Our current D&DV5 campaign at my club
Matthieu
Member Posts: 386
in Role Playing
Just thought I should mention this campaign we're running at my club with a fellow DM. We are two DMs with two tables (6 players each) playing D&D5. The stories run together at the same time and characters will eventually cross paths. We play in two universes, his campaign takes place in Planescape, mine in Dark Sun. Dark Sun is supposed to be secluded from the Outer Planes, but at the same time there has been occurences of Athasian refugees making it to the planes in canon lore (although this is very marginal).
The Planescape table follows the traditionnal sigilian conspiracies and political conflits while the Athasian part is more about survival. Eventually both sides will follow the tracks of a demilich who made it to Athas only to be defeated there (and its soul stuck in the plane in its philactery) and which holds the map and key to travel to Athas. In our project the travel will be made through the Inner Planes making it quite an experience even for the tough groups.
This project may make some purists cringe, but hey there's no official Planescape or Dark Sun for D&D5 after all.
The Planescape table follows the traditionnal sigilian conspiracies and political conflits while the Athasian part is more about survival. Eventually both sides will follow the tracks of a demilich who made it to Athas only to be defeated there (and its soul stuck in the plane in its philactery) and which holds the map and key to travel to Athas. In our project the travel will be made through the Inner Planes making it quite an experience even for the tough groups.
This project may make some purists cringe, but hey there's no official Planescape or Dark Sun for D&D5 after all.
10
Comments
These campaigns and one-shots have impact on each others, what happens in one may change the line of another table. My demon scenario was validated by the other two DM so it's hallal for them. Doesn't mean it cannot have impact, also it will be played the same day as a Werewolf session so players could eventually meet (or not).
The players only create the demon, not the possessed, which they first only see as emotions (and decide to possess him or someone else). Acquiring identity and memory only once the possession done. The possessed part being integrated to the scenario. The possessed are marginals living in a commune and while they are cut from society they all have a social network from the old day (family, school, work, gang etc.) and aren't without resources. They will try to prevent the test of military grade weapons by the police and security forces on the island. Indeed those cretinous werewolves have been blowing things here and there and the order forces aren't quite happy with it. So what's in it for the demon? The weapon dealer is himself possessed by a demon and the character have to take the demon's head back to take his power. Unknown to them he is a decoy and the real demon's identity is someone else.
The werewolves who will be playing the same day have no clue this is demons toying with human BTW.
Next year the Vampire campaign will be over, but Werewolf will still be going on. I'll start a Mage: the Ascension table within the same context, and if I have good players RP wise at my table I may throw in a fae or two in the group (Changing: the Dreaming).
So, the important thing is - having fun. As DMs and players. You do that, and you're all good.
The Dark Sun players are slaves from an invented noble house of Tyr. The head of the house learned through historic research than an artifact east of the Spine has the key to other and wealthier worlds.
The artifact is the skull of a demi-lich who from the Outer-Planes found its way to Athas, much to its surprise it's a worthless place. Because the guy is just so damn powerful some guy name the dragon has it for lunch and burp the skull out. The soul returns to the philactery somewhere in Sigil safe and sound until some duster comes around.
So basicly the players, other slaves, the noble house and guards start a caravan headed to the spine, fall into an ambush of gith with leaves the caravan crippled. We did some real RP and a player did a convicing speech, slaves pick up weapons and rebels, kill the slavers and are now in the middle of the desert with no possibility to go back. So they push forward, they ran into a Marid and and Efreet (yeah because these exist on Athas) which are at odds and a crazed defiler who happen to have the skull the study it. The defiler killed they pick up the skull, some members of the caravan join up with the marid for easy access to water in exchange of servitude, some join the efreet because they're punks and fuck you. And after another ambush the demi-lich is pissed and tries to reconnect to its skull causing the planescape wearer of its philactery to jump on dark sun and the wearer of the skull to land in Sigil, not sure it was what it intended to do though.
