Help Creating a Campaign

[OfStatic]

Hey everyone. This is one of my first posts on the forum and I am looking for some help with the homebrew campaign I am working on creating. I want to have multiple campaign arcs happening at the same time. Ideally I want these all to occur simultaneously, so that the PCs can't help but let some events happen.

I really want to include a fungal theme in this campaign, so I thought including a Cult to Zuggtmoy would be a good idea. I am not quite sure how to really implement this though, because a)who worships fungus? and b)I can't imagine too many adventures with a fungal theme.

I was thinking of running the free adventure The Burning Plague and modifying it so that the plague is actually caused by spores being placed in the water, rather than a poison. The ork would be receiving these spores from a druid who I would like to be a recurring villain. I also plan on a gas spore being involved the first time the PCs encounter the druid. I haven't decided if she is harvesting gas spores or not. I also considered a zombie outbreak, but rather than being undead the victims are actually being controlled by a fungus.

The presence of Zuggtmoy made me want to also include Juiblex who shares the 222 layer of the abyss with Zuggtmoy. The problem is that oozes and slimes may be even harder to incorporate into adventures and it seems even stranger to have a cult focused on slimes. I am not really sure where to go with the slime/ooze thing, but I have always had a soft spot for them.

To break away completely from those two ideas I was planning on incorporating Thoon Mindflayers into the campaign. The PCs start off gathering quintessence for someone and are unsure what it is. They slowly realize something is amiss and have an encounter with a Thoon Thrall and Infiltrator. These encounters escalate with either a PC containing quintessence or a prominent NPC. Perhaps even some slimes or fungi contain quintessence and the PCs bump into the worshippers of Thoon while on a completely separate adventure.

I would like 3 to 4 arcs occurring at once, so I would love any other ideas that you guys could provide. I would also love any help with embellishing on the ideas I previously posted.

I just realized that all these ideas could be set up so that they all eventually lead to the Underdark.

[Arathnos]

Going along with the idea of all paths leading to the Underdark, you could somehow bring in Myconids.

If you are unfamiliar with them, Myconids are a race of (roughly)humanoid fungus people. Perhaps Zuggtmoy has managed to corrupt a splinter group of them to serve her dark, twisted needs.The players could then be working with the main Myconid colony in the area to bring down their former fellows.

I love Myconids and I rarely see them used, so I thought it might be a fun little way to introduce something a little different, especially since it is highly relevant to your theme.


EDIT: A random other thought occurred...

If you want the Mind Flayers to be directly tied in to the overall story, perhaps have Zuggtmoy be slowly corrupting them.

Taken from the Forgotten Realms Wiki:

The demon lord Zuggtmoy is subtle and patient compared to her more powerful rivals. With a limited appeal to the mortal races, she delights in raising false cults to carry out her bidding, and in subverting the worship of other beings to gain followers. As the Lady of Decay, she takes pleasure in transforming beliefs step by slow step, rotting away the core of a peoples' faith until her own faith has been wholeheartedly embraced

Using this idea, perhaps the Mind Flayers are the only ones Zuggtmoy is directly influencing. She is slowly gaining complete control of the Illithids, subverting their designs with her own and growing her network with them as the puppeteers. This avoids suspicion and detection by her rivals in the Abyss, but allows her to grow her power and achieve her goals on the mortal plane.

I don't really know how this would mesh with the Thoon ideology, but it might be interesting to see the subtle change in the their actions as they slowly lose control to the Queen of Rot. Watching their special world-view drift away would be intriguing.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Perhaps with the fungus thing, it could be some sort of taint spreading across the land. The mushrooms that grow from it can be blood red in color, and the spores spread the fungus farther. It might even do something to the inhabitants of areas, such as killing them, rendering them mindless husks, or even funal creatures of some sort, amped up and hostile when infected. Kind of like a dire beast.

This taint could be started from Zuggtmoy perhaps.