Tell me of your Arcana Evolved campaigns

[Azgulor]

The Red Book calls to me.

I recently introduced my son to role-playing games with great success via the Pathfinder rules. Since he's clamoring for more it looks like it'll become an ongoing campaign which got me thinking about settings, what to include, and more importantly, what not to include in the campaign.

Clerics & alignment went right out the window. In the event that the game eventually extends to his friends, I'm focusing on the adventure aspect and not inviting conversations with parents that don't know anything about the game regarding make-believe religions. Also, I'm working pretty dilligently to teach the kid right from wrong. I don't need alignment discussions or behaviors mucking up the works. With alignment gone, so went the Paladin.

With that decision made, I decided that AE's champion class might be a better alternative and adopting AE's approach of no arcane/divine separation to magic.

So I looked over the classes, picked and chose, and started thinking about how to "Pathfinderize" them. And I started flipping through the rest of the book again: the races, the concepts, the area's where Monte intentionally broke from D&D tradition. I read through the Diamond Throne section again, and the ideas begin to form.

And the Red Book calls...

Sadly, I haven't had the opportunity to run a straight-up AE campaign. I floated the idea to my son, but he's been freshly exposed to the Tolkein concepts of dwarves, elves, and halflings and asked to try a world with them "first" (I love his enthusiasm). But just flipping through that book gets ideas going and even though it's a high-fantasy RPG, much of the artwork, esp. the color panels, makes me think of swords-n-sorcery (my preferred style of fantasy).

I love the D&D races and every fantasy RPG I've ever run has been in that mold and will continue to be so. But there's something about the AE races and dynamics that makes me want to run something really different.

So for those fortunate to either be running or have run an AE game, please share some tidbits about your game. I'm less interested in mechanics or comparisons and more interested in the races and stories told -- what did you DO with AE?


I'm sure I'll have both AE and Conan fans clamoring for my hide for even conceiving this, but I just can't shake the idea of one day running a Hyboria Evolved campaign where AE races are mixed into REH's Hyboria. I just keep envisioning the Mojh being the true Set-worshipping rulers of Stygia with Sibbecci soldiers marching into lands of the Litorans and Humans; where the giants are the descendants of lost Acheron... and the dragons, which sank Atlantis have returned.

Ah well, off to read. The Red Book calls again.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The Red Book calls to me.

I recently introduced my son to role-playing games with great success via the Pathfinder rules. Since he's clamoring for more it looks like it'll become an ongoing campaign which got me thinking about settings, what to include, and more importantly, what not to include in the campaign.

Clerics & alignment went right out the window. In the event that the game eventually extends to his friends, I'm focusing on the adventure aspect and not inviting conversations with parents that don't know anything about the game regarding make-believe religions. Also, I'm working pretty dilligently to teach the kid right from wrong. I don't need alignment discussions or behaviors mucking up the works. With alignment gone, so went the Paladin.

With that decision made, I decided that AE's champion class might be a better alternative and adopting AE's approach of no arcane/divine separation to magic.

So I looked over the classes, picked and chose, and started thinking about how to "Pathfinderize" them. And I started flipping through the rest of the book again: the races, the concepts, the area's where Monte intentionally broke from D&D tradition. I read through the Diamond Throne section again, and the ideas begin to form.

And the Red Book calls...

Sadly, I haven't had the opportunity to run a straight-up AE campaign. I floated the idea to my son, but he's been freshly exposed to the Tolkein concepts of dwarves, elves, and halflings and asked to try a world with them "first" (I love his enthusiasm). But just flipping through that book gets ideas going and even though it's a high-fantasy RPG, much of the artwork, esp. the color panels, makes me think of swords-n-sorcery (my preferred style of fantasy).

I love the D&D races and every fantasy RPG I've ever run has been in that mold and will continue to be so. But there's something about the AE races and dynamics that makes me want to run something really different.

So for those fortunate to either be running or have run an AE game, please share some tidbits about your game. I'm less interested in mechanics or comparisons and more interested in the races and stories told -- what did you DO with AE?


I'm sure I'll have both AE and Conan fans clamoring for my hide for even conceiving this, but I just can't shake the idea of one day running a Hyboria Evolved campaign where AE races are mixed into REH's Hyboria. I just keep envisioning the Mojh being the true Set-worshipping rulers of Stygia with Sibbecci soldiers marching into lands of the Litorans and Humans; where the giants are the descendants of lost Acheron... and the dragons, which sank Atlantis have returned.

