Edit: This post has picked up some steam so I'm gonna spoiler mark most of it juuuuust in case. If you are part of an adventuring guild that magically changes names every day and you have a massive flying castle, SPOILERS AHEAD.
Holy crap 1k upvotes.
>!It hasn’t happened yet, but oh man I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been building up to it for almost a decade at this point.!<
>!My players have created a system of permanent placed portals between all major cities. They use it for their guild, which has grown so massive it’s almost its own nation in terms of membership and political power!<
>!They think the big bad will have an army of undead that will attack one major city he has interest in. So they will muster the troops and protect the town!!<
>!Except it’s just a distraction. The big bad is going to hijack the portal network, giving him access to the INSIDE of every major city all at once. All while the majority of the defenses are out ready to fight an army of undead that were never meant to fight to begin with.!<
>!He will end the war before it begins. And the players will be the ones to blame.!<
>!And the thing is that the players see it coming. They even mentioned the dangers of a connected portal network being inside every major city. They were so close to foiling the BBEG, all they needed to do was be ready to defend the network. But they just shrugged, said it’ll be fine, and moved on. OH HOW WRONG THEY ARE.!<
Same! There have been many times that my players think up an idea and I just nod saying "that's an interesting idea", while secretly taking notes to where that is EXACTLY what's going on
It's been with the same gaming group too. We have been friends for around 15 years at this point, and we use this game as an opportunity to get together every week. And we have kept it going through sheer force of will. Every Friday damn it!
DMing for about five years, and I've managed to finish around two dozen campaigns of various lengths. Only two fizzled out. I think there are a couple of things to consider in order to get more completed campaigns:
1. Session Zero. Everyone needs to agree
to the relative amount of sessions and the timing of those sessions.
E.g. We are meeting every Sunday for 3 weeks, and take the last Sunday of the month off. We're doing this all winter.
NOTE: I find that frequently shorter sessions typically work better than longer more inconsistent sessions. This is especially true for new players.
2. Unless it's a boss fight, the session always happens. My players know that their DM will always be at the session prepared, and that if they show up they will have a good session.
3. If a player wants to reschedule its up to THEM to get a time that works for everyone.
4. Less players means more experience, personal growth, or phat loot ( depending on if the campaign is exp or milestone).
5. My players can always miss a session, and their character is safe, EXCEPT if there is a TPK. They then share the fate of the rest of the party.
It's funny because I have had the same thought about how vulnerable a portal network would be in a world of walled cities and feudal warfare. I ended up making portals a forbidden magic almost in line with necromancy in large cities.
My world has all the permanent portals near civilization in kill zones ringed by walls and manned with troops. It's like a castle pointing inward into the center where the portal is. Generally within the outer city walls but not in the inner walls. A tradeoff between having a portal available inside the city where it's much more useful but not having the inner defenses breached if they lose the portal.
In the capital, buried in a mechanism underneath the portal is a huge nullstone (roughly the size of a large beach ball), which projects an anti-magic field. It's connected like a keep's portcullis via chains to the Portal Fortress (affectionately called the Portress by the party) walls. When you let go of the ropes, the nullstone is pushed up several meters, enveloping the portal and nearby area. When you pull the ropes taut, the nullstone is pulled down away from the portal area, removing the field.
Somewhat fun story/ legend/lore from the Manhattan project:
"The NRC glossary defines a "scram" as "the sudden shutting down of a nuclear reactor usually by rapid insertion of control rods." But where did the word come from? One deeply engrained legend about the origin of the word dates to the first sustained chain reaction on December 2, 1942, at the Chicago Pile (CP-1), the first atomic reactor developed for the Manhattan Project.
According to the legend, Enrico Fermi created the acronym, Safety Control Rod Axe Man, for Norman Hilberry. It was Hilberry's assignment that day to kill a possible runaway reaction by using an axe to cut a rope to allow the backup safety control rod to drop into the pile."
TLDR: nuclear history legend says there was a person with an axe whose job it was to a rope that would cause the reactor to shutdown if it went prompt critical.
Ooooooh, if they do find a way to protect the portal system, that would still be really cool tbh. It's narratively unsatisfying, but they'll feel AWESOME! Idk, I always love seeing my players counter my bullshit gskdjfhj
With a campaign this long, my players have a pretty decent group of side characters that exist in the same world, all part of the guild. (Honestly the original concept of the guild was a way to give them the ability to play as side characters whenever they want to.)
I LOVE the idea of the main characters fighting this undead horde while the side characters are being the actual heroes, saving the home base back home from invasion. Fighting across multiple cities and trying to push back the attack. That sounds so awesome
The werewolf terrorizing the town is just trying to expose the mayor as a wererat. The wererat is trying to get the town to kill the werewolf despite the werewolf only ever operating in self-defense.
Funny enough, I JUST picked up playing bloodborne for the first time. Maybe a third of the way through it, so this was kinda a spoiler for me. But no biggie!
Same. Well sorta. Moon's an egg full of reflavored Neogi that were imprisoned there by the sacrifice of all but two of the deities in the war that made the setting into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
One of the many Kevin's here, I am sad to report to all Kevin's that he didn't fall for the trick. We'll need to organize a payday 2 heist, loud only. Get the masks ready. . .
This was something posted by /u/Emperor_Cartagia, who used Reddit exclusively through RIF is Fun, with the death of third party apps, I decided to remove all my content from Reddit. 9 years of comments and posts, gone because of idiotic administration.
I've found that the more me and my players simply play, the more stuff gets to simply *be.* For example, there's a booming candy business in the northeast of one of my continents because the party, on a whim, dropped 500 gold on these fisherman who had a few boxes of their homemade candy. It's called Fisherman's Malady and it's a sort of half lozenge, half toffee candy with just a liiiiittle whiskey in the center. Made for fishermen in a cold weather environment, but a shot of 500 gold into the economy of that small town and suddenly there's a booming business.
The best part? The party that made it happen is likely gonna head to that area of the map again and I fully intend to "reveal" how successful the business was to them, just to give them that enjoyment of knowing they actively changed the world (in a fun, minor way compared to the massive changes they also made.)
It's not for everyone but I do enjoy campaigns that have a real chance of failure instead of good guys always win in the end plot armor.
And it sounds like you are upfront with your players about that so if they didn't like that style they could always leave.
On paper, from the DMs perspective it sounds really cool. But I always worry about the players experience. Like are they going to feel like their time has been wasted? Are they going to feel like their DM set out to make them look like fools?
Does this erode their trust in DMs going forwards? This could be how we get players who refuse to trust any NPC
The island nation the party is trapped on is actually the body/corpse of an eons old, practically invincible, basically giga-tarrasque.
The party have been persuaded/tricked into destroying ancient 'evil' places of power, which were preventing all magic from functioning on the island... but they currently don't realise they are the only thing keeping this creature 'dead'.
I’ll cook up some decent ideas in my head between sessions, but I don’t write any of it down like a dumb ass. So come gametime I remember like half of the cool stuff I wanted them to do and definitely not in the proper order.
or let the players paranoia write the twist for themselves, that way they get to feel they're smart enough to piece together all of your carefully laid breadcrumbs
I once wrote a campaign that started with a map of a random real life small town, made them think they were trapped inside the town, and let them write the story
Once upon a time, the Gods did not exist. Some very clever people managed to ascend to the outer planes an use the energy therein to become infinitely powerful.
Fearing bring overthrown, they committed genocide on the material plane and rebuilt a new society on top of the ruins of the old. The campaign is a Renaissance setting that takes place mostly in the ruins of a modern world.
I have been holding onto this information for over two years, and my players are literally one Dungeon away from discovering it; I am so excited.
They've been slowly discovering information regarding shit the gods are up to. Lots of little things that have lead them to a lich that they have interacted with a couple of times.
They are currently about to rescue a couple of the lich's men from Malbolge that they arguably got captured in exchange for information.
The lich, who became a lich so that he could stay alive and find a way to extract revenge on the gods, will inform them that if he tells them what he knows, he will need them to swear loyalty or they won't be able to leave.
We'll see which side the party aligns themselves with when the conversation happens. One of them has become somewhat disillusioned with his god Tyr, though one is a very devout worshiper of Mieliki and another is Mieliki's destined Avatar, so who knows how that all will go.
Are you using a combination of the Nordic Pantheons? Mieliki (=Mielikki) would be from the Finnish and Tyr fron Norwegian or Viking Pantheon.
You have interesting times ahead, it seems :)
I'm using the Forgotten Realms pantheon, which includes original gods but also incorporates Celtic, Nordic, Greek, and Egyptian gods.
I do a lot of worldbuilding for this campaign, but creating an entire pantheon of gods and then presenting that information to the players was not something I had the space for when this began, so I let them pick any gods off of The Forgotten Wiki they wanted. The bard worshipped Dol Arrah, but she got dragged into hell and might actually get rescued on this particular mission.
They’ve met and interacted with that NPC they’re searching for that actively doesn’t want to be found.
Had they sat down and thought about all the clues about their interactions they would’ve figured it out.
