Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zycrom Oct 06, 2009 21:54:48	So. Change of players. New homebrew campaign. New Adventure. New dungeon. New ways of doing things. Better, more 'proper' ways. My 2 previous campaigns were kinda crazy. The players spend 6 months unfolding a complicated plan by cthulhu (well an all powerful, insane, mindflayer) and opps, too late end up in the future of the setting in tippyworld, with resurection tattoos, vampire hobos and all the multiverse of every campaign settings litterly ripped apart and patchworked together into a single infinate city-world. The players worked out of a Bar "the pocket plane" run by a drunk defroked god of murder (seravok) and a prissy bartender imp. Second campain Ive posted before, the players slowly find out they are souless, clones of 5 original adventurers and are in a magic circle the size of a world, on a moon sized dead god after the universe has ended and the oly speck of reality not turned into hell. And an insanve deva who cannot die and instantly rebirths after the players kill him, who wants to resurect the god with a synthetic soul that will bind with his.... and the circle is shrinking every day.   So. Manifesto for this new campaign. -NO Mindflayers. NO Cthulu influance. NO ancient dead gods. NO far realm. NO insanity. -NO end of the world. NO battling gods at lvl 11. Low level characters = down to earth foes -A Traditionalish settting! It is not set in a 'Blame!' style infinate city. It is not a gods-head-world! -Traditional Fantasy tropes and pasttimes!   What I do want: -Pirates. The sea. Having a choice of captains who you can hire for expeditions. Naval battles. Tropical islands, pygmy goblins!, an adventure set at the bottom of the ocean, in an upturned ship slowly running out of air, with a krakens tentacles pushing in through the portholes. -South america / american colonialism. Vast unknown jungles, stepped pyramids with golden idols and T-rexes bursting through the vines, a touch of the lost world, colonial forces, exploration, tropical disease. -Magic vs Divine. Two massive rival empires, culturaly completly diferent, in a slow building cold-war. 7 citidels (one for each 3rd edition school of magic) city-states in the old meaning, with a hogwarts / lotus style acadamy at their heart, seeking ancient artifacts left over from an civilisation that disapeared 1000 years ago, the MAGOCRACY. in the other corner a forward-looking jihad / crusaider THEOCRACY, a federal union, each state being a territory ran by a church the parliment a cathedral, the barracks the paladins abby, witch-hunting invokers and assassin orders. they push into the untamed lands for out of prophecy, evangalism and each nation hates and fears the other.  -If not a genuine sandbox, then a simulated one. One base city in the untamed lands between the two conflisting nations where the slow burning, slow building tensions between the two nations can be felt, where people if not choosing sides are ceetainly thinking about how to position themselves. a city at the center of goldrush of exports from the new world. where hundreads, thousands of adventures are seeking.... adventure. I intend to provide hooks for two 'dungeon' runs at anyone time, as well as smaller plots and quests built out of elements in the city. -For the players backgrounds to be important, if a cleric player wants his character to be a prophetic dreamer, I will make those dreams part of the campain.   SO. the players get off the boat to the Taxacala Freeport, lvl 3, no money, in a city full of would be adventures with personal quests to achive. and in the city these are basic elements Adventure option 1: a squadren of theocracy ships is missing. It was said to have a valuable cargo. Hooks: Salvage, the players know that its got something valuable on-board, maybe some plot mcguffin or just a nice peice of equipment. Rescue, a local wizard claims he was contacted by one of the ship crew magicly, AFTER the boats were known to go missing, it was a jumpled rescue call. Personal: One of my players is a wild mage, his personal quest will point him in this direction. What happens?: The ships are at the bottom of the oceas, one or two are holding air, but time is running out. the players must find out the probable location of the ship, find a captain willing to take them and find a way down to the bottom of the sea (a ritual will be put in their path). Once their they explore the remains of the ships, gain some loot, fight some aquatic monsters, find the ship with suvivors, fight an insane mage, pick up the Mcguffin and go back to the surface. Adventure option 2: missonaries trying to convert the local pygmy goblins have been kidnapped by said goblins. Hooks: Rescue, the missionaries are representatives of the theocracy and their rescue would improve player relations, as well as being a good thing. Idol, the goblins are said to have a large golden idol they sacrifice to, it would be worth a pretty penny. Personal: one of my players is a cleric who thinks hes a prophetic dreamer, he has dreamed of the idol. What happens?: The players must find a ship willing to take them, to this forbidden island of pygmy goblins, their they will fight t-rexes, natives on raptors, pygmy goblins with blow pipes and save the beautiful missionaries daughter and the missionaries and take the idol. When the do the volcano errupts and they must run, RUN! from the lava as the island