The Gaming Den

Playing Darksiders last night, I started thinking about a campaign running sort of along the same lines, where the players are more powerful beings who have been set a task of bringing some divine being to justice. Slowly this turned into the idea of a campaign where the PCs are inevitables.

The first obvious thing that would need to be done is get multiple kinds of inevitables on the same power level, and while the easiest way to do that would be to set the game starting level at, say, 11 (roughly the effective level of a marut if you use RoW) and let people give weaker inevitables class levels, it'd be better to break the inevitable powers into feats, class abilities, and Magic Slot fillers.

And then you'd probably want to rehash the Inevitable purposes a bit, because some suck (waste walkers) and some are small potatoes (zelekhut) and some are just too out-of-game to fit into a single antagonist or even a cabal (quarut).

But what am I not seeing that would need to be done?

You want to come up with laws/axioms that the Inevitables enforce that make some sort of sense. Probably stuff like "Thou Shalt Not Seek To Break Causality" and "Thou Shalt Not Attempt To Reset the Universe Because You Think This One is Fucked And We'd Be Better Off Starting Over. Play the Hand Thou Art Dealt, You Whiny Little Tit". You could likewise just make Inevitables a sort of organization which assigns beings to various cases. Perhaps the job title changes when they're after specific stuff.

Also, here you go:

Perhaps the best idea is to do away with the specific monster entries, and make inevitables an organization. They can still be constructs (and I believe that there are several construct races here on TGD), but they will now be more different gameplay wise. You can still keep the inevitable names, but they're now divisions in the Inevitable organization assigned to deal with various universe-breaking crimes.

As an alternative, you could have an Inevitable as the questgiver.

I started working on the idea a bit, and yeah, I'm leaning more towards making inevitable an organization than a kind of monster, basically, anyone from Mechanus who is charged with enforcing Mechanus law is an Inevitable. I'm divorcing form from purpose and, so just because you enforce contracts, doesn't mean you look like a mechanical roman senator, but you are called a Kolyarut, and just because you're a white and gold clockwork centaur doesn't mean you're running around bounty hunting.

I'm working on the things Inevitables enforce, too, and I think Players get to choose their purpose, and it gives them a small power set and a prohibition. Things like-

• Maruts- The Axiom of Death: All living things die. Eventually.
  Powers: Detect Undead and Resurrected. Disrupt Undead
  Prohibition: Cannot make undead. You can give dispensation to others around you to make undead if it serves your assignment, but you cannot allow such undead to exist more than (Your HD-Undead HD) days.
• Kolyaruts- The Axiom of Contract: Those who agree to a contract must abide until it is rendered null or void.
  Powers: Detect Oathbreaker, Mark of Justice.
  Prohibition: Cannot break an oath. Subject to Mark of Justice effect keyed to breaking your word.
• Varakhuts- The Axiom of Divinity: The gods must not be harmed, mortals must stay in their place.
  Powers: Detect Misotheist(?), Smite
  Prohibition: ???
• The Axiom of Planar Constancy: The planes will not be changed.
  Powers: Detect Meddler, ???
  Prohibition: ???

Gods of course are exempt from these laws, so they can kill each other, return from "death," and alter planes without inevitables showing up to beat their ass.

Sounds like all of the things Rick Sanchez is wanted for. Maybe Planar travel is also restricted in some way so you have adventures where you chase lawbreakers through wild and wacky terrain changes.

1/ each player should have the same Purpose. They are playing together, they're no way you want to split the party because one player wants to destroy a lich, the other one wants to kill Charname (the main character in Baldur's Gate) before he becomes a god, and the third one wants to prevent any victory in the blood war.

2/ Are your Inevitables Lawful ? If so, axiom of divinity and planar consistency don't make any sense: Lawful outsiders don't want to maintain a form of status quo, they want to conquer Chaotic planes and destroy/convert Chaotic divinities. Status quo is the philosophy of Neutral outsiders (the ones who eat a babies each time a Paladin saves a widow. For balance !).

3/ Anyway what is Law ?

As a denner, you should already now it doesn't make any sense : it isn't about human law since even Paladin are supposed to break in a house to murder some guy and steal his stuff. It isn't about divine law since some god are Chaotic (and by extension, their laws are Chaotic). It is about... stuff.


Now, I can see two orientations in your campaign, both implying different kind of axioms:

a/ Lawful bastards.

The goal of the Inevitables is to strengthen Law and win the cosmic war between the alignments. When in the material plane, Inevitables appear as mechanical angels pretending to protect the very fabric of the universe - that a lie, they don't protect it more than a Slaad, but it's a good way to gain followers.

In this cosmology, it happens that some actions slightly strengthen the Law (like establishing a contract), and some other weakens it (like breaking a contract). There's nothing philosophical here: Lawful outsiders don't think it's better to respect a contract, it just end up they and their plane become slightly stronger each time a contract is respected.

