Phew, finally I could write a bit more about what I am currently doing for my D&D campaign. I had not that much time lately because we are rearranging our flat after our flatmate moved out. And last weekend my girlfriend and I had a small booth at the German ComicCon in Berlin. It was fun but I had a little to less sleep. But who need sleep if there is enough coffee xD

I am still working on my new campaign and I wasn't sure which edition I should play. After reading the player's handbook 5th edition I think I will still use edition 3.5 because 5th ed is missing some cool parts, for example, 3.5 has a better character optimization system with a lot of feats and so on. But 5th also offers some cool new stuff like some optimizations for the skill checks and battles. I love the advantages and disadvantages because the system is simple but smart.

I will maybe use 3.5 but add some parts of the 5th edition as well. I will add advantages, inspiration and maybe also some cantrips. But atm I have to finish the Dungeon Master's Guide first and after that I hopefully know which edition I should pick.

Let's get back to the campaign

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I am trying to have a simple plot with a lot of possibilities what each character can do.
In the beginning, the players are henchmen of a powerful master an evil wizard or lich or something like that. The evil villain tries to free an entrapped entity, maybe the players even don't know what kind of entity it is but it will try to contact and influence the adventurers. At first, only their master has the ability to contact this entity but the entity tries to get influence over the characters and creates a kind of bond maybe even tries to control them. The players are starting with lvl 3 characters which were hired by their new master to do some of his dirty work.

After the first little evil quest the entity gets in contact with them and they receive a boon and because it's an evil entity the boon comes also with some kind of curse attached to it. The boon will grant the ability to cast spells and the curse will allow the entity to influence the characters. If the bond between the characters and the entity gets stronger the boon will also get stronger and of course the curse.
In the beginning, the characters will get the ability to cast simple 1st level spells like protection from good, disguise self and so on and the curse will let them hear voices which can give them good/evil advice, nonsense or try to convince them to do something. With growing power the entity gives them stronger spells, an ability bonus aaaaand tries to influence them a bit more with words and spells like suggest or punishes them if they don't obey.

After the first adventures I would do a little montage and jump a bit into the future to skip some small adventures and get to the bigger ones because for me an evil character has to be stronger than level 3-5 to get the right feeling. They should have the power to easily get rid of normal people with a swipe of their hand so that they are more than just henchman of an evil mastermind and that's why we need a montage

I definitely have to look Team America again haha.

After the little montage they should be level 10 and something like the second-in-command in the cult.

For the beginning that will be the rough plot which I will use. I will have to fill it with all the needed information and create a rough set of rules for the world.

As a small idea for the future: If the campaign ends with a big explosion and a lot of death (what I am assuming) I am thinking of creating a big distortion of the world resulting in a world plagued by evil - a dystopian world where people live in fear and are looking for some kind of heroes who will step up to fight against the evil that rules the world. So after the evil campaign where the players tried to rule over the world (or whatever they want to achieve) and in the end created a world filled by evil they will have to create characters to fight against this evil and maybe even against their former characters (assuming that they are still alive).
But first I have to create the evil campaign^^

Next time I will try to create the world and the different factions which are part of the world. I will have to think a bit more about that and maybe draw a first map.

Until next time
bye

Image Source

Found this pic here
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/dec/10/clip-joint-montages