Campaign idea #1
The PCs find themselves at the bottom of a dungeon. They don't know each other, they don't recognise the place or their poassessions, and they have no idea of how they got there in the first place. All they remember is going to bed the night before, and having confused nightmares of monsters made of mist and shadows. When they woke up, they were in the dungeon, with orcs ramming down the door of the chamber where they were in. The PCs later discover that they seem to be able to communicate with each other or with they various intelligent creatures they meet only thanks a strange medallion they all wear.
Exploring the dungeon, the PCs will shed some light on the place, an old ruined city now buried underneath a new settlement. The place and its history have numerous references to a being called Wurd, a mighty mage or a demigod (the information is contraddictory on this). The name Wurd has various connotation in the personal histories of each PC, despite the fact that they come from different worlds: Wurd is a scoundrel from the village of one PC, the uncle of another PC, a powerful king of a nearby kingdom, and so on.
As they progress upwards, the PCs start to find recent corpses, bearing some information on the world outside. The dungeon has 3 big floors. Once outside, the PCs find themselves in a strange gothic land, scarcely populated, covered in lush forests, where people are superstitious and strange things happens at night.
After resurfacing, the PCs might choose their path: finding more about Wurd (a major mage in these lands, in open conflict with a lich for the possession of a magical tome); trying to return home, opening a gate to their home world; trying to settle down and helping the locals with their problems (mostly related to werewolves rides and the undead minions of the lich creating all kinds of disturbances).
Campaign idea #2:
U.S.A., November 1962. The PCs are FBI agents, searching for a serial murderer. This person has killed at least 3 (and possibly 5) young couples during the last 11 months, mutilating the corpses and keeping parts of them as trophies. The campaign starts one week before the 6th couple gets murderer. After this murder, the killer will strike again after 24 days and then disappear forever. If his identity has been discovered by then, the PCs will receive a communication when his corpse is found in Houston, in mid January 1963.
During the course of the investigation, the PCs will learn about the connection between the victims [which, at the moment of this writing, are still undetermined], and that of the killer with a religious group of allergedly militant christians who believe that God will grant them immortality and supernatural powers. The killer was a former member, but he was sent away from the sect when he tried to rape a girl.
If the PCs manage to stop the killer, he will tell them of how he is still working for some sect members, who need the body parts of his victims (all killed accoring a ceartain "religious" ritual) to build a doppelganer, a creature able to magically assume the identity of one human being. The fact that the murders of couple #6 and #7 is the only evidence that could back his story up. Then when president Kennedy survives the assassination attempt on that 22nd November 1963, looking only vaguely shocked and suffering from a temporary memory loss, the PCs will have to face an uneasy situation...
Alternatively, if the serial killer is never caught, the connections between the strange activities of the sect and the "survival" of Kennedy might be pointd out by other unrelated investigations.
Campaign idea #3:
The PCs are peasants in a small village, little more than teeagers, all brothers and sisters. When their father, the miller, disappears with the best part of the crop harvest of the village, they will be forced to go on adventure to find him (and the harvest). They will soon find that he has been kidnapped by the faeries and that the majority of the harvest has been eaten by birds after the kidnapping had taken place, one week ago.
At this point, they can try and rescue their father [a pretty demanding task, given that the faeries will demand a huge ransom, or their services for seven years], or follow the advice of their mother: in order to save the family honour, and the whole village from starvation, they will have to take part to the big competition organised by the king for the 350th anniversary of the crown: 3 days of elaborate challenges and puzzles to decide which are the mightiest, more intelligent, and capable heroes of the kingdom. The winners (but even some runner-ups) will be granted fame, money prizes, and maybe even a place at court.
After a couple of short side adventures on the way of the capital, the PCs will be able to take part of the "Challege of Champions". If they win some money, they will be hopefully be able to repay the village for the loss of the harvest. If they don't win any money, but still do honrably well, they will hired as an escort for a caravan heading towards the mountains, in the south, with a significant advance (almost strangely too big...).
the offer as an escort will probably be made anyway, even if the PCs win. The caravan ride will offer some interesting new adventures, and a twist (hence the big advance), that i will detail later, maybe...
