In this campaign, the premise is the world is infected with a blighted darkness. And those who enter the darkness, go mad. So everyone lives on light no matter the source, and fire is praised as a god by most people. The sun is blocked out by the dark clouds that the darkness seemingly bring along with it.
The setting: In this world there are four major cities and some towns, there is Courseton, the biggest city, gesunduk, the smartest city, olaive, the wealthiest city, and cuerdoson, the strongest city. Each city has a different problem, Courseton is always low on supplies and food to feed it's citizens. Olaive is controlled by the economy and has a huge class of lower class people as the rest of the city is controlled by the stuck up higher ups. Gesunduk is obsessed with mechanics and is heavily reliant on magic for their things, and people who don't learn to use magic are either punished or cast out. Then there's cuerdoson, it is ruled by a tyrant and the cruel military. Each one of them has a different style and is for different types of playstyles, Courseton is for general play and for people who just wanna start off good, olaive is for thieves and assassin's as well as people who sneak around, gesunduk is for mages, druids, clerics, etc, and cuerdoson is for melee playstyles. Of course you can change this but I thought it'd be good. Every city also has an entry fee, for olaive you have to pay 25 gp each to enter, Courseton will have you give them 1 days worth of rations each to enter, cuerdoson will have you give up one weapon each to enter, and gesunduk will have you show you can do magic or give over a magic scroll to enter.
How madness works: In the campaign, if you are in the darkness, you must roll a will save for every one hour you are in the darkness. For characters with night vision it's two hours. If you fail 3 will saves by rolling below a ten on your d20, you go mad. Meaning the dm gets your character sheet, and your character does whatever the dm says, including attacking other players. However there is a way to cure this madness, there is a special berry called courseberries which grow in the darkness, if you eat a concoction of these berries mixed with a healing potion and some other food, you can eat it and if you roll above a five, your madness it cured, but if you fail, you stay mad, and you have to make another sanity potion thing.
Quest: You are a group of adventures that is sent by the king or queen of your city to find the source of the darkness. There are rumors that a cavern holds the thing that is producing the darkness taht is plaguing the land. You are offers 1000 gold pieces each if you complete this task. So you get supplies from the shops with the money your characters are given to buy supplies (50 gp each) and head out on horses you are given, or you could walk. Your choice
The NPCs: let's start off with the big ones
The Kings/queens
Courseton: Courseton is ruled by a king, his alignment is lawful good and he tries his all to help his citizens, he will give a quest saying to go to other kingdoms to ask for supplies, in return he will give troops, weapons, potions and scrolls, or money to the other kingdom depending on which one you choose to try and get supplies from gesunduk will want the potions and scrolls, cuerdoson will want the weapons, and olaive will want the money. You also have to roll a persuasion check to the leaders you are making a deal with. It has to be above a twelve for you to persuade them. If you get supplies for the king and being them back in good condition, he will give you 50 gp each plus three enchanted items. One is a longsword, it's enchantment is whenever it strikes an enemy they take 1d6 lightning damage. The second item is a hairbrush taht whenever you she it, it changes their alignment, but it's random, you roll a d10 to see what it is, a 1 is chaotic evil, a 2 is lawful evil, a 3 is neutral evil, a 4 is chaotic neutral, a 5 is true neutral, a 6 is lawful neutral, a 7 is chaotic good, an 8 is true neutral, a 9 is lawful good, and if you roll a 10, you go mad. The third item is a book that if you read it once you gain a random selection of spells that you can choose but is limited to 20 spells so you roll a d20 to see what you get! But once you us with it disintegrates.
Next is the queen of gesunduk
Gesunduk is lead by a very smart but very neutral lady, she was lawful but didn't care if what she did was good or bad as long as it meant progress. She was a lawful neutral. If she is asked for any quests she will send the players off to a cavern filled with different creatures to recover an enchanted staff that I'd said to cast large amounts of light for long periods of time. The creatures in the cavern are up to the dms choosing. The players have two options, they can either keep the staff for themselves but be banned from gesunduk and if that is where they started at they no longer get their prize at the end of their journey. Alternatively they can bring the queen the staff and be rewarded with 500 gp to be split amongst the players as well as 20 healing potions and 3 special potions. The potions are as follows, ironskin, if the player drinks this they roll a d4 and whatever number they get they get they raise their armor class by that much for that encounter, The second potion is a potion of swiftness which after drank doubles the person's speed for that encounter, and the third and final potion a potion of strength, whoever drinks this rolls a d8 and adds that much damage to all their melee attacks for the encounter.
-to be written-
