D&D 5E My new 5E campaign is looking for feedback

Hi! I'm going to DM a new campaign in the Realms with other 5 people and I would like to share this beginning with you. Tips, suggestions, critiques are welcome and encouraged: this is my first time DMing in 5th edition and I'd love to have some feedback from you!
Setting notes

• The campaign takes place in 1396 DR
• The timeline is different from the canonical one, the Spellplague never happens and in 1373 DR there was a huge event (our last campaign ended in June) that was called "The War of the Dragons". In this war Tiamat tried to enhance her power entering in the Faerunian Pantheon destroying the Draconic one (except Bahamut and few other deities). She absorbed Velsharoon (god of Necromancy) and gained control on the Cult of the Dragon to spread her word. The Cult created a new breed of dragons called The Crystal Dragon (which was essentially an improved version of a White Dragon) waking them from the Great Glacier in the North of Faerun. Crystal Dragons invaded Damara, but thanks to the Talon of Justice (an order of good dragons and half-dragons), together with the army of king Gareth Dragonsbane, the enemy army of crystal dragons and frozen evil creatures was defeated. The king and his heirs died during the war, but the barons and the dukes of the land organized a council together with the Talon of Justice leaders (Azhaq in particular which is an ancient gold dragon). In this council they elected the baron Frostmantle king in the Damara.
• Myth Drannor was liberated (during the old campaign) and now a lot of Sun elves are coming back in the Realms.
• After the defeat of the Son of Tiamat (made by the PCs), Mystra, Tyr, Corellon, Bahamut and Cyric (which promised to help for a magic ritual conducted by Mystra and Corellon in order to cure his madness) confronted Tiamat and started a brutal fight. The "good" forces were overwhelming, however Cyric betrayed at the end of the fight slaying Tyr from the back. Tiamat was defeted and his essence was imprisoned in the Nine Hells, while Bahamut was accepted by Ao as the new Faerunian god of Justice.
• This new campaign will be set in Damara during the reign of Pavel Frostmantle, which is now old (75y) but who lead Damara to shine again reactivating a lot of Bloodstone mines which were closed since the time of Zhengyi the warlock-king. Pavel has a male son called Gregor who is the prince of Damara. Gregor is an hot-head and now that Damara is a rich reign again he would like to punish Impiltur for the neutrality the state chose to have in the fight between Zhengyi and the Damaran and to have kept the same attitude during the War of the Dragons.

Player characters

• Aramil (High Elf Sage/Wizard ): Aramil is a young sage of Myth Drannor who chose to come from Evermeet in the new city after its liberation. He came here with Illephan one of his closest friends and with their master. During one of their journeys in this relatively new land Illephan found a statue of a beautiful winter fairy with an inscription "The crystal could never be imprisoned forever. The Winter fair will rise again". From that day Illephan tried hard to understand the meaning of this sentence, but this drove him mad. When Illephan died on the Moonsea during one of his journey, Aramil took his notes to investigate upon this secret in the honor of the dead friend. For this reason he decided to go nearer to the Great Glacier in the region of Damara.
• Alena (Human [Sossal] Hermit/Paladin [Oath of the Ancients]): Alena was born 19 years ago in the barony of Soravia during the War of the Dragons. Her parents came from Sossal (a land in the Great Glacier) whose tribe fled from the invasion of the Crystal Dragons. They lived as refugees near the Rickerwood forest in Damara until they were both killed by mountain orcs. Alena was hidden in a remote angle of the forest where she was found by a druid of the forest. She was raised there until some servants of Auril came to kill her for unknown reasons. The druid protected here but she died during the fight. Her last words were "Reach the mountains of the Great Glacier to find your true destiny". She reached the mountains wandering there until she was nearly frozen to death. While She was unconscious she heard a voice and dreamed a symbol of a snowflake. The voice was in truth of Aurilandur (a Sossal good deity of Cold) which wants to make Alena her chosen one to become the goddess of winter in place of Auril. Alena doesn't know that yet, but her visions led her to Ravensburg.
• Perrin (Halfling Outcast/Rogue): born in the lands of Luiren he decided to move from his homeland to travel across Faerun pushed by his halfling blood. He traveled a lor until He reached Ravensburg together with Aramil and Alena to see the Equine fair that takes place every years in Summer.
• Grigor (Human [Damaran] Folk Hero / Barbarian): a barbarian of the tribe of the white worm, abandoned his tribe to achieve glory and to prove his valor outside the Macomber Falls (where the tribe is set). He saved the chief of the tribe from some orcs, but the notoriety derived from this act caused him the envy of the son of the leader of the tribe.
• ??? (Half-orc Soldier / Bard): he will join us in the next session, but I know he will link his story to the one of the barbarian.

Now they will start in Ravensburg during an equine fair that takes place every year. I plan to let them explore the fair and give them two or three quests to choose from. I would like to link one or two adventures to the background of Aramil/Alena and in general I'd like to focus the campaign on the Aurlandir vs. Auril plot, but I don't want to rush and I want that they discover everything very slowly. I will write the rest after the next session, any comment by that time will be appreciated
PS: I'm sorry if my english is not good, but it's not my mother tongue.

