Destroy a City Contest: Taking Submissions

[Thanee]

Magic Jar, let your familiar fly around the city and possess them one after the other to kill each other or themselves, whatever is preferred.

Once the population is gone, Stone Shape the city to your desire.

Requirements, one 9th level wizard with enough time and not too high level opposition, who might be able to find out what's going on.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pax]

First off, I'm not satisfied just levelling the buildings. Buildings can be rebuilt. Even populations can be rebuilt. To truly destroy the city, we must make it so that noone EVER wants to rebuild it again ... we must erase it form every map, and even living memory, with a calamity of unequalled proportions.

No single spell can do this; accomplishing such a task will be the work of months, even years, by very high-level characters. So ... let us begin:

THE PARTY (all Evil-aligned, of course):

• LE Tiefling Wizard(3)/Cleric(3)/Mystic Theurge(10), specialised in Necromancy. Domains are Air and Pestilence;
• NE Human Druid(17);
• LE Gnome Bard(7)/Evangelist(10)
• NE Halforc Fighter(5)/Warrior of Darkness(2)/Disciple of Dispater(10) - cold iron spiked chain twink.

The Fighter is there merely to be good, effective security against interruption and/or retaliation by the city's populace; his/her role is to be very very good at killing things. The true work of destruction will fall upon the shoulders of the two spellcasters, while the Bard works to make that destruction SO memorable in and of itself, that noone wants to rebuild the city once the work of demolition is done.

The party's first goal is to purchase some property as near the city's center as possible, keep a low profile, obey all the local laws (hence the largely lawful alignment spread), and spend some time getting prepared. A large warehouse would be the ideal property for this purpose.

The Mystic Theurge spends that time building a horde of incorporeal undead (imprisoned in ForceCages, until wanted). Meanwhile, the Druid spends time capturing / gathering rats - lots and LOTS of rats. The Theurge and Druid together can cast contagion spells on the rats en mass, until you have several score infected rats for each disease type.

Then the rats are all killed, and distributed in secret (via teleportation, dimension door, and the like) to various water storage/distribution sites ... preferably affecting the water supply of the ENTIRE city except the supply for the noble class; that can fester and stew for a while, driving a wedge between the noble class and the commons, while simultaneously weakening the city's military might.

Now, we have a city sliding into civil unrest and disorder - if we're lucky, even outright rioting and looting. That provides a great cover for further clandestine activities.

This is when the bard/evangelist gets into the action. S/He can begin to proseletise to the populace about the sins and transgressions of the city; work to convince the people that the Gods themselves have become angry, and loathe the very name of their city. This, of course, merely serves to stir the pot WRT riots - but the gnome should work AGAINST allowing things to fall into whole-scale chaos. We don't want THAT; we want to delay the collapse as long as possible, until the tension has built SO high, that EVERY vestige of the city's existance will be torn asunder in an unequalled convulsion of violence, which will leave barely a MEMORY of the city - and that memory itself one solely of hatred and loathing.

Meanwhile, the theurge makes more undead (uncontrolled, and have to be contained somehow - using wall of force, turning/rebuking, and extended forcecage seem workable here), and the druid builds up another stable of diseased rats.

And yes, that concept is shamelessly borrowed from The Worthing Saga. If it worked for Abner Doon, to take down a many-hundred-world interstellar empire, it can work for a partyof high-level characters, to take down a single city. ^_^

The final destruction, of course, comes via direct spellcasting - the chosen season, if at all possible, is Summer, for maximum plague viability. First, the BArd lights the final fuse, and triggers the proxysm of destruction he's been building up to for (at this point) months, now.

The second step is to put the party inside a barred Forcecage. The Theurge casts Control Weather, and brings in the most violent thunderstorm he can - a hurricane, if possible; at the same time, the Druid casts Evil Weather (BoVD), which has an effective radius of 17 miles; the selected evil weather is Rain of Blood. If this doesn't get the entire city into an outright and utter hysterical panic ... nothing will.

Then, the Druid fires off an extended widened control winds spell, downdraft pattern with a 15'-radius "eye", at maximum wind force (which is tornado-force, mind, and has a 1,360' radius) and centered on the party; s/he then starts with the enlarged call lightning spells. These spells are used, if range permits, not against the populace ... but against bridges, gates, and other points of access to (or in this case, escape FROM) the city. We want as few survivors as possible, and all of them absolutely TERRIFIED of the sound of their own BREATHING before this is over.