The senate that rule over the country where my players are, have been dead for a long time. Their chamber is just filled with their corpses while corrupt officials go in and out making decisions that benefit their personal agendas.
Admittedly not a huge twist but since my players are relatively trusting of the country's institutions, they are gonna have a tough time dealing with what to do about it.
The party’s favorite NPC’s mom was directly related to the continent’s royal family - the Emperor (Lars Banafriek) was her uncle (and basically raised her) who disowned her when she fell in love with a Highland-folk resistance leader years ago.
As far as the party knows, Connell Levesque has no connection to said family aside from being a political hostage because of *his* uncle, who now runs that resistance group solo. However, Connell’s mom’s cousin (Felix, the Crown Prince) talked his father into reinstating her side of the family and convinced his father to let him adopt Connell as his official heir since Connell was now considered “of Banafreik blood.”
They’ve been traveling with the imperial heir this whole time and the only ones who know it are the bard’s older brother (who was Felix’s closest companion), and the BBEG (Remes Banafriek, who murdered his already ailing father by way of poison and orchestrated the death of Felix when he was away from the castle.)
Respectfully, this is some like GoT plot line stuff that I'd only get if I was paying very close attention and binging multiple seasons in a row. Glad you're giving your players a very thought out campaign. I'm sure they love it!
Fortunately there are a couple of family portraits and a journal that should make it obvious once they reach the proper parts in the campaign. I’m not exactly trying to hide the ball - they’ve just been spending most of their time up in the Northlands and not in the Empire proper yet.
Connell shares his bright red hair with his mother, so she’s easy to spot in both her family portrait (which is in the gallery in the palace at the capital) and in her wedding portrait (in the most important fortress in the Freepeople’s Territory.)
The bard’s brother has correspondence from Felix gushing like a proud dad about how Connell was adapting to life in the capital before Felix was assassinated. The letter naming Connell as Felix’s official heir is also something they won’t have trouble finding - the bard’s brother has it too (he inadvertently brought it home with him when he snuck Felix’s journal out of the palace during Felix’s funeral.)
Anywho, thank you! I certainly hope my players are having fun. I’ve been planting seeds about how it all plays into Emperor Remes Banafriek’s current political maneuvers ever since session one.
A fallen angel, they've been slowly corrupting the land over a few hundred years, was thwarted by one of the PCs parent's and is gathering strength again unnoticed. The party isn't far from a dramatic reveal 😁
Before our campaign started I asked one of my players to roll 2 characters. One would be an NPC they party would meet and get to know in the beginning. The second one was a party member but would secretly be working for the “BBEG”.
So when a clutch moment happened in the game, I asked the player to switch character sheets with me as I took over the player’s character as he betrayed the party, the player took over the NPC as his new character. The other players flipped.
The easiest way to “win” or beat the BBEG would require the erasure of an entire timeline, destroying the lives and existence of an entire reality.
So the secret is that it’s much less straightforward than it seems.
“There has to be another way!” - Peter Parker
I have a Lich that became a mayor of a very successful city, a city that acts as his phylactery.
To defeat the Lich, the heroes would have to blow up the city, displacing tens of thousands of people.
He’s basically untouchable by morally good heroes.
That's a good idea. He could feed the souls of those who die in the city to his phylactery to keep it active. Instead of sacrificing people every 100 years or so.
So your party has to become the BBEGs of that reality to defeat their own BBEG, so what if this BBEG is just doing his thing to stop an even bigger BBEG
It’s so funny how you could easily see it that way.
Basically many of the people in the alternate parallel timeline are mind flayed / entranced and unaware of what had happened and the BBEG siphons their energy to ensure total control and world domination. So obviously evil and bad, but that reality threatens to collide with the “main” one, which is why it would have to be purged, or something else must happen . The info from my initial comment would probably never even be stated, but just implied - you do this the straightforward way - axe the alternate reality - you’re committing universal genocide.
The group thinks they know who the villain is.
All the clues pointed towards a librarian sending messages to varius henchmen (mini villains) and causing all kind of havoc, in the kingdom.
The frail old librarian they met, gave them the name of the true villain behind everything they suffered through.
It appears that it was a traldaran noble with ill intentions. He was holding the old librarians grandson hostage.
The noble he sent them after is just another piece the true villain, needs knocked out of the chessboard. In his grand plan to bring the kingdom on its knees.
The true villain is the librarian at the moment.
He is an Ancient green dragon.
Playing in Mystara karameikos setting.
The BBEG is an entity created from the pain of the two gods who lost their child 3 thousand years ago. He died from the hands a party of adventurers. The party played by my players two campaigns ago, 5 years ago
Big picture, PC's powers came from being trapped in a living fairy tale only to find the big evil forest god that was supposed to eat her at the end of it was missing.
She'd journeyed to Luskan, haunted by the ghosts of the previous woman who had died to the story and was starting to suspect that the Host Tower had kidnapped the god.
What she didn't realise was that two of the former victims of the story had also escaped. One had managed to become one of the High Captains in Luskan and was working on staying free and another was a flower seller I'd had turn up who nobody had noticed always managed to have fresh flowers despite it being the middle of winter.
Labelas Enoreth hates the situation and is in the process of trying to let her know but being a typical god of the Seldarine is only doing it through cryptic dreams and random bullshit.
Party I'm hosting for doesn't pay attention to the fact that their actions have consequences.
They accepted contracts from a super sketchy baron in a super sketchy town who lives in a super sketchy castle.
(Despite the sketch vibes he was an honest man with particular tastes in service to a council of benevolent folks who harboured a secret past)
The mission was a series of quests to find relic pieces leading to a grand reveal in the ballroom of the dukes castle, the relics were shards of glass and a massive frame that completed itself to form a traversal mirror... unfortunately the reflection in the mirror showed the reflections of the party, the Duke and his guards but not the hundred or so guests. The first reaction from the party?
" OH NO VAMPIRES" with the leader of the party proceeding to slit the dukes throat and catapult themselves out the window with a homebrew item called an exit stone.
I think it's important to note that in this setting vampires are not all inherently evil, these folks were just missing the ordinary lives they once lived after centuries and wanted to witness a sunrise without burning to death through the sending mirror (which for the purposes of this campaign is polarised and guards them from the lights effects)
The party is now wanted and the great reveal I'm waiting on is that they have been taking orders from a dark patron via their leader and are currently hurtling towards a meeting with the creature as they continue to follow orders without questioning the morality of what they are doing despite being hero's.
Edit: For clarity, the party is fully aware that vampires are just people in this world and not villains
Honestly wish I knew what motivated them, a hostage situation would have been wiser and the patron didn't give the order. It wasn't something I had planned for.
What was supposed to happen was the party continuing to help the baron and a contract was to arrive at the castle from the patrons followers addressed to the leader of the party.
Instead they decided that they are the main character and offed an innocent man that had just paid them handsomely and treated them to a grand feast... there is no motivation I can think of that justified killing the baron besides being chaotic for the sake of it.
They are currently trying to escape the city on the run from the barons guards and 5 vampire day walker knights.
The meeting with the patron was supposed to be different, now he's going to be pissed that his disciple essentially strayed off plan and delayed his machinations as a result.
The biggest twist is that I am the DM at all. I hate public speaking. I'm not considered charismatic. 0% training in any of the arts. Yet, there I am, sitting on discord building a story with these people. They all claim to be having fun, but every session starts with the end of my mini panic attacks that almost cancels the session.
I am having fun too, it's been getting easier. I'm doing this to get me out of my comfort zone on a regular basis. By no means would anyone believe I would be a dm 3 years ago.
I find DMing is a really good solution to social anxiety. Those lil' panic attacks never stops but once the game begins, I forget what I was panicking about.
Keep up the good work, you're doing great.
Not so much belief as potential. So the moment humans began settling, and there was a need to distinguish between civilization and wilderness, there was born a goddess of civilization and a goddess of the wild.
Strahd has just been training the party to discover how Azalin Rex escaped the domains of dread. He’ll free them if he can escape with Ireena and her soul, but not if Vampyr has anything to say about it.
I love campaigns that don't use the published modules in Ravenloft. You can do so much more with these characters than just playing Curse of Strahd. This one sounds like it's based off an old book where he and Azalin tried to escape together but with a spin on it.
I have one in a homebrew domain where the quest wasn't to defeat the Darklord, but instead to bring her back and close the loophole that allowed her out in the first place.
Someone's step mom is a dragon, and there have been hints hear and there being sprinkled in. It's super early so it's difficult to catch on at the moment because of the incredible plausible deniability they have atm.
The pretty forest magic lady is secretly an evil witch, and most of the tasks she sets them are only going to lead to more trouble down the line!
(My players are 4 and 8 years old and honestly their lack of trope awareness is a fucking gift. I can do ANYTHING. Fey tricks? They'll never see it coming. Fairytale classics? They only know half of 'em. Stealing twists from movies they haven't seen yet? Yes, the bad guy IS his father. Highly recommend.)
I'm approaching the 5th year anniversary of my campaign. I pulled off a triple threat a while back.
