Plot. Story archs and plans.

[Nezuan]

I have been brainstorming on what we shoudl do for an over all story. We can only roleplay for so long without giving us a purpose as a group. Without a common cause I see the group splitting, so I have been brainstorming ideas as to a greater plot for our characters to become involved with.

My best Idea so far:
As I mentioned before Nezuan is an artificer. He is fascinated with magic an machines and how they come together. What I have created with my previous lore post "A History of Artifice" is the allusion that the world was set in motion by a more magically advanced people than the current anthro species. Specifically I have it set that humans are the ancestors of Saren and long ago they disappeared mysteriously and their civilization sank into ruin.

What actually happened to them was that they opened a connection to another plane of living machines. These machines were ruled by a single immortal being who called himself Malchegor. He lured many of the humans into his world with the promise of immortality. What actually did with them was turn them into machines in service to him and once he had an army large enough he assaulted the humans and in their desperation they transported their entire race to another plane leaving only the animals behind. The massive spell that did this also sealed Saren off from Malchegor's planer.

When the wizard's circle that created the world spell left the plane they chose some of their favorite creatures to become successors to themselves. This was the birth of the anthro races and the rest is Saren history.

WHAT I HAVE IN MIND:
If Bain and Alana join up with Nezuan then he will guide them to a massive ruin not far from Denizen. Within this ruin we could find various dangers and machinations, but most importantly a power stone and a door. The door will be essentially the link between Malchegor's plane and Saren. The door will have 7-9 slots for additional power stones.

The larger quest will clearly be to find the other 6-8 powerstones to unlock this door. Along the way the group will encounter various trouble that come with traveling and adventuring. They will also encounter a rival wizard or so that wishes to unlock the door. The entir time the group will be unaware what lies beyond the door until the end.

I like the Idea that we can have one major rival wizard that has all the resources and is hellbent on opening the door. Somewhere towards the end Nezuan, Bain and Alana would discover what truly lies beyond the door and will have to stop the rival wizard before he opens it. In his crazed, obsessive state we will have to face the wizard and defeat him. He has tons of resources and so will send mercs and assassins after us every step of the way.

this is just a suggestion for a major story.

[Bain]

I literally just read this...Sorry it took so long but that all seems pretty legit. We can go with that as a main story line, however we discussed a few other options as well that we could incorporate into the main story.

We discussed the possibility of piracy and taking to the sea for a good amount of our travel time, this is going to be needed since I do plan on something significant happen to us on the volcanic island. There's mention in the lore of Saren of Dragonkin and how they have been extinct for some time, part of my plan was to introduce their return.

As of yet I haven't really thought of anything that would be a good kick start to that but I believe that it would work if it was only a handful of the Dragonkin, perhaps a dozen or so, that are still alive and are under the leadership of this rival wizard who wants to get into the door, their endgame being the ultimate domination of Saren.

There's alot I had planned out for this, wasn't gonna say anything about the Dragons mostly for lack of an idea to incorporate them into the story without being all "Oh by the way! There's evil dragons flying around now..." I think this with my ideas for the story will go well.

MY PLAN TO DATE:
Bain, Alana and Nezuan find this door on their way to Clearwater while making their grand escape from Denizen. The search for the remaining 8 (yes I think the more the better on this) power stones will start there.

In their search, they will have to travel to each hold and attempt to gather these stones since rumors will be picked up along the way that the reason the people in power among the 5 domains (The Shadesteppe's are included as a domain, just not independent) Have their position through the inheritance of a runed stone that acts as sort of a crown, some will be embedded in a crown or worn as a necklace by their owner and the party will have to accomplish some feat (And I'm going to keep these to myself until the time comes) for their owners in order to obtain the stone.

The remaining three will be in dungeons around the world, though I think the best route would be to have the Dragon leader in possession of one or two of them to begin with, hence the first one already being at the door.