So, I've never DMed before, but I've had this idea for a campaign swirling around in the back of my mind for a while, and it's not going away. I made a vague post on my fb about it and got a ton of interest, so now I feel more pressure to flesh it out and possibly run it.
It takes place in the mountainous, cold north, in the fall and runs to spring. Set in a small hamlet, of largely outcasts and hardy people who take pride in their community and hardiness, and as long as folks help out, are usually willing to overlook some of the more dubious reasons folks have moved there, often "hiding out", and starting new lives. I'd have the players come up with reasons why their character would have come to this rough backwater location, and provide them in advance some of the info of the region in which it'll be taking place.
Low levels would revolve around their backstories, depending on what they give me, while I get them acquainted with the setting, the characters, and start sprinkling in lore and hints of what's to come.
Low to mid levels is winter setting in, with lots of fun set pieces like avalanches, frozen lake fights, etc, and survival elements, helping the hamlet with food, warmth, safety/defense. As the winter stretches on and gets colder and snowier, there'd be things like neighboring tribes of orcs or trolls or the like getting bold in their attacks due to the harsh winter, that the players would have to fend off, prepare for, and counterattack, etc.
Mid levels would be them realizing as spring approaches that something is wrong, and winter isn't ending. A new person would show up in town, with odd happenings, and they'd find it was a deal making devil of some kind, taking souls in exchange for helping with the harsh winter, food, warmth, etc.
Here on things get fuzzy. I know in the tome of foes there is a cool lore bit about how Stygia, one of the levels of Hell had been peeled off from the Material Plane somehow. I'd like the plot twist to be that it is merging back, hence the unending and harsh winter. I'm just not real sure on what/how. Maybe it's a rival devil trying to make Levistus vulnerable? Maybe some powerful being on the material plane, or in the underdark under the hamlet trying to get at lost treasures frozen under stygia? I would love some input on this idea, and lore and possible motivations/triggers, and how the PCs might stop and reverse it.
And ideas/feedback in general. Keeping them in the region around the same npcs and such, I'm hoping to be able to get them to really are about some of the npcs, and have their deaths or dangers posed to them really be meaningful. By having them have reasons in advance for moving there in the first place, I'm hoping to avoid worries about them feeling railroaded into the survival arc story, and to explain how they all meet in the first place.
Auril, (Lesser/Evil) Goddess of Winter is trying to wrest back a bit of the Winter domain from the Raven Queen. She has discovered the final resting place of a Blizzard Dragon, one of the few Catastrophic Dragons that were shaped by the Primordials who rose against the Gods during the Dawn War. Auril has sent her agents with a measure of her divine spark to awaken this comatose terror and use it in a war against the followers of what she sees as an usurper goddess. The Frost Maiden is known to show favor on Ice Elementals, Frost Giants, Winter Wolves, and those foolish folks who die of winter's conditions only to rise again as undead (undead being an affront to the Raven Queen and her mastery over the domain of the dead).
So, I've never DMed before, but I've had this idea for a campaign swirling around in the back of my mind for a while, and it's not going away. I made a vague post on my fb about it and got a ton of interest, so now I feel more pressure to flesh it out and possibly run it.
It takes place in the mountainous, cold north, in the fall and runs to spring. Set in a small hamlet, of largely outcasts and hardy people who take pride in their community and hardiness, and as long as folks help out, are usually willing to overlook some of the more dubious reasons folks have moved there, often "hiding out", and starting new lives. I'd have the players come up with reasons why their character would have come to this rough backwater location, and provide them in advance some of the info of the region in which it'll be taking place.
Low levels would revolve around their backstories, depending on what they give me, while I get them acquainted with the setting, the characters, and start sprinkling in lore and hints of what's to come.
