I'm in the middle of a long involved campaign I came up with for my players, and it seems to be going really well, everyone is really enjoying it so I thought I'd post the outline so other might appreciate it, or flame it, or steal bits and pieces, or whatever. This is the plot boards after all.
First, I wanted to mention a very interesting twist that came up recently in the campaign, and will reach culmination tonight. One of the characters died a few sessions ago and so had to make a new character. He was only going to be able to play 4 more sessions (tonight is his last) so we decided to do something totally different. He is secretly an enemy Telepath spy, pretending to be a lame new PC. He has being learning about the PC's and trying to mislead them. They mostly think he just has a weak new character. Tonight though he strikes after taking last watch, he will Dominate one of the other PC's, fate link a few, and let the fun fly. He's really really enjoyed playing it so far, and i've had fun watching the little things he's been doing in secret (he snuck in a couple fate links during a fight to try and kill of some of the party, and they thought it was the monster they were fighting since he delayed until the monster took its action). Should be an interesting session tonight.
Anyway, on to the campaign. Note this is a rather high level campaign. It starts out with all the characters suddenly being teleported into a cave. They arrive disoriented and naked, with only a little candle light in front of them, with a weird looking withered old creature, possibly human chanting. Spellcraft checks reveal it is a hero summoning spell, which is being followed by some sort of geas spell. However, the geas part is interrupted when an arrows pierces the old man's throat killing him, and a second one knocks out the candle.
First encounter: half-fiend drow rogue 6/ assasin 1 in pitch black cave, PC's without any equipment at all. Old man has a dagger, his bed in the corner has some candles, flint and steel, and a knife. (it was a hell of a fight, the poison sleep arrows took out the PC's one by one, but the Paladin's saves were too high. He found the candles, but the fiend cast darkness, but he managed to grapple him while holding the knife, a smite evil/divine might later and it was all over).
Outiside: it is seriously snowing, cold is a problem (luckily the cleric could deal with that). They encounter a large armed party of humans waiting for them, however they are racially different then the PC's are used to (they are now in Oriental adventures), and armed with "thundersticks) (muskets). No language in common.
Anyway, that's the start, the overall picture is there is not much magic in this land and only humans. There is a fanatic paladin warlord who is on a holy crusade with his army to convert or kill everyone. ALL magic is evil, except healing which is considered a divine gift. He doesn't realize that his main advisor is actually working against him. He is a high level telepath who hates the paladin because he killed his daughter when she showed "psioinic" abilities, thinking she was evil. He can't control the paladin because his saves are too high, but he managed to become his advisor and is secretly working with other forces to try and overthrow him.
Opposing this is another army of fuedal Japan style, samari and such.
Add to this a crazed ice sorceress who has cast the countryside into perpetual snowfall for the last 10 years (people are starving, it's bleak). She was scorned by her lover and wants the world to feel as cold as her heart. She has a pet white dragon that helps guard her ice castle. As a side note, the old man who summoned the heroes was her old lover, he left her to become a hermit, but now feels guilty for the pain she is inflicting on the land.
Add to this some random blind monks who don't get involved in the affairs of this world, but whenever they walk by EVERYONE stops fighting and waits for them to leave. They can offer some advice and hints, although their monestary is in the middle of the Samurai area.
Add to this a force of really really great evil ... an half demon, the one who sent the fiendish assassin to stop the heroes after a divination warned him that they might stop him. A thousand years ago this land was attacked by strange new gods that rained fire down from the sky. The forces of good and evil had to make an unheard of pact to stop this new god, which they finally did. He fell to the earth in a giant fireball, killing the holy warrior that felled him. The pact forbid suprenatural forces of good or evil from entering the land for a 1000 years to come, that time is about to expire. The half-demon cleric has been crafting a magic item that will open a large permenant gate to hell, where an army is amassing to overrun the land. The PC's have had visions and hints of this event. His cave is known, but no one has really been strong enough to think about entering ... yet.
Finally, there is the wasteland, the only area where there is no snow. To the east is a vast desert, which can cause sickness just wandering in it (radiation poisioning actually). Nasty nasty creatures, sandworms and giant skorpions. But most of all there are two things of interest to find. One is a giant crater and a tunnel at the bottom. If the PC's encounter Sandmen in the desert, one of them will have a device that will lead to this crater. This is the remains of the fallen "god", which is actually a spacecraft. Inside is a badly working warbot, but still quite nasty, behind which are some nice weapons to help the PC's out.
Also in the wasteland is a strange temple/tomb where the great hero was burried. However, since he used mighty weapons forged by evil forces to be used by good, no one wants his remains distrubed so they are heavily guarded by riddles and traps, and some really really nasty creatures. If the PC' smake it past all of this (which they barely did last session ... two died) they will find some very powerful items to help fight the final evil.
As an end note, the way to get home is the artifact the half-demon cleric is using to open a gate to hell ... it can open a gate home too. I also created a new spell for the cleric "create holy symbol" to give them a break, though spell components were hard to come by.
So, there are the random components the PC's were just sort of thrown into to figure out what the hell was going on and how to get home.
Taking them out of their element, depriving them of their items for a while and making language a serious barrier has really upped the challenge level of the game, and forced them to rely on other types of skills then just rushing in and fighting. Most of the combats have required quite a bit of planning. Rushing in proved disasterous everytime. All in all it's been really interesting and fun, and is still going on.
