Campaign Creation

A place to collaborate on the campaign.

So from the recruitment, it seems demonic incursion was the least favorite so I will go ahead and drop that. Our three remaining options are:
1. Invaders - An alien race that fled their homeworld that was swallowed by the Demon Lord has now come to Urth to take it for themselves.
2. Dreams of the Dead God - A cult of clerics and paladins to a long-forgotten god slumbering inside Urth try to waken it which will unravel reality.
3. Wild Magic - A conclave of evil wizards have used dark rites causing magic to become unstable and tear apart the fabric of reality.

Invaders would focus on the reen (which are like robotic sentinels sent as advanced probes to determine planets' habitability) and stopping an alien invasion, or repelling it once they arrive. Dreams of a dead god is the most bizarre where reality gets reshaped and the laws of physics break as reality is being remade. The goal would be to wipe out the cult or find and kill the god before he awakens. Wild magic would be about investigation and assassinations. Tracking down a secret cabal of magic users who are ripping apart reality and killing them to bury their secrets and restore the balance of magic in the world.

Please discuss, ask any questions, and vote on which is most interesting.

Hmm, the more I think about Alien Invaders, the less I'm interested. Might be because I've dabbled with the reen in my most recent campaign though. However, the surrealness of reality being remade or ripped apart is calling to me.

I'm voting for alien invaders, but I'm totally fine with the other two if when I get outvoted.

Whoops, just noticed it's "Weird" Magic and not "Wild" Magic lol. Anyway, here's what the effects will be:

The genies formed the world by speaking aloud words of power, of which only fragments now survive. These fragments are used in the casting of spells to produce the desired effects. When the Shadow falls on the field of magic that envelops reality, those who study magical power are at risk of being corrupted by it, while the spells they cast have strange and unpredictable effects.

The Vanishing (Starting): All the oracles at one of the Moon Maiden’s temples disappear one night, leaving behind empty clothing. Investigation reveals that this has happened to many servants of the goddess all over the continent.
Enhanced Magic (Novice): Not long after the disappearance of the Moon Maiden’s oracles, users of magic discover their capabilities have been greatly enhanced. Such creatures make attack rolls to cast attack spells with 1 boon. Each creature makes challenge rolls to resist attack spells with 1 bane. In addition, spells that have a duration longer than instantaneous have their durations doubled.
Magical Mishaps (Expert): The surge of power is revealed to have been a great distortion in the magical field that envelops Urth, and now spells sometimes produce unexpected results due to the Demon Lord’s influence. Whenever a creature would cast a spell, it must make a Will challenge roll. On a failure, the spell’s effect is replaced with a random effect determined by rolling on the Weird Magic table (Shadow, page 199) and the casting is expended. On a success, the creature casts the spell as normal.
Corrupting Magic (Master): Up to now, the Demon Lord’s influence on magic has merely made it misbehave. But as the Hunger draws nearer, those who use magic are at risk of corruption. Each creature in the world gains Corruption equal to its Power. In addition, whenever a creature would discover a tradition or learn a spell, it must roll 2d6. If the number rolled is less than its Power, the creature gains 1 Corruption. The subversion of the world’s magicians and priests makes the land particularly vulnerable to the demonic invasion. Many spellcasters—now corrupted—put their efforts toward ripping open portals to the Void to free the demons they serve.

For the master tier, we'll replace "Power" with 5 as the target number and the amount of corruption you get if you have 3 spellcasting paths, 3 corruption for 2 paths, and 1 corruption for 1 path.

Since we are skipping level 0, we'll have to come up with what happened in your village(s) and how/why you all came to undertake this trip together. Also we can discuss the cause beyond just the Shadow's influence. In the pitch I proposed a conclave of evil wizards meddling with dark magics, but I'm also fond of genies. I'd like to flavor the enemies based primarily on what we decide to give the Shadow a lot of flavor.

Any thoughts?

According to Uncertain Faith, there's only two major temples remaining:
I think we should all be associated with this event somehow. Maybe we are worshippers, or work at the temple, or have a loved one at the temple (sister, close friend, cousin, daughter, etc...), or we are there because they are personally helping us with something. This gives us a reason to care about the event, and the opportunity for all of us to know each other - if not closely, then at least at an acquaintance level.

Ooh this works out pretty nice. Low Country is just West of Nine Cities. Maybe you head out on to solve the mystery by traveling north through the Nine Cities trying to reach the temple in Lij, which is the 2nd most northern city? You could travel by land, sea and/or air up the coast and encounter adventures along the way.

That sounds like a great hook and lead-in to the campaign. :D

Posted some info on Low Country, which is where all the players originate from, and Kem, the first stop on the adventure. Kem is the richest city in the empire and is on the coast (along with all the Nine Cities), meaning its a good place to make money, find a ship or caravan, etc. Please discuss your reasons and goals for traveling to Kem.

Evil wizard cabal and genies both sound cool. Why not both? Maybe the evil wizards awoke the genies and became their servants in the destruction of magic? After all, the Demon Lord went mad and wanted to destroy all creation. The genies might just be following in big papa's destructive wake. Maybe the evil wizards are all actually elementals even? Lot of cool ways to roll with this.

The Spire of Mystery in Lij is one of the temples that Bookrat mentioned. Perhaps it holds ancient words of creation that the genies had forgotten? Ones that could be used to undo creation, even? Regardless, exciting.

Yes, these are the same ideas I was mulling over. I want to keep the exact details a mystery but it will involve all of the above.

Is the rough idea of the campaign that we will be spending one level in each of the nine cities?

And if so, is the rough idea that we are starting from the bottom of the map and making out way up the coast, going from city to city until we reach Lij?

If that's the case, I wonder if we should swap the positions of Lij and Azul.

Yes that's the case. While Lij might be your characters' initial goal, perhaps new information they obtain might lead them to Azul. It is after all the city of the dead... :P

Oh no...