- only humanoid races; no Tabaxi or Tortles or fuggin' squid-people.
- races are "segregated", or treated in much the same as Jim Crow USA. I.E.: non-human and mixes thereof are sneered at and abused, elves are "pointies," orcs are "piggies," dwarves are "stumpies," etc.
- Magic is the exclusive province of the rich and powerful. Anyone who is not some sort of noble or academic has zero access to it; maybe even zero awareness.
- All beings with supernatural knowledge of any sort, mages AND clerics, is completely underground (that is, in secret, not actually under the dirt.)
- Clerics stay hidden the same way religious groups in our world stayed hidden for centuries (sometimes).
- Magic only leaks out into the "civilian" world through an underground group of rebellious ne'er-do-wells in their form of cantrips. These scoundrels call themselves Trippers. They might be a sort of Thieves Guild but not sure yet.
I need a satisfying quest on this stage. My usual group just completed a five-year quest after the Rod of Seven Parts, destroying it in the original S1 Tomb of Horrors. A VERY experienced and creative group.
With magic (arcane and divine) being so locked down, maybe a resurgence of the "old ways" (primal) is due. Maybe some sort of Druid awakens in power and needs the party to do things that would help break the grip of the nobility on secret seats of powerful leylines to help the primal magic flood back into the world, resetting the balance. Maybe the party needs to interact with those "Trippers" and other rebellious elements to avoid or thwart the designs of the controlled government.
I'd need to know more for much else.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Yeah, so do I. What I shared is a thin slice of the world-build. I'm trying to get at least a skeleton of a quest idea in place before I over-develop the world.
I hadn't envisioned that the "government" controls magic, but rather that the "bluebloods" do and clamp down on anyone who tries to learn or steal it. As of now, the world is mostly feudal and there is no one "king" or "lord" as such, but rather lots of little fiefdoms. I take a lot of inspiration from GRRM that way.
Yeah, no real change then. Same story beats, but swap "government" with "individual noble lords" potentially lording over some bit of land that has a valuable primal leyline.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
A cult that tries to creat an army of mages. Sudden surges of wild magic in normal people/creatures. Grand mages dissapearing. An ancient artifact that actually contains an eldritch being that enables the cult to activate recessive "magic genes" - because It takes the ritualistic death of a legion of mages to break free of its prison.
Legend of Korra season 1 - even though the magic is being kept under lock and key by the wealthy Elite, somehow they are being attacked by a mysterious masked stranger who is able to remove their ability to use magic.
This masked stranger gains followers who see the 'leaks' of magic into the public eye, until eventually this masked stranger has a massive underground cult following. You can play on all kinds of tropes there.
In the show they make a big deal about capturing and "removing" the powers of the people in charge. You can probably come up with some kind of DM discretion reason, or a McGuffin or something.
That's my 2cp anyway
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I feel like the role of sorcerers in this world would be key, with magic manifesting in people due to uncontrollable circumstances (birth, accident, experiment, planar tomfoolery, etc), they would represent a potential upheaval of the magical social order. Maybe sorcerers are hunted down secretly while the state tries to hide the existence of common-born sorcerers, while those born to the noble houses are revered and held up as shining examples of the "natural" order.
Meanwhile in the underground, sorcerers can be heroes of the people, or set themselves up as quasi dieties, or use their powers for crime in an attempt to steal back from the nobles what they tried to steal from them.
These ideas are EXACTLY what I was hoping for! Just enough to kick the campaign forward.
In this world, each lord may have one mage (sorcerer.) The lords enforce a strict one-child policy for their mages to control the inheritance of sorcerous magic. What the lords do with non-sorcerous children is up to the imagination. And none of these children are allowed to leave their lord's territory but to study with the other mages as wards.
A leash is kept on magic in this world by a tacit agreement between the lords. Any lord who attempts to have more than one mage is dealt with severely by the others.
About 10 years ago, the mage to Lord A had... wait for it... TWINS. As they begin to mature, it appears that both children have sorcerous blood.
So, Lord A wants both of these children in order to multiply his power AND to keep mage A in line. Mage A wants lord A to enslave maybe ONE child, but not both... and realizes that if he can develop both children, he can break free of his bondage to lord A. Mages B through Z want to raise the children's power to break free of their own lords. The Trippers want any path they can get to greater magic (might be revolutionaries... not sure.)
And the children have disappeared!
The party is being hired to find them by lord A. Or at least, they think it's lord A. Might be mage A, or one/more of the others. And of course the Trippers are looking too. And everyone is cagey about who they represent.
Still working on the party's motivation. I want them to discover along the way that no matter who they deliver the children to, nobody gives a shit about them except for their own ends. And now the party has to figure out what to do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Good morning folks-
So here's the world situation:
- Earth physics/climate etc.
