Greg Benage
Legend
I'm tempted to say I've been running these all as a single Grand Campaign, and to some extent I have, but I found all three products--especially the adventures, in the first two cases--to be fairly disappointing, so this is mostly about me. 
What I've done has gone pretty well, though, so I thought I'd share in case there are others who have these products on their shelves and aren't sure what to do with them.
The campaign started at 1st level with the characters in the Spelljammer Academy. They graduated and went to work for Mirt acquiring artifacts from different worlds for the "merchant's" proposed Spelljammer Museum on the Rock of Bral. The artifacts were unusual, such as a container of water from the last water source on an ancient planet being claimed by desert, or an emerald from the tomb of a sorcerer-king on a far-future Dying Earth where Antarctica is the last continent above sea level and magic has almost entirely faded from the world. (They crashed on the planet and also had to extract some residual magic from the corpse of the sorcerer-king to power their spelljammer long enough to escape the planet.)
The PCs periodically run into a rival adventuring group doing the same thing they are, but for another patron, and eventually they figure out that Mirt has been lying about the Spelljammer Museum and the nature of the artifacts they're recovering. He and the rivals' patron are actually middle-men for Someone Else, and the artifacts are all shards of the First World--remnants that were scattered when the First World was destroyed and the Multiverse created. Eventually they figure out that the Someone Else is Vecna, and he's up to Something Bad.
They investigate Vecna's bio and eventually discover that he tutored under a being known as the Serpent in an unholy magical sanctuary below an ancient temple on Oerth. so they're off to the World of Greyhawk to search for clues about what he might have been up to. (I used the ToEE maps). They battle Vecna cultists and eventually reach his old research library and discover that Vecna had been working on a Great Project almost from the beginning of his magical career. He theorized that a singularity device constructed from shards of the First World could be used to destroy the Multiverse and create a new First World with himself as the only sapient resident, apart from any new servitors he might choose to create. Unfortunately, Vecna learns of the PCs' meddling from his cultists, makes an appearance, and kills them all.
The PCs--or rather parallel-world versions of them--wake up in the morgue in Sigil. Their memories are scattered and confused, including memories of other lives, but they all remember Vecna's Great Project and the confrontation with him, even if the memories are as if they happened to someone else. Just trying to survive in Sigil at this point, they're hired by Shemeska to recover an errant modron named R04M who has gone missing in Outlands. The PCs retrace the modron's path through the gate-towns, recovering the mimir's missing data and encountering lots of "Fringe Events" and other signs of an instability in the fabric of reality along the way. It seems to be getting worse. One of these events is a vision of the Spire as they're crossing Outlands in which it seems to be fragmented into several unconnected sections (this was actually in the Planescape adventure!) They ask how many sections, and I respond, "Seven." Eventually they find the modron, who has confirmed that the source of the instability seems to be located at the unreachable top of the infinite Spire, and also that the irregularities with the Great Modron March are just another symptom of this destabilization of the Multiverse.
At this point the PCs are drawn into a tunnel of swirling light and appear before the Wizards Three, who have combined their powers to cast a wish ritual to discover a way to reach the top of the infinite Spire, because they've learned Vecna is up there preparing to do Something Bad. The PCs share the information they (or parallel-world versions of themselves) have learned about the Great Project. Alustriel and Tasha are bummed that their wish didn't work, but Mordenkainen counters that it did work: He's learned that the Rod of Seven Parts, if reassembled, can act as a key--or more precisely, a ladder--to reach the top of the Spire, fitting nicely with that vision of the fragmented structure the PCs experienced, and clearly the PCs are meant to recover its parts. Once assembled, they can use the Rod of Seven Parts to reach the top of the Spire where Vecna has somehow brought the First World singularity device and means to use it to destroy and remake the Multiverse.
Currently, the PCs are recovering the parts, but the adventure is much more satisfying than it is out of the box because it feels like a "natural" culmination of events the whole campaign has been leading to. I haven't scripted anything: Hopefully the PCs will succeed and be able to confront Vecna before he completes his Great Project, but it's also not off the table that he succeeds and the PCs find themselves alone with him in a new Multiverse. In this event, we might extend the campaign into "epic level" territory for a stretch.
