My Life As A Gamer: Campaign Development Update

I have already decided four things for my campaign.

First: There is a location that acts as a long-term Pull influence on the campaign. All of the initial Patrons and their respective Domains will begin the campaign on different sections of the campaign map. From their seaside bases, each and every one of them can see a tower rising into the heavens in the distance- one that shines in the night and sparkles in the day. It is barely visible from the seas, as you can only see the top end as if just on the horizon.

This tower is said to be a legendary Place Of Power, the seat of a long-gone empire whose historicity Elsewhere was questioned until recently. (Think in terms of the talk surrounding the claimed discovery of Plato's Atlantis in Western Africa recently, only confirmed as such conclusively.)

(Placeholder to represent the concept.)

Second: Each of the initial Patrons making landfall come from Somewhere Else. Therefore no one has solid information on this land- only legends and myths. The other benefits to this decision include that each player taking on such a Patron role will have considerable leeway to define his homeland's culture and traditions (and how that manifests in play), and that what players encounter is going to be uncertain for a long time.

Third: Each player-run Patron will possess a reason for leading their expedition to this Lost World and to seek out the aforementioned tower. This acts as a Push mechanism as it inflicts a Loss Condition on that Patron if certain conditions are met, taking them out of the campaign, as well as define their Win Condition. It will be for the player-run Patrons to assess if others' conditions are exclusive to their own or not, leaving diplomacy on the table.

Last: There are to be two sort of player-run Patrons: Long Term and Short Term. The above concerns Long Term Patrons. Short Term Patrons are those leaders and other notables that are encountered, but heretofore were not significant actors in the campaign (e.g. a dragon is discovered lairing in a mountain and dominating the region; this NPC can be handed off as a Short Term Patron to an uninvolved player to run until his relevence runs out).

I recommand that players be up on their pre-modern history as much as they are on world mythology as well as Appendix N and its worthy successors.