r/DndAdventureWriter

I'm creating a setting, and have long wanted companies and corporations to take the place of interested parties throughout the campaign. Whether that be Quest givers, Vendors, random NPCs or even a vehicle for the BEEG to carry out his schemes.

In this setting, the corporations and companies have colonized an island that has been inaccessible to anyone in Faerûn since the beginning of recoded history. It's only recently that a war between two races of dragons reached it's standstill and the aloof Gem dragons who claimed victory care very little for the activities of humans are have allowed them to settle there. The party will arrive to the island a mere 50 years into the corporations development of the land, and navigate the demands of the companies, the Dragons, and the island itself.

For some additional context, I also plan for the BBEG to be in secret control of one of these organizations, so this could have been an intentional manipulation at his hands as well.

So my question is, why might these corporations have taken power in the first place, why might the people of my alternative Faerûn adopt a free trade system?

My initial ideas felt a tad bit complicated. I've been toying with the idea that the first major corporation to gain power on the mainland was once part of an Imperial army. The army was commanded by an unjust tyrant, and years of working under his morally draining yoke stirred resentment in his Generals, who promptly rebelled and created Basho, a private army who would go on to support many of the other corporations in their infancy. Protecting stores from Kings who demanded tribute, enforcing corporate policies, and busting strikes. They will be one of the two major corporations, the other of which will be secretly commanded by the BBEG, but there will be plenty of others as well.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I have this idea for a character in DND but I'm not sure what subclass to make it???
I want to make a mage who uses both poison spells and a scythe, but they'd need to wear some basic medium-ish armour.

Would it be considered a spellsword, or is there another subclass for scythe weapons specifically?

Hi there. I'm working on a location crawl and I'm looking to find some app or program I can use to render dungeons/towns/outdoor spaces for mapping. It wouldn't be seen by the players, more of a behind the screen way of me to keep track of locations and their contents. I'm not super talented, though I can use a straight edge and graph paper, and I want something relatively easy for a novice. NO AI is an absolute must, and cheap to free would be best.

What do you recommend?

Ok, so I’ve been DM for a while but usually only play online and use premade campaigns… but now my friends who also play want to make a podcast and needed a DM. They said they wanted me to make the campaign and so… it’s really confusing even with the millions of podcasts, youtube tutorials, books, and my sleep deprived brain. Here’s what I have so far:
You wake up in a burning seaside market place, the Ocean of Sirens to your east, the Forest of Despair to your south, the Treacherous Mountains (that don’t have a sign telling you the name) to your west, and the Desert of Death to your north. You don’t remember how you got here, what happened to the market place, or where the Demon Countess you’re supposed to be hunting resides. The world doesn’t know about the threat she poses, and they don’t know why you’re asking about her. They just know she’s one of the strongest demons to ever exist. What will you do; how will you survive: Will you try to figure out what happened or will you take a different route.

 
You are surrounded by the  wooden walls and straw roofs of the burning stalls, with smoke filling your lungs.  Your eyes are stinging, and tears well up in them as you look around the market square.  Ashes and bodies fill the space around as blue fire is raging hotly, opening a portal from the demon realm.  Many many many demons are pouring through the gateway, looking around for more souls to feed on.  The few surviving townsfolk cower in fear or remain unconscious as the Manes approach.
Manes are the lowest form of demons;  souls condemned to the Abyss.  Known to shock and frenzied outburst;  lash out at creatures weaker than themselves but cower to more powerful demons.  When Manes escape from the Abyss they go on reckless rampages and try to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible.

The party is disoriented but not injured (yet)

 
Decision point: 
  1)  Stay and fight to defend innocent townsfolk
Smoke is filling your lungs, so  you are on the verge of collapse.  

 
   2)  Hide and recuperate (consequence = townsfolk death)
3)  Flee to:  (consequence = townsfolk death)
North:  Desert of Death
West:  Mountains without a sign
South:  Forest of Despair
East:  Ocean of Sirens

Does anyone have any idea about stuff I could add?

