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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ST" data-source="post: 5206321" data-attributes="member: 14053">Dude, at level four you're just getting started. Relax and don't worry about trying to impose an overarching plot on them. War of the Gods in an island setting? Hundreds of ways to bring in the elements you want to work with, without having to be heavy-handed or directly tell them what to do and where to go.Off the top of my head, if the gods are trying to actively get involved in human affairs, then there's going to be massive bribery going on. I mean, yeah, a devoted follower who's "doing the right thing" is great, but in a lawless tropical archipelago, I'd bet on the gods who choose "greed" as a motivator. They've got a way larger audience.Long-lost sunken temples, sought after by a dozen mercenary groups for the power inside. Deals from (lawful neutral?) deities that set you on the path to your "true destiny" of untold wealth, as long as you adhere to the contract. Jungle feral halfling tribes worshipping dark unnamed gods. Hooded cultists at war on the rooftops of a corrupt port city. This stuff's gonna be cake, relax. <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=":)" />For some of these, you could snatch ideas from Dragon or a module, make whatever the magical/supernatural "deal" in the dungeon is be about one of the gods, and voila, you can provide a couple of different hooks of places they could raid, without burning up much prep time. If you throw out some rumors and have a couple of factions competing with the PCs' gig, the players will pick something cool. From there, you can work in the gods' upcoming war, or battle for preeminence or whatnot, into things as simply part of the background of "Why is this particular area such a hotbed?" Bring in, say, a rivalry between two gods at a time, have it open up as the PCs discover more involvement, let them put the pieces together. Then it's not like you're having to worry about "How do I introduce this gods'war thing", it's more like "The war's been going on in the background, and the PCs are someday going to be major players in the region, so they're going to have to choose sides eventually."Personally, I wouldn't push the whole Chosen Scion of Whatever deal, your mileage may vary, but I find that being the champion/pawn/whatever of a diety is a lot more interesting for the player if it's a role they've intentionally chosen. Well then, what if someone works with a god but then doublecrosses them? Hey, maybe it's a blood vendetta, maybe it's just business, but changing alliances and the PC party being a big ole wild card in the middle of some chaos sounds like good gaming fun to me. But I'm telling you, in terms of plain human nature, the players are going to be "meh" about it if it's imposed on them, but pretty damn interested if their characters are making these allegiances for power or something else they want.Then in some future tier if they're still feeling the pirate theme, hell, go with it. There are ships that sail planes other than ours, after all, maybe some day they'll end up privateers (or freebooters) on the Astral Sea.</blockquote>

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