Help: Need ideas on what comes next/what goal comes next after the mission that brought the party together.
Hi so I'm usually a DM who does oneshots and I got convinced to try and run a campaign in my world. Now, I'm struggling with pivoting from one mission to another while keeping the party together.
Note, I was dragged out of DM retirement since my other DM friends don't have the opportunity to just be a players.
So, I have five Level 10 players in the party. Here are their individual goals:
- The Bloodhunter, was assigned by the northern section of the bloodhunter order to check on the southern section (who hasn't contacted the northern section a long long while. He is one of the more competent bloodhunters and that's why he was the one sent.) Leads point to the forge down south.
- A Swashbuckler Rogue who ran away from the crew he backstabbed for a lady who told him that she needed the sword that the pirate crew was supposed to deliver to an archfey. Who is now looking to lay low and takes up a job they found since the pay was silly lucrative for just a shipment transpo (20k gold per person)
- A Bounty Hunter Bard Vampire lady who is looking to hunt down her brother who has been a thorn on her side for the longest time since childhood. Her contacts say that a shipment down south is related to her brother in some way.
- A Celestial Warlock is told that the path to divinity is having followers and to know how to guide people from point A to B (their deity is basically a god of journey and transportation.) This patron saw their warlock having to go on this journey to succeed in his path.
- A Bounty Hunter Gunslinger Fighter | Hexblade Warlock whose patron told him to find the person behind this shipment and kill them. The very same patron who made him miss his wedding day and which causes his now ex-fiancee in the same area to seek vengeance.
Now, this shipment was orchestrated by the organization of two insane deities. A duo of an evil god trapped in the moon and the ruler of the nine hells. Since fiends and moon cultists has slowly overrun the south and wants to spark a civil war to turn good people evil by supplying said weapons to the mistreated public of a city. This shipment is the last of what they need for that goal atleast. The two have ulterior motives for the shipment.
The ruler of the nine hells wants to torment the bloodhunter and legitimately targetted his order to be turned into weapons (because bro wifed up the ruler's daughter in lore, he does NOT know his wife is the princess of hell) while the evil god trapped in the moon needs their most avid follower in the south (the bard's brother) to create a tower of which they'll be shooting from a bow with the blood of a lineage to set them free. (Which said evil god's cult does not have yet and is hinted to be something the bard lady find first or else her brother will succeed in their goals.)
We're around 9 sessions in and they've been:
- At the forge town where they got the mission from, in which they signed a magical contract (they have 30 in-game days to deliver a crate of weapons powered by soul gems). Their witnesses being the liason for the company and the head of the forge (who was supposed to die but the body was taken by the party in a bag of holding)
- Travelled 2 days by ship to the town where the bloodhunter lived a year in with his wife, was on time for the town's festival and the portal opening to a shady market pocket dimension for the two bounty hunters' contacts and to revive said head of the forge.
- Slept in the town for the night, was warned that a monster was approaching said town from an NPC that heard that a town far ahead got destroyed- mayor evacuates everyone the next day by ship (after they got rallied up at night by said mayor who was informed) towards allied areas while the PCs stayed to handle the situation (especially the PC that's from this town). They took down the monster and now the town is sort of... empty (a ghost town). It's going to be raining soon.
The party are supposed to go to an industrial, squallid, and run by criminal gangs sort of city that has a quarries and mines by its mountain range for the delivery in a storage area somewhere. Around a week or two away on foot. A week on carriage/horses.
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Now the problem with this is what comes next.
The Bloodhunter already has some answers as to what happened to the southern bloodhunter sector and would benefit from heading up north to report.
The Bard's brother still wants to release the evil moon god with a bow thats hidden in a town nearby and the fact that she has people they care about in said industrial city.
The Celestial Warlock still has another plot point to create railways down south (especially since any foreign transportation system/company gets destroyed in the area) and the fact that his parents can't find him.
The Gunslinger Hexblade would find out who was behind the shipment when they deliver the package.
The Swashbuckler can just run to the lady of whom he betrayed his pirate crew over.
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After that delivery, they mostly have no reason to stick together. I don't know if a month or less (in-game time) is enough to get a party like this to stick together. So, I'm struggling with that part. Any help?
Edit: To clarify, I was upfront with the campaign description that the mission was to deliver a package from one place to another. Basically across the whole southern region. So they had the chance to make a character suited for that sort of quest.
Also in this dnd server, the usual campaign standard is to start at high levels so I only followed suit (which explains why they're level 10). I tried justifying in world that they're pretty competent people that has earned that strength/level in their backstories.
For example: The two bounty hunters with titles and successes under their name, the pirate who has quite a lot of experience and enemies in their years of piracy, the blood hunter who is among the high ranks of their Blood Hunter Order, and the celestial warlock who knows how business works (whose family owns the northern region railway system.)
