Pathfinder 1E I'm in over my head... Need some help!

[Clyde Lee Graham]

It could also be a localized effect that's following them... after all, she said it would be their last, not everyone's. Not to mention that taking the sun away entirely seems well beyond Lamashtu's portfolio... you likely have a major gods war about start over this.

If it were a localized effect, a 100 mile radius would likely be sufficient.

 

[amerigoV]

Regardless of what you do - nicely done! Nothing like hitting them with something that neither they (or you) know exactly what to do with. I would vote its a localized effect myself.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Awesome! There's an illithid-related artifact that does something similar. IIRC it doesn't actually turn off the sun (so you don't freeze to death) but effectively changes the color to infrared, so mind flayers (who got light-blind back in 2e, literally) had the advantage and the surface dwellers were wandering in the dark.

So at least you don't have to destroy your world.

I figure there must be a "font of power" powering her sun darkener, and the PCs could at least in theory find it and destroy it. Picture massive boss battle.

 

[koesherbacon]

Hmm, maybe that's a good idea. The sun's not gone but its in an invisible spectrum of light. That way, plants won't die off or anything like that, but to the naked eye there is the absence of light. Good suggestion!

 

[Razjah]

That is a good idea, it stops the players questioning physics, which rarely ever leads to anything good in a game. Plus, the multi-phase ritual ideas to return the sun can still be applied, just tweaked so that the sun is visible for only a small time period which increases with each artifact destroyed/ritual completed/or whatever task you want the party to complete.

 

[Quickleaf]

What's cool about the "infrared" take that [MENTION=1165](Psi)SeveredHead[/MENTION] gave (from an old illithid supplement, right?), is that it suggests a theme of visibility and light spectrum for the artifacts/rituals. For example, there was someone who set up an elaborate puzzle using dwarven forge terrain, mini rotating mirrors, and a laser pointer; the objective was to rotate the mirrors so that the laser beam hit a certain wall and granted passage. You don't need to get that elaborate, but incorporating some kind of prism / light puzzle would be awesome.

Are the drow and illithid aware of what's happened? Are they thinking about invading the surface yet?

What are the other powerful gods of good doing about this? I mean, stopping the sun is one of those things an evil god doesn't get away with without serious repercussions from the good gods. What's keeping them from intervening?

 

[MortalPlague]

What are the other powerful gods of good doing about this? I mean, stopping the sun is one of those things an evil god doesn't get away with without serious repercussions from the good gods. What's keeping them from intervening?

They're afraid of the dark.

In our 3.5 Epic Game, this was the plot my buddy ran. As 30th level characters (yes, in 3.5), we had to find the Plane of the Lost and Forgotten, the location of which was one of Vecna's great secrets. At the bottom of the lowest level of the plane, had we made it, there would have been a portal to the Golden Legion's secret demiplane where a spurned epic-level paladin of Pelor had turned against his god and stolen the sun from the sky.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Not epic enough. Require the PCs to travel to the Forge of the Ancient One and build a new sun out of 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gold pieces.

 

[Rune]

Not epic enough. Require the PCs to travel to the Forge of the Ancient One and build a new sun out of 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gold pieces.

I wholeheartedly endorse this idea!

 

[Radiating Gnome]

As another option, what if what's REALLY happened is something has happened to time. So, the world around them stops advancing. Time only advances within 100 feet of the PCs -- when they move further away, time stops. The sun, being more than 100 feet away, never advances.

This might be some sort of weird time curse tied to the existence of special monsters (Chrono-fiends?) that exist in odd relation to time -- and those creatures can control the way time flows around them, advancing or stopping time at their discretion.

Tracking the Chronofiends requires moving through the world in new ways -- sort of a completely slo-mo version of frogger, where time needs to be advanced a certain amount in a couple of key places to get things to line up in a specific way.

-rg