hirou
Explorer
Team Bravo, these are not the ideas you're looking for. Melygos, this especially applies to you.
My Zeitgeist campaign of 10 years and counting is still making its way towards the bright future of Lanjyr (we had 9 players in total, including Ottavia Sacredote and non-talking St.Bernard paladin dog, who are currently spread across 4 countries). We're officially in Gorged on Ruins, but there was a number of "sequence breaks", which put me into a strange position - there is virtually no way to run Forward Symposium as written. The outline of the last three adventures, for context:
In short, Han Jierre is captured by Risur, Lya Jierre is a guest of Risur. Ber is saved from interplanetary invasion for a time, but teeters on the edge of a civil war. Something will happen in Crisillyir in the next few days, and basically nothing is currently stated about the situation in Drakr and Elfaivar (Kasvarina is friendly to the party and probably rules Ushanti). Sijhen is maybe not dead, but definitely in no position to orchestrate the coup at Symposium.
4 weeks in total have passed after Eclipse. This actually still seems like a good time for Nicodemus to try and propose his vision of a new paradise to the world leaders, so Forward Symposium is definitely happening in the coming days. Nothing that party has done since Eclipse is actually going against his wishes; he's still convinced that Axis Seal ritual was halted because of some interference from Risur, but he has no proof and party has a-plenty to cast the blame upon Voice of Rot. But Godmind formation will not occur without Sijhen interference; moreover, most of the Gorged on Ruins events would already happen by this point, and representatives from Elfaivar, Ber, Crisillyir and maybe Drakr will be inclined to take Risur's side in the discussions. As a meta-complication, the party is severely allergic to free-form choices, I definitely don't want to spend literally tens of hours on fruitless discussions, so I don't think they will come to any ideas what to propose. When given some external stimuli and a choice between several defined possibilities/problems, they tend to act well, though.
What would Nicodemus do in this situation and what would be a satisfying conclusion for this adventure, narratively and in term of satisfying 4e mechanics?
I'm currently thinking that the events of Grinding Gears of Heavens could be a quest from Nicodemus and world leaders, to save the world from a certain destruction in the hands (coils) of White Serpent, simultaneously banishing them literally as far as it's possible from Lanjyr, but it's just one possibility; I wonder if other ideas come to your mind upon reading all this.
Some additional details about the world in my interpretation, which may or may not be useful in the current situation:
My Zeitgeist campaign of 10 years and counting is still making its way towards the bright future of Lanjyr (we had 9 players in total, including Ottavia Sacredote and non-talking St.Bernard paladin dog, who are currently spread across 4 countries). We're officially in Gorged on Ruins, but there was a number of "sequence breaks", which put me into a strange position - there is virtually no way to run Forward Symposium as written. The outline of the last three adventures, for context:
- Rock Rackus murder mystery in Last Starry Sky mostly went as planned; party refused to deal with Voice of Rot, instead returning to the material plane via planar magic shenanigans.
- Assassination attempt on King Aodan went terribly wrong for Obscurati; the king still dropped down, but was stabilized and nursed back to health. As of today, Aodan is still the king, noone in the party was an obvious candidate (and they all tend to avoid public attention and glory)
- As a side note, party delivered Lya Jierre, well and alive, to Aodan. Lya is in mild political opposition to Han Jierre, despite overall supporting Obscurati plans, and still advances the idea of political marriage to alleviate the hostilities between Danor and Risur.
- Confrontation with Governor Stanfield would have made absolutely no sense due to previous interactions (including coercions, mild briberies and intimidation). Stanfield hid for a time, then negotiated with the party, promising help in stabilizing the city. He's currently back to being a governor on somewhat shaky terms. One of the players is a follower of Hewanharinmau, and I'm almost sure that tigerXtiger scene is still coming somewhere in the future.
- Party double-teamed with King Aodan on pacifying the titans, which mostly went well. Voice of Rot's absence was noted and his status as a guardian of Risuri land was challenged, hence there's currently ongoing free-for-all for the titan title between various spirits and creatures of the forest. Certain spider-husk spirit from Adventures in Zeitgeist is a promising applicant. Also, avenger of Srasama was busy turning vekeshi mystics of Flint into a better mafia.
