I want to engage my storytelling side again, so I decided to start a game of my own. It wouldn't be my first time as a DM, or my first-time world building etc.
I thought about running a campaign based on the Netflix series Wu Assassins.
I will run with five players. Each player will make a contract with an elemental Goddess (loosely based on Ying Ying from the TV series - I intend to keep her name but turn her into an elemental Goddess) and, from that point on, will be empowered by the fundamental forces of said Goddess.
I had the idea of running a Warlock-only campaign.
As in the campaign, there will be five elemental powers.
Wood
Fire
Metal
Water
Earth
In my campaign, Fire, Water, Metal and Earth are considered primary elements. Wood is a composite element of all four primaries, created by the elemental Goddess to balance the other four.
Wood is the heart and soul of all the others, essentially.
I will assign roles to each elemental force based on their characteristics in Chinese folklore.
Wood – Benevolence The wood elemental pronounces fate, lowliness or nobleness, representing extractive, luxuriant, brilliant, blooming, flourishing etc. Wood s a delicate balance of all the other elemental powers.
Fire – Propriety The fire elemental pronounces the feature, strength or softness, representing power, influence, bravery and intensity.
Metal – Righteousness The metal elemental pronounces the life span, longevity or abortion, foretelling any penalties, dangers, difficulties and dead ends.
Water – Wisdom The water pronounces the talent, sage or fool, representing aptitude, brightness, agile mind and accuracy.
Earth – Honesty The earth pronounces the status, rich or poor, representing the birth and growth of everything.
The players can pick whichever one they think fits their character and will become 精神刺客 - which my translation says means "spirit assassin" in English.
Their mission would be to stop an evil God, Ying Ying's twin brother, Zhao Ying (again not from the Netflix series), from being freed from his elemental prison by his cultists and destroying the world.
Zhao Ying empowers his most loyal cultists with corrupted versions of Ying Ying's elemental powers, so the assassins must work together to defeat these guys based upon the generating and overcoming interactions of the five elements.
Generating Interactions
Wood fuels fire
Fire forms earth
Earth contains metal
Metal carries water
Water feeds wood
Overcoming Interactions
Fire melts metal
Metal penetrates wood
Wood separates earth
Earth absorbs water
Water quenches fire
That tells us which elements work well together in certain situations, and I will give my players an advantage on their rolls if they support each other in such tactical ways.
I plan on running an adventure world based upon ancient China, with cities, towns, villages etc., representing ones that would have existed in ancient times, with Zhao Ying's empowered cultists being the warlords that controlled them and who must ultimately be defeated.
That was all I had for now. I still need to start writing the campaign stories, but I would love your feedback.
What do you guys all think?
What are your thoughts on my ideas for a campaign?
I can’t speak to the Netflix show since I have not seen it, but here are a few things to consider:
1. A “warlock only campaign” is going to be problematic for a number of reasons - perhaps most so with finding players who are not going to be mildly annoyed at being told by their DM what class they have to play. It seems a lot of these elements could be represented by other classes—there’s plenty of fire out there, druids and rangers have plant affinities, etc.
2. Doing a campaign based on existing intellectual property can have some issues - you get folks who know the story very well, which can influence gameplay, folks who might not know the subject and thus feel lost, like they’re not getting inside jokes and thus being excluded, or who just don’t want to play in the first place, making it harder to find players (especially when talking about a TV show with middling ratings, not a titan of intellectual property like LotR), and the DM has to be careful not to feel constrained by the source material. None of those are insurmountable problems, but they are things to keep in mind.
3. Adding new systems, like the Rock Paper Scissors system of your elements, can be fine, but expect there to be a learning curve and expect some players will never bother to internalise the system. Having a handout you can provide might mitigate this some.
4. “Ancient China” is a pretty diverse, complicated setting, full of innovation, political intrigue, warring states, philosophy, etc. with plenty of dynamic changes over the course of its existence. It is worth looking into some of the politics and conflicts of various eras and working some of that into your world, not just the aesthetic of cities and towns. I personally would be inclined to choose a specific period in Chinese history as my jumping off point (such as the Three Kingdoms), so there would be some homogeny to the world building, instead of trying to condense China’s centuries of complexity and cultural changes into a single D&D world.
