Idea: have each player make a character in whatever TTrpg they want. Have a one on one session with each of them discussing backstory and stuff they want to see in the world. Call it a session -1.
For session 0 have every body introduce their character and run a quick scene where the world ends.
After all those scenes everybody wakes up as their girl frame girls. (You can have them make the girls now or if you know them we'll enough hand them their characters). Insist the other RPG world never happened and you're done indulging their delusions.
Void tainted areas contain a jumble mix of the worlds you created with the girls in the session -1 . Harpies resemble characters from those worlds.
Give them a remember who you are move that if they succeed let's them do stuff from their original character for a scene in exchange for void.
If/when the cadre falls to the void you can continue the adventure in the worlds you initially created.
Since the beginning, mortal artifice has only had one aim: to stand against the storms and calamities of our world and say “no more”. Sure we get distracted trying to build a better mousetrap, your clockwork armies, your time controlling clocks and the like, but all if it is rooted in the desire to shield those we love from reality’s next ruinous blow.
... and in some cases, to hit back
-Cosimo, chief artificer in service to the Duke of Alanath
Looking for a subtly steampunk maritime adventure? One that begins with a little mystery and a rather daring con, moves on to dungeon delving, subterfuge, pirate raids and ends with a Pacific Rim style clash between a seamonster and a giant robot piloted by the party? You might not have been looking when you started reading but I bet you are now.
Campaign Start: The Duchy of Alanath is a beacon of progress towards the coming age, airships carrying cargo between most major settlements, advanced naval batteries defending the shore from pirates and worse, secret projects up in hidden mountain foundries that will forever tip the balance of power. , but the root of all this industry threatens to come to a grinding halt when the goods exchange in the Harbour of Breeker’s Bay threatens to turn into a riot.
Dispatched by benefactors with concerns about the market, or merely in town and caught up in all the chaos, the party will either have to get to the bottom of what’s caused this gridlock, or figure out a way to turn the crisis to their benefit, without getting taken advantage of by more shady characters looking to do the same. Regardless of where the party end up, they’ll eventually come into the service of a shadowy schemer with unintentionally heroic goals, who will set the party towards all manner of inadvertent good deeds before having them get to the bottom of the conspiracy at the heart of the duchy’s problems.
Early Game:
Preparations to sail out on the evening tide have been completely derailed when the party realizes the crew of the ship they were attempting to board have been slaughtered, and they’ve stumbled upon the killers in the midst of deposing of the bodies. These killers are no mere pirates, but a cult of cuthroats from the deep who’re looking to intimidate local smugglers and pirates into obedience.
Follow a trail of on-land drownings to discover a merfolk priestess cutting her way through the duchy’s exotic animal dealers. Her niece has been kidnapped for a noble’s menagerie, but does rescuing a child really condone such savage methods?
The party’s patron sees a means of getting close to their target, a fretful and oft distracted duke, by hunting a great beast that’s marauding around the borders of his territory. This hunt goes a bit awry when the beast crashes into an ancient ruin hidden beneath the surface of a lake, which the party will need to explore if they want to deliver a killing blow to their target.
Mid Game
A ship of famed treasure hunters has beached itself miles up the coast, the crew scattering to the winds. After delving the wreck and tracking down some of the sailors aboard, the party discover that they defiled an altar to an ancient sea goddess, and now a monster from the depths is due to hit the nearby port any day now.
Break up a fight between two of the Duke’s most trusted advisors, an arcanist and an artificer, and then escort the artificer on an expedition to some far off ruin under mysterious pretenses. This is the party’s best chance to discover what the Duke’s secret project really is.
Foil an assassination attempt against their patron, Racing against time to save his life and track down the source of the attack. Even if the party manage to pull him back from death, they’ll need to seek out a great act of healing or alchemy to permanently undo the damage.
Throughout their adventure, the party will be hounded by the Duke’s all seeing spymaster, a woman with strange powers and an undying loyalty to her liege. Do the party take her out to fulfill their objectives, or can they convince her that their actions are innocent, and earn a powerful ally in the process?
