I have the main plot and BBEG figured out, what I really need is ideas for adventures to get the players to my end goal, which is the players becoming near dieties and facing off against another diety.
What Im looking for are ideas based heavily on the 12 labors of Hercules, but that are worthy of an epic game (and the rewards of godhood that they will eventually receive). Quests that will not only test their swords armor and spells, but that challenge their minds and seem daunting even to a guy flinging around 9th lvl spells. Im trying to stay away from just the classic "go fight your way into dungeon X to fight creature Y" or the "go find the lost city etc and find the lost item of whatever" templates though.....or at least make them more interesting.
A few ideas I was throwing around thus far.
1. There is a cursed city within my world that long ago disappeared entirely. But for the last 1000 or so years appears randomly in the world causing temporal and magical problems in the nearby area. The quest will be for the players to figure out where the city will appear next and discover what cursed it in the first place (I was thinking a statue in the middle of the city of the great city protector thats missing its sword....cough cough excalibur anyone?)
2. Head into the plaguelands (giant swamp lands with a citadel in the middle) to try to clean them and cure the disease on the land. Living diseases being the badies. Where a well within the citadel is whats spreading the disease, and something near impossible to get (a devils tears, a liches sorrow, or a evil dragons generosity....meanign the players have to redeem a evil creature rather than just beat the crap outta it).
3. Something with going to the deepest part of the ocean, the highest cloud in the sky, or diving into the heart of the volcano.
Any ideaswill be greatly appreciated, thanks
Delay an army (perhaps an extraplanar army of githyanki, demons or devils, eladrin, modrons, slaad, undead, or Nazis) for three days, ala Thermopylae.
Force a god to apologize or recant something, perhaps by razing his temples and slaying his champions until he cries uncle.
In the royal crypt of a great kingdom lie the bodies of the first twelve kings (the thirteenth is on the throne now, still warm!). The tomb is haunted by their ghosts, some noble and some wicked. Lay to rest all twelve of the royal ghosts by resolving their regrets. Kings are likely to have regrets not casually dealt with.
I like Eshenaleros' idea about the dream thing, too. Lots of good inspiration as to the land of dreams, where the laws of nature might be very different, in Gaiman's "Sandman" series of graphic novels. I remember one epic plot where gods, anthropomorphic ideas, and living stars (the kind from space) met at a sort of social event.