| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Kno |
Posted - 17 Apr 2010 : 10:44:15
I'm really interested in how did they end, what did the big bad evil guy at the end want, blow up the realm, conquer the world, save the universe and so forth. I'm looking for high level ideas.
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| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Xevo |
Posted - 26 Aug 2011 : 22:56:11
A one on one with my wife. She played a good assassin (not unlike. Batgirl' but without the strict morals or paralysis). Big baddie was a thayan wizard able to manipulate time and space around a particular subject. PC managed to kill him but found that her silver cord was knotted with a time conduit. Days,weeks, or even years would pass before she found herself "waking up" at a cafe in Athkatla in the year 1397 DR (a cafe she was at around the middle of the adventure). Ergo, she ended the adventure stuck in a perpetual timeloop and she killed the only person who could get her out. |
| Suru |
Posted - 15 Aug 2011 : 22:28:05
*Setting*
My last Campaign I call the "Snow Globe". Basically my campaign is set inside a snow globe sitting on Karsus' desks in a buried ruin. The party of course do not know this. Basically the snow globe contains a solar system of 7 worlds, and a sun which in reality is a piece of Karsus' soul. All the worlds are really essences of high magic contained within a sphere. The reason I did this, is because I run two campaign settings, and in the second setting on Faerun, the PCs are actually on a quest to recover this artifact. I plan to open travel between this realm and Faerun through use of this artifact, which has been my design from the start. The snow globe is called "Honne", and it contains the entire pocket plane I was referring to inside. Complete with their own Pantheon, although their gods are not true divinities, rather very powerful beings born of high magic. The races of these worlds were recreated by the high magic beings after digging for knowledge inside Karsus' soul. The worlds consistently experience wild magic, but they call them "Seasons" knowing that magic works in a certain way in certain cycles. Time works approximately 10 times faster then Faerun inside the globe (actually the time difference varies by pocket plane month and wild magic affect).
Anyways 100 years ago Faerun time, and 1000 years ago globe time, a Red Wizard by the name of Daedrum Rhym found the globe and activated it. He was sucked inside, along with a group of harpers who were trying to stop him. When they arrived Daedrum called forth the high magic he had came for to smite the harpers. Unfortunately for him, when he called forth the magic, what he got was the living high magic that now was embodied in the form of the gods of this realm. A battle erupted across the planet at which he arrived as he used his high magic to battle the gods, literally channeling their own power against them. Eventually he was defeated, and banished by the gods to the firey planet of Valas, and the world where this battle took place (Varilith) began to rebuild for a thousand years.
*Plot*
Well the party's story begins, with them being purchased as slaves by "The Scarlet Rose". The worlds most famous adventuring rogue. He spends a few years telling them stories and teaching them the tricks of his trade. He always treated them well like they were his children. One day, he is found dead, apparently of old age, and he leaves the party their freedom, and a deed to an old mountain fortress on a nearby mountain. As they party had nothing else to their name, them being slaves and all they headed up to the fortress, which is on the outskirts of a small mining village called Marshall's Peak. They get to know the towns folk, including a strangely powerful mute Marshall, who tell them tales of their cursed fortress. The Scarlet Rose, and companions had once descended into the fortress seeking the knowledge of the gods to use godly magic to return to their ancestor's homeland to tell the tale of what happened to them. They all bore strange pins they claimed were heirlooms. So the party intrigued begins exploring the fortress, which is filled with traps and danger of all sorts. Whoever or whatever was hidden inside was well protected. Eventually the party clears out the first half dozen floors of the fortress, and begins to sell off artifacts found within, but deem it best to not venture too far down into the lower levels after running into Demonic guardians. So with their new found wealth from their fortress expedition, they travel the world, and start to discover a intriguing web of deceit going on within most of the nations. War is going to erupt soon among the many nations, most of whom deplore wizardry against the Wizard nation of Eshtara. (Wizardry is frowned upon, while natural magic/sorcerers are viewed as divinely gifted from the gods) Well being the shady characters that they are, one member of the party finds work actively spying for Eshtara as they travel the world (unknown to the other party members). Well their adventurers go on for a while, they eventually become quite wealthy and famous, and even marry, and have children (we played like 30 sessions of this campaign so far). Well the war eventually breaks out, and on the eve of the first major engagement the party coincidently breaks a seal left on Marshall's Point to keep the evil within the fortress sealed. They never took the time to learn that Daedrum had been summoned there by the Scarlet Rose and friends in the past, so they could question him about the use of high magic so they could travel to Faerun. (I hinted at it, gave old documents/stories and bard songs indicating it, but my party consisted of roguish Bards and a Warrior obsessed with fishing who ignored them entirely). Long story short they let him out. When they saw the sky's change color and saw the bright flashes of high magic everywhere, they decided to run. Then my party took my vast planning and let me throw it down the toilet as they decided to become hermits and live in caves out in the jungle with their family for the duration of the war rather then actually confront this great evil. (Can't blame them, its the type of characters they role played the entire time). So about now Daedrum will be returning to Faerun with Honne and the ability to use high magic. I think I might tie my two campaigns together and have catastrophic events happen within the globe whenever high magic is used by drawing its power on Faerun(to force the party out of Honne). Could be Interesting. I planned Daedrum Rhym to be Druxus Rhym's Father/Grandfather and currently the party in Faerun is post-spell plague by a decade or so. So he might seek revenge against Szass Tam for murdering his descendant or wreak havoc in some other way.
