A little background information. I'm 21, and the majority of my players around the same age group. I've been playing dungeons and dragons since I was about 13, almost always as the dungeon master. My group of players has rarely completed a full campaign, for various reasons. We've often focused more on "temporary campaigns", but recently we've really have gotten into a new endeavour of mine, and we've been having a blast. I'm just looking for a little perspective as to whether or not it sounds like a good campaign, and of course suggestions would be excellent. We currently play 3.5 as we're a rather cheap group of people, though we've heard only good things about 4th edition and mean to switch over when the chance comes up.
The campaign began in the town of Haven, a small closed off community. The two players we started off with were level 6. One was Agrinor, a Aasimar fighter/ranger of lawful good alignment. He has a pregnant wife, and owns a tanning business in the town that exports amazing leather products. He's a sometimes rash, but good man. The other is Raelyn, a true neutral half elf Fighter/Lasher (It was in sword and fist, it's a prestige class focused around whip combat). He's a loner who's only good friend is Agrinor.
The mayor of the town, a good friend of Agrinor, came up to the players one day saying that he believed a tribe of goblins were nearby. One of the outlying farms had seen strange sightings at night. Being the town 'adventurers', they left immedietly to find the goblins. When the arrived at the farm, they found it on fire and the inhabitants nearly all dead. They fought several goblins, and a strange cleric in black robes with an unknown unholy symbol. They tied the cleric to a tree after knocking him unconcious, and quickly tracked the goblins up to the nearby hills.
Near the top of the hill was another dark robed cleric, as well as several goblin minions. They also had a huge Zombie Ogre with them. After defeating them, the cleric revealed with his last words that the town was to be the target of a massive attack. They rushed back to the town with all haste, finding the ropes of the tied up cleric to be cut.
When they arrived in the town, they found it to be occupied by the dead. Nearly all of the inhabitants had been turned into zombies and ghouls. They fought through the throngs to the center of town to Agrinor's wife. They found her dead, her heart ripped out of her chest. The blood of all the villagers was being used for some kind of unholy ritual. They tried to stop it, but were unable to..and a powerful Lich rose. His name was Bel'Kaytair.
The lich used finger of death on the ranger, who (thankfully) made his fortitude save, and had the presence of mind to fall to the ground and pretend to be dead. He threw the fighter with telekinesis, and presumed them both to be dead. Gathering up his army of undead, clerics, and subjugated goblins, they left the town.
The ranger started the path of the paladin that day, and the players hurried north after him. They fought several creatures left behind by the undead army, and eventually arrived at the small town of Vaansbrad. At the gates was a huge zombie-like monstrosity, but they beat it back with the aid of the Cleric/Wizard Aldarric, another player who just joined. Aldarric was a neutral good spellcaster, ambitious but kind, who had a small job as the librarian of the town while he pursued his magic. They went to the mayor of the town, but were not granted an audience till nighttime, and so went to the powerful Knights of Heironous who were the protectors of the town.
Now, there's a fun undead in the Libris Mortis called a Visage. It is a very stealthy and intelligent undead. It is immune to positive energy, has the ability to use dominate person and major image once per day, and when it kills someone, it can appear to be them for 24 hours after. This Visage, meant for a single adventure, somehow sticks around time after time. All of the knights had been killed by this creature, and it was currently wearing the guise of a female paladin when the players came to the charter house. They were rebuffed rudely by this supposedly holy knight, and were very suspicious.
They went to their nighttime meeting with the mayor, but inside the mayor's office, the mayor was dead. The Visage had just decapitated him. They fought the creature heatedlly, but just as it was about to die, it took on the form of the female paladin and beseeched them that she had been possessed but the spirit was beaten back. The party was obviously skeptical, but decided that if it was still the undead, they could find out by forcing it to drink a cure light wounds potion. After all, that would damage an undead, right? Now you see why I love this creature :p. It drank the potion to no effect, and they conceeded that it was indeed the paladin. They escorted the undead to the holy temple of pelor in the town just as the alarm horns sounded.
A massive undead army besieged the town, and the players desperately fought all night to repel the enemy forces. They managed to hold, and realized they needed more information on the Lich. They delved through the libraries of the town and managed to find a book.
