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Shiki-pon
2015-04-02, 06:17 PM
Hello, Playgrounders.
I'm currently in need of help deciding events that led to the fall of a major country, and which likely have an effect on the present and future of the campaign (homebrew setting by the way, in the usual medieval europe-ish style), and at least on the past of one of my PCs. I've basically got two options that I've already thought of, the second of which is less developed due to me only having come up with it recently.
A bit of backstory which applies to both of my rough options: The country in question had a sizeable collection of different artifacts, which they mostly kept hidden both from others and their own people, sometimes using one in times of crisis (and trying to cover it up afterwards, of course). In both versions the country is destroyed by one of these artifacts.

Short versions of the events:
Version 1
Backstory: The then-king of the country finds a divine artifact on his travels, and fashions a multi-purpose magic item to harness its power, bringing prosperity to his country (the magic item functioning only for those of royal blood or some kind of item made to control it). Several years later, his daughter gives birth to two bastards with what is basically an enemy warlord. Long story short, once the king discovers the children's father, he snaps and kills his daughter, raising his grandchildren under abuse and so on. Over time, the king comes to regret his actions, going mad with guilt (and taking his psychological pressure out on his grandchildren).
Fast forward several years, and the children's father comes to invade the country, using revenge for his lover's death as pretext (he actually wants the aforementioned magic item, which a third party told him about). At the start, the invaders seem to be winning, and actually get close to the country's capital. The tide begins to turn when the king starts using the magic item to manufacture superior weapons for his side (or somehow otherwise uses it give his side an edge). As both sides muster for what will be the final battle, one of the king's grandchildren manages to sneak out into the enemy camp, and meets his father (during this foray, the other grandchild is probably sent somewhere safe, probably by some more caring member of the court). Judging him to be better than the king, he tries to dissuade his father from entering a battle he can't win. His father refuses, but tells him about the magic item when discussing his goals, or flat out asks the kid to do something about it.

Destruction caused by: The kid manages to get back to the palace, finds the magic item, and decides to destroy it, driven to desperate measures in order to prevent his father from dying. Either the item responds to his royal blood or he pinches the controlling item, and commands the item to self-destruct. The magic item goes haywire, trying to destroy the divine artifact at its core by using its own power against itself, and the fallout basically wipes out the capital and its surroundings, taking down most of the king's army and the king himself. The kid himself is protected just by being in the item's immediate surroundings, no-one else was quite so lucky.
The kid's father eventually finds the remains of the magic item, along with his child. Instead of reaching out to the kid, he instead orders his troops to consolidate on the magic item, not caring for anything besides it. Out of pity, he has some of his men escort his child to the nearest town that survived the cataclysm.

Future plots: Later on, the kid is secreted away by a benefactor. He still holds a grudge against his father for basically not giving a **** about him, only caring for the magic item, and plots revenge. This would eventually bring him into contact with PCs. The magic item would also come into play later, as the father who captured it for himself tries to get it reactivated (he did not know he needed the controlling item and/or isn't of the correct royal line), and other villains might try to get their hands on it as well.

Version 2
Backstory: The then-king, during his travels, somehow becomes romantically involved with the goddess of the dead (not evil, but kind of a jerk, at least in the present). For some time, the goddess (more likely her avatar) lives with king in his palace, and eventually bears him two children. Their life continues as a family for a while, but the king starts acting unhinged. He discovers what is basically an ancient prophecy pertaining to the goddess, and drives her away (in the rough idea of the events, he'd also somehow manage to steal the goddess' eye in the process, to serve more or less the same purpose as the magic item in the first version). He pretty much falls into abuse mode on his children in this version as well, not daring to outright kill them in fear of angering their mother further (the goddess would most likely be prevented from taking direct action due to the rules that gods follow in the setting unless her kids got killed, in which case she could retaliate...). The eye would be sealed away in the country's artifact vaults.

Destruction caused by: The country would once again be invaded, although in this case the invader's identity is largely irrelevant. I haven't worked out the details yet, but either one of the children gets injured enough to give the goddess pretext to act, or something happens to the eye in the vaults (possible someone coming into physical contact with it might be enough). Either way, the country is ravaged by the ensuing cataclysm, but the goddess' children are spirited away by her.

Future plots: One of the children would most likely try to get revenge on the goddess for the whole destruction thing, probably enlisting the PCs to help them in the endeavor. This would neatly tie in to my plan of making the goddess into a decoy BBEG (she is actually more or less what is holding the actual BBEG imprisoned), so it would work out pretty smoothly for me, at least once I figure out the kinks in the story...

As a side note, the king going insane in both versions is somewhat justified by outside factors, which would at the very least make him more susceptible to going nuts. There's also a lot more going on behind the scenes in both versions, but laying them out would only serve to make the explanations more convoluted.
I'd like to hear your opinions on which story seems better (and obviously other critique and/or ideas are somewhat welcome). If you have actual full suggestions for other ways this can go down, I'm of course open to those too, although certain events need to happen regardless of what else happens:
- the country is devastated, making most of it unlivable or outright deadly (more or less thinking of a deadly wasteland)
- the country is invaded, and the invasion coincides with the destruction (this the PC whose past is involved with the country refuses to budge on, so...)
- some members of the royal family survive (at least two, preferably the children so they won't be in their fifties in present time = 15-ish years later) and are secreted away by a benefactor (the identity is not important) - in addition, for character reasons it would be neat if one the survivors could be or is to blame for the destruction.
Thanks in advance for your answers, and sorry for the walls of text...

Keltest
2015-04-02, 06:38 PM
Personally I would go for the first one. Besides being more fleshed out, my experience is that direct deity versus mortal conflict generally ends poorly for the DM. Theres no especially effective way to make a god encounter seem remotely fair. The first one also gives the characters much more, well, character. The surviving son is responsible for destroying the land. The invader guy is power hungry but not completely heartless. Theres an interesting dynamic, and ultimately the PC's goals are fluid enough that the adventure could go to a lot of interesting places.

Gritmonger
2015-04-02, 09:39 PM
Agreed, keep it mortal.


Father/King is obsessed with making his kingdom better. He turns to the various artifacts (relics of a battle fought long before this age by armies long forgotten, they are semi-intelligent, and attempt to respond to somebody "of the blood" of that former species of combatants - the king happens to share this blood). It is partly due to the artifacts themselves calling to this ancestry that makes him want to use them - they are twisting each-other. Other king/warlord is from the "other" side in this war - so the Father/King reacts viscerally when his daughter has a dalliance with this enemy king, partly due to the artifacts rejecting what the daughter carries.

When his grandchildren are born, they are of a mix of these bloods - the artifacts don't know how to react. So when son goes to deactivate/sabotage, the artifact or artifacts lash out, but can't bring themselves to harm somebody even partially of the blood, and deactivate themselves rather than betray either purpose. The warlord, being of enemy blood, can't cause the artifacts to reactivate, and eventually must seek out his discarded brood as the only ones even marginally capable of reawakening the artifacts.

Shiki-pon
2015-04-03, 03:38 AM
Alrighty then, the first one seems to be more popular. Couldn't really think of how to fit the second idea, though cool, into my campaign world well enough anyway (the destruction part being the problem). I suppose it needs to be said that because of reasons, the goddess of the dead isn't actually a god in anything but a name, making it slightly more feasible to actually fight her.
Gritmonger's idea is good, but thanks to my players being a bit on the thick side when it comes to plot developments, I feel as though the situation in your case would require quite a bit of explaining and doesn't seem as clear-cut... Although I might as well save it for a possible future campaign, the concept seems pretty interesting.