My idea began as an eldritch horror story in a fantasy setting, I wanted all the players to start at level 0 and not have a class, just be proficient villagers. (ex: someone who wants to eventually be a rogue is really just a locksmith, mages = librarians, warriors = blacksmith, or any variant the players want.) Players will also have two sets of stats, their level 0 will have heavy negatives and as they adventure and get stronger they will get their regular level 1 stats.
I'm looking for advice and ideas on literally every aspect of this, just whatever you may want to comment on. It's my first time DMing since I was a kid and my players listen to Adventure Zone so they have high expectations. They're all basically new players as well. Hopefully this is well written enough to follow. Thank you all in advance for your time and advice!
The story has three major conflict phases:
Phase 1: The Cult - Players search the surrounding woods to discover what is disturbing the village and why.
Phase 2: The Catacombs - The kobold caverns honeycomb the mountains. They discover a structured area deep underneath, it's designed to seal away a portal to Pandemonium.
Phase 3: The Covenant - Stop the elder god, seal its portal with elder signs.
Act I
Instead of creating a world and background that I hope the players will pick up on, I want to create a bare framework for the players to fill in on the first session. If they create the world and the NPCs it will make them both care about it more and make them more likely to actually remember parts of it. The DM guide has several sections to use as a guideline to prompt the players to fill in. I'd especially work on having them fill in the secrets and idiosyncrasies of NPCs and locations, then loosely try and get them to fill in interpersonal relationships between families, NPCs, and themselves. I will also guide them with pointed questions like "how do townsfolk treat the local drunkard? Whats the rumor on why he drinks? Does XYZ do anything peculiar when alone? Does XYZ have a noteworthy past that people may or may not know about? What about the towns religious level and activity, are there religious leaders? How does the town unwind, are there seasonal events, who do you look up to and why?" Because they all grew up in this small town, it's perfectly reasonable that they all have at least rumor level knowledge of all the townsfolk secrets.
Also by delving into villager peculiarities I want to get a secret cult established without the players knowing. Hopefully they'd come up with someone charismatic to lead the cult.
The framework is that they all grew up together in a small hamlet. There is a proper large town a days ride away with all the trappings of modern fantasy life, so while they grew up peaceful and secluded they aren't lacking in worldliness. Caravans and traders visit the hamlet on the way to town, the players themselves have visited it on numerous occasion. In addition to acting as a rest stop the hamlet also supplies some trade to the town to accommodate any job path the players want. Their hamlet is situated in a wide valley between large mountains and closely surrounded by woods. The hamlet is built on top of ruins, on top of ruins, like there has always been a village there. Players may or may not know this depending on how their creation takes them. For instance if a player gets really detailed in filling in the backstory of locations then their creation will probably bump into needing to know some of the towns history. There's a library in town as well, which kind of secretly has deep chambers of increasingly ancient books. Some houses have cellars with secret doors that connect to the older structures. Most of the villagers are only vaguely aware of this stuff, in the same way you're only vaguely aware of your own towns history. It's possible for players to uncover magic items and cool stuff if they ever have occasion to dig.
Lastly, seed the idea that one of them has a relative that they look up to that is supposed to be coming home any day now. They're kind of a local hero because they joined the benevolent kings army and got to travel. They're a level 5 soldier. Think Wonder Years ep1, but the soldier is actually coming home.
Their Call to Adventure: At night some stores get vandalized, it's minor at first but will escalate until the players look into it. If any friends they created own shops then they can also be tasked with looking into it.
Act II
I read that if you want to do mysteries then make up ten clues of varying strength for the players to find, they don't have to find all of them. I'm struggling coming up with the meat of this section. The goals are for the players to discover the kobold threat and eventually discover a town cult that is having rituals in the woods. Unbeknownst to the cult or the player, the rituals are stirring an elder god, a portal to said god is deep under the mountains surrounding the village. Every time the god stirs, creatures of the cavern in the mountains flee. Their flight often takes them through the town where they take things that aren't tied down. Players need to stop the cult, most members of which are just doing it as a social party. The leadership of the cult probably knows what they're doing and will form the final boss in front of the portal.
