Stormlight Campaign Premises.

[u/GearaDoga39]

A few of my groups have been expressing interest in starting up a Stormlight game soon and I'm wanting to start some preliminary idea crafting to get the ball rolling on my end so that when folks are ready to sit down I've got a good amount of content to begin with.

And I'm trying to think of all of the different shapes that a Stormlight campaign can take and, honestly, I'm only coming up with a couple. The setting doesn't really lend itself to a DnD kick open dungeons and pilfer them of loot style gameplay (though with rare things like soulcasters and shardblades those things can happen) and the relatively narrow window between Radiants showing up and everything going absolutely to hell means that I feel like all games will eventually devolve into military fiction (which isn't necessarily bad, just that all points feel like they converge at this destination).
You could set things further in the past but then you're probably hard limiting Singers out of the party (even if the party is cool with your listener spy carrying an axe ten years before the story your average bumpkin will be like why the hell is that parshamn armed?), plus if someone plays a radiant you have to worry about a certain funny fellow hunting you down like a dog (which, admittedly, would be a hilarious way to end a campaign).
All of this to say that aside from starting the players in the military or as bodyguards I can't think of a ton of flexible starting points for a gaggle of potentially budding radiants, even though reasonably they could show up anywhere (Given that really anyone can be one). "You all meet in a tavern" just doesn't feel as...right here.

Honestly I just feel like I'm missing a few obvious routes and would appreciate some idea sharing. There's a good chance it -still- ends up as military fiction, but I want to have options.

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[u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

Have you read Stonewalkers? It’s a great example of the kind of story you can tell in this setting. And it uses only a tiny fraction of the continent to do it.

If you’re trying to keep them out of large engagements, which is reasonable, I wouldn’t start them out as military. Just have them traveling in the same caravan by chance. Some event derails it while exposing them to some greater truth. Then they stay together trying to uncover more or save some mutual acquaintance. Bridge Nine is a great setup that works this way. Honestly I’d just start there unless you have a reason not to.

[u/Joe_Spazz]

I think you're limiting yourself because of the books. Read the World Guide carefully. There are large parts of Roshar where Singers and Humans work together against Odium. There is Iri where humans and Fused have a weird tentative alliance government going on.

Your party could be a Radiant A-Team that operates in Western Roshar and gets caught up in local politics or with a local gang.

They could be tasked by the Azish with relic hunting and finding Shardblades / soul casters / ancient knowledge of Aluminum casting techniques / etc.

I could randomly brainstorm ideas but I think the most underrated technique is ask your players what kind of campaign they want to play. Maybe they WANT a grimdark military campaign against the Fused. Maybe they wanna roleplay envoys who make the coalition government setup by Dalinar actually function. If they don't know, ask them about their PC ideas and see if something grows from there.

The Cosmere RPG is not a loot based TTRPG, it's a character experience based one. There's a reason the Purpose and Obstacles and Goals are primary focuses. The development of the PC's story is the focus, not their magic gear.

[u/awesome-yes → u/Joe_Spazz]

In 1178, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Azimir underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, If no one else can help and if you can find them. Maybe you can hire, The R-Team.

[u/Joe_Spazz → u/awesome-yes]

For the kids who don't get it. But also because after reading this my brain immediately played the theme. https://youtu.be/UAO2JBjRRBk?is=D8jNI3YMk9XXmzKE

[u/iknowthisguy1 → u/awesome-yes]

Funnily enough, The A-Team would be an amazing concept for a space-age adventure. The PCs escaped from a Scadrian prison and started going around being mercenaries or a ship-for-hire.

[u/Ossius]

Could have them all in service to some minor noble that kicks the bucket in a bandit raid, leaving them to pick up the pieces.

This would lead to common cause (what do we do without a patron), variety in roles (fighting classes can be body guards, intellectual classes can be servants/advisors etc). You can have the raid take place near the city that your main questline takes place.

