heys all!

my group asked for a campaign with a REAL challenge for their final adventure. something very lethal, dangerous and heroic.

so i came up with a campaign that will eventually, if they survive that long, lead them into the chaos-realm itself.

i do know that no PC would normally survive a second in there, but i want my players to give it a go, since they specifically asked me for a quest like that.

so, after alot of sidequests and all they might really get to go after the chaos "gods" themselves. in our game, the chaos gods are very powerful beings, but they are not in fact gods, they do really exist and now they are to be banished to stop them from uniting and taking over the old world.
so, of course, they cannot ever be "killed". but as i said i want my PCs to set eyes upon them and finally learn that the ruinous powers are not something to be taken lightly.

if anybody wants the setup for the campaign i can provide it of course, but maybe some of you want to help me making this story a really epic one.

so, i need to figure out a way for all of the 4 gods on: how to get to their realm, how to get to the god himself and how to banish them.

i started out with slaneesh, since for me he has the best disciption of his realm in the book of pleasure.

the group will go through the 6 circles described in the book and then finally set eyes upon slaneesh himself. the circles are well discribed and i had an easy time writing those. but now, how to get them to banish the deamonish god? i think it should have something to do with the skill of guile, some conversational trick maybe? i don't really want them to fight him with human strength, because that is not the nature of slaneesh…any suggestions?

for khorne i want them to let his dog, karanak pretty much eat him up. it should be a fight in which they have to move strategically and act smart so the fleshound would maybe attack him. not sure about that yet, but it should work. but how to get into the bloodgods fortress?

for nurgle it will be a garden filled with diseases and giant bugs they have to get through to find him. but how to banish him? with some sort of healing spell? what if they don't have a shallyan priest or a wizard to do that? any other possibillies?

with tzeentch i am a little lost. he lives in some sort of estate guraded by his mages, who are constantly burning down the plants growing in nurgle's realm which is next to this one. but what will they enounter in there`? it should be something really confusing, worthy of the great scheemer. and how to banish the lord of dark magic? i would say with a good old fight, because wizards are naturally pretty weak against brutal force, but i just can't put the finger on how to really make it epic…

so, maybe any of you got some suggestions for me, so i can grant my player the epic last adventure they asked for!
thx in advance
neph

Write that scenario up. We're accepting submissions for the scenario contest

Tzeentch: Lots of mysteries and forbidden knowledge should be played out. Fighting a brain overflowing with "oh, you wanted to know it all, well here it comes, expect your head to explode" should be adequate

jh

awesome idea! thx

how accurate does it have to be for the contest? since i'm writing my stuff in german so i'll need to translate it, that could take a little. so do you only want the story or also the encounters, checks, etc?

Anything to do with battle, you can toss up to Khorne. But put in enough moral dilemma's as well I would say.

Nurgle:

Nurgle cares for his creations. Maybe put the players in a similar position. Have a race of helpful imps to the party during their travels, only to have them realise as they go along that the imps are causing a lot of real world anguish, just simply by existing. The equivalent of taking germs and shaping them into cute puppies, kindly strangers, helpful neighbours to the party, but in the Old World they are nurglings, causing infections and disease by their nature.

Are they going to kill off these "critters" or not?

Tzeentch, I would suggest giving yourself as GM some extra leeway in the form of 1 or 2 jokers while working on the adventure. Suggested that the players figure out some plots, use one of these jokers to on the fly make it seem as though you expected them to do this all along, only for them to now fall into your "real" trap. Make it look as though you're a mastermind planning 5 steps ahead of the party Don't overdo it of course, the party still should have a way out.

Getting to Tzeentch would be as much combat as illusions, riddles, puzzles, etc. I think even some out of the game puzzles could be used, if your players are down with that. Mazes that don't follow ordinary logic… Beating Tzeentch should not be a battle in the normal sense. He schemes for the sake of scheming. Not always even with a goal. As such, beating him, would be like a game of chess: You can't defeat him, you need to put him in a position where he has no options left. For instance, devising a way to link his mind to a means of communication to the other chaos gods. They would immediately know what he was planning, and counterplanning, and what fallback scenarios he has.

