DM Help Ok guys, Toxic Seas is happening! [Archive]

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SilverStud

2016-12-01, 02:46 PM

Hey guys! So over in the Worldbuilding subforum of Homebrew, a nice person created the seed of a world called Toxic Seas. A very awesome thread ensued, with people contributing to the setting.

Read about it here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503122-Let-s-build-another-setting!-(Toxic-Seas)/page2
Start with the summary provided by Jonagel partway down the page, then read the rest.

Well, my group wants me to run the next adventure in it! It's a two page thread, so I'm not gonna try to put everything in here, but I could use a little help.

40. Recap of known world

- World is blanketed a greenish (slight color changes depending on season (temperature) miasma/fog. Known civilization lives in cities, towns, etc. located on mountains.

- Civilization - Most cities, towns, etc. are built into the mountains, meaning Dwarves are generally well respected due to their natural talent in mining and creating homes within solid rock. These mountain homes never dig below the 'fog level' for fear of breaching into the fog and 'flooding' the inside with fog. Because of this, most societies within mountains see the poor living at the bottom (least sunlight and fear of collapse) and top (lightest air/poorest oxygen). The richer you are the more in the middle you live, with greater space, and the 'best of both worlds'....though even the best isn't too great.

- The Fog - The Fog itself becomes more toxic the lower you go. Some people are able to live in shallow fog areas, typically outcasts, criminals, cults, or others who don't want to live under typically oppressive laws of civilization's remains.

- Under the Fog? - Errant winds occasionally reveal gently swaying copses of what might be (at a stretch) considered large plants...or fungal fruiting bodies, filamentous mineral "trees" or physical manifestations of mortal sin, depending on who you speak to about the subject.

- Fog Ghosts - Fog like elemental of unknown original and purpose, absolutely deadly, and only beatable if dispersed with wind.

- Shreikers - Snakes with 4 wings, terrors in the sky. Varying in size from a small viper to a constrictor, these beasts 'fly' with the help of the winds and storms between the mountains. They are viscous and extremely aggressive. As they breathe through their skin, any contact with the fog guarantees death within minutes...despite this, they can recklessly touch the fog when frenzied or dive bombing travelers on paths or balloons.

- Fog Water & Bottled Fog - Fog water is used as a potent hallucinogenic drug -- very illegal.
Fog itself is bottled for use as a weapon (large quantities do not maintain themselves when bottle or transported for some reason.

- Descender are people who enter the Fog (on purpose!). They wear obscenely expensive suits made by greatest priests & scholars of the Grayhair Peaks. Typically these are used to recover trade goods from a lost ballon.

- Ballons! Ballon Corp. hold the technology behind the only device able to travel over the fog between mountain tops. A lethal organization, often exacting absurd prices or demands to ensure a powerful monopoly and position (if not iron grip) in the politics of numerous mountain tops.

- No Ballons!? Most people see the seasons as changes in wind patterns, as this dictates when most people can travel between mountain tops -- when wind currents change and certain footpaths open between certain mountain tops. Typically nomadic people, and typically family units.

- Going by Foot - The Penninites - Often considered the greatest warriors alive, these men and women are also the most chivalric. They help travelers traverse mountain tops and trade paths when they are open, not just as guides, but in maintaining the paths, and defending those in need. They only accept donations for their efforts.

Nations/Organizations/and more
- Kingdom of Imtaraya: Largest stretch of habitable land, ruled by dwarves, wealthy, powerful, ambitious, and more militarily advanced then most any other known civilization (King)

- Elven city of Cinaedhdonwei - Small but well traveled at the center of numerous trade routes. Wealth, and known for an unmatched spy network. Home of the Starlight Thrones (King & Queen)

- Neo Oroseros - A small city state famed for is faith in the winds and world renowned stone sculptors. Any charm or statue of notable worth was likely carved here.

- Theocracy of Anuar - Ruled by three living gods upon a massive temple at the zenith of the mountain. These gods were secretly three adventurers who found powerful artifacts (perhaps in the fog) and have since passed the artifacts on to successors, keeping their myth alive generation after generation...the artifacts do grant some incredibly, maybe even god like powers (especially in a world 'capped at level 6'!...hello control weather and wind wall, as a spell like ability once a week in a world dependent on wind!?"

- The Unmakers - A world wide organization who's only belief and goal is that there is a way to unmake (remove) the fog and restore the world.
- Church of the Sacred Mist - A cult who believes the Fog is divine, and meant to punish and test the faith and characters of mortals. Removing or tampering with the fog in order to weaken it is heresy.

