The Age of Dragons and the Burrower Wars

[Havard]

What do you think a campaign set during the Burrower Wars would be like?

A complete mess. :lol:

I didn't know anything about the Burrower Wars or most of this history before reading your post and your related blogs. But it's clear that this would be a cataclysmic time period. PCs would be facing wars and invasions, mass combat, the rise of dark powers and monstrous creations, and battles between dragons and The Sleeping Ones.

Not that surprising. It is just a few lines in published material. However, OldDawg's ideas inspired me to build onto that and piece different sources together so we are getting close to something pretty interesting at this point

You would also have the problem of Stone Age level technology, as described in your blog on the Burrower Wars. If the humans and Brute Men had only mastered stone tools, then you wouldn't have copper, bronze, or iron weapons or tools of any kind. Most of the weapons, armor and equipment in the D&D rulebooks wouldn't exist, and unless you were a corrupt shaman or a warlock with a pact with a Sleeping One, magic would be limited in availability and power. Stone axes, spears and cantrips for the win!

Yeah, this is a classic problem. D&D isn't really designed for this level of technology. There are some possible soluttions to this though.

It also seems that this age has a deus ex machina ending where the gods simply intervene and decide to return the Burrowers/Sleeping Ones to sleep. That's a major
weakness that would need to be addressed.

I agree. The Burrower Wars continue for centuries. One sollution is to focus on the earlier parts of the Burrower Wars. OTOH, if you are running a truly epic campaign, there could be ways to insert really high level PCs into this story. One important thing, I find for running campaigns in "historical eras", is that the DM and players need to agree that nothing has been written in stone about the future. The PCs actions should be able to change things, at least in theory. Of course, that doesn't mean altering the course of history needs to be easy.

If you strictly followed the lore and the level of technology and magic, it would certainly be a unique campaign and a challenge for both the DM and the players. Unless you're having PCs time travel into this age with future weapons, armor and magic, then you would have to severely limit and eliminate a lot of the core D&D rules, character classes, and options.

Time travel is definitely an option too. You could use Blackmoor era characters and send them back in time, using the portal in the Comeback Inn.

I have started a separate discussion about how to modify the rules to make it easier to run such a campaign without access to some of the options you mention here if running Stone Age technology based characters.

But the PCs could get involved in many different struggles and interactions, such as hunting down and slaying created monsters, battling corrupted shamans, making contact with the cruel elves in a desperate attempt to seek alliances and magic, preventing Sleeping Ones from awakening, helping dragons fight against the Brute Men and Burrowers, and maybe even making contact with the dragons and gods to plead for their intervention.

I love these ideas!

-Havard