Creating a great campaign world/Starting the game off right

[Grimmjow]

In order to give our DM a break from DMing and letting him play a player character i have offered to DM a campaign for him. The game will take place in an alternate reality to the game we are playing now (which will allow me to use characters as i need them without having to worry about contradicting anything my other DM has done). Back when we were playing 4e i DMed a game where the world was being over run by undead. When the players died the only hope for the world (now the country) was snuffed out and the undead took it over (the country not the world) So there are some things that i will be changing in my game world that differer from his. My goal in doing this is to make my game fun and unique. I want things in this world to feel similar, but at the same time to feel drastically different.

Here are some of the things i have in mind:
[sblock=differences] [sblock=Orcus/Raven Queen]
1) Orcus and The Raven Queen:
-In my 4e Campaign the battle between the cults of Orcus and the followers of the Raven Queen were highlights of a lot of adventures
-In our current game Orcus killed the Raven Queen and took her power, making him extremely powerful (and Vecna got some of the power as well)
-In my game I'm going to do something a little more strange... Due to unexplainable surcumstances that happened in a battle between Orcus and The Raven Queen themselves they were fused together into one entity (along with a player who became a god) Now the three of them are known as "The Horned Queen" and rule over both death and undeath. (Yes they are evil)[/sblock][sblock=SSoAatG]
2)The Shattered Sword of Alex the Great:
-In the 4e campaign Alex the Great was a shade bladesigner who was trying to reach godhood.
-In the current campaign Alex the Great the a lowly god with only a few worshipers
NOTE:in both of the above cases the shattered sword of Alex the great does not exist
-In my game the SSoAtG was the weapon he held when he reached godhood and the weapon that was destroyed when he became part of The Horned Queen. If the fragments of this sword (which the Horned Queen cannot touch as it drains her, so she has legions of powerful undead protecting it) were collected and put back together, it could be used to kill The Horned Queen[/sblock][sblock=Shadar-Kai]
3)The Shadar-Kai:
-In 4e there wasn't too much special about the Shadar-kai. They worshiped the Raven Queen
-In the current campaign the Shadar-Kai serve Vecna or Orcus, Depending on the Shadar-Kai you meet
-In my game the Shadar-Kai are lost. They always served the Raven Queen and battled Orcus. Now they are one and the same. Some now serve The Horned Queen, some have gone into hiding in the shadowfel, and some seek to destroy the Horned Queen by finding the SSoAtG and killing her with it[/sblock][/sblock]

Here are some things i want to be special in the campaign:
[sblock=highlights]
[sblock=undeath rules]Undead rule over the land. I have many plans how how to show this but other idea's are always nice. [sblock=Ideas]1)camps of human cattle
2)powerful undead
3)weak undead wandering the land in packs
4)i plan to have a safe place for the living which will turn out to be ruled by another undead creature
5)The Horned Queen's cults rule[/sblock] any other idea's would be helpful[/sblock]

Shows like the walking dead have given me idea's on how a undead game should (or could) be a game which revolves around stealth and interaction with the other living people, just as much as it could be with battling undead to survive. any idea's on some fun adventures for this?
NOTE:I'm going to let my players do pretty much what they want, so making adventures for them may not be the smartest thing to do, but i want to have some idea's of what to do ready for them. Also i think it may be wise for them each to have one character ready (extra character) incase one character gets mob by ghouls...thoughts? [/sblock]

thoughts?

Edit:

[sblock=a hopeless world] In order to make this a truly depressing world, there will be no other gods other than the Horned Queen. Now before this gets taken to far i must say that there will be other gods, simply silent gods. With the rise of the Horned Queen her cults destroyed all the others gods temples and priests, so now there is almost no signs that the other gods still exist. Of course a player can still play a cleric or a paladin, as the gods could directly tell someone of there existence, but they player will be alone in his faith.[/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

My first thought is that with your theme of undeath Revenge of the Iron Lich had a cool schtick where dead PCs got "soul powers" or something to that effect with which they could subtly influence the rest of the adventure. I think you could even take a
page out of Ghostwalk (I think that was the name of the 3.5e supplement?) where the PCs could keep playing on as ghostly versions of themselves. That kind of makes sense with the "walking dead" theme you've got going and could introduce some moral dilemmas. Like do I keep playing as an undead PC even if it means I have to kill/feed on humans to do so?

There's also a new swords & sorcery RPG I'm forgetting the name of in which "there can be only one hero." basically, over the course of an adventure all but one PC will die. But those players whose PCs die get to take control of one of the bad guys for the rest of the adventure. Something like that could work for more gamist/competitive play.

Personally, I'd want more continuity with the old campaign rather than a totally separate dimension, but that's for you and your group to decide.

 

[gamerprinter]

I think you could even take a
page out of Ghostwalk (I think that was the name of the 3.5e supplement?) where the PCs could keep playing on as ghostly versions of themselves.

There's an oddball 'race'/status class from Rite Publishing called Restless Souls which are dead characters given a temporary reprieve from death in order to complete unfinished business on the prime material, as a template. It's only $.99 on DriveThruRPG Black Friday sale.

