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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tal Rasha" data-source="post: 4570980" data-attributes="member: 46213">Man, you have an awesome opportunity here. Campaign ending in the death of a massive number of gods? Yes sir, can I have another sir! You've already received some good suggestions, and your latest post is also not bad. I want to suggest the following.I think you should just have your players jumping from astral dominion to astral dominion killing the gods, or if you want, they can also use some diplomacy and have 2 or 3 gods killed by intrigue, and they take care of the rest during the ensuing (year-lasting) confusion. It's not gonna be easy, it's gonna be long and painful, but oh will it ever be worth it.This would probably work best if your players were cold evil soulless bastards; I'm thinking of a playable version of the History of the Dead Three. It would be harder if your players are good, you'd have to portray the new gods as usurpers whose influence is slowly destroying this new world, or some equivalent motivation for good players removing a large number of gods from the picture.Ydars has a good point when he says that your gods need to be more than just powerful monsters. There should be consequences of killing gods, specific difficulties associated with one, a mythos of some sort. Where I disagree is with the suggestion that there be some sort of event that unilaterally disposes of the usurper gods (portal / artefact / battle with proxy of all gods etc). I think it has to be many battles, and I think it should be protracted in order to convey the difficulty of the whole endeavour.OK, enough hand-waiving, let's see how I view this deific dethronement happening. I'll be using Greek gods as usurpers of FR gods.The heroes find out about a weakness in the defences of Ares, usurper god of war and destruction. They find out that there exists a specific spear, which imbued with the proper magics and thrust powerfully and accurately into his throat will end his existence. The PCs find out what the ritual is and how they can acquire this spear. And they have one other datum that the rest of the world doesn't, gods included: they know that Ares is the one who killed the one and only lover Artemis ever had. A plot begins to form.The PCs acquire the spear and the ritual, and they humbly present them as gifts to Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt. They tell her that they do this because of their veneration for her, and they also say that they heard of this terrible rumour, that they don't know is true but that they are afraid of and don't know what do. They heard that Ares was in fact the one responsible for Orion's death. They say this with fear in their voices and quivering bodies, with heads bowed and they ask her, deceptively, how they can protect themselves if Ares can strike at even those closes to the protector goddess.Now Artemis is mightily enraged and goes to wage quick war against the bastard Ares. But while some of the PCs have this talk with her, the other members of the party will be warning Aphrodite that they have heard, by way of ancient prophecy related by a blind shamaness, that in a time soon to come the hunter (Artemis) will seek to kill the war maker. They ask for Aphrodite's guidance, they ask for what to do if the future will bring conflict between such a powerful two deities. Now Aphrodite will of course have a vested interest in this, seeing how she has a predilection (*ahem*) for Ares's charms and how she is the goddess of love and passion whereas Artemis is a chaste goddess.The heroes, or shall we call them villains at this point, have the makings of an excellent trap. Previous to this twofold deception they will have prepared the stage: they know Ares and Artemis will meet in combat, and they will be waiting in ambush nearby because they know Aphrodite will appear in order to see if there really is a battle, and presumably to help her lover if he needs it. Artemis comes and she attacks Ares. While the fight is ongoing, Aphrodite appears. At this point the PCs must act quickly: they cast a dimensional anchor and prevent the goddess from teleporting out or from calling for help. They will after all be epic PCs with some considerable power at their disposal. Before she can react, the PCs jump on her and without much ado bring her to the brink of destruction. She is almost dead and asks to be spared, the PCs say they will only spare her if she tells them of a means to fight Hades, lord of the underworld. She tells them that she does not know but that she did hear of Persephone, his unwilling spouse, having knowledge of some artefact that could be helpful. The PCs thank her and unceremoniously kill her.Now while this entire thing has been happening, Artemis will be having a slight advantage against Ares in combat. After all, she has the ritual and the epic spear. The PCs disguise themselves as worshippers of the war god, go to the site of battle and scream out loudly: "My lord, my lord, Artemis is on a path of mad destruction; before attacking you she slew your beloved Aphrodite. She lies dead in yonder dale. Lord, let us help you prevail against the crazed hunter." Now of course any protestations on Artemis' part as to being duped or some such will prove useless, and in any case she still wants to slay him as revenge for Orion. But the PCs will join Ares's side and with their epic might they will just barely prevail against the weakened goddess. As soon as the battle is over, the PC warrior picks up the epic spear and the PC sorcerer picks up the epic parchment, they turn on him and summarily slay him, in the conclusion of that which will henceforth forever be known as "the tripartite deception and murder".At this point some interesting consequences will start to appear in the world. Because the locus of a lot of worship suddenly no longer exists, the PCs will need to channel the now aimless divine energies. They make contact with Sehanine, Kord and the Raven Queen. They tell them that tens of thousand of worshippers will be theirs, if they but accept to come over into this world, and grant the heroes a few boons. The "true" gods come over into the world and start to vie with the remaining gods, as soon as the latter become aware of their appearance. As part of the boons granted to the PCs by the true gods, they get improved scouting and information gathering skills from Sehanine, the help of Kord in future battles and the tenacity and resources of The Raven Queen in bringing down future god-threats (remember, there are still 6 gods to go). And of course, the true gods will have pledged not to attack the heroes for a period of 10 years, so long as the heroes do not attack them of course.Now the heroes will be in a position of unprecedented power. They will have gained massive experience from the god battles, even more power, influence and resources from their pact with the new gods, and they will have created an unstable, distrusting and *frightened* pantheon. The time is ripe for the picking.This is how I see the end of an epic campaign proceeding. You will have to adapt or maybe even change this entirely of course. You will need plot hooks, or maybe some sort of amoral (not immoral, amoral, entirely uninterested in how things turn out) prophet to tell the PCs how they can achieve their desired goals. If your players are good, substitute evil deities for the good ones above. Strike a powerful first blow and pick off the rest of the gods one by one in the confused aftermath (again, you will need to communicate this to your players somehow). Introduce more and more true gods as the usurpers fall, all the while growing your PCs in power. Think about the effects that worshippers without a patron deity can have upon the world, maybe you can use that. And do consider that if you really want to replace a whole pantheon you'll have to get rid of good as well as evil deities. And like I said, make it slow, difficult and rewarding.Tell me if you like this. Even if you don't, I hope it at least gives you some ideas.Tal Rasha</blockquote>

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