Low to mid levels is winter setting in, with lots of fun set pieces like avalanches, frozen lake fights, etc, and survival elements, helping the hamlet with food, warmth, safety/defense. As the winter stretches on and gets colder and snowier, there'd be things like neighboring tribes of orcs or trolls or the like getting bold in their attacks due to the harsh winter, that the players would have to fend off, prepare for, and counterattack, etc.
Mid levels would be them realizing as spring approaches that something is wrong, and winter isn't ending. A new person would show up in town, with odd happenings, and they'd find it was a deal making devil of some kind, taking souls in exchange for helping with the harsh winter, food, warmth, etc.
Here on things get fuzzy. I know in the tome of foes there is a cool lore bit about how Stygia, one of the levels of Hell had been peeled off from the Material Plane somehow. I'd like the plot twist to be that it is merging back, hence the unending and harsh winter. I'm just not real sure on what/how. Maybe it's a rival devil trying to make Levistus vulnerable? Maybe some powerful being on the material plane, or in the underdark under the hamlet trying to get at lost treasures frozen under stygia? I would love some input on this idea, and lore and possible motivations/triggers, and how the PCs might stop and reverse it.
And ideas/feedback in general. Keeping them in the region around the same npcs and such, I'm hoping to be able to get them to really are about some of the npcs, and have their deaths or dangers posed to them really be meaningful. By having them have reasons in advance for moving there in the first place, I'm hoping to avoid worries about them feeling railroaded into the survival arc story, and to explain how they all meet in the first place.
How would you handle characters picking races completely unaffected by cold weather?
how would you handle characters that are ill prepared for winter weather? Do they start with winters clothes or do they have to procure them?
How do you handle the psychological toll of isolation due to weather? Such as happens in the likes of Alaska, or in books like The Shining.
"How would you handle characters picking races completely unaffected by cold weather?"
- I'd probably be keeping to PHB/Xanathars races, but say they're resistant to cold, they'd still have limited visibility in a blizzard, or have balance issues on ice, or slowed by heavy snow fall, etc.
"how would you handle characters that are ill prepared for winter weather? Do they start with winters clothes or do they have to procure them?"
Possibly some of both, but again, they would have a heads up on the location/setting when creating, and I do have an idea for an early "encounter" that'd give some furs, or cloaks, and the like.
"How do you handle the psychological toll of isolation due to weather? Such as happens in the likes of Alaska, or in books like The Shining." I hadn't thought specifically about that, but the trying nature of it would absolutely be part of the idea of things, and avenues for roleplay, as well as possibly connecting them more to NPCs that help with that stress in various ways
Here on things get fuzzy. I know in the tome of foes there is a cool lore bit about how Stygia, one of the levels of Hell had been peeled off from the Material Plane somehow. I'd like the plot twist to be that it is merging back, hence the unending and harsh winter. I'm just not real sure on what/how. Maybe it's a rival devil trying to make Levistus vulnerable? Maybe some powerful being on the material plane, or in the underdark under the hamlet trying to get at lost treasures frozen under stygia? I would love some input on this idea, and lore and possible motivations/triggers, and how the PCs might stop and reverse it.
And ideas/feedback in general. Keeping them in the region around the same npcs and such, I'm hoping to be able to get them to really care about some of the npcs, and have their deaths or dangers posed to them really be meaningful. By having them have reasons in advance for moving there in the first place, I'm hoping to avoid worries about them feeling railroaded into the survival arc story, and to explain how they all meet in the first place.
I read the fandom page on Stygia to get caught up on this bit of lore. It was just a rumor that it had been a realm on the material plane that had struck a deal with Asmodeus to save their realm from destruction, and ended up losing not only their souls, but the entire geography to the 9 hells. It’s also uncertain whether the collective wealth of the realm is still buried under the ice. So this brings up two possible plots that could bring about an attempt to reunify Stygia with the Material. 1) A descendant of someone who escaped the “peel off” has been brought up by a line of firm believers that there’s an “out” in the contract that sent the land there, if someone could somehow invoke it. That someone has made their way to this town and has begun the process of reclaiming the land. 2) Treasure hunters sought to open planar transport below the stygian ice to search for treasure, but things went wrong because of the Material origins of Stygia, and you got some magical feedback, bringing some of Stygia’s eternal winter to the area they tried to cross from. And the feedback loop is getting stronger and stronger, threatening to reunite the land.