Late Game
Infiltrate a massive, hidden foundry high in the mountains where a titan sized construct is being assembled piece by piece. A kingdom destroying weapon in the wrong hands, the party will face a difficult choice in joining with the duke’s forces to see the construct completed, halting its progress through sabotage, or finding a means of triggering a meltdown in the robot’s arcane engines.
Hitting the self-destruct button on the giant robot might be a bad idea, as the arcane energies that gave the thing both power and defence, once destabilized, will tare a hole through the fabric of reality and give the party many more problems to deal with than just a petty duke and his tin soldier.
Surprise Surprise! That cult that was chopping up sailors back at the start? Turns out they’ve managed to lure a kaiju into working with them, a terrifying beast that’s capable of summoning tsunami-level tidal waves, meaning it’s capable of levelling coastal ports but attacking any settlement connected to the duchy’s central waterways. If the party has been paying attention to the signs of this cult’s escalating threat, they may be able to convince the power players of the campaign to work together to defeat this beast... if not, the party might’ve just sabotaged their primary means of fighting back against it.
I've got a campaign idea that I think is pretty solid. A powerful djinn sponsoring a sort of Great Race/Scavenger Hunt through several planes of existence. The problem is, that's all I've really got. Is the djinn planning something more nefarious? How can I still incorporate the sort of city exploration that I so dearly love? I've got no idea! Please help!
Campaign: Keys to the City
“In accordance with his ancient oaths and the love of his people, the great and deathless Sultan invites all champions of the realm and its tributaries to join him in the City-Beloved-by-Night. There, on the eleventh moonrise after this announcement, a great challenge will begin, a chance for the most worthy to be showered in riches and honours beyond their wildest imaginings. Glory to the great and deathless Sultan, Glory to the City-Beloved-by-Night“
-Proclimation read out across the eight affiliated worlds
Once thought of as a place of myth, the dusk shrouded metropolis of Hal’daje has become a thriving centre of trade and imperial majesty after it was discovered by the djinn Hammurabi and his warband as they gallivanted across the planes. They took the city as their own, and used its portal gates of unblemished ivory to strike out to distant worlds, undertaking journeys, fighting battles, and making wondrous discoveries that are still sung of to this day. It has been six centuries since Hammurabi declared himself sultan of the mystical city, and through careful alliance, fellowship, and in some cases conquest, eight worlds have bowed to him, and set Hald’aje as the centre of their empire.
Known to be magnanimous as he is fearsome, it appears Hammurabi’s latest attempt to charm his people is the biggest and best yet. The challenge works like this: Hammurabi has scattered nine keys across his eightfold empire, each one hidden in a place related in some way to his own glorious history with that world. Each key corresponds to a door in a specially constructed vault and a fabulous reward hidden behind it.. with Hammurabi giving announcing a hint as to where the next key is located in a ceremony as part of accepting the previous key. Many however whisper of discontent through the “affiliated” worlds, and that this stunt is just another in long series of ploys to win over those realms that chafe under the Sultan’s authority.
Adventure Hooks:
If the party are a bunch of low level nobodies who wouldn’t qualify for a invitation, they might start the adventure off on one of the eight affiliated worlds as a group of hirelings for one of the champions who happens to be searching for a key in their back yard. Said champion was intending to use the party as cannon fodder but ends up getting mulched by the very same defences he sought to avoid. With their employer dead and a key in hand, it’s just a matter of the party making their way to Hal’daje and presenting their key at the palace gate in order to obtain an audience with the Sultan and be made champions by default.
Alternately, a high level party might receive an invitation all their own, especially if they’re a daring crew of spelljammers who’ve made a name for themselves hopping across the eight affiliated worlds and wildspace beyond. This gives your party a great buildaround during party formation ( who’s who on the crew) and lets you include a bunch of fun space-based adventuring along with your treasure hunt
Finally, if you feel like your group is of a more... skullduggerous persuasion, perhaps have them be a gang of criminals who happen to live in the shadows of the City Beloved by Night, suddenlypresented with an opportunity to steal a key and get a great fortune when one of the champions decides to play dirty and use the party to mess with their competition.
