Have some seeds for a campaign, but don't know where to go from here

[Super Evil User]

So I had this idea that was fermenting in my head for quite some time now and I really want to make something of it, but I lack the experience to do so.

Basically, we have these two factions who are on edge after a major incident between the two. It can be as small as two families in a village or as large as two petty kingdoms still reeling from an ill-fated war. Neither of the two is "wrong" or "right"; each has its own problems and also its own good points.

While neither of them are evil per se, they're both being manipulated by a guy who is. Using the town example, he can be the proprietor of the neutral tavern. Conversely, we can have a minor noble with a vast underworld empire of connections for the kingdom example. His end-goal is using his connections to incite a war, which his connections think they will profit off in some way.

His true motives are a lot more metaphysical. He's the only cultist of a god long-dead who wants to use the souls of those killed in war to resurrect himself. The setting's actually under this blanket soul-trap thingy that converts the souls of the dead into energy for that purpose. The cultist lord guy is using the war to "kick-start" things a bit, because he believes a good old fashioned war will provide just enough souls for the god to revive himself.

The PCs stumble upon this halfway through the campaign (possibly earlier) and have to choose between three options to stop him:

• Dismantle the soul-trap-thingy
• Stop the cultist guy somehow, possibly killing him
• Try to prevent another conflict

Could anyone help me?

[the_david]

This sounds a lot like Rise of the Runelords...

[Super Evil User]

This sounds a lot like Rise of the Runelords...

Rise of the what?

[Everyl]

It reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy 9, actually.

Spoiler: How it reminds me of FF9

Show

In FF9, the world has a pseudo-reincarnation system wherein the souls newly born people are drawn from a planetary life-force, and upon death, return to that pool of life-force. The villains have found a way to block souls from returning to the "pool" after death, resulting in the entire planet slowly dying over the course of hundreds of years. Once it's dead, they'll be able to safely transplant in the refugees of their own long-dead world, turning it into a copy of their lost home in its prime.

The similarity is that both plans rely on enough other people dying, and both would seem to work just as well through instigating conflict as through just waiting for enough people to die of natural causes. In FF9, the villains were trying to rush things along, since their plan took centuries to complete and one of the major villains is highly impatient.

The big question to me is, why would your villain be rushing things? It sounds like he has a pretty foolproof plan - just wait for enough people to die, then win. People die all the time, is he on some sort of time limit to see his plans work out? Getting involved in instigating conflict just raises the risk of someone catching on and trying to stop him, or even just of making enemies who would try to kill him anyway. It actually reduces his odds of success compared to just lying low and waiting for victory. Also, preventing further conflict wouldn't really solve the problem if the evil god gets resurrected when everyone dies of old age anyway.

A few quickly-brainstormed possibilities:
1. The god-reviving soul trap only works during a specific astrological alignment that happens once a lifetime or less. Evil Cultist Guy needs to get his soultrap charged up by then or he won't live to see his dark patron's return.
2. One or more loved ones of the Evil Cultist Guy are dying, and their conditions are beyond the power of mortal magic and medicine to fix. ECG hopes that the resurrected god will grant a miraculous cure for his loved ones, but he doesn't think they could be brought back from the dead, so it has to be done quickly. (I like this one, because it makes the villain a bit more sympathetic and three-dimensional, while still monstrous for his willingness to sacrifice thousands for a handful of people at most).
3. ECG is seeking immortality for himself, and trying to beat the ticking clock of his own failing health.

[Super Evil User]

It reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy 9, actually.

Spoiler: How it reminds me of FF9

Show

In FF9, the world has a pseudo-reincarnation system wherein the souls newly born people are drawn from a planetary life-force, and upon death, return to that pool of life-force. The villains have found a way to block souls from returning to the "pool" after death, resulting in the entire planet slowly dying over the course of hundreds of years. Once it's dead, they'll be able to safely transplant in the refugees of their own long-dead world, turning it into a copy of their lost home in its prime.

The similarity is that both plans rely on enough other people dying, and both would seem to work just as well through instigating conflict as through just waiting for enough people to die of natural causes. In FF9, the villains were trying to rush things along, since their plan took centuries to complete and one of the major villains is highly impatient.

The big question to me is, why would your villain be rushing things? It sounds like he has a pretty foolproof plan - just wait for enough people to die, then win. People die all the time, is he on some sort of time limit to see his plans work out? Getting involved in instigating conflict just raises the risk of someone catching on and trying to stop him, or even just of making enemies who would try to kill him anyway. It actually reduces his odds of success compared to just lying low and waiting for victory. Also, preventing further conflict wouldn't really solve the problem if the evil god gets resurrected when everyone dies of old age anyway.

A few quickly-brainstormed possibilities:
1. The god-reviving soul trap only works during a specific astrological alignment that happens once a lifetime or less. Evil Cultist Guy needs to get his soultrap charged up by then or he won't live to see his dark patron's return.
2. One or more loved ones of the Evil Cultist Guy are dying, and their conditions are beyond the power of mortal magic and medicine to fix. ECG hopes that the resurrected god will grant a miraculous cure for his loved ones, but he doesn't think they could be brought back from the dead, so it has to be done quickly. (I like this one, because it makes the villain a bit more sympathetic and three-dimensional, while still monstrous for his willingness to sacrifice thousands for a handful of people at most).
3. ECG is seeking immortality for himself, and trying to beat the ticking clock of his own failing health.

