Campaigns you played/ran or are planning to

[Yora]

There's always so much talk about making characters and modifying rules, and ocasionally about published adventures and the settings that people prepare for an upcomming campaign, but except for some campaign logs, I rarely see much talk about campaigns and adventures that people are actually playing. Where all the real meat of the games is!

Please post some descriptions or summaries of the stories you played in or which you ran or are preparing for.

I've ran a first campaign in a very early version of my homebrew setting about two years ago and now have another one starting in a week.

Ancient Lands I

The group consisted of a human woodsman (barbarian), vagabond (rogue), and the village alchemist (sorcerer).
The mini-campaign started with the river getting spoiled by something that killed all the fish, so the village shaman got together some able men to travel upriver and find the source of the poison. Sensing an unnatural corruption he gave each of them a talisman of a vial with blessed water and magic herbs that would absorb the corruption if they would get affected by it. They followed the river and came to a small creek which they followed to a spring comming out of a cave.
A sorcerer had defiled the spring in the deepet chamber of the cave by sacrificing a deer in a dark ritual, hoping to use blood magic to to control the bear spirit of the cave. The sacrifice poisoned the spring, but the bear just went mad and went rampaging through the forest.
After returning to the village, the shaman send the PCs to an isolated monastery deeper in the forest, where the hermits were cultivating healing lichens in the catacombs of the ruin they inhabited. That was the site to run Escape from Meenlock Prison. Instead of getting a prisoner from the dungeon, they PCs went down to get the healing moss and the escaped prisoners who took over the dungeon were instead assistants of the sorcerers who threw the hermits down to the meenlocks. The fake hermit at the surface told them to go down into the catacombs where another hermit would wait for them and ask them what healing plants exactly they need, but instead they got locked in with the monsters there were dragging the hermits into their holes and transforming them into more of their kind. Greatest session I ever ran. :smallbiggrin:
We never got to finish the third part, but it had the PCs visiting another village and meeting an elven demon-hunter to take down the corrupted bear spirit and the sorcerer. The sorcerers ultimate big plan was to find a method to mind-control spirits with blood magic. Just for science with no real intend of conquest or destruction, but with a lot of chaos and magical corruption left in his wake.

Ancient Lands II
This is the campaign I am currently working on, which my players of course should not read!

The characters are:
An elven ranger
A half-elven bard
A human oracle

The game is set in roughly the same area, but which now has been far more developed and detailed. It's set at the very border of the region in which human nomads from the steppes settled down some 200 years ago, after being hired as mercenaries to fight in the war between elven kings and chiefs. The elf ranger is from one of the clans who fought against the humans and he got exiled because he opposed the harrasment of humans by his clansmen. Instead he got taken in by some of the humans whom he stood up for.

In the first part, the PCs acquire the location of an ancient ruin not too far away from their village. Probably from some outlaws who are trespassing into the clans territory. They either check it out themselves or will be send by the village elder to do so. (Taken straight from Dragon Age). The ruins are located in a fairly large cave system and once the characters are fairly deep in, an earthquake collapses some tunnels and bridges, but opens some new passages. Getting back out of the labyrinth with more cave-ins threatening and the local creatures very much upset is the actual challenge. (Bases on the Dungeon-adventure Depths of Rage.)

The second part will be the Dungeon-adventure Within the Circle. One of the high ranking leaders of the clan sends the PCs to a cluster of farms at the edge of the clans territory to help them with a bandit who is trying to demand tribute from them or will poison their water. He sends them instead of his warriors, because he also has another mission for them. Some years ago he did some work for a secret society and got well rewarded with small favors that helped him greatly in his rise to power. Now he has doubt about those peoples motives, but can't allow any of his warriors or the chief know about any of it. While they are helping the farmers with the bandits, the PCs should also try to find an underground ruin where the old warrior burned down a hideout for his mysterious associated and try to find anything that would indicate who they are and why they wanted that place destroyed. That ruin happens to be the hideout of the bandits and the PCs can find some secret rooms that belonged to a naga sorcerer. The naga sorcerers are a major ancient faction of dark mages in the setting who have a secret war with the elven sorcerers for control of ancient arcane knowledge and artifacts. Since they can't act openly outside the jungles over which they rule, they have agents scouting the lands outside their borders, and once such group tricked the old warrior to become one of their minions.

In the third part the agents send word to their masters about a major site which they have discovered, which happens to lie in the catacombs below a large ancient ruin that is now used as homes for a human village. The thing is important enough a naga is comming personally with a bunch of serpent warriors as backup. The artifact is actually a hybernating aboleth that has been captured by the creators of the ruins over 4,000 years ago and somehow got sealed in and left behind when the place was abandoned. The naga sorcerer revived the aboleth to steal his arcane knowledge from his mind, which hopefully will include all kinds of things that have been lost long ago. However, the aboleth has much greater powers of domination and telepathy than normal and mind-controlls the humans in the village above to help him kill the naga and return back to the underworld. This whole plot is shamelessly ripped off with only very minor alteration.
Feros from Mass Effect. The naga is Saren, the serpent warriors are the geth, and the aboleth is the Thorian. The only real difference is, that the naga is still in the ruin and trying to get at the aboleths mind, and that getting the knowledge is just for knowledges sake and not part of a greater plot.
Unless the players are super-excited to make this a much bigger campaign. :smallbiggrin:
And to make things worse, sorcerers from the rangers old can get wind of the whole thing and want whatever the naga sorcerer is hoping to find in the place. At that point, pretty much everything is open. Playing the three factions against each other? Helping the naga at keeping away the mind-controlled villagers? Making a truce with the elves to kill the naga and the aboleths? Or maybe even allying with the aboleths to help him get back to the Underworld if he lets the villagers go? Who knows, but I think it will be awesome. :smallbiggrin:

Really like this concept, since it allows me to include a number of the major elements of the setting. The naga and their agents, the conflict with the sorcerers, the underworld, the ancient ruins of a fey civilization, and the difficult relationship between humans and elves.
Cookie for everyone who get what the plot of the second campaign is taken from without reading the spoiler. :smallamused:

[JusticeZero]

See sig. I'd love to play in a game too, but my FLGS is in a neighboring town that is almost completely inaccessible to me.

[Fosco the Swift]

My players are currently working on this campaign and has the goblin/orc prolougue shortened. The group consists of a human ranger, gnome cleric, half elf rogue and half elf socerer. The group starts out in a tavern next to a crossroads (cliche yes). Eventually they are approached by a Captain of the Guard of the nearby town Muriel. He says that travellers are being raided by goblins and orcs. He asked the PC's to wipe them out. Doing so they find a strange amulet worn by one of the leaders. They sneak into a restricted guild to find out more about it, and learn a certain individual is studying it. They find him and he tells them that the amulet is The One of Mindless Rage, a powerful artifact with other One Artifacts. The artifacts are being found by a group called Deosimantus (slightly changed latin for Gods Immature) who beleive there are no gods, but gods will come from mortals who achieve a certain level of power. The artifacts will do that for them. campaign in short: the PC's much hunt down and find the One Artifacts and destroy them, as they must all be destroyed together. Maestor Lewin, who originally helps them is part of this group. The PC's eventually find and learn who the leader of the Deo's are, and Drow named Courpus. Other more side characters fall into the campaign including a Black Dragon named Nightscale who learns about the goals of the Deosimantus and bcomes a seperate faction with the same goal.

[NichG]

The campaign I just finished running was called Gilded Flasks:


The setting was a small continent filled with city-states but dominated by a Guild that basically handled all of the warfare/mercenary jobs/invention/production/etc everywhere. Essentially if you weren't a member of the Guild you were stuck at Lv3, but the Guild had 'treatments' that could turn people into superhumans (e.g. higher-level characters) that were given out as you increased in rank.

The game started in a sort of magic academy setting where the PCs met and formed a Workshop. We had a couple sessions of classes/homework/school events/etc, and then the PCs graduated and basically progressed their workshop.

They found evidence that the 'level up' treatment had been discovered before, grown to a point, but then civilization tended to collapse and bury its secrets. They eventually found that the entire continent was part of a generation-ship that was being kept 'in equilibrium' by psychotic, crazed AIs that had suffered a few glitches during flight. Finally they took control and, ahem, 'landed' the continent on a planet.

After that, the campaign became space-opera about the big cosmological conflict between their universe, one that was defined by animistic principles, and one of very limited physics (basically only light could exist) that was kind of eating into their own as an environmental catastrophe due to the over-use of a certain set of abilities that had been discovered as part of an ancient 'deal' with the 'Glow' (the animistic/mythic universe.)


I've had a campaign I've wanted to run for a few months now but its been delayed so I can finish releasing a (computer) game on schedule.

Memoir

The campaign takes place in a sort of Arcanum-like steampunk world that has been embroiled in the equivalent of World War I. Things were escalating, and then suddenly -

Thats what the characters remember when they wake up, in addition to whatever biographical stuff they bring in (but they're encouraged to keep that short). Their environment is shattered and a little nonsensical - a door from an apartment room might lead directly into an emergency room of a hospital, and things like that. When they see the city, its all in shambles, but it seems to be at peace. Weirder still, many of the inhabitants act like nothing is wrong and just go about their business.