*Perspective
The reason I did this, was because all of my parties on Faerun die horribly because my PC's always attempt to engage into dealings with notable canon NPC's that they should never ever be dealing with before making a name for themselves. So I set a Forgotten realms campaign inside a pocket plane, hoping to let them reach Faerun eventually (Already somewhat powerful PCs). The setting has both a powerful artifact, and a powerful enemy with the promise of other worlds eventually. I was able to incorporate FR lore my players knew, without letting them alter or engage in it actively until much later. This left mystery within the campaign with players who mostly know all of FR's content by heart. I also wanted to establish links between other settings and forgotten realms so I can bring forth new interactions with other worlds once the concept of holding a plane inside a sphere is established within my settings. I don't like how realm space is set up in the triad and I wanted to establish an alternate method to Star Jam then space travel. I eventually want to explain that all realms are similar globes sitting on the desk of Ao, and I feel like the concept of realms within spheres still fits with existing mythos (Space being space between crystal spheres on Ao's desk). I like how I have this set up in case I ever felt like sending the party to someplace like Lodoss or another non-canon setting I could do so with the existing universe mechanics.
*Other bleh
I actually have a hundred hours or so put into this making maps, bloodline ancestry charts for PCs and notable NPC, rules for high magic, and a few modifications to how sorcerers work (Their blood is used instead of traditional spell components etc) Its actually quite a developed pocket plane now. |
| MisterX |
Posted - 15 Jul 2011 : 15:07:59
The campaign of mine that lasted the longest, started the players having three (or was it five? I think I ruled "five") character levels and ended about 15 or sixteen (since I moved away). I started the campaign with meeting their first "boss-npc", some red wizard from thay (he was meant to be level 8 or sth) who insulted them badly and sent them magically to the elemental plane of air. Actually, it was a Genius who kinda pulled them, since he thought them to be minions of that particular red wizard (who once tried to enslave the genius, so it hunted him). After defeating two Belkers (some monsters basically out of evil smoke…), the PCs convinced the Genius not to serve the wizard and proposed to hunt him down for the Genius (in exchange for a wish, granted after bringing the wizard to justice, iirc) – I even didn't have to force them!
So they were sent back to the material plane and chased the wizard to a nearby sembian city where he ran a magic shop. To get some gear and experience, they adventured for about ten levels, because they were afraid of the mighty red wizard. They only tried to kill him once, but "they" means "just the fighter-character" here, who was just blown out of the house by my BigBadEvilGuy. After that, they were always talking about taking him out but never did anything further to achieve this goal… |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 13 Jul 2011 : 15:44:12
Over about 7-8 years of roleplaying, my 2e FR campaign (of which I was the DM about half the time) went from wandering heroes to planeswalkers to major political movers and shakers on the Sword Coast. It was set before and after the Time of Troubles. At one point, my elf thief married the party's human wizard/fighter (they have kids), after which they settled in a small fortress near Ardeep Forest. The campaign ended with the characters retiring after the defeat of one of their oldest enemies (who attacked with a fleet of airships).
My 1479 FR campaign is very player-focused and responds primarily to what the characters want, based on their motivations, backstory, and current goals. You can read the transcript of the campaign in a series of online web-journals from one character's perspective starting here (http://community.wizards.com/zephsright/blog/2010/01/28/journal_of_an_elf_invoker_1) but basically . . .
They were at first the heroes of Loudwater until (depending on who you ask) a) they decided that town was too small for them, b) they'd accomplished all the subquests on offer, c) they got run out of town after the crazy warlock mayor framed them for burning down her mansion. (Believe whoever you will!)
They made their way to Waterdeep, where they got involved in entirely too much intrigue (including the events of my novel, Downshadow), including political machinations regarding the demi-humans of the city (particularly elves), a slavery ring operated by the Sightless (4e version of the Xanathar guild), assassinations, and the usual skullduggery. In particular, they clashed with their heroic nemesis, a drow priestess/warrior named Xara, but they finally destroyed her in her bid to seize power from the Blackstaff. Along the way, they also opened and operated a festhall called the Blushing Mermaid.
From there I ran them through the first chapter of the 4e Tomb of Horrors, which involved a trip to the Shadowfell to fight off an unknown/dark force that had infused an elven burial ground (see SPOILERS below), and they returned to find themselves high in the sky over Airspur, city of the genasi. They immediately began falling but managed to escape. They were then ushered into the queen's presence and are currently on a series of tasks to aid her (and further their own goals).
The game is *in progress*, so I can't predict exactly what will happen. The overarching plot concepts . . .
SPOILERS for my 4e FR Campaign (my players should look away now):
One of the characters is an elf invoker (kind of like a favored soul in 3e terms) of Corellon. Unbeknownst to her, she is the reincarnation of Eilistraee (when Corellon calls her "my daughter," he's not joking), who is destined to bring the Dark Maiden back to the Realms. Her BBEG is a drow who happens to be the reincarnation of Vhaeraun, who has spent most of the game "training her up" by throwing minions and would-be foes at her; his plan is to make her powerful enough that they can team up and take their revenge on Lolth. This is further complicated by the elf's will-the/won't-they romance with a badass drow assassin who keeps following them around, claiming not to know why he's doing it. Drama ensues. 
