Campaigns in a nutshell. Adventures in a sentence.

[Electric Wizard]

You Have to Break Some Eggs to Make an Omelette
On an isolated archipalaego, the people decide their rulers every generation by a trial of ordeal. Young, healthy, clever representatives of influential families are chosen for the task of retrieving a dragon's egg from the remote, monster-infested Outer Chain. The first group of representatives to return with the prize are rewarded with ultimate glory and a lifetime of well-earned affluence.

Of course, it's not really that simple. The real dangers are fellow competitors, the tribal intrigues back home and the shame of returning home defeated...

Strange Flesh
You wake up in a dingy cave and realize, to your horror, that you have a new body. The body of a notorious criminal. Get your identity back, or die trying!

 

[Dzyu]

Pre-apocalypse
The great kingdom of Dhyana is in a golden age where adventurers flock to in hope of fame, riches and power. A group of four adventurers arrive and find themselves recruited by a guild and sent on seemingly random missions, competing with other adventurers for treasure and fame.

A vast network of underdark tunnels is discovered beneath the city sewers, and as the adventurers explore caves and archaic dungeons beneath the cities it becomes apparent that most of the quests they've been doing lately are connected. Behind the scenes kobolds, dragons and dragonkin are plotting and scheming against humanoid rule, pitting the races against each other, unleashing demons, and breaking down the very fabric of magic itself in an attempt to eradicate the humanoids and their power.

Rumors has it that Tiamat herself is behind it, ushering in a new era for draconic rule with Ashardalon as her champion, and an unlikely alliance between all chromatic dragons, and the adventurers find themselves right in the middle of it, with the fate of the world as they know it in their hands.



Post-apocalypse
Demons have roamed the lands for decades, tearing it apart, eradicating all life they come across.
There were few signs of life remaining, and then suddenly the demon hordes vanished over night. Magic returned, and a peaceful tranquility indicated a new dawn. Though sparse with life, and on a scarred earth, the survivors at last see hope after decades with doom. They have been mostly alone and always in hiding for as long as they can remember. Some of them were born into it, and all of them have lost someone close to them.

A stormy night drives four survivors together and they establish a small settlement, but with a host of draconic races on the rise, and the remnant aberrations, magical beasts and demons after the apocalypse, their settlement and maybe even survival of the non-scaly races depend upon them, and it won't be easy.



I actually started with the post-apocalypse idea, and my players got really attached to that setting even though we didn't get very far, so when two players had to leave for school a year I started the pre-apocalypse campaign. What they do in the pre-apocalypse campaign will greatly affect the post-apocalypse campaign, and the maps are full of memorable loactions, so I'm really excited to see what happens, especially when we go back to post-apocalypse and they revisit old encounter locations.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just thought I'd post a link to this excellent thread full of creepy campaign/adventure ideas.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Inspired by this bit of unfortunate & mind-boggling news...

Newsroom

Elemental Chaos

The rulers of Elemental Air, Earth, Fire & Water have decided to settle their differences by having a contest, a game of skill and power. The contest is to be played out on the Prime Material plane, and the pieces will be their minions...and anyone else who gets drawn into the conflict.

This has made the region a living hell for the residents of the isolated mountain valley in which the contest it to take place. Their life has been thrown into utter chaos as fire erupts from wells, water jets from the blacksmith's bellows, earth refuses to yield to the plow, and wind refuses to touch the mills while it scours the towns with storms.

And worst of all, while anyone is free to enter the valley, any attempt to leave is met with unified attacks by gangs of elementals...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Tunnels, Truffles, Truffaut, Triffids & Trolls: A campaign in which a Halfling community, famous for being fungus farmers, finds themselves caught between raiding kobolds, carnivorous plants, and voracious giant-kin...in a low-magic campaign or low-magic region.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Having seen these images and read the articles, I can't help but think about some bad mojo going down...

