Author Topic: Asking for Opinions on my story arc and villians  (Read 2272 times)

Offline Goraxes

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Asking for Opinions on my story arc and villians
« on: September 04, 2015, 09:07:41 AM »
So i plan to base my campaign (atleast to start) in our local town, known as a blackhole of a town. Once you live here, very few leave. This is going to be a Magical effect, due to a prison under the Town currently holding 2 occupants.

The Occupants are being held in a Prison that keeps occupants phased out of time. A Cursed Dragon Scion, about to change in to a full blooded dragon & a Red Court Vampire. Wardens killed the Prisons Creator for messing with time, but understood why it was made and left the occupants in the prison with a new Warden of the Prison (a now retired warden of the white council).

Enter Current Day. Party gets hired by a Scion, the Great Great Grandson of the imprisoned Dragon scion. The Curse? One of there family can not become a dragon while another lives. He is looking for the party to kill his great great grandfather. But first the tests to see if they are worthy.

He will play as an information broker / Quest Giver / Has funky items & Money. He will start small, and draw them in with rewards. Kill a black court vampire? Get a new home to live in (helps build ties to the area). Then he opens up a little bit. He hides that he is supernatural. He is just a guy who collects artifacts/items/information on the supernatural. He Tells the party his Vault was robbed, numerous items stolen and he wants there help getting them back. In Reality he handed these items out to help test the party.

Villians:
- A Nobody Sorcerer who has created a Zombie using a page from the book Kemmler
- A Nerd who has summoned Phobophage's to go after the Jock bullies in school - But they show up as 8-bit Fighter/Rogue/Black-mage
- Red Ridinghood: Passing through town, Has a magic Hatchet that bypasses Shapeshifters Catch, and a hexen belt that makes her her own worse enemy.
- Not Story Arc Related: Our town is known for its Totem Poles. They are going to have magic in them, Binding an Intelectus to it. Allowing the Shamans of the Local tribe to See and hear through the totem Poles, Track People, and slowly draw life force from them. Party will have the chance to stop this and release the Intelectus/Demi-God back in to the world.
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Items will include a page from the Book of Kemmler, Axe&Hexen Belt, Bag that held the Denarian Coins when given to Judas [still drips blood] - can hide the location of the coins - with one coin in it, Dead Sea Scroll - Holds a Secret about Jesus.

Late night, hope this makes sense haha. Let me know your opinions :)
Thanks

Offline Haru

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Re: Asking for Opinions on my story arc and villians
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2015, 01:50:30 PM »
So far, it sounds really good. A couple of things though, that felt a bit off:

The idea of the 8-bit character phpbophages is pretty cool, but I don't see those you've chosen to be particularly scary. How about you make it 4 phobophages instead and they are the pacman ghosts? Those things might not be big time scary, but millions of people playing the game and running away from them certainly leave their mark. And there's even a good way to temporarily win against them: eat a piece of fruit. They will come back, of course, unless they are actually banished, but you'll have some peace for the time being.

When it comes to your items, they sound really good (love the red ridinghood stuff), but they feel disconnected. I mean sure, the dragon throwing them out to test the gang would have it make sense, but it feels like it might be beneficial for your story if you stay within a theme, and the religious artifacts especially feel out of place there for me. Since it doesn't seem you've got too much planned for those and they are just objects to be retrieved, maybe it would be better to replace them with something else. Maybe ride the whole "faerie tale" train home?

You could get the 8 bit monsters by going for a "the sorcerers apprentice" sort of route. Maybe even have a big, blue wizards hat with golden stars on it be the item that allowed the 8 bit monsters to appear. It would only allow for 1 such apparition (the 3 counting as 1 here) to be active at any time, so conjuring up something else would not work, as long as the 8 bit monsters are out there, to make it less of a problem.

