Help With Starting New Campaign

[batsofchaos]

I'm a novice DM and a semi-veteran player and I'm starting up a campaign shortly with some friends who are all veteran players. The setting is a homebrewed world and I have some of the basics worked out for a start, but I've only got a vague idea regarding adventures to start with. Here's what I've got so far. There's a decent chunk of stuff here, so I'm going to spoiler-tag most of it for ease-of-reading. You could probably skip the setting synopsis and still understand what I'm asking about.

Setting Synopsis:

The world is largely water dotted with lots of islands and smaller continents. The largest land-masses will be not much bigger than Australia. The technological level is medeival with a slightly higher level for nautical travel, since it's such a big part of the location. Magic is abundant, but the gods do not directly interfere. There is some "magic as technology" in use, but nothing like magic television or trolleys.

Basically core classes with some prestige classes available. Pretty much what's in the SRD. Only major difference is the Barbarian class is staying almost entirely in tact save some skills are being changed around, while the flavor text and name is being altered to make them born sea-farers and piratey-type folks. I thought the class fits pretty well as a brutal buccaneer so long as they get some class skills that fit the theme.

The core races are there, except for half-orc (I'm tired of orcs). I'm adding two additional races, roughly based on Goblins and Hobgoblins (which are modified to be similar to the two races in OotS). Goblin's favored class is ranger and Hobgoblin's is the modified Barbarian.

Plot Synopsis:

The adventurers are starting out at around 5th level, already friends from previous exploits. They arrive on an island that is the second-to-last in a ring of islands and the last island under the control of the empire. Outward expansion along the islands has been mostly ceased by the empire in order to combat attacks from opposing nations to the north. The final island on the ring is a very large one that is rich with resources, and has been tempting the local ruler of the second-to-last island with the possibility of filling his coffers and upping his political status. Over the course of the last year he has been gathering resources to start a colony on the island. As the adventurers arrive, he is searching for some powerful people to help the project get off the ground and is interested in hiring the party. It requires a lot of time invested, but the reward is sizeable, including a monthly income (first six months in advance), and a promise of land and a rank of nobility among the new colony. If accepted, the party will be sent two weeks ahead of the main workers with a city-planner to scout the location of the new town and to clear the way for the start of the city.

The Island:

The final Island in the ring (as yet unnamed) is a huge chunk of land, spanning almost 1000 square miles. It is almost completely surrounded by a ring of mountains, with a 50 mile stretch of beach and sand-dunes in the south. A delta flows out the center of the beach from a large lake in the middle, which is fed by two other rivers from the mountains, one from the east and one from the west. The climate is warm and wet, with a thick stretch of tropical forest and marshlands surrounding the rivers and lake in the middle of the land. On either side of the forest are stretches of grassland. During the rainy season the river swells to consume most of the jungle. The temperature cools down up the mountains, but remains fairly warm.

The island has two main tribes of monstrous humanoids. The jungle is home to a tribe of Lizardfolk, and the northern mountains are home to the Gnolls. There are a few thousand of each.

The planned location of the town is in the west in the southernmost stretch of grasslands, with close access to the western river touching up against the jungle and the mountains.

On the opposite side of the island from the planned location is the ruins of an abandoned settlement. The previous inhabitants vanished -- Roanoke style. Most of the buildings have been knocked down from Lizardfolk raids, but a large look-out tower remains at the peak of the hill the ruined town was built on. The tower has an underground base attached to it. A coven of wererats have taken refuge in the tower.

I have some basic ideas that adventures can be built around since they are events that are routed in helping the town get started. These include scouting the town site, building a lighthouse to help guide the subsequent ships, locating fresh water, discovering what options are available for a food supply, finding a supply of rocks for masonry, and protecting/helping the workers with odds and ends. These things are fairly open-ended and I'd imagine that all I'd need are some random/planned encounters figured out to keep it from being boring. Some of this would be ongoing, while some would be at the start only.

Additional ideas for as the town starts to take shape would be checking out the abandoned tower (to get a nice little dungeon crawl), and dealing with the natives who may feel threatened by the new town. Direct extermination isn't an option since they could completely over-run the party, which could lead to some interesting tactics by the players.

For the long-term, I would like the players to feel that they are truly a guiding force to this starting town, and to let them watch it grow and take shape. I want the feel of the island to grow and change so it feels like a living breathing place.

