Hello, I am currently working on a campaign to take place in Skyrim during the Dragon War. For those who know Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls, I could use some help making this campaign stay close to true Skyrim (so dragons use Shouts instead of breath weapons and stuff like that) but it's kind of difficult. If anyone could help that would be great and much appreciated.

I think I would do the shouts as spells they can cast without material or somatic components but they all have verbal. Maybe a one word shout it 1-3 level spell , two word shout 4-6 level spell, and 3 word shout 7-9 level spell.

Also the beginning of Out of the Abyss would be great to steal from to make the intro

Ok. So you are going to use Skyrim as environment - great! That is a huge area with lot of existing factions, quests and characters.

So what is going to be the "main quest" line? Are characters going to join one of factions? Or are they going to study dragons? Have you talked with players already and do they have plans what they want to do in Skyrim? Have they played Skyrim and how do they know Skyrim in general? Really hard to decide what kind of campaign you need prepare unless you have talked with players about it.

Wow that's a great idea I will definitely do that! Thanks for your input!

I was thinking about setting it in the time of the Dragon War, which the players are pretty familiar with, and having them join the Nords who were fighting the Dragon Cult. They may get the option to attempt to infiltrate the Dragon Cult, but otherwise they would simply be soldiers fighting against the cult. Maybe I'd throw in some side quests where they encounter some of the now subterranean Falmer and the Dwemer, but I haven't decided on that yet. Still trying to work out the main part of the campaign.

So good! I love the sound of that. I always like making a few factions as an option for the players to join

Thanks. That suggestion for making Shouts as spells really payed off well. I have a great new mechanic for that now. 

I'm glad that helped. I would love to get a copy of one you made if I could.

For sure. Let me find where I wrote it all down.

Keep us posted! 

During the dragon war, there were folks who stayed loyal to their dragon overlords and later became the Draugur/dragon priests we see in-game. Maybe those loyalists can be good early game opponents for your party. Or will the party side with the dragons and try to fight for the promise of power? 

Yeah my plan was to have them fight against the Dragon Cult. I don't want them to fight for it because that was a loosing war, and it would be no fun if I put them on the loosing side.

However, I would make it possible for the players to possibly infiltrate the cult and help get information out to the Nords, making it easier for them to take down the cult. I was also thinking, since the players who don't infiltrate the cult would be learning the ways of the Voice, then the players in the cult could eventually rise to dragon priest, giving them a bit of a dilemma, like do I want to accept the power they're giving me at the cost of full loyalty, or do I want to still end up betraying them in the end?

I don't know, I thought that could be kinda fun.

Can I Join

Yeah any help I could get here would be much appreciated!

Not sure if this helps OP, but it might help checking out the Skyrim wiki for technical info about shouts. I know from modding that game to Oblivion and back that shouts do essentially function as spells, even if they aren't named as such, and have associated status effects. For instance the Fire Breath shout is essentially a flame-based destruction spell that's only functionally different due to its method of casting (shouting).

i am thinking about doing the same thing but I ran into two problems, 1 you fight quite a lot of dragons in-game and also pretty early AND they are the size of an adult dragon which is pretty hard to defeat. how should I make it easier to handle the dragons. 2 in Skyrim there is only one dragon born and if your playing with 3 to 5 players then only one can have the dragon powers. should I just give each player dragon blood and also inadvertently make all the characters family? any pointers? 

Why not throw in a twist that the Dragonborn never showed up? Playing skyrim, I've seen a merchant land the final blow on a dragon and punch that beasty to death. The gist of the Dragonborn, IIRC, is that they take the dragons soul so it cannot be resurrected. This gives you a good grounding for the party to have a serious issue - they need to find a way to capture a dragons soul without the dragonborn, because he decided to go and punch some giants after 5 minutes of becoming the dragonborn and we're still waiting for his body to come out of orbit. So the adventurers get put in a familiar world, with a familiar problem, but then the solution they know about goes AWOL. Maybe they met the dragonborn and they mentioned they had family somewhere else, and now the adventurers have to find the dragonborns younger sister, train them up (despite them only wanting to sing) and then use them to slay the dragons. Perhaps they are a cowardly sort who you have to drag along to suck up those dragon souls, and perhaps the dragonborn becomes the BBEG when they realise how powerful they have become. Now the party is having to find a way to stop this crazily powerful dragonborn, who may have some major issues which manifest with power - was bullied by a high elf, so all high elves have to die, that sort of thing.

A bit late to the party, but are you planning on allowing your players to be able to learn how to use the Thu'um, even if it's only a few shouts that they must choose to focus on. Several of the Nords during the dragon wars learned how to shout from Paarthurnax so I could see a big questline being having to learn some of the ancient words by studying the Dragon Walls in the the area and then practicing them with Paarthurnax. 

