I'm a baby DM and even a fairly new DnD player, I played a little bit a few years ago and my friends wanted to play for the first time thus with the 'most experience' I was chosen to DM. I'm really enjoying thinking of stories and the world etc and we have had a few sessions which went almost flawlessly, but there is one problem. I created a small encounter at the start of the campaign where a few debt collectors entered the tavern they were staying and threatened the innkeeper and the party, I intended for this to only be used to teach the party the combat basics but once the combat was finished the party ask almost any NPC they come across about who these debt collectors work for. I didn't want to shut the idea down as they seemed passionate about it and I was encouraged by how into the game they were getting so I searched a random name and got 'The Dreamers' (cliché I know) and had a merchant NPC mention that on his travels between cities he heard the name mentioned in one of the cities.
The party have just finished a side quest that they came across and now returning to the town they were in I can only assume they are going to carry on their search for 'The Dreamers', they are only a low level party so making this group involved with cults or large politics feels too sudden but with a name like 'The Dreamers' they don't sound like your local small time bandits, thus I'm coming to the people here to help me figure out what this group could be and what their ideals or purpose could be. Pls help!
If you want to keep it simple, I'd stick with the local crime syndicate. The people the party fought weren't debt collectors (they call themselves that, but it's a facade) they were going around collecting the regular extortion/protection racket money from local businesses.
The crime syndicate is called the dreamers because, who knows, maybe they just have a really pretentious boss,
maybe they are better known for being a part of the drug trade, and their main product, moonjuice, causes people to enter a euphoric dream-like state,
maybe the bosses are known for astral projecting themselves into people's dreams to threaten them, which stymies law enforcement since there's no evidence of them doing anything
maybe it's just a really old name and no one knows where it came from
maybe it's a bad translation of a word in another language.
Or, they are part of a larger, nation- continent- or world-spanning organization -- details to be added later as needed by the overall plot -- and this is just one of dozens of operations they have going. The party stopping one group of low-level flunkies probably won't cause a stir. But if they keep prying and working their way up the chain, then the group can become a bigger adversary.
If you want to keep it simple, I'd stick with the local crime syndicate. The people the party fought weren't debt collectors (they call themselves that, but it's a facade) they were going around collecting the regular extortion/protection racket money from local businesses.
The crime syndicate is called the dreamers because, who knows, maybe they just have a really pretentious boss,
maybe they are better known for being a part of the drug trade, and their main product, moonjuice, causes people to enter a euphoric dream-like state,
maybe the bosses are known for astral projecting themselves into people's dreams to threaten them, which stymies law enforcement since there's no evidence of them doing anything
maybe it's just a really old name and no one knows where it came from
maybe it's a bad translation of a word in another language.
Or, they are part of a larger, nation- continent- or world-spanning organization -- details to be added later as needed by the overall plot -- and this is just one of dozens of operations they have going. The party stopping one group of low-level flunkies probably won't cause a stir. But if they keep prying and working their way up the chain, then the group can become a bigger adversary.
I really like the idea of the syndicate being known for the drugs they give and this gives the party a starting larger storyline they can follow and then I may involve this group in a larger scheme or being under the control of something much larger than them once they have dealt with this initial group, thank you:)
If you don't want to run a deb collector story line, its easy to shut it down. Just have the Dreamers be a gang of loan sharks. Have them fight them and remove the loan sharks. Of course, the party just did combat in the town, which is going to be against the town rules in most campaigns, unless its some kind of lawless town you set up, more banditry than villager.
If you don't want to run a deb collector story line, its easy to shut it down. Just have the Dreamers be a gang of loan sharks. Have them fight them and remove the loan sharks. Of course, the party just did combat in the town, which is going to be against the town rules in most campaigns, unless its some kind of lawless town you set up, more banditry than villager.
Getting into a fight with legitimate debt collectors is against the town rules. If it was a local protection racket operating openly, the town is probably pretty lawless.
If you don't want to run a deb collector story line, its easy to shut it down. Just have the Dreamers be a gang of loan sharks. Have them fight them and remove the loan sharks. Of course, the party just did combat in the town, which is going to be against the town rules in most campaigns, unless its some kind of lawless town you set up, more banditry than villager.
