Hey guys,
I'm currently writing a plot outline for a game I'm starting over the summer. I've made a few revisions to Ulfen history for the campaign, establishing that they were originally peoples of Scandinavia, pulled through dimensions by the Azlanti to serve as slaves (inspired by the Forgotten Realms' treatment of the people of Mulhorand). The Asgardian pantheon was trapped in the Midgardian dimension by planar wards erected by the strongest spellcasters among the Azlanti. Their power waning in their home dimension with the disappearance of so many of their worshipers, the Aesir and Vanir devoted all of their efforts to discovering a method of breaching the planar wards and finally did so. With their return, the Ulfen were able to break the bonds of their enslavement. The breaching of the planar wards eventually allowed other extra-planar beings to get through, beginning with the Dokkalfar (the proto-Ulfen name for a faction of medium Nightshade Nightwalkers). Unknown to the Aboleths, their calling of the Starstone was aided by the Dokkalfar in a bid to shatter Golarion absolutely. Their bid failed, though it did wipe out the Azlanti empire, severely damage the Aboleth civilization, and ushering in the Age of Darkness. Following the rise of Arodan and the end of the Age of Darkness, the Dokkalfar realm of Niflheim (on the edge of the shadow and negative energy planes) was sealed, and the Asgardian Pantheon bled worshipers for five hundred years, before finally facing extinction. They currently still exist, as does Asgard, however the gods have lost almost all of their power (treat as Divine Rank 0, level 20 characters with a +20 inherent bonus to one stat, or a +10 inherent bonuses to two stats). Despite this, they occasionally wander the lands of Golarion.
The plot thus far involves the characters (second level) as gladiator captives of a bandit camp in the hill lands West of Turvik, in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. I plan to run them through a few combats, allow them to make their plans to escape, then one night silently and mysteriously eliminate the bandits. They'll wake up with blood dripping down from the ceiling of the pit onto their faces, effect their escape, and explore the bandit camp, littered with the torn and mutilated remains of their captors. They'll find a boat, moored in the shoals along the river slightly to the south, and if they take it, they'll come upon the small town of Tiwsvall downstream.
Tiwsvall is a small village that’s been inhabited off and on since before recorded history. Built in a circle around a large, white yew tree which is now, slowly dying. For some reason, despite the danger of the lands around it and its lack of walls, Tiwsvall has never been attacked by monsters, dragons or the undead. Unknown to its inhabitants, this is because of the blessing of the old god Tyr upon the town, made manifest by the yew tree.
Assuming they speak to the town's leadership (if they tell their tale within the inn, they'll be directed towards the leadership on the morrow), the town's Goðhi, Ráðgeirthe Wise (Fighter 4 Cleric 3) will express concern, and direct them to the local scholar, Asmund Pederssen, an eccentric, slight, but undeniably brilliant young man with an obsessive, insatiable thirst for knowledge. While the town finds him useful at times, they hold him with some disdain, due to his frail build and decidedly less than manly pursuits. They'll find him in the attic above the inn. Upon entering, they'll find the walls, ceilings, and floors covered in mathematical scribblings, formulae, sigils, runes and graphs with queer angles; books, scroll and parchment stacked to the ceiling, an immense desk covered in parchment, open tomes, unrolled scrolls, and broken quills. Unbeknown to them, or the town, Asmund's quest for knowledge has taken a dark, Lovecraftian turn, resulting in him bargaining for knowledge and power with nightmarish entities. Asmund Pederssen has become a witch (dimensional occultist) of 8th level. While Asmund ostensibly doesn't know anything (though he promises to research the possibilities thoroughly), he is in fact involved, having managed, with the aid of his otherworldly patrons, to unbind a vault sealed in the forest nearby the bandit camp that binds the realm of Niflheim, severely weakening the ward holding back its hordes, and releasing one of the mighty dokkalfar bound within the vault.
The party is called away to deal with a local threat (I haven't decided what exactly, yet. Possibly a gremlin infestation in the mines nearby the town), but when they return, they find the town sacked, a smoking ruin, and the yew tree blackened and smote in twain, a rune-stone of an alien black stone hidden within the tree (during the barbarian raid, the cultist Asmund channeled the power of his otherworldy patron through the dying tree, completing its demise and utilizing the resulting energy to split open the domed island in the Arcadian Sea). A few survivors remain in the Inn's hidden sub-basement, but the rest have been slain or taken. Tracking the perpetrators leads them to an encampment in the hills near a cave, where the barbarian tribe is toying with their new captives. Examining their bodies reveals that they all bear strange, runic tattoos. Once the fighting has ended, and any surviving captives have quieted down, faint chanting can be heard emanating from the cave. The captives, if asked, will explain that a few of their number were taken below. Descending into the cave, the party are first confronted with a guardian Necrophidius, a pair of hulking Varki guards, whose countenance and bearing indicate that they may be under some sort of ensorcellment, and finally a chamber inscribed with eerily glowing blue-green formulae, where five of the townspeople stand in formation around a dark-robed figure, and chant with a unity and a hollowness that suggests they are not acting under their own power. The figure is faces away from the party, at figures and glyphs inscribed on the back wall of the chamber; with the volume of the chanting, the party can get close enough to enter the chamber without his notice, but trip a magical trap. When they do so, the townspeople drop, collapsing into dust, the robed figure turns, face wreathed in shadow and the fight begins. Should they bring him below half hitpoints, he casts Vermin Shape and disappears through a crack in the wall.
