Campaigns and Settings for D&D 5e.

[Mithicalbird]

This is a conversation for plotlines and settings, post you amazing ideas here, and I will put them into a Campaign, and hopefully use it (I have quite a bit of different D&D groups, and its hard to keep up with them, I'm using up some of my best ideas, so any ideas are welcome.

[Puh Laden]

Setting: Forgotten Realms or any generic D&D setting but, whichever setting it is, it's set way back when the Yuan-ti, Illithid, or Aboleth empires were still around. (For bonus points, have them all at the same time.) If illithid are involved, you can make gith more prominent, and make them, duergar, and the other ex-mindflayer slave races default playable races. Obvious campaign idea for this setting would be overthrowing a city for revenge. You could also go the other way and use yuan-ti purebloods as the default playable race for an evil campaign.

[Anderlith]

Setting: Any

Background: The gods are dead, they finally drew lines & warred to kill each other, they wiped each other out. Now the material plane is scarred, broken, bleeding. Entropy is quickly taking over, the sun, life, magic, even the earth beneath your feet, it's all crumbling. Everything is fighting for survival, dragons, giants, & other monstrous beasts, those that still live are no longer idle. Our heroes, veterans of the Godswar, are left to pick up the pieces, & maybe find a way to keep their homes from churning back into the churning chaos from which the gods built thier Foundation.

Important Info: All divine magic no longer works, even druids/rangers unless they hold a focus item, that is essentially bit of physical remains of a god (blood, bone, hair, etc)
Arcane magic is likewise fading, wizards will need a likewise greater magical focus. Sorcerers are not effected only because their magical blood
Increase the material cost of all spells
The world is literally crumbling into nothingness, especially the outer planes, the demigods, angels, demons, any outsiders not dead from the war are invading/refugees in the material plane. Resources & space are running out. Every race is basically struggling to hold as tight to the home of the gods as they can, it's the center of creation & the last place to fall.
A cult of clerics of all faiths have banded together in a rough dogma of worshiping dead gods, & hoping they come back (to no effect so far)

[Naanomi]

Hrm... my current 'main' campaign plot:

Setting: generic fantasy setting with tight pantheon of Goddesses, the 'daughters' of a hostile Elder God that was destroyed after trying to destroy the plane several times

Plot: There is a cult trying to resurrect the Eldest God *again*, but when adventurers try to stop them they get embroiled in the secret: that the Goddesses are aspects of the Elder God, not his 'daughters', and he cannot be truly destroyed until they are as well... their quest to ultimately protect the world will make them the enemy of every follower of the Goddesses (nearly everyone of every race!) in the end

[sir_argo]

Evil Wins

Most campaigns are based on the basis that the "good" races are ruling the world. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc., have their cities and kingdoms and the "evil" races, Orcs, goblins, kobolds, have to stay hidden underground for their own safety. Sure, every now and then a powerful, evil leader raises an orc army, but it always ends the same. Good triumphs.

Not in this world. About 200 years ago, it wasn't so much as an evil leader as it was an evil force emerged and made these races more powerful. This force also organized them better, and was patient, waiting for the right time to launch a massive attack. It was sudden, and brutal. By the time word arrived to most kingdoms, their neighbors had already fallen. Orc and goblin armies, numbering tens of thousands, marched throughout all the lands. Humans, elves and dwarves met these armies with their own, as they had done in prior ages, but unlike those past battles, the orcs and goblins easily defeated their armies. It was simply a slaughter. Within weeks, entire kingdoms had been taken. Over the next year, every kingdom of man fell except a very few cities that had some sort of geographical advantage that prevented the orc armies from pressing their advantage.

You are a citizen of the only surviving town you know. The town is set upon a very high, tabletop mountain. The city walls encompass the entire tabletop mountain and is built right to the edge. Would be attackers would have to scale over a 1000' to reach the top. This city only survived because the the wizards of the city used magic to destroy the only path from the base of the mountain to the top. At first, the orcs tried to take the city, but the terrain was simply too much. Over time, the town wizards fortified their perimeter with magic. The situation is essentially a stalemate. The orcs can't take the city. Humans can't get out of the city. It has now been at least 200 years, and this is where the campaign starts.

