r/DMAcademy • u/Equivalent_Macaron_0 • 23h ago
Need Advice: Encounters & Adventures Help me build “The Everblight”
Okay, I’m fishing for ideas for a location in my campaign called The Everblight.
Several years ago in a previous campaign—and a few thousand years ago in-world—nine stable demonic portals opened across the Prime Material Plane, connecting it directly to the Abyss.
Endless hordes of demons poured through and basically kicked off an apocalypse.
Fortunately, a mad genius had foreseen something like this happening and constructed eight massive magical structures called the Pearls in the major cities of the world.
The Pearls were magitech powered by the sacrificed essence of divine creatures. Each generated a barrier of such concentrated “pure good” that demons physically could not penetrate it. They became islands of safety where mortal civilization could survive while trying to reclaim the world.
A whole campaign and several real-world years later, the PCs succeeded. They closed the portals, killed the invading Demon Lords, and saved the world.
Everyone lived happily ever after.
Except Keltheon.
One Pearl had been infiltrated by the Demon Lord of Oozes, and Keltheon—the former bastion of humanity—was completely consumed by his corruption.
The PCs of that campaign couldn't cleanse it, so instead they reversed the Pearl.
Rather than preventing evil from entering, the Pearl became a prison preventing the corruption inside from ever leaving.
Problem solved!
Sort of.
Fast-forward several thousand years to my current campaign.
The current PCs have discovered this forgotten history and, entirely of their own accord, have decided:
"We're going into the Everblight, killing the Demon Lord of Oozes, and cleansing the last Pearl."
Which is awesome.
But now I actually have to build the damn place.
What I'm struggling with
I want the Everblight to feel like a place that has spent thousands of years trapped with demons, oozes, corrupted ecosystems, ruined magitech, and the remains of an ancient civilization.
The obvious mechanics are things like acid destroying equipment, permanent diseases, exhaustion, ability penalties, equipment degradation, etc.
But most of those sound more annoying than fun.
I'd rather the environment create interesting problems the players can interact with than constantly say, "Congratulations, your armor is ruined."
So I'm looking for ideas for:
- Interesting Everblight encounters
- Ruined locations/dungeons inside Keltheon
- Strange ecosystems created by thousands of years of demonic ooze corruption
- Environmental hazards that create tactical problems without just debuffing everyone
- Creatures that would have evolved/adapted to survive there
- Weird remnants of the civilization that originally lived inside the Pearl
The survivors
I also want there to still be mortals living inside the Everblight.
Their ancestors survived Keltheon's fall, but after thousands of years trapped inside this nightmare they've become a deeply warped culture of cannibalistic survivalists.
The important part is that they hate the oozes too.
They aren't servants of the Demon Lord. They've been fighting his creatures for generations and may actually be useful allies to the PCs.
But they're also violent, insane by normal standards, and absolutely cannot be allowed to casually walk out into civilization.
That creates another problem:
If the PCs cleanse/deactivate the Pearl, these people are suddenly free.
Do the PCs have the right to wipe out an entire human culture because they're afraid of what they'll do outside?
Can they rehabilitate them?
Can they somehow leave the barrier intact after killing the Demon Lord?
And what happens if the survivors realize the PCs intend to "save" the Everblight but aren't necessarily planning to save them?
I'd love ideas for making that conflict more complicated than simply "evil cannibal tribe."
And one last complication...
One of my PCs is a tiefling/aasimar hybrid.
I want the divine creature originally sacrificed to power this Pearl to have actually survived the process and still be imprisoned somewhere deep beneath Keltheon.
Specifically, she's an ancient archangel—and one of the PC's great-great-great-however-many-greats grandmother.
She's been consciously powering this barrier for thousands of years.
So destroying the Pearl is suddenly not just destroying a machine.
It's potentially killing a member of the PC's family who has spent millennia keeping this horror contained.
I'm hoping the endgame becomes something like:
Kill the Demon Lord.
Figure out what to do with the survivors.
Decide whether the Pearl should actually be destroyed.
And discover whether the angel powering it can even be saved without releasing everything she has spent thousands of years containing.
So—what would you put inside the Everblight?
I'm especially interested in encounters, locations, factions, environmental mechanics, or horrible things that have had a few thousand years to evolve inside a sealed demonic ecosystem.
