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Scia said:
Player X is doing something semi important where no one else can join them while the other party members are not doing anything. Like the Thief scouting and stealing from the whole dungeon by themself for example or the noble party where only the bard is because everyone else is too smelly.
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Ah, yeah. I have at least a partial solution for that.

The PC's are all very mobile. The monk has crazy jumping and climbing/swinging abilities. The warlock and swordmage (should have mentioned that that's what the furry is) can both teleport short distances with relative frequency. This should make it fairly easy to do ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore combats. Conversely, the merfolk in my campaign are air breathing and can only hold their breaths for a couple of minutes (think seals), so the cleric can't do lengthy underwater adventures on her own.

I'm also thinking that temporary swim bonuses and maybe even water breathing could be a common boon you can get from worshiping at the shrines.
 
Blake Hannon said:
Far Realms spider invasion campaign finally over. It took the PC's from first to twelfth level, and ended with a satisfying bang. Everyone still wants me to DM, so I'm coming up with a new campaign now. Have some ideas, but still hammering it out. Could use input.

Here are the parameters I'm working with:

1. Over a year ago, I tried to start a seafaring campaign. That gaming group fell through, but my current group really likes the idea, and in particular are interested in pirate-y sort of adventures.

2. I'm thinking a high-magic animistic world, full of nature spirits and small gods. Kind of the opposite of our last campaign, which was low magic and borderline science fantasy. This is both because I like animistic fantasy, and because the players want more magic (and particularly, magic items) this time around.

3. The players want to have their own ship, and for crewing and upgrading it to be a major part of the campaign.

Anyway, what I've got so far is as follows.

  • The setting is a sprawling island chain(s) on a great and perilous sea.
  • Throughout the world, there are natural shrines to small nature gods. Leaving offerings at these shrines will give your character a mechanical benefit of some kind.
  • The areas around these shrines are sacred and high in ambient magic. Few know the truth of this, but each shrine is actually a portal to a demiplane ruled by one of the small gods. These demiplanes resemble a pristine version of the lands around the shrine, sort of like 4E's feywild, but instead of an entire plane its a bunch of little ones.
  • The entire physical world is actually made of dormant elementals. Arcane magic works by momentarily awakening and commanding the elementals. I *think* that the influence of the demigods in their hidden planes is what's keeping the elementals dormant and the physical world with its laws of nature intact.
  • Give the two bullet points above: maybe divine magic gets a bonus if you're near one of the shrines, and arcane magic gets a bonus if you're far from them?
  • In the first or second session, the PC's will be stranded on an island full of ancient ruins. Exploring the ruins, they find a mysteriously intact sailing ship that they can escape with. They don't know it at first, but this ship is a powerful magical artifact, and the campaign will revolve around it. It appears as a tiny sloop at first, but as they level up and find ways to empower it, it actually grows larger and gets more obviously magical properties.
  • Bad guys of one stripe or another want to get their hands on the magic ship. Not sure who or why.
  • There's another faction of possibly allies, possibly enemies, who are trying to stop the ship from falling into the wrong hands. For some reason I imagine an ancient mummy who awakens when the ship gets found and activated (problem: if she's supposed to guard the ship, why isn't she there to stop the PC's from taking it?).
  • There should be a fair amount of dungeon crawling as well as intrigue between different factions competing for control of the islands. Maybe some kind of artifact hunt connected to the ship?
  • Possible idea: when its fully powered, the ship is capable of forcing entry into the demiplanes. Maybe it was created by demons as a weapon against the gods or something?
The party includes:

A drow warlock who was exiled from her city and made a pact with a mysterious water spirit to survive. As part of the bargain, she has come to the surface to find the spirit's original home in the ocean.

A custom lionine humanoid furry thing. A fey warrior from the court of one of the small gods, sent out into the physical world to search for something stolen from his master.

A monk from an order that uses dark magic to physically enhance its initiates. He was exiled during a coup within the order, and seeks to become powerful enough to take revenge.

A merfolk priestess whose motivations and goals are still up in the air.

Would like the plot to connect to everyone's backstory in some way, even just tangentially.

Trying to tie everything together into a coherent plot and setting. As I said, input is welcome, but please spoiler.
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HAMMERSHIP! HAMMERSHIP! HAMMERSHIP! Give them a Hammership!
 
On the mummy bit...
What if the ship was evil?
You mentioned that it might have been made by demons, so what if it was a demon? (Or at least was possessed by a demon.) Then you have the PCs unwittingly sailing around in a demonuc corpse, fixing it and improving it. And when they get it to max level/efficiency, then maybe the demon wakes up...
Or maybe it doesn't, and the ship just gains a measure of sapience.
The mummy could be one of the heroes who 'killed' it the first time. Maybe it teleported away immediately after they struck the fatal blow, leading him to become an Undead just to safeguard the world against its potential return.
 