So that's the beginning. Following that, the dokkalfar break through the weakened seals, after the destruction of the World Tree. While doing so allows them some measure of influence over the Prime Material Plane, they are still severely limited in requiring the assistance of an able spell caster to bring them through a Gate to the plane, and by their vulnerability to sunlight. Their end goal is to cast the world in an everlasting night, by influencing the PCs to reverse the flow of the braid (using an artifact protected by an Elder Kraken in the Sightless Sea), causing much of the Arcadian Sea to drain into the Darklands, thereby exposing an island stronghold from the days of Old Azlant housing a major artifact that can be perverted to cause the creation of dark clouds, that will slowly blanket Golarion, beginning with the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.
Throughout the campaign I plan to insert encounters with the old gods of Scandinavia in an ambiguous way, designed to leave the players wondering if it was them or not. The first of these will be Odin himself, sending them on a quest to retrieve the sword of the ancient Ulfen hero and dragonslayer Sigurdr, which will result in the party's first direct interaction with the dokkalfar, slaying the bound Bodak that Sigurdr became after perishing at the hands of the dokkalfar, and obtaining Gram, a minor artifact using rules adapted from Weapons of Legacy for third edition. Party members affected by any mind-effecting spells cast by Asmund will begin having dreams of the denizens of Leng preparing for an interdimensional invasion, and all of it culminating in Ragnarok, wherein the denizens of Leng manipulated and aided by the dokkalfar, will face off against the old gods and the forces of the Linnorm Kingdoms, united by the party's slaying of Fafnheir.
Any suggestions or input? Low to mid level adventure ideas would be just tops.
I'm currently writing a plot outline for a game I'm starting over the summer. I've made a few revisions to Ulfen history for the campaign, establishing that they were originally peoples of Scandinavia, pulled through dimensions by the Azlanti to serve as slaves (inspired by the Forgotten Realms' treatment of the people of Mulhorand). The Asgardian pantheon was trapped in the Midgardian dimension by planar wards erected by the strongest spellcasters among the Azlanti. Their power waning in their home dimension with the disappearance of so many of their worshipers, the Aesir and Vanir devoted all of their efforts to discovering a method of breaching the planar wards and finally did so. With their return, the Ulfen were able to break the bonds of their enslavement. The breaching of the planar wards eventually allowed other extra-planar beings to get through, beginning with the Dokkalfar (the proto-Ulfen name for a faction of medium Nightshade Nightwalkers). Unknown to the Aboleths, their calling of the Starstone was aided by the Dokkalfar in a bid to shatter Golarion absolutely. Their bid failed, though it did wipe out the Azlanti empire, severely damage the Aboleth civilization, and ushering in the Age of Darkness. Following the rise of Arodan and the end of the Age of Darkness, the Dokkalfar realm of Niflheim (on the edge of the shadow and negative energy planes) was sealed, and the Asgardian Pantheon bled worshipers for five hundred years, before finally facing extinction. They currently still exist, as does Asgard, however the gods have lost almost all of their power (treat as Divine Rank 0, level 20 characters with a +20 inherent bonus to one stat, or a +10 inherent bonuses to two stats). Despite this, they occasionally wander the lands of Golarion.
The plot thus far involves the characters (second level) as gladiator captives of a bandit camp in the hill lands West of Turvik, in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. I plan to run them through a few combats, allow them to make their plans to escape, then one night silently and mysteriously eliminate the bandits. They'll wake up with blood dripping down from the ceiling of the pit onto their faces, effect their escape, and explore the bandit camp, littered with the torn and mutilated remains of their captors. They'll find a boat, moored in the shoals along the river slightly to the south, and if they take it, they'll come upon the small town of Tiwsvall downstream.
Tiwsvall is a small village that’s been inhabited off and on since before recorded history. Built in a circle around a large, white yew tree which is now, slowly dying. For some reason, despite the danger of the lands around it and its lack of walls, Tiwsvall has never been attacked by monsters, dragons or the undead. Unknown to its inhabitants, this is because of the blessing of the old god Tyr upon the town, made manifest by the yew tree.