Bel'Kaytair was once an elf mage from a thousand years ago. He disappeared for a time, and when he reappeared, he was a powerful lich with a massive undead army. This army devesated the world, and it is estimated 30% of the world's population was killed before the Lich was stopped. When a group of heroes stormed the Lich's tower, they found him in the process of summoning a powerful devil lord into the world, Mephisto. They defeated him, and on the Lich's corpse, the leader of the heroes found an amulet. He wore the amulet for a year before suddenly disappearing.
Now, I did this Lich a little differently in my campaign for story purposes. The amulet is the lich's phylactery, the device that will revive it. But this amulet was once a powerful artifact before the lich made it a device of evil, so it could not be destroyed by normal means. This hero who took the amulet sealed it's power away and hid it in the abandoned tower. This hero was a descendent of Agrinor's wife, which is why her heart and blood was necessary to break the spell and bring the lich back to life.
The players rushed to the tower, which was now a 'holy place' called Cae'calor, the city of the dead. They eventually retrieved the amulet, and sensed the powerful evil inside of it, for part of the Lich's soul was inside it. They decided they could not risk it being stolen, and so one of them would have to wear it. Aldarric the spellcaster took it upon himself, and they rushed back to the town.
They decided to take a shortcut through the mountains, and were ambushed by several hill giants. During the combat, they were joined by the last player, a very young silver dragon who's mortal name was Kris. The dragon had watched the growing forces of undead destroying the kingdom, and decided to help their quest. But after the combat, the amulet whispered dark thoughts into Aldarric's mind, and he mistook the dragon for an enemy and shot a spell at it. They recovered, and moved on, but Aldarric was shocked at what he had done.
When they came to the town, they found the walls demolished and barricades built in the streets of the town. The town was on the verge of starvation and destruction at the hands of the undead menace, and needed a place to escape. They decided to lead the town to a mountain area where they could defend far more easily and food was easier to come by. The Visage attacked them again, in the guise of a librarian that Aldarric knew, but they survived it's attacks and it withdrew again.
Once the refugees were safe, the paladin prayed to his god for a way to stop the lich. An angel came before them, and told them that the Lich was nearly done in his goal to summon Mephisto into this world. He brought Pegasi for them to ride, and bid them to the Lich's new fortress, the former kingdom capital city.
Inside the castle of the city, they fought long and hard against the creatures of the Lich, undead and demons, clerics and death knights. Throughout this time, the amulet pulsed with power, constantly tempting Aldarric with evil thoughts. They knew he would be corrupted if it took too long, and rushed to the final floor of the castle where the Lich dwell.
As they confronted the Lich, he finished destroying the bindings that kept Mephisto from this world. All that was left was the summoning itself. The players fought the lich in a high tension battle, and just barely managed to defeat him. The portal they lich had nearly finished opening was before them, and Aldarric took the amulet into his hands. At first, he failed his will save, and was unable to throw it through the gate, but the other players urged him on, and with a yell he threw the amulet through the gate, destroying it and causing the entire castle to start collapsing. Aldarric fell into a coma, and the players rushed out just in time.
Outside the castle, the angel visited them again and congratulated them on their accomplishment. He said that the bindings keeping Mephistoi from this world were broken now, and all it would take is a powerful spellcaster to finish the work here. The players understood, and that was the end..so far.
But what the players don't know is that when the amulet was destroyed, the soul of the lich was not. It had built enough of itself in Aldarric that it was able to enter his body and share it with Aldarric's own soul. Now he has both souls inside of him, one of a confused yet good spellcaster, the other of a diabolical and ancient lich. The player has been informed that he would be turning evil slowly (we both agreed to this, he thought it was an excellent twist and is happy to play it through.)
And that, my friends, is my campaign so far 
. The current plan is to have a few 'fluff' adventures, during which time Aldarric will become more and more corrupt. In time, he will disappear, and reappear as the final evil they must defeat.
Also, the players have yet to explore most of the world. They have been mostly on the west half of their continent, a lightly populated area where many small kingdoms ruled. In the east are two massive kingdoms that are constantly at war. This war has been a good backdrop for the rest of the campaign, and I've been thinking of ways for the players to go there and get involved.
I know that was incredibly long. If you read it, I would love to hear your thoughts
Bump? Looking for some responses =/
Was interesting to read and I can only imagine how much fun it would have been to play. I really like how Raelyn and Agrinor are personally tied to the plot. Plus I always get a kick out of having zombies be previous npc's the character's knew.
I could imagine the group going through a few fluff adventures that eventually take them to the area with the two warring kingdoms. I could forsee Aldarric disappearing after they are there a bit and raising an army of undead from the people who died in the war.