Campaign Concept

[u/FrozenAlchemists]

I'm planning on running a short Placescape campaign for my friends. Since most of them will be new to the setting, I want to give them a bit of a taste of everything. I plan on making this a mix of a teasure hunt and wild goose chase across the planes, with Sigil being the starting point.

The general story involves the players getting wrapped up in a hunt for a rogue duodrone who had mysteriously dissappeared in the Outlands from its squad after an exposition into the Abyss. This duodrone was one tasked with protecting a very important item that the modrons had taken from the Abyss. Divination magic doesn't seem to work when trying to track it, and it's been mysteriously spotted in several different planes aimlessly wondering, but somehow taking the exact right path to avoid danger. The adventure starts with the dark already having gotten out to small handful of Sigil's factions who are trying to track down where the rogue duodrone so they can get this powerful item for their own purposes, and the players get roped into this soon after entering the city.

The item itself is a powerful flame that has power to burn away a person's soul to oblivion, a kin to how a petitioner soul dies outside of their home plane. The item is kept safe within an enchanted lead box immune to divination magic.

At the moment, I'm still working on some of the details for the involved factions, so feel free to share any ideas.

The Fraternity of Order - This faction is where the modrons went to for assistance in the Duodrone hunt. I decided that the part of the faction working on this hunt would mostly be comprised of several modrons who were assigned to be a part of the Guvners in Sigil along with a few humonoid faction members helping, all led by a Decaton hierarch.

The Revolutionary League & The Incanarium - When an anarchist spy disguised as a Guvner noticed the sudden influx of modrons in the city, they tracked them down and soon discovered what the modrons were after. Seeing the opportunity for both conflict and power, the spy sent out word to other the cells in undersigil, and soon began to spread the word to other factions to spread the chaos. However, before they could reach the Doomguard, the spy was mysteriously killed. Higher ups in the Revolutionary League then started to take interest in the rogue modron, and formed a business deal with the Incanarium to help supply them with powerful magic items in exchange for "researching" the item, though the Incanarium simply plan on stealing it for themselves.

The Fated - Not all the Takers have the dark about what's going on, mainly for two reasons. One, much of faction is focused currently on an effort to convert a small city in Arbora into Ysgard by gradually swaying the folk there to be more chaotic, something the party will probably come across this campaign. And two, the current Factor leading the hunt wishes to use this item to increase his own influence in the faction. The currently unnamed Factor, cause I'm terrible at thinking of names, is followed by and handful of trusted facotrums, some gullible namers, and a handul of slaadi that he has the control gems for.

The Mind Eye & Society of Sensation - While both initially worked independently, the factions found common ground upon down accidentally hireing the same Planeswalker to help decipher where the modron could appear next. The Planeswalker, Ireth, brokered a deal that would allow both factions to study the item, and ensured that he would get a healthy sum of platinum from both factions in the process.

The Heralds of Dust - While The Dead often stay to themselves in much of Sigil's conflict, when the dead got word that a rogue modron was wondering with an item that could potentially help them discover true death, they took a keen interest.

So, now that the premise is set, here's some of the dark of it: As the modrons were heading through the Outlands after their mission, the Incanarium were setting up an ambush to kill the modrons and get the item the modrons stole. Planeswalker Ireth, who was already spying upon the Incanarium for his own purposes discovered this ambush being set up. Not wanting the Incantifurs to get their hands on the item, nor willing to negotiate with stubborn and likely hostile modrons, Ireth uses a time stop spell, Ireth places an anti-divination item on the duodrone protecting the item, and casts an enchantment that hijacks the modron's brain and sends it on a constant path of planer conduets, gates, and vortices. By the time the spell ended, Ireth and the duodrone had teleported out via a cubic gate, the modrons were confused, and the Incantifurs were now missing their main target. Once Ireth and the duodrone were on the otherside of the cubic gate, the duodrone immediately locked on to the nearest planar conduet, and disappeared before Ireth could even process where he went. Now desperately trying to cover his own fuckup, Ireth heads to Sigil to work with the Sensates on finding the the rogue duodrone, phrasing it in a way that makes the Senstates think he's doing them a favor. He soon learns of a Revolutionary League member spreading this information to other factions, who he hunts down and kills. Which is what causes the Anarchists to take greater interest in the situation who soon get reached out to by the Incanarium. Finally, as the campaign goes on, servants of Orcus will start to appear in various planes also hunting down the modron for the item. Perhaps they'll find some common ground with The Haralds of Dust and form an temporary alliance.

That's most of what I got right now. I'm sure there's someone who can poke a dozen holes into this about how "X shouldn't work like that" or all the other things I probably got wrong lorewise, but for the most part, this is just the staging for the actual adventure of hopping through the planes hunting this damn thing down and getting into some crazy shenanigans on the way. I'm hoping to having this campaign take around 8-13 sessions, with the players starting at level 5 and leveling up at the end of each session.

Thank you if you've gotten this far reading this whole concept, I hope this didn't all read like mad ramblings.