Evil PCs finally turned epic, need plot-ideas! Please..?

[Jolly Giant]

The story so far:

The PCs started out as pirates, but around level 11 things started to change. They discovered that the lowly gnome ale-brewer on their tropical island hide-out was really a very poweful githyanki lich wiz/ftr! He'd spent the last 1500 years hiding out from the githyanki lich queen Vlaakith, who famously murders any githyanki who rises above level 16; i.e. well before they're powerful enough to be any sort of threath to her power and position...

Since then they've run all sorts of errands for the githyanki (Susinieg), exploring the outer planes, and gathering weapons and experience for the day they would join Susinieg (and his red wyrm buddy Master Loge) in a direct attack at the lich queen.

On their way to level 20 they've made enemies of just about every good-guy-organization on the material plane.

They've allied with a huge temple fortress dedicated to a number of various evil gods and run by orcs, but also full of kobolds, goblinoids and a few lizardmen, minotaurs, hill giants and ogres; sort of a free haven for all savage/evil humanoids and also "school" for blackguards, assassins etc. (Phew, looong sentence!) They've since gone from being allies with this temple to being its heroes and protectors.

They've visited a number of planar metropolises, including Sigil and Union (from the Epiclevel Handbook).

They've angered a minor hag deity, known as the Queen of Curses.

They've built themselves a HUGE ship, 320ft long, 90ft wide, that levitates. Whoever is at the steering wheel can use control weather at will, so they can sail through the air without to much trouble. The ship also allows use of Storm of Vengance 1/day and Planeshift 1/day. The crew consists of 120-130 orc warriors/fighters/barbarians/clerics/ravagers/blackguards, goblinoid clerics/rogues/assassins, kobold sorcerers, ogres and minotaurs from the temple (above), plus quite a few craftsmen, cooks etc. The crew's now got its very own prestige class, (Crew of Captain Karu), that gains an usual mix of all the five PC's abilities, reflecting how they all wanted to teach the crewmembers their favorite tricks of the trade...

They have stolen the Bow of the Highelf King (minor artifact!), and sold it to a drow queen...

Finally, they fought alongside Susinieg and Master Loge, killing Vlaakith the Githyanki lich-queen... The battle was certainly epic enough, bringing the PCs to level 21 and making Susinieg the new Githyanki lich-KING.

Susinieg is now perfectly blissful to be back among his own and able to move freely where-ever he wants, after 1500 years in hiding. He'll be busy with the affairs of ruling a nation for quite some time to come, meeting with diplomats and traders from other nations etc.

So here's where I'd love som input: What's to happen with the PCs now?

There's five of them, and their average ECL is really around 24-25, not 21, but I've been restricting access to Epic feats and such until now that they have 21 actual class-levels. The PCs are:

Captain Karu, a human half-fiend barbarian/rogue/ravager/blackguard with a strong dedication to Erythnul.

Alroh the shipmage, a fiendish greyelf shipmage. (wiz 21) Seems to worship a new god every other day...

Rasputin, a fiendish dwarf lich cleric of Nerull. (clr21)

Josephine, fiendish human sorceress 6/dragon disciple 15. (She's reached size huge by now! Worshipper of Tiamat and mistress of Master Loge...)

I don't remember the name of the fifth guy now, but he's a drow rogue 21. The character is a newcomer to the party, but the player's not. He used to play a shifter, but retired that character (Phew!) after 3.5 came out...


My ideas for the future circles around the PCs being the catalyst for an alliance between several evil deities, who will then launch a massive war against the forces of good. The PCs should be in the front line of this war, possibly becoming hero-deities in the process. There exists a prophecy about this, that both the good and evil deities, (but not yet the players! They've heard hints about some prophecy that might be about them, but nothing more) are aware of and both sides suspect that the PCs could be the ones mentioned in the prophecy...

Also, there will have to be direct confrontation between the PCs and the Queen of Curses at some point. She's currently holding hostage the most priced possession of each PC, including the lich-clerics phylactery...

Any ideas on how to run this storyline, or any other storylines you might come up with, would be most welcome! I have available just about every 3rd edition WotC book, including the newcomers BoED, Draconomicon and Complete Warrior. The BoED especially holds lot of goodies I'd just LOVE to throw against them! ;-) They've been enjoying their BoVD for so long, finally it's MY turn! Hehehe...

