Campaign Brainstorming [Archive] - Wizards Community

Campaign Brainstorming [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
ting-bu-dong
02-23-04, 07:10 AM Hi,
I am going to start a new campaign with low level characters (1-2) in a few weeks and I got the main plotline done, but experience shows that these boards offer great advice for further plot development.

The campaign will be standart D&D 3.5E with a little lower magic level (no magic shops for example) and a quite dark atmosphere.

This is the story outline so far:

Millenia ago there was a very advanced race that had achieved a higher level of art, philosophy, politics and magic than any of the races of current power. However, they found crime and other nuisances in their society most annoying so they created a magical construct that got rid of the criminals and so on by devouring them.
The society prospered even more but after a while the Construct became through unexplained circumstances sentient and began to consider every member of the race guilty of any kind of crime and therefore subject to 'deletion'.
A war began between the race and the Construct who had designed an army of construct soldiers. The parties were of equal strength and after decades the race decided it could not win the war and in a most powerful ritual they left their bodies to live as incorporeal souls, therefore escaping deletion by the Construct.
However, not all members of the race agreed to the measures taken. They made a pact with a higher power [not decided between demon, devil and undead, although all three have been done excessively and devil would make most sense] to change into... something else. The Construct and its minions did not recognize the Rebels as living creatures and therefore no deletion was necessary.
The Race and the Rebels went seperate ways but the Race kept a close eye on the Construct to avoid the spreading of the threat. The Construct remained in the capital of the Race and kept on looking for deletion subjects.
Millenia passed and the civilization, being divided into incorporeal souls and corrupted undead/devils/to be determined, crumbled and gave way to new races, the ones that rule the known world today.
Eventually human settlers discovered the lands of the Race and began to settle there, atop the now earth-covered ruins of the Capital. After a couple of centuries they dug too deep and discovered the ancient metropolis and eventually the Construct that soon demanded the delivery of the deletion subjects or else the humans would be deleted for refusing to cooperate.
In their panic criminals, beggars and other unwanted elements of the town's society were delivered to be deleted, but the Construct was still not satisfied.
Therefore the town's mayor formed a group of experts, recruited from the militia, mercenaries and neighbouring towns to obtain new deletion material, in other words, humans from other areas so their own population would not have to be deleted and a war against this seemingly omnipotent entity would be doomed to failure.

Since then, many rumors of men in red robes, entering a village at night and taking several men and women or ambushing a caravan to take the traders and guards have been spread and this is where the PCs will enter the stage. In some way, they will have to get rid of the Construct, as it poses a great threat to the environment. Whether they offer to do the job for the mayor or regard him as evil is up to them.

Now I would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions for fleshing out the plot. Also, if anyone has good suggestions for names, I would welcome those as well.

tbd
Morka
02-23-04, 10:07 AM The beginning looks like the Matrix, humans vs machines. :)

For the constructs, I suggest you the Clockwork Horrors (http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/crypt/clockwork_horror.htm), an entire race of sentient constructs.

For the Rebels, what about turning them in half-golems? Or all living with a symbiot? Those are not necessary evil solutions to change one's type from humanoīd to something else...
Automagical
02-23-04, 02:08 PM Great job!

I don't have much help to offer, but...

I really recommend the book "Elven Star", which is the second book in the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
The plot seems to be very similar...
Arakano
02-23-04, 02:42 PM Well, I can just add some little ideas for sidequests: Have the PCs roam through ruins of that ancient race in order to find weapons against the constructs. Then, there are many creative ways to fight this constructs. IE, If they are metallic, use rust monsters.

What about the forces of good? Celestials might have an interest in seeing the constructs defeated.

