Need fresh minds to flush out a Dnd campaign

[Exfuel]

The Inheritance’s Dark Tale

That's the name I'd be going with for the campaign. It was inspired by the video game Darkest Dungeon, which in turn was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. I love the idea of the horror of adventuring especially for those types of characters who aren't the type. I have ran this for about a dozen sessions or so, it worked well but my gaming group moved on to another game. I originally made this for 3.5 but have sense adapted it to 5th edition dungeons and dragons as I like a lot of the optional rules for this style of game. The idea isn't to copy the story of the game however I do like how the game starts with inheriting a problem. I have the set of optional rules set aside I'll post later, but I'm more focused on the story of the game.


So what do I have so far?

I have a map! I've edited the map slightly but it works very well for what I want.

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." -Friedrich Nietzsche
​

The game starts on the mainland, on the sword coast or 'insert any game setting here'. Each of our characters receiving a letter of inheritance and are to meet at the docks of a particular city on such and such day. Within the envelope is a currency note expenses for their travels along with a letter. They are to meet Lord Gregory Moring as he's getting old in age and had no children of his own, however had many brothers and sisters. Lord Moring is the characters Granduncle or Great-Granduncle, and wishes to pass the shimmering isles down to an inheritor, along with a sizable sum of wealth.

They're given plenty of time to gather to the large port city, and meet at the dock where they'll meet "Sharksail" Cooper, the owner of the ship SV Grafton. The old man has paid Captain Cooper a sizable sum to make this journey and has provided funds for the characters to spend before setting sail. If he's asked questions Captain Cooper doesn't know a ton about the Island but knows the keep and surrounding village is running low on supplies. It's up to the players to come to the conclusion to bring provisions for the future. They're each given 150 platinum coins to do what they wish, and they'll be setting sail when everyone's ready. He does mention it's a one way trip as he only returns to the Isles twice a year.

So that's how our story begins. There's a few encounters on the high seas, and once they get to the Island they find the keep is mostly run down and village in disarray. Magic is often twisted here and the game is partially trying to survive, lots of horrifying things to run into, and unsuspecting allies/enemies.

The underdark on the island was created by the formian, which are ant like humanoids branching out from out in the desert. Most of them have died off but a single queen and small colony still exists, this has left the majority of tunnels abandoned. They branch off into existing caverns, or large open chambers they've made.

Buildings and Occupants

The old keep: It's in less than ideal condition, Lord Moring along with several servants live here.
Monastery: It's empty and hasn't had any inhabitants since the priest disappeared some time ago.
Library: In good condition as Lord Moring often visits and loves to read. It's up-kept by a young human girl named Abigail Tate. There's a lot of strange knowledge to be found here.
Blacksmith: In relatively good condition, the dwarven blacksmith Ingot Black is often venturing into the underdark mining the rich ores beneath the island.
Adventures Guild: A smaller guild building, only here because the Moring family has connections in many of the major cities. A human mercenary Elric Finch is paid quite well to be here. But not enough to deal with the islands problems.
Sanitarium: Occupied by a older one eyed elf named Solana Rokas. She's a little unsettling but good at what she does as the villages sole medical provider.
Tavern: An old drunkard Vince Tharamel runs the place. He makes his own booze from whatever he can find. Food is provided often by Elric Finsh.
Apothecary: Abandoned much like the Monastery, however it's owner passed only a year or two prior. The books, enchanting equipment, and tools are still there however. Along with some supplies to make some potions or other various things.
Family houses: There's a dozen or so houses for the various families that live here, along with another two dozen abandoned houses. The Tates, Blacks, and Theramel families still reside here, many of the other families are thinking of leaving.

