Help with a campaign setting

[AlphaCentauri]

Hi there! I'm new to the bord and I have some questions regarding my campaign setting and planning. It's my first time I'm DM so I would be happy to hear some critics about my setting. If it's too platitudinous, bad or anything else.
This would be my general setting so far: Hextor (or some other evil god) wants to rule the world by himself. All over Faerun the temples of others deities are getting defiled and the dark clerics of Hextor roam the realm. Since Hextor is not strong enough yet, he needs some alliance. This will be an order of archmages who hunger for power (or maybe the control of a specific magic force). So it's a functional alliance. The task of the order will be to sabotage, intrigue and mislead any suspicion about Hextor and his purpose. Maybe I let the mages work on a powerful spell, which would darken the sun forever and start some sort of ice age.
The players find themselves in a pocketplane of one of the archmages. They are but toys or figures on a chessboard and meant to entertain the wizard. The players do not know this in the beginning but it will lead them eventually to the archmages. The player's first task would be to learn that they are trapped somewhere and escape.
The pocket plane contains different "rooms". A small desert, jungle, a dungeon and maybe more. They'll have some encounters with monsters, solve riddles and the like. When they escape their level should be around 3.
The gap between escaping and finding the order of the mages I still have to fill, since the latter should come later in the game.
When they "awake" in the plane, they don't know that they're in a plane or that there is another real world. They don't know anything else, it's just as it has always been like that. The people of the first village know them, though not why and how long. This village is in the desert and the odd thing is, that there are only elderly villagers. And they are waiting for something...redemption. This I don't know how to solve yet. I'm looking for something with a little "depth".

 

[The Grackle]

Welcome to the boards, Alpha.

Sounds like an interesting way to kick things off.

It seems like you have a pretty good over arching story line for the campaign. I usually start a game w/an idea of the world's meta-plot/foundation/main-theme/whatever, but keep in mind that it won't come into view for a long time, and it will be even longer before the PCs are tough enough to do anything about it. So the first thing is the immediate adventures they'll be facing.


I like the pocket plane idea. It'd be fun if they thought it was the real world and only later discovered its nature as a pocket dimension. Like after they walked 20 miles to the East and ended up back at their starting place. Let the players figure it out themselves.

Are you asking for general advice on starting a campaign? or just people to bounce ideas off of? Don't worry about it being too "platitudinous." D&D has its cliches, but we all still play it and it's fun every time. Dungeons, Evil Gods, Archmages- It's all good.

 

[AlphaCentauri]

Thx for the feedback.
I think I'm gonna keep this setting then and work it out in more detail.
For your question, yes I meant general advice.
I thought to make the overall setting first. Not in too much detail but enough to know where it's heading. Then to start with the rooms in the pocket plane.
Do you think it takes away too much of the characters individuality if I strip them completely from their memories? At least as long as they are in the pocket plane. One of my players I working out his character story very nicely and I'm afraid that he would be disappointed if I let them remember nothing. The problem is if they still have memories, they would know that they are somewhere different than the normal realm...
Is it too much for a group of about 5 lvl 1 chars to go into a dungeon and have fights? Sure I can take weak monsters but to plan this encounters would be a real hard thing..I mean that it gets not too easy but not deadly either. Same with traps.
Or do you suggest some quests first where they can get exp to gain a lvl or two.

 

[Verequus]

Two things, I've noticed:

1. Hextor is normally a god of Greyhawk - if you want to change the name/god, then you could use Bane.

2. How can the characters escape? If I would be the archmage, I would make sure, that only a planeshift can reach the demiplane. The only mean of escape without the spell would a very good hidden portal - a place which doesn't look suspicious by others, but should be easy to find and a safe place. (If you get stuck on your own demi-plane, you would really like not only have a portal, but be sure, that you find the place and survive the environment, too.)

 

[AlphaCentauri]

1. Greyhawk? I found Hextor in the Player's Handbook. I just thought it should be some different God..it's always Bane
2. The escape should be through a portal. I don't know yet exactly how. Maybe in a well or so. maybe they have to gather certain items that will allow them to open a portal.

 

[Verequus]

1. Yes, all PH gods are from the Greyhawk setting.

2. It is illogical to have some keys for the portal, which are easily discernable as such, unless the archmage wants the characters to escape - but this doesn't seem probable. The problem is, that an intelligently played archmage complicates the escape... Yet your idea with the keys has merit - the supposedly trapped archmage doesn't want to have the portal by accident and doesn't want to have much hassle to get one key. A trapped archmange won't probably have access to spells, magic items and weapons except a stick, so he would create several keys, so he has not to go to one and only place, where for example a dragon dwells.

Have one land, which is relatively hospitable and place the portal there. Then shape the landscape a way, which makes it easy to find the well - if you know, what you have to look for. Maybe you have to see five mountain tops at the same time. If you are lost, then you still find sooner or later the place. Then you have to place the keys. You don't want them neither to be searchable through Detect Magic, which means a permanent Magic Aura on them, nor that they are removed for any reason, so they will be simple stones. Because you don't want to have to walk again several miles - as an archmage you are a lazy bitch - one key is relatively near the well, but others are more farther away on other points of interest. They are all stored to be relatively reachable, after all you have only a stick with you and no other help, and they shouldn't be positioned, that the key won't get lost, if you suffer a mishap. And a last thing is, to create riddles which point to a portal but lead to traps - after all, you want your guinea pigs both being busy and a good laugh.

If your group has sufficient experience with "Think like your enemy!", then they should find out eventually that all out.