Scenario Idea for Fantasy Game. - OG Myth-Weavers

Notices


GM Workshop

A community-created and maintained place for Game Masters of all systems to bounce ideas around. It's a place for inspiration and sharing tips.


Scenario Idea for Fantasy Game.

   
Scenario Idea for Fantasy Game.

Players are hired by a Merchant House's Guildier, who is worried about their spouse. The spouse went to their family home for the holidays, and has not returned. So in the dead of winter, the players, accepting the mission, go to this Village.

The Village serves a farming community of about 670 people, but feels like it is about to go bust. Middle of the day and streets are void of many people. The Tavern itself has people coming in to cuddle from the cold, and they are weary of strangers.

Asking about the family takes the players to a manor house on the outside of town. The Manor house is mostly empty, being kept by serving staff. The Family is gone south to warmer climates for the winter. Yes, the spouce had been there, but they are gone now. It is made clear that the party is not welcome to stay.

On the way to the Inn, to spend the night, the party is attacked by dark cloaked figures. They carry a local holy symbol that is unrecognizable, but matches the cathedral that graces the village.

There is a chapel to another god. It's all boarded up. Inside, hiding, is the last good priest left alive in town. He managed to live, and escapes notice, and has been waiting for someone to stand up to the new clergy in the Cathedral.

The Cathedral recently changed religions from an old sun god, to this new god of the arcane. They have been bringing in new things, and they secretly came in and slaughtered all the monks. If it wasn't that he was out gathering herbs, he would have been lost too.

The Magicians have summoned a Earth Demon, with long roots for clothes, and black eyes that glow in a purple afterglow, like you see when you look at a bright light too long. The evil demon throws balls of necrotic fire with his hands, two at a time, or pushes people away with a strong life draining force. He sits on a throne of bone, that has these wings extending from it that reach out and grab those that get close, draining them of their blood. A horde of smaller demons hide nearby, guarding the Astrolabe. The Astrolabe serves as a portal to Hell, and can bring up to 6 people in or out a day. No more than that, for any more, and it would be into holy numbers.

The temple still has the old god's blessing, and if a person supplicants at the statues of angels in the basilica's, the angels will come to life to smite evil that infests the temple, but the God may not act unless it is asked.

You can do better than using the disposable woman trope yet again.

You'll need to address why the person they are looking for has gone missing because the PCs are probably going to want some resolution around why they were sent there in the first place.

Having the angels come to life and defeat the enemy is going to leave the PCs feeling kind of useless. Rather, empower them to save the day so that they can feel like heroes at the end. Have the angels bless them such that they are warded against the demon's worst powers or gives them an advantage in fighting them somehow, but let them actually do the work.

Since every plot in print and film can be defined as a Trope, given how enthusiastic a couple of hundred thousand users are, how the hell can I ever do anything that isn't a Trope? No matter *what* scenario hook I use, it'll be "That Old Trope" again. I'm not going to avoid a hook simply because someone else might be bored of it.

If your objection is based on sex, change it. It's not like the gender matters in the end, just the relationship to the Hook, and that is because the scenario is not *about* the victim, it's about the cult and demons. If gold or more mercenary motivations work for you, and less detective/investigative ones, then go do that.

As pointed out to me on my personal blog, I left out a detail, because I didn't want to drive people down the set up that I had, which was that the Relation was dead for weeks, and is in a pile of Sacrificial victims under the Cathedral. Part of me has done that on purpose, because there are players that get really upset that when the goal they thought was suppose to be Rescue The Princess turns out not to be the case.

...

The players have a) complete control on calling for the angels, and b) Have to actually discover about them in the first place. It's quite easy and simple to completely miss the information by not investigating the village after the initial cultist attack. It also should be noted that the Angels are not stated, along with everything else I've presented. If the angels end up doing all the work for the players, that's more of a failure on the part of the Game Master than the scenario. The intent of the Angels is just suppose to move the pointer from "Difficult" to "Normal".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kensan_Oni View Post
Since every plot in print and film can be defined as a Trope, given how enthusiastic a couple of hundred thousand users are, how the hell can I ever do anything that isn't a Trope? No matter *what* scenario hook I use, it'll be "That Old Trope" again. I'm not going to avoid a hook simply because someone else might be bored of it.

If your objection is based on sex, change it. It's not like the gender matters in the end, just the relationship to the Hook, and that is because the scenario is not *about* the victim, it's about the cult and demons. If gold or more mercenary motivations work for you, and less detective/investigative ones, then go do that.
Not all tropes are equal, though. I'm not saying don't re-use the Disposable Woman trope because it's a trope, I'm saying don't use it because it reinforces the idea that women are disposable. If you're going to be throwing away the character for the sake of needing an excuse to get the PCs in the path of the evil cult, then yeah, absolutely change the gender, especially if the story isn't about the victim.

I like this idea, though I agree wholeheartedly with Naturax about the god imbuing the PCs with special powers to defeat the demons. It could just be a temporary bonus until the threat has been defeated. Then the god gives the PCs some token that might replicate the imbued powers, but on a lesser scale (such as amulets that aid against evil).

Just some thoughts. What happened to the missing person though?

As I stated in my initial response, I had left it out.

In the "I don't have a party of players or continuing scenario line" plo thook, the Spouse ends up coming home, and getting caught by the Cultist, who are posing as House Servants to deter suspicions that something has gone wrong with visiting nobility and merchants. The Spouse, knowing who the servants were suppose to be, discovered them, and they captured the Spouce to be a sacrifice to the Earth Demon.

Ultimately, I wanted to play this off as a tragic scenario of evil winning, as more of a launching point maybe for a small campaign of tracking down a corruption that is deeper in the Nation, but leave it as a one shot, if needed.

Mainly, though, it's just sharing the idea I got while drawing out a map.





Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Last Database Backup 2024-03-28 03:20:27pm local time
Myth-Weavers Status