So after another ambush, more crazy defilers, psionic cactuses and helpful druids the planescape character runs away (where the hell am I) and is brought back to Sigil by the skull, switching again.
PS: on Dark Sun Tyr is a city-stated ruled by a crazy sorcerer-king who kills slaves by the thousands to build some ziggurat. Nothing to do with the Forgotten Realms god of justice.
We merged the tables and we were 2 DMs running the table.
It involved the biggest fight I ever managed at D&D with both groups together allied with a gang from the Hive of Sigil against, in order of apparition:
- An efreet with his fire elemental supports
- A demilich with its undead servants (the main antagonist of the game)
- the Harmonium
- Devils
- Demons who came to fight the devils
- A marid and his water servants to fight the Efreet
Finally the Lady of Pain came and cleaned the area.
These people were obviously not allied against the players, there were alliances and hatred.
The efreet first target the players then when the Marid arrives switched to him
The Demilich attack whoever uses spells with area of effects (it's trying to prevent its phylactery, currently possessed by a player, from being damaged)
The Harmonium attacks the gang
The gang attacks the Harmonium
Devils goes to the phylactery carrier but quickly switch to demons as they arrive
Demons goes to devils
The marid's priority is the efreet
The Lady of Pain just picked the place clean
We tried setting something similar this year with yet another DM fellow on the "World of Darkness" franchise. He has a "Werewolf: the Apocalypse" table running for the second year (three years scheduled) while I would have done a "Mage: the Ascension" table. I just didn't have enough participant to start it, so I'm just doing a "Tomb of Annihilation" campaign on D&D5 in which I had to reject applications since I have too many players... go figure.
As mentioned I am, as a GM, running the "Tomb of Annihilation" campaign at my club, we are so far at 5 games and two characters died (replaced by other characters). The campaign is grueling and difficult if you play it by the book (demands complex logistic from the players regarding water and food and plenty of random encounters making it hard to recover). My players are nervous at each encounter.
Since my club had lots of new players who had no campaign I ran the starter's kit mini-campaign "Lost Mine of Phandelver". As a GM is was fun for me to revisit places like Old Owl Well (featured in NWN2) and see it overwhelmed by orcs. This one was an instant hit to the players and it's now completed (4 sessions).
Still for the newbies so they aren't left with nothing until the next season (my club organizes the campaign by school years) I am now running the anthology for them (replacing the Lost Mine of Phandelver in the schedule) "Tales From the Yawning Portal". I'm taking this format because we likely won't have the time to run it through and since it's just a collection of modules unconnected to each others it won't be a problem if we run out of time before the end of the season.
Other "one-shot" sessions I mastered are:
- Call of Cthulhu: A Dream of Japan from Goodman Games. This scenario for the Chaosium RPG offers a not so Lovercraftian adventure is the forest of suicide in Japan.
- Call of Cthulhu: the Curse of Leng, another Cthulhu scenario taking place in a frozen base in Siberia and offers sensations similar to the "The Thing" by Carpenter.
- Numenera: Into the Violet Vale, one of my favourite RPG and an interesting module.
- Shayo: a French RPG taking place in a post apocalyptic Japan. Featuring onis and shintoism next to a derelict world.
As a player I am on:
- Call of Cthulhu: Beyond the Mountains of Madness, a very long campaign (expected at least 3 seasons) or when Cthulhu meets the antartica..
- Hurlement: a vintage French RPG where we play shapeshifter in a gypsie caravan set in medieval France.
Next season I will run (currently searching for players interested in character building):
- A low-fantasy or dark-fantasy RPG: proposals are either Curse of Strahd for D&D (Ravenloft) or the Dragon's Hoard for "A Song of Ice and Fire" by Green Ronin.
- Call of Cthulhu: the five ordeals, A german campaign which runs through China in the 30s.
- A science fiction setting: could be again Numenéra or maybe Fading Suns.