D&D: So your God has decided to conquer the world....

[Undert0w]

I'm trying to plan a 3.5 campaign set on Faerun, in the north, the trendy Drizzt esk places.

I have the beginning and the end planned. The middle isn't the problem... well kind of...

So, this is Forgotten Realms, and Baals gonna go for it all. Straight for the guts and glory (or domination). He's gonna conquer Faerun.

How?

I can't figure that part out. How would he conquer the world? And how would he do so that makes for a good campaign.

So far here are my ideas:

Specific stones are needed to create a portal. Think the runestones in Gauntlet. "Evil" is going to try to collect them all. And, to the dismay of the heros, evil is going to succeed. There are 2 ways to do this:
1. The heros always fail to retrieve the stones themselves.
2. The heros gather most the stones, lose some, and put them a safe place for keeping. Probably Silverymoon. But while Silverymoon is transporting them, the caravan is attacked, and the stones taken.

Actually.... that sounds like a great plan....

See, the heros stumble upon this plot while investigating a slave ring run by humans.... the slaves are needed to build the portal. It's huge, btw.

Hrm... just throw some ideas at me.

Oh, the end. The portal is gonna be opened. But while it's open and Baal tries to step through, another God is going to try to stop them. BAM! The heros get to watch God combat, in the meantime, lower plain ickys are gonna poor out of the portal, giving the heros plenty to do. I'm thinking about setting up Cyric against Bane too... I don't know.

Yah, toss me some ideas...

[Skarburn]

First of all, my first piece of advice is that a D&D campaign shouldn't focus around an UBER character that doesn't need escorts. Me and my group learnt that in our last campaign. We had a tall and intimidating fellow that we dubbed "Powerful Dude" because he was 1 step away from being a god. Literally. Lvl 50, bonuses up the yingyang, and he's carrying a full blade that may as well be a Samm Missile Launcher.

Second of all, try NOT to have your party just milling about 'Watching' a glorious fight. That makes things a little redundant. ESPECIALLY if they're gods, as they are unable to do anything unless they are Demi-gods in the first place. Of which I do recommend you do.

Lastly, your middle and end aren't exactly Original, so maybe you should look up some games or movies that have a similar thing appearing in their storyline. I recommend throwing in random things every left right and centre.

[kustross]

I don't know a whole lot about the Faerun setting, but what about having him start out by taking on..... "small" gods; the ones that don't have many followers or clerics. He could just manipulate his followers (assassins?) into killing the faithful of other gods, and planting clues that lead any justice seeking PCs or mobs into thinking that another god is responsible. This way the PCs aren't going after a God, and the plan could take a few hundred years to actually come to fruition (gods are long lived last I heard). Or instead of just killing the clerics of other gods, he could have his followers kill the cleric, and then assume the role of the murdered cleric.

[Crion_dm459]

Undert0w

I'm trying to plan a 3.5 campaign set on Faerun, in the north, the trendy Drizzt esk places.

I have the beginning and the end planned. The middle isn't the problem... well kind of...

So, this is Forgotten Realms, and Baals gonna go for it all. Straight for the guts and glory (or domination). He's gonna conquer Faerun.

How?

I can't figure that part out. How would he conquer the world? And how would he do so that makes for a good campaign.

So far here are my ideas:

Specific stones are needed to create a portal. Think the runestones in Gauntlet. "Evil" is going to try to collect them all. And, to the dismay of the heros, evil is going to succeed. There are 2 ways to do this:
1. The heros always fail to retrieve the stones themselves.
2. The heros gather most the stones, lose some, and put them a safe place for keeping. Probably Silverymoon. But while Silverymoon is transporting them, the caravan is attacked, and the stones taken.

Actually.... that sounds like a great plan....

See, the heros stumble upon this plot while investigating a slave ring run by humans.... the slaves are needed to build the portal. It's huge, btw.

Hrm... just throw some ideas at me.

Oh, the end. The portal is gonna be opened. But while it's open and Baal tries to step through, another God is going to try to stop them. BAM! The heros get to watch God combat, in the meantime, lower plain ickys are gonna poor out of the portal, giving the heros plenty to do. I'm thinking about setting up Cyric against Bane too... I don't know.

Yah, toss me some ideas...

If you put too much emphasis on the NPCs, then you are basically forcing everyone to sit there and listen as you tell a story. They are the player characters. The game should really allow them to change what happens, alter the world, etc.

The last Faerun game I was in...this was genuis.
We were a good aligned party. The Sorcerer was Chao-Evil, but knew not to show it (I was a fighter-borderline-pally). Eventually, when the party was captured by slavers/theives, and we were all given a posion that gave us a set time to finish something before we died...
Well, all of us except the Sorcerer. He made a deal with the theives, and he already had a deal with the Witch King (long story). When we got back, he basically had a small army go ahead and slaughter out group of 4. Granted, we too out alot of Drow before going down...but I digress.
Our party was destroyed. Entirely. Except the Sorcerer.
What he wanted was power. He had it.
By being the human servant to the Witch King, he moved around, implanting the seeds ot evil that entire countries would war over. When those countries were weakened (oor when the army was away), the Witch King would go and take that area. The entire world is now ruled with an Iron Fist. And the place where our party was created? It is now a town of ghosts...literally.

And do you want to know the worse part?
The guy who played the Sorcerer planned out this whole thing! After he saw that he had the party dead (and we were the sole opposite to the Witch King), he worked on this domination plot.
He then became the big NPC that we all came together for as new characters to rise against.

You have to do osmething memorable like that. Don't just let the NPCs have all the fun, but give the PCs a shot to do stuff.

If you just want the impending evil, you can fiddle around, but don't make it a story that they are sitting down and listening too...