Bringing Civilization to the Savages [long]

Once again, my player has come up with innovative ways to improve the campaign at large... ways that I'm simply not prepared to handle.

We are playing a solo Gestalt 'heroic "evil" humanoid' campaign; the main PC is playing a CG Drow Sorcerer/FavSoul, and is teamed with a LE Duergar Monk/PsyWar, a CN Gnoll Barbarian/Rogue and a CN Goblin Druid/Warlock.

The setting is from the Complete Campaigns box set Ruins of the Dragon Lord by Mongoose Publishing. It is a wasteland inhabited by illiterate, testy barbarians, goblins, and orcs with a bastion of "normal" civilaztion just on the outskirts. Dragons are an uncommon wilderness encounter, and tales of the Dragon Lord draw adventurers to Mount Moru, the focus of the campaign.

My player, otoh, has decided that cultural and territorial development is now his character's chief concern.

The village of Meadowvale is your standard medieval-style starter village; the highest level NPC in the town (I believe) is a 9th-level Cleric who is head of the church of a campaign-specific deity, and the next highest are on the town council (Com9 and Exp6). My player (and co.) has just hit level 7 and is by far and away the most powerful force in the village. As such, he has decided that he is going to improve upon the village and, by doing so, earn a place of power on the council.

His concept on how to do this is very involved and very specific. Some examples:
* creating and using a pair of skill-boosting lyres of building to turn every building in town into a 2-story stone structure, produce stone walls around the village, create mines for mining, and creating arable farmland;
* creating a host of Tree feather tokens over a campaign year (with help) to generate a near-instant forest when complete;
* organizing a "trade school" to teach the villagers trades, magic, and to educate the barbarian tribes on literature and the arts.

To finance these endeavours, he plans on continuing the campaign by entering Mount Moru, gutting it level by level, and bringing the wealth he finds back to the village.

Now, to be fair, there IS a complete setting included in the box set, but I haven't read it at large and I know that I should. I should also note that, in addition to the aforementioned humanoids, there is a Dwarven stronghold present near the Mount (whose inhabitants intend to reclaim the Mount once it is safe to do so) and, by my own invention, an encroaching Gnoll army some distance away. Meadowvale is literally caught between a rock and a hard place.

My player is very eager to have his plans come to fruition, and I know that he is dreading anything I might do to prevent, slow, or make life inconvenient for his PC. Also, I have introduced a rival adventuring group that has already taken a level of the Mount away from him (in my defence, the level was a 'filler' level in-between plot arcs, the PC had already attained the necessary levels to advance, and the treasure was minimal with the most powerful item being a +1 battleaxe).

Now, in summary, what was once a standard D&D campaign has become more like a live version of SimCity. I am at a complete loss as to the means of tracking time progression and determining daily/monthly events (I do have the 1ed Oriental Adventures - it's close, but not quite what I want). I have access to lots of outside source material (including the highly praised A Magical Medieval Society), some of which does not mesh well. I really don't want to handwave each project; the RP potential of such endeavours would be completely wasted if I did, and that's not fun for either of us.

And so, I put it to you worthy EnWorlders. I realize that I have to do a lot of homework to make this campaign more alive, and I want some insight as to the means to manage everything my players wants to do. I'd even take advice from Diaglo if he's reading... this kind of advice is edition-less, after all.

I think this could work out - if the other players play along. What do the say about his plans for Sim-D&D? Will it be fun for them to?

Asmo

I'm running a solo campaign - one player, and myself as DM. The player is all fired up for this to happen. I was running a similar vein in another campaign I was DMing (a sort of PC-discovers-the-New-World campaign) but it died - my player went to serve overseas - so I really don't want to this to be more of the same-old.

Let the player do it. Something built is something to defend, after all, and that means future plot hooks.

Let's see, he's radically altering the ecosystem by building a forest, so eventually a druid will notice. Will the druid permit this project to go forward? Will he tell him to move it to a different area? Will he actually aid him, as it replaces trees cut down by the villagers? Will villagers come out at night and cut these trees down for their own purposes (a.k.a. "poaching"). What kind of creatures will a new forest attract?

