Starting a new Campaign... need some help

[Athos]

Start them down south and let them travel up to Tolkeen. That long travel period will be plenty of time for them to have encounters and adventures and build their level up before they get to Tolkeen. Once they get there, you can have them hired as mercs and throw them into a patrolling squad where they have to secure the borders against the CS. There will be skirmishes, battles, misc. encounters, etc.

[talmor]

Personally, I'd give them something more exciting right away. Like, say, the CS recently took over an outlying town. Within the town there is a house of a former farily powerful ley line walker, who created a map of all the ley lines and nexus...nexusi (ok, what's the plural of nexus?) in the area.

They haven't found it yet, but the players get orders to sneak into town and retrieve map. If the CS gets it, they can use the info to guess and the locations of Tolkeen defenses, and well as avoided their "strong points."

Alas, the CS commander has taken over that particular house as his HQ.

Give 'em a map, give 'em some equipment, and then give them 24 hours to get the book. Any longer, and a Tolkeen strike force is going to summon a storm on the town and level it...better no one has the book than the CS.

That's the first adventure...give it a bang.