4 Epic Campaign Premises for Badass PCs

Picture by Cornelia Kopp

It’s taken a while, but the PCs have finally reached the epic tier. They don’t walk; they swagger. Their fame (or infamy) sends the common folk scurrying to do their bidding. The PCs have vanquished cults, retrieved artifacts, and banished devils and demons back to the hells that spawned them. Kings owe them favors, and they’ve got enough wealth and prestige to last many lifetimes.

Now what?

Now it’s time for the real fun to begin! Up until now, you’ve probably pulled punches to keep the party alive. Now you, the DM, get to pull out the big guns. No matter how badass the PCs are, there’s always something bigger and badder waiting to swat them like flies. Here are four epic campaign premises that will take your cocky PCs out of their comfort zone.

To Save the World – or Conquer It

This premise can go in several directions depending on the general alignment of the party. If they’re mostly good, they’re probably more interested in saving the world than forcing all of its inhabitants to kneel before them. If they’re mostly evil, the world is one sprawling conquest waiting to happen. If the party is unaligned, they could take either path at the behest of a deity, or to uphold a conviction more important than good or evil.

Pit good-aligned parties against the great evil organizations of the world. Think of the very real effects the collapse of such an organization would have on the world. Who or what was the real power behind the organization? What will become of the organization’s mid- and low-level agents now that it’s gone? What will happen to its slaves and other properties? What new evil will rise to take its place? Let the PCs savor their victory, then let them figure out how to run things better than the bad guys did.

Evil parties who want to conquer the world might find that ruling everything is more of a pain in the butt than they’d imagined. Obliterating the organized powers of good is only the beginning. Not only will they face the constant threat of revolution by good-aligned subjects, they will have to beat back other evils who want to take their place on the world’s throne, as well as any unaligned groups who want to restore the world’s balance.

To really mix things up, you could bring gods and other planar powers into play for Team Good, Team Evil, or the Unaligned. This brings us to…

The Inter-Planar Smackdown

There are lots of planes out there, and they are full of craziness. If you want to bring it, have the PCs wage a war on (really) foreign soil. Sure, they’ve probably stepped across the threshold to the Shadowfell, but have they gone in deep and stood before the Raven Queen? Perhaps the party has ventured into the Feywild, but have they felt the magical might of Corellon and his wild armies? What will the PCs do when they find themselves trapped in a hostile environment? You can use an inter-planar smackdown to get the PCs up-close and personal with the major powers of different realms. Have fun fleshing out the gods, their behaviors, and their insane stat blocks.

Of course, if you don’t want the players to actually kill off a deity, you can simply have them square off against an avatar.

Avatar Hunting

There’s an avatar on a destructive rampage. Or there’s an avatar that has something the party wants for themselves. Or there’s an avatar that, through some magical and chaotic accident, split off from the true avatar, and is now running amok. Whatever the reason, avatar hunting can be a lot of fun. If you don’t have stats for the avatar, make up your own. For inspiration, look at big bad guys like Orcus, Tiamat, or Demogorgon.

Speaking of big, bad things…

The Final Frontier

Your epic campaign doesn’t have to be limited to this world, or even the known planes. You could take the party anywhere. Place the warlock in conflict with one of those nameless Lovecraftian powers that fuel the Star Pact. Drop the party into the gibbering terror of the Far Realm. Use the new Star Spawns in the MM2 to devise weird, alien plot hooks. The PCs can romp through boss-fights all day long, but can they withstand truly unknowable powers that devour their very sanity? If you can’t find anything creepy enough in the official rules, make up your own.

Are you running an epic campaign? What have you thrown at your players to cut them down to size?

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