- Grand Temple of the Clerics of Brindarnas - Carved from white marble, this temple and it's followers carries glass balls of air, look to the sky, excel in the realm of ritual magic, and are often visited by astronomers from around the world. Though very small, and lacking in most resources, they produce the finest silk in the world. The silk worms hang much like starts in the night sky, illuminating their temples. For some reason, they fall lazy and unproductive when moved away from this mountain...some say because of a gargantuan cocooned silk worm deep within the mountain, which while biding it's time till it's next stage in life riles it's smaller brethren above. Some say the Clerics actually worship this massive worm instead...but that would just be ridiculous... right?

- Snown - The edge of the known world! A small eastern town, which no one has ever managed to travel beyond. There is a giant marble hand barely visible further to the east, more visible during and right after storms. The Church of the Sacred Mist occasionally lead others to for a ... 'proper'? death. (Fanatical devotees of the church of the sacred mist frequently take sacrifices, apostates, and volunteers to the hands palm to be consumed.)

- Baron Noveliss - Leader of the greatest group of pirates in the world. Rumored to be on her way to become the biggest producer and distributor of the Fog Water drug.

- Naga Viper Hot Springs - A popular tourist spot (Especially for the wealthy/elite), with notable influence from Baron Noveliss, the drug trade, and the Damned(!). Famous for hot springs, as well as hallucinogenic fog water hot springs

- The Damned - a Nihilistic extremist group broken off from the cult of the mist. This group, though currently decentralized, believe the fog is not only meant to test or punish, but destroy humanity for it's sins.

- Strongbreath Monks - A group of monks who live near the shallows of the fog, with the monasteries building deeper into the fog -- the highest members of the order living in the lower most floor (typically 3 main levels/tiers).

- Ajuran Mountain State - Near the equator, where hurricanes and storms are constant, lies this small Mountain state built almost entirely within the mountain. During the right window, or for the brave/stupid captain, one can visit any buy exotics such as mangos, bananas, coffee, coca, and more. The Oracles of Aju, a pre-fog religion still alive in Ajuran (Aju, The Thousand Armed One) frequently clash against cultists of many types and cement their authority over the citizens through a series of byzantine societal codes.

Based on this summary and the stuff that follows in the thread, anyone got some good ideas for story threads? There's tons of awesome material here, but I'm not sure where to start, other than the party begins in the Kingdom of Imtaraya. There's opportunity for stick-it-to-the-man arcs, swashbuckling antics, tense exploration, urban adventure, and a lot more. But see previous statement: where to start?

Regitnui

2016-12-01, 03:02 PM

The damned (threaten to) release Fog inside the middle quarters of the great cities unless X demand is met, but plan to do it anyway and then Fog themselves once everyone else is dead.

SilverStud

2016-12-01, 09:12 PM

That's not a bad idea! It's a good idea for setting up world threats, and also is fairly nonstandard! Yay!

Definitely gonna add that to my repertoire.

INDYSTAR188

2016-12-01, 09:35 PM

Armored Walrus

2016-12-01, 10:17 PM

I will be camping this thread because my next Roll20 campaign may be here.

Are you starting from first level or more advanced?

Scathain

2016-12-02, 12:18 AM

The damned (threaten to) release Fog inside the middle quarters of the great cities unless X demand is met, but plan to do it anyway and then Fog themselves once everyone else is dead.

I'm returning from the aforementioned thread to say THANK YOU for this hook, that's exactly what I was going for when I posted.

Question: how will you rectify the e6 3.5 assumption of the OP? I'm also planning on running this setting by my characters in 5e, but you have to answer the flight / teleportation conundrum. Will you be limiting levels? Or just start low and hope for the best?

Regitnui

2016-12-02, 01:26 AM

I foresee a lot of people cursing by the Fog in this world: go Fog yourselves, Fog upped, etc.

Armored Walrus

2016-12-02, 10:30 AM

I foresee a lot of people cursing by the Fog in this world: go Fog yourselves, Fog upped, etc.

That definitely has to be part of the campaign.

@ Scathian, I would say by the time it becomes easy for a full party to fly/teleport they are high enough level that the fog itself, and the logistical problems it causes, should no longer be the main feature of the setting anyway. By that time they should be embroiled in bigger issues, perhaps trying to get rid of the fog entirely. Also, sending them below the fog line will keep the fog itself relevant, since even if they can teleport or fly, they'll still be faced with a) a hostile environmental feature and b) the vast unknown. Most of the world is below the fog line. There could be anything down there.

If you're worried about flight/teleportation trivializing the ability to visit different cities too early in the campaign, just make the balloon corps very protective of their airspace. Your PCs may be powerful enough to fly, but are they powerful enough to fight against an international trade guild's economic interests?

