Mercurius
Legend
I'm looking for feedback, advice, and ideas for a new campaign I'm planning. I'd like to give the context, so please bear with me as I go through some of preliminaries. We're playing 4E and I'm planning around the tiers, or at least Heroic and Paragon, but there is nothing here really that couldn't apply to another edition or game.
Our Group
We're a group of seven 30-40-somethings, all with busy lives. We try to meet every two weeks for a 4-5 hour session, although usually about 3-4 is actual gaming, and we probably miss a session every couple months. We started about two and a half years ago, I as the DM for the first two years. I ran a rather haphazard campaign up to Paragon tier - a string of relatively unrelated adventures - when I achieved burn out and we took a hiatus for a couple months and then another guy took the DM reins. He's been running us for the last two months or so.
None of us really have the time to craft an intricate campaign, which is something I'm a bit regretful about but is just a reality we have to deal with. But we enjoy what we do: pretty straightforward adventures focused mainly on exploration and combat, with some role-playing mixed in.
There are three of us that are willing and able to DM, so we've decided that we'll take turns, probably alternating by adventures. We are going to keep the Paragon group (now 12th level) as the "main course" but I'm interested in starting something fresh, which is what this post is about.
The Basic Premise
First, the setting. It was designed around the "Points of Light" concept. The basic idea is that a magical apocalypse destroyed a high civilization - and the gods along with it - about a thousand years ago. Humans were almost entirely killed off; the survivors were taken in by the Elder Races (elves, dwarves, gnomes mainly) into safe havens for centuries while "aftershocks" of the apocalypse in the form of magical storms ravaged the world, not to mention the massive tarrasque-esque monsters, called Abominations, that roamed the land.
About two hundred years ago a new pantheon of gods appeared and calmed the storms and killed off or imprisoned most of the Abominations. Gradually humans set up a new civilization with the help of the other races, in particular the dwarves, who are probably the most powerful race. The world is a savage, monster-teaming place with countless ruins and other remnants of previous ages. Civilization is in a time of great expansion and teetering on the verge of blossoming, but there are numerous conflicts and factors that remain.
The Campaign
The basic idea for this new campaign is that a vast complex of ruins, a massive city of the prior great civilization, was recently found in the jungles to the south. Adventurers are flocking to it; a small town was set up on its edge to provide services - inns, shops, whores, all the good stuff. (If you're familiar with Earthdawn, which was an influence on this setting as a whole, then you might be reminded of Parlainth). The prior civilization was ruled by sorcerer-kings, so there was tons of magic - items, creatures, etc - so lots of potential loot to discover! (and weird monsters to face).
Heroictier will focus on exploration of the ruins, including the under-city. The city itself was once one of the greatest of the old world - a few hundred thousand inhabitants, mainly stone structures. By the end of the tier I'd like the PCs to have figured out much about the city - how it was destroyed, what the nature of the high civilization was, why the apocalypse occurred, etc. I am also wanting to set the group up to release an "Ancient Evil" that has been imprisoned in the ruins for a thousand years...this will set the stage for Paragon tier, which will take them beyond the city, although in what direction I'm not sure.
Some Criteria
- Very little between-session preparation. I'm happy and excited about a fair amount of up-front design - building the city, maps, encounters, etc, but I have a lot else on my plate so once we get going I don't want to have to scramble before running a session. I'm a teacher and once September hits, life is a whirlwind - so I'm hoping to get the up-front preparation done in the next couple months.
- I'm hoping to have the spontaneity and freedom of a sandbox, but with an underlying puzzle - the mystery of the city itself, its past, and that of the high civilization (which is largely unknown, except in legend). I like the idea of the PCs gradually putting together a picture of the city and the world before the apocalypse - a kind of mystery, in a sense.
- Quick advancement - As everyone is now used to playing Paragon characters, playing early Heroic might not be that exciting; furthermore, we won't be playing this every session but rather for a couple months at a ptime, then playing the other campaign for some time. So I want quick advancement - maybe as much as one level per session.
So I'm trying to imagine what I need to do to run this. I'm thinking at least a few things need to be in order before starting:
- Maps: of the region, the city, the under-city
- Random encounter tables
- A bunch of encounters/delves
- A solid idea of what the city was like before it was destroyed.