Meanwhile, the Theurge can be opening gates to various planes, and inviting nefarious beings in for the "festivities" (not calling specific creatures, merely opening a door to populated areas of the lower planes and saying "come on over if you wanna have some fun" to whatever might be on the other side).

Once all that is done, the Druid fires off Evil Weather a two more times. The first is a rain of nettles, and the second is Green Fog.

Rain of Nettles will destroy every last crop, even any nearby forests, and leave animate - and violently evil - plants in it's place. Famine, and yet more terror.

Green Fog will wipe out most of the (probably very few) survivors, turning most of them - and the people in nearby villages, farmsteads, travellers on teh road, livestock, wild animals, etc - into assorted nasty monsters.

If anyone even SURVIVES to get out of all that, without the use of high-level magic, it may be a miracle unto itself. And given the period of plague and disease leading up to it ... those survivors are unlikely to be welcomed into ANY other city or other settlement, for DECADES; plague will truly put terror into the neighbor's hearts (especially if it was a port city, and yoru plague-creation managed to spawn a pandemic, due to diseased sailors (and even secondarily-infected rats) heading off to other ports, and arriving with enough life left in them to infect people there, before dying.

And given we've inflicted at least ten, maybe as many as twenty, diseases on the people ... even a mere COLD (with associated cough and/or runny nose) is likely to result in pitchforks and torches, for months - if not years - to come.

THAT should accomplish my true goal: to not only destroy the physical city, and slaughter the populace ... but obliterate it's existance for all time, leaving it a balsted and haunted ruin that will never be rebuilt.

Okay, it's not a rain of colorless fire ... but IMO it's the next best thing. And not bad for only four evil bastards, considering the Rain took an entire NATION to pull off. ^_^

 

[Pax]

2) Destroy a City of various sizes: population 10,000, 25,000, and 100,000 respectively. If you only want to destroy one size, that is fine, but destroying a larger city may require different tactics. As a reference, Greyhawk proper is 69,500, but certainly has more than normal high level NPCs.

Heck, why stop at 100,000? My submission above is good for sizes up to 1,000,000. ^_^

3) Assume the populace/government is hostile to you.

Stealth, baby. ^_^

4) Submissions are in two categories: A) PH, DMG, MM only B) All WOTC material only. All WOTC errata and faq apply, and use 3.5 edition rules.

Most of my trick could be pulled off with Core-only, but the true breadth and scope of it - the parts that eliminate even the desire to rebuild - require non-core material form WOTC.

6) For a variety of challenge, you may destroy a city A) underground B) aboveground C) undersea but for the most part assume standard aboveground.

Stick with standard aboveground. Underground, I'd have to forgo the evil weather, the blizzard, etc. Underwater, even control winds is out.

7) Destroying a City is good; living to tell the tale afterward is better. If possible, destroy the city in such a way as to place blame on someone else, or simply to not get caught.

Bah; destroy the city for the greater glory of the God(s) of Slaughter and Destruction!

Unless placing the blame on a rival city/cult will better serve your longer-term goals and purposes, eof course; duping your good-aligned enemies into eliminating yoru evil-aligned rivals, while also deflecting the blame (and concomittant retaliation) from yourself is always a good goal to strive for ...

9) It is very helpful to read the 3.5 DMG pp 136-142. Be creative. Raw destruction, sabotage, the method does not so much matter as the end.

Why stop with one method? See above - true destruction takes EVERY available method, coordinated and orchestrated into a single symphony of death and obliteration ... ^_^

10) You may have your PCs be evil, or good destroying an evil city, or good destroying an evil city without killing any innocents (really tough), or neutral. It really doesn't matter.

Evil is, as evil does.

11) Destroying the City is a bit subjective. Whether my fire, flood, earthquakes, wind, hurricanes, starvation, once again the method is open to the imagination. You must actually destroy the city (assume that you can't take over for the current regime for some reason). Preferably, the majority of the city's buildings will be turned into rubble or somehow rendered useless.

City rubbled, population annihilated, ruins haunted with monstes, a horde of incorporeal undead, and surroundings occupied by animated evil plants and assorted, unnaturally-high populations of evil beasties. Not to mention any evil outsiders that decided to stick around after the party was over.

 

[Kyamsil]

THE PARTY (all Evil-aligned, of course):

• LE Tiefling Wizard(3)/Cleric(3)/Mystic Theurge(10), specialised in Necromancy. Domains are Air and Pestilence;
• NE Human Druid(17);
• LE Gnome Bard(7)/Evangelist(10)
• NE Halforc Fighter(5)/Warrior of Darkness(2)/Disciple of Dispater(10) - cold iron spiked chain twink.

