Balancing spiral campaign and world building

[RacingBreca]

Hey all,
New DM here.
Like many DM's, I enjoy creating large world changing events and thrusting my players into the thick of things. I'm finding it difficult to slow play the plot and allow the campaign to spiral out from the players naturally.
I am currently running a game in which the players live on a desert island with only a Dwarven civilization mining into a lone mountain, and a port city slowly decaying into ruin.
A thousand years ago the island was a lush forest, home to powerful Wood Elves and forest creatures. When the Dwarves began harvesting Dragonwood from the forest to make Darksteel, the elves conspired with the Eladrin of the Feywild to transport the forest away from the material plane into a parallel dimension, to protect it.
I keep catching myself trying to thrust the players into the middle of an enormous event. I know that I'd rather create episodic adventures that tease out this reality in incremental steps.
What tips do you have for this process?
What PC objectives come to your mind within the world that we are creating at my table?
Thank you,

[LibraryOgre]

So, part of it is coming up with what you want to happen, then looking at how to foreshadow that.

Let's say your plot is the return of the forest from that parallel dimension. An option would be to have some early adventures revolve around creatures suddenly appearing... you'd throw in plants and such, as well. You could also have disappearances, as things slipped into this alternate dimension. These can work into your worldbuilding, partially by having them first happen in places that have already been built up. You might also have this play into the world-building... you describe a place as they come to it, but you also keep in mind what it will be when the worlds re-unite.

Another option for this, depending on where you are in your world-building? The dwarves were the ones whisked away. It's not that the elves left, it's that they banished the dwarven kingdom. That's part of why the seaport is decaying... there's no one out there to use it.

[RacingBreca]

This is great.
I love the idea of things from the Feywild popping into this world. Starting with something as benign as a tree/ shrubberies, then strange unpredictable elemental weather, and ultimately chaotic forces from the Feywild.
The party's day to day adventuring lifestyle can be broken up by these building occurrences until they are forced to uncover this lost secret and pick a side.
How can I further integrate the theme of; "Restoring life at the cost of chaos", into this campaign.

[LibraryOgre]

This is great.
I love the idea of things from the Feywild popping into this world. Starting with something as benign as a tree/ shrubberies, then strange unpredictable elemental weather, and ultimately chaotic forces from the Feywild.
The party's day to day adventuring lifestyle can be broken up by these building occurrences until they are forced to uncover this lost secret and pick a side.
How can I further integrate the theme of; "Restoring life at the cost of chaos", into this campaign.

As things come back, stuff starts to break.

So, for example, let's say that on this desert island there is a small oasis town between the seaport and the mountain. Necessary stop on the road to refill your water and buy food (preserved camel meat).

Then, one day, the oasis vanishes. Or the town gets destroyed because trees suddenly reappear where there are now buildings. Or the town is washed away because FeyLake is a hundred times the size of the desert oasis and comes back for three days. When it leaves, the entire area is a mudflat, the oasis is twice its old size (it will shrink back), and filled with a type of fish no one has seen in a thousand years.

Caves collapse because the gnomes of the FeyWorld (which is what I'm going to call it) dug their own caverns. Or it suddenly starts raining xorn because a higher cavern in DesertWorld isn't there in Feyworld, so the Xorn just... fall from the sky.

Undead awaken from their sleep beneath the sands, or get banished through the now-thinner walls between realities.

Systems break because important people disappear. Like, it's a tragedy for his family if Johnny the Shoemaker disappears. What if the person who goes away is a guild leader? Or a clan leader, with their clan in a low-key war with another?

[brian 333]

It's okay to worldbuild ahead of your players. Don't force them to discover it.

Let us say that your worldbuilding has the two realms rejoin. Great. Now wait for the players to begin to assemble the shards of the Sphere of Linnati, the prophetess of the elven king for the first emergences to occur.

Now the event is caused by the party, and centered on them because they are carrying the artifact that caused the separation.

Let's say you want a war between dwarves and pirates. Allow the PCs to discover a functional ship and work out a trade route to a nearby continent, dwarven gold for silks, spices, and preserved foods. The pirates (and traders) now have a reason to show up. If the town gets burned to the ground it's the players's fault. If it becomes a prosperous trade town they get statues of themselves in the town square. Meanwhile, the PCs will have started the dwarf-pirate war.

Let's say you build two mutually exclusive scenarios: the island is in the pocket dimension and there is no mainland, and there is a continent with which they can trade. Let them find the ship and the first shard at the same time. Whichever they choose to pursue first is the 'real' scenario. The other can wait for future player curiosity to be explored.

In other words, let the PCs be the catalyst for the changes rather than passive observers. Worldbuild all you like. Let the players explore. When the world expands or changes, let them be the ones who did it.