Campaigns in a nutshell. Adventures in a sentence.

[Dannyalcatraz]

For Urban Arcana or other Modern Fantasy setting, a reverse version of Dream Park or Westworld:

A "20th Century Waterdeep" setting, in which adventuring would be the new televised sports or reality shows- "Survivor: Myth Drannor," "The Great Race: Dragonspine Mountains," "Monday Night Dungeon-delving," "The Graveyard 500" and so forth. PCs would either be pros or amateurs, depending upon the setting. Think "Rollerball" on magical steroids.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

The Animus War
A thousand years ago, the divine weapons - invincible holy mecha - fell to earth and gave primitive men the tools they needed to defeat the pre-human giants, the nephilim. The descendents of the legendary heroes of that age rule over three mechaneer-monarchies, their weapons patterned on the sacred weapons of their ancestors. Now populist rebels, backed by a powerful nation across the ocean, intend to bring down this ancient order. But is their goal liberty for the common man... or for the alien titans slumbering in the depths of the earth? An unsuspecting squad of young mechaneers is about to discover the answer!

 

[Simm]

Not mine but...

The Orc and The Pie: The PCs kill the Orc and take his pie.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Borrowed Glory : An adventure/campaign.

A BBEG is confronted by a group of mighty heroes and their sidekicks in his lair. The resolution of the conflict will determine whether the BBEG's hostages live or die...

In a mighty battle, the BBEG is defeated and near death...but so are many of the heroes. And unfortunately, the BBEG's last act as a living being is to transfer his consciousness into a Cybernetic body (or an automaton, or becomes a lich) and make good his escape.

Under the tutelage of the surviving (but crippled) leader of the team of heroes, the group of hostages & sidekicks take up the mantles of the the fallen heroes in order to complete the defeat of the BBEG.

In the proceess of the hunt, they evolve beyond mere usurpers or shadows, and become greater than the heroes they replaced.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Crusade of the Converts

The PCs are recruited by a prominent citizen & war hero to become couriers for his merchant house. The journeys are long, and occasionally hard, but the money is ridiculously good...

Over time, the PCs notice the increasing power of the brigands attacking the caravans...and the unsavory NPCs who both join the caravan and purchase some of the goods they protect. And though the goods they buy are overpriced, but they always sell out.

Eventually, the PCs realize the war hero is a drug lord- and they're his hired muscle!

Do they continue to work for the war hero, or do they bring down his growing drug empire?

 

[Brimshack]

2 of my favorites:

An orc village is located just 4 miles North of a human village. To the south of the human village lies human controlled lands, dominated by a foreign invader. Locals and foreign military leaders are not friendly, but there is little chance of outright war. Leadership of the dominating military force would like to eliminate the orc threat which would mean war. To the North of the orc village is a mountainous region dominated by monsters, many of which wish to go to war with the humans to the South. Some wish to eliminate the occupation force, and some just want to eat any human they can find (local or foreign). Even the smallest of raids risks massive retaliation from the human occupation force to teh South.

There is also a drug smuggling trade from the monsters through human territory to ports in the South.

The leadership of both villages knows that in the event of war, their own homes will be destroyed and most will not survive. Both work to keep the peace against pressure from their own kind.

The Police: A Human police force located in the human village. It is charged with keeping the peace in the local township and surrounding region as well as preventing any incursions from orcs. They are also instructed to stop drug smugglers who are moving product through the human village. They ally themselves occassionally with a group of local monsters and eventually get enough tips to begin cutting down on the local drug trade.

The Monsters: A group of orcs and related monsters is charged with protecting the pass North against human incursions. They are also charged by orc leaders with eliminating bounty hunters paid by the occupation force for each left ear of a monster. They are told to keep the peace and prepare for war. In other words, set up to win, and make sure no other orcs start things unless such an advantage is in place. In time they enter the drug trade, and pass on information on competitors to the Police force with which they are occassionally allied. After leiminatig the competition, they begin to make immense profits.

