My Campaign Idea, Owlbears... WITH THREE HEADS!

[Shades of Gray]

Okay, our old DM decided that he wanted to play, so I'm stuck DMing, frankly because everyone else in my group is too new, or that one dude knows way too much and would make our brains hurt with monsters trying to kill us.

They said that in Old Dm's campaigns, one of the problems was too little space, most of it taking place in 10ft. wide corridors (and not even any gelatinous cubes)! So I decided my campaign would happen in rural countrysides, and if we ventured into dungeons, definitely large wide open tombs and catacombs.

I have a decent (if cliched) plot ready. The players start in town X, where they hear that there are horrible creatures plaguing the countryside. When the players investigate, they find odd combinations of creatures there. The creatures I have so far are (thank god for Savage Species) a group of three-headed owlbears, Feral Trolls, and tauric centipede ogres (That's ogres with centiped lower half)

Once they fight a lot of abominations, they find out that these are the creations of a mad alchemist. They find his lair, and he is revealed to be a human wizard who melded with a stone giant as a symbiote. Each of my major villains will be based off of one of the seven deadly sins. This one will be pride. He experimented on many creatures, before claiming himself as the perfect being.



How's this sound for a basic campaign (for level ten characters), too cliche? Decent enough plot? Crazy enough concepts? (three headed owlbears, they were an abomination before the extra two heads) If they like it, I'll come up with more sin bosses, each subverted slightly (gluttony is thin, and is never full. Sloth isn't lazy, he just doesn't put a lot of effort into it)

[Memnarch]

Sounds interesting enough to me!

[Szilard]

That sounds cool.

[kpenguin]

That's a cool idea. Some ideas for sin bosses:

• I like your idea for gluttony, a guy who is thin but never full. Maybe he's sort of like the Flash: a super-high metabolism that requires he eat constantly accomapnied by incredible speed and agility. Add in some claws, a pounce attack, and good stealth abilities and you've got yourself a powerful opponent. I could see this guy as some kind of bogeyman who haunts the streets of a city, stalking down the citizens and eat their flesh clean.
• As for sloth... the sin is also used to describe apathy rather than just plain laziness. Perhaps a guy who has had all his love, compassion, and humanity sucked out of him through some horrific tragedy. He just doesn't care anymore.
• As for greed, my idea is that the PCs encounter a very powerful thieves guild in a city somewhere. They steal from everyone, rich, poor, good, bad, etc. and are lead by a charismatic master rogue. Eventually, the PCs fight their way through the guild and get to their leader, only to discover that the entire guild was just a front. The real threat is a powerful dragon who lives below the city, using the guild to collect an ever-growing hoard of treasure for the sake of having a massive hoard of treasure.

[Squark]

Interesting Ideas... I look forward to hearing how this pans out for you.

[Shades of Gray]

Those are some great ideas KP, and they mesh with what I was thinking. I didn't know much about the sins, so I asked a friend of mine who's into Christian Mythology. He recommended that Mephistopheles was the one who granted these people their sin abilities.

Gluttony was going to be incredibly thin, because he was enslaved by a vampire. Gluttony prayed to Mephistopheles, and meph granted him his wish, to be fed and survive. Mephistopheles simply made the vampire feed off gluttony. Gluttony's body was preserved as starving due to the poor treatment, and he killed the vampire out of anger. This works with what you've said.

Greed was going to be a slave-king. He was formerly a slave, but killed his former master after asking Mephistopheles for freedom. Now he runs a slave business, and receives several slaves from Pride. This could work for Wrath however...

For Sloth, maybe someone who was tortured and interrogated for a crime he didn't commit. He wished that he would feel no pain. Meph granted him this ability, by making him invulnerable but uncaring. Now Sloth goes out to commit crimes, because he fears no punishment.

Now Lust is something I'm having trouble with. I don't trust my players enough to be mature about this. I need a subversion...

[Lyinginbedmon]

Lust doesn't need to involve any actual sexual acts, the act of lusting after something is not inherently sexual, though the precise nature of the lust may be.

To lust after something/one is to deeply wish to have it for oneself for reasons beyond simple greed. Hence, "lust" is often perceived as the lust of a man for a woman, as the man doesn't want the woman for the sake of having her, but to have sex with her, in most cases.

Consider an alternative to the traditional perception, such as a "lust for vengeance". Maybe it could tie in with Wrath?