Nice party that you have there. A nice touch adding the evangelist to spread discontent among the populace and cause mobs and riots.

The Mystic Theurge spends that time building a horde of incorporeal undead (imprisoned in ForceCages, until wanted).

Meanwhile, the Theurge can be opening gates to various planes, and inviting nefarious beings in for the "festivities" (not calling specific creatures, merely opening a door to populated areas of the lower planes and saying "come on over if you wanna have some fun" to whatever might be on the other side).

The problem is that you are counting on the Theurge to cast spells that he won't be able to. By his level, he should be able to cast 7th level Cleric Spells and 7th level Wizard spells.

You count on him creating incorporeal undead. That is only available through Create Greater Undead, an 8th level cleric/wizard/death domain spell.

You also count on him opening gates to the lower planes, a 9th level cleric spell.


Another unrelated issue is "Evil Weather" that the druid is to cast. I also thought on adding it to my entry, but that has a corruption cost of 3d6 Con Damage, potentially killing him in the process (I suppose that the characters should be done with some method of point-buy so the druid will boost his wisdom as much as possible and end up with an average-mid constitution score... an unlucky roll and he will be toast during the proccess. It perhaps can be solved with bear's endurance and restoration spells, but wanted to point it out as a potential problem.

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

Mystic Theurge can use scrolls. An orange ioun stone and a couple of other caster level boosters, and he's good to go on those gates and incorporeal undead.

 

[Pax]

The problem is that you are counting on the Theurge to cast spells that he won't be able to. By his level, he should be able to cast 7th level Cleric Spells and 7th level Wizard spells.

Scrolls and Staves. ^_^ That character gets two lists' worth of spells he can use by those means.

Another unrelated issue is "Evil Weather" that the druid is to cast. I also thought on adding it to my entry, but that has a corruption cost of 3d6 Con Damage, potentially killing him in the process (I suppose that the characters should be done with some method of point-buy so the druid will boost his wisdom as much as possible and end up with an average-mid constitution score... an unlucky roll and he will be toast during the proccess. It perhaps can be solved with bear's endurance and restoration spells, but wanted to point it out as a potential problem.

Leather Armor +5, Buffering cuts out 5 points of ability drain/damage/etc. And some Restorations can reset the clock, too. ^_^

[edit]
Oh, and there's always the option to Wildshape into soemthing with LOTS of constitution, and simply make sure to have the Natural Spell feat. ^_^

 

[Halivar]

This is why an evil party needs an evil DM. If these were my four players, they would quickly discover that an equally potent do-gooder adventuring group is uncovering their plan, and will stand against them ont he day of its execution.

After all, whereever evil rears its ugly head, and paladin is gonna be there to smite it.

 

[Pax]

Halivar: nondetection spells are wonderful things. ^_^ And in an actual campaign ... there'd be a lot more detaisl than I described in the (very rough) outline above.

Like setting up soup kitchens, shelters for the homeless, free schools for children and youths; helping finance the maintenance of the city watch, clean up the streets, etc.

IOW, become pillars of the community, truly above legal reproach. LET the do-gooders come ... and be arrested by the city watch, for harrassing respected and esteemed members of the city council, feverishly working on a *solution* for the plagues. ^_^ Heck, paladins and churches of good would likely be among the first targets for slandering by the Bard/Evangelist, in order to erode or even eliminate common support.

By showing the face of helpfulness and compassion to the commons, the evil guys have *willing* (duped) human shields to stand in the paladin's way. What's he going to do, CUT his way through the (truly innocent) crowd of children protecting "Uncle Vallikas and his friends" ... ? Well, then, say buh-bye to paladinhood right there; murdering innocents does not do a good-aligned body good. ^_^

As for after the fact ... well, by then, it's too late. Once the control winds is up ... it's all over; it'd be a real miracle to even get NEAR the evil guys, then!

 

[Sejs]

This is why an evil party needs an evil DM. If these were my four players, they would quickly discover that an equally potent do-gooder adventuring group is uncovering their plan, and will stand against them ont he day of its execution

Yes, see this is why when playing an evil campaign, it's important that you not let the DM in on your plans until the moment you enact them. In a normal campaign, you work hand in hand with the DM. In an evil campaign, the DM is another one of them. And if you go and let one of them in on the plan, well they're bound to go and do what they can to mess it up.

^_^

 

[strongbow]

Pax, your submission is the kind of quality that I hope others will emulate, complete with a necessarily abbreviated plan due to the nature of bulletin boards, but with an actual plan instead of the name of a spell.