Campaign Concept Critique

[Osterneth]

I'm in the early planning stages of a new 4E campaign and I'm having a bit of trouble organizing my thoughts and ideas, so I figured it can't hurt to post them up here and hopefully get some fresh opinions from people. Here's a quick introduction that I'm hoping conveys the general themes I'm going for:

The land is dying. It has been over a millennium since the Doom came to the heart of the Empire and heralded in the end of the 5th Age. In a single night of chaos and fire, the Emperor vanished and the Gods fell silent, leaving behind an unorganized and unprepared Empire to face the coming of the Blight. Leaderless and confronted by this faceless menace, the Empire fragmented and collapsed as provinces were overrun and the land withered and grew barren. Any semblance of organization and security collapsed when the remaining Imperial Legions fell before the hordes of monstrous creatures that travelled in the Blight's wake.

It was centuries before the wards were discovered: ancient symbols from a previous Age that, when properly scribed and aligned, kept the Blight at bay, if only for a time. With some means of defense against the Blight at last, survivors banded together into scattered city-states and settlements for mutual protection against the remaining creatures that stalked the wilds, but much of the damage had already been done. Aside from the newly rediscovered art of warding, knowledge of the arcane was largely lost amidst the Blight, and the Gods remained as silent as they had been since the Doom.​

Granted, it's not much, but as I mentioned... I'm having trouble organizing my ideas. Currently aiming for a low-magic start, but I don't have any plans on restricting class choice or anything, so arcane wielding PCs will essentially just be rediscovering old knowledge and the like. Deity-wise, I'm currently playing with the idea of having a pantheon of pagan "Old Gods" that predate the Empire still being around and granting powers, with the catch that their practices generally involve things like animal sacrifices and blood rites, though not to the extent that the pantheon itself is evil by any means. The main reason I'm aiming for low-magic is really just the treatment of magic items in 4E; my players and I prefer our magic items unique and special rather than just a shopping list of things to buy as they level up, so I generally just go the Inherent Bonuses route and ensure any magic items around are rare and depply tied into the campaign and setting.

I'm also considering including various generally bad "curses" afflicting the various races available. Stuff like elves finding their lifespans getting shorter with each generation, or dwarves finding that whenever they try to craft anything their materials rust/decay away. I don't really have any specific objectives in-mind for these, I just figure it adds another layer of mystery and provides a possible avenue of PC interest if they want to go about correcting them.

Anyway, critique away. Am I crazy for thinking any of this sounds interesting? Are my (admitedly vague) timelines unrealistic and way-off? Should I quit trying to go for a low(ish)-magic campaign?

 

[Quickleaf]

Sounds great! Are your players up for a gritty oppressive low-magic game?

I see the runepriest playing a significant role in this world.

 

[Osterneth]

My players are generally big fans of Points of Light styled settings, and have always enjoyed low-magic campaigns in the past. Hell, we had one campaign a while ago where the dominant religion of the region viewed all magic as heretical and they had a blast organizing a resistance and overthrowing the Church.

The big hits for them are usually interesting mysteries and secrets to discover, horror elements, and a fairly clear overarching goal/metaplot. It's weird; I've tried running full-on sandbox campaigns for them in the past and they hated the lack of clear motivation, so I generally try to include a couple of overarching setting elements that scream for PC investigation to get things moving and then sprinkle sandbox elements in as we go.

That said, I'm not trying to specifically aim for gritty and oppressive, but after re-reading everything it does paint a rather bleak picture, doesn't it? The Blight may be a bit much, but it could also work; I'm aiming for a general theme of rediscovery of lost wonders/knowledge/power, so if my players go in that direction they could pretty easily end up getting rid of (or at least drastically reducing) the grit and oppression of the setting. Looking back on my previous campaigns, I seem to have a tendency to start things out fairly bleak in order to better highlight the heroics of the PCs. Who knows if that's a good idea, but it has seemed to work so far.

