Campaign Ideas

[Daws2727]

Hello all!
I have decided along with my players that our next campaign will involve a new land full of resources that are as of yet untaken. I am getting lots of inspiration from the European "discovery" of the new world as well as from the gold rushes in San Francisco and the Yukon.

I think that people will have already been developing the land for over a year now, so there will be hastily built towns which will serve as good places for quests and intrigue. There will also be the untamed wilderness with a few mines/camps and possibly a few early farmsteads. I'm thinking there will be many mountains and streams.

So anyway, one of the main empires which already has. overseas territories is taking interest, claiming land, and promoting industry on the land (they profit from taxes on the land) and they are paying for people's ship journeys. The PCs along with some friends find out and hopefully go over, looking for profit, adventure, and a place in history.
All of this is still just ideas though.

The point of the thread...
Please give me any ideas and suggestions you have whether they are for, quests, NPCs, locations or terrain, whatever can make this campaign better is something I'll use.
Thanks in advance to anyone who helps out!

[NRSASD]

Quick clarifying question: Are we talking about the Spanish conquest of South America, or the British/French Colonization of North America as the more dominant influence?

The reason I'm asking is because they were two totally different things as far as settings go. The conquest of South America had large cities of technologically primitive but socially advanced peoples who fought and lost wars against the invaders, thick, impenetrable jungles and mountains filled with ruins of horrifying temples brimming with treasures beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and a burning sense of bringing the light of Christianity to the heathens. (Yes, I'm aware these statements are probably somewhat inaccurate, but they capture the Spanish's attitude decently). North America had wandering tribes of "barely civilized" peoples, living a nomadic lifestyle that was generally unfriendly towards the settlers, massive plains and mountains unlike anything back home, and tremendous numbers of huge beasts that European explorers had never dreamed of.

As far as setting development goes, figure out who the natives and what their attitude is towards the settlers (if there aren't natives, why not? What happened?). From there, dozens of plot hooks arise. Explore the ancient ruins to find treasure that will bring fame, glory, and wealth beyond any settler's imagination. Drive off the native raiders harassing settler caravans. Drive off the settlers forcibly evicting the natives. Help establish a settlement in the wilderness. Help take down a corrupt merchant sucking the land dry, treating native and settler alike like slaves. Capture exotic beasts for back home. The list can go on...

[DCraw]

I'd also suggest looking into Australian early colonial history. Events like the Rum Rebellion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Rebellion), the frontier wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_frontier_wars), or the ill-fated expedition by Burke and Wills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Wills) could all inspire interesting quests or NPCs.

If you want some villains, you could also consider appropriating some of the bushrangers. The Kelly gang are the most famous, but Jack Donahue and the Wild Colonial Boys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Donahue) probably fit your time period better.

If you're looking more at the gold-rush aspect (which typically happens once the new lands are at least somewhat colonised), something like the Eureka Stockade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion) could make for an interesting campaign in and of itself. Make the government officials heavyhanded but not corrupt per se (LN with an emphasis on the L), and the rebels justifiably angry but obviously overwhelmed, and you could create an interesting dilemma of whom (if anyone) your players should support.

[Daws2727]

Thank you a ton to both NRSAD and DCraw, all of your ideas are both inspiring and usable. As far as NA vs. SA goes I think the campaign will be more based on North America. I think there will be natives, but only further into the woods, that way they can still be parts of many quests, but won't dominate the campaign.
So yeah, thanks again, and you've given me lots to think about.

[TheThan]

This sounds like a great time to do a hex crawl. The pcs travel about the area exploring it and reporting back to the person in charge on their findings.

You could do a Lewis and Clark style expedition and send them across the continent looking for an easy path across.

You could even have a lot of politics involving the natives, alien species the colonists have never seen before. imagine the first time dwarves encounter orcs or goblins (you may have to make some changes to class features). The actions of the PCs could shape a future campaign.

[Daws2727]

I think I might do a quest where they are exploring a route through a mountain range, as they already know there are other nations across the continent, but they don't have a good route to get there.
I really like having the last campaign effect the next one, and this campaign happens right after our last one where the players (different characters) helped avert a global war, which the new PCs will have heard of. I don't what the next campaign will be, but I'm sure this one will have effect on it. All of my campaigns and smaller adventures take place in my homebrew setting.

[NRSASD]

Exploring the mountain range will give a lot of chances to use fun terrain types like loose rock slopes, narrow canyons, glaciers, and the like. Since the natives aren't a major presence, I'd make the wild animals (monsters included) larger, fiercer, and more curious about humans than normal. Also, you could make the mountains themselves be adversarial, with ferocious storms, rock slides, avalanches, poor visibility, and a lack of easily accessible food. If you've ever played Skyrim, I highly recommend trying out a mod called Frostfall which makes the great outdoors just as much of a threat as anything else.

Glad to be of service! :smallsmile:

[It Sat Rap]

Sounds interesting, I want to add my two cents.