The half-elf rogue/ardent (kind of like a psionic cleric) is the son of one of my novel characters (who is very powerful and very morally ambiguous). He's very focused on love/romance and is currently and unintentionally founding a cult following in his wake. His destiny is to pursue some truly epic romances (with powerful gods, for instance) and become either THE god of love or an exarch in service to Sune (in which case he'd pal around with Sharess and they'd get up to some wild shenanigans).
The genasi warlord's parents were members of an all-genasi adventuring group called the Elemental Anarchs, and he is the result of a sort of breeding program to produce the ultimate genasi hero to destroy primordials. He isn't fully aware of that destiny, nor does he know that his BBEG is a treacherous member of the Anarchs, who slew the others and wants to control him to his own ends. Our hero is currently questing for justice (he hates slavers in particular) and sort of pursuing a romance with the queen of Akanul, Arathane. Also at issue also is his adopted sister/love interest, a firesoul genasi who is Arathane's closest bodyguard/confidante. (Those crazy genasi!)
The dragonborn sorcerer (kind of a half-dragon, in pre-4e terms) is walking the fine line between both sides of his nature, guided mostly by his powerful sorcery. He and the elf in the group have also made use of a Nether Scroll, which has heightened their powers considerably. The sorcerer has a "cute" romance with Jhalanvaloss (yes, that one!) from his days in Waterdeep, but his heart truly belongs to a dragonborn woman from his sister tribe, who he's not seen in many years. I'm sure she won't reappear later in the campaign (mwahaha!). Also, while fighting in Blackstaff Tower, the Blackstaff appears to have "chosen" him as an heir to its power. He now wields a "lesser blackstaff" in combat.
The last member of the group is a dwarf battlemind (kind of a psychic warrior) whose past and motivations are very mysterious. His father summoned a devil to infuse him with great power, but something went wrong . . . you know how it goes.
Also, the ultimate villain of the Tomb of Horrors in this campaign? Not Acererak, but instead LARLOCH, who is drawing the souls of those killed in the Tomb in order to breach Shar's blockage of a new god of magic and ascend to divinity to take Mystra's place. Will he succeed? Should he? Dun dun DUN!!!
END SPOILERS
Cheers |
| glitter |
Posted - 13 Jul 2011 : 10:46:16
The starting point of my campaign (3.5 Ed) is the end of a previous campaign played for around 6 years in my club.
More or loss, a battle of gods that happened at the same time of the troubles in Seldarine, an event that destroyed so much important places that made gods ashamed of themselves, unable to defend their worshippers.
A common pact was established between them, they would forbid people to talk about their failures, the creation of Drows is the only element kept to hide the forest of events from that period.
So many mysteries, to such a scale, pushed Shar to invest a part of her divine energy to "buff" the required effect and to literally make people less interested into sharing information, cooperation so that, hiding important things is a second nature for most wizards, experts or nobles.
Why ?
Because knowledge/information are extremely important for organized civilizations and without it, they won't be able to survive with the "entropy" of Faerun.
11,109 years after that war, several events are imminent (well, within 2 years as you might have guest)
- Rage of dragons (with information from the book Dragons of Faerun)
- the curse of Leira will get active, it will be the end of creation, what has been lost is now lost. (To be honest, I'm still looking for informations made by fans about Leira since there is very few information from books, so I'm lurking a lot on such thread : http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14097)
- One of the worst plague ever seen on Faerun.
Each of those three events are supposed to weakened several gods, and after those two years, the pantheon should be dominated by evil gods.
So, my players are supposed to avoid that as much as possible.
Since even gods have been influence by Shar action, only people coming from a different crystal sphere are less influence which ;eans in my campaign:
- two of my players
- Mulhorandis gods (the battle of Re versus Apophis in their original world is now to defend themselves from the dark influence of shar http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/apep.htm)
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| Mr_Miscellany |
Posted - 08 May 2010 : 20:11:57
One of the concurrent campaign arcs I ran was a quest for a Holy Avenger. This blade was secretly corrupted by Orcus and guaranteed to make a Paladin fall from grace. Then the campaign shifted to the character seeking penance through Aumanator and regaining his Paladinhood by finding the true Holy Avenger in the Bastion of Unborn souls and rekindling Aumanator's faith in the Realms. Lots of bad guy slaying in that campaign arc. |
| Alisttair |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 17:20:26
One campaign that isn't done but we have yet to go back to, the Dwarves (PCs) are seeking to reclaim the Wailing Dwarf in Amn back to their Bronzebeard family. While doing this, they are collecting the Dagger of Ochir Naal in order to prevent a summoning of Tiamat (which multiple groups are seeking to do for their own purposes). |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 16:20:15
quote:
Originally posted by Quale
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
For me the very idea of Cugel the Clever ever setting his feet in the Realms is a scary one. Although it is a book I would love to read.
I've seen somewhere he was a model for the D&D thief, guess there should be many such types in the Realms. In the new anthology ''Songs of the Dying Earth'' there are two stories with him by other authors, quite good surprisingly.
