D&D 5E Good Campaign Hooks?

[Delandel]

I'm planning a homebrew campaign set in an area heavily influenced by magic: the gathering's "innistrad" setting. It has mad scientists, frankenstein monster, zombies, werewolves, witches, ghosts, and aristocratic vampires. Also a romanticized romania vibe.

The province is dominated by the mountain range that zig-zags through and around it. All travel into or out of the province must go through the precious few mountain passes that are watched over by vampire families. The human settlements in this land are thus few and isolated, located in the valleys between the mountains. The long-suffering humans are stoic shepherds, making the best of a life ruled by vampires and holding an illogical loyalty to their homeland.

In one of these villages, there were two people trying to make a difference. One was an influential woman, I'm thinking the town's highest ranking priest. The other was her lover, a scientist. They caused enough of a commotion that the vampires came down to deal with them. The other villagers did nothing to stop the vampires -- their fear and cowardice took hold, and they let the vampires kill the woman. The man was spared.

So this guy, Bob, is mighty sad and pissed. He leaves the village and seeks isolation up in the nearby mountains in an abandoned castle. He wants revenge on the vampires. He turns to necromancy as his ticket to build a force to confront his lover's murderers. But his army isn't big enough. He needs more bodies. So he turns back to the village that failed him -- he'll use them as his army.

That's the backdrop. The PCs enter the town and get a feel for the area. Stuff happens, and there's a zombie invasion sent by Bob. The zombies are here to kill all the villagers and bring them back to Bob to turn into more zombies. The PCs defend the town, confront Bob, and save the day. Either that's the end of it or they go ahead and confront the vampires after too.

My big question is: how do I get the PCs here? Why are they here?

Any ideas?

 

[Paraxis]

Tie it in to the death of the priest woman.

One of her nieces or nephews is one of the PC's and they are trying to get a message from the family to her, they don't know she is dead.

The priestess was guarding a holy relic in her church, no one knew about it in town, but the church is now sending a priest or paladin to recover it.

The town alchemist has put out word he needs test subjects and is paying 20gp each, the townspeople know better so he resorts to putting up flyers in other villages. Have a chart of random effects, most of them bad that the pc's have after taking the elixir.

A vampire lord has heard of the scheme the scientist has and sending in the PC's is a simple solution to stop the problem without getting his/her hands dirty.

The scientist had a Renfield who has figured out what the scientist is plotting and sends cryptic messages out to alert the PC's because he loves his family who still lives in the town.

 

[Delandel]

Tie it in to the death of the priest woman.

One of her nieces or nephews is one of the PC's and they are trying to get a message from the family to her, they don't know she is dead.

I love it.

The priestess was guarding a holy relic in her church, no one knew about it in town, but the church is now sending a priest or paladin to recover it.

I love this too. Will have to think about what relic she'd be holding. Might be the reason why she was killed.

The town alchemist has put out word he needs test subjects and is paying 20gp each, the townspeople know better so he resorts to putting up flyers in other villages. Have a chart of random effects, most of them bad that the pc's have after taking the elixir.

Probably not, I'm thinking about a place cut off from the rest of the world, getting outsiders to taste things is probably out of the question.

A vampire lord has heard of the scheme the scientist has and sending in the PC's is a simple solution to stop the problem without getting his/her hands dirty.

I LOVE THIS! Vampire dude thanks them after they deal with the pesky scientist. The PCs saved the vampire's cattle and dealt with a potential foe! Oooh, that could spur them on to fighting the Vamp himself!

The scientist had a Renfield who has figured out what the scientist is plotting and sends cryptic messages out to alert the PC's because he loves his family who still lives in the town.

Had to look up this reference but I like this too. The scientist needed someone to fetch food and supplies from town anyway. This can do nicely.

 

[amerigoV]

Make the PCs the zombies there to get Bob. As they gain XP, Bob's control over them weakens and the PCs can eventually overthrow him. Then the more powerful undead do not want to see their servants turn on them. They will both try to eradicate them and recover them to figure out what is going on.

 

[MortalPlague]

I just wanted to say that this sounds like a wonderful, evocative setting. I hope your PCs have fun with it!

