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Yora
2014-06-14, 05:18 AM
I started my current campaign with a bit of a Lost World approach. The only difference being that the PCs are not outsiders from a highly advanced society, but members of a native culture which is just starting to explore the larger world outside their ancestral islands and valleys, where things are familiar and safe. They are well equiped with metal weapons and armor to stand up to mortal beasts, have magic to defend themselves against spirits, and possess the skills to survive in unfamiliar and even hostile environments. And most importantly, they have the confidence to take on the larger world that lies outside their homelands. So they are not really any different from regular fantasy heroes or Lost World explorers, maybe with the one difference of approaching the dangers and spirits of the wild with more respect and no pretentions of being above them.

Though while it's a relatively well established genre, I am having trouble actually bringing it to life. So far in the campaign, the PCs have been roaming along the border of their known and safe homeland, but always went only so far that they could be back on familiar ground by the next day. Primarily because they were looking for people who were trying to hide from others but still had their interests lying inside the civilized land. But what I really want is the campaign to be about going well beyond the borders of the known lands and into the unknown wilds to find things few have ever seen before.
And I can't really figure out how to do that, both in adventure hooks and designing the campaign area.

Madeiner
2014-06-14, 07:33 AM
First thing that comes to mind is this:

Have a great calamity spring up on their homeland.
It can be either caused by lost word technology, or can only be averted by it.

Let them find a book or other implement that details the general location of this technology, which is, of course, very far away.

Kalmageddon
2014-06-14, 08:28 AM
You could work on an "Apocalypse Now" premise, where they have to track down someone who is hiding in the jungle in the middle of nowhere.

Thrudd
2014-06-14, 08:45 AM
A stranger appears, with a different skin color, bringing news of a far away society. They throw around gold and jewels like they are nothing, and explain that such riches abound in their part of the world.

Or the stranger accidentally brings an exotic disease that infects the community. Normal cure disease only slows it down, doesn't cure it. Only the shamans of their far away home know how to stop it.

DM Nate
2014-06-14, 12:29 PM
Or both. :smallsmile:

sktarq
2014-06-15, 08:50 PM
you can also do things like have say another group who did go out deep into the wilderness or whatnot bring back treasures and get hugly lauded etc....show what they can get by accepting risk.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2014-06-16, 11:14 PM
Steal the Princess Mononoke plot. A strange beast stumbles in covered in arrows of a mysterious make. When the party fights it, somehow it poisons one of them! The healer has no idea how to fix the poison, it seems resistant to magic, but maybe whoever had the arrows could have an antidote! That would make even more sense if the poison was on one of the arrows... Maybe have the poisoned one be a loved one of one of the PCs or a child they have to take along or something, to avoid having to poison a PC outside of the rules.