I’m starting a new casual campaign with a party of human Monks as a side campaign to our main Curse of Strahd game. I’m hoping for an epic adventure that leaves room for player shenanigans, because they like roleplay encounters, and more random, lighthearted situations to serve as contrast to the Ravenloft setting. I want a more mystic setting than a knights and kobolds one.
What are your ideas for a Monk campaign?
I’ve been wracking my brain for ideas and I like this one. Tell me what you think. It’s based on the story of Babylon, and how man wanted to build a tower to the gods, and inspired partly by the “Tree of Might” Dragon Ball movie. A giant tower of beautiful masonry has fallen from the heavens in the center of a great plain. At the top is the BBEG, who claims all of the world to be his, and all of the land will become the foundations for his tower. Every day, the tower pulls more land into it, raising in height from the base by assimilating the land into the tower itself. It can pull in enough land so that towns, castles, dungeons, even cities become part of it. The tower will continue to rise until there is only ocean and the entire continent has become part of the tower, unless the BBEG at the top is defeated in a final confrontation. How the party ascends the tower is up to them. One cool scene I can imagine is the PCs drinking potions of Spider Climb and sprinting up the sides of the tower as fast as they can before the potion’s duration runs out.
Are the cities and their inhabitants being consumed by the tower (destroyed) or are they becoming incorporated into the tower (merged)?
The BBEG will likely have trickier and more difficult obstacles for would-be usurpers the closer people get to the top.
One popular way to stop people in their tracks is to put what they fear the most in front of them. Fighting people's worst fears can be an awful experience unless someone's afraid of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
If the population and their towns are merging with the tower with the communities and their architecture occupying parts of the tower, the inhabitants could help or hinder the adventurers depending on how well they're understanding what's happening. Some Lotus-eaters could be enjoying the whole business and try to stop anyone trying to stop the EEBG. A prosperous city could be in turmoil while everyone tries to get a grip on what is happening - or a powder keg of unease while trying to maintain some semblance of normal life as part of the tower. A snowy peak that was the former home to a White Dragon can now be a popular vacation section on one level of the tower.
Some enterprising civilizations could have fun ways (or scary or both) to ascend and descend to other specific points in the tower. Rocket powered elevator - both up and down. Keep arms inside the elevator at all times while the elevator is moving.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
If you want a more mystic setting, you could try messing around with the spatial geometry; make it so that different parts of the tower open up into vast plains despite occupying a much smaller area. You could borrow scenery from texts like the poem Kubla Khan or Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, or even populate the terrain with exotic animals, maybe even dinosaurs. You could also mess with the physics in other ways: make it so they can walk vertically on some parts of the tower or fall upwards, and make it so that time moves differently depending on where in the tower you are. That last part would be interesting if you're looking to change the duration of a spell.
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I’m starting a new casual campaign with a party of human Monks as a side campaign to our main Curse of Strahd game. I’m hoping for an epic adventure that leaves room for player shenanigans, because they like roleplay encounters, and more random, lighthearted situations to serve as contrast to the Ravenloft setting. I want a more mystic setting than a knights and kobolds one.
What are your ideas for a Monk campaign?
I’ve been wracking my brain for ideas and I like this one. Tell me what you think. It’s based on the story of Babylon, and how man wanted to build a tower to the gods, and inspired partly by the “Tree of Might” Dragon Ball movie. A giant tower of beautiful masonry has fallen from the heavens in the center of a great plain. At the top is the BBEG, who claims all of the world to be his, and all of the land will become the foundations for his tower. Every day, the tower pulls more land into it, raising in height from the base by assimilating the land into the tower itself. It can pull in enough land so that towns, castles, dungeons, even cities become part of it. The tower will continue to rise until there is only ocean and the entire continent has become part of the tower, unless the BBEG at the top is defeated in a final confrontation. How the party ascends the tower is up to them. One cool scene I can imagine is the PCs drinking potions of Spider Climb and sprinting up the sides of the tower as fast as they can before the potion’s duration runs out.
Are the cities and their inhabitants being consumed by the tower (destroyed) or are they becoming incorporated into the tower (merged)?
The BBEG will likely have trickier and more difficult obstacles for would-be usurpers the closer people get to the top.
One popular way to stop people in their tracks is to put what they fear the most in front of them. Fighting people's worst fears can be an awful experience unless someone's afraid of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
If the population and their towns are merging with the tower with the communities and their architecture occupying parts of the tower, the inhabitants could help or hinder the adventurers depending on how well they're understanding what's happening. Some Lotus-eaters could be enjoying the whole business and try to stop anyone trying to stop the EEBG. A prosperous city could be in turmoil while everyone tries to get a grip on what is happening - or a powder keg of unease while trying to maintain some semblance of normal life as part of the tower. A snowy peak that was the former home to a White Dragon can now be a popular vacation section on one level of the tower.
Some enterprising civilizations could have fun ways (or scary or both) to ascend and descend to other specific points in the tower. Rocket powered elevator - both up and down. Keep arms inside the elevator at all times while the elevator is moving.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
If you want a more mystic setting, you could try messing around with the spatial geometry; make it so that different parts of the tower open up into vast plains despite occupying a much smaller area. You could borrow scenery from texts like the poem Kubla Khan or Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, or even populate the terrain with exotic animals, maybe even dinosaurs. You could also mess with the physics in other ways: make it so they can walk vertically on some parts of the tower or fall upwards, and make it so that time moves differently depending on where in the tower you are. That last part would be interesting if you're looking to change the duration of a spell.