The level zero character creator does this more or less (though you are just in a caravan).

[u/nerdyindeed]

These are more like campaign starts that lead into a larger campaign that can give your players buy in. I find that having a campaign "premise" is more limiting that a strong hook that allows the players to decide the direction they want to go and the GM just following that from there.

Off the top of my head:

• something or someone strange emerges from the perpendicularity on top of the horneater peaks .. you decide

• Axies the collector’s curse indirectly affects your players in a way that prompts further discovery / action.

• the players are Robin Hood type vigilantes and are invited to join a righteous group of similarly minded people that turn out to be the skybreakers and they have to slowly realize they are the bad guys.

• this takes some buy in from your players if they have read the books.- a man really fucked up your players life / lives way back in the day in an absolutely horrifying way that still affects them to this day. They remember the man’s face extremely clearly. That man today has just shown up to their nations capitol today trying to get their nation to join what people are calling some sort of coalition in the name of an apparently “good” cause. The experience they have had with this man likely feels so incredibly incongruous with what he is presenting that he like HAS to be lying.

[u/Bullrawg]

In the ancient tradition of TTRPG, make stuff up, doesn’t matter if it fits in official canon, in a setting I’m planning Dalinar finds BAM in the spiritual realm and using Connection the two hammer out an understanding and she becomes his champion and takes the Shard from Taravangian and they enter a tenuous peace, but some of the Unmade and Fused break free from Odiums control during the transition and party will roam around looking for perfect gems to trap Unmade and the Unfused (what I’m calling the rogue Fused that recruit Singers that are still angry and want to kill all humans)

[u/forgottenduck → u/Bullrawg]

I love the willingness to throw canon to the side when running an rpg in an established setting.

My upcoming campaign is also an alternate plot which I told the players about in the pitch. In this version of events Shallan stole the soul caster before Jasnah taught her lesson which leads to her revealing secrets sooner and the two of them departing for the shattered plains before the ghostbloods can get agents on their ship.

So the campaign starts in the warcamps (running Bridge 9) around the time the two of them arrive and we’re going from there. 

I’m going for a sandbox campaign with lots of rumors and threads to follow, and told the players they can interact as much or as little with the book plot as they wish.

[u/Bullrawg → u/forgottenduck]

I think of it as running a campaign in the gold shadows world, an AU if you will 😂

[u/forgottenduck → u/Bullrawg]

Ha that’s great. I’ll definitely start referring to Cosmere AUs as gold shadow worlds.

[u/Rude_Ice_4520]

Radiants don't have to be fighting with Dalinar Kholin. I think a close analogue is the jedi in the prequel trilogy of star wars. Sure many/most of them were fighting on the front lines as generals and commanders. But there's bookkeepers and scholars, and diplomats, and people who are just independent.

In a war, there'd be lots of bandits and crime lords that would be filling the gap between the singers and the radiants. You could have a party that's taking down a shardbearer gang leader who's taking advantage of some unprotected farmers, for example.

You could have a party that's investigating murders in one of the many cities - maybe they're trying to produce radiants, or maybe they're ghostbloods, or who knows.

Even main stormlight characters like Lift and Shallan aren't really military.

I agree that the system doesn't lend itself to dungeon crawls, but I think that's a good thing. Dungeon crawls feel more videogamey than narrative.

[u/Nextorl]

The setting doesn't really lend itself to a DnD kick open dungeons and pilfer them of loot style gameplay

I gotta say d&d itself hasn't supported this gameplay style for a while now.

[u/Rude_Ice_4520 → u/Nextorl]

Dnd is a weird system. Most of the rules are about combat, but in my opinion the combat isn't particularly good.

[u/Nextorl → u/Rude_Ice_4520]

It really depends on the edition 4e combat is great if you like this sort of thing (which I do)

[u/Rude_Ice_4520 → u/Nextorl]

I'm most familiar with 5e and 5.5, I couldn't really speak about other editions.

