Lord Zardoz
Explorer
My personal favorite
Yay wacky double post!
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Yay wacky double post!
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Last edited:
Campaign Ending Ideas wanted
- Thread starter DariusOfCT
- Start date
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
My personal favorite
Rocks fall. Everyone dies.
http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05032002.shtml
Now, if you do not think your players are up for that kind of ending, I suspect that you could have some fun by tweaking the scenario a bit.
Write out the artifact, go for a simple Prophecy. "when freedoms child is born in chains, the The door to power shall open and the empire shall fall". High priest type enacts his Evil Plan as noted, expecting that the resulting child will enable him to acquire some absurd amount of power and bring the Happy Human Empire to its knees.
Due to a crappy translation, the prophecy really ought to read "if a child of freedom and tyranny is born and is permitted to draw breath, it will contravene the will of the gods. This in turn will result in the reformation of Ultima Rex, the supreme power in the universe. And then Ultima Rex will simply wreck up the place until the gods manage to unmake him. Last time this took about 3 million years, and essentially destroyed the cosmos. The gods can survive this, but they will kind of have to start over with the whole creation thing"
Now, just let the players find out the truth, and then go ahead and let them try to stop it, knowing that the only way to prevent the end of the universe is to either kill a baby, or cause the evil priest to become a decent person, or to cause the good priest to become evil before the child is born.
END COMMUNICATION
Rocks fall. Everyone dies.
http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05032002.shtml
Now, if you do not think your players are up for that kind of ending, I suspect that you could have some fun by tweaking the scenario a bit.
Write out the artifact, go for a simple Prophecy. "when freedoms child is born in chains, the The door to power shall open and the empire shall fall". High priest type enacts his Evil Plan as noted, expecting that the resulting child will enable him to acquire some absurd amount of power and bring the Happy Human Empire to its knees.
Due to a crappy translation, the prophecy really ought to read "if a child of freedom and tyranny is born and is permitted to draw breath, it will contravene the will of the gods. This in turn will result in the reformation of Ultima Rex, the supreme power in the universe. And then Ultima Rex will simply wreck up the place until the gods manage to unmake him. Last time this took about 3 million years, and essentially destroyed the cosmos. The gods can survive this, but they will kind of have to start over with the whole creation thing"
Now, just let the players find out the truth, and then go ahead and let them try to stop it, knowing that the only way to prevent the end of the universe is to either kill a baby, or cause the evil priest to become a decent person, or to cause the good priest to become evil before the child is born.
END COMMUNICATION
roguerouge
First Post
You got your sci-fi in my high fantasy!
Time travel.
Have the priests of the time or knowledge god send them back in time to prevent the capture of the high priestess in the first place. It's experimental, so they don't want to use their best heroes lest the process kill the time travelers. The PCs are the guinea pigs, essentially. They don't need to be high level, perhaps, to change history. You get all sorts of fun with dodging meeting themselves and limiting the scope of the change to forseeably good results.
Historic. Potentially plausible. Interesting narrative consequences.
Time travel.
Have the priests of the time or knowledge god send them back in time to prevent the capture of the high priestess in the first place. It's experimental, so they don't want to use their best heroes lest the process kill the time travelers. The PCs are the guinea pigs, essentially. They don't need to be high level, perhaps, to change history. You get all sorts of fun with dodging meeting themselves and limiting the scope of the change to forseeably good results.
Historic. Potentially plausible. Interesting narrative consequences.
Innocent Bystander
First Post
Let them attempt, and possibly succeed at the rescue. The child will still be born and the BBEG will be looking for the priestess and child non-stop.
Eosin the Red
First Post
Lord Zardoz said:
I really like this option. I can see the players agonizing over the unappealing answers. My group would try to convert the evil priest (forcing them to discover his background and motivation -- maybe in the end they have to resurrect his wife or child. Or you could do a Star Wars and make one of the players the brother or child of the evil priest). However, I'd make that method uncertain and prolong it until the final moments, which means they would have to plan for an alternative -- kill the pregnant priestess or force her to forswear her god (or whack the baby).
It would be intense as all get out not knowing. Players would writhe under the pressure, hoping that they would not be the one in the position to do the ugly deed.
