D&D 5E Campaign plotting - looking for ideas.

[Nellisir]

OK, I'm working this stuff out by writing it down. Running a new campaign, and have not had the time I'd like to have with it, so have been making stuff up for the last few sessions. Here's what I've left myself:

Setting is Slavic/Norse with Celtic influences viewed through a stereotypical D&D lense. I'm skimming Russian history of Kiev & Novogorod for flavor. 10th-12th C.

The overarching threat are the forces of The Ice. In centuries past, the Black Legion (an amalgamation of Glen Cook's Black Company and Roman legions) stymied The Ice through the use of heavy-duty battle magic obtained in part from a quasi-goddess. Remnants of the Black Legion persisted though the centuries and eventually turned into an order of knights called the Glos Knights, dedicated to protecting the nearby lands. Most of the old knowledge & power has been lost, however. The Glos Knights found the Black Legion's battle standard, a pretty potent magic item (abilities undefined) a little while ago, but knowledge of it has leaked out and a number of groups are gunning for it, so the knights sent it with a small party to try and hide it, but failed.
--- Some groups want the standard as the key to unearthing battle secrets.
--- The quasi-goddess wants to lock some of her secrets back up. She's not evil.
--- Cultists of hers want anything associated with her.
--- The Ice wants whatever the Black Legion did destroyed so it can advance again. Eternal winter, etc, etc.


The party...
--- ...is very nature-oriented. Druids, ranger, fey sorts, etc.
--- ...is very caster heavy. A leshii druid, a half-elven druid, a troldfolk wild mage, a human fey pact warlock, and a talvijotun ranger.
--- The ranger character is the daughter of the head of the Glos Knights; she has her own reasons for not joining the order and is rather cranky about it.
--- The troldfolk is a long story; suffice to say I'm going to build an adventure around him based on the Firefly episode "Jaynestown".
--- Not a lot of backstory with the other characters yet. The warlock was an acolyte but left the temple; no real reason for him to be pursued or anything.


- So far they...
--- ...were hired as cheap guards for a small caravan going to the edge of civilization. This was campaign start.
--- ... defeated a bunch of goblins, but not in time to rescue a (very) small village (called Let. Because it wasn't big enough for to be a hamlet) . They did rescue a boy and a woman, the survivors of the Glos Knights party. The characters now have the artifact, the standard of the Black Legion. Abilities unknown. The woman, Helga, was not a knight, but was associated with them. She wants nothing to do with the standard and has functionally washed her hands of the affair. She has called herself a librarian and noted in passing that she had certain talents: I'm leaning towards an innate ability to discern magical auras and read magic.
--- ...tricked, and then outfought, a group of hobgoblins trying to get the artifact. At least one got away, so they'll be back. I'm not sure who hired them yet. Other groups are going to take a swing soon; the hobgoblins & goblins were just the closest.
--- ...had few other random encounters.


The party is about to reach Vyshny, a small city/large town. This is role-playing time. They've got the name of a sage that the Glos Knights with the standard talked to a week or so before they got slaughtered. The party is also going to get a recommendation from their employer to his employer if they want more work affiliated with the caravan stuff.


I'm trying to think of a third way to deliver adventures to the party. If they want to pursue the Black Legion angle, the sage & Helga should suffice for leads. The merchant can give them employment opportunities, but they're a little sour about that. I want something to give them an opportunity for classic dungeon delving unrelated to the storyline if they so desire. I'm also trying to stay away from blatantly evil NPCs for the time being, and the cliche of NPC betrayal. I might throw in one small fight, but the players really like the RP stuff.


Thoughts?

 

[Herobizkit]

The easiest reason I can see people coming to the party is simple - they have the Black Legion Standard, and this clearly means that the players intend to continue the Glos Knights legacy and lead it on the crusade against The Ice.

I mean, why else would they keep the Black Legion Standard?

For every 'company' vying for control of the Standard, there could be the same number of people looking to rally under it or to its bearers for employment and/or protection. Who or whoever slaughtered the Glos Knights surely won't stop with them...

Also, try and encourage the players to be somewhat proactive. If heroes sit around all day waiting for adventure to come to them, there may be others in the wild looking to take advantage of their complacency by finding all the 'good' ruins and temples first... have a rival group of adventurers come to town boasting about their success at raiding an abandoned temple that the players 'happened' to miss on the trail... that'll get them out and looking.

 

[Gilladian]

Could there be some sort of dungeon under this town? Does it have a sewer system? I guess that's not TOO likely in the far north where the ground is frozen 3-5 months of the year... but there could be natural caves. Maybe they hear a rumor (from the sage?) that there was a place in the caves under the city where the Black Legion had a hideout? If they're hunting for a place to secure the Standard from the Glos Knights' foes, that might interest them, and it could turn out to be a much larger and more populated system than expected. Perhaps an underground river leading to a deepearth connection... or just ratmen in the sewers/caves and an old hideout/fort of the Legion with clues to other places in it.