Getting into a fight with legitimate debt collectors is against the town rules. If it was a local protection racket operating openly, the town is probably pretty lawless.
Well make sure the party knows they are collecting taxes for the town, and go with it from there. If they want to overthrow a town or expect to be able to kill not just a town member but a town member working the local government, I would explain to them that they understand the town would most likely turn on them. If you are going for a more realistic medieval environment, all town members are responsible for the towns security, its not just the town guard. Drawing a blade on someone is going to get you killed if the town captures them.
Were this me, I would make the Dreamers into perhaps a new criminal group trying to make a name for themselves or a new branch of that group in whatever town they encountered them in (the former if you want them to be a small thing that the group can deal with quickly, the latter if you want to make them a larger part of the plot).
If it's the latter, they can deal with this segment of the organisation, but in doing so they bring down the ire of the greater organisation upon themselves (or even on the town they were trying to protect, depending on how nasty you want to make the crime syndicate).
I would probably make them into loan sharks of some kind - they call themselves the Dreamers as a kind of a dark irony: they lend money to those foolish 'dreamers', people with big hopes and ideas with the soft sell of 'we help you achieve your dreams'. Hence, the Dreamers. They probably have a legitimate front to obfuscate their darker activities. I personally like the idea of a Cloud Giant Smiling One as the boss - more usually this would be a Fog Giant according to the lore, but I think they're two-faced nature would be very fitting with the theme I'm suggesting.
You could keep their goals simple - get as much money as they can, however they can - or you could make it more complex. Maybe they're after some dark relic, or perhaps they're run by a particularly cunning Smiling One who plans to use this group to accumulate enough wealth to rise first to the top of the Cloud Giant Ordnung and then use this position to try and subvert the Storm Giants' place Or perhaps they have some grand goal of rebuilding the giant empire and so on.
I hope this helps - you've gotten a lot of good suggestions already, but don't forget, you can always just mix and mash all the ideas you like together. Best of luck.
You can always look at Morgantha (Night Hag) from Curse of Strahd as inspiration...
I think using the effects of Morgantha's dream pastries for one of the drugs the dreamers sells would work really well, thank you
You might want to be careful with that one. Some of the ingredients in the dream pastries are pretty Grimm :)
Other than that, protection racket works fine assuming the town or at least the section of it where the inn was located, isn't well patrolled. It could be that the guards are paid to look the other way and in that section of town they don't consider it a big deal - more like supplemental income. Alternatively, the folks collecting "taxes" have some spotter out, know the routes of the guards, and inspire enough fear that no one is likely to try reporting them to a guard.
Either way, I think a criminal organization is likely the simplest and easiest approach. The Dreamers could be a nick name applied for any number of reasons including some of the substances they sell. Alternatively, they could have picked it because anyone who opposes them "naps/dreams" permanently. Not a great use of the word but there is no accounting for either taste or the intelligence of the one coming up with the name.
You can always look at Morgantha (Night Hag) from Curse of Strahd as inspiration...
I think using the effects of Morgantha's dream pastries for one of the drugs the dreamers sells would work really well, thank you
You might want to be careful with that one. Some of the ingredients in the dream pastries are pretty Grimm :)
What's wrong with making your bad guys over the top evil? I mean, Morgantha's coven is already pretty much fantasy drug dealers, down to 'the first hit is free'.
The first thing I think of when coming up with antagonists and the plots that surround them is this: what do they want?
They after money? Political power? Magical power? Glory for their dread God? Chaos?
Question two: how are they going to get that? Presuming the heroes never interfere, what's the baddie's plan to achieve their goal? Working within the framework of your world, what strings are there to pull, palms to grease, or throats to cut that stand between them and their desire?
Remember, for the most part, heroes are reactive, villains are proactive-- they reach out into the world and do things. Focus on the things.
"Dreamers" sounds like a Cthulhu cult! There's nothing wrong with having low-level parties face off against a cult. Not all cults are able to traffic with more powerful entities. Presumably, most Cthulhu cults are far beneath the notice of the actual great old one, making them ill-natured hobbyists well suited to being rubbed out by a party of low-level adventurers.