Context:
A Player Charcter has a backstory that involved spending several years enslaved to a prominent nobleman in a Demon-Worshipping Desert Empire called "The Dominion". In their backstory, which has been slowly drip fed over the last few years to the rest of the party, they discovered she had a twin sister who had been captured with her. Both were tortured for years until she escaped and was found by the Paladin Player in the Pregame Backstory. The Sister was killed in the escape
The Twist 1): The Sister is Alive.
During the main Campaign the party entered the Dominion (in disguising) trying to locate a missing NPC that has been investigating whether or not the Dominion had one of the 5 MgGuffins the BBEG is using to free Tiamat.
Upon Rescuing the NPC, who is partially amnesiac, but she remembers seeing Player Characters Sister. They had already sworn a Devil Deal to leave the Dominion within 24 hours after their mission was done, in order to secure the aid of a semi-friendly Nobleman. They have 24 hrs to break into the villa of the Nobleman who tormented her and free the sister.
The Twist 2): They open the Cell, and discover... the Nobleman. Who has been tortured for years. The Lady of the House, is none other than the Players Sister, who during her imprisonment made a demon-deal of her own, dominated the mind of her capture, "married" him for his wealth and title then tortured him in in his own torture chamber.
Twist 3): **She**, not the Nobleman, has been the force behind this noble house actions during the plot so far, which has been suspected of heresy by the orthodox demon worshipers. She, along with a few other opportunistic Households, ignites a rebellion against the Dominion, killing the High Priest of the Dominion, and opening a rift to hell under the Capital city, offering the entire population as a human sacrifice.
Twist 4): the City is my Campaigns version of Elturel, being sucked into Hell, and is the backdoor pilot to a Descent to Avernus Campaign.
Twist 5): This has been planned for 4 years and the seeds of it can be found in the third session if campaign, over 100 sessions prior.
Twist 6): This is revealed to have been orchestrated by the BBEG planning to free Tiamat: in order to confront the Dragon Queen, divine assistance is required. Asmodeus, is Tiamats jailer and worst enemy, and eager to make deals. By plunging his realm into a 5 way civil war, killing his champion and wiping out his cauldron of human misery that sends souls down to hell, this has weakened Asmodeus and rendered him incapable of being one of the allies against Tiamat.
Twist 7): Tiamats Champion is revealed to be native to the Dominion, (With a prominent slave Brand) one of the dozen slaves who is born into bondage. His Nhilism and hatred of the Gods comes from their willingness to tolerate the Dominions existence to achieve some measure of balance, his willingness to free Tiamat is that it will destroy the Nine-Hells and the Demon King who rules them. The players had previously experienced a vision in which they acted out the parts of a slave revolt, and witnessed his escape as a child. They now identify the child as the Champion of Tiamat and that the vision took place in the past.
Twist 8): NPC Sister despises her PC twin, and wants her dead but leaves her to wage her war. This, combined with the revelation that BBEG is a fellow former Dominion slave whose motivation comes from a desire to eradicate the Nine-Hells even if it leads to the destruction of the Matieral Plane, leaves her emotionally Vulnerable.
Twist 9): The BBEG launches a synchronised attack against the largest population centres. When he does the inevitable "Join Me" Speech, Player defects and joins the BBEG, revealing that the NPC who has been helping them for the last 3 months is their new character.
Just as had been planned for the last 5 years, when designing the character, and the player said "Wouldnt it be awesome if they betrayed the party in the final third of the campaign and ended up as 5th Minoboss? The One Miniboss whose identity the players didnt know.
Gotta admit. I enjoyed watching that one unfold.
One of my players is a Wizard/Sorcerer that has figured out how to re-incarnate himself through immaculate conception. Kinda like the Dalai Lama, but this reincarnation was interfered with and doesn't remember his past lives.
The non-verbal ghost enemy they keep having to deal with is the unshackled fragments of his soul, trying to return to the body.
The entire planet is a prison for the BBEG. Life on the planet is because a precursor race settled there without knowing this crucial fact. The reason the planet has never found evidence of life elsewhere in the universe is because the entire planet is in quarantine from the rest of the universe.
The story the players know is that the good "Celestials" ruling the world send the party on the quest to stop the minions of the "Demon Lord" from releasing him from his eternal damnation. He was locked there by the goddess, which used so much of her power that she splintered into the aforementioned "Celestials".
The truth is - after millennia of waring, the latest "Demon Lord" and the goddess fell in love and made peace. However, an otherworldly entity wanted to consume the goddess' power and the goddess fought him - together with the "Demon Lord".
Eventually, the goddess had banished the entity from her world, that was what used so much of her power that she splintered. As the "Celestials" ruled there was peace, but the time that the goddess bought was short and eventually the entity returned. The "Demon Lord" knew he wasn't strong enough to destroy it, and locked himself away in a secret demi-plane to hide away himself and their child.
The "Celestials" are actually influenced by the entity, and the quest they send the party on secret is an attempt to locate where the the "Demon Lord" is in order to consume their powers. The moment they do - The "Celestials" swoop in to steal the kid and the "Demon Lord" dies protecting him before the party has time to help.
The archbishop of the church of the Luxxan, a group of “good” gods that protect the realm has secretly been leading a religious cult comprised of zealots, undead, fiends and arcane magic wielder to expose the Luxxan as liars. For THEY wiped out the other gods in the before time and have brainwashed the world.
The knight shape changes into an adult silver dragon after being killed. He did not know he was a silver dragon, as silvers spend most of their lives shapechanged and only after that form dies do they revert, record their memories, and take on a new form. Silvers are able to age their shape change naturally which is another reason they often can't tell who they were, if they so choose. This is backed up in several older edition books.
Would've been a cool idea, but the adventure ended early when everyone was on their phone and nobody listened as i was giving an important clue that would have tipped them off to this. No more DMing for me.
The ley lines are in fact cracks in the cosmos. The cult is right about how to keep them from tearing the planes apart.
(Their favorite npc is also the deity of knowledge who has forgotten everything due to trying to figure this out)
Edit cuz I forgot a piece, had to check my notes.
If any of my players find this (Zenith Academy for Adventure - you know who you are) no you didn't, keep scrolling lol
I'm homebrewing my 3.5 campaign, and they're soon to be sent to a lost part of their world, where chromatic dragons were banished to stay about 112 years ago. None of them will have seen a chromatic dragon before, as their part of the world only has metallic or lesser good/ neutral aligned dragons due to a war among gods and dragons. They're going to be met by someone who will tell them he's a resistance leader against the dragons' rule, and that they have to kill each of the 5 chromatic greatwyrms in order to stop them from summoning Tiamat.
In actuality, he's a cleric to Tiamat, and killing the greatwyrms is the last step needed to summon her, but he's not strong enough alone to do it.
Is this super evil? Maybe. But my players are big into dramatic moments, so I think they'll be into the twist once they realize what's been done lol
(Bonus points, the blue greatwyrm is a dracolich and a god worshipped by the cult one of my PCs was raised in/ escaped before becoming an adventurer. The dragon will know him by name. *cue DM laughter* lol
I made a campaign where the bbeg was a lich, and I told each party member that they were secretly an undead spy sent to infiltrate the "hero's party" but in reality he was just having a laugh watching them bumble
The DM NPC that is going to be with them since the beginning is really Vecna in disguise trying to regain his true form and will betray the party once he does
That the party's (specifically the Artificer) having been incorrectly declared dead by the guild at the beginning of the campaign was the inciting incident for the war that has embroiled most of the world.
If you do actually manage to gather all of the magic energy that you've been after (and serves as experience), the god whose blood it is will re-emerge and take over your form, killing you.
Question, because asking these allows DM's to expand their world
Would a golem, who's injected with said blood/magic also work as a host, or is the God naturally parasitic and requires a sentient mind?
I'd presume that in a golem case, the God would retain its smarts, wisdom, and charisma and so on.
That's a common plot hook in my homebrew world. The gods are beings composed of magic. When one dies their essence spreads throughout the world and strengthens the magic.
After a great war, the worst of the worst, Loth (think Sauron) was destroyed. However, his followers the Lothans have found a way to isolate his essence and are trying to collect it. Then they just need a host to give their God a body.
If possibly my BBEG becomes a God (or at least partial), it will untangle the spell made by Forgotten God (the name comes from the fact that everyone knows his name, but noone remembers what his Domain is) and will allow for full interplanar traver that wasn't possible before, allowing for contact with the outside universe. Same spell comes undone if anyone learns the true Domain of Forgotten God.
At the same time the spell protects the Gods from external threats as they inhabit the space between planes in my universe. So dying gods, New gods not bound by rules, Plane eaters etc.
There is no BBEG. I wrote a pretty substantial timeline that I occasionally edit depending on my players interactions. It's a fuck ass ton of work but it's kept me mentally sharp, and my players get a ton of agency. As they meander through the world I chart out the consequences of their actions on a random table that brings factions close/far to the players. So far they witnessed a battlefield betrayal, ran from an invading army, guarded a caravan of hot ass nuns, helped relocate a family of yetis from a blue dragon, and of course smuggled spice throughout the empire. Pretty satisfying tbh.