Here's the longform:
Players aren't adventurers, I want their first encounter with kobolds to be horrifying. Fists, clubs, tools, biting, I want them to think realistically and have to escape, possibly dragging an unconscious friend. If they pass the checks or deduce it on their own, the kobolds aren't interested in fighting, they're trying to run away but the players were in their path. A player who deals with animals will have a better chance of noticing this. The kobolds are terrified. This is also important for players to learn early that degrees of failure are a possibility.
What’s disturbing the town? Players can get some tools together from their jobs to go explore the surrounding area for clues. I think I want to make several random encounter tables here. One for the surrounding woods and one for the surrounding mountains, with a day and night variant for each. Things they can discover in the woods during the day are a friendly caravan, several nice locations, and a large clearing with the ritual area. If anyone has a religious background they could notice a peculiarity with the stone altar. They can move the top of the altar and find gibbering scarlings of swirls and eyes. They can also tell the ritual clearing has seen recent activity, a hunter can probably find tracks to the village.
If they explore at night they'll hear large numbers of fleeing kobolds just out of sight, maybe they have an encounter if they get in the way of one. They find a festive party in the clearing that gradually turns dark ritual. They might correlate the two, that the ritual is causing the kobolds to flee. Most of the townsfolk are doing this as a social thing, they don't believe it's anything more than a bit of fun. Maybe there's an animal sacrifice at the end of the night where a small number of hard core cultists eat raw entrails? The sensible townsfolk are uncomfortable with that, but social standing has its requirements right?
If they resolve things violently the cult leaders henchmen will fight. The leader and two lackies will escape unnoticed, barring a successful spot check. Regular townsfolk will scatter to the edges. If the players are in good standing the town will be repentant. Not really sure how they got that deep into things. The kobold appearances will continue uninterrupted.
If the players resolve things peacefully then there's a quiet night or two so the players think they stopped the issue and it's over.
The town hero/ PC relative / returning hero soldier will come back to town and will want to visit their PC relative and want a recap of events. Another day will pass when the town is hit with a small earthquake or bellowing noise that echoes through the valley. Several minutes later they can hear a low rumble that grows in intensity. Later the village is swarmed with fleeing cavern dwelling creatures. They have to know it's not over yet.
Act III
Training montage. Players try to scrape together adventuring gear by calling in favors and using their jobs. This could take a bit as some may need old fashioned healing to recover from Act II. I want them to head into the caves wearing ramshackle gear. Here they can really use the town they created. Maybe they're good friends with the blacksmith or a retired adventurer and can borrow some real gear? Also they'll probably want to bring the soldier along. For the NPC it's like The Rundown, they've come home from 'nam to find their town in a bad spot so they're going to help the adventurers figure out what's going on. They can use their worldly knowledge and act as a big brother to the group. They're probably the mentor in the Hero's Journey? An aspiring spell caster is really important here as clues they find in the library will solve most of the dungeon puzzles regarding elder god language scrawlings of warning. Because the library is vast they won't know what to search for, but there will be clues in the dungeon that they can then research in the library (back and forth) to uncover the towns history as well as elder cult cantrips, spells, and the knowledge of how to interrupt the ritual.
Players know the kobolds are coming from the caves, they also know it's linked to the cult leader, they may know he fled that way. Players will have a day/night random encounter chart for the mountains. The mountains are honeycombed with caves, caverns, collapsed tunnels, underground rivers, and chasms. Descent is probably a great horror film to draw from here. The players will have to search for the real entrance, they can narrow it with tracking. If they’re freewheeling it they will discover small caves, dens, small dungeons and large cavernous rooms that dead end with collapsed tunnels. Eventually they can discover one of the many entrances to the cavern complex proper.