In fact, if you managed that, I think you might well destroy all 4 powers as Tzeentch gets himself in an infinitely recursive loop

wow, awesome suggestions. for khorne i kinda planned for them to have to disguise themselves as servants of the blood god. they have a ranald priest with them, so a little blessing might even do the trick. since in his realm deamons fight for the sake of bloodshed and even kill each other to determine who is stronger, bloodshed, brutality and alot of gore will be part of the game in his realm.
maybe their dwarf slayer will meet the skulltaker himself and defeat him in a one on one battle, so the group "does not attract any attention" in the realm of the skullthrone.

for nurgle i can unfortunately not trick my group into having any companions. they strictly do not accept any NPC they see in their group since they learned from the beginning of their game not to trust anyone in the old world. they once encountered some fairies who pretty much screwed em over with their wicked sense of humor, so any supernatural being is normally outright slaughtered at first sight
but the fact that nurgle cares for his creations is a really good idea, maybe that is even how they will attract his attention in the garden to make him come out of his kitchen of diseases. and that might not be good for the party at all….*evil*

what do you mean by kill off "critters"?

tzeentch will most likely even approach the party while still in the old world once he gets aware of their plan (and he will). he will try to get them on his side only to screw em later on. in my campaigns it is always a legitimate choice to turn to the dark side if you want, but you will then have to face the consequences of your action, having a mark of chaos and being chased all over the empire by witchhunters. i really dig the idea of the maze working differently, and my group loves riddles and puzzles, so that will be a huge part.
and the idea on defeating him by getting him in a loop of thoughts and schemes is plain awesome!!

so, in my next post i will try to outline the basic storyline and the main quest of the campaign so you can get an idea on how it will work out.

so, as promised, here's the setup! for any german player who wants the campaign when its finished, just PM me with your email address, ill provide pdf or docx files, whichever is prefered.

the campaign is called "the end of an era", as the old world will enter a new age after the PCs manage to banish the lords of darkness. this will, of course create a huge vacuum of power and some other evil might just take the opportunity to bring chaos, destruction and bloodshed to the old world. i haven't made my mind up to that yet, but i'm thinking of the skaven atm, since i have never touched them so far and they might just see their chance to conquer the upper world.

it all started with the group going to ulthuan to help the dwarf slayer, who had gotten himself into big trouble with the ruinous power of khorne and ended up with a mark of khorne on his left leg. in an ancient library they found a text which described a way of dealing with that sort of injury, but only the high elves of ulthuan ever managed to cast such magic.
of course it took some talking the dwarf into visiting the most hated elven kin and having them perform magic on his heavily tatooed and scarred body.
the group managed to get to ulthuan and the dwarf almost died in a battle, so he had no choice of letting the elves treat his wounds.

to make up for what the elves did for them, they were asked to go to naggaroth because teclis, the high elf mage sensed strange energies out of the dark elf land and wanted the group to investigate. they encountered a fortress of the dark elves in which a strange ritual was taking place. the elves opened a gate and escaped through it. the dwarf slayer decided to stay behind and find his glorious death in the fight against a beholder. the rest of the group stepped through the gate and found themself in a whole new world. it turned out it was the world of the dark eye, a german RPG. we played a campaign in that world and then went back through another, conviently placed portal. it took the group back to the old world, to the exact same spot they had left it. the dwarf had just slain the beholder, maybe a day had passed. but for the group in aventuria (that's the name of the land there) had taken some 2 years to complete their task there.

so now we are all together again and the high elves have some really bad news: there is something strange going on with the winds of magic. a dark, greyish shade has started to lay over the winds and drains their color and their strength. it came form the portal the darkelves has opened and heads north, to the chaos wasted and finally into the chaos realm. (this is actually the 5th chaos god, which i will introduce very much later in the game. he is the "lost brother", who was once banished into the world of aventuria by the high elves. in aventuria he was called "the nameless". and now he finally found his way back "home" and will reunite his brothers so they stop fighting each other and finally get to conquer the old world together!)
teclis sends the group to investigate this strange event, but before they can get to it, the emperor karl franz himself contacts the high elves for aid, something that hasn't been done in aeons.

the humans of the empire have bad news: the chaos marauders, who come each year and invade norsca, sometimes kislev, have completely overrun the realm of norsca and are now on the way to praag, to conquer it again in the name of the ruinous powers. this would normally be nothing special in the old world, marauders have tried that for hundreds of years…but this time it is different. they do no longer bare the symbols and colors of one of the ruinous powers, but have united under a strange banner, which pretty much assembles all 4 chaos gods in the smybol of the nameless of the dark eye.

