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Cilvyn
2008-08-15, 02:45 PM
Hello all,

I'm about to start a new 4.0 campaign IRL. I have an idea about the base story but i would like to get more ideas from you guys wich i can use in the campaign.

I will update the story after every post if nessecary:

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Imagine a world with in the middle a circle of mountains with in there a beautifully valley where the last races of good hold stand against a few evil vilians who are the agents of one evil gods. that god is imprisoned and his servants want Someting to free their master.. also those different baddies are in war with eachother.. maybe it's more a conflict not realy a war. to gain the ....of their master( dunno the word but that the evil lord likes him the most:P)

There's also a city in the very middle wich is like the capital of the good camp.. later on the party wil discover that it is build on the tomb of an ancient hero, and that somehow it gives the goodcamp power and more for the plot..

New Version:
the idea os the mountain circle remains te same.. but theres a story bound to it: long ago the ancient warrior whos resting place is onder the city ( witch the PC do not know) fought against the mortal Asmodeus.. at last the warior( names Athana) managed to imprison the soul of asmodeus just after he became n evil god. This took so much from her life force that she died and a massive force wave pread out from her and pushed the earth up so there began mountains to rise wich would protect the valley in wich men lived for eternaty.

Now are there two mortals named Vecna and Bane( or another chaotic-like god character)( wich we only know as gods.. but this story find place before those guys became gods.. so they are mortals but still very very powerfull.. and evil btw) they heard of the power of asmodeus nd the hells he created before he was improsoned. so they want to free him both and be his most delicated servant. Now is the probem that they don't really wanna work together so theres a war going on outside the mountain ring.

Vecna ( who is a lich... not very mortal but doesnt matter) knows that the tiara ( an epic artifact wich was used to imprison the soul of asmodeus, in fact in the diamond in the tiara) can bring back her 'master' and is hidden in the final restplace of Athana. ( wich no one knows where it is, although vicna will find out that it is somewhere underneath the city because she cant ( in my story vecna is a she. srry cant help it i always see her as a woman) come close to the city because of the powerfull holy aura..)
But the power arond the city prevent vecna from finding the tiara, so her goal is to force the good guys by totally ruin their lands, tric, mislead and lie, to resurrect Athana as their lst hope. This will cause the aura to dissapear and will make it able to defeat Athana and claim the tiara for her own.

Meanwhile Bane also wants to unbanish his master... but i dont have a good clue what he will do. Also must there be something with the phylactery...


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If you have any ideas or, a new plot or somthing please post it. you can also use story lines from your own campaign, since my party doesn't know it ofc.

further just use your imagination..

Thank you,
Cil

Siegel
2008-08-15, 02:50 PM
There should be a tunnel that the bad guys find later on and send spys / assasins into the ring. The PCs must find that tunnel and seal it.

kamikasei
2008-08-15, 02:50 PM
One has to assume the good guys have some serious good mojo on their side if they're being besieged by multiple evil deities. How do you imagine they've survived so far?

Cilvyn
2008-08-15, 03:01 PM
One has to assume the good guys have some serious good mojo on their side if they're being besieged by multiple evil deities. How do you imagine they've survived so far?

Good point.. mhh maybe some good alignment gods on their side.. but i dont want to make the party outsiders of the story.. or i should let the siege take place later in the story line, that on the beginning they're just began to fight their way to the mountain ring or something.

cil

kamikasei
2008-08-15, 03:11 PM
Here's a thought: there are only two real gods, one good and one evil, yin and yang creator deities. The evil god is somehow bound or imprisoned or shut out, but he acts through lesser agents, who are the "evil gods" you mentioned; these could be archdevils / demon lords / fallen angels, Saurons or balrogs to the chief evil's Morgoth, whatever.. The players' good deities are of a lesser grade again, relatively minor archangels or tribal deities or ascended heroes, which gives you a source for divine magic among players while keeping the underdog feel.

The guarded valley is in fact the resting place of the good deity, who is somehow dormant or dead; perhaps after making the world this is where she lay down and the life went out of her and in to the land, where her energy now sustains creation. The evil god wants to do something to kill or awaken or disrupt her so that the borders of reality will break down and he can reenter creation.

So your players are trying to prevent some not-quite-deity-level nasties from breaching the wards on a hallowed place and ushering in the return of their ultimate bad guy master.

