Get through the door! in Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Brainstorming

This isn’t going to be that interesting to those who aren’t interested in DnD and this is really just a place for me to collect my thoughts and do some brainstorming, not a dense read for certain. But I’m always willing to listen to critisim or if anyone has a great twist or idea then lay it on me.

I’m a first time DM on about session… 15? Now I want to say, 10-15 for certain. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes and there’s a lot of room for improvement. At this point this homebrew campaign is more of a trial than an actual investment. We’re working on a second campaign that will eventually be… better. I hope.

Here’s the story so far:

The PC’s (Player Characters) all had a dream one night that took them 5 years into the future (first regret, should have made it like… a month or two) and the world was being cloaked in darkness (The darkness!) and being torn asunder by the hordes of evil, specifically a Dragon (see God) known as Roko - The god of Battle. In his fanaticism of destruction there seemed to be something off about him, the paladin of Roko noted. Despite being level one they tried to stop him and unsurprisingly failed, being tossed out of their dream and back into their bodies.

That was the end of the first session, a “tutorial” session to get them (and me used to the mechanics of the game)

Speeding it up from here,

After the PC’s awoke to a new day, there was a flyer circulating, a call to arms for heroes to take on a kings quest and to meet in this city, a city they saw in ruins in their dreams. They went to the city, met up, questioned everything and eventually banded together to take on this kings quest, a grocery list of magical items that would make him a better king. (something that was a binding story starter but has become absolutely pointless now, another mistake)

They go into their first dungeon and find a kid who claims to be stuck there as he fell into this highly secure demi plane. a third of the party wants to kill the kid outright, another third wants to tie him up and drag him along and the party leader who had a soft spot for kids (she’s only 17 in game and 19 out of game themselves) wants to take care of this poor lost soul.

TL:DR Kid was evil, I’m transparent as a story teller and the artifact they had was stolen and taken into the Astral Plane, also several gems came out and shot everyone then were promptly forgotten about until one of them pointed out one of the other characters had a gem stuck in their forehead. This is also the same character who thinks the world is flat.

They end up chasing the artifact into the Astral plane but end up in a different place than their quarry and they find themselves on a pirate ship that has been ambushed. Through stealth they kill everyone, burn their corpses and imprison the previous captain so they can steal his ship and make it back home. Eventually they find their man, kill him, and everyone else in the room and make their way home (there’s stuff that happens there but I don’t want to write 4 pages of arguments, thievery and general party dynamics out)

Eventually the party finds out that their stones come with certain powers, one guy keeps having dreams about being a dragon and fighting an ice dragon, the paladin is losing touch with his god Roko. While they scour a city in the Astral plane they find a large temple dedicated to all the gods, which turns out to be far more than their world’s pantheon of 8 or so.

Fast forward, the party gets a crew for the ship (Also useless and something I wish I invested more into) and a large explosion rocks the Astral plane opening up several portals, one that looks like it goes back to their world. They hop in their new airship and head back home.

So after going through this portal in their airship there’s a meteor storm that they have to dodge the meteors (Something I glossed over that I wish I hadn’t) and get the ship safely to land. They do so but obviously a large freaking air ship is something that’s going to garner some attention. So they take off and go hide in the clouds.

At which point the leader of the group puts on the artifact after being heavily told throughout the campaign not to. With hints like “You will wear a crown one day but it is not one you will find, it’s one that will find you” prophecies and shit… like, I was not subtle.

Anyway, turns out it’s cursed and she’s gotta deal with that so they do and that’s a session. One party member bails at this point because they were going on deployment IRL which is why they haven’t been mentioned until this point but he was picked up in the Astral Plane.

After that they head down to “The Oasis” another temple on their home planet of Avoa and found out it was under siege by something that came crawling out of the meteors (See Orcs) and I’m gonna pause there because I’m going cross eyed!

I skipped a lot of details but this is more about catch-up than substance.