I’d add. Practically, an all warlock party means you have lots of charisma, but no one who can lift anything heavy. Players will be tripping over each other to do things during social encounters, but when a lock needs picking, they’ll be looking around at each other hoping someone took the urchin background.
And unless you are some sort of expert on the Chinese culture(s). (And it could very well be that you are, if so just ignore this.) It could end up with you running a regular D&D world, and you just gave everything Chinese-sounding names, basically just reskinning. If any of your players happen to be Chinese, or of Chinese extraction, I could see it not going well — there’s a reason WotC has stayed away from a 5e Oriental Adventures. You could always keep the general themes and plot, but remove the Chinese names. This will also help disguise the source in case anyone has seen it.
Hello, I am a DND player from China and it is great to see that someone decided to use ancient China as a campaign theme. Since my English is not that fluent, in order to make your browsing smoother, most of this review has been edited using Microsoft Translator. The use of five elemental powers is interesting, but their concept also represents human internal organs. That is: Metal symbolizes our lungs, fire symbolizes heart, wood symbolizes liver, earth symbolizes spleen, and water symbolizes kidney (if you ask me why I don't know, most Chinese have not read the I Ching, it is like Plato's ideal country, only the elderly or scholars will delve into it) From this point of view, you can put the melee class into the game, and they manipulate elements attached to the weapon to attack. At the same time, five elemental powers can be associated with The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, but it is too long to say, you can look up the relevant information yourself. In addition, if you just want to create a cult, the Three Kingdoms is indeed a hot and popular background, and the Yellow Turban Army led by Zhang Jiao is in a sense in line with the shaping of cultists in the DND (of course, they don't use 1d4 daggers) But if you want to create a collision of multiple forces, Spring and Autumn Warring States is a great choice. There are many sects here: Mohism, which advocates "both love" and "non-attack", you can mold them into a kind of Inventor organization; Naturalists who admire five elemental powers, you can mold them into Sorcerer's association; And Taoism who believe in Tao, they may be a bunch of nihilists? Or maybe they're serving an old one named Tao. All in all, the above is my brief, personal spark of inspiration, and you are always welcome to continue the discussion with me.
That is: Metal symbolizes our lungs, fire symbolizes heart, wood symbolizes liver, earth symbolizes spleen, and water symbolizes kidney
Hmm, you could have a lot of fun with that if you don't lock the classes. Just off the top of my head:
Metal = lungs = CON build i.e. barbarian. Reskin the rage so that their skin develops iron-like toughness while it's active Fire = heart = forge cleric, combining the heat of the forge with healing Wood = liver = drunken master monk, obviously Earth = spleen = blood hunter (spleens cleanse the blood), but you could also run with the colloquial definition of "spleen" and make them a bard Water = kidneys = alchemist artificer, as kidneys regulate concentrations of bodily fluids. That would also be a good tie-in to something like a fathomless warlock who's flavored more like a blood bender from ATLA
Between the elements, organs and traits listed above, players could go in some very interesting directions with their characters
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I am certainly no expert in ancient China; I am just someone who enjoys history and has read a little bit.
I do enjoy ancient China as a setting, however.
You are, of course, correct. To make it feel more authentic, I should pick a period rather than trying to mash together thousands of years of advancement and changes in style, architecture etc.
Smokesnake made a very excellent response that made me think I will look again at how I use the elements in my campaign. Caerwyn_Glyndwr response also pointed out that the elements could apply to other classes and that I didn't have to go with Warlocks exclusively.
I posted my very early thoughts, so I am taking everything on board now as I work on my world-building.
Thanks, everyone.
You're all stars.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Since I agree with pretty much everything that has already been said (so no need to repeat it), I do think there is something to setting the game in a fictionalized version of (or a version inspired by) the time period instead of trying to make it *that* time period. Of course, you would still need to do it with respect but it might be easier to get things right if you do a "light" version of instead of trying to get every little detail right. More Avatar the Last Airbender and less Discovery channel.
