ravenloft713
July 11th, 2017, 02:31
I am developing my next campaign (starts in a few weeks) and I've decided on a Forgotten Realms campaign setting, using some Birthright rules. The PCs will be high nobles/rules in charge of 5K-10K people, a few villages/towns and a few hundred guards. There will be typical dungeon crawling (and by dungeon, I mean typical adventures involving ruins, towns, forest with drow/giants) as well as a political phase where the neighboring territories will want to make trade agreements, treaties, and war.
The party will be moving around from site to site to collect magical fragments (a demi-god exploded) and key NPCs (namely other regals) will be seeking the magical fragments because, quite simply, if you have the power of a demi-god, how can you not rule your kingdom well. And the one next to you, and next to it...
Instead of learning all the different kingdoms and who's-who and what resources area X has, I want to give the PCs areas of Forgotten Realms because the area is much more documented and I know much of the areas (at least a high level view).
My question to you is:
- If you ruled a portion of Forgotten Realms, where would you rule and why? How large of an area would you want and what population of civilians and solders would you have? (remember, this campaign is intentionally having a large amount of dungeon diving).
- Should each PC (for now there are two but maybe up to six) own areas next to each other like a massive grid of land? Alice has this section, Bob has the one next to it but his is weird shape because he has mountains, and Charlies has the one next to it which is very bizarre shaped to cut out a nearby swamp.
How big of an area of land would you rule? I'm thinking of roughly 100 sq miles. How many villages/towns would likely be in there? (I don't want too many so I may give them a smaller plot of land).
I'm leaning toward areas of the Sword Coast, and up near the Spine of the World, as well as the area above Menzoberranzan (drow raiding parties in the town while the PCs are away). In addition to the typical drama of neighbors fighting, PCs near mountains may deal more frequently with giants while swamps may deal with lizard men. In the end, the monsters want additional resources (food or slaves likely).
Ultimately I don't want the PCs to be common shumcks with a longsword walking everywhere. Here's a small army of bodyguards, a place to live, people to win affection (or tax them for extra resources to help chase god fragments). Conflict over magic, more conflict over nobility disagreements and then monsters to toss another monkey wrench. How do they keep invaders at bay, show face at important events (court hearings/weddings) and stay more focused on the dungeons.
We'll find out...
The party will be moving around from site to site to collect magical fragments (a demi-god exploded) and key NPCs (namely other regals) will be seeking the magical fragments because, quite simply, if you have the power of a demi-god, how can you not rule your kingdom well. And the one next to you, and next to it...
Instead of learning all the different kingdoms and who's-who and what resources area X has, I want to give the PCs areas of Forgotten Realms because the area is much more documented and I know much of the areas (at least a high level view).
My question to you is:
- If you ruled a portion of Forgotten Realms, where would you rule and why? How large of an area would you want and what population of civilians and solders would you have? (remember, this campaign is intentionally having a large amount of dungeon diving).
- Should each PC (for now there are two but maybe up to six) own areas next to each other like a massive grid of land? Alice has this section, Bob has the one next to it but his is weird shape because he has mountains, and Charlies has the one next to it which is very bizarre shaped to cut out a nearby swamp.
How big of an area of land would you rule? I'm thinking of roughly 100 sq miles. How many villages/towns would likely be in there? (I don't want too many so I may give them a smaller plot of land).
I'm leaning toward areas of the Sword Coast, and up near the Spine of the World, as well as the area above Menzoberranzan (drow raiding parties in the town while the PCs are away). In addition to the typical drama of neighbors fighting, PCs near mountains may deal more frequently with giants while swamps may deal with lizard men. In the end, the monsters want additional resources (food or slaves likely).
Ultimately I don't want the PCs to be common shumcks with a longsword walking everywhere. Here's a small army of bodyguards, a place to live, people to win affection (or tax them for extra resources to help chase god fragments). Conflict over magic, more conflict over nobility disagreements and then monsters to toss another monkey wrench. How do they keep invaders at bay, show face at important events (court hearings/weddings) and stay more focused on the dungeons.
We'll find out...