D&D 5E New Campaign Idea

So starting a new campaign in a home brewed world and looking for feedback. I plan on doing sandbox to start but I do have an eventual story line planned for the players.


One of the players is planning to play a Dragonknight, which is a home brew class on DND Beyond. Basically it is similar to a paladin but instead of getting a lot of the paladin abilities he will be able to wildshape into a dragon at higher levels. This means I’ll have to Monty Haul for the other players a little so they can handle the scaling up required.


So a little backstory is that the world experienced a magical world in a time long forgotten. A war between man and a horde of dracoliches. We’re talking change the shape of continents level of magic. There were a couple of consequences from this. First, magic is now distrusted. All magic including divine. This means no wizards just spontaneous casters like sorcerers and warlocks. Anything that requires learning to do is out as there are no schools. Second after the war a man brought the world together to save it,Duncan the undying. What no one knows is that he is a Lich working for the dracoliches.


Fast forward to today. The Dragonknight is a phylactery for the head of the dracoliches, who were not destroyed just imprisoned during the war. I’ll lead them to a confrontation with Duncan so they can learn about lichee and then it will be tricking the group into releasing the dracolich the Dragonknight is bound to. Which is where the fun will really start as the then the group will have the moral dilemma of what to do with the Dragonknight as they can’t destroy the main Dracolich without killing him, but at the same time they’ll need his dragonshape ability to combat the Dracoliches.


This is where I’m at so far. Thanks for anyone that read through this rambling mass and would like any feedback anyone has. Plot holes, improvements, etc.

One immediate thought: You're banking quite a lot on 1 player and his 1 character.

While it's fun to incorporate elements specific to characters - going too long term has some issues:

1. The player could quite the campaign: move away, any number of things (maybe that's not an issue here, just being general);
2. The player could get bored with the character early and decide to switch;
3. The character could get killed off early on and then what?

You should plan for how the campaign proceeds without the specific character.

Those points are all true. That is why I want to start out in a sandbox format to see how the characters fit the players. I can still use Duncan the Undying as the BBG as well. My ideas was that the war was so long ago that know one knows the details for it so if I need to switch horses midstream I’m still in good shape

Using always undead as antagonist is boring. I suggest a stone-paper-scissors-(lizard-Spock) confrontation between sentient constructs, lord feys, undeads and abominations from the far realm. Constructs destroy undeads, undead eat feys, werebeats, undeads and abominations eat each other, feys and abominations defeat constructs...

ryanlb3844 said:

One of the players is planning to play a Dragonknight, which is a home brew class on DND Beyond. Basically it is similar to a paladin but instead of getting a lot of the paladin abilities he will be able to wildshape into a dragon at higher levels. This means I’ll have to Monty Haul for the other players a little so they can handle the scaling up required.


So a little backstory is that the world experienced a magical world in a time long forgotten. A war between man and a horde of dracoliches. We’re talking change the shape of continents level of magic. There were a couple of consequences from this. First, magic is now distrusted. All magic including divine. This means no wizards just spontaneous casters like sorcerers and warlocks. Anything that requires learning to do is out as there are no schools. Second after the war a man brought the world together to save it,Duncan the undying. What no one knows is that he is a Lich working for the dracoliches.


Fast forward to today. The Dragonknight is a phylactery for the head of the dracoliches, who were not destroyed just imprisoned during the war. I’ll lead them to a confrontation with Duncan so they can learn about lichee and then it will be tricking the group into releasing the dracolich the Dragonknight is bound to. Which is where the fun will really start as the then the group will have the moral dilemma of what to do with the Dragonknight as they can’t destroy the main Dracolich without killing him, but at the same time they’ll need his dragonshape ability to combat the Dracoliches.

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A phylactery is a tiny container used for storing prayers. So you might want to call the Dragonknight a soul-brother or Dragonheart or something like that.

Also, how are all of the liches imprisoned if magic is "distrusted?" Seems pretty trustworthy to me if it's keeping dracoliches from destroying the world. Heck, I'd bet my life on it.

On a larger scale, what would society look like if it was born from the ashes of a war with dracoliches!? That makes most other monsters look pathetic, or extinct, by comparison. And religion is going to be pretty kooky (shh...I know) if divine magic is mistrusted, yet giant, boney dragons are said to be a real thing. No, not like dinosaurs, although they don't figure significantly in real religion anyway. Plus, there might be one recurring figure that saves (Duncan) the helpless hordes in several of the stories...

You can explain a lot of that away if the dracolich war is pre-history, but then why is magic still distrusted? And why has Duncan been a good guy since the beginning of history, instead of helping out his imprisoned buddies?

The dracoliches are prehistory so no one is aware that they are out there.

Yes a phylactery is a box with scriptures but there are lots of literary references of it being other objects such as gems or other items. Making a living person the phylactery might be a bit of a stretch but I should be allowed to a few creative licenses in a home brewed setting.