I humbly request you thinkie people to help with some good adventure hooks, as well as any ideas for what directions I could go in. Any ideas are appreciated! Thanks!

[SilentNight]

Try basing an adventure on finding natural resources. Maybe an abandoned mine or getting one of the native tribes to give up their adamantine-rich holy site. Political subterfuge is always fun as is ruin exploring. Perhaps you could have some insidious power controlling one of the tribes that drives them to who knows what. That's all I have for now.

[PollyOliver]

You have a really nice setting. If you wanted to keep with the New World-ish flavor, I would have some of the tribes be more amenable to trade and alliances than others--perhaps the gnolls are in a constant state of low-grade war with the lizardfolk, or the tribes of each species in-fight among each other--that way you can have lots of negotiating with the friendlier tribes but still some combat with the more hostile ones, with the aid of any newfound allies. I really like SilentNight's idea of one of the tribes being influenced by some sort of dark, supernatural force as well, which could tie in either directly or peripherally to the Roanoke-esque abandoned colony.

If you want the characters to keep working throughout the game on enriching their little town, trade and agriculture are both great options. Maybe they discover something like the tobacco that made the early US colonies so much money, or, to tie in better with your setting, a nutrient-rich plant that can be grown in low-water conditions in small space (i.e. on little islands or even in planting beds on the deck of a ship), or some herb that when chewed helps with seasickness or scurvy, or...well, you get the picture. Trade-wise, metal deposits in a tribe's land that they need to negotiate for (or fight for, if the tribe is hostile) could be neat.

As for what happened to the other colony, I would very slowly ramp up the creepiness factor as the other aspects of the campaign progress, introducing either a weird happening or a clue to the other colony's demise after every few odd-jobs or negotiation sessions (if you don't mind elements of horror, that is). I don't know exactly what you have planned for that, but finding human corpses/skeletons in the guard tower's basement, with maybe a sliver of a journal entry surviving on rotten parchment would be cool. Maybe while they're out looking for food a colonist vanishes and they have to go to find him (dead or alive, as long there's something odd to the situation), or people (seemingly)inexplicably start getting sick in the town.

At the same time you could feed the PCs little pieces of information to indicate that whatever's happening is similar to what happened to the old colony--another page of a journal, some information from a lizardfolk tribe's Shaman who either remembers the event or had an account of it passed down to him, etc. Since they're going to build the place from the ground up, they should be pretty invested in getting to the bottom of whatever is happening, and unmasking and defeating who/whatever is causing all the trouble and saving their colony (as well as solving the mystery of the first one) seems like it would be a pretty satisfying end to a campaign.

Eek, sorry that go so long, but your setting is very flavorful and it gave me way too many ideas.

[Dervag]

First we have to ask: why is this island not inhabited by a 'civilized' nation already if it is so rich in resources?

Logically, there must be a reason. This world is sort of analogous to the Pacific prior to European expansion, and the Polynesians explored and colonized practically every spit of rock in that immense ocean sooner or later. This world has richer individual islands and more advanced technology than what the Polynesians enjoyed. It would be even more conducive to the rapid spread of seafaring civilizations similar to the Phoenicians of the ancient Mediterranean or the Vikings.

So, why are there no long-established human or demihuman outposts on this new island? There are several possibilities:

1)There is such a settlement or group of settlements, hidden from any major shipping routes that pass by the island. If so, how do these secret colonists protect themselves from the hostile natives and any supernatural threats on the island? Perhaps they are in league with these threats, and destroyed "Roanoke" in order to eliminate competition. How do they support themselves? Perhaps they have some valuable export good that they're shipping back to one of the nations that is opposed to the PCs' empire. Or... there's almost no limit, because you can tie the secret settlement(s) into any conspiracy you want.

2)There was such a settlement, other than "Roanoke," in the past. But it shared the same fate. Perhaps this settlement was actually a large city, now overgrown by jungles or forests, or sunk into a bog or into the sea. It may even have been a substantial nation in its own right if it was distant enough in the past that historical records are spotty. There may be lost technology or magic in the ruins.