Ok we played our second session on Thursday and I make a little report:

• The bard player didn't join us because he is still away (he lives in another city)
• The plot started at the equine fair of Ravensburg when they paid for the entrance at the fair. The fair took place in specific quarters in which they found a lot of local markets and opportunities.

I prepared 5 different plots for the first session, so they could choose the one they liked the most between them.

1) Warryn, a gnome settled in Ravensburg obtained a license to build a mine near the city on the Galena mountains. He's looking for adventurers to secure the mine before the beginning of the ore-mining.

2) Dell a dwarf from the near Impiltur has a fishing activity on the Icemelt Lake. He's here to sell his stuff, but he's also looking for mercenaries to investigate on some strange things that are happening on the coast of the lake inside Earthwood. The temperature is unusually low for the season (we're in Spring) and the Lake is starting to freeze, interfering with his fishing activities. He want the adventurers to go into the wood and see what is freezing the lake shores.

3) Xandos the Alchemist is trying to hire some mercenaries to escort him in the deep of Rickerwood to take a rare herb called "The Stoneleaf" which is used to cure paralysis.

4) Karina Olovstone, a noble woman from Sorav, lost her family necklace which was probably stolen from her chambers. Since she has the impression that the city guard is not doing enough to investigate upon this matter, she's hiring people to investigate and retrieve her necklace.

5) Moe is an horse-breeder, but during the fair he is used to run on his horse Galthar (a beautiful exemplar of Red Carmathan) for the yearly championship of the fair. He has won the last 5 editions of this race, but he lost the first three matches of this season, noticing that his horse is clumsy and not so fast as it was a few days ago. He want to understand what's happened to his horse, since he suspects something magical is at work.


They wandered around in the city, they interacted with the fair attractions (inns, musicians and so on) and after having realized that they were short on money they started thinking about something to do. After having explored every possibility they decided to sign a contract to free the mine, but also to investigate on what's happening in Earthwood during the path. Alena (the Aurilandur paladin) pushed to take the Earthwood quest since she thinks there's a connection with Auril and his personal quest.


They left the city the day after and, after a little stop in a temple of Silvanus, they reached Earthwood and started the exploration. The first day revealed the presence of some traps that Perrin (the halfling rogue) successfully identified ad Kobold traps, but they easily avoided them and they proceeded until they reached the Icemelt Lake shore and the city of Sudrov, a village in which the fishing company of Dell operates. They stopped here at the end of the session gathering information and legends about Earthwood and what's happening.
We played 2 hours (more or less), but it was a good session even if they weren't involved in any fight.

Next week I will write more, but in the meanwhile I leave you with the map of the surroundings:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48301795/Mappa.png

Thanks for your reporting. I love reading about other games. I like how you gave them lots of options.

Even though it is possible to throw 4 or 5 combat encounters at players in a 2 hour game, it is often refreshing, and it builds suspense and the feel of the game when there are no encounters or a limited number of encounters per session.

Sometimes one session also sets up another. It seems as if you have a plan.

Thanks for your comment! Two of my players are relatively new to RPGs in General and I don't want them to think that is all about fighting, that's why I try to run some session with other kind of encounters. In my mind they "should have" taken a quest in a little less time, but they enjoyed playing at the fair so, of course, I didn't stop them.

Now my plan is to let them explore Earthwood (I have an hexagonal map in which they can explore 4 hexes a day) in which I placed a location with some Auril cultists that are performing a ritual to weak the Earthwood magical protection against the cold, and then some locations with kobold encounters (since there's a Crystal dragon egg involved the kobold cooperate with the Cultist believing they want to wake the dragon in some way). I also provided them some rumors at the village of Sudrov so they can figure out what awaits them.

Do you have any advice for some subplot or encounters I could place in the forest?

Third session here: the party continued his exploration of Earthwood looking for the reasons for the strange cold that's affecting the forest and its surroundings.

During their exploration they were ambushed by eight kobolds who tried to force them to flee, but the party was able to resist them and to capture one of them. The surviving Kobold told them the location of their camp and that their Chief was allied with some men that he called "The white men". They followed the path suggested by the captured kobold, but during their route they were attacked by the leader of the tribe on an ambush dragon and four other kobolds, trying to stop their way to the camp. They had an hard time fighting against this group, but they won the fight this time too. They reached the location of this last fight at sunset and they decided to stop to rest before trying to discover the camp next day in the morning.

