Help me develop this campaign element

[Munin]

I have the core element of an upcoming one-on-one campaign in my head, and I want your help in fleshing it out.

This is going to be an urban based campaign, set in a low-magic(read: Grim Tales) world with some dark themes. The city in which the campaign takes place is Lustmord, the largest city in the campaign world, with a population of over one million inhabitants.
The city was once an absolute monarchy, but as the population exploded over the last two centuries, more and more power has been siphoned off the monarchy to competing members of the aristocracy, a couple of powerful religious orders, and a particularly influential mob family.
As the campaign begins, a plague is sweeping the city. This plague is arcane in origin, a terrorist attack by one of several chaos-themed cults that operate in the city. I imagine that the early part of the campaign will involve the infiltration and abolition of this cult, but that is actually only a distraction from the main theme of the campaign....

One of the early victims of this crime is the ruling Monarch's young and beautiful bride. Her death comes as a particularly tragic event. Not only is the Monarch in desperate need of an heir, this marriage united him with the most powerful of the noble families in Lustmord. Not to mention the fact that he was deeply in love with her.

Soon, the Monarch begins to search for a way to return his bride to the living. Since this is a low-magic campaign, this will be an especially difficult task, even for the ruler of the most powerful city-state on the continent. Not only is magic rare and dangerous to wield, necromancy is a forbidden art, shunned by all but the most depraved arcanist. The reason for this (which brings me to the central theme) has to do with the transition from life to death in the campaign world.

When a person dies, he goes on to final rest, to await the Last Day. This is the state of the vast majority of humanity who have passed away, including the Bride. However, certain beings, human and otherwise, have the power to resist this calling to final rest. Some are powerful arcanists who sought immortality, others are cursed souls denied rest for some heinous act, others are far worse, beings of immense power who to this day cling still to some perverse form of unlife.

Collectively, these beings are known as the Houseless (a term I eagerly lifted from Tolkien).The Houseless are, by their nature, much more powerful than the typical newly dead. The danger of attempting to return a person to the living, then, is that one of these Houseless, seeking to return to the living, will overpower the soul of the one called back and inhabit that persons body. Most arcanists are aware of this danger and therefore refuse to take the path of necromancy for fear of what they may unleash upon the world.

The Monarch has now employed a powerful necromancer to attempt this very feat. The necromancer has been kidnapping and murdering young woman in an attempt to perfect his spell before he uses it upon the the Bride. If he succeeds, one of these Houseless will gain control of the Bride's body, and will become a Queen of the most powerful nation around. The campaign will revolve around the discovery of this plot, the preventing of it, or dealing with the aftermath if prevention fails.

Sorry if I rambled a bit there, I'm looking for your input and opinions. Thanks!

 

[diaglo]

and what of the failed attempts. the young women. why can't a Houseless enter thru one of them?

edit: are they bait to get the Houseless' attention. so when one of them succeeds... there is no problem. but when the necro tries it again... the princess... the Houseless enters?

how does the general populace feel about the death? do they even know? is the king keeping it hush hush so he can have a go with the necromancy? what would the mafia give to know this or get to keep it a secret?

 

[Old One]

I like it...but I echo diaglo's question (and provide possible answers).

Suggestion: The necromancer has to perfet the spell so that the body is capable of "holding" the essence of the Houseless, with more powerful Houseless requiring more tweaking.

When the spell fails, one of several things results:

(1) The body is either (a) Consumed by blackfire and lost (50%) or (b) A wretched mixture of the old spirit and a weak Houseless now inhabit the body (25%) or (c) A medium powered Houseless inhabits the body. The problem with b and c is that it takes 24 hours for this manifestation to make itself known...and he has been discarding the bodies into the harbor/charnal pit/catacombs, etc. The result is that walking dead are starting to appear and walk the streets. In the case of (b) these tortured souls seek out their family/loved ones and try to return to their former lives. When rejected/frustrated, they go on a killing spree. However, the magic knitting them together begins to unravel soon after they rise, so these creatures essentially fall apart after 1/day per point of CON they possesed while alive (those killed by them may or may not rise as similar type undead). The (c) types are much more dangerous, since they now have malevolent free will and can start setting up a power structure for the eventual revival of the queen.

(2) The necromancer is slowly succumbing to the taint that is accumulating due to his vile experiments and will eventually go totally mad...right about the time he reanimates the Queen. The Queen, of course, will eventually try to kill off the king and rule the world !

(3) Those animated by method (c) above initially look like they did in real life, but slowly corrupt from the inside...developing a charnal house smell and (eventually) rotting oriffices...so they will affect more clothing, make-up, perfume, etc as they decay (think Goldie Hawn/Meryl Streep in "Death Becomes Her"). When struck in combat, they spew acidic putrid bile and a nauseating stench from their wounds...just for fun!

~ OO

 

[diaglo]

and the plague is rampant. what will the mob/populace do to acquire the cure of unlife?

how are the dead handled? are there carts going around "Bring out yer dead" style.

