Campaign idea help: kingdom in ruins and our family is to blame

[Greywander]

My sister and I are looking to start playing together again and we're trying to come up with a campaign idea, which should hopefully give us some ideas for character concepts. I came up with a vague premise and she thinks it's interesting, but I need some help fleshing the idea out. Here's the pitch I gave to my sister:

"We come from a rich and powerful family that was secretly doing forbidden rituals. Something goes wrong (or right?), the entire kingdom is rendered uninhabitable and extremely dangerous, and what's more everyone blames our family for the catastrophe and we're being hunted. This gives us ample reason to be adventuring instead of living a peaceful life, and it both provides a long-term goal to work towards (cleansing the kingdom and clearing our names) and immediate consequences we have to deal with (hiding our identity and dodging bounty hunters)."

The nature of the disaster will influence what kinds of character concepts might make sense. If it's an undead plague, then Necromancers and Oathbreakers could be on the table. If it's a demonic invasion, then warlock might be appropriate. If nature has run wild and strangled all civilization in the area, then druid or ranger would be fitting. So far, nothing has really clicked with me yet, so I'd like to hear your ideas for different kinds of catastrophes that could have occurred. Perhaps there are other parameters that would make sense to put in place to make the campaign run better. So far, I'm thinking the disaster area is basically an "end game" zone, where we can't go until we're much higher level. This prevents us from just solving the problem right away, and also gives us motivation to level up and get stronger.

Then there's the question of the family. I suppose the stock option is some kind of wealthy merchant family, e.g. the family that runs all the banks not just in this kingdom, but in this part of the world. Royalty is an option, especially with the kingdom gone, but that seems a bit cliche. I think it would be more interesting to run into a displaced prince or princess and help them reclaim the kingdom. Is there anywhere I can look for more ideas?

[Bohandas]

Magic could be their primary background, perhaps in addition to also being (otherwise) generic nobility.

Something akin to the Yragerne and Maure families from the Greyhawk setting

[King of Nowhere]

maybe the family tried to pull too much magic power, and this resulted in ripping the fabric of reality and wild magic seeping the area. everyone living inside will develop horrible magical mutation. flora and fauna would be equally mutated, very powerful and aggressive; anyone venturing inside the contaminated area can expect frequent encounters with giant vermin, aberrations, and mutated stuff. Spells malfunction in the area, making it especially frustrating - clearly only magic can repair the rip into the weave, but magic isn't working properly.
and unbecknow to anyone, inside the area there is a major villain who got particularly lucky with empowering mutations, and now has a sinister agenda.

excepting for the root cause of the contaminated area, this was the main plot of my last campaign, and it was a blast.

[Bohandas]

You could use the standard plot from all the classic first-person shooter games*. Perhaps they tried to set up an extensive network of teleportation circles but now githyanki and other hostile creatures from the astral plane have an easy way in and are causing havoc


*ie. Doom, Quake, and Half-Life

EDIT:
Another possible magical disaster is the "Locate City bomb" exploit

EDIT:
Or perhaps they accidentally summoned or released an evil deity or elder evil

[Anymage]

Sometimes you don't need to be too clever or creative, and the simplest solution allows you to focus your brainpower on the plots between the start of the game and the ultimate climax. A minor noble family who made a deal with the devil for power, both in the form of infernal troops and personal empowerment (likely involving some transformation, to give you a good number of endgame boss monsters), and where both the presence of so many fiends plus infernal energies pouring out are causing the surrounding area to become hell on earth. Good reason for everyone else to hate both the nation and the family, good reason for family members outside the inner circle to feel shocked and want to fix the problem, and good reason for it to be seen as a pressing problem instead of something where containment could be a reasonable option.

[VoxRationis]

Perhaps the "forbidden rituals" were in fact the selling of financial derivatives based on subprime mortgages.

[GloatingSwine]

What do you want the solution to be?

Do you want it to be a quest for strength and defeat the foe to save the kingdom? Demons. There's a nice long heirarchy of them and they live inside the rules so you can stab your way up the ladder until you've saved the day!

Do you want it to be a quest to solve the mystery and undo the damage? Elder Things. They tend to live outside the rules and the big ones are not amenable to punching, so it matters more about whether you find the right ritual to put down what was called up.

For the former I'd say the family should be the royalty of the kingdom. The king/queen of the time made a deal that cursed their bloodline in order to allow them to rule forever. It went bad. Obviously.

[sktarq]

I second the concept of pick what type of game you want and figure out the crisis caused backwards in a manner that the targeted game style makes sense.
So do you want a dungeon delver? And if so are we going for classic DnD type play or something more swashbuckly? A social game of politics? Will you gain followers in your quest to right the wrongs of your blood kin? Puzzles? More of spy thriller type (where perhaps much of population is mind controlled for example). And if there is politics that implies people..so you have survivors and potentially a controlled society which opens up a different options. As why the problem ended at the boundaries of the family's home kingdom or if it did spill over and what effect it had in its neighbors.
How do you want to players to be able to fix things? Can the Kingdom be restored? (if so with what people? did enough people successfully flee and could thus return? are they being mind controlled/possessed and thus could be excorsised? are they being held in the depths of some pocket dimension near hell so that when they die the devils can catch their souls before judgment?)...If the kingdom can not be restored what would victory look like?
What kind of feel do you want to focus on and work backwards.



