Advice/Ideas Needed! Help Me Improve My Campaign!

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

Hey guys this is a campaign I'm thinking of. What I need is your thoughts on this campaign and your advice and ideas. Keep in mind that I have been playing D&D 3.5 edition for a little more than a year so I'm not really experienced with some stuff. Also this is the first campaign I have thought so I know it sucks Dwarven balls so you won't have to remind me that.

So the story I have thought goes something like this.
A gold Dragon was one of the remaining, maybe even the last of his kind. He lived for long in a Realm (haven't figured out name yet) that wasn't yet populated by any humans(oids). As men slowly came to inhabit that place too the almighty, wise and kind dragon decided to be friendly with them. He would very often take the form of a middle aged man with white hair and beard and would share his ancient knowledge and power to help humans.

So after a few centuries the humans that came to that Realm had builded 7 kingdoms. The wise dragon came to an agreement with 7 humans he judged to be worthy: He would offer them his guidance and help as long as they would follow his judgement on how to rule with peace justice and kindness their kingdoms. He would also offer him some of his blood yearly, which (since he was one of the first creatures ever created) would extend their lives by long. What the dragon asked for return as I said was obedience to his fair judgement and also a yearly tribute of 30% of each kingdoms yearly incomes (if times where hard he would understand and ask for much less).

Centuries passed the kings ruled peacefully and fairly and all the humans on this Realm loved the dragon. But greedy and hungry for more power they where so one night after a feast with a lot of wine they murder the dragon (Julius Ceasar style) while he was in a human form. They had their wizards trap his soul in a "cage" that looked as a statue of an old man made from stone. They "locked" the cage with a round stone magical disk and broke it to (7 maybe) pieces and scattered them in the realm (some kings have kept a piece). The dragon's soul could only be freed if those pieces where put together again and placed under the statue.

The kings in order to remain immortal became vampires and ever since they have been ruling their kingdoms forming (and breaking) temporary alliances with each other but always being in war since each wants to rule the whole realm himself. They are tyrrants and no one the realm has the right to speak his mind freely or stand against them. Anyone who would do that would earn a lovely place in the guilotine. Since the kings are greedy bloodthirsty vampires they take a yearly tribute(as in all of it) of gold from each village/town/city and a tribute of a few humans. Of course they wouldn't tell the people that they are vampires that suck their blood out cause that would be terrifying.

Instead what they have told them is that the dragon is alive and well but now demands human flesh for tribute as well or else he will use his powers to kill them all!!! What a heartless monster! So the vampire kings have "farms" under their castles where they store and harness those humans and keep them alive with magic until the very last drop of their blood is sucked. Coincidentally the last centuries since the "dragon" went evil there have been increasing numbers of vampires and undeads walking the lands.

The story begins with in the central kingdom of Ravenclaw in a village(or town) called Eraldin not far from the capital city Erorn (where one of the 7 vampire kings reside). They players will all be related brothers and cousins all children of the "noble" families of the village. The villagers work as miners in the nearby gold mines and farmers and "ruled" by the 1st family of the village. Every year the "noble" famillies of the village or town pay the gold tribute to the king. But every 10 years (since there isn't much population here) they pay the flesh tribute. Players are ages 8-10 when they witness the flesh tribute. As it is usually done there are 3-4 families randomly selected to give one or two of their children (or young adults) The story starts the day before the tribute where the young players are playing on the fields each pretending to be the class they will actually be in the future.

Next day their father(s) gather them with tears in their eyes as their families have been selected to give a member. That is the older sister of the players. Guards escort them in the city and then in the castle where they wait outside in the storm and cold until they are called inside. This is the first time the players will see the tyrant heartless vampire king (not knowing he is a vampire of course) kill with his own hands their uncle who refused to give away a member of his family and their father giving his daughter crying.

Fast forward another 10 years(the day the tribute has to be paid) players now are ages 18-20 (level 1) and their father calls them and gives them a letter with a quest and an order. Give the letter to Jacob a man that lives in Village (haven't figured out the name of the village) and do not open the letter. As they travel to that village their father (without them knowing yet) is standing up for his village and fellow friend and refuses to pay and of course the king order the guards to slay him. As the players approach the village they see in a nearby river dead bodies of farmers and one or two goblins. Then they hear a man cursing and sound of slaughtering. They see the man fighting goblins inside the village and asking them to help. When they clear the village he tells them to go to a nearby goblin lair and finnish them off.

