Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DoveArrow 03-11-08, 05:41 PM	I see a lot of posts up here about monsters, spells, and feats, but nobody really talks about what kinds of campaigns they're running. So I'm creating this thread as a place for people to talk about their epic campaigns. Hopefully, it will give people ideas about what kinds of games can be run at epic levels, because frankly, I think the hardest part about running an epic campaign is coming up with ideas for one. Personally, I'm working on my first epic campaign ever as a continuation of the Age of Worms Campaign. The premise is that Kyuss is still alive, and has regained much of his power by feeding on the divine essence of a goddess named Shalara. In order to prevent his reascension, the PCs must travel to the plane where Kyuss is imprisoned, and release the goddess that is the source of his divine power. Right now, I'm working on the first adventure in this campaign that involves the PCs finding a spellcaster who can create the material components needed to cast the plane shift spell that will take them to Kyuss's prison plane. (By the way, whoever wrote the material components section for plane shift, may your character be blessed with a thousand critical hits, because it provided me with the best adventure seed ever). It's slow going (writing epic stat blocks sucks), but I think when I'm done, it's going to be a great game. What is everyone else working on? I'm really curious to know.
Tshern 03-11-08, 05:52 PM	Just about to start my first epic campaign, which is more of a challenge than a campaign.
DoveArrow 03-11-08, 05:54 PM	What's the premise?
Tshern 03-11-08, 05:56 PM	What's the premise? This is. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=12106171&postcount=1) I have the honour to continue the challenge.
rob_douglas 03-12-08, 10:20 AM	I think I have detailed my campaign before. My characters have advanced slowly, from 1st level in 2E to 22nd level (I don't do a lot of XP). Their Epic challenge ultimately is to take on Iuz himself. They first need to go on several quests for the artifacts that will allow them to do so. In the way I throw interesting challenges, and souped up older modules. They have been to Castle Greyhawk and the Isle of the Ape. They fought a form of Orcus in Darkbridge Temple where he was trying to reform into a living demon (he still will, ala Dead Gods, but at the time his divinity was locked in a half-ogre priest of his), and are in direct conflict with Iuz's champion in a race for the Regalia of Might for Good and Evil, which will lead to an ultimate showdown between those 2 parties of adventurers (mine and the evil ones working for Iuz). Right now they just went into Bitterness to stop the awakening of Hunger (Oerth Journal #22 - http://www.oerthjournal.com/oj22.html). I added a connection with a past enemy going after the sword that helped inspire them. From here, I intend to use Age of Worms with bigger dragons, Some stuff with the Githyanki and the lich queen, perhaps even taking her out, and Return to the Tomb of Horrors, all in attempts to find the lost artifacts, including the Rod of 7 parts, and the Orbs of Dragonkind. ROB
DoveArrow 03-12-08, 12:56 PM	(Oerth Journal #22 - http://www.oerthjournal.com/oj22.html). You might want to put the [/url] on the inside of the paranthesis, instead of on the outside, since it's making it so that your link doesn't work.
CmdrCorsiken 03-12-08, 05:19 PM	Not running one currently, but did finish one early last year. Actually it was parallel campaigns, one low-to-mid level, one high-to-epic level. The story involved various nations taking sides in a regional equivalent to a World War. The goal being the aquisition of a set of powerful artifacts; when collected, the holders could wield near absolute power over the world. The lower level group was busy uncovering and foiling various plots by their enemies to locate and collect some of the artifacts. The high level group discovered and contronted the various leaders of the enemy alliance, eventually facing the epic Blackguard who was behind the entire evil alliance. Many of the clues uncovered by the low level party helped the high level group identify and locate some of the enemy leaders. It was actually a very fun campaign to run. I was very busy coordinating what each group knew and keeping a detailed calendar of events and travel for the two groups. It was so time-consuming, I'm not sure I'll try this again, but it was certainly entertaining for all.
rob_douglas 03-13-08, 10:32 AM	You might want to put the [/url] on the inside of the paranthesis, instead of on the outside, since it's making it so that your link doesn't work. Thanks. Actually, the tag was added automatically by gleemax (it does that when you enter a url) so it included the ), but it was easy to fix when you pointed it out. ROB
Frozen_Flame 03-13-08, 10:35 AM	My Characters just finished an original campaign of mine... The characters started with the search an artifact that would help them locate and free there imprisoned friend (as the 9th level spell). after a lot of trouble they find out that the artifact was in the hands of the gleaners. needing to penetrate the "impenetrable" vault... (basically making them go through a "mission-impossible".