As far as Duncan he is a big part of the reason magic is mistrusted. My reasoning is he has led a campaign maligning magic since he came into power. He did this to minimize the level of magic in the world to oppose the dracoliches when they returned.

As far as why he hasn’t released him I’m still working on the details of that but it would to be that the means to release them would be something that he couldn’t accomplish. It would have to be something that the player characters would have to accomplish. Perhaps a human imbued with the soul of the dracolich is what is required to break the imprisonment and that’s why it’s taken so long. Still working out some details at this point.

Thank you though for the criticism. It does help to see potential issues before they arise.

ryanlb3844 said:

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]So starting a new campaign in a home brewed world and looking for feedback. I plan on doing sandbox to start but I do have an eventual story line planned for the players. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]One of the players is planning to play a Dragonknight, which is a home brew class on DND Beyond. Basically it is similar to a paladin but instead of getting a lot of the paladin abilities he will be able to wildshape into a dragon at higher levels. This means I’ll have to Monty Haul for the other players a little so they can handle the scaling up required. [/FONT][/FONT]

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Have specific artifacts (possibly with scaling powers) that the players have to find to help neutralize the threat? It's a bit cliche and even a bit cheesy, but I have yet to meet a group of players that didn't love the concept. Particularly because it leads to easy adventure hooks.

ryanlb3844 said:

So a little backstory is that the world experienced a magical world in a time long forgotten. A war between man and a horde of dracoliches. We’re talking change the shape of continents level of magic. There were a couple of consequences from this. First, magic is now distrusted. All magic including divine. This means no wizards just spontaneous casters like sorcerers and warlocks. Anything that requires learning to do is out as there are no schools.

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How about Bards? With no formal schools and writing in general distrusted - seems like a great opportunity for a tradition of oral historians - that have conveniently thrown some magic into the mix. Maybe even have bardic magic hold a key ritual to the eventual re-imprisonment/defeat of the main threat? Again seems ripe for adventure hooks.

Just some thoughts.

ryanlb3844 said:

Anything that requires learning to do is out as there are no schools.

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Consider - the archetype of "magical school" is kind of a Harry Potter thing. Traditionally, wizards have worked like tradesmen - with a Master-apprentice relationship. There is no need for a school.

This does not mean you can't ban wizards - just that "there is no school" does not stand up to scrutiny as a justification.

ryanlb3844 said:

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]So starting a new campaign in a home brewed world and looking for feedback. I plan on doing sandbox to start but I do have an eventual story line planned for the players. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]One of the players is planning to play a Dragonknight, which is a home brew class on DND Beyond. Basically it is similar to a paladin but instead of getting a lot of the paladin abilities he will be able to wildshape into a dragon at higher levels. This means I’ll have to Monty Haul for the other players a little so they can handle the scaling up required. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]So a little backstory is that the world experienced a magical world in a time long forgotten. A war between man and a horde of dracoliches. We’re talking change the shape of continents level of magic. There were a couple of consequences from this. First, magic is now distrusted. All magic including divine. This means no wizards just spontaneous casters like sorcerers and warlocks. Anything that requires learning to do is out as there are no schools. Second after the war a man brought the world together to save it,Duncan the undying. What no one knows is that he is a Lich working for the dracoliches. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Fast forward to today. The Dragonknight is a phylactery for the head of the dracoliches, who were not destroyed just imprisoned during the war. I’ll lead them to a confrontation with Duncan so they can learn about lichee and then it will be tricking the group into releasing the dracolich the Dragonknight is bound to. Which is where the fun will really start as the then the group will have the moral dilemma of what to do with the Dragonknight as they can’t destroy the main Dracolich without killing him, but at the same time they’ll need his dragonshape ability to combat the Dracoliches. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]This is where I’m at so far. Thanks for anyone that read through this rambling mass and would like any feedback anyone has. Plot holes, improvements, etc.[/FONT][/FONT]

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1) your post has some formatting in it that renders it nigh-invisible to some. Here’s what probably happened and how to fix it:
https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?348563-Dark-Text-on-a-Dark-Background-Tutorial

2) “scaling up“...great unintentional pun!

ryanlb3844 said:

The Dragonknight is a phylactery for the head of the dracoliches, who were not destroyed just imprisoned during the war. I’ll lead them to a confrontation with Duncan so they can learn about lichee and then it will be tricking the group into releasing the dracolich the Dragonknight is bound to. Which is where the fun will really start as the then the group will have the moral dilemma of what to do with the Dragonknight as they can’t destroy the main Dracolich without killing him, but at the same time they’ll need his dragonshape ability to combat the Dracoliches.

Click to expand...

And:

ryanlb3844 said:

Yes a phylactery is a box with scriptures but there are lots of literary references of it being other objects such as gems or other items. Making a living person the phylactery might be a bit of a stretch but I should be allowed to a few creative licenses in a home brewed setting.

Click to expand...

Actually, this is similar enough to the nature of the Ellcrys in the Shannara novels that I bet it would make for some interesting situations and role-playing.