Sunday, January 20, 2019

Hogwarts-on-acid: my next dnd campaign

I'm building out my new campaign, which is looking to be an entirely new system built on the bones of 5e.

The pitch is - Bully (the Rockstar game) meets studio Ghibli set in a Hogwarts-on-acid magic school.

Some things I've learned so far:
1. The secret service operates out of the school (inspired by Matt Colvile's worldbuilding streams)
2. It's more like a campus of schools interconnected by dungeons and made complicated by rivalries
3. Each student will level up by taking classes, so as you pass each semester you will be selecting the things you want to learn/be good at
4. Each semester will have a "project" which will essentially be a dungeon/pointcrawl/hexcrawl/some other adventure.
5. Death is the least likely thing to happen. Mutations/scars/dismemberment are more likely. Expultion is *most* likely.

It all takes place in my world, which means that they are in Endsville, the city at the end of the world. It rests on the back of a world snake. Her name is Ran. Endsville is set up like a hex map, where each hex is a scale on the snake. On the head of Ran is the MegaRave, a dungeon that is just one massive party.

The city itself is always in this constant state of cold war, as the Dread Lords try to push each other out of power without coming to direct confrontation. This is the last city...no one wants to die.

It's all just a complicated web of kafkaesque politics and brutal, mind-altering dungeon crawls.

Here's how you make a character :D

Choose your race (might make this a roll table)
Human, Goblin, Tiefling, Drow are most common
Unseelie, Half-Elf, Homunculi are uncommon
Black Cat, Dwarf, Dragon Mutant are rare

Choose your Class
Wizard - visited/bonded with a familiar so that they can study magic. Familiars are alien and capricious.
Sorcerer - caught a falling star to gain magic and a wish, but if they use the wish they lose their magic
Warlock - traded hearts with a monster to gain magic, but pushing that magic makes them monstrous
Witch - married something to gain magic, like a demon or the moon or a god spider
Cleric - chosen by a spirit and thus haunted by it. They gain a point when something horrible happens to them and can spend those point to make the spirit do something cool

Choose your background - this is how you got into the school
Squallor - you were poor so you saddled this massive debt to get a chance at something greater. You aren't well known so your rival won't be super crazy, and you have access to your loving family and friends for support
Chosen One - You were part of something bigger than yourself which has put you in the limelight, OR you have shown some unnatural magical aptitude thrusting you into the limelight
Scholarship - you've proven yourself enough to be given some cash. Roll a percentile dice to determine how much of your debt is being covered and talk to your DM about *why* it's being covered. Could be an athletic scholarship, or a scholarship for you to develop homonculi forces for some distant king's army
Military - you were in the military or your father is a high ranking officer in the military. This gives you status, a weapon proficiency, and some skills, but it also puts a burden on you. Uphold your rank or your family status or have it all stripped from you.
Political - same as above except entirely social. You are the child of a politician, maybe even someone in the court of a Dread Lord, and you have a certain image to uphold.

Then you choose your school. All of these are works in progress.
Crystal Palace - fire elementals
Earth Elementals
Water Elementals
Air Elementals
Stargazers
The School of Lock and Key - door mages
Key mages - unlock metaphorical doors
Moth School - illusions/light
Some other ones

I want to aim for 20 schools of magic, 8 spells each. Seems like a good goal.

Hoping to run this campaign after my two current campaigns wrap up...so early 2020 lol

1 comment:

  1. Hey, just found this blog, and I just want to say thanks for putting all of this out there; It's fantastic, and it's really gotten me out of a creative rut. Keep up the good work!

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