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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 1286970" data-attributes="member: 99">I don't usually pimp my story hour in quite this way, but the main plot arc for my the first part of my campaign was centered on an Orc invasion of some barbarian lands and it has a few striking similarities to some of the ideas you propose, Buttercup.  Namely that some (not all as in your case) of the Orcs the party killed were wearing symbols that represented an aspect of a god (Bane who I lifted from Faerun) who was supposed to be dead.  If you care to read about it, feel free to follow the link in my sig (it takes you to my current SH thread and from there you can navigate back to the early days).I'll give you a thumbnail sketch of the highlights so you don't have to read the whole thing if you lack the time or inclination:For the BBEG in my Orc invasion, I used a Banelar (from Monsters of Faerun) and they are very nasty customers and their CR is WAY out of whack.  He and his army beseiged a hill fort that the barbarians had put together with the help of some of their more civilized neighbors who knew more about defensive works than the barbarians did.  It happened in the winter time, a time in which the humans were not used to waging war.  The Orcs had a supernatural resistance to the cold (they hailed from a place called The City of Endless Summer) and were not bothered by it.  The humans had problems because the Orcs managed to burn many of their winter stores as they pillaged the land outside the city.  The Orcs by contrast had no problems because they ate the bodies of the humans they killed.  For these reasons, this became known as The Winter War.The Banelar bad guy had a Decanter of Endless Water and he used it to make an ice castle as his "forward base of operations" for assaulting the hill fort.  The party got to storm the place and it was a very cool (pardon the pun) session.  Ultimately the army was beaten back, largely thanks to the party defeating the Banelar thus removing the general.  But the fallout became the driving force behind my entire campaign.The attack on the barbarian lands has robbed them of many of their men and made their lands, full of natural resources, a target for jealous neighbors.  The symbols to Bane eventually made their way back to civilized lands and sparked the interest of the temple of St. Cuthbert who sent out a couple of zealous Church Inquisitors to "look into the matter".  Despite ostensibly being on the same team, the party nearly came to blows with them.  Ultimately the symbols have led to prophecies that Bane is going to return and get revenge upon the world for persecuting his worshipers and killing him in the first place.The party has sought out the City of Endless Summer and discovered that the Banelar have been breeding and preaching to this particular band of Orcs, turning them into efficient soldiers who know how to follow orders and maintain unit cohesion (they're now Lawful Evil).  They've also taught the smarter ones magic, supplying the Orc Horde with a good supply of Adepts, Clerics and Wizards.  The part also encountered another group of Orcs who were visited by "The Shining Lady" (probably a Celestial of some sort) who encouraged them to rise up against their oppressors (the Banelar) who were only using them to their own nefarious ends.  This band has become Lawful Neutral and seek to break the hold of the Banelar over their people.  They've become some of the party's better allies.Hopefully you can fish a good idea or two out of that mess.  <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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