Words of Replicant Jesus

Well I went running today and I had a wonderful idea for a mini campaign arc, at the Heroic tier probably blending some of the Chaos Scar adventures into a primal/Feywild focused story arc.  I am basing the campaign in my “homebrew” setting that I ran for the Spring but some 1000 or so years in the future where the current group has become legendary heroes who founded an organization to defend the common man from the evils of the world, the Rusty Legion, not the most formidable name but I wanted it to tie into the name of the bar the current group uses as their base of operations, The Rusty Pickle Jamboree.

This is more a nod to the previous group and since some of my players are from the last game will give them a sense of familiarity to the setting.  I am leaving the majority of the details pretty loose at this point I have my main villain, the basic plot flow, and the idea that the world resembles the “standard” Points of Light default setting.

Campaign Arc Villain

The main villain I am thinking is a vengeful druid, who believes that the feywild is in danger from the encroaching advance of the civilized world and is doing her best to disrupt the intrusion of civilization into the wild lands.  I see her trying to rile up native tribes of humanoids and fey creatures against the main campaign town, first through guile and behind the scenes but then perhaps more overtly with the conflict coming to a head with a final showdown between the Rusty Legion new recruits and the unhinged druid.

I want to make this villain memorable, I chose a female role because I wanted a woman of strength to oppose the heroes I have not determined the race though I am thinking a wilden would be interesting.  I also want to put a visible face to the threat early on in the campaign and I will probably have her show up during the first adventure as a sinister element.  Something I felt my current campaign lacked was a strong visible enemy the heroes could learn to hate early on and work to defeat as they grow in power.  I want to also use her as a solo boss for the campaign climax with a focus on shape changing into a vicious dire animal and controlling the environment through her primal magic.  I figure they will be about 4-5th level maybe 6th by the end of the campaign and she will probably be a solo encounter of about 7-8, but this is all early speculation.

Story Flow

I want to start small and focus on the dangers of the region.  I think my introduction will be that the heroes are being assigned to the town as new recruits to bolster the forces of the Rusty Legion in the region.  Probably with a road-side encounter to open the campaign and get the theme or motif of the primal wilds and the remoteness of the location into the game.  Probably open with a role-playing encounter, I want to have more moral choices and impact of those choices.  Another strong element will be two local tribes of gnolls, the Festerpaw and the Verdant Fang tribes; the Festerpaw are the more typical and evil gnoll raiders while the Verdant Fang will be perhaps more noble, still wild and primal, but not overtly evil either.  They do not follow Yeenoghu and instead venerate the Verdant Mother, a primal spirit of the natural world.  I plan to play up the distrust between the two warring tribes of gnolls and the town; and make the players take sides.

Most of the adventures will somehow tie back into the motif and theme of the villain and the feywild encroachment.  That will be the general start, the flow will go from first contact to an escalation on both sides with the players acting as intermediaries, and then a resolution as they find out that the vengeful druid was behind much of the intrigue and plots that plague the region.  But still a loose framework to allow contact with my players.

Should be a fun time.  Hopefully I can catalog the sessions into short little stories as well.