I'm Starting a New Homebrew Campaign...

January 22, 2026

*If you are part of the Of Fae and Fangs campaign group - STOP READING <.<

I thought that this would be a good time to share how I start world building for a campaign since I'm literally doing it write now. I do believe that the stories start with the party, and hence we will begin with...

The Party

Depending on the group, I take one of a few approaches to coming up with the starting point:

If the party have been regulars with me, I just ask them what they've liked and what they're tired of, and if there's any genres they want to explore.
If the party is completely new, I ask what kinds of books, movies, or media they like to consume. As much as possible, I try to find a middle ground, and then start coming up with pitches that feel like they cover the requests.
I may already have a campaign that I really want to run, and will pitch that to the party.

For the first example, I am going with number 1. The party just finished a 50+ session campaign involving Greek-inspired Gods and Monsters, Eldritch beings, and Homeric style adventures. It was epic, and everything felt BIG.

That being said, the party is sick of Gods, and they want to see more of two things - Faeries and Vampires. This immediately made me think of all the old Vampire shows, like The Vampire Diaries, Twilight, and of course the one show I can think of that has both Fae and Fangs, True Blood. It's all drama. Even the recent Interview with the Vampire Netflix series is all drama.

On the other hand, fae are tricksters who like to play around the word of law. Despite being chaos in bodily form, they often have a tree of nobility. Oberon, Mab/Maeve, and Titania are famous names here, but if we need more inspiration, we can easily use scryfall to come up with ideas by searching for legendary faeries amongst Magic: The Gathering cards. We can also do this with vampires.

So just like that, we have some key tropes to explore - vampires, faeries, and some sort of political intrigue.

Spiral Campaigns

This is a term from the lazy DM/Slyflourish to describe a lazy way to generate content for a campaign. First thing we need to figure out is what the actual them or goal is for this campaign. As Sly puts it, ideally it is a single sentence that encompasses the entire campaign. Some goals are pretty obvious - kill Strahd, kill Vecna, prevent Tiamat from rising, etc. The previous campaign's goal was to prevent the Apocalypse that the God of Deception was bringing upon the world.

Campaign Theme

For this, I want Oberon (or whatever I name the king of the fae) to be in a deep slumber, and that he holds all the power within his crown. For the initial story arc, I want to establish a SUPER TRICKSTER as the bad guy, and hence he will steal the crown. To kick off this campaign, our theme, goal, or whatever will simply be:

Steal the crown back from the thief

Easy, simple, and not too much depth that it becomes hard to write around it. This goal may eventually change, but this is enough for now. Not totally stolen from the card of which the art above relates to...

What Makes this World Unique?

This is where we come up with central truths (Sly often calls it six, but it's not necessarily that number). Having watched and read some content (reading list below), I've driven down to the following first:

There are seven "original" vampires who are the strongest, and all were bequeathed their vampiric powers through the Goddess of Blood (Originals? Queen of the Damned vibes?)
The Fae, King Oberon and the Two Queens, Maeve and Titania, are a Triumvirate leadership, despite their constant bickering between each other (I feel like this is just real life relationships)
The weaker Vampires are unable to resist the scent and smell of fae blood - an intoxicating smell and taste for them. This means that no fae can ever become a vampire, and will die long before they can be turned (Trueblood). Stronger Vampires are more disciplined.
The Crown of Oberon holds the powers of The Green - an abstract source of magic (Swamp Thing/Animal Man from DC)
The Green is contrasted by The Red and The Black (The Black being the source of vampiric powers). (Swamp Thing/Animal Man from DC as well)
Lastly, while the Fae and Fangs are eternally at war, it is a relatively quite period as neither parties are willing to break the temporary truce - not because of a lack of trying, but rather they are all internally fighting amongst themselves; Maeve against Titania for rule since Oberon's slumber, and the Seven Vampire families for leadership of their kin

A lot of these are just pieces from content I have watched or read, and when you smash enough random ingredients together, you'll get something new. Or at least, something new enough for the players. We do have a lot of details we can get into (individual motivations, relationship pairings, etc.) but we will only touch those once the players are going to interact with them.

Spiral Down to the Players

This, to me, is the most important part. You're not building a world to write a story, you're building a world for the players to live in. The stakes (sic) must be rooted in the players backstories and motivations. How is their adventure going to start?

I want the players to be rooted in one of the noble families each. This is where I start session 0, and pick out which families or tribes the players want to be involved with. This gives them a tie to the King of the Fae, and a reason for why the Thief might be harmful or detrimental to each of them on an individual level.

It would be nice to start in a pseudo funeral, the King's Sleep Wake. This kind of oxymoron is something I'd like to have more of in Fae society.

After talking to the players about their broad strokes, we have 5 new characters to play with:

A pair of Twin Fae, one bard and a barbarian, who are directly related to one of the "nobles", probably high in status.
A vampire artificer who is the child of one of the Greater Vampires
Another vampire who is climbing up the ranks in the military but is secretly a rebel
A Tabaxi Paladin who is there to maintain peace between the Fae and the Fangs as a neutral arbiter

Perfect - all of them have a good reason to go for the Sleep Wake - Twin Fae are basically his grandkids or great grand kids; Child of the Greater Vampire is sent as a representative to pay respects during this truce; Military vampire is personal guard for the representative of another vampire family; and the Tabaxi Paladin is a neutral guard to keep either party from going wary. During our session 0, we'll flesh out the character motivations further, but I want to play out a scene to solidify the characterizations a bit...

THE SCENE

As the players enter the wake, they will each describe their characters and how they follow the appropriate customs. Are they respectful? Are they law abiding? Are they social boundary pushers?

Then, introduce the BBEG with a capital B. Remember that hot guy above? Oko from magic lore? We can rename him in our setting, but let's just call him Oko. He'll appear standing over the sleeping body, casting a powerful version of hold person/hold monster that can hit virtually everyone in the room that he thinks is important. Most importantly, it hits the players - make the DC incredibly high, but not impossible. 20 is fair in this case. Those who fail are unable to move. Those who pass will be fearful to act. Insert a spiel about how much he hates the incessant bickering between the families and nobility. Mock the crowd with him. Mock the newly created PCs, and make it sound personal. He takes the Crown of the Sleeping King Oberon.

Then he disappears. Dimension door. Planar shift. Whatever.

The vampires conspire that he is obviously using green magic. His pale complexion, fangs, and obvious flair for the dramatic point him towards being a vampire. The hook - he's hot, mercurial, and hates everybody. Now, because of him, the party is in the middle of what looks like a broken truce between the vampires and the fey. A party of two vampires, two fae, and a neutral tabaxi - perfect for investigating who this thief is.

Reinforce the character motivations.

We're now ready for Session 1

All we need is to confirm the characters mechanical statistics, and we basically have session 1 ready. Time during the Sleep Wake to interact and learn about each other. Time to learn about each NPC that each PLAYER is tied to. An encounter with the BBEG right from the start, a clear potential end goal for the campaign. Throw in some new fae/vampire monsters as he teleports away. Don't forget to throw in some potential mcguffins to stall for time. I'm definitely gonna write more about this campaign in the future - I already have a key plot twist in mind. While I don't recommend coming up with a full story (that's called writing a book), I do think coming up with story beats and core events can help guide the game a little. This party likes drama, so plot twists are abound.

Till next time, and don't forget, who's awesome? You are awesome.