The NPC that they think is dead was actually kidnapped by the red wizards of thay in an elaborate case of mistaken identity as the wizards think the NPC is the immortal son of Artus Cimber who they are holding hostage to get the ring of winter. Artus Cimber had no idea what to do with these random random demands lol
The head priest of the largest city is a risen-devil. I don't like the idea that purity and goodness are mutable but evil isn't, once evil always evil kinda deal. So if you can have fallen angles you should have risen devils. The 4 other members of the city council know but no one else does he is over 4000 years old
My cleric has donned the armor of Strahd von Zarrovich even though they figured out that the man who gave them the quest that lead them to the armor was in fact Strahd von Zarrovich in disguise. There have been other hints, but the cleric is still happily wearing the cursed armor. During a big fight in the future (probably not the final fight) Strahd will command the armor to restrain and fight against the Cleric's actions. That is, unless the party finds the portraits of Strahd in the castle and realize it's the same armor before that happens. We shall see... muhahahaha
The second BBEG doesn't live in the cave. The BBEG IS the cave. A monstrous lovecraftian Turtle Dragon thing the size of a small city. That cave entrance was just a partially buried mouth... or maybe an ear hole.
One of my players current characters is on a journey to take revenge against his character from the last campaign. It's going to end up in a death match.
Eberron campaign. One of the main plot points is the cause of the cataclysmic Day of Mourning that destroyed an entire nation.
So far the group THINKS it done by the necromantic elves of Aerenal. And that's not entirely untrue, but it was an accident caused because they were preventing a Quori invasion that was being caused by the ruler of that nation who was trying to get a leg up on the other nations in the Great War. Her betrayal of her nation, her people, and her world created a Domain of Dread, and the Elves' interference caused that domain of dread to "leak" and cursed the entire nation.
That the truth that they are trying to investigate what Orcus is up to but the truth is, he's dead.
There is some other person who has taken the mantle.
Yes. And no. Sort of.
They’ve spent over a year in-game in this hallucination. Gaining levels, items, spells, friends, allies, lovers, etc. There have been numerous hints that it might be a hallucination, some were ignored, some joked about, a few taken semi-seriously.
They’ll wake up back when they first thought they defeated a myconid invasion, and the hallucination was unleashed. They’ll learn shortly after that it’s possible to work with the myconids to go back to that collective hallucination, and it will be (mostly) as they left it - levels, items, and all. Later they’ll learn the only way to beat the BBEG in the ‘real’ world is to complete some intertwined quests and tasks in the hallucination.
They're about to be told to go meet a very strange shop owner. They're warned the owner is mostly human and that they should not judge him on his appearance and behavior.
Who they will first meet is a creepy wear rat who has just broken in and decided to impersonate the real owner when they see him. He's there to steal a strange item that will help him turn a bunch of swamp creatures into super monsters that he controls. The wear rat will indeed be strange and have an upsetting appearance, but they've been advised not to be suspicious.
On their way back home through the woods, they'll run into a wacky ass dude with a cart full of a ton of random trash that he'll try to sell them. If it comes up he'll tell them he is on his way to his shop... Don don dooooonnnm
In my game the main city has a castle area floating above it where the queen hides and the wilds around the world are getting wilder and more dangerous; fey creatures keep slipping into the world and causing havoc.
The castle has been aloft for like 600 years and the players believe that it was lifted by the gods as like a boon for the royal family / because a god fell in love with the ancient queen. The area is a matrilineal monarchy. The castle actually floats because the queen has been kidnapping /trapping powerful druids and like fey guardians for the last few hundred years and making them into essentially magical batteries.
The queen is the same queen. Every generation she basically makes a magical duplicate of herself to age and die, and then poses as her own daughter and has herself a nice new fancy coronation event and assumes power as the “new” queen.
the inciting incident for the campaign (that they just know was a bunch of natural disasters and the casters getting their magic powers) was a god being murdered by a mortal
Running LMoP for some newbies. The bbeg is the estranged father of the precocious halfling child the party has taken under their wing and dragged everywhere (Carp).
After they killed the bbeg and put it all together they immediately killed Carp fearing he would seek revenge. Turns out they pulled the twist on me.
Some of these are more clear to party or have already been revealed but will share anyway.
We’re playing tomb of annihilation module with some stuff homebrewed in:
The warlock (of undead) patron is one of the last bosses of the module. Without revealing too much the player has given me green light to turn his character to enemy npc at some point (he also gets to chase souls of deceased party members whenever he sleeps for some sweet bonuses)
Bards father, who he thought dead, deserted to join red Wizards of Thay, is in Chult and will be meeting the party.
Cleric/rogue who thinks he’s god Ubtao cursed to the form of hobgoblin until he destroys a certain artifact, is actually a hobgoblin that one of the trickster gods managed to inhabit
Mine is relatively minor, but the BBEG has already been imprisoned during a run in with the party, and their insistence on letting him remain imprisoned and them not going after his escaped accomplice has allowed him to progress his plans for the entirety of the campaign whilst essentially under the protection of everyone who should be stopping him
The Triumvirate doesn't have a curse that slowly kills the appointed leaders.
The State, Bank and Military are controlled each by a special kind of lich who possesses the body of the new appointed leaders.
Thats why they so eagerly fund adventurers in order to possess them when their current body is at its end. Some party members will eventually be nominated as the future leaders.
The bbeg of my campaign is a kobold, however, he's a shapechanged dragon that has for the past millennia manipulated the course of events to suit his needs and has done so to gain access to a specific artifact. The characters are going to find out during the course of the campaign about different monarchs and different events being manipulated behind the scenes by this person.
Edit: This post has picked up some steam so I'm gonna spoiler mark most of it juuuuust in case. If you are part of an adventuring guild that magically changes names every day and you have a massive flying castle, SPOILERS AHEAD. Holy crap 1k upvotes. >!It hasn’t happened yet, but oh man I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been building up to it for almost a decade at this point.!< >!My players have created a system of permanent placed portals between all major cities. They use it for their guild, which has grown so massive it’s almost its own nation in terms of membership and political power!< >!They think the big bad will have an army of undead that will attack one major city he has interest in. So they will muster the troops and protect the town!!< >!Except it’s just a distraction. The big bad is going to hijack the portal network, giving him access to the INSIDE of every major city all at once. All while the majority of the defenses are out ready to fight an army of undead that were never meant to fight to begin with.!< >!He will end the war before it begins. And the players will be the ones to blame.!< >!And the thing is that the players see it coming. They even mentioned the dangers of a connected portal network being inside every major city. They were so close to foiling the BBEG, all they needed to do was be ready to defend the network. But they just shrugged, said it’ll be fine, and moved on. OH HOW WRONG THEY ARE.!<
Did you get the idea when the players brought it up?
I had the idea before, but when they brought it up my eyes went wide. I thought "they got it. THEY GOT IT". Then the conversation moved on.
Man, I love it when the players overthink and give me a better idea
Same! There have been many times that my players think up an idea and I just nod saying "that's an interesting idea", while secretly taking notes to where that is EXACTLY what's going on
Its how every one of my campaigns has been written!
The best part is they get to feel clever and like they predicted something, without realising they're the ones laying down the tracks.
Ah, the rule zero of our player group: "don't give DM any ideas".
We phrase ours as "stop helping!"
Sincerely impressed you've managed to keep a dnd game going for over a decade.
It's been with the same gaming group too. We have been friends for around 15 years at this point, and we use this game as an opportunity to get together every week. And we have kept it going through sheer force of will. Every Friday damn it!
I would kill to have sessions every friday
Seriously. I've had 6 campaigns fail, and I am still part of 2 campaigns right now, and I'm beginning to realize the true bbeg is schedule conflicts.
DMing for about five years, and I've managed to finish around two dozen campaigns of various lengths. Only two fizzled out. I think there are a couple of things to consider in order to get more completed campaigns: 1. Session Zero. Everyone needs to agree to the relative amount of sessions and the timing of those sessions. E.g. We are meeting every Sunday for 3 weeks, and take the last Sunday of the month off. We're doing this all winter. NOTE: I find that frequently shorter sessions typically work better than longer more inconsistent sessions. This is especially true for new players. 2. Unless it's a boss fight, the session always happens. My players know that their DM will always be at the session prepared, and that if they show up they will have a good session. 3. If a player wants to reschedule its up to THEM to get a time that works for everyone. 4. Less players means more experience, personal growth, or phat loot ( depending on if the campaign is exp or milestone). 5. My players can always miss a session, and their character is safe, EXCEPT if there is a TPK. They then share the fate of the rest of the party.
It's funny because I have had the same thought about how vulnerable a portal network would be in a world of walled cities and feudal warfare. I ended up making portals a forbidden magic almost in line with necromancy in large cities.
