Thursday 20 October 2016

Terrible Campaign Ideas: Karth-Oom


Characters exiled by ship to colonial territories far away. In the land of Karth-oom, a ancient society of humanoids castes live in sprawling subterranean cities and holy citadels. The Humanoids have a ancient cast system.

Hobgoblins are the warrior caste and do the fighting, they train and hunt and execute criminals
Goblins are the fungus farmers, foresters and herd giant caterpillars
Kobolds perform butchery, funeral services, garbage removal and gongfarming
Bugbears are holy men and ritual assassins and may break any taboo they please including cannibalism

Goblin kin claim they reincarnate from kobold to goblin to hobgoblin to bugbear

Humans arrived twenty years ago and used superior sorcery to replace the king bugbear with a governor. Goblins now grow sugar and tobacco instead of traditional crops. Human hunters like to hunt the giant caterpillars which upsets the locals.

Players are expected to help the governor:

Look for the secret bugbear murder cult hidden among the bugbear caste
Find the hobgoblin bandits who are operating with support from native neighboring kingdoms
Kobolds are popular house slaves with humans which discuss goblinkind who try to murder kobold house slaves for transgressions like talking to masters and touching food of superiors
Orcs have been brought in by humans and need to be trained to patrol the kingdom - this outrages goblinoids who regard orcs as demons lower than kobolds.
Find missing ladies from a palace raided by "wild" goblins
Goblin gods demand a thousand sacrifices or the moon will eat the world, if Humans don't facilitate this a night of murder and mutiny erupts
Human troops killed several bugbears performing a sacrifice and now area is in rebellion
The priests were known to have hidden wealth when the occupying forces arrived, search their temples and holy caves and fungus groves for the treasure
Those graveyards some drunk men robbed are having some undead problems go clean up
A trouble making human priest is stirring up the goblinoids, capture this man
A human priest has been accused of kobold abuse and outraged local goblinoids, punish the non human savages
A bugbear priest has taken rebels and holed up in a citadel fortress, find their weakness
The governor appears in public riding a horse and locals outraged he will not ride or ritually mate with a Caterpillar
Bugbear priests make blood idols from blood and spongy fungus, human church declared this sacred crop be destroyed
Goblins are becoming opium and tobacco addicts, and sitting about being indolent, sales are good but work is down
Bugbear priests have been up to something in wilderness, some kind of huge ritual and building a new huge idol, find out where and kill them and burn whatever they were up to

The governor always gives terrible advice to win:

"Don't listen to natives just kill them until they are pacified"
"Burn down a few temples until they locals hand over the trouble makers"
"We need missionaries from home to administer the troubled districts"
"Torture them, they don't feel pain like us and the good gods will forgive you"
"If they hide in their caves execute their women and children till they surrender"
"Burn their crops and store houses then they will cooperate"
"Publicly flog their leaders till they cooperate"
"Take some wizards and fireball them on a high holy day to teach them respect"
"wade in blood and gore!"
"For the emperor we can do no wrong"
"Kill them all and bring in orc slaves"
"Tear down their filthy huts and build them proper human houses"
"Put the whole population in a camp, they are dying out anyway"

Sorry this sucks why are we here?
The empire uses colonies to get rid of most vile criminals, cruelest despots and most corrupt
Possibly party will realise that following orders will destroy the colony
They could take over or replace the governor with a letter to the emperor
Grab as much loot as possible and escape before the colony goes up in flames
Go native, help goblinoids repel humankind
Invite pirates and plunderers to take over and make everything worse
Invite necromancers because that always ends well
Let the bugbears summon a demon god to drive the humans back to the sea

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