Setup: If I was running this campaign ( which I just might) I’d start the narrative after two or three of the keys had already been claimed, which not only cuts down on the number of side adventures that need to be performed, but also applies a sense of urgency. Likewise, there’s nothing stopping the party ( or their rivals) from seeking out keys that haven’t been hinted at yet, meaning that some clever detective work will allow them to sidestep the other compeditors and start looking for keys on their own (going from a linear relay to a much larger game of capture the flag).... with atleast one rival coming in mid way through the campaign having jumped and stolen the 6th or 7th key.
Now, what is all this for? Well as it turns out Hal’daje was originally a terrestrial metropolis in the ancient, near forgotten past, one that was doomed to perish under a blood covered dawn when a prophesied destroyer arrived to raze the city and devour its rulers. As the appointed hour approached the people cried out for divine aid, which was awnsered by the goddess Nyx, who hid the city under a shroud of darkness and opened portals into other worlds that the populace might evacuate. There the city lingered, frozen on the edge of destruction, until it was found by Hammurabi, with the djinn only discovering the prophecy over a century after he had claimed the title of sultan for himself. Now bound by prophecy, the clever conqueror contrived a plan to dip out on his destined doom by shunting it off to someone else at the last moment, the ultimate prize of his competition being the throne of Hal’daje, with an oath of office secretly baked into the acceptance ceremony he makes each champion swear before claiming their prize.
Hammurabi announced the competition when the first signs of Nyx’s protection began to fade, and has been packed and ready to go ever since with a small jammer-ship fleet packed with the best of the treasury and his closest conspirators. As soon as one of the champions (likely one of the party members) sits the throne, he’ll be off without a word, leaving the people of the City Loved by Night to stagger through a sudden regime change while more and more signs of the end begin to manifest.
Further Adventures:
A few of the worlds ruled over by the sultan have suffered from the same doom that now approaches Hal’daje which the players may encounter on their travels, including one which bears a city sized crater hollowed out a millennia or so ago on a day of great darkness. If the party are paying attention ( and maybe visit a great library) they may be able to notice their ultimate foe before it crashes down upon them.
Even before the night-goddess’s protection began to fade, Hammurabi couldn’t have anyone know that his great metropolis was going to be flattened by a sun eating dragon-god. To this end, he created a group of assassins and iconoclasts to move secretly through his realm destroying evidence and historical accounts under the guise of creating pro-sultanate propaganda. Only a few circles know of this group’s existence, referring to them as “the silencers” without ever truly understanding what exactly is being silenced by their actions. Should the party learn to much, it’s likely that a silencer agent will be dispatched to nudge them onto the right track.. possibly at the end of a poisoned knife.
Suffused with magic and cloaked in eternal dusk, the “city loved by night” is a site of pilgrimage for those faithful to Nyx and other gods of star and shadow who flock from across the multiverse to take part in the rites performed in the veiled temples scattered across the city and in the barrens beyond. As a side adventure while off on another world, a devotee of mother night asks the party to escort her to a distant shrine outside Hal’daje to help understand the troubling visions she’s been having of late. This will put them behind on their search for the next key, but their kindness will pay off second: For one, having a fledgling oracle on their side will let them receive more information on where the keys are, narrowing down their search and possibly letting them get a jump on unannounced keys. Second, Nyx will be better disposed towards them for helping one of her chosen daughters and will be looking out for them in matters of the ephemeral. Finally, This oracle will seek to warn the party about the doom approaching the city once the sultan is finally out of the picture.
Doesnt the Skyscour Clan feel like the sort to follow the Revolation Tyrant Mnyull? Or, rather, ride at his front...
Imagine the days leading up to impact, portals tearing onto unsuspecting planets, ships descending from the silver void, legions of untold number raiding whole wildspaces.
Then they suddenly scatter, with or without their prize, the star vikings and astral war boys clear out as if smoked like bees.
Only days, if even that, are given to the raided few before a cosmic armageddon makes impact.
Campaign: Shore of the Silver Sea
As this eagle eyed reader mentioned, there’s been a trend in my writing over the past few months, seemingly unconnected occurrences that herald something great and cosmic, the emergence of a new campaign to launch your parties from the beach of the mundane into the vast and wondrous depths of the astral sea.
