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2011-03-11, 10:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
I just recently got both Dresden Files books and I'm starting to write up a campaign. In the vein of Sunfall's recent thread, I thought I'd write up some of what I have and look for help.
I'd love to hear any ideas for NPC characters, in-game events, useful folklore, plot hooks, settings, or anything else you might have based on the ENORMOUS WALL OF TEXT BELOW.
Thanks in advance, folks.
Game World
In case you aren't familiar with the Dresden setting, the basic premise is that most magical and fantastic things are, in fact, real. They just keep a low profile and normal humans go out of their way to ignore things that don't make sense.
Basic Theme
Spoiler
One thing that's always bothered me about modern fantasy is how overwhelmingly urban it is. It seems to deviate from the Old Stories in which magical happenings occurred in the nearby enchanted forest, rather than inside the city walls.
As a rustic curmudgeon, I've lost track of how many times people say that they need to move to the city to "really find themselves" and "experience life". I'd like to hint that people huddle in cities that never sleep because when the lights go out, the monsters come to play.
Rough Background Setup
Spoiler
I'm tentatively titling the overall campaign "Paranet: Country Roads". The tacit assumption that without a critical mass of people, the world gets very dangerous. If you look at statistics for suicides and runaways, the numbers are much higher in rural areas. Those are both very good explanations for things that nobody really wants to explain.
In short, once you get about an hour's drive past the last coffee shop, you're diving into a whirlwind of Fey, Fomori, and Spirits, and Demons that are still partying like it's 1399.
The general consensus in the magical community is that any practitioner living out in those parts is either:
- Crazy
- Powerful
- Crazy Powerful
- Powerfully Crazy
- In League With Something
This may or may not be true, but it also means that anyone living out in those parts generally isn't going to be getting much help from the community at large. As a result, a small, tight-knit group of people have formed a posse against what goes bump in the night.
You guessed it, that's the players.
Setting
Spoiler
I'd like to keep most of my game in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Western Maryland, and Northern West Virginia. I've lived in each of those places, and I think I can make them work.
Every one of those places mixes a heady blend of "Rust Belt Apocalypse" with "Blair Witch Banjo Quartet" that should give lots of leeway for inserting fantastic elements.
Pennsylvania: People die here. A lot. Usually at the same time. Between Gettysburg, the Johnstown Flood, the Austin Flood, the Homestead Strike, and the Molly McGuires, this state is all but knee deep in corpses. Add in multiple mining disasters, chemical accidents, a nuclear meltdown, and AN ENTIRE FREAKING TOWN THAT IS CURRENTLY SINKING INTO A FLAMING HOLE, and you've got a good recipe for unexplored territory and possible weak spots between the "real" and spirit world.
New Jersey: The Pine Barrens are a rich trove of all sorts of weirdness. The Jersey Devil is the first thing that comes to mind, but I'm sure there's more.
West Virginia: West Virginia is strange. I think it's the fact that the mountain ridges and hollows keep the horizon a fixed three to five feet away at all times. It gives the whole area a claustrophobic feeling. Like Pennsylvania, this is a mining state, and mining folklore could be used to good advantage. What happens to the knockers if you strip mine instead of tunnel?
Maryland: Western Maryland is home to an awful lot of highly secure government land, and much of it doesn't really show up on the federal budget reports. I'm sure that can be useful somehow.
Basic Plot So Far
Spoiler
(Please forgive me if this is really fuzzy. If I had more done, I wouldn't be looking for help.)
The Metaplot:
Torovax, the Mad Dragon of the Morning Star, has lain dormant under South Central PA since roughly 60 AD. Since then, various mortal agencies have attempted to rouse him from his slumber for their own ends. Should he awaken, he would cause untold mayhem until he was put down. If he could be put down.
At this very moment, a lesser dragon has raised a cult to him, ostensibly to raise him from his slumber. Secretly, he wishes to consume Torovax's heart and take his place in the celestial hierarchy.
Entry Point: The runaway.
A grieving widower has lost his child. The police have filed her as a runaway teen, but he contacts the players claiming that the police report doesn't tell the whole story.
After working through various implications (the girl did run away, the father killed her, someone else killed her, etc...), the party finds that the girl has been kidnapped by a group that uses powerful blood magic to keep the fires of Centralia from progressing down the coal seem and into the state's capital (yes, there is a real risk that could happen eventually). They intend to sacrifice her to the fires to keep them at bay.
If the party saves the girl, they find that she is not only a practitioner, but mentally damaged beyond repair, and stained with the taint of black magic. She has a tattoo of a serpent swallowing its tail trailing across most of her body.
If the party mentions that last fact to the father, he'll indicate that his daughter never had a tattoo.
Structure
Spoiler
I'd like to build out the campaign as a series of short, episodic arcs, with loose threads from one arc feeding into later arcs, thus creating a metaplot. This gives a lot of leeway on what is and isn't viable.
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2011-03-11, 11:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
Re: Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
Are you sure that a dragon-based metaplot is something that a posse of concerned citizens is ever going to be able to interact with? Also, I seem to remember a comment in one of the books to the effect that lesser dragons only exist in Faerie anymore. Are you interpreting that more in the sense that the in-universe information is mostly urban in nature, or what?
I've basically read the books but have no real experience with the system, so I'll leave my involvement at asking helpful (if critical) questions. Good luck!
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2011-03-12, 08:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
Re: Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
The Big Dragon should never wake up, assuming that the players try to stop it. I'm using Sealed Evil in a Can as a motivator and a way to hang the various episodes together.
I am interpreting the lesser dragon thing as that "only exists in Faerie" as mostly true, but in less settled regions things from Faerie have much more leeway to act. I'm picturing him as manifesting in the material world as a semi-tangible being, but still having the need to "go back for air" at regular intervals. At some point, the players would likely have to traverse the path into the NeverNever to fully confront it, assuming they do so before his ascension.
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2011-03-17, 11:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2008
- Location
- Baltimore
- Gender
Re: Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
I like the idea, although you will need to be careful with it. After all, people continue to live outside the bounds of cities because they're not in danger of being eaten by werewolves/ogres/a grue. If the American wilderness is too dangerous, it sort of stretches the imagination as to why anyone would actually live there.
That said, I'd recommend finding some resources on American rural folklore. If you're in Pennsylvania or West Virginia, there could be plenty of "mysterious happenings" that are attributable to mountain fae or the like.
As for NPCs, you definitely need a hillbilly/mountain man sort of character: Unassuming, charming yokel, until he shotguns a troll in the face and can't understand why the party was so worried about one that was such a runt.Halbert's Cubicle - Wherein I write about gaming and . . . you know . . . stuff.
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2011-03-17, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
Re: Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
I'm planning on treating it like Magical Australia, for lack of a better term. If you're accustomed to the environment, you won't have too much trouble, but if you're a tourist, GET READY FOR DROP BEARS.
As for NPCs, you definitely need a hillbilly/mountain man sort of character: Unassuming, charming yokel, until he shotguns a troll in the face and can't understand why the party was so worried about one that was such a runt.
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2011-03-17, 02:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
Re: Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
I vote for troll-fighting Amish.
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2011-03-19, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Gender
Re: Need Help Campaign Building [Dresden Files]
Why not both? He/they who fight monsters become monsters and yadda yadda...a 'clan' of civilized, human-appearing creatures fighting their savage wild relatives, and an outsider wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2011-03-19, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008