The caverns are going to be their main dungeon. They eventually take on more structure, PCs can't tell if it's man made or not. There are strange scrawlings on the walls, they can tell it's intelligent writing. Maybe the players will remember their library has some really freaking old books. I can seed this by the soldier saying they think they're probably under the village at the point, or the aspiring spellcaster remembers seeing the symbols before. Players are able to translate the writing with a book. If they go back the spellcaster can also get a better spell or two. All the writings are warnings.
I want the structured half of the dungeon to be lousy with puzzles and traps designed to keep people away from the realm portal. Some of the traps will be deadly, they'll notice some kobold corpses as a warning. If they don't search for traps then the soldier will go first and die. This is a tragic story part that could have been avoided and will also teach the players that the puzzles going forth have consequence.
The head cultist is in front of a portal to Pandemonium, the prison was designed to keep people out and to keep what's in the portal in. Players can use elder signs from the book to seal the portal. I'd like to have everyone take insanity damage to varying degrees depending on their exposure to the portal. This could be secret, i'll just tell the players occasionally they see or hear something, it could go a number of ways. The rituals from before were causing a cosmic entity to wake up, its stirrings were causing creature to flee from the caverns.
If players defeat the cult leader without disrupting the ritual runes first, the yawning portal will become a mirror reflecting the cavern and the party. Players need to disrupt the glowing ritual runes of the portal to get the other endings. Conversely, if a player touches the mirror it will vanish as if it never existed and in its place is the original yawning portal. Players reflectively turn away and vomit due to its incomprehensible madness. If they try to look they gain insanity and test to vomit again.
Take the player who touched the mirror aside after the game and explain that the real you is now in the mirror realm. You have been replaced by an undying maliciousness bent on (goal.) Suggest they not be overt about it and play the long game. Ways they can demonstrate godhood is to use OOC knowledge, they also gain access to all cultish magic. Chaotic good and good religious people may attack unprovoked. The characters can sense something amiss if they try, but otherwise they will chalk up their uncomfort to the shared experience under the mountain. Neutral NPCs are easily persuaded and evil characters actively obey. Most evil entities will realize what’s going on and not attack the player, but also not knowingly expose them. If the player doesn’t want this they can become an overt villain and re-roll. If players learn what is going on they can attempt to get their friend back by exposing the Other to a reflective surface during an eclipse. An eclipse can occur naturally during Castlevania mode, or they can find a magic ritual to create one in the old library.
There are three endings, that happen independent of the mirror scene and lead into the next adventure. All three lead to a Castlevania narrative for adventure #2. All three degrees of events in the endings will happen over time anyway, but the players actions determine how much peace time they get. Good ending means they can choose their fate and go on a random adventure or two before rumors catch up to them about their town changing. The other two just thrust them more directly into the next story.
Good ending: Kill the cultist, disrupt ritual runes, seal the portal with elder signs, don’t touch the mirror. They may notice shadows or mysts escaping the portal as it closes. Everything returns to normal. Players become level 1 or 2 and full blown adventurers if they choose. They can pursue their training or adventures. Eventually they get word that the benevolent king is no longer so benevolent. Rumors are going around that they've gone full Elizabeth Bathory. Other people in power have also gotten twisted.
Neutral ending: Kill the cultist, disrupt ritual runes, incorrectly seal the portal, maybe they collapse the cave? Energies and earth quakes escape the portal as well as an unearthly roar. When they emerge from the cave it's twilight and they can see the castle in the distance is damaged. It's buttressed towers sagging and giving it a sinister appearance. Castlevania came a lot sooner, but it's confined to the area immediately surrounding the castle. Demons and walking dead are still rumors for most people. Someone had the idea of players encountering a caravan of traveling entertainers that steal from the players and when they confront them in the morning find that the caravan is long abandoned and its inhabitants dead. This will tie together nicely with the friendly caravan random encounter from the beginning.
Bad Ending: Fail to disrupt the ritual runes and don’t close the portal. They exit the cave and the sky is red, full Castlevania ending, but now demons and the dead are everywhere. They may even encounter a spectral carriage on the road. The world is just completely changed.
