I’m trying to come up with a plot for my first campaign that isn’t a packaged product.
The setting is my own, but it has a Ravenloft type feel to it. There are flint-lock guns and some steam powered machines, but that’s as far as the technology goes. The races present are mostly human, but the other standard D&D races are here and there. The focus of the game should be low magic, but high fantasy. Demon hunting, ghosts, vampire, werewolf, zombie slaying and mummy tombs should all be present.
I need YOUR help. Thank you in advance.
Here is what I have so far:
The players start out in Evermoore, a “Tale of Two Cities” type tower prison that sits alone on an island off the main shore of a middle sized kingdom. They are imprisoned in separate cells, but in the same room. The 3 to 4 players arrived all at the same time, let’s say 8 years ago, and an NPC prisoner came in about a year afterwards.
They were not told what they were accused of, just arrested and thrown in.
The evening we meet our humble party they are visited by a raven in the small circular window of the prison room. It hops down with something in its mouth and hops to the nearest PC’s cell. It drops a small tube with red pills in it, and then flies back out. The red pills number exactly how many PCs are playing. The NPC will refuse to take one out of fear. The players should take the hint and figure out the only action that will get them anywhere is to take the red pills despite what they may discover happens to their fellow PCs an hour after taking the pill. The pill puts the player in a death like state, where they have a chance of hearing and feeling what is going on around them.
SO the NPC gets left all alone as the player characters get taken out like garbage by the guards who think they have died. I’m thinking they get thrown into the ocean as shark food. Whatever happens to their exit from the tower (and I am asking for suggestions to that too) the players get rescued by members of the White Rose who inject them with something to counter the effects of the red pills. Then there is a daring escape off the island on a small row boat. The row boat gets spotted by the guards as they players and their rescuers enter a sea-side cave that will lead inland. After a chase scene the PCs escape to the hide out of the Order of the White Rose.
Here they learn that they were imprisoned because the queen ordered them thrown into Evermoore. The White Rose were the queen’s secret service, but fell out of her favor shortly after she ordered these players into prison. They say that she was acting very different right then and other events lead them to believe that the players imprisonment must yield some clue to this behavior.
The queen’s Roses were spying on the king’s mystics and discovered that they were doing something (help me out here) that they queen wouldn’t approve of. They reported to the queen what they found and she ordered them to kill the mages at all cost. The next day, before they could execute the plan, the queen changed her mind and told them not to take any action on the mystics. Then she ordered the player characters to be arrested and taken to Evermoore. The White Rose member that was usually with her, Dervin, was absent and when they asked about him, she said she had sent him on a difficult task. He never came back.
What had happened (and the players don’t know this) was that after she ordered the mystics killed, the king found out from his doppelganger spy that was posing as Dervin. The king then ordered the doppelganger to kill the queen and take her form. It did, but the player characters happened to see this. They didn’t know it was the queen, but they do recall witnessing the murder. The next day they were arrested. The only clue the players can give the White Roses is that they saw someone murdered. Later when they see the doppelganger queen, they can say that’s who they saw murdered. Then the White Roses can organize a mission to kidnap the queen’s impostor and find out more about what happened.
So what I need from here is something that would make the queen order the mystics dead. This can be something that fuels the next leg of the adventure. I would like to start getting the players hunting demons or finding themselves in an ancient Egyptian type ruins.
Please, I need some ideas, suggestions and anything to brain storm on this campaign.
Thanks!
The setting is my own, but it has a Ravenloft type feel to it. There are flint-lock guns and some steam powered machines, but that’s as far as the technology goes. The races present are mostly human, but the other standard D&D races are here and there. The focus of the game should be low magic, but high fantasy. Demon hunting, ghosts, vampire, werewolf, zombie slaying and mummy tombs should all be present.
I need YOUR help. Thank you in advance.
Here is what I have so far:
The players start out in Evermoore, a “Tale of Two Cities” type tower prison that sits alone on an island off the main shore of a middle sized kingdom. They are imprisoned in separate cells, but in the same room. The 3 to 4 players arrived all at the same time, let’s say 8 years ago, and an NPC prisoner came in about a year afterwards.
They were not told what they were accused of, just arrested and thrown in.
The evening we meet our humble party they are visited by a raven in the small circular window of the prison room. It hops down with something in its mouth and hops to the nearest PC’s cell. It drops a small tube with red pills in it, and then flies back out. The red pills number exactly how many PCs are playing. The NPC will refuse to take one out of fear. The players should take the hint and figure out the only action that will get them anywhere is to take the red pills despite what they may discover happens to their fellow PCs an hour after taking the pill. The pill puts the player in a death like state, where they have a chance of hearing and feeling what is going on around them.
SO the NPC gets left all alone as the player characters get taken out like garbage by the guards who think they have died. I’m thinking they get thrown into the ocean as shark food. Whatever happens to their exit from the tower (and I am asking for suggestions to that too) the players get rescued by members of the White Rose who inject them with something to counter the effects of the red pills. Then there is a daring escape off the island on a small row boat. The row boat gets spotted by the guards as they players and their rescuers enter a sea-side cave that will lead inland. After a chase scene the PCs escape to the hide out of the Order of the White Rose.
Here they learn that they were imprisoned because the queen ordered them thrown into Evermoore. The White Rose were the queen’s secret service, but fell out of her favor shortly after she ordered these players into prison. They say that she was acting very different right then and other events lead them to believe that the players imprisonment must yield some clue to this behavior.
The queen’s Roses were spying on the king’s mystics and discovered that they were doing something (help me out here) that they queen wouldn’t approve of. They reported to the queen what they found and she ordered them to kill the mages at all cost. The next day, before they could execute the plan, the queen changed her mind and told them not to take any action on the mystics. Then she ordered the player characters to be arrested and taken to Evermoore. The White Rose member that was usually with her, Dervin, was absent and when they asked about him, she said she had sent him on a difficult task. He never came back.
What had happened (and the players don’t know this) was that after she ordered the mystics killed, the king found out from his doppelganger spy that was posing as Dervin. The king then ordered the doppelganger to kill the queen and take her form. It did, but the player characters happened to see this. They didn’t know it was the queen, but they do recall witnessing the murder. The next day they were arrested. The only clue the players can give the White Roses is that they saw someone murdered. Later when they see the doppelganger queen, they can say that’s who they saw murdered. Then the White Roses can organize a mission to kidnap the queen’s impostor and find out more about what happened.
So what I need from here is something that would make the queen order the mystics dead. This can be something that fuels the next leg of the adventure. I would like to start getting the players hunting demons or finding themselves in an ancient Egyptian type ruins.
Please, I need some ideas, suggestions and anything to brain storm on this campaign.
Thanks!
