Help with campaign premise needed

[flare X2]

I have been working on a setting which so far i'm quite proud of and intend to run a game in autumn (fall) using pathfinder. However i'm not sure where to put the players or what narrative to provide them. Any help with where to start or how to focus on the players would be appreciated. The spoiler contains my pitch i intend to give them.
There are no celestial bodies in this world, instead atop the highest mountains lie this worlds stars, giant crystals which glow from the magic that flows through them. However, within the last five years the stars have begun to die and the ever-shadow; areas that always remained in the dark, has begun to spread. This game will focus on the isles of Kazegodo ruled by seven clans, desperate to go to war, who have been annexed by the Vahnheilm Empire. This will be a low magic game with primitive one shot guns and an Asian theme.
Kazegodo is a collection of islands ruled by warring clans, each one a different race; human, oger, orc, dwarf, elf, dragon and faeries. Once an emperor (Zao-Ten) managed to bring the isles to peace, but upon his death the clans started to bicker and tugged at the emperor’s crown. It shattered into seven and the clans took their pieces and re-forged them into 7 pieces of equipment to be wielded by their clan leaders (Omate) in war. Each territory is divided based on the sun location. All Lords (Kaba) (With a few exceptions) rule only one territory and the Omate has authority over the Kaba, but not their lands (they can tax the lord but the lord can pay however they wish), all titles are inherited and often wars can break out internally as an Omate forces a Kaba to forego their inheritance so their own children can run the land. The seven Omate have the ambition to collect all seven of the pieces and declare themselves Zao-Ten.
40 years ago the Vahnheilm fleet launched an invasion on Kazegodo, managing to get the support of the dwarf and elf clans, and after 4 years getting the other clans to begrudgingly subjugate themselves. A governor was sent to keep the clans in line and spent his time ensuring their petty squabbling didn’t result in in civil war. He took the seat associated with the Zao-Ten which infuriated the Omate: one because it was a fortress abandoned, only to be occupied by one who could truly call himself Zao-Ten, and second because they saw it as their own thrown.
However, the stars have begun to die and it has been three years since the Kazegodo has heard from Vahnheilm and the Omate are itching to go to war, the smallest spark could cause this powder keg to go off.
My problem is that I want there to be two layers to the game: the seven clans going to war with each other out of greed and the threat they all share, a dying world which is slowly taking from them. One idea I had was for the players to act as the body guard of a lord from Vanheilm who is fleeing a mass rebellion. However this lord will tell the players that the emperor of Vanheilm is dead along with his successors. This piece of info could be used by the players to warn the Governor of the isles or to provide motive for one of the Omate to go to war, depends on what players want.
My concern is that their may not be enough combat and the attention is taken away from the players.
Alternatvly the players could already be serving a lord and I could skip to when their lord learns of the Emperors death jumping straight into war with little intrigue.
Please bear in mind that I have never ran a political game before, but i do want to give it a go and i'm no stranger to improving a story. Thank you in advance.

[Geddy2112]

The thing about political intrigue is that it has, or should have, just as much combat as a fantasy dungeon crawl. Just replace wandering monsters with assassins, and cave full of kobolds with governors mansion, or crime bosses lair, etc.

Assassins are your bread and butter for plot train and intrigue. They can be sent after ANY person the PC's need or want to get into contact with, or perhaps the PC's lord. They find the party, so even if they drag their feet, they will show up. They usually carry orders, or at least some cryptic information about their identities(a mark, ring, etc). A fleeing lord is a perfect target, as is anyone trying to tell the governor or the governor themselves. At higher levels, PC's usually have some serious blood on their hands so assassins might be sent for them. Don't just use cloak and dagger rogues and the like, feel free to throw in some bruiser/enforcer types, and blast/mind control casters.

For dungeons, there will be rebel/loyalist bases, some sacked, some not sacked. A ship the PC's stow away on, or perhaps a ship that attacks their ship. Supply cache caves, manors, estates, etc.

Once war breaks out, you can avoid mass combat by making the PC's special forces, scouts, envoys, sappers, assassins, what have you.

Most importantly, let the PC's know the setting and background so they adjust accordingly. A ranger who is built to explore underground caves will be pretty out of place, as will a desert druid. Or will they...

