[Raven Bloodmoon]

This thread is dedicated to plot ideas that people can use in their games. While discussing the ideas is wonderful, let's try to keep it in a different thread so this one is easier to search and doesn't get derailed by the dreaded mutation bug. To that end, discuss the plots here.

Here's a gem from Dthclaw:

Dthclaw, on Aug 1 2007, 09:18 AM, said:

Psychic demon fish in the swamps are compelling living creatures to drown themselves so that the fish might eat. A few of them get the fish instead boring into their skulls and reanimating them for a campaign of terror against the land-dwellers. Initially suspicions point to witches, but by the time they realize the fish are doing it you have a horror campaign rolling.

[Lyinginbedmon]

One of the PCs receives mysterious knowledge from an unknown source that the world is being manipulated by a conspiratorial cult. The cult has been doing so for hundreds/thousands/etc. of years, pushing the world into war, famine, drought, and general horror, only to pull them back from the brink of destruction in order to gain more worshippers to their cause. Eventually, they hope to have enough members to awaken their god, Astemin, who sleeps in a crater away from populations, and grants his most powerful worshippers grafts as a divine benefit.

In reality, Astemin is an ancient god cast out by others in the pantheon for his atrocious deeds with living souls. He panders to the cries of the cult in order to gain more followers, and when he awakes they shall all be killed, their souls used to empower him, as he begins a new reign of terror.

The PCs have to contend with a highly successful conspiracy, meaning they are unlikely to find any obvious clues or leads, whilst the rest of the world's population believes they are mad (And the other PCs may also think so).

[Dthclaw]

A group of pirates has managed to band together and is threatening to overthrow all safe travel on the seas. The pirates are in league with a group of demon worshippers, and many of the pirates have themselves been transformed into tanar'ri - making them all but unstoppable and perhaps paving the way for a demonic invasion.

[Axel]

There is a plot afoot to overthrow the Emperor. Although he has caught wind of it, details are severely lacking. He has dispatched a party of loyal servants to investigate rumors of a possible revolt in one of the outlying provinces. Little does anyone realize that these minor revolts have been orchestrated by a single power-hungry usurper who plants to seize power by pitting both the loyal and rebellious factions against each other thus weakening all but his own supporters within the imperial army.

[Rintaran]

Forced from their ancestral lands and relocated to small reservations, a tribe of elves, lead by their high chief, begins forcing the closure of major trade routes in protest. With the death of the King, and his being replaced by his eldest son, the high chief is evicted from the ruling council of the country, where he has been attempting to garner support and basic rights for his people. The road closures is beginning to greatly hamper the economic prosperity of the country, and has led to poor food supply in the cities. The PCs are asked to end the blockades, as they deem fit.

Ok, this could easily work out as either a longer-running political campaign or a hack'n'slash repeater, but it opens a lot of doors if you're willing to utilize it...

[Holy Deg]

A major god plucks his own eyes and converts them gems to assist with a major task. Upon completion of the task, his eyes are to be restored via a religious ceremony. An opposing god learns of this and attempts to switch the gems with fakes. Both sets of gems disappear, and years later an adventuring party unwittly stumbles upon them.

[super sorcerer]

Two neigboring kingdom are in war becouse an evil wizard use illusions to make each kingdom think that it is attacked by the other. The PC's might either choose a side and make a military campaign or have a pusuit campaign against the wizard if they try to make peace between the two kingdoms.


An evil cleric visit towns in the area and serve as a healer. He on some patients (but not all) cure of lycontrophy as part of the healing treatment (so no one realy notice that it is an evil spell) and suddenly every month many new werewolves are found (and kill). After two months the healer disapear and thanks to a wizard ally he make it seem as though a werewolf killed him. Now he is hiding and biulding an undead army (werewolf zombies ) so once the werewolves finish there gob he will come and destroy the towns in the area.

A high level evil spellcaster (either a cleric or a warmage or a druid) desrtoy many towns and cities by casting the spell earthquake (I prefer automaic widened so it will desrtoy more) and everyone think the earthquakes happen becouse the gods are angry and a few start to sacrifice their children in order to please the gods (hoping they would spare them).

Usualy my plots involve a single character rather than a cult, but here is a plot that involve a group of peaple:

A group of high leveled clerics (each one have it's own undead army) are fighting against the PC's (it is a general idea the reason can be many). Every time the PC's kill one of them another one cast true resurrection on him to bring him back to life. The PC's must find a way to kill them all so they all will be dead at the same time, so they will have to find them quickly arrive where they are quickly which could be quite difficult considering they can hide wherever they want and they probably have the resources to repel most divinations (especialy if they have access to the trickery domain) and maybe even to aniicipate teleportation.

[Lyinginbedmon]

An artifact holds the stored soul of a megalomaniacal villain from thousands of years ago. By enticing others, he can force them to wear it, and take control of their bodies for his own. So long as they wear the circlet artifact, death cannot be eternal. Travelling through thousands of bodies across the ages, the villain has worked his immortality towards greater and greater leaps of power.

Now he has the 9 year old Prince to consider.

[3dom]

This is more of a campaign-long plot, but whatever. It's the one im using right now, actually.

Evil illithids invent genocidal bomb/thing. Drop on surface. Kills all (read: most) sentient life. Remaining persons scavenge together. Largely consist of citizens. "Adventurer's guild" started to train said civilians to push back vs. illithids.