This is a cool adventure idea that I could easily envision lots of side plots and NPCs for. If you ever want to get it published, I’d totally offer my services as an editor or ghost writer.
I do really like the contract idea, since I had wanted to tempt the players some as well, could be a good way to intro them to the concept/rules of it. I just have no idea what to make said contract(s)(?)
Im very anxious over the whole idea; I have a lot of concepts for encounters, locations, NPCs, story twists and plots, but its all very nebulous still, and over what is a good one and whats a bad one.
Feels like they should be tempted/introduced to contracts at a lower level, before they learn how multiplanar their problems are. Like some devil shows up, and wants to start making deals for more trivial things. Some NPC gets his soul collected and the party is dealing with the worry and fallout. This seems like a good time to introduce/ramp up involvement of the NPC that is trying to invoke the escape clause. They could be a stranger or citizen who is just really outspoken against making contracts with devils. Maybe even hunts them out of a fear they’re sent by Asmodeus to stop him from enacting the clause. He can deliver some backstory, or drive an encounter or side quest. But he keeps to himself about what it is he’s doing. Could be interesting if he comes off sketchy, sneaking around, hiding the materials needed to enact the escape clause.
I was toying with the idea that there is no church/cleric in town, but when things start getting bad, weather wise, one shows up, but there are minor clues and strange occurrences that hint eventually that she is a deal making devil, preying on folks who go for help, and they ultimately are the lore source for whats happening, so yeah, 100% agree. or maybe when they figure it out, and chase them out, they're lead to the border where the landscape crosses into Stygia.
I'm just really fuzzy on the nature of the contract that would have peeled the area into the hells, what part of the contract would be bringing it back, and how they could stop it from coming back, in hell-mode.
Ok, let’s make it up as we go. If we create a history, we can write the motives of the ones making the contract. That would help us to make up the contract and the escape clauses within it.
Your setting is a mountainous, cold, north. So let’s say near the mountain the party’s on is another great mountain. But it didn’t used to be. Once, it was a sprawling valley with a large clean river running through it. There was a large city named Tantlin, originally settled by a persecuted religious sect that migrated there as a group. It was very isolated, but very prosperous, owing to the abundant resources in the area. The mountains produced gems and ore. The river brought game and water, and the sprawling valley floor had plenty of room for farming. There was plenty of woods. It was heavenly. The mountains were all the walls the city needed. But one of their clerics started getting visions of doom for the valley: Attacks by beasts. A summer of no rain. Then the mountains would roll over the valley. Then a flood. When the flood receded, not one building was left.
The beasts attacking wasn’t so unusual, although some of the beasts that usually kept to the mountains were being seen in the valley now. Some attacked. But when the river in the valley slowed to almost nothing seemingly out of nowhere, the villagers began to panic that the visions might be symbolic, but true. The drying river (despite it still having rained as usual) was taken as the fulfillment of the summer with no rain. Those who went to investigate the river’s flow never returned.
Asmodeus, who was ever watching for people in states of desperation, came to Tantlin in the form of a powerful mage, who told the king he also had seen the visions, but foresaw a way to save not only the people, but the wealth and homesteads as well. The king called forth the heads of the families and made them sign what he told them was a reaffirmation of fealty needed to assure him that doing what was needed to save the town wasn’t tyranny, but that he was still acting in line with his responsibilities as king. What signing a pledge of loyalty to the king actually did, though, was giving Asmodeus indirect power over their souls. The king was already under the control of Asmodeus, having signed his soul away first. Having obtained the souls of the people, he carved out the valley and pulled it into Baator as the finest city of the stygian layer of the 9 hells. In the valley’s place, a large mountain sprung into place. (Imagine what fun could be explored under a mountain magically created by the power of Asmodeus!)