And then, maybe the transformed survivors of the ancient race, as they are now safe from the constructs, plots to reclaim their empire, maybe even using the constructs to destroy the humans. The incorporal survivors might oppose this ruthless plan.
Ivanhoe
02-23-04, 02:56 PM got confused after reading the clockwork link on the other post, make this guys into extraplanar parasites and they were not...

maybe they are indeed expanding, the construct army reviving slowly, instead of diferent planes it can be different kingdoms, one of wich coincides with my description of the ones that defeat the clock army and maybe instead of celestial you can have very high elves meddling or something weird, some good aligned extra-rare creature as a creature protector of the nature... maybe nature itself incarnated (princess mononoke style) as meddler between this race of ... (whichever race you find annoying, true neutral and high powered... maybe just creating one is not bad...) and the "ciilized" kingdoms.

the enter of the soul-guys is not necesarily a point in this structure... they can be just ghost from the past... might even had lost their memories to the wind of time and then be nothing more than a menace...

maybe they actually got defeated in a world

maybe the creatures dominating that world wont allow any to delete em, but doesnt care about the deletion of others (true neutral means something like that in my book)

maybe they have not only the experience but indeed the weapons better suited and the best strategies and understanding of the nature of this metal beast

maybe your ranger can get from them the information that allows him to get the constructs to be his favored enemy

in any case this race might have a good reason to cooperate with the PCs...

anyway, i have no idea how works the crystal thing to travel, nor what it means.

the PCs might search help contacting a citizen of the celestials, then founding through him that this strange race of beings had defeated the constructs, and maybe granting em with a passport letter into this races world and with a recomendation letter...

maybe some celestial with high power indeed... why he himself dont want to get involved in fighting the constructs is something i let the next poster explain =P
Ivanhoe
02-23-04, 03:05 PM u might want to change this celestial stuff into high elves or something like that as stated in bold on the other post

sorry.... i just thougt that maybe this celestial is the king of his people, and sees the construct coming to get em, seen that it will be nasty for the peace in wich his people lives (at home peace at least)

then he want this issue to be taken without making anyone else of his world into it.

maybe he s in talks with other kings of celestials in his world, and this guys are willing to help the idea as well... they just dont want the issue published and therefore this guys that want to get rid of the construct by themselves is great.

maybe if he absents from his world, his people would have it out of business and look a replacement... no matter how good the excuse is. idem for all other kings.

you can bet that a huge group of celestial kings may habe a fair amount of knowledge and know about this weird race... contact em and exchange favors for the information needed and for the free entering on their world of the adventurers...