 

[Paraxis]

Maybe a collection of micro dungeons. An order of druids needs them to recover item(s) from ancient barrows spread around the area, you can have encounters overland and a few in the barrows themselves. The item in the end won't be evil or anything but sometimes the neutral or balanced between man and nature goals of the order of druids don't sit well with some characters, so the end result might end up being undesirable.

 

[Astrosicebear]

Sounds awesome! If you've had a chance to play the amazing PC game The Banner Saga, you might get inspired.

Ala that game, since they have the Banner, possibly the last one known to exist... the Ice is now marching again on all of civilization. Its now up to the PCs to lead who they can out of harms way, gathering friends and allies as they retreat south from the invasion... but people flock to them as they hold the last banner of freedom and eventually they will make their stand.

 

[LostSoul]

I have Vornheim on my desk from yesterday's game of (some strange version of) D&D, so I'm going to use it to create four NPCs who are leaders of various factions.

[sblock=Random Cooking]
Roles
NPC1: Chief Advisor to the Regent
NPC2: Current Regent
NPC3: The cavalry is loyal to her above all others
NPC4: Chief of cartography

Personas
1: Chief Advisor Bastet the Grotesque: seeks the utter destruction of the (city)
2: Regent Genevieve of (Vool): believes that much of the nobility of (Vornheim) is in thrall to (creatures from the lower depths)
3: Cavalry Captain Yzonde von Chasm: wants to die but fears the after world
4: Chief Cartographer Morgen Korsk: despises the sun

Relationships
Chief Advisor Bastet the Grotesque:
* Needs help from Cavalry Captain Yzonde von Chasm
* Scares Chief Cartographer Morgen Korsk
Cavalry Captain Yzonde von Chasm:
* Cousin of Chief Cartographer Morgen Korsk
Chief Cartographer Morgen Korsk:
* Lusts after Regent Genevieve of (Vool)
Regent Genevieve of (Vool):
* Hates Chief Advisor Bastet the Grotesque
* Is sweet on Cavalry Captain Yzonde von Chasm[/sblock]

[sblock=Spice it Up]
Let's spice this up:

* Bastet is the chief Advisor to the Voivode Genevieve of (land name). She has the epithet of "the Groteqsue" for her patronage of hideous and ill-formed gargoyle sculptures on the capital's public buildings. She is a servant of The Ice and wishes to undo the magic of the goddess and the Black Legion.

In order to see her wishes made true she seeks to subvert the Glos Knights. Her plan is to turn their most decorated captain/commander: Yzonde (matronym), renown for her bravery and courage in battle.

Bastet has brought much of the nobility of (land name) into her new cult worshipping The Ice in all but name.

* The Voivode Genevieve of (land name) struggles to hold on to her rule. She knows of the cult of Ice, and that its leader is most likely Bastet, but does not have the support to move against them.

She seeks the support of the Glos Knights, which would allow her to purge the nobility and her land of the cult of Ice. She is in love with Yzonde and this complicates her political ambitions: she loves her for her virtue and doesn't want to compromise Yzonde by embroiling her in political machinations.

* Knight-Commander Yzonde (matronym) is loved by her knights for her courage, valour, and sacrifice. This stems from a death-wish, but she fears the after world too much to give into death. She cares little for politics and leadership: she wants to remain on the field where she may see her end, no matter how much she struggles against it.

* The Ranger Lord Morgen (matronym) shares her cousin Yzonde's courage (it must run in the family). She leads her ranger-knights into the lands of Ice, exploring it and sending back reports. She loves the land of Ice for she hates the warmth and brightness of the other lands, but she is still loyal to those she serves and fights against the Ice - she has no desire to see it spread, she spends all of her time there anyway. (She may even be a member of the quasi-goddess cult - fighting against the Ice so she can spend time there. People are weird.)

She lusts after the Voivode Genevieve and desires to bed her within the frozen lands. This may be part of some strange ritual.

* Wolfgang (matronym), the leader of the Glos Knights, is a petty, venal bureaucrat who bought his way into his position. He uses it to extort bribes. He cares about two things above all else: money and his addiction to rare drugs. He has little desire to go into battle or risk his troops and thus his power.

Wolfgang hates Yzonde and has tried to kill her by sending her into very dangerous situations, but she has prevailed against all odds.[/sblock]

[sblock=Serves Five]
Okay, so here are some hooks or plots the NPCs above could have for the PCs:
* Bastet the Grotesque wants the battle standard to destroy it, or at least use it to figure out how to undo the magic holding back the ice. The Voivode Genevieve wants the battle standard to rally the Glos Knights around her. Both factions will work against each other but they want to do so in secret, since neither believes they can face each other and win in an open civil war.
* Wolfgang wants the battle standard so he can increase his power and possibly sell it to the highest bidder. He'd like to get the PCs to join the Glos Knights and hole up in the Knight's most secure (or so they think) citadel. He's willing to buy it, but if the cost is too great he'll steal it (keeping his daughter alive, of course).
* Morgen the Ranger Lord wants to have the PCs investigate the hobgoblins and who they were/who is leading them and how they knew about the battle standard. Morgen does not want or care about the battle standard - she just wants the PCs to do their ranger thing out there in the Ice lands.
* Yzonde belives that going to her death in the presence of the battle standard may ease her transition into the after world/help her in her next life in the after world. She doesn't want anything from the PCs except to fight (and die) alongside them.
* Bastet the Grotesque wants to recruit the fey warlock in the party into her cult of Ice.[/sblock]

Maybe some of that will help.

