Need some plot advice (my players, no peekie)

[Emperor Valerian]

Another warning: Those of you reading the Celestial Kingdom SH... there are spoilers below.













My campaign is based in a Chinese homebrew, and one of the PCs has just discovered his family held in its possession an Imperial seal, and one of his ancestors was the son of an Emperor. The Empire at present is in unrest, as various families are trying to either control the 10 year old emperor or unseat him (Imagine the start of Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

On the bottom of this seal, I said there was writing he couldn't understand, and I'm thinking of having him go to a remote temple to discover the meaning of the writing... and therein lies the problem. I have no idea what the writing on the seal will say. I'm hoping for something profound, but my brain is disengaged today for some reason.

Also, I'd like the temple session to be rather climatic (it won't be the end of the campaign, but it will likely be a high point), but at present I'm having a brain dead day as to trying to figure out what will happen in this temple. The journey to the temple should be easy to find some stuff (another PC has in her possession an extremely rare dagger that can kill Emperors, and she is busily trying to figure out how to get rid of it in a "responsible manner," and she's also being chased by assassins that could make an appearance.), but once they arrive there, I don't know... any ideas... or any ideas on places where I could get cinematic ideas for the temple climax?

 

[Kashell]

First: Have you decided who your main bad guys are? This is something that I always put first in a campaign...the ultimate bad guys.

It's always intergral for you to introduce the ultimate bad guys to the PC's personally sometime during the campaign. High points in the campaign can then be attributed to times when the PC's meet the underlings of said bad guy.


The key here is however, to <b> keep them out of the 'know'.</b> OK, sure, they killed a green dragon, but they don't find out until three sessions later that the green dragon actually was the son of the main bad guy in which they are fighting. In retrospect, they can meet the green dragon, believe he is a "good" dragon and let him free, but when they find out that he's the son of the main bad guy, they are forced to find him again and slay him.


The temple that you mention...perhaps it could have some significance in the ritual for becoming an emperor? The PC's could find out that the Emperor that is seated on the throne is actually a fake and the real one has been imprisoned here for years on end. The prison part of the temple could be invisible, and the seal they have, once they can read it, actually casts a spell to reveal the prison part of the temple.


Just a few things that I think might work...