Campaign Idea- help me build on it please!!

[ethandrul]

When I start a campaign I usually write about the defining moment in the world's history. Usually I expect a world to exist for about 6 months before we wind up starting a new adventure- THIS TIME I intend to create a delicious world that everyone will want to adventure in for many many years.

here is the history I have written so far.
I will explain some of the fluff at the bottom.





The thing that most defines the world are it's massive magic turbine engines.
In the old days, every city had one. A towering structure capped with a ball of magical
plasma the size of a city block. They've existed for centuries and yet, nobody seems to know
who built them, when or for what purpose.

For as long as humanity can remember, the engines has powered their cities, aided scientific inquiries,
guided philosophers and protected those people who lived near it. All they asked for in return-
was maintenance.

Caring for the machines was a task led by the holy clerics who were gifted individuals that could hear the
voice of that particular machine. They would tell the machines needs to work crews made up of mainly orcs
and dwarves. These races seemed to have a knack for repairing the great turbines and for centuries went about
their jobs with content.

Dwarves and orcs working together you ask? Yes, in what could only be called harmony and in some cases true
friendship. They both toiled day and night to keep the vast machines running under the watchful eyes of their
"foremen", the clerics who dictated the desires of the mechanized "gods".

In the year 1834 a road weary traveler arrived at the gates of the city of Kord with a pair of robed
strangers. His name was Dover Honeycutt, and he had led the doom of the world to the gates of Kord.

While traveling through the woods he happened upon a pair of strangers wearing beautiful robes. they had
the ears and eyes like elves but seemed much more dignified. 'Gentleman elves!" he thought, and spoke with them.
they informed him that they were scientists who were here to study the great cities of man, and learn how
to build with such cunning masonry. They also claimed to be interested in the fantastic steam powered engines
they had seen during their travels.

Dover told him everything he know, which was quite a bit- since he had in fact worked for some time as
a brakeman on a train. They passed the time in this way for most of the trip. Whenever the strangers were
asked questions about where they were from, or why they were not dressed like regular elves, they simply
changed the subject or gave half answers.

The city of Kord were massive iron things that bore protective runes of power. nobody who meant
ill to the city or those in it could not pass beyond them. When the travels discovered that they weren't
able to enter the city they quickly made up a lie about purifying themselves before entering the new city.

The Eladrin (for that is what they were) set up shop in an abandoned building on the road to Kord.
They started an inn that catered to the working class orcs and dwarves. You would think that they would
have been happy with the fortunes they made selling strong ale and prostituting their serving girls.
But the feyborn elves had more insidious purpose.

Slowly they drove a wedge between the dwarves and orcs so that the dwarves found other places to spend their
money, though many new orcs came to take their place. and one day in 1868 an orc named Thrakazogg McKenzie said
a word that would change the world forever "unionize". His ideas of workers rights and rights for orcs in
general were obviously well received by this crowd. He explained the idea of "work stoppage" and the meaning of "Tyranny".
He said that in his home town, and in cities all over the world labor was being revolutionized- only in the
"Engine cities" did wage slavery survive.

By the year 1855 there were probably 50 or 60 eladrin throughout the world. A few worked to quietly undermine
the clergy, some organized unions, and some started reputable trading companies- selling wares from their exotic homeland.
By 1870 there were 1000 of them working secretly toward our doom.

The local elves were just as mystified by the eladrin as anyone else, but they refused to trade or do any business with
the new-comers. Perhaps they had some hatred for them on an instinctual level, maybe they just felt a tinge
of jealousy toward them.

three things happened in the year 1871. The first caused the second, and the second caused the third. The third thing is
why so many of our grandfathers have nightmares every time they sleep.
In april 1871 Thrakazogg Mckenzie was shot in the head by a tiefling. They said h had been hired by a priest to silence him,
maybe he was. Who knows? When he died his body grew soft and shapeless. his eyes became large black orbs without a soul.
News passed quickly, though most of it failed to mention the state of Mr. McKenzie's body.

