Forging Legends: Your First Campaign with Quest Portal
How to Use Quest Portal and It’s Unique Features to Bring Your Adventures to Life!
Introduction: Where Do You Start?
Stoking the fires of the forge
Every Dungeon Master faces the same challenge, where to begin? Whether crafting an epic saga or a quick one-shot, building a fully realized world can feel overwhelming.
Quest Portal simplifies this process, helping you generate settings, NPCs, encounters, and dialogue with ease.
This guide walks you through a structured approach to campaign creation, using AI to organize ideas, speed up prep, and offer creative support.
If getting started feels daunting, sometimes simply making an image or two can help spark ideas and get the creative boulder rolling!
Follow these steps to write your first campaign.
Whilst it's FREE to use, to really make your experience top notch sign up HERE for your free trail of Quest Portal in order to make the most of their amazing AI integration.
Step 1 - Concept and Setting
The anvil to your spark
Before diving into maps and battle mechanics, every great campaign starts with a strong setting and central theme. Ask yourself:
Where does the adventure take place? (A cursed city, a nomadic caravan, a forgotten ruin?)
What tone do you want? (Dark fantasy, heroic adventure, mystery?)
What conflict drives the story? (An impending war, a rising cult, an ancient prophecy?)
If you're unsure, for now simply let the dice decide for you!
How AI Can provide a gentle guide?
With Quest Portal’s AI-powered notes, you can quickly generate ideas by using prompts like:
'Describe a dark fantasy city where a forgotten god is worshipped in secret.'
'Give me three campaign ideas based in a desert wasteland.'
This sparks creativity while keeping your process fast and dynamic.
Example in Practice
For this concept adventure—Forging Legends—you might choose an eerie, mysterious setting. An AI-generated cemetery image helps visualize the world before writing.
Picture the game's main location. Create the imagery yourself or use AI for inspiration—in this Example, it's a cemetery.
Then, consider your own image - For this Image I would ask who was Lucy Bell, and why does her grave matter to the players' journey?
Step 2 - The Story Hook – Why Are They Here?
Striking Whilst the Iron is hot
A strong opening hook immediately makes players care about the world. This isn’t just about plot—it’s about making them feel personally invested in what’s happening.
Use Player Backgrounds – Tie the hook to a character’s past. (e.g., “The grave belongs to a missing family member.”)
Introduce an Ongoing Conflict – The problem should be active. (e.g., “Villagers report seeing figures in the graveyard every night.”)
Make It Urgent – Give them a reason to act now. (e.g., “A fresh corpse is missing from its coffin this very morning.”)
Generating Custom Hooks
Simply begin using the AI feature by pressing the yellow stars pictured above whilst the cursor is on a black line of the page.
Using Quest Portal’s AI, you can generate multiple story hook variations tailored to your world and party.
Example AI Prompt: "Generate five adventure hooks for a low-level party investigating a graveyard. Include twists that lead to larger mysteries."
This creates re-playable campaign starts! You could even roll a d6 to choose a randomly generated hook if your players go off-script.
When using or creating Images for inspiration create at least two in order to start to create the story in your mind in how they maybe connected.
The second image: outside the inn, new notes on the notice board ask for teeth in exchange for gold.
Step 3 - Hook Delivery
Welding the pieces to create the form
Ideally, you want to tie the last two images together, so for an easy narrative, let’s say Lucy Bell was the recently deceased wife of the innkeeper, Marcus Bell. Just like that, you have created your first living character!
Now, how do we get the players to the graveyard?
Hook Idea: Marcus hears rumors of graves disturbed near his wife’s resting place. Worried but unable to leave the inn, he may ask the players to check on it for him, knowing Lucy Bell had gold teeth that could be a potential target.
Step 4 - Writing your first note
Hammering out the form
A great way to start forging the locations from the pictures you've already created is to try and imagine the smells, sounds, and general atmosphere of the place, alongside notable features.
Either create your own campaign by pressing the + icon in the bottom left-hand corner, then select your desired game engine (D&D 5e - 2014).
Or use the Quick Start tutorial video on Quest Portal's Youtube to find out how.
Start by creating yourself an account at Quest Portal and signing up for the FREE Trial
Once you're on the campaign page, press GO TO SESSION to edit the campaign and click NOTES on the right-hand side. Here, you will find two sections: Private Notes (DM Notes) and Campaign Notes (Player Notes). Hit the + icon to the right of the private notes section to start a new note. Your title of the note will also function as the label in the notes hot bar.
Let’s call this first note "The Sanguine Dawn"
If your creative juices are already flowing, start typing and write a detailed description of the Inn. Cover all its sights, smells, atmosphere, and even its history.
If you need some help, simply hit the forward slash / and select FREESTYLE from the notes to prompt the AI into writing for you!
Example prompt: “Write me a well-formatted, long description of The Sanguine Dawn Inn. It contains an upper level and a basement level, the wait staff is comprised of the local children (ages 13+), and it’s set in a beautiful, quiet village. It smells of good home cooking, and the innkeeper’s name is Marcus.”
Step 5 - Keeping everything organized
Keeping your hammer within reach
The key to making an easy-to-follow campaign for you or the DM is organization!