In this context, your axiom of contract makes sense, but your axiom of divinity and your axiom of planar consistency don't. You should first define what actions are strengthening Law planes (obviously it can't be "maintaining the planes as-is") and derive your axioms from this.


b/ Protectors of the universe.

Inevitable actually try to protect the fabric of the universe, to prevent it from collapsing because its fundamental Laws have been broken.

In this context, your axiom of contract doesn't make any sense : not respecting a random oath doesn't threaten the universe, and Inevitables have better things to do. Your axioms need to be more fundamental, like protecting the causality. If you include stuff like your axiom of Divinity, then either your Inevitables are Neutral instead of Lawful, either you have to change the classical cosmology : if Law is about divine Law, then almost all the divinities should be Lawful - by definition.

I think it would be kind of funny (in this kind of game, not an ordinary one) if the Inevitables were sent to punish rules exploits like Chain Binding, Free Vacation, and so on.

"We've got a Pun-Pun situation developing in a Negative Plane matter pocket. Shut it down before it gets too far out of hand."

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I think it would be kind of funny (in this kind of game, not an ordinary one) if the Inevitables were sent to punish rules exploits like Chain Binding, Free Vacation, and so on.

"We've got a Pun-Pun situation developing in a Negative Plane matter pocket. Shut it down before it gets too far out of hand."

Then you have excuses for all kinds of missions. "Someone on Korosa is developing a functional elixir of immortality. Disrupt the potion. For a bonus, do it without being detected." So the PCs sneak in and add a pinch of salt to the potion.

GâtFromKI wrote:1/ each player should have the same Purpose. They are playing together, they're no way you want to split the party because one player wants to destroy a lich, the other one wants to kill Charname (the main character in Baldur's Gate) before he becomes a god, and the third one wants to prevent any victory in the blood war.

The plan was actually for the big bad to have broken multiple laws that would get an inevitable on your ass. It's not really hard to be an oathbreaking necromancer who wants to use time travel to kill the gods.

2/ Are your Inevitables Lawful ? If so, axiom of divinity and planar consistency don't make any sense: Lawful outsiders don't want to maintain a form of status quo, they want to conquer Chaotic planes and destroy/convert Chaotic divinities. Status quo is the philosophy of Neutral outsiders (the ones who eat a babies each time a Paladin saves a widow. For balance !).

I was going on the established Inevitables, just altering a couple of the weirder purposes. More "Interplanar police" less "crusaders for the Law Party." It's not about Balance, but having a campaign based on having to enforce draconian and arbitrary laws.

3/ Anyway what is Law ?

As a denner, you should already now it doesn't make any sense : it isn't about human law since even Paladin are supposed to break in a house to murder some guy and steal his stuff. It isn't about divine law since some god are Chaotic (and by extension, their laws are Chaotic). It is about... stuff.


Now, I can see two orientations in your campaign, both implying different kind of axioms:

a/ Lawful bastards.

The goal of the Inevitables is to strengthen Law and win the cosmic war between the alignments. When in the material plane, Inevitables appear as mechanical angels pretending to protect the very fabric of the universe - that a lie, they don't protect it more than a Slaad, but it's a good way to gain followers.

In this cosmology, it happens that some actions slightly strengthen the Law (like establishing a contract), and some other weakens it (like breaking a contract). There's nothing philosophical here: Lawful outsiders don't think it's better to respect a contract, it just end up they and their plane become slightly stronger each time a contract is respected.

In this context, your axiom of contract makes sense, but your axiom of divinity and your axiom of planar consistency don't. You should first define what actions are strengthening Law planes (obviously it can't be "maintaining the planes as-is") and derive your axioms from this.


b/ Protectors of the universe.

Inevitable actually try to protect the fabric of the universe, to prevent it from collapsing because its fundamental Laws have been broken.

In this context, your axiom of contract doesn't make any sense : not respecting a random oath doesn't threaten the universe, and Inevitables have better things to do. Your axioms need to be more fundamental, like protecting the causality. If you include stuff like your axiom of Divinity, then either your Inevitables are Neutral instead of Lawful, either you have to change the classical cosmology : if Law is about divine Law, then almost all the divinities should be Lawful - by definition.

What about

c/ Mechanus Police

Inevitables exist to enforce the law of Mechanus. And Mechanus sees it's jurisdiction as the entire multiverse. Celestia and Hell don't really much care when the Inevitables are tackling mortals, but when they try to bring their arcane and arbitrary to Celestia/Hell, that causes problems with the beings who enforce Celestia's/Hell's arbitrary and arcane laws.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I think it would be kind of funny (in this kind of game, not an ordinary one) if the Inevitables were sent to punish rules exploits like Chain Binding, Free Vacation, and so on.

"We've got a Pun-Pun situation developing in a Negative Plane matter pocket. Shut it down before it gets too far out of hand."

