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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MortalForce" data-source="post: 9612021" data-attributes="member: 7051635">Hi folks, just joined this page after listening to a bunch of Mike Shae's podcast episodes, so if you're reading this Mike, thanks. Am I a grognard now? I thought I'd post here because the odds of my players finding this are vanishingly small and no longer use FB or Reddit, but if you're called Warrick, Andy, Leon, Emma, or Kim AND you're playing a game with four people that share four of those names, look away!So. 6 weeks ago, I started a campaign at my FLGS, Bea DnD. I've built a fairly complicated character driven Plot Web using DM Academy's excellent Plot Web video. I have five players, all currently Level 2, with thematically appropriate multiclassing allowed. We have a Goliath Paladin (oath of vengeance), a High Elf Rogue, an Aasimar Warlock ( who wants to choose an Archfey patron), a Gnome artificer/evocation wizard, and a Tortle monk (they just fought rats in the sewers too!). We're playing in my homebrew world with themes of greed in a jungle frontier setting, with a nation state (Taldea) settling the shoreline and trying to make a trade passage through the jungle continent as a soft power grab. A rival nation (Heleaine) that profits from another trade route is trying to disrupt these efforts, while other parties are involved, like a pirate fleet, a shipping company not unlike the East India Company, an ape tribe, 3 lizardfolk tribes, an undiscovered dwarven city in the mountains, and a lich that they imprisoned so long ago that his name has passed into myth. In terms of hooks: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The rogue has no memory of life on land so she's part of an ancient society that originally settled the region and gave it life, and shares kindred ties with the lich. She's also hunted by Heleaine agents.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The monk has ties to the pirate fleet, who attacked his town and burned it to the ground. He's also looking for his other three tortle monk brothers to reestablish their order/monastery. If you can't tell, I'm less than enthused by how low effort I feel this PC was. At least his PC wasn't named after a renaissance artist.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The paladin has ties to the shipping company (unbeknownst to her), and is also looking for an ancient artifact that I've split into three parts. One with a GOO patron whose avatar is nearby (and whose warlock from the shipping company sunk her backstory ship), one with the shipping company CEO (who happens to be arriving in a week), and another with the lich.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The warlock has come to the jungle to find gems in the caves and gold in the rivers, but also went to school with shipping co's CEO's son, and wants to help his parents' failing trade company (isn't it nice when the players give you a healthy LIVING family?) caused by, you guessed it, the shipping company screwing them over. I'm thinking he's aasimar due to prayers by mummy, to tie him to the same god as the paladin.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The artificer/wizard came here to kick ass and chew gum, and he's all out of gum. He was framed as the designer of the navigation system that caused two ships to collide, so he bailed during the investigation because the shipping company is too powerful to be held to bear in court. Really, he's here to find ancient scrolls and means to become more powerful, and he's heard rumours of the lich's vast magical vaults (not that he knows it's a lich).</li> </ul>While I've got a decent web to drive the group to the ultimate bad guy of the lich, I'm a bit worried that I've painted myself into a corner by needing to have a huge arcane prison a long way away from the town to contain it. There are hundreds of miles of largely unwritten/unplanned travel to this location. Here's what I have vaguely outlined thus far:-Arrived in town, met NPC's, familiarising themselves with townsfolk.-Doing a variety of quests that bring them into conflict (or allegiance) with the nobility, the foreign Heleaine agents, the pirate fleet, and the shipping company. -The shipping company arriving and the CEO making his way to the lich's prison for riches/cutting the trade route through successfully/power (and probably fleeing or dying when they release the lich).-The party witnessing the release of the lich and realising they might be screwed. -The lich's phylactery being held by the dwarves (unbeknownst to them), needing to be destroyed by sacrificing something(s) of great value, countering the themes of greed. Basically, I have some solid stuff for around town and one day's travel away, but beyond that, I'm sort of stuck. I have ideas about the party visiting High Elven ruins to rebuild an artifact of great power to destroy the phylactery, meeting the other tortle monks and uniting them, and a pursuit through the jungle to the lich prison, but I'm sort of stuck on how. Am I overthinking it? I'd love to hear your thoughts, constructive criticism, and questions. There is obviously lots more than what I've outlined here.</blockquote>

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