[plots] Dead gods, spiders, oh my head reels!

[der_kluge]

Ok, I need some help.

My campaign is about to get underway, in terms of a plotline. Here's the gist of where I'm going with this:

A long time ago, there was a battle between gods. A god of destruction was defeated by two gods - a god of law/nature and a god of good. The god of law/nature was killed in the battle.

Fast forward 200,000 years, on a deserted continent, devoid of civilization.

The PCs have met a ragtag group of Gripplis (think Bullywugs but nicer and smaller) who were attacked by Slaad. The Grippli leader mentions that the Slaad were after a talisman that they had. This talisman is a relic from the god of law/nature, and a symbol of his power.

The Gripplis give the item to the PCs, because the Gripplis are in no position to handle further attacks from the Slaad. The Gripplis mention that they found it many moons ago in the valley of the spiders, despite great risk to those who recovered it.

This is where last game ended.

This is loosely based on Monkeygod's Treasures of Elbard module, which has a Spider Canyon in it, and is maintained by a group of halflings. Odd, yes.

I want the PCs to eventually meet a "Father Spider" that is an immortal creature who is the last sole worshipper of this god of law/nature. The PCs will eventually meet a spirit form of the god of law/nature in the form of a wild stag, who will tell them that he needs them to recover his other lost artifacts which are powerful in their own right, but once they are placed in the godsblood (from Requiem for the Gods) of the god of destruction and the god of law/nature they will each gain new powers. These artifacts will then be powerful devices which bla bla bla, they can save the world with.

Ok, that's my game in summary. Thanks for reading this far.

What I'm stuck on is this:
What to put in the spider canyon, how to segue into the meeting of the spirit stag, what a giant immortal spider is doing there (toss it??) and whether I should replace the halflings with any kind of chaotic humanoid "handlers" who kind of maintain the spiders, or are at least friendly to them, or whether I should just riddle it with spiders. And furthermore, why are there spiders here, and what purpose do they serve??

Oh, I've really put myself into a pickle.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Piratecat]

My first thought is that you should stick with halflings: spidery halflings. Nice, friendly little fellas that just happen to have eight eyes.

They can ride the spiders, tame the spiders, and weave their silk. Why? Maybe one of their ancestors helped the spidergod, or they have a talisman, or something mysterious.

I personally don't like the stag only because I dislike this sort of "go and fetch things" adventures. Also, the stag doesn't mesh symbolically with all the spider motifs. Unless... unless the stag that talks to them is trapped in a spider's web! That might be kind of cool.

 

[Tonguez]

In an episode of Gargoyles (the disney one) Goliath and co had an encounter with 'Anansi' (African trickster spider spirit). Premise was that long ago Anansi tricked the panther into building him a city and bringing him tribute. Anyway iirc the panther escaped and left Anasi (now fat and bloated) in his ruined city.

So enter your valley the city of Anansi is still alive and functioning, the humanoids (halflings fine by me) hunt for Anansi (a demigod and former servant of the Nature god perhaps) and bring it to him as tribute. Other spiders and vermin are attracted to the valley because Anansi is here - maybe even have a few awakened spiders be his direct attendents

The Spirit Stag heres about the City of Anasi and deciding to visit his wayward son enters the valley where he [edit]is captured in a giant spider web, just like PC suggested kewl[edit] and in this state is met by the PCs...

 

[der_kluge]

Whoa - I'm overwhelmed with how cool those ideas are. I could make the canyon the remnants of a city devoted to a spider culture of some sort, with halflings/spider lycanthrope things being the remaining descendants, and this giant father spider being a powerful guardian of the area. In his web he has the spirit of the dead god of law/nature who tried to stop them in the past because of something they were doing that he didn't agree with. I can work on that.

So, enter the PCs - they fight nasty spider after nasty spider, and eventually discover, through the help of *something* (they'll need some kind of ally here - agents of the dead god, perhaps dryads!) will seek to release the imprisoned spirit. Or maybe the spirit is just an immortal stag who is an animal "of legend" or something that has ties to the god.

Well, more planning, but that's certainly an uber cool start.

 

[NarlethDrider]

How soon before your next game? I may be able to help u w/some 'visual aides'

 

[der_kluge]

Saturday.

 

[NarlethDrider]

Saturday.

I may be able to get u a few visual aides (especially being off thursday )---do u have a want/wish list?

 

[der_kluge]

What kind of stuff are you working on?

How about a picture with a stag (deer) entombed in a web cacoon? That would be cool. Have him be suspended in midair in a canyon with four main web strands holding him in place.

This is what I've decided on, and am working on this now... (had to take the obligatory ENWorld break...):

Canyon is inhabited by all kinds of spiders, including driders, phase spiders (which I'll increase the HD on), shadow spiders (from MMII, I think), and some other nasty things, spider swarms everywhere, cobwebs everywhere. Just a downright, ugly, nasty, skin-crawly place.

I've dropped the halfling/spider thing in favor of driders. The driders are descendants of worshippers of the now dead god of destruction. When that god died, their descendants hunted down and captured the avatar of the god of law/nature - the stag, which has been entombed in a cacoon in this canyon for a good 200k years. Now the stag has all but reverted back to a normal stag, having lost all his avatar powers. So, while he is immortal, he is a shell of his former glory.
A grand, and glorious spider has been feasting (slowly) on this blood for countless centuries and is now stupid powerful. (I just thought of that, pretty good, huh?)
Just when things are at their bleakest, and the PCs decide that there is nothing for them here aside from death and poison, a friendly Dryad emerges from the trees and informs them of the imprisonment of the stag, and that if they can release it, the gods spirit can move closer to death, because as it is the spirit of the god (the demiurge) is in limbo and can go nowhere. And that, this stag, and the demiurge of the dead god of law/nature can make a powerful ally.

Now, to stat out one uber-spider, one stag of legend/former avatar, one druid dryad, a bunch of classed driders, and a whole lot of nasty beasties. If I don't kill at least one PC with this one, I'm doing something wrong.


BTW, eventually this will be in my story hour (check my sig) for this encounter.

 

[Nightfall]

Klugie,

Trust me, if you want some scary spider stuff, Narleth is your guy.

 

[der_kluge]

Cool.

But he must be holding out on me. Narleth, you got any scary spider stuff on the net anywhere that I can peruse? I could use some scary spider stuff.