Ah well, off to read. The Red Book calls again.

My campaigns goal was to stop Virdella Tresham (a threat from the Diamond Throne book, IIRC) to find the item she was looking for and destroying this world. I never got there, unfortunately - high level play DMing wasn't so much fun, and I think I might have had too much pre-planned (it wasn't a problem for the PCs to "follow the rails", but it lessened my excitement and I was getting impatient, at the same having new ideas for alternative campaigns).

Highlights of the campaign:
- The Giant character that was a "Diamond Throne Inspector", something the player came up with - basically an adventurerer that gets some extra rights, duties and money for travelling the lands and checking out any trouble spots and dealing with it.

- The story of the Soulless child that Virdella (secretely) tried to use as a host for her divine power to gain more influence in this world. The PCs originally just had to stop the villagers from the city from killing the child (this was a repeating occurence, every generation or so), but when they figured out, they found a way to deal with the issue for a while. The story involved the idea that body, mind, spirit and soul are all components of a healthy, non-undead non-construct being, and how to fix the child that was missing one component - the soul - which would make her impossible to act on a moral basis (which doesn't necessarily result in evil, but evil and good are never concepts understood by this one), and make her a potential host for hostile souls. They fixed this via an Oathsworn that has once failed to deal with this problem and was now an undead. The Oathsworn sacrificed himself to provide for the seed of a good soul. At the same time, they had to issue with another (human) Inspector of the Diamond Throne, that was secretely working to secure the child for the cult following Virdella. (I think the PCs never learned that she was actually trying to infiltrate this and just saw this as a necessary sacrifice.)

- A large Pyramid with a non-eucledian geometry, in which a variety of creatures, among them Chorrim, some undead, Qualleq and more lived and tried to find an artifact important for Virdella Treshams goal. While a highlight, probably also too long.

 

[Baron Opal]

I ran an AE campaign for about 2 years, although in a homebrew and not in the AE world. At first I ran adventures from Dragon Magazine, specifically the first three adventures in the Age of Worms path. I allowed rogues as a class, but other than that we were AE all the way.

It worked really well. The math was pretty much the same. The power curve was a little flatter, higher at lower levels and less at higher, but there wasn't any conversion required. You just rolled your die and compared your results.

A theme I built on was the concept of mammal vs. reptile. There were yuan-ti spies ordering raids using kobold slaves. Difficult deals brokered with were-rats to control the sewers. An army of lizardfolk assaulted a keep and the PCs had to defend it while unbeknownst to them an evil artifact was possessing someone in the basement of the castle.

I guess you do whatever you want with it. There are some deep themes in the book; personal responsibility and moral relativism of the adventuring class are big ones.

 

[Obryn]

I ran an Arcana Evolved campaign for about two years, as well... It only ended when the PCs - particularly the Magister and the Spryte Greenbond - became almost comically overpowered around level 12-13.

I kicked off the campaign with Mike Mearls's adventure regarding an evil artifact called the Iron Crown - which is basically an Evil Mastermind's Toolkit, including such goodies as attracting creatures of evil bent, dominating them, and other general scary stuff. After retrieving the crown - and after it possessed one of their number - they went to the ruined library city of Erdaenos to find out how to destroy it. Specifically, they needed to head towards the ocean, picking up a hammer of a dead god on the way, ceremonially crush it on the shore, and throw it below the waves.

They met the leader of the rebuildiung efforts, whose name escapes me now, a Champion of Knowledge dedicated to rebuilding the vast library. Most of them got along with him fine, but one character - a rather emo and whiny Champion of Justice - took a dislike to him which he carried along with him.

On the way to the shore, they went to a mountain, wherein lay an abandoned Temple of Jode. Much to their surprise, they found that it wasn't so abandoned after all. Rather, it was a living, breathing, active temple with regular worship. Some cultists (largely Oathsworn) had set up shop there - almost literally. The head of the cult was a world-reknowned weaponsmith, who created marvelous items in the course of worship, using the very Hammer they'd come to take with them. As it was essential to the temple's worship, the cultists weren't willing to loan it out for the better part of a month, even to destroy an artifact of evil. After all, this cult worshipped making, not destroying, and evil as it was, the crown was a masterpiece. So, the party broke into the abandoned temple and stole it, hightailing to the sea with Oathsworn in pursuit.

