Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Magrus 06-14-07, 09:40 AM	I have a campaign that I am planning. The concept is rather simple at the moment. I will flesh it out once I get characters made for the players involved, all of those personal details and such for each character. However, I am brainstorming for the end result of the quest I will be sending them on, and thought I might find some input here for it. So, here goes: I have it set up as of now, that they are in the service of an army trying to conquer the area around the kingdom that hired it. They will be taken aside by the commanding officers, given a quest to find a mysterious locale that the kings sage has spoken of. It happens to be called the "Pillar of Zenbar", which is pretty much unimportant for all of you aside from the "pillar" part. This, is one of the things I am uncertain of. I have some ideas for that, and they vary greatly in how I will deal with that "end game" encounter. Now, I could do it so that the pillar is just that, a pillar. I could make it huge, and have a guardian which is the "prize", and has knowledge, but doesn't give it up easily. I could also have the pillar be lined with runes and if someone touches it, the pillar transports them elsewhere. This has possibilities that are nearly endless. I could also have it so the pillar is covered in runes, and when they touch it, it gives them power of some kind, or a curse, or it summons powerful beings to defend itself before sliding down into the ground to reveal a stairway to a crypt or something. Then, I had the thought, that perhaps "pillar" was a nickname that stuck when it really isn't a pillar at all. It's a monstrous tower of a long dead wizard, and it is filled with traps and guardian constructs and creations. Perhaps custom monsters or something that the wizard created, which killed the creator and now rule the Pillar. If it helps at all, I am not really set on a level for when they get to this point as of yet. I am thinking perhaps 10th when they stumble upon it, but that isn't set in stone. I may in fact, mix a number of the things to make it a multi-faceted encounter/dungeon. A guardian at the start, perhaps a good aligned dragon who keeps the treasure hunters out, and the corrupted creations inside. Then, once the dragon is dealt with, the party has to decode the runes to unlike a doorway into the tower, which happens to be below ground, with the pillar as simply the "key" to open the way down into it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. To be honest, I've got too many ideas, and I want to keep this from getting to be crazy due to the sheer number of ideas that I have right now. Fleshing it out a little would probably help, but input from folks might show me I am missing something that could cause problems later on with these ideas.
20102000 06-14-07, 06:56 PM	My first reaction is don't worry to much about the Pillar. If your looking at 10th when they get there , you've got plety of time. I've often found things change over the course of a campiagn. And its better not to get to locked in to anything early on.
Magrus 06-14-07, 10:50 PM	Hmm, didn't think of it that way. Probably right there, with the way I run games, I leave them pretty free form, and build as I go. Still, I prefer to work end to beginning, that way in the event even if they do go somewhere else, I have notes so I can use the same plot in another game. So, if anyone does have input, I will be working on this either way for kicks. They all seem interested in seeing what I come up with, so they may in fact follow the plot just to see how I run a game. It's almost completely a new group, except for one old player. So I am not sure how they will follow through on what I toss their way. However, they seem to be in the process of going for a mounted combat party. So, the tower idea may be a bad end game for this group.
20102000 06-15-07, 09:26 AM	End to begining works. I'm just saying don't get locked into details at this stage. With a mounted party, you could have the pilar in some remote desert the party would have to ride through. Or in the plane of Air, requiring the party to ride strange flying creatures to get to the pillar.
Orchomenos 06-17-07, 09:42 PM	Check in the Free Online Adventures, the Legend of the Silver Skeleton. It starts in a inn built on some sacred stones used by a stone giant paladin, so it somewhat answers the "pillar" description. The adventure is written for 6th level adventurers, but you can probably tweak it to have it more dangerous/challenging.
infideli 06-18-07, 05:05 PM	"Pillar of Zenbar" Actually, the pillar was the base upon whic the ancient and legendary lands of Zenbar was formed upon. It was a kingless land of fable where the poorest man wore rings of gold and the servants of heaven called down beautiful light to ever bathe the havrvest in perfect bountiful light. Was it a philosophy, the name of a TRUE god, the last noble who turned down the throne, or was it a secret magical technology that was the Pillar of Mighty Zenbar? The current land is at war, perhaps the general BELIEVES that the pillar holds the power to erase his enemies from the map of the world? Is he wrong or right? What is the truth of this, and where is this alleged Zenbar now? http://www.geocities.com/bran_nor/Anointed/ http://www.geocities.com/bran_nor/Rasz/shadows.htm G
Holy_Beholder 06-18-07, 06:23 PM	The only way up the pillar is to make one next to it. The only material strong enough to make one next to it is a composite of three rare metals. Otherwise the winds will prove deadly, since there is a hurricane around the pillar. There is also an antimagic field that the hurricane circles. Another pillar will provide something that can be built, and pushed into the hurricane, transferring it from the pillar to the other pillar(called the spire or something) The original pillar can now be climbed. One is star metal, so they have to teleport up into space in a little air bubble to get it. An opponent casts wall of iron at them, and it is crushed around their gravity distortion, forming a space ship. In space they find a dying star, about to go nova. They have to kill a guardian holding the core of the star in an antimagic field, and a massive, high quality bag of holding appears, coming out of the creatures throat. This bag is used to capture the star. After a massive explosion in the bag, the bag and the star are now both gone, and vast amounts of star metal are hovering in space. The second metal can only be found on the astral plane, where three portals are put really close to each other. It is called light steel. One of the portals is to the positive energy plane, another to the elemental plane of fire, and another to the elemental plane of earth. It is being crushed into a metal that is really strong, and bursting with energy. If the portals are shut down, the resulting collapse will make the metal revert to solid form, it is currently a plasma. The portals are shut down by killing a powerful figure on all three of the planes. Then they have to chase down a band of githyanki who get to the metal before they do and take it. The third metal is called glass steel. Deep in the underdark, in a volcanic region, the magma is altered by chlorophyll spores coming from a lot of special mushrooms. When cooled that magma is a kind of glass. If the mushrooms are disturbed, they drop deadlier spores. An oracle has predicted that the mushroom volcano is the perfect forge for steel, and if steel is made in it it can be used for anything that requires the strongest stuff. There are also stalactites made of steel hovering over the volcanic basin. They collapse, the volcano cools, and massive amounts of glassy steel are produced. A noble salamander who hates his evil kin(Like drizzt, except for a pacifist) has a giant forge on the elemental plane of fire. He can make the composite, known only as whatever your players decide to name it. There is a little left over for weapons and armor, that are really powerful and eat gold and magic which enchants them further. They are also indestructible. The second pillar will be made, and will be known as the hurricane spire. The hurricane will also pull off the antimagic field, as well as the runes, which protect the pillar. Atop the pillar(Not the spire) is an artifact that will allow the army or the kingdom victory and protection. The pillar then vanishes, appearing in the ethereal plane. The spire doesn't appear. Within a few years, the PC's are hailed as heroes who made the greatest structure to ever exist, which becomes the core structure of a kingdom. They also all have artifact weapons and armor, which can't be destroyed, and can grow in power. The same world can be used later, when the PC's are the greatest heroes of any epic, and the spire now houses a shrine to them at the top.