After they woke up (they successfully avoid a night ambush thanks to an Alarm spell of Aramil the wizard) they walked until they reach the camp where one priestess of Auril and some cultist were officiating a ritual in a divine circle. They tried to sneak in the camp, but they were spotted and the cultist attacked them to continue the ritual. The fight was hard and Grigor the barbarian wen to 0 hp and so did Perrin the rogue. However, thanks to a Firebolt spell casted by Aramil and thanks to the defense of Alena the paladin, they defeated their enemies. Before the end of the session they searched in the tents of the camp finding a book which Aramil discovered to be an old ritual of the goddess Auril to conjure cold spirits in an area. The ritual required human sacrifices (in fact they found some corpses in some of the tents), but the elf understood the way to revers the ritual with a 6 hour spell involving fire. They took some wood from the forest and lit this big fire to complete the ritual causing the snow to melt and managing to raise again the temperature in Earthwood.

I leave you with the battle map of the last fight at the Auril priestess camp.

Molto grazie for sharing this. I will continue to read with great interest.

Sounds like a nice 2nd game too.

Well done.

As for sub-plots, sometimes you can just throw out hooks and see which ones the group bites on.

I like to include events and/or encounters that may have nothing at all to do with any current quest or plot so that the entire game seems more real.

I like to think about the way one of my favorite Sci-Fi show of all time, Babylon 5, was written (and I'm sure many other shows are written the same way). They developed a major arch with many of their shows, but some episodes would develop a secondary arch, and some episodes would be just stand alone side-bars to develop characters or show a different aspect of life.

Wilderness exploration...make a list of things that could happen. Use the list to inspire you.

For example,

Careless party of Orcs leave a fire burning and it starts a forest fire, or lightning strikes a tree and starts a fire right while the PCs are within range.

Finding a wounded creature/monster...then having the predators return to finish the kill.

Wandering into a haunted grove.

Sink hole into a spider's nest.

Strange hermit dwelling (what could happen there?)

Woman in distress....is she really, or is it just a ruse (Hag in disguise or other creature that can use disguise or illusion).


Your ideas seem to work well...keep building.

Today they will go towards the mines on the Galena Mountains. I'll probably try some of your ideas for possible deviations

I like the idea of finding a ritual spell and being able to work out how to reverse it. That's a good touch: I may have to keep it in mind for future games.

Hmmm... okay, a few thoughts here.

You have shown quite a lot of awareness of the place names and where places are in relation to one another. At least I assume things are right. This is typically my weak point. But you know where all your NPCs are from and what they want and the various quests all point PCs to very precise locations rather than merely "that forest over there". Yes, this helps the game world feel a bit more real and if I had the Forgotten Relams gazette sitting in front of me with the map, it would mean a lot more to me. A bit unfamiliar with it, it doesn't mean much... but I can tell it means something to you and to the NPC and that's good.

On the other hand, your characters don't seem to be hooked into your plot at all. You have a bunch of "fetch the McGuffin" quests that all seem disconnected and I am guessing that whichever order the players decide to tackle them in, the encounters and skill challenges in the quest will just level up or down as they do. This gives the whole thing sort of a impersonal MMORPG feel. And the PCs could simply be replaced with "Thug #1" through "Thug #5" for all it matters to the quest existing, being handed out and being completed.

In the meantime the other quest givers might either pop out of existence because their quests were not chosen or they will just keep hanging frozen on the same spot on the ground until the PCs come wandering their direction and they can dispense their fetch quest. I suppose if you want to make the world feel more organic, two or three other adventuring parties might well come along and complete those other quests-- maybe the PCs might even meet these rival adventurers down the line.

But then... that would just tie back to the idea that everything is impersonal, these quests aren't doing anything but having the PCs spin their wheels until without really advancing any sort of real overall plotline and that the PCs are entirely irrelevant and replaceable. Are these fetch quests really ultimately building up to anything? Are your one or two main villains somehow involved in these quests? Will fulfilling these quests be undermining one antagonistic force that might strike out against the PCs or, alternatively, inadvertently helping an antagonistic force that the PCs might have to try to bring down later?

In the third session... things seemed to be all too straight-forward and easily resolved. I am not sure what the motivation of the Priest of Auril was to do this. Sacrificing humans is no simple task that someone ought to be doing lightly. It takes a lot of work to kidnap people and your own will likely die in the attempt! And just to create a small spot of winter that would attract everyone's attention? To what end would someone naturally think this was a good idea? What was the end game of this priest?

And the elf just "knew" how to reverse it and reversing the ritual that required human sacrifice was as simple as creating a bonfire for a few hours? Don't you think that a human sacrifice ritual should have been a bit harder to reverse than just a random elf making a bonfire and doing a little summer dance or whatever the ritual involved? I mean, think about these elements together-- the Priest has no particular reason for wanting to create an unnatural winter, the winter will attract the attention of people who will kill the priest and his Kobolds and will not benefit him in any way, the priest needs to sacrifice his minions to kidnap humans so that he can sacrifice them to his god in order to create this unnatural winter, and reversing it just requires any random elf making a bonfire and dancing. And the Priest knew all this before he ever even began putting this plan into action. Why did he do it?

And in the end, I don't see any plothooks dangling off of this to bring PCs into the next adventure. So I guess now they just go back to town and pick up the next fetch quest?