On the Edge of Hope: Building a Foundation

One of my resolutions for 2018 is to play more roleplaying games. I’ve been running an 5E D&D campaign in Eberron, and I’m about to start a second one, and I thought I’d share my process as I kick off a new campaign.

In some ways, I approach creating a campaign the same way I’d approach creating a TV series (I imagine). It needs a compelling basic story; a vision for a long-term arc, broken down with smaller “seasonal” arcs; an interesting set of core characters. And most of all, it needs to be compelling and engaging for the audience… which in this case is myself and my players. And like a show, it’s not mine alone. As the DM, I may be the creator of this series… but the players are all part of the writer’s room. They know the audience better than I do, so I want to make sure that I’m drawing on them to build a “series” we all want to be a part of.

The Theme: Hope

When I’m preparing to launch a campaign, I’d usually reach out to the players and discuss different possible paths. Looking back to the TV analogy, I’d pitch a few different show ideas. A spy thriller dealing with the cold war between the Five Nations? Over the top pulp adventure in Xen’drik? A crime drama on the mean streets of Sharn? In this instance, however, I have a specific idea want to explore… and enough players to draw on that I can present the idea and say “Who wants to play in this?”

That idea is a fantasy western, D&D by way of Deadwood and Godless. There’s a place in Eberron for almost anything, and the place for this is Q’barra. Human settlers came to Q’barra to escape the horrors of the Last War, establishing the region of New Galifar. As they laid down roots, they discovered that the region was rich in precious dragonshards… and this drew a host of prospectors hoping to make their fortune. The wild frontier also offers a haven for deserters, war criminals and refugees fleeing the Last War. These people moved beyond New Galifar, establishing a region known simply as Hope.

The idea here is that the “show” is set in a small mining town on the edge of Hope. In many campaigns the player characters are constantly moving from place to place. Here, I want to root the campaign in this one location. The town is going to be another character; I want the players to become invested in the town and its people. I want its success or failure to matter to them. And that means that I need to work closely with them to develop characters that have a reason both to be here and to stay here… and to have a vision of what they want. Again, if we were making a TV show, we’d want to have some idea of the arcs of each main character. What makes them interesting? Why are they here? And what conflicts or drama do they have that we can mine for stories in future episodes?

So I’ve presented the basic idea and have a group of players who want to be a part of it. Here’s what I sent out to those players.

You’ve got a stake in a small shard-mining town in Q’barra, Eberron’s eastern frontier. The campaign is going to be centered on this town; it will serve as a hub and your actions will directly affect the success or failure of the town itself. With that said, it’s important to establish YOUR connection to the town: why you’re here, why you’ll stay if things get hard, what you’re looking for out here. In particular, there’s a few roles that you could take on.

  • Someone needs to be the Law in town – serving the role of sheriff, taking the responsibility of keeping people safe and maintaining order. A fighter or paladin would be the obvious choice here, but this is Eberron; any class could do the job.
  • Someone could be the Faith of the town – the preacher who serves the spiritual needs of the community and aims to keep them on a path. There’s multiple religions in Eberron, but this is a small town… so if one of you takes this role, you’re establishing the dominant faith in the area. Logically this would be a cleric, druid, or paladin.
  • Someone could be the Money… someone with a stake in a local business. Perhaps you’re the owner of the local saloon, or have a mining claim. Note that this doesn’t actually mean you’ll have more money to use; it means you have an economic tie to the success of the town.

Now, you don’t have to take on any of these roles, but if you don’t, someone will. There’s going to be law, and there’s going to be faith; if you don’t fill these spots, I’ll create NPCs who will. So you can be the Law, or you can deal with the Law.