Our Story begins as many do, in the aftermath of a great storm: With the party having only a few nights past taken shelter in a portside tavern known as the Long Walk, waiting out the rain and the wind in the traditional manner: sitting by the hearth with the other patrons as they listen to the old salts spin yarns. One of those patrons was fellow of the royal botany society, who was more than happy to hire the party on as guides and escorts as he explores and documents the flora of the coast. This intrepid ( if a bit tepid) expedition rapidly heats up as the party stumble across a hidden cove and the fresh wrecks of two ships, one civilian, one royal navy, cast far from the sea and left without survivors.
This discovery leads the party to getting caught up in a silent tug-of-war between the navy and a secretive faction of smugglers, with one wrong decision ( likely them filling their packs with plundered goods) ending the party up on the wrong side of the law. On their way back to town however, the party watch as a light falls from the sky over the barony, forever changing their fates as they return to a realm that’s been touched by the stars.
Early Game
One of the tall tales told by the sailors at the Long Walk was of a marauding reaver king who invoked the ire of the sea god, who in turn brought down a wave so mighty that it smashed the reaver’s fleet to splinters and buried him in the rubble of his own castle. Buried so they say.. along with all the treasure he had taken from raiding richer ports... and while the story is likely exaggerated... it wouldn’t hurt to go take a look, would it?
Strange rumours trickle in from the hinterlands, odd folk on the roads, sightings of unnatural animals, talk of a cave where whispers of the past and imagined tomorrows dance. All of these threads will lead the party to a meeting with a potential mentor, an old lighthouse keeper who holds the mystery of the stars and stands against the cold cruelty of the void. Perhaps he can shed some illumination on the party’s current struggles
The star’s falling has caused chaos in the region’s capital: an arson spree, the baroness forcefully conscripting oracles, sightings of a dragon out in the wilderness. Trekking along with a professional hunter, the party discover that they are not on the tale of some feral drake looking to move into new territory, but a full dragon who seems to be purposefully searching the region with the help of a masked rider.
As it turns out, the dragon and rider are travellers from the astral sea, pilgrims following an omen from the goddess of guidance and starlight. They followed the star across worlds until it landed in the barony, and was eventually misplaced by a hapless young man rounded up by the baroness’s agents shortly after becoming an accidental oracle and asking the party for help earlier on their travels. Reuniting the star with its chosen seekers grants the party a vision of the future, of an attack they will not have time to avert.
Mid Game
Hollowed out by eons of immortality and war, a clan of astral elves has ripped open a portal and begun raiding the original port city the party started their adventure in, snapping up goods and taking hostages. Here is a decision point: should the party rush to save the innocents before help can be raised, they will be overwhelmed, taken captive and hauled away to the raider’s stronghold. Should they rally their new allies and arrive in force, they will be too late, and will have to seek out another means of travelling beyond the reaches of the waking world.
In the latter option, the party will find themselves portalling to Lydestrum, a city of glass floating in an eternal gyre of mist and wind, and the hub of their outerworld adventures. Here they might begin their search for the pirates by seeking rumors at the alien filled docks, make an alliance with local powers by helping to wrangle some storm-tossed architecutre, or simply sign on to a spelljammer ship and begin to learn their space-legs.
The bright maiden Urania is not the only goddess at work among the stars, for as the party explore the city they hear the name and see the handiwork of Nyx, Mother of Primordial Darkness. Catching a night blessed thief is enough to earn the party Nyx’s attention, who decides to rope the party into a little wager involving her astronomic counterpart and the disaperance of a sacred lantern before an imporatant voyage.
After meeting an artisan who can make marvelous weapons out of light, the party end up getting snared in local politics after this new friend is kidnapped from their shop. The trail leads them into conflict with blackmarket dealers from the plane of exiles and getting mixed up with the glass city’s political powers.
Tangling with the astral sea’s criminal element may have just paid off, as the party have managed to snag themsleves a star-chart pointing to what just might be the haul of a lifetime: The long abandoned manor of an archmage hidden in the vastness of the silver sea. What they find instead is a labyrinth of nightmare and splendour and fungus, which just might hold power and secrets that will aid them as the campaign closes.