There are many that might remind one, but I cant think of a single character in the Realms so charmingly despicable. I think its time to reread the stories again.
I think I saw Gygax talking about the Thief years ago (I cant remember where, but it might have been Dragonsfoot), I think he said it was part The Grey Mouser, part Jack of Shadows and part Cugel. But all of them had abilities with the sword or magic that hindered them from being a perfect match. Giants of the Earth in Dragon 26 had him as being a 14th level thief able to memorize three spells from Iucounu's notebook, with a 50% chance of them back firing. |
| Quale |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 13:39:54
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
For me the very idea of Cugel the Clever ever setting his feet in the Realms is a scary one. Although it is a book I would love to read.
I've seen somewhere he was a model for the D&D thief, guess there should be many such types in the Realms. In the new anthology ''Songs of the Dying Earth'' there are two stories with him by other authors, quite good surprisingly.
quote:
Originally posted by Sill Alias
Nice scenario, Quale, but future with ilithids as the race of destiny?
 *shaking in anger*
FOUL VERMIN! JUST WAIT UNTIL THE UNITED GITHIYANKI AND GITHZERAI WILL TEAR YOU APART TO CLEAN THE LAND FROM YOUR PROGENY!
Not the illithids, their opponents, an anarchic race far evolved. That was the underlying motivation for the pcs, the image of a future of endless madness, suffering and slavery. Actually githyanki fell when they allied with Tiamat, who's related to Ilsensine in my world. Illithids and other like aboleths were enemies from the past, large parts about their domination in the Illithiad book was propaganda. Their masters in the future I imagined like clusters of thought and information in the Astral, organized into maddening, bureaucratic loops, somewhat like the AIs in the Hyperion Cantos except not technological but an echo of the Far Realm (which itself is a collective remnant of the previous, failed multiverses, shunned by the demiurge's mindfire who rises with each age like a phoenix). It has a complicated background story.
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| Sill Alias |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 11:39:06
Nice scenario, Quale, but future with ilithids as the race of destiny?
*shaking in anger*
FOUL VERMIN! JUST WAIT UNTIL THE UNITED GITHIYANKI AND GITHZERAI WILL TEAR YOU APART TO CLEAN THE LAND FROM YOUR PROGENY! |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 11:32:42
quote:
Originally posted by Quale
quote:
Originally posted by Basil the Geek
My influences for this game came from having watched Dark Star, Wizards and Zardoz the night before a USC science fiction writer’s convention back around 77 where I got to corner Ray Bradbury for an hour alone during lunch. I saw him again in 2000 at Dragon Con where he seemed ancient and tired but remembered me which was cool. I hope he’s doing well.
Almost forgot, there's a little "Demon with a Glass Hand" in it too.
Many thanks Quale!
you can't miss with the Dying Earth, it's one of my favorites ever
I did play with the concepts of illusory reality, only that Shar and Selune were aspects of Maya from the eastern religions.
For me the very idea of Cugel the Clever ever setting his feet in the Realms is a scary one. Although it is a book I would love to read. |
| Quale |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 08:15:10
Here's some of the higher level plots from nearly ten years of play, written as short as possible, lot of noncanon elements as well.
In my time-travel campaign the pcs were energy-beings from the far future that chose to incarnate (thus limit) themselves into human and pre-human evolutional forms, like symbionts. The plot follows the story about illithids dominating in the future and humans as the race of ''destiny''. The Hegemony (Ilsensine's draeden thought-cluster) unable to conquer these beings evolved from humans (inspired by Banks' Culture but with magical technology, and evolved Planescape's Revolutionary League) seeks their vulnerabilities in the past. The pcs were involved in five ages of the cosmic Sun.
During the fifth age they as Dukar-Numos agents subverted the plans of the Kraken Society for the Arcane Brotherhood, who would fall into slavery to the whisperings of the Old Ones of Illusk. And during the Avatar Crisis they stopped Hoar from becoming a factol (Mercykillers) and a Soletaken (kind of shapeshifter, by drinking the blood of the Dragon Lady of Untha(lass)).
After the first Imaskari civilization died, the pcs organized the defences (remaining constructs and bound planar creatures) against the looting barbarians and then the slave-armies of yaksha (rakshasas that made a dream pact with the quori-fey collective) rajas of the south. They searched the planes for surviving Imaskari colonists, finding only the proto-kaorti from Gobi's Carcosa of Earth (Hastur's experiments) and the spirit of the chained alienist Shekelor-Kzon. His directions helped them in discovering the astral vessel of the god-construct, Aoskar. The pcs abandoned Shekelor to his painful, maddening imprisonment, learning that the alienists of Ellyn'Taal and other nonhuman arcanists wanted his knowledge, that created the undecipherable and apocryphal Nether Scrolls (51., 52.). Instead they crashed the astral vessel on the carcerian walls of a Blood Rift's daemoncyst, freeing the bearer of the purifying fire of the 3rd Sun, Aroden, his titanic torch possessed a few remaining sparks to heal the kaorti. The surviving pcs retired in Illusk, one of them taking the name of Jeriah Chronos.
