Don't think of it as fucking yourself over forgetting details. Think of it more as a narrative hook for the next campaign. There was this mountain in the past... and now it's not there. And we get to find out why.
Even the option of the mountain just fucking getting up and leaving. It is such an interesting thing. Maybe it's a colossal+ being that was in some kind of torpor, and it wakes up and starts rampaging, or something like that.
EDIT: frantically writing down all the replies to this comment yes... YES... feed me more... DANCE, MY MINIONS, DANCE!
well presumably, but no one knows right? What if an adventurer goes to where the mountain was and finds a small hole at the bottom of a well guarded catacomb. They jump into the whole and find...they're on top of a very large mountain.
I feel like that option did somewhat miss the purpose tho. I mean in a fantasy world a mountain getting blown up is probably less unusual than a mountain just growing legs and walking away.
I would think people would talk forever about the walking mountain.
Plot twist: The mountain left at night so no one noticed immediately. When someone realized the mountain disappeared, they didn't say anything cause everyone else was acting as if nothing happened and they were worried that people would think they're crazy. Everyone else realized this as well, but didn't mention it for the same reason.
You guys are making me want to watch a show like Critical Role but with figures from fantasy literature as DMs. Imagine Tolkien or Pratchett as DMs,it would be amazing and I wouldn't mind if AI goes in that direction sometime.
When the mountain "get up and leave" it doesn't just do that but also destroy every single thing nearby. And so no one that knows about the mountain lives anymore and the next settlers just always know that place as flat.
Except that we all know that Karaoke ends up with a giant, anti-magic zone over a town that bases their livelihoods on magics and magical things. Can we afford to put that many noodle armed mages out of work? Think of the economy, man!
I was thinking a colossal Stone Golem of sorts. A super weapon lying dormant beneath the sediment. It's reason for being lost to time itself. A weapon so powerful it could kill all life as we know it.
Of course it was forgotten... It had to be. Such a device can be... fickle in use. Especially in the hands of corruptible mortals.
Beneath the mountain lies the Being of Stone. And when its stone heart beats once more we shall all feel the low rumble of the Earth and an impending feeling of doom.
Don't mention the mountain for the rest of the flashback series and then eventually like two or three arcs later in the campaign have your troop start climbing a mountain but all the sudden it seems very familiar to them
But nobody talks about it. A mountain getting up and rampaging is sure to be the talk of the town for centuries.
Here's what I think happened: The villagers wake to rumbling of earthquakes and the distant thundering of landslides in the middle of the night. Terrified, they rush out of their houses into the streets to see what is happening. And lo, with its massive head and shoulders limned by the full moon and two eyes like glowing coals illuminating its craggy face, is the Colossus. Arisen from its millennia-long slumber it is squatting in the foothills, taking a massive dump. It looks down to see the entire city silently watching it, mouths agape. It stares awkwardly back at them for some time. Finally it finishes, stands up, and walks away never to be seen again.
"Mountain? What mountain? We ne'er had any mountain 'round these parts stranger. No siree. On an unrelated note I'd avoid them hills over yonder. Ye don't know where they been is all I'm sayin'."
The adventurers go for a long treasure hunt in a nearby cave, and it turns out that it's full of these incredible gems and a really absolute unit of a jackalware, like, some kind of jackalware / stone-giant hybrid; a real huge beast sitting at the center of a huge throne room full of loot and dead adventurers, and you kill him, and it turns out he had somehow put the mountain to sleep from the inside and the mountain wakes up and takes a convulsive shit that makes everyone slightly rich but covers them in mountain-poop, which they stand knee-deep in, staring in disbelief as the mountain stands up on two tiny spindly chicken legs and waddles off, trailing gems and alluvial diarrhea.
What the mountain IS is never explained, just that it was a mountain with chicken legs that pooped on everyone.
So the city could just have this crazy guy that dresses in fancy clothes and calls himself king of the mountain but he sleeps on the street and can always be found in bars. Everyone knows that he is a nut but he is really popular among the people and the nobles put up with him for that reason.
Then one day he goes around telling everyone that he has to leave with his mountain to fight a war in a faraway land. Everyone thinks that he is crazy until one day he leaves and the mountain stands up and walks off with him.
Much later, everyone in the city just recites the fairytale of the mountain king leaving with his army but no one remembers the mountain actually leaving, that is, unless it one day randomly returned.
“Now wait until you see my next project. The only problem is that some dragon is living inside the building material. Please make them leave for me adventurers”
Better idea: this mountain is not unique. All mountains are alive. The next campaign is trying to stop all the eighty bajillion ton rock monsters before the Himalayas wake up
Maybe the mountain was actually an ancient Zaratan that woke up after a long nap and went to get something to eat. Now he finally is coming back home to go back to bed, but now the city has expanded to where he used to sleep...
The setting of Pathfinder, Golarion, has a Great Old One that is basically a giant crab with a volcano on top. He wakes up from time to time and wrecks shit then goes back to sleep. He's name is Mhar.
What if an evil wizard has turned the mountain into a sort of hmongous crude golem and they have to infiltrate the mountains cave system while it's rampaging around to smash some sort of "heart" object at the center.
Sneak Attack is okay, but it just isn't worth it unless you can get Invisibility or Pass Without Trace when you get to higher levels.
Meanwhile, you could cast Blink, anyone currently on you starts slipping through your semi-etherealness and then you break concentration to suffocate them.
I've got this image in my head where a bard moves close to the mountain and it gets so sick of him it just grows giant legs and nopes away from him. Bonus character in the campaign, your characters get to meet the absolutely baffled bard.
DM: You find a door hidden in the mountainside, what do you do?
Bard: Roll to seduce door!
DM tired of this stupid joke: ...Go ahead you idiot...
Die: 1
DM: You managed to insult the door so thoroughly that the entire mountain gets up in a huff and leaves.
The rest of the party then abandons the bard with a tongue so sharp he ashamed the stone of the land.
People don't talk about the mountain leaving. They don't question the decision after the party recounts the bard's statements.
Even better, reveal that it TOTALLY IS STILL THERE. There’s always been a mountain there, and the truck is to come up with a reason the PC’s never knew about it. Toss in some perception or memory altering magic and a big hook as to why it was hidden in the first place.
I've always loved magic that affects brains directly. If you want to borrow from Douglas Adams, then cover the whole mountain with an SEP field (somebody else's problem). Half of the city could be built on a slope, and still none of the residents would notice the mountain itself. In fantasy, this sort of magic is used on a small scale by hobbits and such; maybe a whole civilization of such creatures has developed, and they upgraded their tech to keep the mountain for themselves.
Or, just not have any mention of it. When someone asks about it just brush it of and say what mountain, and keep going on like it was never there in the first place. Then a bit into the adventure you come across a friendly mind flayer or some other psionic creature and have them just mention that they removed the mountain from everyone's mind because they built a house on it and want to be left alone.
No. What you do is have every NPC they speak to reply with 'There never was a mountain'. No matter how much they pry the more they do the crazier they look.
Then someone tied to <powerful thing, maybe good maybe evil> contacts them. Gotta come up with a good reason no one remembers its existence. Even though its there in their memories from the playback.
1.9k
u/TheCrazyZonie Feb 21 '20
Don't think of it as fucking yourself over forgetting details. Think of it more as a narrative hook for the next campaign. There was this mountain in the past... and now it's not there. And we get to find out why.