PDA

View Full Version : DM Help Invasion themed campaign ideas wanted.



KyleG
2021-01-31, 05:17 AM
I have two story ideas at the moment and this is the one with the big picture (campaign) coming into frame whilst the other has the little picture (adventures). Not sure which i will run with but I would like your thoughts and suggestions.

The country of the party is under ecological invasion they dont know it yet cos its going to build. From strange plants and beasts to whole ecological systems replacing the normal. It is proceeded (pre campaign) by a war (soften up the enemy). That enemy were constructs and the people are scared and isolated having retreated back before the constructs just vanished. I want to set these up as made by some "artificer armourers". I have this image of them completely clad and never seen outside their armor but they have an arrangement (somewhat tenuous alliance) with the Yuan-ti Druids who are following up the war with the ecological invasion. Which brings to mind some questions:

1. Why the alliance? What do they hope to gain? I like the idea they played both sides. Sent representatives to both nations offering something and they chose to align for now with the Yuan-ti. If anyone knows babylon 5 they have a Vorlon-esk feel, although its probably more Morden-esk in nature. Im thinking Drow. Maybe not the typical DND Drow but yep i think Drow could be cool.

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/ba/40/83/ba4083cc401fee436a78b63389780c65.jpg

2. What adventures would this setup? The ecological invasion uncovers old ruins that speak of long forgotten elves? Left behind constructs acting without orders behind our lines? A civilisation in retreat as the ecology turns against us. Seeking out new allies? What species would be a natural enemy to the Yuan-ti?
3. What draws my player into the conflict? I dont want a sense of urgency that they need to power up to save the country. I dont even really want them involved with it for sometime. Let them go dig in ruins, and get surprised by unexpected constructs. Let them take a week off between earning outings. I want the ecological aspect to almost sneak up on them. Safe behind walls perhaps.

Palanan
2021-01-31, 11:22 AM
Originally Posted by KyleG
A civilisation in retreat as the [ecosystem] turns against us.

This is a good concept to start with, but it’s worth thinking about what point in the process you want to start the campaign in. It sounds like you’d prefer it to be fairly early on. Are the cities and towns in your region already isolated in the wilderness, or are they still interconnected and just beginning to suffer disruptions?

One major effect of the invading ecosystems could be that they take over and choke out the farmlands which have been feeding the party’s home country. Disruptions in food supply will have strong ripple effects throughout the country. If there’s a specific direction from which the invading ecosystem is spreading, there may be waves of refugees escaping that region and flooding the roads and towns elsewhere in the country.

These would be day laborers who can’t find work because fields have been overrun with alien organisms, and small farmers and homesteaders whose meager holdings are now covered with strange growths, as well as shopkeepers and hand-to-mouth artisans who depended on the business from the homesteaders. They will be poor and desperate; most of them will be fleeing to “safer” areas with their families and only what they can carry.

Some of them will join gangs that plunder and extort where they can; others will try to form ad hoc militias to escort their families to wherever they think will be better. It will be a growing refugee migration out of the affected area, and your PCs could be caught up in the chaos in any number of ways.

Given that the country has just been through a war, the military will be thin from its losses, and most of the "soldiers" will be raw, untrained recruits. The military will be hard-pressed to maintain order even in the more stable areas of the country, and whatever troops are dispatched to the area of the ecological invasion, they will almost certainly be undermanned, underequipped and underfed. Some of them will be diverting aid into the black market; others will desert and form marauding gangs of their own, or try to set themselves up as small-time warlords.

So there’s endless opportunities for the PCs to become involved, including:

1. They might be hired by a local commander to supplement troops moving to the affected area, and then discover that their unit commander has taken his company, including the PCs, to plunder and extort the very people they were sent to protect. The PCs might find themselves caught between the bandit army company and a local militia trying to protect their families.

2. The PCs might be hired by one of the few remaining large landowners in the affected area, someone wealthy enough to hire men-at-arms to defend the estate and the surrounding orchards and fields—and someone who might be using those men-at-arms to round up refugees to serve as forced labor on the surviving fields. The PCs might be contacted by a cleric or paladin seeking to help those people escape, which could lead to an infiltration/exfiltration scenario.

3. The PCs could be sent along as escorts for ministry officials journeying from the nation’s capital, as part of an official investigation into the troubles in the affected area. Once in the region, they may need to retrieve some of the junior officials who wandered off or were kidnapped by one or more local gangs or factions.

4. For a different angle, they may have been contacted by a druid in the area to help her explore the phenomenon and understand what’s been happening. She may have tried to alert officials in the region or even the country’s capital, but may have been rebuffed or ignored, because that’s what bureaucracies do. Now the druid is trying to gather enough evidence to demonstrate that something terrible and widespread is causing the chaos in this region, and she needs the PCs to help her survive in the heart of the affected area. She may also be a target for the yuan-ti, who are hoping to silence her before she can expose their involvement.

Those are just a few ideas, and some of them could be combined as a way to bring different PCs together.