Here’s a few other basic ideas that could fit the campaign, just to help get wheels turning…

  • A warlock, bard or rogue could easily be a gambler, grifter or professional wandslinger – or a bit of all three. Alternately, you could be a legitimate entertainer trying to maintain morale.
  • A wizard or artificer could be a scholar who’s come to this region because of the ancient ruins in the area, or to search for unusual dragonshards. Such a character could also potentially double as a schoolteacher if they felt like it.
  • A ranger or rogue could be a professional bounty hunter, hoping opportunity will wander through town.
  • Any character could be scarred by involvement with the Last War, a bitter conflict that only came to an end two years ago. For the best of reasons, you could be a deserter or accused of war crimes; perhaps you disobeyed orders to protect innocents or killed a corrupt commander.
  • The halflings of the nearby Talenta Plains are a relatively primitive nomadic culture. A halfling ranger, barbarian or druid could have formed a bond to one of the other PCs and followed them to Q’barra.
  • You came to town because of your significant other or your family. Are they still here, or did they tragically die recently? If so, are you on a quest for revenge?

These are just a few ideas; please feel free to come up with completely different thoughts. The main question is what would bring you to a mining town on the edge of the world, and what would keep you there?

Deepwater

I started this off with a basic concept of the town, which has the default name of Deepwater. It’s newly established — less than a year old. It’s on the edge of a small lake, which is both a source of fish and water and tied to streams used by shard miners. The area is a manifest zone to either Thelanis or Lamannia, which is one reason the lake is so fresh and well stocked. I also have the idea that while House Tharashk runs a number of large mining operations, this is an independent town; they sell shards to Tharashk, but Tharashk is going to mainly exist in the shadows as the scary Big Company that might show up to buy everyone out. With that in mind, here’s the three factions I see as making up the population of Deepwater.

  • Dwarves from the Mror Holds. An Aurum concordian has underwritten many of the costs of establishing Deepwater, and these dwarves are working her claims. The dwarvers are miners and masons, working claims and doing much of the work of building the city itself.
  • Refugees from the war. The simplest answer is for these to be Cyrans, but they could be from any nation.
  • Members of a particular religion, interested in establishing a community for members of their faith.

This provides a general concept for the town and the balance of power… but now, as the players start to develop their characters, I marry the two things together. If a player chooses to take on the Faith role, then the religion of their PC defines that religious community. Depending on the character and the religion, the region could have some special significance to the faith. Likewise, the nature of the refugees is something I can adjust to match the background of the characters; if someone has strong ties to the Last War, then the refugees can be from their nation and potentially even include their family or people they served with in the war. Essentially, I’ve got a concrete model for a town… but with a lot of pieces I can flip around to immediately connect with player backgrounds.

Building A Party

Looking at my current run of this scenario, the first place volunteered to be the Faith, and wanted to be a Greensinger. First of all, this cemented the idea that the town was in a manifest zone to Thelanis. The religious members of the community are Greensingers from across the Five Nations, drawn together by their shared faith and a belief that Deepwater is a truly magical place; they look to the PC as their guide and their ambassador to the fey. I’ve introduced the term ‘Singer as a shortened way to refer to the faithful, noting that many of their rituals do involve group singing.

Next up, a player liked the idea of being a recently freed warforged with a tie to the Money. Talking it through, we decided that he’d fought for Cyre and had led a group of refugees to the Mror Holds after the Mourning. There, Londurak — the Aurum concordian — agreed to provide for the refugees, if the PC would agree to be her agent and look after her interests in Deepwater. As a result, his ties are primarily to the Dwarves… and he may have to deal with specific directives from Londurak.

Another player volunteered to be the Law. His idea is that he was a shifter who fought for Cyre in the Last War… and who was disillusioned both with his own actions in the war and with the actions of the nobility and the dragonmarked houses — the greedy and powerful putting their own interests ahead of those of the people. He’s a paladin of the Silver Flame, but the idea is that he doesn’t know it yet. He’s come to Deepwater to help these people prosper and to protect the town, and this new conviction has put him in touch with the Flame… but he’s still finding that out. As a result, he’s given me as the DM control of all of his supernatural paladin abilities. decide when Divine Sense activates, or if this is a moment when his urging his friend to keep it together will trigger Lay On Hands. He’ll figure it out soon enough, but it’s been fun so far. With this in mind, this definitely establishes the refugee community as being from Cyre. It also gives the Law and the warforged a solid connection, though they’ve taken very different paths; the warforged is working for a big industrialist, while the Law is crusading against industrial power.

