Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 dirgechoir Jun 30, 2008 20:39:02	As I develope my newest campaign, I find myself trying to look for new ways to threaten the "world as we know it". My players have seen everything from dark wizards to armies of Umberhulks leading the way for a Grey Dwarf conquerer. I'm not completely out of ideas yet, but I thought I'd take a moment to ask my fellow DM's what major plot thread threats are they using these days. Is it evil magic, terrible monsters running amok as they spill out unchecked from some distant portal, or something more exotic and dangerous? Let's hear it DM's, what is the major threat plot line you plan on using lately?
#2 scourn99 Jun 30, 2008 22:08:38	One I had was Asmoedus opened a portal on the world called the Gate of Baator. Gaining the power of a god he decided to use his armys to invade the world and turn it into a new layer of Hell. All the while also makeing a deal with Orcus and both working togeather.
#3 Thukad Jun 30, 2008 23:11:35	There's a good book from 3.5 that I think that you would enjoy. Especially considering the fact that the Far Realm is now a definite part of DnD. Elder Evils by Robert J. Schwab Most of the creatures in the book are so strong that they don't bother making stat blocks. Not even the Gods can save the planet. The players must stop it from awakening or coming into the world. If they cannot do this the campaign ends because the world and all character's FLAT OUT DIE. For those that have made many characters in your setting and added to the richness of it... this is a big deal. Here's a quote from it. [b]And I looked upon the Thing and I wept tears of blood... for I knew my land, my people, my very world was dead...[/b] -Ancient scroll recovered from the Valley of Death Fun stuff.
#4 dirgechoir Jul 01, 2008 0:10:27	...Elder Evils by Robert J. Schwab Most of the creatures in the book are so strong that they don't bother making stat blocks. Not even the Gods can save the planet. The players must stop it from awakening or coming into the world. If they cannot do this the campaign ends because the world and all character's FLAT OUT DIE. For those that have made many characters in your setting and added to the richness of it... this is a big deal... Now that I think of it, Tharizdun (one of the Malign Gods in the 4e DMG) could fit the roll of one of the elder evils.
#5 Bobfred21 Jul 01, 2008 1:37:40	Some ideas you could use for less obvious "change the world as we know it" (less obvious when compared to global destruction type thing) are: 1. A world war. No one wants this. One thing I did in an Eberron game was give Vol a way to reverse her Lichdom (and thereby restore the mark of death on herself). This would have pretty much led to uproar with the other dragonmarked houses, the dragons, the elves, you name it. Add all that to Vol's tendency toward maniacal villainy and you've got the prime makings of a war. YOu could do something like this where if the villain get's X object, or complete's X objective, war breaks out. 2. A planar imbalance in whatever powers that be. Somethings happening that if allowed to happen will shift the very fabric of the multiverse in a fundamentally evil way. I've played around with this idea in a more heaven and hell type setting and the idea I've been toying with is that Heaven has been destroyed or corrupted in some way. This wouldn't necessarily have an immediate effect on the material plane (hell, maybe the conquerers of the heavenly realm arn't even interested in the Material Plane). But one way or another the good guys are -GONE- and us mortals are all alone. 3. In a world like Eberron or any other world where magic is fairly common place you could have some effect that begins or is going to begin according to the BBEGs scheme that causes magic to have a corrupting, evil or insane influence on the wielder. The very foundations of society would collapse. 4. Spoilers for Tales of Symphonia Show You could go a Tales of Symphonia route and have two (or more) worlds/prime material planes vying for the same source of life (magic in the case of TOS).
#6 dirgechoir Jul 01, 2008 2:13:20	Nice, there's a few things in there I could really work with. Keep the villainy coming guys!
#7 Thukad Jul 01, 2008 8:28:48	I'll think about as I play today. There's always a unaligned military leader that wants to conquer the world.
