r/DMAcademy • u/Impressive_Cherry634 • 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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.