10 Campaign Ideas #2

One day while in a relatively remote area, the players come across tangled, easily climbable strands of vines that appear to be dangling down from the clouds. Assuming they bring proper supplies (food and hammocks, mostly) they should be able to make their way to the top in a matter of days. There they find a massive floating city, apparently abandoned and partly overgrown, with strange architecture they've never seen before. Almost immediately, their way back is lost- a storm rips away part of the vines, leaving them with no clear way down. What follows is a game focused more on exploration and investigation than combat. Searching for food, figuring out how to use strange artifacts, investigating the mystery of the city itself, making your way towards strange structures in the distance, fending off various more aggressive members of the ecology that's developed here (one that bears a close resemblance to the Elemental Plane of Air, with a good deal more in the way of birds), searching for another way down- and, occasionally, catching a glimpse of something across the rooftops or through a window that makes you suspect that you might not be alone after all...
----
On top of a mesa lies a self-sustaining city (farms, functioning wells, etc.), ruled by a religious order which teaches that the mesa is a promised land given to them by the gods, and that this gift is what elevated them from a miserable life as primitive savages. Fog clouds permanently surround the mesa in all directions, concealing the outside world; on the ground a dungeonlike labyrinth extends off in all directions, perhaps forever. Some adventurous souls, gripped by the possibility of there being more to the world, risk exploring outwards through the labyrinth. If discovered, these explorers are executed as heretics. Still, those who know where to ask kind can find not only merchants dealing in adventuring gear but even a few brave souls who collect reports and draw up maps in an attempt to provide guidance and advice to successive generations of adventurers. Of course, such an individual could always be an agent of the religious order spreading misinformation, so don't get too cozy.

The truth is that the labyrinth and flight/sight-blocking clouds were both created hundreds of years ago as a defense mechanism for the city. Eventually a mad, isolationist king ordered the roads in and out removed, which in turn let the religious order acquire power through the use of magic to create food and save a starving populace. There were secret ways to the outside world, but any record of them has long since been lost or destroyed...
----
In a world where orcs have become a recognized part of civilization (after a century of progress begun by a visionary leader similar to Obould Many-Arrows), a small counter-culture movement has emerged. The players are a part of a handful of orcs who argue that the orcish race is suppressing their primal nature and leading meaningless lives due to the peer pressures of civilization. Rather than living a cultured life as a noble gentleman or an honest job as a cratsman, they live as adventurers and draw upon their primal instincts to get the job done. Think of them as a cross between hippies, the Fight Club and Conan the Barbarian, with a slogan looted from NEXTWAVE; they're healing the orcish nation by beating people up.
----
The short-sighted human perspective is that nature wants to simply tear civilization down. But nature is about survival of the fittest, and is more concerned with adapting to the circumstances. Just as weeds, gulls and rats thrive in a city, certain hardier breeds of nature spirits now seek to find a place in a developing city built on the land they're bound to. Dryads, Mephits, Sprites. . .exchanging past bonds for an attachment to a street corner or slum neighborhood, they band together and find a place in this new society by working as mercenaries or forming allegiances with the mortal races. Perhaps they fight to protect a small section of a city park, or perhaps they become more and more urban. Are they an an evolutionary dead end? Well, that's up to them.
----
The players are adventurers and have normal adventures, with one small wrinkle: instead of being a part of normal society, they're a part of draconic society such as the one found on the continent of Argonessen in Eberron (draconic society, of course, doesn't usually bother with the activities of the lesser/mortal races). Where normal adventurers clear out warrens of goblins and engage half-fiends blackguards in the ashes of a battlefield, they take on strongholds of Storm Giants and engage Balors in battles that level forests. At the beginning of the game the humanoids are gathered into tribal nations of varying sizes, but over the course of the game (which involves century-long intermissions where the players hibernate in their lairs and attend to various personal concerns) a roman empire-like civilization comes into being; perhaps it might seek to hire their services, or capture them. Then again, if the players play their cards right they could be worshiped as gods...
----
An experienced mastermind villain who successfully conquered a nation and ruled it for several years before being overthrown is back, and only the PCs have discovered his evil scheme. Though they foil his efforts, the nefarious genius is not so easily daunted and is soon back with another scheme, and another. . .

The truth of the matter is that after the man conquered the world he found himself irrevocably bored, and missed the company (such as it were) of the heroic individuals he once battled so much that he made arrangements to ensure their escape, knowing that it likely meant the end of all he'd worked for. He now appreciates how the world needs heroes- and believes that, in turn, the world needs villains in order to bring these heroes about. He is careful to avoid doing serious harm, except where he takes credit for/associates with the activities of real villains in order to sic the PCs (or other adventurers) on them. Perhaps one day he'll reveal the truth of his motives to he players; but probably not.
----
Eberron campaign setting. The players were each one of the thousands of undead created by the Blood of Vol's necromancers to fight for Karrnath during the Last War. However, through accident, coincidence and/or unexplained phenomena each of them retained or gained sentience instead of being a mindless drone. Expected to play the role of the slave in the wake of the Last War, they have rebelled; the question is, what to do after escaping? Normal people might see them as horrific monstrosities, hated soldiers of an enemy nation, or even blasphemers against the teachings of Vol. For extra hilarity, have them inadvertently cause a schism with the Blood of Vol, leading Erandis Vol to demand their heads for screwing with her plans. They might find ironic allies in the form of warforged groups- though enemies on the battlefield, they now share a common place in society (or lack thereof).
----
A potentially mad medieval genius convinces a king to fund his dream: a railroad. What makes this dream seem especially ridiculous is that the railroad would run through territory that people would normally travel through only with skilled guides and heavily armed guards. The PCs are hired to help fulfill the "guard" role, helping forge a path for the train in a similar tradition to real-world frontier adventurers. They may well find themselves negotiating pacts with tribal groups instead of just attacking them, or going beyond their station and arguing with the heads of the expedition about the proper course of action. And of course, the train is also a way of clearly establishing borders in favor of the king's nation, which can lead to lots of hostile forces and maybe some political intrigue...
----
The PCs are D&D characters who find themselves in a post-apocalyptic modern-day world that's beginning to stabilize as a tribal culture. Perhaps they'll join one of the tribes and defend them; if the players seem concerned mainly with returning home, you could hint that the source of the apocalypse somehow cam from their own world, giving them the goal of figuring out just what happened here a century ago.
----
The players are all hired as experts and consultants for a well-mannered contractor who is designing a dungeon, perhaps the first to be deliberately constructed in such a fashion. They are well paid for their services and sent on their way. Said contractor was actually working for an evil ruler who begins using the dungeon to oppress the populace by forcing innocents to proceed through it as an example to others. One or more of these innocents is a friend/relative of the PCs, which leads to them discovering their hand in things. The contractor, meanwhile, has found this to be his big break and is getting hired by many other sadistic, powerful individuals to construct bigger and better deathtraps. His conscience loses out against his greed, ambition and professional pride as a craftsman; he becomes more and more deranged, eventually using his amassed fortune to fund his own "research" into creating bigger and better dungeons- said research often involving tests with lots of victims. As his enablers, the PCs may feel obligated to stop him- and if not, he may come after them (either to rehire them or test his twisted designs against more capable prey). Though the man or woman steadily becomes more and more sadistically insane (eventually calling themselves the "Dungeon Master"), they always hold on to a sense of fair play; there's no point to a deathtrap where the prey doesn't have a chance.