A bit OT though, so to balance:

A town has disappeared off the face of the globe. It only re-appears between 11.30 pm -1.30 am. Only one person is there otherwise, playing a song that can be heard for a few miles away. He is not there during those hours. (M siren bard) Meanwhile, a rich noble wants to build a park on the location, and has gone missing. PC's are contacted for investigation/safe return. The town is filled with ghosts (duh) and can't be exorcised.

Hooks:
Druid: Plants/animals dying in large radius
Bard: Song
Rogue: Reward for finding noble
etc.

[Aldrahil]

All though this is more of a campaign setting, it still ties into a plot, I think:

(I already traced the rough sketces of this in Raven's 'A Brave New World' thread)

All sentinent beings, as far back as anyone can remember, have been of a very small height I.E. Average Human is about 3-3/12 Ft tall. The world is more or less ruled by the 'Giants', or, in other words, bigger stronger guys who are about 6,1/2-7,1/2 Ft tall average. The Adventurers were brought together by a not-so-mysterious group, who go around claiming they know something everyone else doesn't. The adventurers were brought to meet the apparent leader (who is really just a lieutenent, and not the main leader, for reasons below) each of the adventurers were there for different reasons, some being told there was vast profit to be gained, others that their almighty god was in need of help in 'these dark times'. The party will be told a great secret, that, contrary to what everyone thinks, the 'Giants' were not always in control; the Humans and/or Elves and/or *insert race name* were, but a rogue group of keen wizards got together and discovered a way to somehow give themselves dominion over everyone; by making everyone else smaller.

Upon the party receiving the incredulous information, the little hideout in the forest/cave/fortress will be attacked by the 'Giants' and a few hundred fo their minions (Goblins/Orcs youu name it). The party will be led away from the slaughtor by a guide (Call him a third level paladin) and learn that the 'Leader' of the organazation was killed, and that the paladin would like to find out more about these giants, and will pay the party to come in with him.

And so on.

EDIT: For small spelling and the like.

This post has been edited by Aldrahil: 10 April 2008 - 04:04 PM

[Torap]

Victims start being foung with two holes in there neck and all there blood drained. Even the newest nub will think "vampire". But in reality it is an out cast wizard attempting to gather the life force of his victims to transform himself into a lich. I'm thinking horror on this one. For a twist, he's attempting to use the life force to resurect his wife. Perhaps he only stalks murderers. Or mabey he doesn't realize what he's done untill he is conforted by the party and kills on of them, then uses the spell he took half a lifetime peparing on the person he just killed, turns his back too he group, mumbles something like, "I'm so sorry, Elizibeth," and walks of a cliff. Really fun if the spell as lichdom rather than resurection, or mabey it gives a permanet bonus of some kind.

Come on guys, Don't let a thread like this die. I'm commiting personaly to 1 Idea a week for the next month.

[Dthclaw]

Quote

Come on guys, Don't let a thread like this die. I'm commiting personaly to 1 Idea a week for the next month.

All right, Torap, you're on.

The Multiverse exists as two sides of a single reality. Both sides consider the other the 'Dream' realm, and cannot meaningfully interact with each other. However, between them there exists a single nightmare. Oneiromancers on both sides, in an attempt to juxtapose small sections of their reality with the other, accidentally instead bring forth a creature of nightmare - and the waking worlds are ill-equipped to deal with such a horror.

[Torap]

One word, Riddler.

Serriously, break up a dungeon trasure room with riddles inscribed on the doors. (keep it in game) Mabey this can be a recuring game point, where they go find the answer, come back, and open the door, only to find a small reward and another door. Be careful though. Too easy and they may end up with something well beyond there level. To hard, or to many, or not enough reward, and you may end up with a pissed of party. This is definately one you can hurt your rep as the dm with, so really think this one through before you use it, and make sure your player will enjoy it!

2 of 4 promised, and a week early. Woot!

[Holy Deg]

I just alluded to one of my plot points in another topic, so I thought maybe I should go into more detail here.

A demon lord has decided to wipe out civilization on the material plane through political intrigue, terrorism, and by bringing his forces of evil from the outer planes to the material plane. The powers of Good want to protect these civilizations, but don't want to leave their own kingdoms unprotected, nor do they want to turn the material plane into a battlefield for their own wars, so they gather on the Outlands and seal the astral plane so that travel from the Astral plane to other planes cannot be performed through normal methods. In fact, the only method that they leave open is a hidden portal that leads from the Outlands to the material plane so that they can still provide help if needed.

This leads to evil creatures from the outerplanes and evil creatures from the material plane trying to device a way to penetrate this sealing to gain access to all the planes that require travel through the Astral plane. Select groups (PCs, hint, hint) are trying to prevent the seal from coming down prematurely. Conversly, the PCs could be the evil folk trying to bring down the seal and be opposed by the guardians of the seal. Or you could make it more complex (as I know most of the more vocal members of the board would ).

[super sorcerer]

I am in a mood for ninja's so:

A family of traders (ninja's) araive in town. They assasinate anyone all traders but a single family (lets call it brown family). to look inocent they also "attack" themselves but they they are the only family who stand in the attacks. In one fabricated attack one member of the family claims he unmasked the assasin before he ran away and he blame a member of the brown family. The accused assasin is executed and the public believe that all further assasinations aslo come from this family and they hire the party to look for convicting evidence against that family. They will never suspect the honest traders (assasin ninja's).