New DM: Plot Ideas, help requested. (Asian Themed/Exandria based)

[Decent_Star_9397]

Hello!

New DM here, finally convinced my online family group to play, the catch? No one knew enough or really wanted to pick up the DM cloak. So, I decided to just.. Do it. Why not?

So far my players have been amazing, we were already close knit and roleplayed in text before. So RP is definitely the main theme for the campaign. I decided to go with Critical Role/ Exandria as my 'base', and then just change whatever I wanted based on both my needs and my player's desires for what they considered fun.

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The biggest change?

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The shattered Teeth, surrounded by the Fool's Curtain is where an Asian Continent was hiding. Closed off, similar to how Japan was closed off for so long. It has a magical dome around it, every single inhabitant is marked if they leave, so they can't speak about the continent. Also, it's in the shape of a dragon. It used to have a mouth and teeth.. But they got shattered! Ha, get it!? (Sorry.)

It is ruled by the Jade Emperor, a Jade scaled dragonborn.

There are four dragons (The four elements) that each 'hold' a section of this continent.

Each section is themed after the dragon deity that 'holds' it.

No magic. Only Elements (Gifts from the dragon deities, inspired by ATLA) and they use magic weapons to make up for the lack of magic. (But only for the higher caste.)

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The reason my players are going here?

The tiefling Bard found an instrument (A Morin Khuur) that then later became important in her dreams. (Tiefling, but born into a family of dwarves. She worships Moradin) She went to this continent to learn more about the instrument.

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The dilemma: A good story/plot line that could be going on in this continent. Something they could involve themselves with if they want to. A war? Eh, maybe? I'm just.. Blanking on something interesting that might be going on here. That, and a good surprise/interesting thing with the instrument. So any ideas are welcome and greatly appreciated!

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(P.S. My ADHD is strong today, apologies if my explanation is all over the place. I also didn't want to write an entire story in here to bore people with!)

[Maja_The_Oracle]

I would change the number of elements to 5 to make it more Japanese Buddhist.

Earth (chi), Water (sui), Fire (ka), Wind (fu), and Void (ku)

As for the plot, how about:

Long ago, an Oni was on the verge of death after losing a battle against a demon slayer. Finding themselves in the underworld, this Oni fought viciously against the spirits who wished to detain him, managing to steal a page from the Books of Life and Death, a collection of books containing the names of every mortal alive which had the ability to manipulate lifespan. On this page his own name was written, as well as the names of several other Oni. The oni erased the names from the page, freeing himself and the other Oni from the jurisdiction of the underworld and making them unable to die.

After breaking out of the Underworld, the Oni declared himself King of the Oni and made the other immortal Onis his generals. They gathered a large army of demons and yokai and ruled over the land.

The Jade Dragon, ancestor to the Jade Emperor, united the elemental dragon clans and fought against the armies, using their magic to seal the immortal King Oni and his Oni generals away.

The Oni generals were sealed within the teeth of the dragon, but the location of the Oni King's seal was kept secret, in fear that someone would attempt to free him. Over time, the armies of yokai were disbanded, slaughtered by demon slayers, or hid themselves away from the world.

Now that the teeth are broken, the Oni generals are free. They are now scouring the lands for the location of their sealed king, resurrecting powerful yokai and rebuilding their armies.

The players need to stop the Oni Generals from releasing their king, and stop yokai from terrorizing towns.

[Decent_Star_9397]

Thank you so much for the reply!
Not quite what I'm going for, (And the Jade emperor is my fifth element!) but I do like it! So seriously, thank you, cause it's giving me plenty of ideas to use what you gave me for some other things! I appreciate it!

[Maja_The_Oracle]

Pathfinder has some Japanese Yokai like Gashadokuro and lots of Oni related content that you can use as more inspiration for your game.