I'll stay away from system details since thats not the point. The basic gimmick of the game is that as the players explore, they get to define bits of their character's backstory. How they choose to do this can affect not only their past, but it can also change the present.

[Subaru Kujo]

Wall of Text incoming.

I think the favorite campaign I played was a one timer (compared to the others I've played in) in the place of one of the larger campaigns that was going on on this one site.

It was called Aben Gale, which refers to this landmass on the northwestern side of the continent of Shartis. This is directly after the mind flayer plague passed over the southeastern portion of Shartis known as Meadowwilde. My former druid (who eventually grew up into the Keeper of Thorns during the plague, and afterwards helped with the downfall of Sisrul, a vampire cleric of the Bleeding Sun (Pelor is sent to Hell as a scapegoat by the overgod of the land) was in the latter area.

Anyways. This plague caused the majority of Meadowwilde to either die, or relocate. The surrounding lands, with the exception of Aben Gale, were quite adamant about not letting outsiders in.

That, is where my rogue came in. She was named Kristyn, and the sole survivor of her town after the plague struck it.

Now, I'll be brief with the plot, but it was an evil group, dealing with demons at first (even though I was working on weaseling my way out of that as soon as humanly possible, as the entire thing was an accident (Sent on a thieving mission to this town, where the rest of the group and a succubus were looking for (you guessed it) a different book)), and eventually having to choose sides in the Blood War.

Long story short, the group didn't agree with me choosing the devils, and the party split, but not until after, in gladiatorial combat that the devil I sided with orchestrated, I killed the ranger of our group (in one shot, mind. 18 Str rogue with full sneak dice will do that) and the half orc barbarian split me in two with his greataxe.

Now, here's the point where things went horribly (like they weren't already, right?). I got ressed after the devil ressed the others who died and sent them on their way. He then mentioned this town that I was to defend from a siege.

Well, being a rogue, you wouldn't expect me to fight with the rank and file of the town. So I contributed in my own way: traps. Loads and loads of glorious traps. From arrow traps, to 20ft concealed pits (one of those actually caught the anitpaladin of my former group as he was charging into the place).

As the dust settled, the barbarian lay dead at the hands of my half troll mentor, the ranger and antipaladin were torn to shreds by a pair of bone devils in the church, and the cleric, warlock, and I were fleeing from the town, because Grazz't himself decided to make an appearance, saying we weren't needed anymore.

Now, a thief in a guild has several escape opportunities. One of which (I thought) was magical transport. The plan was to head to Shartis Proper (the central area of the continent), but we were all betrayed, transported to our last sight (angels and devils dying to the demonic hordes) and our souls, along with those of all the orcs in Aben Gale, were sacrificed to fuel the return of the Red Overseer, Mysilifanz (a red dragon god).

That, is how to end a campaign in style.

[prufock]

As DM

Star Wars: A Shadow of Hope
A parallel story to A New Hope, we follow the crew of the Silverhawk as they attempt to juggle disparate loyalties between the Rebel Alliance and the Hutts. They help blow up Death Star I, stand by as Jabba the Hutt is killed by Tyber Zann, and join the Zann Consortium.

I told them at the outset that they could change the Star Wars canon, and I would adjust the history to suit what they do. And what happens? Jabba is killed at the climax of the game. This will have serious consequences to the main story going forward when we do part 2, Shadow of the Empire.

Rose Lake, part 2
The Knights of the Vine continue their quest to stop the planar anomalies threatening the kingdom. In this installment, things get more out of hand. The anomalies are increasing in size and intensity, and the man responsible for these changes is revealed (somewhat prematurely, but I'll give the players credit, they went for the big leagues early). Some new villains have risen, including a former ally inevitable that has undergone an alignment change, a sociopathic murderer and manifestation of chaos, and a church that seeks to eliminate worship of the gods entirely.

Part 3 is forthcoming, which will involve closing more rifts, being hounded by the psycho, interference by the inevitable, trying to shut down the church, and the BBEG taking some initiative in destroying the party.

This is my default campaign setting, with several different kingdoms, a really large geographical space. PCs started at level 1 and will run through to low epic, currently at level 10 when we return to this. It has run for 2 years off and on, and there are at least 2 more parts to do.

League of Hope Annual #1 and Halloween Special
A couple of Mutants and Masterminds one-shots involving characters from an earlier superhero campaign where there PCs were Hopefuls in a competition to become new members of the League. Now full-fledged Leaguers, the Annual #1 special saw former Hopefuls who didn't make the cut trying to take over HOpe Tower in an adventure similar to the Raid: Redemption, Judge Dredd, and Dark Reign.

In the Halloween Special, some old friends and foes will be coming back to haunt the heroes.

The Weird West
A one-shot adventure I'm planning to run involving the heroes being hired as guards for a train robbery scenario. The world is E6, and the players start at level 1.

The Normals
A Mutants and Masterminds campaign that should run about 11 sessions, each session encompassing one day. The PCs are created at PL2 as the characters are in-game simulations of the players. That's right, they're playing themselves! After the Event of 11/11/11 at 11:11, the players black out, waking up the next morning with no memory of what happened and slowly discovering that they have superpowers! (power suites pregenerated as thematic powers semi-randomly by the GM, so the players don't actually know what their powers will be).

This one is going to be VERY open concept. I have a few story threads, hooks, and one main big arc, but this game relies on the players' initiative, answering that old question of "what would you do if you had superpowers?" in-game.

Tomb of Horrors 3D: The Final Chapter
Tomb of Horrors adapted to be more similar to the Saw franchise, with difficult choices, gruesome traps, and a villain with specific criteria for his targets. Acererak needs souls with great willpower, and getting through his Tomb is the way to filter them out.

Players can have backup characters, will start apart with little or no gear (collecting items as they progress), and may even be pitted against each other in some challenges. I've changed the Tomb A LOT because the players have done ToH in various incarnations before, and are kind of sick of the vibe, so it's basically only the Tomb in name and overall theme.

G.U.E.S.S. Part 2
A simple homebrew d6 system, we ran part 1 last October as a one-shot wherein the Great United European Special Service agents investigated strange happenings at the Great Exhibition of 1851, culminating in stopping a ritual to summon the King in Yellow, or Hastur in a amorphous black terrible form. Yes, borrowing from various sources - Lovecraft, Chambers, etc - without really being true to the material.

In part 2, we fast forward about 50 years. The G.U.E.S.S. agents have aged only 5 years, thanks to anti-aging formula that the Service provides its agents. The new case will involve a new technology - wireless communication - receiving interference from strange, possibly supernatural sources. As in the last game, I will work in fictional versions of historical figures as Marconi and Tesla will both make appearances.

Mythenders (just the name of the campaign, not using the published system of the same name)
The gods, who were once humanity's champions, became corrupt as humankind turned more and more selfish. As the wheel turns, however, new champions arise to combat the forces of evil and displace the corrupt gods. These are the Mythenders, people born under a special sign heralded by prophecy and kept in secret through their childhood, but aging to adulthood rapidly. They have special skills and powers, and are the only ones who can change humanity's fate.

This is an E6 world, where humanity is composed almost entirely of level 1 NPC classes with low technology, little magic, and very little wealth. The PCs however, will be starting at level 6. Instead of gaining levels, each time they defeat a god they gain divine rank (0 through 6). Each divine rank, unlike regular D&D, gives them a bonus feat (like 5000 xp in E6) as well as a domain from which they can use the domain power and spells at will as spell like abilities.

The heroes set forth to free humankind from the gods' oppression and cruelty, to forge their own portfolios and domains, creating an all-new pantheon.

[Ravian]

I'm DMing one game that's on a bit of hiatus because of College it's based on the 7th sea games but I'm mainly using D&D since that's what the player's were most familiar with.

I'm also planning another D&D game in the near future. A very wartorn Dark Fantasy type of thing.

And I've been toying with the idea of a Deadlands game but It'll probably end up as a side game at most.

[Kol Korran]

Past campaigns:
- Many Facets of Darkness: My first try at DMing after a long time of absence. Setin Eberron, but is more Eberron light and high adventure than the usual. The party tries to save the world from a group of villains, and go visit all kind of places. Including getting captured by a primitive Darguun tribe, under siege from Yuan Ti, Drow and Karrnathi in a weird psychic powered city in Xen'dric, Visiting the underwater submerged halls of a Daelkyr fortress in the Shadow Marches, a weird trip to the Mournland, a desperate defense on the Silver Flame Cathedral as it is being destroyed and more...

It was a blast to run, with quite a good climax I think. We had lots of fun. If you're interested in more, check my sig- a DM's log.

- The Witchling isles: My attempt at a home brew world, and a pirate campaign. Unfortunately I couldn't manage to keep preparing for it due to the amount of info D&D requires, and the demands of my RL. Would love to play it again sometime, perhaps at a different system. We got to play 5 sessions before the party finally got a ship from their rivals and their own crew, preparing to set sail. I'm quite sad it had to die. We had lots of good fun! :smallfrown:

Current Campaign:
- post apocalyptic FATE campaign: We are now trying the FATE system, with a setting similar to Fallout. So far ran two adventures, the first one an introductory session to the system, which the players unexpectedly really liked and wished to continue, so I'm trying to come up with a coherent and fun enough campaign to run with, Not quite sure how! :smalleek: IF you're interested in this gamign experience, you can check my links. Updating...

