The “Lost City of Omu” was designed to encourage players to explore an ancient city that houses 9 temples that each hold an artifact needed to enter the final location of the campaign, the “Tomb of Annihilation”.

This quest acts as a central hub to house over 20 locations, including the required 9 temples. Players are encouraged to explore the city as a whole to find hidden loot, meet unique NPCs, and fight a T-Rex Demi-God named, “The King of Feathers” in an ancient amphitheater.

I modified each location by adding new lore, details and history that would be directly related to the player characters. I added subtle worldbuilding by included the “misfortunes” of previous adventuring parties, and foreshadowed a “hidden” clan of Yuan-ti snakefolk stalking the players to kidnap them.

Lost City of Omu map provided by Wizards of the Coast

The “Lost City of Omu”’s general structure acts like a sandbox for the players to engage in several locations that offer multiple solutions to “solve” or simply interact with Points of Interest & ambient events.

For example, while searching for the next temple, players may find themselves needing to cross a flooded section of the city and discover the most immediate path as a fallen tree spanning both sides of a river. If players decide to cross it, this triggers an “NPC encounter” by ambushing the adventuring party. This ambient event is unknowingly triggered by the players and presents several solutions for the party to engage with.

With over 20 locations and ambient events, I designed the “Lost City of Omu”s questline to feel very organic and malleable, while still maintaining a clear main objective of finding and recovering the missing 9 artifacts from the scattered “mini-dungeons” throughout the city.

Nine Shrines map provided by Wizards of the Coast

While designing the “Lost City of Omu”, I prioritized 9 key locations that housed the missing artifacts needed to progress in the campaign. To make sure players were fully engaged and challenged within such a sandbox-style quest, I needed to make sure each location felt unique, but to also provide gameplay variations in the form of combat, puzzle and roleplaying encounters. I was lenient in the “correct solution” for a temple to encourage player ingenuity.

For example, while designing the “Shrine of Kubazan”, I introduced a large pool of water with a temple at the opposite side. This shrine is primarily separated into two sections. The first section allows players to either “deal” with the massive creature lurking below, a “froghemoth” by using their characters abilities to possibly charm or bargain with the creature. This encounter may also be simply a chance for a dangerous combat encounter, but by designing for both outcomes, gives the players more direct agency over the quest.

The second section of this “mini-dungeon” is primary geared towards collecting an artifact across a dangerous pit filled with spikes and only loose planks & platforms to jump across, similar to a traditional platforming segment. While designing this segment, I also had to take into account alternate solutions players might cross the chasm with magic or other alternative means.

I presented a problem for players to solve that allowed for flexibility and rewarding ingenuity within each of the 9 temples.

Fane of the Night Serpent dungeon provided by Wizards of the Coast

I’jin’s Puzzle provided by Wizards of the Coast

A collection of major boons given to players after defeating an optional boss (The King of Feathers)

I designed custom enemies throughout the entire campaign for both main and side quests. I built a foundation for what an enemy’s combat abilities were, and it’s relevancy to a quest. Important enemies would be named and use powerful abilities, such as “legendary actions”. A major priority throughout the 2 years of the campaign, was to harken back towards the importance of “backwards scripting” and the impact a strong enemy will have on the overall quest.

I constructed both narrative text to “set the scene” and had written rules for what the rooms/areas may contain. I had hidden numbers that only I may see that marked each point of interest within the space, and information regarding each room encounter.

I created pins as a tool to act as “map triggers” that would directly link to any description or encounter that may occur.

For example, the players entered an abandoned mine deep with a mountain. As they explore, the temperature rises and they find strange mining equipment. At this point, I would click on a map pin as a “trigger” and read a room’s description and easily have access to unique rules, such as triggering trapped tiles containing fiery, explosive runes.

I created “handouts” that would immediately pop up on all player screens. By doing this, it enhanced any points of interest and gave better clarity to what something may look like, and set the scene.

I created a library of over 100 handouts that were linked to dozens of quests. I did this because it fulfilled a greater sense of immersion and acted as journal for players to reference at any time.

I found that the use of handouts as additional reinforcement for spaces not only created a more memorable gaming session, but ultimately encouraged player engagement within a quest.

“Hand of God”

A Recent Session

This VOD is from my Tuesday sessions where I run a game titled, “Hand of God”, that is a 100% original campaign set in the dangerous and fantastical Underdark.

In this session my players continue their journey to find an ancient dwarven vault that may hold a divine artifact, the “Hand of God”. In this session the players engage with a unique overworld mechanic that connects narrative, environmental and combat encounters that are tied to player handouts & large scale combat maps.

“The Shattered Obelisk”

Side Quests & Boss Fights

This VOD of my Wednesday game titled, “The Shattered Obelisk: Return to Phandalin”. I use the official module produced by Wizards of the Coast, but have changed the plot, story structure and balance to fit a more seasoned group of players & adventurers. I have included new lore directly tied to the player character’s background and choices. I also added new NPCs, new maps and combat encounters that prioritize world building and player agency.

In this session, I designed a combat encounter that modifies/ “mutates” a famous creature called a “grick”. These stony, serpent-like creatures would hid in walls and ambush prey, but now are covered in strange, resonating crystals. These new “variants” force the players to tackle the combat in a different way to avoid more dangerous abilities such as explosive, arcane crystals.

I also modified a quest for my players to “deal” with a massive machine further in the mines given by “Ashen Wights”. Originally this section of the module was quite bare-bones and didn’t encourage player engagement, but by altering the quest to prioritize player choice & agency, it led to stronger storytelling & a memorable boss fight.