New campaign: agents of a god in a brand new world

Hello all,

I have had an idea for a new campaign where the PCs would be agents sent by a god to a brand new world to serve as guides and leaders to the new inhabitants of the world.

I designed a pantheon based on the alignments with Dwarves (LG), Elves (CG), Goblins (LE) and Orcs (CE) at the extremes and five human gods representing the middle grounds.

I have used as the basis for the world a beautiful map by Pasis from the Cartographers Guild (Bretoria) on which I decided where the 9 seeds of civilizations would awaken.

The history of the world is pretty bare, with the oldest intelligent living creatures (dragons) no more than a century old. All nine humanoid races will awaken at the same time as I don't want the usual trope of Elves having a more advanced civilization than humans. At the moment, I don't have anything else set down in stone as I want to be able to react to the players' actions.

History will get written by chunks, as I will probably play one lifetime of the characters then advance the history several centuries when the players will create new characters and shape history once more, before another hiatus. Hopefully I will get the players interested enough to play as a group at first, but then to take the roles of the leaders of the various civilizations and play some kind of Birthright-like campaign, where their alliances and wars will write the way how the campaign world will shape.

But all this is still far in the future, as I am setting up the beginning of the campaign. So my request for advice is this: what would you do if thrown in the wilderness, with basically no technology or resource, as leaders of about a thousand young adults (no children, they will have to be made the traditional way - that also means the players will have to take good care of their people as this is all they will get for at least 15 years).

The people is not devoid of any knowledge, though. I see them a bit like Adam and Eve after being cast out of Eden: no one ever taught them anything, yet Adam is able to work the land and domesticate beasts. This knowledge will come straight from the god they serve (that way I can explain differences in technology between the various groups once contact occurs), all I need to decide is if the god will actually take an active hand or if it is knowledge he implanted in the characters before they awakened.

Here is the list of things I think off that you would have to do in this situation on the short term:

1. Secure shelter
2. Find a source of water
3. Find a source of food
4. Set up basic defenses against wildlife

On the long term, the list is more or less the same at first, but then you run into civilization development. I plan to let the people set up in a network of caverns (that will need to be cleared of the wildlife inhabiting it), then the players will have to set up groups of hunters and gatherers as well as protection for their "home", to solve the short-term needs of the communities.

On the mid-term, though, how would such a society develop? What would be the next step? I guess I will let the community have it easy that way for about 5-10 years, enough to settle down and create a little surplus to enable some of the people to start working on developing the first infrastructures without fear of a lack of resources to last them during the first winter months (since people who work won't be able to gather resources).

If someone has knowledge or experience in such a campaign, I'd be interested to get feedback as I'm afraid the first sessions on the games will include a lot of improvisation to react to the ideas of the players. If I already had an inkling of what someone coming at it from a different angle might think, that would already be a tremendous help.

This sounds like a super cool idea. The first thing i would ask is: what is the world without humanoids like? is it hostile and volitile, with gigantic and predatory beasts roaming everywhere freely? is there plenty of plant life? what types of Mounts are available (Horses and mounts play a big role in which civilisations are the most successful in actual history) WHat about food and water sources?

The initial ecosystem is probably the most important thing to plan next. The introduction of humanoids into a stable ecosystem WILL cause chaos and so planning a good ecosystem is the next important step.

SOunds like a REALLY fun campaign idea
-Shoe

I have decided to set up the campaign in what of the easiest spots from a geographic point of view: if you look at the map I linked to in my first post, the character will start in the south of the bay (Itäportti) on the east side of the continent, close to the city of Jinab. That will put them close to a river delta, with forests, hills and mountains close at hand, so that they have access to all basic resources they need as their civilization develop.

As far as food sources go, nature should be able to provide at first. Though the map does not show the position of the continent of the globe, the fact that there is ice in the north and a desert in the south makes me believe that the spot I chose should be a warm climate, but being enclosed by mountains and the bay, the region should still be temperate and get its fair share of rain. The combination of warm climate and rain should mean luxuriant vegetation. Therefore a gathering society should be able to see them through at first. Water should not be a problem thanks to the presence of the river.

I had not really thought about mounts, except that they won't be the #1 civilization from this point of view. I want one of the other civilizations to develop along the lines of the Mongol empire on earth, with later in history a part of its population starting to follow another god (I plan to have several of the first characters and their equivalent in other civilizations to ascend to godhood and diversify the current pantheon) and turning into non-sedentary culture (I don't know the exact word to convey my meaning in English, but basically they'll have an important role to play in the contacts between civilization but won't have their own land).

As far as how the world is without humanoids, I won't have dinosaurs roaming the whole world, but I think I will have an area where some can be found - I like the idea of halfings riding raptors from another campaign world (Eberron?), even though halflings don't exist yet.

Do you have any suggestion or reading you could recommend to design the ecosystem? It's not that easy to imagine what the world was like before human intervention