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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gwarok" data-source="post: 3263706" data-attributes="member: 12249">I'm running a campaign thats been going on for awhile now.  I have 2 players(Thom -Sorc 23, Domingo - Rogue 24) and I have about 3 different story arcs that I can't quite seem to get the players into solving or working on.   Also, I'm sorta stuck on how much to push them and how much to let them figure out on their own.  Copious campaign background to follow:3 Cities Campaign - Players centered around Stein, the eastern most of 3 large city states that have been established over the centuries as the overall capital, Carnasis, expanded eastward.  All the rulers of the various cities are descended from the Haustein clan of Carnasis.   To the north are mountains and a large icy plateau, populated by dwarves and other hardy folk.  Orcs, barbarians, giants, dragons, you get the idea.  East of Stein you have forests of elves and other fey.  To the south is a tremendous desert/badlands area populated by barbarians as well, in loose but numerous clans.  Also far to the south and along the western coast is the City of Ur-Domen ruled by a quasi deity god emperor.  Ur-domen is a vast city, and is LE and venerates Hextor.  They don't exactly rule their neighbors as much as demand a hefty tribute from them.  Aside form that Ur-domen has stayed pretty much to itself over the course of the campaign. Ancient History - No records go back farther than 1000 years into the past.  In this prehistoric era men, elves and dwarves were very much superior to what they are now.   Each had a huge and powerful empire and peace largely ruled the land.   This is your proto-typical golden age.   Along came Erythuul to mess things up.  He sent the first dragon, his son, to meet with the ancient peoples.  This dragon was a demigod due to his divine parentage and at first got along well with the other races.  For a few thousand years they taught eachother new things and all was well.   This was just a ruse however.  The dragon secretly promoted the worship of Erythuul while it learned all it could about the land and the other races.  Eventually it mades its move, cults of chaos sprang up, alliances were shattered, and the dragon started a war calling hosts of worshippers to its banner.   This war was so destructive that all the civilizations were almost totally wiped out.  However, the races combined were able to destroy the dragon's armies if only just.  The dragon however was a demigod and could not be slain by mortals, so they decided to capture him.   The dwarves built a mountain to imprison him, humans forged a chain to bind him, and the elves wrought magic to hide the prison and make the dragon slumber, wary that its waking thought alone would provoke more chaos.The races then decided to destroy any and all records of the war so that none would ever know of the dragons existence and imprisonment.   But the elves went a step farther and their 100 most powerful wizards cast a spell powerful enough to wipe the minds of all living creatures.  Most of them died fromt the backlash of the spell, the rest were cursed with dementia and wander the ancient woods as forest wraiths.   Theys spew magics randomly and even the elves avoid them.   Fortunately the forest wraiths tend to rarely appear.A keeper of the age known only as the Blue Wizard had warned both the humans and the dwarves of what was coming.  Knowing that the elves rarely change course once they make a decision, the humans took what was left of their knowledge and sealed it in a necropolis city that was put in a temporal stasis and hidden from the eyes of men.  Their oracle had told them one would come to unseal the city in the future and bring back the knowledge when the world needed it.   The dwarves pleaded with the elvish nation to forgoe the spell and trust to common sense to keep the dragon hidden, but the elves went ahead and cast the spell anyways.   This left the remains of the races in a shattered world with basically total amnesia.   The dwarves had a lingering racial awareness that the elves had done them wrong, and shortly afterwards went to war with the elves, with the humans splitting up and taking sides as they saw fit.  What ensued was about 200 years of on again off again wars and a horrible dark age.  Eventually things calmed down and civilization began to form again, which brings us to the current age.Our heroes have three story lines going atm.  First, the dragon has been released and is growing stronger in the north.  The PC's are aware of this.  They have staved off the first assault, but later learned that the dragon only wanted dead people to capture their souls for fueling epic casting.  He was happy no matter who died, orc minions or good guys.   The dragon is leading armies of orcs, evil humans, and half-dragon men.   They have some powerful casters, and I really want to work in a Chaos Theme to this.  The PC's don't know what to do and are scared to even go up there or investigate.Second story line involves the dark elves.  They were ancient allies of The Dragon, and led by an evil queen Xanaphia high priestess of the spider godess.   When they were chased into the underdark at the conclusion of the ancient war Lolth put a guardian to the underdark realm of a really huge fiendish spider creature.  The elves basically couldnt' go down, the drow couldn't come up.  Xanaphia established her realm in force during the last 1000 years and was doing quite well until recently.   A large mind flayer incursion cost her the lower halls of her city.   Fearing the mental powers of the Flayers Xanaphia took the step of becoming a Lich after all these years rendering her immune to all sorts of things the mind flayers like to employ.  The PC's were on the hunt for an artifact, cut a deal with her, slew a buttload of mind flayers and their Epic monster leader.    However they also then promptly stole the entire treasury of the lower halls ensuring Xanaphia's wrath.   The PC's were wise in this as she was going to kill them anyways.   Since attaining her newfound state as a lich, Xanaphia has forsaken Llolth and been successfully wooed by Orcus.  Orcus has granted her the ability to get to the surface world again, and also has provided her with the knowledge to transcend to Demilich status.  I haven't decided those steps will be, but I'd like the PC's to stop her.    Trouble is getting them to even know what she's up to.  Should she become a demilich, she'd most likely be able to stomp the heroes to dust for the foreseeable future.   Right now she's a 25th level Priest Drow Lich.   Next story line involves Thom's archrival Thanok(Wizard 24th).   He is from the barbarian badlands in the south, has dueled Thom on several occasions, and once organized about 80,000 of the tribesmen in the south to attack the city of Stein.  He's been a great badguy, master of werewolves and beasts, and plays a wizard to Thom's sorceror so I get to really have have them duke it out sometimes.    Last we saw of him he had disappeared into the Far Realms on a crazed quest for power.   I wanted maybe for him to come back with a Pseudonatural Template, of perhaps have his personality shattered as well, with perhaps a "good" Thanok coming back to warn of the impending return of the Epic Pseudonatural Thanok trying to get back into this world.   Thanok also had 9 apprentices that were all clones of him at 20th(i.e. 10th level Thanoks), they were useful as messengers and to bolster the boss during sticky situations, and of course to take that Disintegrate to make us think the real one had died.  Also, the ancient necropolis has been uncovered by the PC's.   The sorceror was sorta a treasure hunter type guy but that changed into more of a portable artillery guy.  Thom has left it guarded by a Planetar and a Dominated evil titan that used to guard it from all intruders.  The massive library he has done nothing with, but my intention was for the knowledge to be dispersed and the current people to rapidly regain the power and glory of the old days for the battle to come.  I think they've been back once to the joint, lol.  I've sorta styled the ancient humans after the egyptians, with Pelor being much more of a fierce sun god back then than the hippie healing god he has become in these days.Domingo is actually a resuced spirit.  He used to live in the old days and was the greatest assasin before and during The War.   He died at the hands of the dragon, spent 1000 years doing penance for his crimes in the Abyss, and was rescued by Thom on a jaunt down there.   His player is incredibly bloodthirsty, altho with a good streak to him.   But put him anywhere near an enemy to stick a dagger into and he's going to do it.  Anyways, that the campaign as it stands.  Looking for any advice on how to move forward.   Thom is not as curious as I'd like, and domingo keeps killing people I want him to talk to.   Should I just cater to that and line up the big fights?  Thanks for reading.</blockquote>

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