You can always look at Morgantha (Night Hag) from Curse of Strahd as inspiration...
I think using the effects of Morgantha's dream pastries for one of the drugs the dreamers sells would work really well, thank you
You might want to be careful with that one. Some of the ingredients in the dream pastries are pretty Grimm :)
What's wrong with making your bad guys over the top evil? I mean, Morgantha's coven is already pretty much fantasy drug dealers, down to 'the first hit is free'.
It was both humor and a suggestion to the DM to make sure that their players would be ok with the ingredients. There are some folks out there who would find it a bit triggering whether they follow Grimm's fairytales or not :). Also, the whole group would have to be pretty much over the top evil to have everyone go along with some of the ingredients but if it works for their table then go for it.
It was both humor and a suggestion to the DM to make sure that their players would be ok with the ingredients. There are some folks out there who would find it a bit triggering whether they follow Grimm's fairytales or not :). Also, the whole group would have to be pretty much over the top evil to have everyone go along with some of the ingredients but if it works for their table then go for it.
There's both advantages and disadvantages to capital-E Evil. On the plus side, it largely does away with the moral dilemmas. On the minus side, it can be triggering. It really depends on your players.
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Hi fellow DMs,
I'm a baby DM and even a fairly new DnD player, I played a little bit a few years ago and my friends wanted to play for the first time thus with the 'most experience' I was chosen to DM. I'm really enjoying thinking of stories and the world etc and we have had a few sessions which went almost flawlessly, but there is one problem. I created a small encounter at the start of the campaign where a few debt collectors entered the tavern they were staying and threatened the innkeeper and the party, I intended for this to only be used to teach the party the combat basics but once the combat was finished the party ask almost any NPC they come across about who these debt collectors work for. I didn't want to shut the idea down as they seemed passionate about it and I was encouraged by how into the game they were getting so I searched a random name and got 'The Dreamers' (cliché I know) and had a merchant NPC mention that on his travels between cities he heard the name mentioned in one of the cities.
The party have just finished a side quest that they came across and now returning to the town they were in I can only assume they are going to carry on their search for 'The Dreamers', they are only a low level party so making this group involved with cults or large politics feels too sudden but with a name like 'The Dreamers' they don't sound like your local small time bandits, thus I'm coming to the people here to help me figure out what this group could be and what their ideals or purpose could be. Pls help!
If you want to keep it simple, I'd stick with the local crime syndicate. The people the party fought weren't debt collectors (they call themselves that, but it's a facade) they were going around collecting the regular extortion/protection racket money from local businesses.
The crime syndicate is called the dreamers because, who knows, maybe they just have a really pretentious boss,
maybe they are better known for being a part of the drug trade, and their main product, moonjuice, causes people to enter a euphoric dream-like state,
maybe the bosses are known for astral projecting themselves into people's dreams to threaten them, which stymies law enforcement since there's no evidence of them doing anything
maybe it's just a really old name and no one knows where it came from
maybe it's a bad translation of a word in another language.
Or, they are part of a larger, nation- continent- or world-spanning organization -- details to be added later as needed by the overall plot -- and this is just one of dozens of operations they have going. The party stopping one group of low-level flunkies probably won't cause a stir. But if they keep prying and working their way up the chain, then the group can become a bigger adversary.
You can always look at Morgantha (Night Hag) from Curse of Strahd as inspiration...
I really like the idea of the syndicate being known for the drugs they give and this gives the party a starting larger storyline they can follow and then I may involve this group in a larger scheme or being under the control of something much larger than them once they have dealt with this initial group, thank you:)
I think using the effects of Morgantha's dream pastries for one of the drugs the dreamers sells would work really well, thank you
If you don't want to run a deb collector story line, its easy to shut it down. Just have the Dreamers be a gang of loan sharks. Have them fight them and remove the loan sharks. Of course, the party just did combat in the town, which is going to be against the town rules in most campaigns, unless its some kind of lawless town you set up, more banditry than villager.