Great idea.
Herobizkit
Adventurer
I second the option to have the PCs witness, but not stop, the birth of the evil child. The bad guys pull an almighty "Who dares to... oh, OH! How absurdly humorous! I never expected YOU (and dramatically point at one of the PC's, or better, in their direction) so soon!"
Have them duke it out, but inevitably lose -- the Big Bad has too high DR / too many protective magics / shielded by an artifact / gained the favor of the evil deity / too many conjured allies for the PCs to possibly win. There is no greater victory for player characters than to be able to return and attempt to defeat the Big Bad that thumped them so soundly X levels ago.
Once they collect their sorry, defeated butts from off the ground, questions will speculate as to just WHO the Big Bad was taking about, and what about the PC(s) is it that makes them so special?
Have them duke it out, but inevitably lose -- the Big Bad has too high DR / too many protective magics / shielded by an artifact / gained the favor of the evil deity / too many conjured allies for the PCs to possibly win. There is no greater victory for player characters than to be able to return and attempt to defeat the Big Bad that thumped them so soundly X levels ago.
Once they collect their sorry, defeated butts from off the ground, questions will speculate as to just WHO the Big Bad was taking about, and what about the PC(s) is it that makes them so special?
Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
Yep, I hate gods who basically just sit around on their butts all day and never actually DO anything, even when it means that all their followers are gonna be toast if they don't. But I like Arkhandus' solution in his next post. (One of the best things Runequest did, IMO, was to have a very good reason why the gods wouldn't interfere directly in 'human' affairs.)Arkhandus said:
Why must the child be stopped?
You have a bunch of options;
1.) Do you have a God/Goddess of Destiny? Find the prophecy, perhaps find someone who can alter fates, preventing the death of the child. Or, if you can find the hearth-holding deity of your campaign's priesthood (think mother-goddess, protecting her children sort) to find a way to save the child. Perhaps the child could be passed on to another womb, saved from the fate.
2.) The priestess hasn't attempted something (suicide, prevention of pregnancy, etc.) to keep this child from coming to fruition? There may be ways to deal with such...
3.) Have the PCs rally an army. Patronage is important, and with that sort of knowledge floating around . . . someone must know enough to protect the world with the PCs as assistants to the plight.
High Artifact magic vs. low-to-mid level characters and a setup of 1000s of protectors . . . is ridiculous. Figure out something around it, or keep up with it and give the PCs a chance to die with their boots on.
Slainte,
-Loonook.
You have a bunch of options;
1.) Do you have a God/Goddess of Destiny? Find the prophecy, perhaps find someone who can alter fates, preventing the death of the child. Or, if you can find the hearth-holding deity of your campaign's priesthood (think mother-goddess, protecting her children sort) to find a way to save the child. Perhaps the child could be passed on to another womb, saved from the fate.
2.) The priestess hasn't attempted something (suicide, prevention of pregnancy, etc.) to keep this child from coming to fruition? There may be ways to deal with such...
3.) Have the PCs rally an army. Patronage is important, and with that sort of knowledge floating around . . . someone must know enough to protect the world with the PCs as assistants to the plight.
High Artifact magic vs. low-to-mid level characters and a setup of 1000s of protectors . . . is ridiculous. Figure out something around it, or keep up with it and give the PCs a chance to die with their boots on.
Slainte,
-Loonook.
DariusOfCT
First Post
Ed_Laprade said:
what's a thousand years of darkness to a god that has been alive for billions of years?
but, the gods are more stand-offish in this campaign, though their minions obviously play major roles.
DariusOfCT
First Post
Loonook said:
some answers/comments
1) not a bad idea - the child does not necessarily have to die, the prophecy (what I've written up so far) only speaks of the blood of the Child.
2) the priestess has been kept sheltered /sedated much of the time, when she has not been charmed. The priestess herself was only a low-level (1st) priestess, but her history fit into the prophecy (the 2nd child of twins)
3) That will probably happen, as my post above indicates.
the players will not be going up against the BBEG right away - the plan was to get them up in level high enough where they can adequately close out the campaign, be it by facing down the BBEG, destroying/stopping the artifact, finding a good artifact to counterbalance the evil one, etc.
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