 

[Aeric]

Armored Legend World: The aelven empire once ruled the entire world, but is now a pale shadow of its former glory. In their search for a way to replace their depleted natural resources, aelven explorers discoved the bones of titans buried in the earth near the shadowlands. The Imperial warmasters, inspired by agents of the shadow, used these skeletons to create the first Armored Legends: towering warmachines powered by arcane energies, capable of wiping out entire regiments single-handedly.

As the aelven empire begins a whirlwind campaign of reconquista, a small band of heroes discovers the true nature of the Armored Legends, and their terrible purpose: the Legends themselves are sentient, and devoted to the destruction of the sunlit lands as commanded by their true master, the shadow. Once the time is right, the aelven war machines will turn against their masters, claiming all in the name of shadow. That is, unless our heroes can stop them.

And as if all this weren't bad enough, agents of the shadow seek an even more powerful weapon from ancient times: a spear created by the first children of the Overgod to use in combat against their younger siblings, the gods themselves. A spear powerful enough to extinguish the sun and destroy the gods who live there.

 

[paradox42]

For Urban Arcana or other Modern Fantasy setting, a reverse version of Dream Park or Westworld:

A "20th Century Waterdeep" setting, in which adventuring would be the new televised sports or reality shows- "Survivor: Myth Drannor," "The Great Race: Dragonspine Mountains," "Monday Night Dungeon-delving," "The Graveyard 500" and so forth. PCs would either be pros or amateurs, depending upon the setting. Think "Rollerball" on magical steroids.

Just wanted to drop in and say that this is almost exactly the premise of the XCrawl series of products. It's set on what amounts to an alternate-history Earth of the 20th century, where magic is real along with the standard "demihuman" races such as elves, dwarves, halflings, goblinoids and so on, and with the aid of magic the Roman Empire never fell- instead spreading its cultural trappings across the globe. Even newly founded nations use the imperial system for their government.

In the modern day, Emperor Reagan took advantage of stories of the Elder Days told by a sentient short sword (recently found in an archaeological dig), to come up with the idea of a radical new bloodsport to keep the masses happy: professional, televised dungeon-delving...

 

[paradox42]

And, for my contribution,

Legacy of the Ice Elves: An archaeological expedition to the ancient ruin now known as the City of Death is slowly disrupted from within. One of its patrons, Frostfolk scion of a powerful merchant house, uses the trip to pursue an agenda of her own. She acquires an artifact called the Key of Ice, a tiny statue of one of the emperors of the hated, feared, and fortunately long-dead Ice Elves. The Key is supposed to unlock a vault in the City, holding the greatest treasure of the Ice Elves, which the merchant feels (since her people were once the slaves of the dead race) rightfully belongs to her people- which she can thus claim by extension when she finds it.

Meanwhile, in the vault wait two more Keys of Ice, secretly sentient (and conspiring) components of the ritual which will free their true master, Xixecal III, last emperor of the Ice Elves, from his eternal prison of black ice far in the north... and through the Keys, the mind of Xixecal reaches out and begins to manipulate the members of the expedition towards his own ends.

 

[Dykstrav]

Drow in the Hood

The characters are drow adventurers based in Waterdeep. A drow bard is tearing up the Waterdhavian music scene with his hit single, Paladin Killa. The Lords of Waterdeep concoct a variety of trumped-up charges to have drow in the city arrested, as they fear what strong drow elves can do. Capitalizing on these events, the Xanathar's agents go on a crime spree targeting the drow.

The characters must travel to Faerun's east side, where they can recruit the beholder known as the Notorious E.Y.E. (He's always wanted to move into the west side and take over the Xanathar's operation.) The characters return to Waterdeep, and by taking over the criminal enterprises there, manage to bring a halt to the persecution of the drow.

Nothing really changes in the grand scheme of things and no one learns a lesson in the end, but life goes on day by day.