Hello Veeky Forums I came here today to ask for your help.
I think I might written myself into a corner, and I want to get out. First let me tell you the situation. So, my players are trying to find this maguffin that is in an abandoned temple. The temple was built a long time ago, and it was prosperous but one day the monks in the temple created an artifact of great power (the maguffin). The thing is that this artifact drew the attention of the drow living in the underdark under the temple, who attacked it from a tunnel they dug. But something followe the drow, monsters from the underdark, and while they where pillaging and sieging the temple where attacked by the monsters. Meanwhile the hig priest of the temple shetered himself and the maguffin in the highest floor of the temple and protected the entrace with an impenetrable rune, simbol of his office. So the players have to get one of this runes to get the artifact, and to get one of those they need to search for the rest of an old high priest, burried in the cripts below the temple. The twist is, the rune was stolen by some of the monsters and taken to the underdark and the players have to look for it there. The problem is, I don't know how to guide them to look for it in the tunnels, and I don't trust them they will figure it out themselves. So, how do I make them realize the thing they have to look for is in the den of some underdark monster without telling them?
Help!
>They find this priest.
>Priest is oddly cooperative
>Probably because something already punched his face in for the rune
>Tells them some creature from the Underdark punched his face in and took the rune, then to fuck off so he can fix his face or something.
>Players go to underdark
>Rumors of some creature walking in with a rune
>Players follow rumors
>Players punch in monster's face
>Everything solved.
Thanks for the help, there is a little problem with it, the temple is abandoned and has been for a loooong time, so there is actually no living priest they can talk to. But I can work arround it, thanks again
Holy shit, I was useful? No problem guy. Only checked on the thread to see if anybody suggested anything better.
Would it be too strange to have a religious hermit there instead? Sacred ground is sacred ground, and even if there are no official ordained priests, there can still be someone that acts in a similar fashion.
Or hell, make him a bum that was using the ruins as shelter.
...Why the fuck would you paint the floor? Especially that way.
easy mode, ghost of priest, (awaiting arrival of foretold heroes).
Seconding ghost priest lingering to secure the safety of the time.
It's been done, but it works.
you wanted the floor a different color?
and i think you're missing the metaphor, user.
Ghost priest that can't leave the temple and seeks revenge on monsters that ravaged the temple so that he can finally find his peace?
He can also give them a blessing that would guide party to the runes or something.
Not OP, but if its a 'halp bread' let it be a halp bread'
>tl;dr I need some plot twists for evil characters. Drows to be exact.
Did oldschool forgotten realms (mostly for nostalgia) underdark campaign with my players, i didn't dm for a long time so im rusty as fuck and i cannot come up with something original.
I did it in episodes from couple of perspectives all kind of fuelling next session. Its easy to build upon svirfneblin, adventurer or duergar one for me. Thier struggle in underdark is something i can use. Drows are another pair of pants tho... being just to fucking schemin, evil and Over Powered. By default players start with diplomatic relations with worst scum of their sector... like Ilithids and stuff and i never really liked drows that much anyway so if you have some "best of Veeky Forums" pastas or ideas i will be thankful. Anything goes.
bonus: if someone can post that pasta where we came up with the idea that adventurers are actually dragon spawn i will let you fuck my pet turtle
Giant hole in corner of the temple where some nasty Underdark thing has clearly dragged things away. If you've got drow, you could have spiderwebs with random items webbed up in them, leading as a trail downwards.
Not sure what you're reaching for in terms of specifics, is there a scene to work off or are you just looking for "general drow plot devices"?
A few ideas off the top of my head (drow are my bread and butter):
>adventurers through the Underdark get captured by drow and taken to a drow city, only to be released and treated suspiciously well - then are misled constantly to be used as pawns in the drow warfare amongst themselves, with their "allies" being their worst enemies and their "enemies" being relatively neutral towards them
>limit the party's access to light and fire so the ability to see in the dark becomes a vital resource, and they have to manage it carefully with darkvision users being high value - making them rely on drow "guides" for advantages, never knowing which ones are truthful or not
>Lolth in high ascendancy, but it turns out none of the drow actually want her to be powerful again because they always end up getting the shit end of the stick, but none of them will admit to it - and the party don't want Lolth powerful either, so they're incredibly valuable to the drow trying to suppress the priestesses
Happy to give more ideas if you can provide more context.
Just started the Drow 'episode' and finishing Duearga' one so basically i can adapt, anything goes.
But to clarify.
Im doing campaigning from Adventurers perspective, bt its intermittent by quick one-offs from perspectives of all other races.
Point is that players ARE the Drows in this one, this makes it hard for my talentless ass bacause I don't really like doing evil characters and im not good with Drows either. Being on thier turf, Drows are quite overpowered to.
Im sure players will deliver with rp so i might be paranoid, one offs are exactly for that but i would like to come up and show them some orginal ideas and twists for "not so good" player characters.
I remember Veeky Forums coming up with such ridiculous shit i thought its not a bad idea to ask when i saw the thread.
>drow are my bread and butter
oh mine to if you know what i mean
Oh that makes sense, I read you.
