Garner Interest

Find out what the players are interested in doing. It doesn’t do the campaign any good if you spend three weekends laying out territories for the PCs to develop if the players are interested in going artifact hunting.

Unanimity among players is a rare thing, so be prepared to run adventures that encompass several different player interests at once. For example, if your group includes a thief interested in artifact hunting, a paladin interested in establishing a dominion, a priest seeking to eliminate or diminish an opposing religion, and a wizard interested in spell research, there are several story lines you might introduce into the campaign. One might go like this:

The paladin and the priest decide to search the countryside. The paladin hopes to survey potential sites for a castle while the priest questions peasants and travelers about the rival church’s recent activities.

Meanwhile, the thief consults a sage, who complains that someone has broken into his library and stolen several pages from one of the books. The sage relates several vague legends about a lost artifact, but gives few details. The wizard has been busy, too, consulting with fellow wizards about a new spell. Unfortunately, the local expert on such magic has vanished, apparently kidnapped.

While the thief and the wizard investigate the twin crimes, the priest and the paladin break up a group of brigands and take two of them prisoner. Among their treasure is a traveling spellbook.

When the priest and the paladin return to town, they show the captured spellbook to the wizard, who immediately recognizes the book as belonging to the missing wizard. Questioning reveals that the brigands work for an evil priest who sought the wizard’s advice about a strange sigil recently discovered in an ancient ruin. The thief recognizes the sigil as a ward used to seal away an ancient artifact.

The PCs stage a rescue attempt, freeing the wizard and routing the priest’s servants. The paladin realizes that the site is entirely suited to his needs. The evil priest, however, has fled with the artifact. The party hires a team of mercenaries and laborers to clear the ruins for new construction while they pursue the villain.

Later, the villain might strike back by ransacking the construction site, attacking the NPC wizard, or both. If one of the players develops an interest in politics, diplomacy, or warfare, the evil priest might turn up in a neighboring kingdom’s court, perhaps openly functioning as an evil priest or perhaps in disguise.

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