Help me Brainstorm: Fantasy Roanoke for Daggerheart

[Reynard]

We are starting an in person Daggerheart campaign tonight and I could use some help in brainstorming the foundational stuff of the first "adventure".

We established the overall setting in our session 0: speaking in very broad trope terms, the Old World is a fantasy, elf-dominated western roman empire that never "fell" and now it is the age of sail/exploration, populated primarily by the "Tolkienesque" ancestries of Daggerheart; the New World is dominated by the various "anthro" ancestries of Daggerheart, in nations and confederations of societies that range broadly in technological levels. "Colonization" is friendlier in this version than our history, with deals being honored more than overwhelming force being brought to bear. Importantly, there is no disease inequity so the New World is not an empty wilderness for the Old World to plunder. Colonists are largely people being pushed out of the empire and colonies are a combination of religious settlements, separatist camps and folks trying to make a profit. We are not going to overly focus on colonialism so much as the travails of being colonists, if that makes sense.

Among the epople the elven empire is pushing out are those that are empowered aka have PC classes in Daggerheart. That is why the PCs are together: they are the second wave of colonists at a previously established site.

But, this site turns out to be the Roanoke. That is, when the PCs land ashore, they find that the colony is empty, with no signs of struggle nor even sign of packing up and leaving.

There are local people nearby to talk to and a trail to follow, as well as the village itself to explore.

I am looking for ideas on how to make this interesting and serve as a stepping stone for the broader campaign.

Where did everyone go? Why?
What is in the village that is a little scary and wonderful and dangerous? And how does that drive things forward?
Who are the locals? Will they help?

That sort of thing. Again, I am just looking to brainstorm, so no ideas are bad ideas. Well, some ideas can still be bad ideas, but let's be optimistic!

ETA: One fun element that came up during character generation that is relevant is that there is a brusque black market trade in something called Faerie Amber which is some sort of magical drug. It exists because one of the PCs is a faerie rogue (syndicate) and we needed something that made sense for them.

 

[zakael19]

Thoughts:

- false hydra
-the colonists unearthed something from the bay or the ground (water dragon? Some other beast’s egg? Dreams making everybody feel off and fled?)

• the harvests failed
• there was a skirmish and they fled to other nearby colonies (maybe another old world empire has landed a force and started taking over space?)
• magical illness
• something fungril got in stuff

 

[TwoSix]

Time loop. The colonists are gone the first session or two, and then suddenly reappear, thinking the time is still a month ago.

This area of the colony is an above-ground farming area of a xenophobic tribe of underground fungrill. The colonists are in the midst of being “processed”.

One of the colonists is a charismatic religious prophet, she has convinced the colony population to follow her deeper into the wilds to find the “Chosen Place”.

The colonists are right there. They can see you and are perplexed why you can’t see them and keep walking right through them. Maybe they’ll leave signs?

 

[jian]

I think it sounds great! Early (16th/17th century) North American* colonialism was generally a lot less imperial and a lot more “let’s get on with the new neighbours” and colonists were generally on good terms with indigenous folk (who also learned a lot about the colonists’ culture and visited their homelands, and were often extremely critical of what they saw there). Leave Atlantic slavery out of it and you’re probably fine.

*OK, not Mexico.

Presumably the locals have a good idea what happened to the previous colonists and why (probably because they were vulnerable, they hadn’t signed the ancient traditional treaties, did they have some tasty new magic, etc.). It depends whether you want a monster hunt or more of a mystery and exploration or negotiation - if the local fae are upset that the colonists hadn’t propitiated them with bison cheese every blood moon like they’re supposed to, how will the PCs find out, especially if the locals are also required by the treaty not to tell anyone?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, we pretty much 99.95% know what happened to the Roanoke colonists IRL, which is that they struggled without support, and the Crotoan people took them in. (Iirc even modern DNA testing supports this) Not at all a mystery, they even carved the place they were going onto a tree.

But, that doesnt have to be true in a fantasy version.

Perhaps what they find is the name of a Feywild kingdom which they dont even have that knowledge and have to ask the indigenous folk "hey what is this word?" To even find out that it is the name of a place in The Otherworld.

Or maybe it is just like history except that the PCs do not even know that elfs and harengon can interbreed so they dont realize that the local scout they talk to is a little more humanoid and isnt fully of local ancestry.

 

[Reynard]

I think it sounds great! Early (16th/17th century) North American* colonialism was generally a lot less imperial and a lot more “let’s get on with the new neighbours” and colonists were generally on good terms with indigenous folk (who also learned a lot about the colonists’ culture and visited their homelands, and were often extremely critical of what they saw there). Leave Atlantic slavery out of it and you’re probably fine.

*OK, not Mexico.

Presumably the locals have a good idea what happened to the previous colonists and why (probably because they were vulnerable, they hadn’t signed the ancient traditional treaties, did they have some tasty new magic, etc.). It depends whether you want a monster hunt or more of a mystery and exploration or negotiation - if the local fae are upset that the colonists hadn’t propitiated them with bison cheese every blood moon like they’re supposed to, how will the PCs find out, especially if the locals are also required by the treaty not to tell anyone?

I like the idea that the colonists upset a local god or similar power, and were then led away Pied Piper style to someplace to be "punished." Maybe the locals are hesitant to help because they don't want to get on the god's bad side either, but also feel bad for the poor colonists.

 

[Tonguez]

What if the colonist never left, they just got shifted to an ethereal niche and continue their lives unaware that they are interacting with shadows and phantasms. Perhaps it was a fey curse, or someone walked Widdershins around the village. Maybe Faerie Amber allows a user to see glimpses of the lost colonist as they deal with their life as phantasms

 

[Necropolitan]

A flying being or beings pulled the people out of their village and took them with them.

 

[Aldarc]

Time loop. The colonists are gone the first session or two, and then suddenly reappear, thinking the time is still a month ago.

This area of the colony is an above-ground farming area of a xenophobic tribe of underground fungrill. The colonists are in the midst of being “processed”.

One of the colonists is a charismatic religious prophet, she has convinced the colony population to follow her deeper into the wilds to find the “Chosen Place”.

The colonists are right there. They can see you and are perplexed why you can’t see them and keep walking right through them. Maybe they’ll leave signs?

Doesn't have to be a time loop. It could even be something like a planeshift or planar convergence. The site where the colony was built is now in the legally-distinct Feywild. Maybe time has passed differently for them in this other plane. So about three generations have passed for them. They may even be part faerie or elf by now.

 

[Gradine]

There's someone (maybe from here!) whose answer to everything is "Aboleth plot" and while I don't think everything should be solved that way, it seems incredibly fitting here. I love that there can be an actual interesting answer to the question though, unlike with Roanoke where we've known the actual answer all along but people don't buy it because racism.

Additional fun fact; the real big difference between Old World and New World historically, moreso than disease, is the presence of domesticable animals in the Old World (which pushed forward agriculturalism and thus cities and cities with lots of animals and thus lots and lots of disease)