Create a NEW FOLDER by hovering over the Private Notes subsection. A folder icon with a + symbol will appear.
Name it Locations and place your note inside.
If you have a good feel for it, repeat Step 4 for the Cemetery description. Make sure to note the location of Lucy Bell’s grave and the fact that some graves appear recently disturbed. (otherwise link your won creations)
Step 6 - Creating your first character
Hiring an apprentice
Now, let’s create Marcus Bell, the innkeeper, and Hannah, the traveling dentist.
To create a new character go to the right hand hot bar and click SHEET, as the character sheet section slides out you will see at the bottom left hand corner of it another + Icon press that. You now have two option either Generate character or Create Character.
Go to the right-hand hot bar and click SHEET
Press the + icon to create a new character sheet
Select Generate Character and choose Dungeons & Dragons 2014 NPC Template
Enter Marcus’s description: “Marcus, the innkeeper of The Sanguine Dawn. An older gentleman who looks either angry or sad.”
Use AI to generate additional background details if needed.
Repeat the same process with your own prompts for Hannah the travelling dentist. Hannah will be the character digging the graves up so give her some sense of macabre darkness about her.
If you would like to try doing this yourself from scratch, then select Create Character and use the following links as a guideline. Character Inspiration - Click HERE Character Creation Tutorial - Click HERE
Step 7 - Player Interaction – Dialogue, Rumors, and Roleplay
Forging Connections
Once you have locations and NPCs, interaction is key. Good campaigns give players:
Opportunities to gather information (eavesdropping, gossip, posted signs)
Choices that matter (help the innkeeper, investigate the graveyard, confront suspects)
Memorable roleplay moments (secrets, personal conflicts, moral dilemmas)
How the AI can Help
Quest Portal’s AI-generated rumor tables can add depth to interactions.
Example: If players overhear villagers discussing the grave disturbances, you can generate 20 different rumors—some false, some leading to adventure.
To support the adventures Hook Create a new note titled Rumors at the Inn. Press the forward slash ( / ) to access the AI prompt, or click in the body section to reveal a hot bar. Look for two yellow stars and click them to open the prompt section.
In the dropdown, select RANDOM TABLE. Before entering the Example Prompt, be sure to read READ ME FIRST for guidance.
READ ME FIRST: before you name "The Sanguine Dawn" in the prompt push the @ key and a pop up with all the notes you've already made will appear. Either type or select your desired note, in this case "The Sanguine Dawn" and it will use the relevant information so that your AI created rumor table is accurate to your setting and story. Now do the same as you type @ Gourmand in and this allows the AI to reference this time all the information on that character.
Example Prompt: "using all the NPC's and the notes on @ The Sanguine Dawn for settings and description make me 20 rumors that can be heard at the inn. create a rumor from @ Gourmand the Inn's Cook about the recent travelling dentist having something to do with those disturbed graves."
Organize by creating a Dialogue folder, then a Rumors Folder
Place the Rumors Folder Inside the Dialogue Folder by simply dragging and dropping to create your first Sub-Folder
Place the Rumors at the Inn note inside the Rumors Folder, making it easy to access different rumors for various locations.
Top Tip: Sub-folders work up to 4 layers deep
Step 8 - Creating Scenes and Battle Maps
Engraving Finishing touches
Lets add the Sanguine Dawn Inn Battle map to start with, opening the below link in a separate window, Download the files and follow the below instructions.
Free Battle Maps - Click HERE Supplied by the talented - Tom Carto
To create your first scene go to the hot bar on the right hand side and select SCENES.
If SCENES doesn't appear here its simply because your not in the session scroll up to the top of the page on the main central screen and press GO TO SESSION
Once on SCENES, select + Add a scene at the bottom left corner. As the Scene Library slides from the right of your screen select CREATE A SCENE in the top right corner. Name the Scene The Sanguine Dawn INN then press the + Icon below the scene name to upload the downloaded material. Bare in mind to add the files in this sequence as the variations of the Scene should also be organized so the DM can quickly switch between levels of the buildings etc.
TC_The Sanguine Dawn 01 Basement_LoRes
TC_The Sanguine Dawn 02 Ground Floor_LoRes
TC_The Sanguine Dawn 03 Upper Floor_LoRes
Feel Free to add additional scenic pictures for the INN to really add more emersion for your players.
Step 9 - Continue Down Your Own Path
Make your own Mark
We encourage you to make this your own and share your story with the Quest Portal community on Discord
Using images as a way to spark creativity is a great way to start writing and expanding upon existing locations and characters.
As a Bonus Quest now try and make your first Item for this campaign, Something that possibly helps the players stay hidden whilst spying or something that help discover clues but is also cursed in a way to cause distrust between the players.
Either way, this world is literally yours for the making and with Quest Portal by your side Forging Legends just became easier than opening an unlocked door!
Useful Links:- Building a Campaign Setting - Click HERE Narrative Structure for Games - Click HERE How to Write a Good Game - Click HERE
Written by the wonderful Gene Alexander of DND Outcasts. Check out his first published D&D 5e 2015 campaign, and support his work by investigating The Ancient Trails of Nazaroth here on Quest Portal!
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