[Shades of Gray]

Hmm... Lust and Wrath as a duo maybe?

I'm already making Envy tie into Pride, so this may work. I;m going to need to connect them somehow. I already have:

Pride>Greed. Greed sold Pride Slaves
Greed>Gluttony. They were both slaves of the same people.

'm gonna write this up maybe...

EDIT: I'm thinking that they were brother and sister. Tragedy struck, and their parents were killed. They had no money. Wrath was sold into slavery, whereas Lust was sold into... an unsavory sort of work.

I'm thinking, maybe the inciting incident for this story is that the old slave king was killed? Pride was able to get test subjects, Gluttony, Wrath, and Lust were set free... Lust and Wrath wished that they could be reunited. Lust and Wrath now seek revenge.

[kpenguin]

According to Peter Binsfeld, 16th century bishop and theologian, each of the Seven Deadly Sins are associated with a specific demon:

• Lucifer: Pride
• Mammon: Greed
• Asmodeus: Lust
• Leviathan: Envy
• Beelzebub: Gluttony
• Satan/Amon: Wrath
• Belphegor: Sloth

[Squark]

You might also consider adding in items or the like representing the seven heavenly virtues....


Let me think...

Generosity, Charity, Zeal, Chastity...


I'll add the other three when I get a chance to look at the dragon magazine article with the domains for them.

[Shades of Gray]

Hmm... Special artifacts...

+3 Holy Chastity Belt! :P

I might go for that angle...

[Memnarch]

The seven heavenly virtues are Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility.

Since you're kinda subverting the sins, it would be in line if you subverted these too I'd think.

[Squark]

Dragon refers to them as follows (the article's description of the virtue, and its opposing sin, are listed as well)

Chastity (purity) opposes Lust (inappropriate desire)
Temperance (self-restraint) opposes Gluttony (over-indulgence)
Generosity (the article described this as vigilance???) opposes Avarice (greed)
Zeal (enthusiasm) opposes Sloth (laziness)
Patience (composure) opposes Wrath (anger)
Charity (giving) opposes Envy (jealousy)
Humility (humbleness) opposes Pride (vanity)


What you could do with the items is to have each item grant something representative of the virtue (for instance, Temperance grants immunity to Charm, Domination, and Compulsion effects, Zeal grants immunity to slow and Haste 1/day, Patience grants time stop 1/day, etc.)

(Might want to save Wrath for later on in the campaign.


Oh, and while its on my mind, the article claims to have taken the definitions from the Catholic Church.

One last thing: Owlbears aren't the only messed up creature from first edition. Gnolls where described as "rumored to be a magical combination of a gnome and a troll" (despite sharing no similarities with either), and Thouls where magical combination of a Ghoul, Hobgoblin, and a troll (at least these had traits from all three).

[Shades of Gray]

Well, going by wikipedia, the virtues and their associated sin is:

Chastity>Lust
Charity>Humility
Temperance>Gluttony
Humility>Pride
Diligence>Sloth
Kindness>Envy
Patience>Wrath

I'm having trouble making chastity into an item.

[Szilard]

Chasity could be the Holy Grail...

[Memnarch]

Well, if chastity is supposed to be "pure" maybe it can cure any poison instantly? Would work well if the Lust part of the campaign used lots of poison.

[Shades of Gray]

Here are my ideas:

Humility: Makes the aid another action more powerful
Chastity: Poison remover (thanks Memnarch, lord of artifacts)
Temperance: 1/day add your wisdom or int modifier to your attack roll
Patience: Gives you a bonus to spot, listen, and concentration checks
Kindness: Healing glove
Diligence: 1/day, for the rest of the encounter you gain a +1 bonus on attacks. A cumulative +1 for each time you attack the same foe in the battle. Capping at +3
Charity: Heal target and hurt yourself.

[Memnarch]

Hehe, you're welcome.

Question; how are you planning on giving them to your players?

[Shades of Gray]

I don't know yet, but I know they'll get each of them to counter the Sin. For some of them they'll maybe try to defeat them, but can't.

Pride, the first one, will fight them, but escape by separating with his first host, an ogre or troll or something. He'll then come back with his current form.

[Falgorn]

Nice, I'd join it,

[Keveak]

Just an idea but maybe the sins will be defeated/the artifacts activated by acts of virtues, like giving up upon yur weapon would grant you the power to defeat Envy (and give back the weapon afterwards, though that's maybe a bad idea to let the players know)