Future Campagins:
- "Here be dragons!": A continuation of the "many facets of Darkness campaign" some of my players wish to continue. The basic idea is that the party is called to Argonessen, continent of dragons, and get caught up in the power struggles and machinations of the great dragons, trying to find out who framed them, and Save the world (Again, the players like it). Planned to be high levels, perhaps going into Epic, with a planned BEGG which is some sort of dragon who made itself part of The Prophecy, trying to influence it from within.

I never run such a high powered game (I much more prefer the 1-12 range, with 10-12 feeling quite Epic to me!) but it could be nice to try, I just hope it doesn't drag out Like I think it might.

- "Nature of The Beast": A campaign I have in mind for a looooong time now, which is an odd combination of themes, and a very niche campaign. (The only one I think is mostly original and not rip offs of other ideas rearranged better). The campaign takes place in Eberron, but about 150 years in the past, about 1-2 years before the lycanthropic crusade led by the Silver Flame. The characters are spies of the Flame, sent to Western Breland (today's Droaam) to explore rumors of lycanthropes getting out of hand. However, the characters can change the course of history, and I have a whole new different take on lycanthropes than the D&D books, hoepfulyl making them a much mroe interesting adversery.

The specific contained setting (East Droaam) is a mixture between tough frontier civilized settlements (A bit liek the wild west), and the savage wilds (ruled mostly by Gnoll tribes, Centaur packs and the degenerate ogre lords ruling over enslaved orcs). The party tries to settle in the setting, avoid getting found out (neither civilized races nor savage ones like the Silver Flames much) and find out the many secrets of what lies on the frontier, not just lycanthropes, and the changes they might go through as well.

The idea is of a very detailed, very living contained Sandbox. Meaning the party has a main goal (or two), and they are free to choose what to do, but things go on- There is a calander with seasons and holidays (Of the 3 major religions), quite a few plots running with their own schedule (they have a time table), and since it's not about saving the world- there is no problem if the party fails. I hope to have enough maps, NPCs and sites detailed so the party could do anything, and ace the consequences... :smallamused:

A bit of an ambitious project, but I'll get to it someday. I still don't know what system I'll run it with, D&D or Fate, but we'll see.

[Zavoniki]

Campaigns I want to run:

Steam and Spears:

Apparently there was some Greek Scientist(in Ancient Greece no less) who discovered the Steam Engine thousands of years early. It was regarded as a novelty item and wasn't explored or used and was forgotten about until recently. So the campaign would be what if that wasn't true. A few things I would have to work out would be: When is this set(It would help if I could remember when/who this Greek guy was)? Is there magic(not at the start)? What's the plot? The main conflicts I can see all depend on when you want this set. You have the many times Persia tried to conquer Greece, the Peloponnesian War(Sparta v Athens), or something involving Alexander the Great. The idea of steam powered triremes makes me happy inside.

A.E.G.I.S.

The players all start as normally citizens in a city when one day it is attacked by aliens(from space or another dimension or wherever...). They save the day(hopefully) and are recruited by an organization to defend Earth against its alien attackers. Unlike Stargate SG-1 and X-Com(and Pacific Rim), the organization you are a part of is not part of the government, but a secret society that doesn't really know what it's doing and doesn't exactly have the funds, resources, or knowledge to do much. It would be up to the players to guide this society to become the alien crushing machine it would need to be defend Earth. Key parts of the campaign would be spending time/resources/xp to upgrade the societies bases, researching new Technologies, and building new gear. The idea would be that player characters don't get much better in a lot of skills than what they start with, but they gain new ones as the game goes on. In effect the increase in the power for players would be an increase in available gear(and how effective that gear is) rather than an increase in skills.

Superheroes?

A Wild Talents campaign I want to run that would be the sequel to a freeform super hero game I ran a while ago that ended... interestingly and created some strange events for history to grow from. Basically a supervillain kills the President of the USA on live tv as the first proven use of superpowers/unnatural abilities. The US is a little mad about that and starts hunting down and killing superhumans. This eventually leads to a battle in Canada(which was sheltering superhumans) where the majority of the armed forces in the world are annihilated by a Superhero team(who loses most of their members). The Superhero team, now feeling responsible, goes around be the world Peacekeepers and assisting the UN. Fast Forward 10-20 years, and the UN Superhero's have the world unsure if they should be scared of Superhumans or not. On the one hand the world is at complete peace and they've helped to alleviate several issues and topple corrupt governments. On the other hand, they've done that through the application of Dakka and More Dakka and Super Dakka and More Super Dakka. Their have been minor superheroes and supervillains but they've all been local and nothing as powerful as the UN Superhero team(who are between 400 and 1000 point Wild Talents characters. Mainly 400-450 but there is one 1000 on the team). The players would be people with superpowers(or not)(I think I'd start everyone off at 150 or so and put some restrictions on the powers you can use) and would have to navigate this world. The main conflicts would be, A: What happened during and before the War(IE explore what the last group of players did) and B: How do you live in a world that is being policed by a small group of extremely powerful individuals(a 400 point Wild Talents character can be expected to, if intelligently played, take out an army). For example their wouldn't be any real armed forces left in the world and even the police would be a little reliant on super heroes. I like the idea of exploring a game where the only superheroes that exist are so powerful that they can barely understand how to interact with the rest of humanity(and some can't). Meanwhile, the players are street level characters who have to find their way in this world. It'd be a second generation super hero game where the first generation is both tiny(due to many of the being rather dead), troubled(their friends died in the WAR), and powerful(400 points is about when Wild Talents stops working as a mechanical game system).

As for current games... I'm running an Eclipse Phase game titled the Architect's Wish that I don't want to say much about because I know a few of the players frequent these forums. I will say that there is an Architect and he makes a Wish.

[tasw]

I just started an E6 pathfinder game set in the forgotten realms.

We're building up the published adventure the scouring of shadowdale but the first few levels will be dealing with a rash of kidnappings that are being carried out by the zhentilar. They are abducting people from the trade road north to experiment on with ways to alchemically enhance human beings into being more dangerous soldiers.

We're only 1 session in though. I started it with them as members of a very large caravan traveling along the trade road north of the elven court heading to shadowdale as a way for the characters to all know each other without the cliche "you all meet in a tavern".

So far they've beaten an attack on the caravan by orcs working with the zhents but dont know it was anything but a random attack/ slaving raid which i made it a point to say they are known to run.

After that one of them got in a bar fight with another a member of another mercenary group who was one of the guards and one using a chokehold from my quick and dirty houseruled grappling rules. And then they were hired to go on a mission to find some minor magical items belonging to a long dead druid. We got about halfway into that and then had to end it for the night but the mission itself is pretty easy. Its mainly a way for some time to go by and earn a little notoriety for the PC's so that the local authorities will reasonably point out all the missing people along the trade road.

[Actana]

I have quite a few games that I've at least attempted to run in the past, but not many of them are worth mentioning. However, the three I've gathered are some of my favorites.

Steam Powered Stories: Completed. A Spirit of the Century steampunk pulp game set in the 1920s, featuring the Illuminati, Templars and nuclear weapons. It had a nice run of around 10 sessions, but because everyone was new to Fate the game fell short of its proper potential. Still, it is to date one of the favorite games I've played.

Forlorn Souls: Currently running. A dark fantasy game largely inspired by Demon's and Dark Souls. A wall of Fog is overrunning the campaign's world, and the dead aren't staying dead. In a desperate attempt to contain the threat, the government of the world's last nation, the Inquisition, has been rounding up these new undead and throwing them into a massive cavern complex. The players are some of these undead, who then escape from the depths and come across a prophecy foretelling the "fate of the undead". Run with D&D 4e from mid paragon to mid epic levels, it's mainly focused around challenging combat and a narrative of mythological scope. I have been planning and polishing the story and mechanics for around a year now, and I'm thrilled to be finally running it.

Relics of the North: In planning, due to start this week. A D&D 3.5 E6 sandbox game set in the Neverwinter region of Forgotten Realms. I'm using the 4e Neverwinter Campaign setting book and version of FR, and have dozens upon dozens of NPCs statted out each with different goals, relationships and potential plot hooks. Very player centric, and if all goes according to plan I could run this game with many different groups and keep each game unique, as the players would be drawn to different plot hooks. An overall goal would be to provide a living setting that both reacts to the players realistically and evolves on its own.

[BWR]

Currently playing:

Unofficially called DwarfQuest
We started as dwarves in a tiny clan (20 members or so) whoe, apart from knowing how to make primitive bronze thanks to magic, are basically neolithic. Hunter-gatherer, barely above subsistence level. We have powerful ancestor spirits instead of proper gods and a number of other nifty abilities each level to make up for the general lack of gear and magic items (e.g. all characters with one specific Ancestor gain a +1 bonus to all melee attacks at 1st level. the rest of the abilities aren't quite so powerful, but all are useful).
Through exploration and adventure we learn that the world (big caverns. makes the Underdark look like a playground) has ancient dwarven cities in ruin. We are slowly uncovering more cities, more dwarven groups and tryingto piece together what happened.