Oh, actually I had a reason for that.

ECG is a huge religious fanatic and doing it the "slow way" means that he runs the risk of dying before seeing his God come to life. War is the easiest way to ensure his place in his God's new world order.

[mr_odd]

Oh, actually I had a reason for that.

ECG is a huge religious fanatic and doing it the "slow way" means that he runs the risk of dying before seeing his God come to life. War is the easiest way to ensure his place in his God's new world order.

What if mass bloodshed is the only way souls could be collected? If one or two people die on a day, the souls are unusable, expire, not fresh, etc. But if hundreds die, then the souls could be harvested for a good old fashioned cult ritual.

[jqavins]

What if mass bloodshed is the only way souls could be collected? If one or two people die on a day, the souls are unusable, expire, not fresh, etc. But if hundreds die, then the souls could be harvested for a good old fashioned cult ritual.

I was thinking of something similar to this. The soul trap lets souls through, but slowly, so you might say they leak out. ECG needs a rapid inflow of souls to outpace the leakage by enough and for a long enough period to fill it up.

Or, only violent deaths work because it's that violent, destructive energy that is needed to fuel the revival magic.

Or what you already said about ECG wanting to see it complete before he dies is fine too.

OK, how about some nuts and bolts. I wasn't sure from the original post whether the three actions to stop the revival were the options you are considering for the setup, i.e. one of them will be the way that the PCs can succeed, or you intend that the PCs should choose between these three potentially successful plans. I would definitely make it the latter. Actually, PCs will always surprise you by thinking up something else, but these can be the ways that have potential and their other plans can be dead ends. (Or not, if they come up with some other good one; players are clever little buggers!)

How does killing ECG solve the problem? If the god will awaken once the tank is full then ECG is not needed. The PCs may think they've stopped him, only to find out that the threat goes on without him. Which could be good (for the game, not the PCs.)

On the other hand, if ECG has to conduct some kind of ritual magic to bring the god back, then you have a very practical reason for his needing to get this done within his own lifetime.

Killing ECG probably won't prevent the war, and surely won't stop it. If the PCs catch on early enough, maybe they can prevent things, but it seems unlikely to me. The thing is, once forces like pride, perceived injury, and real economic interests get rolling toward war, they are awefully hard to stop. By the time the PCs find out that this one guy is behind it, it'll probably be too late. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't let them try.

How does stopping the war solve the problem? If the only reason ECG want the war is to fill the tank sooner, then waiting for natural causes is still a viable Plan B. We have another case in which the PCs may think they've won but haven't really, and again that's (potentially) good for the game if not the PCs. But the other hand to this question is the same as the other hand to the previous one; if ECG is required and ECG is dying then the war is needed in order to hurry things along.

I think, for my $0.02, I like the dying-cultist-must-complete-ritual angle.

That soul trap sounds pretty evil in any case. The PCs are going to want to destroy it just so the souls of the newly dead can move on in the natural and proper way. Maybe they need to somehow stop the ritual first, but they're going to want to get the thingy before calling the matter closed.

When they destroy it, what happens to the souls already trapped? Do they just move on, or are they destroyed along with it? There's a nasty moral dilema.

[Super Evil User]

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm starting to mull over the idea of the "violent death" thing, too.

I already have some of the basics outlined for the political situation.

The setting is a city-state at the far end of the Empire's sphere of control. The current ruler is the now-dead king's wife who is supported by Imperial agents and the local aristocracy. The Empire's brought stability to the city, whose political history can only be described as Byzantine.

Unfortunately, the Empire's also brought Imperialism! and with it all its negative implications. A rebel group's surfaced that is actually very well-supplied. Almost suspiciously so...

And the worst part is that heading the resistance is none other than the king's bastard son. The queen's claim to the throne has always been shaky at best and the presence of a more "legitimate" ruler really ****s things up. A bastard prince with youth in his head and nationalism in his heart is the last thing an Empire wants.

Perhaps I should make it a theocracy to add a religious element to it, too...

[jqavins]

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm starting to mull over the idea of the "violent death" thing, too.

I already have some of the basics outlined for the political situation.

The setting is a city-state at the far end of the Empire's sphere of control. The current ruler is the now-dead king's wife who is supported by Imperial agents and the local aristocracy. The Empire's brought stability to the city, whose political history can only be described as Byzantine.

Unfortunately, the Empire's also brought Imperialism! and with it all its negative implications. A rebel group's surfaced that is actually very well-supplied. Almost suspiciously so...

And the worst part is that heading the resistance is none other than the king's bastard son. The queen's claim to the throne has always been shaky at best and the presence of a more "legitimate" ruler really ****s things up. A bastard prince with youth in his head and nationalism in his heart is the last thing an Empire wants.

