Things to Do on Carceri...

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, don't be affraid about giving me ideas for some high-level stuff. One of the big themes is "trust no one," which, if the PC's are about to face a big enemy, I can use to their own advantage by having one of the enemy's supposed allies become entirely turncoat...

Ideas are the important thing. Toss it all out there, and see what sticks!

 

[Ashy]

Why are the PC's there, KM? Are the puppets of the loths? Spies from the baatezu to uncover the secrets held by the loths? A forward scout party of an Abyssal army? What? Lann a tiefer a bit more chant and he might be able to twig a dark or three, basher!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Hehehe, since you asked....

PC's are criminals, sent to the deepest layers from a Prime world for great horrors that they committed there. Then, suddenly, they become free as the doors of their cells open and the mental miasma is lifted.

The campaign involves solving this mystery, and by the end, it's turning out that their liberator was an Athar member who wanted to free a Godslayer. The Athar member was helped by the Titans and the Yugoloths, who intend to use the Godslayer for their own agendas (slaying Apomps and the Greek pantheon, resepctively). The Godslayer has his own mission, too....

So the PC's will be working for the Gehreleths, who will award them their freedom, if they are the hidden agents who can re-capture the Godslayer...

That's the basic set up. I need to run the whole thing on Carceri...which calls for a bit more than the handful of locatoins the sources give for it.

 

[Alzrius]

You could visit any of the various gods who live there (though I don't recommend it). By layer, they and the realms they live in are (including FR deities before the 3E changeover):

Orthrys/Othrys
Cronus (Mount Othrys)
Mnemosyne
Raiden (Palace of Thunder)
Surma (wanders)
Themis
(the rest of the Titans also)

Cathrys
Grolantor (The Steading)
Talona (Palace of Poison Tears)

Minethys
Falazure (Mausoleum of Pain)
Karontor (The Rack of Injustice)
Parrafaire (Trickster’s Delight)

Colothys
Malar (The Land of the Hunt)
Vhaeraun (Ellaniath)

Porphatys
none

Agathys
Nerull (Necromanteion)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Pehraps something to thin of is what kind of material-plane creatures would wind up here, imprisoned themselves? hmmm.m.....

 

[Shemeska]

Pehraps something to thin of is what kind of material-plane creatures would wind up here, imprisoned themselves? hmmm.m.....

Well as far as petitioners, the type of evil that got them to Carceri varies by layer. I don't recall the list off the top of my head though.

 

[Ashy]

Pehraps something to thin of is what kind of material-plane creatures would wind up here, imprisoned themselves? hmmm.m.....

In this vein, you could think Mos Eisley meets Pitch Black (and Chronicles of Riddick [the first bit, not the last bit]), but far, far worse, diverse, and more self-serving. The entire first couple of sessions could literally be comprised of a race for survival on the parts of the PC's - while they are bad in their own rights, they've just been dropped into a pond of horrible, life-long murderers, rapists, madmen, serial killers, etc - all who are raring to slake their blood-thirsts.

There might be paragon werewolves and vampires imprisoned there, render barbarian-murderers, shifter hunter-killers, changling assassins and blackguards, tiefling thieves and backstabbers - the list goes on and on....

Perhaps the party flees the prison into the desolate wastelands of Carceri - the bloodswamps, the skeletal remains of blasted Blood War battlefields, or razor-sharp obsidian mountains filled with renegade fiendish bladelings....

I'd better stop, before I'm responsible for a TPK. What level are the characters again?

 

[Voadam]

Freed extraplanar prison?

World's largest dungeon I hear its 40% off right now and has 3rd level stuff as well as higher level junk.

Banewarrens is a bit higher level I think but has an opened prison of bad guys theme as well.

Opening these to free one guy is a great premise IMO.

 

[Oryan77]

I always thought it would be cool to have PC's end up on Carceri in a large elaborate prison. They wouldn't know they are in Carceri though. By the time they finally escape the prison, they realize they are on the "Prison Plane" and then have to escape the plane itself.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Perhaps the party flees the prison into the desolate wastelands of Carceri - the bloodswamps, the skeletal remains of blasted Blood War battlefields, or razor-sharp obsidian mountains filled with renegade fiendish bladelings....

They wouldn't know they are in Carceri though. By the time they finally escape the prison, they realize they are on the "Prison Plane" and then have to escape the plane itself.

PRECISELY! Since the group doesn't know much about the planes at all, I think they'll be surprised to find how much they have to go through while still "in the prison."

Imagine once they cross the gates and see sky above them for the first time -- only to find out that they have six layers to cross....

One of the ideas I'm taking from the 2e sources is that connections between the layers are a vertical journey more than a horizontal one. To go up in layers, you climb to the highest peaks and appear in the lowest gorges. To go down in layers, you sink to the deepest deapths and appear on the tallest rises...

....so any idea for interesting encouters on a vertical axis? What kind of "safe falls" should I let them have? What kind of creatures might be climbing these mountains, too....