In defiance of Heaven
A Gozoku campaign for L5R. We are promising young samurai who have been drawn into the secrets surrounding the Gozoku conspiracy - where a group of originally well-meaning individuals hold the Emperor's children as 'honored guests' and use him as a figurehead to further their own agenda. Intrigue, danger and proper samurai drama. Loyalty to clan or to Emperor? Loyalty to a man who has yet to prove himself or acceptance of the current situation which has brought peace, prosperity and growth to the empire?

Unnamed Mystara game
A back to basics D&D campaign, and back to Basic when it came to adventures (up to Companion now), using Pathfinder. After a couple of unsatisfying attempts at deeper story and stuff in Dragonstar and Star Wars, I rediscovered my love for Mystara. Showing new players around the world, having dungeon crawls and wilderness adventures and fun. Character stories and goals have grown out of the play, rather than being planned for in advance. They are at the point where they can start thinking about choosing a path to Immortality.

Othariel's Path of the Polymath
One of the players in the Mystara campaign has chosen the Path of the Polymath to Immortality. In short, she leads 4 extra lives, adventuring from 1-20 (1-36 back in the day, but we are using PF) reincarnated into different races and classes each time with no memories of past lives. Since 4 extra campaigns focused on one player would be a bit much to ask the other players, not to mention time consuming, we play this one 1 on 1. Barely started on new life nr. 1. Hopefully, these speed campaigns will be done by the time the rest of the players have had their various adventures for their pwn Paths.

On hiatus:

Unnamed L5R-ish modern semi-magical girl deconstruction
A solo campaign I run for my gf. A spin-off of a long-running (10 years) also-on-hiatus L5R/OA campaign - basically, L5R clans and society only set in 'real' world Japan. This one is the result of the last Day of Thunder where the then-emperor made a deal with the enemy. He would surrender his son, Fu Leng reborn, to Jigoku and erase all history and mention of his lineage, the clans, most of their religion and history and create a new, imaginary one - the one everybody believes in today. In return, the forces of hell would leave the earth alone until the day Fu Leng died (after being tortured in hell). Fast-forward 400 years and the descendant of my original character starts seeing odd things. Weird creatures, zombies, people with odd diseases. No one else seems to notice them. Soon, they start attacking her and her ancestor's spirit starts talking to her and telling her she needs fight the invasion. Magical swords, awesome martial arts, demon invasions which take a while to get noticed, boyfriend troubles, nights out with the girls and most recently a kaiju attack on Tokyo.
This being a deconstruction, the government is not entirely clueless or helpless, people find out about her secret identity, the rest of the world gets interested and thanks to the miracle of cameras everywhere she becomes THE most famous person in the world overnight and practically the start of a new religion. And she's only barely 20 years old.

Games to come:

Shiro Heichi
L5R. In the previous campaign, the brave samurai found, took possession of and managed to destroy the Anvil of Despair. Despite the great cost, enough of the party survived to be awarded with their own Minor Clan - the Boar. The previous iteration of the Boar Clan was destroyed, sacrificed to fuel the creation of the Anvil. Destroying the Anvil and reclaiming their ancient stronghold has proven the Boar worthy of a second chance. 11 years later, the first generation of Boar clan children have become adult (yes, they were born a few years before all this happened) and are ready to take their place in the clan. This will focus building the Boar into a viable, self-sufficient clan. When the game starts, the Boar are poor, have minimal holdings, poor land and plenty of local problems: border disagreements, hostile spirits, goblins, distance from the empire, taxes, and trying to avoid the gentle ministrations of the wealthy, politically mighty Crane clan - whose ire they gained when they found the Anvil of Despair. Due to circumstances surrounding the AoD, 1 Crane family daimyo was killed by the PCs, and another and the Crane Champion were forced to commit seppuku over the incident.

[LuckyDee]

I've recently started a campaign in a homebrew steam punk setting, with a slightly modified NWOD system. I could still use a couple of players, too.

More info here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300697).

[Yora]

I just started an E6 pathfinder game set in the forgotten realms.

We're building up the published adventure the scouring of shadowdale but the first few levels will be dealing with a rash of kidnappings that are being carried out by the zhentilar. They are abducting people from the trade road north to experiment on with ways to alchemically enhance human beings into being more dangerous soldiers.
Are you considering the PCs being captured, altered, and then escaping? :smallbiggrin:

[DigoDragon]

This coming Saturday I'm starting a Shadowrun campaign (Denver, 2072). The runners start out making contacts and taking on smuggling jobs, but will uncover the main game plot that a cult has taken up the mantle of Winternight. High ranking execs will be murdered, important infrastructures will be targeted by bomb plots, and ultimately the cult will be trying to set off a second ghost dance to destroy the mid-west.

PCs will hopefully understand that this has negative effects on their bottom line and get them to react appropriately. :smallbiggrin:

[Black Jester]

A not really concrete Campaign idea I had but never truly realized, was
Karta'Dasht rises (for Runequest, Gurps or a similar system): Basically a retelling of the Punic Wars, but this time with magic! "Ten years ago, the Italic upstarts from the Tiber drove off mighty general Hamilkar Barkas from Sicily with the aid of foul sorcery (and the endless bickering of the Great City's council of three hundred). With the defeat, the mercenaries rebelled, but as members of the most elite unit of the Great City, the Sacred Band, you helped defeat them. Now, Hamilkar, greatest of the generals of Karta'Dasht has invited you, his old fellows and confidants to act as bodyguards and tutors for his sons: Hasdrubal, Mago and the promising young man Hannibal. However, the great Barcid and his allies (like you) has many rivals and enemies. Can you keep the sons of the great man safe and train them in a city filled with intrigue and corruption, facing an enemy who never accepts compromises and is prone to sadism while claiming the moral high ground?"
The campaign is set between the two Punic Wars, with the players on the site of Karthago, as nobles and warriors of the Carthagian Sacred Band (which is similar to the Theban Sacred Band, but with fewer gay romance, and in this reality probably includes a mage or two in addition to the elite warriors), who are part of the Barcid power bloc or family (so they basically work for the man who was known as one of the greatest leaders off his time before he was completely overshadowed by his own son). The players are supposed to tutor the young boys (Hannibal is probably around 12 or so, making his two younger brothers... well younger).
When history takes its course, and the two most prominent members of your House are killed, your task of protection will become a lot more serious, while both Romans and the traditionalist fraction of the Carthagian senate plot your downfall...

The game would use magic as a subtle addendum to the actual historical events, even though magic is probably not that common, or so common it's unspectacular and for the most part rather subtle, even though there will be a relative clear difference between more or less benevolent magic and foul sorcery (which honorable men despise, and for good reasons). All in all, this would be a gritty and very bloody campaign, using one of the more grounded in reality game mechanics (Runequest is probably the closest fit thematically. The actual 2nd Punic Roman War then becomes a follow-up campaign (where the players, by now the senior members of Hannibal's staff, can help defeating the Romans, for instance by liberating Archimedes so that you have an engineer to build you the siege engines you'd probably need to attack Rome itself), similar to a third Punic Roman War, when the heirs of the actual characters from the first campaign can finally defeat the foul Romans for good and secure the wealth and dominance of the Great City for the next 500 or so years). The Romans - unfiltered as the true Bastards they were most of the time - are magnificent antagonists, while the colourful mix of different cultures and influences of Carthage makes them rather unique (and equally bastardy) protagonists. Besides, taking something familiar (Hannibal, Elephants, Rome...) while also offering a few new ideas (and antique Karthago is probably alien enough to be something fairly new to most players) is usually a good base for a game that is intended to keep the players long enough interested to come to the sequels.

I have a few more of these ideas laying around, so I will probably post a few more campaign outlines. The Carthage one was just one I really want to play.

[LuckyDee]

@Black Jester: replace 'magic' with 'vampires' and you have the basic concept for Vampire. Sounds like a great campaign.

[Black Jester]

While the original Vampire used the Roman/Carthage conflict as a part of its myth arc, it used it quite clumsily for the most part (which isn't surprising; the first editions of the first original World of Darkness games were all clumsy, badly researched and usually grossly exaggerated. It took an edition change or two before the games actually got good.

Actually, i had more in mind to combine it with Cthulhu Invictus while using Runequest (after all, the systems are very similar and have the same origin), but that goes against the idea of having something like a honorable form of magic in the game and independently of the game's era, the whole Cthulhu Mythos is rather predictable (and somewhat repetitive) I don't want to run a game about intrigues, myths and dark magic where the alien entities and creatures from beyond are the most familiar thing about it...

[tasw]

Are you considering the PCs being captured, altered, and then escaping? :smallbiggrin:

Depends on if they dawdle or not. Right now the experiments are in the stage where everyone pretty much dies horribly or becomes an insane abomination. The zhents arent afraid to break a few eggs when making an evil omelette so this hasnt deterred them yet.

If the players do wind up losing a fight against the zhents I may well wind up with them getting a saving throw to become one of the first successes though.

[LuckyDee]

While the original Vampire used the Roman/Carthage conflict as a part of its myth arc, it used it quite clumsily for the most part (which isn't surprising; the first editions of the first original World of Darkness games were all clumsy, badly researched and usually grossly exaggerated. It took an edition change or two before the games actually got good.