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Hi,
I want to engage my storytelling side again, so I decided to start a game of my own. It wouldn't be my first time as a DM, or my first-time world building etc.
I thought about running a campaign based on the Netflix series Wu Assassins.
I will run with five players. Each player will make a contract with an elemental Goddess (loosely based on Ying Ying from the TV series - I intend to keep her name but turn her into an elemental Goddess) and, from that point on, will be empowered by the fundamental forces of said Goddess.
I had the idea of running a Warlock-only campaign.
As in the campaign, there will be five elemental powers.
In my campaign, Fire, Water, Metal and Earth are considered primary elements. Wood is a composite element of all four primaries, created by the elemental Goddess to balance the other four.
Wood is the heart and soul of all the others, essentially.
I will assign roles to each elemental force based on their characteristics in Chinese folklore.
Wood – Benevolence
The wood elemental pronounces fate, lowliness or nobleness, representing extractive, luxuriant, brilliant, blooming, flourishing etc. Wood s a delicate balance of all the other elemental powers.
Fire – Propriety
The fire elemental pronounces the feature, strength or softness, representing power, influence, bravery and intensity.
Metal – Righteousness
The metal elemental pronounces the life span, longevity or abortion, foretelling any penalties, dangers, difficulties and dead ends.
Water – Wisdom
The water pronounces the talent, sage or fool, representing aptitude, brightness, agile mind and accuracy.
Earth – Honesty
The earth pronounces the status, rich or poor, representing the birth and growth of everything.
The players can pick whichever one they think fits their character and will become 精神刺客 - which my translation says means "spirit assassin" in English.
Their mission would be to stop an evil God, Ying Ying's twin brother, Zhao Ying (again not from the Netflix series), from being freed from his elemental prison by his cultists and destroying the world.
Zhao Ying empowers his most loyal cultists with corrupted versions of Ying Ying's elemental powers, so the assassins must work together to defeat these guys based upon the generating and overcoming interactions of the five elements.
Generating Interactions
Overcoming Interactions
That tells us which elements work well together in certain situations, and I will give my players an advantage on their rolls if they support each other in such tactical ways.
I plan on running an adventure world based upon ancient China, with cities, towns, villages etc., representing ones that would have existed in ancient times, with Zhao Ying's empowered cultists being the warlords that controlled them and who must ultimately be defeated.
That was all I had for now. I still need to start writing the campaign stories, but I would love your feedback.
What do you guys all think?
What are your thoughts on my ideas for a campaign?
Thanks, guys.
XD
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I can’t speak to the Netflix show since I have not seen it, but here are a few things to consider:
1. A “warlock only campaign” is going to be problematic for a number of reasons - perhaps most so with finding players who are not going to be mildly annoyed at being told by their DM what class they have to play. It seems a lot of these elements could be represented by other classes—there’s plenty of fire out there, druids and rangers have plant affinities, etc.
2. Doing a campaign based on existing intellectual property can have some issues - you get folks who know the story very well, which can influence gameplay, folks who might not know the subject and thus feel lost, like they’re not getting inside jokes and thus being excluded, or who just don’t want to play in the first place, making it harder to find players (especially when talking about a TV show with middling ratings, not a titan of intellectual property like LotR), and the DM has to be careful not to feel constrained by the source material. None of those are insurmountable problems, but they are things to keep in mind.
3. Adding new systems, like the Rock Paper Scissors system of your elements, can be fine, but expect there to be a learning curve and expect some players will never bother to internalise the system. Having a handout you can provide might mitigate this some.
4. “Ancient China” is a pretty diverse, complicated setting, full of innovation, political intrigue, warring states, philosophy, etc. with plenty of dynamic changes over the course of its existence. It is worth looking into some of the politics and conflicts of various eras and working some of that into your world, not just the aesthetic of cities and towns. I personally would be inclined to choose a specific period in Chinese history as my jumping off point (such as the Three Kingdoms), so there would be some homogeny to the world building, instead of trying to condense China’s centuries of complexity and cultural changes into a single D&D world.