Assuming they speak to the town's leadership (if they tell their tale within the inn, they'll be directed towards the leadership on the morrow), the town's Goðhi, Ráðgeirthe Wise (Fighter 4 Cleric 3) will express concern, and direct them to the local scholar, Asmund Pederssen, an eccentric, slight, but undeniably brilliant young man with an obsessive, insatiable thirst for knowledge. While the town finds him useful at times, they hold him with some disdain, due to his frail build and decidedly less than manly pursuits. They'll find him in the attic above the inn. Upon entering, they'll find the walls, ceilings, and floors covered in mathematical scribblings, formulae, sigils, runes and graphs with queer angles; books, scroll and parchment stacked to the ceiling, an immense desk covered in parchment, open tomes, unrolled scrolls, and broken quills. Unbeknown to them, or the town, Asmund's quest for knowledge has taken a dark, Lovecraftian turn, resulting in him bargaining for knowledge and power with nightmarish entities. Asmund Pederssen has become a witch (dimensional occultist) of 8th level. While Asmund ostensibly doesn't know anything (though he promises to research the possibilities thoroughly), he is in fact involved, having managed, with the aid of his otherworldly patrons, to unbind a vault sealed in the forest nearby the bandit camp that binds the realm of Niflheim, severely weakening the ward holding back its hordes, and releasing one of the mighty dokkalfar bound within the vault.
The party is called away to deal with a local threat (I haven't decided what exactly, yet. Possibly a gremlin infestation in the mines nearby the town), but when they return, they find the town sacked, a smoking ruin, and the yew tree blackened and smote in twain, a rune-stone of an alien black stone hidden within the tree (during the barbarian raid, the cultist Asmund channeled the power of his otherworldy patron through the dying tree, completing its demise and utilizing the resulting energy to split open the domed island in the Arcadian Sea). A few survivors remain in the Inn's hidden sub-basement, but the rest have been slain or taken. Tracking the perpetrators leads them to an encampment in the hills near a cave, where the barbarian tribe is toying with their new captives. Examining their bodies reveals that they all bear strange, runic tattoos. Once the fighting has ended, and any surviving captives have quieted down, faint chanting can be heard emanating from the cave. The captives, if asked, will explain that a few of their number were taken below. Descending into the cave, the party are first confronted with a guardian Necrophidius, a pair of hulking Varki guards, whose countenance and bearing indicate that they may be under some sort of ensorcellment, and finally a chamber inscribed with eerily glowing blue-green formulae, where five of the townspeople stand in formation around a dark-robed figure, and chant with a unity and a hollowness that suggests they are not acting under their own power. The figure is faces away from the party, at figures and glyphs inscribed on the back wall of the chamber; with the volume of the chanting, the party can get close enough to enter the chamber without his notice, but trip a magical trap. When they do so, the townspeople drop, collapsing into dust, the robed figure turns, face wreathed in shadow and the fight begins. Should they bring him below half hitpoints, he casts Vermin Shape and disappears through a crack in the wall.
So that's the beginning. Following that, the dokkalfar break through the weakened seals, after the destruction of the World Tree. While doing so allows them some measure of influence over the Prime Material Plane, they are still severely limited in requiring the assistance of an able spell caster to bring them through a Gate to the plane, and by their vulnerability to sunlight. Their end goal is to cast the world in an everlasting night, by influencing the PCs to reverse the flow of the braid (using an artifact protected by an Elder Kraken in the Sightless Sea), causing much of the Arcadian Sea to drain into the Darklands, thereby exposing an island stronghold from the days of Old Azlant housing a major artifact that can be perverted to cause the creation of dark clouds, that will slowly blanket Golarion, beginning with the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.
Throughout the campaign I plan to insert encounters with the old gods of Scandinavia in an ambiguous way, designed to leave the players wondering if it was them or not. The first of these will be Odin himself, sending them on a quest to retrieve the sword of the ancient Ulfen hero and dragonslayer Sigurdr, which will result in the party's first direct interaction with the dokkalfar, slaying the bound Bodak that Sigurdr became after perishing at the hands of the dokkalfar, and obtaining Gram, a minor artifact using rules adapted from Weapons of Legacy for third edition. Party members affected by any mind-effecting spells cast by Asmund will begin having dreams of the denizens of Leng preparing for an interdimensional invasion, and all of it culminating in Ragnarok, wherein the denizens of Leng manipulated and aided by the dokkalfar, will face off against the old gods and the forces of the Linnorm Kingdoms, united by the party's slaying of Fafnheir.
Any suggestions or input? Low to mid level adventure ideas would be just tops.
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