The reality of the doom for the town was that a clan of stone giants had dammed up the river back in the mountains. Their presence had displaced the beasts so that they appeared more often in the valley. They were uniting clans into an army to sweep through and cleanse the valley of Tantlin. After the people were gone, they’d break the dam and restore the river’s flow.
As for the residents in Tantlin, they became various devils. The Styx flows through the channel of the old valley river.
Terms of the contract incoming in the next post. I just don’t want to lose this much writing without saving it.
So I figure the contract basically says As long as the king lives, we, the heads of the families of Tantlin, do pledge our loyalty, land and property to King ___ and honor the deity he serves by obedience to every command issuing from his mouth.
And the king’s contract says I hereby pledge my life to Asmodeus in exchange for the perpetual protection of the realm of Tantlin. My commands are his commands. My soul is forfeit to him if I do willingly end my life to escape his service before he grants me release. If I serve him faithfully and die in his good graces, I will be laid to rest in the valley kept safe by my sacrifice.
Which means, the escape clause all hinges on killing the king. If he dies, the valley must be there to lay him to rest in.
So I figure Asmodeus keeps the king alive in Tantlin eternally unchanged as a channel to control the remaining citizens. It is by the king’s word that the people became devils. And per the terms of their contract, any assignments they get only need be obeyed if spoken by the king. (Who speaks what Asmodeus tells him to.)
We could say the cleric who saw the visions of doom also saw the contract binding the king to Asmodeus. It was laying on the king’s desk awaiting the king’s signature. And when the king asked the people for their loyalty pledge, he knew the king must have signed, and rather than pledge, left the valley. It is his descendants who know of the contract and of the valley that should be where the mountain is.
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So, I've never DMed before, but I've had this idea for a campaign swirling around in the back of my mind for a while, and it's not going away. I made a vague post on my fb about it and got a ton of interest, so now I feel more pressure to flesh it out and possibly run it.
It takes place in the mountainous, cold north, in the fall and runs to spring. Set in a small hamlet, of largely outcasts and hardy people who take pride in their community and hardiness, and as long as folks help out, are usually willing to overlook some of the more dubious reasons folks have moved there, often "hiding out", and starting new lives. I'd have the players come up with reasons why their character would have come to this rough backwater location, and provide them in advance some of the info of the region in which it'll be taking place.
Low levels would revolve around their backstories, depending on what they give me, while I get them acquainted with the setting, the characters, and start sprinkling in lore and hints of what's to come.
Low to mid levels is winter setting in, with lots of fun set pieces like avalanches, frozen lake fights, etc, and survival elements, helping the hamlet with food, warmth, safety/defense. As the winter stretches on and gets colder and snowier, there'd be things like neighboring tribes of orcs or trolls or the like getting bold in their attacks due to the harsh winter, that the players would have to fend off, prepare for, and counterattack, etc.
Mid levels would be them realizing as spring approaches that something is wrong, and winter isn't ending. A new person would show up in town, with odd happenings, and they'd find it was a deal making devil of some kind, taking souls in exchange for helping with the harsh winter, food, warmth, etc.
Here on things get fuzzy. I know in the tome of foes there is a cool lore bit about how Stygia, one of the levels of Hell had been peeled off from the Material Plane somehow. I'd like the plot twist to be that it is merging back, hence the unending and harsh winter. I'm just not real sure on what/how. Maybe it's a rival devil trying to make Levistus vulnerable? Maybe some powerful being on the material plane, or in the underdark under the hamlet trying to get at lost treasures frozen under stygia? I would love some input on this idea, and lore and possible motivations/triggers, and how the PCs might stop and reverse it.
