Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 bille Oct 05, 2014 14:28:15	(Note: I have posted this over at the FR forum but I reckon its relevant here as well)   My group is halfway through the Phandelver adventure, which I launched upon them as a transition from 4th to 5th edition, so I thought it would be a good time to establish where they wanted the next campaign to take place. For some time I have have been thinking about creating A D&Dised Alternate Earth campaign, where history compresses to allow all the great ancient and dark age civilisations to co-exist: Greece, Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Vikings, Germanic tribes and Celts; all re-skinned with D&D themes (warforged legions, Lizard-like Carthaginians, Orc barbarian tribes etc). It would give me a great chance to build a great homebrew campaign but allow for some interesting defamiliarised NPCs and events (Rome presented as a nest of Drow-like intrigue and warring families; fallout from the siege of Troy, great mythical quests for Celtic Kings etc).  I realised it was important to take the players along with this so I gave them all a questionnaire on the type of things they enjoy doing within a game (character development, intrigue, killing things and taking their stuff etc), and whether they would like to play in this wonderfully original ancient Earth themed-campaign I was planning or whether they's prefer plodding along in the same old Forgotten Realms (I wasn't quite that obvious in the presentation!). Guess what? Forgotten Realms  please! I suppose I'm not that disappointed. Creating a new campaign from scratch, while exciting, would be a huge amount of work. I am, however, keen to build my own campaign in  the Realms so (at last we get to the point) which area in the Realms would you regard as the least officially developed with modules and lore and still be conducive to a classic D&D campaign? Bearing in mind that the most popular thing my group liked in the game was dealing with intrigue, mystery and master villains. Thanks in advance Bill
#2 Kentus Oct 05, 2014 16:24:21	Generally you can play at the most 'common' places like the Swordcoast, Neverwinter or Cormyr without much trouble. Especially the Swordcoast, since it's designed to be more open about the game. Heck, you could even stay at Phandalin and make the campaign come to them, maybe the citizens decided to make your characters the new mayors and then you could start off with the politics with the towns and villages near Phandalin. Or Neverwinter claims ownership of Phandelver and you have to travel back to the city to make sure, that the Rockseeker-Brothers keep the ownership by licking asses here and do favors there. Or maybe a horde of barbarians comes from the Icewind Dales and scouts the surrounding, so Neverwinter demands the nearby villages to keep an eye open and offers a great reward to those who can find the HQ of the barbarians and even more for the solution of the problem. These could lead to the fact, that the barbarians are only the scouts for the army of an evil warlock, who made a pact with an ice devil and the warlock is actually Neverwinters ambassador, who told you the news in the first place.   Forgotten Realms are pretty open, especially after getting reforged during the last Sundering, so there will be definitely changes here and there in comparison to the 'original fluff' which are all yours to decide.