Lost Citadel Campaign

[Starchild7309]

So i have been waiting for this campaign for so long and I finally got the PDF and read through it, but now that I am getting ready to start working on a campaign for my friends, I seem to have lost all creativity. I have a lot of ideas but they all involve later game stuff.

For those of you that don't know the world, the God of Death has stopped doing their job. The dead rise, magic is corrupted, and what is left of known civilization lives in this MASSIVE walled city. When I say massive I mean the biggest city I have seen in a game before. Life in the city sucks pretty bad, even for the well off, space is cramped, resources are limited, there is crime, and disease, and the constant fear of the dead rising.

I am looking for a way to bring a group of 4-5 strangers together and have them work together. This is where my creativity is failing me. What could a group of 5 strangers want or need that they would work together for and want to stick together for afterwards. They will be 1st level so it can't be overly complicated and I would prefer them not to deal with the undead right away.

Let me hear your "starter" quests. Any other thoughts or ideas would be great too.

[Sparky McDibben]

Before we get into the quests, let me just bring up one thing - you don't have to do this all alone. Encourage your players to develop relationships during character creation. Look at Attack on Titan - the heroes aren't strangers to each other when the wall comes down. Two are related, and one's a friend. That's what imparts some real knife-twisting for these characters. A few seconds ago, their life was ordinary. Now? All their assumptions are destroyed.

Encourage players to be friends before things get going. Two players have mentor characters? Either have the mentor characters know each other or the two mentors are the same guy. One guy's got a lost sister and one's a cop? Guess who just got assigned to find the lost sister! Go nuts. The more connections you can build in the "stickier" the party becomes.

Now, for starter quests:

• A tunneling siege engine breaches the soil under the walls, emerging inside the tavern where the party is meeting up. Instant action, instant mystery.
• Someone's family member has died, and the death-priests are performing experimental rites meant to keep them from coming back as undead; these rites do not work and the loved one must be put down before they completely turn into a vampire (maybe start them as a wight, but switch to a vampire statblock by round 3 - keep hit points the same, though).
• A master criminal has started a food riot, drawing the cops away from a highly secure vault that the heroes can plainly see them creeping toward; for a twist, the heroes are part of the heist crew, and when things inevitably go wrong, the criminal leaves them behind.
• The heroes are running from something (could be literally anything or anyone), when suddenly they're lost in a dark wood. They walked through a catslide alley that linked them to the Feywild, and now they've got to get back home.
• A wight has infiltrated the city, and has created a small group of zombies; the cops are stumped and close the case; the "serial killer" investigation falls to the PCs.

[GaelofDarkness]

Maybe all the PCs have family or friends in another section of the city and all of a sudden they lose all contact. The authorities have been keeping it quiet that the section was compromised - not yet lost to the living but certainly on the way there - in a bid to keep panic from spreading and blame from getting assigned (rightly) to them. The PCs find each other because they've been asking the right questions and it's led them to the same person/place that can give them clues as to what's going on.

And I really agree that you should ask your players if they would like some of their PCs to know each other. It's great fuel for hooks early or late in a campaign that affects the party rather than a single PC.

[brian 333]

There is a rune that will keep the dead in their graves. Each of the party has had repeated dreams about it, and in the latest dream they have been told to meet others at the old Temple of the Dead where they can begin their search for it.

The party meets and prepares in the old temple, then enters its catacombs. They expect to meet undead, but instead meet insane cult members and scavenger monsters as they map their way to the center of a 3d maze.

At the center of the maze the symbol which keeps the dead at rest in their tombs can be found, along with an old monk who explains how it can be used in a ritual to seal new tombs. The monk then explains that six more runes exist which must be repaired to restore the laws of death in the city.

Afterwards the monk shrivels, dies, and crumbles to dust. This quest should get the PCs to level 3 or so, with the follow-up quests getting them to level 12 or so. At that point, armed with The Seven Runes of Death, they should be able to leave the city and travel the wider world.

1st rune: peaceful slumber
The interred, while under this sign, cannot be used to create undead.

2nd rune: final reward
The soul of anyone interred under this sign is released to go to its proper afterlife.

3rd rune: dust to dust
Any body interred under this sigil will wither and decay in a matter of weeks, rendering it useless for necromancy.

4th rune: curse of the tomb
Disturbing a burial site protected by this rune invokes a rotting disease which causes a severe cough and the loss of a point Con each week until the curse is Removed. The lost Con can be Restored only after Atonement administered by a cleric of Death.

5th rune: defending scarabs
12hd swarms of tiny beetles attack and will devour everything except metal and bone of anyone who disturbs a tomb under this rune's protection.

6th rune: undeath
One who attempts to disturb a tomb protected by this sign dies and rises three days later as an undead of similar experience level. This undead is absolutely compelled to return to the disturbed sigil and guard thd tomb to the utmost of its ability.

7th rune: cutting the cord
If this rune is invoked, the victim is slain, its body is disintegrated, and its soul is barred from access to the Material Plane for 101 years.

Assume a ritual must be performed to create these runes and the creator must be able to cast divine spells of the appropriate level to create a glyph. Multiple participants in the ritual extend the area of effect.