And ideas/feedback in general. Keeping them in the region around the same npcs and such, I'm hoping to be able to get them to really are about some of the npcs, and have their deaths or dangers posed to them really be meaningful. By having them have reasons in advance for moving there in the first place, I'm hoping to avoid worries about them feeling railroaded into the survival arc story, and to explain how they all meet in the first place.
A thing that might be an interesting plot-point:
How would you handle characters picking races completely unaffected by cold weather?
how would you handle characters that are ill prepared for winter weather? Do they start with winters clothes or do they have to procure them?
How do you handle the psychological toll of isolation due to weather? Such as happens in the likes of Alaska, or in books like The Shining.
"How would you handle characters picking races completely unaffected by cold weather?"
- I'd probably be keeping to PHB/Xanathars races, but say they're resistant to cold, they'd still have limited visibility in a blizzard, or have balance issues on ice, or slowed by heavy snow fall, etc.
"how would you handle characters that are ill prepared for winter weather? Do they start with winters clothes or do they have to procure them?"
Possibly some of both, but again, they would have a heads up on the location/setting when creating, and I do have an idea for an early "encounter" that'd give some furs, or cloaks, and the like.
"How do you handle the psychological toll of isolation due to weather? Such as happens in the likes of Alaska, or in books like The Shining." I hadn't thought specifically about that, but the trying nature of it would absolutely be part of the idea of things, and avenues for roleplay, as well as possibly connecting them more to NPCs that help with that stress in various ways
I read the fandom page on Stygia to get caught up on this bit of lore. It was just a rumor that it had been a realm on the material plane that had struck a deal with Asmodeus to save their realm from destruction, and ended up losing not only their souls, but the entire geography to the 9 hells. It’s also uncertain whether the collective wealth of the realm is still buried under the ice. So this brings up two possible plots that could bring about an attempt to reunify Stygia with the Material. 1) A descendant of someone who escaped the “peel off” has been brought up by a line of firm believers that there’s an “out” in the contract that sent the land there, if someone could somehow invoke it. That someone has made their way to this town and has begun the process of reclaiming the land. 2) Treasure hunters sought to open planar transport below the stygian ice to search for treasure, but things went wrong because of the Material origins of Stygia, and you got some magical feedback, bringing some of Stygia’s eternal winter to the area they tried to cross from. And the feedback loop is getting stronger and stronger, threatening to reunite the land.
This is a cool adventure idea that I could easily envision lots of side plots and NPCs for. If you ever want to get it published, I’d totally offer my services as an editor or ghost writer.
I do really like the contract idea, since I had wanted to tempt the players some as well, could be a good way to intro them to the concept/rules of it. I just have no idea what to make said contract(s)(?)
Im very anxious over the whole idea; I have a lot of concepts for encounters, locations, NPCs, story twists and plots, but its all very nebulous still, and over what is a good one and whats a bad one.
Feels like they should be tempted/introduced to contracts at a lower level, before they learn how multiplanar their problems are. Like some devil shows up, and wants to start making deals for more trivial things. Some NPC gets his soul collected and the party is dealing with the worry and fallout. This seems like a good time to introduce/ramp up involvement of the NPC that is trying to invoke the escape clause. They could be a stranger or citizen who is just really outspoken against making contracts with devils. Maybe even hunts them out of a fear they’re sent by Asmodeus to stop him from enacting the clause. He can deliver some backstory, or drive an encounter or side quest. But he keeps to himself about what it is he’s doing. Could be interesting if he comes off sketchy, sneaking around, hiding the materials needed to enact the escape clause.
I was toying with the idea that there is no church/cleric in town, but when things start getting bad, weather wise, one shows up, but there are minor clues and strange occurrences that hint eventually that she is a deal making devil, preying on folks who go for help, and they ultimately are the lore source for whats happening, so yeah, 100% agree. or maybe when they figure it out, and chase them out, they're lead to the border where the landscape crosses into Stygia.