One of the expeditions sailing out of the star port has its aim on discovering the much speculated origin of an eerie signal coming from a haunted nebula. As luck would have it, this happens to be a regional base of the elven pirates who attacked the party’s homeworld, who destroy the ship they’re travelling on, capture their companions, and leave the party stranded in the frigid barrens of a meteor field. Searching for shelter, they find the origin of the signal: the partial wreck of a long abandoned jammership still attempting to deliver its message. With a little elbow grease and some ghostly aid, the party can take this ship as their own, bring vengeance against he pirates, and begin hunting for the villains who set this all in motion.
Late Game
The party’s enemies are not simply slavers and pirates, they are recent converts to the following of Mnyull the revelation tyrant, a god of interplanetary conquest. He has tasked the rabid immortals with the reunification of their long scattered army, and the reactivation of the ancient weapon they were once tasked with guarding, a labour to which many including the party’s old friends have been put to work. If Mynull’s plan comes to completion, whole systems will be forced to submit, and if the party can bring evidence of this to their allies in Lydestrum, they may just have a chance to fight the pirate fleet on equal terms.
Fighting an army is one thing, defeating a god is another, and so the party are counselled to seek out the great celestial sage who makes weapons at the star-goddess’s behest. Therein the party must undertake a sea-spanning quest to gather the materials necessary to withstand their struggle: Venturing into shadowed vaults within the core of a moon-sized forge, seeking out the most dangerous and beautiful of lights at the edge of known space.
The Revelation Tyrant cares nothing for the fate of his pawns, merely that victory is achieved in his name, and so has planted the same vision of supremacy into the Skyscour elves as he did the leaders of Lydestrum. The idea of a weapon that could strike far away worlds, tribute and glory delivered by subjugated neighbours, a threat to that glory by a challenger from afar and the need to strike before that challenge is made. No matter who wins the battle, Mnyull benefits from the outcome, as the leader of the victorious force will be struck by further visions and ascend as the Tyrant’s physical avatar.
The Party will be hunted, possibly by former allies, into the depths of wildspace, unable to return home lest they single out their humble world as a target for the weapon. In that lonely and desperate moment the goddess will appear to them: Nyx, merciful but resigned will offer them a shroud, a means of hiding their world from Mnyull’s sight and sparing themselves the conquest others will doubtlessly suffer provided they give up sailing the astral sea forever. Bright Urania offers them a chance, a divinely ordained heading to slip back around their pursuers, back past the fleet they helped to provision and the weapon they ensured would be completed, and right to the foot of the tyrant’s throne. It is only a chance though, no guarantee they can pull it off without loss and sacrifice, no guarantee that they will win in the end.
We all know what the party will choose, Nyx does too, and when the heroes jet off to go on their suicide mission they’ll do so with the ancient goddess working from the shadows to turn aside the eyes of wary sentries. She’s had a cold, dark vault beyond the boundaries of reality picked out for Mnyull for quite some time. She just needed him to make the mistake of incarnating himself in one place so she could stick him in there all at once.
Taking place in a snowy land ruled by faith and riven with injustice, this campaign is a chivalric tale about a group of people who find themselves with the power to change a broken system just as that very same system crashes down around their heads.
Our setting is the Abladed Lands, union of small crusader kingdoms carved out of pagan wilderness by a number of zealous holy orders who used their devotion to the goddess of civilization as an excuse to claim territory for themselves and force the native inhabitants of that land into serfdom.
More than a century since this conquest, The Abladed lands have grown increasingly unstable as the last of these holy orders tighten their grip on a rebellious populace, all while the bishop who ostensibly governs these patchwork territories seeks an ancient power that will let him rule uncontested.
Onto this stage stumbles our heroes, travellers who’ve stopped off in a grand cathedral located in the high wilderness on their way to whatever business they once had. After doing a favour for one of the priests and delving a series of catacombs, the group ends up involved in a murder mystery that brings the tensions of the region to light. From there, with their reputations earned, it’s just a matter of where the party wants to go next:
To Barbaric Frontier of Deolimar, where an aging warlord uses a hunt against a marauding beast to try and forestall the divine reckoning of his crimes.
To Wartorn Jaatisbaine, where rebelling peasants clash against squabbling nobles, and roving gangs of bandits maraud across the land.