When they return he tells them he is Jacob. They give him the letter, he sign and looks sad and says something like "Well I see you father decided to rebel" and explain them that he is dead because he denied to pay. The letter will inform Jacob and advise him to gather the people and do the same. In the end he asks Jacob to give his sons something. Jacob leaves the pcs alone for a minute and returns with a sealed letter and a chest from the basement where the pcs find some items and gold to start and two broken stone pieces of something that looked to be a round disk. They read the letter telling them stuff like "I'm dead by now and you my sons s\must continue my quest" and in short that they should find the remaining pieces of this object because only then the people will be free of their torment.

Their quest to find those pieces will cost them family members and loved ones and will have them to kill some of the kings to obtain some pieces. One is in the caslte of Erorn and they will later have to persuade the common folk to rebel with them and storm the castle. If they succed the very next day the kingdom of Ravenclaw will be under the attack of a nearby kingdom. The people will ask from the players to lead the armies and defend the kingdom. If they succed (which they will) they can be crowned kings and lords of the kingdom. Somehow, haven't figured out how yet, they will find the location of the statue/cell and in the meantime gather all the pieces to free the dragon's soul. Also they will learn somehow that behind all the vampires and undead rising and the one who made the kings vampires is an ancient vampire called Kane.

Kane(cursed by the gods for his sins) will be the first of the vampire kind and wont have lame weaknesses like the burn from sunlight. They will actually meet Kane at some point (i have this picture of the pcs returning to see loved ones and finding Kane drinking their blood and a bunch of loved ones dead around him) and Kane will of course want to kill them since the pcs have killed his children and interfere with his master plan of turning the whole world into vampires. The dragon's soul after they free him will either know about Kane or the pcs will tell him and he will tell them (something that they may have found if they have attacked Kane) that Kane is way to powerful to be killed by mortals and that's why they will have to search for an ancient artifact called The Staff Of The Gods.

This artifact made by the Gods themselves is capable of killing every creature created by the gods and even the gods too maybe. The gods have hidden it somewhere when they realized how powerful it was. So the dragon will somehow (maybe give a piece of his soul to each pc?) will give them some badass powers and abilities(inluding some level ups) and pcs will have to find that powerful with crazy abilities staff that will kill Kane for good and after an epic battle (I have this crazy image of the players and Kane falling in the abyss or something like that and fighting while falling inside the center of the earth) they will kill Kane and if they survive they will rule the Realm as kings. Also I have this thought of continuing the story after they become kings and they will have to save the kingdom from a threat maybe some short of barbaric race/tribe invading the kingdom or something even crazier like demons or a whole new race of dragons!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this campaign and ideas of improving it by adding or removing stuff so I guess let me know what you guys think!

 

[TarionzCousin]

First, welcome to ENWorld.

Second, you'll need to edit your post into smaller paragraphs. The huge blocks of solid text are a real deterrent. You've got some good ideas, but they are buried.

Third, I would suggest asking a few specific questions, like "How would a cabal of tyrant kings keep the fact that they slew the dragon a secret?"

Finally, your user name is really evocative of a noble vampire. If that's what you were going for, you succeeded.

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

Thank you I tried to make the paragraphs smaller

As for the specific questions I don't really have many of them because the whole thing is a general idea and not very specific...

To answer the question you asked I was thinking that they would claim that the dragon lost his interest for the well being of humans and decided to blackmail them. As long as they would give him the human flesh tribute he would stay in his territory(whether it is a natural place like cave or house) and wouldn't come out and kill them all. If they didn't pay he would show up and destroy everything. Also I was thinking that even before they killed him he wouldn't show up very often he would just meet with the kings and he would perhaps be worshiped more like a deity of some short.

Well the question that bothers me is how to proceed? Obviously the pcs father knew something(not much though). Should he leave some clues behind telling them where to begin?

Should the pieces required to open the dragon's cell be scattered on the realm or should the kings have them in their possession?

Through what kind of quests they would travel around the realm to gather the pieces?

I'm looking for inspiration basically, what I'm asking is what would your thoughts be if that was your campaign, how would you proceed?

