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Ideas for city-based campaigns

ThisThis Registered User regular
edited January 2012 in Critical Failures
Hello, I'm trying to put together an Earthdawn( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthdawn ) campaign. I want the campaign to take place entirely inside a sealed kaer, which if you aren't familiar with the setting is basically an underground city that people lived in for hundreds of years while the outside world was being ravaged by extra-planar demons.

I'm having a hard time coming up with good adventure/story/quest ideas and I'm a very inexperienced GM to boot. I don't think it matters whether or not you're familiar with the setting, I'm just looking for any ideas about the sorts of campaigns one can run in a (fantasy) city setting. It could be from a book you read, a different game, a dream, anything.

In case it means anything, I'm loosely basing things on the official Earthdawn adventure "Ardanyan's Revenge".

Any help is super appreciated.

This on

Posts

  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    I'm not familiar with the setting, but why not just run an official adventure rather then just basing your game off of it? If you're not an experienced GM, running a module gives you some great training wheels to get started with.
    Once you're more comfortable (or once your players throw you sufficiently free of the rails) you can wing it, but if it's your first rodeo take what help you can get.

    As for adventure ideas, there's always the classic fallback: You and your buddies are a band of mercenaries who saw a bounty posted on the tavern wall to go to the local forest/cave/ruins to put an end to an infestation of orcs/trolls/goblins. Turns out they're being manipulated by a strong wizard/demon/dragon with grand designs to conquer/destroy the city by quietly amassing numerous small hordes of monsters in assorted locations around your town. Once the town has been surrounded by what appear to be random bands of beasties, they'll all attack overwhelming the towns defenses (which are obviously stretched thin if they're hiring mercs to clear out the forest/cave/ruins).
    After taking out the first band of nasties and encountering the mocking voice of the evil mastermind (maybe a letter recovered, maybe actually fighting the MM for a few rounds before being overpowered and forced to listen to a monologue), your players decide if they should return to the town and warn them, work their way around the town destroying the other groups in hopes of more loot and greater glory, or just get their reward and get out of dodge before it all hits the fan.

    If you want to keep this in a single town; an abandoned and dilapidated warehouse, sewer system, or the basement dungeon of the local aristocracy can stand in for the forest/cave/ruins.
    A shadowy, crudely dug, network of tunnels leading outside the city (or connecting to other places within the city) is an ideal place to store future plot hooks.

  • piLpiL Registered User regular
    WARNING: Incoming big, poorly edited post. Please enjoy the brainstorm below responsibly.

    Earthdawn is pretty awesome.

    Some Shadowrun/Earthdawn spoilers below.
    I love how Earthdawn is Shadowrun in the past. I had given some thought into running a game that took place inside of an arcology when the demons returned--basically a futuristic sifi kaer. So here's some ideas I generated in the process.

    Check out Ultima Underworld and Arx Fatalis, neither of which have I played, but both seem cool, and probably have some useful ideas.

    Ok, ideas:

    Short-term (one or two-shot short adventure ideas)

    One section of the Kaer was compromised years ago and collapsed. Now the players have found a way into the buffer area, which holds all the loot of the people trapped inside when the tunnels were collapsed. This could be expanded into an urgent, "We must seal it again, there's another leak!" Use it to call into question the players morals when they discover some people might just have to die to make it happen.

    City games always do well to feature crime. Multiple crime syndicates emerging as black markets gain importance with the lack of access to outside goods. A gang war offers opportunities for sneaking through a rival's lands, rescuing a kidnapped mafia princess, fighting it out in the streets, or manipulating events to try and negotiate a truce between two gangs.

    Classism and racism are big ones, and a rebellion in the Kaer is always an option. For the first generation, most people are probably too terrified of the devastation above ground to argue things, but with no influx of people/power/goods, etc, the power at the top could become greater and greater. A brewing rebellion that the players get caught in the middle can lead to missions to stamp out the violent rebels, destroy propaganda etc, or trying to hide and/or strike at the establishment and earn the lower rungs a place.

    A cave-in opens up into a previously unknown cave system, with useful space and resources (water? underground edible fungus? valuable ore?), but if the cave leads to the surface, then the demons will get in and slaughter will commence. So the players are sent to scout out a good spot to seal away so the Kaer can use these resources. Of course, if the players don't make it back in time, they'll be trapped outside to a tortuous painful demise.

