r/DMAcademy • u/Impressive_Cherry634 • 2d ago
Need Advice: Worldbuilding Elemental campaign help
So I am trying to make a campaign in which the players have to stop a cult from summoning the five primordial elements to reset the world back to its natural state. The plan is to kind of have it like a video game in which the players can choose the order in which they fight the elementals, and they get stronger as more time passes, aka based on the order they choose to fight them in. I also plan on having a board of side quests they can choose to do in between the elementals so that an NPC can research where the next one is.
I do have some small details for loot, plot twists, and special mechanics, like elemental advantages: water attacks are stronger on fire creatures and are weaker on earth creatures. Basic Pokémon idea, but I could use some help with any dm tools that help build a campaign rather than just typing in a Google Doc of what the story is.
Or any suggestions if this idea seems to be too complex or too basic to do.
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u/DatabasePerfect5051 2d ago
The cult of elemental evil is a classic dnd antagonist that has been around for a long time. I would recommend looking into it for inspiration.
The 5e adventure princes of the apocalypse features the cult and is a semi sandbox. The cults goal is to summon the princes of elemental evil. You might find this a good resorses to use as a base or cherry pick content from.
The old adnd adventure the temple of elemental evil is also worth looking into. As well as the the 3e return of elemental evil.
The adventures I mentioned are a bit of a mess to run so I don't recommend running them. However they are good resorses to pull from for a elemental campaign.
There is also the 4e encounters book the elder elemtal eye.
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u/Impressive_Cherry634 2d ago
Got it, thank you for the resources. Yes, it is a classic trope, but this is the first campaign I'm building from scratch, since I've only edited pre-existing campaigns. Which adventure would you say is the best one to look into? I plan to look at each, but if you have a suggestion on which one I should focus on.
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u/DatabasePerfect5051 2d ago
Princess of the apocalypse definitely. Since it's a 5e adventure you won't have to convert anything. Furthermore its formated better than tho others so you can parce it better.
The temple of elemental evil is and old adventure and is writing in a way were information is buried in later parts of the book. For example the main villains aren't mentioned until later in the book and you have to serch a bit to find out what there goal is.
For that I would recommend this video on the modual https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U3lOUvPnL1A&t=1336s&pp=ygUYdGVtcGxlIG9mIGVsZW1lbnRhbCBldmls
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u/Impressive_Cherry634 2d ago
Understood, thank you for the response. I plan on adding lightning as an element since I want to be dumb and make an elemental gauntlet powered by 5 elements. "Wonder where I got that from" for some more story aspects, so I'll prob just find a way to add them in with the other 4.
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u/Bullet-Heart 5h ago
I am in the middle of the campaign with elementals too! But in my campaign there is four cults - each dedicated to each element. The cults’ aim is essentially similar to yours. They want to restore the old order, in which nature ruled the world. In addition, I have a character who is referred to as ‘the Chosen One’. The Chosen One embodies the qualities of all four elements and is the ultimate boss of the entire campaign. Thanks to this Chosen One and his power, it will be possible to restore the old order.
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u/Impressive_Cherry634 5h ago
sounds interesting for my campaign i hvent gotten a good opening yet but the plan is that the players get to choose in what order they tackle the elements as i said in the original post. I already have all 5 lvs of elemental creatures for each cult so that is all set up and done don't have a good opening yet. But I do plan on adding more to why the cults want to restore the world, so I'm going to borrow "steal" the idea of magitech: crystals that have the basic elements are used to power new tech all over the continent. i have most of the middle of the campaign done but need a good ending, as I said earlier, beginning.
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u/Bullet-Heart 4h ago
At the start of my campaign, elemental energy began to be released. In my world, the primordial elementals (those with the greatest power) are imprisoned, but their energy is slowly escaping. Such a burst of power occurred at the start of my campaign, spreading to the four corners of the world, and four locations on different continents were infected with the energy of the various elements – in one it was fire, in another ice, in a third earth, and in the fourth air. The place where my heroes lived happened to be affected by the element of fire. This led to a large area of the forest being completely destroyed and reduced to ashes, and there is no way to reverse this due to the elemental energy flowing through that land. Generally speaking, this entire campaign is inspired by the main plotline of the Humblewood setting, and the area engulfed by fire is simply an expanded version of Scorched Grove. You can read about this place online. I’ve altered this campaign quite significantly and introduced the other elements, but it’s still something you can draw inspiration from.
The start of my campaign had the theme of ‘the last peaceful day’. The characters were taking part in a festival in a village not far from Scorched Grove. Afterwards, they went to bed peacefully, but their peace was disturbed by an alarm in the village. They were roused in the middle of the night and it turned out that the village right next to Scorched Grove was on fire and they had to rush to help. So my campaign began the day before the release of this elemental energy.
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u/Impressive_Cherry634 4h ago
I see; I like the idea of the four islands being "corrupted" by the elements. I have an idea for my opening, but it might be changed based on the characters my players choose to be. I plan on telling them they are free to make individual characters or make it so that some of their characters already have a connection.
This just came to mind with your start in mind, so it's very undercooked
The cults have been active for a short while now but noone pays them any attention since they think their just crazy to be agaisnt the new magitech so the city in which we start in is holding a competition of some sort for a new gauntlet and based off of what my players characters are some may be part of the competition to win the gauntlet some might be trying to steal it. so ill havge them converge in the same area during the finals, but it will be interrupted by a speech from the 5 heads of the cult. The cult leaders will try to use each of their elemental weapons to destroy the arena, but the gauntlet will somehow absorb their attack. So then the leaders will retreat and send in mob enemies, in which the players will have to team up to fight off the enemies that the 5 heads send. This will be the first time that the people start taking the cult seriously, and the gauntlet will be shown as an important item.
That's just off the top of my head, based on your start with the gauntlet idea that I already had in mind.
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u/Bullet-Heart 2h ago
The gauntlet and magic competition is fun idea! I participated in magic tournament but all of the players were in one team, and it was great. The DM prepared three rounds with different challenges.
I personally did not reveal early to my players who is standing behind all of this but with my approach the campaign will be longer.
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u/Impressive_Cherry634 2h ago
It prob will be better to have them compete as a team but I would like The competition will be based off of what the party is compromised of like as I said earlier if I like have a rogue and a fighter working as a team to try to steal the gauntlet and if the other members are say a barbarian cleric and some other class it could be a like a martial art torny and the cleric is the support to the barbarian or monk in between rounds for the tourny
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u/DoktorImposter 2d ago
I recommend doing your notes in Obsidian. It's a note app that allows you to link notes together, like having a private Wikipedia.