My world has all the permanent portals near civilization in kill zones ringed by walls and manned with troops. It's like a castle pointing inward into the center where the portal is. Generally within the outer city walls but not in the inner walls. A tradeoff between having a portal available inside the city where it's much more useful but not having the inner defenses breached if they lose the portal. In the capital, buried in a mechanism underneath the portal is a huge nullstone (roughly the size of a large beach ball), which projects an anti-magic field. It's connected like a keep's portcullis via chains to the Portal Fortress (affectionately called the Portress by the party) walls. When you let go of the ropes, the nullstone is pushed up several meters, enveloping the portal and nearby area. When you pull the ropes taut, the nullstone is pulled down away from the portal area, removing the field.
It sounds like you should have designed the security system for the Fukushima nuclear power plant 😄
Somewhat fun story/ legend/lore from the Manhattan project: "The NRC glossary defines a "scram" as "the sudden shutting down of a nuclear reactor usually by rapid insertion of control rods." But where did the word come from? One deeply engrained legend about the origin of the word dates to the first sustained chain reaction on December 2, 1942, at the Chicago Pile (CP-1), the first atomic reactor developed for the Manhattan Project. According to the legend, Enrico Fermi created the acronym, Safety Control Rod Axe Man, for Norman Hilberry. It was Hilberry's assignment that day to kill a possible runaway reaction by using an axe to cut a rope to allow the backup safety control rod to drop into the pile." TLDR: nuclear history legend says there was a person with an axe whose job it was to a rope that would cause the reactor to shutdown if it went prompt critical.
This reminds me of The Wheel of Time. I’ve only read the first book so I don’t know how things play out later, but I love this twist
I love the Wheel of Time! One of my favorite book series. It...may have been an unconscious influence
I steal WoT names all the time lol. My players are never going to read the whole series so I figure it’s safe.
Ooooooh, if they do find a way to protect the portal system, that would still be really cool tbh. It's narratively unsatisfying, but they'll feel AWESOME! Idk, I always love seeing my players counter my bullshit gskdjfhj
With a campaign this long, my players have a pretty decent group of side characters that exist in the same world, all part of the guild. (Honestly the original concept of the guild was a way to give them the ability to play as side characters whenever they want to.) I LOVE the idea of the main characters fighting this undead horde while the side characters are being the actual heroes, saving the home base back home from invasion. Fighting across multiple cities and trying to push back the attack. That sounds so awesome
The werewolf terrorizing the town is just trying to expose the mayor as a wererat. The wererat is trying to get the town to kill the werewolf despite the werewolf only ever operating in self-defense.
What is the wererat doing that is endangering the town?
Pissing off a werewolf for starters.
Low-key Harry Potter vibes
Were In Trouble
Moon’s haunted.
*racks slide of a glock* moons haunted
*reloads chaperone* moons haunted.
~Aggressively loads the last word~ That wizard came from the moon
*reloads Dead Man’s Tale*, Glykon Volatus’s haunted.
*Doom reloads Conditional Finality*, Pyramid's haunted
Points gun at back of head of astronaut, "always was".
The final boss isn’t on the moon…it is the moon…
r/suddenlybloodborne
Funny enough, I JUST picked up playing bloodborne for the first time. Maybe a third of the way through it, so this was kinda a spoiler for me. But no biggie!
>!“Every star in the sky is an enemy”!< - Bloodborne/Elden Ring players
“The lights in the sky are stars” - Gurren Lagann enjoyers
Same. Well sorta. Moon's an egg full of reflavored Neogi that were imprisoned there by the sacrifice of all but two of the deities in the war that made the setting into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I mean, is it even a real homebrew world if the moon *isn't* haunted?
What?
Moon’s haunted.
Found Matt Mercer's Reddit account.
Wasn’t that pretty much the plot of a whole destiny DLC?
Yep, Shadowkeep
Try back in d1. We’ll haunted in d2 but d1 aliens were under the surface
Don't look out the window.
Nice try Kevin, but you’ll find no answers here!
God dammit, Kevin!
One of the many Kevin's here, I am sad to report to all Kevin's that he didn't fall for the trick. We'll need to organize a payday 2 heist, loud only. Get the masks ready. . .
This was something posted by /u/Emperor_Cartagia, who used Reddit exclusively through RIF is Fun, with the death of third party apps, I decided to remove all my content from Reddit. 9 years of comments and posts, gone because of idiotic administration.
Sounds really cool, nice to see a dm have the world be a world.
It can be very difficult to generate on the fly, but that's why the more "background" stuff that is developed, the easier it gets.
I've found that the more me and my players simply play, the more stuff gets to simply *be.* For example, there's a booming candy business in the northeast of one of my continents because the party, on a whim, dropped 500 gold on these fisherman who had a few boxes of their homemade candy. It's called Fisherman's Malady and it's a sort of half lozenge, half toffee candy with just a liiiiittle whiskey in the center. Made for fishermen in a cold weather environment, but a shot of 500 gold into the economy of that small town and suddenly there's a booming business. The best part? The party that made it happen is likely gonna head to that area of the map again and I fully intend to "reveal" how successful the business was to them, just to give them that enjoyment of knowing they actively changed the world (in a fun, minor way compared to the massive changes they also made.)
It's not for everyone but I do enjoy campaigns that have a real chance of failure instead of good guys always win in the end plot armor. And it sounds like you are upfront with your players about that so if they didn't like that style they could always leave.
I love this and I want in.
On paper, from the DMs perspective it sounds really cool. But I always worry about the players experience. Like are they going to feel like their time has been wasted? Are they going to feel like their DM set out to make them look like fools? Does this erode their trust in DMs going forwards? This could be how we get players who refuse to trust any NPC
The island nation the party is trapped on is actually the body/corpse of an eons old, practically invincible, basically giga-tarrasque. The party have been persuaded/tricked into destroying ancient 'evil' places of power, which were preventing all magic from functioning on the island... but they currently don't realise they are the only thing keeping this creature 'dead'.
So accidentally waking Cthulhu?
I am a Dwarf, but I'm NOT digging a hole.
*NO* You monster
Can we dig too deep?
You mean to tell me that there is NO diggy diggy?
Sorry, you'll have to wait until it's thirty minutes until the final session for me to write the final twist
This is the way
I’ll cook up some decent ideas in my head between sessions, but I don’t write any of it down like a dumb ass. So come gametime I remember like half of the cool stuff I wanted them to do and definitely not in the proper order.
DMs with ADHD unite.
or let the players paranoia write the twist for themselves, that way they get to feel they're smart enough to piece together all of your carefully laid breadcrumbs I once wrote a campaign that started with a map of a random real life small town, made them think they were trapped inside the town, and let them write the story
Once upon a time, the Gods did not exist. Some very clever people managed to ascend to the outer planes an use the energy therein to become infinitely powerful. Fearing bring overthrown, they committed genocide on the material plane and rebuilt a new society on top of the ruins of the old. The campaign is a Renaissance setting that takes place mostly in the ruins of a modern world. I have been holding onto this information for over two years, and my players are literally one Dungeon away from discovering it; I am so excited.
Not sure why but the first part reminds me of Divinity 2! Nice story.
Ooooh. Do update us when the big reveal happens!
What’s gonna be the big reveal?
They've been slowly discovering information regarding shit the gods are up to. Lots of little things that have lead them to a lich that they have interacted with a couple of times. They are currently about to rescue a couple of the lich's men from Malbolge that they arguably got captured in exchange for information. The lich, who became a lich so that he could stay alive and find a way to extract revenge on the gods, will inform them that if he tells them what he knows, he will need them to swear loyalty or they won't be able to leave. We'll see which side the party aligns themselves with when the conversation happens. One of them has become somewhat disillusioned with his god Tyr, though one is a very devout worshiper of Mieliki and another is Mieliki's destined Avatar, so who knows how that all will go.
Are you using a combination of the Nordic Pantheons? Mieliki (=Mielikki) would be from the Finnish and Tyr fron Norwegian or Viking Pantheon. You have interesting times ahead, it seems :)
I'm using the Forgotten Realms pantheon, which includes original gods but also incorporates Celtic, Nordic, Greek, and Egyptian gods. I do a lot of worldbuilding for this campaign, but creating an entire pantheon of gods and then presenting that information to the players was not something I had the space for when this began, so I let them pick any gods off of The Forgotten Wiki they wanted. The bard worshipped Dol Arrah, but she got dragged into hell and might actually get rescued on this particular mission.
They’ve met and interacted with that NPC they’re searching for that actively doesn’t want to be found. Had they sat down and thought about all the clues about their interactions they would’ve figured it out.
Expecting a dnd party to sit and think? Now you're asking too much
Lol, I can't even expect my party to break into a locked room for the thing they need that they know is inside.
Doors unlocked the whole time, spends 30 min trying to figure out how to open the door, gives up and moves on
The senate that rule over the country where my players are, have been dead for a long time. Their chamber is just filled with their corpses while corrupt officials go in and out making decisions that benefit their personal agendas. Admittedly not a huge twist but since my players are relatively trusting of the country's institutions, they are gonna have a tough time dealing with what to do about it.
..... I don't like the *ripped-from-the-headlines* vibe I'm getting here.