Might well be, I only ever played the Masquerade - in the history of which this played a major role - and the Requiem - which doesn't actually seem to do that much with our actual history. I find the concept stunning, though.

[Nate!]

Most recently, I ran a GURPS campaign where the players were essentially normal folk (a beat cop, a defense lawyer, and an amateur occultist) who stumbled onto a famous serial killer, whom they eventually learned was a vampire. Over the course of the campaign, they took out a demon-worshiping cult, helped a lesser vampire (or two) recover, and killed the master vampire and those closest to him. The total body count for the campaign was something like 5 (though there were quite a few more seriously injured). Not a conventional kill monsters and take their stuff game, certainly, but the players seemed to enjoy it.

Before that, I ran a Feng Shui campaign with Star Trek crammed in the middle of it, based on a series of posts from the Feng Shui mailing list some years back (the idea being that a Negative Space Wedgie (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NegativeSpaceWedgie) brought the Enterprise into the Feng Shui continuity, basically crashing it in the middle of the Netherworld. With technology 300 years in advance of their most advanced competitors and a crew in the hundreds, the stranded Starfleet crew struggled to find a way home amid a number of hostile (and a few helpful) factions. Their technology and resources made Kirk and company as titans among men, upturning every established facet of the game world they came into contact with. The campaign ended in a huge dust-up among the Enterprise crew, some similarly stranded Klingons, and the Queen of the Darkness Pagoda. The pagoda itself was destroyed, along with the major Netherworld facility of the Architects of the Flesh, which was subjected to a photon torpedo hit, which reduced it to a radioactive crater.

Prior to that, I'd run Deadlands Reloaded for a while, going through both pre-published campaigns Pinnacle has out (The Flood and Last Sons). While perhaps not as spectacular as Trek Shui, the players got their share of bragging rights from those campaigns as well. (Indeed, merely surviving Last Sons ought to be something of a badge of honor, and these players did a great deal more than that.)

I might put up some more when I think of them.

[Kiero]

I'm running Tyche's Favourites (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Tyche%27s_Favourites), a historical game set in 300BC Massalia run with ACKS.

The setting

It’s 300BC and the Hellenistic world has been upended and the pieces and players in the struggle for Alexander the Great’s empire shaken once again. At the Battle of Ipsus all of the other powers united, briefly, in order to deal with the common threat to them all: the Antigonid kingdom of Antigonos and his son Demetrios Poliorcetes. Antigonos was slain on the field and Demetrios fled for his life, and the victors carved up their holdings in Asia Minor between themselves. Thus the Diadochi were reduced from five to four: Kassandros in Greece and Macedon; Lysimachos in Thrace and western Asia Minor; Seleukos in eastern Asia Minor, Syria and Persia; Ptolemaios in Egypt.

All the player characters (PCs) were involved in some fashion in the battle, and indeed some in the other major actions leading up to it. It is in the aftermath that they are made an offer to escape the unending political strife and travel west to one of the furthest flung parts of the Hellenistic world: Massalia.

The earliest Greek outpost on the coast of Gallia (France), founded by colonists from Phokaia, it became a local power in its own right. The gateway into Gallia for goods from Italia, Sikelia and beyond, it was a commercial rival of the Carthaginians and Etruscans, an ally of the burgeoning Roman Republic and often in conflict with the local Celto-Ligurian tribes. While able to hold its own, it never really became a regional Hellenistic power like Lysimachos’ Thracian Kingdom or the Bosporan Kingdom on the Euxine sea. That was history as it was; this game is explicitly alternate history in that respect, if the PCs take hold of the region and do something more with it, then obviously we will be changing what “really happened” and that’s fine.

It’s a significant place that is comfortably distant from the ambitions of the Diadochi and at a time long before the ascent of Rome, which at this time is only a power within Latium and central Italia, and locked in a long conflict with the Samnites. Indeed, the major power are the Carthaginians, who are focused primarily on trade and economic exploitation of the region, not conquest. As a maritime empire, anything the PCs do at sea is likely to draw their interest, along with anything interfering with their established interests. The very act of travelling to Massalia has subtly altered the power balance and will draw a response. A fading power still with enough influence to cause trouble are the Etruscans of northern Italia. Syrakousai on the island Sikelia to the south is the leading light of Magna Graecia, one of the largest cities in the west and could be ally or rival.

Of course the Keltoi are not to be disregarded either; Gallia is claimed by them and as a people they have spread across much of Europa, displacing or dominating the local peoples whenever they have come into contact with them. This is very much a game about that meeting of Greek and Celtic cultures, with Massalia the nexus of that interchange.

Just a brief note on historical games, my approach is largely going to be one of using history in the gaps; we have few surviving sources on the period in general, and fewer still on our specific location, so at best they’re going to be suggestive of the broad swathes of what was going on. Where I’ve got any hint of things happening, I’ll try to use them insofar as they don’t interact with what the PCs are doing. On the other hand, if the PCs take a hand in those events, they change if it makes sense for things to come out differently. History is the grounding in which everything happens, and an inspiration providing some motive force, but it is not a straightjacket determining how things will out regardless of what happens in the game.

The player characters

So on to the PCs themselves. Ironically, for a game ostensibly about Greek culture, there’s only one Hellene, and even then he’s a Macedonian. That’s getting ahead of ourselves, though. The critical thing I wanted to avoid here was the sort of connotation that is often carried in historical games – that you can only have games about nobodies who die prematurely of impacted molars, disease, accident and war. This was an age of colourful characters and to play a game which ignored that would do the period a great disservice.

So from the beginning it was clear in my mind that we would have larger-than-life heroes, capable people who had already established themselves with a reputation, and critically their own retinue of followers. Without bodyguards, attendants, agents and other hangers-on, they would not be taken seriously by the people who matter in the world, invariably aristocrats with landed interests.

Four PCs wandering around unattended in the classic RPG mould would be taken to be vagabonds or some other sort of undesirable. Having their own people around them makes them leaders and people of significance. It gives a little bit of cushioning against the potential lethality of a world without any real magic whatsoever. Both because there can be bodies between the PCs and danger, but also because there are “backup characters” who are already established who might take up the PC mantle should anything untoward happen to the any of the main four. It also opens the possibility of some troupe-style play, where certain situations might call for a player to use one of their main character’s retinue for a scenario where they might be more appropriate.

Thus an additional overhead on the usual process of character generation was the creation of a horde of NPCs, from 5-7 individuals for each PC. Most of this was borne by me after taking outline ideas from the players as to what they wanted, then we had some iterations back and forth until we arrived at a set they were broadly happy with.

Without further ado, here are the heroes!

Rhyanidd – a princess of the Lugii, from the most northerly fringes of Keltoi influence bordering with Germania, she is an experienced warrior and warleader. Like many aristocrats amongst her people, she is an excellent horsewoman and has served in the role of mercenary cavalry since her mid-teens in the wars of the Greeks. She was on the winning side at Ipsus, seizing much plunder. Her bodyguard are devoted to her, they have earned wealth, status and renown following her (and in some cases, freedom).

Meshullum – an Alexandrian Jew originally from Tyre (evacuated as a child from the siege that resulted in its destruction at the hands of Alexander), perhaps it was that early dislocation that led him to his wandering lifestyle. He is a mercenary captain of archers, having been involved in all the major conflicts, since the Gaza campaign, and changed sides more than once. His retinue is comprised of his most loyal archers, and his nephew, a doctor from the Alexandrian school.

Septimus – a Latin from central Italia, he is an enterprising man who considers himself the foremost merchant of war in the Hellenistic world. He provided Demetrios with siege equipment during his famous siege of Rhodes. But he is no idealist allied to the Antigonid cause, he goes where the profit is. His retinue comprises agents, savants and a trio of Cilician pirates.

Philipos – a giant of a man from Macedon, he was a hypaspist like his father before him, wearing a fortune in heirloom armour purchased with Persian plunder. On the battlefield he is bronze god of war, almost impervious to harm. He was on the losing side at Ipsus, but came away with his honour intact. His retinue comprises his closest companions; Greek officers, a dubious Ionian, his valet and his nephew.

We podcast our sessions here (http://insanitywetrust.wordpress.com/).

[VariSami]

Currently:

Expeditionforged (Eberron, 3.x):
DM: me; Players: 3 (Warforged Bar2/Fig2/Cru1/Wrb1, Warforged Art6, Warforged PsyW6)

Basically about a group of Warforged (5 Fig2 and 10 Sco2 in addition to the party) being sent to scout Xen'Drik and retrieve anything of value to House Cannith. They are exploring the Kapaerian Island, and there are clear indications of trouble in the form of insectile aberretions. Basically the island has ruins left behind by Stone Giants who managed to rebuild some of their civilization after its initial fall but were felled by the Daelkyr incursion, and the appearence of a Daelkyr lord called Nehushta, the Locust Made Man. Their Goliath descendants still remain in tribes left to protect the entrances from Khyber, and the characters have promised to assist the last survivor of one of these tribes to avenge his family and stop the first signs of infestation from becoming worse. They have also already helped a group of Drow whose priestess was turned into an infiltrator by Nehushta's minions. Basically the Daelkyr wants everything to become one in the form of a hive mind, and his minions have been breeding Kython's with a new kind of inborn weaponry (Half-Illithid template, used to make Thoon Infiltrators by inserting the Kython's brain stem on a victim).