Obviously most NPCs will hate the times they live in. Should the player's start a rebellion at some point and conquer one of the castles?

And yeah my user name isn't just a coincidence. Perhaps there will be a vampire king named Lestat.

 

[Heathen72]

I had a quick look through your missive. I wanted to offer more, but life is short.

It seems that you want to make the dragon a sympathetic character, but 30% tax seems really high for just offering some occasional advice (what's wrong with a tithe?). This dragon sounds like a tyrant itself, and probably no better than the 'greedy' kings who followed him. They didn't turn out any better, obviously, but, you know, take that tyrant dragon!

So my concern, as a player, would be that I would be scared about bringing it back, frankly. Of course, this might be what you have in mind, and if so, I am sure you have a solution.


P.S. Describing a weakness as "gay" might be acceptable in your friendship group or when you are playing COD. It isn't here. Not that I am a mod or anything, but you might want to amend that. Contextual 'synonyms' that I suggest include: lame, pathetic, boring, cliched, dumb, etc. This assumes, of course, that you don't actually think photosensitivity is related to sexuality.

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

I forgot to mention that so here it is: If there was any trouble the kings had collecting money such us diseases, disaster etc etc the dragon would ask for much less. I could even make him ask for much less to start with and even less if times where hard. Maybe you could call him a tyrant but all he wanted was peace and justice. (but not paladin justice like "you stole an apple you broke the law so you must die") And tyrant vampires that take humans and keep them like cattle for feeding are worse than a dragon who asks for some money.

Haha and no I do not think photosensitivity is related to sexuality.(Already changed that)

 

[chaochou]

At the risk of sounding grouchy, what that reads like to me is a novel not a game.

Or to put it another way... Assume I'm a player in your game. What significant decisions do I get to make? It looks like it's all planned out for me.

I don't want to mention the 'R' word, but the thing I've learned about campaigns is that success is all about player buy-in. You, as a DM, can have what you think is the coolest, most epic setting and plot in the world and it's almost worthless if the players aren't down with it.

I like the core concept of a world ruled by greedy, petty ex-kings-turned-vampires who usurped a noble dragon. Why not start with that idea and see what characters your players want within that setting and trust them to inject some more coolness into it, instead of planning the whole thing out?

Maybe someone wants to play one of the long-lost heirs of a now vampire king. Another wants to play one of the vampire goon squad who's having second thoughts about slaughtering villlagers... what about dragonborn? Might be persecuted? Might be a relative of the good guy? What about a religious insurrection who've discovered the vampire secret?

Lots of potential there, but IMO you want to rein in the 'plot' and just pitch the setting at the players and see what ideas they have and where they want to see things go - I think if you impose the above ideas on the players they'll likely be 'meh' but if you let them come up with their own ideas you're on a winner. Give them some room to breathe.

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

I was thinking since the players will be related (otherwise my playerss will kill each other for money trust me!) maybe they would come from the dragon's bloodline. As for them being a vampire at least from the beginning I don't really want it but after a few games if one turns to a vampire I can't forbid it either. So would you suggest taking out the part where their fathers gives a family member and years later gets killed by the vampires because he refused to give what they asked? Because that kinda forces the players to hate the vampires, they did lose their loved father because he didn't want more people to die...

Also as I said I don't have a DMing experience so I'm not sure of how to make things more free to choose.

 

[Stormonu]

(but not paladin justice like "you stole an apple you broke the law so you must die")

The word you're looking for is "Draconian Law". Paladins would rarely act in such a vengeful manner.


Some ideas for you; Another being/force instigated the uprising against the dragon. It goaded the leaders into believing the dragon was being meddlesome and that their heirs would be puppets of the dragon. Conspiring with this being they slew the dragon, and locked the dragon's soul into a statue, which was sealed by a magical amulet. Each of the kings was given a part of the amulet, though some have lost their peice over time.

After the dragon was slain, the evil entity tricked the kings into feasting on the dragon's blood and fleshed, thinking it would grant them draconic powers and agelessness. It did make them mighty, but also transformed them into vampire-like creatures. To retain their power, they must continue to feed on flesh and blood.