The remaining three characters included…

  • A Cannith artificer, on the outs with the house (though not actually excoriated) and conducting research. She’s a sage and decided that she maintains the towns’ library, which is to say she has a few books in a closet. We also call her out as acting as a general teacher.
  • A half-orc ranger. He’s a hunter licensed by Tharashk, but also has a distant relationship with the house. He’s a foundling who likes the stories of the house’s origins in the Shadow Marches, but doesn’t see that reflected by the industrial force running mining in Q’barra.
  • A human hexblade warlock. We decided he was from a merchant family in Newthrone, but started running with a bad crowd. He stole an heirloom wand from his family which turned out to have more power and mystery than he bargained for, and this wand is his patron. He killed a noble in Newthrone and is currently on the lam in Hope. He owes a few favors to some bad people, and he’s still figuring out the story of his mysterious wand.

Working On The Town

For the next stage I brought the group together. I explained that the Law, the Faith, and the Money PCs each represented one of the three forces that had brought this town into existence and asked if they had a preferred name for the town; they were happy to leave it as Deepwater. I gave them all an overview of the region and the town, including the critical NPCs I’d created (such as Thorn Velderan, the local Tharashk agent). Then I had each player introduce their character to the group, and as they discussed their characters, I asked them questions about the town. For each character, I asked the player to tell me about a friend or a rival they had in the town; to tell me about a location they were attached to in town; and to tell me something about the local tavern. The Law pointed out that he had a background ability that let him spot the bad apples in a community, so I asked him to tell me about one of those bad apples; we talked that through and established Dwyer, a smuggler and dreamlily dealer in the dwarven community. Meanwhile, I also suggested ties people might have with the NPCs we’d already established. By the time we were done, people felt like they knew this town, and we’d already established some interesting allies and rivals.

What Comes Next…

The next step is to start planning adventures. I’ll talk about that in a future post, but I’ve got a lot of hooks to work with. Q’barra comes with threats of its own, tied to the modern scales and to the mythic history of the region. Will people stumble onto ancient ruins charged with dangerous magic? Will they come into conflict with the lizardfolk… or will they have more problems with the greed of the locals or the threat posed by House Tharashk? The presence of the Greensingers means I’m definitely going to weave Thelanis into the story. Meanwhile, three of the characters have people they’ve sworn to protect. So there’s a lot of toys in the sandbox.

Q&A

A big element of frontier towns is the isolation that makes it a frontier and how groups and individuals compensate… Are there seasonal or manifest zone periods which limit ingress/egress to Deepwater? How frequent are new arrivals? Do people mainly get around by foot, horse, rail, oar, or sail? How strong are any monopolies?

Absolutely. This article mainly focuses on the characters, and next time I’ll talk more about the town. But these are definitely the sort of things you need to know. All of this ties to the basic question of why settle here? What is it that made people choose this particular spot? Is it confirmed mineral wealth, or is it because of the reliable source of food and water? With this being Eberron, a critical question is what magical services are available and what dragonmarked houses are represented? What goods and services are easily available (and from whom), and what is in short supply?

Some of these subjects I called out ahead of time. For example, I told players that there’s no lightning rail and no speaking stone; there’s a Orien coach every week, and if you want to send messages, you send them with the coach. At the same time, I also don’t want to overwhelm players with too much exposition too soon. Just as with a TV show, I want to make sure that I draw the viewers in and reveal critical details over time as opposed to doing a huge info dump from the start. Case in point, the first adventure dealt with an unexpected seasonal effect of the manifest zone — something that will definitely be an ongoing problem for the settlement, and something that helps explain why this nice spot wasn’t already claimed by the scales. Now the players need to actively determine how to deal with it, and how to minimize the impact on the town. Similarly with the factions: I’ve established the three main factions in the town. Some of the player have connections with specific factions. I’ve mentioned critical NPCs tied to them. But I want to take a little time for the players to get to know these groups and people in the context of the story before I play up the conflict between them. I want the players to get to know the old dwarf mason and the ‘Singer who runs the tavern before I set the ‘Singers and dwarves at odds, so the players have a bit of a stronger personal tie to that conflict. But I’ll talk more about that in the future.  