Cilvyn
2008-08-15, 03:16 PM
oeh that sounds great!
and it does perfectly fits the evilgod-thingies.
any ideas about how the story would go? (for everyone if you just have an idea just pop in and post it, i can use every hint,tip and idea)

The reason of this topic btw is that im ofcors able to make a plot myself.. but if i lat more ppl think on it the more various the story will become and the more complex, and that's what i want:)

So thanks for every single post!

Cil

valadil
2008-08-15, 03:30 PM
This sounds a lot like level 4 or 5 from Black and White. Nothing wrong with that, but with 5 gamers at the table one of them may recognize that and start making comparisons.

What's the world like outside of the valley? It could be a wasteland or it could be full of evil folks or something else entirely. Even if the PCs never leave, there could be something out there trying to get in. What do the players do with a refugee who comes in from over the mountains? Say, a small child who had no chance of surviving the trip over the mountains, let alone what was on the other side. He could be an evil invasion. But imprisoning or killing a small boy who did nothing wrong but look potentially guilty is an evil act. Maybe the evil gods counted on y'all killing him out of fear, so they let him pass through the evil wasteland into your valley.

- edit -

My two comments weren't related and that plot didn't come from Black and White. If anything, it was influenced by Lost.

Totally Guy
2008-08-15, 03:33 PM
The baddies should be fighting each other wasting a lot of resources treating the last bastion of good as a side quest.

Multiple BBEGs all with Xanatos gambits all over each other is the way forward. The way this game goes could be villain of the week with each baddie defeated can be replaced by a rival baddie. Or you could end up with a pile up of plans.

Say one group is evil humans.

Another is a tribe of Goblins.

And there's the followers of a lich.

The goblins might have the phylactery of the lich.

The humans have a small squad of goblin traitors.

So the lich is after the phylactery else he is nervous not used to being vunerable. But they they think the humans took it.

The goblins are being attacked be the goblin traitors using chalk circles and linked portal. But they blame the good city in the middle and raid the town.

That's just an example of something semi complex for the heroes to figure out. Just add layers upon layers of distracted baddies.

Edit: The game I'm running is very much inspired by lost, the trick is to vary the set-up. Never ever say "You are in a shipwreck and stranded on an island". Say what you will of Lost, the characters in that must be having the best campaign ever.

Cilvyn
2008-08-15, 03:47 PM
intresting situation.. the littl child..

i think i want to characters to go out of the ring.. tho it's very dangerous ofcors.. and about the fighting baddies could be an usable excuse for holding stand of the goodies..

the outerfields are like hills and wasteland with some forests... i also thought about a major city in the very centre of the valey.. with could be build on the tomb of the ancient hero ofcors..

some more ideas about what the baddies will do or try?

cil

chevalier
2008-08-15, 04:03 PM
A common concern for DMs is "how did this dungeon (castle, tomb labyrinth, whatever) get here?" If you have a world where all the forces of good have been forced into a small area, that means beyond this area there are ruined cities, despoiled temples, etc., so either before or after they beat the forces of evil threatening the Last Enclave of Good (TM), they have plenty of "dungeons" to explore.

xelliea
2008-08-15, 05:15 PM
i don't understand how can mortals live v.s. a few gods

Cilvyn
2008-08-15, 05:26 PM
the gods idea is now replaced by just very strong gents of the evil god(s) witch is possible to survive :P

Cilvyn
2008-08-16, 04:23 AM
more ideas?

about what those baddies will do. or some nice plot pieces like the tombe of the ancient warrior in the valley who gives the goodies holy ower?

cil

kamikasei
2008-08-16, 05:17 AM
Building on Glug's idea, maybe the several enemies aren't working in tandem. They could all be part of a Xanatos Gambit on the part of the chief evil, whose real goal is just to provoke the good guys into drawing on the power of the good deity directly as a last resort, thus awakening her and making her vulnerable. The actions of the individual enemies could all be directed towards some goal they've been promised by the chief evil and think they have to overcome the others to attain, but from his point of view if any one of them succeeds it's all good, and even if none wins they still might push the good guys into desperation.

Totally Guy
2008-08-16, 05:46 AM
Building on Kamikasei's idea, the pawn baddies that are actually out there doing some of the work whilst the evil overlord plays chess might actually want to team up with the good characters, albeit temporarily, if the chessmaster is exposed.

So as well as the PCs acting as a physical force to prevent the situation you'd also have the option to allow them to play sleuth and save the day by asking the right questions of the lesser evils.