Getting into a fight with legitimate debt collectors is against the town rules. If it was a local protection racket operating openly, the town is probably pretty lawless.
Well make sure the party knows they are collecting taxes for the town, and go with it from there. If they want to overthrow a town or expect to be able to kill not just a town member but a town member working the local government, I would explain to them that they understand the town would most likely turn on them. If you are going for a more realistic medieval environment, all town members are responsible for the towns security, its not just the town guard. Drawing a blade on someone is going to get you killed if the town captures them.
Were this me, I would make the Dreamers into perhaps a new criminal group trying to make a name for themselves or a new branch of that group in whatever town they encountered them in (the former if you want them to be a small thing that the group can deal with quickly, the latter if you want to make them a larger part of the plot).
If it's the latter, they can deal with this segment of the organisation, but in doing so they bring down the ire of the greater organisation upon themselves (or even on the town they were trying to protect, depending on how nasty you want to make the crime syndicate).
I would probably make them into loan sharks of some kind - they call themselves the Dreamers as a kind of a dark irony: they lend money to those foolish 'dreamers', people with big hopes and ideas with the soft sell of 'we help you achieve your dreams'. Hence, the Dreamers. They probably have a legitimate front to obfuscate their darker activities. I personally like the idea of a Cloud Giant Smiling One as the boss - more usually this would be a Fog Giant according to the lore, but I think they're two-faced nature would be very fitting with the theme I'm suggesting.
You could keep their goals simple - get as much money as they can, however they can - or you could make it more complex. Maybe they're after some dark relic, or perhaps they're run by a particularly cunning Smiling One who plans to use this group to accumulate enough wealth to rise first to the top of the Cloud Giant Ordnung and then use this position to try and subvert the Storm Giants' place Or perhaps they have some grand goal of rebuilding the giant empire and so on.
I hope this helps - you've gotten a lot of good suggestions already, but don't forget, you can always just mix and mash all the ideas you like together. Best of luck.
You might want to be careful with that one. Some of the ingredients in the dream pastries are pretty Grimm :)
Other than that, protection racket works fine assuming the town or at least the section of it where the inn was located, isn't well patrolled. It could be that the guards are paid to look the other way and in that section of town they don't consider it a big deal - more like supplemental income. Alternatively, the folks collecting "taxes" have some spotter out, know the routes of the guards, and inspire enough fear that no one is likely to try reporting them to a guard.
Either way, I think a criminal organization is likely the simplest and easiest approach. The Dreamers could be a nick name applied for any number of reasons including some of the substances they sell. Alternatively, they could have picked it because anyone who opposes them "naps/dreams" permanently. Not a great use of the word but there is no accounting for either taste or the intelligence of the one coming up with the name.
What's wrong with making your bad guys over the top evil? I mean, Morgantha's coven is already pretty much fantasy drug dealers, down to 'the first hit is free'.
The first thing I think of when coming up with antagonists and the plots that surround them is this: what do they want?
They after money? Political power? Magical power? Glory for their dread God? Chaos?
Question two: how are they going to get that? Presuming the heroes never interfere, what's the baddie's plan to achieve their goal? Working within the framework of your world, what strings are there to pull, palms to grease, or throats to cut that stand between them and their desire?
Remember, for the most part, heroes are reactive, villains are proactive-- they reach out into the world and do things. Focus on the things.
"Dreamers" sounds like a Cthulhu cult! There's nothing wrong with having low-level parties face off against a cult. Not all cults are able to traffic with more powerful entities. Presumably, most Cthulhu cults are far beneath the notice of the actual great old one, making them ill-natured hobbyists well suited to being rubbed out by a party of low-level adventurers.
It was both humor and a suggestion to the DM to make sure that their players would be ok with the ingredients. There are some folks out there who would find it a bit triggering whether they follow Grimm's fairytales or not :). Also, the whole group would have to be pretty much over the top evil to have everyone go along with some of the ingredients but if it works for their table then go for it.
There's both advantages and disadvantages to capital-E Evil. On the plus side, it largely does away with the moral dilemmas. On the minus side, it can be triggering. It really depends on your players.