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My idea began as an eldritch horror story in a fantasy setting, I wanted all the players to start at level 0 and not have a class, just be proficient villagers. (ex: someone who wants to eventually be a rogue is really just a locksmith, mages = librarians, warriors = blacksmith, or any variant the players want.) Players will also have two sets of stats, their level 0 will have heavy negatives and as they adventure and get stronger they will get their regular level 1 stats.
I'm looking for advice and ideas on literally every aspect of this, just whatever you may want to comment on. It's my first time DMing since I was a kid and my players listen to Adventure Zone so they have high expectations. They're all basically new players as well. Hopefully this is well written enough to follow. Thank you all in advance for your time and advice!
The story has three major conflict phases:
Phase 1: The Cult - Players search the surrounding woods to discover what is disturbing the village and why.
Phase 2: The Catacombs - The kobold caverns honeycomb the mountains. They discover a structured area deep underneath, it's designed to seal away a portal to Pandemonium.
Phase 3: The Covenant - Stop the elder god, seal its portal with elder signs.
Act I
Instead of creating a world and background that I hope the players will pick up on, I want to create a bare framework for the players to fill in on the first session. If they create the world and the NPCs it will make them both care about it more and make them more likely to actually remember parts of it. The DM guide has several sections to use as a guideline to prompt the players to fill in. I'd especially work on having them fill in the secrets and idiosyncrasies of NPCs and locations, then loosely try and get them to fill in interpersonal relationships between families, NPCs, and themselves. I will also guide them with pointed questions like "how do townsfolk treat the local drunkard? Whats the rumor on why he drinks? Does XYZ do anything peculiar when alone? Does XYZ have a noteworthy past that people may or may not know about? What about the towns religious level and activity, are there religious leaders? How does the town unwind, are there seasonal events, who do you look up to and why?" Because they all grew up in this small town, it's perfectly reasonable that they all have at least rumor level knowledge of all the townsfolk secrets.
Also by delving into villager peculiarities I want to get a secret cult established without the players knowing. Hopefully they'd come up with someone charismatic to lead the cult.
The framework is that they all grew up together in a small hamlet. There is a proper large town a days ride away with all the trappings of modern fantasy life, so while they grew up peaceful and secluded they aren't lacking in worldliness. Caravans and traders visit the hamlet on the way to town, the players themselves have visited it on numerous occasion. In addition to acting as a rest stop the hamlet also supplies some trade to the town to accommodate any job path the players want. Their hamlet is situated in a wide valley between large mountains and closely surrounded by woods. The hamlet is built on top of ruins, on top of ruins, like there has always been a village there. Players may or may not know this depending on how their creation takes them. For instance if a player gets really detailed in filling in the backstory of locations then their creation will probably bump into needing to know some of the towns history. There's a library in town as well, which kind of secretly has deep chambers of increasingly ancient books. Some houses have cellars with secret doors that connect to the older structures. Most of the villagers are only vaguely aware of this stuff, in the same way you're only vaguely aware of your own towns history. It's possible for players to uncover magic items and cool stuff if they ever have occasion to dig.
Lastly, seed the idea that one of them has a relative that they look up to that is supposed to be coming home any day now. They're kind of a local hero because they joined the benevolent kings army and got to travel. They're a level 5 soldier. Think Wonder Years ep1, but the soldier is actually coming home.
Their Call to Adventure: At night some stores get vandalized, it's minor at first but will escalate until the players look into it. If any friends they created own shops then they can also be tasked with looking into it.
Act II
I read that if you want to do mysteries then make up ten clues of varying strength for the players to find, they don't have to find all of them. I'm struggling coming up with the meat of this section. The goals are for the players to discover the kobold threat and eventually discover a town cult that is having rituals in the woods. Unbeknownst to the cult or the player, the rituals are stirring an elder god, a portal to said god is deep under the mountains surrounding the village. Every time the god stirs, creatures of the cavern in the mountains flee. Their flight often takes them through the town where they take things that aren't tied down. Players need to stop the cult, most members of which are just doing it as a social party. The leadership of the cult probably knows what they're doing and will form the final boss in front of the portal.