Unbound Society of Scholastic Gentlemen (Eberron, 3.5):
DM: Laxi (probably does not have an account here); Players: 3 (Gnome Brd2 (alchemist), Human Sco2, Changeling Rog1/Fac2 (me))

As a house-rule, everyone also received a "free" level in one of certain classes. They are not marked here but the Gnome is a Magewright, I think, and the Scout is a Human Paragon. My character was made using the regular rules since he is an "outsider" who has merely usurped the position of one of the party members (Human Rog1 with Noble from Dragonlance as an extra level).

Basically the story is about certain members of a gentlemen's club in Sharn (see the campaign's name) making a bet regarding their capability to explore Xen'Drik based on guidelines presented by a returning adventurer in the Sharn Inquisitive. They include a Gnome Professor of Alchemy from Morgrave University, the heir of a trade tycoon from Stormreach, and a playboy minor noble inspired by the tales of his adventuring grandfather (but who was replaced by an infiltrator of the Cabinet of Faces since the Changeling's test to qualify for Cabinet Trickster is to keep up the facade of that nobleman for the duration of the expedition; he had previously infiltrated the household by becoming the nobleman's valet).

Thus far we have received a destination in the form of a mysterious amulet that points towards the Hydra River's delta when placed on a map and references a city in Giant. We have also received some backing from the Sharn Inquisitive and Morgrave University in the form of funds as well as a reporter and some students, and begun our journey by boarding a ship. Now we must make our way through unknown waters due to a war between the captain's ally Sahuagin and some other tribe.

[Roguenewb]

I've run and played in too many campaigns to list them in anything resembling completeness, but I'll share my baby, the written campaign I've spent the most time on:

The Dusk Concerto

Starts at level 1, everyone having lived in Ander's Knoll for at least 4 years. I've run it 3 or 4 times, so I'll give you the most recent run-down.

Players:
Killzartyz, a dragonwrought kobold sorcerer with heavy, heavy emphasis on being dragon-y and also malconvoker-y. Only kobold in town.

Astrid, a local human rogue(standing in for clever, quick person instead of dedicated thief) who gets caught up in all the excitement.

Xane, an elf druid from the woods to the east, you has traded and lived near the town for years.

Alton, a halfling scout who ended up in the Knoll after drifting eastward, away from the horrible crimes that killed his family. Way nicer and more upbeat than it sounds.

Rowan, human cleric of st. cuthbert, raised by his father to be the next priest of one of the town's two churches. Came from the west when he was young.

Bhaz, orphan, brought up by the church of pelor, enjoyed silent meditation and his own space, is a monk. He and astrid are secretly the last two descendents of Ander, the town's founder.

Bubble, comically pro-evocation elven wizard. You now know everything about this character that I do, and I DMed it for 2 years :thog:

The players start off as newly mature adults at level 1 in the absolute back end of nowhere at the dead end of a 700 mile road, at the small town of Ander's Knoll in the middle of the wood. Each year, the town celebrates a midsummer historical event where Ander won a big battle. To do so, they wander in the woods and "hunt the red stag" but really they are just enjoying the countryside and a walk and picnic. The players are grouped together and wander northeast, find the stag and follow it east and run into goblins!! They kill the gobbos and return to town, where they start an alarm.

A hunter returns and tells the town where he found the goblins. The town militia thanks the party and heads west, towards the goblins. After sunset, the left behind players see fire on the eastern horizon, and realize the goblins tricked the scout, and there's no time to get the militia back!! The party sneaks out and defeats a camp full of goblins and an ogre and an evil human cleric in wierd armor.

After the fight, a celebration is thrown, and the party meets a woman from a caravan Sasayeni, who bewitches half the town, and turns the mayors son into a vampire before dissappearing before dawn. For the next 6 days the party tries to solve the mystery of the attacks at night, and the kidnappings and murders. Finally, the priest of pelor sends them a message as the town is getting really scared. They enter the church and find two vampires have killed the priest on the altar. The party is temporarily safe as the sunset through the windows behind the altar means that the floor is alternatingly in huge shadow or bright sun. The sun shifts as it sets, and they fight a hectic fight, terrified that without the help of the sun-safe squares, the vamps will kill them in full dark (this encounter is always fun, and always really different, player choices make huuuuuugge impacts).

After that, they find the mayor's son and his half-converted set of vampire children. They kill all of them and are heroes of the town a second time! But three days later, marshalls arrive, and declare the party guilty of murder and they have execution warrants for them. Suddenly, only the absolute most loved ones of the party are willing to help them, and the party has to use illusions to sneak out of town and head west to where the marshalls command is, to find out why they are being chased. After a harrowing sneak through the woods, they reach the marshall's command and find out Sasayeni framed them, and that only by heading to the nation capitol, 500 miles west, can they prove their innocence.

After a classic chase scene, they start a 500 mile western journey to the capitol. Along the way, they encounter a depraved duke who wants to betray them over a displacer hide, a pair of young bronze dragons enslaved by a dragon kin, a pack of werewolves dedicated to turning one of them, a horrific storm drives them into an ancient ruins full of self-replicating constructs that could destroy the world (yeah clockwork horrors), and an empty bridge-town that is being harvested by a mindflayer.

They finally reach the city, and make their case. While consideration starts, they try to find evidence. Over 12 sessions they slowly reveal that everything in the city is being corrupted and set up by Sasayeni to weaken the nation to invasion. They stop a rogue company of mercenaries, smugglers bringing in insane white dragonspawn, an evil college administration of wizards, and a legendary head of a thieves guild. They gather a ton of evidence and finally prove they are innocent.

Right on the heels of their freedom, Astrid's mother appears in the street and tries to tell them something, right before she is grabbed and carried off. After a hectic chase scene, the party reaches a ruin outside the city, where Sasayeni subjects them to personalized problems, until they reach the base of the dungeon and finally kill her.

They learn from Astrid's mother than vampires and barbarians have taken over their home town. They head home, destroy the leader in a cinematic battle atop the church of pelor as lightning strikes dance around them. Then they head north, and meet the red stag again! The stag guides them to an ancient tower, where they learn of Ander and his two siblings (one of whom was Sasayeni) and how they got caught up in the plots of an ancient vampire named the First Singer a millenia ago, and how Sasayeni betrayed humanity, Ander fought for it, and Tolvor stood aside, regretted it, and turned himself into the stag so he could warn the descendants of Ander much later and stop the Singer in accordance with prophecy (only the will of the ancient foe in the hand of the young nemesis wielding the birthright will be your demise), and astrid got a crazy magic sword.

They went into a terrible super artic region north of the Ander's Knoll and entered a city that was always night. They defeated a clan of vampire sorcerer/monks who loved Wraithstrike, and entered the first singers tower. After coming within a hair of dying to an endless swarm of shadows and minor vampire spawn, Astrid finally activated the sword, and entered the First Singer's refuge, where they fought the crazed ancient vampire in an illusion bedecked hall of mist. And saved the goddamn world from vampire domination.


But why did the singer wait a thousand years? Why does he have 12 mummified mind-flayer heads in a secret room? Why has he gathered reports from all over the world about something called...Thoon. To find out, tune in next time for The Extinction Treatise (which was the sequel campaign, and not nearly as tropetastic)

[Felandria]

Well, this is one that was aborted when two players moved away, but I hope to try again soon.

This campaign was set twenty years after the events of our previous, yearlong campaign, with our old characters serving largely as NPC's

Felandria, daughter of Zeus, contracts an adventuring party to act as security for an epic sporting competition on Olympus.

When the prizes are stolen, the party must set out to retrieve them, which they eventually find in the possession of a trio of hill giants.

The party regains the items and returns them to Olympus, where they are offered long term employment.

Felandria receives a letter from a powerful being claiming to have kidnapped her love, who was thought to have simply disappeared years ago.

Before she can set out to find him, word comes that the Titans are preparing an assault on Olympus, duty bound to stay and defend their home, she sends the party instead.

After they fight their way through a massive dungeon, defeating various mechanical horrors, they find the being, a demon who captures and collects various beings and turns then into small stone figurines.

He sent a false report to distract Felandria in order to capture the party and use them as a bargaining chip, their lives in exchange for hers.

Zeus arrives instead, threatening to destroy the dungeon and everyone inside for daring to threaten the Olympians, he punches the demon, knocking him into a wall where part of his collection sits, including a magical orb, which falls and shatters, sending a flash of blinding light throughout the dungeon, knocking the party unconscious.

They awaken in the forest and soon discover they have been sent into an alternate plane, where Felandria and the rest of her adventuring party had fallen prey to a powerful vampire and had become his thrall.

After the newparty fights and defeats the old party, they find a scroll that will return them to their own plane, however, the spell instead sends them home but far into the future, where they find themselves in present day Europe.

With the old magics having disappeared, replaced with technology, the party determines the only way home is to locate one of the Greek gods, who could send them back where they belong.

They travel to Paris, where Felandria, having ascended in the time passed, is living as a fashion model.

