Need Campaign Design Help

Cyclohexane · Aug 26, 2009

Alright, guys. I'm planning out a campaign for me and a few buddies, and I need ideas. I have a basic arc laid out.

All of the four characters find themselves in a town without knowing how they got there and are drawn to a dark purple rift in the middle of town square. Upon approaching it, the characters and several townsmen are teleported in front of Everlost, the fortress of Orcus. The townsmen are somehow killed instantly and the players must fight off a very large horde of zombies. Immediately after the fight the characters (All level 8) are approached by Orcus who wipes the floor with them.

The PCs find themselves alive somehow in another realm. This is where I need help. I need ideas for more planes and demiplanes and crazy places for the PCs to go.

Essentially Orcus found some way to gain power over the planes and he plans to usurp the Raven Queen's seat with it. The PCs will eventually meet up with the Raven Queen (Away from her domain, somewhere) and will work out a plan to stop Orcus.

I also plan on giving the PCs a spelljammer to use for a while. They'll probably lose it while going to the astral corpse and getting teleported after they finish it. Then they'll appear in the town they started in, except it's completely decimated and destroyed. The portal will still be open and the PCs will be teleported to Everlost again.

This time they'll face Orcus and must beat him with the help of the Raven Queen (I'll essentially make a lower level Orcus). After the characters defeat Orcus (Not kill, of course), the PCs will be instantly teleported back to where they started at the town, just as it was before they set out on the adventure. This time, though, the portal isn't there, and everything is where it should be.

Hope that wasn't too long-winded.. I tried to keep it as brief as possible.. I want to get an insane amount of demiplanes, crazy planes and just fun places to visit in general.

I'm thinking maybe with the Spelljammer to have the characters unable to understand the controls, so when poking at it they go to a random plane as rolled from a d20..

Thanks a lot for the help, in advance.

darjr · Aug 26, 2009

One of the places they go is 'The One in the void' where Orcus has dominated Vlaakith the lich queen of the Gith, thus enslaving the Gith. Free her and the Gith will forever war against Orcus and his horde.

Dannyalcatraz · Aug 27, 2009

First, welcome to ENWorld!

Second, what kind of help are you looking for? If you're just looking for adventure ideas, check my sig for "My favorite thread"- its all about campaign and adventure ideas.

Michael Moorcock's classic book, Sailor on the Seas of Fate, had a ship which traveled across dimensions, captained by a being who sets his own course...or at least, he's not responsive to the desires of his passengers. The only thing for sure, the heroes are needed at every landfall.

In a sense, its rather like Lost in Space, or the classic stories Jason and the Argonauts or The Odyssey.

kitsune9 · Aug 27, 2009

Cyclo,

Are you looking for additional sources of where you can ideas for the planes or just some suggestions in general?

For books, I'd suggest Malhavoc's Beyond Countless Doorways. You can find a pdf version here. Of course, WotC has the Manual of the Planes out too.

Beyond Countless Doorways - Malhavoc Press | RPGNow.com

For ideas:

After the PC's are mopped up, they find themselves on some kind of prison plane or in Sigil. They have to find a way to get out which you can introduce puzzles, riddles, and the like for the PC's to escape.

Once they escape, they meet up with the Raven Queen's representatives who provide them with a spelljammer. The PC's can go to the Astral Plane and find the body of a dead god who almost destroyed Orcus. There the PC's need to find clues as to what weapons the dead god had to disposed of Orcus.

Then the PC's are plane-hopping putting on some grand treasure hunt to deal with Orcus. The Raven Queen may step in and help out by re-energizing the weapons/toys used on Orcus.

Then to conclude the PC's go back to Orcus' realm and hopefully they will kick butt, take names, and chew bubblegum so to speak.

Happy Gaming!

Cyclohexane · Aug 27, 2009

Thanks for the replies, guys..

Essentially I have the main arc laid out, I just need a bunch of possible areas the PCs might visit.. I've checked out both Manual of the Planes and Beyond Countless Doorways, but they both lack a certain.. punch.. I want really unique areas with some sort of mini-arcs (The way I plan to run the adventure is to have like.. One session reflect one plane.. In other words, the plane will last as long as the session lasts, but at the end of the session I'll reveal that the characters find themselves in another plane, describe it, and then end it there..

Thanks for the replies, I'll be sure to incorporate some of those ideas into my adventure!