This brings up another point, just like some Nords like the Dragon Cult fought on the side of dragons, it was mentioned a few times in the game (as well as ESO) that some dragons other then Paarthurnax fought alongside the Nords. This could make for some interesting NPCs that could give their own side quests, bring about interesting artifacts/magical items (The dragons where said to have created the Dragon Walls and the Dragon Priest Masks) or have other purposes like being Warlock Patrons (With a bit of reflavoring of course) or masters of certain techniques that justify how a character could learn the abilities of certain subclasses in this world.

Speaking of Patrons, figuring out an acceptable list of patrons for Warlocks and how the Old Ways pantheon works for Clerics is another thing to tackle. For Patrons.....

• For Archfey, you could have a Spriggan Mother, or the Hist (If you would allow that), a Hagraven, or maybe even on of the animal spirits of Kyne. 
• For Celestials, this could be one of the renegade Dragons (as they are the Children of Akatosh and immortal beings), an animal spirit of one of the Old Ways pantheon or other Aedra. Meridia could also be a good Celestial Warlock considering her sphere of hating undead and using celestial light as a beacon. 
• For Fathomless, you could have a Sea Giant, a powerful Maormer,  a rare Sea Serpent, the Laima or Nereid creatures of ESO, or a Sload.
• For Fiend,and of the Daedric Princes or a powerful daedra would do.
• Genie is a tricky one, I'd probably go with anything that has a strong elemental affinity like a Dragon, Atronach, or powerful mage that specializes in elemental magic.
• For Great Old One you could go with Hermaeus Mora, a Dragon or maybe even an Elder Scroll.
• For a Hexblade, maybe one of the Artifacts of the Daedra or other powerful Artifact like an Elder Scroll or a defective Dragon Priest Mask.
• For the Undying you could have a powerful Vampire or a powerful Necromancer, or an appropriate Daedric Prince.

Then for Deities you had the Ancient Nordic Pantheon

• The Fox, said to be Shor/Lorkhan could have the of the War (being a warrior Diety), Life (being the one responsible for Nirn's creation), Order (as his Shor persona is the Leader of the Ancient Nordic Pantheon), Grave (he is the embodiment of Sovngarde, the Nordic realm of the honored dead), and possibly Trickery (if you follow his Lorkhan interpretation) domains.
• The Bear, said to be Tsun could also have the War, Grave, and Order Domains due to him being the Shield-Thane of Shor, being the God of trails and the gatekeeper into Sovngarde.
• The Hawk, said to be Kyne could have the Life (Being the mother of men) , Nature (as she is often times shown to be able to control the weather and often controls animal spirits), Tempest (commonly depicted as the sky mother and storm mother), and Peace (due to her motherly nature).
• The Wolf, said to be Mara could have the Life, Light, and Peace Domain due to her role as the Goddess of Love (in all its forms) and motherhood.
• The Moth, said to be Dibella could have the Life, Peace, and Twilight Domains due to being the Goddess of Beauty, arts, song and pleasure.
• The Whale, said to be Stuhn/Stendarr could have the Light, Order, and War due to being a warrior god that created the concepts of laws and righteous justice depending on the verison you go with. 
• The Owl, said to be Jhunal/Julianos could have the Arcana, Forge, Knowledge, and Order due to being the god of wisdom, logic, runes, literature, law, history, language and mathematics depending on the version of the deity you go with (he has a lot under his belt)
• The Snake, said to be Orkey could have the Arcana, Grave, Knowledge, Trickery, and the Twilight Domain as he was a tricker deity but could also have connections to Arkay, god of the Cycle of Birth and Death.
• The Dragon, said to be Alduin or Akatosh could honestly have just about any combination of domains depending on what your going for considering that usually Akatosh is considered the grand deity of many pantheons in Elder scrolls lore. Would be interesting roleplay too. Maybe you once worshiped Alduin as the dragon deity but then discovered that he is only the first born of Akatosh,the true dragon. Maybe you already knew of Akatosh and fight Alduin for forshaking his purpose to become a tyrant of mortals. Or even that you believe the dragons themselves are just many parts of the whole dragon deity and Alduin is a corrupt part that must be culled to being order back to the dragons. It could also explain your ability to use the Thu'um.

Just some random ideas.

I would have the Wedding of Vittoria Vicci finally happen.  After the Wedding, Nazeem and his entourage get stabbed and die, die, die.  "Tell them, up in the Cloud District, how much you enjoyed the wedding, Nazeem."

I wouldn't have the party start by messing with the dragons.  They should be too tough for an intro party.  Hunting down all the Dragon Priests would be a good campaign, and the whole thing takes place in Skyrim.  You of course, have loads of other quests while you do this.  Do you hire the Dark Brotherhood to help?  Do you take the Dark Brotherhood out?  Do you decide to join the Dark Brotherhood or eliminate and replace them?

Has the "War" finished?  Is there going to be a Moot to elect a new King of Skyrim?  Are you going to find out if the College was involved in the collapse of Winterhold?  Is someone going to put the Thieves Guild out of business and restore Riften to a respectable town?  What about dealing with the Silverblood family that exploits everyone?  And then, at the top levels, the party could deal with the Daedra and travel to their plane to put them out of the Material Plane for good.