#8 mriddle Jul 01, 2008 12:34:59	I had a guild that installed the teleportation gates, but they were trapped and then on starting on one day years after they were made , everyone that used one (anywhere in the world) went to the first plane of hell instead.. The guild had made a deal with the "devil"
#9 Bobfred21 Jul 01, 2008 12:43:27	7. There's a mysterious monster (or monsters) on the loose destroying everything (kinda like the Tarrasque or even Sin from Final Fantasy X). Nothing seems capable of standing against it (many have tried and failed), so now the idea is finding out what the hell it is and stopping it in some other way, all the while avoiding it like the plague and possibly having to relocate major cities to safer places. (potentially flying cities where water and food is scarce). 8. A miasma or poisonous mist has started pouring out of the planet at certain points making large areas of land (or even the entire surface of the planet) uninhabitable. The denizens of the world must cope with this, perhaps by taking to the skies, perhaps by building Eldritch Machines that will ward of the mist in certain areas. In any case, the mist is coming from within the planet and you could launch adventures trying to find out what it is, and what's causing it. Lots of room to work with here. 9. An effect is causing everyone to forget who they are. This has pretty wild implications for changing life as we know it. 10. An ancient, long lost civilization (depending on the setting) which has long been thought obliterated has returned to reclaim it's vast empire - the only problem being that said empire is now occupied by the people of the modern day and the long lost civilization isn't happy about it. 11. The Villain sees magic as bad for some reason (maybe he sees it as giving certain people unfair power over others) and literally wants to destroy magic. 12. The Gods disappear for unknown reasons / The villain wants to comit deicide for some reason. 13. The villain seeks to join the material plane to another plane of existence, vastly altering the fundamental building blocks of our world. 14. The seasons stop moving over time. The world is stuck in perpetual spring/summer/fall/winter.
#10 nephster Jul 01, 2008 13:32:23	Well, remember that you don't have to threaten the entire world. Plots which allow you to defend actual individuals can be even more powerful, because you can build a connection with the people you are fighting for, adding a level of emotional investment. Anyway, here are some things that can be used to threaten societies of nearly any level: 1) Plague and disease. This one strikes fear into many PC's, since it is a nebulous, deadly effect which doesn't respond to a sword. Scenario ideas include helping evacuees through hostile wilderness, managing mob-level panic, finding ancient wisdom that may house a cure, questing for ingredients of a cure, fighting elements of evil which are deliberately spreading disease, delivering the cure to those who need it, and perhaps fighting a "plague lord" or something which is the source of the contagion. 2) Dark-ages style theocracy. The "evil" is not from without, but from within. The leaders of some good-ish religion begin imposing their world view on others, and it starts to get draconian as their human failings lead them away from wisdom. This is a good long-term threat, because you can build it up gradually. Start out with contact from helpful, well-meaning low-level clergy, but as the players' adventures garner them more fame, higher level clergy want to see them, who get sterner and less tolerant the higher you go. Meanwhile, players start seeing disturbing trends like public policies that favor people of the religion, taxes, accusations, roundups, witch burnings, and finally the threat of genocide. Lots of room for cognitive dissonance and emotional nuance here as players have to decide when it is appropriate to step in and oppose the church. You'll also have a lot of good NPC interaction, because church members will acknowledge the problems with the leadership at different times - some will defend the church to the end on principle, no matter what the atrocity, while others will break early and be branded heretic. Lots of good plot hooks here. Adventures could include being hired to take out a nest of evil creatures, followed up but being hired to take out a group of subversives, investigating church leaders, infiltrating a cathedral, escaping the city when branded a heretic, saving innocents from prison, defending a town from attack, defending legitimate church leaders from usurpers, discovering an evil creature which is puppeteering the church leaders, etc. 3) Famine. Something could be causing staple crops to die - a fungus, unnatural darkness, lack of rain, etc. Adventures could include defending food stores from marauding humanoids who are also starving, stealing food from evil groups for the good, keeping the peace amidst riots, defending traveling well-fed nobility from angry mobs, delivering food from the capitol, fighting "big game" monsters like Bulettes and Dragons for food because they are eating livestock and are good eatin' themselves, and fighting the evil creature responsible for creating the famine in the first place. 4) Body snatchers. You could have some kind of contagion or creature that replaces "normal" people with itself, slowly taking over the populace. The players become aware of this, and need to try to stop it, but part of the problem is knowing who is a body snatcher. Adventures could include the initial discovery of the body snatchers, fighting off an attempt to snatch the PC's, fighting off an attempt to snatch an important NPC, fighting a mob of snatched NPC's, an unexpected ally turns out to be snatched at a devastating time, finding a library with a book that details how an earlier outbreak was thwarted, fighting "stage two" snatched creatures which have special, frightening abilities, figuring out who the "leader" snatcher is, and fighting it to end the threat. As the number of snatchers in a given population increases, you can move from an oblivious populace, to skittish, to scared, and eventually to a population where everyone is snatched, and the party has to work in secret. Etc...