Hello all, I'm a new DM and I need a little advice. I've DMed part way through Rise of the Runelords the group graduated before we could finish. So when my new group needed a DM and no one was particularly forthcoming I decided to volunteer to step up. I created my own world and decided the story that I would try and help steer them down.
To sum it up:
There's a seafaring race, elves, humans, dwarves, etc. The Humans are in a single city-state that has developed gun powder but are pretty happy just being the main trading port of the continent and don't need to conquer everyone else. The Elves and Dwarves are almost constantly bickering/at war. The seafarers come in and try to do the viking/pirate thing every now and then. But it's all pretty much a stalemate. Well 20 years ago the seafarers got it in their heads that all the nations will eventually fight themselves to ruin. So they kidnapped the Elven Queen, Dwarven King, Human Premier, "and" their own High Admiral. They then locked all the leaders together and being lonely and desperate for connection (with a little magic involved) they got "freaky" and boom a Son and Daughter were born.
The children were groomed from an early age to be rulers of the whole continent. There was an earlier experiment that tried to combine all four races into one ruler right off the bat. That resulted in a deformed woman who was trained in necromancy and at the start of the campaign unleashes an army of Zombies that precedes the new King and Queen to weaken their enemies before their arrival.
So I made a semi-foolhardy mistake. I thought it would be entertaining to make the players' party a gypsy troop. This would explain why they are ready to move, new to the area where the campaign began, and give them a reason to all get along. I've seen too many groups where the characters have no reason to work together and it destroys the campaign and thought this would be a clever way to fix that.
Well it sort of worked. It allowed them to be mobile, they (for the most part) get along great, and since they're just simple performers and travelers they don't know everything there is to know about what's going on in the world. But it resulted in an inadvertent side effect, since they're gypsies they feel they can just run away from most problems that I throw at them. They have no connection to the world and don't seem to care if the zombies/seafarers conquer everything. (They don't know about the seafarers yet)
So using a little ingenuity I've got them to start caring. The half-elf cleric is actually the niece to the new Elvish Queen, the halfling warrior was actually the dwarves' general and he's in exile with the gypsies do to the dwarves blaming him for the loss of their previous King (this actually worked out really seamlessly with the backstory he had in mind, still can't seem to get him to care though, maybe when he finds out his King is still alive?), and I made the Human Ranger the new King of the Gypsies.
Here's the problem I have there's a fourth final PC, he's a half-elf ranger who's pretty much a blank slate except that he's exceptionally devout to Desna. The player is also a bit flakey and doesn't show up every session, to the point where we just play whether he's there or not. So what reason can I give his character to care about this war that's brewing and not run away from everything? I thought about making him the bastard son of a random Elven Noble but I would love to do something other than "Oh you're related to the Elvish Aristocracy" again.
Suggestions?
Maybe a vision-quest from Desna herself or a plea by one of her clergy or powerfull Celestials.
Maybe a vision-quest from Desna herself or a plea by one of her clergy or powerfull Celestials.
Ah thank you, that makes perfect sense now that you've said it. Guess my brain was just stuck in a rut.