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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chronikoce" data-source="post: 6176491" data-attributes="member: 6696592">So I am planning on starting up a campaign around November for a group of friends and I really want the Far Realms to play a role in the story Arch. Since I don't actually know much about them and I am still relatively new to being a DM (about a year of DM experience so far) I thought I would ask for input from the ENworld community!There is a lot of text in those spoilers so to anyone who reads and comments a huge thank you! I am interesting in any thoughts, ideas, comments, concerns, or experience that may prove to be useful. [sblock=Brief game details]Pathfinder/3.5 SettingAll non-3rd Party sources allowedAny alignment (however a party that fights within itself will probably die very very fast)Initially low-ish magic. It is present but heavily regulated and only the extreme wealthy can afford it. Non guild magic users must use discretion to avoid drawing attention to themselves.Gestalt RulesI am going for a very open theme. Players will be encouraged to create a fun and flavorful character with express warning that if they cheese it up to the extent that all the other players are no longer having fun then the cheesy PC will be retired (forcibly if required).[/sblock](story stuff in the next section)[sblock=Campaign opening idea (Before Far Realms Stuff)]So here is what I am thinking so far. I will try to break it up into readable segments since I know I can get a bit wordy. The players will start out as 2nd level gestalt characters. They will be fledgling adventurers already with at least 1 adventure under their belt to brag about (part of backstory). They may know each other or may not, I will leave that entirely up to them. They are all in a major city for a yearly festival that celebrates the kingdoms founding, the "party tent" (for lack of a better term) they are in has a group of adventures buying drinks for other adventures in exchange for tales of their exploits.Flash forward slightly. Anyone in the party who regales tales of their exploits will find the purpose out soon. A large parade is held and the king is in attendance to give a speech which is supposed to have an amazing announcement that will impact the entire kingdom.An assassination attempt (failed) is made upon the kings life. Those making the attempt will be using magic to take on the appearance of any adventurer whose tales they heard in the tent. Whether or not the party attends the parade they will end up hearing the screaming and commotion from the attempt of the kings life (and assuredly run towards the chaos as any good adventurer would hehe). At some point they will run into the kings guard (who are quite irate).At this point I expect they will A. Surrender at guard's command, B. Attempt to flee (which while possible will be very very unlikely unless they pull off something clever in which case kudos to them!), or C. Fight their way free (killing king's guard) and thereby committing actual crimes for which they will be wanted.If captured there will be a neat prison break sequence but in all cases the party will be fugitives wanted for attempted regicide! This leads to Phase 2 of the campaign detailed in the next section.[/sblock][sblock=The War]A lot less details hereEssentially the kingdom they started in will end up at war with a neighboring kingdom (and rival). The assassination attempt was orchestrated by higher ups in kingdom A and paid for by kingdom B. This war will be bloody and chaotic and rumors of weird events will start cropping up. The party is free to try and side with either nation or even neither. They could enlist, be mercenaries, stay bandits, or go hunt monsters and save villagers. This part of the campaign is for leveling and forshadowing to occur. Occasionally things they fight will have weird abilities or appendages (tentacles start popping up). This is also the point where any Divine casters notice something strange. They still have access to their spells but for some reason they feel wrong. Praying feels empty and their spells while potent have different colors, feeling, smell, etc. The reason for this will be explained in the next section coming right up![/sblock][sblock=Far Realms Stuff!]Ok so the overarching plot that has been building in the background is that the mighty beasties of the Far Realms are coming to the material plane. They are an ancient evil which destroys everything. The current realm the material plane occupies is not the first. The gods of this realm fled the previous realm (currently the far realms) because they could not defeat the unbelievable power those beings wield. The gods (all of them, regardless of alignment) are busy, very busy devoting all of their effort to holding back the impending tide of madness that is the Far Realms. These evil beasties have finally decided to move to a new realm and consume everything and it is taking the combined power of all the gods just to keep them out. The gods are losing this battle. It has gotten to the point that they cannot even spare the power needed to grant their followers spells anymore. This is where things get really interesting. There are other powerful beings that really would prefer that the Far Realms didn't utterly wipe them from existence. It just so happens that the Arch Dukes of Hell and the Princes of the Abyss are terrified of the madness that is coming to such an extent that not only has their eternal conflict been put on hold, they are actively expending their power to provide divine casters on the material plane with the energy to cast spells. This is the point where the party will start learning what in the world is going on. The war on the material plane and all that was orchestrated by agents of the Far Realms. Seeding chaos on the new Realm they are about to invade and all that. Keeps people busy and stops them from devoting resources to finding a way to stop the invasion. Big Baddies are stupidly powerful but they are not actually stupid so they don't take their power for granted and prefer to destroy a weakened and divided realm than a militarized one. [/sblock][sblock=The Resolution]I am assuming the above sections will not go as planned so the resolution that occurs may be wildly different than anything I have imagined. Currently my thoughts are along the lines of...The party finds a way to... -Evacuate as many people of this plane as possible to a new realm. It worked once for the current Gods as they fled before and it could work again.-Prevent the Big Baddies from getting through. I am thinking this option will involve some neat time/plane/really weird traveling of some sort to gain this information.or...-The party completely goes deep end evil and decides to work to bring the glory of the Far Realms to the material plane.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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