On Thursday October 29th 1871 at 6:24 PM, the orcs working on third level of the great machine
called "Kord the Strong" began jamming the massive gears and cutting cables.they threw their foreman
into the swirling vortex of deadly magical energy- he was instantly consumed (oddly, the orcs are said to have stopped their
destruction to see how the machine would react to them having killed one of his spokesman. When Kord didn't immediately
act they continued their rioting.) The mayhem spread quickly to the other levels. Most of the dwarves who tried to stop the stronger
larger orcs were killed or forced to flee. After a while the orcs took their rage to the streets. killing looting and giving in
to their lower instincts.

At 7:03 PM a loud roar like a thousand lions shook the temple that housed the great machine god. it turned to a shriek
then the magical plasma that formed a ball above the building exploded.

The force knocked most of the buildings in the city down nearly everyone within a mile of the city was killed instantly.
the train rails were lifted out of the ground like a tsunami they became metal waves of destruction. people always complained
about how much safer it was to travel by rail...boy were they wrong.

It was discovered later that the Magical engines that we had revered as gods had served a greater purpose.
they had been created by our for fathers to keep at bay the wicked creatures of the Fey Wilds, and other dark places.
We've learned that the elves came here a millennium ago to escape the growing evil, and helped to build the turbines to
keep us safe. But as the years passed we had all forgotten.

The rioting happened across the world. most of the cities with Great engines were destroyed- or at least jammed.
as far as I know only two cities continue today with power. Pelor, where I sit today and the city of Moradin- which is today
made up almost exclusively of dwarves.

The Engine here has been configured for defense since the invasion started. No fey beasts can get within 40 miles of the city
but beyond that border the lurk, attacking travelers without mercy.

Did all of the monsters that populate our world come through the now numerous "fairy rings' and stone circles?
No, we have always had undead to deal with. and the deep dwelling abberations in the hollowed out places under the earth.
of course now we consider orcs to be monsters too. They've always been here.

But giants, trolls, griffons, dragons? Those fairy tale creatures are now our living nightmares. They came here with swarms of goblins
and other fiends to force us into extinction so they can have our world to themselves. Well, they can't have it.

It has been 34 years since the war began. We have a few allies now. Prince Orcus and Lord Asmodeus have set up embassies here in Pelor.
They claim to want to help us fight back the Fae the way they did not so long ago. A few Eladrin have even joined humanity in our hour
of need. in these dark times we take any sword we can get, even those of our enemies.

The year is 1906. We no longer have much electricity in Pelor, we have shot most of our iron bullets. our steam engines are mostly rusted.
We have devolved into a race of barbarians living in a technological dark age. The only hope our collective races have
is locating other cities like ours and restarting their Gods.




basically, the campaign is in a post apocalyptic steampunk setting.

magic of nearly all kinds is derived from the great magic engines- wizards, clerics and paladins all draw from them. Warlocks get their
powers form their pacts of course

The magic shield around Pelor prevents any creatures not native to the world from coming within 40 miles of the city gates, this allows for arming to be done without dragons and griffons eating all the sheep.

I am going to create rules for guns, not sure on the details yet though. I plan on allowing Warlocks use them as an implement.Though I am going to keep them very rare and ammo will be even rarer.

The idea of a machine being worshiped as a god came from the Deathgate Cycle written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

anyway, please give me input, and more importantly, help me create this world wihout a name!!!

 

[mattdm]

It might be interesting to add a little more moral ambiguity — as it is, this reads as an allegory about wise and benevolent capitalists and the foolish socialist unionists who don't know how good they've got it and bring about the end of the world by their whining about workers' rights. Regardless of your political views, that seems a bit flat.

 

[ethandrul]

It's more of an "Industrial revolution" gone very wrong.
I can see how it could have that feeling though.
how would you suggest I change it?

 

[neoweasel]

It's more of an "Industrial revolution" gone very wrong.
I can see how it could have that feeling though.
how would you suggest I change it?

The workers should have had SOME reason to unionize. The reason people organize like that is they feel they need power. What were they struggling against? The doppleganger-as-union-leader bit HELPS, but I'd put something else in.