You should consider using Haunts extensively, and there are several Rite Publishing haunt books all chock full of cool ideas, with best two are: #30 Haunts for Objects, and #30 Haunts for Kaidan - while the second one is intended for Kaidan (Japanese horror) setting, it offers related haunts, ghosts and other undead in nine creepy storylines - showing you how to make related haunts as complex encounters. Both of these supplements are on Black Friday sale at DriveThru for only $.99.

There is no doubt some great inspiration in the Kaidan setting, but that's probably too niche for your needs (being a Japanese setting.)

 

[Grimmjow]

thanks I'm looking at those links right now.


Anyway i just realized that i titled this thread with "Starting the game off right"....totally forgot about that when i posted though.
Anyway ill do it now.
My plans where to have them be part of the supply the undead keep as cattle/slaves. Sitting in their cages one night, one-by-one, the doors to their cages are opened. They hear a tiny voice tell them to run. After the escape, and witness the living who try to rise up against the undead get killed by a colossal skeleton, they meet the one who rescued them, a brownie. I plan to have them face some obsticals when they run, and gain some armor but the colossal skeleton will kill them if they try to rebel against the undead with the rest of the prison camp.

Idea's on this? a few skeleton or zombies guarding the armory and such but there needs to be a real challenge for the survivors to overcome in order to escape the camp before it is destroyed.

 

[Renion]

This is a video worth watching: http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/03/27/counter-monkey-dungeon-mastering-a-great-game/

 

[Herobizkit]

There is an interesting gaming supplement from the Rifts series of books entitled Wormwood that might be up your alley.

In said world, the planet itself is a living, sentient being and people live on its "skin" which is plagued by hordes of undead. Good is Losing in that campaign world; you might find some inspiration for ideas/concept you didn't even think you'd think about.

 

[Grimmjow]

There is an interesting gaming supplement from the Rifts series of books entitled Wormwood that might be up your alley.

In said world, the planet itself is a living, sentient being and people live on its "skin" which is plagued by hordes of undead. Good is Losing in that campaign world; you might find some inspiration for ideas/concept you didn't even think you'd think about.

ya i have that book but i never thought of it (i liked rifts until we starting playing it, then i decided "no") but ill page through it. I do remember liking the apok, ill have to use them for something

 

[nijineko]

may i suggest reading the book sabriel.

you may also find the second and third books in the trilogy useful: lirael, and abhorsen.

all by garth nix.


i would also suggest that a lot of the undead prey on each other, living beings are for the rich / powerful undead. such a valuable resource would likely be tightly controlled. i would also suggest having a plausible reason and backstory for how the fey (ie: brownie) to be not only successfully avoiding, surviving, and evading the undead, but to have survived this long in a world likely deforested and dead. (secret underground fortresses somehow not infiltrated by undead? having retreated into pocket dimensions? retreated into space in vast lagrangian point colonies of living wood - spelljammer style?)

 

[Grimmjow]

i would also suggest that a lot of the undead prey on each other, living beings are for the rich / powerful undead. such a valuable resource would likely be tightly controlled. i would also suggest having a plausible reason and backstory for how the fey (ie: brownie) to be not only successfully avoiding, surviving, and evading the undead, but to have survived this long in a world likely deforested and dead. (secret underground fortresses somehow not infiltrated by undead? having retreated into pocket dimensions? retreated into space in vast lagrangian point colonies of living wood - spelljammer style?)

i like this idea. The weak undead shouldn't be dinning on the same quality of people that they higher level undead do. I also thought it would be fun to have dinosaurs (we are playing pathfinder so we are using their bestiary) gobble up a group of zombies at one point

As for the brownies the fact that they are so small keeps them safe. Not even the living folk knew they existed

 

[jbear]

Some questions for you to consider:

So the only god left in the world is the The Horned Queen. She is a goddess of both Death and Undeath. What are the implications for this when someone dies?

As sole ruler what are her motivations? What's the plan? If the living are kept as food what will happen when the food source runs out? Do they perhaps manage their resources in ways other than keeping the living penned up and eating them? The undead that rule, what are they like? I am imagining them much smarter than the zombies from the Walking Dead. The real threat in the Walking Dead are the living, not the undead. I'm thinking undead like the Chronicles of Riddick? As in becoming undead is more of an attractive/ambitious option rather than a gross infection/become a rotting zombie option.

Why are there different types of undead? Why does someone become a zombie and another person a ghost? Or a vampire? How does the power structure amongst the undead work? DO they have inner conflicts going on as they vie for power? If so, who, why and for what?

If someone dies in this world what do their bodies become? Why? Where do their souls go? Is there an undercurrent of rebellion? From who?

If you are going to open things up for your players then you will need a good understanding of how your world works and why, so that when they explore it there is a consistency, which will make the exploration more enjoyable. It will also help you plan how events develop as you imagine how forces react to your players interaction with the world and how they in turn move behind the scenes indirectly influencing the events that will then directly touch the PCs.