Caelistis (3.5e Campaign Setting)/Adventure Hooks
Contents
Adventuring in Caelistis[edit]
Despite its connection to divinity, the world of Caelistis has many other reasons to adventure. Caelistis is a realm where everyone wants something. Churches want their gods, humanity wants power. Around ever corner is a chance for conflict, as every church has enemies, and every church thinks it's the best.
Churches as Headquarters[edit]
Churches are great places for players to go to receive missions. Churches with clear rivalries, such a Bael and Belial, Agares/Vassago and Paimon, or others are good beginnings for constant conflicts. Players can go on missions to retrieve valuable information, or even weapons to use against their foes.
Arcane Heresy[edit]
Arcane magic is a touchy subject. If you ask anyone on the street, they'll tell you the same thing. Arcane magic is wrong. It's stealing power from the gods. Most churches back up this decree with force, seeking to eliminate arcanists wherever possible. While churches based around the direct power of their god (such as the followers of Bael) hate arcane magic with a fervor, churches based around more personal strength (such as the church of Sitri) are less eager to kill those that use the arcane arts. They see it merely as a crime rather than heresy. There is, of course, the Church of Astaroth, who do not oppose arcane magic. Their incredibly scant and spread out territory means, however, that they are not a reliable place for arcanists to train or group up.
As such, a good adventure hook is the search for heretics. You can work this several ways, depending on how your PCs act. In their eyes, what are arcanists? Just despicable heretics to be hunted? If so, then you can work them to be the villians, while your characters work righteously for their gods to defeat their evil. What if, however, your characters are not so zealous. Are arcanists just unfortunates who have been lead down the wrong path? Then perhaps hunting them is not killing them, but trying to find them and bring them to a church so they can be converted or at least dissuaded from pursuing such a terrible path. You could even base your campaign around a more morally gray story. Do the players listen to their superiors? Do they hunt down those who may be innocent? And if they do not, what then? Are those wizards truly despicable as they say? They must have had some reason to turn their back on the world. If they players are found working with arcanists, they may be hunted down or even exiled from society, running from oppressors while trying to protect those they claim are wrongly judged.
Search for History[edit]
The era before the Godless Era was the Age of Mortality, an era of powerful magic and marvelous nations. Each god made at least one artifact to hold an amount of their power, and several made many, many more. Perhaps your players team up with the Church of Valefar searching for his stolen relics, or even trying to steal relics that don't belong to the church. Perhaps you're a follower of Buer, searching for the pages of his lost book to find cures for all mortal and immortal ailments.