Fisherwoman- Zina Morales (Half-elf)
Farmer- Prustine Carter (Human)
Woodworker- Petaver Soldshort Halfing
Extra hands- Gurak (Half-Orc), Yaris (Human), Peteak Wolfsbane (Goliath)

Other NPC's

A baba yaga dancing house with a coven of three hags. Nellie Bristleskewer (Annis hag), Violet Bristleskewer (Sea hag), Ina Bristleskewer (Green hag). They are evil but not necessarily hostile.
The cult of the green fog, a couple dozen of individuals that worship the green fog phenomenon. They are hateful of those who don't have twisted flesh like them.


The Ecosystem

Since the moment stepping foot on the island an unnatural chill comes over the party. The wind seems colder than it was on the sea. The vegetation seems dead, rotting, or even poisonous. The land is evil itself. Not even speaking of the demons, creatures of the abyss, even the rabbits and birds seem vampiric and cannibalistic. Besides the plants and half-fiend animals a number of actual fiends dot the lands. Devils and demons often seen in combat.

The island often has strange weather violet rain that severs the connection of divine magic. Plague of nettles as thorns fall from the sky planting thorn like plants that choke out others. Green fog that perverts and twists the flesh. Raining blood, or often times just fish or frogs falling from the sky.


Endgame

I don't really have much of one, I know I loosely want to base the game on the 7 deadly sins. The party eventually fighting corrupt versions of themselves. A demiplane that leaks these abominations and eldritch horrors onto the land, and the goal would to eventually rid the land of the demiplane and the vile god that exists in it. I don't really have a plan on how to go about all of this, and would probably want a mastermind or henchmen of this vile god that does it's bidding. So that's kinda where I'm stuck. I just have a lot of ideas but no solid plan on how to connect them.



Edit


Inheritance: As noted by ptarmigan, I'd agree that being in charge of and inheriting the island is probably enough motivation for them to want to clean up it's problems.

The Village and it's inhabitance: They are loyal to Lord Moring, as he's done what he can to provide for them. Many of them will have their own issues and problems to solve. I have some characters in mind I'll go ahead and post.

 

[Exfuel]

Rules

These are just the optional rules I'm wanting to use in this as they kinda fit the theme I'm going for.




Of Honor and Sanity

Honor changes slowly over time, while Sanity ebbs and flows with each passing moment. Characters can choose to start with a higher Honor or Sanity stat (14) while the other will stay at standard (10).

Honor

Honor measures not only a character's devotion to a code but also the character's understanding of it. The Honor score can also reflect how others perceive a character's honor. A character with a high Honor usually has a reputation that others know about, especially those who have high Honor scores themselves.

Sanity

A character with a high Sanity is level-headed even in the face of insane circumstances, while a character with low Sanity is unsteady, breaking easily when confronted by eldritch horrors that are beyond normal reason.

Healing

These optional rules make it easier or harder for adventurers to recover from injury, either increasing or reducing the amount of time your players can spend adventuring before rest is required.
Healers Kit Dependency

A character can't spend any Hit Dice after finishing a short rest until someone expends one use of a healer's kit to bandage and treat the character's wounds.

Slow Natural Healing

Characters don't regain hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, a character can spend Hit Dice to heal at the end of a long rest, just as with a short rest. This optional rule prolongs the amount of time that characters need to recover from their wounds without the benefits of magical healing and works well for grittier, more realistic campaigns.

Gritty Realism

This variant uses a short rest of 8 hours and a long rest of 7 days. This puts the brakes on the campaign, requiring the players to carefully judge the benefits and drawbacks of combat. Characters can't afford to engage in too many battles in a row. and all adventuring requires careful planning. This approach encourages the characters to spend time out of the dungeon. It’s a good option for campaigns that emphasize intrigue. politics. and interactions among other PCs. and in which combat is rare or something to be avoided rather than rushed into.

Firearms
If you want to model the swashbuckling style of The Three Musketeers and similar tales, you can introduce gunpowder weapons to your campaign that are associated with the Renaissance. The Firearms table provides examples of firearms from all three of those periods. The modern and futuristic items are priceless.

Profienciency

It's up to you to decide whether a character has proficiency with a firearm. Characters in most D&D worlds wouldn't have such proficiency. During their downtime, characters can use the training rules in the Player's Handbook to acquire proficiency, assuming that they have enough ammunition to keep the weapons working while mastering their use.