brakes up and an accient city rises from the depths (WITH NO DEEP ONES OR SCARY THINGS) Ship captains. This is a subquest set. Im going to have 5 different captains, each with their own motivations, goals, morals and secrets, if the players want to get to most of the adventures they have to go with one (until rish enough to buy a ship and hire crew) (or find a ship of their own!) For example one ship captain engages in piracy and slaving in his spare time and he may be attacked by the ships of other nations as a random encounter, another is cursed and whenever sailing with him terrible things happen another is subject to a mutiny. they subquests will take the form of scenes to fill in between the adventures. hence if the players chose to try and save the sunken ship and sail with the unpopuler captain they make it back to the boat just in time to choose which side to take in the mutiny. Compainion characters. Populating the bars, shop and places of the world, and especialy the freeport city are a range of personalities, some of which might be willing to join or help players. For example I have a layer who is a dwarf and is responsible for losing a hedertory suit of armour, he has been cast out until he can find it or a better one. in the port he will run into a cousin, who lttle does he know was actualy responsable for the theft/loss and framed him, ever willing to play her cousin she will offer quest details and options, join the party and help out, but then at just the wrong moment betray the party! Another character will start off as a shield defender (a simple magical construct) and will follow the party round while on another subquests and over time the players will improve it until it gains sentiance and becomes a fully fledged warforged, with a deviant personality. kinda like HK-47.   Ideas, criticism, im goina keep adding matieral.....
#2 Rhineglade_ Oct 07, 2009 11:29:33	A couple references you might like to check out then for information would be the old TV show "The Pirates of Dark Water" which was based in a water world called Mer.  No major continents- only numerous islands.  Obviously all major travel was done via boat so rules on water travel and water combat would be necessary. The other reference are the Lizard Army from the Warhammer game.  The lizard races were decendants of the "Old Ones" who original seed the planet and then vanished.  The lizards are lead by the Slann Mage-Priests, who are protected by the personal retinue of Temple Guards and Slink attendants.  A LOT of Aztec influence comes into play along with the traditional jungle environment.  Warriors ride dinosaur mounts or push along packs of fire-breathing salamanders.
#3 zycrom Oct 07, 2009 20:46:35	God I love pirates of darkwater, if it wasnt for that nightmarish, evil dark-water I wouldnt be the messed up individual I am today. Yes...... magical amulets, lost gems, but..... I think I will leave the face-hugger scuba gear and ships made of bones on the back burner. Perhaps I DO need a early campaign BBEG,  a pirate lord, with a ship, a living or mystical ship (I normaly have a lot of living ship, sea-chariots drawn by giant cuttlefish and the like, so I would be looking into something more ephemeral, more black pearl than moia) perhaps his ship is an aftifact of the ancient empire. -Lost cities of gold. (AHHH!!! ah ah ah ahaaaaa, searching for the lost cities of gooooOLD! dodo do do do, cities of gold) Ancient Empire I plan of having an ancient empire(tm) of an unknown species who all disapeared in a single day, a kinda mary-cilest empire, for unknown reasons, no sign of a struggle, no bodies, no great catastrophy, not one single member found, just vanished. but obvously I want their empire to be ruins and ancient pyramids and stuff before any other specices stubled upon them, so maybe 1000 years ago, 10,000? 100,000? . Now the artifacts and relics and knowledges coming out of the forbiding  lost jungle cities are part of an adventurers goldrush and are drawing the attention of the two regional empires. Im gonna have a letter substitution (maybe slightly more complicated than that to ensure the players cant work it out immediatly) alphabet for this lost race and occasionaly toss out an aditional letter. (maybe I can have comon sounds   Random encounters: I plan for the players to sometimes stumble upon outposts of this empire during random encounters in the jungle. Im gonna modifiy a basic skill-chalange where failure will result in random encounter (or maybe success results in an encounter). A Jail. The ancient empire imprisoned their captives by taking away their bodies / making them non-corporeal. In this Skill encounter + Map + combat the players will have the opertunity to try and release the imprisoned souls by 1) returning them to their bodies (a subterainian crypt where their bodies lay inert / petrified / awaiting resurection magic / in an auto-resurection casket 2)disrupting / braking / rearanging the crystals that empower the jail ruins. However the ruins are also nexting ground to raptors. A arcane machine. the ruins contain some arcane machine of unknown purpose. the players can 1) disassemble the machine for the components (a wand, an orb, diamonds, a rod, resduim, each component slightly harder and more dangerous to remove than the last) or 2( they can try and repair it (skill challange, give up some resdium, a wand, an orb, a crystal) and gain exp, and a quest, and a boon.