Thanks for reading!
What I've done has gone pretty well, though, so I thought I'd share in case there are others who have these products on their shelves and aren't sure what to do with them.The campaign started at 1st level with the characters in the Spelljammer Academy. They graduated and went to work for Mirt acquiring artifacts from different worlds for the "merchant's" proposed Spelljammer Museum on the Rock of Bral. The artifacts were unusual, such as a container of water from the last water source on an ancient planet being claimed by desert, or an emerald from the tomb of a sorcerer-king on a far-future Dying Earth where Antarctica is the last continent above sea level and magic has almost entirely faded from the world. (They crashed on the planet and also had to extract some residual magic from the corpse of the sorcerer-king to power their spelljammer long enough to escape the planet.)
The PCs periodically run into a rival adventuring group doing the same thing they are, but for another patron, and eventually they figure out that Mirt has been lying about the Spelljammer Museum and the nature of the artifacts they're recovering. He and the rivals' patron are actually middle-men for Someone Else, and the artifacts are all shards of the First World--remnants that were scattered when the First World was destroyed and the Multiverse created. Eventually they figure out that the Someone Else is Vecna, and he's up to Something Bad.
They investigate Vecna's bio and eventually discover that he tutored under a being known as the Serpent in an unholy magical sanctuary below an ancient temple on Oerth. so they're off to the World of Greyhawk to search for clues about what he might have been up to. (I used the ToEE maps). They battle Vecna cultists and eventually reach his old research library and discover that Vecna had been working on a Great Project almost from the beginning of his magical career. He theorized that a singularity device constructed from shards of the First World could be used to destroy the Multiverse and create a new First World with himself as the only sapient resident, apart from any new servitors he might choose to create. Unfortunately, Vecna learns of the PCs' meddling from his cultists, makes an appearance, and kills them all.
The PCs--or rather parallel-world versions of them--wake up in the morgue in Sigil. Their memories are scattered and confused, including memories of other lives, but they all remember Vecna's Great Project and the confrontation with him, even if the memories are as if they happened to someone else. Just trying to survive in Sigil at this point, they're hired by Shemeska to recover an errant modron named R04M who has gone missing in Outlands. The PCs retrace the modron's path through the gate-towns, recovering the mimir's missing data and encountering lots of "Fringe Events" and other signs of an instability in the fabric of reality along the way. It seems to be getting worse. One of these events is a vision of the Spire as they're crossing Outlands in which it seems to be fragmented into several unconnected sections (this was actually in the Planescape adventure!) They ask how many sections, and I respond, "Seven." Eventually they find the modron, who has confirmed that the source of the instability seems to be located at the unreachable top of the infinite Spire, and also that the irregularities with the Great Modron March are just another symptom of this destabilization of the Multiverse.
At this point the PCs are drawn into a tunnel of swirling light and appear before the Wizards Three, who have combined their powers to cast a wish ritual to discover a way to reach the top of the infinite Spire, because they've learned Vecna is up there preparing to do Something Bad. The PCs share the information they (or parallel-world versions of themselves) have learned about the Great Project. Alustriel and Tasha are bummed that their wish didn't work, but Mordenkainen counters that it did work: He's learned that the Rod of Seven Parts, if reassembled, can act as a key--or more precisely, a ladder--to reach the top of the Spire, fitting nicely with that vision of the fragmented structure the PCs experienced, and clearly the PCs are meant to recover its parts. Once assembled, they can use the Rod of Seven Parts to reach the top of the Spire where Vecna has somehow brought the First World singularity device and means to use it to destroy and remake the Multiverse.
Currently, the PCs are recovering the parts, but the adventure is much more satisfying than it is out of the box because it feels like a "natural" culmination of events the whole campaign has been leading to. I haven't scripted anything: Hopefully the PCs will succeed and be able to confront Vecna before he completes his Great Project, but it's also not off the table that he succeeds and the PCs find themselves alone with him in a new Multiverse. In this event, we might extend the campaign into "epic level" territory for a stretch.
Thanks for reading!