So let's say there is a nearby ancient dungeon. There might be a sealed evil in the the BBEG wants. He's also genre savvy enough to know that when you open an ancient sealed evil it tends to kill the person that opened it first, so ideally he wants the good guys to do it. So he makes the baddie goblins spread a rumour that the only way the humans can defeat the 3 or more opponents is to open that vault. The goblins agree as they think they've been raided by the good guys.

The good humans are split by the rumour and clearly the most desperate are in favour of opening the dungeon. The rational ones see through this and enforce a law not to do it.

Then BBEG tells the evil humans to open the vault so they can grap to power needed to stop the lich undeadifying their army farm fields. So they send scouts and undercover agents. If caught they claim to be the desperate good humans.

The undead they are told to clean up any humans they see leaving both good and evil settlments. They agree as they think humans have the phylactery their leader needs. They are also told not to interfere with the vault as that spoil we be for the BBEG. Of course that's an attempt at reverse psychology which may or may not work.

Then the plan takes effect with hilarious consequences. All teams are destroyed except for the BBEG who banishes the evil back into the can with a suitable macguffin. That's if it works of course and that's for the PCs to figure out.

Whoa, feel free to reflavour as much as you like. Not everyone likes goblins and liches.

Cilvyn
2008-08-16, 10:36 AM
If there are any more ideas,
Please read the story i wrote below, for more info about the story.

Thanx to everyone who has posted in this topic. I really apresiate it!

Cil

Totally Guy
2008-08-16, 01:30 PM
more ideas?

it's about to be a very interesting story!!
come with more complex plots and side stories:D

Cil

Dance monkey, dance! It's hard to perform on request. If you could contribute something yourself at this point we might be able to help again.

Cilvyn
2008-08-17, 10:15 AM
Sorry, i hadnt much time to post somthing, so my previous post was maybe not that likely to answer, my apoligize.


I've thought alot, and this has come out:

the idea os the mountain circle remains te same.. but theres a story bound to it: long ago the ancient warrior whos resting place is onder the city ( witch the PC do not know) fought against the mortal Asmodeus.. at last the warior( names Athana) managed to imprison the soul of asmodeus just after he became n evil god. This took so much from her life force that she died and a massive force wave pread out from her and pushed the earth up so there began mountains to rise wich would protect the valley in wich men lived for eternaty.

Now are there two mortals named Vecna and Bane( or another chaotic-like god character)( wich we only know as gods.. but this story find place before those guys became gods.. so they are mortals but still very very powerfull.. and evil btw) they heard of the power of asmodeus nd the hells he created before he was improsoned. so they want to free him both and be his most delicated servant. Now is the probem that they don't really wanna work together so theres a war going on outside the mountain ring.

Vecna ( who is a lich... not very mortal but doesnt matter) knows that the tiara ( an epic artifact wich was used to imprison the soul of asmodeus, in fact in the diamond in the tiara) can bring back her 'master' and is hidden in the final restplace of Athana. ( wich no one knows where it is, although vicna will find out that it is somewhere underneath the city because she cant ( in my story vecna is a she. srry cant help it i always see her as a woman) come close to the city because of the powerfull holy aura..)
But the power arond the city prevent vecna from finding the tiara, so her goal is to force the good guys by totally ruin their lands, tric, mislead and lie, to resurrect Athana as their lst hope. This will cause the aura to dissapear and will make it able to defeat Athana and claim the tiara for her own.

Meanwhile Bane also wants to unbanish his master... but i dont have a good clue what he will do. Also must there be something with the phylactery...

Then the most imortant thing of all.. how will i bring this story ion a right, puzzling and exciting way, couse i dont know yet how i should bring all the story elements in right order and without giving away the plot.

If i forgot something or if you have comment, please be strict, i need to be pushed on the fact to create a realistig stroy :)

Thanx,
Cil

Cilvyn
2008-08-18, 06:20 AM
anyone?

cil

Totally Guy
2008-08-18, 06:43 AM
Now you've got to get the PCs into it. And that's going to be difficult. They can't come over the mountain as they'll meet the baddies and spoil the story. And they can't have started there because then you'd have to give them a ton of ++s to the knowledge local checks that could ruin it. So here's what I suggest and it's a curve-ball so you won't expect it.

