ZEITGEIST Share your ZEITGEIST adventure ideas

Our setting book Adventures in ZEITGEIST came out this past week, and now that people have had a chance to read about the setting, the conflicts, and the character options, I'd love to hear what sorts of adventures or campaigns you'd be interested in running, or ideas that you have even if you doubt you'll get to play them.

I'll star with my ideas for Z adventures in this era. The concept was to have seven stand-alone adventures that had loose links between them -- one in each of the six Great Nations, and one out among the planets. These are not scheduled for publication, just ideas I'm hoping to persuade Russ to greenlight.

1. The first one we already published, Death of the Author, a mansion murder mystery on the border of Drakr and the Malice Lands.

2. The second I'm writing now (though release depends on whether it looks like more Z adventures would be profitable), Steel Wind, a Casablanca-esque adventure with spycraft, demons, and flying machines in a Crisillyiri city at risk of military occupation.

3. Three Keys, a treasure hunt in the ruins of an old Elfaivaran city that was overrun and abandoned centuries ago, and where now three groups vie to recover relics that could create three very different futures for their nation. It digs into a dark chapter of the nation's history, but offers a hope for a better future by finding a way to heal from trauma.

4. Aviso, a Beran naval picaresque inspired by Teddy Roosevelt sending America's 'Great White Fleet' to circumnavigate the world and show off, with a heavy dash of Gulliver's Travels-style satire. The party are along as sailors, press, spies, or bodyguards for a dignitary on the navy’s dispatch boat, sent ahead to scout and relay messages.

5. Brief Remarks on the Occasion of the Launch of an Aerial Warship, where the PCs help an aged Stover Delft deal with various small crises around Flint so he can focus on writing a speech for the launch of the flying dreadnought RAS Burning Sky. The PCs thwart potential threats of sabotage, espionage, and fey politics, assist Delft in settling a petty vendetta, and then help him decide what speech to deliver, which shapes public sentiment.

6. Remembrance. This is my Inception/Christopher-Nolan-style-mindf-ck. Telling much about it would be a spoiler, other than that character creation would require each PC to choose from a list of memories that they have to integrate into their character's past.

7. Concert of the Spheres, the one where the PCs travel between the planets, in my best attempt to write a Star Trek movie, using another world as a microcosm to analyze a social question in our own world. But also with a steampunk spaceship battle.

And when I'm feeling less complicated, I want to write a megadungeon that involves remnants of the Demonocracy and one of the Ancient ziggurats that leads to Amrou.

Do you have ZEITGEIST plots in mind, big or small? Whole adventures? Single encounters? Character concepts?
 

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tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
I haven't quite finished absorbing AiZ & can't exactly world jump mid campaign but I'm probably going to phase in some hell on wheels inspired build a train line through mountains in MoH* while I introduce more & more AiZ concepts at a rate my players can be secretly made to absorb in prep for the next campaign :D

* I told them it's kind of a remote rather rural armpit of the world previously so I can just declare they are in some border kingdom(?) or whatever later when they are ready.
 

Eyes of Nine

Everything's Fine
All those adventure ideas sound amazing. I hope they do get the green light. I need another setting like I need a hole in the head; but maybe if budget opens up later (like next month), I'll grab me a copy of AiZ.
 


Deathwyrm

Explorer
Due to recent events, players in my game got really interested in the Perpetual City. While they understand that due to the importance of their current duties, that's number one on their list of things to explore if they ever get the spare time. I'll probably sketch it out for them as an online spin-off campaign with different characters. The description sounds like it would lend very well to old-school style sandbox megadungeon in the style of Frog God Games' The Lost City of Barakus meets Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
 

Odysseus

Explorer
Something I've been toying with since finishing Zeitgeist is, Interconnect a series of adventures with the rise of the Demon Ashima Shintu to becoming Seneschal/President to the Demonocracy.
Lower tier adventure would just involve meeting her. Possibly defeating someone who has summoned her.
An adventure where the players meet Death, who rides a ghostly steam train collecting souls.
Mid tier involving defeating Ashima Shintu rivals somehow
Collecting a series of magic items for Ashima Shintu, without knowing who they are working for.
High tier. Players get involved in the Demonic Presidential debate.
Epic Tier. Capturing Ashima Shintu.
 
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Anselm

Adventurer
Any GM sad that they cant be a player in this fantastic world? Running it has been incredibly rewarding but I wonder the feeling of being a player for the first time discovering the Gears of Revolution.
I have severely underplayed the extent to which the campaign gets involved in the intrigue and lore. I pitched purely as a "steam punk ish fantasy investigators with an interesting world history". I can't wait till they start to realize the depth they will get pulled into.

Additionally there's just a heck of a lot of surface level reveals that seem extremely satisfying:
people who are actually dragons, every part of the conspiracy, how the events of history directly tie into the campaign
 


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