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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 6559942" data-attributes="member: 53980">My 5e campaign is set in a weird, post-apocalyptic world.About three hundred years ago, the Mists came, and nearly everyone it touched died or underwent a monstrous transformation. Those who didn't found that the Mists seemed to grant them strength they'd never known before, and in time became known as Mist Walkers. The PCs started in Kayleth Village, nestled in a mountain valley above the Mist. It was their duty to venture out into the Mist and defend the town against the monsters that roamed within. They'd never had cause to venture far from town, but when the only lake in the valley began to dry up, they were tasked with discovering the cause and fixing it, or finding an alternate source of water if that wasn't possible. Venturing out, they discovered that a band of orcs and ogres had dammed a river that flowed into the base of the mountain, so that the dragon they served could use the cave it once flowed into as her lair. After defeating them and destroying the dam, they met an elven Mist Walker who explained that his people had been playing the dragon's minions and a band of lycanthropes that had been plaguing the elves against each other. For the first time since the Mists came, the people of Kayleth stepped into a larger world.While there are things going on in the world, it's a sandbox without an overarching plot. I try to fill it with as much random strangeness as possible: grass that grabs gently at one's ankles, an animated tree with no mouth that nonetheless tries to eat anyone it can grab, and singing rocks. The reason for this lies with the origins of the Mist. Before the Mists, magic was fading from the world. Humans were rising to dominance while other races faded. One of these dying civilizations sought to restore their former glory, and so they pierced the walls between their dimension and the one from which magic arises. They could not control what they unleashed. Theirs was a coherent universe, where each possible action spawned its own reality (many worlds quantum theory). But the dimension of magic was incoherent, wherein all possibilities would arise simultaneously and together. The Mists are magic itself, incoherence leaking into a coherent universe. Mist Walkers are as they are simply because they have a higher tolerance to the Mists.My favorite Mist-mechanic to date is Recursion, which was inspire by foreclusion from A Red & Pleasant Land. It's essentially time and space slowly breaking down due to incoherence, but it allows me to do things like having the PCs encounter an English sergeant from the 1800's who believed he was on safari in Africa. Since I'm never certain which of the players will be available, it gives me greater flexibility in what to run. Three weeks ago the PCs ended the session searching for the fighter's sister, who'd gone missing. The fighter and the wizard couldn't make it the following week, so the rogue popped two weeks into the past and a week's travel away and helped the druid deal with undead who were searching for a dracolich's phylactery in the forest the druid protects. Then last week, the druid and rogue recursed to the fighter's present to help him find his sister.I don't have an end game in mind, but the PCs have made plenty of friends and enemies. The rogue befriended a town of goblins that I originally expected the party to fight. Thanks to some excellent rolls, they were able to communicate with the goblins and, due to the rogue's generosity towards them and her musical talents, the goblins now worship her as their patron goddess of music. After ending the lycanthrope threat, they earned the respect of the vampire Count of Durovia, who rules a land where the living and undead dwell together in peace. The rogue owes favors to both Aphrodite and Hades, which may come due soon. After preventing his minions from obtaining the phylactery, they've earned the ire of the lich who rules the ancient elven necropolis. And they've repeatedly clashed with the Red Fang, an all-monster terrorist organization which seeks nothing less than the eradication of all Mist Walkers.I'm not certain whether it's the 5e ruleset, or the setting, or a combination of the two, but this is the most fun I've ever had with a campaign I've run.</blockquote>

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