I like it. I think you should flesh ot the queen's and prince's personalities, politics, and ruling styles before you call it done. You stated at the start that neither side in the conflict should be totally right, and the widowed queen vs. bastard prince does that nicely (assuming the society is sufficiently patriarchical that a queen ruling on her own is not fully legitimate, i.e., that the crown would have gone to a legitimate son before the widow.) Still, if I were playing in this campaign, I'd find it impossible to not pick a side even as I'm trying to prevent the fight, so I'd want to be able to judge the "candidates."

Perhaps I should make it a theocracy to add a religious element to it, too...

I don't see a strong reason not too, but I wouldn't. It's an unnecessary complication. Sure, with the underlying plot being about raising a god, some involvemet from present religious powers is to be expected, but I don't see how it helps to have that power be the same as the government power. It probably doesn't hurt either, and you may have someting great that I haven't thought of. By all means do it if you want, but be sure you've got a good reason for it, not just "Gee I could throw <this> or <that> into the soup."

[Super Evil User]

...I can only promise to try.

The queen is, by all accounts, not very good at her job. She is fifty years the junior of her late husband, who was himself a good ruler and (more importantly) good at choosing good advisers. These advisers now control much of what she does. This is an open secret among the aristocracy, but everyone else thinks it's all her. The original purpose of the theocracy thing was to give her an "edge"; people believe she has divine powers/guidance because she does.

The prince isn't the leader of the revolution, but he's pretty high-ranking and the public face. The actual leader is a staunch believer in the purity of the nation's bloodlines, so what the prince says actually influences him a great deal (although of course he still has the final say). But the prince is still a youth, and everyone in the revolutionary group including himself knows that it's important that he doesn't get absolute control.

[Super Evil User]

I need more help with this.

I don't know what "flavor" to give my cult. Satanic cults are overdone and Cthulhu cults only marginally less so. I'm leaning towards a pagan cult + some Christian mysticism, but otherwise I'm stuck.

[jqavins]

I need more help with this.

I don't know what "flavor" to give my cult. Satanic cults are overdone and Cthulhu cults only marginally less so. I'm leaning towards a pagan cult + some Christian mysticism, but otherwise I'm stuck.

Well, since the ECG is a lone worshiper of this god he's trying to raise, you don't need to flavor a cult. All you need is bits of fact and bits of dogma mixed together in the one guy's fevered brain. If you make the guy insane, then the bits don't even have to fit together in any sensible way except that they're all about the god.

[redwizard007]

It seems like the cultist, and by extension his god, are going to be evil. Is that locked in stone? If the deity is good, perhaps a healing or creation deity based on sacrifice, then you introduce yet another curveball into the story. The trapped souls will actually "become one with a higher power," isn't that better then death?

Cult concept:

Eons ago our fallen lord _________ gave up his immortality to breath life into the multiverse. Prophecies spoke of the time when a handful of pure souls would be called home to reignite his divine spark. Now is the time and these... These sacred martyrs, shall be the pure souls granted the privilege of merging with ___________'s divine being. Reawakening __________ will bring a time of great bounty for all as his life giving energy again flows through the cosmos. The sick will be made well, the injured shall be healed, the harvests shall bear more fruit, even the hearts of warring men shall be healed of their scars and peace shall reign.

What part of that sounds bad? Well, yeah, there is the whole mystic vacuum sucking souls without their knowledge or permission, but its all for a good cause right? So even if the cultist is a crazy evil SOB he could be a tool of good... sort of. He could also be Lawful and be putting the good of the many before the few needed sacrifices. LG might be a stretch but its doable. LN is easy. Neither would ding for Detect/Smite Evil. How messed up would that be.

[SamBurke]

For the cult, ask yourself what you need. Do you want infrastructure and clear doctrines, or just a lone man with too much knowledge? The difference between the two is what'll help you flesh it out.

Also think about what feeling you want to project on your players. Terror? Revulsion? Anger?

[Super Evil User]

I was thinking of making the Evil Cultist Dude something akin to Moriarty, who has an elaborate empire of contacts and resources not because of his religion but because of his cunning.

His flaw, of course, was that his cunning was reliant on his god. This gave him extra incentive to resurrect his god, because his god's blessing might fade at any time and he'd be left with zero wits and lots of enemies.

[Super Evil User]

Alright, I'm back and I'm ready to do some asskicking!

I decided that the evil cultist dude had assistance from a group of monsters aligned with his god. Trouble is, I'm not sure what these things should be. I'm talking a group of CR 9 or higher monsters, all with something that links them all together. Outsider is one option.

The PCs would stumble across this group early on and try to convince the local government of its existence, which would fail because of potentially three reasons.

1. the government really doesn't believe in their existence
2. the government knows they exist and wants to keep things hush-hush Council-style; they've got too much to worry about already
3. the government is secretly trying to exploit them in some way

This would present an immediate challenge to the PCs that would hook them in on the larger plotline (evil ritual) as well as potentially the more immediate plotline (civil war).