An expedition to the heavens

>the queen has returned from the human lands
>her preadolescent son is dead of an accident
>the magicians have failed to resurrect him, for his soul is unwilling

>they say his soul already ascended to the Blessed Fields of Elysium and quickly reincarnated as a guardinal, a celestial of that Upper Plane
>though he will look the same (but with cute animal features) and have the same habits and mannerisms, his memories are lost to the Astral Plane
>even if reunited with the queen, he will never recognize his mother

>the queen just wants to meet her son again, feel his cheek on her palm, no matter what (and illusions will not do)
>the queen sponsors an expedition to the heavens themselves to find her son's celestial reincarnation
>either bring the queen to her son, or convince him to visit her in the mortal world, whatever works

>but the heavens are infinitely vast, and no one from the mortal world was ever meant to journey to them...

How would you make this adventure premise better? How would you personally run it as a GM? How would you handle it as a party?

>How would you handle it as a party?
use a wish to restore his memories if neutral
use mind altering shit to find out stuff about the kid from the queen's mind and make the kid's match up if evil
petition some god/archangel/etc to restore the kid's memories and go on a quest as payment if good

P.S. For a more conventional adventure, he could have wound up as a fiend in a Lower Plane instead, but that would be awkward for everyone.

A grieving mother who is utterly powerless. Big whoop. Sad, but people die every day. It's a foolish endeavor and selfish of her to actually try. Risking the lives of countless people, orphaning children, making widows, and even killing the children of others all because she wants her kid back.

But if she pays good enough we'll go kidnap the fucker, take us a month, tops. Fucking wizards, man.

Already too high fantasy and touchy-feely for my tastes.

A good place to start would be to clearly define how the players are supposed to access the heavens and what about them make them "not meant to be journeyed"

>clearly define how the players are supposed to access the heavens

Someone just has to cast Plane Shift of course :^)

While higher-level characters could magically Plane Shift their way to the heavens, lower-level characters may have to find portals to the Outer Planes instead. Those portals may not directly lead to the Blessed Fields of Elysium, and opening up the portal in the first place might require rare reagents or occult rituals at the right time and the right place.

Sounds good, now what about "not meant to be journeyed" because this will define if this is supposed to be high-level or low-level.

is this pathfinder and if so does op want the celestials to play an antogonistic role? if yes to both i recommend having the kid turn into an archon instead. a lawful good pantheon is less likely to take kindly to mortals trying to fuck around with the system they set up for the afterlife than a neutral or chaotic one

The Outer Planes are "meant" to be lived in and traveled through by two kinds of creatures: the souls of the deceased and planar-born people.

Mortals from the Prime Material Plane can get way over their heads when dealing with the hazards, trials, and exotic terrain of the heavens, even though these are supposed to be benevolent!

Celestian petitioners become lantern archons, which is less cute. That said, you may have a point. The prince could have quickly become a hound archon. Mount Celestia is also a place expressly designed to put people through unforgiving tests to hone their virtue.

Yeah, definitely sounds like a higher level adventure unless you have Mcguffins to help the players through.

>Celestian petitioners become lantern archons, which is less cute
so just refluff it so that instead of some little ball of light he's a pocket sized glow in the dark version of his original body, and when he gesalts with others he goes back to full size

also, as a lantern archon, since he'd be only CR 1 or 2, as long as a way to heaven and back is provided (like the queen having a permanent gate open to anyone who detects as good and promises to look for the kid) the adventure would be more accessible for low level characters by making him easier to deal with/trick/kidnap/etc

That's a nice plotline. There's a moral conflict with no clearly defined right answer...

which means that as a party there'd be a lot of discussion and negotiation as we all try and work out the best way to move forward.

As a GM I'd make sure to include a few encounters with clearly bad/evil antagonists, simply to make sure the players aren't constantly dealing with moral quandaries.

Stupid woman, make another.
He is done, be glad he is in a better place.
Literally confirmed for being in a better place.
Queen needs to stop being an evil, selfish nugget and not drag her child (which she obviously wants to possess, but does not love) back into a miserable world of suffering where she let him die to an accident in the first place.

How to salvage this shit show?
The players are agents of a good aligned god who is a guardian of the dead and they must stop this psycho bitch's agents and mercenaries, eventually removing her from power, as she is selfish and irresponsible, trying to deny the very final reward of her own child for her own pleasure.

As various AD&D 2e Planescape books show us, the hazards, trials, and exotic terrain of the Outer Planes (not just the Upper) can be handled even by low-level characters.

"No one from the mortal world was ever meant to journey to them" is simply a disclaimer against it being a riskless journey in a paradise.

Hound archons are barely more powerful than lantern archons.

Setting this in Elysium still has its merits, of course. Having to travel around via performing genuinely good deeds is an unusual concept that even compassionate mortals from the Prime might be tripped up by.

This thread would be helped if you chose different images to use, touhoufag

K.

Then again, it may be better to have circumstances be such that when the party finally receives word of the son's location, he is already on the front lines against the Lower Planes, holding a fortified yet tenuous position in Baator, the Abyss, or some place else.

This way, the party can get to experience both the Upper and the Lower Planes.

>How would you make this adventure premise better?
Honestly I like it as is

>How would you personally run it as a GM?
Well I'd start with a lead
How do they know he's in Elysium?
Take that and go from there so the PCs aren't wandering forever
I'm a sucker for happy ending, I'd probably have the queen get closure from meeting him and the guardinal at least sympathetic to her plight, it'd probably be more bitter sweet than anything but he'd be happy he was helping someone out and she'd be able to move on in the end

>How would you handle it as a party?
Go in with diplomacy, try to convince him he can help her get closure, what else depends on what the DM throws at us

>How do they know he's in Elysium?
Divinations, presumably.

>Take that and go from there so the PCs aren't wandering forever
Presumably, the PCs could use that knowledge to find a soul conduit that winds from the Prime Material Plane to the Astral Plane and then Elysium (or Mount Celestia if I have the son be an archon). Alternatively, they might have heard of the legendary city of Sigil and travel to the Upper Planes from there.

>I'm a sucker for happy ending, I'd probably have the queen get closure from meeting him and the guardinal at least sympathetic to her plight
That is probably the most likely scenario, even if it does come after a situation similar to

So the players have to make their way to Sigil or the Infinite Staircase.

Or the World Ash, Yggdrasil.
Or an astral color pool.
Or an astral conduit.

Many options for planar travel exist.

What I am concerned about now is that this is a relatively low-stakes, personal-scale adventure. Some players, myself included, would prefer for adventures to have major stakes so that their characters can make a large impact on the world.

The only thing currently at stake in this adventure is the queen's mental well-being. What could be done to raise the stakes?

Prince required to be present temporarily to resolve some kind of legal or inheritance-related dispute that has the potential to plunge the kingdom into war.

But it's not the prince any more.

>As a GM I'd make sure to include a few encounters with clearly bad/evil antagonists
Like what?

How could it be justified that the guardinal (or archon) is still the prince for legal purposes?

Furthermore, would this not lock the party into the route of bringing the son back to the mortal world instead of bringing the queen to the heavens?

What would make it less touchy-feely?

>use a wish to restore his memories if neutral
Wishes don't work that way.

>he's a pocket sized glow in the dark version of his original body

Sounds like a Japanese video game fairy.

Demons and other fiends.

Why would they be in heaven?