You could even tie some type of curse to the players if you wanted...perhaps they get automatically resurrected if they die (but loose a level) but their souls can never rest (in the style of the van Helsing movie) and/or the ghosts of their family aid/torment them. Perhaps the family rituals cast upon the wee babies of the blood render the the characters immune to certain otherwise deadly energies that now ravage the ruins of the kingdom thus making them more "the only hope" type.

Devils, Elder Things, could have fun with chain devils, unseelie fae, perhaps a psyonic event in a world that had none (and so only the corrupted have such powers) perhaps pulling from the Inspired of Ebberon or the like,




Other backgrounds root ideas as options vs just bankers or kings

Was a family deeply tied to a priesthood and then a dark sect in the family allowed them to corrupt the priesthood redirecting the target of worship to...something else (in return for boons probably and then the whole thing got loose)

Was a family of mine owners. Noble and wealthy they were masters of the gem trade and the politics of knowing just the right time to give the right gift....but they drove prisoners and slaves to extreme depths in the mines and found a tiny number of special gems...those gems talked to them telling them and so the family kept them secret. Their advice was sound and the found more gem pockets, avoided problems at court, etc. Eventually they started rituals to strengthen the voices in the gems and that's when the problems started.

The family thought they were making a deal with a dragon or a fae etc to strengthen the blood in the noble line to reinvigorate the number of sorcerers in the clan which had made its name on such abilities and had been fading in power as the power in the blood faded as well....turns out it wasn't what they thought making the deals and changing their children but they didn't see that for a generation until the actual patron made its move.

The family was tied to a kingdom not as rules but as high servants of those who did. Senechals, generals, and sages. They understood rulership but had no direct command. SOMETHING got to the king and he made a dark pact and the family was blamed for introducing it to him as it would take someone in trust to do so.

The king directs his druids, his geomancers, his propagandists, and his wizards to aid his strength in his rulership. And at the end of the ritual they craft the old idea of a kingdom reflecting the ruler is true (lots of old Arthurian type legends to draw from)...he rules the land itself and all that is in it...in the minds of his subjects, in the minds of gods, in the nature of realty itself he and the concept of the land, the people, and kingdom are merged...one could almost think of him as a demigod of the concept of the nation itself...the king himself goes mad with his connection to power...which has negative consequences and those close to the ruling family who are out of the country on various missions are the basis from which to draw the party.

The family were war wizards or generals for the king who took a radical idea and saved the nation with it. The kingdom was loosing. And the characters ancestor (grandfather? great grandfather maybe) decided on a radical idea to turn the skirmish they were in. They crossed a moral line....their opponents called it a war crime. (zombie armies? summon devils to break the ranks of the enemy shieldwall? sacrificing the children of their own side to gain powers such as these or weather advantages even (a daughter for fair winds sailing to Troy anyone) take your pick)...in any case the tactic shifted the path of the war and family were venerated for it. In time their family mastered the technique and it was synonymous with the nations war machine. Pity that someone took it too far, lost control of the idea and now it ran amok in the civilian population of the nation itself.

They were a family of master thieves. Their grandmother came upon a ancient scroll that explained a long forgotten form of shadow magic. This took the guttersnipes they were to mildly rich in only a few years. The family could teleport between shadows, scry between them, etc and soon had to hide their wealth as successful merchants. But they didn't know that every shadow they walked through, looked via, or stretched to make themselves hidden was now bonded to the shadow realms...Secretly the high council of the kingdom DID know this and it drove them to massive propaganda and fear mongering but little success as the family kept up their tricks and many of the common folk even supported the legends of the shadows who turned on the nobles. Until one night when one too many shadows was bonded with the other world and it or something in it took a good firm grip via its now many handholds and claimed it for itself.

Perhaps the family dark rituals were mere rites of the gods of the Orcs/Hobgoblins/whatever. They did them because they were close to the tribes of such people and those connection allowed them to broker mercenary deals for the kingdom. Which for a time were highly successful. This caused stressed on both sides to a degree and some of the mercs thought they were loosing their culture or becoming "domesticated". The character's family were highly tied to the command and control of these mercs and profited handsomely from their contracts. Eventually sometime the relationship broke down and mercenaries turned on their employers. They were wearing the PC's family colours when they turned on the queen and started the war. They drove out/enslaved/slaughter much of the original population and soon started to raid and attack the neighboring kingdoms in some ode to what they themselves saw as a return to their roots but were now bolstered by years of service in more organized armies, with better understanding of logistic trains, weapon forging, etc. And so is an entirely unmagical threat..just to mix it up

[Bohandas]

They could be mine owners who drilled into Hell, as was done in Lord of the Rings, Dwarf Fortress, and that one episodemof Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

This suggestion coukd be combined with Sktarq's mine owners premise above. Perhaps the voices egged them on.

EDIT:
Another idea- Family of mages/artificers solves problems water availability for dringing, irrigation, etc with decanters of endless water, but all that extra water being introduced leads to sea level rise

[paladinofshojo]

If you’re doing the Forgotten Realms then I’d suggest that you can roleplay as the last living descendants of Krasus…. The wizard who was delving in magic so high level that he literally stopped all magic in the world momentarily and siphoned the goddess of magic itself….. and in the process brought down the most powerful human empire in the setting….


Perhaps being of his bloodline ensures that your characters are already sorcerers….