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All Rules in Running a Mythic Game

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Ideas for Mythic Adventures

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 135
Creating an adventure that feels mythic can be a daunting task, as there are a lot of factors to consider. The following ideas give you something to work with when designing your campaign. Each idea includes a basic synopsis of the plot, a list of some of the challenges the heroes could face, a look at the primary adversary, and ideas for further adventures. Some of these ideas imply the heroes’ mythic origin, but they can easily be tailored for PCs who have already gone on other mythic adventures.

Moments of Powerlessness

Many stories in novels, comic books, television shows, and movies involve powerful characters losing their abilities for a short time. It’s tempting for many GMs to make that a part of a mythic campaign. While you can certainly use such a plot device in your game, the loss of power must be handled carefully to avoid turning an otherwise fun string of adventures into something no one wants to play anymore. Here are a few tips to make this idea work in a fun way.

To start with, this is only a good option when the characters are in the middle tiers (between 4th and 7th tier). If the heroes are of a lower tier, they haven’t used their mythic power enough to make the powerlessness storyline interesting. If they’re of a higher tier, the gulf between their mythic story and the story being told now is so great that it may break the flow of the story.

Powerlessness arcs should last no more than a couple sessions, lest the temporary loss of power start to seem like a permanent disability.

Causes of the PCs’ powerlessness need to be explainable— and either the characters know about it beforehand or someone informs them of the cause after they’ve lost their powers. It could be an event that comes to pass, like a lunar eclipse or a great volcano’s eruption disrupting the flow of power in the world. Or a foe might enact a ritual to nullify the heroes’ power. The PCs might even be responsible for their own loss of power, especially if the divine being who granted the powers doesn’t approve of their recent activities.

Solutions to the PCs’ plight should make sense from a story perspective. Events pass, reinstating the PCs’ mythic power (in which case, the PCs need merely to wait, and possibly fight to survive until then). The foe’s rituals are undone by the temporarily normal PCs. Or penance can be granted as the PCs show that they’re still worthy.

Drama happens between the cause and solution: foes that should have been easy before become challenges again, and those the heroes have angered can now retaliate, whether they are monstrous foes or slighted townsfolk. The rewards acquired during this time should reflect the difficulty of the challenges the PCs face.

Eternal Gaze

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 135
Not too far from the city is a famous holy site dedicated to a powerful deity. Pilgrims constantly trek to the site to receive the god’s blessing, but recently those pilgrims have been found turned to stone along the side of the road. The local clergy is deeply concerned, both for their parishioners’ lives and for the sanctity of the site.

Challenges: The souls of the petrified pilgrims hover around their bodies. Frightened and confused, the spirits (manifesting as ghosts, spectres, or even will-o’-wisps) attack anyone who comes near. Destroying the spirits doesn’t kill them, but drives them back into their bodies to lie quiescent.

The holy site was corrupted by cultists of an enemy to the deity. This place has always been dangerous to approach, seated atop a high peak reaching up to the heavens, but now some of the paths have been destroyed, forcing the heroes to take a far more perilous route to reach the summit.

Adversary: The cultists are led by a mythic medusa, once a devotee of this deity before being cursed and tortured into serving the rival power. The PCs are being used as pawns in this ancient struggle—but for the good of the pilgrims, they must defeat this menace and her cultists.

Further Adventures:: Returning the pilgrims to life might be a difficult task, requiring the PCs to venture to faraway lands to recover the ingredients necessary to undo the petrification. The cult might seek revenge for ruining their plans. Or the church might ask the PCs to seek out and destroy the cult once and for all.

Falling Stars

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 135
A town has had a secretive mythic protector—a mythic phoenix—watching over it for the last few decades and keeping it from harm. When an ancient red dragon woke from its slumber and went on a rampage, this protector had no choice but to act. The phoenix soared into the sky to meet the challenge, but in the ensuing battle, both were left crippled, falling back to earth. While the dragon was wounded and forced to flee back to its lair, the phoenix had the very fires of its being corrupted by the evil wyrm. Now it stalks the land, burning everything it its wake, mad with pain, its mind clouded by the dragon’s magic.

Challenges: During the battle up above the town, the phoenix’s tears rain down on the PCs, granting them mythic power and imbuing them each with a piece of its pure spirit. In the coming days, as the corrupted phoenix sets huge fires all around the realm, the PCs realize they must find a way to heal the creature, or at the very least put it out of its misery.

They must travel to its secret home to uncover all they can about the phoenix, all the while battling fires, protecting the community, and dealing with various monsters imbued with the phoenix’s corrupted essence. Once they uncover the guardian’s true nature, they must find a way to track it down and heal it, or put an end to it.

Adversary: The mythic phoenix is their foe, although not a traditional one. The PCs might wish to save it by purging the evil that has corrupted its fire. In doing so, they must find a way to approach and cure it without being destroyed. Or they see that the phoenix is too far gone, and choose instead to end it and take up its mantle of protector (and hope that their mythic powers remain after the phoenix is dead).

