Vitruviansquid
2010-06-18, 01:21 AM
Here's the basic idea:
After watching Apocalypse Now, I've become interested in the Cold War as a setting for a DnD campaign. Specifically, I want to have a setting as bleak and gritty as the movie (or, in fact, the novella it was based on), with an uncertain view of morality, and the same sense of terror and mystery.
That said, I wanted to make the Cold War based in DnD, invoking real life historical events, but put in distinctly DnD terms. The story I have so far is something like:
Before the events of the campaign, there was the surface world and the Underdark. The surface world was a patchwork many squabbling kingdoms ruled by humans, orcs, dwarfs, elfs, and the other such "standard" races of DnD. Too busy fighting amongst themselves, none of the surface kingdoms have discovered the Underdark yet. However, the Underdark, which had also consisted of multiple small kingdoms, had been unified recently under the leadership of a great visionary warlord. He had somehow discovered the presence of a surface world and, seeing it had ten times as much natural resources as the Underdark, deemed it fitting that his underground empire conquer it, for "living space."
Espousing a rhetoric of racial superiority and social Darwinism, the now-Emperor of the Underdark quickly and radically changed the society of the Underdark races to form a heavily militarized, unquestioning loyal alliance of races whose only goal is military expansion into the surface world and the seizure of the land of plenty. On Eruption Day (or E-Day), Underdark armies poured out of the earth and attacked key strategic locations throughout the surface kingdoms, crippling the entire surface world militarily. However, because of the sheer mass of the surface world's resources, some kingdoms were still able to mount an effective resistance against the invasion, chiefly a relatively small, isolated island kingdom inhabited almost entirely by Dragonkin - Arkhosia. At the same time, almost on the other side of the globe, the human kingdom of Turath was one of the hardest hit, yet it was able to throw off the invading forces and fight back effectively as its royal and noble houses gained access to a new kind of magic, making pacts with extraplanar entities and eventually transforming themselves into Tieflings.
What followed was one hundred years of the most brutal war imaginable, with both sides rapidly escalating their efforts. Sandwiched between Arkhosia and her allies and Bael Turath and her allies, the Underdark invasion was slowly turning back, yet it was impossible to defeat them once and for all because it was suicide for any armies from the surface to fight them in their home ground, the Underdark. The war was stalemated, though casualties were soaring higher and higher.
However, finally, the war was settled by an international association of mages and scholars containing members of most surface races (though primarily funded and staffed by Arkhosian dragonborn and Turathi tiefling nobles). These mages developed Necromancy, a never before seen superweapon. Undead armies were unleashed into the Underdark, killing indiscriminately, completely laying to waste everything under ground.
The terror of the undead finally shocked the Underdark empire, now impoverished and depopulated by the century of war to surrendering. It is currently estimated that three quarters of the Underdark were rendered hostile and uninhabitable by the propagation of the undead. "Liberated" from their militaristic, imperial regime, and shocked by the horrors of war, many refugees from the Underdark fled to the surface to begin new lives. To the vast majority of them, the ideologies of the former empire were thoroughly discredited and many have turned to pacificism, though members of the surface races still eye with them suspicion.
At the same time, the events of the war had caused two superpowers to emerge on the surface, Arkhosia and Bael Turath. On their part, the Arkhosians had an ambitious vision of the new world dominated by values of global fraternity and cooperation, where everybody belonged to a common society, which was to become prosperous under the direction of an international governing body and bureaucracy. On the other hand, the Turathi, jaded after throwing off brutal subjugation by the Underdark races, believed in a world of freedom, equality, and opportunity, where everybody was allowed to pursue their individual interests with their individual mindsets. Each side views the other's ideology with hostility and calls the other's relationship to its allies imperialism. Each side has access to potentially world-ending Necromancy. Neither Arkhosia nor Bael Turath will actually attack each other, for that is to bring about Mutually Assured Destruction.
This is the world that the players will be navigating. My plan is to make the players come from a small, multi-racial city-state that managed to overthrow the Underdark occupation in the closing days of the war. Because it was not occupied by either Arkhosian or Turathi forces, nobody is sure which side it will end up joining. There is a palpable sense of tension as each empire declares its intention of "liberating" it from the other's control, and the people themselves have split over which ideology is right.
Any (Really. Any at all) thoughts and ideas for how I would run this or how the story might progress would be appreciated.