Magrus 06-20-07, 10:01 PM	Ok, after getting wasted, I have an idea. Let me know if this is too evil or not... The party walks through a forest after being chased down by the enemy whose territory they are in. The enemy backs away suddenly and holds their ground. The characters continuing forward for a time to gain ground before deciding what to do next. As they come to a break in the trees, they see a stone pillar, covered with moss about 3 feet across, 10 feet high. There's carvings on it (Insert "Must investigate!" details here, yadda yadda). Surrounding it is a pristine field about 200 yards between them and the pillar with the same radius on every side, creepy enemy filled trees still outside it. Birds sing, and flit over the pillar, more "comforting detail" here. They step into the area, heading towards the mysterious softly glowing pillar. BAM, a resilient globe forms, and the illusion that was up changes into a field of ash with skulls in the ground all around a massive tower. They beat at the globe, but can't get out. Spells don't work. A door opens in the tower, and a redish light pours out of it onto the ash covered surroundings. I was thinking of having an artifact inside, that spawns random creatures. It's out of alignment, so instead of creating benign creatures, it's stuck in a malicious creation mode, ala random animals and creatures hit with random templates. Think, oh, Feral Winged Reptilian dog packs, or packs of tiny reptiles that are highly poisonous that can leap 30 feet. Anyhow, that will come into play later...I was thinking of having a dragon guarding the tower, it was spawned early, and it's loyal to the crystal or something, whatever. It attacks the party. Then, the dragon is killed, the weird red light inside the tower dims to darkness. They stumble into the tower, and I start a percentile roll that does the following for every 1 minute they spend in the tower. I take their total HP damage at the end of every minute, I use that number. If you roll that number or less on a percentile roll, you get hit with a random template. As well, on that same instance, more creatures are spawned in the tower. I will spawn them randomly, so it may be possible for them to be in the middle of the tower exploring and have the pack or crazy templeted creatures get spawned in the bottom. The pack would then hunt them down, but it would give a sense of enemies on your back coming after you and danger, all of that. Hearing the sound of 10 creatures clawing their way of the stairs behind you would be creepy, no? Then, they would get through the traps, and the creatures, and hit a door at the top. Door opens, crazily glowing crystal statue of some monstrous deity is sitting on a pedestal. It spawns something nasty, the characters beat it, and one of them trys to interact with the crystal. It forces a Fort and Will save, and if the target fails, it gets mutated into something else and/or becomes loyal to the crystal. If they pass, the crystal submits to the characters will, and it allows itself to be controlled. At this point, the characters are going to be high level, and in possession of a major artifact. Which, would probably spell the end of the game, but...what do people think? Too much?
20102000 06-21-07, 07:43 AM	I'm not a fan of random monsters , but apart from that, cool.
Magrus 06-21-07, 09:35 AM	Hmm, suggestions on what to do rather than random monsters perhaps? I am just thinking of using something that people might underestimate and not know about from reading. Even great players sometimes metagame when they are hit with a bad situation and they know about the creature even though their characters don't. Having strange creatures would avoid that, and provide a shock as things they've never heard of come towards them.
20102000 06-21-07, 11:52 AM	I always think fighting copies of the PC , can be an interesting battle. If your looking for some different sort of monsters, that the players might not recognise. I'd use templates. Have you got Silverthornes book of template?
Magrus 06-21-07, 11:54 AM	I do, yes. I was planning on using templates. A random chart for creatures, and a random chart for templates. I'd roll on both, and possibly the PC's would get hit with templates as well.
Mindwarp 06-23-07, 10:19 PM	We did this one a couple of weeks ago. The pillar (or tower, your choice) just appeared. It's building itself. No one knows where it came from, or what it's doing. A tie in could be: most societies mark the date in years from a significant event (meaning, that if the current year is 6150, then 2000 years ago was 4150). However, the Zenbar instead count down to an event (if the current year is 6150, then 2000 years ago was 8150). On the eve of the year 0, the tower/pillar began building itself. The Zenbar culture has been all but lost to the ages. The PCs need to find what information they can about this strange occurance. Is it good or evil? What happens when the tower is completed?