Here's the longform:
Players aren't adventurers, I want their first encounter with kobolds to be horrifying. Fists, clubs, tools, biting, I want them to think realistically and have to escape, possibly dragging an unconscious friend. If they pass the checks or deduce it on their own, the kobolds aren't interested in fighting, they're trying to run away but the players were in their path. A player who deals with animals will have a better chance of noticing this. The kobolds are terrified. This is also important for players to learn early that degrees of failure are a possibility.
What’s disturbing the town? Players can get some tools together from their jobs to go explore the surrounding area for clues. I think I want to make several random encounter tables here. One for the surrounding woods and one for the surrounding mountains, with a day and night variant for each. Things they can discover in the woods during the day are a friendly caravan, several nice locations, and a large clearing with the ritual area. If anyone has a religious background they could notice a peculiarity with the stone altar. They can move the top of the altar and find gibbering scarlings of swirls and eyes. They can also tell the ritual clearing has seen recent activity, a hunter can probably find tracks to the village.
If they explore at night they'll hear large numbers of fleeing kobolds just out of sight, maybe they have an encounter if they get in the way of one. They find a festive party in the clearing that gradually turns dark ritual. They might correlate the two, that the ritual is causing the kobolds to flee. Most of the townsfolk are doing this as a social thing, they don't believe it's anything more than a bit of fun. Maybe there's an animal sacrifice at the end of the night where a small number of hard core cultists eat raw entrails? The sensible townsfolk are uncomfortable with that, but social standing has its requirements right?
If they resolve things violently the cult leaders henchmen will fight. The leader and two lackies will escape unnoticed, barring a successful spot check. Regular townsfolk will scatter to the edges. If the players are in good standing the town will be repentant. Not really sure how they got that deep into things. The kobold appearances will continue uninterrupted.
If the players resolve things peacefully then there's a quiet night or two so the players think they stopped the issue and it's over.
The town hero/ PC relative / returning hero soldier will come back to town and will want to visit their PC relative and want a recap of events. Another day will pass when the town is hit with a small earthquake or bellowing noise that echoes through the valley. Several minutes later they can hear a low rumble that grows in intensity. Later the village is swarmed with fleeing cavern dwelling creatures. They have to know it's not over yet.
Act III
Training montage. Players try to scrape together adventuring gear by calling in favors and using their jobs. This could take a bit as some may need old fashioned healing to recover from Act II. I want them to head into the caves wearing ramshackle gear. Here they can really use the town they created. Maybe they're good friends with the blacksmith or a retired adventurer and can borrow some real gear? Also they'll probably want to bring the soldier along. For the NPC it's like The Rundown, they've come home from 'nam to find their town in a bad spot so they're going to help the adventurers figure out what's going on. They can use their worldly knowledge and act as a big brother to the group. They're probably the mentor in the Hero's Journey? An aspiring spell caster is really important here as clues they find in the library will solve most of the dungeon puzzles regarding elder god language scrawlings of warning. Because the library is vast they won't know what to search for, but there will be clues in the dungeon that they can then research in the library (back and forth) to uncover the towns history as well as elder cult cantrips, spells, and the knowledge of how to interrupt the ritual.
Players know the kobolds are coming from the caves, they also know it's linked to the cult leader, they may know he fled that way. Players will have a day/night random encounter chart for the mountains. The mountains are honeycombed with caves, caverns, collapsed tunnels, underground rivers, and chasms. Descent is probably a great horror film to draw from here. The players will have to search for the real entrance, they can narrow it with tracking. If they’re freewheeling it they will discover small caves, dens, small dungeons and large cavernous rooms that dead end with collapsed tunnels. Eventually they can discover one of the many entrances to the cavern complex proper.