- A bunch of clues for them to piece together
Anything else? Any thoughts or advice or ideas in general? How would you prepare and run this?
Our Group
We're a group of seven 30-40-somethings, all with busy lives. We try to meet every two weeks for a 4-5 hour session, although usually about 3-4 is actual gaming, and we probably miss a session every couple months. We started about two and a half years ago, I as the DM for the first two years. I ran a rather haphazard campaign up to Paragon tier - a string of relatively unrelated adventures - when I achieved burn out and we took a hiatus for a couple months and then another guy took the DM reins. He's been running us for the last two months or so.
None of us really have the time to craft an intricate campaign, which is something I'm a bit regretful about but is just a reality we have to deal with. But we enjoy what we do: pretty straightforward adventures focused mainly on exploration and combat, with some role-playing mixed in.
There are three of us that are willing and able to DM, so we've decided that we'll take turns, probably alternating by adventures. We are going to keep the Paragon group (now 12th level) as the "main course" but I'm interested in starting something fresh, which is what this post is about.
The Basic Premise
First, the setting. It was designed around the "Points of Light" concept. The basic idea is that a magical apocalypse destroyed a high civilization - and the gods along with it - about a thousand years ago. Humans were almost entirely killed off; the survivors were taken in by the Elder Races (elves, dwarves, gnomes mainly) into safe havens for centuries while "aftershocks" of the apocalypse in the form of magical storms ravaged the world, not to mention the massive tarrasque-esque monsters, called Abominations, that roamed the land.
About two hundred years ago a new pantheon of gods appeared and calmed the storms and killed off or imprisoned most of the Abominations. Gradually humans set up a new civilization with the help of the other races, in particular the dwarves, who are probably the most powerful race. The world is a savage, monster-teaming place with countless ruins and other remnants of previous ages. Civilization is in a time of great expansion and teetering on the verge of blossoming, but there are numerous conflicts and factors that remain.
The Campaign
The basic idea for this new campaign is that a vast complex of ruins, a massive city of the prior great civilization, was recently found in the jungles to the south. Adventurers are flocking to it; a small town was set up on its edge to provide services - inns, shops, whores, all the good stuff. (If you're familiar with Earthdawn, which was an influence on this setting as a whole, then you might be reminded of Parlainth). The prior civilization was ruled by sorcerer-kings, so there was tons of magic - items, creatures, etc - so lots of potential loot to discover! (and weird monsters to face).
Heroictier will focus on exploration of the ruins, including the under-city. The city itself was once one of the greatest of the old world - a few hundred thousand inhabitants, mainly stone structures. By the end of the tier I'd like the PCs to have figured out much about the city - how it was destroyed, what the nature of the high civilization was, why the apocalypse occurred, etc. I am also wanting to set the group up to release an "Ancient Evil" that has been imprisoned in the ruins for a thousand years...this will set the stage for Paragon tier, which will take them beyond the city, although in what direction I'm not sure.
Some Criteria
- Very little between-session preparation. I'm happy and excited about a fair amount of up-front design - building the city, maps, encounters, etc, but I have a lot else on my plate so once we get going I don't want to have to scramble before running a session. I'm a teacher and once September hits, life is a whirlwind - so I'm hoping to get the up-front preparation done in the next couple months.
- I'm hoping to have the spontaneity and freedom of a sandbox, but with an underlying puzzle - the mystery of the city itself, its past, and that of the high civilization (which is largely unknown, except in legend). I like the idea of the PCs gradually putting together a picture of the city and the world before the apocalypse - a kind of mystery, in a sense.
- Quick advancement - As everyone is now used to playing Paragon characters, playing early Heroic might not be that exciting; furthermore, we won't be playing this every session but rather for a couple months at a ptime, then playing the other campaign for some time. So I want quick advancement - maybe as much as one level per session.
So I'm trying to imagine what I need to do to run this. I'm thinking at least a few things need to be in order before starting:
- Maps: of the region, the city, the under-city
- Random encounter tables
- A bunch of encounters/delves
- A solid idea of what the city was like before it was destroyed.
- A bunch of clues for them to piece together
Anything else? Any thoughts or advice or ideas in general? How would you prepare and run this?
