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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scrivener of Doom" data-source="post: 6249057" data-attributes="member: 87576">Pardon my self-induglence...Cool! Coincidentally, I've been mucking around with some ideas for a 13th Age campaign set in the post-Spellplague, pre-Sundering era involving Bane's plan to increase his power further by, inter alia, absorbing the power of Myrkul - currently diffused between physical remains in the Mere of Dead Men and the Crown of Horns (with the Crown also very involved in my plans) - and the power of Bhaal - currently split between Cyric in his imprisonment and the physical remains in the black water near Boareskyr Bridge.Of course, another option for getting the Dark Three together like that is so that Jergal can finally execute the millennia-old plan he has to seize even more power than he wielded before he effectively surrendered his portfolios to these three.But I digress....How about this?The only way to destroy the Crown of Horns is to cast disintegrate or something similar upon it while it is touching The Companion, the second sun above Elturgard. The only problem with doing this is that it also destroys The Companion or turns it into a thing of shadow (dusk) or even darkness. Now the secret of its means of destruction sounds like just the sort of dark secret a cleric or other servitor of Shar would be likely to provide.... In short, the Crown gets destroyed but between angry paladins and a Netherese empire that now realises The Companion isn't blocking their expansion plans, you've got your next adventure of mini-campaign ready to go.Alchemical formula? The first thing that springs to mind is aboleth slime (or illithid mucus - but I'll stick to the aboleth slime for the moment).As an alternative, instead of the potion actually turning everyone into slaves, another option would be to have it weaken the will by inflicting Wis damage which then reduces the victim's Will save. Then, at the risk of stealing an idea from the 2E boxed set Night Below, the real dominating effect actually comes from one or more obelisks taken from an aboleth city. Perhaps there are more than one: there is a single pillar in the centre of the city (or close enough) that is the master obelisk where the BBEGs perform their patented evil ritual, while there are lesser obelisks secreted around the city in an equidistant radial pattern centred on the master pillar. (The master pillar may also need to be jump-started by the Crown of Horns.)If you went with this, the PCs could arrive just at the city is really getting dumbed down. The guards at the gate are inattentive and generally listless so getting in, even for the elves, is really easy. It's then up to the PCs to save the city which may not even be grateful once the PCs do what they do.But if the PCs fail, the BBEGs have converted an entire city to mindless thralldom in the name of Bane. Unless, of course, it was just an aboleth plot....Yeah, if I had known it was the post-Spellplague Realms I wouldn't have mentioned the Zhentarim. But I would throw in a beholder for old time's sake. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> (Back to the idea of the pillars. What if the central one was actually controlled by a beholder mage [or half-illithid beholder, aka mindwitness, from 3.x's Underdark] and there are ten others - representing the ten eyes of a beholder - each guarded by another beholder. Only the beholder mage needs to be slain... but if the PCs find one or more of the other obelisks they might be able to find clues as to what is happening and/or divine the way to the primary obelisk.)And they sound like a lovely couple. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Does that help at all or am I spending too much time writing something I might use? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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