give me your over-arching plots NOW!!! please :)

[Gundark]

A while back (last week, havn't been present too much lately) there was a discussion about over-arching plots vs. self contained plots. I myself prefer to the over-arching plot method (currently running the AoW). The problem is that I NEVER can seem to come up with a decent idea (which is why I default to published stuff).

So if I use published stuff what's my problem? Well we are on the downhill slide of the AoW (age of worms) and I'm looking for the next campaign. I know that there are some "campaigns in a box" out there (SC, STAP, mongoose stuff). However none of them are really grabbing me as something of interest. Shakled city is out cause some players own the hardcover. Savage tide, is well....I can't put my finger on it, I'm just not inspired by it. Mongoose's stuff well... If I did anything if would be the drow wars (switching drow for another race). Even still, I'm not sure about the Drow wars

So I wanna do my own. I thought I would tap the enworld population for over-arching plot ideas. Partly for me and also I've hung out here long enough to see that others suffer from this problem too.

I'll start with something I have done in the past.

Evil creature (wizard, commoner, figther, monster or whatever) has plagued the party from the start of the campaign. The BBEG is an artifact gatherer (prehaps the PCs have worked for him/her/it). These items have given the BBEG power over the campaign. It has come to the BBEG's attention of a manual that was stolen long ago from the gods. Servants of the gods pursued the thief and a fight ensued. The thief was slain and the book lost (gods IMC weren't all knowing). The BBEG came in possession of the book. The book gives details for a mortal to assend to godhood. IMC there were only so many "divine seats" to be had. If a mortal assended then he displaced an existing diety (who became mortal). Over the course of the campaign the PCs had to stop or disrupt the BBEG from ascending. The climax of the campaign was (or would have been as we never finished) fighting the BBEG when he was a "near deity".

What are your big plot ideas?

 

[Kafkonia]

Are you looking for overarching 1-20, like the Adventure Paths tend to be, or something on a slightly smaller scale?

 

[Voadam]

A couple other overarching module plots for shorter campaigns 1-13

Coils of Set - Necromancer - Machinations of the evil god Set ending in time travel

Shades of Gray - Necromancer - haven't fully read it yet but plague stuff from evil outsiders.

Dungeon Interludes - Goodman Games - series of linked short adventures as a summoner constructs his devil summoning telescope. Needs mix of intervening adventures to fill in level gaps.

 

[Torment]

In a nutshell, whats going on right now "in my world" is some elves are losing a war, the leader of the elves decide to sell out his soul + whoever else in the plane to some demons for "the powah". That's... you know... basicly it. The players have some artifact weapon... and euh... yeah, I guess it'll come down to them to stop it. Surprise surprise.

 

[Piratecat]

[sblock=Spoiler to keep my players outMy next campaign will probably have the PCs all be members of a paramilitary guard organization that (echoes of GRRM!) is internationally neutral but suspiciously tolerated by the locations it has chapter houses in. They take the rejects - prisoners, bastards, disenfranchised nobles, poor people with no other hopes. Then they train them.

The purpose of the organization is ostensibly to help tame the wild regions of the world. So they would patrol the edges of the empire and solve mysteries or empty dungeons.

As the PCs rise in power, however, they learn that the organization has another purpose, one far more important. They're there to guard against something horrible. Maybe its mindflayers, or fiends, or dream, or evil fey, or creatures from the plane of mirrors -- but it's the job of the Brotherhood to act as secret agents and fight back against the enemy.

This set-up gives me a reason to have the PCs together, and provides opportunities for everything from politics to exploration to dungeoncrawling.

[/sblock]

 

[exile]

The PCs are asked to investigate a delayed caravan. Ultimately they discover that it was transporting a load of dangerous books recently liberated form an evil wizard/liche's tower. The onus then falls on the PCs to recover the missing books. Complications arise as the books' previous owner and apprentice also try to recover the books.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Here's the one I am using in my current campaign. On the off chance that any of my players are reading this, don't. This means you, Ryan!

Ahem.

Deep background: eons ago, there was nothing, just darkness. Erebus -- more ancient than any deity -- existed in the nothingness, and was comforted.

Somehow [insert handwaving], a group of proto-deities gained knowledge of the very powerful Words of Creation. Using a special ritual, they spoke these Words, shattering the nothingness into fragments -- like a mirror broken into shards of glass. We know these shards as the planes of the multiverse.

Fast forward a few trillion years... and enter the PCs. They learn firsthand that the universe is being unraveled, one plane at a time, as Erebus and his cultists seek to unmake reality.

The PCs must learn the Words of Creation, then travel back to the dawn of time to re-write history (or more literally, re-speak history). Only this can save the multiverse from annihilation.

Yes, it's really grandiose and apocolyptic. I paint in bold strokes.

 

[Umbran]

Five centuries ago, there was a great war between the Sidhe and Aberrations. At the height of the conflict, some sidhe were tricked into despair, and committed a sacrifice of their own blood to save themselves. The sacrifice of an immortal soul had grave consequences, and it would be fair to say both sides lost.

The sidhe never recovered. Stripped of their immortality, most of the sidhe have died. Those remaining are "elves", a mere shadow of their former fey power. The aberrations are returning, with necromantic powers never before seen.

And the human world is ignorant of their danger....

 

[diaglo]

an evil over god is slain in a great battle in the very distant future.

time means nothing to gods.

ergo.

his remains fall to the various planes and various whens.

some of his old self falls to the prime plane ages ago, some fall in the here and now, and some in the future.

worshippers tell of his coming. and attempt to gather up his essence.

 

[jhallum]

I'm just starting the second phase of my 1-2x level game. (My players shouldn't be reading this either)
[sblock=My players shouldn't be reading this either]
Set in my version Forgotten Realms Old Empires.

After helping the deity Enlil regain his divinity(and helps Assuran maintain his) duing the Time of Troubles, the party watches as a reunited Chessenta marches over Unther. When two of their members are captured while investigating a tribe of Apep worshipping snake men, they stumble upon a ritual that is summoning an Aspect of Tiamat and imbuing it with enough power to become a full fledged Avatar. If they slay the Aspect, then the war against Unther will take longer. If they let the Aspect live, it will go and kill Gilgeam, their god's worst enemy, but then Tiamat will be let loose upon the Realms in her full glory, and then they will have to deal with her machinations as she tries to destroy their patrons.


I have no idea what the plot will be yet. I have several points: One former Banite might become a Holy Warrior in the service of Marduk/Bahamut, another character might face a wedding to a determined bride, a third might discover why his order of Monks was formed thousands of years ago. I have no idea how it will turn out, but it should be fun![/sblock]