Big Picture [Archive] - Wizards Community

Big Picture [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Elvez4ever
01-17-07, 10:00 PM Here's the problem:

I have some really fun ideas for the BIG plot and for some higher level adventures. But until then I have no idea what to do for low level adventures. Here's my (brief) overview:

-The first several adventures will feature a kind, lovable king and his daughter (possible PC love intrest...)

-The king will die (assassinated) and ______ (no first name yet) Ryvain will marry the daughter

-Ryvain is a Lich/Vampire and corrupts the players lovable sweet hometown from the inside out

-Plauges, zombies, etc.

-I'm hoping to add airships and skypirates

As I said, it's a brief overview but anything to tie things together would be welcome!

constructive comments always enjoyed,
Elvez
aristotle91
01-17-07, 10:27 PM To get the PCs started in the king's service, perhaps one day they are passing through a forest and hear the sounds of battle and a woman screaming. When they reach the scene, they find bandits have killed some guards and are looting a richly-appointed carriage and carrying off some regal-looking women. The PCs, being the heroes that they are, rescue the women, who happen to be the princess and her ladies-in-waiting. The king, of course, is overjoyed at their timely rescue, and lavishes them with a feast. Then, he quietly confides in them his growing suspicions about a sinister force at work in the kingdom and gives the PCs a mission to do...something...take a letter to the Oracle of Rhemona asking for her prognostication, or something.
Elvez4ever
01-18-07, 04:41 PM Hmmmmm..... Sounds good. Infact, it's perfect! I want the beginning to look cliché so as to lull the players into a sense of security, then yank it out from underneath them! I'm thinking a dungeon crawl for the first level or two. But I'd like ideas on what kind of things to do to make the characters feel attatched to their home town...Maybe some royally entwined urban adventures?

Edit: Anyone else have any ideas?
Elvez4ever
01-24-07, 07:23 PM anybody? :confused:
McKinzie
01-24-07, 07:55 PM I'm currently running a campaign that's similar to yours.

I had the PC's begin in a small city that is plagued with a tainted water supply, crime, a religious group which opposes the current royalty, and a king who refuses to let anyone leave the city. The tainted water supply is actually caused by undead creatures (servants to a vampire wizard) infesting the underground pool area...which is the source of the city's water supply. The king is actually a doppelganger who is a puppet for the vampire wizard. The vampire wizard had kidnapped the real king and is now playing royal advisor to a false king. As mentioned before, the PC's won't be able to leave the city...except that the religious group knows a secret passage out of the city. The PC's had to recover some stolen items before the religious group showed them the secret passage.

Currently, the PC's don't know that the king is a doppelganger or that the king's advisor is a vampire wizard. They have managed to leave the city, and are traveling toward an inverse tower where they will discover the imprisoned true king.

I'm not sure how it will turn out...but, when the PC's discover the truth about the vampire wizard, I'm hoping that I will be able to have the vampire wizard turn one of the PC's into a vampire spawn and then escape the battle. Then the PC's will have to search and destroy the vampire wizard in order to free their vampire spawn comrade from his/her servitude to the vampire wizard. That may take awhile. :schemes:

For my first attempt at DMing, my group says I'm doing very good.
Elvez4ever
01-24-07, 08:02 PM Sounds like a lot of fun. Secrets and betryal make everything more interesting. :angelhide
Ayers
01-24-07, 08:29 PM I'd play it out like this:

When he was young and abroad, studying in other nations or traveling the world in a diplomatic entourage, the King of this little nation fell in love with a Pirate's Daughter and neglected to ever tell anyone about his secret affair with her. As time passed and his duties became more and more pressing at home, until the point he finally ascended his rightful place on the Throne, they had kept in contact and met whenever fate allowed.

He heard from her, only months before his coronation and found out that she was pregnant and she was expecting a child any day. He fled the kingdom under cover of darkness one night to find his wife-to-be and his child, with the intent of abdicating his throne and living a life with them. However, by the time he reached her she had already had the child, and to his dismay, did not survive the child's birth. As her last wishes decreed, her body was given the proper funneral and her body was ultimately discarded with.

