I'm building a campaign and decided to make the BBEG someone who had recently become a Demi-God but was having trouble coming up for a way that that might have happened , let alone a way for the party to kill them . But yesterday I had an idea , The book of Truth(or fate etc. its a working title lol) .Basically Whatever is written in the book becomes true within limitations ,like the BBEG wasn't able to fully become a diety . So now im thinking about making the party's objective more about obtaining the book and stripping away his divine power. How does that sound?

(BTW, I realize that ever letting the PC's get their hands on an artifact like that could be a bad idea so I'm planning on some sort of stipulation like , an entity can only write one "truth" but that still leaves the problem that theres several of them.)

Okay, here is my crack at this. I have several ideas about this. One such way to go about this is that the book is written in some sort of language or tongue that regular mortals can not understand. Maybe it's the language of the Universe, or the lost 'Original Tongue' and only the 'Guardians of Truth', an ancient race of whatevers sworn to protect it, can understand this strange language and alter the book. So your BBEG has managed to either persuade/corrupt/posses/coerce one of the Guardians into adding to the book and *BAM* demi-godhood.

Another route you might want to take is the metaphorical route. Maybe the Book of Truth is not a literal "Book" but perhaps something else entirely, but still serves the same function as the book as being a fulcrum of reality. I've always enjoyed stories that do this, though I know it is very hard to do, but if you can it has great results. An example is the Uncharted series of video games. In the first game, El Dorado is not a golden city, but rather a giant golden sarcophagus, cursed to turn whoever opens it into a rabid, deranged worshiper of it. So in essence, whoever tries to steal El Dorado winds up becoming its protector. In the second, the fabled Cintamani Stone turns out to be the resin from the Tree of Life. Granting the consumer of it extended life and vitality from its rich nutrients.

Overall though, I think you've got a decent idea for an adventure. Could you perhaps tell us a bit more about your BBEG? It might help us think of how you could flesh out this idea a bit more.

Perhaps you could use truespeech as the book's language? If one of the players uses a truenamer it could still be a problem, but at that point...

Eh, it could work and would fit fairly well into the existing lore, though if someone manages to get through the campaign as a truenamer they could use it fairly well. They could even be the next BBEG...

Well I don't have all the details worked out yet, but what i've been thinking is I'd like the antagonist to be a arcane spellcaster from a race that tends towards relatively weak caster like a monstrous humanoid maybe a Lizardman(thought it might make a cool but unexpected serious antagonist instead of just hero fodder)? But the antagonist is particularly gifted , and is working to unite a handful of other races so that they can conquer , they get land/power he gets to expand his base of worshippers when they adopt his temple as the "state religion".


@ Faulten I like the idea about the guardians of truth because at first glance i thought "but i need the PC's to be able to take away his divinity " but after i thought about it, that just means they have to get the book away from the BBEG and escape alive which just opens up more room for adventure.

@ NMO20110 im not familiar with truespeech or truenamers , we're only using the SRD so that might eliminate the problem though,lol

If you're just using the srd, then I suppose my suggestion is out. It's from the tome of magic, if you feel like looking it up. Suffice it to say, truenaming is the art of saying something in truespeech, essentially language of the universe, and having it happen. I just thought that it was an interesting parallel to the book that you are using.

The biggest problem that most people have is that the mechanics behind the one class that uses it are...poor at best...

Perhaps using the book is perilous. That is, if the PCs want to use it themselves, make sure they KNOW that there's a very good chance they'll go insane, have their soul destroyed, etc. The BBEG isn't the first to try using it, and he won't be the last, but he's one of the few who survived.

Or, maybe the book can only maintain one 'wish' (or whatever you want to call it) at any given time. In order to stop the current wish, you have to 'destroy' the book. Once the book is 'destroyed, it slowly reforms over decades/centuries/whatever. So, the BBEG is only a demigod for so long as the book remains intact. He'd want to protect it, just like a lich and his phylactery.

@ NM020110 actually that does sound pretty cool, i'll have to put ToM on my wishlist. Well from the sound of it truespeech would be to express in game mechanics , but anything WoTC can do, homebrew might be able to do better?

@ dauphinous sounds interesting ,actually I had sort of thought of the book (in this particular context ) as sort of being like a lich's phylactery ; the only thing about that is though I sort of liked the idea of the PC's having to escape with the book to have it written in, but at the same time that could still be done in a sort of "by the way the book can only by destroyed by dropping it in mnt. doom" sorta thing.

Far better, in this case...

I hope that you can have fun with it.

Go the "Death Note" route. The Book has a limited number of pages. Once the last page is used the book cannot be used again. Inside the cover is a list of rules, written in all languages at the same time (anyone can read it no matter what they speak) saying things like "the book cannot have any more than the number of pages it starts with" and other odd things, "whats written in the book cannot be more powerful than the book itself" etc etc.

Then, have the BBEG have used up everything but the last page, so when the good guys get it they only have 1 thing they can write in it.

Thats hilarious ,death note was one of the things that "inspired" me to make this artifact, I don't think I'll have had it filled out by the BBEG though(he would probably be like powerful beyond belief if he had that much of a chance to alter reality) but I think it being practically full is definitely an option . Thanks

BTW does anybody have any thoughts on the BBEG himself?