again, the celestials do not seek the power to destroy the construct, they might even have it, but they DONT want to be invaded, it will just be ugly for thier people and as any LG-to-the-extreme kings they will do their people to have the best they can get.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ting-bu-dong 02-23-04, 07:10 AM	Hi, I am going to start a new campaign with low level characters (1-2) in a few weeks and I got the main plotline done, but experience shows that these boards offer great advice for further plot development. The campaign will be standart D&D 3.5E with a little lower magic level (no magic shops for example) and a quite dark atmosphere. This is the story outline so far: Millenia ago there was a very advanced race that had achieved a higher level of art, philosophy, politics and magic than any of the races of current power. However, they found crime and other nuisances in their society most annoying so they created a magical construct that got rid of the criminals and so on by devouring them. The society prospered even more but after a while the Construct became through unexplained circumstances sentient and began to consider every member of the race guilty of any kind of crime and therefore subject to 'deletion'. A war began between the race and the Construct who had designed an army of construct soldiers. The parties were of equal strength and after decades the race decided it could not win the war and in a most powerful ritual they left their bodies to live as incorporeal souls, therefore escaping deletion by the Construct. However, not all members of the race agreed to the measures taken. They made a pact with a higher power [not decided between demon, devil and undead, although all three have been done excessively and devil would make most sense] to change into... something else. The Construct and its minions did not recognize the Rebels as living creatures and therefore no deletion was necessary. The Race and the Rebels went seperate ways but the Race kept a close eye on the Construct to avoid the spreading of the threat. The Construct remained in the capital of the Race and kept on looking for deletion subjects. Millenia passed and the civilization, being divided into incorporeal souls and corrupted undead/devils/to be determined, crumbled and gave way to new races, the ones that rule the known world today. Eventually human settlers discovered the lands of the Race and began to settle there, atop the now earth-covered ruins of the Capital. After a couple of centuries they dug too deep and discovered the ancient metropolis and eventually the Construct that soon demanded the delivery of the deletion subjects or else the humans would be deleted for refusing to cooperate. In their panic criminals, beggars and other unwanted elements of the town's society were delivered to be deleted, but the Construct was still not satisfied. Therefore the town's mayor formed a group of experts, recruited from the militia, mercenaries and neighbouring towns to obtain new deletion material, in other words, humans from other areas so their own population would not have to be deleted and a war against this seemingly omnipotent entity would be doomed to failure. Since then, many rumors of men in red robes, entering a village at night and taking several men and women or ambushing a caravan to take the traders and guards have been spread and this is where the PCs will enter the stage. In some way, they will have to get rid of the Construct, as it poses a great threat to the environment. Whether they offer to do the job for the mayor or regard him as evil is up to them. Now I would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions for fleshing out the plot. Also, if anyone has good suggestions for names, I would welcome those as well. tbd
Morka 02-23-04, 10:07 AM	The beginning looks like the Matrix, humans vs machines. :) For the constructs, I suggest you the Clockwork Horrors (http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/crypt/clockwork_horror.htm), an entire race of sentient constructs. For the Rebels, what about turning them in half-golems? Or all living with a symbiot? Those are not necessary evil solutions to change one's type from humanoīd to something else...
Automagical 02-23-04, 02:08 PM	Great job! I don't have much help to offer, but... I really recommend the book "Elven Star", which is the second book in the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The plot seems to be very similar...
Arakano 02-23-04, 02:42 PM	Well, I can just add some little ideas for sidequests: Have the PCs roam through ruins of that ancient race in order to find weapons against the constructs. Then, there are many creative ways to fight this constructs. IE, If they are metallic, use rust monsters. What about the forces of good? Celestials might have an interest in seeing the constructs defeated. And then, maybe the transformed survivors of the ancient race, as they are now safe from the constructs, plots to reclaim their empire, maybe even using the constructs to destroy the humans. The incorporal survivors might oppose this ruthless plan.
Ivanhoe 02-23-04, 02:56 PM	got confused after reading the clockwork link on the other post, make this guys into extraplanar parasites and they were not... maybe they are indeed expanding, the construct army reviving slowly, instead of diferent planes it can be different kingdoms, one of wich coincides with my description of the ones that defeat the clock army and maybe instead of celestial you can have very high elves meddling or something weird, some good aligned extra-rare creature as a creature protector of the nature... maybe nature itself incarnated (princess mononoke style) as meddler between this race of ... (whichever race you find annoying, true neutral and high powered... maybe just creating one is not bad...) and the "ciilized" kingdoms. the enter of the soul-guys is not necesarily a point in this structure... they can be just ghost from the past... might even had lost their memories to the wind of time and then be nothing more than a menace... maybe they actually got defeated in a world maybe the creatures dominating that world wont allow any to delete em, but doesnt care about the deletion of others (true neutral means something like that in my book) maybe they have not only the experience but indeed the weapons better suited and the best strategies and understanding of the nature of this metal beast maybe your ranger can get from them the information that allows him to get the constructs to be his favored enemy in any case this race might have a good reason to cooperate with the PCs... anyway, i have no idea how works the crystal thing to travel, nor what it means. the PCs might search help contacting a citizen of the celestials, then founding through him that this strange race of beings had defeated the constructs, and maybe granting em with a passport letter into this races world and with a recomendation letter... maybe some celestial with high power indeed... why he himself dont want to get involved in fighting the constructs is something i let the next poster explain =P
Ivanhoe 02-23-04, 03:05 PM	u might want to change this celestial stuff into high elves or something like that as stated in bold on the other post sorry.... i just thougt that maybe this celestial is the king of his people, and sees the construct coming to get em, seen that it will be nasty for the peace in wich his people lives (at home peace at least) then he want this issue to be taken without making anyone else of his world into it. maybe he s in talks with other kings of celestials in his world, and this guys are willing to help the idea as well... they just dont want the issue published and therefore this guys that want to get rid of the construct by themselves is great. maybe if he absents from his world, his people would have it out of business and look a replacement... no matter how good the excuse is. idem for all other kings. you can bet that a huge group of celestial kings may habe a fair amount of knowledge and know about this weird race... contact em and exchange favors for the information needed and for the free entering on their world of the adventurers... again, the celestials do not seek the power to destroy the construct, they might even have it, but they DONT want to be invaded, it will just be ugly for thier people and as any LG-to-the-extreme kings they will do their people to have the best they can get.