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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Big Concept in a Tiny Cabin


With a title like that you would think this was an epic adventure or something.  But this is just a tiny cabin, barn, underground room and a god-like being whose experiment could change everything.  Epic things come in small packages. 

John Carpenter has his Apocalypse Trilogy (The Thing, Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness) where the movies foreshadow the death of the world as we know it.  All fantastic movies, go see them if you can.  This adventure is in the same vein.  Powerful forces are planning on reshaping the world.  In Carpenter's case  those forces are evil.  In mine, one could argue that my catalyst for change is a good guy (Zazriel), but lacks the imagination and forethought to understand what he is doing might destroy the very think he hopes to save.

Maybe I am getting too philosophical, but I like the idea of an antagonist that has good intentions, but doesn't realize that what he is planning could have disastrous results.  And maybe the party can convince Zazriel otherwise, maybe not.  Brute force won't work.  If they can't convince the Zazriel they will have to learn how to survive what he has done.

Poisoning Chaos could be a catalyst for a campaign world changer.  If you need a reason to nuke your campaign and start fresh without having going back to nothing, Poisoning Chaos can give you that reason why things are familiar, but everything is different.  And it also gives the players a role in exactly how it ends.

I hope you enjoy Poisoning Chaos folks.  I want to thank my new patrons.  I've had a recent up tick in patrons which I very much appreciate.  And headlocks to all my old crusty patrons who keep me going.  This adventure will be a half sheet laminated version that will go out to all my $2.50 and above patrons at the end of the month.  Everyone else can grab the PDF for free on my patron page.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. "Maybe I am getting too philosophical, but I like the idea of an antagonist that has good intentions, but doesn't realize that what he is planning could have disastrous results."

    No, I don't think you're getting too philosophical. I've been thinking a lot about villains (maybe "opponents" is a better word?) too, and have been toying with the idea of adversaries who are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Neither one is actually evil, but they still need to be stopped -- and as you say, they have the advantage that you can maybe talk them out of what they're doing instead of picking up the dice and rolling for initiative.

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  2. Yep. Probably the best kind of villains are the one's that mean well.

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