Explosives

A campaign might include explosives from the Renaissance or the modern world (the latter are priceless), as presented in the Explosives table.

Bomb

As an action, a character can light this bomb and throw it at a point up to 60 feet away. Each creature within 5 feet of that point must succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or take 3d6 fire damage.

Gunpowder


Gunpowder is chiefly used to propel a bullet out of the barrel of a pistol or rifle, or it is formed into a bomb. Gunpowder is sold in small wooden kegs and in water resistant powder horns. Setting fire to a container full of gunpowder can cause it to explode, dealing fire damage to creatures within 10 feet of it (3d6 for a powder horn, 7d6 for a keg). A successful DC 12 Dexterity saving throw halves the damage. Setting fire to an ounce of gunpowder causes it to flare for 1 round, shedding bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet.



Plot Points

Plot points allow players to change the course of the campaign, introduce plot complications, alter the world slightly.

Using Plot Points

Each player starts with 1 plot point. During a session, a player can spend that point for one effect. The effect depends on your group's approach to this optional rule. Three options are presented below. A player can spend no more than 1 plot point per session. You can increase this limit if you like, especially if you want the players to drive more of the story. At the end of each session the group can vote on a player to gain inspiration. They may use it as a plot point.


What a Twist!

A player who spends a plot point gets to add some element to the setting or situation that the group (including you) must accept as true. For example, a player can spend a plot point and state that his or her character has found a secret door, an NPC appears, or a monster turns out to be a long-lost ally polymorphed into a horrid beast.
A player who wants to spend a plot point in this way should take a minute to discuss his or her idea with everyone else at the table and get feedback before settling on a plot development.

The Plot Thickens

Whenever a player spends a plot point, the player to his or her right must add a complication to the scene. For example, if the player who spends the plot point decides that her character has found a secret door, the player to the right might state that opening the door triggers a magical trap that teleports the party to another part of the dungeon.

 

[ptarmigan]

Hello Exfuel,

I can offer some thoughts, but be aware that I’m pretty new to D&D. Also, I’ve never played Darkest Dungeon, nor have I read any Lovecraft. So my opinions here might be ill-informed.

This sounds like a good beginning to a story. I would be excited by the prospect of exploring an island that I had an opportunity to inherit. Your description here makes it sound like the player’s legal inheritance is contingent upon the player’s ability to solve problems on the island. If that’s what you meant, that feels goofy and unnecessary. Telling the players that they’re in charge of the island now and warning them that there are problems plaguing it seems like it would be enough motivation to go solve some problems.

It sounds like you intend there to be village of people on the island who are in disarray but are still loyal to Moring. I hope that is what you mean. I think it would be a problem with your story if no one on the island considered Moring a legitimate authority. I’d rather not play as a conquistador who shows up in a boat and claims to own someone’s home, even if I intended to bring law and order to their home.

You didn’t provide much information about the story or the ending, so I can’t speak to whether I think the game would hold my attention after the beginning. Are there interesting mysteries that I want to solve? Are there compelling characters who I want to help? Are there imaginative pieces of world-building that will make me want to experience more of the world? Are there enough options to avoid a sense of rail-roading?

As I’m pretty new to d&d, I don’t have much experience with people’s use of house rules. Your Honor and Sanity rules seem fine. Your Healing rules seem like they don’t add enough extra fun to the gameplay to be worth their extra complexity. Your firearms look fine; I’d call those custom weapons, not custom rules.

I like the idea of Plot Points. They remind me of lucid dreaming. Maybe these are used in other campaigns, but I’ve never heard of them. You could implement them by introducing a magic item that gives the player the ability to bend reality. Maybe one would need to pass a check to successfully wield the power. The possibility of losing such a great magical item could be a helpful motivator in your story. If someone stole it from me, or if it fell out of my bag into a ravine, I would be be highly motivated to get it back. Maybe you also could do something with characters struggling to resist the temptation to abuse such a power.