Then you could look for all kinds of fun stuff from the faerie tales. For example, instead of the kemmler zombie, let the item be a glass sarcophagus. The newbie sorcerer just lost his girlfriend and was looking for a way to get her back. He was about to go black magic, when the sarcophagus appeared. He put her inside and some time later she was alive again. Well, sort of. Maybe a bit changed. Or a lot. Doesn't even have to look like a zombie, but maybe her mind is replaced by something entirely alien, and she just causes a lot of chaos by wandering around and not quite looking for blood, but being confused of the world around her. You've seen those "alien mind in a mortal body" episodes of various tv shows? Something like that.

Speaking of snow white, how about 7 pickaxes? They would change the mood of the wielder tremendously, and they would make them look for treasure, with a high success rate. Problem is, they start digging freaking anywhere. And they can conjure the pickax to them. So once in a cell, they would just dig themselves out again.

A few other ideas:
- An amulet made from a wolf's tooth that causes storms.
- A golden ball that makes the one holding it irresistible to the opposite sex, but when they touch them they are turned into a frog.
- A pillow that controls the local weather.
- Boots that grant the wearer mythic speed.
- A donkey figurine that produces gold coins (seemings) when you pull on the tail.
- A bludgeon that summons the body of a thug for itself out of the nevernever when the owner is sleeping, to go out and kill people the owner dislikes.

And so forth, you get the picture. That way, your game will stay with a theme, which makes it a bit more coherent, I think. And a being like that dragon collector would probably use a section of their collection for this rather than bits and pieces from the entire collection.


I would ask, what makes the red court vampire so dangerous that he needs to be locked away like that? For someone who can build a prison like that, it should surely be possible to kill it, they are not that tough. Maybe the red court vampire is carrying something else, and by imprisoning it, that thing was also imprisoned. Or its life force is used to power the prison. The warden would need to feed it some blood every now and again, but that's not too bad, I would say. Maybe there's even more this is linked to all around the city? Maybe even the totems, which are just part of the prison. And the genius loci is bound to the red court vampire in order to strengthen the prison for the dragon.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Offline Goraxes

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Re: Asking for Opinions on my story arc and villians
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2015, 08:55:00 AM »
I totally thought about running them through Grimms. Still debating on it.

I was going to have the red court be a wizard who made a deal to help build the prison, and he helped lead the dragon there to be imprisoned. If he can convince the party to free him (No one would believe he is red court), then it brings red court back in to the world.

The 8-bit characters would have been the summoners favorite characters - who he was picked on for liking. an 8 bit fighter, rogue, and black mage... Have the summoner dressed up as red mage.

Offline bobjob

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Re: Asking for Opinions on my story arc and villians
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2015, 10:29:30 PM »
I was going to have the red court be a wizard who made a deal to help build the prison, and he helped lead the dragon there to be imprisoned. If he can convince the party to free him (No one would believe he is red court), then it brings red court back in to the world.

Not a bad idea. Would provide a nice multi-faceted angle, similar to Dracula being half-demon scion/Blampire. It would keep the party on their toes "Oh, it's just a Black Court Vampire. We know how to kill those things! Hey, why isn't this garlic working?" Although I'd probably have him as a Dragon scion/Red Court infected. Imprisoned as he was, the fledgling Red Court spirit was protected from the Bloodline Curse. If he ever were to fully turn, he could start up the Red Court all over again.

The 8-bit characters would have been the summoners favorite characters - who he was picked on for liking. an 8 bit fighter, rogue, and black mage... Have the summoner dressed up as red mage.

The 8bit characters don't sound all that scary. I would ramp up tension for the summoner's backstory. Maybe he wasn't picking on so much as full blown persecution because this kid was different and the other kids didn't understand him. The summoner fell into a particular 8 bit video game as a way to relieve his depression and Skavis type entities that feed on sorrow responded by appearing as those characters.
The entire Red Court was taken down by the new Winter Knight? From the lowliest pawn all the way up to the King? *puts on sunglasses* Knight to G7. Check mate.

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