Social encounters to pull this off:
* Is there any large government responsible for this burg? They may want to issue permits for things like a new school, and thus want to influence/control it.
* Who's in charge of town defense? They'll be very interested in this new town wall concept.
* That Com 9 and Exp 6 may support the first project, but after that, the PC is no longer a benefactor, but a political threat. It will become clear that he wants a seat on the town council, and that means one of them will not be re-elected if he succeeds. They'll start to fight back. They'll argue against his proposals. They'll demand veto power over some of them. (And they'll exercise that power at least once to show who's still boss.) They may even start a rumor smear campaign against the PC or his allies, in fact, given the party makeup, that's a certainty. ("I hear he's setting himself up to rule this town. Do you want that? Do you want a king? A drow king?") They'll be villains: the type of villains you can't kill 'cause they're not evil and protected by the law.
*Wandering monsters will attack workers and require either the PCs or hiring groups of armed guards.
*He's going to have to work very hard to get any interest from the barbarian tribes at all in the city folk way of life.
*New farmland plus new mines equals need for people. A lot more people. Where will they come from? How will they get there?
* Cost overruns produce adventure when you or the player need a break.

This is a great opportunity: you've got adventure hooks, role playing hooks, and a way to advance the campaign time-line (work progresses for a few months until...). The latter part is great, 'cause now you can avoid the "20th level 20 year-old" issue.

Ask your player if he's interested in obstacles that will keep him from building up the town. If he is, then great; you know what to focus on.

If he's not, then don't worry about placing obstacles in town. There is still an obstacle in his way - a challenge he needs to overcome - and that is the dungeon where he gets all his loot. The more of a link you put between dungeon delving and his desires, the cooler it will be.

Stuff like:

• Legends of a Tome of Education, which helps train people in certain skills.
• The denizens of the dungeon are very barbaric and uncivilized.
• A dragon's hoard that contains books on architecture, building, etc.
• An old quarry, full of good stone, occupied by cannibals.
• A staff of building, loaded with spells like Wall of Stone and high-level Stone Shape.

Stuff like that will link the dungeon to his goals.

Have the goblins and Orc be more interested in education than the barbarians. This can lead to racial conflict and if he gets that settled have a creepy wandering prophet come around fortelling that giving agriculture to the goblins will lead to an unstoppable goblin horde in a few generations.

The Dwarves could be excellent allies with their mines and stoneworking skill. They'll probably be keenly interested in getting their stubby hands on that lyre of building however.

You might search around on the web for Ars Magica resources. It's centered around a seasonal time scale and community building is a factor in it. You might find some useful materials.

I really like the last idea... the goblins and especially the Orcs (acc'd to the module) are in fact more open to Diplomacy than the local human barbarians. Given that the PCs are also humanoids, it seems a likely match. The more I read into the module, the more I see how choosing these particular races to play actually benefits the PCs.

I would not think that the Token works that way. All the other tokens have a time limit. Sounds like something was just left out. Anyway, even if not there's a reason no trees are there now. He plants the forest, then watches it wither and die because the soil isn't correct or there's not enough rainfall.

I don't think 'arable farmland' comes under the idea of 'buildings' that a lyre can create. I'm sure they would be most appreciative of a wall and a moat, though. A well might be great.

You've already described some useful (to you) foils: the town council, the other adventurers, the dwarves. Those other adventurers, suppose they're High-And Mighty Paladin and his crew? How are they going to treat the PC's party, at least initially?

WayneLigon said:

I would not think that the Token works that way. All the other tokens have a time limit. Sounds like something was just left out. Anyway, even if not there's a reason no trees are there now. He plants the forest, then watches it wither and die because the soil isn't correct or there's not enough rainfall.

I don't think 'arable farmland' comes under the idea of 'buildings' that a lyre can create. I'm sure they would be most appreciative of a wall and a moat, though. A well might be great.

Click to expand...

A decanter of endless water is definitely on the list of things to get. Combined with transmute rock to mud, there shouldn't be too many issues with soil. Casting Move Earth will help with shaping the land in preparation for a lake. If needed, I imagine you could get down to the bedrock with it.


As I stated in the earlier thread, summoning some djinni (planar ally) and asking them to use major creation for compost seems like a good idea. They're Chaotic Good, just like the drow character, so should be philosophically inclined to help. A somewhat less sanitary method for getting nutrients is casting stone to flesh on some rocks and letting them rot.

If planar binding is used instead, it's probably a good idea for the actual request to be "I'll give you 100 gp to listen to my proposal, and decide whether or not to take me up on it", since djinni can planeshift at will, and it seems less likely to be found offensive.


If anyone can cast regenerate, cutting a limb off a tree, planting it, then casting regenerate should result in another full tree. A bit of a waste of a 7th level spell, but possible nonetheless. Perhaps the secret of a lesser regenerate which only works on plants is buried under the dunes in an ancient druid fortress, the owners of which were defeated long ago when they tried to prevent the desertification.

You might want to take a look at the Stronghold Builder's Guide, although it's a 3.0 book and the balance isn't particularly good (mostly the parts for making magical strongholds). Still, it's versatile enough to make anything ranging from a small village to an anime-style giant mecha.