 

[Dogbrain]

Is there a reason why your campaign is identical to all "good" campaigns in its adventure structure? The enemies all seem to be purely reactive, passive, or even inert until the PCs do something to them. Where are the crusading heroes?

Where are the CL21 parties of Good characters out to get them? Indeed, there should be a party of shining heroes with every bit as much power individually and every bit as many members out for their blood. Of course, this would mean killing a few PCs, but that's the cost of being so powerful, vile, and active in the world. At that power level, go for at least a 50% unrecoverable death rate for the party.

 

[The Forsaken One]

I had enemies of my evil party hitting them with scry teleport tactics from level 9 and up.... And they butchered quite a few adventuring parties come to seek their doom and just a couple they found chasing after the same goals as them and some just for fun.

My players always have a hard time acting instead of reacting against everything I throw at them. But that's because they do stuff that just beggs to be responded to.

If you reached epic and they haven't ever been scried and then some mages with entourage teleport in and kick their asses while the assailants are fully buffed and they are in their underpants. Your playing something very wrong there imho.... Epic parties should be mindblanked whole days in places where its almost inpossible to be scried divined teleported whatever. Anyway, every party above level 7-8 dealing with mages or with people that might hire mages against them should be warded against scry teleport tactics...

 

[the Jester]

Sounds like a great campaign! A good example for all the people who claim that evil parties can't work.

Sounds like you're doing fine to me. The big war against the forces of good is a cool idea- the pcs would take the roles of the big generals and stuff... if your group is interested in wargaming this might be a good chance to add some of it to your campaign!

As a side note, do you find it hard to justify the challenges you throw at the pcs when they're Epic level? How many Epic npcs are out there in your world? (Sounds like you run Greyhawk, so I guess there are quite a few.) The group in my campaign is just edging into Epic levels now (homebrewed campaign, party levels from 16-21) and I've been running into these kinds of difficulties for quite a while.

 

[Jolly Giant]

First of all; thanks for posting guys!

Now, let me try to reply...

Forsaken One and Dogbrain:

The old buff-scry-teleport-attack has seen plenty use, believe me, by PCs and NPCs alike. And yes, the PCs has learned the importance of not only killing an enemy, but also that enemy can't be ressurected. It's happened to the party more than once...

Buff-scry-teleport-attack is of course an extremely efficient tactic and will without doubt see plenty of use yet. But that's still just an encounter, not a plot, and thats really what I was after...

As for a party of good guys stalking them, they already have the church of Pelor , the Hunters of the Dead, the Highelven archmage King and a major arcane guild after them. Plus the Queen of Curses, who's not actually trying to kill them, just make their lives as miserable as she possibly can!

I'm planning to add yet some "parties" to the list, celestials and/or mortal champions of good out to destroy the party to stop the prophecized war. The seven archon champions from BoED seems to be perfect for the job... But I don't want the campaign to be about the party sitting on their but waiting for the next attack either! So I guess what I'm really after here is something for them to be going after while being hounded by these "other parties"...


Jester:

Tanx!

The world I'm running is a homebrew, but when this campaign started I hadn't yet gotten round to doing the pantheon for it so we used the Greyhawk deities that everyone is familiar with... I'm also using the outer planes cosmology from Manual of the Planes. Of course there are minor changes to both planes and deities, but nothing worth detailing here.

As for epic NPCs, I adopted the city of Union straight into my homebrew as it is; epic NPCs and all...

Epic characters IMC are treated almost like hero-deities. Anyone who reaches lvl 21 is changed somehow, become something more than they were. Not everyone has the potential for ever getting there, I have NPCs that's been stuck on lvl 20 for decades...
It takes something special for a mere mortal to make the transission; either it is your destiny from birth to one day perform some truely epic undertaking or some very special circumstances help push you past the boundaries... And there are those who's not been able to take the changing and gone mad as they reached lvl 21...

My justification for this is that if ordinary skill-checks let you perform things that should be physically impossible, such as squeezing your entire body through a hole the size of your thumb, you're obviously something more than mere mortal...

The gods take notcie of anyone who reaches lvl 21, as that person is on it's way to becoming either a potential ally or a potential threath. Because once you've made it above 20, there's no longer any limit to how powerful you could one day become...

