Critique my campaign idea

[der_kluge]

So given that my wife is 1,000 miles away back home, and I'm living with my sister at her apartment. And given that I'm still kind of learning what to do at my new job, I've taken to filling up the free time with working on a new campaign.

This will be a kind of low-magic, low-fantasy game. I'm basing it in a kingdom with an actual king, and it will be more of a grittier world. Not sure which ruleset I use, but it probably wiith either be modifed d20, or maybe HARP, or grim tales if I decide to pick that up. Anyway...

The king is old, and his grasp on the kingdom is fairly weak, and it has spread throughout to the point where he can no longer easily control it. He has 4 children, and the eldest son will inherit the throne once the king passes. The second, a daughter is secretly studying black magic, and is in cahoots with the second son to try to kill both the king and the eldest so that he can claim the throne. The second son has promised the daughter power and lands if she helps him claim the throne. The queen died years ago, although what no one realizes is that the second son and the daughter killed her. There is a fourth child, a son who lacks the power ambitions of his siblings, and basically a bard who wanders the land, often in disguise.

So, enter the PCs, who start as simple peasants in a village near a swamp. So, these bullywugs enter from the swamp and kind of start terrorizing the town. Now, everyone knows bullywugs live in the swamp, but they live really far into the swamp, so this kind of surprises everyone when this happens.

Turns out, the princess and the evil prince have a fortress in the swamp where they are making an undead army. Furthermore, through an incestuous relationship, have created a [fiendish] child who is now 13 years old, and she is pregnant currently with a second from her brother. Their plan is murder their father, and when the eldest son takes the throne, to start a war with their undead emerging from the swamp.

I'm thinking that they would want some way to try to lure their son's army into the swamp where some horrific type of ambush awaits the prince and his troops. With the prince dead, the second son will emerge, "quash" the undead and take control, where he can oppress the people, and generally create really awful conditions for everyone.

During this, the princess actually has a doppleganger assuming her role in the brother's estate, so that no one actually knows she is out in the swamp.

Where I need help - I need some way to drag the PCs into the mess. I was thinking of having their Lord be murdered for some reason, and then to have their village go up in flames from the bullywugs, and so they are basically forced into adventuring from their simple lives. Beyond that intro though, no real reason for them to keep going.

I also need some kind of ambush device in the swamp that would kill lots of king's soldiers.

I'm also working on the geography, and I plan to have an elven nation, and a gnomish city in the mountains, and some halfling village in the plains. There won't be any dwarves. My version of gnome will include some dwarven concepts like an affinity to earth, and a love for gems, etc. I also intend to make elves more fey-like, and more tied to nature. I haven't really tied the other races into the story yet.

So, my idea for the campaign is that the PCs would eventually get caught up in the struggle of their people against the tyranny of the new king after the eldest son is slain. So, it would be a huge political struggle as they make their way through a web of corruption that the princess and prince have created as they make deals and promises, etc.

Any thoughts?

 

[Soul]

With a setting like thism I'd have to turn to my one of favorite authors George RR Martin. Perhaps make one of the sons fall in love with one of the PCs sisters at a fair/tournament. Then steal off with her one night, perhaps she could even be betrothed to one of the other PCs. Then perhaps the PCs older brother and father go to seek the king, to settle the offense and have the sister returned. Where of course either the king, the daughter, or perhaps an advisor have the older brother and father killed, and setting a whole series of events off. =P That might be a little more than you want though, or perhaps in a differant direction. On a more serious note, a Song of Ice and Fire is a gold mine of ideas for a sort of low magic/gritty campaign like this.

 

[Crothian]

I think if you present this and just have the PCs experience things they will go investigate. But I think you need something for the PCs. Unlikely Heores from Plot Device, its a series of classes that are more mundae; perfect for the low magic low fantyasy world, but they also work in giving the characters a non adventureing role without the useless NPC classes of the DMG. Of course don't take my word, take the word of the reviewer

http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=active&reviewer=Crothian&product=SSUHC

Ambush in the Swamp: Have the kings soilders be well armed and armed. They get stuck in bogs, horses caught in quicksand, a few Bullywogs druids and the superior attacking force will be toast.

