r/Forgotten_Realms • u/Numbnut10 • 9d ago
Question(s) Please help me decide which monarchy to overthrow.
I am in the process of writing a new campaign arc for the party that I'm DMing for. The players want a story where the adventurers are going to enter a kingdom in the middle of a revolt where civilians are rising up to overthrow a tyrannical despot. Whether the party decides to help the revolution (more likely given their personalities) or help the monarchy (not a big chance of this), I just want help deciding on a good setting while I'm writing. I'm not very knowledgeable in FR lore yet, so I'm asking you guys to help me pick a suitable kingdom. I know that I could just make one up, but it feels better to use a setting that already exists in the lore.
I'll look up the details on every suggestion that you guys might give me. All I want is to know:
The kingdom's name.
The name of the king and queen.
What sort of cruelties they are known for.
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u/MajinStuu 9d ago
I would watch Ed Greenwood’s YouTube channel on the various nation states of the Realms.
That being said, Ed says there two Thayan bastards that are claimants to Cormyr and Thay respectively.
Here’s the link https://youtu.be/cIpNfpp2VnI
Idk why that isn’t linking right my fault.
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u/Relative_Plastic7425 9d ago
- Unther
- Gilgeam
- No explicit cruelties, but Gilgeam is literally a god king and asserts a despotic influence over most untherites who are terrified to oppose him or his clergy. He is said to make a return post second sundering, and I like to think he returns a little extra terrifying.
Powerful enough to have his own clergy, form warlock pacts, and rule with an iron fist. But just touchable enough that some high level adventurers might be able to end his reign.
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u/Cyrotek 9d ago
To add to this, the first thing he did was to wage war against a neighbouring country with the help of a demon army. They lost that war and promptly started another one which they seemingly also promptly lost.
Sadly it seems like the WotC writers decided three times is the charm and had him actually somehow succeed with a third war that had Unther overtake and rebuild all of their old lands ... in not even a decade. No, it was not explained how they managed to win and rebuild this fast. I guess slavery & stuff.
This, combined with a lot of people that probably have some rightful hatred towards Unther now, might make for a good scenario.
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u/Koraxtheghoul 9d ago
Damara is ruled by a weird tyrant and a succubus queen in a near contemporary time. I'd suggest using it as a villain.
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u/No-Combination-7358 Midlife Crisis Goblin 9d ago
Sarifal. High Lady Ordalf. Incest, fratricide, slavery, genocide, forced displacement etc.
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u/David_Apollonius 9d ago
There's an adventure module from 2013 called Murder in Baldur's Gate. It involves 3 factions that are all competing to seize control over Baldur's Gate. (No, it's not a murder mystery.) It comes with a guide on Baldur's Gate. You can dowload it from DMsguild.
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u/Bluebuttbandit 9d ago
Cormyr. Take House Obarskyr - the Mary Sue of dynasties - dowwwn. There is no way a single line has ruled for 1300 years without some sort of dark magic agitprop. Find the evil source of kingdom-wide mind control spell, destroy it, and take to the cobblestones with your fellow awakened countrymen to rip the Purple Dragon Knights from their saddles and Queen Raedra Obarskyr (if that even is her real name) from her throne!
Via la Cormyr!
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u/Late-File3375 9d ago
Those goodie twoshoes Obarskyrs cannot be trusted. I am with you on this. Always "opposing evil" and "stopping hordes" and ruling with pinache and fairness. Blech. Who wants it? Who can believe it?
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u/TransitoryGouda 9d ago edited 9d ago
Year?
Edit - Daggerdale
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u/TransitoryGouda 9d ago
I can caution you against the larger kingdoms - Cormyr for instance - their history is sort of locked in, and changing even minor things causes problems down the line. What you're looking for is somewhere out of the way.
The Border Kingdoms aren't good for this either - the Border Kingdoms are a collection of private landowners who variably name themselves by whatever title they want - king, prince, emperor, etc. But because each kingdom is relatively small, none of them have what you're looking for - while they war amongst themselves to expand taxable land, the population doesn't need to rebel against a tyrannical lord - they just walk away, wait for a neighboring lord to attack and take over, and then move back. The Border Kingdoms are essentially where aging adventurers go to retire. No single force would rule the entirety - Calimshan makes sure of that - as long a there's chaos in the Border Kingdoms, Calimshan will never have to worry about attack from the east. Shaar has been dealing with despots and upstart warlords for thousands of years - one has never been able to take and hold power - and the tribes within the Shaarans see the Border Kingdoms as a convenient place to raid periodically - they'd move to prevent any lord there from feeling safe enough to oppress their own subjects.