 

[ephemeron]

If I were playing in your campaign, I'd totally want to see an ice-cave dungeon:



Old fortifications and supply caches from the Black Legion's day could be good dungeons, too. Some are being reclaimed by nature, (some should be reclaimed by nature...), some have been taken over by humans or monsters, and there could be all sorts of useful things left behind or good reasons to evict the current occupants.

Is the Ice an impersonal force, or something like an alignment, or is there a sentient being commanding it? You could have a side plot centered on a community that thinks it's cut a deal with the Ice and doesn't quite know yet that that doesn't work.

 

[Mistwell]

First sounds like a great campaign.

Second, here's some thoughts off the top of my head.

Party needs to hide that battle standard. So perhaps they seek out an old Knight fortification to hide it. That location is now occupied by monsters who found it abandoned and moved in. Party clears the dungeon, finds a secret room, and hides the standard.

But perhaps the quasi-goddess is pleased by this, and seeks them out. Maybe she is even in that dungeon. She asks the party to locate other artifacts left over by the Knights, and tells them where some other former-knight locations are located. Each can be a small dungeon.

 

[Nellisir]

OK, this is flat-out amazing stuff. Thank you!!!

Is the Ice an impersonal force, or something like an alignment, or is there a sentient being commanding it? You could have a side plot centered on a community that thinks it's cut a deal with the Ice and doesn't quite know yet that that doesn't work.

That scenario is absolutely workable. The nature of the Ice is unclear. At one point it was under the control of Cheneitha, the goddess of winter, but I've always seen her as turning from evil to something more conflicted. If that's true, at some point she let drop the leash that controlled the Ice and it's taken its own path since then. I guess it's probably most accurate to say it's an "elemental" intelligence of some kind; something neither human nor divine.

I cribbed the whole idea of the Ice from Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World series; the books themselves are a bit of a mixed bag, but the setting work is amazing.

I have Vornheim on my desk from yesterday's game of (some strange version of) D&D, so I'm going to use it to create four NPCs who are leaders of various factions.

I really need to get Vornheim. This is great stuff.

Ala that game, since they have the Banner, possibly the last one known to exist... the Ice is now marching again on all of civilization. Its now up to the PCs to lead who they can out of harms way, gathering friends and allies as they retreat south from the invasion... but people flock to them as they hold the last banner of freedom and eventually they will make their stand.

I hadn't thought of that; I really like that idea. Initially (now) there'll be small scale forays and deals (per ephemeron's suggestion), but then suddenly...bang! Invasion. It'd thrust the PCs into a whole new role (which they may or may not welcome).

The Postman, by David Brin, is an amazing book. The movie was absolute trash, but the book was amazing as the (inadvertent) postman eventually embraces his role as a symbol and leader.

Maybe a collection of micro dungeons. An order of druids needs them to recover item(s) from ancient barrows spread around the area, you can have encounters overland and a few in the barrows themselves. The item in the end won't be evil or anything but sometimes the neutral or balanced between man and nature goals of the order of druids don't sit well with some characters, so the end result might end up being undesirable.

I like the idea of bringing the druids into it. It could set up a conflict for the party if the druids don't care about a lot of people dying, or are slightly myopic in their vision and underestimate the Ice. The party can go along with the druids (making it harder to defeat the Ice) or go against them (and lose their support).

That map is stunning. It's going to blow all the ink I've got left in my printer, but totally worth it.

For every 'company' vying for control of the Standard, there could be the same number of people looking to rally under it or to its bearers for employment and/or protection. Who or whoever slaughtered the Glos Knights surely won't stop with them...

I like the idea of people trying to get hired by the party. They're broke as hell right now (wandering monsters don't have much loot) and pretty green, but too arrogant to admit it. They'll try to get out of it without admitting anything to anyone.

 

[Nellisir]

Party needs to hide that battle standard. So perhaps they seek out an old Knight fortification to hide it. That location is now occupied by monsters who found it abandoned and moved in. Party clears the dungeon, finds a secret room, and hides the standard.

But perhaps the quasi-goddess is pleased by this, and seeks them out. Maybe she is even in that dungeon. She asks the party to locate other artifacts left over by the Knights, and tells them where some other former-knight locations are located. Each can be a small dungeon.

I like that. Actually, I like the idea of several factions seeking out the party to have them run errands. The druids, the merchants, the regent or hiser agent, the quasi-goddess... (aka The Smith's Wife; her situation has advanced slightly since that account as The Smith has regained his place in the pantheon and she's become a "living" artifact; she's essentially the patron saint of intelligent magic items, golems, and people with artificial limbs.) Micro-dungeons for everyone!!!