Scathain

2016-12-02, 12:58 PM

That definitely has to be part of the campaign.

@ Scathian, I would say by the time it becomes easy for a full party to fly/teleport they are high enough level that the fog itself, and the logistical problems it causes, should no longer be the main feature of the setting anyway. By that time they should be embroiled in bigger issues, perhaps trying to get rid of the fog entirely. Also, sending them below the fog line will keep the fog itself relevant, since even if they can teleport or fly, they'll still be faced with a) a hostile environmental feature and b) the vast unknown. Most of the world is below the fog line. There could be anything down there.

If you're worried about flight/teleportation trivializing the ability to visit different cities too early in the campaign, just make the balloon corps very protective of their airspace. Your PCs may be powerful enough to fly, but are they powerful enough to fight against an international trade guild's economic interests?

Valid points. Ngl, I'm asking because I think I'm planning on bringing in characters (level 10) into this campaign setting, fleeing the wrath of an angry god. I suppose I just need to reexamine the setting for its higher level potential. The parts about Balloon Corp. pirates? They would be looking to exploit high level adventurers, and the kingdoms of the world would either see them as tools of power or sources of fear.

The way the setting is written, I imagine the most cut-throat feudalism, especially amongst the dwarves. Want a rival noble dead? Defenestration has a much different connotation in a world covered in acidic fog.

Question for anyone who has read the previous thread: obviously we all have our own versions of what's beneath the fog / it's causes, but it would be rude to definitively call that mystery on the other thread BUT...
What are your ideas for the source of the fog? Mine is ancient Sarrukh-blooded yuan-ti, pumping magic fog out of their ziggurats in dedication to their slumbering god.

SilverStud

2016-12-02, 01:13 PM

Someone already sourced out the cause of the miasma in our thread. Basically an arms-race led to stupidly overdone cloudkill. And that's what I'm rolling with.

In answer to how I'm planning on rectifying the e6 3.5 issue... I'm actually not gonna bother. We're starting lvl 1, and most of the threats will be regular people, and variations on that. If you have a party of six, and most things are CR3 and under, then the high level spell issue takes care of itself. Also, that point about flying in Balloon Corp airspace is entirely valid. When I invented them, my intention was that they were very....... violent, in protecting their interests. They are far more likely to shoot down a flying man than to try to learn from him.

EDIT: I also am not allowing ludicrously economy-breaking spells like Create Food and Water and other such things.

Regitnui

2016-12-02, 03:39 PM

If the Fog is a Nuclear cloudkill, then consider making it sentient. 3.5 Eberron had the Living Cloudkill; a cloudkill spell that had been warped by the Mournland into an "ooze". If enough of those were produced, perhaps the Fog has its own opinion of the people crawling on the planet's face.

Zorku

2016-12-02, 06:13 PM

In 5th the fly spell only lasts 10 minutes and requires concentration, so it's going to take a whole lot of spell slots to only get yourself to a nearby island (somewhere around 40 miles if you spend an hour and 6 spell slots of at least 3rd level on this.) Something like a flying mount or flying carpet would actually upset the balloon corps, but this is a low magic setting so it's, at best, a bit tricky to get your hands on such.

Teleportation circle is easily handicapped by nobody on the islands having known the spell for long enough to establish permanent circles in safe locations, thus requiring fog mitigation merely to get into some abandoned temple from the world that was, and then make a dangerous trek back above the fog line. The Teleport spell proper is getting into such high levels that it's probably fine to use, especially in that the topology of this setting makes long distance mishaps into certain death.

I had a thought while reading through the setting's thread though- magic is fairly thin here, so perhaps such a potent spell is diminished in some way...
Maybe in this setting long range teleport spells are useless for moving items, even those worn or held. This would well enough necessitate the establishment of a permanent circle (and perhaps some paper screens with emergency wardrobe options,) anywhere that you wanted to teleport to for diplomatic purposes, and really make teleporting out of a dangerous situation that much more of a last ditch survival effort. Anyone carrying an important MacGuffin really has to move it by conventional means (if you can call balloon ships conventional.)

Edit:
For create food/water spells the setting already doesn't include fabrication type magic, but you could probably apply my above reasoning and nerf the spell into being a five hour long ritual that consumes some component that's notably more expensive than the food/water that is to be created.

Tentreto

2016-12-02, 08:19 PM

Wondered if someone might have a go. If I actually knew how to play D&D, I might Dm it myself...