Maxus wrote:

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I think it would be kind of funny (in this kind of game, not an ordinary one) if the Inevitables were sent to punish rules exploits like Chain Binding, Free Vacation, and so on.

"We've got a Pun-Pun situation developing in a Negative Plane matter pocket. Shut it down before it gets too far out of hand."

Then you have excuses for all kinds of missions. "Someone on Korosa is developing a functional elixir of immortality. Disrupt the potion. For a bonus, do it without being detected." So the PCs sneak in and add a pinch of salt to the potion.

Also fun.

Prak wrote:

Then you have excuses for all kinds of missions. "Someone on Korosa is developing a functional elixir of immortality. Disrupt the potion. For a bonus, do it without being detected." So the PCs sneak in and add a pinch of salt to the potion.

Also fun.

Can you imagine their evidence locker? Don't forget the recon teams to identify unlawful activity and the culprit. What would be fun would be to include some kind of code of rights that inevitables afford creatures (both law-abiding and criminal), but explicitly not like the ones we see.

Why even have a big bad?

I tend to think of special campaigns like this in terms of definite stories, rather than open ended troubleshooters. A big bad allows the purposes to be different, while a more open troubleshooters game needs either very broad purposes, for every adventure to center around people breaking multiple Mechanus laws, or for every PC to have the same purposes, which takes away a customization option.

Prak wrote:c/ Mechanus Police

Inevitables exist to enforce the law of Mechanus. And Mechanus sees it's jurisdiction as the entire multiverse. Celestia and Hell don't really much care when the Inevitables are tackling mortals, but when they try to bring their arcane and arbitrary to Celestia/Hell, that causes problems with the beings who enforce Celestia's/Hell's arbitrary and arcane laws.

Why would a Mechanus police be allowed to act outside of Mechanus ?

... Actually, what you're bescribing is the "Lawful bastard" option : agents of Mechanus are trying to enforce the law of Mechanus in the universe.

As to why- because Celestia and Hell only care when Mechanus is fucking with their interests, not the little people.

But that's a good point about it just being a sightly different lens Lawful Bastards.

Prak wrote:As to why- because Celestia and Hell only care when Mechanus is fucking with their interests, not the little people.

But that's a good point about it just being a sightly different lens Lawful Bastards.

Actually the only difference between "Lawful bastards" and "protectors" is that, in the second case, they have objective reasons to act outside of Mechanus: if they don't, the whole universe may collapse.

In both case, the game is about secret agent of Mechanus trying to enforce the Law outside of Mechanus. Of course, in the bastard option, Inevitables will rationalize their actions by inventing some reasons why the universe would be better if the Law of Mechanus were respected everywhere, and thus they are justified to act outside of Mechanus. But I sincerely think your campaign will be better if the game itself acknowledge it's purely subjective and the PCs are just secret agents working for a random ideology (of course the PCs shouldn't acknowledge that; it's the Law ).


I'm still not convinced about giving PC different purposes. If the axiom of death is a fundamental Axiom, no Inevitable should be allowed to create undead; thus the limitation apply to everyone. Law already doesn't make any sense in D&D, it will make even less sense if you allow some Inevitables to break a fundamental Axiom "because it is not the axiom they are protecting": all Inevitables should obey the same set of rules. I think it's essential to get a "stupid Lawful" feeling in your campaign, and I don't see the interest of playing an Inevitable campaign if you don't get some "stupid Lawful" feeling.

virgil wrote:Don't forget the recon teams

I first read that as "retcon teams" and I was imagining teams sent to enforce retcons in the universe.

Inevitable is a bureaucracy, not a species. The Inevitable Bureaucracy enforces a certain minimum standard of fairness in the universe. In order to become the God of Death, you have to have a proper claim. In order to go back in time, you must be 'righting a wrong' rather than making changes to your own benefit. The soul of a penitent sinner can be cast back into Baator, if a deed of sale can be brought forth, or proof is found that the soul only repented out of a selfish desire to escape the Pit. A demon should only be allowed to possess those who invite it in. And so on and so forth.

The Inevitable constructs are innately and powerfully motivated by their innate sense of justice, and sometimes they really do go out and punch out necromancers with their thunder fists. But each is limited in both time and ability, so they deputize adventurers to investigate cases, patrol problematic areas and punish offenders. And sometimes, when there's not enough adventurers, they obtain a dozen golems and set those to work as well. That's where the PCs come in - constructs owned and employed by the Inevitables and set to work furthering the great cause of fairness for for all.

This almost sounds like the players will be playing Agent Smith against an NPC Neo and Zion crew.

I'd consider running something along the lines of the "Keys to the Kingdom" series with this. A conflict within the house occasionally spilling out into the secondary realms.

Wow, I didn't think anyone else here had read that series!

I read the thread's title and thought it was about being at a table where MC duties rotate, and eventually it's That Guy's turn.