They find her, drunk and depressed, lamenting the changes of the world and having tired of living for thousands of years.

She regretfully informs them that the gods long ago made an agreement not to use their powers to interfere in the lives of mortals, which means she can't help them get home, their only chance is to find Zeus and convince him to ignore the pact and help them.

She tells them that the gods have spent the last few hundred years living among the mortals, often disguised as significant historical, political and cultural figures.

After tracking down several of the other gods, they eventually find Zeus, living as a simple farmer, punishing himself for his past behavior, he agrees to send them home, but before he can, the collector demon arrives, thanking the party for inadvertently leading him to Zeus.

With their magic gone, Zeus imbues the party with some of his power to help them defeat the demon once and for all.

After the demon is slain, Zeus is able to return them home.

Once back in their own time, they take Felandria aside and inform her of how unhappy she will be if she continues to pursue the path to ascension, she decides to resume the adventuring life and joins with the party, who through their quest have caught up to her level, and they leave Olympus behind to seek new adventures.

At which point a new DM would take over and begin an epic level campaign, where we would eventually merge the old and new parties, running two characters each.

[Morgarion]

My group and I had a couple of longer running games. We had a bad habit of getting bored and starting over with something new, so nothing ever ran to its conclusion. There are two that I remember better than the rest.

The Motley Crew

We wanted to play a slightly higher level game so we could toy around with templates and races. I can't remember exactly what my friends used for the base races, but I think it was something unusual because I always had to be corrected when I mentioned how I envisioned their characters. One was a half-celestial caster of some kind and the other was a half-dragon (bronze?) combat class, probably. There was multiclassing and prestige classes involved. I was a half-fiend lizardfolk, and the only one of us who couldn't fly - I didn't see my character with wings. We took turns running adventures, so it was like our 'potpourri' game - a little bit of everyone's style. We all got our personal goals accomplished; my ranger avenged his father's death and established a castle in Hell. The half-celestial had some sort of father drama as well, I think. We set up shop as mercenary/private investigators/bounty hunters/problem solvers and started hiring ourselves out for interplanar shenanigans. Somehow or another, we got our hands on divine rank. It was fun.

Pirates in Name Only
Perhaps my favorite campaign I was ever involved in, this one starred us as a crew working for a half-aquatic elf ship captain (also one of the players). I believe it was a gestalt campaign. There was the captain, who was a swashbuckler/something, his sidekick and a DMPC who was a human ranger/rogue and a wizard/cleric (who was probably a half-elf, based on the player's preferences). I showed up to a session and they were in the middle of a little adventure, so I rolled up a character. I'd never had any interest in gestalt and I didn't really understand it so I think my character was a human barbarian/fighter. It wasn't optimal, but I wasn't prepared and I didn't care to take advantage of what gestalt had to offer. So we'd been apprehended by elves and were in the middle of being interrogated by their queen. It was at this point that the party attempted to fight its way out, unarmed and outmanned. That's when my character went from being an extra without a name to a full-fledged PC; one way to avoid introducing a new PC to the party is for him to have always been there.

A few sessions later, my friend who was playing a rogue/ranger decided he didn't want to DM anymore, but I actually really liked the story so I volunteered to take over for him. We had a map of Greyhawk, but absolutely no info on the canon, so we were just making stuff up.

As for the actual plot of the campaign, there wasn't much narrative to connect the adventures. I, however, lucked out with player background material on this one. The half-elf had a couple of fully human half siblings, the most notable of which were a callous, amoral, assassin and thief of a sister (it wasn't hard for me to run her well - she had the same name as my then very recent ex-girlfriend), and an arrogant, bigoted cleric of Zarus. The captain had a (younger?) half-elf sister who was a cleric of some obscure elven deity, too. The ranger/rogue was an urchin orphan type who was going through some stuff about having lost his kid sister to the mean streets. The wizard/cleric had a story about being the sole survivor of some sort of weird magical massacre when he was a kid. My barbarian/fighter was a former soldier in the Aerdy army (I'd done enough research to know Aerdy is run by bad guys). He'd been a child of privilege and the son of a prominent military officer, so he married young and got assigned to one of the best units. He hadn't wanted any of that and was actually sort of a slacker at heart, so when he found himself with a lot of blood on his hands, he deserted and killed most of his unit in the process (that's where his barbarian levels came from).

I winded down the last plotlines from the previous DM while I started weaving in my own stories by throwing them into a couple of seemingly unrelated adventures as I built my own campaign. The captain really wanted a weapon of legend or heirloom weapon or whatever it is where it levels up with you or you unlock stuff with XP. So, I got him his Wave's Edge sword and tied it into some stuff about his father's legacy as a fearsome pirate while he worked on getting to the dread pirate prestige class. The rogue/ranger's little sister turned out to be the pirate captain's assassin sister's protege and she tricked us into getting arrested. We broke out and ran around the city's underworld as fugitives while we plotted our revenge/rescue mission. We succeeded and got arrested again, but the mayor hooked us up with a good lawyer (I now imagine him as Bob Odenkirk) and we got off the hook with a fee for the damage we dealt during our breakout (maimed guards, oops).

The cleric of Zarus had a grudge against the half-elf captain for his father ruining their family and costing them their wealth, and he was just a jerk so everyone hated him. It was fun to have him appear every other session and get everyone's ire up. We went to get guidance from the cleric/wizard's adoptive father and mentor just in to get knocked on our asses by a spell that blew up his whole house, and then save him from the cleric of Zarus' henchmen. Eventually, we tracked the cleric of Zarus and his goons to a mountain temple - it turns out that the cleric/wizard's mentor had been using a staff that incorporated a legbone from Zarus' wife and they were going to use it to revive her.

We won and shut down the church of Zarus, the brother gets killed. Then we worked backwards to try and track a package the Zarusians had been in possession of. This led us to my character's estranged wife, whose father had just passed. And my character had a son, turns out. So we figure out that the father-in-law had been a middle man for the church of Zarus to deliver a vampire to a cult of mages, who turned themselves into vampires. My character decided to take off on his own, since the revelation had left the rest of the party unable to trust him - allowing me to eliminate my DMPC and fix the imbalance created by a party of four gestalt PCs plus hirelings, allies and cohorts. I was proud of that.

My notes are highly incomplete and I was never able to reconstruct much of the later campaign stages, so this is all from my fuzzy memory. Some other minor henchmen the party had been dealing with became more prominent. There was some business about a missing artifact of some import. A red-robed cleric (of some evil god?) was working with a morose former banker turned murderous demon worshipper and an elven pirate. They were in cahoots, building an army of fey'ri out of kidnapped elves with a crystal pillar on an isolated island somewhere in the middle of nowhere. They received news that my character had died in battle somewhere. The red-robed cleric got killed but came back as a ghoul thanks to Doresain's intervention. There was a small town overrun with zombies and a red dragon effigy.

The BBEG I was leading up to revealing, who was pulling strings from behind the curtain, was an ultroloth. He was trying to get ahold of a pair of artifacts that, used together, would allow him to track down all the necromantic energy he'd been trying to use to conduct a ritual sacrifice of the entire material plane a couple decades before - that was the wizard/cleric's backstory; he was secretly a ritual magic battery, and that's where his natural talent for magic came from. I was going to have the ultroloth revive my character and bring him back as a villain. I wanted to have him kidnap the half-aquative elf's cleric sister and move her to a second location while the ultroloth attempted to sacrifice the material plane in its entirety to secure the Siege Malicious, become the Oinoloth.

[Black Jester]

It is probably slightly sacrilicious, but after reading The Last Ringbearer, I had the idea of a consequently low fantasy, gritty conversion of Middle-Earth, based on the assumption that all of Tolkien's books are basically in-universe works of unashamed and outright lying propaganda.
The true events are a lot more balanced (as in any good setting, the concept of good vs. evil plays only a very marginal role) and the main conficts between Mordor an the western lands was more about religion (monotheistic Sauronism vs. polytheistic Valarism) and social differences (Mordorian meritocracy/oligarchy or elvish/Gondorian feudalism/monarchy) and, most importantly, economic aspects (namely how the Mordorian empire can supply its steadily growing population with only very limited space for agrarian production).

The campaign will play after the Ring Wars (with the actual Ring playing not much of a significant role): Mordor is defeated, the mordorian colonies in Ithilen have been reconquered and most larger settlements in Mordor are occupied, while most of the allies - Khand, Umbar, etc. are still 'free'.
How do the characters - who are likely to be Gondorians, dwarves and the like - deal with the situation of the now subjugated orcs and trolls (especially when the hardliners among their side are advocating full genocide)? How do they deal with the underground religion? Do they follow the strongly anti-technologic dogma of the Elves or are they more open to Sarumanian or Mordorian technological or scientific innovations, like black powder or algorithms? How do they deal with rebellions and rebel groups? Can the Rohirrim maintain their cultural and political unity and independence now that they have basically become vassals of Gondor? And how do the Gondorian nobility react to the fact that their former independence and local power is now clearly diminished by the presence of a strong central leader in form of king Elassar?