Anyway, the major story threads:
Imtaraya ambition. A good setting for heavy Urban affairs and a good lead up to more complex fights. Especially with the possible control of Fog Ghosts. The Corp can be thrown in for good measure...

Pirates. Already been said. Maybe finding out if they are more privateers.

Clerics of Brindarnas: Gets a bit mythosy, but certainly leads to very dark secrets...
Maybe start around a freelance astronomer being harassed, and the party are hired by interest groups to find out what the hell is actually going on in the temple.

Getting into the fog. Obviously, any player would want to eventually find out the great mystery of what's below.
I do somewhat envision it as a cloud kill, but I originally saw it as either a natural thing, or as a barrier to keep peoples apart. I do think that there could be civilisations below the fog, but that gets into its own speculation...

To be honest, I would almost consider this a campaign in two parts: solving the issues above, and then below. The fog could easily be there for a good reason,

As for magic,from the OP, there are probably some teleportation orbs used for urgent (and Corp free!) communication that will give some limited quick travel. As for increasing food, this is probably done through improving the crop itself as food will certainly be scarce on mountains, and sheer production is useful.

Thinking back, this would probably make a good Burning wheel campaign...

Zorku

2016-12-05, 10:04 AM

While reading through it I had this lovely bit of imagery in my head but I didn't make t an entry because I felt it strayed too far into rewriting what people had said about the fog.

The water-ocean below the fog is also pretty close to the edge of the world for the balloon corps. You can skirt the edge a bit, but the fog actually takes a pretty steep drop a little ways off the coast, and this has the typical catastrophic results you would expect for a balloon meant to glide on the fog. If somebody could figure out how to make a vessel survive the drop and navigate the seas, despite every nautical expert having been dead for centuries, they would eventually come to another fog cliff. On the off chance that they can ascend it they will have actually made it to another continent with a whole new set of islands, but probably just as many shriekers, if not more.

EvilAnagram

2016-12-06, 08:58 AM

I'm just loving the dark and edgy Final Fantasy IX setting here.

Story hooks:

A mining Corp owned by a middler in a major city has been mining recklessly, releasing fog into the lower sections of a town.
The Damned have found a way to speed the transformation of the giant silk worm.
Radical factions of the Divine Mist priesthood are convinced the middle class are prolonging the Fog by preventing exposure to it and have decided to take matters into their own hand.
A man in town saw Something in the Fog. No one pays him much mind, everyone sees things in the fog, but he won't let it go. He lost his companions trying to recover a balloon, and he blames Something. "It saw into my eyes!" he recounts to those who will listen to his wild rants. "And through them, my soul! It knows this place, took it from my mind! It is coming! It is coming! Something is coming, and we will not survive its hunger!"

Knaight

2016-12-06, 09:56 AM

An island starts sinking into the fog, and the PCs need to help evacuate - and then they need to deal with the logistics of getting the evacuated people settled where land is incredibly scarce.

EDIT: The land scarcity I thought of in response here has now been turned into a post on the main thread covering different ways islands deal with population pressures, so that could be looked at.

Armored Walrus

2016-12-06, 01:15 PM

A renowned wizard scholar is researching a way to make Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion permanent - which would make the wizard and his/her family unbelievably wealthy for generations - but needs the party to retrieve certain components that can only be found deeper and deeper beneath the fog line. Certain factions, who have an interest in keeping the scarcity of housing precisely at the current level, will oppose this research if they learn of it.

Zorku

2016-12-06, 03:08 PM

Oh good. I was just thinking about how islands could have their housing on stilts when they had enough farm land but not enough living space (and weren't balloon corps-enough to make a proper floating expansion.)

Edit: Actually, pretty much every island above the high fog line either needs to have steep cliffs or similar nasty terrain if it's going to stop people from building structures on stilts. Unlike water-based tides there's nothing about the fog that would make the ground mushy. Similarly, any area with a lot of raider activity would probably place a lot of punji sticks between high and low fog to make it really dangerous for balloons to approach except at the even more built up fort. Thus a lot of the raiding would have to happen at low tide, when they could get off their craft before the dangerous reef, but still go much of the way on foot.

...now how to make an entry out of any of this...

Zorku

2016-12-08, 11:19 AM

So, I hadn't been totally familiar with E6, but I guess that takes care of your concerns with teleportation. Is there an established way of doing that in 5e? I'm not sure what conversion it would take.

My mind is running circles around the idea that doing things that reduce the fog also changes the level cap. A linear path to dispelling the fog outright seems like a bad idea for the campaign setting in general, but 14 levels over 5 fog strata lines up pretty well with 3 levels per strata...
Maybe the fog isn't just there to protect civilization against one calamity, but many?

