Need help for a campaign. I'm not that creative.

[FiddleForge]

I'm planning an Eberron campaign for my wife. She is playing a Kalashtar who grew up an orphan and doesn't even know what she is. Lots of potential for a story there. I just can't plan it out. I'm bad at original storytelling. I can follow a premade like a pro and modify it to suit. I just can never plan a story that isn't already created. It's too open a concept. The options are overwhelming. She likes spooky stories but not gory ones. I'm trying to find a way to plug her heritage into it, have Dal Quor agents in the mix, but I can't think of what the ultimate plot for them would be. What are they trying to do? Why would my wife's character be a threat to them? Would anyone care to weigh in with suggestions?

[pragma]

You can always fake it until you make it: you don't need to have a whole story in your head to have some Dal Quor agents attack your player and splutter out the words "Dreaming Dark" as they die. That's a reasonable session 1, and you can make sessions 2 and 3 by making up the most straightforward answer to any questions your player asks in response. e.g.: You could say, "Where would I find out about the Dreaming Dark?" with "The library I guess,' then maybe a corrupt librarian tries to upcharge the player and a conspirator reports her location.

I don't prefer to run campaigns by the seat of my pants this way, but I can say from experience that players never catch on if you're OK riffing on funny voices and the players ultimately succeed.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

You can ask your wife for a direction.
You can follow loosely a book plot(that is what a good friend of mine that I consider a great DM usually do).

You can adapt a written campaign you like to her using the power of refluffing.

Personally I like to create stuff as I run the game so I only creat a world with a map and names on it.

[Xapi]

First of, my advice is to steal. You are going to tailor a campaign to your wife and that is great, but you should be willing to steal encounters, sidequests and stuff from any adventures you are familiar with.

Some stuff you will use as is, as a sidequest. Other stuff you will use but change the fluff, so the encounters will be tweaked to follow your story.

Now, you want an overarching plot hook, so, some ideas:

An evil wizard wants to do some inception like crap on a king/group of kings. He requires a Kalashtar as a focus for his rituals.

Some dream based monster is trying to access the material plane. Kalashtar all over the world are receiving messages from Quori, with instructions to foil him. But she doesn't even known what she is, so how will she interpret these messages?

[krazedkoi]

100% steal anything that isn’t nailed down then refluff it!

If you have a couple of modules already then I’d suggest grabbing a few town maps, a few combat maps you like and then reflavour it to fit the story you want to tell.
Now that you have locations you can put them together in a way that progresses your narrative.

As for the narrative, poster above had some solid ideas - your wife is playing an orphan, who is her adoptive family? Where is she living? If you’re not starting at level 1, what has she done previously?

Questions you can ask her, or determine for yourself
- who were her parents?
- does the story revolve around her past or does it revolve around her future? (Her parents were killed for a reason and she has inherited enemies VS she is destined for greatness of her own ambition and accord)
- how soon (If at all) do you plan on involving others of her race?
- it doesn’t sound like there are other players, do you plan on having her travel with a DNPC? If yes, what is their role in things?

You don’t need an endgame, especially in smaller groups/solo campaigns you can really let the players guide the story once you have it rolling. This makes it easier because you can just fill in details as they state their intentions and ambitions, and not have to try and plan everything.

Good luck and have fun!!

[Throne12]

Here is a tip I heard from authors steal idea's and make them yours. You get inspired by something you read. So take it and change it a bit and make it yours. Dont copy 1 for 1 tho.

[Keravath]

I'd agree with other posters. Adopt and adapt content if you are finding it difficult.

Alternatively, as also suggested, start with a small story with a dozen or more plot hooks that could lead somewhere with just the most general of ideas attached. Depending on the decisions made develop that branch of the tree but remember to continue adding anything that could be a plot hook.

NPCs, situations, objects, events seen but not understood (e.g. a meteor streaks across the sky one night illuminating the camp as it passes by, the campfire flares up one night to a height of 10' and dies down, a single cloud floats across the sky and dumps rain on the party, the horses refuse to go straight but insist on circling a part of the trail you are following, a character wakes up with strange headaches, two characters have the same weird dream of someone in red robes with one difference in the dreams ... anything you like ... when you put in the hooks they sound like important details but you haven't necessarily connected them to anything yet).

As the tree grows, patterns emerge and the campaign you didn't know you were making comes together :) (at least sometimes) since those plot hooks you added will sometimes link back together creating a plot line you didn't even know was there.

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If you want horror - you could reskin Curse of Strahd and give it an Eberron feel or have the demiplane with an entrance in Eberron. Almost any premade adventure can be modified to have the flavor and setting of Eberron. Replace some NPCs with Eberron natives. Have the climate and geography conform to Eberron. Most of the stories and narratives can be fit to any setting with small adjustments. Finally, if you want actual published Eberron content, there is Eberron: Rising from the Last war from WOTC and the DDAL Eberron modules that could be used. (there was also a Sharn adventure book that they were giving away for free on DMsGuild that might be a good source ... though that might not be available for free any more ... it was a limited time and part of the free stuff from WOTC due to Stay at Home, Play at Home initiative.

https://dnd.wizards.com/remote/freematerial

[Sparky McDibben]

I would steal from the Bourne Identity (the Dreaming Dark vs the Kalashtar always to me had an edge of spy vs spy), possibly Mission: Impossible 1, and season with the Maltese Falcon.

Step 1: Establish her ordinary day, but add sinister, creeping elements. If she's an adventurer already, have her go on 1-3 adventures unrelated to her kalashtarness. In the background start adding in elements of the weird psychic BS the quori agents can pull. See the Ba Tsing Tse arc of Avatar for an example. Culminate with the Inspired making her an offer.

Step 2: If she took the offer, RP that out. But if she didn't...now the doors get broken down, all of her friends are targets, and we're going to Fugitiveville.