-Maybe some of the other empires from the old continent claim title on the new land, too. This could generate tension between the nations, maybe lead to a war.
-There was another nation in this new land before, cultural and technologic advanced, but this nation went down hundreds of years before. There are many old, sunken citys of these people over the landscape, with treasure hidden inside, but also hazards from the past. When the PCs explore these old ruins, they find information that the cause for the fall of this empire might return one day...
-There are animals with a fancy hide over there. These hides become very trendy in the old world, and merchants are paying high prices for it. Many people start to hunt the animals. However, this could lead to conflicts with natives who are affraid that these animals will be extinguished soon, or maybe conflicts between the settlers about the best hunting landscapes.
-The PCs are in a village and hear that a group of explorers wandered to a mountain that is uncharted so far some weeks ago. Now one heavily wounded explorer is on his way to the village were the PCs are. The PCs are walking coincidentally on the route to the village and pick up the explorer. He dies in their arms, unable to say any explaining last words. If the PCs take a look in his pockets, they will find some shiny gold nuggets. Now what? What should they do? Tell the people from the village the truth, maybe only half of the truth, or simply withhold the incident from them?
-The PCs are hired to explore an uncharted landscape. However, they run into another group of adventures who were hired by a competitive nation. They could ignore each other, fight each other, maybe have a competion like: "Which group reaches the top of this unknown mountain first has the right to explore these landscape further, the other group has to leave."

[Daws2727]

Ahh yes, I had forgot to mention that I was meaning to add some rival nations, specifically these two that have already been competing around the world. Those are all good ideas of the competition could involve the PCs.
Also I thought of a cool encounter where the PC are exploring the mountains, and the natives ambush them in a narrow pass from above and both sides.
Thanks for all the input and please feel free to keep posting...

[NRSASD]

-There are animals with a fancy hide over there. These hides become very trendy in the old world, and merchants are paying high prices for it. Many people start to hunt the animals. However, this could lead to conflicts with natives who are affraid that these animals will be extinguished soon, or maybe conflicts between the settlers about the best hunting landscapes.
[/I]

That seems like a ready made conflict for druids, both new world and old, to jump into on the natives' side. Maybe druids are a much stronger force in the new world than they are in a "generic" setting?

[Daws2727]

That's interesting how you bring up druids as before we came up with this campaign, I suggested that we might a campaign with a full party of druids. Anyway, I'm still not sure whether or not I'll add druids to this campaign. Possibly the natives have druids amongst their ranks. Kind of a shamanic culture. I think the natives will be a homebrew race of dark-skinned jungle-dwelling elves who can resist poison as a result of their adaptation of the tough environment.

[Windrammer]

It's always fun to have the remains of a lost civilization lying about. Makes for a nice dungeon or two at least.

[MrZJunior]

The conquest of South America had large cities of technologically primitive but socially advanced peoples who fought and lost wars against the invaders, thick, impenetrable jungles and mountains filled with ruins of horrifying temples brimming with treasures beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and a burning sense of bringing the light of Christianity to the heathens.

Not to mention their populations were on the verge of being decimated by new diseases rather than sliding rapidly down the slope towards apocalypse.

[Daws2727]

As far as decimation from disease goes, I think that was a constant in the colonization of the Americas. But aside from that, I'm not sure if I will have a lost civilization. Our last campaign had a lot of that, and this campaign is focused on new discovery, seeing things no one has seen before. If I do add one, it will probably amount to one dungeon/quest.

I think one reason no one settled here long ago is that it is a fairly inhospitable place, and the resources were not actually used back in the day, or they had no way to extract them.

[NRSASD]

Has the old world successfully navigated around the new world's coastline? If so, you could have the campaign be a "race for the NW passage" but on land over the mountains. The PCs could compete against other teams from their own nation and foreign teams, all bent on mapping and claiming the lucrative trade route through the mountains. They could wind up facing hazards from the local wildlife, sabotage, natives, other teams following the rules of "accidents happen when no one is looking", etc. Plus, the PCs could get to name all the landmarks they find on their epic trek across the verdant wilderness.

[Daws2727]

Thanks for all the ideas NRSAD, I will certainly be using them.
Does anyone have ideas for possible events that might take place during the campaign? Perhaps a dragon is suddenly found in one of the mountains, but is not necassarily hostile, or a rockslide/flood. Also I'm starting to think about the journey back home, and I'm thinking that there are going to be pirates, much like the Caribbean pirates vs. the Spanish gold ships.
Any more ideas, notes, or inspirations are more than welcome!

[MrZJunior]

Thanks for all the ideas NRSAD, I will certainly be using them.
Does anyone have ideas for possible events that might take place during the campaign? Perhaps a dragon is suddenly found in one of the mountains, but is not necassarily hostile, or a rockslide/flood. Also I'm starting to think about the journey back home, and I'm thinking that there are going to be pirates, much like the Caribbean pirates vs. the Spanish gold ships.
Any more ideas, notes, or inspirations are more than welcome!

The party traverses an extremely dangerous mountain pass, looses one of their mules, etc etc, just to get to the river on the other side to find their rivals cooking breakfast after taking the easy way around.