Mercurius
Legend
As I mentioned in another thread, I'm starting up a new campaign and am going to be DMing for the first time in about five years, with a group of folks I played with from 2008-15 or so. I'm using my homebrew setting, which draws heavily from the world I used back then. I'd like to take an overall sandbox approach and want to focus most of my prep time on building up the setting, so will use pre-published adventures to reduce prep time. Meaning, sandbox setting with tons of adventure hooks leading to pre-published adventures, with the possibility of meta-arcs woven throughout as we go along.
I just picked up Candlekeep Mysteries on a whim and an idea struck me: What sort of campaign could I run, from 1st to 15th+ level using only adventures from the three main anthology books: Tales from the Yawning Portal, Secrets of Saltmarsh, and Candlekeep Mysteries? How could I weave them together within a sandbox environment, but with some sort of "connective tissue?"
I'm going to start with "Lost Mines of Phandelver," on the basis of EN World recommendations (I was originally thinking of "Sunless Citadel" but was convinced otherwise, partially because we're all rusty and LMoP is very easy to run). And I like the idea of ending with "Tomb of Horrors," as arguably the classic high level adventure. But what comes between?
So here's the challenge for you all: How would you craft a campaign that starts in Phandalin and ends in the Tomb of Horrors? Which adventures--particularly from those three books--would you use, and how would you tie them all together?
I'm sure that no matter what outline I come up with, things will develop very differently than planned, and I will, of course, offer a wide range of adventure hooks. But it is fun to think about, and at least consider possibilities.
Alternately, feel free to switch things around with different starting and ending points. The main thing is that I want to see what EN World comes up with following the general guidelines above, piecing together different pre-published adventures within a sandbox environment.
I just picked up Candlekeep Mysteries on a whim and an idea struck me: What sort of campaign could I run, from 1st to 15th+ level using only adventures from the three main anthology books: Tales from the Yawning Portal, Secrets of Saltmarsh, and Candlekeep Mysteries? How could I weave them together within a sandbox environment, but with some sort of "connective tissue?"
I'm going to start with "Lost Mines of Phandelver," on the basis of EN World recommendations (I was originally thinking of "Sunless Citadel" but was convinced otherwise, partially because we're all rusty and LMoP is very easy to run). And I like the idea of ending with "Tomb of Horrors," as arguably the classic high level adventure. But what comes between?
So here's the challenge for you all: How would you craft a campaign that starts in Phandalin and ends in the Tomb of Horrors? Which adventures--particularly from those three books--would you use, and how would you tie them all together?
I'm sure that no matter what outline I come up with, things will develop very differently than planned, and I will, of course, offer a wide range of adventure hooks. But it is fun to think about, and at least consider possibilities.
Alternately, feel free to switch things around with different starting and ending points. The main thing is that I want to see what EN World comes up with following the general guidelines above, piecing together different pre-published adventures within a sandbox environment.