On their way there, they found that tribes of Rhodin had grown more active. Chorrim, as well - something big seemed to be afoot. After a few encounters with Chorrim, their chieftain heard the siren call of the Crown and moved towards the party to destroy them, along with a veritable army.

Enter Tetrithallichandar, a young dragon recently returned from the West as part of the Squamous Horde. While his companions were setting out for the capitol, Tetrithallichandar knew that he was meant for greater things than that, so sought out to stake out a kingdom where good and justice could always prevail. Nice thought, but the dragon was basically Napoleon with a bit of Don Quixote added in; supremely overconfident, absolutely convinced that he was acting in the right, and utterly certain that it was his birthright to rule as a greater being. The dragon rescued the party from the chorrim hordes, sat back and waited while the party worked to destroy the Crown for certain.

The ceremony went off without a hitch until the Verrik Witch decided to see if anything was left of the Iron Crown. One pebble caught his eye - it was made seemingly of the same black metal as the Crown itself was. He grabbed it, shoved it in his pocket, and headed back...

...I'll try to finish up the campaign later. It was a great romp, all things considered. Next time, I'll tell how dangerous it can be to give a dragon ideas.

-O

 

[Remus Lupin]

Great, now I'm gonna have to go and dig out all of my AE sourcebooks after reading this thread!

 

[ikazuchi]

Long Time Ago

My last AE game (which was more of a AU game) was about 5 years ago. We had a group of 7-9 players and by brother and I GM'd. The main gist were Vallerians attempting some apocalypse on the surface peoples that was orchestrated by a minor ice devil looking to get stronger. We started everyone off at 1st and ended with everyone around 7-8th (I think). The game pretty much died when we went on haitus due to my brother and his wife (one of the players) having their first child.

The best part was that my brother and I had designed the story to separate the group multiple times. Each time, he would take a sub-group for 5-8 sessions and I would have the other. The group would then rejoin and then split up again. The trick to this is to use long-distance travel or unreliable teleportation to smooth out the timing.

We had several interesting characters, but one of the best was an NPC named Tharza. Tharza (who spoke in the third person) was a dual-dire-dagger wielding kobold. When the PCs killed his master/parent during a ritual that started to turn the Sibeccai PC into a gnoll, Tharza was convinced that he and the PCs were dead since the measly PCs could never kill his master.

From then on, Tharza traveled with the PCs since whenever his master passed away he would obviously come looking for the curs that killed his kobold for some 'after-hours arse whupping' and Tharza would be there to meet back up with his master. Tharza fought like an unfettered (he couldn't die since he was already dead) and called everyone 'ghost-man' or 'strange-dead-giant' or some variation thereof.

 

[Azgulor]

Fantastic stuff, folks! Thanks for shaing (and keep it coming)!

 

[Chacal]

I'm currently running an AE campaign where the PCs (no humans) chase a human magister who's uncovering ancient magic used by the dragons and humans before and at the beginning of the Dramojh era.

The magister doesn't care about the consequences of his quest, and has caused some destruction in his path. He's also studying the creatures created by the dramojh and trying to replicate the experiments. He's currently about to discover Serathis (Ruins of Intrigue) which has not been revealed yet.

You can find many inspiring stuff for AE (as well as campaign journals):

Okay -- Your Turn - Message Board - Yuku
Diamondthrone.com - The Official Fan Site of Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved
Portal:Arcana Evolved

Have fun !

Chacal

 

[wolff96]

I've had two long-running AE games.

The first was a homebrew. All of the characters were from a magical academy (Magister, Mage Blade, Champion of Magic) and started out running errands for their teachers. An odd meteor had split apart, scattering magical rocks -- that strangely altered exposed creatures -- across the land. It was all leading up to the return of the dragons and the opening of 'evolved' options. (I started the game with only AU options available). It went really well and only ended when one of the players had to move.

The second was running the "Savage Tide" adventure path from Dungeon Magazine, but with AE classes and races. It was a lot of fun and I had to change suprisingly little. It was also the only time I ever saw a Sea Witch in her element -- and she was incredible. I was getting really burnt out as a DM by the time they finished everything on the Isle of Dread, though, so we laid that campaign to rest.

I really enjoy AE -- great options for the players, solid basic setting.

 

[wolff96]

*sigh* Double post.