Campaign Brainstorm

[Sparky]

(Holler if this isn't the right thread)

Howdy All - I'm starting a new campaign (in less than a week). The last campaign was in a city (Ptolus) and the PCs were relatively unsavory folk.


The new campaign will feature more heroic PCs and lots of travel. In talking they all decided to be halflings and I threw in the wrinkle that their village was chiefly a halfling settlement focused around the taming and training of warwing drakes (Dragon #165, basically ridable flying lizards).


Brainstorming together we decided that there has been greater demand for these drakes in recent decades as a conflict between nations grew into a war. This is an unspecified politically motivated war as opposed to a war against an obvious evil like undead or hordes of inherently evil creatures.


The settlement is where all of the PCs came from. There are few (if any) non-halflings there. Almost all industry focuses around the drakes. Some folk in the village/town see the war effort as an opportunity to get wealthy. Some are proud of their skills as trainers and breeders and proud that they are called to service. Some folk are worried about the sustainability of the breeding operation and its impact on the breeding stock (don't get your drakes from a drake mill!). Some are against sending the drakes to die in war. Some are against taming and training them at all.


The PCs 'enlisted' as caretakers to the last batch of drakes the village/town sold to the army. They are returning to their village now (I need to determine why) and Something Is Amiss.



The PCs:
Clover Berrysprout (Female Barbarian)
Milo Goodbarrel (Male Wizard)
Race Treeborne (Male Fighter)
Sheldon Stouthill (Male Ranger)




Things I want to include:
1. A clutch of very special warwing drakes that will become the PCs own bonded mounts.
2. Heroics (this should be relatively easy)
3. Travel (also easy if there are drakes about)




Questions I need to answer:
1. What is this war? Who is it between? Over what? What's happening now?
2. Why are the PCs returning home?
3. What is special about the drakes they will bond? (the bonding should happen at the end of the first short arc)
4. What are these drakes? Warwing drakes are just a starting point - the floodgates are open for what these could be like (but no breath weapons).
5. When the characters get their drakes are they hatchlings? Fledglings? Big enough to train? Ride? What seems the most fun?

 

[Electric Wizard]

1. The war is between a major sea power and a major land power, divided by a strait. Right now, the seafaring nation is successfully blockading the land power with its fleet, but it is unable to land a force that can stand up to its opponent's army. The land power is enduring thanks to its vast farmlands, but it is unable to strike its enemy because it can't send transport ships through the blockade. The war stems from a succession crisis over a duchy. The sea kingdom believes a duchy held by the land kingdom should pass to them and the land kingdom is having none of it. The side with the most drakes could potentially break the stalemate.

 

[doghead]

Brainstorming does kind of imply some sort of brain, which may disqualify me

Things I want to include:
1. A clutch of very special warwing drakes that will become the PCs own bonded mounts.
2. Heroics (this should be relatively easy)
3. Travel (also easy if there are drakes about)

Hey. How's it going? Good to see you again. Saw this and thought I would jump in. Not sure how much use any of this will be. Its been a long day, and I'm a bit shagged.

1. Psionic Drakes. I'm not sure why that sprang to mind, but depending on the role of psionics in your setting, it may be an interesting twist.

2. Humm, will get back to this.

3. They have to go into the mountains. Great snow covered peaks, howling storms, crystal clear and freezing cold air.

Questions I need to answer:
1. What is this war? Who is it between? Over what? What's happening now?
2. Why are the PCs returning home?
3. What is special about the drakes they will bond? (the bonding should happen at the end of the first short arc)
4. What are these drakes? Warwing drakes are just a starting point - the floodgates are open for what these could be like (but no breath weapons).
5. When the characters get their drakes are they hatchlings? Fledglings? Big enough to train? Ride? What seems the most fun?

1. A war of succession. Wars of succession are chaotic and dynamic, with no front lines, shifting loyalties, divided houses. And usually particularly nasty. Having drakes would make communication between scattered forces easier, as well scouting and skirmishing. If you have on one side a child king, supported by on powerful family, while on the other, a powerful duke (uncle of the child king) seeking to wrest the young king from his rival. A young child could be mistaken for a halfling.

2. Good question. If the halfings breed the drakes, who flies them? I assume that drakes are too small for an adult rider. Are the PC's suppling the drakes for other halfling warriors or goblin mercenaries or some such like horse breeders? I suppose I would have instinctively gone with having the drakes and halflings as a unit. Perhaps the halflings were ambushed/betrayed and their delivery stolen.

Or perhaps the drakes themselves go crazy upon delivery, turning on their riders in a frenzy of violence. May riders are killed, some of the drakes kill themselves in their attempts to kill their riders. On drake in particular seems to lead the revolt (a psioninc drake). The drakes hate being used as warbeasts, but are unable to communicate this because they don't use speech (how do lizarsd communicate? scent?). The customer is enraged, the halflings forced to flee. Some time later the rebellious drake reappears. Eventually the drake and manages to overcome the halflings animosity/anger/confusion and communicate its feelings, and reveals the existence of the psioninc drakes. The halflings set off the find the psionic drakes (in the mountains?) gain their trust and form an alliance to free the other drakes and end the war and save the world! Yay!

5. If the drakes are delivered as eggs, then you could have them deliver just before hatching when they imprint with a rider. Unless they go crazy and try to kill everyone.

I think that somewhere along the line the PC's should rescue the child king.

thotd

 

[Sir Knight]

One thing you didn't specify was whether Something Is Amiss with their village (that is, they're arriving to find a problem) or whether they're heading home because Something (Already) Is Amiss that sent them home, like a problem with the shipment itself as doghead brainstormed. It could be both.

With the high level of detail you have on villager motivation, I could see multiple interactions. Suppose the shipment had a disaster: the players could be shunned by villager groups on a "told you so" basis, or actively driven out. Suppose no disaster: rising tensions in town could prompt a subgroup to take matters into their own hands, seeking to drive out the players as part of freeing the village from the war.

Particularly if there's a high halfling presence among the people receiving the shipment, there could be spies in the village. It could be torn apart by the various sides in the "unspecified politically motivated war." For greater fun, it could be concealed in the beginning that this village conflict comes directly from the larger conflict, because the sets of spies take care to play off of existing local tensions. Their goal would be to make the drake trade turn out as their leaders need, either by strangling the next shipment to their enemy or completely driving the village to ruin.