After watching Apocalypse Now, I've become interested in the Cold War as a setting for a DnD campaign. Specifically, I want to have a setting as bleak and gritty as the movie (or, in fact, the novella it was based on), with an uncertain view of morality, and the same sense of terror and mystery.
That said, I wanted to make the Cold War based in DnD, invoking real life historical events, but put in distinctly DnD terms. The story I have so far is something like:
Before the events of the campaign, there was the surface world and the Underdark. The surface world was a patchwork many squabbling kingdoms ruled by humans, orcs, dwarfs, elfs, and the other such "standard" races of DnD. Too busy fighting amongst themselves, none of the surface kingdoms have discovered the Underdark yet. However, the Underdark, which had also consisted of multiple small kingdoms, had been unified recently under the leadership of a great visionary warlord. He had somehow discovered the presence of a surface world and, seeing it had ten times as much natural resources as the Underdark, deemed it fitting that his underground empire conquer it, for "living space."
Espousing a rhetoric of racial superiority and social Darwinism, the now-Emperor of the Underdark quickly and radically changed the society of the Underdark races to form a heavily militarized, unquestioning loyal alliance of races whose only goal is military expansion into the surface world and the seizure of the land of plenty. On Eruption Day (or E-Day), Underdark armies poured out of the earth and attacked key strategic locations throughout the surface kingdoms, crippling the entire surface world militarily. However, because of the sheer mass of the surface world's resources, some kingdoms were still able to mount an effective resistance against the invasion, chiefly a relatively small, isolated island kingdom inhabited almost entirely by Dragonkin - Arkhosia. At the same time, almost on the other side of the globe, the human kingdom of Turath was one of the hardest hit, yet it was able to throw off the invading forces and fight back effectively as its royal and noble houses gained access to a new kind of magic, making pacts with extraplanar entities and eventually transforming themselves into Tieflings.
What followed was one hundred years of the most brutal war imaginable, with both sides rapidly escalating their efforts. Sandwiched between Arkhosia and her allies and Bael Turath and her allies, the Underdark invasion was slowly turning back, yet it was impossible to defeat them once and for all because it was suicide for any armies from the surface to fight them in their home ground, the Underdark. The war was stalemated, though casualties were soaring higher and higher.
However, finally, the war was settled by an international association of mages and scholars containing members of most surface races (though primarily funded and staffed by Arkhosian dragonborn and Turathi tiefling nobles). These mages developed Necromancy, a never before seen superweapon. Undead armies were unleashed into the Underdark, killing indiscriminately, completely laying to waste everything under ground.
The terror of the undead finally shocked the Underdark empire, now impoverished and depopulated by the century of war to surrendering. It is currently estimated that three quarters of the Underdark were rendered hostile and uninhabitable by the propagation of the undead. "Liberated" from their militaristic, imperial regime, and shocked by the horrors of war, many refugees from the Underdark fled to the surface to begin new lives. To the vast majority of them, the ideologies of the former empire were thoroughly discredited and many have turned to pacificism, though members of the surface races still eye with them suspicion.
At the same time, the events of the war had caused two superpowers to emerge on the surface, Arkhosia and Bael Turath. On their part, the Arkhosians had an ambitious vision of the new world dominated by values of global fraternity and cooperation, where everybody belonged to a common society, which was to become prosperous under the direction of an international governing body and bureaucracy. On the other hand, the Turathi, jaded after throwing off brutal subjugation by the Underdark races, believed in a world of freedom, equality, and opportunity, where everybody was allowed to pursue their individual interests with their individual mindsets. Each side views the other's ideology with hostility and calls the other's relationship to its allies imperialism. Each side has access to potentially world-ending Necromancy. Neither Arkhosia nor Bael Turath will actually attack each other, for that is to bring about Mutually Assured Destruction.
This is the world that the players will be navigating. My plan is to make the players come from a small, multi-racial city-state that managed to overthrow the Underdark occupation in the closing days of the war. Because it was not occupied by either Arkhosian or Turathi forces, nobody is sure which side it will end up joining. There is a palpable sense of tension as each empire declares its intention of "liberating" it from the other's control, and the people themselves have split over which ideology is right.
Any (Really. Any at all) thoughts and ideas for how I would run this or how the story might progress would be appreciated.