Campaign sticks at 6 for awhile before world events lead to a removal of the top strata of fog (probably not even direct PC action,) and the islands celebrate like mad. Several caverns that had been lost to fog now have their rockfall exposed and it's a simple but somewhat involved process to pump fresh air in to force most of the fog out. There's so much land people don't know what to do with it all, still not all that much, and none of it has been made magically fertile yet, but there's still so much room for growth. The few religious sects that worship the fog are hailing this as the end of days, but everyone's ignoring that as they plan new housing and farming operations that will mean the nicest lives they've ever had. Most people are wise enough to recognize that shriekers and the other monsters are probably going to be nastier now, but that's ultimately the least of their worries.

The various fungus and crystal tree type entities that used to be well below the fog start to stir though (who knew?) and they run over a few islands before word can really get around. When they show up it's a lot like most encounters with murkers. Not as fast or sudden, but on a much larger scale, and the damn things are nearly invulnerable. "Nearly" makes it sound nicer than it is, as there are an awful lot of these things when they converge on one point. Any balloons around can easily evacuate, but there aren't nearly enough to carry all the people on an island.

The more populous islands piece together that there's a pattern to which islands are being hit- it's spreading outward from the ruins those other adventurers went into, before the top fog strata receded. Those folks fell with one of the first islands (or even in the ruins right after they made the change,) so it ultimately falls to the party to try and reach that structure and reverse what was done. One of the larger islands seems to be the next in the pattern. They're not exactly sure how soon this is likely to happen, but nobody is comfortable with the estimates (which is a good excuse for some structure damage and some of the large tree-things to have gone idle or weak above the fog line. Ultimately gives people a chance to figure out how to deal with them, perhaps after decades of research.)

If they do ultimately conquer the problem of this strata, a generation and a campaign in itself, most people are a lot more worried when they find similar ruins in deeper strata, and those fears are more than justified.

I'm kind of picturing a Gurren Lagann style of exponential threat growth, but without the limits of needing to be told during the coming of age of a single character.

Knaight

2016-12-08, 01:54 PM

Actually, pretty much every island above the high fog line either needs to have steep cliffs or similar nasty terrain if it's going to stop people from building structures on stilts. Unlike water-based tides there's nothing about the fog that would make the ground mushy. Similarly, any area with a lot of raider activity would probably place a lot of punji sticks between high and low fog to make it really dangerous for balloons to approach except at the even more built up fort. Thus a lot of the raiding would have to happen at low tide, when they could get off their craft before the dangerous reef, but still go much of the way on foot.

No disagreement here, but I will point out that in my experience steep cliffs or similar nasty terrain are pretty common at mountaintops, which is what these islands fundamentally are. I'll grant that I'm extrapolating a bit from the Rockies to mountains as a whole, so I might be wrong, but this seems pretty likely.

Zorku

2016-12-08, 04:29 PM

No disagreement here, but I will point out that in my experience steep cliffs or similar nasty terrain are pretty common at mountaintops, which is what these islands fundamentally are. I'll grant that I'm extrapolating a bit from the Rockies to mountains as a whole, so I might be wrong, but this seems pretty likely.

It's not so much that I don't expect steep cliffs, but that I don't expect steep cliffs to sort themselves to a specific elevation. These islands poke out of the fog with enough land that you can sort of farm it with the help of magic, so in my mind (also highly Rocky Mountains influenced,) you've got lots of steep cliffs, but you're kind of forced into having a lot of the more gently sweeping valleys- like where you see the broad swaths of conifers, with a lot of scrubland type vegetation in every rain shadow. The kinds of places my progenitors would hunt deer every fall, except that now the living people are crowded up there and they've converted as much of it as possible into farmland.

I'm more familiar with the lower elevation bits that wouldn't really be cut into islands if that's where the fog stopped, but a whole lot of peaks just taper upwards, so with those you're more likely to have a gentler slope than what you're working with above the fog line. There are mountains that are steep cliffs until a fairly sudden plateau, but I'm not sure how often they're like that on all sides, and they don't seem to be the most common sort of peak.

I haven't really worked out a good conceptual height for the typical island in this setting though. If people are going to have monasteries at successive depths of fog and entire settlements are hiding down there then there needs to be a fair deal of land area.

e: Thinking about the social strata on the better islands you've got to be looking at a few hundred feet, if not more than a thousand. I wouldn't really expect big differences in air with much less than 1k, so we'd probably be looking at some pretty complicated topographies.

Digging around... Mount Ararat is really photogenic. Greater Ararat seems to have a variety of gentle valleys and jagged cliffs.