 

[Terwox]

Question:
Why don't they just kill assassinate the elder son, then the king?
Or the king, then the elder son?
If they can assassinate one, why not both?
Killing two people is a lot easier than fighting a war.
If he wants to be the "hero" when the war with the undead starts, that's something.
Perhaps he could want to destroy the king's army with undead -- only to animate them all as undead?
Needs a reason to fight the war.
Also, if the princess has a doppleganger -- why not just assassinate the king AND the elder brother, have the doppleganger pose as the elder brother for awhile, and have the doppleganger give the king's men really lousy orders in the swamp, get them massacred by undead, etc.
Just some ideas! Your idea is cool as it is, by the way.

Anyway, about killing the king's men in the swamp -- remember that undead don't have to breathe. Have the men wading through parts of the swamp, up to their necks, gear over their heads, when they're attacked by zombies -- gnome zombies, shark zombies, octopus zombies, human zombies with no legs -- all of the above -- but yeah.

Also, if the scene is important, the dark swamp they need to go through could already be desecrated (unhallowed?) by the dark sister -- she wanted those men to come back as powerful undead, so the area is already dark (to further help her undead army crush them from beneath the water) and so that she could easily raise them as more powerful undead.

Whee! (Idea of undead being underwater stolen happily from Myth.)

 

[adwyn]

Rather than ambushing the army in the swamp have them trapped. No one need know exactly what happened until the right moment, but an army trapped, by magical means or mundane, can be a great plot hook down the road.

Perhaps they drank from a magical pool and were changed into something, or camped on an island (faerie perhaps?) that only appears once a year.

 

[painandgreed]

Where I need help - I need some way to drag the PCs into the mess.
<SNIP>
Any thoughts?

The PCs are peasants? As the king's grasp fails and the evil son's gains, have some of the nobels be evil too and basically abusing the villagers. The PCs have to become bandits to save the village (by stealing back the "taxes" of their harvests that they'll need to survive the winter and plant next spring). From there they end up becoming Robin Hood characters fighting the evil lords, supported by the villagers, all the while the good lords in the capital don't really have an idea of what's going on and perhaps send a paladin to stop them. Meanwhile, the good son is sent off to fight a war and the king "dies" leaving the evil son and daughter as regents. The youngest son hears the villagers sides of things and can aid the PC "bandits". Perhaps leading up to an assasination plot on the good son as he returns that only the PCs can try and stop. Even if they succeed, they may still be wanted men as the good son will have no idea why they snuck in to his camp and killed those trusted nobels. If they fail, then they have to not only kill the evil son but come up with a replacement to keep the kingdom from falling into chaos.

 

[Conaill]

Question:
Why don't they just kill assassinate the elder son, then the king?
Or the king, then the elder son?
If they can assassinate one, why not both?
Killing two people is a lot easier than fighting a war.

Perhaps the eldest son has some magical protection? Yes I know, this is a low-magic world, and I'm all for low-magic. But if not even the royalty of an ancient kingdon have some magic to back them up...

Let's say the crownprince is always accompanied by an elusive fae woman. Could be one of the elves. Could be just a shimmering appearance that guards over him but has never been known to utter a word.

Or perhaps an item that will stop a lone assasin, but not an army of undead? Of course, the crown prince loses the item in the swamp when he dies, and the evil siblings don't manage to find it no matter how hard they try...

The younger son is a great plot element also. You could get a *lot* of mileage out of that! Why does he wander the land? Perhaps the ancient fae blood in the royal line is stronger in him? Or perhaps he's a bastard child, maybe even half-elven? (More shades of George RR Martin!)

If the evil siblings are defeated before the PC's have reached a sufficiently high level, the younger brother could be the one to take over the throne. Then you can plan out the next half of the campaign, where it turns out the evil sister isn't dead after all (or comes back to life or un-life through her black magic) and kills her younger brother. By the time the PC's have dealt with her once and for all, they should be high enough level to take over the kingdom themselves...