Athana fought Asmodeus long ago and in this battle was a mighty cataclysm. The PCs were there. The cataclysm sealed them away from the world much like Asmodeus. This way you can run the standard D&D town first then destroy it in the presence of the players with an epic battle they arte too low a level to influence.

Many years later after all this the followers of Bane think they have found the the sealed servants of asmodeus and perform their ritual and manage to revive the players. They try to coerce thm to the dark side but they are currently the lesser of two evils as the border (wall at the top of the mountain? Wall at the bottom?) is being infected by acolytes of Vecna (who I too thought was a woman). After the fight the brotherhood of Bane deciples slink off into the background not wanting to be discovered by the villagers. The villagers ask who these new heroes are. They explain they were fighting along side Athana when they don't know what happened next. The mayor explains the legend, the players lament that all their loved ones are long dead.:smallsigh:

The players do not know that the Bane men were evil nor why they aren't willing to be discovered. But they do know the undead acolytes are a threat to the village. With a bit more investigating they could find that their sealed chamber is the entrance to the Athana dungeon where Asmodeus is waiting patiently for his new servants.

kamikasei
2008-08-18, 07:11 AM
Vecna wants the tiara, but can't come get it herself. However, she doesn't necessarily need to if all she wants is to destroy/disjoin the diamond binding Asmodeus. Perhaps she could do this at range or via some intermediary. In any case, she can send agents into the city (ones less susceptible to being smoten by any holy auras - i.e., not undead or demons, probably simple mortal humanoids or monsters) to try to steal it for her. As a double-bluff, she could lead them to think her goal is simply to steal the tiara away from the good guys so that they can't use it, rather than because she wants it for anything. Thus if captured and interrogated they'll reinforce the idea that the good guys should awaken Athana themselves. (If they do awaken Athana, Vecna has the option of luring her into a trap.)

Bane needs a different motive. If in principle Vecna just needs to get the tiara somewhere she can work magic on it, maybe Bane actually needs to get up close and personal with it. Let's say that Vecna wants to serve Asmodeus, but Bane wants to supplant him. He's been lead to believe that if he performs some ritual to release Asmodeus from the diamond, he can consume his power and become chief evil dude himself. Of course, he's been deceived and what would really happen is that Asmodeus would use him as a host, reincarnating and annihilating Bane all together. He is more normally human than Vecna and so able to approach the tiara himself; his problem in getting near it is the warding and security about it. So his goal is simply conquest: he wants to build up enough of a force to break in to the sanctum and take the diamond.

So we have two forces, Vecna who wants to bring the tiara to her (or a place prepared by her) and who's using trickery and infiltration to steal it, and Bane who wants to go to the tiara and is using force to whittle down the valley's defences (say, something like destroying key structures around the border to weaken the wards on the city).

Vecna doesn't want Bane to get to the tiara before she can steal it, but his threat is useful to her as she can use fear of him to motivate the good guys to awaken Athana - the trick being that she would have to get Athana to a prepared place in order to disjoin the diamond, so just letting Bane get to the sanctum and fight a newly-awakened Athana at the last minute doesn't help. Bane doesn't want Vecna to steal away the tiara before he can consume its power, so he'll be trying to destroy her and at the same time interfere with her agents in the city. An opportunity for the players to play both sides against one another...

Can't think of anything interesting to do with the phylactery yet.

As for how to introduce the plot, it depends how much you want to be unknown to start with. You could easily begin the game with the history of Athana and Asmodeus known in the valley, and just the location of the tomb and plots of the villains unknown. Say, the players are low-level guardsmen, temple priests, mercenaries, thieves etc. who get happen across a group of Banites ambushing some Vecnan infiltrators. They get wind of an impending attack on one of the border outposts, and are sent to warn/reinforce them. This introduces the threat of Bane. While fighting Bane's agents they may learn that they want to beat some other group to finding the temple - thus introducing Vecna. And of course some of their trusted superiors will be in Vecna's employ, and so on...

Note: I disagree with Glug that you can't have the PCs be from the valley, unless you want them to be completely ignorant of everything. You could just obscure some of the important details of the history in contradictory myth and have them obliged to find the right people to enlighten them - who may not be eager to share their knowledge.

Note again: I suggest you avoid editing posts too much to reflect the latest ideas. A running tally of the current scenario in the first post makes sense but if you do it too much it makes it impossible to track how things have developed, which can be useful.

