So I've come up with an idea for my campaign. An old forgotten civilisation! Yaaa! Because I have a wizard sage and I think this could really... make his love for knowledge shine with meaning. But I might need a little bit of help. I thought about what this race could be. Are they deep elves from skyrim? Or are they Orlans or the big people from Pillars of Eternity? I don't really know... So I was hoping I could get some help from you fellow travellers! ^^ I think all they have to be is medium sized. As they are really good- as they "were" really good a building. I'm thinking a lot of constructs, as in they had a natural nack for infusion non living creatures with arcane (or perhaps divine) magic to fuel them as a kind of soul. I don't know. And even if your idea doesn't quite fit this, I might chance their abilities. After all this is just preparing for the future. ^^
I would recommend against copy-pasting a people from another intellectual property ( Skyrim, PoE, etc. ) - especially ones that your Players might be familiar with. If/when they figure out "Oh, these are the deep Elves from Skyrim ... " then a) the whole mystery of your setting just went away and b) the Players will make all sorts of assumptions and conclusions based on their knowledge of that IP, and - if they're right - be able to take all sorts of shortcuts through your adventures due to meta-gaming knowledge.
It's a lot more work to build your own Civilization from whole cloth, but ultimately a whole lot more mysterious and enjoyable for your Players, and a lot more useful for you, as you can mine that civilization for story material forever.
For creating cultures and civilizations, I find this template ( Reddit thread, Google Doc ), to be very helpful.
Also - IMHO, that's not a Campaign - yet. It's a background element of a Campaign setting.
A campaign is a series of related adventures, around a common theme, or leading toward a common goal.
For adventures, you need goals, and obstacles & opponents, which leads to conflicts. The sense of accomplishment Players get adventuring comes from overcoming those obstacles or opponents, and accomplishing those goals.
So - if the idea was that the Party needs to retrieve a Legendary Artifact from the uncharted Jungles of Obscuria ( in order to slay a great fell beast terrorizing the local Duchy in which they live and/or grew up in ), and this artifact was created by this mysterious lost civilization, and to uncover the location of the artifact the Party's wizard sage needs to learn enough about this civilization to uncover the location of the artifact, so they must first delve various ruins to discover the Five Codices of M'ur which tell the tales of the Gods of these people, and gradually reveal the location of the artifact - while the ancient Lich Queen Mecaqui ( last survivor - sort of ) of this fallen civilization notices the Party trying to do this, and opposes them ( wants the artifact herself to break the curse that binds her to undeath? wants to protect the treasures of her people? wants to stamp out the threat that has entered her domain? ) - now you've got goal with obstacles and opponents.
I'm sure you can come up with something much better, or more original than that - but you get the idea.
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Thank you! That temple might help a LOT! Non of my 2 players play either PoE or skyrim, so that's why. And of course they will think they know the story to this, if they played the game but I'm trying to keep the story out of the games, only taking the races.
The DnD-canon legends of the Giant kingdom of Ostoria might fit for you; delving into Mordenkainen's or Volo's have given me really great insight into how to bring different creatures into my game. This goes from horribly creepy monsters to ancient prestigious empires, and everything in between! It's been a great help for me, and if you can get your hands on a copy it could be a great help for you as well
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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'm planning on getting Mordenkainen's tome of misspelled names yeah. It's got things like Zariel, which I didn't know or even expected her to have stats! But damn! Yeah. At first I thought that I was just a few extra monsters and then a **** load of lore. But now I'm really wanting it! xD Man.. First it was nintendo I always travelled with. Then a ps3. Then a labtop. Then a ps4. And now it's ******* books! xD Man I love D&D!
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So I've come up with an idea for my campaign. An old forgotten civilisation! Yaaa! Because I have a wizard sage and I think this could really... make his love for knowledge shine with meaning. But I might need a little bit of help. I thought about what this race could be. Are they deep elves from skyrim? Or are they Orlans or the big people from Pillars of Eternity? I don't really know... So I was hoping I could get some help from you fellow travellers! ^^
I think all they have to be is medium sized. As they are really good- as they "were" really good a building. I'm thinking a lot of constructs, as in they had a natural nack for infusion non living creatures with arcane (or perhaps divine) magic to fuel them as a kind of soul. I don't know. And even if your idea doesn't quite fit this, I might chance their abilities. After all this is just preparing for the future. ^^
-Daergiel
You might be able to use deal gnomes. Or if You want to do something completely original, a new dwarf subraces similar to how eladrin are to elves.
I would recommend against copy-pasting a people from another intellectual property ( Skyrim, PoE, etc. ) - especially ones that your Players might be familiar with. If/when they figure out "Oh, these are the deep Elves from Skyrim ... " then a) the whole mystery of your setting just went away and b) the Players will make all sorts of assumptions and conclusions based on their knowledge of that IP, and - if they're right - be able to take all sorts of shortcuts through your adventures due to meta-gaming knowledge.
It's a lot more work to build your own Civilization from whole cloth, but ultimately a whole lot more mysterious and enjoyable for your Players, and a lot more useful for you, as you can mine that civilization for story material forever.
For creating cultures and civilizations, I find this template ( Reddit thread, Google Doc ), to be very helpful.
Also - IMHO, that's not a Campaign - yet. It's a background element of a Campaign setting.
A campaign is a series of related adventures, around a common theme, or leading toward a common goal.
For adventures, you need goals, and obstacles & opponents, which leads to conflicts. The sense of accomplishment Players get adventuring comes from overcoming those obstacles or opponents, and accomplishing those goals.
So - if the idea was that the Party needs to retrieve a Legendary Artifact from the uncharted Jungles of Obscuria ( in order to slay a great fell beast terrorizing the local Duchy in which they live and/or grew up in ), and this artifact was created by this mysterious lost civilization, and to uncover the location of the artifact the Party's wizard sage needs to learn enough about this civilization to uncover the location of the artifact, so they must first delve various ruins to discover the Five Codices of M'ur which tell the tales of the Gods of these people, and gradually reveal the location of the artifact - while the ancient Lich Queen Mecaqui ( last survivor - sort of ) of this fallen civilization notices the Party trying to do this, and opposes them ( wants the artifact herself to break the curse that binds her to undeath? wants to protect the treasures of her people? wants to stamp out the threat that has entered her domain? ) - now you've got goal with obstacles and opponents.
I'm sure you can come up with something much better, or more original than that - but you get the idea.
Best of luck!
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Thank you! That temple might help a LOT!
Non of my 2 players play either PoE or skyrim, so that's why. And of course they will think they know the story to this, if they played the game but I'm trying to keep the story out of the games, only taking the races.
The DnD-canon legends of the Giant kingdom of Ostoria might fit for you; delving into Mordenkainen's or Volo's have given me really great insight into how to bring different creatures into my game. This goes from horribly creepy monsters to ancient prestigious empires, and everything in between! It's been a great help for me, and if you can get your hands on a copy it could be a great help for you as well
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'm planning on getting Mordenkainen's tome of misspelled names yeah. It's got things like Zariel, which I didn't know or even expected her to have stats! But damn!
Yeah. At first I thought that I was just a few extra monsters and then a **** load of lore. But now I'm really wanting it! xD
Man.. First it was nintendo I always travelled with. Then a ps3. Then a labtop. Then a ps4. And now it's ******* books! xD Man I love D&D!