What to do with this concept?

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Calmar's picture
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What to do with this concept?

Hi. Smiling

Imagine this:

The PCs visit a city on some backwater Material world. A gloomy dark-ages atmosphere dominates the city and the whole realm wherein the city is situated. That city is overshadowed by a huge, gothic-style temple of a god of order whose will is executed by a merciless high priest and his clergy. Assisted an order of remorseless inquisitors he conducts a hunt on heretics, demon-worshipers and sinners. Whoever confesses of his sins by himself may find absolution by serving in a 'holy war' in a land far away. Whoever is found to be a demon-worshiper is sentenced to death.

Truth is, there's indeed a cult of an Abyssal Lord operating in the city, lead by a demon, growing with the growing oppression and fighting the minions of the high priest. But rarely one of the sods the inquisition catches actually belongs to the cult. There is also good-aligned resistance, both among common residents of the city and the nobility, but they have to fear the temple's influence and power themselves.

Truth is also, that the temples clergy has, over a long time, been corrupted by baatezu. The former high-ups of the temple have been replaced by a cornugon that poses as  high priest (maybe casting spells granted by one of the arch devils?) and a host of erinyes, all disguised as humans. And the convicts sent far away to find forgiveness for their 'sins' are actually dragged to the lower planes to fight against the tanar'ri as cheap conscripts in the Blood War. 

So far, it sounds quite interesting, at least to me. Eye-wink

The problem is: Who cares? Would the factions be interested in demons and devils fighting a part of their war on some material world? How could the PCs get involved?

I was thinking about something like a rescue-mission where the PCs have to find and free a planar friend/ally who has been caught by the high priest (maybe because of being a tiefling?) and is soon to be executed. Thereby they could get involved with the various resisting groups, including the demons and fight out what really is going on.

What do you think? Smiling

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Jem
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Certainly if a tiefling

Certainly if a tiefling friend of theirs has fallen afoul of religious zealots (or just peery devils that know a tiefling might be wise enough to expose them), and can get a message out, that's a fine adventure hook. 

If any of the PCs are of the church of the temple in question, their planar hierarchy may have noticed the disruption in the local organization and sent them to investigate.

Experience in the Blood War may find them running across one or more of the conscripts and getting the story from them; plenty of PCs have reasons to oppose the machinations of devils.

If any of the PCs or the PCs' allies have ties to the Prime, their homeworld could be the one where this is all happening, so they'd hear from friends and family about the slowly worsening grind back home.

Members of the Harmonium or Fraternity of Order might simply receive orders to the effect of "an ally of ours has requested our services in accordance with standing agreements; you're assigned to investigate and, if possible, rectify."   Athar might take the opportunity to not only expose the fraud but offer an entirely different solution to the problem.

Calmar's picture
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Thanks for the reply!

Thanks for the reply! Smiling

 I think it works best, when the PCs have to find out what's going on during the adventure, not as a hook. 

 Simply getting an order from the faction high-ups to investigate that place is a simple and elegant sollution Smiling

...seems I'm good in missing the obvious. Sticking out tongue

 

 

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"La la la, I'm a girl, I'm a pretty little girl!"

--Bel the Pit Fiend, Lord of the First (in a quiet hour of privacy)

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The Revolutionary League

The Revolutionary League gets wind of the oppression and possible lower planar involvement and, since they don't have much to do nowadays, decide to send in some of their men.

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A couple of Xaositects could

A couple of Xaositects could decide to help just because they think it might be fun. Similarly sensates could be there for the experience, and the Takers for the possiblity of filling the power vacuum once they've dealt with the current problems.

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Calmar wrote: The problem

Calmar wrote:

The problem is: Who cares? Would the factions be interested in demons and devils fighting a part of their war on some material world? How could the PCs get involved?

I was thinking about something like a rescue-mission where the PCs have to find and free a planar friend/ally who has been caught by the high priest (maybe because of being a tiefling?) and is soon to be executed. Thereby they could get involved with the various resisting groups, including the demons and fight out what really is going on.

What do you think? Smiling

You may answer your first question, about why the factions would want to get involved, by answering why the fiends have chose this particular town to fight over in the first place.  What interesting and/or valuble things can you put in there that attracted the fiends in the first place?  The factions may want the same thing, or maybe just to know why the fiends are both there, out of all the places in the multiverse, at once.  Perhaps the missing friend is a secretly an informant for one of the factions?

Calmar's picture
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"You may answer your first

"You may answer your first question, about why the factions would want to get involved, by answering why the fiends have chose this particular town to fight over in the first place.  What interesting and/or valuble things can you put in there that attracted the fiends in the first place?  The factions may want the same thing, or maybe just to know why the fiends are both there, out of all the places in the multiverse, at once.  Perhaps the missing friend is a secretly an informant for one of the factions?" The baatezu chose this place, and maybe the surrounding lands, too, simply because they had the opportunity to set up this operation there. The demons may have come there to spoil their efforts, or maybe they tried it first, but weren't as successful as the devils. At least that's what I have, so far...

__________________

"La la la, I'm a girl, I'm a pretty little girl!"

--Bel the Pit Fiend, Lord of the First (in a quiet hour of privacy)

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If the baatezu and tanar'ri

If the baatezu and tanar'ri are fighting over some obscure part of the prime, other planars might get interested because they don't know why the fiends are fighting over it. It could be part of a cosmic joke or farce - everyone gets interested, rumors start flying, but the fiends are here simply by chance.

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