A million years before, the pcs were involved in the rebellion against Glyth, and then allied with Tanoz (Auppenser) against the followers of Gith and Zerthimon (who hadn't had some villainous plot in mind, but would lead humanity elsewhere). Then in the fourth part the bad guys were various planar powers who fought over dominance over the most important prime world. Until the appearance of the first natives (titans, giants and humans - alchemy) who kicked them out. The fifth part was at the end of the Age of the First Sun, 13 bil. years ago, where the pcs were fey beings on a fleet of spelljammers living in a phlogiston-like astral protoplane (Aum) encountering alien intelligences with ''get of my lawn'' attitude. And they had foes like the Arcane who wanted their star charts back. The real villain was conceptual, the spelljammers dragged chronomantic megaliths that needed to placed strategically. It was a war of protofey spirits of against time, to shatter its bonds and change its linear nature. Plots 3 and 4 are still unresolved, need to finish the history for both ages and titan Chronos' story to continue.
Other campaigns/adventures that I remember
1. Visiting a reptillian creator race tomb the pcs were cursed and mutated into various forms of yuan-ti. Then the villain (batrachi changeling) manipulated them into doing its dirty work for the alchemical ingredients of the cure. Too homebrew to post more.
2. In 1160s DR, pcs as agents of Tharsult (homebrew, inspired by Sicily with the northmen) and mercenaries trying to keep the emperor of a diabolist, decadent empire (inspired by Cheliax of Golarion) alive, against the schemes of Ashtaroth and his infernal nephew pretendant, Halruaan agents of Danchilaer, Rundeen and the Five Shires pirates.
3. A witch of Tsigala (neutral-aligned homebrew version of Talona) and an arcanist of Ologh (version of Oghma, philosophy not a god) unleashed a plague that specifically targeted Chondathan blood. They discovered words of pure evil in the language and hoped to lessen the effects (there's a house of information dealers, Jhaamdathan survivors from Altumbel, partially responsible for the refinement and spread of Chondathan, who unknowingly used the lore and techniques supplied by arcanaloth binders). These words resonate and have some influence on reality, like weakening the lower-planar barriers after centuries of use.
4. Tiny particles of anti-magic cosmic dust fell on Thay and northern Mulhorand causing political chaos. The Scarlet Brotherhood (imported to Veldorn) then seeked to regain a bit of their long lost investments since the rebellion.
5. Bloodstone/Daemonlands campaign, some of the plots. A nentyarch gatekeeper driven mad by an alien spirit of chaos, randomly teleports throughout the land, affecting the planar rifts by its presence and corrupts the primal commands of the Raumathari maug construct-army on the Bloodwall; Citadel of the Assassins breaking the yearly frost fey ritual, Zhenghyi's dragons breaking their monoliths, causing glacial instability, one of the arcane glaciers sliding towards the Bloodwall; an army of death giants emerging from the Wells of Darkness daemoncyst and burying itself around the Ironfang Keep, Talfiric style; seven companies from Morov volunteering for the Wall as replacements, secretly juiced up by the Haagentis; Cult of the Dragon counters Zhengyi's plots in hunting down a dragonblooded orc clan of Tharashk who have the ability to smell a type of cursed bloodstone originating from Asgorath, when thrown into a dragon's hoard, it gradually transforms the owner into a dracolich; a chaos dwarf discovers an ancient spellweaver throne in the Tortured Lands and raises the Necromantis (exoskeletal undead army); etc. too long
6. And I had an alternate Wyrmskull Throne story except the villains were the Aurum (imported from Eberron, different members, arrogant Melnibonean sun elves from Chondath, greedy gold dwarves from the south, and an aurumach rilmani), started with their involvement in the Moonshae feyfairs, not Myth Nantar.
7. This one's too homebrew, an undead continent replaces Zakhara, in the centre of a huge desolation dhampir Fremen-like people collect blood and treat it with special spice (ancient Imaskari recipe). In the east, the elven vampire courts learn about their reservoirs. Pcs are in the middle, as explorers from the north searching for the source of their holy river of blood (Egypt-inspired realm but undead) ...
8. Twisted Rune experimenting with the ghost of Abdul Alhazred in Zakhara and regretting it, stuff spilling out of the portal-house in Calimport.
A few more ridiculous ones, some from back when we just started playing
9. Taern Hornblade of Silverymoon was replaced by a malaugrym, but at the same time his evil twin brother Baern had the Unseen on his payroll, and a green dragon seeking to expose the malaugrym with a Tearn clone while distracting already confused pcs with a halfing lycanthropy pandemic.
10. Something about the shades building a flying ''aircraft carrier'', don't remember.
11. A Sembian necromancer moving into the Vale of the Lost Voices researching elven mortality.
12. Zhent agents, greedy merchants, bureaucrats from Irieabor, Myrkul's priests of famine and werebeavers disturbing the shipping business of the pcs along Chionthar, later falling into into slave-debt to Orien Priakos of Westgate.
13. That continued into another campaign, sort of ''Eberron in the Realms'', where the Korth Edicts of the houses (altered to fit) were negotiated with the Lord's Alliance. Had many assassinations, sabotages and interferences from the Iron Throne, Knights of the Shield and Amnians/Shadow Thieves.