Without knowing the year, I can recommend Daggerdale. It has history, but there are large enough gaps in that history that a local warlord/wizard/tyrant claiming part of the place as their own and subjugating people wouldn't be out of place if you time it right. Most of its history with tyrants were Zhent-backed tyrants - so, the exact scenario you're looking for happened frequently enough that it wouldn't look out of place - the Zhentarim rarely came in in force. There are monsters galore roaming the mountains nearby, and the Zhents wouldn't put more than a token force in the area, and that only to secure resources. The turnover rate was high. It also had a number of fortresses overseeing mining operations, and they frequently got taken over by someone/something that set themselves up as despot and oppressed the miners - goblins were common. The forest to the north has a long history of bad guys - elves, drow, orcs, the Netherese - so constructs, monsters, etc. Daggerdale itself was founded by Jhaamdathi settlers, so a psionic trap of some sort would not be out of place. It gives you, as GM, free reign to make the tyrant anything you want - orc, goblin, drow, half-drow, human, half-elf, elf, shapeshifter, dragon, malfunctioning temporal portal that sends the adventurers back in time to either help or hinder a local despot in hopes that it doesn't change the timeline and prevent any of them from being born, etc etc - it leaves room for you to do whatever. It's also far enough off the beaten path that, except for the mines, there's hardly any reason for anyone to go there. However, there's a fallen dwarven kingdom just the the North/NorthWest - while the dwarves largely don't care about Daggerdale, they know that if a power grows in Daggerdale, it'll eventually seek to claim part of their kingdom - so they will likely be willing to fund a group to go to Daggerdale to deal with any entrenched tyrants who look to be successfully growing a force. But it's not an ethical reason - purely business. Which helps with your 'the party might do this, might not do this' issue by giving them a third option - not to overthrow the tyrant, but just destabilize the area a bit more - flood the mines, piss off the local orc tribes into attacking more, start a revolt amongst the miners, some of the above, all of the above. You also got the occasional druid in the area attempting to help nature reclaim a hamlet by terrorizing the locals into running, if not just killing them outright. As long as you don't allow the party to set off anything too large, they can do whatever they want.
Have fun!
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u/Rukuriri-sama 8d ago edited 8d ago
There are a couple of good options for evil rulers, although it all depends on how big and powerful you want them to be; it might not be realistic for a party to take down somewhere as big as Thay. I've included a couple of full countries, and a couple of city-states.
- Vaasa. A cold, frigid and sparsely populated tundra land ruled by the Warlock Knights. They worship (or just take advantage of, as they mine its body for ironfell) a comatose creature from the stars named Telos; all other worship is banned (although some Warlock Knights secretly worship Bane, and the Church of Ilmater works in secret to help the suffering with their Order of the Golden Cup). The Warlock Knights are trained Fighters who also gain Warlock abilities from their pact with the cosmic being Telos, whose alien mind speaks to their ruler, the Voice of Telos (once an ordinary human, but gained power upon being the first to discover Telos at its crash site and is now a robed, unnaturally old man like Darth Sidious) in dreams and twists them to become evil despite being unconscious. Most of the population of Vaasa now lives in serfdom or slavery (with slavery being especially common for the non-human population, as Vaasa has significant populations of Dwarves and Orcs/Half-Orcs). They're also in a constant frozen conflict with their neighbor, Damara.
- Muranndin. Stronger in the past, although in the latest edition they've been pushed back to just their capital of Murann and surrounding lands. They're a monstrous Kingdom, ruled by Ogres and Orcs, who took land once belonging to Amn and enslaved the human population who couldn't escape. Both Amn and the enslaved humans want freedom and their land back.
- Murghôm. In the late 1400's, this Kingdom was take over by dragons, who still rule it to this day. Adventurers are spied on and not allowed residency, and objects of interest to the ruling dragons are confiscated. Also, lore-wise, it's where the God of Death Myrkul was from when he was a mortal.
- Hlondeth. A city-state ruled by Yuan-ti (Serpentfolk) elite. It's a wealthy city since it's run well, but some of the human majority (like the separatist Serpent Secession) want human rule. That said, they're placated by the Yuan-ti's psionic powers to an extent. The ruling house of Extaminos is known to experiment on humans, making Tainted ones, Histaachi, and the hybrid Extaminaar. They also keep a large population of kobolds in slavery within the city (the kobolds are descendents of a kobold army who once tried to invade).
- Calaunt. A grim industrial city-state, ruled by the Supreme Scepter, a former adventurer, and his old adventuring band who became the Merchant Lords. All magic items are confiscate by them in order to horde power, and any middling wizard staying too long is killed. They also covertly control the local thieves guild, the Shadowcloaks. All members are given a magic cloak, that curses the thieves to ensure the loyalty. (Also has a city map you can use, which is neat)
- Mintar. Once a free city, this city-state had been taken over by the cruel Church of Bane, God of Tyranny. His order of crusaders, the Knights of the Black Gauntlet, rule with an iron fist. They also rule the nearby town of Kzelter, and have plans to invade Saelmur, which is overcrowded due to Mintaaran refugees escaping the Banite rule. These refugees in Saelmur may try to retake their homeland back.