KyleG
2021-01-31, 03:22 PM
They are some great ideas, thanks. My vision for this is that the players are entirely unaware, infact the population where they start is unaware. If we imagine a field with one end being the capital and one end where the majority of the ecological changes are appearing our players are at the 3/4 mark, close enough that it won't be long before it impacts then (perhaps a couple of weeks to a month).
Im thinking to add some random changes all the way up the field (caused by spores) but they are written off as nothing but may draw the players eye.
Its worth noting the preceeding attacks were very random but throughout the country (no one battlefront) from the coast thru just shy of the capital. It was a terror campaign as much as anything but the population both civilian and military has already taken quite a toll I think.

Palanan
2021-01-31, 03:28 PM
Originally Posted by KyleG
My vision for this is that the players are entirely unaware, infact the population where they start is unaware. If we imagine a field with one end being the capital and one end where the majority of the ecological changes are appearing our players are at the 3/4 mark, close enough that it won't be long before it impacts then (perhaps a couple of weeks to a month).

Hmm, okay. Are the ecological effects centered on a particular region, or will they be evenly spread throughout the country? I'm not sure if you mean "field" as an actual physical space, or more the idea of a spectrum of change.

KyleG
2021-01-31, 05:18 PM
The field was an analogy lol. No the effects will spread infact those random occurance will also grow out so the threat will be from multiple areas. Im also thinking I might be able to seed the construct angle some more and make the players choose an enemy to pursue. Ecological threat vs where did the constructs go/come from etc.

Palanan
2021-01-31, 05:29 PM
So in your scenario, were the yuan-ti the architects of the construct war as well as the ecological invasion?

And what species are they using for the invasive ecosystem? Something from elsewhere in the campaign world, or much farther elsewhere?

KyleG
2021-01-31, 05:52 PM
I haven't figured out a specific motivation for the yuan ti aggression. They aligned with the metal bound drow (I haven't determined the why for either side). The drow (ill stick to that for now) sent the constructs, weakening the country in a prolonged but guerilla seige (pillage and raze tactics, with some overwhelming battles also). Then they vanished. Its about a couple of months since they vanished, and only on the fringes of the country can we see signs of the ecological changes. Im thinking of it like terraforming. A few unusual plants, bugs. Then that area gets a few more higher tier critters, these ecological mandalas grow to support even higher tier creatures. Meanwhile slightly further inland the unusual plants and bugs start appearing. They consume, replace native fauna and flora.
I picture the ecology was less fantastical (cows, deer, wolves, and trees etc) but the new ecology is dnd (dire wolves, stench cows, wyverns, shambling mounds).

Palanan
2021-02-04, 11:55 AM
Just wanted to follow up on one aspect of this, which is the drow.

To help this stand out as a setting and a concept, I would encourage you to find another race besides the drow for the creators of the constructs. First, the drow aren't really known for their constructs, so that doesn't seem like the best fit. But beyond that, at this point the drow are tremendously overused. If you really, really love them, by all means indulge; but if you're not especially attached to them, the game might feel fresher if you found a less thoroughly covered race to work with.

That's just my personal preference, but I have a feeling that if you go looking for other races to fill that role, you might find some surprises that send you in new directions.

KyleG
2021-02-04, 05:39 PM
Just wanted to follow up on one aspect of this, which is the drow.

To help this stand out as a setting and a concept, I would encourage you to find another race besides the drow for the creators of the constructs. First, the drow aren't really known for their constructs, so that doesn't seem like the best fit. But beyond that, at this point the drow are tremendously overused. If you really, really love them, by all means indulge; but if you're not especially attached to them, the game might feel fresher if you found a less thoroughly covered race to work with.

That's just my personal preference, but I have a feeling that if you go looking for other races to fill that role, you might find some surprises that send you in new directions.

Originally i was going to have gnomes (size wasnt right), or Dwarves as the villains (none of the players chose those as a character race) but that pic i found felt drow like. I dont feel beholden to normal lore on races (im even considering Loxodon as an outside race to help against the yuan-ti), and so i welcome an alternative idea. I considered gith but felt alien like the Yuan-ti. and with the drow im imagining them having been in long hibernation, the suits protecting against the harsh daylight and being an older race the technology advancement seemed like a possible good fit. Shadar Kai could work too i guess.

Still open to suggestions.

hifidelity2
2021-02-05, 08:44 AM
If you want to do Ecological invasion then I would recommend you read

The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold

He did it / thought through how it could be done really well (IMHO)

Only warning is that he stopped on book 4 so left it on a cliff hanger

KyleG
2021-02-05, 01:12 PM
If you want to do Ecological invasion then I would recommend you read

The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold

He did it / thought through how it could be done really well (IMHO)

Only warning is that he stopped on book 4 so left it on a cliff hanger

Those are in fact the inspiration. Still holding out hope he completes.