Further Adventures:: The evil dragon is still out there, healing from its own wounds and biding its time to attack again. If the heroes heal the phoenix, it tells them about the dragon, and gives them information to help defeat it. The phoenix might reveal that the dragon has been its rival for countless years, and that they need to acquire some sort of legendary weapon if they ever hope to finally defeat it.

On the other hand, if the PCs do kill the phoenix, they could very well meet it again after its rebirth. Whether it will be grateful to the PCs for releasing it or angry at them is anyone’s guess…

For Love of Sport

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 137
What was to be a joyous occasion, the naming ceremony for the king and queen’s newborn child, quickly turned to a scene of horror. The doors to the grand chamber opened and an old woman playing an ancient silver pipe entered. The attendees froze in place, unable to resist the piper’s tune. As she made her way to the throne, the shadows of the king and queen rose up and seized the newborn royal, carrying the prince out through the doors with the piper following the procession. Left behind was a note instructing the kingdom to send its finest champions to the great arena in the pit of the world “and if they survive our gladiator games, so will your kingdom.”

Challenges: The PCs are called upon to venture to the arena and return the missing prince by any means necessary. Upon arriving, they realize that the arena is run by incredibly powerful devils and that the only way to succeed is to enter the games. Mythic creatures are perfect for these contests. Manticores, giants, hydras—nothing is out of reach of the organizers. The ring reforms itself for each match, reflecting the normal environs of the creature the heroes are pitted against. For one match, the environment might be a swamp, the perfect home for a hydra. For the next match, it might be a graveyard, full of fresh bodies for a talented necromancer. Another match might fill the ring with shifting sands, perfect for a mummy intent on seeking revenge against the living.

There’s more than one way to win, however. If the heroes convince the other contestants to band together, it’s possible they could overthrow the devils, rescue the captured prince, and return home.

Adversary: A powerful group of devils has organized these games, ostensibly to pass the time torturing mortals by forcing them to fight for the fiends’ amusement. The devils, however, have a secret agenda. Powerful auguries have told them that the heroes will be a great threat to their kind and they kidnapped the prince to lure them here. They have no actual care for the prince or his kingdom, hoping instead only to slay the heroes before they can become a threat. While the PCs may never fight the devils directly, winning in the arena ruins the fiends’ plans.

Further Adventures:: Some of the devils don’t appreciate watching as their prized possessions lose in the ring. They may seek revenge against the heroes at a later date, or attempt to capture them for a repeat performance. There’s still the matter of the heroes and their destiny, and it may turn out that luring them to the arena is what sets them on the course to defeating the devils.

Legacy of Earth

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 137
For centuries, a stretch of fertile land has been tended by several small settlements of halfling farmers. These halflings have developed a mystical bond with the land, creating a birthright of governance they pass down from generation to generation. Just recently, this bond was rudely severed by forces unknown. The land blighted, the crops withered, and the fields fell fallow.

Challenges: To make matters worse, vicious carnivorous plants have sprung up in the once verdant fields. Aggressive mythic plant creatures wander the area in droves, and a yellow musk creeper spawns unusually powerful and relentless zombies. The halflings beg the heroes to find the root of the problem and restore the natural balance.

Adversary: The destructive plants are being orchestrated by an evil mythic druid. The druid lives in a series of underground tunnels reinforced by giant, slimy roots. Dire rats and badgers, bat swarms, and venomous snake swarms could all guard the druid. Once confronted, the druid turns out to be an evil fey creature—a forlarren. Destroying it isn’t enough to cleanse the land, though. The tunnels may stretch even deeper, leading to a strange cavern lair housing a terrible threat: a band of myceloids worshiping a mythic myceloid leader, or even worse, a sard. Destroying these toxic creatures returns the birthright of the land back to the halflings.

Further Adventures:: As they finish the last of the evil creatures, the heroes gain the ability to create the type of mystical bond that joins the halflings with the land. They can teach this secret to others and may even consider it their duty to pass on this knowledge to farming communities in difficult areas. Evidence in the underground cavern may also point to more of these evil colonies in other parts of the world.

The Nascent Sphere

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 138
The heroes come upon a portion of the world left unmade. Whether an oversight of the creator, natural forces of the world, or unique arcane phenomena, this zone is a roiling mass of primeval matter that proves dangerous. Violent creatures of chaos drift in the mutable depths, and other powerful individuals with less noble intentions seek to control what sages term the Nascent Sphere. The heroes must learn to master and shape the primeval matter while keeping ill-meaning forces from encroaching. If the heroes lose control of the Nascent Sphere, a mythic villain may step forward to create a literal hell on the face of the world.

Challenges: The Nascent Sphere is a place of pure chaos and creation. Its mythic denizens include chaos beasts with the savage template (see page 224), howlers, and elementals. A community of proteans, led by a powerful keketar, live within the Nascent Sphere and claim it as their territory, but aren’t immediately hostile to the heroes. The proteans are also not strong enough to defend the Nascent Sphere against evil attackers, including a band of vicious demodands. The arrival of a powerful azata emissary, perhaps a brijidine, complicates matters when she levies as much suspicion on the heroes as she does on the demodands.