Mithrandir said:
On the mummy bit...
What if the ship was evil?
You mentioned that it might have been made by demons, so what if it was a demon? (Or at least was possessed by a demon.) Then you have the PCs unwittingly sailing around in a demonuc corpse, fixing it and improving it. And when they get it to max level/efficiency, then maybe the demon wakes up...
Or maybe it doesn't, and the ship just gains a measure of sapience.
The mummy could be one of the heroes who 'killed' it the first time. Maybe it teleported away immediately after they struck the fatal blow, leading him to become an Undead just to safeguard the world against its potential return.
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Definitely something along those lines. Not sure about giving the ship a will of its own though, as it would be a bit dickish to force the PC's to fight against the ship after spending the entire game improving it.
 
Blake Hannon said:
Definitely something along those lines. Not sure about giving the ship a will of its own though, as it would be a bit dickish to force the PC's to fight against the ship after spending the entire game improving it.
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The problem being..?
I kid. I mean, you could pull a 'amnesiac redemption arc' where the ship wakes up without its memories and the PCs have to use their Diplomacy checks for once.
 
Scia said:
Player X is doing something semi important where no one else can join them while the other party members are not doing anything. Like the Thief scouting and stealing from the whole dungeon by themself for example or the noble party where only the bard is because everyone else is too smelly.
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In my Distant Worlds game, our first target (an asylum) totally has a water entrence that my merfolk could use easier than anyone else, which offers that possibility :)
 
Development: My merfolk has been challenged on her strength, and is now proposing she carries the party one-by-one via the water entrance, or at least prove she can.
 
So on another forum, we were talking about how we did races differently in our settings. Here's mine:

In the beginning, the world was much like Earth. But there exists an interstellar magical empire called the Eld. They came to the Earth and combined their DNA with a population of humans, creating Elves. Their purpose for doing so is that Elves would research and develop magic, slowly terraforming Earth into a magical ecosystem. When it's ripe enough (when reality has fully eroded), the Eld will return and plunder it, as they've done many times. Nothing remains when they're done.

The Elves don't necessarily realize they're a servitor race, but a lot of their cultural flaws are genetically programmed in. They're not actually in touch with nature, don't believe any Elf that claims otherwise. Many such beautiful, harmonious forests are actually dead, taxidermied graveyards, magically animated through necromancy to keep the flowers always beautiful, the animals always tame and obedient. Elves are all borderline sociopaths to a man, with Adventurer Elves being a rare exception infected with 'humanity', some recessive gene busting their genetic programming.

Dwarves are essentially Earth Elementals; they're not born or raised; they're carved out of the rock fully formed. This is why you don't see Dwarf women and children (though Dwarves are capable of interbreeding). They are the Earth's response to the introduction of magic, creating an antibody race that will fight it at every turn. The mining and work of the Dwarves is to make more of their kind, and to plunder gems and gold that are inherently magically charged. While they make many a magic item with these tools, the Dwarf crafter knows a Power Word killswitch that will Disjunction it. Dungeons are, unfortunately, magic turning this against Mother Earth. Underground constructions where dwarves are defeated, magic permeates, and Monsters are spontaneously generated in a perversion of Dwarven birth.

Orcs are a failed attempt at creating Elves, which were allowed to persist because the Eld found it amusing. Though ugly and savage and violent to other races, within their private homes, sheltered from the sky, orcs can be sweet, loving, tender, artistic. Always in hushed whispers, for their religion, their genetic program, teaches them that the Gods hate their existence, and make them suffer for a laugh, and punish them for all perceived goods they create or experience. Only by being a terror to the other races, they believe, will the gods laugh hard enough to relent their cruelty for another day. There is no good afterlife; all orcs suffer eternally before the gods, they're taught.

Gnomes and Goblins are the same race, both of them fey (more on fey later). Gnomes are vegetarians, but if they eat too much meat, they mutate into a Goblin, a savage and insane creature. Unfortunately, Goblins can breed true. However, a Goblin can be turned into a Gnome if turns down a meal of meat for as many times as the Gnome ate meat.

Halflings are the crossbreed between Humans and Gnomes.

Dragons are magic incarnate, their lifecycles a sign of the Eld's plans. They'll know their fruit is ready for harvest when the planet becomes an entirely Dragon-dominated ecosystem. Dragons created Kobolds out of their own blood. Every drop of dragon blood has the chance to grow into a kobold. Dragonborn are modified Dragon eggs, meant to be a servitor race to lead the kobold masses.