Or it could just be that there are many abandoned colonies on the island. The ruins of these colonies may be connected with the supernatural threats on the island- magical guardians and evil spirits concentrate near the areas where invaders have come to the island in the past. If that's true then your colonists have one heck of a problem exploiting the island, because the ruins of ancient settlements will most likely be near the greatest concentrations of valuable resources.

3)There is not now and never were any "civilized" settlements on the island aside from "Roanoke." If so, the odds are that someone or something has been steering colonists away from the island. Which provides plot hooks in and of itself. First of all, they probably have a very interesting reason for trying to keep people away from this island (perhaps a secret society is trying to stop colonists from accidentally awakening a slumbering monster?). Secondly, they may try to interfere with or disrupt the actions of the colony. If they've been able to prevent colonization in the past, they are probably strong in the established territory of the PC's homeland, and may use political or magical influence to convince the government to abandon the colony.

[batsofchaos]

Try basing an adventure on finding natural resources. Maybe an abandoned mine or getting one of the native tribes to give up their adamantine-rich holy site. Political subterfuge is always fun as is ruin exploring. Perhaps you could have some insidious power controlling one of the tribes that drives them to who knows what. That's all I have for now.

Mining will play a part, because the lord who's fronting the bill for the town's creation is banking on gold being on the island. For those of you who know their geology, let me say that this ring of islands are global warming islands and not volcanic, so the possibility of gold is fairly high. I'm going to think about abandoned mines some...


You have a really nice setting. If you wanted to keep with the New World-ish flavor, I would have some of the tribes be more amenable to trade and alliances than others--perhaps the gnolls are in a constant state of low-grade war with the lizardfolk, or the tribes of each species in-fight among each other--that way you can have lots of negotiating with the friendlier tribes but still some combat with the more hostile ones, with the aid of any newfound allies. I really like SilentNight's idea of one of the tribes being influenced by some sort of dark, supernatural force as well, which could tie in either directly or peripherally to the Roanoke-esque abandoned colony.

I imagined the two tribes are for the most part willing to keep to themselves. The Gnolls keep to the mountains, and the Lizardfolk keep to the jungle and they don't have much interest in expansion. However, I don't think that the humans will be content to leave them alone; at least not forever. The rivers running through the jungle swell incredibly when the winter comes; The mountains get snowed on while the jungle gets rain. The rain swells the river, and the run-off from the mountains makes the problem worse. This is well and good for the Lizardfolk who build their dwellings in the trees and are happy being somewhat aquatic, but it makes it tough to build bridges. The aquafers are going to be interested in building a river wall and the masons are going to want bridges. Doing so would greatly reduce the size of the tropical forest, and the Lizardfolk would be quite angry.


If you want the characters to keep working throughout the game on enriching their little town, trade and agriculture are both great options. Maybe they discover something like the tobacco that made the early US colonies so much money, or, to tie in better with your setting, a nutrient-rich plant that can be grown in low-water conditions in small space (i.e. on little islands or even in planting beds on the deck of a ship), or some herb that when chewed helps with seasickness or scurvy, or...well, you get the picture. Trade-wise, metal deposits in a tribe's land that they need to negotiate for (or fight for, if the tribe is hostile) could be neat.

Tobacco is a great idea for an exportable commodity! I'll have to let that stew for a while...


As for what happened to the other colony, I would very slowly ramp up the creepiness factor as the other aspects of the campaign progress, introducing either a weird happening or a clue to the other colony's demise after every few odd-jobs or negotiation sessions (if you don't mind elements of horror, that is). I don't know exactly what you have planned for that, but finding human corpses/skeletons in the guard tower's basement, with maybe a sliver of a journal entry surviving on rotten parchment would be cool. Maybe while they're out looking for food a colonist vanishes and they have to go to find him (dead or alive, as long there's something odd to the situation), or people (seemingly)inexplicably start getting sick in the town.

At the same time you could feed the PCs little pieces of information to indicate that whatever's happening is similar to what happened to the old colony--another page of a journal, some information from a lizardfolk tribe's Shaman who either remembers the event or had an account of it passed down to him, etc. Since they're going to build the place from the ground up, they should be pretty invested in getting to the bottom of whatever is happening, and unmasking and defeating who/whatever is causing all the trouble and saving their colony (as well as solving the mystery of the first one) seems like it would be a pretty satisfying end to a campaign.

