gr8artist
2013-07-23, 12:23 AM
[Jimbo, Erza/Rooster, KO, Steph, Zajas, etc... STAY OUT]
[TLDNR at bottom in bold]
Alright, so I had a similar thread in the 3.5/d20/PF subforum, but this should work better.
My players have started asking for more interesting challenges. I was new to d&d/PF when we started playing together, though I had GM'd Scion for 4 years. (Never, ever, ever again)
I let them level quickly so I could see how play worked at different tiers, and I gave the same kind of rewards that I gave in Scion. This was a bad call, and made things too easy for them. The campaign fell apart, we played a few others, and I'm currently not DM'ing so I want to get a jump on some in-depth planning.
The upcoming campaign will be a continuation of the one that I had DM'ing, though the players will not know this at the start.
In the old campaign, there were two parts. In the first part, the players were trying to stop cultists from cursing temples. They were also investigating some old draconic religions. This first part came to a conclusion with a final battle between the PC's (and their draconic power) vs the cultists (and their stolen divine power). This ended in a draw, with the cultists wiped out and the PC's petrified for 14 years.
In the second part, the PC's awaken to find the world a much more dangerous place. Monsters on the loose, governments overthrown, and a militant organization called the Blackguards running the show. Now they set out to un-curse all of the old temples one-by-one, while avoiding or slaying the Blackguards as the go. But, one of the players got alignment-changed and during this time they ratted out the group.
Unfortunately, the campaign fell apart before anything came of this, but it provides a nice cliffhanger for the upcoming (third) part of the campaign.
The PC's failed in their quest... No new heroes arise to fend of the Blackguards or release their dark power from the temples that remain cursed. So the world continues to degrade. An event known as the Great Withering sweeps across the earth, causing the clouds to turn dark, the grass and plants to rot, and waters to stagnate.
In fear of this calamity, people retreat to caves and subterranean caverns to build new homes and colonies. They learn to live off fungi and exotic plants, and they bar the entrances with stone and massive wooden doors. They expand by digging tunnels underground, and learn combat to protect themselves from the dangers they find underground. All forms of economy collapse, and all exchanges are handled on the barter system, with the primary unit being 1 trail ration. Libraries and arcane colleges are practically nonexistent.
Generations of living underground have changed the way the races develop, and almost everyone has some kind of darkvision and light sensitivity. The poor food and ever-present toxins lower the expected lifespans of all the races, though the normally long-lived races such as Elves and Dwarves suffer to a much greater degree.
Now, this is the world I want to make. I'm not sure how to implement many of these changes, and I'm sure there are lots of things I may be forgetting/overlooking. I want to include ruins from the earlier parts of the campaign, and possibly one or two ageless NPC's from before.
So, I'm looking for suggestions/ideas on how to develop this world and the people that live in it... Interesting monsters, templates, changes, cultures, hazards... Everything that might pertain to an underground or post-apocalyptic campaign setting.
[TLDNR at bottom in bold]
Alright, so I had a similar thread in the 3.5/d20/PF subforum, but this should work better.
My players have started asking for more interesting challenges. I was new to d&d/PF when we started playing together, though I had GM'd Scion for 4 years. (Never, ever, ever again)
I let them level quickly so I could see how play worked at different tiers, and I gave the same kind of rewards that I gave in Scion. This was a bad call, and made things too easy for them. The campaign fell apart, we played a few others, and I'm currently not DM'ing so I want to get a jump on some in-depth planning.
The upcoming campaign will be a continuation of the one that I had DM'ing, though the players will not know this at the start.
In the old campaign, there were two parts. In the first part, the players were trying to stop cultists from cursing temples. They were also investigating some old draconic religions. This first part came to a conclusion with a final battle between the PC's (and their draconic power) vs the cultists (and their stolen divine power). This ended in a draw, with the cultists wiped out and the PC's petrified for 14 years.
In the second part, the PC's awaken to find the world a much more dangerous place. Monsters on the loose, governments overthrown, and a militant organization called the Blackguards running the show. Now they set out to un-curse all of the old temples one-by-one, while avoiding or slaying the Blackguards as the go. But, one of the players got alignment-changed and during this time they ratted out the group.
Unfortunately, the campaign fell apart before anything came of this, but it provides a nice cliffhanger for the upcoming (third) part of the campaign.
The PC's failed in their quest... No new heroes arise to fend of the Blackguards or release their dark power from the temples that remain cursed. So the world continues to degrade. An event known as the Great Withering sweeps across the earth, causing the clouds to turn dark, the grass and plants to rot, and waters to stagnate.
In fear of this calamity, people retreat to caves and subterranean caverns to build new homes and colonies. They learn to live off fungi and exotic plants, and they bar the entrances with stone and massive wooden doors. They expand by digging tunnels underground, and learn combat to protect themselves from the dangers they find underground. All forms of economy collapse, and all exchanges are handled on the barter system, with the primary unit being 1 trail ration. Libraries and arcane colleges are practically nonexistent.
Generations of living underground have changed the way the races develop, and almost everyone has some kind of darkvision and light sensitivity. The poor food and ever-present toxins lower the expected lifespans of all the races, though the normally long-lived races such as Elves and Dwarves suffer to a much greater degree.
Now, this is the world I want to make. I'm not sure how to implement many of these changes, and I'm sure there are lots of things I may be forgetting/overlooking. I want to include ruins from the earlier parts of the campaign, and possibly one or two ageless NPC's from before.
So, I'm looking for suggestions/ideas on how to develop this world and the people that live in it... Interesting monsters, templates, changes, cultures, hazards... Everything that might pertain to an underground or post-apocalyptic campaign setting.