You're the DM? What's your style? How much do you want to plug your players into the world / story? More Sandbox, Western Marches, or Railshooter? Do you like puzzles?
Here's an idea for you, and feel free to change it for your liking: Long ago there was, like in all cool D&D worlds, an age where the arcane was at it's height across the globe. Nine factions governed the world at the time, each with their own values, specialties, and domains. These included The Consortium, The Circle, The Foundation, The Syndicate, The Union, The Combine, The Society, The Institution, and The League. Then came this big war between them for some reason, deities feared to get in the mess of it since they worried that their direct intervention would cause further revolt, so they scouted out a mortal mage to become the new deity of magic to try and control or quell this. When the new deity arose, either connecting them too intensely to the arcane or the result of them being a noob at their powers, magic got all weird and haywire. This caused spellcasters to lose their abilities for a time, have them work crazily, create massive zones of wild magic or anti magic, wellsprings, portals to open up, et cetera; thus changing the world greatly.
I’m thinking of making a massive war between the elves , humans , and dwarves and there’s 1 realign on that they all follow and all the gods took sides and basically demigods fight on the frontlines.
An idea that you can easily adjust to fit your needs: The setting has a multiverse / alternate realities. This is not publicly known, but the BBEG has figured it out, and that's what makes them so powerful. They have figured out a way to access alternate realities and draw things from them.
-You can let the party defeat the BBEG early on. Then a short while later, a slightly different version of them shows up, and nobody has any idea how. You get to have a climactic battle early, plus a mystery for the party to figure out. Throughout the whole campaign, the BBEG and his lieutenants can be fought and killed repeatedly, and they have new abilities and tactics each time.
-The BBEG may summon and mind control alternate-reality versions of other characters. Maybe the party has to fight a copy of an allied NPC. Maybe the BBEG even summons a copy of a party member himself, with a slightly altered build and backstory.
-By the time the party reaches high levels, the BBEG is good enough at summoning that they can basically summon any random thing from the Monster Manual that you think would make for an interesting fight.
-The party has to chase the BBEG across the multiverse and kill every version of him. Each alternate reality may come with its own unique twists. Maybe in one reality the BBEG has already won and everyone is against the party. Maybe in another there is a different group of heroes who defeated their version of the BBEG a few years ago, but they just got assassinated by a different version of the BBEG.
You could start off the campaign where there's animosity between the three species, but word has come back a couple of battles have broken out. In that setting, the players might be able to shape the course of the war. There's also the chance of the big reveal when a demigod steps into view for the first time, before anyone has had a chance to hear the stories about them.
You could start in the middle of things, where the players are mired in a forever war, and there's no hope of a resolution. Maybe they are the ones to spark the end of an age of conflict?
Then there's the potential tail end of the war, and even though violence has begun to die down, a treaty still has not been declared yet, and there's an outside entity that could jeopardize that. The party could be the ones that finally help usher in a generation of peace to the land.
History is a great place to start. I load my lands with history, myth, and fiction. I will steal ideas from anywhere, and my folks seem to like it when they recognize ideas from real life of literature.
Reality bending well- when or if your party encounters it during their adventure, they pay 1-20 gold in order to get a choice of one of your various previously created homebrew items, feats or spells (preferably cantrips), with them having more options the more they pay, or pay 30 gold to submit a homebrew item, feat or spell (preferably cantrip) of their own creation with the dm ultimately deciding to accept it as is or downgrading it to a more acceptable level.
If desired you could even change it to give a feat or spell from any other class and make it work for that one, aslong as they have the level to use it.
Thousands of years ago the plane of Mechanus sent forces to the world to harvest all its resources to fuel the forces of order. The ancient civilization of the time trapped the mechanical monstrosities in a magical dome for the next thousand years, cutting it off from the rest of the world. Within the dome, after reducing all the land to a dead wasteland, the harvesters burrowed into the earth to sleep and await more resources to harvest.
