Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-I'm starting a campaign in the Pale soon, need feedback

Hey all,

So, I'm starting a new D&D campaign, and have decided to set it in Oerth for nostalgia's sake. I haven't played in a Greyhawk campaign since ToEE came out, and it seemed like it would be fun.

The basic plot of the game is this: A cabal of vampires are attempting to blot out the sun, and cast Oerth into eternal night. They will do this by first discrediting the "Sun Gods" (Pholtus, Pelor) and once they've disillusioned their worshippers, they will kill or imprison the gods.

Epic stuff. I see this campaign playing out with the PCs starting off at first level, and going all the way up to 20th, or maybe into epic levels.

I've chosen the Pale to start the game off in for a number of reasons. I like the idea of a kingdom devoted to one deity. Their worship of Pholtus seems to be an ideal place to begin the plot (near as I can tell, there's no other area on Oerth with such a high concentration of sun god worshippers).

And everything I've read in the LGG plus a few other sources make it seem like there's enough stuff going on in and around the Pale to make this a workable campaign.

Now, I'm not a Greyhawk expert, but a few of my players seem to know a lot about the world.

I'm wondering if any of you guys see any problems with the plot I've described above, and could point them out to me, so I can start thinking about them.

Thanks!

(Note: I also posted this in the WOTC Greyhawk forum, but figured you guys would be able to give me invaluable input as well.)

Tue Jan 13, 2004 6:24 pm

As the DM of course, you can rule however you feel is fit. My suggestion though would be to listen to what your players have to say but they must realize that your rulings are final even if they may seem to know the Greyhawk World more than you feel you do.

You will probably get some "logic" buffs who will argue that blotting out the sun would eventually destroy all life on Oerth. With no warmth, an Ice Age may form. Not to mention that with no sunlight, plants will quickly wither and die and no longer produce life sustaining oxygen.

Sounds like an interesting plot line in any case. Good luck.

Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:43 am Of course

Yeah, I'm always in the "the DM's word is final" camp. I just wondered if anyone could think of anything obvious that might be a problem (things like "you fool, didn't you know that all the Vampires in Oerth were eaten by Giants in 584!"). I guess I'll come back with more details when I get them.

Obviously the logical problem with the sun dying would be the eventual death of all life on Oerth. However, I try to enforce a "Medieval Logic" in my D&D games. IE: the world works the way people in the middle ages think it does.

The sun going out in the real world will obviously destroy all life eventually. But in a medieval setting, it will just be eternal night.

Also, FWIW, "Killing the sun gods" will be the "Big Bad Thing" that the PC's must stop at the end of the campaign. Effectively, if they screw things up really badly, the sun will die. If they wade through the army of vampires and into the Citadel of Gloom and save the sun Gods, they will win, and the sun will rise again tomorrow...

Thanks for the input in any case! Getting a dialogue going like this is really helping me to cement my concepts.