I know that some rpg’s have game mechanics revolving around building, managing, and advancing strongholds and settlements. Some even make it into their own mini game. Did you implement anything like those for this game or do you prefer to keep that sort of thing loose?

Personally, I’m keeping it somewhat loose. I’ll offer the players critical choices: the town is doing well… would you rather see a speaking stone here, or a Jorasco healer? But I haven’t established it as a literal sub-game. In my opinion that really depends on your players. A certain type of player will really enjoy that sort of extra level of game; with my current group I think the higher level approach is the way to go.

It’s hard for me to imagine Western without guns. Did you make any specific effort to cover that gap, treating war wands and such like guns, or is it just sword fights in the streets?

I’m using Wand Adepts, as I described in my previous post; so far I’m pretty happy with the results. Wands follow standard arcane focus rules, and I’m currently playing with rods as two-handed focuses that increase the range of offensive cantrips by 50%… so that gives some of the flavor of pistol versus long gun.

How do you explore the faith of greensingers? 

Thelanis is close to Eberron, and there are many places where it bleeds over into the natural world. I’ve called out before that a dryad isn’t a part of the natural world. The Greensingers disagree. They respect nature — holding to the shared common beliefs of all the druid sects — but they embrace fey magic in their worldview. They don’t WORSHIP the fey; they simply seek to live in harmony with them, to respect their ways and to benefit from an association with them. It’s the classic model of the person who leaves a pair of old shoes on their doorstep with a saucer of milk, hoping some spirit will accept the offering and fix the shoes. Essentially, they believe that the world is a BETTER place when fey magic is a part of it, provided you understand their ways and know how to work with them. So the common Greensinger knows the stories of the fey, the signs of their passage and how to interact with them. They sing songs in Sylvan and celebrate those times when the worlds are close. And — as in this case — they seek out manifest zones and places where the two are close and they can find that magic in the world.

Meanwhile, Greensinger DRUIDS serve as ambassadors between the worlds, and often as agents of specific archfey. So in this case, the player character is bound to an archfey called The Forest Queen. But she balances that against her general duties to the community, which she serves as guide, protector, and ambassador.

So SOME Greensingers act very much as independent operatives. In this case, she’s first and foremost the guide of her community, using her personal ties to the fey for their benefit.

I love D&D, but sometime I feel like a limit the idea of “group”. D&d works better when the players are men on a mission. When they start wanting different things, maybe to the point of potential conflict, It’s not the good system anymore. In that kind of scenarios the apocalypse engine works far better for example.

Different systems definitely specialize in different things. With this campaign the players all agreed that what they wanted to play was D&D. So while I’m adding in this meta-level of the town as a character, it’s still understood that the primary drive of a game session will be the player characters joining together as a group to deal with a threat or to solve a mystery. Where there’s some intentional conflicts that could grow — notably, the warforged’s Aurum boss pushing him in directions the shifter sheriff won’t approve of — the warforged player is already operating on the assumption that this might be something that causes his character to rethink his allegiance and side with the party. Essentially, the players like the idea that there will be some tensions and issues they need to work through — but they are still working on the fundamental concept that events will bond them together as a party of adventurers and as friends. So if trouble arises between the Dwarves and the Greensingers, the players expect that their characters will be working together to try to heal the rift, not that they’ll take sides and fight each other.

So: I absolutely agree that it’s good to know what sort of experience your players are looking for and to consider whether you’re playing the right system to provide that experience. But in this case, people want the core D&D experience; I’m just adding more flavor around that core.

If you have questions or thoughts, post them below! And as always, thanks to my Patreon supporters for keeping this blog going.

Dragonmarks: A Q’Barra Campaign

My last post raised a question: what cities or locations in Eberron can support an entire campaign? Sharn and Stormreach can fill this role, if you want them to. But what about other locations? Someone raised the idea of the city of Newthrone in Q’barra, and that got me thinking. Because I think you could easily run an entire campaign in Q’barra, but I wouldn’t start it in Newthrone.

