I have been thinking about making my own homebrew pathfinder world for the last few days and have gotten nowhere. I have ideas, but I don't know if they are good or not. So I am coming to the paizo forums to get some feedback on my thoughts. (I'm going to go crazy if I don't get them out of my brain!)
I will probably have 2-4 players. I was thinking of talking to them each seprately for an opening scene to the campaign of them living in a small town on an island. They will be going around doing some of their daily life stuff (and I will throw in a few small incidents where they can use skills) when suddenly a gaint black swarm of monsters appear along with the main monsters which consist of a smaller version manticore, a cocktrice, and a chimera. They are all led by a wizard who is laughing cruely as the town is just being demolished and people are killed left and right. I will try to let my players know that they don't have a chance and need to run while avoiding obstacles and helping others (if they choose to). They will run to the beach and find that their is a single small wooden boat and they all see each other and get in the boat. They get away safely.
However, trouble is still there as they have never gone this far into sea before. After a day or two of being on the boat, a bigger ship appears and rides beside them. This new boat is full of pirates! They look down at the little boat and can see everyone is hungry and invites them on the boat as long as they entertain them.
Depending on how things go, I may have a navy ship appear and try to take down the pirates, but either way they get to the shore of a city. They have no money or food and will have to find shelter during the night. I will have a couple places available to sleep in the city. I will also tell them (through an NPC) that there are 'familia's' which are like guild families that take in adventurers. If they try to get into a familia, they will be rejected multiple times and when things look really grim I will have one of the heads of a lesser familia offer to take them in. She will bring them to an abandoned church that is her home and they will soon realize that they are her only familia members. She is happy and wants to help them out, so she gives them money to buy cheap weapons and tells them to go attack some boar outside the city for boar hides.
During some boar fighting, I will have things get a little overwhelming and a man will appear to help out. After the fight, he explains how he has to stay around this area because he is actually a ghost who is cursed. He says the only way he can be put to rest is by having someone get his love's broken sword blade out of a nasty creature's back and give it to her. It was a sword he had gotten for her. The ghost explains that in order to deafeat the creature, they will have to go on various missions to get items to upgrade their gear. (So based on their weapons I will have appropriate quests) Then, after a lot of questing, I will have them take down the monster with the sword in its back and return it to the woman who has since her husband has passed, give up adventuring and actually has a new lover with kids now.
Anyway, after that I will try to tie in more about the creatures that destroyed their homes. Maybe add some rumors. I would like, when they are going through a forest, to have two knights kill a dragon in the distance, and the PCs hear about how the dragons loot will be up for grabs now. The PCs will have to race the knights to find the lair and get some sweet loot. (As long as the other monsters don't take it first! haha~
So what do you think? I feel like it's too railroady. I will have some quests in the city with NPCs if they choose to go that route. This is a very rough idea of these things and are a little more fleshed out in my mind.
Thanks for reading.
