So i am trying to come up with a homemade campaign for our group. This adventure wont be happening till another two campaigns have passed. But in the meantime i have been coming up with a major arch for the story and some minor archs for it as well too.
By the time the characters have done the couple of campaigns that are coming up here soon...they'll be roughly about lvl 15-17.
being that in mind i plan on bleeding the epic campaign that i want to do, into Epic level's (of course).
The whole major arch is that a particular individual, i'm thinking either a demon or a devil, has plans to release a prisoner of IMMENSE power from the prison located in the plane of carceri.
the plans of this evil character is to use this prisoner as a tool of war against a particular plane (most likely the material plane) who will have armies march against on that plane.
Now in order to release this prisoner on carceri, the enemy has to go to different planes and on each plane there a "lock" and it has to go through challenges in order to unlock this lock. In turn which weakens a lock that is holding the prisoner in carceri.
The "locks" on each plane will be the minor archs of the campaign and will have their own little seperate adventure sort of.
The Pc's learn of this situation and they have to act fast.
but in order for them to stop the armies that will flood into the material plane...the PC's will then have to free the prisoner on carceri. so they too will have to go to the different planes and unlock the locks.
eventually leading up to carceri itself to free the prisoner. so that the PC's can use this prisoner as a tool to prevent the armies from taking over a part of the material plane.
now the prisoner has to be true neutral. so i'm thinking of using a doppleganger that'll be locked up in carceri.
It'll be a race to see who can free it the fastest. IF the enemy free's the prisoner, the enemy will have knowledge of this prisoner that will persuade him to fight with the enemy, being that the prisoner would of had some kind of quarrel against certain people on the material plane.
or if the Pc's free the prisoner, and persuade the prisoner to help them fight the armies, because the prisoner had a quarrel with the enemies race. (shrugs).
The ONLY thing that is keeping me (and the enemy) from freeing the prisoner, is that carceri is inhabbited by the God "Nerull" and some how will try to prevent either us from freeing the prisoner.
Not only that obstacle, once u arrive in carceri, there is really no way out sort of using the river styx.
that is my adventure plan....if u have anything else for ideas that i can throw into it with out making it TOO much more complicated than it is.....i'd be forever grateful!
Thank you for reading!
One of my villians sounds good for your campain at heroic levels at least. I have modified him to fit into your description below. He was written to be the big bad of a near future campaign so sections may make little sense in the abridged modified version.
Troy Delaware
A powerful material plane noble- possibly a prime minister or similar (in the original he is a business man.) The pc's clash with him as he kidnapps people to carry out experiments into cloning and brainwashing. Later they discover he had planed to unleash global apocylapse and repopulate the world with millions of genius level clones brainwashed to obey him. He tries to unleash a watered down apocylapse. However his fanatical cult leader who works as his deniable assistant seeks to actually cause the apocylapse and Troy works with the pc's to stop him. The pc's meet his son early in the campain and should find him egotistical but harmless. However he gets kidnapped and the pc's are manouvered to rescue him. They discover that the kidnapper is Troy's real son (who is jealous) and the son they met earlier was adopted. Finally they discover that Troy has been seeking to cause aversity to force the world into a state ready for the extraplanular invasion. He had been grooming his son and the pc's to act as generals in the coming war.
Have you read the Shackled City adventure path? It has some stuff about Carceri, including templates and such.
actually no i havent...i'll have to look into that!
anyone with ideas that i can borrow? i'm having brain farts tonight Leaving Carceri can be as simple as giving the group an item that creates a portal out of there. Perhaps that's the first stage to the quest arc, finding a way out.
Sounds interesting in that it's PCs vs. the entity who wants to free the prisoner (instead of the obvious demon or devil, how about a gith, or psion of any race, or slaad), and both against the agents of Nerull who want to keep their prisoner imprisoned. As for the prisoner, how about a Far Realm Doppelganger with special powers. Sure it's neutral (sort of), but only because it wants to be free to bring madness to the planes on behalf of its great masters.
You could go the route where one side or the other frees it in exchange for service (defeating the opposing side), but isn't that the heroes' job? How about if the PCs win, they send the keys across the planes, resealing the prison for another eon. If the opposition wins, the prisoner is freed. Either case can work. If freed, the PCs now have the prisoner to face in Epic tier. If the heroes succeed, they imprison the prisoner again and end of story (except that Nerull is pissed now and has it out for them), or they free it to help their side. Of course, once their side wins, this prisoner makes a power play to bring in the Far Realm powers to kill/subjugate everyone (epic tier).
i have the basic outline of the adventure, but the small details in between are killing me. do u have any tips and tricks on what u all do when ur coming up with adventures?
1. Write the whole thing, briefly, in one pass. The trick is to write it completely, and don't sweat that details don't work yet or are wrong.
2. Take a break.
3. Read it back more critically. Figure out a few changes that would improve it or fix things, and details necessary for it to make sense,
4. Edit in those changes n another pass through the whole text.
5. Go back to 2. Repeat until you have something good enough (it doesn't have to be perfect)
It helps not to go too far into all the details early on. Your plot arch, an overview of the current mini adventure, and the fine detail of a couple of sessions worth of encounters are all you really need at any stage. Be ready to alter all three depending on what the players actually do.