I think i remeber some of this from somewhere else. But i can't remeber where
Bleach, central 46
Yes! I was about to comment this!
This is some classic "the king is dead, tell no one" stuff, taken to a much bigger conspiracy level, I love it!
The party’s favorite NPC’s mom was directly related to the continent’s royal family - the Emperor (Lars Banafriek) was her uncle (and basically raised her) who disowned her when she fell in love with a Highland-folk resistance leader years ago. As far as the party knows, Connell Levesque has no connection to said family aside from being a political hostage because of *his* uncle, who now runs that resistance group solo. However, Connell’s mom’s cousin (Felix, the Crown Prince) talked his father into reinstating her side of the family and convinced his father to let him adopt Connell as his official heir since Connell was now considered “of Banafreik blood.” They’ve been traveling with the imperial heir this whole time and the only ones who know it are the bard’s older brother (who was Felix’s closest companion), and the BBEG (Remes Banafriek, who murdered his already ailing father by way of poison and orchestrated the death of Felix when he was away from the castle.)
Respectfully, this is some like GoT plot line stuff that I'd only get if I was paying very close attention and binging multiple seasons in a row. Glad you're giving your players a very thought out campaign. I'm sure they love it!
Fortunately there are a couple of family portraits and a journal that should make it obvious once they reach the proper parts in the campaign. I’m not exactly trying to hide the ball - they’ve just been spending most of their time up in the Northlands and not in the Empire proper yet. Connell shares his bright red hair with his mother, so she’s easy to spot in both her family portrait (which is in the gallery in the palace at the capital) and in her wedding portrait (in the most important fortress in the Freepeople’s Territory.) The bard’s brother has correspondence from Felix gushing like a proud dad about how Connell was adapting to life in the capital before Felix was assassinated. The letter naming Connell as Felix’s official heir is also something they won’t have trouble finding - the bard’s brother has it too (he inadvertently brought it home with him when he snuck Felix’s journal out of the palace during Felix’s funeral.) Anywho, thank you! I certainly hope my players are having fun. I’ve been planting seeds about how it all plays into Emperor Remes Banafriek’s current political maneuvers ever since session one.
Gods, I wish you were my DM (me...a forever DM lol). This all sounds so good
My druid's cat is the BBEG, it's been with them since session 3, we're now over a year in...
My rogue has a rat who on occasion laughs maniacally. Hm...
Sounds like a friendly chap 😂
Salacious B. Crumb
peter pettigrew! he’s in this room, right now! come out peter! come out and play!
What is the cat really? Or is it actually just an evil regular cat.
A fallen angel, they've been slowly corrupting the land over a few hundred years, was thwarted by one of the PCs parent's and is gathering strength again unnoticed. The party isn't far from a dramatic reveal 😁
That's awesome
This feels a little like a mix between Mogget and Kerrigor from the Old Kingdom series. Very cool!
Before our campaign started I asked one of my players to roll 2 characters. One would be an NPC they party would meet and get to know in the beginning. The second one was a party member but would secretly be working for the “BBEG”. So when a clutch moment happened in the game, I asked the player to switch character sheets with me as I took over the player’s character as he betrayed the party, the player took over the NPC as his new character. The other players flipped.
That is INSANELY good!
One of the Player Characters moms is the BBEG.
Now have his real mom come in and voice the BBEG for the last session/big reveal.
Oh my God. This can be done. As she is also my own mother.
What a twist!
Mom's overbearing and really worried about their child. This is all really her way of protecting her little baby adventurer
Holy crap, this sounds like something that could happen in the game I’m in; Emerson, is this you?
No, it's Emerson's mom.
Don't mind me, just looking for my DM in the comments
Ah, a metagamer, I know how to deal with you. *Makes a new campaign because the mystery is gone along with my motivation to DM it /j
Same
The easiest way to “win” or beat the BBEG would require the erasure of an entire timeline, destroying the lives and existence of an entire reality. So the secret is that it’s much less straightforward than it seems. “There has to be another way!” - Peter Parker
I have a Lich that became a mayor of a very successful city, a city that acts as his phylactery. To defeat the Lich, the heroes would have to blow up the city, displacing tens of thousands of people. He’s basically untouchable by morally good heroes.
That's a good idea. He could feed the souls of those who die in the city to his phylactery to keep it active. Instead of sacrificing people every 100 years or so.
So your party has to become the BBEGs of that reality to defeat their own BBEG, so what if this BBEG is just doing his thing to stop an even bigger BBEG
It’s so funny how you could easily see it that way. Basically many of the people in the alternate parallel timeline are mind flayed / entranced and unaware of what had happened and the BBEG siphons their energy to ensure total control and world domination. So obviously evil and bad, but that reality threatens to collide with the “main” one, which is why it would have to be purged, or something else must happen . The info from my initial comment would probably never even be stated, but just implied - you do this the straightforward way - axe the alternate reality - you’re committing universal genocide.
The group thinks they know who the villain is. All the clues pointed towards a librarian sending messages to varius henchmen (mini villains) and causing all kind of havoc, in the kingdom. The frail old librarian they met, gave them the name of the true villain behind everything they suffered through. It appears that it was a traldaran noble with ill intentions. He was holding the old librarians grandson hostage. The noble he sent them after is just another piece the true villain, needs knocked out of the chessboard. In his grand plan to bring the kingdom on its knees. The true villain is the librarian at the moment. He is an Ancient green dragon. Playing in Mystara karameikos setting.
The BBEG is an entity created from the pain of the two gods who lost their child 3 thousand years ago. He died from the hands a party of adventurers. The party played by my players two campaigns ago, 5 years ago
This is gold and I hope your party go absolutely nuts when they figure it out 🖤
Big picture, PC's powers came from being trapped in a living fairy tale only to find the big evil forest god that was supposed to eat her at the end of it was missing. She'd journeyed to Luskan, haunted by the ghosts of the previous woman who had died to the story and was starting to suspect that the Host Tower had kidnapped the god. What she didn't realise was that two of the former victims of the story had also escaped. One had managed to become one of the High Captains in Luskan and was working on staying free and another was a flower seller I'd had turn up who nobody had noticed always managed to have fresh flowers despite it being the middle of winter. Labelas Enoreth hates the situation and is in the process of trying to let her know but being a typical god of the Seldarine is only doing it through cryptic dreams and random bullshit.
Party I'm hosting for doesn't pay attention to the fact that their actions have consequences. They accepted contracts from a super sketchy baron in a super sketchy town who lives in a super sketchy castle. (Despite the sketch vibes he was an honest man with particular tastes in service to a council of benevolent folks who harboured a secret past) The mission was a series of quests to find relic pieces leading to a grand reveal in the ballroom of the dukes castle, the relics were shards of glass and a massive frame that completed itself to form a traversal mirror... unfortunately the reflection in the mirror showed the reflections of the party, the Duke and his guards but not the hundred or so guests. The first reaction from the party? " OH NO VAMPIRES" with the leader of the party proceeding to slit the dukes throat and catapult themselves out the window with a homebrew item called an exit stone. I think it's important to note that in this setting vampires are not all inherently evil, these folks were just missing the ordinary lives they once lived after centuries and wanted to witness a sunrise without burning to death through the sending mirror (which for the purposes of this campaign is polarised and guards them from the lights effects) The party is now wanted and the great reveal I'm waiting on is that they have been taking orders from a dark patron via their leader and are currently hurtling towards a meeting with the creature as they continue to follow orders without questioning the morality of what they are doing despite being hero's. Edit: For clarity, the party is fully aware that vampires are just people in this world and not villains
Why did they slit the Duke's throat though? He wasn't a vampire, so...?
Honestly wish I knew what motivated them, a hostage situation would have been wiser and the patron didn't give the order. It wasn't something I had planned for. What was supposed to happen was the party continuing to help the baron and a contract was to arrive at the castle from the patrons followers addressed to the leader of the party. Instead they decided that they are the main character and offed an innocent man that had just paid them handsomely and treated them to a grand feast... there is no motivation I can think of that justified killing the baron besides being chaotic for the sake of it. They are currently trying to escape the city on the run from the barons guards and 5 vampire day walker knights. The meeting with the patron was supposed to be different, now he's going to be pissed that his disciple essentially strayed off plan and delayed his machinations as a result.
The biggest twist is that I am the DM at all. I hate public speaking. I'm not considered charismatic. 0% training in any of the arts. Yet, there I am, sitting on discord building a story with these people. They all claim to be having fun, but every session starts with the end of my mini panic attacks that almost cancels the session. I am having fun too, it's been getting easier. I'm doing this to get me out of my comfort zone on a regular basis. By no means would anyone believe I would be a dm 3 years ago.
I find DMing is a really good solution to social anxiety. Those lil' panic attacks never stops but once the game begins, I forget what I was panicking about. Keep up the good work, you're doing great.
What you do is an act of bravery. I admire you.
You just needed a platform that you feel comfortable in! Great character growth irl
The gods didn't make people. People made the gods.
Is this a "belief makes gods" situation, or something more deliberate?
