Mythic Stories in High Magic

[tauton_ikhnos]

Positive spinoff from this
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80232&page=1&pp=25

Already a thread about how to run a good high-level campaign. And thread about whether or not low-magic, grim-n-gritty is good. So this thread may be redundant, but I think it has something to offer.

This is how to run a good, mythic-like story with high magic. A number of people have said this is impossible, that high magic and low magic are two entirely different styles. I say that Story is stronger than they think. Here is the example I gave there, editted and expanded a bit:

Basic Plot
Poseidon is angry. He curses Odysseus. Odysseus does not have the ability to fight off curse, so he goes long way around. Meanwhile, Odysseus is hoping his wife will remain true to him.

Notes: Poseidon nerfs Odysseus' ability to travel quickly and efficiently home, but does not do anything else to him. Odysseus would normally expect his character to get home quickly and easily - the whole story is tied up in the fact that the GM has prevented that in some way.

For a high magic D&D game, the Trojan war is interplanar, perhaps an assault on the Suahagin Sub-Dimension of Water; and Poseidon has put a divine-level dimensional anchor on Odysseus. Not any of the rest of his party, mind you - anyone who abandons Odysseus can get home very easily!

The Journey
Odysseus travels the ocean, blown from port to port, encountering strange and terrifying things. He must use his guile, a few magic items, a lot of allies, and the sacrifice of a lot of his men to survive.

Notes: The important bit here is heroic journey. Already established that Odysseus can not gate home, so need to provide alternate option! Also, this is where GM follows PirateCat's credo: set up bastardly situations, plan for the PCs to fail, then say Yes during game when they try stuff.

For a high magic D&D game, I like idea of interplanar river that flows through multitude of planes and uses natural portals (gradual shifts) to get around dimensional anchor. This provides difficult method of getting home, lets Odysseus show off boating skills he never gets to use anymore, and plenty of places for Odysseus to get into trouble.

HOWEVER, note that Odysseus may decide on alternate tactic: teleport his buddies home to watch over his wife, use scrying and communication to talk with her, and then use Fly and similar to move along the river as quickly as possible. This is a good thing, and allows you to add another mythic element - the rescue.

???, you say? Yes, a rescue. A screen-casting wizard is one of the wife's suitors. He has to follow the rules of civilized society, but no one has to know about poor, lost Odysseus. He'll even fake scrying and declare him dead. And maybe make pacts with fiends to ensure that becomes true, off in those strange outer planes.

Now Odysseus is really motivated .

Please note that while I am straying from/adding elements to the original story, that this is what PCs do. A PC playing Odysseus, knowing about the curse, would have sent runners ahead, used spies, and done any number of other things the supposedly clever Odysseus failed to do in the original story . And a good GM turns that into an opportunity to increase power of story.

The above is example of mythic story, painted in high level colors. Anyone else want to try some other mythic stories? Or throw one my way to "interpret"?

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

Lord of the Rings

Summary of Plot

Heroes dwell in paradise (Hobbiton). An artifact of power comes into paradise. Powerful BBEG wants artifact, and is planning to sweep whole continent into war to get it. BBEG is essentially undefeatable by ordinary means, but destroy the artifact, and you destroy him.

Unfortunately, BBEG's army is sweeping continent, using all of their resources, and OWNS the one place in world where artifact can be destroyed. Worse, artifact is pretty darn nice, and most folks don't want to destroy it... they'd rather use it themselves. Even though if they keep it, BBEG will eventually get it.

So our heroes are, for various reasons, charged with task of destroying the artifact while armies of Men distract and hold off BBEG's forces for as long as they can.

Artifact

Firstly, a ring of invisibility is not impressive in D&D. My idea was a ring of spellfire (with spellfire redefined as brilliant energy), that provided extra spell level charges per day to power the spellfire abilities. That's got combat utility, yeah, but it won't harm the ringwraiths.

It also warps minds, but for some reason (race, Chosen, whatever), the PCs are "immune". Or maybe just one of them is. Or is just TOLD he is. Have them make Will saves every once in a while, don't tell them what it's for. Let paranoia produce desired effects.

Ring Wraiths

The ringwraiths have trace teleport and the ability to teleport one or two times per day; they ride dragons who can fly hundreds of miles per day; and they can sense any use of the ring (direction only) within a thousand miles or more. One use in a single day won't lead them directly to you, but they spread out and triangulate when they can, and more than one use pretty much WILL lead them to you.

Journey

Orcs are everywhere. And the PCs have tens of thousands of miles to cover to get to Mordor, including an ocean that is too far to teleport across in one go. Killing orcs is easy with the ring, but draws ring wraiths. Without the ring, there's an awful damned lot of them.

Teleporting will take (given 3-4 teleports per day) a week or so, and Mordor itself is essentially "fenced off" from teleporting with Forbiddance (not because of a nerf, but because that's what the BBEG would DO), making the last 100 miles or so really tough. The journey will happen in a few stages: the easy part (escaping from the ring wraiths, fleeing a long ways), the hard part (ring wraiths trace teleporting after the PCs, temptations to use the ring), and the really hard part (ring wraiths teleporting/flying in, and the PCs can't just teleport away anymore, temptations to use the ring, and entire armies of orcs all around).

If you have a roleplay-and-angst player, give him the opportunity to ham it up with the artifact at the last moment, of course .

Regardless, MOST IMPORTANT THING is that this is players' story, not Tolkien's. Maybe they throw "corrupted character" into fires along with ring. Maybe they have impassioned argument over the ethics. Maybe they take war to BBEG and lose horribly.

Either way, good fun, and still very mythic.

 

[Tonguez]

Little Red Riding Hood - the Adventure Story

The Chosen neophyte virgin maid is being groomed to become High Priestess of the Red Mother

The PCs are hired to take her to the High Temple for the once in 1000 years Ritual of Ascension.

However the Temple has been attacked and taken over by BBEG - your choice but give it a wolfy theme (a half-fiend Lycanthorpe with class levels might work)- The BBEG is now posing as the High Priestess (who has not been seen for 200 years so who know what she might look like)

If the PCs see through the deception they must save the Neophyte preistess before she is sacrificed to the Dark gods and the reign of the Red Mother falls!!!