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tanderson11
2011-01-22, 08:38 PM
I have been running a campaign for a single friend of mine for the past two summers. We only have the opportunity to see each other for one week each summer, but will be able to devote 15-20 hours each week.

I am hoping to "finish" (are campaigns ever truly finished?) the campaign in 1-2 summers.

I have some ideas, but would be grateful for some more inspiration.

Background:

We have run this game for two summers as of yet.

In the first summer it began simply as an opportunity for him to make a character to pit against some monsters. He created a 20th Elf Duskblade. Only a few source books were used and it was a low degree of optimization, no shenanigans involved. I have been lenient, allowing him to use a Swift spell, a quickened spell, and a standard spell in the same round.

He fought against several foes, and in the final encounter in the Astral Plane arena he fought a Yugoloth, Ultroloth with many class levels (shadow dancer, assassin, blackguard, and ghost-faced killer). At the end of the battle the Yugoloth managed to read a scroll of binding and trapped the Duskblade in the arena. He found on the corpse a Deck of Many Things. He used it and got some generic cards, but on his last draw he got the Moon and rolled for 4 wishes.

For his first wish he freed himself from the binding.

His next two wishes I was very lenient and used them as a campaign hook.

His second wish was to imbue his sword with a magical ability to cut through the planar boundaries (think Subtle Knife) once per day.

His third wish was for immortality, of a sort. Each 3 weeks he must kill a monster/NPC of equal or greater level and drain the life force of the monster. This sustains him and keeps him from aging. If, however, for some reason he fails to absorb the life force of a creature he immediately ages for all the time he has suppressed. In addition while he contains the life force of a creature he gains certain abilities (such as the power overcome the immunities and resistances the creature possessed in life).

On the Yugoloth he also found a letter. It seems the Yugoloth was hired to enter the arena and kill the Duskblade. He was hired by a cult that was going to perform a ritual on the homeworld of the Duskblade and fears he will attempt to intervene.

The Duskblade tracks them down in the heart of a volcano, but their ritual has just been completed. They have summoned a fiendworm (MMII, although in this case it is attached to the Nine Hells). He fights and kills the cultists, but is swallowed by the fiendworm.

He arrives in the tower of the Dispater in the city of Dis.

He explores and finds he is trapped in the tower except for two portals leading out. He explores two locations in Limbo and Hades, vanquishes some strange, unidentifiable creatures composed of pure darkness and acquires two keys.

He uses the keys to enter the tower level above his. There he finds the still smoking rubble from a fight. Five dead pit fiends are strewn on the floor. He rushes to the next level where he finds the Dispater himself is fighting some cloaked entity who is obviously leeching power from the Dispater.

The cloaked figure teleports away (despite the dimension lock).

An epic battle ensues and the Duskblade manages to vanquish the weakened Dispater and recover the Rod of the Dispater.


So, I have three plot threads I am interested in pursuing.

First and foremost, the cloaked being. She is a celestial being of immense power who for some reason took a carefully planned to vanquish the Dispater to tilt the planes in the favor of the celestial beings. My hope is the CG Duskblade will attempt to track her down while the BBEG continues to work his machinates from behind the scenes.

This leads to the second idea. The BBEG (no idea who he is yet) created the shadow beings and is working some master plan (again no idea) that the Duksblade will have to prevent from coming to fruition.

Third, and more of an aside, is that the higher beings of Mechanus took notice of the Dispater's death (obviously) and their divinations revealed the PC as the culprit. They now attempt to track down and kill him to restore said balance.



So, I apologize for the overly long post, but does anyone have ideas for directions I could steer this campaign?

Kol Korran
2011-01-23, 03:48 PM
unfortunately i never DMed for such levels, or had any real dealings with using planar travel and such, so i can't help much. but it might help if we (the other forumists) knew a bit more about what the player is into (so far it looks like battles and magic items), and what is the character into (any info at all about him? :smallconfused:)

oh, and i wanted to wish you good luck on your game. from your writing it sounds like you're both having fun, which is always good!