 

[adwyn]

The houseless that takes the Queen's body could be the spirit of a past noble, perhaps even tyrant, that has grudges to feed. Imagine even a past monarch secretly killed by an alliance the various factions returning.

 

[painandgreed]

You could have the campaign begin with the plague and the adventurers trying to stop the cult. The characters eventually defeat the cult and stop the plague, or so it seems. The plague is arcane in nature so the necromancer needs to keep killing girls with the plague to experiment on. These girls or small outbreaks of the plauge keep showing up that the players must hunt down. Throw in some politics as the king trys to keep news of the death underwraps and the PCs off the necromancers trail. Perhaps sending them on some other (false) quest. By then, the PCs should be cluing in to what is going on and heading towards the final confrontation. They will eventually run across the necromancers first success, one of the girls he managed to bring back to life that has shown him he is now ready to bring the king's wife back to life. They will assault the necromancer and their success or not would be determined by how well they have done previously and putting together the clues. Should they succeed, the necromancer is stopped and his and the king's actions come into the light allowing the characters to escape retribution. perhaps the king didn't evn realize what was going on in the quest to bring his wife back.

If they fail, the wife comes back and one of the houseless takes her place. This creature will seek to control the country and government and eventually trying to kill the PCs or bring them over to her side.

One of the things that will also take up the PCs attentions after the necromancer eiter succeeds or fails will be the first success. She is another houseless who is also persueing her own ends. Perhaps they are both evil, or perhaps on is good and one evil. They might war against eachother or join forces.

 

[Munin]

and what of the failed attempts. the young women. why can't a Houseless enter thru one of them?

That's just it, initially the attempts fail. Either the body is consumed via Old One's suggestion, or it animates as some form of undead..zombie, ghoul, etc...

When I first thought of it, the girls were just a hook to get the party into the storyline. I'm planning on having a girl the character knows get kidnapped and murdered, just to make it hit home that much harder.

In fact, the plague and the Necromancer were unrelated when I first came up with the idea. The plague itself does not cause undeath, it is just a natural form of the plague made more virulent by magic..or is it?

I'm trying to flesh out the Necromancer now. What do you think about tying him in with the cult? Perhaps he is the originator of the plague in the first place, all in some Machiavellian plot to kill the queen and bring in his Houseless Master?

As he gets closer to perfecting the spell, it makes sense that some of the girls would soon become...housed...occupied? I'll have to think of something cool to call it when a body is animated by one of the houseless. I would think that these creatures would have goals separate from the Necromancer, but still no less vile.

The Monarch then becomes a dupe..or perhaps he is turning a blind eye to all the missing girls? Maybe he really doesn't care what comes back, as long as it looks like his Bride?

Old One, those are some great ideas..consider then swiped!

Painandgreed, that's the jist of where I'm trying to go with this. The party's success or failure will determine who controls the country in the end. I always try to finish a campaign with a major impact on the campaign world!

 

[diaglo]

another thing to consider but not one that is necessarily important:


a city of 1 million would mean a lot of advances in magic or technology or engineering. to feed them (water and consumables), to house them (sprawl out or up or down), to keep them warm or cool (a lot of coal or wood or breezeways or summer homes out in the country), to remove the waste (human and industrial), to find your way around town, to maintain order...

the verisimilitude can be daunting. not everyone wants to get into the "reality" of how to run or maintain such a thing. take for example the Sim games (they aren't for everyone).

but you should at least keep these things in mind for plot hooks or potential snags when players get inventive.

since you said this is low magic, a lot more of how the city works will be heavily placed away from the magic answer.

 

[Munin]

Diaglo,

I have given that some thought, and I'm trying to do it without overt use of magic. Contrary to popular belief, some cities in ancient times boasted populations of over a million people, for example, Josephus reported that Jerusalem at the time of the Roman invasion (66-70 a.d.) was about 1.1 million strong.

So, I can do it without magic. But I don't really want to. I'm going for more of a 'low-magic, epic fantasy' appeal. There is a quasi-religious order, based on the Builders from the Thief series of CRPGs that is prominent in the city. They employ advanced building techniques, and are responsible for maintaining the sewer, water and housing infrastructure throughout the city.

I do plan to employ this unique fact of the city in side-plots. There are weak points throughout the infrastructure that are vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Feeding the population is a huge concern, and a great deal of energy is spent just feeding the masses. I plan on bringing this out during the game as well.

In other thoughts you have along these lines would be appreciated. I'm sure you guys can think of potential problems and plot hooks better than I can.

 

[diaglo]

i'm definitely not saying it wasn't or can't be done. and i see you are thinking ahead. i was just trying to gauge how much you were going to bring into the campaign.

during a plague especially maintaining order will be an issue just like in a siege. the troops will need to keep the populace from panicking, hoarding food, killing each other, or attempting to flee into uninfected areas of the city. which is a potential plot hook or problem depending on how much the PCs/party poke(s) around and say(s) to the NPCs/common man.

prices may be high for some items.

con artists/ potion vendors/ toxin or salve salesmen / snake oil charlatans/ fake cures could also be a hook.

check out the Neverwinter nights computer game too.