Requesting help fleshing out a campaign idea - basically, Dragon Age but in Faerun

[Vorenus]

Esteemed Sages of the GITP Forum:

I would like to run a campaign set in Faerun/Forgotten Realms that follows the plot structure of the Dragon Age - Origins game. I would like some help with figuring out who could serve as the antagonists and the various factions within the game. SPOILERS FOR DRAGON AGE ORIGINS FOLLOW.

To summarize the plot of Dragon Age - Origins: You play a Grey Warden, a character who is sworn to fight against the Darkspawn. The Darkspawn are a race of humanoids who live underground and come up from the underground and destroy everything in sight every once in a while during what is called a "Blight." Over the course of the game and its sequel, Awakening, you learn that Darkspawn are not really their own race, they are actually corrupted members of the other humanoid races in the world of Thedas. You also learn that Darkspawn are corrupted by what are called "Archdemons"--which are not actually demons at all but rather are undead dragons. Throughout the first Dragon Age game, Dragon Age - Origins, your job as a Grey Warden is to (1) find the ancient treaties by which four different factions have agreed to help the Grey Wardens fight the Darkspawn during a Blight, and (2) convince the factions to honor the ancient treaties. It seems simple, right? However, as you work to convince each of the four factions to honor the ancient treaties, you learn that each faction is basically split into two sub-factions, and you have to choose a side with each sub-faction. Whichever side you choose will win the struggle for control of that faction, and pledge to honor the ancient treaties and provide warriors/mages/etc. to help fight the Darkspawn.

The four factions are:
1. Elves living in a forest kingdom. (The elves in Thedas are oppressed, and these elves are basically refugees, but they still signed that ancient treaty, and "Pacta Sunt Servanda.") When you go to that forested area, you learn that the elves are caught up in a genocidal war with a tribe of werewolves. You learn that the werewolves were created by a curse, and that an elf is responsible for the curse. You have to choose between wiping out the werewolf tribe or wiping out the elves. Whichever tribe you side with survives and joins you in the final battle.
2. Dwarves living in an underground city. When you find the dwarves you learn that they have created stone golems as servants and warriors. It turns out that the creation process for the stone golems requires the souls of dead dwarven heroes to be merged into the golem. The golems don't want to be servants/slaves of the dwarves any more. Do you side with the dwarves, or with the golems? There is also a second factional split here as the dwarven king recently died and there are two contenders for the throne, one who seeks to preserve the ancient customs of the dwarves and the other who seeks to reform dwarvish society. Whom do you support?
3. There is a Circle of Mages who are currently under siege by Templars. Within the Circle, the tower is overrun by demons who have managed to break into the material world. The Templars want to exterminate all the mages because they let the demons in (accidentally). The mages want to be free of oppression. Whichever side you support sends either Templars or mages to help you fight the Blight in the final battle.
4. The human kingdom. The human king was killed in a battle against the Darkspawn, betrayed by a trusted advisor and ally. The betrayer vies for the throne. There are other candidates for the throne. You basically get to pick who you want to support and there's a lot of political infighting, and real fighting, before someone is crowned.

OK, so that really, really oversimplifes the plot of Dragon Age - Origins. It's a game that you can sink over 100 hours into, easy. It's really good. If you haven't played it, you shouldn't have read this, but you should go and play that game.

All right, with that said, I am looking for help with figuring out who can be the appropriate factions within the Forgotten Realms setting. The reason I want to use Forgotten Realms as the setting rather than using the actual Thedas setting is I have already put a ton of money into supplements and custom-printed maps and models and etc. for Forgotten Realms. These are "sunk costs," and I don't want to repeat that with a new setting, even though Thedas is a really interesting setting. So, I'm basically stuck with Forgotten Realms because of the "sunk costs," but when I think about this plot I struggle to come up with factions that actually fit into the Forgotten Realms world.

So I am casting my net into the waters of the GITP forum, in hopes that all the knowledgeable and sagacious Forgotten Realms fluff bunnies can help me with this project.

Thanks in advance for your help with this project. I appreciate it.

Best,

--Vorenus

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For the mages, make the antagonist a Red Wizard who has infiltrated the school instead of blood mages. You could set that portion of the adventure in Blackstaff's school in Waterdeep, or use a more remote location if you prefer.

