D&D 5E Starting a new campaign - looking for resources

[Mercurius]

So I haven't DMed in about 5 years, but just moved back to my old locale and have requests from my former group to get the gang back together. I'm in the preliminary stages of world-building, designing a setting environment about the size of New England that is cut off from the rest of the world (a world-building detail I don't need to get into). Temperate to cold climate, with a bit of everything within that range. The overall vibe is very "points of lightish" and post-apocalyptic.

Anyhow, the world-building stuff is underway and my bread and butter. I want to start out very sandboxy, with possible adventure threads woven in, and maybe a larger meta-plot developing later on. Right now what I'm looking for is:

*Handy adventure locations to plop onto the map, from tiny little encounters, lairs, dungeons small and large, even settlements of different races. I imagine there's stuff like this on the DMs Guild, but was looking for recommendations.

*Short adventures and/or adventure compilations. What's out there that's good?

*Any other campaign resources you recommend? I haven't really spent much time browsing DM's Guild or know what's out there beyond the official WotC material.

Thanks!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My suggestion is to use the folklore from all European continent, not only the regions from the North, as source of inspiration, and also some fandom wikis about geek fiction franchises (comics, videogames, novels, teleseries..).

An idea would be there was a titanomachy, a war of the gods against the titans and these lost. Later there was a rebellion against the gods by the lord faes and the deities lost, but the faes and giants were puppets of the titans who lost the previous titanomachy.

There is a demiplane as a time-loop. Really this is a cosmic prison to keep the souls of primal titans who lost the titanomachy, and now they live as ordinary mortals forgetting their previous lives. But something starts to fails and some children of these titas start to notice something, like a collective memory. Exploring the akasha, a demiplaned created by the memories of subconscient collective, they find clues about the past, or maybe new lies.

 

[Mercurius]

My suggestion is to use the folklore from all European continent, not only the regions from the North, as source of inspiration, and also some fandom wikis about geek fiction franchises (comics, videogames, novels, teleseries..).

An idea would be there was a titanomachy, a war of the gods against the titans and these lost. Later there was a rebellion against the gods by the lord faes and the deities lost, but the faes and giants were puppets of the titans who lost the previous titanomachy.

There is a demiplane as a time-loop. Really this is a cosmic prison to keep the souls of primal titans who lost the titanomachy, and now they live as ordinary mortals forgetting their previous lives. But something starts to fails and some children of these titas start to notice something, like a collective memory. Exploring the akasha, a demiplaned created by the memories of subconscient collective, they find clues about the past, or maybe new lies.

Good ideas, but I'm set on the conceptual world-building part (which I didn't really get into). Just looking for suggested resources. I like your ideas, though.

 

[Mort]

There are a nice series of Adventurer's League adventures centering around the town of Parnast. One of the easiest to just drop in is uninvited guests. Even if you don't use the actual plot of the adventure - the town, the locals around it and some of the NPCs are great for inspiration.

 

[Voadam]

Post Apocalyptic New England Points of Light suggests Cthulhu to me and going for the original CoC designer applying himself to a 5e conversion would probably not be amiss. If you just want some 5e Cthulhu monsters for lovecraftian encounters there are options too.

 

[Voadam]

I have read through Book of Lairs and it is a decent anthology of one shot encounters across a lot of levels. It uses a number of monsters from Tome of Beasts and so is a mix of nonstandards and standards in its adversary cast.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The Uncaged anthology series might be useful. The adventures are all pretty short and contain locations that are easily dropped into most campaigns. They're flavorful enough without being so specific that they would take a lot of work to use. I'm currently reading Vol. 3 and digging it.

If you're looking for specific New England stuff, I'm reminded of the old Vampire the Masquerade product, Dark Colony, which centered on New England. Don't know if that would fit with what you're concept is or not, but I remember it being pretty cool.

 

[Voadam]

For Sandboxy stuff Frog Gods are known for that as old school sandbox and megadungeons is their general theme. They have a ton of anthologies and dungeons ready to go for 5e with an OSR feel. They also cover a lot of themes from tainted dark corruption city (The Blight) to megadungeons (Rappan Athuk, Lost City of Barakus) to adventure anthologies (Adventures in the Borderlands, Cults of the Sundered Kingdoms).

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks, all. Some stuff to check out.

Just to clarify, it isn't post-apocalyptic New England (although that is intriguing, if a bit too close to come), but an area roughly the size of New England that is cut off from any other region by a magical shroud called, um, the Shroud. It is basically an impenetrable dark mist with malign entities that prevent passage - at least by low level creatures. Something to work towards.

It was originally an idea that came to mind to create an enclosed region, but then it started leading to (higher level) gaming possibilities. Hopefully the PCs will eventually want to understand the nature of the Shroud and, of course, what lies beyond (if anything).