The Prince-becoming-King is left with the child, the mother instructed on her deathbed to her Hand Maiden, who was to be given to him when he came to find her. Returning to his kingdom, crestfallen and heartbroken at the death of his first love, he secretly raises her under the guise of her being a distant neice to the rest of the kingdom, though secretly telling her the truth of her existence.

However, in actual universal truth Ryvain is the son of the king, and the daughter that he has known for most of his life is not truthfully his, but the handmaidens. Ryvain, who was raised by the handmaiden because she did not trust this king, learns the truth of his mother's and father's relationship and as his driving force in life, decides to destroy everything that his father has.

Descending to the most destructive means, he becomes a Lich/Vampire/other undead or demonic monster and vows to take the kingdom that belongs to him, while taking vengenace upon his true father.
Elvez4ever
01-27-07, 09:51 PM Wow! Now THAT'S the kinda stuff I'm looking for!

Good idea. Any ideas on why Ryvain chose to become a Lich and how he became a Vampire? (He's a VampLich!) Also, what is his real name? Ryvain is "jade spirit" in Elven (from Races of the Wild), and a clue to where his soul (as a Lich) is hidden.

EDIT: I just had an idea. What if the King's lover had to children, a boy and a girl? The girl was taken with the King and Ryvain was hidden away. Everything happens same as the post above but there's the family connection and the girl could end up being a PC ally... If so what class etc. should she be? P.S. Bump
taradusis
01-27-07, 11:17 PM There was an adventure dealing with a crashed airship that the players were hired to find and return.Part of the reward was the offer of a discount if the players wanted to build their own airship?Have you considered using spelljammer ships instead of airships?
Ayers
01-27-07, 11:31 PM Wow! Now THAT'S the kinda stuff I'm looking for!

Good idea. Any ideas on why Ryvain chose to become a Lich and how he became a Vampire? (He's a VampLich!) Also, what is his real name? Ryvain is "jade spirit" in Elven (from Races of the Wild), and a clue to where his soul (as a Lich) is hidden.

EDIT: I just had an idea. What if the King's lover had to children, a boy and a girl? The girl was taken with the King and Ryvain was hidden away. Everything happens same as the post above but there's the family connection and the girl could end up being a PC ally... If so what class etc. should she be? P.S. Bump
I was only saying how I'd do it. You do it however you want.

If you're going to take that idea, and do it like that, then you could say that maybe there was a handmaiden and she took Ryvain to the side because she saw a great potential in him. Secretly, the handmaiden had beliefs and affiliations with a dark and dangerous circle of Demon Worshipers and Cultists. She believed that Ryvain could be raised by them, and taught of the evils of his father, a man whom she envied or hated for personal prejudices (maybe something as simple as he was a human, she was an elf; she believed that her Mistress deserved better than him, etc.). Whatever her motivation, she taught a younger Ryvain that his mother and father abandoned him.

As a coming of age ceremony, when he was very young, say 16 or 18 or so, he underwent a sacred ceremony to transform himself into a Lich/Vampire/whatever in order to destroy the kingdom of his father and his sister. Perhaps, though, after becoming transformed, he decides that he no longer needs woman who raised him, and kills her off and assumes leadership of this cult.

This would give him an instant fan-base of supporters who could believe he's the spiritual presence of a specific Demon, or he's the manifestation of evil, or whatever, and they worship him as a God. He could do some serious damage with this.

Again, just a thought.
Elvez4ever
01-28-07, 12:52 PM Oooooo..... backing of an occult works perfectly. He WAS going to have an underground necro-cult so that back story is perfect.

@taradusis: Where can I find the adventure, and I'm not familiar with spelljammer ships... I was using the Arms and Equipment Guide...Ships w/ Cloud Keels

The whole airship thing I envisioned was more for the idea of Sky Pirates :D
MagicMouth
01-28-07, 04:29 PM In the first post you said you needed some ideas for adventures before the revelation and eventual confrontation...