For all of the above reasons, it is scowled upon by epic NPCs and gods alike for epic characters to get too directly involved in the affairs of non-epic mortals. Twice in my homebrews history civilization has been on the brinck of destruction because of feuding between the super-powerful, so once you're into epic lvls you either leave the material plane behind for good or at least maintain a very low profile if you ever go there.

Not sure if this answers your questions... If it doesn't, just ask again!

 

[Zappo]

Is there a reason why your campaign is identical to all "good" campaigns in its adventure structure? The enemies all seem to be purely reactive, passive, or even inert until the PCs do something to them. Where are the crusading heroes?

Weird. In my experience, in good campaigns the PCs are normally passive until some evil guy does something (attacks them, starts summoning armageddon, whatever)..

 

[ruleslawyer]

Where are the CL21 parties of Good characters out to get them? Indeed, there should be a party of shining heroes with every bit as much power individually and every bit as many members out for their blood.

Why should there be? Getting to 21st level requires overcoming some very stiff challenges. I've always disliked the logic that when PCs get to these lofty levels after overcoming plane-spanning, legend-making obstacles, there are a bunch of similar folks there waiting for them. At these levels, I see no reason why the PCs shouldn't be unsurpassed, at least on their home plane.

Of course, this would mean killing a few PCs, but that's the cost of being so powerful, vile, and active in the world. At that power level, go for at least a 50% unrecoverable death rate for the party.

I'd never, ever play in a campaign run like this. I happen to be uncomfortable with evil-PC campaigns, but if I were in the position of running one, I certainly wouldn't "go for" a 50%+ unrecoverable death rate! You kill a PC or two in the course of events, fine. Some of those deaths are even irreversible, fine. Actually aiming for PC deaths (and a 50% kill rate!): unacceptable.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Keep the input coming guys & gals!

 

[Joshua Randall]

Well, there's always the old standby for eeeevil people: take over the world.

Now, buffing up and smashing the pathetic non-epic good guys of this world might be no challenge to your PCs and their flying, plane-shifting ship o' doom. But taking over the world requires more than just some random slaughter.

How will you rule the areas you've conquered? Directly, through fear? Indirectly, through quislings? What will you do about people unhappy with your rule - crush them ruthlessly, or co-opt them? Or try to make reforms to please them?

How will you handle the shifting balances of power across the planet as you successively conquer country after country? What will you do when the remaining good-guy nations ally together to stop you? What if the good guys, thanks to their more motivated and happy populaces, end up having superior resources at their disposal?

Your PCs, although awesomely powerful, are still contrained by time and space. They can only be in one place at one time. How will they react to multiple counter-attacks in multiple areas? They go to take care of something at point A, and face problems at points B through H.

Suppose the PCs call on their githyanki ally/patron for help. I'm sure he'd be only too happy to add the PCs' homeworld to the githyanki empire... with him as undisputed master, of course, and the PCs as his lackeys. How is that going to sit with your epic level PCs? What will they do about the hoards of gith, red dragons, and summoned/bound demons?

You can make your players' lives interesting by creating problems for them, problems that reflect their activities. If they are bent on taking over the world, make them realize how hard it is (and how it has never been achieved in real human history - at least, not the ENTIRE world). If they are ignoring or forgetting about past agreements and promises, have people show up to collect on those debts. Think of something crazy, dramatic, and BIG and unleash it upon the PCs. They will undoubtedly surprise you with their response, and then you build from there.

 

[silentspace]

I think its time for the PCs to meet a roadblock on their path to ultimate power...

The new githyanki king/former patron, is now suspicious of the PCs, and intent on wiping them out before they gain power. He won't do this directly though. The PCs will find themselves under attack, but will never know who's behind it. Could be the power-hungry leader of the assassin's guild. Could be one of the giant leaders. Could be someone else entirely. Slowly the PCs begin to suspect their former patron, but they have no proof.

Alternatively, the PCs may believe it is the forces of good. The gith king could be feeding the forces of good information on the PCs through spies. He wouldn't mind the forces of good eliminating the PCs for him. Of course, not until the PCs are finished helping him in strategic battles.

Basically, the new githyanki king wants to institute the policies of the former queen, and wipe out any creatures that are too powerful, and hence a threat to him. The PCs were a useful tool, but now they must be discarded.