Disclaimer: All artwork belongs to their respective owners. Art used is purely for education purposes.
Overview
During the summer of my first year, I took up the module "System Design". The goal of the module was to create a TTRPG rulebook, having private campaign sessions will help my team understand what was needed in our project.
I volunteered to be the game master for my group as I wanted to create my epic campaign. As I was a beginner, I had to do much more research in creating an engaging campaign.
The result was Tales from Aldrea: DragonGem, an epic tale of celebration, betrayal, and battles.
Genre: Tabletop, Roleplaying, Fantasy, Adventure
Game Engine: -
Platform: Tabletop
Project Duration:6 Weeks
About The Game
DragonGem is a custom Pathfinder campaign that takes place in the fantasy continent of Aldrea. Kal Zalthos the elder red dragon has kidnapped Princess Grana of the Risefelt Kingdom. King Hermanos lead a 10-year war against the red dragon. The kingdom greatest knight Ardeos sacrificed his life to deal a devastating blow to Kal Zalthos, forcing the red dragon to retreat to his lair.
The party are fresh graduates from the Adventurers Guild and have been invited by King Hermanos. Their goal is to slay the dreaded dragon and rescue the princess.
Traverse Aldrea
DragonGem will take the party onto an epic-sized adventure as they travel across the land of Aldrea. Players will find themselves sailing across the western waters of Nolark as they fight off the sea god's minions.
Walkthrough the unforgiving Eswara Deserts where they face off against the revived Labocitins and thrust yourselves into the middle of a political conflict in the hundred bandit clans of the Monsoon Gorge.
Allies and foes
Encounter a host of quirky characters throughout your journey through Aldrea. Meet with the slumbering Labocitins beneath the Eswara Desert and the hundred bandit tribes of the Monsoon Gorge. Rescue the Aldreans whose lives have been turned upside down, by the magical effects of the gems.
However, not everyone in Aldrea is out to help you. Kal Zalthos has employed a group of scoundrels to stop you. From Bandit Khan the fanatical cultist to the Dragon Knight a necromantic force of destruction. You must band together and overcome the obstacles thrown at you.
The process
As the dungeon master, I was in charge of creating the story for the campaign, NPC, enemy encounters, and rewards. As I was unfamiliar with the systems used in Pathfinder, I begin to start doing research.
Heading into the books
The first thing was the understand the systems within Pathfinder. Watching Dungeon Master guides on Youtube as well as heading into Reddit, to look at threads relating to TTRPG dungeon mastering taught me many important tips and tricks when creating a customized campaign.
Next, I went to look at tutorial guides for beginner players, understanding how my party would react to encounters will help me plan out my campaign.
My main goal for volunteering to be the Dungeon Master was to create my campaign and improve my narrative skills. In this section, I'll go through my process of creating the campaign for DragonGem.
RESEARCh!
Same as the process of understanding the systems within Pathfinder, I would go through videos and websites of other Dungeon Masters who gave their insight on creating their very own campaign and potential issues that new parties might encounter. Content Creator such as "How to be a GM" and "Davy Chappy" gave useful insight and advice for rookie dungeon masters. Reddit was an extremely useful source of information. Many dungeon masters would post their experiences running their campaign, giving newcomers a more realistic and relatable point of view.
Welcome to Aldrea
After days of research, I've decided to finalize a story. I wanted the overarching story to be a classic tale of rescuing the princess from a dragon. However, through the journey, the party would encounter a host of characters and events that would force them to question their decisions.
First I would create the world of Aldrea, I wanted a unique take on a generic fantasy world. The great race war was created. The war ended a couple of months before the party accepted the quest, due to the xenophobic nature of King Hermanos he ordered a purge. Declaring war against the other humanoid races that lived on Aldrea, the war claimed many lives, and a ceasefire was called. Hermanos would call off his army in exchange that the other races were allowed to create an independent country within the countless tunnels that spread below Aldrea.
Due to the aftermath of the race war, the native Aldreans that were mainly humans became untrusting of other races such as dwarves and elves. This allowed me to create or develop interesting interactions and relationships between the Aldrean NPCs and any non-human character in the party.
The extreme levels of animosity and anger soon gave birth to the main antagonist Kal Zalthos the elder red dragon. Kal Zalthos was given an army consisting of vagabonds and misfits that would antagonize the players at every point of their quest.
Making the chapters
Next was brainstorming of events that the party could encounter. I used a Fichtean Curve to plan out the overarching quests, I found that using a McGuffin was the best way to progress the story. Thus the four gems from the rainbow orb were created, with each gem I could create a storyline that the party will experience.
The description of each gem hints at the party of what to expect in their quest. The sapphire gem was inside the stomach of Captain Swasay, who was turned into a sea serpent who turned the whole town of Nolark into his slave. The Ruby gem was located deep within the Monsoon Gorge, the party had to unite the 100 Bandit Clans that resided there and defeat the Dragon Knight, a reoccurring antagonist.
I have always liked the idea of a shadow puppet master, the true antagonist who is pulling the strings of chaos. Immediately I looked towards the kingdom's wizard Velkris turning him into a shadow mentor. After the death of Kal Zalthos, Velkris would reveal his master plan and the party has to defeat their dearest ally.
those that walk upon Aldrea
After the world of Aldrea was written, the next was to create characters that would populate the fantasy world. Due to the aftermath of the Great Race War, there would be a lack of humanoid characters for the players to interact with.
Velkris The Archmage
Role: Shadow Mentor, Shapeshifter
After witnessing the tragedy of the Race War. Velkris deemed Hermanos unfit of ruling Aldrea. He worked with the Twilight Cult to overthrow the current monarchy.
The Dragon Knight
Role: Corrupted, Antagonist
Once he was Risefelt greatest knight. Resurrected by Velkris to serve Kal Zalthos. The wright stalks the party throughout their journey.
King Hermanos Risefelt
Role: Herald, Ally
Haunted with guilt for instigating the Race War. Hermanos is trying his best to regain the trust of the other humanoid races throughout Aldrea.
What I've Learnt
Creating DragonGem was an extremely enriching experience for me, previously I had naïve thoughts of how easy it was to create a campaign. Little did I know the amount of planning and foresight it was required to run a successful campaign.
I had underestimated the amount of world-building and character creation that had to be done for the campaign. Fortunately, I found myself instantly drawn into the world creation, with the lore of Aldrea written in stone, it was an easy task to populate the world with fascinating characters for the party to interact with.
Upon running the campaign for the first 2 sessions, I soon quickly realized that improvisation was an important element that every game master had to learn. The party often made decisions that weren't within my expectations, going off the "script" that I had planned. I had to quickly make changes to the characters and events due to these "improvised" decisions.