Looking for some inspiration

[Zuladel]

I am running a game shortly where the players are trying to rescue the god of creation from a magical trap he has been imprisoned in. I want to try to do something along the lines of when they go in to the prison after him they need to create the world / tools / creatures etc... They need to rescue him. I'm getting stumped on coming up with a rule set to actually accomplish this in a reasonable amount of sessions thinking no more than three each bring approximately a four hour block of time. Any ideas would be appreciated

[Tiadoppler]

I'm not sure I understand the concept. This is what I'm seeing:


The God of Creation is imprisoned in a magical trap.

> Do you mean one god in a pantheon, this one's domain is the act of Creation? Or do you mean literally the creator of the entire game universe?
> Is the magical trap the work of a mortal wizard? A huge organization of wizards? Another deity? All the other deities? Some outside force? What does it take to trap a god in your setting?


There is a prison that the PCs are able to get to.

> Is it a physical location? A different Plane? A metaphorical concept?


Before the god of creation can be freed, a new world must be created.

> I'm not sure I understood your comment here.
> Are the players going to have to demonstrate creating an entire world? Do they have the god of creation's (he needs a name) tools?


The adventure will be 12 hours.

> Presumably it's going be a fairly high level party. Are there enemies to fight as well as a prison puzzle to solve?
> How much of the time do you want to allocate to creating a new world full of creatures. Is it the climax of the plot, or the epilogue?

[Zuladel]

Tiadoppler I'm not sure I understand the concept. This is what I'm seeing:


The God of Creation is imprisoned in a magical trap.

> Do you mean one god in a pantheon, this one's domain is the act of Creation? Or do you mean literally the creator of the entire game universe?
> Is the magical trap the work of a mortal wizard? A huge organization of wizards? Another deity? All the other deities? Some outside force? What does it take to trap a god in your setting?

A god part of a pantheon one of the more powerful God's in the pantheon. He was trapped by a combination of the shattering of a prison made to hold the father of the gods, and the treachery of another god and an epic level wizard. The god used his powers to wipe the memory of the gods they were imprisoning making them forget they are what they are. They used pieces of this old prison to capture much of the pantheon leaving themselves with a tentative hold of the world.

There is a prison that the PCs are able to get to.

> Is it a physical location? A different Plane? A metaphorical concept?

There is a physical part of the prison that the PC's can kill themselves to enter it will absorb their souls allowing them to go in after the god. The inside is it's own demiplane.

Before the god of creation can be freed, a new world must be created.

> I'm not sure I understood your comment here.
> Are the players going to have to demonstrate creating an entire world? Do they have the god of creation's (he needs a name) tools?

My thought process was I can just run a standard prison break.... With locks traps etc... Or try something else. I was thinking even though Obadiah the god of creation doesn't remember what he is or what he can do his power has been pooling in this prison for years now. Changing and morphing this Demiplane but with no thought or direction to it leaving it a jumbled mess of potential. Somewhere in that mess he resides. To find him the players need to use that raw potential give it shape and form to find him within it somewhere. I plan on letting there imagination run wild with it. Let them think of a good idea to why and where they can find him then have them create that location for him to be in.
The adventure will be 12 hours.

> Presumably it's going be a fairly high level party. Are there enemies to fight as well as a prison puzzle to solve?

I can add enemies floating around if it looks like they are needed but I'm not set on needing them one way or another.

> How much of the time do you want to allocate to creating a new world full of creatures. Is it the climax of the plot, or the epilogue?

This is the over the mountain push of this chapter of the story it will turn the story in the PC's favor and stop the downward spiral of there goals.

[Unoriginal]

How about making it so that the only way to free the god is to *not* use this power?

Like, the PCs, and everyone who tried to free the god before, could access the raw power bleeding from him to re-shape things, which of course made them incredibly powerful. So the others who tried used this power to get over the obstacles. But the obstacles got more difficult, so they used the power, requiring more imagination this time. And the next room was even more difficult, so they used it again, with even more imagination. And again. And again. And again.

Until eventually they got into a situation where they saw no escape, no matter the power at their disposal.


To free the god, you must succeed 5 challenges WITHOUT touching the power of the god. If you use it, one more challenge is added, more difficult than the one you used the god's power in.