I'm not opposed to horror, and I hadn't much thought of their being a steadfast reason for the previous town to be abandoned. I thought it would just be a local oddity, but now that it's been brought to my attention I don't think my players will be satisfied with that. They'll want to get to the bottom of it. I'll have to do some thinking and figure out a good reason for why they're all gone...


Eek, sorry that go so long, but your setting is very flavorful and it gave me way too many ideas.

No worries! I'm glad you found it flavorful, that's the goal!


First we have to ask: why is this island not inhabited by a 'civilized' nation already if it is so rich in resources?

Logically, there must be a reason. This world is sort of analogous to the Pacific prior to European expansion, and the Polynesians explored and colonized practically every spit of rock in that immense ocean sooner or later. This world has richer individual islands and more advanced technology than what the Polynesians enjoyed. It would be even more conducive to the rapid spread of seafaring civilizations similar to the Phoenicians of the ancient Mediterranean or the Vikings.

So, why are there no long-established human or demihuman outposts on this new island? There are several possibilities:

1)There is such a settlement or group of settlements, hidden from any major shipping routes that pass by the island. If so, how do these secret colonists protect themselves from the hostile natives and any supernatural threats on the island? Perhaps they are in league with these threats, and destroyed "Roanoke" in order to eliminate competition. How do they support themselves? Perhaps they have some valuable export good that they're shipping back to one of the nations that is opposed to the PCs' empire. Or... there's almost no limit, because you can tie the secret settlement(s) into any conspiracy you want.

2)There was such a settlement, other than "Roanoke," in the past. But it shared the same fate. Perhaps this settlement was actually a large city, now overgrown by jungles or forests, or sunk into a bog or into the sea. It may even have been a substantial nation in its own right if it was distant enough in the past that historical records are spotty. There may be lost technology or magic in the ruins.

Or it could just be that there are many abandoned colonies on the island. The ruins of these colonies may be connected with the supernatural threats on the island- magical guardians and evil spirits concentrate near the areas where invaders have come to the island in the past. If that's true then your colonists have one heck of a problem exploiting the island, because the ruins of ancient settlements will most likely be near the greatest concentrations of valuable resources.

3)There is not now and never were any "civilized" settlements on the island aside from "Roanoke." If so, the odds are that someone or something has been steering colonists away from the island. Which provides plot hooks in and of itself. First of all, they probably have a very interesting reason for trying to keep people away from this island (perhaps a secret society is trying to stop colonists from accidentally awakening a slumbering monster?). Secondly, they may try to interfere with or disrupt the actions of the colony. If they've been able to prevent colonization in the past, they are probably strong in the established territory of the PC's homeland, and may use political or magical influence to convince the government to abandon the colony.

I like the idea of the landscape being peppered with ruins. No huge abandoned metropolises, but lots of failed settlements that have gone to pot. It lends some nice mystery to the island and ties in to the mystery of the Roanoke settlement, which is both the largest and most recent one. Why do people never seem to stay, but the Gnolls and Lizardfolk prosper? Are they to blame, or do they have some answers for why the other towns have fallen?

I have a great location for the "source" to be in too. There's a hidden valley in the mountain range that was going to house something or other. Good stuff!

Thanks for the responses so far! If anyone has anything to add or build on, I'm more than happy to hear it!

[Megafly]

I would suggest having more than 2 tribes on the island. If you are dealing with an environment like Papua New Guinea they have 2-3 tribes all living in one valey in the highlands. The next valley over has a handfull other small tribes. Dividing the natives up into dozens or scores of native tribes allows you to have a different hook for each valley.
-Perhaps one tribe discovers something that threatens them and they send their shaman to beg the PC's for help
-Or they could encounter a missionary who has come to the new spread the word of (insert God here) who was with a group that was attacked and captured inland. One ran back to the nearest "civilized" people for help (it could later turn out they weren't missionaries but looters out to steal some sacred artifact)
-They could encounter a mutinous group that burned their ship when they fled to this island years ago (and don't want new of their survival to get out)
-On every "lost world" island there HAS to be a valley of dinosaurs

[batsofchaos]

