by a label the party is familiar with – either as a character or as a player (unless their character has requisite knowledge skills). By changing one or two physical traits and slapping a new name on an otherwise “common” underdark critter, you may evince a sense of novelty and interest not found since hiking across the Borderlands back in 1982. Or maybe not.

Anyway, I ramble. Whatever you do – I’ll be reading!

D

 

[Justinian]

1. Primals
In thinking of Primals, I can think of eight original forces, more or less: fire, earth, air, water, light, darkness, space (vacuum), and consciousness (or spirit).

That's what you have as the basis of creation. I'm coming up blank on a good ninth to fit that. You could replace consciousness with order, and add chaos, but you said they were all chaotic on some level.

2. Chavram
Don't forget, if Chavram is a wizard/cleric hybrid, to check out the pale master and true necromancer classes in Defenders of the Faith and Tome and Blood. Both are, if I remember correctly, undead-loving wizard/cleric combos.

3. Gith Invasion
The Lich Queen is quite powerful, if I recall. Could killing Aran'gel allow them to resurrect him, reanimate his body, take his consciousness, etc? It's possible that his death would leave his spirit open to a certain number of attacks as well.

Alternatively, he could be killed in combat, and a duplicate placed in the elven court for a brief period of time until the news of the battle arrives. The timing would have to be excellent, but it might be worth it.


As far as Dravot being able to greater turn powerful undead, that one is relatively easy: Template some moderately powerful undead and use them as shock troops, so their type changes to something else (likely outsider) but they still appear undead. I recently compiled a list of templates from WotC sources that had several dozen in it, and I'm sure there is a template somewhere that undead qualify for.

That brings a thought...would a lich wizard who took alienist levels become an outsider? Or any of the other transformational prestige classes, actually.

Your story has been a great read so far, and I'm interested to see how far into epic you will go. On that note, do you have updated character statistics for the epic Meepites?

 

[Caliber]

9th Primal = Time???

I think when something happens like a Lich becoming a really high level Alienist it becomes a Undead Outsider, meaning it suffers the penalties of both. The ELH has a couple of monsters that do similar things.

I dunno if the trend continued into 3.5 or if they cleared that all out.

 

[WizarDru]

1. Primals
In thinking of Primals, I can think of eight original forces, more or less: fire, earth, air, water, light, darkness, space (vacuum), and consciousness (or spirit).

That's what you have as the basis of creation. I'm coming up blank on a good ninth to fit that. You could replace consciousness with order, and add chaos, but you said they were all chaotic on some level.

Perfect, actually. The final Primal is the Destruction Primal, living right under Brindinford. Corruption, decay, poison and entropy. That gives me nine.

Don't forget, if Chavram is a wizard/cleric hybrid, to check out the pale master and true necromancer classes in Defenders of the Faith and Tome and Blood. Both are, if I remember correctly, undead-loving wizard/cleric combos.

I'd considered them, but I'm not sure they're quite right. Originally, Chavram was a wizard, then he had the animus template applied to him, then he gained level in cleric of Hextor. He has since broken with Hextor and attained some of the Binders, and is working towards apotheosis. His ultimate goal? Destroy Iuz and become a demi-god, so that he can impose order. Chavram is LE, bordering on LN. He wants to restore order, after the madness of Rauxes and Ivid, which made him what he is.

As far as Dravot being able to greater turn powerful undead, that one is relatively easy: Template some moderately powerful undead and use them as shock troops, so their type changes to something else (likely outsider) but they still appear undead. I recently compiled a list of templates from WotC sources that had several dozen in it, and I'm sure there is a template somewhere that undead qualify for.

Heh. Well, I don't want to take his turning power away...he's worked hard for it. And making them outsiders doesn't work that well. He has the epic feat that allows him to turn Outsiders as if they were undead, now...granted, he can't affect the same level of power...but he turned a White Slaad, with 34 HD. He's very, VERY good at turning things. It's what he does, baby.

Your story has been a great read so far, and I'm interested to see how far into epic you will go. On that note, do you have updated character statistics for the epic Meepites?

Thanks, we enjoy the game, and enjoy sharing the story just as much. I'm waiting to see how far the game will carry into Epic levels. No one wants to retire the game or their characters, so I take it for the compliment it is. One day the stories for this campaign will all be told, but not for quite a while, at this rate.

 

[WizarDru]

I think when something happens like a Lich becoming a really high level Alienist it becomes a Undead Outsider, meaning it suffers the penalties of both. The ELH has a couple of monsters that do similar things.

I dunno if the trend continued into 3.5 or if they cleared that all out.

In all honesty, I don't know. That's something to investigate. Chavram is meant to be the game's penultimate antagonist (personally, I've never seen him as a villain, per se, just a horribly misguided man). The ShadowTaker was meant as the preeminent villain beneath the Shadow King, but they weren't my original villians...they just kicked in the door and took over.


Oh, and we have a running gag in the game from the very first time Scorch asked about the Shadow King:

Scorch: "What a minute. You mean the Shadow King is Tharizdun's SHADOW? What light source is casting that shadow?"
Me: "Are you planning on taking level of Alienist?"
Scorch: "No, why?"
Me: "Because asking questions like those is how you get them."
Scorch: .....

So now, whenever bizzarre occurences or strange mysteries show themselves, we joke about someone taking levels in Alienist.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Hrm for #5 and St. Kargoth, I have a False Saint PrC in the works that could fit for St. Kargoth, if he's a living person in the campaign. It's more bard based, making a deal with a powerful evil outsider (Orcus in this case) and grants abilities like the ability to use the Planar Ally (fiends only)/Create Undead line of spells, but when they're used, the fiends are automatically veiled to appear as angels, and the undead are veiled to look like what they were previously in life (and gain a profane bonus to Bluff/Disguise checks to mantain this lie). They also gain an Aura of Good, the ability to subtly charm opponents who they heal and similarly themed powers. Interested, by any chance?