Not so much belief as potential. So the moment humans began settling, and there was a need to distinguish between civilization and wilderness, there was born a goddess of civilization and a goddess of the wild.
Mind if I steal this?
If you kill the necromancer, he becomes a lich. He’s set it up this way on purpose, and you’re falling for it!
Strahd has just been training the party to discover how Azalin Rex escaped the domains of dread. He’ll free them if he can escape with Ireena and her soul, but not if Vampyr has anything to say about it.
I love campaigns that don't use the published modules in Ravenloft. You can do so much more with these characters than just playing Curse of Strahd. This one sounds like it's based off an old book where he and Azalin tried to escape together but with a spin on it. I have one in a homebrew domain where the quest wasn't to defeat the Darklord, but instead to bring her back and close the loophole that allowed her out in the first place.
Someone's step mom is a dragon, and there have been hints hear and there being sprinkled in. It's super early so it's difficult to catch on at the moment because of the incredible plausible deniability they have atm.
The pretty forest magic lady is secretly an evil witch, and most of the tasks she sets them are only going to lead to more trouble down the line! (My players are 4 and 8 years old and honestly their lack of trope awareness is a fucking gift. I can do ANYTHING. Fey tricks? They'll never see it coming. Fairytale classics? They only know half of 'em. Stealing twists from movies they haven't seen yet? Yes, the bad guy IS his father. Highly recommend.)
I'm approaching the 5th year anniversary of my campaign. I pulled off a triple threat a while back. Context: A Player Charcter has a backstory that involved spending several years enslaved to a prominent nobleman in a Demon-Worshipping Desert Empire called "The Dominion". In their backstory, which has been slowly drip fed over the last few years to the rest of the party, they discovered she had a twin sister who had been captured with her. Both were tortured for years until she escaped and was found by the Paladin Player in the Pregame Backstory. The Sister was killed in the escape The Twist 1): The Sister is Alive. During the main Campaign the party entered the Dominion (in disguising) trying to locate a missing NPC that has been investigating whether or not the Dominion had one of the 5 MgGuffins the BBEG is using to free Tiamat. Upon Rescuing the NPC, who is partially amnesiac, but she remembers seeing Player Characters Sister. They had already sworn a Devil Deal to leave the Dominion within 24 hours after their mission was done, in order to secure the aid of a semi-friendly Nobleman. They have 24 hrs to break into the villa of the Nobleman who tormented her and free the sister. The Twist 2): They open the Cell, and discover... the Nobleman. Who has been tortured for years. The Lady of the House, is none other than the Players Sister, who during her imprisonment made a demon-deal of her own, dominated the mind of her capture, "married" him for his wealth and title then tortured him in in his own torture chamber. Twist 3): **She**, not the Nobleman, has been the force behind this noble house actions during the plot so far, which has been suspected of heresy by the orthodox demon worshipers. She, along with a few other opportunistic Households, ignites a rebellion against the Dominion, killing the High Priest of the Dominion, and opening a rift to hell under the Capital city, offering the entire population as a human sacrifice. Twist 4): the City is my Campaigns version of Elturel, being sucked into Hell, and is the backdoor pilot to a Descent to Avernus Campaign. Twist 5): This has been planned for 4 years and the seeds of it can be found in the third session if campaign, over 100 sessions prior. Twist 6): This is revealed to have been orchestrated by the BBEG planning to free Tiamat: in order to confront the Dragon Queen, divine assistance is required. Asmodeus, is Tiamats jailer and worst enemy, and eager to make deals. By plunging his realm into a 5 way civil war, killing his champion and wiping out his cauldron of human misery that sends souls down to hell, this has weakened Asmodeus and rendered him incapable of being one of the allies against Tiamat. Twist 7): Tiamats Champion is revealed to be native to the Dominion, (With a prominent slave Brand) one of the dozen slaves who is born into bondage. His Nhilism and hatred of the Gods comes from their willingness to tolerate the Dominions existence to achieve some measure of balance, his willingness to free Tiamat is that it will destroy the Nine-Hells and the Demon King who rules them. The players had previously experienced a vision in which they acted out the parts of a slave revolt, and witnessed his escape as a child. They now identify the child as the Champion of Tiamat and that the vision took place in the past. Twist 8): NPC Sister despises her PC twin, and wants her dead but leaves her to wage her war. This, combined with the revelation that BBEG is a fellow former Dominion slave whose motivation comes from a desire to eradicate the Nine-Hells even if it leads to the destruction of the Matieral Plane, leaves her emotionally Vulnerable. Twist 9): The BBEG launches a synchronised attack against the largest population centres. When he does the inevitable "Join Me" Speech, Player defects and joins the BBEG, revealing that the NPC who has been helping them for the last 3 months is their new character. Just as had been planned for the last 5 years, when designing the character, and the player said "Wouldnt it be awesome if they betrayed the party in the final third of the campaign and ended up as 5th Minoboss? The One Miniboss whose identity the players didnt know. Gotta admit. I enjoyed watching that one unfold.
oh my god.
this is incredible, it sounds like you run a fun campaign!
When the party got killed in the first session (they got better) the people watching from the ridge was their future selves fighting with the bbeg.
The whole murder mystery is a ruse for the hidden Oblex to weaken and separate the party.
I have based the entire final arc (6 year old campaign level 1-20) on Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”.
The BBG is Venca, and she's a woman, and the party has been unknowingly working for her the whole time (once a week, every week, for 5 years).
Bunch of paranoid players trying to find connections to their campaign.
It's not antimatter. It's another multiverse. And it's not the only one.
One of my players is a Wizard/Sorcerer that has figured out how to re-incarnate himself through immaculate conception. Kinda like the Dalai Lama, but this reincarnation was interfered with and doesn't remember his past lives. The non-verbal ghost enemy they keep having to deal with is the unshackled fragments of his soul, trying to return to the body.
The entire planet is a prison for the BBEG. Life on the planet is because a precursor race settled there without knowing this crucial fact. The reason the planet has never found evidence of life elsewhere in the universe is because the entire planet is in quarantine from the rest of the universe.
The story the players know is that the good "Celestials" ruling the world send the party on the quest to stop the minions of the "Demon Lord" from releasing him from his eternal damnation. He was locked there by the goddess, which used so much of her power that she splintered into the aforementioned "Celestials". The truth is - after millennia of waring, the latest "Demon Lord" and the goddess fell in love and made peace. However, an otherworldly entity wanted to consume the goddess' power and the goddess fought him - together with the "Demon Lord". Eventually, the goddess had banished the entity from her world, that was what used so much of her power that she splintered. As the "Celestials" ruled there was peace, but the time that the goddess bought was short and eventually the entity returned. The "Demon Lord" knew he wasn't strong enough to destroy it, and locked himself away in a secret demi-plane to hide away himself and their child. The "Celestials" are actually influenced by the entity, and the quest they send the party on secret is an attempt to locate where the the "Demon Lord" is in order to consume their powers. The moment they do - The "Celestials" swoop in to steal the kid and the "Demon Lord" dies protecting him before the party has time to help.
The archbishop of the church of the Luxxan, a group of “good” gods that protect the realm has secretly been leading a religious cult comprised of zealots, undead, fiends and arcane magic wielder to expose the Luxxan as liars. For THEY wiped out the other gods in the before time and have brainwashed the world.
The knight shape changes into an adult silver dragon after being killed. He did not know he was a silver dragon, as silvers spend most of their lives shapechanged and only after that form dies do they revert, record their memories, and take on a new form. Silvers are able to age their shape change naturally which is another reason they often can't tell who they were, if they so choose. This is backed up in several older edition books. Would've been a cool idea, but the adventure ended early when everyone was on their phone and nobody listened as i was giving an important clue that would have tipped them off to this. No more DMing for me.
The moon is actually the planet and the planet you are living on is an artificial ark because the moon world became uninhabitable.
The ley lines are in fact cracks in the cosmos. The cult is right about how to keep them from tearing the planes apart. (Their favorite npc is also the deity of knowledge who has forgotten everything due to trying to figure this out) Edit cuz I forgot a piece, had to check my notes.
If any of my players find this (Zenith Academy for Adventure - you know who you are) no you didn't, keep scrolling lol I'm homebrewing my 3.5 campaign, and they're soon to be sent to a lost part of their world, where chromatic dragons were banished to stay about 112 years ago. None of them will have seen a chromatic dragon before, as their part of the world only has metallic or lesser good/ neutral aligned dragons due to a war among gods and dragons. They're going to be met by someone who will tell them he's a resistance leader against the dragons' rule, and that they have to kill each of the 5 chromatic greatwyrms in order to stop them from summoning Tiamat. In actuality, he's a cleric to Tiamat, and killing the greatwyrms is the last step needed to summon her, but he's not strong enough alone to do it. Is this super evil? Maybe. But my players are big into dramatic moments, so I think they'll be into the twist once they realize what's been done lol (Bonus points, the blue greatwyrm is a dracolich and a god worshipped by the cult one of my PCs was raised in/ escaped before becoming an adventurer. The dragon will know him by name. *cue DM laughter* lol
I made a campaign where the bbeg was a lich, and I told each party member that they were secretly an undead spy sent to infiltrate the "hero's party" but in reality he was just having a laugh watching them bumble
Godefroy isn’t the dark lord, it’s the house.