In my mind, a Q’barra campaign would be a fantasy twist on the classic Western. The adventurers are people who’ve chosen to live on the frontier, searching for fortune, redemption, or simply an escape from something. Rather than starting them in the largest city in the region, I’d do the reverse and start them in an entirely new community. Q’barra is a frontier nation largely untouched by humans, but in the past decades prospectors and settlers have discovered rich deposits of dragonshards in Q’barra. Much like the classic gold rush, this has drawn a host of opportunists and fortune seekers – and all the sorts of people who hope to profit or prey upon them.

Player Backgrounds

So: I’d sit down with the players and establish that there’s a new town in the Hope region of Q’barra. Tharashk prospectors have identified the region as rich in shards, and it’s on the precipice of a boom. With that in mind, I’d ask the players if any of them want to be founders of this community. There’s a couple of roles a player could choose to fill:

  • The Law. Someone needs to keep order in this small town… do you have what it takes to pin that star to your chest? This is an easy go-to for a paladin, but there’s no reason a fighter or even a rogue can’t design to be the lawkeeper. It’s also a role that could be shared among multiple characters, either equally or as a warden with deputies.
  • The Faith. As a divine character — or a druid, for that matter — could be the spiritual guide for this small town. Their choice of faith will say a great deal about the flavor of the town; is the local church dedicated to the Silver Flame or to the Blood of Vol? And does the character have the respect of a significant portion of the community, or are they an evangelist trying to convert the faithless townsfolk? This is an opportunity to play up the idea of a divine caster filling the actual duties of a priest – guiding and counseling a community – as well as smiting undead.
  • The Money. It’s a small town, but someone’s got to buy and sell. Personally, I’d be inclined to have the primary merchant prince be an NPC so you have a little flexibility in tracking the local economy and you don’t get into the weird space of “Why don’t I give all my goods away to the party?” But you could certainly have a bard or rogue running the local saloon — having a stake in the local economy, and having a little bit of a minigame involving managing goods and employees.

If one or more players is up for taking one of these central roles, I’d ask them to name the townThey may not be the mayor, but they’re one of the founders… so what did they call it? For the rest of the article, I’m going to call my town Felhaven. But having the players name the town is a way to give them a concrete connection to it and establish that it is new. It’s not on the existing maps of Q’barra because it wasn’t there when those maps were made.

So, what about the rest of the players? Everyone needs a reason to be in Felhaven: What is it? Here’s a few ideas, just off the top of my head…

  • A rogue or bard could be any combination of grifter, gambler, entertainer or professional “companion” (an especially strong role for a changeling).
  • A ranger would make an excellent Tharashk bounty hunter — someone who’d have ties to the Tharashk prospectors in the area, and who could be offered work tracking down troublemakers. You could take the same path with another class, but ranger’s a great match.
  • I love the idea of a warlock or sorcerer as a professional wandslinger – gambler, duelist, and general scoundrel. Either one could also have ties to the dark powers in the region, either by choice or unwillingly.
  • A fighter could be an ex-soldier fleeing the war. They could be a deserter who fled during the war, a Cyran soldier without a home, someone who served with distinction but now feels they have no place in the Five Nations. But they could just as easily be a mercenary looking for opportunities — Firefly terms, Mal or Jayne. A deserter
  • An artificer or wizard could be interested in rare dragonshards in the region — believing that if they can locate a supply of these shards, they could make some sort of arcane breakthrough. Or they could be a sage interested in the history of the Age of Demons, eager to explore the local ruins.
  • A halfling druid, barbarian or ranger could have come from the Talenta Plains. They could have formed a bond to one of the other PCs and this is what drew them from their homeland… or they could have been exiled from their tribe, for reasons that will be explored as the campaign continues.

Given that Q’barra is off the beaten path, it’s also an easy place for any sort of unusual character who doesn’t feel comfortable in the Five Nations. Tiefling, warforged, magebred exotic race – Felhaven’s a perfect place for a person who doesn’t fit in elsewhere.