A thousand years later the magic of the dome is fading. Civilizations of the world have long forgotten/mythologized the events, and are beginning to settle the wasteland, unwittingly stirring the forces that sleep beneath it...
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I’m developing a dnd world and need many ideas we have plans to play for 2 years due to us wanting a long term campaign.
You're the DM? What's your style? How much do you want to plug your players into the world / story? More Sandbox, Western Marches, or Railshooter? Do you like puzzles?
Here's an idea for you, and feel free to change it for your liking: Long ago there was, like in all cool D&D worlds, an age where the arcane was at it's height across the globe. Nine factions governed the world at the time, each with their own values, specialties, and domains. These included The Consortium, The Circle, The Foundation, The Syndicate, The Union, The Combine, The Society, The Institution, and The League. Then came this big war between them for some reason, deities feared to get in the mess of it since they worried that their direct intervention would cause further revolt, so they scouted out a mortal mage to become the new deity of magic to try and control or quell this. When the new deity arose, either connecting them too intensely to the arcane or the result of them being a noob at their powers, magic got all weird and haywire. This caused spellcasters to lose their abilities for a time, have them work crazily, create massive zones of wild magic or anti magic, wellsprings, portals to open up, et cetera; thus changing the world greatly.
I’m thinking of making a massive war between the elves , humans , and dwarves and there’s 1 realign on that they all follow and all the gods took sides and basically demigods fight on the frontlines.
An idea that you can easily adjust to fit your needs: The setting has a multiverse / alternate realities. This is not publicly known, but the BBEG has figured it out, and that's what makes them so powerful. They have figured out a way to access alternate realities and draw things from them.
-You can let the party defeat the BBEG early on. Then a short while later, a slightly different version of them shows up, and nobody has any idea how. You get to have a climactic battle early, plus a mystery for the party to figure out. Throughout the whole campaign, the BBEG and his lieutenants can be fought and killed repeatedly, and they have new abilities and tactics each time.
-The BBEG may summon and mind control alternate-reality versions of other characters. Maybe the party has to fight a copy of an allied NPC. Maybe the BBEG even summons a copy of a party member himself, with a slightly altered build and backstory.
-By the time the party reaches high levels, the BBEG is good enough at summoning that they can basically summon any random thing from the Monster Manual that you think would make for an interesting fight.
-The party has to chase the BBEG across the multiverse and kill every version of him. Each alternate reality may come with its own unique twists. Maybe in one reality the BBEG has already won and everyone is against the party. Maybe in another there is a different group of heroes who defeated their version of the BBEG a few years ago, but they just got assassinated by a different version of the BBEG.
Timing might be an interesting thing...
I hope that helps kick off some brain zaps!
- Manx (she/her)
History is a great place to start. I load my lands with history, myth, and fiction. I will steal ideas from anywhere, and my folks seem to like it when they recognize ideas from real life of literature.
Reality bending well- when or if your party encounters it during their adventure, they pay 1-20 gold in order to get a choice of one of your various previously created homebrew items, feats or spells (preferably cantrips), with them having more options the more they pay, or pay 30 gold to submit a homebrew item, feat or spell (preferably cantrip) of their own creation with the dm ultimately deciding to accept it as is or downgrading it to a more acceptable level.
If desired you could even change it to give a feat or spell from any other class and make it work for that one, aslong as they have the level to use it.
Thousands of years ago the plane of Mechanus sent forces to the world to harvest all its resources to fuel the forces of order. The ancient civilization of the time trapped the mechanical monstrosities in a magical dome for the next thousand years, cutting it off from the rest of the world. Within the dome, after reducing all the land to a dead wasteland, the harvesters burrowed into the earth to sleep and await more resources to harvest.
A thousand years later the magic of the dome is fading. Civilizations of the world have long forgotten/mythologized the events, and are beginning to settle the wasteland, unwittingly stirring the forces that sleep beneath it...