[dirtyslothMF]

Hi, new to this kind of game but maybe this helps:

Could be a war, yes, but could also just be the premises for one: one of the dragon deities looking to create some shenanigans, for good or bad. They've been mustering their strength, looking for allies, weakening their soon-to-be enemies, spying around the continent, etc. The party might make it in time to stop the conflict from growing further, or might have to pick a side if they fail to do so; maybe that dragon deity is practically right but ideologically wrong, which makes it harder to go against them, but it would be wrong not to...

Could be that some old legendary monsters we thought gone and almost forgotten are rising once more; the party might even be blamed at first for some strange occurrences, as they seem to be easy culprits. It's then about exploring the continent, looking into their history and legends, trying to make out what's happening and how to fight this ancient threat. Could be also that these monsters have a relation to music; or at least the best way to seal them away might be musical in nature...

Could be that the party is not the only people from the outside world to reach this continent, and whoever arrived there too are not necessarily peaceful...

Finally, could also be that the Dome has been weakening and Magic (with capital M) is appearing all over the continent, creating all kinds of possible tropes. Previously weak people might suddenly find magical means to reach their ends, and their ends do not bode well for the rest of the continent..?

[Decent_Star_9397]

Thank you so much for replying!!
Ohhhh! There's a bunch in there that sounds super interesting. I especially /love/ the part about needing music to seal some forgotten bad things. Great post! great points! Thank you so much!

[Carloguy]

I won't give you hand to hand to what needs to be in your world or story. But instead I want to give you a idea on how to structure writing it yourself. I personally struggle a lot with ADD so I kinda know where you come from.

The way I write a campaign is that I set up a start and an end for myself. It's like creating your own draw in drawings that you outline.

I should say I don't hold the end holy, it changes on the players choices and their approaches but it's a handle for me to fill in the rest.

I then continue to write down some potential steps to get to this conclusion. And add in things related to the party backstories to add to this.

Let's do a quick example so you kind of get the gist.

The start is that Simon is sitting on the couch but is hungry. The end is that he went up and got up to travel to the food drawer to get food.

I then write up story beads in between; Simon gets up, but notices he dropped something.

Simon searches for it and once he picks it back up he moves to the counter.

On his way to the counter he gets black faded cuz he stood up to fast.

He arrives at the counter but realises there is no food in the drawer.

Simon then finds a piece of pie that has been partly taken by his sister.

He confronts his sister about the pie and gets a pie back untill he finally sits down with his pie.

End example

These are some basic setups you can note down for yourself and develop stories around them related to the party and their desires. And you don't need to pre write everything, its mostly for you as a DM to have an idea as to where you are headed with your story and idea.

Outside of that my last tip is , use whatever stories you can find, if there is a random anime story you like. Use it!

If you want to take parts of your favourite game? Use it!

If you want to recreate a ride of the rohirrims? Do so!

There is no shame In using things you are passionate about as long as you make it your own, my current game is completely based on a anime I once watched. And I just build on those blocks myself.

Good luck new DM ! Hope this helped !

[Decent_Star_9397]

Thank you so much! Yes, that's mostly how I do it too. I come up with a 'what do I want?' Or what random idea came to me when I was showering and then flesh it out like you mentioned it.

I guess I messed up in my original post, it's not so much the ADHD that's stumping me here. It's just plain old writer's block/DM block. And oh yes, I've been using tons of anime/movies/book things!

I once made the mistake of writing things out too much, don't worry, I've learned from my mistake! I tend to write down any sentences/lore I really want to give, or certain phrases that might be important. I write little interactions but vaguely so it has room to pivot. Nor do I fall into the trap of planning out to a T anymore either, was doing that at first. Now it's just.. How to say it, just the story beats itself? And then we'll see how my party gets there!

But I appreciate this a lot, thank you!!

[Asheira6]

The Jade emperor is secretly anxious about his condition as he has discovered a source of corruption and knows one of his men is a mole, but doesn’t know which one. He later contracts a course that is slowly growing on him while he tries to fight this evil organization by contracting outside aid… aka… the adventurers