In this thread I will show my process of brainstorming a new campaign. It will mainly be notes and probably not at all understandable but i'll try and put notes in to explain bits.
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World is one big (dying?) forest with a sun that never sets.
People all live in the world tree's, and don’t go up to the canopy or down to "the dark". The currently level is referred to as "the green". Villages are built into one "tree" on multiple level and paths are cut through them. The few cities that exist are spread over multiple trees. Multiple levels of ground made up of fallen branches and foilage.
Water is incredibly important, and usually collected in condensers. Nature check each extended rest to set up your condenser to gain 1 days water. easy check? moderate check? Must make need for water constant threat but not overshadowing everything else.
Everything made out of wood, resin and varnish. Metal is super rare. Technology level is primitive but magic is still studied, gods worrhsipped etc, but its all quite primal.
Insects and lizards are all the "native" wildlife and used as beasts of burden when they can be tamed.
The lands are in nearly all ways, wild, untamed and dangerous.
Orcs and gobbos are more gorilla like, but still savage and primal.
Gnolls are hyena like pack carrion eaters.
The main areas are known as "the Wide Green", "the Sea of Red", the "lands of night (an area where the sun never shines.)
The "offering" taken to the nearest big city. Part stolen enroute by gobbo's. Must be retrieved. Magical "incident" fires the across the face of the world. run across invasion force of unknown enemy.
On Gods. There is one god with many faces and aspects. so everyone worsips the same thing, but still fights and argues over it, as they think one set of teachings is more important that others. The dying world has kind of made worship fall out of favour, and people are revert to a more nature based religion (conflict between Primal and Divine powers sources)
On Alignment. its going in the bin.
p.s. I wish I could edit the title to remove the annoying spelling mistake.
History
In the time before there was only darkness, and all the races suffered endlessly in the night. Then the light spread across the land and the world flourished. All was sweet and golden. Races began to take their opulent lifestyle for granted and descended into decadence and excess. The God, seeing this for his city of glass, was displeased and threw down the ancient empires and seared the land with his rage. He set the sun to burn evermore and left the people to fend for themselves. In the ages that followed the land has suffered, but gained a balance, that life is treasured and not squandered. But now the darkness approaches again. Seers and Prophets throw themselves to their doom to blot out the visions that plague their dreams. A storm approaches....a storm of blood and death.
Aside from the urgent need for water.. staying in the trees... fire would be a huge worry too, right?
What about weather? Are thunder and lightning storms scary? If the sun never sets... you could use an eclipse as a very bad omen. If the people.. as long as they can remember (could be an eclipse only happens every ten thousand years or something) always had bright and sunny light...
A ten minute eclispe would be life altering.
Nice idea Paul, I hadnt really got round to considering the effect of fire on a big dry forest. Forest fires would a be a devastating thing.
I posted this also on the rpg.net fporums and got a few otherand im reposting the ones i like.
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Tangles: Tangles are areas where the Trees branches have become dense enough that the falling Leaves have been caught up. The leaves decay and rot and form a mulch, from which plants can grow.
Vines: The Forest is not just trees. Vines exist, and they wrap around trees and stretch to other trees. The great Vine-roads produce the topology of trade.
Winds: The Forest is full of standing winds. In some areas, there is a standing wind blowing up -- in others, blowing down.
Up winds are cold, and carry fungus spores and seeds. Fungus spores can be cultivated for food, and some seeds that blow up are suitable for crops. But you can use these winds to gain altitude on gliders.
Down winds are warm, and carry leaves. A tangle under a gentle down wind will be warm and have lots of mulch.
Bores: Various creatures bore into the great trees. These Bore holes are quite dangerous -- between the tree's natural defences against bore creatures, and the bore creatures themselves...
Gliders: With the predictable wind patterns in the Forest, using Gliders for couriers is quite doable. They are also sometimes used in wars to avoid having to travel down fortified vine paths.
Branches: The trees have branches that cross and go near each other. Often a Vine path will go from a tree to a nearby branch of another tree. Vines, however, tend to be more common than Branches. Some Branches are so large that entire cities exist on their top side.
The areas where Branches meet the tree is an area that water tends to gather, and hence civilisations concentrate in those areas. Barring great water works, however, it isn't that safe to be at the elbow of a Branch when there is a tempest.
Tools: Tree borer shell and mandibles make tools that are great at working wood, and also great at cutting your enemies.