What about the woman´s sky pirate father? What´s his role in all of this? Perhaps he´s unfavorably inclined towards the king (he could have been wronged by the previous monarch, for example), but has a tender spot for his daughter´s children (both the princess and Ryvain) and is willing to go great lengths to protect them.
Initially he is at least indifferent towards the PCs, especially if they are sent on a quest for the princess´s cause, but as they get closer to Ryvain he gets more hostile and becomes a threat to the welfare of the world. This gives room for some tragic encounters, I believe.

To further complicate things, you could give the father a rival that has the role of an enemy at first; plundering trade caravans, disrupting the king´s plans, and so on. However, he is really a kind-hearted outlaw who opposes the king, who is not completely benevolent and has a darker side (not enough to be evil, though).
More importantly, he knows about Ryvain and how much the pirate father is ready to do to defend him, and therefore tries to keep an eye on both of them. In the end, he likely becomes an ally.

Just some thoughts.
taradusis
01-28-07, 05:29 PM Dungeon #136 july has CRASH LANDING -designed for eberron,4th lev?SPELLJAMMER.ORG has a fansite devoted to converting the old 2ed spelljammer setting to 3.0 and 3.5,I have some deckplans I could PM?
Elvez4ever
02-11-07, 02:32 PM PM away! =) Wow some totally great ideas! Hope everyone'll keep em comin!
GoriceXII
02-12-07, 08:21 AM If you don't mind borrowing ideas, this is a sort of plot outline for David Gemmel's novel "Winter Warriors". (spoilers follow)

The lichlike creature that is disguised as the king's kindly wizard is in fact in the service of demonic creatures who can only return to the world if I believe it is three kings are slain at the lich's instigation. The last king is in fact a child in the womb of a widowed queen, whose husband is betrayed by the lich and one of his followers, an ambitious prince. The lich exchanged natural life for immortal life but is greedy for more power, which he believes the demons will give him. In fact the lich disposed of the kindly wizard and is posing as him. Thus the shade of the wizard is still around, anxious to communicate with anyone willing to listen. It's quite a good story really, though rather gritty and unpleasant in some areas.
Elvez4ever
02-12-07, 06:30 PM Sounds like a good story. And I like the idea of demons...:devil: :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh
Elvez4ever
02-25-07, 09:54 AM I just had a great idea... Start the players off at level ten, but that's not the good part.....

What if Ryvain was after the Religia (sp?) of Evil from the Arms and Equipment Guide? I could start him off with one piece, which would explain his quick domination of the kingdom and then have the players stop him from getting the other pieces. Or (and this I think I like better...) have the players go for the Religia (once again, sp?) of Good and end it with a big old showdown between one PC with the ROG and Ryvain with the ROE. Any thoughts, comments, and/or suggestions are greatly welcome!

-Elvez
p.s. Sorry for the double post!
Elvez4ever
03-03-07, 12:30 PM :confused: anybody?....
GoriceXII
03-03-07, 02:24 PM Do you mean 'regalia'? I'm sorry for not replying but your thread went off the 1st page I think.

It's certainly not a bad idea. There's an old adventure for Call of Cthulhu very much like that.