Unlike regular vampires, though they disdain sunlight (it dazzles them like the glint off the gold dragon's scales), it doesn't harm them. However, "holy" symbols fashioned from the gold dragon's scales can keep them at bay. Unfortunately, only a handful of rebels have access to such scales, and the vampire kings are keen to slay any individual who would openly brandish such a tool of the "dragon tyrant". Propaganda is such that most individuals would believe a wielder of the golden scales is in league with the evil dragon that demands sacrifice of treasure and the populace, and willingly turn such a traitor over to the king's men.

Perhaps a good number of the kings men themselves are on the path of wickedness. Those in the know of the true tyranny of the kings could have ghoulish appetites (being ghouls with class levels), wights or other corporeal undead in service to the vampire kings. Perhaps the most feared are the Black Riders - dressed in black scale mail with their faces hidden behing cloth-wrapped helms. These blackguards ride from town to town, serving out the draconic justice of the dragon kings, and are on an (un)holy crusade to root out rebels and traitors. They use their black magics openly to reveal, capture and publicly execute foes of the crown. The fact their "detection" is use of detect good goes unnoticed by the populace, and their combat magic is seen as justified punishment instead of the torture it is meant to be.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Also as I said I don't have a DMing experience so I'm not sure of how to make things more free to choose.

Sometimes, you have to give the players the illusion of choice. But, other times, you just give them the choice.

There are the seven pieces of the gold dragon's soul (sounds almost like a Horcrux). Let the players find out where they are and which ones to go after first. What happens if they get six, but one is destroyed? What happens if the bad guys find out the PCs are accumulating two, three, four or more of these soul pieces? Will they attempt to destroy the remaining pieces? Send hired assassins, summoned demons, evil dragons (ha!), etc after the players?

One thing I did in my old 3.5 campaign, I gave the players a piece of the prophecy. They then wanted to find out more about the prophecy and see if somebody could interpret the lines of it they had heard. So, I told the players that the four leading sages/experts on prophecy were located at A, B, C and D. So I did not have to do too much planning, each sage would tell them pretty much the same thing, but I had a different adventure planned on the journey to each (one was located in a desert city, another in a city bordering a jungle, another across the ocean and the closest was in the heart of a tyrannical city that hated anybody that was not human, of which there were several non human PCs). So, the players had the option of choosing four different adventures, but would end up getting basically the same information in the end, which would lead them to location E. Of course, I didn't tell them that each sage would tell them basically the same thing, either. And, each sage would have a different personality and each adventure to get to see a sage was completely different.


I like your concept overall, though. The immortal vampires ruling over the humans.

However, if Kane turns the whole world into vampires - how do they survive? Whose blood will they drink? Maybe Kane does something to allow all vampires to walk around in daylight and make them powerful enough to rule the world in the open? Or, maybe Kane is trying to get the seven soul pieces for himself so he can make himself into a vampiric demi-god so he can rule the world with an iron fist?

 

[chaochou]

So would you suggest taking out the part where their fathers gives a family member and years later gets killed by the vampires because he refused to give what they asked? Because that kinda forces the players to hate the vampires, they did lose their loved father because he didn't want more people to die...

What I was suggesting is forgetting most of your background for a second and just taking the basic premise of the game and pitching it to the players.

"Guys, so I got this idea for a world which used to be ruled by seven kings under the benevolent guidance of an ancient dragon. But then, a few years ago, the dragon disappeared and now the kings have gone crazy and brutal, and don't seem to age and take blood sacrifices from all the villages. Any idea who you'd want to be in that game, what you'd want to do, where you want to start out?"

Don't think you can force me, as a player, to feel anything I don't want to. Vampires killed my dad? That's okay, I hated my dad, he was a creep. And suddenly your plot is falling apart...

You may want the players to hate the vampire kings but they have to decide that for themselves. So that's where you start. Tell them the idea and get them talking, see if they want to take down the bad guys, and why, and how. Listen to their ideas, what they say about possible characters, enemies, plots, places and what would be cool. Ask lots of questions.

So if they're enthusiastic about being undead-hunting religious fanatics, and think maybe the blood sacrifices are being turned into some sort of unholy undead army out to conquer a neighbouring country - work on giving them that. If they want to play the sons and daughters of villages taken away by the vampires and thirsty for revenge, bingo. Let them have their revenge. Base your decisions on them.

Then you have a story arc built around the specific goals of your PCs and a real chance of them going with it and rising to the challenges you put in front of them (instead of killing each other).

I hope that's of some help.