I currently run the Lost Mines of Phandalvier and we are about to enter the last act, so I started brainstorming about my own camping. Here is what I came up with so far:
The core idea was to limit the party for the first 4 or 5 lvl to a smaller area, so I choose an island, which intern leads to why they can not just take a ship and sail away. And here comes the main hook, the sea goddess of this world (I might just borrow the Dragonlance pantheon because I'm already familiar with it) has her favourite demigod son taken a hostage and is forced to keep the Seas calm.
So the Party will have to find a way to rescue her son because nobody will see them as a thread they can do stuff more powerful people could not do.....
Now I want to know is this doable as a relatively new DM or am I completely out of my league with such a high fantasy start for the Campain? And is it even a good idea in the first place...
The players are limited to the island because there is no wind for sailing away? A calm sea actually sounds great for travelling by ship (?). Perhaps I do not get the limitation.
A few years ago I hosted a campaign that pretty much was limited to quite a small island (a single dormant volcano in the middle, three major tribes on the island, the players came as colonists from over the sea). To keep variety the island offered some different environments (beaches and riffs at the coast, with a few tiny island off-shore, a lush tropical forest in the south, a savannah type hill area in the north; snowy peaks, if you climbed up the volcano; an abandoned mine and underground rivers; a ruined city in the jungle; a colonist settlement, tribal villages; a lizardmen settlement built off shipwrecks). I also added some different events from the outside world (supply ships coming from the "old world"; new traders coming from another island; undead being summoned from the depths of the ocean; ghosts of the ancestors in the tribal burial grounds; a magical beast released from the ruins; salvers trying to take away people; a hurricane sweeping over the island.
You could do a lot in a very confined space of an island.
Why not steal a little bit from Pirates of the Caribbean? The son has been taken, presumably for his powers over the sea. Mom is mad...like typhoons and maelstroms mad. The party has to find their way off the island while intermittent squalls buffet the island. If they cannot extricate themselves from the island, what chance do they have to be heroes of the tale?
Tie that in to what DMGorani has given you and you have the makings for a good step into your first handful of levels.
I currently run the Lost Mines of Phandalvier and we are about to enter the last act, so I started brainstorming about my own camping. Here is what I came up with so far:
The core idea was to limit the party for the first 4 or 5 lvl to a smaller area, so I choose an island, which intern leads to why they can not just take a ship and sail away. And here comes the main hook, the sea goddess of this world (I might just borrow the Dragonlance pantheon because I'm already familiar with it) has her favourite demigod son taken a hostage and is forced to keep the Seas calm.
So the Party will have to find a way to rescue her son because nobody will see them as a thread they can do stuff more powerful people could not do.....
Now I want to know is this doable as a relatively new DM or am I completely out of my league with such a high fantasy start for the Campain? And is it even a good idea in the first place...
The players are limited to the island because there is no wind for sailing away? A calm sea actually sounds great for travelling by ship (?). Perhaps I do not get the limitation.
A few years ago I hosted a campaign that pretty much was limited to quite a small island (a single dormant volcano in the middle, three major tribes on the island, the players came as colonists from over the sea). To keep variety the island offered some different environments (beaches and riffs at the coast, with a few tiny island off-shore, a lush tropical forest in the south, a savannah type hill area in the north; snowy peaks, if you climbed up the volcano; an abandoned mine and underground rivers; a ruined city in the jungle; a colonist settlement, tribal villages; a lizardmen settlement built off shipwrecks). I also added some different events from the outside world (supply ships coming from the "old world"; new traders coming from another island; undead being summoned from the depths of the ocean; ghosts of the ancestors in the tribal burial grounds; a magical beast released from the ruins; salvers trying to take away people; a hurricane sweeping over the island.
You could do a lot in a very confined space of an island.
there could be a magical spell that prevents boats from being built.
Elliott Neve
Why not steal a little bit from Pirates of the Caribbean? The son has been taken, presumably for his powers over the sea. Mom is mad...like typhoons and maelstroms mad. The party has to find their way off the island while intermittent squalls buffet the island. If they cannot extricate themselves from the island, what chance do they have to be heroes of the tale?
Tie that in to what DMGorani has given you and you have the makings for a good step into your first handful of levels.