+1 to carewyn.
I’d add. Practically, an all warlock party means you have lots of charisma, but no one who can lift anything heavy. Players will be tripping over each other to do things during social encounters, but when a lock needs picking, they’ll be looking around at each other hoping someone took the urchin background.
And unless you are some sort of expert on the Chinese culture(s). (And it could very well be that you are, if so just ignore this.) It could end up with you running a regular D&D world, and you just gave everything Chinese-sounding names, basically just reskinning. If any of your players happen to be Chinese, or of Chinese extraction, I could see it not going well — there’s a reason WotC has stayed away from a 5e Oriental Adventures.
You could always keep the general themes and plot, but remove the Chinese names. This will also help disguise the source in case anyone has seen it.
Hello, I am a DND player from China and it is great to see that someone decided to use ancient China as a campaign theme.
Since my English is not that fluent, in order to make your browsing smoother, most of this review has been edited using Microsoft Translator.
The use of five elemental powers is interesting, but their concept also represents human internal organs. That is: Metal symbolizes our lungs, fire symbolizes heart, wood symbolizes liver, earth symbolizes spleen, and water symbolizes kidney (if you ask me why I don't know, most Chinese have not read the I Ching, it is like Plato's ideal country, only the elderly or scholars will delve into it)
From this point of view, you can put the melee class into the game, and they manipulate elements attached to the weapon to attack.
At the same time, five elemental powers can be associated with The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, but it is too long to say, you can look up the relevant information yourself.
In addition, if you just want to create a cult, the Three Kingdoms is indeed a hot and popular background, and the Yellow Turban Army led by Zhang Jiao is in a sense in line with the shaping of cultists in the DND (of course, they don't use 1d4 daggers)
But if you want to create a collision of multiple forces, Spring and Autumn Warring States is a great choice. There are many sects here: Mohism, which advocates "both love" and "non-attack", you can mold them into a kind of Inventor organization; Naturalists who admire five elemental powers, you can mold them into Sorcerer's association; And Taoism who believe in Tao, they may be a bunch of nihilists? Or maybe they're serving an old one named Tao.
All in all, the above is my brief, personal spark of inspiration, and you are always welcome to continue the discussion with me.
Hmm, you could have a lot of fun with that if you don't lock the classes. Just off the top of my head:
Metal = lungs = CON build i.e. barbarian. Reskin the rage so that their skin develops iron-like toughness while it's active
Fire = heart = forge cleric, combining the heat of the forge with healing
Wood = liver = drunken master monk, obviously
Earth = spleen = blood hunter (spleens cleanse the blood), but you could also run with the colloquial definition of "spleen" and make them a bard
Water = kidneys = alchemist artificer, as kidneys regulate concentrations of bodily fluids. That would also be a good tie-in to something like a fathomless warlock who's flavored more like a blood bender from ATLA
Between the elements, organs and traits listed above, players could go in some very interesting directions with their characters
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thank you to you all for your replies.
I am certainly no expert in ancient China; I am just someone who enjoys history and has read a little bit.
I do enjoy ancient China as a setting, however.
You are, of course, correct. To make it feel more authentic, I should pick a period rather than trying to mash together thousands of years of advancement and changes in style, architecture etc.
Smokesnake made a very excellent response that made me think I will look again at how I use the elements in my campaign. Caerwyn_Glyndwr response also pointed out that the elements could apply to other classes and that I didn't have to go with Warlocks exclusively.
I posted my very early thoughts, so I am taking everything on board now as I work on my world-building.
Thanks, everyone.
You're all stars.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Since I agree with pretty much everything that has already been said (so no need to repeat it), I do think there is something to setting the game in a fictionalized version of (or a version inspired by) the time period instead of trying to make it *that* time period. Of course, you would still need to do it with respect but it might be easier to get things right if you do a "light" version of instead of trying to get every little detail right. More Avatar the Last Airbender and less Discovery channel.