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City Campaign Ideas: D&D Adventures Under the Dome

Over the past several weeks, we have been exploring the cities of Under the Dome and discovering that civilization beneath the Chaos is every bit as dangerous and complicated as the wilderness beyond its walls. We have climbed into the noble districts, descended into underground neighborhoods, wandered through slums, and looked at the hidden settlements where people survive beyond the great cities.

Now it is time to put all of that worldbuilding to work.

A city should never exist simply because a campaign setting needs somewhere for the characters to buy equipment. The best cities create adventures simply by existing. They have competing interests, people with different ideas about what the future should look like, secrets buried beneath the streets, and powerful individuals who can turn a simple problem into something much larger.

The cities of Under the Dome are designed to do exactly that.

Crystalia: Power Runs on Grind

Crystalia is the perfect city for a campaign about ambition, industry, and competing powers. The Grind Barons control enormous portions of the city’s economy, and their influence reaches from the glittering heights of the noble districts to the crowded streets below. Motorcycle races provide spectacle and opportunity, while experimental technology creates endless possibilities for adventure.

A campaign set in Crystalia could begin with something as simple as a missing shipment of Grind. The characters are hired to find it, only to discover that the theft is part of a struggle between two rival Grind Barons. One believes the shipment was stolen by a competitor. The other claims the first Baron arranged the theft himself to manipulate the market.

Before long, the characters are caught between corporate espionage, criminal organizations, underground smugglers, and powerful nobles.

Crystalia is also an excellent city for characters who want to become involved in the racing scene. A motorcycle race might begin as entertainment and become a dangerous adventure when someone sabotages one of the competing machines. A character might be recruited as a racer, mechanic, bodyguard, or investigator. Winning could earn the party fame, while discovering who sabotaged the race could earn them a much more dangerous enemy.

The city works particularly well for campaigns where the characters begin as small-time adventurers and gradually become major players. They might start by protecting a Grind shipment and eventually find themselves deciding which Baron controls the city’s future.

Balaria: Where Civilization Is Built

If Crystalia is about controlling power, Balaria is about creating it.

The industrial city provides an entirely different style of campaign. Its factories, foundries, workshops, and guilds make it an ideal setting for adventures involving invention, engineering, sabotage, and industrial espionage.

A Balaria campaign could begin when a brilliant inventor creates a new machine capable of dramatically improving the city’s defenses against Chaos Storms. Before the invention can be completed, the inventor disappears.

The characters are hired to find them.

Their investigation takes them through factories, guild halls, abandoned workshops, underground districts, and perhaps even into the city’s slums, where someone has been secretly building components for a machine far more dangerous than anything the inventor intended.

Balaria also offers an opportunity to explore the people who keep civilization running. The characters might become involved in a workers’ dispute, uncover unsafe practices being deliberately hidden by a powerful guild, or discover that a series of factory accidents are actually acts of sabotage.

The city becomes particularly interesting when the characters realize that stopping the villain might also cripple an industry thousands of people depend upon.

In Balaria, there are rarely simple solutions.

Gloaming Arbor: The City in the Trees

Gloaming Arbor offers a dramatic change of scenery.

Here, civilization exists within an enormous living forest. Massive trees rise toward a Dome made from colossal leaves, while ancient castles and sanctuaries sit high among the branches. The noble families live above the rest of society, occupying ancient structures that have existed for generations.

A Gloaming Arbor campaign can lean heavily into exploration and ancient mysteries.

The characters might be hired to investigate a forgotten sanctuary deep within the upper canopy. Perhaps something has begun disturbing the ancient trees, causing portions of the living Dome to wither. The nobles claim it is a natural problem, while druids insist someone is deliberately poisoning the forest.

The characters soon discover that both sides are hiding something.

Gloaming Arbor is also an excellent location for a campaign involving old families and older secrets. A noble house might claim ownership of a centuries-old castle, only for the characters to discover that the building predates the current civilization. Something beneath the roots may remember the world before the Domes, and someone has gone to great lengths to make sure nobody discovers it.

The vertical nature of the city also makes exploration feel different. Adventures do not simply move from street to street. Characters climb, descend, swing between branches, cross ancient bridges, explore enormous hollow trees, and venture into places where the forest has grown over structures forgotten by history.

Vergussian: A City With Scars

Vergussian gives us another opportunity.

Rather than presenting a city that is thriving and confident in its future, Vergussian can serve as a place where the scars of the past are impossible to ignore.

This is the city for campaigns about what happens when civilization fails.