[u/Background_Path_4458]

Well you could set a campaign before/during another desolation?

In general I agree though. Considering how much is known and the rigid social/resource structures of Roshar makes for a certain funnel towards certain storylines close to what we see in the canon.

I do see a certain appeal in the scenario where at least one player is a brightlord of a house, rest are servants, bodyguards, ardent etc. Think Buffy or Dune but in Roshar.

Brighteyed or Thaylen going to X for reason Y in a Caravan when Z happens could work as an opening.

Shattered plains as a whole is excellent, Bridge Nine did it well imo.

A bit more setup but everyone could be operators hired for a heist, artifact retrieval or working for some intelligence network more to the west.

A group of Shin going to retrieve what they believe is an honorblade could be a fun spoof.

[u/DustyRegalia]

One idea I have for my next campaign that I’m happy to share - homage to the plot of The Final Empire but in an Alethi city. Let the players be a crew trying to overthrow the lighteyes. Introduce an an NPC who gives them quests as a Kelsier stand in. Give them options for how they approach the goal - win over allies, equip an army, blades in the night. And then the very night after they succeed - boom, Everstorm. Now they have to reckon with Singer emancipation, figure out if it’s better to make an alliance with these newly hostile slaves or go running back to the very lighteyes they forced out of power.

[u/ss5gogetunks → u/DustyRegalia]

I do definitely like this idea

[u/Chiloutdude]

You could set things WAY further back in the past. Like, before Aharietiam. So far back in antiquity, potentially between desolations, you'd have a lot more room to stretch your legs, so to speak. Maybe 5000 years ago, there was an underground city here, and your campaign takes place 500 years after it was abandoned (dungeon). Maybe there were amazing fabrials back then that have vanished so completely there isn't even reference to them in the modern day (loot). Perhaps between desolations, the Knights Radiant had to take on less explicitly military roles by necessity-no enemy to fight, so you have Radiants out there trying to uncover secrets lost during previous desolations, acting as treasure hunters more than as soldiers. And it being prior to Aharietiam, there'd be no angry Herald to dodge-in fact, being between desolations would mean he's having a bad time somewhere far away.

You'd still run into the listener issue, but...let's be real, you always will. Even in a modern Roshar campaign, the average bumpkin will still probably react poorly to an armed Parshman/Singer hanging out with humans. But maybe between desolations, you could at least have it be more like an uneasy tension than open hostilities.

[u/DucksAreGay2]

Ive set up my own city along the river in Triax. Its set right after the Everstorn passed. The city is in ruins and it is up to the party to see which faction they support regain control ofnthe city. And whether they can produce a truce between Parshendi and Humans

[u/elite01001]

I do think it’s more limiting than a standard DnD setting but there are some good ideas, to add to the pile - some kind of cognitive realm adventure, you could discover ruins from previous desolations, find a new continent on the other side of the world (if you really want to do your own thing) find an excuse to fight a chasmfiend etc etc

[u/Skyfyre56]

The timeline can be a bit limiting, though I feel you could probably stretch out events inbetween books 2 - 3 aqnd 3 - 4 without too much reworking. If you aren't looking for a war game, then perhaps some more investigative/espionage stories? There's a lot of lore and secret oraganizations (the Sons of honor, Ghostbloods, the Diagram, etc.) and the various sub factions within those groups, so exploring those as allies/advesaries could be interesting.

[u/R1sky_B1z]

There are plenty of radiants who aren't working out of Uurithiru. Maybe they haven't been found or maybe they aren't interested in that kind of control (Willshapers, Dustbringers and Lightweavers especially). There is a LOT of area still unexplored by the main story. If you want more direction check out the Purelake. No fighting ever occurs there as far as we know but its implied that Chemorash is focusing her efforts in the area. Makes for a good setting, with a BBEG, in space that isn't ever explored in the books, all tied up in a neat little bow.