PHOTOS: Chile Volcano Erupts With Ash and Lightning
The World's Largest Lightning Storm: The Venezuelan Thunderstorm That Creates One Million Bolts a Year | Suite101.com

Perhaps its an imprisoned evil being on the verge of breaking free of its supernatural cell, or a weakening of barriers between planes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A heavy, Earthlike water-world:

Nearby "Super Earth" May Have Oceans, Thick Atmosphere

+

Heavy Planet: The Classic Mesklin Stories, by Hal Clement- a heavy world populated by sentient beings very much resembling a fifteen-inch caterpillars.
______

= Mesklin being augmented by a large aquatic realm...interesting setting?

 

[Malto Dextrin]

dnd stuff

Slime Sewers

A grand human city is faced with a horrible problem. The city was largely constructed several hundred years ago by Dwarven slaves. The city is now at peace with Dwarves but the damage has been done. The slaves secretly built a number of large reservoirs under the city designed to slowly fill up with green slime. After they fill up, a counter weight is lowerd and the slime will be forced up into the city proper, utterly destroying it. The government of the city now knows about this but they have been unable to stop it. The underground is somehow magically shielded from scrying and all the engineers they send down below to undo the damage never come back up.
What they need is a small, elite group of adventurers to crawl down through the confusing, mechanical, booby-trapped, rust-monster and vermin infested tunnels and reset the mechanisms to save the city.
Oh, and they only have X days to do it.



Son of the Sun

Pelor, the sun god, secretly had a son not too long ago and when it was born, all the gods came together and swore a pact to never harm the infant diety. This child lived as a demi-god in another plane for some time and has just recently come to the prime material plane. For a reason that Pelor cannot explain, his son is evil (chaotically so) and refers to himself as "Pelor" and is totally exploiting this protection pact for all it's worth.

For a certain amount of time each day, the sun shifts to a dull orange colour. This time period slowly grows larger and larger each day. It's dim and comparable to a cloudy dusk. Crops are wilting and creatures of the night are growing stronger. Pelor's son is attempting to replace him as the soverign of light.

"The Son of Pelor" has convened with the darker races and has promised a new age of "light" upon the surface world. Light and darkness are trading places in this reversed way of things. Certain clans of dark elves have allied themselves with the dark god and have secretly come to the surface disguised as moon elves and are longer harmed by the sunlight. Green slime, oozes and vampires are also no longer harmed by the sun and start to appear in cities and towns.

Also, strangely, moonlight is slowly growing brighter and has become harmful to vampires.

Gods still empower their followers who attempt to fight the change but cannot take direct action against Pelor. No divination can explain what is going on as counteracting the Son of the Sun's plans would technically be harming him. The church of Pelor proper is launching many major investigations and has called upon many of their followers to help.

Drow and vampire priests and "paladins" of Pelor continually assasinate members of the old church while certain gods of night and darkness have offered solace and protection to the displaced goodly humans. The nature of positive and negative planar energy is slowly changing and the dark gods are feeling desperate as they slowly lose their dominion.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've been reading about and studying the art of Louis Wain for some time now, and got a bit inspired.

(See also SCHIZOPHRENIC VICTORIAN PAINTER OF CATS -Louis Wain « The Dreamatists, with soundtrack by Joe Satriani.)

What if a small enclave of Rakshasha were affected by some kind of painful magical affliction that made them look like the work of Louis Wain...but didn't kill them outright. In fact, they find themselves even more resilient than ever. Their existence is torture.

One of their lesser-tormented brethren seeks out the party in an effort to find out the answer to the mystery of their curse, so that they can end it...either by having it alleviated or by death.

Can the PCs bring themselves to help those who have so often been tormentors of others?

 

[Quantum]

The Great Shoe Event.

Some people call it a curse from the gods, but for whatever reason on that fateful day, all shoes across the the entire world fall apart. From that point forward, the Great Shoe Curse has begun and nobody can wear a shoe of any type, whether it be a sandal, a boot, or a piece of armor or anything resembling any kind shoe of absolutely any kind. And furthermore, no shoes can be manufactured anywhere in the world.