Once players have basic concepts, I’d also suggest that they come up with exactly what has brought their character to Felhaven… a hook that could be explored in future adventures. Here’s a few ideas:

  • Family. This is a good match for someone who has an important role in the town. Family could mean parents and siblings, but if could just as easily mean a spouse and children. Often adventurers are rootless, but in this scenario, Felhaven is the character’s home. Personally, if a player picked this path, I’d have each of the other players also take on the roles of a member of the PC’s family – rather than me playing them all as NPCs, if there’s a scene with the PC’s spouse, one of the players always takes on that role. In doing this, it gives the other players both a stronger connection to the fate of the family and to the town overall.
  • Profit. The character is a mercenary who’s in this for quick gold. They’re here for tomb raiding, bounty hunting, and anything else that could get a few galifars in their purse. Will they discover there’s something more important than gold as time goes on? Alternately, the character could be a dragonmarked heir, either sent to oversee a specific house operation or hoping to make a name for themselves within the house through their own action.
  • Redemption. The character did something terrible in the Last War… something they deeply regret. It’s possible that they are a wanted criminal in the Five Nations… and if so, it’s possible bounty hunters could show up in pursuit of them. Was the terrible action justified? Is it that they once were a truly terrible person and remorse has changed them? What will redemption involve?
  • Revenge. Someone wronged the PC in a terrible way – murdered their family, stole their future, what have you – and that person is somewhere in Q’barra. Felhaven is just the first step in tracking them down.
  • Knowledge. Q’barra has well-preserved ruins from the Age of Demons. The people of the Five Nations also know little about the lizardfolk and the Dragonborn. Any of these could be an interesting thing to pursue, and the PC could have a specific lead or contact they’re following up on.
  • Vision. This is an easy option for a divine character, but anyone can have a vision. The character has had a vision of a terrible darkness that could sweep out to destroy Khorvaire – and knows that the path to stopping it begins in Felhaven. Is this a true divine vision? Or could they be being manipulated by the Dreaming Dark?
  • Spy. The character is working for an organization that wants to keep an eye on this developing community. Easy options include the Aurum or a local crime boss in Newthrone… but you could have a secret agent of a Dragonmarked House or even the Lords of Dust. A changeling companion could have ties to the Cabinet of Faces. This most likely is something that gets the PC a little extra gold on a regular basis, but they could start getting orders that put them at odds with the needs of the community. Turning on their boss is a great arc for a midlevel story!
  • Mystery. The PC has a map to a fortune. It could be treasures stashed during the Last War, an ancient fiendish vault, or a rich shard field. Whatever it is, they have a lead on a fantastic opportunity – but it’s not something they can pull off alone.

Building The Town

So: now we have some well rounded player characters and some hooks to explore in upcoming episodes. Next I want to develop the town itself. Who are the major NPCs? Who are the power brokers? If the players didn’t take on these parts, someone has to be the law and there will certainly be some sort of temple or church. There will surely be a saloon, inn or brothel (or some combination of all of these) and a general store. There’s a local leader: is this a mayor, or is this town a Tharashk outpost governed by a Tharashk baron (in which case Tharashk would also provide the “law”)? What other groups are here? Who’s the richest person in town, and how desperate is the poorest person? I’d certainly want to develop these characters myself so they have secrets for the PCs to uncover, but I’d also engage the players to help me fill out details. “Bob, the innkeeper at the Rusty Nail is a beloved pillar of the community. What gender is the innkeeper? Sarah, what race are they? Galen, any distinctive physical details?” Again, I’m establishing the critical story detail – the innkeeper is a beloved figure, as opposed to a hated pennypincher – but I’m letting the players add details that give them a connection.

In creating the town, there’s a few critical questions. What services are available here? Is there a Sivis message station? Is there a Jorasco healer? What can be bought, and what’s the limit on what the merchants can afford to buy? Who are the potential troublemakers, and who could be patrons or long-term enemies of the PCs? In particular…

  • Is someone in town a disguised agent of the Chamber or the Lords of Dust?
  • Is someone being manipulated by the Dreaming Dark?
  • Is someone a spy for one of those groups I mentioned before?

Personally, I WOULDN’T provide a lot of dragonmarked services to begin with, because it’s a great way to establish the growth of the community; I’ll talk more about this below.