To the Capital of Volskolt, rich in trade an opportunity, only to be waylaid by a marauding frost giant and a waylaid huntress making her last stand
Out to the Rimebough Forest where the pagans and rebels hide, a holy order using the disappearance of a royal heir to launch an inquisition against them.
Wherever the party go they will accrue glory and upset the tenuous order imposed by zealots, slowly earning the favour of both the people and perhaps earning themselves status as champions of the realm. Players might even earn the favour of the ancient spirits of the land, or the goddess of order herself, who would see this oppressive structure broken down and rebuilt by more dependable hands.
Such blasphemy and rebellion will not be tolerated by the Bishop Prince of Jaatisbaine, who will unleash an army of long buried horrors in the hopes of purifying the Ablated lands and securing his power. To Defeat him, the party will need to martial their allies, and perhaps even venture to the fey besieged court of the last pagan king, and then to the furthest north to the mythical city of the aurora in order to defeat the Ancient threat unleashed by the Bishop’s pride.
If you'd be so kind, may I request a sword and sorcery styled romp? Ancient forbidden magics, treasure, evil cults, etc~ I plan on trying this out for a potential upcoming session
Mini Campaign: The Bastard's Wish
Whether it ends in triumph or ruin, it’s of no doubt the bards will sing of this tale till the end of their days.
Our story begins in a wholesome and peaceful kingdom, entertaining an embassy from a neighboring land to discuss terms of trade and potential alliance. The party play as significant figures (champions, courtiers head knights, children of ruling monarchs) who have been enlisted in recent years by a knindly wizard known as Edarth the Enduring to use their influence to mend the rift between these two quarreling nations. These are fine days full of promise for a brighter future, at least until a shadow comes creeping in: an army of marauders led by Malzaat Felhand, a warlord of the forsaken lands who has decided today of all days to lay siege to the party’s home.
The warlord has taken the kingdom’s defenders unaware by opening a hellmouth on the outskirts of a nearby village, marching his soldiers through this living portal of fire and fangs to march on the fortress where the embassy was taking place. Malzaat’s goal? the Wizard Edarth and the staff of ancient power he has guarded since the fall of the previous age, which he hopes to turn to some foul and disastrous purpose. The party rallies, but with innocents and nobles to protect and only a small garrison to support them they are stretched too thin to prevent the warlord from cutting down the wizard and retrieving his prize.
A horn sounds and the marauders retreat carrying off what valuables and hostages they can, tired and blooded the party creep through the wreckage to find a number of their friends and loved ones slain, and their mentor soon to join them. In his dying moments, Edarth entrusts the party to seek out Malzaat and retrieve his staff, break it if need be, for the power it commands could lay waste to kingdoms or let the warlord set himself up as a tyrant. With this last request and a few whispered words of goodbye, the wizard sets the party to their quest, and leaves the fate of their homeland in their hands.
Adventure Hooks:
To travel to the forsaken lands, the party must venture out past the outskirts of their kingdom, over a haunted mountainside, and through a swamp of ancient magics, all the while overcoming the hazards of the wilderness and the supernatural dangers lurking in their path.
The closer they get to Malzaat’s home the more they must contend with his spies and agents: desperate souls who would seek a reward from the warlord, or beasts bewitched by him to serve as his eyes. Being discovered in their task means having Malzaat throw more obstacles at them through more hellmouths, just marauders at first but later various monsters dredged up from the depths of the swamp or raised from the pits of hell.
Throughout their travels the heroes begin to receive visions of a youth beset by phantasmal demons, thrashing as one would in a nightmare and calling out for aid. Through dreams and vision pools, the youth calls out to the heroes, giving them advice on where they must go, and cryptic hints to overcome the challenges they must face. This youth must be one of the captives taken by the marauders, using some psychic gift to reach out to the heroes for aid.
Setup: Malzaat’s mother was once the general of a great kingdom, exiled to the forsaken lands along with her loyalists after committing unspeakable cruelties in an attempt to win the war she’d been tasked with fighting. Filled with wrath and regret over her apparent “betrayal”, her darkening soul attracted the attention of a demon of the wastes, who offered the fallen general power enough to carve out her own little kingdom, if only she would do so in his name.
