KindOfGoodGuy
2017-04-02, 01:07 PM
So I have had an idea floating around in my head for a while for a unique game world, but I have no idea how to go about the first few sessions or how to get a proper campaign (or at least the plot hooks) established. I was hoping you all might be able to offer insight.
The idea for this game world would rewrite a lot of the cosmology of the typical D&D world. There would effectively be 3 types of magic: arcane, divine, and nature. To explain the importance of each one would require comparing it to a blanket (easiest analogy I can think of). Arcane magic would be the fabric. It permeates every inch of the multiverse and without it almost nothing would exist. Divine magic would be the shapes, boundaries, and borders of the blanket. It is responsible for the good, evil, law, and chaos that we experience that compose our everyday lives. Finally, nature would be the color. It is due to nature that life, vibrancy, and energy exist. To maintain order and control, there are 3 gods. Each one is responsible for the continuation of their own type of magic. This means that each deity has a special link any and all people that practice their type of magic.
The premise for the story and campaign is that an ignorant and incredibly powerful group of evil adventurers attacked and killed the deity of nature, subsequently killing 99% of druids in the process via a kind of magical feedback loop. Most of the adventurers were killed or mortally wounded in the battle though, so there is no chance of them being able to repeat their transgressions.
This is where the party steps in. In a manner similar to Portal 2, the party is a group of druids that were selected to go into a stasis of some sort in case something horrible happened. In any other circumstance, they would have been woken up as soon as the battle had ended. The problem though is that the druidic guardians that watched over them were killed via the feedback before they could open the stasis pods (which would be flavored to look like plant pods of some sort). 1000 years later and the residual magic responsible for keeping the pods functioning finally runs out and the party emerges. The goal of the campaign is to find out what happened and to fix the cosmology of the multiverse (by trying to find a replacement or become a replacement).
The world itself is showing great signs of decay though as the party goes through it, which is to give it a kind of dark and serious approach. The sky is almost always overcast so the sun very rarely shines. It might rain for an entire week straight, but the amount of rain is equal to a single day of regular rain. This leaves the trees, grasses, and crops with little to sustain themselves. The wind is also incredibly still. Without it blowing regularly, the trees can't develop enough bark to grow strong and tall to then produce enough food for the animals. This leaves the animals hungry and more thin, which in turn prevents hunters from being able to bring enough to the table to feed their family. Just to survive, the clergymen have been forced to use spells like Create Food and Water en mass. Meanwhile there is an elven city that pulled a Suramar and has been using huge arcane crystals to sustain its populace, but have the downside of causing minor mutations to the populace after prolonged exposure. The party is the only group of druids left in the world and they are the only ones who can even start to fix this.
My problem though is that like I mentioned earlier, I don't know what kind of plot points or hooks i should start with to get the game rolling after the party awakes from stasis.
The idea for this game world would rewrite a lot of the cosmology of the typical D&D world. There would effectively be 3 types of magic: arcane, divine, and nature. To explain the importance of each one would require comparing it to a blanket (easiest analogy I can think of). Arcane magic would be the fabric. It permeates every inch of the multiverse and without it almost nothing would exist. Divine magic would be the shapes, boundaries, and borders of the blanket. It is responsible for the good, evil, law, and chaos that we experience that compose our everyday lives. Finally, nature would be the color. It is due to nature that life, vibrancy, and energy exist. To maintain order and control, there are 3 gods. Each one is responsible for the continuation of their own type of magic. This means that each deity has a special link any and all people that practice their type of magic.
The premise for the story and campaign is that an ignorant and incredibly powerful group of evil adventurers attacked and killed the deity of nature, subsequently killing 99% of druids in the process via a kind of magical feedback loop. Most of the adventurers were killed or mortally wounded in the battle though, so there is no chance of them being able to repeat their transgressions.
This is where the party steps in. In a manner similar to Portal 2, the party is a group of druids that were selected to go into a stasis of some sort in case something horrible happened. In any other circumstance, they would have been woken up as soon as the battle had ended. The problem though is that the druidic guardians that watched over them were killed via the feedback before they could open the stasis pods (which would be flavored to look like plant pods of some sort). 1000 years later and the residual magic responsible for keeping the pods functioning finally runs out and the party emerges. The goal of the campaign is to find out what happened and to fix the cosmology of the multiverse (by trying to find a replacement or become a replacement).
The world itself is showing great signs of decay though as the party goes through it, which is to give it a kind of dark and serious approach. The sky is almost always overcast so the sun very rarely shines. It might rain for an entire week straight, but the amount of rain is equal to a single day of regular rain. This leaves the trees, grasses, and crops with little to sustain themselves. The wind is also incredibly still. Without it blowing regularly, the trees can't develop enough bark to grow strong and tall to then produce enough food for the animals. This leaves the animals hungry and more thin, which in turn prevents hunters from being able to bring enough to the table to feed their family. Just to survive, the clergymen have been forced to use spells like Create Food and Water en mass. Meanwhile there is an elven city that pulled a Suramar and has been using huge arcane crystals to sustain its populace, but have the downside of causing minor mutations to the populace after prolonged exposure. The party is the only group of druids left in the world and they are the only ones who can even start to fix this.
My problem though is that like I mentioned earlier, I don't know what kind of plot points or hooks i should start with to get the game rolling after the party awakes from stasis.