What last thing to consider: Manifest zones. Is the town built by or in a manifest zone, and if so, what are its effects? Manifest zones can have very useful effects; a zone tied to Lamannia might naturally purify all water in the region, while a zone tied to Fernia might cause fires to burn longer and brighter than normal. Logically, if people were going to build in a manifest zone it should have some sort of useful effect. But it’s also possible that the founders didn’t know the zone was there – or that there’s a zone adjacent to the town that has dangerous effects.

Plots

So we’ve got a fun location. We have interesting characters. What do we do for story? Here’s a few easy starting adventures….

  • There are ruins near the town. These could date back to the Age of Demons, or they could be tied to the fallen dragonborn nation. At low levels, you don’t necessarily want people stumbling into Haka’Torvhak, but these could be tiny outposts or tombs with simple traps and minor undead or local wildlife. This is a great opportunity for the PCs to do something that sends a longer term plot in motion: they take the magic orb from the tomb, little realizing that it was a warding stone holding an evil spirit in check… and in future adventures, they’ll have to deal with the unleashed spirit and its corrupted minions.
  • Bandits or criminals can threaten the town, preying on the honest prospectors. Can the PCs act as mediators, or violence the only solution?
  • Likewise, you could have any number of mysterious strangers showing up for an adventure of the week. A wealthy explorer shows up with a map but needs bold adventurers to help her find the prize. A large group of Cyran refugees shows up and wants to settle, but are they as innocent as they seem? A crusading priest shows up and tries to rally the townsfolk to his cause. A traveling tinker has a host of mystical treasures for sale… but we’ve long been warned to beware the gifts of the Traveler!
  • The PCs can run into trouble with the local scales – hostile lizardfolk and dragonborn. The Poison Dusk are aggressive servants of the local demon Overlord; the Cold Sun lizardfolk fight the Poison Dusk, but could end up fighting the PCs or Felhaven because the PCs have unknowingly violated a taboo or threatened the local balance. Can the PCs establish communication and work out an alliance with the Cold Sun? Logically, this is something that starts small – clashes with a few bands of warriors – but that over time draws PCs into the ancient conflict in the region and reveals the history of the dragonborn and the Cold Sun.
  • Within the town itself, you could have a Cult of the Dragon Below or a Dreaming Dark cell spread like a cancer until it’s uncovered. You could also simply have mundane troubles – organized crime or a Dragonmarked House seeking to claim the town as their own.

Beyond this, you’ve got a lot of hooks in the choices made by the players. If a PC is the law in these parts, you can always drop in quarrels or crimes they need to deal with… while the preacher may have to deal with morale and the saloon owner with economic challenges. If someone came to town seeking revenge, well, where’s that trail lead?

Now: In this scenario, I’d make the town essentially a character in the game as well… as the PCs grow in power, the town can gain levels as well. While the PCs are going on adventures, prospectors are hunting for shard deposits and farmers are settling in. if the PCs can hold off bandits and scales, the town prospers and should gain services. Each time the players gain a level, consider adding something new: a Sivis message station (perhaps initially only connected to Newthrone), a Jorasco healer, a magecrafting blacksmith, a Cannith tinker who produces a few minor magic items, a larger Tharashk refinery that raises the cap on what merchants can afford to play. If the players screw up, things could be lost; the message stone operator could be killed, or simply decide it’s too dangerous for him to stay. The players should feel a meaningful impact both for their triumphs and failures.

Longer term, you can start bringing in more powerful organizations and greater challenges.