so much for the setup. now here's a as short as possible held summary of the adventures taking place in this setting:

the call for aid: karl franz has managed to reach the elves, who grant them their wish and promise to send troops to praag to help defend the city. but he has not yet heard any news or answer of the dwarfs of karaz - a - karak. he fears they might not be able to help, having to defeat the empire against constant attacks of hordes of greenskins from the south. so the group decided to visit the dwarfs and try to get them to help.

the stubburness of the dwarfs: on the way from altdorf to karaz - a - karak the group will encounter various perils. some old fiends who seek revenge from former adventures and several chaos cult, which are strangly powerfull by now, as the power of their lords are rising. i'm planning on throwing them a bone now and then with a little hidden hint on how to survive in the later to come chaos realm adventures. so at least they can go in a little prepared.
when they reach the karak they will notice that the dwarfs are actually a dying race. they use the last of their manpower and machines to fight of the greenskin menace from the south. if only there was a way to stop them from attacking, them they might even be able to send a batallion of fighters maybe also their gyrocopter for a good battle oversight

the greenskin decision: so it is on the group to find a way to deal with the horrible greenlings. in the world of aventuria they learned that goblins can even by arguable and conversational. they have 1 character out of the land of aventuria with them, who, i hope, will try to find a reasonable solution. i will design the greenskins in a way that there might be a peaceful solution to the battle, at least for some time so the dwarfs can help saving the human race. maybe they call be talked into helping aswell, to safe the world they all live in. who knows what the players can come up with? if there is no solution to the conflict they might have to battle a horde of greenskins and lose alot of time.

the battle for praag: the PCs should then decide to head to praag and defend the city. there will, of course, be alot of little side quests involved with the journey to the north, i have not figured them all out, but i might even come up with some random encounters on that.
when the group arrives in the area of praag the battle is already underway. the elves have come to aid and the battle seems to be even winnable. with the dwarfs on hand they will fight their way to the city gate and maybe even get a feeling of victory. but as the battles goes on, suddenly a heavy earthquake shakes the ground and in front of the city gate a hideous creature, riding a deamonic horse appears. it is archaon the everchosen, who has come to turn the tide of the battle to the side of the ruinous powers. the PCs should now decide to take him on. as they fight him, they will notice a strange, black but though glowing maelstrom near the city gate. this will be the entrance to the realm of chaos. as the maelsotrm seems to shrink, they will have to jump through it to end the battle from the other side, trying to bring chaos back to the chaos realm and make the ruinous powers fight each other, so the battlefield of praag will be a mayhem again and the deamons will attack each other like they used to the past thousands of years. if they have to defeat archaon for that or not, i have not yet decided. but maybe i will get them to have to flee through the portal and archaon jumping thourgh behind them, so they have a reason to enter the six circles of temptation in the realm of slaneesh, which follows next.

the six circles of temptaion - the realm of the lord of pleasure: the group will find themselves in a barren wasteland, the ground being covered in black ashes, but somehow shimmering in a purple tone. they all feel some sort of erotic energy in the place. also, they will notice a little pavillion not far away. they should have learned by now, that this is were slaneesh has his domain. with an observation check they will find out, that the air in front of them seems warmer and is even moving a little, blurring the vision to the pavillion. if they know about the 6 circles, they might want to find a way around them, but will quickly get to know some hideous monsters living in the chaos realm. they will be forced to enter through the hot air, into the first circle. the circles are pretty much as described in the book of pleasure. if anyone wants the rundown, i can translate it. the group will be played out against themselves if they manage to get through (no instant death traps, i feel they are unfair, there is ALWAYS a way out, it's just a matter of finding it) they will set eyes upon the lord of pleasure. discribed as in the book, a clean of limb, androgynuos, somehow very beautiful being. he will try to lure the PCs into working FOR him instead of banishing him, which is, again a legitimate choice to make and will turn the campaign over into the other direction.
if they decide to "fight". the lord of pleasure is an epic keeper of secrets with 4 action out of the greater servants of slanessh and 2 random out of the complete deck. i might vary his wound threshold according to the group that is present, so they have a slight chance of succes, but really, just a slight one hehe.
of course, there are many terror, corruption and willpower checks required to even dare to attack the guy. if they defeat him, he will disintegratem somhow implode maybe, leavin behind a ring with strange carvings on it. (it will finally, with 3 other artifacts, lead them to the nameless. but maybe i'll drop that idea and have the namelesses' masterplan be to destroy his brothers and use the vacuum of power to, you guessed it, TAKE OVER THE WORLD ;-) )