Neither expected this compact to eventually become a dalliance, or the birth of a half-fiendish child to follow, but between them the two had a cruel, villainous sort of love that seemed suited for the forsaken lands they made their home in.
Their child however did not have such a happy existence, brought up by his mother to glorify strength and hate weakness, the young Malzaat grew to detest his mortal half, wishing he could be a full fiend like his immortal and oft-absent father. It took decades for him to gather power, first serving as his mother’s right hand as the captain of the marauders her loyalists had become, then leading them himself after her death. With a small army at his beck and call, Malzaat roved far and wide, gathering more and more power but always searching for a means to overcome his mortality.
His attempts were less than successful, culminating in a ritual bastardized from blood-stained scrolls he’d stolen while looting a temple. Malzaat did manage to cleave his mortal essence from himself but the end result left him as a half-there thing, wraithlike form and malicious intent. Diminished but unwilling to return to mortality, Malzaat set about looking for a means of true transcendence, which eventually led him to a marvelous palace where dreams becomes take physical form, at least within its illusion choked grounds. Using Edarth’s staff, the warlord hopes to turn these phantasms tangeable, to make his idealized, all powerful fiendish body a reality even if he has to break a part of the world to do it.
Should Malzaat’s plan succeed, it’s not only an incarnated greater demon the realms will need to worry about. With staff in hand and possessing the ability to bring his imaginings to life, the warlord would create ever more dangerous weapons and warriors until he ruled all the realms or shattered reality under his feet. This is a scenario the heroes must avert at all cost.
Challenges & Complications
If they anger him enough, Malzaat will ride out to challenge the party himself, potentially opening a hellmouth and stranding them in some desolate realm buying himself time as he forces them to fight their way back to the mortal world. The tide may turn however and as heroes manage to cut the villain down, only to see his wraithlike form begin to recorperate over a matter of minutes, angrier than before, seemingly unkillable. This turns any confrontation with the half-fiend into a game of keepaway, putting as many barriers and as much distance as possible between them and the murderous shade as possible before they manage to tire.
Malzaat’s mortal essence didn’t just disappear, as the ritual he used was originally intended as a means of excorissm fiendish influence from a person’s body. And so there is a boy, perhaps thirteen years old, the embodiment of all Malzaat’s weakness, frailty, innocence, and anything else the warlord hated about himself. The half-fiend would have long disposed of him, save for the fact that any harm done to the youth is felt by his wraithlike form, leading him to fear that should the boy die, his blackened soul would depart right along with him. The boy, Taz, sleeps, not having strength to wake save for small periods, but as he does so his mind blends with the dreaming essence of the palace that is his prison, allowing him to reach out into the unconscious minds of others, growing clearer as they near the palace itself. He tries to warn the heroes of Malzaat’s seeming immortality, and tells them of a secret weapon hidden within the warlord’s fortress that they can use do permanently defeat him. ...... It turns out selflessness is one of those qualities Malzaat left with his better half, as Taz is aware that his death might be the only means of stopping his other-self’s wicked plans. He’ll keep the party in the dark for as long as possible until they manage to fight or sneak their way to his chamber, at which point he’ll explain the grim necessity that will allow them to save all the realms without having to fight Malzaat directly.
Far older than he seemed, the wizard Edarth was once a student of a titan named Tourmal, from whom he inherited his staff after the giant was slain by another. Tourmal’s other students took a far darker path, becoming a coven of blood-mad oracles that the party will doubtlessly stumble over the course of their quest. Should the coven learn of their mission ( and why wouldn’t they, they’re oracles after all), they’ll offer to provide insight to the party provided they swear a binding oath to give the staff over to them once they’ve retrieved it. They’ll also warn them about a bit of subterfuge on the old wizard’s part: Breaking the staff will unleash its power, annihilating the one who did it as well as anyone standing nearby. Wouldn’t such a dangerous object be better out of the hands of the ignorant, and in the hands of those who’s only goal is to look further and further into the future?
Something this anon has wanted to explore many a time- an adventure wherein traditionally 'evil' creatures go through a reverse dungeon crawl- escaping the fortress in order to desert the Dark Lord's armies!