  • An elite Emerald Claw squad comes through – what are they looking for in the jungle, and should the PCs stop them? Do they want to outright fight the Emerald Claw on the streets of Felhaven – which could result in a lot of innocent deaths – or find another answer? It could be that the secret to Erandis Vol’s ascension lies in the region – which is a reason to have a long term and evolving Emerald Claw presence. This is a good basic for a recurring villain, such as the necromancer Demise.
  • The Lords of Dust have plans involving Felhaven. Logically this would invovle the Overlord Masvirik, the demon bound in Haka’Torvhak… but you could also have agents of a different Overlord with plans that run counter to what Masvirik wants. The Lords of Dust seek to enact a particular branch of the Prophecy – and they’ll help the PCs, but only because they are trying to steer the PCs into unleashing Masvirik or another Overlord. Eventually the PCs might expose the rakshasa hiding in Felhaven – but is it too late to stop the demon’s plans?
  • You could likewise have an agent of the Chamber, whose plans involve the Prophecy and the scales. This character could be a patron who wants to use the party against the servants of Masvirik… but dragons have little regard for individual human lives, and missions could put the PCs in grave danger.
  • Initial casual bandit raids could escalate into a larger struggle. Does the powerful bandit leader have a goal beyond simply getting gold? Are they an agent of the Lords of Dust, the Dreaming Dark, a Dragonmarked House. or are they just a brilliant, charismatic leader? This could lead to a full-on attack on Felhaven.
  • A dragonmarked house could have plans that threaten the entire community. This could be about acquiring resources – Cannith wants all the rare dragonshards- or it could just be about direct house conflict, like Deneith striking against Tharashk. Following the idea of the rare dragonshards, Felhaven could end up being at the center of a conflict between agents of the three Cannith houses… and meanwhile, the Cold Sun could be furious because removing these shards is empowering the local fiends.
  • The Dreaming Dark could be attempting to create a new puppet figurehead — people who can take on the role of the Inspired in the event of a Quori takeover. Can the PCs uncover and expose this plot?
  • A Dragonmarked baron could seek to expand the power of their house across the region – either with or without the support of the Twelve.

Beyond this: gateways to Khyber can be found anywhere… and where you have Khyber, you can have the Daelkyr. What begins as a simple (and easily defeated) Cult of the Dragon Below can ultimately be tied to the rising power of a Daelkyr, complete with aberrant dinosaurs or warped lizardfolk. Alternately, the same approach can be taken with the Overlord Masvirik. A cult to Masvirik could also end up producing yuan-ti – literally new yuan-ti reflecting the corrupting influence of Masvirik, so the local merchant prince becomes yuan-ti over the course of the campaign.

Long term, this can lead to epic developments in the region:

  • Masvirik is unbound, and there is a bitter conflict as corrupted scales and possessed dinosaurs ravage the region.
  • A Daelkyr rises, unleashing abberant terror (with the exact nature depending on the Daelkyr).
  • Erandis Vol herself comes to Q’barra; once her mark is restored, she raises an army of undead dragonborn and lizardfolk.
  • The Dreaming Dark unleashes a scheme to take over Q’barra, using their makeshift Inspired (local heroes they’ve created and raised) as the figureheads.

Ideally, this is something where things that have been around from the start end up being central to the epic finale. That greedy Cannith baron who’s been a throne in the PC’s side throughout the campaign ends up becoming the vessel for Masvirik due to his foolish experiments with corrupted Dragonshards! Perhaps there’s even an army of possessed warforged, as this evil artificer has found a way to use the shards to implant demons into warforged!

Now: Felhaven might be the heart of the campaign, but that doesn’t mean the players will never leave it. Events and adventures should take the PCs to ruins across the region, to the cities of the Dragonborn or warrens of the lizardfolk, to Haka’Torvak and to Newthrone. But Felhaven can always be at the heart of it.

That ended up being longer than I planned, but I hope it’s interesting both in terms of developing stories in Q’barra and as a look at how I think about campaigns. In the meantime, I’m working on a number of big articles you’ll see in future weeks. As always, the more support I get on my Patreon the more time I can justify spending on this site. If you’re already supporting me, thank you very much; if not, check it out here!

Also: the ideas I present here draw heavily on the expanded Q’barra articles I wrote for Dungeon 182 and Dungeon 185. D182 examines the Dragonshard trade and introduces the concept of dusk shards and dawn shards. D185 delves deeper into the Cold Sun, Poison Dusk, and dragonborn of the region, along with additional information about the role it played during the Age of Demons.

 

What have you done with Q’barra? What would you do in a Q’barra campaign? Post your answers below!