The characters might arrive to investigate a disturbance in an abandoned district and discover that the city is not as empty as everyone believes. Refugees, scavengers, criminals, and isolated communities have created new lives among the ruins.

A campaign here could revolve around competing groups trying to reclaim different portions of the city. One faction wants to rebuild. Another wants to preserve the ruins. A third believes the city should remain abandoned because something beneath it is better left forgotten.

Vergussian is also a natural place to explore the consequences of Chaos Storms. The city can show players what happens when the protection of a Dome fails or when people attempt to rebuild in the aftermath of catastrophe.

The question isn’t simply whether the characters can save Vergussian.

It is whether Vergussian deserves to be saved.

The Cities Beneath the Cities

No matter which city the characters visit, they should eventually discover that there is another city beneath it.

The underground districts provide a common thread connecting the civilizations of Under the Dome. The earth appears to block much of the chaotic energy produced by the storms, making the depths some of the safest places available.

That safety comes with a price.

Underground districts can become crowded, forgotten, and difficult to control. They are perfect places for smugglers, criminals, refugees, secret societies, forgotten temples, and communities that exist outside the influence of the people above.

A campaign can begin on the surface and slowly move downward.

Perhaps the characters are investigating disappearances in a wealthy neighborhood. Their investigation leads into an abandoned maintenance tunnel, which leads to an underground marketplace, which leads to an ancient cavern, which eventually reveals something that could threaten the entire city.

The deeper the characters travel, the older the secrets become.

The Slums: Adventures Among the Forgotten

The slums offer another way to turn a city into a campaign.

Characters who spend time in the poorer districts quickly discover that these communities have their own leaders, economies, criminal organizations, and social structures. They may have little wealth, but they possess information that the powerful desperately want.

A campaign could begin with the characters being hired to protect a neighborhood from a criminal gang. What appears to be a simple protection job becomes complicated when they discover that the gang is actually protecting the residents from a Grind Baron attempting to seize their homes.

The characters now have a choice.

Do they defend the people who cannot defend themselves, or accept the Baron’s offer to work for him?

The slums are particularly effective for campaigns that want to explore the moral grayness of Under the Dome. The villain is not always the person holding the sword. Sometimes the villain owns the building. Sometimes they control the resources. Sometimes they simply have enough money to make the law work in their favor.

The Noble Districts: Adventures Above Everyone Else

Eventually, the characters may find themselves climbing.

The noble districts provide the perfect setting for political campaigns, intrigue, assassination attempts, elaborate parties, and secret alliances. The higher characters travel, the more powerful the people they encounter.

A campaign could begin with a simple invitation to a noble celebration. While the characters are attending, someone is murdered.

The doors are locked.

Nobody can leave.

Every guest has a motive.

Suddenly, the adventurers must determine who is responsible before the killer strikes again.

The noble districts can also connect directly to the larger conflicts of each city. In Crystalia, the characters might find themselves caught between rival Grind Barons. In Balaria, they could become involved in a struggle between industrial guilds. In Gloaming Arbor, ancient families might be fighting over secrets hidden within the oldest trees.

The higher the characters climb, the more expensive their mistakes become.

One Setting, Many Campaigns

The real strength of Under the Dome is that these cities do not need to be isolated adventures.

A campaign can move between them.

Characters might begin in the slums of Crystalia investigating a stolen shipment of Grind. The trail leads them to Balaria, where they discover the shipment was intended to complete a revolutionary machine. Components for that machine were secretly acquired from ruins beneath Vergussian. The information they need to understand the machine is held by an ancient sanctuary in Gloaming Arbor.

Suddenly, a small crime has become a journey across the world.

Along the way, the characters encounter Grind Barons, industrial guilds, nobles, criminals, Storm Scarred survivors, hidden settlements, underground communities, and people who remember a world that existed before the current civilization.

That is what makes a city more than a backdrop.

Every city should create problems that cannot be solved by simply walking away.

Making the Cities Matter

When running Under the Dome, the goal should not be to make every city feel equally important.

Instead, make each city feel important for a different reason.

Crystalia is where characters go when they want power.

Balaria is where they go when they need something built.

Gloaming Arbor is where they go to uncover ancient secrets.

Vergussian is where they go to confront the consequences of the past.

The underground is where they go when they need to discover what civilization has forgotten.

The slums are where they go to learn what ordinary people know.

The noble districts are where they go when they need to speak with the people who believe they control everything.

And eventually, the characters should discover that all of these places are connected.

Because the Domes may keep the Chaos outside.

They do not keep the problems inside from spreading.

Thanks for reading. Until Next Time, Stay Nerdy!!