D&D General Themes and Critters That Don't Get Enough Attention?

[Retreater]

I got bummed last week when a new Kickstarter from a well known author was announced. I had been writing a campaign for publication and this basically took all the winds out of the sails because it is so darned similar in theme, monsters, and even the proper nouns. I'm sure this is coincidence, but it stings to have to put this project (currently at 150+ pages) on the back burner until I see the high profile release myself and make sure it's not just a retread of another creator's work.
I'm at a loss at what's something that isn't frequently tackled in the hobby. Undead? Orcs? Goblins? Devils? Pirates? Giants? Drow? Duergar? I feel like all of them have been done to death. How do I go about trying to make something unique?
What's something you'd like to see? Like you were wanting an adventure about X but just didn't find much published about it.
At this point I don't want to stay in this defeated mindset about my writing, but I am at a loss of a direction.

 

[aco175]

Are you looking for a campaign idea or another book like a complete guide to whatever?

I could go for a series of adventures about insects and giant insects. They are a bit creepy and hard to understand the hive mind compared to humans. Maybe not quite Starship Troopers, but giant ants controlling some other insects into making a colony. Maybe some slavers involved. I seem to recall a 1e module with giant ant slavers.

 

[Retreater]

Are you looking for a campaign idea or another book like a complete guide to whatever?

My experience is mostly writing adventures, though maybe I'll stick with something smaller than a WotC "campaign adventure" this time out?

 

[aco175]

I would go for a smaller arc to be able to insert in a game. A module for levels 5-7 or 6-9. Something you can insert into a homebase and play without disrupting that much of other planned things from the DM. Going back to the ant idea, you can have a leader ant or necromancer-type that is the BBEG and he uses the giant ants to gather power from the farmers in the valley. A smaller series arc is enough to save the valley and then move on. I do not need another 1-15 level book.

There could be a loosely tied series taking levels 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, and finally 13-15.

 

[steeldragons]

I think psychic powers and monsters with psychic powers get a short shrift all of hte time/through all editions. I wouldn't mind a well done campaign that involved/centered around psychic creatures...hunting them/defeating them? Something, like, mentally dominating/enslaving a piece of the world? A horde of intellect devourers that is released to produce massive amounts of Fear for...I dunno, Night Hags? Psychic Vampires? something new? to feed on... Culminate in some mega-battle on "the Astral Plane/Plane of the Mind/Dreams/Thought" or something... Maybe with various Gemstone dragons playing key advisory and/or ally and/or villain roles...

Elementals are done to death. Undead are ubiquitous. Demons and Devils are always scheming...and every so often you get the "go to the Celestial Planes" in a campaign set up, especially if there's a big Fiendish planes involvement. The Astral and Ethereal planes are always kinda just left as the "speedy transportational avenues" to get you from the Material to somewhere else. Never a destination of their own.

I feel like a campaign/adventure that took/brought you, repeatedly, to the Ethereal and Astral planes...the Mental Constructs and abstractions/weird powers thereof...and the focus on Psychic abilities and creatures has something to it... Definitely with all overexposed overused exhausting "Giths" stuff thrown out.

I don't know. But I feel like there might be something in there/that.

 

[el-remmen]

Urban campaigns or even "city as world" setting focused on feuding organizations and secret labyrinths beneath the city.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Fey!

There's so much player-facing options for fey-themed character, but most setting forget about it and no adventure uses the theme itself!

I'm not just talking about talking animals and the fey court, but also the sheer emotions and urges given form, the power of bond and promises, dark curses with unimaginable cures etc

 

[steeldragons]

<finger snap!> Got it.

The Grell. Not one, single, individual one like the ONLY times you ever find/see them. All of them. All Grell, from wherever Grell come from...Together...under the Supreme Council-Mind of Grells.

The Grells have united and are rising up to take over the world. Mindflayers tried to stop them. Got annihilated. Aboleth tried to stop them. Got annihilated. Githyanki tried to stop them. Got...you get it.

Probably several levels of adventure before finding out who is REALLY the cause of all of the problems.

Give them vast telepathic and huge telekinetic powers...each one its own floating tentacled brain of a "Dark Phoenix" [from X-men]

Run with it.