Just thought I'd share it for the hell of it.
First, I wanted to mention a very interesting twist that came up recently in the campaign, and will reach culmination tonight. One of the characters died a few sessions ago and so had to make a new character. He was only going to be able to play 4 more sessions (tonight is his last) so we decided to do something totally different. He is secretly an enemy Telepath spy, pretending to be a lame new PC. He has being learning about the PC's and trying to mislead them. They mostly think he just has a weak new character. Tonight though he strikes after taking last watch, he will Dominate one of the other PC's, fate link a few, and let the fun fly. He's really really enjoyed playing it so far, and i've had fun watching the little things he's been doing in secret (he snuck in a couple fate links during a fight to try and kill of some of the party, and they thought it was the monster they were fighting since he delayed until the monster took its action). Should be an interesting session tonight.
Anyway, on to the campaign. Note this is a rather high level campaign. It starts out with all the characters suddenly being teleported into a cave. They arrive disoriented and naked, with only a little candle light in front of them, with a weird looking withered old creature, possibly human chanting. Spellcraft checks reveal it is a hero summoning spell, which is being followed by some sort of geas spell. However, the geas part is interrupted when an arrows pierces the old man's throat killing him, and a second one knocks out the candle.
First encounter: half-fiend drow rogue 6/ assasin 1 in pitch black cave, PC's without any equipment at all. Old man has a dagger, his bed in the corner has some candles, flint and steel, and a knife. (it was a hell of a fight, the poison sleep arrows took out the PC's one by one, but the Paladin's saves were too high. He found the candles, but the fiend cast darkness, but he managed to grapple him while holding the knife, a smite evil/divine might later and it was all over).
Outiside: it is seriously snowing, cold is a problem (luckily the cleric could deal with that). They encounter a large armed party of humans waiting for them, however they are racially different then the PC's are used to (they are now in Oriental adventures), and armed with "thundersticks) (muskets). No language in common.
Anyway, that's the start, the overall picture is there is not much magic in this land and only humans. There is a fanatic paladin warlord who is on a holy crusade with his army to convert or kill everyone. ALL magic is evil, except healing which is considered a divine gift. He doesn't realize that his main advisor is actually working against him. He is a high level telepath who hates the paladin because he killed his daughter when she showed "psioinic" abilities, thinking she was evil. He can't control the paladin because his saves are too high, but he managed to become his advisor and is secretly working with other forces to try and overthrow him.
Opposing this is another army of fuedal Japan style, samari and such.
Add to this a crazed ice sorceress who has cast the countryside into perpetual snowfall for the last 10 years (people are starving, it's bleak). She was scorned by her lover and wants the world to feel as cold as her heart. She has a pet white dragon that helps guard her ice castle. As a side note, the old man who summoned the heroes was her old lover, he left her to become a hermit, but now feels guilty for the pain she is inflicting on the land.
Add to this some random blind monks who don't get involved in the affairs of this world, but whenever they walk by EVERYONE stops fighting and waits for them to leave. They can offer some advice and hints, although their monestary is in the middle of the Samurai area.
Add to this a force of really really great evil ... an half demon, the one who sent the fiendish assassin to stop the heroes after a divination warned him that they might stop him. A thousand years ago this land was attacked by strange new gods that rained fire down from the sky. The forces of good and evil had to make an unheard of pact to stop this new god, which they finally did. He fell to the earth in a giant fireball, killing the holy warrior that felled him. The pact forbid suprenatural forces of good or evil from entering the land for a 1000 years to come, that time is about to expire. The half-demon cleric has been crafting a magic item that will open a large permenant gate to hell, where an army is amassing to overrun the land. The PC's have had visions and hints of this event. His cave is known, but no one has really been strong enough to think about entering ... yet.
Finally, there is the wasteland, the only area where there is no snow. To the east is a vast desert, which can cause sickness just wandering in it (radiation poisioning actually). Nasty nasty creatures, sandworms and giant skorpions. But most of all there are two things of interest to find. One is a giant crater and a tunnel at the bottom. If the PC's encounter Sandmen in the desert, one of them will have a device that will lead to this crater. This is the remains of the fallen "god", which is actually a spacecraft. Inside is a badly working warbot, but still quite nasty, behind which are some nice weapons to help the PC's out.
Also in the wasteland is a strange temple/tomb where the great hero was burried. However, since he used mighty weapons forged by evil forces to be used by good, no one wants his remains distrubed so they are heavily guarded by riddles and traps, and some really really nasty creatures. If the PC' smake it past all of this (which they barely did last session ... two died) they will find some very powerful items to help fight the final evil.
As an end note, the way to get home is the artifact the half-demon cleric is using to open a gate to hell ... it can open a gate home too. I also created a new spell for the cleric "create holy symbol" to give them a break, though spell components were hard to come by.
So, there are the random components the PC's were just sort of thrown into to figure out what the hell was going on and how to get home.
Taking them out of their element, depriving them of their items for a while and making language a serious barrier has really upped the challenge level of the game, and forced them to rely on other types of skills then just rushing in and fighting. Most of the combats have required quite a bit of planning. Rushing in proved disasterous everytime. All in all it's been really interesting and fun, and is still going on.
Just thought I'd share it for the hell of it.