What I might suggest is that you also have him gradually drawing in evil forces to support his coup d'etat if you are doing that so that the players will feel a sense of urgency, though ideally not TOO much.
taradusis
03-03-07, 09:38 PM FIEND FOLIO-Has demonic grafts,With each demon piece you have grafted on the more C/E you become?Imagine your villain is on a type of scavenger hunt for demonic body parts.The players start by killing a demon for him and spot him or one of his hench people wearing the demon part and realise that they're building monsters?This would be like season three of BUFFY........RANDOM THOUGHTS
Elvez4ever
03-16-07, 10:52 PM That'd be interesting. I just got Libris Mortis which has undead grafts... Trying to increase his power in a cyborgy way might be fun...
taradusis
03-17-07, 08:49 AM Serpent kingdom has yuanti grafts.Lords of madness has aboleth,beholder,illithid grafts and cults that perform them.Fiend folio has all these grafts along with the undead and demonic ones,if you like composited creatures with a surgical addiction this is an invalualable resource.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Elvez4ever 01-17-07, 10:00 PM	Here's the problem: I have some really fun ideas for the BIG plot and for some higher level adventures. But until then I have no idea what to do for low level adventures. Here's my (brief) overview: -The first several adventures will feature a kind, lovable king and his daughter (possible PC love intrest...) -The king will die (assassinated) and ______ (no first name yet) Ryvain will marry the daughter -Ryvain is a Lich/Vampire and corrupts the players lovable sweet hometown from the inside out -Plauges, zombies, etc. -I'm hoping to add airships and skypirates As I said, it's a brief overview but anything to tie things together would be welcome! constructive comments always enjoyed, Elvez
aristotle91 01-17-07, 10:27 PM	To get the PCs started in the king's service, perhaps one day they are passing through a forest and hear the sounds of battle and a woman screaming. When they reach the scene, they find bandits have killed some guards and are looting a richly-appointed carriage and carrying off some regal-looking women. The PCs, being the heroes that they are, rescue the women, who happen to be the princess and her ladies-in-waiting. The king, of course, is overjoyed at their timely rescue, and lavishes them with a feast. Then, he quietly confides in them his growing suspicions about a sinister force at work in the kingdom and gives the PCs a mission to do...something...take a letter to the Oracle of Rhemona asking for her prognostication, or something.
Elvez4ever 01-18-07, 04:41 PM	Hmmmmm..... Sounds good. Infact, it's perfect! I want the beginning to look cliché so as to lull the players into a sense of security, then yank it out from underneath them! I'm thinking a dungeon crawl for the first level or two. But I'd like ideas on what kind of things to do to make the characters feel attatched to their home town...Maybe some royally entwined urban adventures? Edit: Anyone else have any ideas?
Elvez4ever 01-24-07, 07:23 PM	anybody? :confused:
McKinzie 01-24-07, 07:55 PM	I'm currently running a campaign that's similar to yours. I had the PC's begin in a small city that is plagued with a tainted water supply, crime, a religious group which opposes the current royalty, and a king who refuses to let anyone leave the city. The tainted water supply is actually caused by undead creatures (servants to a vampire wizard) infesting the underground pool area...which is the source of the city's water supply. The king is actually a doppelganger who is a puppet for the vampire wizard. The vampire wizard had kidnapped the real king and is now playing royal advisor to a false king. As mentioned before, the PC's won't be able to leave the city...except that the religious group knows a secret passage out of the city. The PC's had to recover some stolen items before the religious group showed them the secret passage. Currently, the PC's don't know that the king is a doppelganger or that the king's advisor is a vampire wizard. They have managed to leave the city, and are traveling toward an inverse tower where they will discover the imprisoned true king. I'm not sure how it will turn out...but, when the PC's discover the truth about the vampire wizard, I'm hoping that I will be able to have the vampire wizard turn one of the PC's into a vampire spawn and then escape the battle. Then the PC's will have to search and destroy the vampire wizard in order to free their vampire spawn comrade from his/her servitude to the vampire wizard. That may take awhile. :schemes: For my first attempt at DMing, my group says I'm doing very good.
Elvez4ever 01-24-07, 08:02 PM	Sounds like a lot of fun. Secrets and betryal make everything more interesting. :angelhide