>party are a close-knit family who generally work together (insofar as drow can manage to do so), but it becomes obvious that one of them is working against the others, and none of them knows which (the twist being that none of them are - it's just staged to look that way). Paranoia ensues
>most of the city is actually good-aligned, but no one trusts anyone else enough to realise
>city's most powerful leaders secretly controlled by mindflayers
>most of the city is actually good-aligned, but no one trusts anyone else enough to realise
genious
genius*
shit
ill manage somehow but man, i don't know how you people can still come up with this stuff on the fly. Practice i guess. Im rusty.
Fell free to post more, really thankful for that.
Will check the thread later.
My job is creative, so I spend a lot of my time brainstorming things. It mostly consists of throwing lots of components at a problem and seeing what people like.
I'm actually at work at the moment, but it's a slow day, so I might add ideas sporadically as they occur to me. Worldbuilding and twists are my favourite part of writing.
You can boil the "good-aligned" one down to its core concept and bash it about a bit for different ideas:
>secret everyone knows but no one acknowledges starts causing problems - but the secret isn't even true
>city is divided in conflict between two leaders, but they're actually working together to eliminate their subordinates who would pose a threat by directing them into war
I'm OP and that is what I think I'll do (the work arround user's idea thing). Thanks for all the answers.
>1984 it up
>secret police roaming the streets, certain thoughts and phrases are illegal
>taxation is high
>everyone feeling the squeeze
>hunt down the person in control
>turns out the harsh measures are in order to weed out hidden cultists trying to kill everyone and to raise money to protect the city from their forces outside the gates
>party must choose between ending the 1984 curtain and giving the cultists a chance to infect more of the city before invading against weakened defences, or continuing the hideous oppression, maybe even increasing it
Also, stealing ideas works. The above is an adapted version of the plot of Fable 3.
Is your party good or evil aligned? Anyway, I have a few ideas here.
>You discover that the drow house that has antagonised you is actually led by a man. The poor bastard has to use magic to disguise himself as female, and is constantly beset by all sorts of enemies, so he leads a rather shitty life. He tries to have you killed only because you are attacking his possessions.
>A serial killer is moving around the city, leaving mutilated corpses in inconvenient places. This killing spree takes place while political intrigue and schemes threaten to burst the bubble of calmness, bringing a wave of assassinations and secret wars to the already terrified city.
>There's a small resistance movement fighting to free the slaves. They are mostly escaped servants, but a few drow joined their ranks, for freedom, profit, ideals, or fun. While they need to lay low to avoid detection, they might have discovered something that might allow them to turn the tables around.
A bit overdone, but it can work.
>One night, the keep of a noble house disappears for no reason. The rulers were away, so they are still alive, but no one knows who or why did it.
>A skirmish begins the busiest hour of the day, with two squads of drow with no identifying marks fighting in the biggest meeting place. It ends in just a few moments.
I hope this helps.
Alternative idea for OP.
The monster who took the rune is big. So big in fact, that it left a path of destruction through the temple in its wake.
Maybe it was some sort of wurm, who accidentaly swallowed half of the old priest, rune included, leaving only part of its tomb behind.
Combine this obvious clue with an npc if needed, to be sure to point them in the right direction.
Follow the tunnels and the old traces of acidic saliva, and you'll find the rune (by defeating a big monster).
>Everyone in the city is afraid, but it's not immediately clear why. Turns out in the end, they're scared of the party, because they're disrupting the usual power balance
>There's a seer who correctly predicts every event, but has predicted the death of the party. Investigation reveals that they're a false seer who simply say things and enforce the outcome to remain popular - and the party is their next target
>No one is allowed to leave the city, but it turns out that it's because they're not even in the Underdark - it's just a huge prison above ground, and only a few people know and have been tasked with being the "wardens"
Shit, thanks.
Im not gonna sugarcoat it but i appreciate it greatly.
Drow Pasta as a thanks token and i hope the amount of (You)'s also suffices.
Any time. I like the politics you get with Drow, always feel it gets edged up too much.
Blood trail, Survival checks determine it is (easy) not humanoid, (medium) but that of a subterranean insectoid, (hard) an Umber Hulk, (very hard) and it's blood from a wound to its bug liver-equivalent. Plus every twenty feet or so there's a coin alongside the trail, and you even find one small emerald with bug-blood on it.
That thing has the rune. Tempt them with an injured monster supposedly dripping with treasure.
Maybe a ghost priest or an illusion priest. Or a Harry Potter style talking portrait or statue of the priest.
Yeah, i don't like to edge to much.
To be honest i rarely even play high-fantasy.
Not a fan of grimderp either. Playing it mostly for nostalgia tho i will stay faithful to couple of tropes, but will try to spice shit up enough to be interesting. As long as it makes sense and is consistent its fine. This '#notalldrows' making them sperg more from tradition and social pressure and not from just being edgy kink loving arachophiles is perfect example of good storytelling idea. Thanks man.
lots of evidence at the temple that the players can follow (tracking roll, investigation roll, INT roll, no roll, whatever)