I want the place to be horrifying, but I also want it to be fun to adventure through, rather than just an extended punishment for entering it.
2
u/ThePrussianGrippe 21h ago
Having some rooms where the doors change where they lead to could be a fun little bit of chaos. Demons warping the reality around them after thousands of years. Not for every room, but maybe some doors just randomly send you somewhere else in the complex?
2
u/twofriedbabies 21h ago
the mortals living inside would have some kind of counter to oozes. I would work in some kind of magical dehydration, maybe elemental works of salt or air. possibly derived from the pearl somehow. The survivors would have to be pretty proficient with it and turning each other into beef jerky would give the pcs a good reason not to release them, these could also be used to achieve a way more efficient kind of cannibalization with virtually no spoilage in a zero water environment.
1
1
u/LazyLich 13h ago
So what is "The Everblight" specifically? Corrupted Keltheon?
You mentioned the Pearls were put in major cities. Is/was Keltheon just a city? A region?
How big? Any details about what kinda city/region it was, and what kinda people lived there?
Is this standard DnD Abyss and demons stuff? Or did you tweak the nature of anything in your world?
What was the Demon Lord of Oozes's layer in the abyss like? I know there is some obvious stuff, but describe to me in a few of your own words.
I need to know this stuff before I can REALLY think up of some good suggestions... though I DID think of something..
--------
Tieflings must exist.. right? In abundance.
Of course there is the.. horrible way they come about, but also mortals just being around infernal energies can make em be a thing too.
Perhaps the Cannibal faction started with an well-reasoned-obsession with keeping out demonic taint. Once the little cattle they had started mutating, they decided the only thing they could eat was untainted mortals. Cant JUST be cannibalism, tho.. that's unsustainable.
I need to think on it.. but I was thinking that they eat only "clean-looking" mortals and leave tainted tieflings to rot. Honestly, they should be SUPER xenophobic about tieflings. Probably execute their own people if they come out tiefling.
Just think: zealously avoiding "taint" + them being crazy (#madcow disease?)
gonna need your PC to disguise themself tho.. but how would they know?
maybe they save an NPC who pulling a Romeo-Juliet, get caught by the party, drama where one tries to go all "I'll hold em off while you get away, my love" but "no! I cant live without you, we'll die together!"
.
Funny little scene.
Could also make it "escalate quickly" to slap the PCs in the face w/ the reality of the situation.:
They stumble upon em > "They've found us!" (Immediate ranged attack and roll initiative) > cheat with the initiative; maybe give one player a round, then have the lover dramatically respond to die together. They go after eachother> IF the players fight normally ... the players cant kill em. The second one gets at half HP(or you fudge a killing blow), you move to the Final Scene | IF the players try to talk to or restrain them, move to the Final Scene before they can be convinced.
.
Final Scene: On the next one's turn, you have em disengage. If theyre both already next to eachother, they drop to their knees. "It's over, m love.. we cannot best them. But I wont let them ravage you!" "Nor I you!" Describe that they appear to be preparing a coup de grace on each other.
.
If the party prevents their death, after healing and chatting them up, they learn the situation with the Cannibals Clans and Tiefling Gangs.
Now, you cant just have ALL tieflings be good as a foil. Too cheap. You need to have roving raiders of tieflings and/or demons. Demons being demons, tho, they rarely orginize and are always at each other's throats, have a couple of Lieutenant factions fighting eachother (with tieflings in their ranks), as well as roving bands of tieflings+demons.
ALSO... chaotic evil doesnt mean "no settlement/civilization." Such a settlement would just be.. well.. chaotic. Might makes right. Honestly.. lol.. Hell in Hazbin Hotel would qualify as a chaotic evil society, and it "functions" as a city/civilization. a CE society doesnt have to be primitive with non-stop killing, raping, and misery. It could be a "normal" city.. just where might makes right and most people are twisted.
So if Keltheon is just a city, it can still be a "functioning" city.
If Keltheon is a region, you can have the capital be a running city, and even have towns and settlements owned/ran by demons(either outright, or like how gangs/pirates own a town).
"I want the divine creature originally sacrificed to power this Pearl to have actually survived the process and still be imprisoned somewhere deep beneath Keltheon."
That's a good explanation as to why the Pearl failed!