For the Dwarves, I would use the Duergar city of Gracklstugh from Out of the Abyss, it even has the different levels for different castes. That's also in the northwest.

I don't know much about elven factions in Faerun, but if you center it around Waterdeep you could make this one further north and the antagonists are frost giants.

[Composer99]

So, in many respects, the plot is superficially similar to the storyline of Rise of Tiamat, the second book of the Tyranny of Dragons adventure line.

Non-spoiler summary: The PCs have to unite a bunch of disparate factions, possibly involving hard choices that will bring some in at the expense of others, in order to fight the BBEG and armies of enemy minions, including (as you might imagine) dragons.

In that adventure, the PCs have to unite a scattered set of factions - from the Xhentarim to the Harpers to the metallic dragons to even the Red Wizards - in order to fight the forces assembled to bring Tiamat into the material world.

There's also a book series where the Cormyrian monarch brings together an unwieldy alliance - including a force of orcs dispatched by the Xhents - to fight invading Mongols-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off that has, at broad strokes, a vaguely similar overarching story.

So there certainly is precedent.

There are pan-Faerunian factions, such as the Harpers or Xhentarim.

There are countries and polities with potentially differing interests or goals in a conflict, such as Amn, Luskan, Waterdeep, Cormyr, etc.

There might be factions within the factions or polities vying for dominance or influence internally, conflicts that might need to be resolved or suspended in order to bring the faction on side.

There are many possible threats, from dragons, to princes of elemental evil, to undead, to fiends, that could be catalysts for the PCs need to mobilise factions together.

You could probably also port the conflicts from the game into the Realms, finding suitable locations in whatever part you wish to set the campaign. Elves in a woodland realm off the Sword Coast fighting against lycanthropes that some of them created? Dwarves in an Underdark citadel facing an uprising among their servant caste along with factional fighting over who will rule?

Probably the hardest conflict to port over would be the templar vs mage fight.

[Unoriginal]

Esteemed Sages of the GITP Forum:

I would like to run a campaign set in Faerun/Forgotten Realms that follows the plot structure of the Dragon Age - Origins game. I would like some help with figuring out who could serve as the antagonists and the various factions within the game. SPOILERS FOR DRAGON AGE ORIGINS FOLLOW.

To summarize the plot of Dragon Age - Origins: You play a Grey Warden, a character who is sworn to fight against the Darkspawn. The Darkspawn are a race of humanoids who live underground and come up from the underground and destroy everything in sight every once in a while during what is called a "Blight." Over the course of the game and its sequel, Awakening, you learn that Darkspawn are not really their own race, they are actually corrupted members of the other humanoid races in the world of Thedas. You also learn that Darkspawn are corrupted by what are called "Archdemons"--which are not actually demons at all but rather are undead dragons. Throughout the first Dragon Age game, Dragon Age - Origins, your job as a Grey Warden is to (1) find the ancient treaties by which four different factions have agreed to help the Grey Wardens fight the Darkspawn during a Blight, and (2) convince the factions to honor the ancient treaties. It seems simple, right? However, as you work to convince each of the four factions to honor the ancient treaties, you learn that each faction is basically split into two sub-factions, and you have to choose a side with each sub-faction. Whichever side you choose will win the struggle for control of that faction, and pledge to honor the ancient treaties and provide warriors/mages/etc. to help fight the Darkspawn.