I would probably go all out for this and use Harnmaster rules just to make the game visceral and brutal when it comes to combats (and because balancing shouldn't have any significance for a Middle Earth game anyway). There are obviously no strong PC spellcasters in this game, and with the exception of the most obvious Middle-Earth means (like huge talking animals and the various sentient species) there will be not that many fantasy elements in general and focus more on social and mundane conflicts on a personal or local level.

The fun would be to use as many elements of Tolkien's narratives and twist them and corrupt them until they fit into the setting. And at the same time, remove the racist undertones of the books. Sauron? No, he is not necessarily real; he is just this disembodied god the Orcs and Mordorians worship. The Nazghul? they aren't immortal undead spirits, they are more like the Council of Elders. Saruman? he might very well still alive, has forged his own Great Ring and allied himself with Gondor against Mordor to establish himself as the third great power; he is also a pragmatist who has a knack for combining technological innovations with magic, a bit like Leonardo, but with better political instincs and opportunism. Gandalf, on the other hand is a mixture or a mischievous con man and a bully who uses his 'magic' to force others to his biddings (and has a tendency to find spectacular background stories about his origins and escapes, like being some kind of minor god or coming back from the dead, so a bit like Rasputin or Cagliostro). Aragorn/Elessar is some minor warlord who became the ally of the Elves and the king of Gondor by their power. While he understands this and doesn't like it, he is basically their puppet, and his 'wife' Arwen is mostly there to make sure that he doesn't become too independent. The Elves in general are mostly concerned with keeping their powers and independence as it is and feel nostalgia for an age of Elvish dominion that never truly existed. They have basically fallen for their own propaganda (known in- and out-universe as the Silmarillon). Oh, and Orcs and Trolls are basically just people, who are mostly interested to be left to their own affairs and feed their families.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

If I can find time to plan I am working on a game set in the Borderlands universe, using the Legend system (http://www.ruleofcool.com/). I like the system and it works for my purposes.

The game is set on a new planet (avoid issues with cannon lore) owned by the Vladof Corporation. This new planet will also let me incorporate some of the fantasy races from the system. This game is really about the players discovering new places.

[tasw]

It is probably slightly sacrilicious, but after reading The Last Ringbearer, I had the idea of a consequently low fantasy, gritty conversion of Middle-Earth, based on the assumption that all of Tolkien's books are basically in-universe works of unashamed and outright lying propaganda.
The true events are a lot more balanced (as in any good setting, the concept of good vs. evil plays only a very marginal role) and the main conficts between Mordor an the western lands was more about religion (monotheistic Sauronism vs. polytheistic Valarism) and social differences (Mordorian meritocracy/oligarchy or elvish/Gondorian feudalism/monarchy) and, most importantly, economic aspects (namely how the Mordorian empire can supply its steadily growing population with only very limited space for agrarian production).

The campaign will play after the Ring Wars (with the actual Ring playing not much of a significant role): Mordor is defeated, the mordorian colonies in Ithilen have been reconquered and most larger settlements in Mordor are occupied, while most of the allies - Khand, Umbar, etc. are still 'free'.
How do the characters - who are likely to be Gondorians, dwarves and the like - deal with the situation of the now subjugated orcs and trolls (especially when the hardliners among their side are advocating full genocide)? How do they deal with the underground religion? Do they follow the strongly anti-technologic dogma of the Elves or are they more open to Sarumanian or Mordorian technological or scientific innovations, like black powder or algorithms? How do they deal with rebellions and rebel groups? Can the Rohirrim maintain their cultural and political unity and independence now that they have basically become vassals of Gondor? And how do the Gondorian nobility react to the fact that their former independence and local power is now clearly diminished by the presence of a strong central leader in form of king Elassar?

I would probably go all out for this and use Harnmaster rules just to make the game visceral and brutal when it comes to combats (and because balancing shouldn't have any significance for a Middle Earth game anyway). There are obviously no strong PC spellcasters in this game, and with the exception of the most obvious Middle-Earth means (like huge talking animals and the various sentient species) there will be not that many fantasy elements in general and focus more on social and mundane conflicts on a personal or local level.

The fun would be to use as many elements of Tolkien's narratives and twist them and corrupt them until they fit into the setting. And at the same time, remove the racist undertones of the books. Sauron? No, he is not necessarily real; he is just this disembodied god the Orcs and Mordorians worship. The Nazghul? they aren't immortal undead spirits, they are more like the Council of Elders. Saruman? he might very well still alive, has forged his own Great Ring and allied himself with Gondor against Mordor to establish himself as the third great power; he is also a pragmatist who has a knack for combining technological innovations with magic, a bit like Leonardo, but with better political instincs and opportunism. Gandalf, on the other hand is a mixture or a mischievous con man and a bully who uses his 'magic' to force others to his biddings (and has a tendency to find spectacular background stories about his origins and escapes, like being some kind of minor god or coming back from the dead, so a bit like Rasputin or Cagliostro). Aragorn/Elessar is some minor warlord who became the ally of the Elves and the king of Gondor by their power. While he understands this and doesn't like it, he is basically their puppet, and his 'wife' Arwen is mostly there to make sure that he doesn't become too independent. The Elves in general are mostly concerned with keeping their powers and independence as it is and feel nostalgia for an age of Elvish dominion that never truly existed. They have basically fallen for their own propaganda (known in- and out-universe as the Silmarillon). Oh, and Orcs and Trolls are basically just people, who are mostly interested to be left to their own affairs and feed their families.

Awesome idea.

[Zahhak]

Currently building a Teslapunk re-imagining of WWI

[originalginger]

Previous Campaign
D&D 3.5, with some Pathfinder later on.

Setting - A planet with a large Pangaea-like continent, and hundreds of Polynesian-style volcanic islands dotted throughout the massive ocean.

Story - Four thousand years before, the 'Forebearers' had achieved a high level of technology, roughly equivalent with Renaissance Europe. At that time, the Elves, in truth highly advanced aliens, landed and conquered the world, destroying the technology that existed, and oppressing the other races, effectively erasing their history. The elves to the present day are aware of this, and secretly retain their alien technology and use it to maintain their position of power. They use genetic science to create foul beasts to attack the people and control the population levels, and pass their alien weapons off as unique and powerful magic.

Among the Humans, Dwarves and Halflings, legends persist of a golden age long ago, and on occasion some of the ancient technology would be uncovered, referred to as 'vestiges' though no one could ever make sense of them.

Enter the PCs, born with the mark the seven pointed star, hailed by the cults of the Forebearers as the chosen ones, destined to discover the secrets of the vestiges, and free the people from the oppression of the elven overlords. Over the course of the game, they uncover the secrets of the elves, and learn to use the vestiges, eventually overthrowing the elven overlords and establishing a European Union style democratic government among the Humans, Dwarves, Halflings, and other minor races.

Current Campaign
D&D 4e

Setting - A Hawaii-sized archipelago, surrounded by an endless and featureless sea.

Story - A year before the game begins, the King of a Dynasty that has held power for one thousand years is suddenly assassinated by unknown assailants, along with the next 10 or so individuals in line to the throne. A massive war between * factions breaks out, three Human nations, Dwarves, Eladrin, Elves, Drow and Goblinoids. Tiefling and Dragonborn are slaves in almost all of the land. Halflings and Gnomes are tribal people, and are heavily shunned by the 'civilized' nations.

The southernmost island, about 40 miles away from the rest of the islands, is a free nation, where tribals are treated as equal, and slavery is outlawed. They are neutral in the war, and have always been distrusted treated as outsiders by the rest of the land.

The game opens with the Men of the West invading the South Island, intent on capturing Tiefling and Dragonborn to use as slave soldiers, and clearing large swaths of tribal land to use as a staging ground for their military. The PCs, are ranking members of the resistance force defending against the invading army.

At this point they are at level 6-7, and are just gaining enough power to really do damage against the Westerners. Their goal is to rally the tribals, Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Southern Humans into a force capable of overthrowing the 8 factions and establish rule over the whole of the archipelago.

[Toy Killer]

I've had a sudden urge to run a campaign where the players are in a society that is just barely post Bronze age, and the main antagonists are, in essence, time traveling space Nazis.

I'd really like to see what players can pull off when they are literally out done in all aspects. I'm worried it may just be complain though. (New area, no group to DM for.)

[Delvin Darkwood]

I have been blessed to find a group of people at college who were willing to try out dungeons and dragons. Were playing 1st edition AD&D, and despite some, well, silliness, the game has been going quite well. I'm currently sending them through a dungeon of my own creation, The manor of Xerrick the Mad. Along the way they managed to attract an Orc follower with a good casting of Charm Person, and are soon to head into the dungeon proper. For first timers, they're playing very well, even though all of their characters are simply ridiculous (and possibly inappropriate). I'm awaiting the first character death.

[originalginger]

I've had a sudden urge to run a campaign where the players are in a society that is just barely post Bronze age, and the main antagonists are, in essence, time traveling space Nazis.

I'd really like to see what players can pull off when they are literally out done in all aspects. I'm worried it may just be complain though. (New area, no group to DM for.)

Interest if you are by chance near the Sarasota Florida area, or willing to DM an online game. I know all versions of D&D, but best with 4e, and am willing to learn other systems. I haven't played a character in forever, since I have been DMing for well over 3 years. I shall not complain about being outmatched, but instead think outside the box to find a method of vanquishing my mighty foe!