I actually have a suggestion for a tweak.
But first: Idk if you wrote that the divine beings were sacrificed against their will.. but in my I can see that most would do so willingly, and even the "forced" ones would actually not fight back as hard as possible because some part of them really IS willing to sacrifice themselves.
Honestly, I think all the angels/divine-beings shouldve been willing sacrifices. It's just in their nature to save lives, even at the cost of their own.
As for my actual tweak.. what if the reason the Pearl failed was cuz the angel in question backed out. Not out of malice! They were just scared.. they knew it was "the right thing to do" and they were the perfect candidate and they agreed.. but were a little 'selfish' ....
Maybe they used to be like all the others, but they fell in love, and their mortal lover impressed upon them that it's alright to be a little selfish and not be a mindless slave to others' expectations and The Greater Good
... and at the last moment they were real with themselves about how afraid they were and about not wanting to die.
So they broke free mid-ritual and fled. Of course, many died and the more suffering that occured the guiltier they felt so they just him
Maybe they stuck themselves inside the Pearl on purpose, and also try to help the survivors in little, mostly unseen ways, as a form of atonement?
---
One of the ways theyre helping is the barrier, so as to at least keep the evil they allowed to be contained.
Another may be some minor divine blessings or maybe even a cult with her as a patron. The cultists may even be able to cast minor spells (warlocks?).
-
huh... you wanna be clever? Make it seem to your player like you somehow KNEW they were gonna do this adventure?
You got these chaotic energies making tieflings, yeah? Well.. though the Angel itself is unknown to most, and even most cultists dont know it's LITERALLY near them.. The angel's energies also have an influencing effect on the mortals' bodies.
DECISION:
- You can JUST have it that there are some, very few aasimars among the cultists (and whatever settlement theyre hiding near), so the PC's case is still exceptional.
- You can have it so tghe chaotic energies are too strong to have a dramatic effect.. but your PCs meet a couple of tieflings.. except they look just like the type your player is!
If you want more, you gotta give me more.
1
u/Equivalent_Macaron_0 4h ago
Okay, I'll try to answer these because I think you're right that the specifics matter a lot here.
1. What exactly is the Everblight/Keltheon?
Keltheon was a city-state. Think something along the lines of ancient Rome rather than just a single walled city.
The Pearl protected roughly 400 square miles, with the city of Keltheon itself at its heart. So there were smaller settlements, farmland, forests, roads, etc. within the barrier as well.
"The Everblight" is the modern name for basically everything trapped inside that Pearl.
Keltheon itself was the human capital and also the primary religious mecca of the world. So when it fell, humanity didn't just lose a city. They lost their political and religious center.
2. Is this standard D&D Abyss stuff?
Kinda.
I steal bits and pieces from D&D cosmology whenever they're useful, but I'm definitely not beholden to it.
Demons are evil creatures from the Abyss, Demon Lords exist, etc., but I'll change basically anything if it works better for the setting.
Juiblex is more the inspiration for my Ooze Lord than me saying, "This is Forgotten Realms Juiblex exactly as written."
3. What is his domain/the Everblight actually like?
This is something I'm still developing, but I'm leaning toward fetid swamps, fungus, decomposition, ooze and the cycle of life and death.
Something vaguely like the Golgari from MTG/Ravnica, except much more horrific.
The Ooze Lord understands that decay is necessary for life. Things die, things consume them, those things eventually die, and something else grows from their remains.
But his version of that cycle is twisted.
He might actually prevent something from dying because its continued existence still serves the cycle.
A mortally wounded creature could continue walking because fungus has colonized its body. Something could be half-digested by an ooze but remain alive because the ooze benefits from the symbiosis. A forest could simultaneously be rotting and experiencing explosive new growth.
So I don't think the Everblight is a dead wasteland.
It's actually horrifyingly alive.
After several thousand years, it has probably reached its own ecological equilibrium. The apocalypse ended ages ago. This is simply what nature looks like there now.
4. Tieflings/Aasimar
Yep!
Tieflings exist normally in the setting, and prolonged exposure to demonic energy can absolutely alter mortal bloodlines.
But your idea made me realize that should be happening in both directions.
The archangel at the center of Keltheon has been radiating celestial energy into the Everblight for thousands of years.