Greetings! Beware, it's a long read I am Danya and I have crossed the line of typical dnd adventures and started making my own setting but with some pretty big connections with Faerune in Forgotten Realms. So, to cut things short. I have been wondering about Netheril and Karsus (surprising, I know) in a different perspective. He was a genius that could destroy balance of magic on a whole continent. But his demise or godhood are still a topic of debates. In my setting he made magic cores out of souls catched by Phaerimms (that were his project all along) and teleported those magic cores to the new continent, isolated from others (like Australia with according width and length). Where he could play role of the Ao himself and unanimously guided survivors of netheril and others who joined them to the promised lands with different kind of magical powers - those magic cores. Well, as some of you might see. I slightly dislocated already existing Halruaa peninsula and made out of it the whole continent. But I didn't like Halruaa in its classic form. In the form that still is not prohumanistic. On their own eyes Karsus killed a powerful god and still in the canonic version that are praying to those creatures. So 1000+ years humanity lived isolated on this continent and made many industrial breakthroughs, but we are not talking about steam or diesel (but engines on those types exists too but in particular places), those who can afford it use items powered by particles called magons. Due my bachelor's degree in nanotechnology I tried to make something of quantum physics really interesting. There is no weave in my setting, because it's Mystra's territory. Everyone on the continent believe that everything can be made by human and all the power of theirs belief in the end transform to the divine energy for Karsus so he tries to stay concealed before his servants being a secret ruler of his continent. There are 3 layers of our cake that I called "Diameters", each of them are called by the metals: bronze, silver and gold accordingly. As you can imagine from the naming they represents different types of wealth between its citizens. But we are not doing this in the way "rich is bad", we are doing it smoking xenophobic style, because divers or interhumans (all humanoid but nonhuman races) after some Civil wars were deported to the bronze and silver diameter and they started different ways of technology like fuel engines, electricity and in the late iterations - nuclear energy. Inters cannot use magic but can use magical items made by magic cores. Humans can use magic because if the parents are wealthy enough they can use those magic cores to implant it to the newborn child's heart with the procedure called "The Endowment" and then child will grow with this magic core and use its abilities like typical caster in dnd. There are 7 Great Families that rule the Empire and analogies of modern corporations called Manufactures, that release products of different quality and monopolising different parts of the market each. Each one of this manufactures have different motto, products and belongs to the particular family. So this world in the way that we play it now with my friends is something that have aesthetic of the roaring 20's, elements of art deco punk and clean energy that powered by souls of citizens of Netheril but nobody knows that. I would love to hear your opinions and discuss this topic, I really want to develop this setting and I see a lot of unharnessed potential within it. I would also love to learn from my experienced colleagues about some utility programs or tips to build to help me improve. Thank you for your attention!

Hello! I'm at a bit of a crossroads where the next leg of my player's adventure is probably going to involve this empire-sponsored, region-spanning rail line that I've introduced, and I'd like to just kick the prompt out into the world and see if a creative jam can get the imagination brewing. I feel like I've had my nose so close to it for so long that its a little hard to shake free of past ideas and think outside the box, if you know what I mean.

Basically: this empire - which is more ambitious than it is evil, though the actions of one can certainly bleed into the other without much energy - is building a rail line that will connect its capital to its farthest border. At the moment, hints to the players have been that they're building quickly in order to move troops for a potential invasion of a neighboring city-state.

That's a great real-world-adjacent reason for such a project, but I want to maybe inject a little more fantasy in there, maybe a bit of of a mystery as well.

My first instinct was to have them be building the rail into the shape of a giant glyph, and have a golem-driven doom train that is threatening to steamroll the countryside to make this thing happen. But I may have written myself into a corner there with the rail currently being a straight line from east to west instead of a traditional magic circle lol. Either way, I'm just interested in what surface from an internet brainstorm, and would rather have real, human ideas involved :)

I’m brainstorming a 10–20 session D&D campaign and looking for feedback. The setting is a small island kingdom where almost nobody remembers how an ancient Great War truly ended. In reality, the war caused a catastrophic magical event that severed the entire realm from its home world, leaving it drifting in a vast cosmic void. Deep beneath a volcano sleeps an ancient entity whose presence distorts reality itself. Centuries later, a king obsessed with uncovering forbidden truths discovers a mysterious crystal that convinces him awakening the entity may be the only way to save the realm. When he returns the crystal, reality begins to unravel and crystalline meteors rain across the kingdom.
These impact sites don’t just create monsters—they warp magic, nature, and even concepts themselves. Crystal forests sing in the wind, rivers heal the sick while blending people’s memories, and entire regions lose things like distance, truth, or death. As the players investigate the meteor sites and recover crystal fragments, they slowly uncover the truth about the Great War, the Void, and the nature of reality itself. I’m aiming for a blend of epic fantasy, cosmic horror, and mystery, with a strong “something is deeply wrong with the world” atmosphere where the corruption is as beautiful as it is terrifying. What ideas would make this concept even more compelling?

Brief Context:
The Campaign revolves around these magic "wards" put in place by the last emperor that keep dragons from returning and destroying the world.
In the quest that Im prepping, the party has gone to hopefully rescue this old wizard, who sensed powerful magic coming from an old crypt and went to investigate, and never came back.
At the end of this dungeon they'll find a power crystal, emanating/leaking energy, causing them more damage the closer they get. Its a node of one of the major wards, and when destroyed, will point them in the direction of the next ward they need to find.

QUESTION IS: Mechanically speaking, HOW should the party destroy/shut down this crystal?
The idea I had was that they need to "drain" it, absorb all its energy...

What actions could they take to get this done?

So, we unfortunately lost enough players to cancel our regularly scheduled monthly session. I have three players who can still show and I don't have anything queued up for only three people.

I absolutely don't mind buying a module/pack/whatever but I need recommendations that are geared for three players.

What are some of y'all's favorites!? Thanks ❤️

I've been working on an campaign that should be 15 or so sessions for a group of 4-8 people. The unique part is that the DM can rotate each session. This gives players who normally don't DM a chance to wet their feet being a DM without needing to manage a whole campaign (or even a typical one-shot) on their own.

I still have some details I'm working on, but I hope to have a "beta" version of it ready to play in a month or two. I actually want to treat this like software and do some beta testing before I "release" it.

One of the issues is that I really can't run the campaign on my own (or even play in it) because the mystery and unknown is one of the important aspects of the whole adventure! I thought I'd see if there are any groups that might be interested in play testing for me!

I'm thinking this is probably a low-level adventure 1-3rd level.