The Godstone- an odd little campaign idea

[Breakstone]

So I was thinking: What if there was some stone or gem in a campaign that gave the holder near-god-like-powers? And my train of thought went to the campaign revolving around different groups trying to get this stone.

But then I thought: What if you gave this stone to the characters in their very first adventure?

I think it would make an interesting plot hook for the campaign. Which character gets to be the god? Do they use the power? How will they deal with the high-level heroes and villains coming after them?

Will they make the world a better or worse place by using the stone?

What do you think?

 

[shilsen]

Assuming you don't want the characters to be able to access divine levels of ability at 1st lvl or so, you could simply have the stone attune itself to an individual (or more than one) bearer and gradually grant the attuned person more and more power over time. An offshoot of this could be that the stone can only attune to one person and cannot re-attune as long as the current bearer is alive. Gives all the high-level enemies even more of a reason to stomp the poor "lucky" low-level guy

 

[Breakstone]

Well, what if the stone gave the bearer, say, access to all spells, but they had to make a Will Save in order to use one, and a spell beyond their level might damage them?

I mean, what if this gave the character real power?

How do you think this would affect the party alliances? The campaign as a whole?

 

[der_kluge]

Such a thing should have some form of drawback - like permanently shifting the user's alignment to LN or something like that.

Or, the stone might constantly seek out a more powerful possessor, so it might constantly be trying to *free* itself from a 1st level person in order to find someone always of a higher level.

 

[MarauderX]

What if instead of a stone it was a ring? And it gave magical powers like invisibility to the wearer? What if it tainted those who possessed it with evil? What if more powers would be unlocked if the owner wore it to do battle or sorcery? What if there were other rings that were beholden to this evil ring? What if in the darkness it bound them?

Use the preciousss, yesss...Gollum, gollum!

 

[ergeheilalt]

So I was thinking: What if there was some stone or gem in a campaign that gave the holder near-god-like-powers? And my train of thought went to the campaign revolving around different groups trying to get this stone.

But then I thought: What if you gave this stone to the characters in their very first adventure?

I think it would make an interesting plot hook for the campaign. Which character gets to be the god? Do they use the power? How will they deal with the high-level heroes and villains coming after them?

Will they make the world a better or worse place by using the stone?

What do you think?

I ran a campaign based on a very similar idea. Long ago when the world was formed there were three gods A Lawful God, A Chaotic God and a Neutral God. They created the world and things ended up where the A Lawful God and Chaotic God were destroied. Their remaines became godstones - the greatest stones were then forged into the orgininal pantheon (19 gods). However, there there were leftover shards cast around the world.

Some priesthoods took godstone shards that were cast of flecks from their own diety and revear them as holy artifacts; others secreted them away - to keep them out of the hands of mortals.

In the end, I had three people who hand managed to locate enough shards to craft items on god-like power; thereby becoming gods themselves. One created a gigantic, red suit of demon armor - he was the evil guy the party set out to stop and subsiquently failed killing. There was a lycanthrope (unknown the the party) who had crafted a set of manicles to contain himself during the full moon - which just so happened to be the night the other rituals were going on. And the last fellow was a dwarf artificer (golem crafter if you will) who built an inevitable-like golem out of the stones.

Overall it was fun for me to DM. I played it like an "around the world in 80 days" adventure. The party went all over the world attempting to foil the designs of their nemisis - all the while traveling with a golem build out of a godstone. The ritual required for crafting the magic-item involved locating shards scattered about the country side to a) supliment the main piece in terms of material there was to creat an item with b) provide different attributes (a ruby hued shard - from the stone ancestor of the Sun God provides some mastery over fire, while the large, wood-like stone give the ability to use tree-stride).

Along the way, the party met allies and hired bandits to hamper their travels. Over all the PCs enjoyed it and it allowed me to get to define places on my campaign map that were glossed over.

Good Luck with your game!

Erge

 

[ThaDium]

X.p.

I think your idea is great. And don't sweat the Tolkien simiarities, we've all got them. In my game, for example, there is a group of people united towardsa common goal.

Anyway, here's a way to power down the stone without powering it down. Make the powers cast X.P. The more gamebreaking, more expensive. And let the players spend them selves into lower levels, despite what the rules say. (Godstones make their own rules.) Spend to negatives and you die.

This way a lower level PC just won't have the x.p. to access high powered stuff. (Or medium powered stuff for that matter.)

Hope that helps.

-ThaDium.

 

[Elviscide]

Godstone idea

An old campeign I had revolved around a young boy that carried an old coin that granted him powers as a sorcer but he didnt know how to use them properly. Well the PCs find him and take him as a lost orphan and through the night their camp gets raided by (Ill say bandits for lack of my memory), the kid gets scared and the party gets surrounded by walls of ice. Protective, yes but it's midsummer and in time the ice melts causing more panic with a rising water level within the walls...
What Im getting at is I used somewhat random effects based on his emotional and instinctual reactions.
It was fun to make an 8 year old, low/mid level sorcer, boy with a lich father.
Hope this helps out a little