Ok guys, I want to master a campaign, and I want to do it WELL this time arround, since my campaigns usually have very good plots (according to my players) but aren't enough to hook the Player Characters on their motivations... I end up writting interactive novels.
So, here's what I'm planning, help me tie everything together!
Campaign Setting: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Tokyo
(Should look like this, not trying to make "Fallout" but something more like "Nier" or "Fragile Dreams")
Edition: D&D Next
Starting Level: 3
Adventure Type: Sanbox Hexcrawl
Number of Players: 4 Plus a GM PC
Allowed Races: Human, Dwarf, Dragonborn, Warforged
Character Classes: Paladin (Female Warforged), Fighter (Male Dragonborn), Summoner (Pathfinder Class, Male Human), Ranger (Male Human), Bard (Female Human)
Genre: Horror, Drama, Anime Fantasy
Level of Lethality: High. Most creatures are spirits or aberratins made only to kill and won't negotiate; very few Neutral sentient creatures willing to negotiate or aid players exist, and those intelligent enough are usually Chaotic Evil. It's a kill or be killed world and most enemies won't run away when weak, they'll fight to death.
Environment: Plains, Desserts, Lava, Jungle, Coast, Ice, Sea, Savannah, Badlands, Swamp, Forest.
Campaign Background: It's been 1360 years since humanity was stricken by a wave of bizarre events that begun in Nakano District of Tokyo, Japan; it all began with a shadow covering the area, unexplainable deaths, and lastly, what ended mankind as we knew it: a sickness known as "The Sipriting", a process in which the victim slowly starts to become weak and fade away as black marks appear on their skins, until they end up dissapearing. Tokyo itself is all that's left of Japan since a Tsunami destroyed all the rest of the country. Supernatural Beasts, Otherwordly Predators and aberrations now roam the wilderness and most ghosts seek only to cause pain.
Society and Living: There are only a very few hundreds of humans in Tokyo, more or less 750. Only three settlements exist, scattered thru the region; one of Humans and a few other races, another one of Dwarves, and another of Dragonborns and Warforgeds. Some humans live scattered arround in shires or ruins of buildings, but said ocurrences are rare and they're usually crazy. "The Spiriting" has no known cure, and since no creature ever ventures out of their settlements, they are all resigned to live a peaceful live till' the end comes, but no one wants to have the grim task to be the last one standing, so they're usually helpful to each other. People lives like in a manner similar to Feudal Japan, but with some of the values of modern japanese society. People has no interest on learning their past story, for all they know that country is the last one standing on earth.
Non-Human Racial Backgrounds:
- DRAGONBORNS: To overcome "The Spiriting", japanese scientists made lizard-human DNA Hybrids, since reptiles have a very resistant; however not even this stopped the sickness from consuming them. Scientists tried to erradicate the monstrosities they created, called "dragonborns", however some of them escaped and made a society in the mountains, away from humans. After the cataclysm, they live more or less peacefully with their old foes.
- DWARVES: Prior to the cataclism, Dwarves lived hidden in underground complexes and used their magic to remain invisible to the naked eye. They despised humans for turning such a beautiful planet into garbage, but their traditions dictate not to interfere. After the cataclysm, they came to the surface, and started building a city in northern tokyo, however they're also affected by "The Spiriting". Most of them refuse to speak to humans or even help them out, since they hope when humans are gone they can heal the land. Some of them broke the tradition and now live with the humans, tho they are not sure wither of what caused all of this.
- WARFORGEDS: Japan is very well known for its top-notch advances on robotics, however, they were secretly developing a program to create "Serve-Bots", robots with human appareance and artificial organs used to serve humans in various tasks, like company, sexual needs or servitude. The Serve-Bots on Beta Stage were sold to politicians and people of the entertainment world, and were used to satisfy the darkest desires of most. When the cataclysm begun, some force made Serve-Bots develop a soul and consiousness; horrorized by the darkness of mankind, they tried to escape to pursue a life on their own, but shocked in horror, humans shut those robots down and closed the fabric that had over 2,000 finished ones. 600 years ago, Warforgeds started waking up from their chambers on the fabric and surfacing to this world.
Players and Motivations:
- Doran (Male Fighter Dragonborn, 25 years old): He wants to find a cure for "The Spiriting" and also travel to find rare materials to make his masterpiece sword, since he's a blacksmith.