Cilvyn
2008-08-18, 08:37 AM
thanx for the posts:)

it's indeed a bit what i thought of.
I was thinking of letting the players just be normal ppl ( not very normal since they will influence the whole world later on ofc) they will be pulled into the story just by coinsedence.. i was thinking of goblins raiding small towns near the foothills.. and let the player be the ones who will discover it.. since the world has not be in war for 100 years.. they are trained in combat which is uncommon.

The story about asmodeus and athana is a well known myth or story whatever. so the pc do know about it.. I want them to discover bane as first indeed.. just because he is not that subtle, as he is just attacking the valley. i want vecna to be a more unknown enemy, because she is ( not in this story but her personality has to be the same somehow) the goddess ( yes woman ^^ ) of death and secrets and wisdom.

Then i have a few new things..: one of the players want to be a tiefling.. which is OK for me, so i add the history of the dragonborn and tiefling empire to the excisting story... It will take place before the story i wrote so will not directly have influence on the main story or plot. I thought tieflings could be a direct race of followers of asmodeus and live as thiefs, criminals beneath the city waiting for their master to reclaim the world.

I also thought of a ruler of the Valley, i choose The Raven Queen. You know her as the goddess of death and winter. In my story she is ( just like bane and Vecna ) still a mortal. And most of all of good alignment. She is a strict but reasonable leader and uses her power to cover the mountains in a everlasting winter, also forbid everyone to leave the safe valley.
Somehow Vecna will contact her when the goodies are in big trouble, suggesting to awaken Athana, since she wants bane dead as much The raven queen. And the raven queen does not know ( or does not have any proof that vecna is trying to destroy them all, as she always does everything without being able to be traced.

I really much like the idea to begin with Kamikaseis idea to introduce bane at first and the rest also. But that group of vecna infiltrators.. what are they doing there? i mean , i don't really understand they idea behind the vecna infiltrators.

As for the phy-thingy.. maybe i could let the PC find it somenwhere in the beginning of the story... not knowing what it is. ( i thought it would be a ring or somthing.. they will try to wear it.. and then they will get visions or something (an excuse to give them parts of the plot when needed.. without going out of char)

Cil

PS: Sorry for my bad english, but i think you can understand it. Also i want to ask you not to use very difficult english, i have a little problem to understand everything. The most is easy but some sentences are hard. Thanks in advance.

kamikasei
2008-08-18, 08:54 AM
Then i have a few new things..: one of the players want to be a tiefling.. which is OK for me, so i add the history of the dragonborn and tiefling empire to the excisting story... It will take place before the story i wrote so will not directly have influence on the main story or plot. I thought tieflings could be a direct race of followers of asmodeus and live as thiefs, criminals beneath the city waiting for their master to reclaim the world.

Hmmm, this raises an interesting question: where are all the dragons and what are they up to in this great conflict?

How inhospitable is the land beyond the mountains? Is it a barren wasteland, a wilderness overrun by monsters, or a hell swarming with demons?


I also thought of a ruler of the Valley, i choose The Raven Queen. You know her as the goddess of death and winter. In my story she is ( just like bane and Vecna ) still a mortal. And most of all of good alignment. She is a strict but reasonable leader and uses her power to cover the mountains in a everlasting winter, also forbid everyone to leave the safe valley.
Somehow Vecna will contact her when the goodies are in big trouble, suggesting to awaken Athana, since she wants bane dead as much The raven queen. And the raven queen does not know ( or does not have any proof that vecna is trying to destroy them all, as she always does everything without being able to be traced.

That's an interesting idea. You could make this part of the story of the Raven Queen's ascension to godhood, too, perhaps by some sort of fusion with either Bane or Vecna to become a neutral god of death?


I really much like the idea to begin with Kamikaseis idea to introduce bane at first and the rest also. But that group of vecna infiltrators.. what are they doing there? i mean , i don't really understand they idea behind the vecna infiltrators.

My thinking is that Vecna, who as an abomination of unlife etc. etc. can't enter the valley or come too close to the tiara, has mortal agents working in secret in the city to find the tomb, steal the tiara, and bring it to her outside (or not actually to her, depending on how repellent you want to make it to her, but to some place that she's prepared so that she can perform the necessary rituals from a distance). Bane would want to thwart these efforts, so conceivably the players could be drawn in to a fight between the two groups (perhaps acting to defend innocents, or just themselves) and find clues on whichever group leave behind the most corpses.