As to Runepriests, I've been trying to come up with something interesting for them, or at least more interesting than just wards being like lower level runes of power, but so far... nothing.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yeah, some groups (mine included) just don't take we'll to sandbox gaming. I can't tell if it's because they've been trained by past DM to follow the plot coupon, or if it's because they have a fundamentally reactive play style.

As for runepriewtw, there's a Dragon article about runes of power (can't remember issue #) as special magic items for runepriests.

 

[Randomthoughts]

Anyway, critique away. Am I crazy for thinking any of this sounds interesting? Are my (admitedly vague) timelines unrealistic and way-off? Should I quit trying to go for a low(ish)-magic campaign?

The premise sounds really interesting for a Points of Light campaign. The wards remind me of the book, The Warded Man by Peter Brett. I'd check it out for more inspiration.

If I was a player, I'd have a question about The Doom. Is that something separate from the Blight (which I took to mean a monstrous invasion)?

The gods are silent now. Is divine magic no longer available (like Dark Sun and Midnight)?

Wards obviously will play a major role and would have to be fleshed out. Are you intending them to be "treasure" to be found and learned? Or can PCs (if so desiring) start off as "apprentice" warders? Once learned, are they rituals or spells of some sort? Something to consider is developing Warders as a distinct class, or perhaps refitting the Runepriest.

I did get the intial impression you wanted a gritty/oppressive world. One thing to mitigate that, as you mentioned, was the presence (or lack) of the Blight. Perhaps they mysteriously disappeared, which prompts the nation states to now explore beyond their walls?

Finally, I just finished reading The Twelve by Justin Cronin (the book after The Passage). While the genre is more post-apocalytic sci-fi (certainly not fantasy), the way it described human outposts that survived "monstrous hordes" for generations might be of interest (specifically, it became so ingrained to their life, monsters became almost mythical).

Look forward to reading more of your campaign!

 

[Osterneth]

Yeah, I've read The Warded/Painted Man by Brett, and that was my inspiration for the wards, although I'm not really looking to make them the primary form of magic for the setting. I was mostly looking for a way to incorporate subtle magic into the life of the populace so that it's a generally accepted part of the setting (i.e. while I'd like there to be some mystery and amazement at say a wizard throwing around visible spell effects, I'd prefer that reaction to be more along the lines of "Wow! That's right out of legend!" as opposed to "What the hell is that? Kill it!").

I envisioned the Doom and the Blight to be separate (although likely connected) things, but I was trying to keep them purposefully vague in order to allow me to decide on specifics later and potentially steal whatever cool explanations my players think up if they chose to investigate either phenomenon further. The Doom I figure is some generic cataclysmic event that wiped out the Imperial capital, and potentially the Gods (main inspiration being the Doom of Valyria from A Song of Ice and Fire), while the Blight I was aiming for more of a creeping disease that turns the land barren and generally makes it an unpleasant place to try to live (hence the wards being required to keep it at bay long enough to grow crops and the like). The whole monster horde thing was really just a logical (in my mind, at least) conclusion from the collapse of the Empire; presumable they'd have been out on the Empire's borders before this and held back by the Imperial Legions. Take away the Legions and suddenly you've got monsters running around.

I don't want to restrict any PC classes or power sources, since despite the rather grim setting I'm still aiming for a high fantasy game, just with PCs generally leading the way. A big theme I'd like to play with is the Old World vs. the New World, so in terms of deities and divine magic, I'm likely going to end up going the route of divine power only being available from old gods who fell out of favor during the Imperial Age. Mostly borrowing once more from a Song of Ice and Fire: when the Empire first formed it spread its own religion into the region and the previous gods pretty much fell out of favor. Now that the "new" gods don't seem to be granting divine power, folks will have to look for it elsewhere, like say a pantheon of pissed off and capricious nature gods (I'm picturing like classic harvest/nature deities that aren't evil, but not entirely good, either... more just the divine representation of nature/survival/the natural order). I'm thinking maybe the Old Gods were the original pantheon of the elves, who introduced them to other races ages ago before the Empire, but that their worship was largely stamped out when whatever culture of humanity came and conquered the region to form the Empire and brought their own gods.