As for a suggestion, what if one of the PCs suddenly inherits a shop from one of Bob's victims? That gets them into town AND gives them a stake in things!

 

[Herobizkit]

Though unrelated, I'd like to make you aware of the Ravenloft "Gothic" campaign setting. It's (mostly?) from D&D's 2nd edition days but there was a reprinting of the setting for the d20 system as well. I always enjoy farming stuff from older editions of D&D and the d20 system stuff wouldn't be hard to carry over (especially the self-contained adventure Expedition to Castle Ravenloft).

 

[aramis erak]

My big question is: how do I get the PCs here? Why are they here?

Any ideas?

Well, I'll suggest a borrow from an AD&D 2E module...

See, in AD&D, there was this setting called Ravenloft. It's a collection of small settings, mostly Gothic, collected into a demiplane by unknown "Powers", referred to only as the Ravenloft Powers. Anyway, in a particular retail play module, the powers go to grab a really nasty-bad NPC, and the PC's happen to wind up along for the ride... as the castle and its valley are ripped from the Realms and into the Demiplane of Dread.

A similar effect could populate some other demi-plane. Dropping the village the PC's happen to be in, perhaps even from, into your Necromancer's valley...

 

[the Jester]

What if the pcs decide to avoid the vampires entirely? What if they don't care about Bob and the other villagers?

 

[Delandel]

Many signs are pointing to me towards Ravenloft. I'll take a look for ideas, but generally I avoid fully developed campaign setting if only because it's too much of a time commitment to read up on. Gods, the amount of research I did on the FR setting just to develop my jungles of chult campaign.. ugh.

I just wanted to say that this sounds like a wonderful, evocative setting. I hope your PCs have fun with it!

As for a suggestion, what if one of the PCs suddenly inherits a shop from one of Bob's victims? That gets them into town AND gives them a stake in things!

Thanks! Like I said, a lot of it is the Innistrad setting. After I run it, I would like to type it up and publish it as a free adventure module, levels 2-4 I think. The trick would be making the setting my own so I don't walk into copyright issues

A land claim in the city sounds wonderful. A PC's relative is a shopkeeper in this module, gets murdered, passes the estate to his next of kin.

What if the pcs decide to avoid the vampires entirely? What if they don't care about Bob and the other villagers?

PCs arrive in town due to one of various hooks, basically everything Paraxis said. They resolve their initial quest while I pepper them with little hooks (still coming up with them) and see what catches: two paladins have come here in search of a holy relic, the graveyard has been recently pillaged and all the bodies are missing, etc.

The zombie invasion happens whenever they're done exploring, which could be immediately if they decide not to stick around. All I need from the PCs is for them to show up at the village, they can ignore everything else if they want to.

I'll try to steer them towards dealing with Bob after the zombie invasion. Motivation could be vengeance against the zombies, gold reward from desperate villagers, paladins seeking assistance. If they decide to leave the village to their fate, well, that's their choice. The roads leading out of the valley are still dangerous. They might come across werewolves and undead. The mountain passes are guarded by vampire families that won't be keen on cattle leaving their land. Once the adventurers break out, module over. But if they're so keen on leaving the place, to me that's an indicator that the players would prefer playing something else, so that's fine.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

A land claim in the city sounds wonderful. A PC's relative is a shopkeeper in this module, gets murdered, passes the estate to his next of kin.

You can tie this piece in even deeper - Bob is basically the Avon Lady/Pyramid Marketing Scheme Necromancer, as he creates zombies, who each create 4 more, who each create 4 more... Maybe the murdered shopkeeper was one of the very first villagers that Bob targeted, as for some reason Bob holds him responsible in some way, or he was a more convenient target. Perhaps the shopkeeper was a friend of Bob's, who stood by and did nothing when the vampires came for Bob's lover and Bob hated him more than anyone else for this reason; his trips out of town selling his wares made him vulnerable to an attack by Bob years later, and he and his assistants became the very first zombies. That way not only can the PC's save the village, but they can solve the shopkeeper's murder too, which can lead them to a wonderful scene where the PC's come face to face with their undead relative... Maybe Bob imbued the shopkeeper with a little more personality than most zombies (or not all the undead are zombies - all zombies all the time could get a little dull combat-wise, too, so this can serve a double purpose for you).