Dreadmire campaign ideas

This was just a file of notes of plot points, setting ideas, encounter ideas, and whatnot for the campaign. Since the game never really went anywhere, I never used 90% of this stuff.

Dreadmire Campaign Ideas

 

Tribe of Fomorians –

• a city of them, but scattered members can be found all over the Dreadmire.
• Some can pass as human, though the cat-eye gives them away if you can see through their glamer.
• Similarity to Rakshasa – urbane, yet cruel – communicative, but not open – enjoys society, but is an enslaver and tyrant.
• Fomorian warlock ruling a plantation – Halflings in servitude, almost slavery
• Fomorian rogue passing as a human woman – may be an ally to the PCs, but is also quite willing to turn on them if hired by an enemy

 

Band of Thieves

Robs the party early on. Kills an ally. Spreads rumors about them in a town they have to go to. Then let the party catch them. These will be recurring villains.

 

“New Orleans” – main port city of the Dreadmire

• Name: Tenga/Tanja (from the old word for Tangier)
• Trading port
• Old colony
• Voodoo center
• Ruled by a devil-ish Lawful Evil type who maintains civility between the species; a certain amount of violence is acceptable

 

Chaos town

A camp of a hodge-podge tribe of gothic barbarians. They mount raids on neighboring areas. They’d recently been driven into the Dreadmire after a military defeat, and they seek revenge and the rebuilding of their strength.

Idea is that the tribe is chaotic and anything goes.

Human-orc-gnoll-hobgoblin-bugbear – all kinds of critters with one chaotic, barbaric mindset

 

 

Dreadmire – a minor trading stop in a gloomy, unsettled wildland

Feywild (itself divided into light, dark, and shadow)

C’ai Shen – mysterious hub, a fabulous place where you can find or see anything and everything

Lost World (Jurassic Park)

Steamtech human world – sort of like Girl Genius; this is where the gnome is from

 

 

Campaign – Dreadmire/C’ai Shen

• “Drop-in” mechanic similar to the comic “Exiles.” A gnome technomancer has teleported each character to a location in the Dreadmire and given them a quest. He says “Go find the macguffin and not only will the world be saved, but I’ll reward you.”
• The characters all come from different worlds and have different backgrounds. They can communicate with each other by using the gnome’s communication device.
• Gnome communication device – a crystal that provides translation magic. It also can be used to call the gnome once/day. It also can be used as a locator beacon for all party members.
• On any game session, if a player isn’t there, his PC vanishes. When the player next shows up, he will play a new character (this is not an absolute rule). Anyone who wishes to play a new character may do so at will. In game, this represents the imperfect means by which the gnome has summoned you – sometimes, the magic holding you fails and you snap back to your own world.
• Gnome technomancer – his machinery and widgets are magic. His laboratory is on a private demi-plane. He has an enormous orrery that is his major artifact. Some of his body parts are artificial (especially his eye). He’s a combination of Dungeon Master (from the D&D cartoon), the old witch from Dark Crystal, and Davros from Dr. Who. His alignment is true neutral.
• The macguffin: The gnome tells them that an evil guy has stolen it from the gnome to pursue his evil plots. That’s true, as far as it goes. It’s also true that the macguffin is the only way the gnome has to open true portals off his demi-plane. The “exile” machine is the best he can come up with in the meantime, and it’s hardly satisfactory. Since the gnome doesn’t have much of a garden, he’ll eventually run out of stored food. As the campaign progresses, it can be seen that his health is deteriorating from malnutrition.
• The port city (the main city – actually, the only city) in the Dreadmire is a “New Orleans” type of place. Fabulous ships from C’ai Shen occasionally arrive there. The PCs may eventually learn that they may go to C’ai Shen and probably return home that way, bypassing the poor gnome.
• Known worlds –
  • the Dreadmire world, but outside the swamp (feudal European)
  • C’ai Shen – an island in the Astral Sea, the most important trading hub in the known universe
  • Haiti – human “Aztecs,” orcish “French,” the cosmopolitan/islander creoles are dominant on this world
  • Roman Empire
  • Fey world (many tribes of Elves)
  • Norseland
  • China – the middle kingdom, celestial empire
  • Hades – demons and the like
  • Undead world (zombie plague has run amok)
  • Atlantis – Primeworld – High Men – the “unfallen” (in a Greek sense) humans
  • Azracs – desert, pseudo-Arab, lizardfolk (not swampy), beholders, thri-kreen barbarians, large humanoids
  • Underworld – all life is underground: drow, dwarves, gnomes, goblinoids, etc.
  • Waterworld – aboleth, sahuagin, kuo-toa, mer-elves, dragon turtles
  • Carcosa – insanity, Yellow Sign, Hastur
  • Plains – immense grassland – nomadic humans and others – Native American/Mongol culture – worshipers of Coyote, Thunder Bird, and ...?
• Iron Heroes rules
• True20 damage system? Power points? Probably not.
• Rip off ideas from D&D 4.0? Elves have blink, new magic system?
• New magic system? Cthulhu d20? Everything is a power or else a ceremony?
• Durian grove – the favorite fruit of the giant spider-folk
• 1^st lead – the gnome knows the thieves went to the Dreadmire, but doesn’t know why; the PCs learn of a smugglers/pirate base, and that seems the most likely place for the thieves to have arrived at
• Assuming the PCs lose track of the thieves, there’s a wise woman in the swamp somewhere, but getting there is trickier than it normally is, because the lizard folk are on a rampage at the moment.