Fairies are born of the Earth, much like Dwarves, but are it's attempt to directly weaponize magic. They spread the infection of magic, but in the benefit of the natural world, providing antibody to Elven advancement. All the fey exist, but few are exactly as in the Monster Manual. Pixies and the like are born from the dreams of children, and so have a child's understanding of the world and morality. They die if the child awakens, so most fairies kidnap children and put them into diabetic comas in the Feywild. Changelings are homunculi, and always grow up into Elves. Elves lacking the Eld Programming, which breeds true...

Dryads are exceptionally beautiful, but are attracted to uglier creatures. CHA 3 is like CHA 30 to them. All dryad children are half-dryads, which become full dryads when they find their soulmate plant and bind with it. They take lovers for the only things a tree can't provide: Sex and conversation. You'll never win their heart, however.

Doppelgangers are a homunculus made up of melting ten or more people together, creating a shapeshifting being with a weak sense of identity. Besides their ESP and appearance-warping, doppelgangers can meld together and divide to switch and share memories and personality traits, which is necessary to prevent Alzheimer's in their plasticine brains. Loss of identity is what all Doppelgangers fear, but inevitable. Doppelganger blood can be imbibed to allow non-doppelgangers to meld for the duration of the drug. Doppelganger pregnancies are rare as there's always a chance of the embryo being permanently absorbed, but when they are born the child is invariably a Changeling, even if it's the child of two Doppelgangers.

Illithids, Aboleths, and other Aberrations are from the Far Realms either directly or through descent. The incursion of the Far Realms is the ultimate outcome of Magic, and if the fruit is overripe, the Eld won't be able to harvest it. A planet slipping entirely into the Far Realms is essentially letting a fruit rot to the worms.

The Gods and all Outsiders are the products of faith and belief. However, they are culture-specific. There are Elven Angels of Pride, Dwarven Angels of Greed, Orc Demons of Charity and Love, and so forth.

Elementals are direct manifestations of the Earth's will without any filter. Genies are what happens when an Elemental gains it's own ego and personality.

The Undead arise for all the usual reasons. Dead Werewolves rise as Vampires.

If an Aasimar and a Tiefling have a child, it's a human. If an Angel and a Demon (or Devil, or what have you) have a child, you get an Eld...
 
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Magic as an invader? Very epic. Or mythic. In any case, I like it. Seems like it'd lend itself to players trying to affect the balance.
 
Honestly, it's the logical conclusion of "Magic violates the natural order." It implies magic wasn't originally part of that order, and is thus a virus.
 
race wise, one thing myself and my local group like is settings where humans are not the most numerous, most central race.

One setting i did had three strains of Half-orc making up almost half the global population, to the point that many people didn't even know they were a crossbred race and that true orcs were a thing (they'd basically been marginalized and basically only inhabited fantasy madagascar.)
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
race wise, one thing myself and my local group like is settings where humans are not the most numerous, most central race.

One setting i did had three strains of Half-orc making up almost half the global population, to the point that many people didn't even know they were a crossbred race and that true orcs were a thing (they'd basically been marginalized and basically only inhabited fantasy madagascar.)
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I like it. Dunno about later editions, but 2e had three flavors of Half-Orc. Original Recipe, Crispy Ogrillon, and Spicy Orog. Technically the latter two are also Half-Ogres.
 
Dick move I experienced once: GM removed humans from the world. Alright cool! It was AD&D....and he didn't houserule away level-limits.

Soooooo yea.
 
AuraTwilight said:
Dick move I experienced once: GM removed humans from the world. Alright cool! It was AD&D....and he didn't houserule away level-limits.

Soooooo yea.
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That was always the first thing I house ruled away for some classes. Humans have unlimited advancement in everything, Elves have unlimited Wizard advancement, Dwarves have unlimited Fighter advancement, Halflings have unlimited Rogue advancement, and Gnomes have unlimited Priest advancement. Yes, I know the DnD stereotype for Gnomes is Illusionist or Tinker, but it was my game, and I liked the idea of "the forgotten folk" being quietly, yet fervently, devoted to the Lords of the Golden Hills in ways the other races aren't devoted to their own gods. Oh, and Half-Elves had unlimited Psionicist advancement. *sigh* I mi the good old days..,
 
Aaron Peori said:
That's... not really that bad?

I mean, if he sprung that on you mid-game, sure. But as a premise for a setting/campaign I'd have no problem with it.
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He ended up throwing encounters at us that'd of been level appropriate if we had unlimited leveling. And he didn't let us have Attack Ranks beyond our level limits because "it's a variant rule."
 
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