DeathlessJuan 03-13-08, 03:16 PM	I am currently running an epic campaign that is a bit 'outside of the box'. Background was that Aberrations were invading the Material Realm in mass and all the realms in existance (Outter Planes, Lower Planes, etc) gathered together to fight off the threat. The current PCs were the characters that managed to fight their way to the very rift in space that was allowing the monsters in and discovered that the creatures responsible for the invasion were attempting to flee. Rather than let them get away, the characters sacrificed themselves to not only seal the rift shut, but to bind the creatuers (we call them the "Others") within themselves for all of eternity. My requirement for the characters to join was that they had to have a reason to sacrifice themselves, which eliminated the evil alingments without a very good backstory. My setting takes place in a massive region of the universe called "The Beyond". It is the realm that can be reached should one master the mysteries of "The Far Realm" and serves as a test that grants the survivor the right to become a new god. Ao (the overfather) resides somewhere in the vast reaches of this realm and must be sought out to actually gain your first divine rank. The Beyond resembles the vastness of space that we know in the real world but, of course, distances are much smaller between objects though still vast and infinite in concept. My players have be woken on the borders of the Far and the Beyond. They have met up with my NPC that guards the border and so far have been taking on missions to help him defend against another wave of Aberration seeking to pass into the Material Realm again. It has been interesting so far.
Shandri 03-14-08, 10:07 PM	I'm just starting to run a campaign where the PCs are to track down a handful of elven artifacts from the days they warred with the giants of Xen'drik of Eberron. Oppenents that stand in their way are more than a few dragons intent on either seeing them fail miserably, or trying to take the artifacts for their own purposes. Then in the end the adventurers will be standing toe to toe with one of the resurected rulers of the Age of Giants, a titan with the eternal template (from Swords and Sorcery, Warcraft RPG). It'll be a while before they get there though... so far they just made level 2.
jareddm 03-15-08, 03:21 AM	The campaign that started it all was known as the war of the golem. Enormous armies of highly advanced iron golems of different specialities and abilities were comming from the East, and by this time the party had quite a bit of military experience under their belt. 8 months and some insane battles later, they manage to reach the White Spire, a huge tower in which the enormous number of custom iron golems were comming from (think warforged, they stole my idea damnit!) While some of the party scaled the tower and ended up blowing off the top to jump inside, the party's insane chaotic evil fighter was throwing solders at the time so he could use their skeletons as a staircase. In the end, the tower is turned to rubble by an extremely well planned, multiple meteor swarm strike and a well deserved wish. After some clean-up, the crazy fighter ends up being recruited by a Klurichir general of Demogorgon and goes off on some great blood war adventures across the lower planes. At least before learning of some grave news and the party must reform... Apparently, the immense blast of the destruction of the spire ripped a hole in space, allowing at a single far realm creature to slip through and possess the remains of the single, experimental, half-warforged super general that was being constructed at the time of the Spire's destruction. This new being, possessed by the mad far realm entity, rips open the hole, allowing thousands of far realm beings to possesss the warforged bodies that remained, as well as pulling numerous other intelligent constructs to their aid. The result was a new army, this one physically infested and mentally controlled. The party, after being beaten back rather severely by the newly empowered pseudo-forged armies, attempts numerous tactics, some successful, such as tracking down each of a series of pseudonatural warforged generals, each possessed by a uvuudaum. Others were not so successful, such as trying to locate the ancient fail-safe that was built into the walls of the universe that would forcibly expel all pseudonatural creatures (the pseudo-forged armies got their first and corrupted it beyond repair) Eventually, the party calls to the aid of the High Council, a group of 12 extremely powerful humanoids (read, level 45), each of different classes. Unfortunately, the council has been busy stopping the tear in the universe from spreading even further. They give the party an artifact known as The King's Honor, a large gem that supposedly would be the key to stopping the invasion. The trick that the party eventually figures out is that it's already too late to stop the invasion. The super general is far too powerful now and not even the entire council would be able to stop him, even if they could focus on trying to destroy him. And it is at this point that the party finally figures out how to end the war. They were out of time...well they'd just have to get some more... The party sets all of their resources towards tracking down the being that can help them, the Phane known as Deariz, formally the High Heirophant of the last Goddess of time, her Goddess died upon finally viewing the end of the universe, causing her most powerful servents to mutate into phanes. After a very lengthy search and some of rather fine role-playing, the party is able to travel back in time, with the help of Deariz to the point when the super general was at his most vulnerable, the battle of the Spire. After narrowly avoiding running into their less powerful selves, they sneak into the deepest reaches of the Spire and find the lab where the General was being built. There they succeed in activating the King's Honor, preventing the tear in the universe from forming and stopping the entire invasion from ever occuring... And then my party retired.
sin_vraal 03-18-08, 07:54 PM	The campaign I am running started at level 20, and the PCs are long dead forgotten heroes who have been resurrected via epic spell to save their world, which was sucked into the abyss. While they (pcs) have not executed on my promise, anything and everything is up for grabs. Deicide, divine ascension, whacking out demon/devil lords, clearing layers of the abyss, creating retardedly powerful magic items are all fine, so long as they save their world from the hordes of the abyss! Note, they don't have to take it from there or migrate the people out (admittedly probably the best ideas), they only have to keep the abyss from overrunning their 'layer' of the abyss. I plan on running the campaign until low 30's, mainly b/c thats when cash vs AC breaks down. Most of my monsters are advanced from other creatures. Demon lords , devil lords are revised to be more in line with the CR from book of vile darkness (fixed some of the deficiencies with them in there, since they aren't really all that tough). The only thing I dont allow is excessive PRC munchkining... the reason is you can build even by level 10 pcs that are basically untouchable... class selection is by approval only. Beyond that, I want them to feel that everything is open ended