Help for a imaginatively blocked DM

[Contemplayer]

Hello, I am currently thinking up the center of my campaign which is called dragon callers keep and will be a frequent spot for my Pc's. Trouble is, im having trouble thinking of Ideas to make it really stand out and also how to design it. All I have so far is the concept of a council of dragons trying to stop the destruction of the elemental planes and the material plane. Like the mountain top summit meeting. Any ideas or thoughts on how I could improve this would be greatly appreciated.

[Raven777]

I have yet to run into an inspiration problem that Guild Wars concept art cannot resolve.

http://khongthe.com/wallpapers/abstract/dragon-mountain-251339.jpg

http://86bb71d19d3bcb79effc-d9e6924a0395cb1b5b9f03b7640d26eb.r91.cf1.rackcdn.c om/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/Guild%20Wars%20Defeated%20Dragon.jpg

[Red Fel]

Hello, I am currently thinking up the center of my campaign which is called dragon callers keep and will be a frequent spot for my Pc's. Trouble is, im having trouble thinking of Ideas to make it really stand out and also how to design it. All I have so far is the concept of a council of dragons trying to stop the destruction of the elemental planes and the material plane. Like the mountain top summit meeting. Any ideas or thoughts on how I could improve this would be greatly appreciated.

Consider the following.

1: If it's a counsel of dragons, they're either going to meet in altered shape, or in their natural shapes. Given the fact that dragons have serious trust issues, I'm guessing they'd prefer to see who they're dealing with, so you'd want a place that could comfortably accommodate a number of massive, scaled horrors. Pick someplace large and open, like a vast cavern, a hidden valley, or a high cliff. Additionally, pick as elementally-neutral a location as possible. A volcanic cone might be isolated and open, and comfortable for any Red Dragon, but a White Dragon might find the heat a tad unpleasant.

2: If it's a regular meeting place, as opposed to a meeting that changes locations, consider a dragon's sensibilities. They like fancy things. They take comfort in familiarity. So put the two together. Perhaps as a sign of good faith, each dragon contributes a piece or two from his hoard to a common pot, filling the room with splendid wealth. Perhaps each dragon has carved out his own roost from the stones, as fitting his particular idiom - the Red Dragon's is blasted and charred, the Gold Dragon's is elegant and draped with tapestries, and so forth.

3: Keep in mind the purpose of the meeting. If it's to monitor the planes, they're going to need powerful tools - inter-plane scrying is no easy feat. Expect glowing crystals, polished mirrors, tranquil scrying pools in embellished golden bowls - plenty of devices to enable them to easily view remote goings-on.

Now weave the images together.

[Contemplayer]

Thank you very much Red Fel. as I was reading your post, numerous images and ideas sprang into my mind. I especially liked the idea of each having their own roost with their own "Touch of Home". Thank you for helping a DM who until now has only made up his story on the spot.

[_flint_]

In contrast to Red Fel's idea regarding the use of trueforms, what if they all met under a single form? It's a common trope that the secret society for kicking puppies converse anonymously with altered voices and appearing as nothing more than shadowy sillouettes. This is because they all know everyone else is dastardly and would betray them should they find out their true identity. Under the guise of anonymity however, they can relax secure in the knowledge that their colleagues couldn't harm them if they tried.

An ideal locale for monitoring planar activity would be the ethereal plane, making use of those pool thingies. Better yet, a pocket dimension such as that created by genesis. Or even a pocket dimension for each of them, with windows into each other...or something

[Bullet06320]

the rage of dragons novel series from forgotten realms may have sum inspiration, I recall one scene where the metallic dragons held council sumwhere in a mountain valley

also the old council of wyrms boxed set could be usefull for inspiration

[WbtE]

Is this council out to stop the destruction of the elemental planes because the one plot endangers the prime and the elementals, or do they have a stake in the inner planes? Making dragons more closely tied to the elemental planes could change their nature if it's their homeland, or drastically change their area of influence if they simply "tap" the elements.

[Neknoh]

My mind emmediately went to Harrenhall and human or shadowy forms.

[Contemplayer]

The idea is this. A powerful dragon who has been lost to time is disrupting the 4 elemental planes and they are currently colliding with the material planes. Rips in the planes are forming and elementals are attacking common villages due to their spilling out from these rips. The heroes are caught in the middle of all this having the heart of the Elemental plane of water, which is causing the earth elementals to hunt them. They heard that there was a council of dragons that were meeting on this matter and are bringing the heart of water to the meeting to tell them what they know.

[Darkz0r]

Lol, I have a similar thing going for my planescape campaign. Planar anomalies on the material plane are fun, specially when fire plane rifts open up in the middle of villages.

Fire mephits everywhere! Lots of good ideas on the manual of the planes, touchstones, etc.

As important as the keep design is, I think your plot is pretty ambitious and needs to be very believable.
Something I always do is a flowchart with all the ideas/plots/important NPCs which has the big picture of the campaign, and then you can invent stuff on the spot with that.
The flowchart can get quite complex, but it always help to have it in front of you when you need to make a complex decision mid game that has to be concise.

Not to derail the thread, but in my opinion you'll have a much better result (keep wise and campaign wise) if you answer some questions like: why the dragons need the PCs, why they just don't take the heart of the water, why don't they geas others to do their bidding, why work together, why meet in person leaving their homes behind.

Also what are they secretly plotting to have even more power in the end? How the PCs fit in that? They might realize, in a long future, that the dragons can't be trusted (all of them? some of them?), what will they do about it? That is, if evil dragons are trying to work with good dragons, you might come up with something more straightforward.

When you have this general idea, you'll know what kind of keep/other type of place will make sense for the meeting, if the meeting is still happening of course!