Post/Author/DateTime	Post
chris7476 07-09-04, 10:31 AM	I'll be starting a new FR campaign soon and I wanted to do something different so I thought a jungle campaign would be fun. I want to go for a Survivor/Indiana Jones type feel. My main problem though is getting the players to Chult. I'll let them know that they will be in a tropical region but they won't be intentionally headed to the jungle specifically (so they'll have to fend for themselves early on). I want to start the game with them waking up on the beach not really knowing what happened or remembering very little. So how do I get them there? Some kind of shipwreck is an easy choice but why were they on the ship? Chult is very far from most of the common starting regions (like the Dales, Cormyr, Waterdeep, etc).
Brahzs M'ahnkei 07-09-04, 10:55 AM	Personally, I like campaigns that have a good backstory that the players/ PCs don't know about right away. Perhaps a mighty mage of some kind is manipulating the PCs and so brings them to a strange place and then sets them loose to get rid of some rival. This works especially well if the party is low level- Big Bad Guys love "good hearted suckers." As far as the boat/ ship wreck I think that works fine. Also mass teleportation spells and portals can go haywire/ be manipulated/ partially function/ etc. if they are messed with by a powerful enough mage or deity. Just some ideas. Peace and cookies ;)
Masakado 07-09-04, 11:08 AM	A shipwreck would work fine, but bear in mind that Chult has a couple of areas of relative civilization. Mezro is a very respectable city, and the Flaming Fist have several garrisons in Chult. They may run into familiar faces too soon for your tastes so make sure they get good & lost to get the best results for your campaign. Be careful with the encounters, as the PC's are liable to run into anything from Tashalar slavers, to the remnants of Eshowdow's followers, to big dinosaurs while wandering around in the jungle. Things could get nasty pretty fast, as they'll have to be worried about everything from encounters to weather & disease (provided you use the tropical climate rules from the various sourcebooks). Remember, chainmail and humidity do not mix!
ericlboyd 07-09-04, 11:13 AM	SMALL SPOILERS FOR SERPENT KINGDOMS ADVENTURE This probably won't work in your instance, unless you're willing to tweak the idea a bit, but the "Adderposts" adventure (in Serpent Kingdoms) includes a way to draw the players willingly or unwillingly from Essembra (or pick a northern city of your choice) to the shores of the Shining Sea. From there, it should be easy to concoct a reason for them being sent/following west and south towards Chult. --Eric
Masakado 07-09-04, 11:28 AM	Speaking of serpents, given the presence of the Yuan Ti in Chult, you could always tinker with the "Winding Serpent" scenario from the Perilous Gateways and somehow climax the adventure with the PC's getting lost in Chult and still having to thwart the main baddie as well as find their way back to civilization. Link to the article is below: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=fr/pg20010711x
chris7476 07-09-04, 11:46 AM	Lots of good ideas. I definitely want to get the Serpent book soon. I'm leaning on going with the shipwreck idea. A little cliche I know but I want the start of the campaign to have an emphasis on survival. My main problems are: - Why are the PC's on a boat in the first place? - What type of boat/ship was it? - What was its original destination? - Where did it leave from? - Why was it sailing so close to Chult? As far as the wreck itself, I was thinking a storm blew the ship off course and then it was attacked by a dragon turtle. I know there is a lot of dragon turtle activity in the area and that might lead to something down the road. The players could know the ship was wrecked but probably don't know what caused it. Once this is all figured out, I plan to start the first session of the campaign with the players waking up on the beach all wet and full of sand. I was also thinking about having a small encoutner with a few jungle goblins (forgot their names, from the 2ed Chult book) who have come to investigate. The PC's will have a few rounds to grab some makeshift weapons from the debris that has washed up onto shore. After that, they can search and find their original gear (I'm not that cruel ;) ).
ericlboyd 07-09-04, 12:04 PM	Regarding the shipwreck idea, look at the write-ups of Narubel (part of Thindol) and Chultengar (part of the Other Locations at the end of the geography chapter), and House Sauringar (in the chapter about the yuan-ti) in Serpent Kingdoms. Perhaps the shipwreck happened after your PCs boat was attacked by pirates out of Narubel. Perhaps the boat was a non-Rundeen boat sailing from Lantan or Calimshan or points North for the Tashalar? The PCs may have gotten in the way of a trade war. (These ideas will make sense after you review what's there.) --Eric
Masakado 07-09-04, 12:31 PM	Originally posted by chris7476 My main problems are: - Why are the PC's on a boat in the first place? - What type of boat/ship was it? - What was its original destination? - Where did it leave from? - Why was it sailing so close to Chult? This part has a convenient answer. As is the case with all adventurers, sooner or later, they run out of money. Your PC's then sign up with the Flaming Fist at Baldur's Gate in the hopes of making some quick money, only to find that they're being shipped out to Chult to relieve members of an established Flaming Fist garrison. The ship could be a naval vessel, or a simple cargo vessel. For ease of story, I'd make it a cargo vessel as a warship may successfully defend itself against a sea monster & having the ship scuttled seems to be important to your story. While nearing their destination, voila! A dragon turtle or worse, a kraken, attacks. One nasty encounter later and your PC's on a beach. Make the attack happen in a really bad storm for dramatic effect.
Laveral 07-09-04, 07:16 PM	My next campaign is starting in Tashalar, but we probably won't make it into the Chult. I am glad the new Serpent Kingdoms book will have a little info on that region as far as the Yuan ti go.
