Campaign ideas

Been working on my campaign world and thought I was going to take a break for a day or so.  Then, I realized after I left my girlfriend's place, my mind was already working on something for the game.  It is the same when I write fiction.  I take a break for whatever reason and I realize when I come back to it, my mind has had something on the back burner, simmering away.  Though, if you wait to long, the pans can be cooked right through and your idea is one burnt black thing that you need to work to even understand or just give up and hope that it comes back...ok, enough food analogies, I'm getting hungry!


Moving on...I discovered that there were several things that mind mind flashed to.  One was an old episode of a cartoon with a guy who lost his family and started carrying a photo book with him.  He called it his book of rage.  (If you know the name of the cartoon, good for you.)  My mind tweaked it and has used it before in a two episode game, changing his lost of family from the government to the gods.  And, because I needed something to challenge my players, I gave them rage zombies.  (Something like the things, not zombies from the movie 28 Days Later.  Those things are not zombies in the traditional sense, yet it worked for me then and it works now.)

Another idea that came was from the Sword for Truth series.  The nightstone.  In the book, it summons shades from the Underworld.  In my world, in summons undead.  Anyone holding it will attract any kind of undead.  And, it makes turning them harder.  (Yes, I am evil.)

Another came reading the Vornheim City Kit.  (This is an amazing product by the way.  I can't recommend it enough.  No matter what edition you use, or retro-clone, this is going to help any campaign you make.  Not just for the city games either.  There are threads of adventure that can start out in the wilderness that can lead to your big mega-city like Vornheim.  I'll even give an example of something I plan to do.  If my players are reading, be cool and either skip to the end of the paragraph or don't be a meta-game dick!  There is a library, run by a man named Zorlac who loves books.  He hires library thieves to find more and more books for his ever growing collection.  I plan to have the PCs either help these librarian thieves by bring back books or having a librarian of Zorlac stumble into them in the hinterlands, see that they have a tome of some unknown author and/or subject and steal it, or attempt to steal from them.  I can see more than a few sessions spent trying to keep the book away or trying to get the book back.)

Another came from combing through this guy.  (A special shout out to Ancient Vaults, you come up with some amazing stuff!)  Looking through his blog, I was stunned by the number of adventure seeds and partial campaign ideas that sprang from reading that one blog.

Finally, the last place where I get my ideas comes from a actual play podcast.  This one has been around for awhile these guys do all kinds of games, Pathfinder, 4e, Temple of Elemental Evil, World's Largest Dungeon, etc.  I was trying to sleep and listening to one of the actual plays of their Keep on the Shadowfell.  I have read through it and suddenly, while I was trying to fall asleep, listening to them tangle with the kobolds, my head started to spin a little nugget from a few pieces I remembered from the module and from what they were doing.  It didn't help me get to sleep though.  Bu thtese thigns happen.

In closing, I never know when my mind will grab and idea and start to play with it.  Turn it around and exam it, looking for ideas.  Even now, something sprang to mind from a different blog, talking about shrines, a link and now, I must go.