Nets: Civilisations build huge nets between the trees, and use them to gather resources (such as leaves) that fall from above. Workers walk the nets and gather up what has fallen.
Net farms also exist -- a net, with a woven mulch-barrier, and then mulch above it, that grow plants.
A Net Siege is when you climb above a defended area, and build a huge net, and possibly block out the light, to cut off water, mulch and light to your enemies.
Light: In this world, light likes going down, and doesn't like going up. As you look down, things get gloomier and darker. You cannot see very far down. If you go down there, things are brighter. As you look up, things get washed out with green, and makes it equally hard to see in that direction.
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I was thinking about the ideas of ticking clocks in the world. There will definitely by a few "set piece" events that will occur regardless of players intervention. One I think will be the flickering sun, and the second the gnoll invasion.
I was thinking of in the campaign handouts emphasising the growing threat of the wild gnoll menace. Then have them invade large swaths of the land. I think fighting the gnolls and defending their homeland will be a big chuck of heroic tier game. Then I want to make it more apparent the gnolls aren't invading, they are fleeing another unknown force.
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My basic structure so far is
- PC village livestock is being poached by goblins. Head off to deal with goblins
- Gnoll Invasion
- Village attacked by Gnolls and destroyed while PC's are out on goblin mission. Slave taken by Gnolls.
- The tracking of the slaves for rescue.
- The flickering sun starts.
hmm, im having a hard time thinking of how to being this campaign (admittedly I should be thinking about work, but im in my redundancy notice period and they expect me to pass all my knowledge over to some dude that works India. Well screw them, DnD is much more exciting that trying to decipher the sentence "When can you have reverted the FTE document?" Is this some kind of skill challenge?)
I always like to have the PC's in the middle of something, I find it make it easier to get them going.
I've been thinking that they are currently stalking the vinepaths for a bunch of Goblins that have been raiding the "mulch nets" (where they grow food). I think this puts the in the mood of a group who are dedicated to defending their little knothole village (a small village burrowed into the side of a world tree), as well as getting them an early skill challenge, and a bit of a fight. If they fail the skill challenge they end up getting ambushed by the Goblins (NOTE__ need to find a different name for the goblins, that emphasises their more Simian nature).
There are two things that I want for the game now. I want their village to be destroyed as I want them to go on a bit of hunt for those responsible, and I want to them to go on a task that they know will eventually kill them (LOTR ringbearer style). Not hugely sure how im going to weave them into the story at the moment though.
Hmm.... Considering swapping the Goblins for Kobolds. While I like the image of the monkey like goblins swinging out of the trees, I ALSO like the image of Gecko like Kobolds swarming out of the trees. And when I say swarming, I mean swarming. I could quite feasibly throw 20 Kobold minions at a lvl 1 party. I might end this encounter half way through when the kobolds are "spooked" by something else and flee. I want to make this world dangerous, and I want to highlight its danger quite early on in the game. I might then role them into a solo encounter when so big rampaging predator rocks up. They are reasonably used to the system so I don’t think this will be too extreme a beginning. Even though, I actually want it to be quite extreme.
Right,
Its been a while since I updated this thread, and seeing as this campaign us kicking off soon, I thought it might be a good idea.
The players are in the process of coming up with their characters based on a restricted list of races and classes I gave them. Martial and Primal classes arent limited, but they can only take one divine and one arcane character as both magic and the divine spark are rare in this world.
Now, the game is going to start in the cheesiest way possible. They have been asked to meet an old friend in Millers Knot, a small village in the middle of nowhere important.
They are going to idle there for a few weeks before a message will be sent to them asking them to come to a nearby entrance to what is essentially the underdark (although it just called the Dank, in this world). Im going to make them idle in town for a while, as i want to use the oppurtunity to introduce them to the world and the harsh condition they have to live under.
On the way they are going to have the following encounter
Encounter Level Difficulty: Standard (850)
6 PCs
Party Level 1
Setup
Ambush
This encounter includes the following:
2 Dire Rat
8 Giant Rat
8 Kobold Minion
2 Kobold Pikeman
The kobolds in this world are reffered to as Leaf Toes, and the Rats are their pets/mounts. This combat is going to only last a few rounds, as after being spooked the Kobolds are going to flee. The party are then going to be stalked by a Hunting pack of Gaurd Drakes. Im hoping the suspense of being stalked will works well, but am a bit unsure of how to play it.
If they do fight the Drakes the encounter is going to be 6 Guard Drakes.
Any advice on the Stalking?