- Meena (Female Warforged, 30 years old, she looks like 20): She's a middle high teacher; she and her "sister" were separated by a sandstorm when they awoke. Both of them have a strange pendant. She wanst fo find her and make sure she's alive (She doesn't knows her sister split in purpose since both of them were programmed to end the world and locked inside the factory, she's the only one who remembers, but knows her sister has no memories since she wanted to stop her and thus, she formated Mina's Memory partition).
- Tatsuya (Human Male, Summoner, 18 years old): His father taught him into the arts of summoning, but is always dissapointed of his son. He wants to find "Wonderland"; a dungeon said to be built to challenge the potential of spellcasters, and beat it to show his father how strong he is.
- Wyatt (Human Male, Ranger, 28 years old): He used to be a slave on the warforged settlement when he was a kid, made some friends of people that lvied i nthe wilderness and taught him how to hunt and survive, but a terribly powerful monster killed them all. Wants to seek revenge.
- Nana (Female Human, Bard, 17 years old): She used to travel to the dwarven settlement to trade goods in a caravan when little, however more creatures appear every day making traveling nigh impossible. She finds a weird poem and a map of Tokyo on the library and wants to travel to know the story behind the poem and also know many new places to write songs about them.
Main Story Plot Mysteries
- There are creatures called Mementos (based on soul sacrifice bosses), they were onc ehumans and are unbeatable unless the players find book pages containing their stories.
- There are 21 entities on that world representing the Tarot Arcana, they're very powerful, a prophecy speaks of how they can release a terrible evil.
- The poem the bard has speaks of them, 7 of those will cause the evil to be released, however the "Number 0: The Fool" is unknown to everyone, even them.
- There's a young beautiful woman called Miwako who lives alone in a ruined building and has no memories, she's good hearted, but she's, unknown to everyone (even herself), the Number 0.
- The Cataclysm was caused by a teenager boy whose parents experimented with alternate dimentions, since his crush suicided and wanted to bring her back, he still esists in the shadowed area of Tokyo where everything but him is frozen in time, he's an antagonist, will do anything to bring her back.
- There has been a cult in Japan related to mass suicide of young women, it goes back to the Japanese Edo era; when the cult leader and her minions suicide, one of them survives and becomes the next leader (based on Suicide Club).
- Six of the girls were shown a vision before they died, of the world ending; they were chosen by some benevolent entity to guide the heroes, so they're bound to altars scattered thru the world. Tho they can't speak or move from there, they try to shw the players about the end.
And that's what I have, no effing idea how to make it work, and I like it ._.
Hmm...well, you've already got that mysterious poem in the hands of the bard, so you've tied in that motivation there. I have a couple other thoughts...
- What if they go to "Wonderland" and find part of the raw materials for the masterpiece sword (as well as some other treasure and possibly some information related to the meaning of the poem), only to discover that a hostile Memento has invaded the dungeon and they'll have to find the page to defeat it in order to access any of that stuff?
- Have you already decided the locations of the altars? What if there's one in Wonderland? What if an altar points them towards something important, like the monster Wyatt wants revenge on, or information on the Tarot entities or the suicide cult or the antagonist boy?
- What if, during their travels, they run across Meena's sister or some of her agents, who try to kidnap Meena and reprogram her? What if it turns out that part of the sister's plan is to unleash one or more of those 7 Tarot entities?
- Was that girlfriend who killed herself a member of that suicide club? That would be useful.
- Would part of curing "the Spiriting" entails defeating that boy? What if they find information somewhere (possibly the altars) directing them to that boy?
And keep in mind that your PCs will decide for themselves what they do...a lot of times, just a plot hook alone will be enough to entice them, and while they're on a "plotty" adventure you might throw in something from a PC's backstory as treasure or an opponent or something. Sometimes PCs will take initiative and just decide to head straight for whatever they want, whether it's plot-related or not...and then, you can focus solely on that or find a way to tie it into one of your plot hooks. At the very least, the background of the world and its important aspects will have an effect on every adventure the PCs undertake.
Firstly, read the Rifts RPG background.
In that game, the power of magic comes from the energy released from the billions of deaths and the souls released at the same time in the cataclysm. These supercharged ley-lines and magic that already existed in very minor ways into very powerful and easily used versions of themselves.
Second, incorporate the background principle that magic is about belief. If many people had a belief before the fall of civilisation that a place was haunted, or an object had mystic power, or a red moon meant the release of evil... then have all that exta magical energy crystalise around that belief and so now it really happens!
This will give you vast amounts of real world mythologies, conspiracy theories and histories to draw on as inspiration - you can 'D&D them up' whilst keeping the original theme of the thing from the real world.
Any amount of plot can flow from all of that - the world has so many myths, legend and beliefs you will never run out of material! 