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| Quale |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 07:58:03
quote:
Originally posted by Basil the Geek
My influences for this game came from having watched Dark Star, Wizards and Zardoz the night before a USC science fiction writer’s convention back around 77 where I got to corner Ray Bradbury for an hour alone during lunch. I saw him again in 2000 at Dragon Con where he seemed ancient and tired but remembered me which was cool. I hope he’s doing well.
Almost forgot, there's a little "Demon with a Glass Hand" in it too.
Many thanks Quale!
you can't miss with the Dying Earth, it's one of my favorites ever
I did play with the concepts of illusory reality, only that Shar and Selune were aspects of Maya from the eastern religions. |
| Kno |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 22:17:37
The arcanes, even better, they are a mystery inspiring creatures, and poor gnomes never getting the recognition they deserve, as it should be.
I see that the Azure Bonds plot is quite popular. Basil, I tried the Matrix in the Realms too. PC's entered a portal into the Astral Plane. It was like the construct program from the movie, a part of Jhaamdathan army drilling program long abandoned, evolved on its own. Took them awhile to realize that the size of their muscles is irrelevant in this place.
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| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 21:28:18
quote:
Originally posted by Kno
Thanks for the ideas, Loki being in the Realms is tempting, wondering about his possible relations with Cyric, Mask, Tyr and Kezef. Darkmeer, Moander is fun, already had him in the Azure Bonds plot that ended badly (forest fires). Alystra, particularly like your idea about an arquebus-smuggling ring, with evil gnomes, reminds me that old video game (starts with A ?).
Thanks. Glad to provide some ideas, though the smuggling ring was actually run by Spelljammin Arcanes, not gnomes. The gnomes had BUILT the arquebuses, but the weapons were being stolen and then sold on a black market half'way across the world. |
| Basil the Geek |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 18:43:09
quote:
Originally posted by Quale
your campaign is like Jack Vance's story about villagers looking through parts of a broken demiurge into paradise (overworld) and refusing reality
Now this is an example of why I love the internet. I’m currently going through a cantankerous and indecisive “can’t decide what book to read” period and you’ve provided me with one that’s now grabbed my interest.
My influences for this game came from having watched Dark Star, Wizards and Zardoz the night before a USC science fiction writer’s convention back around 77 where I got to corner Ray Bradbury for an hour alone during lunch. I saw him again in 2000 at Dragon Con where he seemed ancient and tired but remembered me which was cool. I hope he’s doing well.
Almost forgot, there's a little "Demon with a Glass Hand" in it too.
Many thanks Quale!
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| Tyranthraxus |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 14:14:52
The longest campaign I ran was Ruins of Adventures, or the Phlan campaign as the players called it and it took about a year to complete. I threw in alot of side-treks and there was alot of roleplaying and intrigue. The halfling cleric and half-drow rogue of the group joined Tyranthraxus during their adventures in the city but turned against him working as double agents for Cadorna. When the party found out about Cadorna's plans they were shocked and they went to the castle to confront Tyranthaxus and kill Cadorna as well (but they never found him).
After that some characters were replaced who had died in the final showdown with big T and we started Curse of the Azure Bonds. Unfortunatly the party was wiped out by the dracolich beneath Haptooth Hill.
The players created new characters and we did a few adventures in the Dalelands where they finally ended up in the Underdark and got captured. When they woke up they had strange azure bonds (again  ) and we continued were the previous campaign ended and this time they defeated the dracolich and killed the red wizard who was ruling Hap and started to build a keep where his tower once stood. One by one they removed the bonds and I replaced the last part of Curse of the Azure Bonds with Pool of Radiance - Attack on Myth Drannor and added a bond of the Cult of Dragons. When they finally defeated Tyranthraxus (this time possessing a red dracolich) they went to Cormyr.
I ran Cormyr - Tearing of the Weave as written followed by Shadowdale - Scouring of the Lands but the party's military campaign failed and their castle in Hap was captured by the Zhents and the whole party died in a fight with a skeleton dragon (they HATE undead dragons now). This all took about 3-4 years of playing. |
| Quale |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 11:21:06
your campaign is like Jack Vance's story about villagers looking through parts of a broken demiurge into paradise (overworld) and refusing reality |
| Basil the Geek |
Posted - 02 May 2010 : 20:10:18
I just wrapped up a near two year campaign where the players were all inhabitants of a virtual Faerunian history built upon the collective denial of few million Netherese survivors of the destruction of Ioullaum’s enclave Xinlanal.
The citizenry had escaped the diaspora by attempting to create a new material plane in which the reality allowed Karsus to succeed only that the grand spell was sabotaged instead incorporating their collective psyches within a sentient Mythallar forming a god like psychic gestalt living in a virtual reality of its own liking.
Only the Mythallar and a few participants in the ritual knew the truth, but only for an instant as they exploded into a million crystal shards scattered around the globe and into the multiverse as the weave came apart and reintegrated under new metaphysical laws.
These shards are each a trans-dimensional psychic fractal of the collective and its only remaining material form in the Forgotten Realms. They are sought after for their unique psychic properties frequently used as improved Psi Crystals.(They are also gateways into and out of the collective)
The players enter the game over a thousand years later unaware of this history as in this reality the diaspora never happened, the Netherese succeeded in altering realty effectively catapulting Karsus into godhood. The problem is that this isn’t real, someone/thing desires to keep everyone fat dumb and happy and is willing to manipulate, coerce, alter memories, even rewrite ones psyche (somewhat worse than being simply dead) to maintain this façade.