 

[der_kluge]

Terwox gives me a lot to chew on here. I need to find some justification for the war. In my mind, I was thinking the second son just want to remove the army completely because he figured they would be the most likely thing stopping from oppressing the masses and generally making life bad. So, without a strong militia, he could as he wilt.

The idea of replacing the eldest son or the king with a doppleganger is genious though, and I hadn't considered that. My thought was that by killing the king first, they would be placing the kingdom in the hands of the less experienced eldest son, and with a very real threat of an undead invasion, they could almost guarantee that his first action as king would be to mobilize the troops because all the commoners would be scared and would want him to act that way, so that's exactly what he would do. So, this army and he go into the swamp, where they have a huge trap waiting for him, and he and his army die, thus increasing the power of their undead army since that's just that many more fresh bodies they can use. Then the third son takes over, somehow placates the undead incursion, and looks like a hero, at least briefly, and then the taxes come, and then the oppression starts...

Or, here's something, the prince and his army go into the swamp, but a doppleganger of the prince comes *out* of the swamp, and no troops. So, despite overwhelming odds, the prince is the lone survivor of the undead battles, and this doppleganger steps down and appoints the next son as king, and then vanishes... That's sounding good.

I do really like the Robin Hood motivation. That would definitely work. Because the new king could have all kinds of ties with greedy merchants and Lords who seek more power, so there could be all kinds of low level things to rob from as they gain levels, before eventually tackling the evil king and finally the evil princess in the swamp with her undead army.

*sweeeet*

 

[DrZombie]

If you want to do this as a low-magic setting, I highly recommend the conan-rpg by mongoose. Ignore all the half-nakid women ond just look at the system. They've reworked the magic-system, allowing for massive powerfull spells that are hard to cast, and corrupting the spell-user. Wich is very appropriate for the daughter. It also takes care of a lot of easy-fixed-by magic-items problems, since they are quite rare in that setting.

Anyway, the setting you discribe is very good. I think you'll need to set up a timeline before you start play, and try to correlate it with player levels. It all depends on what you're planning to have your players do. I'll try to explain.

First option : use all these plans in the early years, to set up a background of evil and corruption. This will mean that the fertiliser will hit the rotating blades in the first few levels (I assume the characters will start at a fairly low leve as country bumpkins) Emphasise the good life their characters have at the start of the campaign. Maybe start with a spring fair or something, some innocent little adventure where some first-level characters can mess around a little without much chance of getting hurt, while evrything is nice and peachy, sun is shining, maidens are fair and willing, whatever. Then things turn a bit ugly. Over the course of a few months their entire world is destroyed, the village is burned down, they lose loved-ones, are chased both by undead, bullywugs, local militia ruled by evil aristocracy... The elven lands will be some kind of safe haven, from wich they strike. The theme will be revenge, retribution. Because they are low-level at the start, they won't be able to stop the new king and his sister/wife, it'll be running to survive in level 1-5, fightin,g a resistance battle lvl 6-10, trying to get support and getting ready to overthrow the evil rulers 11-15, final confrontation lvl16.

Second option : slower planning : the schemes of the evil brother and sister take many years to set up. The game starts a few months before things start to go sour. Players start a bit higher, or get more experience in some other adventures(maybe in the swamps). There are premonitions of what's going to happen. One of the playesr could be the son of a local noble. They could discouver, gradually, what's going on, and by that time they might be able to stop what's happening. Trying to get the oldest prince convinced that entering the swamps is suicide. Uncovering that he's a doppleganger just a bit too late.
This way they'll be more even-levelled with the bad guys from the start, it'll be about politics, with a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff, scouting, adventures,...
Lvl 1-3 in service of the village, lvl 3-6 bullywug invasion, lvl 6-9 mustering of army, king getting killed, 10-12 horrible adventures in the swamps, lvl 12-15 seeing the land turn to evil, lvl 16 confrontation.

The same events, different timing, different campaign, different theme. I dunno wich your group will prefer, I hope ou do. Cheers.