 

 

Jellyfish people – floaters who use telekinesis, levitation, gust of wind, and related spells. A ship full of them got lost and wound up at Tanja. Telepathic, they communicate in a very mathematical language. They are great engineers and scientists.

 

Tanja

Docks – visitors often never leave this neighborhood

Shops and industry

Residential

Transport

Temples

1^st adventure

• Note cards giving details of encounter with the gnome
• Arrival in the Dreadmire – Thicket region; all seems peaceful
• Watched by wood elves and one high elf (a high DC track check will spot their traces)
• A bayou Halfling spots them and is curious – willing to guide them through the swamp towards…?
• Gnome gives them a goal of finding “[name]”
• They have an investigatory lead to find [guy]; he apparently went through such-and-such village, on his way into the dark heart of the forest

Heart of Darkness Mr. Kurtz – an agent of a C’ai Shen trading house, looking for some valuable commodity that may possibly be found in the heart of the Dreadmire.

Ducalme

 

Dreadmire campaign notes

Tanya - port city of the Dreadmire, at the mouth of the great river “Big Muddy”

Wharf – there is a Coast Guard of sorts (fast boats with humans, flying creatures, sea elves) that maintains public safety and inspections of all boats, but they do not collect taxes; berthing fees are collected by the dockmaster, but there are no conventional taxes on traders, nor are there restrictions on what may be traded or brought into port.  There are ten piers and docking berths for fifty ships.  There are generally twenty to thirty ships in port at any time (up to 2000 sailors).  A dozen or so arrive/depart each day.  The wharf is always bustling with activity, even at night.

Trading House – Where the main business of the city is transacted.  Merchant princes from a dozen worlds have booths or rooms in this house, while their assistants scurry about on the main floor, arguing and examining samples of goods.  Secretaries and scribes, bankers and attorneys are always present, usually cursing the fates that brought them to the Dreadmire.  Nevertheless, there is much money to be made, and the merchants are happy to keep the arrangements in the city as they are, for the local authorities interfere only superficially here.  No burdensome taxes or regulations in Tanya!  No, the locals are glad to pocket the money for rents and dock fees, and the various labors and services purchased by the foreigners.

City Guard – an efficient and intelligent service, if somewhat understaffed.  They are quite adept at apprehending murderers and thieves, and justice is swift and final.  There is little problem with common thuggery or burglary in Tanya, though there is certainly some, usually from sailors.

Inns (High, Medium, Low) – the high hotel is for the wealthy merchants and their retainers.  The medium hotel serves captains and officers of ships, and minor merchants.  The low hotels are little more than taverns with bunk-rooms for partying sailors.

Artisans Market – this is the local food market, as well as a place where folk from all over the Dreadmire come to sell their goods to the foreign merchants.  At night, the market becomes a kind of street festival, where sailors buy hot food and drink, and there is music and entertainments of all kinds.

Shipwrights

(end of file)