A while back I shared my campaign pitch document that I’ll be possibly sharing with the group if after trying the taster dungeon they would like to play some more (assuming also that they would like me as DM).
Naturally the creative process doesn’t just stop. Ideas come and go. So that they don’t get lost I could write them down in a notebook or I could torture you with them by sharing them on here. Obviously I’m going to do the later.
Army of Darkness (Big Dungeon)
I need to work out who the big Evil is that is coming back. Which means hitting the books and researching gods, demigods for The Forgotten Realms and finding a suitable one. Or if none of them grab me creating my own.But I have come up with three possible locations for the dungeon.
- The legendary subterranean dwarven city Gauntlgrym
- Dread Ring fortress of undeath
- Thornhold and the caverns of Clan Stoneshaft
If I went with Dread Ring I’d also get a villain the wizard Valindra Shadowmantle.
I’m pretty sure that the dungeon will be 3 – 5 levels deep. Plus any keeps and holds on the surface. I kind of like the idea of using the tomb that the party found and cleared out in the taster as a secret entrance to the dungeon.
In the wake of Pytheas (Islands/Ships)
I know how I’d start this one and it wouldn’t be in a tavern. The plan is to have the adventurers meeting up on a small jetty in Saltmarsh (location on the coast to be decided) waiting for a small boat to ferry them to a to be determined island and it’s annual infamous festival.The small boat was the only one they could get, passage on all the larger boats was taken up. It’s a very popular festival. People come from far and distance lands to witness it at least once in their life time.
Found the following map online that will act as the world map for the campaign.
Some inspiration The Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts, Pytheas.
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Sandbox)
Need to decide which town to base the adventurers in for this. Candidates are Phandalin (Lost Mines of Phandelver), Hommlet (The Village of Hommlet), Orlane (Against the Cult of the Reptile God), Keep on the Borderlands, Fairhill (The Crucible of Freya), and Winterhaven (The Keep on the Shadowfell).
Well I hope that was boring for you. At least you can tell me below in the comments “have you thought of…?”
Very, very late to the party, but did you ever designed/mapped/planned anything further for the Dread Ring? It will feature heavily in my campaign (in the far future), but I’m somewhat daunted by the prospect of designing and mapping it.
Hi, thanks for popping by. Dread Ring? I don’t remember looking at that or mentioning it. But I’m old so I may have. My advice for maps in a homebrew campaign is use suitable maps from Dyson Logos, there are hundreds to choose from. Or look at the old module it’s mentioned in and reuse that map and npc’s. Also look at the lazy dungeon master stuff that helps cut down prep time.
Thanks for getting back to me. You wrote on this page http://whitespider1066.com/thinking-aloud-dd-campaigns/
“Army of Darkness (Big Dungeon)
I need to work out who the big Evil is that is coming back. Which means hitting the books and researching gods, demigods for The Forgotten Realms and finding a suitable one. Or if none of them grab me creating my own.
But I have come up with three possible locations for the dungeon.
The legendary subterranean dwarven city Gauntlgrym
Dread Ring fortress of undeath
Thornhold and the caverns of Clan Stoneshaft
If I went with Dread Ring I’d also get a villain the wizard Valindra Shadowmantle.
I’m pretty sure that the dungeon will be 3 – 5 levels deep. Plus any keeps and holds on the surface. I kind of like the idea of using the tomb that the party found and cleared out in the taster as a secret entrance to the dungeon.”
So I hoped you had done a lot of the work :)
Aah yes. The players went with the island hoping option. So never did take this idea any further. But if I was doing it I’d be using maps from Dyson logos (which are free) https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/08/22/delve-top-bottom/ – if you want some “challenging” ideas for encounters look at the Jim Murphy monster mambo videos, although this undead one is crying out to be used https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMwTik8SrM .
Also look at sly flourish if you go the Dyson logos route – this may help https://slyflourish.com/building_lazy_dungeons.html and this might be a useful idea https://slyflourish.com/your_only_dungeon_map.html