 

[ethandrul]

You are right of course.


Let's assume then that while the workers seemed content in their lot,
The orcs were treated badly. They were poorly paid, no ability to be promoted, maybe even beaten by on occassion by the ruthless foremen.

But it couldn't have been all bad. Most foremen were benevolent. The pay was fairly good because the danger involved in the work. Many orcs died every year.

Dwarves didn't have it quite as bad. They could advance, even become
foremen themselves. Most of their work was more technical then physical.



should the engines be viewed as gods or as gifts from the gods?

 

[Bison]

Workers would have plenty of reason to organize. Particulary in a society that is regressing, living standards would be dropping for everyone, but lower class workers would be hit the hardest.

If wages are dropping, they will be unhappy. (and an unhappy Orc labor force would be quite a problem for any labor force to handle)

Might I suggest one way, in addition to trying to organize the labor against the upper classes. The Eladrins might also try to introduce the orcs (perhaps the dwarves too, but maybe they dont have a taste for it) to various new drugs to take the edge off thier difficult lives.

These drugs might have the effect of turning orcs into a more brutish and less intelligent state, to where they become less and less suitable to actually be capable of servicing the machines.

That way orcs become the version of themselves now that we all know and love, but in the past would have had more of a reason to have been a cooperative part of a well ordered socieity.

 

[ethandrul]

or a more dystopian take on the same idea- maybe the human community drugs the orcs to keep them docile, and the eladrin have given them a way to resist the effects.

 

[mattdm]

Let's assume then that while the workers seemed content in their lot,
The orcs were treated badly. They were poorly paid, no ability to be promoted, maybe even beaten by on occassion by the ruthless foremen.

But it couldn't have been all bad. Most foremen were benevolent. The pay was fairly good because the danger involved in the work. Many orcs died every year.

I think I'd kick up the badness a notch or two. Maybe make it so the default foremen are neutral — just doing their job and enforcing the natural order — and the benevolent ones as rare or rarer than the cruel ones. And without going the full-on slavery/indentured-servant route, you could still make it so that job mobility is hard, so that "if you don't like it, quit" isn't a real option.

I don't mean that you should tilt it the other way so that the orcs are automatically the glorious revolutionaries, but I think it adds interest if the player characters have a good reason to be sympathetic to both sides — perhaps even with some players leaning one way and the others the other way.

I like the introduced-drug-epidemic thing too. That can lead to all sorts of interesting scenarios — the basically good and heroic NPC with a drug problem, for example.

 

[ethandrul]

Keep in mind that the revolution was over 30 years ago.
The world today is a much different place.
Very few orcs remain in the cities- those who do are NOT working on the engines.

The Eladrin have managed to cause a world wide collapse of civilization.
travel between human communities is basically so dangerous that people don't even try any more. The world is in a dark age- but can still see the remnants of it's steam powered glory days.

I like the idea of drug addiction though.

I think warforged are a nice fit for this world. Perhaps one of the machine-gods created them recently to prevent a labor shortage.

a few adventure hook ideas I have:
outside the city- away from the light of the turbine, an excentric scholar built his laboratory. He collected all manner of implements of his work and spared no expense in purchasing the finest telescope available. when the world exploded he had mentioned that he was engaging in an experiment in casting spells through it at remote locations (though with little success so far). If the telescope still exists
it could be used to see if any other cities within it's range have power.
Of course crazy scholars have a tendancy to be over protective of their secluded towers.


The Fae have found a way to trick the magical defenses around the city of Pelor. while they can't exploit it to get an army in, they could possibly be able to get in enough sabotuers to jam the cogs of the
Machine-god.


A halfling crashes a hang glider into the city. he claims that Pelor is the only city that has failed to make contact with the rest of the empire.


The machine stops, causing it's protective bubble to go down until it can be restarted.


The Ambassadors from Orcus or Asmodeus say that their lords are willing to commit troops to reclaim the world from the fae- But it will take the full power of an entire Turbine to open a portal to bring them here.