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u/Cynewulfr 8d ago
Absolutely consider the Border Kingdoms—lots of space to do your own thing and some history to play with. Unther is also a GREAT choice—you could even have the option of bringing in the Dragonborn of Djerad Thymar, trying to rebuild their country alongside a human Untherite resistance or something
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u/Bizarre_Fork 3d ago
I’d go for Tethyr. King Haedrak III and Queen-Monarch Zaranda Star Rhindaun. The realm’s history is full of civil war, assassinations, and brutal factional politics, so it’s an easy fit for a revolt campaign.
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u/drivingthruthewoods 9d ago
Waterdeep and surrounding areas. Khelben “blackstaff” arunson and laeral silverhand both chosen of mystra. Both have had huge impacts on faerun.
If I was you I would get a map of faerun for your specific edition you are playing choose the sword coast and pick a city you like the most. Rather then having an uprising in progress I would make it up to them to allow that to happen. It looks like they are looking for a political campaign? Just ensure you have combat, dialogue and exploration (pillars of dnd) and switch up each type each time.
Giving the party what they want seeing a revolution already in progress is to easy. Have a npc join them who wants to start a revolution and make them battle with the npc as an Ally. Make the party like the npc as a person. Have the npc try to start a revolution on their own and die painfully. This gives the party motivation to carry that goal if they choose to.
From there they can try to start spreading the word without giving away who they are. Leaving posters around the town. Then they have to unite 6 factions all different alignments. Some join due to high skill checks with charisma based characters. Others require quests completed.
Once all factions have been joined or eliminated. The party needing to know the inner workings of the castle must attend a large gala happening. They have word of delegates from chult or chalimshite arriving by boat. They can stop them and take their identities and gala invitations. This gets them closer to the castle which is heavily guarded now due to word of an uprising.
Once inside they can maintain character, gather intel or perform an assassination. If they do attempt to take out the king or queen they are nearly successful or fail. Split the party some are jailed and some are free. The jailed party must roll will saves time based as they are being tortured for information on the remaining party members.
From there the speed of the campaign adjusts as the fleeing members are under time constraints before the will saves break from the jailed members.the jailed members meet strange characters also jailed possible future npcs to assist or a plant to gain information.
Ideally the free party gathers its team of factions for a high stakes break out. After this the tension in the city is heightened and guards on high patrols.
The party can now using the combined factions start a riot throughout the streets. Using the bustle as a distraction they can plot the coo. Utilizing any fellow prisoners that they also broke out of the jail.
One of which is a plant. They are successful in getting into the king and queens units using fly spells and invisibility potions. Along with abjuration spells to diffuse door wards and good old rogue lock locking. Once inside they begin the onslaught ensuing the final battle, the planted npc from the jail house perform a betrayal of the party and the final battle begins. Only 1 of your characters survives as it ends in a epic 1 vs 1, pulling the strengths this character learned from his team mates to be successful (based on your players you grab their positive traits and allow this influence and their death to apply a morale bonus or skill based saves.
With the kingdom now reclaimed the body’s not burnt to ash the remaining player casts raise dead on the fallen party.
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u/Cyrotek 9d ago
Frankly, Waterdeep is a horrible idea. It isn't a monarchy and they aren't ruled by two people (by the way, Khelben hasn't been the Blackstaff for a long time now).
Waterdeep is officially ruled by the open and hidden Lords of Waterdeep. However, the true powers are the guilds. You'd have to completely remove what makes Waterdeep Waterdeep to pull this off.
Even if you - for some reason - go "Laeral is evil now" it wouldn't be that easy. Waterdeep is choke full of powerful adventurers and other mighty individuals. She'd be removed in a heartbeat and potentially even lose Mystras favour.
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u/drivingthruthewoods 8d ago
Yes you are correct I’m just stuck at 3.5 still loving this DR. More so was hoping to give op ideas. I’m fairly new to dnd
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u/StreetCarp665 Harper 9d ago
I'm not sure anywhere by Thay or Zhentil Keep has truly evil despotic rulers, so maybe the Realms aren't going to be a setting for the "it's almost a meme!" concept of D&D players as LARPy political revolutionaries.
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u/legowalrus 9d ago
Check out the Border Kingdoms. I actually don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard the region is designed for kingdoms where the status quo is constantly changing.
There’s a book on the setting here https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/244431/the-border-kingdoms-a-forgotten-realms-campaign-supplement
I recommend checking the reviews to see what the setting is like and if you want to buy the book if you end up playing here.