now we get to the, yet unwritten parts:

the realm of the bloodgod, the realm of the plaguelord and the realm of the great scheemer. and, not to forget, the epic finale with the nameless, if i dicide to use him yet, and the rest of the battle for praag.

so, that is as far as i am right now. i will continue writing and as soon as i have something new, i will porst it. looking forward to feedback!

Sorry, I should have kept the same name.

When I said "critters", I meant the helpful imps.

Sounds interesting already, keep us updated on the other parts!

Too bad my German is atrocious (even though I live right next-door).

Also, there already *is* a non-canon 5th god of Chaos, Malal.

Look for some info on him on Google or the Liber Fanatica if you want to save yourself some work (or are looking for inspiration on what your 5th God could be like.)

ah, ok. so as my group won't accept any "NPCs" i guess i won't include something like that.

as for the 5th chaos god: THANK YOU! that made my day. now i know that he will be the giant asshead i was thinking of. i think he'll be in the background for now though, so he can take advantage of the vacuum of power later on. and i'm sure to check on him asap.

so, we had our 2nd advance. characters playing: Bryndi the Dwarf Slayer, Raiana the Wardancer (also a priest of rhya, i'll explain that below), Fernando the Ranald Priest and Ramus the Bright order wizard.

so, raiana, the wardancer: she is actually a human of the land of aventuria in which she was an initiate of the goddess raia, who stand for love, desire and passion in this world. in the game of the dark eye, characters can take a career called the sabre-dancer, who fight solely for the purpose of a beatiful, satisfying fight. so we decided to create the character as an initiate of rhya and let her get do the wardancer afterwards, since the ritual dances come pretty close to what a sabre-dancer would do.

as for the story:

we left off last time when the group was talking to emperor karl franz, who told them about the fall of norsca and of the danger in which kislev is now. the group knows, that there is a large army on the march to Praag wanting to finally retake the city for the chaos realms. the elves also contacted them again, telling them a little story about how they closed the warp-gates (i think thats what they were called) with their awesome magic. of course, Bryngdi the dwarf highly disagreed on that, as Grimnir, the first slayer, has obviously also played a part in that story. so he wants to hear the story from the dwarf standpoint and karl franz agreed on letting them get to karaz-a-karak, as he has not yet recieved an answer of his messenger whom he sent there.

so the group decides to make their way down to the karak, planning their route over the cities of Übersreik, Nuln and Pfeilburg. they went to the royal stables to get some horses. of course, the dwarf is not really fond of riding a horse. after being teased a little by the stable-boys he tries to jump on one of the horses and ride one. he succeeded awesomely in the jumping check and was sitting on the horse. as he failed his ride check, he tries to make the horse going forward. the horse doesn't move at all, since his feet are too short and also his arms can't seem to reach bridle. a good laugh for the stable boys and also for the rest of the group, resulting into an incease on party tension. so the dwarf was offered to ride with raiana, which he agreed to, mumbling curses in his beard.

on the second day of their journey the group is jumped by a group of 3 dark elf assassins who still have a grudge to settle with them from their adventure in fauligmere (we played the witch song). after a very good fight in which the assassins tried to capture raiana several times, the group finds a letter on the body of one of the elfs, stating that "we" have set foot again in marienburg and that there was a plan for which they need the woman travelling with the group. as for now, the group has no clue if it actually is raiana they want or if it is the prophet of doom, who jumped a cliff lately out of insanity. this will eventually lead to a sidequest i have not diceded on yet, i'll make it up on the fly.
arriving in übersreik the group started looking for adventureres in a dim bar. they found 4 willing adventurers and sent the to marienburg to start investigating in the topic of dark elf activity there. they agreed to meet them in 3 weeks in the city of eilhart to get their report (the dwarf still has a ring on him which he should bring to a man in eilhart, it was an adventure hook once and the player just won't let it go, so i'll grant him that this time).