Yes I know, the concept has been done hard since the Wachowski’s brought it mainstream but it worked and the players expressions epic when they all realized I successfully hoodwinked them. Expressions soon changed to horror and despair upon realizing many of the philosophic concepts and why the sabotage but they persevered and eventually escaped to the real Realms late during the Time of Troubles there casting abilities retarded, magic items malfunctioning and old mentalities out of whack with the rest of the world.
But, the collective doesn’t truly ever let you go as the party was continually harassed by “agents” attempting to bring them all back. The players eventually returned to finish the issue once and for all.
The potential results at the end are…
A: The original spell is completed; a new alternate reality explodes into being with one player getting to utter the “I am Tetsuo” line and the survivors starting a new pantheon.
B: The original Saboteur wins out, becomes the overgod and does as he pleases too the surviving party members now possibly ascendant beings in his reality.
C: The collective collapses in on itself into a singularity, a permanently locked away purgatory for its inhabitants.
D: Nothing changes
E: The collective explodes, tossing its inhabitants now reincarnated into a unique new race, scattered randomly across the multiverse. (The end the players blundered into)
The campaign had a sort of “Matrix” meets “Logan Run” then “Blast from the Past”, “Radioactive Dreams”, “Mad Max” once they translated over to the Realms, and finally an insane Akira, I can’t handle becoming god, everything is blowing up, sort of feel to it.
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| Kno |
Posted - 23 Apr 2010 : 21:14:38
Thanks for the ideas, Loki being in the Realms is tempting, wondering about his possible relations with Cyric, Mask, Tyr and Kezef. Darkmeer, Moander is fun, already had him in the Azure Bonds plot that ended badly (forest fires). Alystra, particularly like your idea about an arquebus-smuggling ring, with evil gnomes, reminds me that old video game (starts with A ?). |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 21 Apr 2010 : 06:11:17
LOL!! Great campaign! Mine usually starts in one of two ways, but always in the same city. The first hook is the party gets mistakenly drugged and ends up in a self-contained, pocket-dimention village simply called "the Community", which apperently is the retirement/getaway home for the spy networks of various nations when they need their agents to "disappear" permanently. It also appears to have no way out- once you're there, "no one leaves the Community..." (My hubby has played through this often enough that he now HATES those words.) Getting out is the hard part, and leads into the main campaign of finding out who sent them there and why, which naturally leads into othr adventures.
The second starter quest is a bit more hack-n-slash. Caravans from the starting city have been disappearing on the trade route to the nearby dwarven kingdom, and dwarves are suspected of raiding them, due to clues left behind. when the pc's get to the dwarf land, they claim that humans have been raiding THEIR caravans, and both sides are threatening war. The truth is a bunch of duergar have set up camp in a cavern complex near the trade route, and are stealing from both sides, and making it look like the other side was involved in order to start a war and weaken the dwarven kingdom for their own planned war. After that, it branches off into other areas and adventures. Some of them from both start points have included- a group of nixies whose children have gone missing in their lake through some strange portal, leading into a water-filled tomb of an ancient Phaeroh's mistress who was a priestess of Bast to rescue the nixies, then getting cursed with cat-allergy/attraction by Bast for desecrating (stealing from) her shrine in the tomb, then having to go on a quest to rescue a captive cat-lord from an evil wizard doing experiments to attone for the desecration; an arquebus-smuggling ring bringing gnomish weapons into a conflict between an elven nation and the agressively expansionist human lands next-door, leading into rescuing a lone drow (my bard) who is beset by orcs, only to discover later while he travels with the party that he is being hunted by his half-sister, and having a run-in with the expanding human nation's de-facto ruler, a vampire who is immune to sunlight, fire, and most other known weaknesses, and his death knight henchmen; inheriting a haunted mansion as a quest reward (for uncovering the duergar plot) and getting a pc possessed by one of the spirits, angering a druid with a decidedly nasty agenda, and his cougar companion and goblin minions, and being recruited by a peculiar young CG red dragon to slay his mother who is starting a cult of Tiamat in the mountains. And did I mention the frequent appearances by the resident god of mischief? Yup, I get some really weird campaign ideas....
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| Darkmeer |
Posted - 20 Apr 2010 : 16:17:58
I, personally, loved Moander. The long-running plot of the previous Realms game I ran in the dalelands and the mountains southeast of Anauroch was dealing with someone who brought Moander back through a foul ritural.
Initially, I used an adventure from Dungeon where the PC's were investigating a kidnapping of a Lord's daughter, and, unbeknownst to the PC's she was aiding the cult. She bore the son of the cult leader, through which it was later found out to have been very indecent indeed (they were related). This, along with a nightlong ritual, that the PC's crashed, brought the child into the world AND brought the remaining vestiges of Moander's power into the child.
This brought the PC's a devil's choice, either slay the baby, or let it live and try to purify it. Well... the Drow of the party did the talking, and sacrificed the baby. To which both the mother and the cult leader vowed revenge, with the cult leader snatching the child and running, but not before setting off a rockfall trap to cover his escape. This left the Mother and the PC's together.
