Melf, Mordenkainen, Bigby, Strahd – the pages of D&D’s canon are littered with the names of characters from people’s home campaigns.
It never ceases to delight that most of the “lore” of D&D began as something that happened in someone’s game. Whether it’s powerful NPCs that might be rulers of kingdoms, or some of the most popular villains, some of the best/most interesting facets of D&D came out of play.
And it’s a good reminder that you should be doing that in your games as well. After all, you’re playing the characters. You’re coming up with the villains. When you have something that resonates, you should keep that idea around – come up with your own “lore” that exists at your table. Did an adventurer survive the end of one campaign? Maybe in the next they’re a powerful NPC or whatever – here are five ways you can build lore just by playing.
It’s A ____ Job, But Somebody’s Gotta Do It
One of the most obvious things you can do to use PCs from an old campaign again is to just figure out what they’d be doing later and check in with them. This works especially well if you’re doing a campaign set in the same world, just a little further on down the timeline – a great time, I recommend it. But it’s a fun way to show players the “happily ever after” (or whatever flavor of ending the character had) – you meet a former PC now they are running an inn/the baroness of the elven lands/an archmage in a cool tower/the only one keeping the empire from falling apart because they’re good at paperwork.
Whatever the case, when you need an NPC to help show some color to the world, using a former PC can be a great way to establish the lore of your homebrewed world along with your friend group. Plus, if players see that you’re using their characters later, they might start coming up with goals or legacies they want to leave behind.
Name A Spell
If you don’t want to go all out, why not just pull an early D&D and name a spell after a beloved PC? This is even better if you homebrew spells – though I understand that not everyone will want to do that – but imagine the thrill of being a Wizard in a new campaign and learning a new spell that was the signature spell of an old PC. Or even just learning a slight variation of Magic Missile that’s like [PC Name]’s Magic Missile and it works like Magic Missile but slightly different and here’s why.
It’s a great way to establish a sort of continuity, while also paying a loving tribute to a magic user. You capture the stuff they’re known for or some element of their personality and put it into magic spell form. Even if you just change the name of fireball, it’s fine, but obviously better if you get a little wild with it.
Start A Town
Did your heroes save a town? Or maybe just help a village be able to grow? In some campaigns, they may have even started a settlement as a sort of PC home base. What if that town became a permanent part of the map?
Maybe the Wizard’s tower has a village around it now as people came to live under the protection of the archmage who once fought off the conspiracy of dragons or what have you. Did the Fighter build a castle? Maybe it’s the heart of a new kingdom. Whatever the case, if you think a PC might have left a mark on the world, here’s one way to show that mark.
A Festival For The Restival
Related – but if you’re thinking “well the people of Oaktown wouldn’t change the name of Oaktown” – there’s always the ol’ put up a statue and/or throw a festival in honor of the heroes who were in another campaign just as the PCs of this one come to town routine. It can be done in actual honor of heroic deeds, or if you take the Firefly ‘Jaynestown’ route, it can be a festival thrown because they didn’t understand what the former PCs were doing to take advantage of them. Either way, it’s a fun way to acknowledge a previous campaign.
You Either Die A Hero Or Live Long Enough To Uh Oh
Exercise caution with this one. But with the right group, and the right character? It can be an absolutely mind-blowing twist to reveal that the big villain of a new campaign was the former hero of an old campaign. Usually you wanna involve the player whose character it was – people are protective (and rightly so) of their special creations, but if your players love that kind of drama/storytelling, this can be one of those things that keeps your table talking for years to come.
What are some of the ways you reference past campaigns when building the lore of your world?
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