[Bobby Baratheon]

One thing you could do to up the fighting variety is to start releasing more monsters into the world, with the secret being that the expanding darkness is what's spawning them. Heck, you could even say that the "stars" were there to prevent the Plane of Shadow (or whatever your variant is) from encroaching on the mortal world, and that the expanding darkness is creating more monsters and as it gets larger, stronger monsters will be released until something world shattering comes out of the shadows (this is especially worrisome in a low-magic world, where even something like a hydra or what have you is going to be pretty dangerous). To keep the theme, just slap the dark creature template on them. So now you have a tangible reminder that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and a growing existential threat to counterbalance the political intrigue. Kind of a Game of Thrones scenario - will the leaders stop squabbling in order to confront the existential threat that menaces them all?

I use a variant of this idea in my current campaign, and it's worked pretty well. The players have more or less figured out the local political intrigue (and taken advantage of it to set up themselves up as warlords in an awesome castle), but they still don't really know where all these weird monsters keep coming from.

It's an evil elvish empire across the sea, who are in league with fiends trying to weaken the Veil that separates the Material Plane from other planes, specifically the Abyss. They are sending the monsters as a precursor to invasion in order to soften up their point of invasion.

[flare X2]

Thanks for the help, the advice has been great and I can already see how the campaigns forming. Low level try to keep the lord alive/ keep the emperors death a secret> Mid level war starts with the inevitable leak> End of the world truly kicks in as the ever shadow encroaches onto the inhabited lands and eldritch horrors rise from beneath the earth.
To clarify the Ever-shadow is on the material plane (i'm not doing planar travel) as a consequence of the stars being fixed points of light, some areas will be in permanent darkness. I thought it made sense to have the boogeymen come from these places.

[DrMartin]

That's a very interesting setting :) the fixed stars idea makes for a compelling image, and it does make for a very alien world...i mean:

How do the fixed stars work, aside from the areas of complete darkness where they have been shut off? Is the world then continuously illuminated, or the stars have a cycle of dimming-growing brighter? Are there seasons, or just colder or warmer areas, depending on how far a given location is from the stars? (deep, cold valleys, and warm and fertile mountains?)

How do people track time, if there isn't a day/night cycle, or seasons?

Back to your plot suggestion, and painting in very broad strokes, i think you can have two different scenarios:

- the political strife and the "cosmic disaster" are two different layers, like the game of thrones scenario described above. Your players have to bring the political powers to understand that they are facing a bigger threat. Some of them may turn allies, while other will keep pursuing their agendas, possibly taking advantage of those who decide to divert their forces from the struggle for power towards saving the world. Makes for a more complex, nuanced and political game than the following option

- one of the two events is the cause, and the other is the effect. For instance: somebody wishes to bring the end of the world (or reset it so that they can re-shape the new world as they sit fit, or any other megalomaniac villain plot) and has figured out that bringing about great amount of suffering and fear will cause the stars to die and bring darkness to the world. Enter years of toil and manipulation to bring the clan to go to war against each other. Stopping the end of the world means finding out who is the real villain, and ending them means ending the apocalypse. This would make for a more straightforward campaign, with a CrazyBigBadGuy to stop, and the political action would probably be more along the lines of investigation than the game of alliances and betrayals that the first option above evokes

in my opinion the fact that one option would make for a more compelling reading or would translate to a more interesting set of novels does not make it automatically better for a game, you have at least to consider how your players approach gaming and the amount of effort you are willing to put into it.
If your table is in more for the diversion side of gaming (aka "turn your brain off and just have fun") the second scenario may be the more entertaining experience. If your players love the intrigue and scribble campaign notes and actually remember the name of the NPCs you describe, the first option may be very rewarding.

[flare X2]

@DrMartin- Thanks for your insightful response.
I definitely want the stars to have a permanent light, creating a cultural fear of the dark, and lack of seasons makes world building easier on my part. I didn't think about the time and with there being no celestial bodies they can't use the tide. maybe nature intuitively acts in terms of "days" and peopke keep pets to act as their clocks 'as the cat sleeps'? i'll need to think on that one.
Also i'd prefer to focus n the game of thrones style people being greedy and short sighted, i often struggle to create twirly mustache 'Destroy the world because EVIL!' characters.
I have the luxury of being in a role-playing society so i'll be attracting people to my game, meaning i can indulge myself in a bit of nuance.