The four factions are:
1. Elves living in a forest kingdom. (The elves in Thedas are oppressed, and these elves are basically refugees, but they still signed that ancient treaty, and "Pacta Sunt Servanda.") When you go to that forested area, you learn that the elves are caught up in a genocidal war with a tribe of werewolves. You learn that the werewolves were created by a curse, and that an elf is responsible for the curse. You have to choose between wiping out the werewolf tribe or wiping out the elves. Whichever tribe you side with survives and joins you in the final battle.
2. Dwarves living in an underground city. When you find the dwarves you learn that they have created stone golems as servants and warriors. It turns out that the creation process for the stone golems requires the souls of dead dwarven heroes to be merged into the golem. The golems don't want to be servants/slaves of the dwarves any more. Do you side with the dwarves, or with the golems? There is also a second factional split here as the dwarven king recently died and there are two contenders for the throne, one who seeks to preserve the ancient customs of the dwarves and the other who seeks to reform dwarvish society. Whom do you support?
3. There is a Circle of Mages who are currently under siege by Templars. Within the Circle, the tower is overrun by demons who have managed to break into the material world. The Templars want to exterminate all the mages because they let the demons in (accidentally). The mages want to be free of oppression. Whichever side you support sends either Templars or mages to help you fight the Blight in the final battle.
4. The human kingdom. The human king was killed in a battle against the Darkspawn, betrayed by a trusted advisor and ally. The betrayer vies for the throne. There are other candidates for the throne. You basically get to pick who you want to support and there's a lot of political infighting, and real fighting, before someone is crowned.

OK, so that really, really oversimplifes the plot of Dragon Age - Origins. It's a game that you can sink over 100 hours into, easy. It's really good. If you haven't played it, you shouldn't have read this, but you should go and play that game.

All right, with that said, I am looking for help with figuring out who can be the appropriate factions within the Forgotten Realms setting. The reason I want to use Forgotten Realms as the setting rather than using the actual Thedas setting is I have already put a ton of money into supplements and custom-printed maps and models and etc. for Forgotten Realms. These are "sunk costs," and I don't want to repeat that with a new setting, even though Thedas is a really interesting setting. So, I'm basically stuck with Forgotten Realms because of the "sunk costs," but when I think about this plot I struggle to come up with factions that actually fit into the Forgotten Realms world.

So I am casting my net into the waters of the GITP forum, in hopes that all the knowledgeable and sagacious Forgotten Realms fluff bunnies can help me with this project.

Thanks in advance for your help with this project. I appreciate it.

Best,

--Vorenus

You could easily start with the plot of Out of the Abysss (Demon Princes got portal'd to Faerun, and are now fighting everyone and each other to make it their own) and adapt it to make so the Demon Princes are fighting at the surface rather than in the Underdark. Demon Princes can transform mortal beings either voluntarily (see: the minoraurs) or by their mere presence (see: the gnolls), so they could be responsible for the Blight-equivalent as a way for them to gather cheap cannon fodder when they're cut off most of their Abyssal armies.

[firelistener]

My suggestion is to have an orc army marching down from the north as the "blight" through the region of Netheril. In 5e, Netheril is all ruins of an ancient mage empire, so very similar to the Tevinter from Dragon Age.

Silverymoon can be the orc army's target, and your equivalent of Ferelden.

High Forest is full of Elves.
The mountains in the area have lots of dwarves.
Silverymoon is ruled by a powerful wizard lady named Alustriel Silverhand, so she should essentially have a bunch of wizards under her command.

The main quest can be that there's some kind of issue where all the disparate factions within Silverymoon have decided to just withdraw rather than defend it for some reason, and the party is tasked by some entity (deity, prophecy, Harper/Zhentarim factions, foreign government, etc.) to unite everyone and preserve Silverymoon to stop the orc army. Maybe Lady Silverhand gets betrayed and is captured in battle like how King Caelin is at the beginning of DA:O.

P.S. - Dragon Age: Origins is a great game! :smallsmile:

[Lupine]

I would recommend not putting all four storylines out immediately, but your choice.

With the Sloth Demon in the circle story line, do not try to do the thing where you run around in the fade, or whatever. I started Dragon age three different times, and each time, I got bored with that story.
If the players have to take a long rest, it’s gone on too long.

Reskinned Orcs or Goblinoids (particularly hobgoblins) would work well for darkspawn. Liches could be a great choice for some things, and Dracoliches would make a great choice for the archdemon.
Use Ancient dragons to be the dracolich. The 800+ years for a dragon to become ancient explains why previous blights are legendary, and rare. It also explains why some refuse to accept that it’s a blight, similar to some major issues today.

As for how to warp it into FR, I wouldn’t, if I were you. Dragon Age has a pretty well fleshed out universe: just take advantage of that, and run with it.
A final thought, if you don’t want to use goblinoids or orcs, reflavored Drow could work really well