Hi all!

Hi all!

Hi all! My campaign that has been running for about a year now is losing its momentum, and I’m beginning to suspect the players would like to move on. Perhaps even I would like to move on. I’m thinking of trying to wrap it up in the next 1 or 2 sessions, and at that point decide what to do with the players.

I have three fronts going on, each with its big evil bad guy, and they all more or less converge to the same location, albeit in different ways and with different purposes. How can I reconcile all this mess in a swift manner? For context: 1) A wronged former lord of the lands who turned to necromancy and raised a slave army, now besieging the hub town, hoping to burn it to the ground. 2) His young black dragon, breaking free from his control, trying to assert her own dominion. 3) The necromantic cult that actually pulled the strings and now brought forth the avatar of their goddess, incarnated in the resurected dead wife of the lord, interested mostly in devouring as many souls as possible.

Since it’s already a war-like situation, I’m thinking there could be a huge last battle in which each of the three parties attempts to come out on top. Unfortunately I’m afraid that would remove agency from the players. Their goal has always been to protect the town, and most likely to overcome the three fronts, but if I just pit these against each other, they might cancel out without the players having to do anything about it. The characters are mostly good, I don’t think they’d ever want to side with any of these parties (although that would be a fun turn of events). I don’t think they’re interested either in going out in a blaze of glory, grim sacrifice style.

Any suggestions on how I could bring a super epic conclusion to their campaign in a few sessions, in a meaningful and satisfying way?

7 thoughts on “Hi all!”

  1. Why don’t you ask the players what is more important to their characters?

    Maybe you can have the last couple of sessions revolve around just one of the fronts. You can get the players input on why dealing with one of the bad guys saves the town. For now… Open endings can be satisfying sometimes.

  3. Two of those three factions sound like there might be some traction good players could make with them.

    The wronged former lord is probably unhappy with the cult which has despoiled his wife’s body. He probably doesn’t want everyone’s soul eaten either (including his own, and those of his underlings). You also imply that the death cult manipulated him. These are all things that the players could use to apply leverage on him to get him to forego his vengeance on the town in favour of uniting against the death cult and their pet goddess.

    The dragon may not be innately evil – I’m not sure if you’re doing the whole D&D “dragons colour coded for your convenience” thing. If not, then the characters may be able to cut a deal with it as well (or instead), since it has a grudge against the lord and also probably doesn’t want the soul-eating goddess around.

  4. Robert Rendell: wow, it’s so obvious when you put it that way 🙂 I’ve been toying with these things for so long that somehow I failed to see alliances between these.

    Our dragon is not inherently evil no, just instinctively bound to try to assert dominion. A teenager dragon going through puberty, let’s say 🙂 It’s manipulable through flattery and false allegiance.

  5. I like Robert’s ideas. You could also have a timer in the background where if they don’t align with one or both of the death cult factions the death cult will take them over. Fail to see win the friendship or at least convince the dragon to leave, death cult infects her. now there’s an undead dragon in the final fight. Fail to befriend the former lord, his wife eats his soul and replaces it with something darker. Now there is more undead and an extra lich in the final fight.

    One session to find allies. One final session last stand in the hub town.

Comments are closed.