- only humanoid races; no Tabaxi or Tortles or fuggin' squid-people.
- races are "segregated", or treated in much the same as Jim Crow USA. I.E.: non-human and mixes thereof are sneered at and abused, elves are "pointies," orcs are "piggies," dwarves are "stumpies," etc.
- Magic is the exclusive province of the rich and powerful. Anyone who is not some sort of noble or academic has zero access to it; maybe even zero awareness.
- All beings with supernatural knowledge of any sort, mages AND clerics, is completely underground (that is, in secret, not actually under the dirt.)
- Clerics stay hidden the same way religious groups in our world stayed hidden for centuries (sometimes).
- Magic only leaks out into the "civilian" world through an underground group of rebellious ne'er-do-wells in their form of cantrips. These scoundrels call themselves Trippers. They might be a sort of Thieves Guild but not sure yet.
I need a satisfying quest on this stage. My usual group just completed a five-year quest after the Rod of Seven Parts, destroying it in the original S1 Tomb of Horrors. A VERY experienced and creative group.
Does the hive mind have any ideas?
With magic (arcane and divine) being so locked down, maybe a resurgence of the "old ways" (primal) is due. Maybe some sort of Druid awakens in power and needs the party to do things that would help break the grip of the nobility on secret seats of powerful leylines to help the primal magic flood back into the world, resetting the balance. Maybe the party needs to interact with those "Trippers" and other rebellious elements to avoid or thwart the designs of the controlled government.
I'd need to know more for much else.
Yeah, so do I. What I shared is a thin slice of the world-build. I'm trying to get at least a skeleton of a quest idea in place before I over-develop the world.
I hadn't envisioned that the "government" controls magic, but rather that the "bluebloods" do and clamp down on anyone who tries to learn or steal it. As of now, the world is mostly feudal and there is no one "king" or "lord" as such, but rather lots of little fiefdoms. I take a lot of inspiration from GRRM that way.
What else do we need to know about the world?
Yeah, no real change then. Same story beats, but swap "government" with "individual noble lords" potentially lording over some bit of land that has a valuable primal leyline.
A cult that tries to creat an army of mages. Sudden surges of wild magic in normal people/creatures. Grand mages dissapearing. An ancient artifact that actually contains an eldritch being that enables the cult to activate recessive "magic genes" - because It takes the ritualistic death of a legion of mages to break free of its prison.
Legend of Korra season 1 - even though the magic is being kept under lock and key by the wealthy Elite, somehow they are being attacked by a mysterious masked stranger who is able to remove their ability to use magic.
This masked stranger gains followers who see the 'leaks' of magic into the public eye, until eventually this masked stranger has a massive underground cult following. You can play on all kinds of tropes there.
In the show they make a big deal about capturing and "removing" the powers of the people in charge. You can probably come up with some kind of DM discretion reason, or a McGuffin or something.
That's my 2cp anyway
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I feel like the role of sorcerers in this world would be key, with magic manifesting in people due to uncontrollable circumstances (birth, accident, experiment, planar tomfoolery, etc), they would represent a potential upheaval of the magical social order. Maybe sorcerers are hunted down secretly while the state tries to hide the existence of common-born sorcerers, while those born to the noble houses are revered and held up as shining examples of the "natural" order.
Meanwhile in the underground, sorcerers can be heroes of the people, or set themselves up as quasi dieties, or use their powers for crime in an attempt to steal back from the nobles what they tried to steal from them.
These ideas are EXACTLY what I was hoping for! Just enough to kick the campaign forward.
In this world, each lord may have one mage (sorcerer.) The lords enforce a strict one-child policy for their mages to control the inheritance of sorcerous magic. What the lords do with non-sorcerous children is up to the imagination. And none of these children are allowed to leave their lord's territory but to study with the other mages as wards.
A leash is kept on magic in this world by a tacit agreement between the lords. Any lord who attempts to have more than one mage is dealt with severely by the others.
About 10 years ago, the mage to Lord A had... wait for it... TWINS. As they begin to mature, it appears that both children have sorcerous blood.
So, Lord A wants both of these children in order to multiply his power AND to keep mage A in line.
Mage A wants lord A to enslave maybe ONE child, but not both... and realizes that if he can develop both children, he can break free of his bondage to lord A.
Mages B through Z want to raise the children's power to break free of their own lords.
The Trippers want any path they can get to greater magic (might be revolutionaries... not sure.)
And the children have disappeared!
The party is being hired to find them by lord A. Or at least, they think it's lord A. Might be mage A, or one/more of the others. And of course the Trippers are looking too. And everyone is cagey about who they represent.
Still working on the party's motivation. I want them to discover along the way that no matter who they deliver the children to, nobody gives a shit about them except for their own ends. And now the party has to figure out what to do.