- Axis Island was visited, party tried to extract basically everything they could from the site of the ritual. After a while, Danor fleet has arrived. I slightly underestimated the resources, boldness and raw destructive power of epic level heroes in D&D 4e, hence, despite some losses in Pemberton forces, the fleet actually lost the initial confrontation. Han Jierre was captured by the party (without a chance to teleport away), which halted the assault.
- The party was disturbed by news from Ursalina, so, instead of immediately going to Danor, they decided to check on their southern neighbors. I'm skipping a lot of details here, but the current public opinion is that Ursalina was saved by common efforts of some Risuri nobles and Brakken of Heffanita, who's very likely to challenge Bruse Shantus in the near future on a change of corruption. Gidim leviathan under Ursalina is under partial control of Alexander Grappa mind-clone, and nothing bad will happen as a result of this.
- Taking the scenic route to Danor on their new airship, the party basically stumbled upon ongoing angelic guard on Isle Odiem, and in two IRL days the fate of Ashimu-Shimtu will be decided. The party knows about "some ongoing god trials" in Alas Primos, so it will probably be their next destination.
In short, Han Jierre is captured by Risur, Lya Jierre is a guest of Risur. Ber is saved from interplanetary invasion for a time, but teeters on the edge of a civil war. Something will happen in Crisillyir in the next few days, and basically nothing is currently stated about the situation in Drakr and Elfaivar (Kasvarina is friendly to the party and probably rules Ushanti). Sijhen is maybe not dead, but definitely in no position to orchestrate the coup at Symposium.
4 weeks in total have passed after Eclipse. This actually still seems like a good time for Nicodemus to try and propose his vision of a new paradise to the world leaders, so Forward Symposium is definitely happening in the coming days. Nothing that party has done since Eclipse is actually going against his wishes; he's still convinced that Axis Seal ritual was halted because of some interference from Risur, but he has no proof and party has a-plenty to cast the blame upon Voice of Rot. But Godmind formation will not occur without Sijhen interference; moreover, most of the Gorged on Ruins events would already happen by this point, and representatives from Elfaivar, Ber, Crisillyir and maybe Drakr will be inclined to take Risur's side in the discussions. As a meta-complication, the party is severely allergic to free-form choices, I definitely don't want to spend literally tens of hours on fruitless discussions, so I don't think they will come to any ideas what to propose. When given some external stimuli and a choice between several defined possibilities/problems, they tend to act well, though.
What would Nicodemus do in this situation and what would be a satisfying conclusion for this adventure, narratively and in term of satisfying 4e mechanics?
I'm currently thinking that the events of Grinding Gears of Heavens could be a quest from Nicodemus and world leaders, to save the world from a certain destruction in the hands (coils) of White Serpent, simultaneously banishing them literally as far as it's possible from Lanjyr, but it's just one possibility; I wonder if other ideas come to your mind upon reading all this.
Some additional details about the world in my interpretation, which may or may not be useful in the current situation:
- the world itself is actually the far future of another well-known D&D setting with dim sun, no contact with gods, psionic powers regarded as divine and prominent dragon tyrants.
- War of the Burning Sky happened on another continent circa 1500 years ago. Pilus is semi-alive, Harkover Lee is his amnesiac clone (I'll spare you the excruciatingly complex details)
- "Fandom is magic", the world of Lanjyr has unique planar aspect and thus was contested between demons, angels, Gidim and whoever else, until orcs grew tired of it. Extremely limited number of beings know this in full, but Kasvarina, for example, had a hunch and once planned Born to become a literal divine being (with proper education, morality and core values) at the height of the Axis Seal ritual (since her memories are still incomplete, she's currently horrified at the possible aftermath)
- Eclipse kinda broke the unidirectional flow of casuality. Mass belief in the present can retroactively change the past, e.g. currently kobolds are slowly going extinct, cause "kobolds do not exist, you know".
- in connection with the previous point, Grandis Komanova ultimate plan is "convincing people that the world definitely ended", which will make it true. Voice of Rot, in turn, seek not to simply destroy the world but to make its history to never exist in the first place.
- Dhebisu, Hewaharinmau, Srasama and Ingatan are tangled in a 5D-chess plan to save eladrin race. There are two avengers of Srasama in the party (one of which is a weretiger) with vastly different visions of Srasama's teachings, which both selected "Avatar of Dead God" epic destiny. Certain entity which spent 500 years exacting revenge on Clergy is likely to be the third avatar of death/revenge aspect, because all good things come in threes.
