'Primitive' campaign adventure seeds?

[Yora]

You're in luck, I've been working on exactly these things for the last couple of years. ^^

What should always work well is to have a situation that makes the local spirits near the village unhappy. Unhappy spirits mean people will disappear in the forest, harvest is bad, wells become spoiled, and other such maladies.
But spirits are weird and the things that make them unhappy, as well as the things that calm them down again, can be very strange.
Simple things are someone went to a place where the villagers are not allowed to go, so they need an outsider to check it out and find out what can be done to repair the damage. Or a regular offering is not made on schedule and now the spirits demand compensation. Or a magic ward has been disturbed, allowing evil spirits to enter the village, and it needs special items to be repaired.

In worse cases, something is going wrong in the spiritworld and it has effects on the mortal world and someone needs to go to the spiritworld and fix it.

While there are few ruins made by mortals, there also can be spirits or fey folk who have build structures in ancient times. They too can make great dungeons.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Trail Blazers - Nomadic tribes have to find greener lands, causes can very but hunting has become poor or some big bad has moved into the area. Sub-adventure, welcome to your new cave, characters have to check out the new home for fresh water, no big animals.

Trade - Nomadic tribes would also come together every now and then to trade goods, find mates and party.

Something you can do is build out a map for your tribe, this is their route around their territory, from their winter homes to the summer homes as they follow the herds. Adventures: crossing a river, meeting another tribe, bypassing a bad area (the tall grass).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

BTW, if you look in my sig, you'll find a link to Ranger Wickett's "Csmpaign Ideas" thread- you might be able to find something in there that works for you.

 

[amerigoV]

The gods descend from Heaven and raises the tribe above its purely primitive ways, only for the tribe to discover that the gods are aliens that raising them as cattle.

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Weather played a huge role in most primitive cultures on earth, and therefore I see no reason why it couldn't be a cool way to incite movement/adventure between these tribesman.

Perhaps a large volcano erupts, covering the land in darkness, which causes the animals and plants to die and the winter to be especially harsh. They have to move away from the now blighted lands and find new areas, which of course would be inhabited by other, perhaps less nomadic cultures.

I really like the idea though of mixing the mundane with the spiritual primal gods, a lot of ancient japanese and chinese myths would work well for this type of campaign I think.

 

[GhostBear]

Genuine Native American legends. The ones about corn, thunderbirds, Coyote or Raven were always entertaining to me.

I love stories about Raven. The other guys are cool too, but Raven's stories hold a special place in my heart. ♥

Raven, aside from being a trickster, is also a creator and a shape shifter. There's a lot of stories about how Raven created the first X or brought Y into the world.

If your game world has some kind of creator spirits, then perhaps those spirits could use the help of the players. Or, they could ask the players for advice. "Here's what I'm making, what do you think?" Ensure that the player's advice is followed - and that it results in something terrible (or terribly funny) happening.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Similar to Raven and Coyote is Anansi the Spider- a trickster spirit from African/Carribean folklore.

 

[Janx]

In addition, encounters with fledgling civilizations could be interesting. The party gets initial exposure to things like writing, agriculture, architecture and, most importantly, MËTÄL...errr...metal.

The gods made heavy MËTÄL, and they saw that it was good.
they said to play it louder than hell, we promised that we would.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Thanks for the replies! There's a lot of very useful pointers to get over my GM's block. The world is actually a bit more fleshed out than indicated in the vgue OP, but is still in that disorganized early stage of development, so this is all very useful. I'll post a bit more detail later when i've got some time (and when my xp has recharged, heh).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just as a practical consideration, where you live will also affect what tech your tribe has.

Costal tribes will be more advanced in fishing, harpoons, nets, weaving (fabrics, ropes, basket making, thatching), navigation and the like.

Inland tribes may be more savvy about firestarting, working with hardwoods, finding subterranean water supplies, large animal hunting...and the heavy bones that can be used for weapons or building.

Tribes in volcanic areas will discover obsidian tools quickly.