Brahzs M'ahnkei 07-12-04, 09:01 PM	Originally posted by chris7476 - Why are the PC's on a boat in the first place? - What type of boat/ship was it? - What was its original destination? - Where did it leave from? - Why was it sailing so close to Chult? Masakado has some great ideas. Here are some more to add to the list: Make it a pilgrim ship. The PCs were on their way to a new land to start a new village for religious reasons. They were headed to Lantan or somewhere close, going south out of the Moonshae's. Then go with the attacked by pirates/ a dragon turtle/ vicious storm and wind up on the beach dressed in rags w/out weapons at hand, etc. Once again, I like campaigns were the PCs have to figure out what is going on. Sure, they may know where they were going, but where are they now? Why did they survive the attack/ wreck and no one else did? Put them in the middle of a local struggle once they are in Chult- will they act as go-betweens or choose a side? If so, did they choose the right one? Put a little moral struggle in there as well as a physical one. Good luck- there are some really great ideas in this thread! ;)
Astanphaeus 07-12-04, 10:04 PM	Originally posted by chris7476 My main problems are: - Why are the PC's on a boat in the first place? - What type of boat/ship was it? - What was its original destination? - Where did it leave from? - Why was it sailing so close to Chult? Here's exactly what I did in one campaign (mind you, it started this way, so if you're working with pre-existing characters it might be more difficult to pull off)... I told everyone to make 3rd level characters. They could come from anywhere on the Sword Coast and from any social background. When the PCs were all done, I, in turn, described a scene for each player wherein they were ambushed and thrown onto a slaver ship. For one character (a noble), the abduction was arranged by a politcal rival. For another, it was because she was a hottie (destined to be a pleasure girl). For still another, it was just because he was a brute... strong and durable (good workhorse). The session started with everyone chained up in the ship... all the PCs and some NPCs as well, including some unnusual types (a pair of lizardfolk, and a trio of hobgoblins were among them). I ran through enough of this to 1. create some real loathing for the slavers (particularly the first mate), to "humanize" the monstrous NPCs a bit (the lizardfolk weren't well... one of them was obviously dying, and the other was obviously its mate), and to forge bonds amongst the wildly disparate prisoners. It was cool, for example, to watch the paladin (the noble) actually stick up for one of the hobgoblins when she was being kicked around by one of the slavers (she had tried to bite the slaver's hand off). The destination was Chult. Most of these guys were to be sold into slavery for mining endeavors. Some, like the aforementioned hottie... well... she wouldn't have been working in a mine, let's put it that way. A few were destined to be used in the experiments of an unethical naturalist/transmuter, who was on board and partially financing the expedition. Also a passenger on board was a Yuan-Ti crackpot priest who was planning on hijacking the ship, in order to get to an obscure destination farther down the chultan coast. That's where the problems started. To make a long story short, the priest ended up inadvertently causing the shipwreck. The nature of his screw-up allowed for a lot of survivors. In the confusion before the wreck, the prisoners were able to cooperate to get the keys to their manacles from a slaver (when the ship jolted, the slaver tripped, banged his head, and fell in amongst the prisoners). The PCs got ashore, as did some of the NPCs, including the hobgoblins, one of the lizardfolk, a few slavers (including the much hated first mate), and the transmuter (the Yuan-Ti survived as well, but that's another story). At first, everyone put aside their differences simply for the sake of survival... but once some equipment was salvaged, divisions in the group started to form. There were the PCs and some of the NPC slaves-to-be on one side, and the slavers and the transmuter on the other. The wildcards were the lizardman and the hobgoblins. However, due to 1. the awful plans the transmuter had had for them and 2. the fact that the PCs had treated them kindly, the humanoids fell on the side of the PCs (incidentally, that hobgoblin the paladin stuck up for ended up staying with the group for the entire duration of the campaign). Conflict broke out amongst the factions. Then came the Yuan-Ti who had allied with some of the local meat-eating natives... Anyway, you get the idea. You could use this basic scenario and add all sorts of variations to it. The transmuter was there to give the PCs an advantage in gaining the favor of the monsters (which, as it turned out, they probably didn't need) and to "secure" some of the PC equipment... but, of course, you don't need either the wizard or the monsters. They were just fun. I would, however, recommend having NPCs of some sort, who could serve as back-up characters in a pinch... and also as "redshirts", which are an absolute necessity for that "Indiana Jones" pulp adventure feel. The slavers are good for the latter... meeting a gruesome fate in the mouth of a dinosaur, getting skewered by that horrific spear trap, contracting the flesh-eating disease that kills you within an hour... fun stuff like that. ~ A.
chris7476 07-13-04, 09:10 AM	Good luck- there are some really great ideas in this thread! Indeed there are. Thanks everyone so far. I think I'm going with the Flaming Fist idea. It's easy to setup but still flexible enough that they players can supply background as to why they joined (I know one character was looking for passage to Evermeet so maybe he joined in exchange for that down the road). I like campaigns were the PCs have to figure out what is going on Me too. As I said, I plan to start the campaign with all of them face down in the sand being the only survivors of the shipwreck (very convenient). They only have vague ideas as to what caused their shipwreck. They won't know where they are and only a slight idea about where the Flaming Fist outpost is.
Zigra 07-14-04, 10:17 PM	Originally posted by chris7476 My main problems are: - Why are the PC's on a boat in the first place? - What type of boat/ship was it? - What was its original destination? - Where did it leave from? - Why was it sailing so close to Chult? Perhaps they are going to Chult to hunt some of the rather unique creatures that dwell there (i.e. dinosaurs). Whether they are simply there to hunt for sport, or are hunting these creatures for some specific reason (i.e. a powerful wizard needs dinosaur organs for a spell, and he/she hires the PCs to hunt them) is for you to decide. Another idea is to have the PCs go to Chult to deal with the Yuan-ti. Perhaps the Harpers or some other good-aligned organization has gotten word of activity of evil serpent creatures and they send the PCs to the Chultan penninsula to investigate.