Campaign idea #4:
Winter in Antartica, 1979. The PCs are technicians in the Halley scientific base, part of the staff of the 16 "winterers" (i.e. those who remain in the base even during winter time). One morning, at 6.39 am, after a pretty serious earthquake, all the communication is lost. The radio signal is dead, and the television don't seem to work either. The PCs' camp is quite undamaged, apart from the communication problems, but some equipment has been damaged, and the job of the only 2 researchers who stayed would be difficult without it. The PCs are chosen by the rest of the scientific staff to go to the nearest camp to search for help.
The base in question is a Belgrano II, Argentinian staff, 21 people. During the fly, the PCs have to face an unexpected storm that forces them to land. The storm seems to be magnetic and atmospheric at the same time, with the navigational equipment on board completely useless. The storm lasts for a long half an hours.
When the PCs arrive to Belgrano II, they immediately realise that something wrong has happened. The base is abandoned, and it looks like it has been for some time. There are holes in the walls, the doors are open, there are signs of fire and violence inside the building. The PCs track down some of the diaries of the Argentinians. They talk about a number of exciting discoveries that could bring some light on the early developments of life on our planet, as well as a number of suspicious cases of flu that started to happen a week or so after the discoveries. There have been 5 deaths. 4 corpses were sent back to Argentina, but one was buried five miles outside the base, as requested by the deceased. Nothing else is discovered.
When the PCs return to their base, they are horrified. The building is apparently under the attack of corpses! Assuming that they manage to defeat the zombies, the PCs will have to face a much bealker situation: the new parasites, "frozen" in the ice of antartica, was only waiting to be discovered to come back to life. The parasites bring a disease similar to flu, that eventually kills its host. The corpse comes back to life as a "super" zombie (normal speed, super strength) after 3 days, with a taste for destruction. The zombie is carrying the parasite in his blood, and coming in contact with means sure contagion.
By the time the PCs discover all this information, the world outside has become a battlefield between zombies and humans. They will hopefully join the battle as human...
Campaign idea #5:
One of the PCs' close friends, Billir, is found murdered in the stables of their town, Domare, near the city state of Ragallia. It seems that the murder has been ritualistic, and the town people are shocked. Official investigation comes quickly to the conclusion that Billir was murdered by a group of chaos cultists that had arrived into town three days before, and disappeared the day the corpse had been found.
But the PCs are perplexed. The investigaion ignored any hint that didn't bring to the "chaos cultists". It also seemed somewhat rushed. A very different Billir had returned from the Keep of Vallara, one week before the murder. He seemed worried, almost scared by something that he dared not say. In his room, the PCs will find a letter from a Samenio Balri. Samenio is apparently an adventurer living in the Keep, reknown through the Plain fo the city states as the last baluard against the ordes of humanoid monsters that came from the Dark Forest worshipping the Chaos gods. Samenio suggests to Billir to continue with the plan as agreed. Samenio's expeditions in the Caves of Chaos will hopefully give Billir the item he needs to stop the spreading of the chaos cult in Domare and Ragallia.
Trying to get hold of Samenio is useless. His expedition to the Caves of Chaos has not returned yet, and after 5 days, there's little hope it will. No information about this chaos cult and its spreading is available. Any mention of it to the officials in town, or even in Regallia will generally lead to nothing. The PCs have to take action.
If they decide to solve the mystery of Billir's murder, they will find out that some members of Domare's ruling class (as well a host of other people in town) have ritually murdered Billir when they discovered that he was an agent under cover. Even if they might be able to unveil their doings to the town folks and imprison or kill the culprits, they will realise that, in order to get the top figures behind this chaos cult, they need Samenio.
A rescue mission can be tried even before this realisation, in order to get more information on the murder of Billir. Samenio is barely alive, kept prisoner by an orc tribe as a torture toy. If the PCs arrive to him after 14 days from the beginning of the campaign, he will be dead. Researching his property will shed some light on a sinister branch of the chaos cult, which was thought destroyed after a punitive mission 5 years ago. The aim of this group has always been managing to invoke their demonic deity on earth, to reap the benefits of their devotion directly. Now the PCs have to stop them!