Adversary: If the heroes can navigate the dangers of the Nascent Sphere, defeat the demodands, and either destroy or gain the aid of the proteans and the azata, they may finally reach the heart of the Nascent Sphere. There they find the source of the Nascent Sphere’s creative forces and also its final guardian—a mythic hekatonkheires titan, exiled to the mortal world long ago and nearly able to free itself.

Further Adventures:: Once the heroes choose a form for the Nascent Sphere, it permanently assumes that shape. However, the thwarted demodands believe they can reverse the process and turn the entire area into seething chaos. Demodand assassins lurk in the shadows, ready to strike when the heroes least suspect it. Archons visit from Heaven, believing that the heroes’ new home holds the key to bringing order to chaos, and may be a weapon against the legions of the Abyss. The archons are insistent in their studies and suspicious of any reluctance on the heroes’ part to house their divine visitors. Peasants and mercenaries flock to the heroes’ new home, looking for land and work, and if the heroes take on citizens, they may find themselves suddenly rulers of a nation and unwittingly infringing on sovereign borders. (See Kingdoms and War for more on kingdom building.)

Perilous Peaks

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 138
An ancient civilization once dominated a valley, but its citizens have since degenerated into savagery. Still, vestiges of the civilization remain. Rumors reach the heroes that vast treasures and ancient magic reside on three mountain peaks surrounding the valley.

Challenges: The modern descendants of the civilization remain in the area, but they are brutal and xenophobic. These antagonists could be athachs, hill giants, or lamia. They roam in packs on the lower mountain reaches, attacking intruders on sight, and craft pit traps and falling-rock traps. The upper reaches of the mountains are home to giant eagles, mythic leucrottas, mythic rocs, and yrthaks.

The peak of each mountain holds a different challenge. One peak holds the lair of a mythic crag linnorm. Among its treasure is a golden crown of the ancient civilization. A second peak holds a deep cavern, where a fearsome mythic neothelid dwells. Its treasure includes a heavy tome written in an ancient language containing the collected wisdom of long-ago rulers who lived through difficult challenges and recorded their thoughts and decisions. When the heroes descend from the second peak, they may encounter the bulk of the valley’s inhabitants, led by a ferocious barbarian with guardian tiers. The third peak is clouded in perpetual storms and home to a mythic thunderbird. Once the thunderbird is slain, the clouds clear to reveal that the top of the mountain bears a carved stone throne.

Adversary: The true threat here is the degenerate race that might be returned to greatness if only the PCs can convince them to leave their barbaric ways behind. If the heroes can get the leader up to the stone throne, and sit him there with the book on his lap and the crown on his head, a spark of enlightenment lights within him and all his people. The heroes have started the race on a path back to greatness. Accomplishing this might require them to defeat the leader in single combat, or perhaps even the leader and his personal guard.

Further Adventures:: If the heroes destroyed all the valley dwellers before uncovering the secret of the three peaks, they may go in search of other members of the race to sit upon the throne. If the heroes restored the civilization, they become valuable allies who may provide further adventuring opportunities.

Unexpected Travels

Source Mythic Adventures pg. 139
After spending the night in a hollow, the heroes waken to a feeling of unease. The trees appear to have moved during the night, the road is missing, and the hill giant that just wandered into camp seems to think the heroes are creatures from childhood tales. Here, humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and all the other common races are all thought to have been extinguished from the land long ago. The PCs also realize that they have newfound powers in this strange land. Little did they know that they camped near a mystical artifact that transported them to this new world due to unknown conditions that just happened to be right.

Challenges: To get back, the group must either locate a specific artifact—the twin of the one that transported them in the first place—or find another way to create a portal back. Many of the denizens tell the PCs about a wise woman who might be able to show them a way they could return, but lament that the queen captured her long ago.

Survival in a land where the heroes are considered to be legendary, extinct creatures presents interesting opportunities for interaction. Groups might seek a favor or two before providing much needed information to the heroes. Normally hostile groups might worship the newcomers. Others that would have called them allies back home might instead view them as a threat, especially since the information and insights the newcomers bring threaten the balance of power and the land’s fragile peace.

If the heroes make their way to the queen’s gigantic fortress, they find a new challenge before them, as every inhabitant is over twice their size. The queen’s familiar, an enormous black cat, becomes a truly terrifying beast as it plays with new prey.

Adversary: For the PCs to rescue the wise woman, they must defeat the queen (who could be based on a type of mythic giant). For her part, she does not necessarily want the PCs dead right away, but instead wants to learn more about their world so that she can expand her domain.

Further Adventures:: Other creatures might seek out the heroes’ home world now that they know it exists. If the PCs don’t kill the queen in her world, she may seek revenge in theirs. The PCs might learn that the queen sent the artifacts to other worlds and that she has many other captives who need the PCs’ help. Perhaps the mythic power even remains when the PCs return home, only to discover their returning has awakened long-dormant mythic power across their world, unleashing many perils.

Archives of Nethys

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All Rules in Running a Mythic Game

Moments of Powerlessness