I think I'd like to try to keep wards on the subtler side of things on the magic-scale. I might include new wards as like consumable magic treasure if I can come up with some cool ideas, and I'd be perfectly fine with a PC telling me that they have a background of working with and scribing wards, but I don't personally envision them as really having a combat application. Essentially, at the start of the campaign at least, the only wards known to people are those to stave off the Blight, and maybe superstitious ones that ward of nightmares, bad luck, etc. That said, if one of my players was really into the idea, I'd be more than happy to expand my initial take on wards and possibly go the Warded Man route, where there are combat oriented wards that just haven't been rediscovered yet.

Whew. Think I may be approaching wall of text territory, so I'll leave it at that for now.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

If you have some races in your campaign that might be resistant to the Blight (warforged, shardminds, possibly wilden because they don't eat or drink; deva, revenants, vryloka, or vampires because they resist necrotic damage; hamadryads because they survive longer with little nourishment) you could make a nation of them a major power in the present day because they were affected by the Blight less and were able to defend against the monster horde easier.

I envisioned the Doom and the Blight to be separate (although likely connected) things, [...] The whole monster horde thing was really just a logical (in my mind, at least) conclusion from the collapse of the Empire....

It might be interesting to mirror the confusion that RandomThoughts (and myself) had regarding the Doom, the Blight, and the monster horde. Knowledge of those threats has been muddied by time so the general populous believes incorrectly that the monster horde invaded the lands and brought with them diseases that destroyed the land (the Blight) which weakened the civilization and caused it to collapse (the Doom). Part of the campaign could be challenging the "truths" that people hold and revealing the correct history so they can find a way to restore civilization.

A big theme I'd like to play with is the Old World vs. the New World, so in terms of deities and divine magic...

The divine vs. primal power sources might be a good dividing line between Old and New World worship.

I think I'd like to try to keep wards on the subtler side of things on the magic-scale. I might include new wards as like consumable magic treasure if I can come up with some cool ideas...

Ritual magic sounds like a perfect fit to me. Ritual components make fantastic treasure.

 

[pemerton]

I like it.

One issue I could see is that some of the best scholar classes in 4e are arcane or divine: bard, wizard, warlock, invoker. In your setup, a player who wants to play a scholar also has to be one of the renewed mages, divine servants, etc (unless they're a psion, I guess). Is that deliberate? Likely to be a problem? Or am I seeing an issue where there really isn't one?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

(unless they're a psion, I guess)

Not to contradict your point but Speak With Spirits makes shamans great scholar characters too. (Especially Stalker Spirit Shamans.)

 

[Osterneth]

Those are all really good points. I hadn't really thought about all the different races that would be unaffected by the Blight (well, at least the part not involving monsters). I like the idea of a secluded city-state or something that maybe has a better idea of what's going on in the world than most others.

I also agree that misinformation and the search for the truth about the past will likely play a pretty big role in the campaign, and you're right that's it very likely most people wouldn't really know the difference between the Doom/Blight/Monsters and assume that they're all pretty much the same.

With regards to scholar characters, I'm not quite sure I see the issue. Wouldn't a player who wanted to be a scholar and chose to be say, a bard, have to be part mage anyway? I don't see how that would be any different in this setting. I don't see anything intrinsically restrictive about the concept of "renewed mages" or "divine servants", as you put them. Any PC who uses the arcane power source will by extension be recognized as a mage if they do anything overt, and that'll be rare, since people aren't used to it, but aside from that it's not some huge issue (in my mind, at least). Similarly, for an invoker, that would require them to have a patron deity/pantheon regardless, the only "catch" would be that at the moment, I'm only envisioning the one pantheon, so they'd have to choose that one.

Does that make sense?