The caverns are going to be their main dungeon. They eventually take on more structure, PCs can't tell if it's man made or not. There are strange scrawlings on the walls, they can tell it's intelligent writing. Maybe the players will remember their library has some really freaking old books. I can seed this by the soldier saying they think they're probably under the village at the point, or the aspiring spellcaster remembers seeing the symbols before. Players are able to translate the writing with a book. If they go back the spellcaster can also get a better spell or two. All the writings are warnings.
I want the structured half of the dungeon to be lousy with puzzles and traps designed to keep people away from the realm portal. Some of the traps will be deadly, they'll notice some kobold corpses as a warning. If they don't search for traps then the soldier will go first and die. This is a tragic story part that could have been avoided and will also teach the players that the puzzles going forth have consequence.
The head cultist is in front of a portal to Pandemonium, the prison was designed to keep people out and to keep what's in the portal in. Players can use elder signs from the book to seal the portal. I'd like to have everyone take insanity damage to varying degrees depending on their exposure to the portal. This could be secret, i'll just tell the players occasionally they see or hear something, it could go a number of ways. The rituals from before were causing a cosmic entity to wake up, its stirrings were causing creature to flee from the caverns.
If players defeat the cult leader without disrupting the ritual runes first, the yawning portal will become a mirror reflecting the cavern and the party. Players need to disrupt the glowing ritual runes of the portal to get the other endings. Conversely, if a player touches the mirror it will vanish as if it never existed and in its place is the original yawning portal. Players reflectively turn away and vomit due to its incomprehensible madness. If they try to look they gain insanity and test to vomit again.
Take the player who touched the mirror aside after the game and explain that the real you is now in the mirror realm. You have been replaced by an undying maliciousness bent on (goal.) Suggest they not be overt about it and play the long game. Ways they can demonstrate godhood is to use OOC knowledge, they also gain access to all cultish magic. Chaotic good and good religious people may attack unprovoked. The characters can sense something amiss if they try, but otherwise they will chalk up their uncomfort to the shared experience under the mountain. Neutral NPCs are easily persuaded and evil characters actively obey. Most evil entities will realize what’s going on and not attack the player, but also not knowingly expose them. If the player doesn’t want this they can become an overt villain and re-roll. If players learn what is going on they can attempt to get their friend back by exposing the Other to a reflective surface during an eclipse. An eclipse can occur naturally during Castlevania mode, or they can find a magic ritual to create one in the old library.
There are three endings, that happen independent of the mirror scene and lead into the next adventure. All three lead to a Castlevania narrative for adventure #2. All three degrees of events in the endings will happen over time anyway, but the players actions determine how much peace time they get. Good ending means they can choose their fate and go on a random adventure or two before rumors catch up to them about their town changing. The other two just thrust them more directly into the next story.
Good ending: Kill the cultist, disrupt ritual runes, seal the portal with elder signs, don’t touch the mirror. They may notice shadows or mysts escaping the portal as it closes. Everything returns to normal. Players become level 1 or 2 and full blown adventurers if they choose. They can pursue their training or adventures. Eventually they get word that the benevolent king is no longer so benevolent. Rumors are going around that they've gone full Elizabeth Bathory. Other people in power have also gotten twisted.
Neutral ending: Kill the cultist, disrupt ritual runes, incorrectly seal the portal, maybe they collapse the cave? Energies and earth quakes escape the portal as well as an unearthly roar. When they emerge from the cave it's twilight and they can see the castle in the distance is damaged. It's buttressed towers sagging and giving it a sinister appearance. Castlevania came a lot sooner, but it's confined to the area immediately surrounding the castle. Demons and walking dead are still rumors for most people. Someone had the idea of players encountering a caravan of traveling entertainers that steal from the players and when they confront them in the morning find that the caravan is long abandoned and its inhabitants dead. This will tie together nicely with the friendly caravan random encounter from the beginning.
Bad Ending: Fail to disrupt the ritual runes and don’t close the portal. They exit the cave and the sky is red, full Castlevania ending, but now demons and the dead are everywhere. They may even encounter a spectral carriage on the road. The world is just completely changed.