Help me reboot my campaign - with a perverted wish

[der_kluge]

I'll try to be brief. A couple left my game due to RL issues, and the husband was carrying the Rod of Seven Parts (which is central to my game). They have 4 of the 7 pieces. As such, he won't willingly part with it.

BTW, I'm not actually going to run this. This is just going to be the story to help me bridge the gap, and I'll write it all up and email the players so they know how it all ended up.

We last played inside a lair where they were fighting Beholders (plural). The party was 9th level. The mines they were in are underneath a Dwarven city. Since I'll be bringing in some new players, I felt like it was easier to just start with new characters vs. trying to find a way to put new characters into this dungeon. I also need to kill off the two characters of the players who left (at the very least because the rod holder won't willingly give up the rod, he kind of has to die).

But the players also have access to two Wishes (from an Efreeti), and story-wise, would likely use them to resurrect their fallen comrades (even if I kill them with a disintegrate spell).

My intention is to make everyone make new characters, and have an LE Elven Wizard (Diviner) hire them to retrieve the rod from the same mines because he wants it for his own nefarious purposes. This is a favor to the new players as much as anything else, since I figure it'll be easier for them if they aren't having to deal with a bunch of backstory and history that they aren't privy to.

I also have an NPC Bard who travels with them. She is the daughter of the King of this land, but was in stasis for 500 years. I have ideas for her story-wise that would be fun, but aren't really required. So, I could have her survive if it made sense for that to happen.

What I was thinking could be fun is to have the beholders disintegrate the cleric (rod holder) (and all his non-artifact magical items, of course), and then he drops the rod. For fun, I could have his wife (druid), pick up the rod (which of course immediately makes her LN), and completely jacks her up Druid-status (I guess, even though 5e doesn't do much with alignment, I guess)... but at any rate, she likely bites the bullet as well (Since she's not playing anymore, either).

And eventually the whole party dies (I guess), or is at least teleported to the elemental plane of air, or something like that, so they're effectively gone. But if the stuff really hits the fan, and if it starts to look like a TPK, they will use a wish. So I'm trying to figure out some sort of wish that just REALLY jacks the place up. Something absurd like, "I wish Alonsus (Cleric) was here!", and the Efreeti teleports all 32,767 people in the multi-verse named Alonsus, and they are forced to live in this small Dwarven village, and it creates all kinds of chaos and drama, and they rename the town "Alonsus-ville" or something equally absurd like that.

I don't know. I'm looking for ideas.

 

[Immortal Sun]

They left your game...but their in-game characters won't give up the magic item? Whaaaaaa?????

 

[cmad1977]

Might be overthinking this.

 

[der_kluge]

They left your game...but their in-game characters won't give up the magic item? Whaaaaaa?????

Well, not exactly. The new characters will be hired to retrieve the rod. With it, presumably, they find the dead corpses of the previous party - and all their loot. Which would be immediately game-breaking and kind of weird.

But I think I have a really peachy, very interesting solution to this that I'm currently working through in my head.

 

[Eltab]

"I Wish our group was back outside." Your Wish is granted...
You each wake up alone, outdoors, someplace you do not recognize.

The group has been scattered to the four winds, each individual in a different land. One or two of the old group (the departing couple) might have been placed somewhere swiftly deadly, such as atop an arctic glacier or a 'castaway in tropical paradise' island that barely has enough room for a coconut tree. The rest of the group is in "Siberia", "China", "the New World", "southernmost Africa" and other places where dealing with the intelligent beings and exotic cultures will be an overwhelming challenge - too many urgent problems to solve before organizing the long journey back from whence I came. Maybe somebody lands in an orc / hobgoblin / kobold empire, just for variety and extra danger and because it is a fantasy world.

The new PCs, meanwhile, hear about the tales and legends of what the old PCs accomplished. Everybody knows they went down into that mine … and never came out.

Bonus difficulty: the magic of the Wish did not affect Artifacts. The Rod is still down there. So are the Plurality of Beholders. Hmmm, do they know what it is and/or what it is capable of doing?

 

[der_kluge]

Ok, so here's what I've come up with.

The party, in a battle for their lives with the mother beholder, starts suffering heavy losses. In a desperate move, one of the characters summons forth the Efreeti, and suffering from a good wisdom stat, issues the wish, "I wish we were never here.", and given that one of the members of the party is from a time 500 years ago, the multi-verse decides that really the only way to carry out this wish to the letter is to send them 500 years into the past. There, the players literally plant the seeds for the quests to find the rod of seven parts in the current timeline.

Solves a couple of problems - removes the characters (And their magic items) and also creates a really interesting ending for their own stories (in the past).

 

[Blue]

(Order rearranged slightly to show question)

Since I'll be bringing in some new players, I felt like it was easier to just start with new characters vs. trying to find a way to put new characters into this dungeon.

...

[Diviner hires party.] This is a favor to the new players as much as anything else, since I figure it'll be easier for them if they aren't having to deal with a bunch of backstory and history that they aren't privy to.

...

But the players also have access to two Wishes (from an Efreeti), and story-wise, would likely use them to resurrect their fallen comrades (even if I kill them with a disintegrate spell).

If you have a new party with no connection to the existing characters or backstory, why do they have two Wishes?

I could have his wife (druid), pick up the rod (which of course immediately makes her LN), and completely jacks her up Druid-status (I guess, even though 5e doesn't do much with alignment, I guess)

Even back when druids had an alignment requirement, it was any neutral. So LN, NG, TN, NE, and CN were all valid alignments. In 5e, they can be any alignment.