I would suggest having more than 2 tribes on the island. If you are dealing with an environment like Papua New Guinea they have 2-3 tribes all living in one valey in the highlands. The next valley over has a handfull other small tribes. Dividing the natives up into dozens or scores of native tribes allows you to have a different hook for each valley.
-Perhaps one tribe discovers something that threatens them and they send their shaman to beg the PC's for help
-Or they could encounter a missionary who has come to the new spread the word of (insert God here) who was with a group that was attacked and captured inland. One ran back to the nearest "civilized" people for help (it could later turn out they weren't missionaries but looters out to steal some sacred artifact)
-They could encounter a mutinous group that burned their ship when they fled to this island years ago (and don't want new of their survival to get out)
-On every "lost world" island there HAS to be a valley of dinosaurs

I was misleading in saying that there were only two tribes. I meant that there were two main groups, but there are plenty of others. One of my first missions planned involves evicting a small tribe of ogres from the planned town plot.

The plans thus far for the two biggun's is the Lizardfolk are fairly united and tranquil; their forest has abundant food and supplies and they've not had much in the way of hostile conflicts leading them to settle into a content sort of pacifism. This will change if the new town starts encroaching on their territory and may cause splinter groups of Lizard folk who are either pro or anti-human to form. The Gnoll's have also just crowned a new king and have been horribly schismed into groups. These groups are more content with tearing each other apart and trying to survive to be too interested in new human settlements, at least for the time being.

There will definitely be smaller tribes of monsterous humanoids that roam the island, though.

I'm going to skip the dinos, though. Dinos and fantasy never really worked for me.

[Yami]

I'm thinking abberations. Nothing says bad news and dissapearing towns like abberations. Look through the books and select a few you want to population some of the darker and more foboding places on your for flavor and fun.

An example might be an abandoned mine near a deep lake holding a Dark Tentacle. Previous expeditions tried to mine here, but didn't listen to the gnolls, who knew well enough to steer clear of that area.

What I did when I ran a campaign similar was have a few important NPC's such as an alchemist who could craft potions for the party, a blacksmith or two and perhaps a cleric or a druid who offered healing for a nominal fee. But these are the only people the players can rely on for such supplies, without turning to one of the natives. Should the town be attacked, or should something dreary lurk in the night, these people must be protected.

Gray Renders! Rope off some esoteric ruins and plant a render in it, these guys get the shaft as far as living peacefully, but with a low civilized area like this, one or two might still eek out an existance.

Oooh, and you could use the Undying One! A Black Dragon with apirations for god-hood and a devout following of lizardmen. New town? New sacrifices!

[Hecore]

I have an idea for the abandoned colony which I think you may find amenable. The colonists didn't just vanish, they fled for their lives as quickly as possible. At first this would be unclear to the players (they might think the inhabitants were killed, or driven further into the island, or whatever), but as they investigated further the truth would unfold. Make it so when the colonists fled they were clearly unprepared - maybe have a shipwreck or two off the coast of half-finished boats? Someone, or something, frightened them so much that they would go to sea - even though it would be little more then a death sentence with their current state of preparedness. You could have those that were unable to escape in their homes, dead, with their locks intact. The food supplies would have long vanished and yet they stayed inside rather then risk leaving to gather sustenance.

It seems like a very nice setting, but nothing like a horror/mystery to really ramp up the excitement levels.

As for additional adventures -

One of the rivaling nations wants control of the island. The players need to defend the settlement while limiting casualties.

A few of the native tribes start warring. This certainly wouldn't be an issue... except that the battleground threatens to continue moving south and into the colony.

Villagers start disappearing, and being found days or weeks later drained of blood. Clearly a vampire is about - but who is it?

The source of water for the colony goes bad, with those who drink it winding up ill, weak, or dead. As the next clean source is miles away in hostile territory, the party needs to investigate the cause of the contamination.

Similar to the last hook, the crops are blighted and die in the field, regardless of magical intervention.

The search for gold pays off, and the mining operation is going well. One day, however, the miners punch into an ancient underground system of caverns. An investigation needs to be made, an the evil lurking inside the bowels of the earth must be cleared.

Ground is being broken for new buildings, and those turning over the soil are finding skulls, bone, and scraps of clothing. However, these remnants are distinctly non-human. Even worse are the ancient relics, which exude an almost palpable aura of evil. Turns out the town is built over the ancient burial grounds of something unholy, and they found out that the dead don't always stay buried.

Hopefully you find something you can use for your campaign.