I don’t have any thoughts on the map, except that I’m glad there is an underdark. Having an underdark seems to offer unlimited options for expanding the map, because you can always go deeper.

I hope that helps. Best wishes for your future campaigns!

 

[Exfuel]

Ptarmigan thank you for replying! I did make the post with a bit of haste. I've gone ahead and added more to the original post the various NPC's in the village. Along with a number of buildings. I'm unsure what to have for the antagonists. Though I do want it to be something that is trying to usher in an elder evil into the world. Not sure if I want it to be a group of mind flayers, or some other group of monsters.

Also the set of rules are optional one's in the 5e DMG.

 

[Chalarm]

Looks like you got most of your idea already there and sounds like it will be a fun campagin for any who participate. As for a connecting point you mentioned involving a demiplane that the party would have to close as an endgame. You could work backwards from there to get the connecting points you want.

Using the points you already mentioned, an evil henchmen of a demiplane's god is trying to widen the opening between realms to let it through relating to the increasing otherworldliness of this island. Perhaps some of the problems that the other inhabitants have are being caused by this henchmen allowing for a bit of a mystery and allowing those issues to further the plot. They could be influencing the inhabitants to perform activites to further the opening to the demiplane like manipulating the followers of the green fog. Since removing the demiplane seems like it will be the main goal once it's discovered you could have the party working to gather required items to do so in the underdark and around the island. I realize a miguffin hunt might not always work, but there is a reason that it's a common trope.

As well if you want to relate the campaign to the seven deadly sins perhaps have the corrupted versions of the players they have to fight relate to one of the sins based on their play style, horny bard gets lust, murderous barbarian gets wrath, etc. Or tie the sins into the honor and sanity system you want to use like in darkest dungeon so party members could use a select sinful vice to return sanity but with a growing disadvantage when they do.

I personally wouldn't use the plot point rules just because I see that as potentially making the capmpaign go off the rails, but with set rules and your own intuition I'm sure it can be worked in well. Hope that's partially useful and good luck with your campaign.

 

[Shiver]

Sounds like a pretty cool and well thought out campaign.

I wonder, have you considered the Fate game system, rather than D&D? I'm sure it can work with anything, but I bring up Fate because a few things you want to include really sound right at home for Fate:

• Custom skills (Honour and Sanity) that affect their steadfastness, and how others treat them
• Gunpowder and firearms, and other custom weapons
• The idea of points which players can use to declare a story fact ('there's a door here,' 'I know this NPC,' etc.) is a core mechanic in Fate

 

[Exfuel]

@Chalarm Both the ideas were very helpful insights! I like the idea of the elder evil influencing the inhabitant of the island to get what it wants. I'm thinking it was the priest who may have stumbled upon a vile book that twisted his mind as he read it (Inspiration from The king in yellow). Which is what started the whole mess to begin with. Maybe twisting the common trope of collecting items to instead vanquishing the evils they themselves have committed and brought into the world would be more appropriate.

I say that because I very much like the idea of having the characters selecting a sinful vice or multiple over time in order to regain sanity as it drops lower and lower. The plot points are something I'm iffy on not entirely sure I want to keep that aspect of it, but might be a fun way for characters to change the outcomes of things. I'd have to be pretty careful about it and institute some limitations on it obviously. Whatever benefit they get is also supposed to be equally weighed by the negative twist the next player selects.


@Shiver I've actually played fate! Though only for a session or two. I'm not terribly familiar with it's rules, and not nearly enough to run it as the GM. The reason I'm using 5e is because they have pretty much all the rules I want in place. But like I said it mostly comes from my familiarity with the system I've chosen.

 

[Exfuel]

Mostly what I'd like some help on is maybe tying everything together. I could use more plot points I feel. More mysteries to solve.