Ayers 01-24-07, 08:29 PM	I'd play it out like this: When he was young and abroad, studying in other nations or traveling the world in a diplomatic entourage, the King of this little nation fell in love with a Pirate's Daughter and neglected to ever tell anyone about his secret affair with her. As time passed and his duties became more and more pressing at home, until the point he finally ascended his rightful place on the Throne, they had kept in contact and met whenever fate allowed. He heard from her, only months before his coronation and found out that she was pregnant and she was expecting a child any day. He fled the kingdom under cover of darkness one night to find his wife-to-be and his child, with the intent of abdicating his throne and living a life with them. However, by the time he reached her she had already had the child, and to his dismay, did not survive the child's birth. As her last wishes decreed, her body was given the proper funneral and her body was ultimately discarded with. The Prince-becoming-King is left with the child, the mother instructed on her deathbed to her Hand Maiden, who was to be given to him when he came to find her. Returning to his kingdom, crestfallen and heartbroken at the death of his first love, he secretly raises her under the guise of her being a distant neice to the rest of the kingdom, though secretly telling her the truth of her existence. However, in actual universal truth Ryvain is the son of the king, and the daughter that he has known for most of his life is not truthfully his, but the handmaidens. Ryvain, who was raised by the handmaiden because she did not trust this king, learns the truth of his mother's and father's relationship and as his driving force in life, decides to destroy everything that his father has. Descending to the most destructive means, he becomes a Lich/Vampire/other undead or demonic monster and vows to take the kingdom that belongs to him, while taking vengenace upon his true father.
Elvez4ever 01-27-07, 09:51 PM	Wow! Now THAT'S the kinda stuff I'm looking for! Good idea. Any ideas on why Ryvain chose to become a Lich and how he became a Vampire? (He's a VampLich!) Also, what is his real name? Ryvain is "jade spirit" in Elven (from Races of the Wild), and a clue to where his soul (as a Lich) is hidden. EDIT: I just had an idea. What if the King's lover had to children, a boy and a girl? The girl was taken with the King and Ryvain was hidden away. Everything happens same as the post above but there's the family connection and the girl could end up being a PC ally... If so what class etc. should she be? P.S. Bump
taradusis 01-27-07, 11:17 PM	There was an adventure dealing with a crashed airship that the players were hired to find and return.Part of the reward was the offer of a discount if the players wanted to build their own airship?Have you considered using spelljammer ships instead of airships?
Ayers 01-27-07, 11:31 PM	Wow! Now THAT'S the kinda stuff I'm looking for! Good idea. Any ideas on why Ryvain chose to become a Lich and how he became a Vampire? (He's a VampLich!) Also, what is his real name? Ryvain is "jade spirit" in Elven (from Races of the Wild), and a clue to where his soul (as a Lich) is hidden. EDIT: I just had an idea. What if the King's lover had to children, a boy and a girl? The girl was taken with the King and Ryvain was hidden away. Everything happens same as the post above but there's the family connection and the girl could end up being a PC ally... If so what class etc. should she be? P.S. Bump I was only saying how I'd do it. You do it however you want. If you're going to take that idea, and do it like that, then you could say that maybe there was a handmaiden and she took Ryvain to the side because she saw a great potential in him. Secretly, the handmaiden had beliefs and affiliations with a dark and dangerous circle of Demon Worshipers and Cultists. She believed that Ryvain could be raised by them, and taught of the evils of his father, a man whom she envied or hated for personal prejudices (maybe something as simple as he was a human, she was an elf; she believed that her Mistress deserved better than him, etc.). Whatever her motivation, she taught a younger Ryvain that his mother and father abandoned him. As a coming of age ceremony, when he was very young, say 16 or 18 or so, he underwent a sacred ceremony to transform himself into a Lich/Vampire/whatever in order to destroy the kingdom of his father and his sister. Perhaps, though, after becoming transformed, he decides that he no longer needs woman who raised him, and kills her off and assumes leadership of this cult. This would give him an instant fan-base of supporters who could believe he's the spiritual presence of a specific Demon, or he's the manifestation of evil, or whatever, and they worship him as a God. He could do some serious damage with this. Again, just a thought.
