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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 420976" data-attributes="member: 172">Hi all,A while back, I referred to a time-loop plot where the players get trapped within a demi-plane that is the prison for a horrifying entity "that must not be released."I finally think the time is ripe to run it, but I need a few ideas.The hook: The players are currently after their arch-nemesis, a powerful conjurer named Galea. They finally track Galea down and find that her demense has been taken over by a powerful evil fey creature (a paragon dannanshee) and she charmed Galea's allies and servants and forced Galea to enter a gate that the Galea had opened during her experiments (being an evil conjurer, she naturally poked around in places she shouldn't be poking around.) Most likely, the Dannanshee will be able the charm the party, and she will force the players into the same gate she forced Galea into. Even if the party prevails against the Dannanshee, her servants will report that Galea fled into the gate and the party is likely to follow.A powerful and horrific godlike entity (with ELH in hand, I have decided this is an atropol) has been trapped in a demiplane that the gate leads to. The demiplane is trapped in a time-loop that prevents the creature from engineering its escape, since every 24 hours, time "resets" and time repeats itself.The PCs get trapped in this plane. If a PC survives until the end of the day, the day restarts with knowledge of the prior days intact and can use that knowledge to influence the next day's events. However, if the PC is slain, the PC returns to the state they were in when they entered the Demiplane (i.e., alive with no level loss) but do not remember anything about the previous day. The implication of this should soon become clear: if there is ever a total party kill, the party is doomed to eternally replay their deaths.The party is currently 16th-17th level and an Atropol should hand the party their collective posterior.That's the concept. Here's the questions:1) How does the party escape? There needs to be some way for the party to escape, some trick or mechanism, some way out of the time loop. But what? I am thinking there is a stucture of some sort within the demiplane; perhaps the demiplane was created around the atropol when it was imprisoned, and some of the buildings and landscape from the ancient empire it rules/controlled was pulled out with it.I want to make the puzzle somewhat difficult but solvable. Also, since PCs can easily come back, I can afford to make the opposition really deadly and the traps extremely nasty, but eventually the PCs can find their way though by means of a hideous trial-and-error. (Anyone ever read Rogue Moon?)2) I am considering something interesting from a roleplaying perspective. Begin the adventure by assuming the PCs got killed once but one PC escaped. E.G. They saw Galea in the demiplane and defeated her, but immediately thereafter (exhaused of their best spells and down on HP) they are ambushed by a horde of Nightcrawlers and only one PC escapes to live to the next day.So using this approach, I choose a PC and take them aside and explain what they saw, and then start the play with the party about to initiate combat with Galea but having one of the PCs say "no -- don't -- I saw you all die" etc. I think this might make for a more interesting roleplaying situation then having them play it out from the start.What do you think?</blockquote>

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