The mechanics are these.

Orcs, goblins, kobolds and all other "evil" humanoid races have been empowered by an evil force. They get a +5 bonus to all attack, save, and damage dice. They also get +5 hp per hit dice.

Player characters are encouraged to play magic using classes as the town is heavily influenced by magic.

Spells that allow movement or scrying over great distances are homebrewed to be localized.


Teleport. Can only teleport to a permanent teleportation circle, or a location within 5 miles that you have seen within the last week.
Planar Travel, Etherealness. You can travel to other planes, but you must always return to your prior location on the Prime Material plane. In the case of Etherealness, you can't move beyond 500' from your original spot.
Scrying. Limited to 5 miles.


You get the idea. There shouldn't be any flying beasts or contraptions available either. Let the players know that if they find a loophole that would allow long distance travel (such as a tempest cleric of 17th level, who has a permanent flying speed--that ability will simply be nixed or modified to restrict long distance travel). The entire plot is that the characters have to slog through wilderness that isn't just inhospitable, but damn hostile. No roads. Heavy orc presence (in fact, the entire base of the mountain is essentially a permanent orc camp). No nearby town to which they can fall back. You can literally take any fantasy map and just rename the cities, and now they are all orc or goblin. It is they that have a safe refuge to where they can retreat.

The campaign's long term goal is to determine the source of what is empowering the evil races. In my own thoughts, it would be a godless evil cult that has somehow harnessed new ritual magic. There should be 5 locations that provide a source of this empowerment. A typical site might be a giant desecrated tree, that was grown from the seed of an elven tree of life, but corrupted by their evil ritual. An entire orc city would now surround this tree. Destroy it, and you destroy one of the 5 locations that empower the orcs. Each site destroyed, reduces their bonus by 1. So after you destroy one site, their bonus is only +4. Destroy all five sites and Orcs and goblins will be normal once again.

The orcs are not great magic users. The increase in their martial abilities has the natural effect of steering most orcs toward martial classes. Most of their spell casting members are centered around the 5 sites.

Other long term goals include finding any other surviving cities. There shouldn't be many. Only a few. They should have similar geographical advantage that allowed them to survive. Travel between the cities is likely only possible using teleport to permanent magic circles.

Short term goals include trying to find a new source of gems. Many spells require gems or powdered gems, and the city is running low.


It is a twist on the typical campaign setting where the characters enjoy living in a civilization that has the advantage over evil. In this campaign, you've got the short straw and many of the resources we've come to take for granted are not present.

[Joe the Rat]

A world with a strong theme of dualities - oppositional forces or concepts, and alternate sides or roles. Light and Dark, Order and Chaos, Hot and Cold, Life and Death, Comedy and Tragedy, Physical and Spiritual. Ruler and Caretaker. Spy and Secret-keeper. Protector and Killer. Sage and Fool.

Pick a standard fantasy race, and leave them out. If you want to be bold, leave out human, and see what fills that role.

Your world is a flatworld. No more of this goofy planet-on-a-ball-oh-gods-how-do-I-deal-with-polar-distortion-while-mapping. Gravity is on a plane - using the old Spelljammer model.
Since it pulls to the middle, that means you have a second surface to populate. This is your Underdark. Pass on the impossible tunnels through the world and magic underground radiation in exchange for a vault of stars and strange nebulae, as the sun does not glow here. Alternatively, down is universal, and digging too deep opens up to the infinite abyss.

[MrFahrenheit]

A world with no coinage. Whether due to being too ancient and not invented yet, or too inflated thanks to wizards overusing fabricate to such an extent that the coins are worthless, the party will not deal with cp/sp/gp/pp.

Rewards and trading take the form of livestock and bartering, respectively. Finish a quest? Here's a cow! You can trade it for a suit of armor and a couple longswords in the next town. Oh but do be sure to find a way to secure the animal when you go spelunking into that dungeon in between towns so your reward doesn't get aggro'ed by wolves.