After all, it makes sense that something that trap the god of creation could not be breached by using the god's power

[Tiadoppler]

I actually like the concept that the loss of memories is the real prison. The private, sealed demiplane is just a way to make the imprisoned beings difficult to reach. It's a lot like a fable. The quest isn't necessarily to defeat the evil guy, it's to remind the good guy of his power, and the joy of creation.

If you've got three sessions, I'd break it down:

First session is introduction, and seeking out an artifact: perhaps stealing back the Screwdriver of Creation from the evil Wizard.


Second session is traveling to the prison, while the evil wizard and evil god send forces to stop you. The party defeats the evil wizard on the steps of the prison.

> I'd say that entering the prison separates the soul from the body. Don't call it dying. PCs are allergic to dying and will start trying random things for hours to avoid it. The party enters the prison in Spirit Form.


Third session is inside the prison. Meeting the imprisoned gods who randomly wander the ever-shifting chaos. There's a great quote from Mass Effect 2:

"...even a dead god can dream. A god — a real god — is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does..."

The gods aren't trying to hurt the party, they're just confused and not controlling their powers properly. Then the PCs meet the creation god and try to return his Screwdriver of Creation. When they do, evil god planeshifts into the prison and confronts the party. Evil god is more powerful than the party, and the party only has memories of their equipment (everything is treated as non-magical) in Spirit Form. They have to inspire the creation god to restore his memories and purpose, during combat with an angry, high CR deity.

They can gift the creation god memories, and tell stories, but those take combat actions, or even entire combat rounds. The players must balance driving back the evil god, and restoring the creation god's soul.

[Zuladel]

I actually like the concept that the loss of memories is the real prison. The private, sealed demiplane is just a way to make the imprisoned beings difficult to reach. It's a lot like a fable. The quest isn't necessarily to defeat the evil guy, it's to remind the good guy of his power, and the joy of creation.

If you've got three sessions, I'd break it down:

First session is introduction, and seeking out an artifact: perhaps stealing back the Screwdriver of Creation from the evil Wizard.


Second session is traveling to the prison, while the evil wizard and evil god send forces to stop you. The party defeats the evil wizard on the steps of the prison.

> I'd say that entering the prison separates the soul from the body. Don't call it dying. PCs are allergic to dying and will start trying random things for hours to avoid it. The party enters the prison in Spirit Form.


Third session is inside the prison. Meeting the imprisoned gods who randomly wander the ever-shifting chaos. There's a great quote from Mass Effect 2:

"...even a dead god can dream. A god — a real god — is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does..."

The gods aren't trying to hurt the party, they're just confused and not controlling their powers properly. Then the PCs meet the creation god and try to return his Screwdriver of Creation. When they do, evil god planeshifts into the prison and confronts the party. Evil god is more powerful than the party, and the party only has memories of their equipment (everything is treated as non-magical) in Spirit Form. They have to inspire the creation god to restore his memories and purpose, during combat with an angry, high CR deity.

They can gift the creation god memories, and tell stories, but those take combat actions, or even entire combat rounds. The players must balance driving back the evil god, and restoring the creation god's soul.

I like the general premise of this that might be even better than the creation idea I had originally. The evil god can't show up to stop them for story reasons but doesn't meen he didn't leave behind some stupid powerful being to guard this prison and make sure no one reminds him who he is.

[Tiadoppler]

I'd encourage the players to actually roleplay out the memories and skills they're transferring to the creation god. Memories of their first magic lesson and how they felt when they were able to make light out of nothing. What they were thinking when the town blacksmith crafted their first sword, and they held it up in the sunlight.

Mechanically:
The creation god needs 50 (or 100 or whatever) 'memory points' to wake up. The players get a new in-combat ability:



Inspire Creation
Action, touch range, must target a creation deity, verbal component
Pick a skill. You lose all modifiers to that skill. You grant the target a number of memory points equal to the skill modifiers you lost.
If you have Inspiration, you can instead lose your Inspiration and grant the target 10 memory points.



For example, 14 Int, Proficient (+5) in Arcana: you have an Intelligence(Arcana) of +7. After using Inspire Creation, you have an Intelligence(Arcana) of +0, and the creation god has 7 memory points.


If the players win, the creation god will restore their memories, so it's not a permanent penalty.