    Deep in the slums of the Kaer that emerged after a few generations of breeding took place, a new cult is emerging. Maybe this cult is talking about a new god, maybe it's talking about the death/end of some gods. Maybe it's talking about a different power, greater or more morally responsible than the corruptible mortal gods of Earthdawn. Maybe it's an
    insect shaman
    . I can't completely remember the religion of Earthdawn, but I think I remember a trickster god who nobody could tell if he/she was driven insane by the monsters or not.

    Perhaps the Scourge has ended. Cave-ins are becoming more active as new settlers over top of the original kaer are building a new town where the old stood, assuming those in the Kaer had fallen. The players are tasked with restoring order to the rioting masses who want to leave the Kaer, only to find out they're fighting for the wrong side, and it's the leadership who doesn't want to lose their power to the above grounders and is trying to keep everyone below even though they don't have to!

  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    Fantasy cities are run by factions and guilds who's alliances shift and waver. Basically fantasy cities are an excuse to do cyberpunk without the cybernetics but plus magic. Given that you're running Earthdawn this turns out to be irony.

    I will have more thoughts later.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    I just wrapped up an Earthdawn campaign last year and fun was had all around.

    What edition of Earthdawn are you using? Or are you using a different system with the Earthdawn setting?

    For a Kaer Campaign, I highly suggest looking for a PDF called "Rites of Protection and Passage" (RBL-506). I don't think Red Brick still hosts this file, but it can be found on a google search. It's a very short read (less than 10 pages), but it outlines a lot of things about living in a Kaer.

    Things specific to the setting of Earthdawn:
    Spellcasters are not likely to have the Spell Matrix talent, if you are following the Earthdawn lore (per Rites of Protection and Passage). This makes it a bit difficult to cast spells safely, as raw magic attracts the Horrors. I guess you can choose to ignore this, but one of the cool flavor points of the Kaer setting is the storage of spells in actual physical matrix objects instead of astral constructs. Thus, the wizard's robe with sigils and symbols actually stores the spell, instead of storing the spell within the mage's True Pattern.

    Also, there are no T'skrang in the Kaer setting (they are in "hibernation" according to canon). *sad face* And Obsidimen are rare, as most of them are merged with their Liferocks during this time.

    Earthdawn was Points of Light long before DnD 4E was Points of Light. An Earthdawn campaign typically runs better that way. You go to a village, you trek to a nearby Kaer, you deal with the Horror within (note: This doesn't necessarily mean "kill it". One of my players once successfully bartered passage through an area with Buualgathor, simply by offering something of value to the Horror), on to the next village. Starting the adventurers in a Kaer together is a great idea (they all know each other), but I would strongly suggest that the Kaer opens somehow and folks crawl out to discover that the Scourge is over.

    An alternate way to handle exploration is to have a Deep Roads system that connects multiple Kaers together. This was a plot hook for one of my games, and it allows you to connect multiple Kaers (thus have multiple cities) for variety. It also provides a dangerous "Neutral Zone" for kids to get lost, miners to disappear, monsters to spawn, etc.

    Earthdawn's magic is all about the Threads that tie people together. While these are entirely abstract in our world, in Earthdawn, they have a very real and concrete effect. Maybe the village's True Pattern is weakening somehow, and that is causing strife within the village. The elders have decided that the adventurers should go and find bafmodads to "heal" the pattern or find out the underlying cause of the weakening. Or perhaps the Thread that ties the village to its Founder is becoming corrupted because a Horror is corrupting the physical body of the Founder, buried deep within the village's tomb. Don't be afraid to tie the fate of the Kaer to an object or even a person... in Earthdawn, the abstract connections that tie symbols together become concrete through magic, and the links can sympathetically affect each other.

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  • ThisThis Registered User regular
    Very cool!

    To answer some questions: The reason I'm not just using an official adventure is none of them take place in a sealed kaer. The one I have starts off that way, but from the get-go is about getting out because everyone knows the Scourge must be over. I want the players to have experience of life in the kaer and feel some attachment so that if and when they do get out, it's a more meaningful change.

    I'm using Earthdawn 3rd Edition.

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