The plot? What can I say about this topic that would not sound too overstated. Let's see. Imagine your campaign is a book with live actors. It is these actors that will create and often manipulate the flow of your settings. The plot must be laid out like a storyline in a book. Try to keep the storyline smooth and flowing, especially when you or the players are new to either the game system or the world setting. After all, players are not excited by wonderfully unique cultures and endless possibilities for adventure, when they cannot get a grip on the world and the relative aspects of the inhabitants. The interlocking subplots and deep twisting campaign plots should be left up to more experienced gamemasters and players.

Listed below are a few a my favorite choices for campaign plots. For those that play Rolemaster you might recognize a few of these with a little Earthdawn twist to them.

Intervention by the Passions
This is the usual "Passion gets bored and meddles with namegivers" plot. When you have supreme beings in the plot anything is possible. I stay away from this sort of plot, for it is a cop out for really thinking up a decent storyline. Gamemasters should be forewarned that dealing with Passions can destabilize the world status quo.

Territorial need
Famine and overpopulation can be a disastrous way to begin a campaign with new players. But it is excellent for those players who have done it all. They will find themselves in land with exhausted resources and a homeland that is fighting to stay alive. They may be driven to succeed in rectifying their situation or migrate to other lands. This where the gamemaster must really take note of the various patterns and societal resources. A good lay of the land and its inhabitants is required to make this campaign work well.

Plague
What if there was a devastating plague that disrupted a huge area of Barsaive. Maybe set off by a powerful Horror or a living legend cult of Raggok. Civil wars and internal strife would be set in motion causing people to seek to escape or protect themselves. Suspicion and overreaction become the norm and blankets the territory with fear, despair and anger. The disease will continue to exist, either active or dormant, no matter what methods are used. Can you imagine that the inhabitants of the plagued area become immune to its ills and it gets spread to other areas of Barsaive by an unwitting PC? Nasty!

This carrier roaming Barsaive unknowingly infecting the populace, may set off a chain reaction which sweeps through a number of societies. In addition, as people fall victim to a this plague and disease, it weakens the social infrastructure of Barsaive as entire areas quarantinethemselves from the rest. I can see the Therans taking this opportunity to invade if they haven't already as in Prelude to War. Hell they might have been the ones to engineer the plague.

Culturally aggresive groups
The aggressor groups, societies that continually wage war may be culturally predisposed to fight, and therefore continually cause trouble to their neighbors. This is a good starting campaign that features either a particular racial culture, like troll skyraiders or ork scorchers. I particularly like The Weeping Lesion clan for orks or the Fire Mount trollmoot (these are my own design you want find them in any supplement). The reason behind their antagonizing nature may be due to their lack or conflict management, or because of nomadic social organization. Any pretext for war -- broken treaties, land or food shortages, greed for a precious good or minerals, or simply outright prejudice -- can set such a group off. Now if this doesn't sound like your typical ork scorcher, I don't know what does.

Threatening social or religious movements
I took this idea and ran with it. It dealt with the Cult of the Great Hunter causing a sweeping change to the status quo in the Badlands of Barsaive. It sprang from the awesome Earthdawn module Shattered Pattern. When you have a social or religious movement that is bent on conquest or conversion of more than simply the local populace, the fervor and associated momentum may carry into adjoining areas.  Your final outcome is a major clash between good and evil.  Let's face it -- if you worship Verjigorm you are not dreaming of candy canes and lollipops!

Unique families and individuals
Every now and then a single individual or family with extraordinary ability or luck takes command of a potent group and welds it into a tool for their purposes.  In their quest for additional wealth and power they may threaten or attack other groups.  One name comes to mind with these campaign setup -- Denairastas!  This family has quite a bit of power if the can threaten the welfare of the nobility of Throal.  They can become the nucleus of your antagonist in such a campaign.

Earthdawn is a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation. Original Earthdawn material Copyright 1994 by FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.Except where otherwise noted, all other original material is Copyright 1997-99 by L.A. Pride, Bill Hayden, Josh Young, and Chris Brumley.