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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMMo" data-source="post: 4111865" data-attributes="member: 62876">Edit: Previously, I detailed a situational campaign hook and storyline here. I've decided to ditch the huge, overarching campaign story. For this campaign, I'd like my players to be heavily involved in the direction the campaign takes, and I don't want to try to railroad them down an "adventure path" style campaign. I'm scrapping the linear approach to story in favor of a story-web type construction. This should work well in the "points of light" model, with various points of light and points of shadow scattered about the web for the players to explore. I'll have room to follow the whims of the players, loosely tie adventures together, and fit in smaller story arcs rather than one overarching campaign plot.Here is an introduction to my world via the first point of light I've created (which is also the PC's homebase). I'm looking for suggestions for locations, rumors, plot-hooks, NPCs, additional points of light (whether in the Eydun Islands or elsewhere), anything that comes to mind. I'm also looking for suggestions as to how the various races/classes might fit in as PCs. I've already accounted for dwarves and humans. It's going to be a bit harder explaining how any of the other races arrived at the isolated village of Tanavik.I like to look for real world inspiration when creating locations, and this time I found it in the Faroe Islands -- a remote, treeless, mist enshrouded land that would fit right into a fantasy world. I skimmed the internet for some good flavor text describing the Faroe Islands, and came across a great New York Times travel article by Stephen Metcalf: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/travel/tmagazine/03well.faroes.t.html" target="_blank">"Into the Mystical Unreal Reality of the Faroe Islands."</a>  According to Wikipedia, geographically, the Faroe Islands "generally have cool summers and mild winters, with a usually overcast sky and frequent fog and strong winds. Although at a high latitude, due to the Gulf Stream, their climate is ameliorated. The islands are rugged and rocky with some low peaks; the coasts are mostly bordered by cliffs. The Faroe Islands are notable for having the highest sea cliffs in Europe, and some of the highest in the world otherwise." Wikipedia has this to say regarding the Faroe Islands' economy: "As an agrarian society, other than fishing, the raising of sheep is the main industry of the islands." Finally, on history, Wikipedia offers this: "Irish hermits (monks) settled in the sixth century, introducing sheep, oats and the early Irish language to the islands. ...Later (~650 AD) the Vikings replaced the early Irish and their settlers, bringing the Old Norse language to the islands...."A rugged, rocky, treeless land with high cliffs stikes me as an ideal place for dwarves. This begs the question, how did dwarves arrive at this remote location in the sea? Based on what little I know about <a href="http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e#races" target="_blank">dwarves in 4E</a>, "their back history now involves an era in which they were slaves to giants, which explains the enmity between the two races." While I'm certainly not married to the "fluff" contained in the rulebooks, I like this concept. In a bygone age, giants sailed the north seas. Back then, the PCs' island home base was a convenient waypoint between a major continent and a large island nation. The ravenous giants stocked the islands with sheep, so that they could restock their vessels with mutton on the sea voyage. A few misfit and low-ranking giants were left to tend the flock, assisted by dwarf slaves. The giants were eventually purged from the islands, but the descendants of those dwarf slaves remain to this day. They have carved out a home in the cliffs and low peaks of the islands. Centuries later, Viking-like humans (the Venidur) settled the islands. Borrowing some of Metcalf's compelling prose from the above-referenced NYT article as well as data from Wikipedia and other internet sources (and changing names to achieve the desired fantasy flavor), I came up with the following introduction for the home base:The Eydun Islands are a roughly arrowhead shaped archipelago of 18 upthrust hunks of igneous rock in the middle of precisely nowhere. It is oddly temperate, thanks to the mysterious currents of the Soulsea, and oddly green, thanks in part to the millions of seabirds that carpet the islands in guano each breeding season. The Eyduns are a moodily beautiful place, each island a giant slice of elaborately tiered basalt, tilted to one side and covered in green, tussocky felt. Streamer clouds, almost mannered in their perfection, encircle the mountains. Rocky cliffs, topped in arêtes and tarns, plunge into the sea, while up from the water jut massive, looming sea stacks. It rains here a lot, and waterfalls flow pretty much continuously. Some days, the only thing one can make out through the mist is the low gleam of the rills, dozens of them, snaking their way down the sides of the mountains.The coastal village of Tanavik, a small cluster of timber houses with a population of about 70, lies snugly slotted in the hollow of a massive glacial bowl, facing an equally massive ocean channel formed out of an ancient fjord. Hulking mountains shelter the channel, which funnels a roaring surf right up to the village's front edge. In choral reply, waterfalls cascade down from the high escarpment behind the village. Out in the distance loom Karis and Kellingin, the two most iconic sea stacks in the Eydun Islands, known to the Venidur as "the witch" and "the giant." (As legend has it, dwarves drove the two ne'er-do-wells into the surf just as the sun came up, and they turned to stone.)The Venidur settled the islands several hundred years ago. Their icon remains the turf-roofed house. With no trees to be found (hard basalt lies too close to the surface of the soil), when the Venidur first arrived they made rock foundations in the shapes of their boats, turned the boats over on top of the rocks and then, to stabilize and insulate these makeshift houses, put sod on the hulls of the boats. All structures of more recent vintage are built out of driftwood.The very first Venidur sod-roof farmhouse still stands in Tanavik, though it has long since been converted into a claustrophobic tavern and gathering hall known as the Smoke House. Here, more than anywhere, one feels the spirit of the Eydun Islands. Though travelers are uncommon, the proprietor, old Ove, is quick to inform those who come that their coin is worthless here. "This is not a place for gold and silver," he says pointedly. "There is nothing that glitters in this house." It is in this ancient farmhouse, beneath its hulking, fire-singed beams, that our saga begins. </blockquote>

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