As for the phy-thingy.. maybe i could let the PC find it somenwhere in the beginning of the story... not knowing what it is. ( i thought it would be a ring or somthing.. they will try to wear it.. and then they will get visions or something (an excuse to give them parts of the plot when needed.. without going out of char)

Hmmm, that's a thought, though you'd expect Vecna to have her phylactery super-crazily-secure. ...What's her backstory? Or Bane's, for that matter? You could do something nasty like saying she was originally a priestess in the valley and made her phylactery into something the priesthood themselves would protect for her. A phylactery has to be new-made, it can't be an existing object (unless that's changed in 4e), but depending how long she's been a lich for she could have arranged for it to be some.... oho, an idea occurs. A phlyactery, in its basic form, is a box with scraps of magical writing in it. Maybe her phylactery is actually the most sacred text on the history of Athana and Asmodeus, written by the greatest saint of the church - who no one realises became Vecna after her apparent death - in a dense and incomprehensible code, set of metaphors, etc. The book could be kept almost as well-guarded as the tomb of Athana herself, maybe eventually entrusted to the players so that they can try to decipher enough of it to learn where the tomb may be found - but additional magic on it starts to put whoever does the most work on it under the influence of Vecna... This has the great advantage that no one will want to destroy the phylactery if they also want to find the tomb.

Cilvyn
2008-08-18, 02:13 PM
i also had a great idea...
It's an everlasting winter in the valley.. ofcors because of the raven queen.. The campaighn is also called: Astral Winter. so there has to be somthing in the plot with that.. So the vecna thingy and stuff is a side quest storyline.. but also part of the main quest...

Anyone an idea how i can make a plot with the raven queen Vecna and the winter? with all the previous things said in mind ofcors!

maybe, that the ravenqueen is being in a transformation to a goddes or somthing that she has the power to keep it winter in Athania (valleys name)

Cilvyn
2008-08-18, 02:20 PM
woow!

the phylactery.. mh maybe that would be the reason the queen begins to transform into the goddes of death.. she keeps reading the book because she wants to find an answer to the aproching enemy.. and since the phylactery is a high-magical object it could drain her powers and giver her new with is in fect evil life force. so she will be a neutral goddes of death..

KillianHawkeye
2008-08-18, 04:33 PM
A few ideas I thought of while reading this:

1) If you're going to use the Raven Queen while she's still a mortal, then give her an actual name (since she's only called that because her original name was lost to time). In fact, don't call her that at all. Maybe just hint once or twice that she likes ravens, or have her symbol be a raven sitting on a branch or something. This way, if/when she becomes a goddess, your players won't necessarily have seen it coming a mile away.

2) Are you incorporating the Feywild or Shadowfell into your story at all? I had a thought that maybe the entrance to the Hero's tomb could be under the city, but it actually links to a sacred grove or some such in the Feywild. Just a cool idea, maybe. Also, maybe agents of Vecna can infiltrate the valley by going through the Shadowfell?

3) Maybe the Hero was a Paladin/Avatar of the original creation deity. If the Hero is reawakened and later defeated, it could lead to the ascension of the other (currently mortal) deities, as the divine energy would spread to any available vessel worthy of wielding that kind of power. Vecna, Bane, the leader of the orcs could become Gruumsh, etc. Maybe some important NPCs also could become good/unaligned deities?


I like the idea of the holy text being the Lich's phylactery, especially if the PCs need it and don't know what it is.

Having the PCs be from the past era could be pretty cool. It would let you open the campaign with a TPK, turning them all into stone or something. Although starting them as level 1 characters from the valley could work better as they'd be more a part of the world as it is now.

I think changing the Tieflings to a mortal race originally created by Asmodeus would be appropriate in this setting, although since it has been X centuries since Asmodeus was sealed away they have grown independant and are not necessarily evil, so they are still appropriate for PCs (or NPCs).

The Dragonborn don't really need to be changed, but many or most of them might still be in service to various dragons in the lands outside the valley. Taking away their empire (or maybe having the adventure predating their empire) would still allow for their availability as PCs without much prejudice (similar to Tieflings).

Not sure about the state of Dwarves or Elves or Halflings, etc. Probably relatively normal, coexisting with the humans of the valley. Maybe the Elves are all still in the Feywild together? Perhaps most of the Dwarves are still enslaved by Giants beyond the valley's borders, and only a few have escaped to come live there?