Lord Zardoz
Explorer
I would probably go with something akin to the Rod of 7 Parts type adventure, but with a twist.
Plot out your standard artifact centered epic, and come up with an NPC party that is on the quest to save the world. The first session is where your PC's encounter this heroic party in some probably indirect form, and basically manage to make it impossible for the players to save the day. However, they also do it in such a way that basically makes it impossible for the villains to achieve their nasty goals. To further complicate this, neither the Heroes or the Villains should realize that the Clowns are responsible for screwing things up.
From that point, you can have your campaigns long term story arc alternate between the Villains and the Heroes trying to deal with the clowns. The only tricky part would be giving the Clowns a motive to continually mess things up for the heroes.
END COMMUNICATION
Plot out your standard artifact centered epic, and come up with an NPC party that is on the quest to save the world. The first session is where your PC's encounter this heroic party in some probably indirect form, and basically manage to make it impossible for the players to save the day. However, they also do it in such a way that basically makes it impossible for the villains to achieve their nasty goals. To further complicate this, neither the Heroes or the Villains should realize that the Clowns are responsible for screwing things up.
From that point, you can have your campaigns long term story arc alternate between the Villains and the Heroes trying to deal with the clowns. The only tricky part would be giving the Clowns a motive to continually mess things up for the heroes.
END COMMUNICATION