The mother feigned ignorance, which the PC's believed (I still don't know how I managed to choke down my smirk at this). So, with the mother's 'help' the PC's begin chasing down the cult leader. This all comes to a head when the PC's begin to find real clues, and then actually find the location.
The cult had been divided into 2 factions: One following the main leader, and one following the mother. The mother sicked some harpies and ogres on the PC's while she tried to capture the cult leader and get the corpse of the child back. The PC's catch up to her, slay her, and begin the trek into the mountains to get the cult's only remaining leader.
The cult leader had done the most despicable thing, created a rotting man flesh golem (sized HUGE) for the vessel, using the child's spirit as the host for the Golem, which brought Moander's essence back. The golem, thus transformed into a "living golem" (from savage species) had, essentially, the same game statistics as a Formorian Giant. The fight was hard, and the cult leader was killed outright rather quickly. Without the cult leader to focus the faith, the golem went berserk, slaying everything in its path, including the "babykiller" drow from the beginning of the arc, a DMPC Psion, and nearly killing the other PC's before they took it down.
The PC's are unknown heroes at this point, as they prevented the cult's rise at that point, but made a heck of a contribution to the unsung heroes of the Realms (they had no bard).
If I recall the party was:
Avariel Wizard/Fighter/Bladesinger, Drow Rogue/Fighter, Ghostwise Halfling Fighter/Rogue, Human Psion, Human Druid/Ranger, and a troll Paladin.
The Drow was replaced later with a Drow Wizard, and the Psion with a Human female cleric. The troll wandered away, and was never heard from again. |
| Quale |
Posted - 20 Apr 2010 : 11:43:24
Once, I had the ''save the multiverse'' plot, and it was a sidequest. One of the pcs was the Master of the Spirit of the Transcendent Order (Planescape) nearly ascending and becoming one with the planes and the Cadence. Secretly the pc was possessed by a baernaloth (long story, this progenitor of pure evil was like a virus, but composed of spiritstuff, small and undetectable, hooked on the pc's chakras). The villain wanted upon the Cipher's ascension to gain access to whatever is behind the planes (Balance) and to rewrite the reality where the most pure evil in the current version of the multiverse becomes neutrality or the new standard. Eventually the pc had die, but that didn't quite work, then to get rid of his spine at the mercy of Lovecratian swarm creatures.
And I had a nuts time-travel campaign that was epic, and some others.
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| crazedventurers |
Posted - 20 Apr 2010 : 09:27:07
I have had one over-arching plot over the last 22/23 years of playing in the Realms. Someone let Loki into the Realms to cause all sort of mischief and chaos, and finally after those 20 odd years and 3 major campaigns within the larger ongoing campaign, the players have finally pieced together the clues and figured out Loki is an interloper and active in the Realms. What they don't know is that someone let him into the Realms, so am sure in another 20 years that secret might get uncovered  (then they have to figure out why! ).
I found having one catalyst for lots of the main campaign issues makes things clearer and easier as a DM as I can hang lots of hooks onto the same point of origin even though most of them seems obtuse and obscured and unattached when the PC's blunder in and 'fix them'
The look on the players faces when they (very recently) discovered the proof was brilliant, as they realised all those other little things they had previously found out but didn't make sense, now made sense. It got them reminiscing about previous characters and events and campaigns and how what they did 'back then' has effected the current game. Of course they now want to go and find the mischievious Loki and kick him back to Asgard and out of the Realms, which is an epic quest (in the truest meaning of the word) of its own.
Cheers
Damian
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| Cleric Generic |
Posted - 19 Apr 2010 : 13:51:19
quote:
Originally posted by Alisttair
Sadly, none of them made it to the end 
Yeah, unfortunately this tends to be fairly common. It's really hard to get a group that can meet on a weekly basis for over a year, even if the DM doesn't burn out well before that. The longest weekly game I've played in was just over nine months, and that one nearly hospitalised the DM. |
| Alisttair |
Posted - 19 Apr 2010 : 13:33:20
Sadly, none of them made it to the end |
| Ashe Ravenheart |
Posted - 19 Apr 2010 : 05:43:14
"Great minds drink alike."
Or was that think? I can never remember.  |
| The Sage |
Posted - 19 Apr 2010 : 05:42:10
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Ashe Ravenheart
To take into account that sometimes I think up stuff that my character might not, I got in the habit of making Int checks to see if he would have thought of what I thought of.
I did that a lot with my minotaur, back in 2E.
And I as well. In fact, 'twas a habit that I maintained for so long, that it practically became an unofficial rule that was added to my games. |
| Ashe Ravenheart |
Posted - 19 Apr 2010 : 05:39:46
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Ashe Ravenheart
To take into account that sometimes I think up stuff that my character might not, I got in the habit of making Int checks to see if he would have thought of what I thought of.
I did that a lot with my minotaur, back in 2E.
Heck, I still do it today with my Half-orc Barbarian. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 19 Apr 2010 : 05:00:53
quote:
Originally posted by Ashe Ravenheart
To take into account that sometimes I think up stuff that my character might not, I got in the habit of making Int checks to see if he would have thought of what I thought of.
I did that a lot with my minotaur, back in 2E. |
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