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"Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
A new land has been discovered! These lands are fertile, with a warm clime! Food is plentiful, the growing season is long! And there is great wealth to be had, from ancient cities lined with gold!
The King seeks brave men and women to claim this new world in the name of the crown! You may keep any land you homestead! Commoners will be given 10gp to relocate; adventurers will be given 100gp to relocate! Indenture for one year only or until payback!
Seek the Colonial Company on Dressmaker Ave! The King's pardon for any who wish to quite these lands and start a new life... in a new world!"
The marketplace was abuzz with comments as the herald moved on to spread the word to other parts of the city.
"Seems like the King really wants to settle these new lands. This is the tenth straight week he's called for colonists."
"I've heard tell that the King is in race with the other nations to grab as much of the new land as possible."
"Bah! Cities of gold. What adventurer is daft enough to believe that drivel?"
"The land is indeed fertile. My cousin settled with the Colonial Company two months ago, and is already raising a crop."
"I've been thinking about settling myself. What about you? Will you brave
these new lands?"
World Precis
The "old world" is a heavily-settled long-standing group of nations akin to
Europe. For a long time the nations have been hemmed in: an impassable range
of mountains to the north, a rough sea to the east, a harsh desert to the
west, and dangerous monsters to the south. But just recently a land route
has been discovered along the coast that bypasses the monster territory,
allowing safe passage southward.
What the explorers found was astounding. The land is lush and tropical, with fruit growly freely without tending. New exotic animals have already been brought back for display; one called a "leopard" (a large predatory cat) has particularly caught people's fancy. Every week it seems like some new curio (a fruit, an animal, a strange tale) is brought back from the new world.
I'd prefer to avoid the gods from the 3.5 books and instead use pantheons (Greek, Norse, Egyptian, African, Celtic, Finnish, Hindu, Chinese, what-have-you). Since there is a good mix in the old world, any player (cleric or otherwise) could worship any divinity from these pantheons. Of course, if you want to play a god from the Player's Handbook we can do that as well, with a slight modification.
There's no special flavors on naming, so choose whatever european / medieval / fantastical name you like. I encourage you to come up with naming flavors for your clan, etc. since it makes it easier for me to name other people. ;-)
As usual, the world is heavily shaped by character pasts. So start
thinking about what's in this setting!
Starting Hook Ideas
The most difficult task in starting a campaign is arranging for a reason to
assemble the party. You need not come up with an explicit excuse to go to
the new world (I'll find a way to rope you in, never fear) but if you like
you can build a reason right into your character past. Here are some ideas
to get your juices flowing:
Role-Playing TeleVision
I'd like the New World Campaign to be fresh and innovative in several ways.
First and foremost, it will be the first time that I've used the 3.5 rules,
so that makes it pretty new. But in addition, I would like to heavily
publicize the session. That includes but is not limited to: videotaping it
and making video highlights, creating an online weblog, and making a live RSS
feed.
I think the next wave of reality TV show will be RPTV: Role-Playing Television. It combines the unscripted aspect of reality TV, the addictiveness of soap operas, and the fantastic element of popular escapism shows. As a proof of concept, I want to see if we can get an active viewership of 1,000 people for our campaign. Please ask your friends to follow the session!
Anyhoo, besides the "crazy fun" factor of trying this out, this has a couple tangible effects on the campaign. I would prefer to have non-evil characters only as PCs: it's hard for viewers to root for the bad guys. I also want to avoid deliberate party self-kill (sorry, Max and Mark ;-) While both of these are fun options in a standard campaign, I don't think the typical viewer would understand or appreciate it.
The other tangible effect is that the players will need to exercise serious restraint in perusing the online materials. I'd like to post all the character pasts for viewers, for example; you shouldn't read the other player's pasts: you should learn them in the session. I'll come up with a color coding scheme so you know what pages are which. Also, the DMG, Monster Manuals, and other reference materials are also off limits to players in this campaign. For those unfamiliar with the 3.5 rules... this means you'll get the chance to learn about monsters firsthand again! ;-)