Campaign Starter: From Under the Shadow
No where to go but up
Setup: More than a mere underdark fortress, Ykandri’s Shackle is a marvel of engineering and hubris that only the Duergar could have managed. Filled with visions of industry and conquest, the architects tasked with building a simple lift through a miles long fissure through the world below let their ambitions sprawl, becoming a make-work project for their subterranean empire and a monument to the pride of their succession of dour and powermad rulers.
Like any expansionist Military power, the Duergar of the “Great-Chain” conscript their defeated foes and societal rejects to do the worst of the labor, toiling away to expand the warrens supporting the Shackle or fending off the beasts of he dark vastness that infest the surrounding caverns. This is where we find our party, the lowest of the low, captives bound together by their mutual desire for escape.
Adventure Hooks:
While freedom is their primary goal, the party must keep up appearances and thier first mission will be a crawl through an mine and adjoining excavation site that has recently become infested with underdark pests. This will give them a chance to show off their characters and you an opportunity to hammer home just how miserable life on the Shackle really is. What’s more, having them return victorious and then being forced to hand over their gear and trophies under threat of lashes will set up great minor taskmaster/guards villains that they can avenge themselves against on the way out.
Have them plan their escape like a heist, rolling out a hastily drawn sketch of the Shackle standing between them and nearby underdark portals. Lay out what sidetasks they may need to perform or challenges they’ll need to overcome to get the resources they’ll need for their escape.
While preparing for their great escape, the party hear whisperings of some tumult among the upper ranks of the Clan’s hierarchy, something to do with a prisoner and the overreach of the notoriously wicked spymaster. Leadership may shuffle from time to time but the lot of those captive in the Shackle never does. “ Different Boot, Same Neck” goes the saying... at least it does until a blinding burst of divine light suffuses the fissure and a band of high-level heroes from the surface world come to rescue that prisoner and bring the Tyrants of the Great Chain down in the process. Pull this trigger before your party is fully ready to escape, or just as things go righteously wrong after they’ve decided to attempt a more risky escape. It’ll be clear they need to get out while the getting’s good, now having to sprint through a warzone rather than sneak through a prison.
Portals in the underdark are tricky things, leading an escaping party to all manner of potential locales ( that they may might not know ahead of time unless they stole the right information). Maybe they’ll end up in a disused mine on the outskirts of a city of new beginnings, a far cavern trading post with fortunes waiting to be made, a friendly settlement of exiles and make their reputation while defending its swampy borders. Perhaps somewhere even more strange?
Operation of the Shackle: The Shackle was built to ferry supplies, thralls, and soldiers en-mass across the great altitudes of the fissure, a task that could otherwise take days of marching or carting and be equivalent to descending a tall mountain. Instead, cargo is loaded from one level into an adjoining fortified platform attached to the great chain, which is raised as the other side decends, until it comes level with another platform. Cargo from one is loaded into the other, and then the mechanism reverses, sending the first platform down while the second platform ascends the way it came. By this way are the Shackle’s contents moved where they need to go by way of an overly elaborate, two way bucket chain, a process important to know should the party seek to escape their current level, or later should they wish to return to the site of their imprisonment and raid its ruins.
Future Adventures:
During the hatching of their escape plan, the party are slipped a few vital supplies by a drider merchant who did a little black market business on the shackle and took a shine to them in the process. Delighted to find the party no worse for ware ( despite possibly hopping dimensions) and that they’re now in a position to afford his more exclusive stock, the drider will be happy to send them on missions to fill their pockets then sell them things to empty them again.
The Party and their favorite spider boy aren't the only survivors of the Shackle, as one of the mercenary captains hired to keep order in the prison fortress has made it out with a newly formed legion of followers, and is interested in carving out a new territory for himself that just so happens to include the party’s new home.
It’s inevitable that the party left unfinished business on the Shackle, and some time into their adventures they may feel the call to return to their one time prison/home. Thoroughly in shambles after the heroes hit it with everything they had, the seat of empire has now become a patchwork of warlords fighting over the remnants of power, with vast stretches inhabited by the beasts of underdark attracted by the slaughter. Bonus points if the party runs into the pests they first fended off in the mines, grown in size, threat and swarming number without their population being culled.