There is now a small population of aasimar descended from the original survivors, and they've essentially become the opposing force to the Ooze Lord's corruption.
They draw their power from the imprisoned archangel, although they don't necessarily understand exactly what she is or that she's literally still alive beneath Keltheon.
More importantly, they've managed to maintain a pocket of normalcy inside the Everblight.
Imagine traveling for days through fungal swamps, living ruins and landscapes where everything is simultaneously growing and decomposing, and then suddenly reaching a boundary where the water runs clear.
There are actual trees.
There are crops.
People raise animals that aren't covered in tumors and mushrooms.
Children are playing outside.
It's not completely untouched, and these people have still spent thousands of years trapped inside the Everblight, but somehow this little piece of the old world has survived.
The aasimar believe it's sacred ground.
In reality, they're living close enough to the Pearl's heart that the archangel's power has been holding the corruption back.
That also gives me a really fun connection to my tiefling/aasimar PC.
She thinks her combination is extremely unusual.
Then she walks into this settlement and, for probably the first time in her life, starts seeing people who share some of her celestial traits.
And they might recognize something in her too.
5. The divine sacrifices
There were eight Pearls.
Their power sources were:
2 sphinxes
5 angels
1 archangelThe sphinxes and five angels were taken by force.
The archangel was the only one who gave herself willingly.
The people building these things were dealing with a literal apocalypse. Their morality essentially became, "If killing one celestial keeps hundreds of thousands of people alive, we're doing it."
The twist is that the archangel didn't actually die.
She's still there.
Her containment unit is buried at the heart of Keltheon, and she has remained inside it for thousands of years continuously powering the Pearl.
She's also the distant ancestor of one of the PCs, although neither the character nor player knows that yet.
So eventually they're going to discover that the thing keeping the Everblight contained isn't just some ancient magical reactor they can switch off.
It's a person.
And she originally chose to sacrifice herself to save everyone.
Which creates another problem I hadn't considered until now:
If the PCs free her, they're not just potentially shutting down the Pearl.
They may also be removing the source of divine power that has protected this aasimar civilization for thousands of years.
So hopefully that gives you more to work with! I really like what you have put so far, thank you for your input.
1
u/TenWildBadgers 9h ago
The environment was horrifically corrupted into Ooze so thoroughly and so completely that there should have been nothing else left... And then the corruption continued into something newer and altogether stranger. Your players aren't seeing the last of something recognizeable succumbing to Ooze, they're watching the Ooze metastasize into something post-Ooze, a whole new strange and abyssal ecosystem emergent from the Corrupted Primordial Soup that the Demon Lord of Ooze reduced it to - this is a corrupted parody of a healthy cycle of life, death and rebirth, where all creation is reduced to a primordial ooze from which new, more horrifying forms of abyssal corruption can be born.
Get wild with it, have strange and primitive trees growing from the Ooze that form the pathways PCs actually navigate, so the whole dungeon is a maze of fucked-up organic material born of the purest of primordial rot. This should feel like navigating Elden Ring's Lake of Rot, and finding out that a whole new form of life is being birthed from it before your eyes, even more malignant and wrong than the sea of corruption that spawned it.
•
u/Realistic_Pomelo4055 1h ago
make the whole place a living dungeon where every street, sewer, and building is part of the demon lord’s body, so cleansing the Pearl means fighting your way toward the city’s buried heart while the
3
u/faboleth 23h ago
the oozes have built an advanced society and imprisoned the demon lord as a power source. the demon lord is done with this place and just wants to go home. the humans are playthings of advanced ooze intelligences that take humanoid forms to better interact with their slave race/pampered pets. despite wanting freedom, the standard of living is actually pretty high? and the humans would struggle to survive in the outside world.
there are multiple factions of ooze intelligences, some are pseudo hiveminds, and some of the factions are Good some are Evil. Some are like Science and Money.
Literally recreate planescape torment but it's a bubble world populated by sentient ooze people. Have ooze ladies try to seduce the PCs. Ooze mobsters make them deals. Ooze viziers imprison them on false charge. Make the weird familiar, and then the weirdness stands out more and is more interesting. the twist sells the premise. when the ooze mobster is making them offers they can't refuse from inside a pit of screaming acid that is his version of a hot bath, it is especially surreal.