I'm just really fuzzy on the nature of the contract that would have peeled the area into the hells, what part of the contract would be bringing it back, and how they could stop it from coming back, in hell-mode.
Ok, let’s make it up as we go. If we create a history, we can write the motives of the ones making the contract. That would help us to make up the contract and the escape clauses within it.
Your setting is a mountainous, cold, north. So let’s say near the mountain the party’s on is another great mountain. But it didn’t used to be. Once, it was a sprawling valley with a large clean river running through it. There was a large city named Tantlin, originally settled by a persecuted religious sect that migrated there as a group. It was very isolated, but very prosperous, owing to the abundant resources in the area. The mountains produced gems and ore. The river brought game and water, and the sprawling valley floor had plenty of room for farming. There was plenty of woods. It was heavenly. The mountains were all the walls the city needed. But one of their clerics started getting visions of doom for the valley: Attacks by beasts. A summer of no rain. Then the mountains would roll over the valley. Then a flood. When the flood receded, not one building was left.
The beasts attacking wasn’t so unusual, although some of the beasts that usually kept to the mountains were being seen in the valley now. Some attacked. But when the river in the valley slowed to almost nothing seemingly out of nowhere, the villagers began to panic that the visions might be symbolic, but true. The drying river (despite it still having rained as usual) was taken as the fulfillment of the summer with no rain. Those who went to investigate the river’s flow never returned.
Asmodeus, who was ever watching for people in states of desperation, came to Tantlin in the form of a powerful mage, who told the king he also had seen the visions, but foresaw a way to save not only the people, but the wealth and homesteads as well. The king called forth the heads of the families and made them sign what he told them was a reaffirmation of fealty needed to assure him that doing what was needed to save the town wasn’t tyranny, but that he was still acting in line with his responsibilities as king. What signing a pledge of loyalty to the king actually did, though, was giving Asmodeus indirect power over their souls. The king was already under the control of Asmodeus, having signed his soul away first. Having obtained the souls of the people, he carved out the valley and pulled it into Baator as the finest city of the stygian layer of the 9 hells. In the valley’s place, a large mountain sprung into place. (Imagine what fun could be explored under a mountain magically created by the power of Asmodeus!)
The reality of the doom for the town was that a clan of stone giants had dammed up the river back in the mountains. Their presence had displaced the beasts so that they appeared more often in the valley. They were uniting clans into an army to sweep through and cleanse the valley of Tantlin. After the people were gone, they’d break the dam and restore the river’s flow.
As for the residents in Tantlin, they became various devils. The Styx flows through the channel of the old valley river.
Terms of the contract incoming in the next post. I just don’t want to lose this much writing without saving it.
So I figure the contract basically says As long as the king lives, we, the heads of the families of Tantlin, do pledge our loyalty, land and property to King ___ and honor the deity he serves by obedience to every command issuing from his mouth.
And the king’s contract says I hereby pledge my life to Asmodeus in exchange for the perpetual protection of the realm of Tantlin. My commands are his commands. My soul is forfeit to him if I do willingly end my life to escape his service before he grants me release. If I serve him faithfully and die in his good graces, I will be laid to rest in the valley kept safe by my sacrifice.
Which means, the escape clause all hinges on killing the king. If he dies, the valley must be there to lay him to rest in.
So I figure Asmodeus keeps the king alive in Tantlin eternally unchanged as a channel to control the remaining citizens. It is by the king’s word that the people became devils. And per the terms of their contract, any assignments they get only need be obeyed if spoken by the king. (Who speaks what Asmodeus tells him to.)
We could say the cleric who saw the visions of doom also saw the contract binding the king to Asmodeus. It was laying on the king’s desk awaiting the king’s signature. And when the king asked the people for their loyalty pledge, he knew the king must have signed, and rather than pledge, left the valley. It is his descendants who know of the contract and of the valley that should be where the mountain is.