Alright, so, first thing's first. The world doesn't even have an actual name yet, and there's plenty of stuff to flesh out and I'd personally love it if you guys could help me.
Now, I'm not saying that anything's going to have a major impact, to be honest, but, I'm short on NPC's, and I pretty much only have a few stand-in's for the most part. Some of the one's you'll see on this page in a short few moments are merely just names.
Now then, right, this is an adventure path with a rather surprising bit of underlying story. With that let's examine a few key points before this thing starts up.
[o] The players have all been resurrected at the start of the campaign, 1 at a time, and given ample time between resurrected players to get their bearings before another one springs out.
[o] The campaign will have a hub, known as the Nexus, where they will go to 1 of 7 areas to seek creatures of power and further the plot.
[o] The NPC's and PC's alike will be unable to harm each other whilst in the Nexus.
[o] Any alignment is allowed, so long as the player was known well. This is potentially dangerous, but the players will have not known each other at all.
[o] Starting level is 2. Not too important, but hey, someone might be interested in this in the future.
[o] Campaign is to be primarily play-by-post, and have a maximum of just 3 people. Players will frequently fill in the 4th person with other "Hero" NPC's played by yours truly.
[o] The campaign setting is not in Golarion, and therefore, is lacking plenty, plenty in the character creation department. So much so that the only playable race is Human. I already know that that's bad, but for the sake of this, let's try not to argue against that, shall we? It's the only restriction. Well... except, y'know... for...
[o] No Summoner.
Alrighty then, onto the best bits.
First off, I want to introduce the lot of you to the hub's layout itself. Aaaand here it is:
Alrighty then, let's talk plot development.
Each of these little characters you see, for the most part, are rich with story. Bagrin, Savee, Rodrick, and Sebastian are a handful of the more story-related, and driving characters.
That being said, not all these characters like each other, and are from different worlds, though, the only worlds to be from are the ones presented in the 7 potential gates.
Important stuff related to the story
[o] Fog. Fog is super important to the story. If you see a bank of fog, walking into it drains you slowly of your life force. This is the thing that has encroached the worlds and needs driven back, as well as the cause of death of millions.
[o] The world is ending, really, but the whole point of the campaign is to drive off the evil lords of the various worlds who've been harvesting the life force of the people who've died to the fog.
[o] Inter-PC communications as well as friendliness between players is something that requires lots and lots of dialogue, and lots and lots of differentiating opinions between players and NPC's alike. Important things happen in the nexus.
[o] NPC's can sometimes be found in their respective worlds, or other worlds, actually, and they have their reasons for being there.
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So what do you guys think, eh? I need help constructing this.
What if you did this:
Several years ago, back in 3rd edition there was a forgotten campaign book about playing as ghosts called Ghostwalk. You could make a whole mini-campaign for your players called TPK (Total Party Kill). Basically, it's what happens when all the players die and there's no hope. Generally you'd have the players roll up new characters, but what if they awoke in the afterlife and went on a Dante's Inferno type adventure where they are wandering through the afterlife, caught in a centuries long conflict, and go on adventure with the promise of coming back to life.
I would let the players continue as their characters, but instead of elf, dwarf, etc. They are dead spirits. If their characters die again then they are done for. They carry with them similar tools and weapons that they carried in life.
It'd be kind of like what happens in Bioshock Infinite every time you die and have to walk through the door but there is more involved.
Well, this isn't really meant to be a super-large world. It's more of a train-rail with tons of potential endings based on NPC interaction.
You have the hub, which slowly but surely gains more rooms via certain things.
The other places are MASSIVE maps which I'm actually in the middle of making. The Fallen Kingdom is about 700 by 700 tiles. Every place except the hub is hostile, as well.