 

[Exfuel]

I like the idea of incorporating the dream world that is a big part of HP lovecraft. Also thinking of using Haster the king in yellow as the eldritch deity this revolves around. The idea of incorporating the dream world I have, is that in reality they're commoners, nobles, people without any physical power but in the other world is where they're ideal versions of themselves and gain class levels.

Haster

 

[ShinseiDrayga]

Not a bad setting idea. Not my personal cup of tea but you've done some nice world building so far.

So time to express my opinion on a few matters.
The Healing: If you want to slow down healing like this, keep in mind this could kill the sense of urgency in the game. To instill that sense of urgency in your players without making it too easy to fail the campaign. I'd say you should make a time table for events that will occur, and make it relatively easy to find out how much time they have till their lose condition. And give them enough time that they can get some long rests into things. Hard to say how many without understanding just how long you're planning for the plot to go. But it should be made tight to keep up that sense of urgency.

The Plot Point stuff: I wouldn't suggest using this stuff at all in this sort of game. Those are much more suited for a more freeform improv heavy game. What you're setting up is very structured. If you're gonna do this, I would suggest you restrict its application more to things you can more easily control or to help expedite certain aspects of the game (such as using a plot point to overcome an important challenge rather than leaving it up to chance).

For the plot though, I would actually suggest making use of Dendar the Night Serpent rather than Hastur. This neatly ties into a lot of things you're looking for.
-Dendar is associated with the Fugue Plane, which is a Demiplane for the recently departed, having it connecting to the real world could indeed have various effects such as the land itself dying but also provides an entry point for Demons and Devils as they both regularly inhabit the Fugue Plane.
-Dendar's sphere of influence is Dreams, specifically Nightmares, and she is most certainly an Elder Evil type being (D&D's equivalent of the Great Old Ones). And there are some connections between her and the Demiplane of Nightmares as well.
-She also has several good cults you can use for the game, as well as making use of the Yuan-Ti. And there is the Night Parade you can use for Eldritch Abominations, as they are described as being quite grotesque and alien in appearance.
-Using Dendar also will firmly set you into Faerun which many players are quite familiar with so it makes for an easy way to get people into your campaign and create interesting characters with minimal work for you.
-For your 7 sins ideas, I would say rather than the 7 sins base it more on Fears. If you're going with a stronger dream (especially Nightmare) association, having your party forge their own nightmare version of themselves for the final encounter would mean much more than sinful versions of themselves.

 

[Exfuel]

The input on Dendar the Night Serpent was very useful in bringing me back to Dnd. It ties in much better into the existing content of D&D instead of adding in mythos from other content. The Fugue Plane leading possibly into the Demiplane of nightmares which is tainted by the Far Realms.

My original thoughts were some of the villagers which had gone missing were in worship of the strange deity they came into contact with. Finding a journal left behind that leads them into the land of dreams, nightmares, and horrors. It might be that the island has a healthy but small population of yaun-ti that has made it easier to enter these realms through various means in order to become closer to Dendar, however it's some aberrant creature/diety/lord that wishes to spread the influences of the Far Realm into the material plane.

This is a good step in the right direction for what I want, was missing a few pieces of information and need to alter the entity who is behind this. Any thoughts on who? Could be a Uvuudaum.

Another thing to note that this now gives the party an option to interact with the Yaun-ti and get Dendar's attention. Possibly allying with them, or making some sort deal to end the far realm's influence.

 

[ShinseiDrayga]

Just going to reply here as well (Got PM'd too) so if someone wants to chime in they can.

Honestly I think using Dendar as the primary antagonist is fine, a fairly unbeatable existence that you only stave off rather than successfully kill makes much more sense in this more lovecraftian vibe you're going for. With a primary villain in the form of an awakened Sarrukh.
But if you're looking for beings of madness, there's nothing wrong with the Illithid/Mindflayer. There's various level of capability with them while keeping the game relatively low level, and they most certainly have reason to connect with the Far Realms or are in fact from it in general depending on which origin story you go with. Especially the Mindflayers of Thoon, probably will need some adaption to 5E for those though.