Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
I just realized there are a whole bunch of adventures I would like to run one day and never will be able to do so. I thought I’d share some of my ideas, which I doubt will ever get off the ground, most of which are hybrids:
1. A mixture of the Dragonstar Campaign setting with Jack Vance’s short story, the Moon Moth. The party consists completely of bards and has to find a criminal on a chaotic evil world, where everyone wears masks to show status and disagreements are settled by song contests or the blade. The heroes move up and down the social order depending on their skill in navigating a culture that rewards or enslaves due to skill and style rather than a set of laws in their pursuit of galactic justice.
2. Lich investigators, all wizard party. I have an indie published 3rd edition book somewhere (was it Lords of Night: Liches?) of how to play a lich character, complete with rules for a lich city. It has great insanity rules, where the lich PCs gradually accumulate different insanities and quirks as they adventure, making them more and more self-destructive. Anyway, the idea is that there is a conspiracy against the city, and the PCs get brought in on it through an investigation into the destruction of a high-level and important lich citizen.
3. The characters (mostly monks) are part of a campaign setting close to rural China or India (would use a 3rd party campaign setting like Sahasra), and weapon bearing and travel is restricted between provinces by edict of the government for the officially stated reason of preventing banditry. A lottery is taken and the characters are told that they are the reincarnation of past heroes that once rose up and defeated the evil world destroying demon. Everyone knows this is a great honor that occurs in the province once per generation, but the problem is that the chosen ones never return from this generational lottery, though it is said that their sacrifice stops the demon invasion once again. An old, disgruntled government official warns the chosen ones that he believes the quest to be rigged, and they find that their kingdom’s rulers hold the same lottery in a different province each year in order to sacrifice their souls to the rulers and increase the rulers' unnatural power. Oh, and that ruling family is actually a group of shape-changing evil dragons that once killed off all but one of the dragons of good ages ago.
4. Two parties compete against one another. The first are mercenaries recently hired to protect an estate and its treasure vault. The second is planning a heist in order to rob said vault of a peculiar artifact. Both parties do not know that they are hired by competing demonic forces that are appearing as normal humans and plan to break the artifact on a particular night under certain conditions so that they can release a greater demon in which they wish to curry favor. When both parties realize the implications of what is truly going on, they team together to stop the events.
5. An adventure I designed that won 4th place out of twenty-five entries in a create-a-dungeon competition. The only problem is that it is old school, and I doubt anyone here wants to play D&D BECMI characters. The heroes break into a gnoll fortress in order to interrupt the crowning of a new gnoll kahn that wishes to unite the gnoll tribes and bring sweeping death upon their neighbors.
6. A Traveller campaign where the characters behave sort of like those in Firefly. Basically they journey to place to place, taking gigs to keep themselves going for just a little bit longer. Two steps forwards, one step back the entire way, visiting frontier after frontier and running into various adventures. Again, a game system not well known around these parts.
7. Midnight Campaign Setting. So depressing and so lengthy to actually win anything worthwhile against the forces of darkness. But oh so tempting to play.
Anyone else have a wish list they doubt they’ll ever get around to trying?
1. A mixture of the Dragonstar Campaign setting with Jack Vance’s short story, the Moon Moth. The party consists completely of bards and has to find a criminal on a chaotic evil world, where everyone wears masks to show status and disagreements are settled by song contests or the blade. The heroes move up and down the social order depending on their skill in navigating a culture that rewards or enslaves due to skill and style rather than a set of laws in their pursuit of galactic justice.
2. Lich investigators, all wizard party. I have an indie published 3rd edition book somewhere (was it Lords of Night: Liches?) of how to play a lich character, complete with rules for a lich city. It has great insanity rules, where the lich PCs gradually accumulate different insanities and quirks as they adventure, making them more and more self-destructive. Anyway, the idea is that there is a conspiracy against the city, and the PCs get brought in on it through an investigation into the destruction of a high-level and important lich citizen.
3. The characters (mostly monks) are part of a campaign setting close to rural China or India (would use a 3rd party campaign setting like Sahasra), and weapon bearing and travel is restricted between provinces by edict of the government for the officially stated reason of preventing banditry. A lottery is taken and the characters are told that they are the reincarnation of past heroes that once rose up and defeated the evil world destroying demon. Everyone knows this is a great honor that occurs in the province once per generation, but the problem is that the chosen ones never return from this generational lottery, though it is said that their sacrifice stops the demon invasion once again. An old, disgruntled government official warns the chosen ones that he believes the quest to be rigged, and they find that their kingdom’s rulers hold the same lottery in a different province each year in order to sacrifice their souls to the rulers and increase the rulers' unnatural power. Oh, and that ruling family is actually a group of shape-changing evil dragons that once killed off all but one of the dragons of good ages ago.
4. Two parties compete against one another. The first are mercenaries recently hired to protect an estate and its treasure vault. The second is planning a heist in order to rob said vault of a peculiar artifact. Both parties do not know that they are hired by competing demonic forces that are appearing as normal humans and plan to break the artifact on a particular night under certain conditions so that they can release a greater demon in which they wish to curry favor. When both parties realize the implications of what is truly going on, they team together to stop the events.
5. An adventure I designed that won 4th place out of twenty-five entries in a create-a-dungeon competition. The only problem is that it is old school, and I doubt anyone here wants to play D&D BECMI characters. The heroes break into a gnoll fortress in order to interrupt the crowning of a new gnoll kahn that wishes to unite the gnoll tribes and bring sweeping death upon their neighbors.
6. A Traveller campaign where the characters behave sort of like those in Firefly. Basically they journey to place to place, taking gigs to keep themselves going for just a little bit longer. Two steps forwards, one step back the entire way, visiting frontier after frontier and running into various adventures. Again, a game system not well known around these parts.
7. Midnight Campaign Setting. So depressing and so lengthy to actually win anything worthwhile against the forces of darkness. But oh so tempting to play.
Anyone else have a wish list they doubt they’ll ever get around to trying?