Elvez4ever 01-28-07, 12:52 PM	Oooooo..... backing of an occult works perfectly. He WAS going to have an underground necro-cult so that back story is perfect. @taradusis: Where can I find the adventure, and I'm not familiar with spelljammer ships... I was using the Arms and Equipment Guide...Ships w/ Cloud Keels The whole airship thing I envisioned was more for the idea of Sky Pirates :D
MagicMouth 01-28-07, 04:29 PM	In the first post you said you needed some ideas for adventures before the revelation and eventual confrontation... What about the woman´s sky pirate father? What´s his role in all of this? Perhaps he´s unfavorably inclined towards the king (he could have been wronged by the previous monarch, for example), but has a tender spot for his daughter´s children (both the princess and Ryvain) and is willing to go great lengths to protect them. Initially he is at least indifferent towards the PCs, especially if they are sent on a quest for the princess´s cause, but as they get closer to Ryvain he gets more hostile and becomes a threat to the welfare of the world. This gives room for some tragic encounters, I believe. To further complicate things, you could give the father a rival that has the role of an enemy at first; plundering trade caravans, disrupting the king´s plans, and so on. However, he is really a kind-hearted outlaw who opposes the king, who is not completely benevolent and has a darker side (not enough to be evil, though). More importantly, he knows about Ryvain and how much the pirate father is ready to do to defend him, and therefore tries to keep an eye on both of them. In the end, he likely becomes an ally. Just some thoughts.
taradusis 01-28-07, 05:29 PM	Dungeon #136 july has CRASH LANDING -designed for eberron,4th lev?SPELLJAMMER.ORG has a fansite devoted to converting the old 2ed spelljammer setting to 3.0 and 3.5,I have some deckplans I could PM?
Elvez4ever 02-11-07, 02:32 PM	PM away! =) Wow some totally great ideas! Hope everyone'll keep em comin!
GoriceXII 02-12-07, 08:21 AM	If you don't mind borrowing ideas, this is a sort of plot outline for David Gemmel's novel "Winter Warriors". (spoilers follow) The lichlike creature that is disguised as the king's kindly wizard is in fact in the service of demonic creatures who can only return to the world if I believe it is three kings are slain at the lich's instigation. The last king is in fact a child in the womb of a widowed queen, whose husband is betrayed by the lich and one of his followers, an ambitious prince. The lich exchanged natural life for immortal life but is greedy for more power, which he believes the demons will give him. In fact the lich disposed of the kindly wizard and is posing as him. Thus the shade of the wizard is still around, anxious to communicate with anyone willing to listen. It's quite a good story really, though rather gritty and unpleasant in some areas.
Elvez4ever 02-12-07, 06:30 PM	Sounds like a good story. And I like the idea of demons...:devil: :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh
Elvez4ever 02-25-07, 09:54 AM	I just had a great idea... Start the players off at level ten, but that's not the good part..... What if Ryvain was after the Religia (sp?) of Evil from the Arms and Equipment Guide? I could start him off with one piece, which would explain his quick domination of the kingdom and then have the players stop him from getting the other pieces. Or (and this I think I like better...) have the players go for the Religia (once again, sp?) of Good and end it with a big old showdown between one PC with the ROG and Ryvain with the ROE. Any thoughts, comments, and/or suggestions are greatly welcome! -Elvez p.s. Sorry for the double post!
Elvez4ever 03-03-07, 12:30 PM	:confused: anybody?....
GoriceXII 03-03-07, 02:24 PM	Do you mean 'regalia'? I'm sorry for not replying but your thread went off the 1st page I think. It's certainly not a bad idea. There's an old adventure for Call of Cthulhu very much like that. What I might suggest is that you also have him gradually drawing in evil forces to support his coup d'etat if you are doing that so that the players will feel a sense of urgency, though ideally not TOO much.
taradusis 03-03-07, 09:38 PM	FIEND FOLIO-Has demonic grafts,With each demon piece you have grafted on the more C/E you become?Imagine your villain is on a type of scavenger hunt for demonic body parts.The players start by killing a demon for him and spot him or one of his hench people wearing the demon part and realise that they're building monsters?This would be like season three of BUFFY........RANDOM THOUGHTS
Elvez4ever 03-16-07, 10:52 PM	That'd be interesting. I just got Libris Mortis which has undead grafts... Trying to increase his power in a cyborgy way might be fun...
taradusis 03-17-07, 08:49 AM	Serpent kingdom has yuanti grafts.Lords of madness has aboleth,beholder,illithid grafts and cults that perform them.Fiend folio has all these grafts along with the undead and demonic ones,if you like composited creatures with a surgical addiction this is an invalualable resource.