Dannyalcatraz · Aug 27, 2009

Well, Ravenloft is the classic demiplane of evil...

And you could simply use alternative prime material planes. And buddy, those abound. I recently ran a campaign in which the world to which the PCs got abducted was peopled entirely by Anthropomorphic Animals...and you can find all kinds here on ENWorld. Check "My favorite thread" in my sig for examples.

If you don't want to design an entirely new campaign world, pick up a 3PP D20 RPG like AU/AE, Iron Kingdoms, Swashbuckling Adventures, Etherscope, CoC D20, Deadlands D20, Stormbringer D20, Scarred Lands, Nyambe, Northern Crown, Midnight, Dungeonworld, Wheel of Time, Oathsworn, Dawn Forge or any of a host of others. Even WotC D20 Modern stuff could be used, like Urban Arcana or Dark*Matter or issues of Polyhedron featuring D20 minigames.

Its an excellent excuse to raid a book-reseller for material, or use all those games you have sitting on your shelf for inspiration.

Theroc · Aug 27, 2009

Hm... I know I may get booed off the boards for this, but for additional inspiration, you may look at WoW's Keeper's of Time. It's a group that tries to maintain the space/time continuum by going to different points in Azeroth's past.

Not quite the same, but it does describe what's going on, and MAY help you.

fafhrd · Aug 27, 2009

The Stepstones:

A set of 3 demiplanes that are nested within the Far Realm. Each demiplane is a bounded sphere with transparent borders looking out into a specific region of Farspace. Early elven planar explorers(or whathaveyou) created these demispheres as observation posts from which to safely study Farspace. In spite of powerful reality stabilization magics and containment locks between each sphere, the project was a failure.

The third and deepest sphere encountered a massive entity which was able to penetrate the spheres defenses via a gaze. The gaze drove several of the original participants mad. In their madness the inhabitants opened the sphere to the beyond and horror quickly ensued. The sane occupants of the third sphere naturally fled back to the second. However, several altered members of their team came through with them.

The inhabitants of the second sphere enact containment protocols and destroy the portal keys to the first sphere. The altered explorers from the third sphere destroy or transform the remaining inhabitants of the second sphere, but are unable to proceed to the first. Naturally, the first sphere is abandoned by the architects of the project.

So you have a quiet, abandoned demiplane with perhaps some interesting research and magical oddities. The second sphere is full of insane, altered mortals(perhaps a good use for foulspawn and other anthropomorphic enemies) and the third sphere is a portal into the heart of darkness, not just to the Far Realms but to the vicinity of particularly nasty entity and its progeny. Since the keys that lead back to the prior 'hop' have been destroyed, you can only venture forth, deeper into madness.

Cyclohexane · Aug 27, 2009

fafhrd said:
The Stepstones:

A set of 3 demiplanes that are nested within the Far Realm. Each demiplane is a bounded sphere with transparent borders looking out into a specific region of Farspace. Early elven planar explorers(or whathaveyou) created these demispheres as observation posts from which to safely study Farspace. In spite of powerful reality stabilization magics and containment locks between each sphere, the project was a failure.

The third and deepest sphere encountered a massive entity which was able to penetrate the spheres defenses via a gaze. The gaze drove several of the original participants mad. In their madness the inhabitants opened the sphere to the beyond and horror quickly ensued. The sane occupants of the third sphere naturally fled back to the second. However, several altered members of their team came through with them.

The inhabitants of the second sphere enact containment protocols and destroy the portal keys to the first sphere. The altered explorers from the third sphere destroy or transform the remaining inhabitants of the second sphere, but are unable to proceed to the first. Naturally, the first sphere is abandoned by the architects of the project.

So you have a quiet, abandoned demiplane with perhaps some interesting research and magical oddities. The second sphere is full of insane, altered mortals(perhaps a good use for foulspawn and other anthropomorphic enemies) and the third sphere is a portal into the heart of darkness, not just to the Far Realms but to the vicinity of particularly nasty entity and its progeny. Since the keys that lead back to the prior 'hop' have been destroyed, you can only venture forth, deeper into madness.

God damn. Using this. More like this, anyone?

DrunkonDuty · Aug 27, 2009

Fafrhd: that's awesome! I love it. The project co-ordinator's name should be Conrad. The 'traitor' (the first one to go mad in Sphere 3) should of course be Kurtz. The heroes can find the names in a diary/black box recorder sort of thing.

Otherwise I got nothin'. Sorry.