Help! Game in 3 hours and I have no idea what the villain's ritual will do!

[Cake Mage]

quick story summary: (D&D 5e)
Characters have the seed of an Elder god (Cthulhu/far realm type of being) buried in them. There are several prophecies stating this gods return to the world. The villain is a cult leader who (may or may not) want to bring this god back, but regardless he is doing some shady things. The pcs are mostly trying to get their friend NPC professor back so he can help them figure out what it is they have inside them (They don't really know but believe it is some sort of being). The professor was kidnapped by the cult.

My idea is that the villain knows they pcs have this essence/seed inside them and has decided to lead them (thru the use of his followers) to the ritual room where, once inside the Magic circle, the ritual will be complete. But, what does this ritual do?
my ideas so far:

Option 1:
The ritual is to awaken the Cthulhu guardian god of the world who can then defend the world against other elder gods. He is likely to destroy the city in the process of his awakening.

Option 2:
The ritual is to create a beacon for the gods heart (a comet). The heart with the essence/seed is the next step on the summoning. Destroying the beacon wants it created is pretty difficult and may be impossible (shattering it to little pieces creates multiple beacons?) Or the beacon will give an impact location but without it the comet will still strike but somewhere else, uncontrollable, unknowable.

Option 3 (very different game from what I had in mind):
The ritual awakens the Cthulhu god early. Now the PCs have one chance to save the world; go back in time and try to put the pieces together before the ritual is completed. (perhaps the professor knows how to do this?)

Option 4: The ritual is one of future scrying for the villain so that he might know what his god will tell him. The PCs get to witness this. This means that I need to come up with what it is the god wants him to do and make sure that the PCs can't just stop it by killing the villain right there (and ending the game).

 

[Razjah]

I'd go with some variant of number 2. The ritual uses the PCs as a catalyst. The cult leader is empowered and teleports away (the PCs will likely see the location he goes, which will allow them to chase him. The empowered cult leader then begins to work more to create a pathway for his god.

The PCs must then deal with the ritual's other effects, sending a beacon for the elder god. This beacon is a blue star like light that blasts into the sky and will remain there day and night, barely visible in the day, but glowing as bright as the moon at night. The beacon is a guide for the elder god, but not a landing site. That is what the cult leader must keep working to make.






Here is another idea: the ritual awakens the elder god's body. Since this being cannot be killed it was sundered. Body, divine essence, and mind all separated. The ritual here is to bring forth the body. You could even make a really sweet set piece encounter that will impact the future fights with the elder god. The arms begin animating and clawing their way out of the earth. This shakes the area and creates a great pit. The cult followers then attack the PCs hoping to kill them and carve out their god's divine essence (god seed thing). While fighting the terrain shifts as the the body begins aimlessly attacking any in the are.

Meanwhile the cult leader is in a magic circle trying to gain control of the body. This is going to succeed. But the PCs can distract him and weaken the body. Destroying an arm will mean that when the elder god is finally brought back to this realm in her full power she will need to use her divine essence to form a new arm- this will weaken her other divine abilities since so much effort is used to make an arm/leg/hand/foot/half a rib cage.

Make this god something truly epic in size. Shadows of the Colossus style fight. Attacking the arms while they slowly pull the rest of the body out of the earth. Cultists climbing up onto the body to use ranged attacks, forcing the PCs to climb up and stop them (while conveniently allowing access to some key point to try to weaken the god's body).

Make is so that part of the body escapes no matter what. But if you don't like the PCs weakening the elder god now, then have their success mean the god must now strengthen its body before being able to use it as a vessel. The body may have wings or it may walk into the ocean*.


*You could also have a Sweet battle at the docks with the body awakening and destroying the docks forcing the PCs and cultists to climb aboard ships and floating chunks of the docks. If the PCs can destroy parts of the body before it moves to deeper waters it will have the same effect as I mentioned before.

 

[Koloth]

Option 5 - the ritual fails for some reason that the villain understands. Villain uses the professor as a hostage to force the PCs to do the quest required to gather the materials/enable the conditions/etc needed for the ritual to succeed.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Option 6 - The ritual does nothing. The villain fell for a centuries-old prank.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The ritual releases only one of the seeds, converting the PC into a thrall ... so the other PCs will turn on their companion.

 

[Cake Mage]

Thanks for all the replies and ideas! Turned out we had 2 players cancel and so I have another week to prepare. I think I'll be using Razjah's ideas here as they are a bit more compatible with what I have currently going. Plus my group isn't the type to want to have to kill a fellow player character (unless that player is ok ahead of time with it)

Razjah, I think I'm going to use your second idea later in the game when/if the Villain has acquired the necessary components. It sounds like a really epic combat/encounter.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Option 6 - The ritual does nothing. The villain fell for a centuries-old prank.

Or appears to do nothing. Later the characters can mutate and it gives new meaning to leveling up.