Storm_Of_Snow
2021-02-06, 08:46 AM
Given that the country has just been through a war, the military will be thin from its losses, and most of the "soldiers" will be raw, untrained recruits. The military will be hard-pressed to maintain order even in the more stable areas of the country, and whatever troops are dispatched to the area of the ecological invasion, they will almost certainly be undermanned, underequipped and underfed. Some of them will be diverting aid into the black market; others will desert and form marauding gangs of their own, or try to set themselves up as small-time warlords.

There could also be deserters from the war who've set up as bandits or local warlords, or former soliders who can't quite fit back into society, or think their rulers owe them.

Another possibility is displaced civilians from the warzone, who might come under suspicion by the indigenous population of the areas they've settled in as having caused the environmental problems in the first place, or at best be seen as a drain on the limited resources.

You'd probably also have riots over food, wood for cooking and heating (especially if you start the campaign in mid-autumn with a hard winter forecast, which may itself be a side-effect of the invasion and the ecological effects there in), so guarding food stores and convoys would be a necessity.

In a related issue, any food creation magic (Create Food and Water, for example) might need to be supressed somehow. Alternatively, those that can cast those spells might be tempted into less moral paths, becoming more like bootleggers and their ilk.

KyleG
2021-02-06, 07:14 PM
Great suggestions. I think I'm set to kick off, although I still haven't figured out how this odd coalition occurred and what each party gains from the other. More precisely is probably why the armoured drow were used to soften up the country with the warforged assaults. What did they gain? Why even do it? Im missing an idea to connect these two facets of the war.

Duff
2021-02-08, 08:57 PM
Given that the country has just been through a war, the military will be thin from its losses, and most of the "soldiers" will be raw, untrained recruits. The military will be hard-pressed to maintain order even in the more stable areas of the country, and whatever troops are dispatched to the area of the ecological invasion, they will almost certainly be undermanned, underequipped and underfed. Some of them will be diverting aid into the black market; others will desert and form marauding gangs of their own, or try to set themselves up as small-time warlords.


I mostly think Palanan raises good points. But a short war could leave relatively few soldiers, but those who survived would be experienced veterans. You'd get mostly raw recruits if the standing army/regulars are crushed and the war ends before the attempts to recruit a replacement army had produced results.

If they were doing OK in the war, the army might still be big if troops haven't yet been "Demobbed"

Roninblack
2021-02-13, 09:14 PM
Not quite sure where in the pre/post war you are wanting to set this, but pre or during war, the module Red hand of doom might give you some ideas of things the party can do.

MrZJunior
2021-02-17, 10:48 AM
Another effect might be companies or wealthy nobles financing naval expeditions to find safer places to colonize.



In a related issue, any food creation magic (Create Food and Water, for example) might need to be supressed somehow. Alternatively, those that can cast those spells might be tempted into less moral paths, becoming more like bootleggers and their ilk.

It depends how common magic is. Aren't those kind of mid level spells? There might not be enough clerics to go around. Also, if it's an issue the bad guys could start offing holy men. Another aspect to this crisis.


I mostly think Palanan raises good points. But a short war could leave relatively few soldiers, but those who survived would be experienced veterans. You'd get mostly raw recruits if the standing army/regulars are crushed and the war ends before the attempts to recruit a replacement army had produced results.

If they were doing OK in the war, the army might still be big if troops haven't yet been "Demobbed"

It could be that a large army was raised right before the war ended. Now you have a bunch of bored troops standing around.


Great suggestions. I think I'm set to kick off, although I still haven't figured out how this odd coalition occurred and what each party gains from the other. More precisely is probably why the armoured drow were used to soften up the country with the warforged assaults. What did they gain? Why even do it? Im missing an idea to connect these two facets of the war.

If the drow have been asleep for a long time as you say they might see this as a good way to make allies in the new world. The Yuan Ti want to conquer this kingdom, the Drow need friends, this is an opportunity for them both.

KyleG
2021-02-17, 03:17 PM
If the drow have been asleep for a long time as you say they might see this as a good way to make allies in the new world. The Yuan Ti want to conquer this kingdom, the Drow need friends, this is an opportunity for them both.

The warforged assault I see as devastating. They could have pressed it and wiped out the country. They withdrew, and let the yuan ti to stage 2 for some reason.
Hmmm maybe ill have to rethink that.

MrZJunior
2021-02-17, 06:21 PM
The warforged assault I see as devastating. They could have pressed it and wiped out the country. They withdrew, and let the yuan ti to stage 2 for some reason.
Hmmm maybe ill have to rethink that.

But would they be powerful enough to hold it against the Yuan To?

You could also go the mercenary route. The Drow were hired to do a job and did it.

KyleG
2021-02-17, 11:21 PM
But would they be powerful enough to hold it against the Yuan To?

You could also go the mercenary route. The Drow were hired to do a job and did it.

The original idea for the story had a babylon 5-esk vibe....maybe they can act as the equivalent or Morden...We do this now but we want something later.

MrZJunior
2021-02-18, 07:00 AM
The original idea for the story had a babylon 5-esk vibe....maybe they can act as the equivalent or Morden...We do this now but we want something later.

Afraid I'm not familiar with Babylon 5.