PCs took an adventure site and decided to restore the old village and ended up granted the land and the leader of the group was made Baron. The next year was spent mostly working on that including dealing with slavers who had captured some immigrants on their way there. the best adventures ended up being things where they got to defend their barony, their subjects. It was the base from which all the other groups operated from since it was so supportive of adventurers.
An LG cleric ended up the leader of the main human church in the world, He instituted a couple of Crusades, but they failed due to lack of PC involvement; no one thought as creatively as a PC. He instituted an Inquisition, set one of his own characters to run it and had a blast trying to come up with something on the other PCs. His biggest success was in defending the hometown of his temple. His best moment came when besieged by the forces of evil and his prayer for assistance got him two tigers made of flame. They weren't that tough but it was enough to boost the morale of his army as he led them out to victory. After that all his planning and stockpiling of resources came into play and his area was the first to recover from the invasion and help other nearby areas, thus leading to them all seceding from the kingdom that didn't respond anywhere near as well and set up a nation under his rule.
Then there was a PC named Marmaduke Bonthrop Shalmardeen. Marmaduke was a male who was only around during the day; Shalmardeen was a male who was only around at night and Bonthrop was a female who only showed up during battle. The party was in the underdark and met some drow. The party seemed tough enough so they were parlaying with the drow. While introducing them the leader, having met all three personalities, introduced Marmaduke by the full name. The ground shook, parts of the roof fell and there was general terror amongst them. The leader commented, "All I did was say Marmaduke bonthrop Shalmardeen..." followed by more ground-shaking, ceiling falling messiness and then the lightning bolt came in through the roof of the cavern! The found themselves facing an irate Emperor (uberlich, stuck in an ancient ruin and fixated on this batch of adventurers; lightning bolt was his way of summoning them). he demanded to know who had spoken "...the Words of Power that would undo My Works!" The leader of the group blurted out, "Uh...not us." and the Emperor replied, "Then find out and kill them!" and they were bolted back to where they had been. The character and the player were bemused that he was able to lie to the Emperor and he asked me, "Can we really affect your world with those words?" I shrugged and said, "You can destroy it." He nodded in understanding, and replied, "No. I don't want to do that." No one ever said that character's full name again.