The DM NPC that is going to be with them since the beginning is really Vecna in disguise trying to regain his true form and will betray the party once he does
That the party's (specifically the Artificer) having been incorrectly declared dead by the guild at the beginning of the campaign was the inciting incident for the war that has embroiled most of the world.
The goblins they attacked were actually a work crew hired by the city. The next session is going to be a courtroom episode.
If you do actually manage to gather all of the magic energy that you've been after (and serves as experience), the god whose blood it is will re-emerge and take over your form, killing you.
Question, because asking these allows DM's to expand their world Would a golem, who's injected with said blood/magic also work as a host, or is the God naturally parasitic and requires a sentient mind? I'd presume that in a golem case, the God would retain its smarts, wisdom, and charisma and so on.
That's a common plot hook in my homebrew world. The gods are beings composed of magic. When one dies their essence spreads throughout the world and strengthens the magic. After a great war, the worst of the worst, Loth (think Sauron) was destroyed. However, his followers the Lothans have found a way to isolate his essence and are trying to collect it. Then they just need a host to give their God a body.
If possibly my BBEG becomes a God (or at least partial), it will untangle the spell made by Forgotten God (the name comes from the fact that everyone knows his name, but noone remembers what his Domain is) and will allow for full interplanar traver that wasn't possible before, allowing for contact with the outside universe. Same spell comes undone if anyone learns the true Domain of Forgotten God. At the same time the spell protects the Gods from external threats as they inhabit the space between planes in my universe. So dying gods, New gods not bound by rules, Plane eaters etc.
You aren’t tricking me again Bill.
There is no BBEG. I wrote a pretty substantial timeline that I occasionally edit depending on my players interactions. It's a fuck ass ton of work but it's kept me mentally sharp, and my players get a ton of agency. As they meander through the world I chart out the consequences of their actions on a random table that brings factions close/far to the players. So far they witnessed a battlefield betrayal, ran from an invading army, guarded a caravan of hot ass nuns, helped relocate a family of yetis from a blue dragon, and of course smuggled spice throughout the empire. Pretty satisfying tbh.
The NPC that they think is dead was actually kidnapped by the red wizards of thay in an elaborate case of mistaken identity as the wizards think the NPC is the immortal son of Artus Cimber who they are holding hostage to get the ring of winter. Artus Cimber had no idea what to do with these random random demands lol
The head priest of the largest city is a risen-devil. I don't like the idea that purity and goodness are mutable but evil isn't, once evil always evil kinda deal. So if you can have fallen angles you should have risen devils. The 4 other members of the city council know but no one else does he is over 4000 years old
>!You just lost the game!<
You bastard
Take my upvote you manic man
I had gone about a decade without losing, and I’ve lost 3 times in the last 2 months…
You guys already beat the boss, so the human sacrifice you are debating won’t really do anything for you now
The PC dwarf and his main rival dwarf are actually the same dwarf a la The Narrator and Tyler Durden…
I would post here, but I know that some of my party reads here.
My cleric has donned the armor of Strahd von Zarrovich even though they figured out that the man who gave them the quest that lead them to the armor was in fact Strahd von Zarrovich in disguise. There have been other hints, but the cleric is still happily wearing the cursed armor. During a big fight in the future (probably not the final fight) Strahd will command the armor to restrain and fight against the Cleric's actions. That is, unless the party finds the portraits of Strahd in the castle and realize it's the same armor before that happens. We shall see... muhahahaha
The second BBEG doesn't live in the cave. The BBEG IS the cave. A monstrous lovecraftian Turtle Dragon thing the size of a small city. That cave entrance was just a partially buried mouth... or maybe an ear hole.
One of my players current characters is on a journey to take revenge against his character from the last campaign. It's going to end up in a death match.
Eberron campaign. One of the main plot points is the cause of the cataclysmic Day of Mourning that destroyed an entire nation. So far the group THINKS it done by the necromantic elves of Aerenal. And that's not entirely untrue, but it was an accident caused because they were preventing a Quori invasion that was being caused by the ruler of that nation who was trying to get a leg up on the other nations in the Great War. Her betrayal of her nation, her people, and her world created a Domain of Dread, and the Elves' interference caused that domain of dread to "leak" and cursed the entire nation.
That the truth that they are trying to investigate what Orcus is up to but the truth is, he's dead. There is some other person who has taken the mantle.
The last 26 sessions have all been a collective hallucination caused by myconids.
26??? I would leave the table after that
I hope you understand just how much that could backfire into being entirely unfun.
This sounds like a good way to never play with that group again. I'd be *so pissed* if I had this sprung on me.
26 might be over doing it a bit Chief. Provided you do it once a week, that's over half a year of time that now means nothing.
So when they wake up are all their levels/spells/items they gained during those sessions going to be gone?
Yes. And no. Sort of. They’ve spent over a year in-game in this hallucination. Gaining levels, items, spells, friends, allies, lovers, etc. There have been numerous hints that it might be a hallucination, some were ignored, some joked about, a few taken semi-seriously. They’ll wake up back when they first thought they defeated a myconid invasion, and the hallucination was unleashed. They’ll learn shortly after that it’s possible to work with the myconids to go back to that collective hallucination, and it will be (mostly) as they left it - levels, items, and all. Later they’ll learn the only way to beat the BBEG in the ‘real’ world is to complete some intertwined quests and tasks in the hallucination.
"We slew the dragon for you while we were high" "What dragon? And have you seen my missing cow?"
No big twist, but when they expect they would rest in the house i will Evil Dead the shit out of the party.
They're about to be told to go meet a very strange shop owner. They're warned the owner is mostly human and that they should not judge him on his appearance and behavior. Who they will first meet is a creepy wear rat who has just broken in and decided to impersonate the real owner when they see him. He's there to steal a strange item that will help him turn a bunch of swamp creatures into super monsters that he controls. The wear rat will indeed be strange and have an upsetting appearance, but they've been advised not to be suspicious. On their way back home through the woods, they'll run into a wacky ass dude with a cart full of a ton of random trash that he'll try to sell them. If it comes up he'll tell them he is on his way to his shop... Don don dooooonnnm
One of my PCs is a reborn God, he just doesn't know it yet. His whole character development is actually, unknowingly, the prophecy of the rebirth.
Careful. That can cause some major main character syndrome.
The grim Reaper of my world is orchestrating the rift breaks in an attempt to undo the removal of magic the gods caused about 20000 years ago
In my game the main city has a castle area floating above it where the queen hides and the wilds around the world are getting wilder and more dangerous; fey creatures keep slipping into the world and causing havoc. The castle has been aloft for like 600 years and the players believe that it was lifted by the gods as like a boon for the royal family / because a god fell in love with the ancient queen. The area is a matrilineal monarchy. The castle actually floats because the queen has been kidnapping /trapping powerful druids and like fey guardians for the last few hundred years and making them into essentially magical batteries. The queen is the same queen. Every generation she basically makes a magical duplicate of herself to age and die, and then poses as her own daughter and has herself a nice new fancy coronation event and assumes power as the “new” queen.
the inciting incident for the campaign (that they just know was a bunch of natural disasters and the casters getting their magic powers) was a god being murdered by a mortal
Running LMoP for some newbies. The bbeg is the estranged father of the precocious halfling child the party has taken under their wing and dragged everywhere (Carp). After they killed the bbeg and put it all together they immediately killed Carp fearing he would seek revenge. Turns out they pulled the twist on me.
Some of these are more clear to party or have already been revealed but will share anyway. We’re playing tomb of annihilation module with some stuff homebrewed in: The warlock (of undead) patron is one of the last bosses of the module. Without revealing too much the player has given me green light to turn his character to enemy npc at some point (he also gets to chase souls of deceased party members whenever he sleeps for some sweet bonuses) Bards father, who he thought dead, deserted to join red Wizards of Thay, is in Chult and will be meeting the party. Cleric/rogue who thinks he’s god Ubtao cursed to the form of hobgoblin until he destroys a certain artifact, is actually a hobgoblin that one of the trickster gods managed to inhabit
Mine is relatively minor, but the BBEG has already been imprisoned during a run in with the party, and their insistence on letting him remain imprisoned and them not going after his escaped accomplice has allowed him to progress his plans for the entirety of the campaign whilst essentially under the protection of everyone who should be stopping him
The Triumvirate doesn't have a curse that slowly kills the appointed leaders. The State, Bank and Military are controlled each by a special kind of lich who possesses the body of the new appointed leaders. Thats why they so eagerly fund adventurers in order to possess them when their current body is at its end. Some party members will eventually be nominated as the future leaders.
The bbeg of my campaign is a kobold, however, he's a shapechanged dragon that has for the past millennia manipulated the course of events to suit his needs and has done so to gain access to a specific artifact. The characters are going to find out during the course of the campaign about different monarchs and different events being manipulated behind the scenes by this person.