the group's journey to nuln did not go so "well". on the road the encountered a man of mid age, trying to stop their ride in desperation. his daughter had been kidnapped by a bunch of bandits who have now barricated themself with his daughter in a cabin in the woods. as the group starts to ask a little more about the story of the kidnapping, the man seems to get more and more aggressive, trying to finally get them to help him. a chaos star on an intuition check resulted in an unnatural rage for raiana, which carried over to the other PCs shortly thereafter. the group dicides to help the man who shows them the way to the cabin. investigation of the surroundings: all windows are barricaded, there is a front door and a door in the back, which might lead into a coal cellar. Bryingi quickly dicides, in his rage, to storm the cabin and hacks the door with his axe. as he breaks open the door he gets an arrow to the chest, which only served to piss him off even more. bryngdi and raiana enter the cabin and find 3 bandits in the room, but no sight of the girl. ramus and fernando, standing in the doorway, also partake in a rather un-epic battle scene, as the 3 bandits stand no chance for the group. after the 3 have been defeated, fernando and ramus go to check on the back door again as bryngdi and raiana stay in. as soon as they turn their backs on the door, the room falls completely dark. all they can still see are 2 flashing red dots were the door used to be. it is the man who led them to the cabin. with a sinister laugh he explains that he will now become the new champion of his god as he has managed to find them an will now sacrifice their blood to the blood god. bryngi takes out his axes, runs for the 2 flashing dots and jumps on the guy, almost chopping him in half.
being sure of his victory, bryngi suddenly hears a familiar grumble in the left corner of the room. a grumble he had heard before, last time when he was "the chosen one" of the blood god and recieved his mark of khorne in a fight against a deamon. but this time it is a little different, it almost sounds like the ratlling of bones bashing against each other. in the dark a deep, menacing voice challenges him to a one-on-one fight. khorne has sent the skulltaker to settle the case.
whilst these 2 are in the cabin, ramus and fernando manage to open the door in the back. they sneak into the cellar out of which they hear a deep mumbling "blood for the bloodgod skulls for the throne of khorne". the walls, floor and ceiling of the poorly lit cellar seem to be entirely covered in blood and gore. at the end of a little corridor they see 8 cultists praying to a shrine in front of which something has been recently torn apart and sacrifized to the blood god. fernando quickly sneaks back out to check for the other 2. as he finds the door no longer there he reports back to ramus, telling him that there is no other way out of the building anymore than the back door. so ramus quickly casts the fires of u'zhul to burn the evil cult. with a very good roll he manages to set the room on fire. they flee the cellar and lock the door behind them. after a few minutes the knocking on the door and the screaming stopps. so they dicide to open the door again. approaching the room, which is now filled with burning hot air (resulting in a resielience check) they find a book with the smybol of the blood god on it.
meanwhile bryngi has taken the challenge of the skulltaker and has engaged into a one on one battle in the dark room. raiana tries to help him a little with a few minor blessings. he manages to defeat the skulltaker in an epic battle and, since he is a slayer and wants a trophy, takes the skulltakers head.
but the door still does not appear again. they search the room and find a little trapdoor in a corner. bryngdi opens it and is spilled with a bucket full of gore from above, resulting in terror checks.
the 2 decend into the cellar only to find their 2 companions down there and alot of hot air. as raiana has made it down the ladder, the whole cellar starts to shake. the doors to get our are suddenly locked by what appears to be dark magic. infront of the dark shrine a devious figure appears, a huge deamon with a doglike face baring a sword so big it could cavre continents and an armour so thick no blow would land through. it is a vision of the blood god, who dicided to speak to them once again. he tells bryngdi that the sacrifice he brought to the room was unworthy as he had help killing the skulltaker and asks for the skull of the guy with the red glowing eyes. being good hearted, bryngi refuses and even dares to make fun of the blood god. claiming that they had the chance to be the chosen ones khorne leaves them to the mercy of any creature serving him to kill the group and become his new champion. (so they will now be constantly chased by khorne-worshippers)

the group does not want to open the book they found. all they really want is to finally rest and clean themselfs from the taint of chaos.

so, that is were we stopped the session this time. now i'm off to canada for a week and them the next session report will follow!