We go by the name of Team Sidequest. I don't remember when we started applying that name to our group. It is a fairly accurate description. Our very first campaign, our goal was to travel to the dwarven lands to do something--I don't remember what. We played for 2.5 years every week, and we never made it to the dwarven lands, and, in fact, spent half the time going in the exact opposite direction.
Right now, we are running through a series of adventures that Shaun and I are writing together. I personally think it's going to be epic, should they ever manage to get through it. This has been an interesting challenge, learning to work together to run the game together. Our party, should everyone show up, consists of a teifling warlock, half-elf bard, elf paladin, human cleric, fire genasi eldrich knight (I think), rogue/bard (I don't remember the race), gnome cleric, and barbarian (also don't remember the race--I know, I'm a bad DM). That sounds like a lot, but usually a couple people aren't able to come each time we meet (because adulting sucks). We are playing in the same homebrew world the original campaign from 2000 was run in. It takes place 200 years after the end of that campaign. It's a high fantasy world with some steampunk level technology. The technology is fairly new to the world. We had the early framework of it in the original game, but it was only a few neat gadgets here and there. Things have grown and developed over the years. This seemed logical to us. A lot of the new technology is highly steeped in magic because it makes sense to us and because it seems like that could be a lot of fun. This world was originally created in second edition, which means that both teiflings and fire genasi were not playable races. We generally didn't allow gnomes for no reason other than we did not like gnomes, and we felt they did not add much to the world. Occasional gnome oddities have shown up (including our current gnome). The current gnome is both a student and a specimen in the university in the main city of the area our group is in. The fire genesi's story and existence is going to be worked into the campaign, so I will not say much about that at this time, other than he was raised as an orphan, and does not know if there are any others of his race--whether he is the result of genetic manipulation and magical experimentation or if he is part of a race of people that is very seclusive, or whatever. The teifling has decided to be an indirect descendant of the human knight from the original story. The knight's neice/great-neice (I can't remember) married Rhom Corsith, a demon villain from the original campaign, and the teifling is their offspring. He is on a quest to destroy the knight from the original story (who is alive still because he is Sulis' whipping boy--Sulis is the goddess of life in our world--as established in the original campaign). Interestingly enough, we'd already written a role for the old knight into our current campaign, so that should make for some fun roleplaying.
That was a lot... And now for a recap of the story so far, which will also take a bit because we've played several sessions. Our group started on an airship travelling to Whitestone (the urban center of the country they are in)--we told our players they would start there, and they would need to come up with a reason to travel to Whitestone. The goal of this session was to introduce the world as it would be for this campaign. There were airships, with electric lighting. They had a radio box on the ship for music that ran off a mix of magic and technology. And so on. It was a murder mystery. Someone on the ship was trying to steal some of the cargo by redirecting the ship to another location. In the end, the party caught the pawn, but not the true culprit. She escaped, but they did prevent the ship from diverting and saved the cargo. They arrive in Whitestone. Whitestone is a city run by the most lawful of lawful paladins. They have rules for everything. They have systems and organizations for everything. You have to be there for a reason. Tourists and travelers are allowed to register and stay for short periods of time, and have very limited access to the city. You can register as a researcher at the library (this is what the fire genasi did). You can join an adventuring guild. You could register with any number of crafting guilds or merchant groups. The point is: they track everything in this city. Our party joined a guild called the Wild Cards. For fans of The Slayers, this guild is run by retired adventurers Rina Universe and Gary. There was also another guild called The Devoted, led by Marigold, the daughter of Martina and Xangulus. Not major plot points, but fun. They spent the next session running side quests. Obvious side quests. As in on the bulletin board in their guild obvious side quest, which even included the cliche "rats in the basement" quest.
The last 2 sessions have picked up the main plot. They got a preview of the cargo from the airship during a public demonstration in the Whitestone amphitheater. The cargo was what the wizards' guild is calling a Dragon Heartstone and it connects to a functionally crude mechanical dragon, which is about the size of a backyard storage shed, is clunky, but can still fly. They also find that a small team of adventurers sent by the wizards' guild to bring back historical artifacts (non-magical) from an ancient ruins related to a legend that inspired the creation of the mechanical dragon and the heartstone power source has not returned after several weeks. Conveniently the team is from The Wild Cards. So, our party gears up and travels to the Everclear Swamp. In the swamp is an ancient city overgrown by the swamp/jungle (think Cambodian style ruins). This dungeon was a maze (literally) of traps and impassible terrain because of flooding and the age of the buildings.
I created the map for this dungeon by designing the ancient town and placing it over a maze. The maze indicated the passable terrain. They could cross the other areas where flooded, but risked random encounters with native creatures. These ruins had been taken over by Histherians, lizardmen (the dragonborn of our world as dragonborn were not things when we created this world in 2000, inspired by the draconians of the Dragonlance world). The Histherians were running a cult worshiping the green dragon, Acida. Acida was young and vain, and also lazy, since the Histherians were pretty much providing her with food through their collection of captives. The ruins came up to cliffs on one side and beach and ocean on another. On the ocean side, the Histherians had a boat that they used to engage in piracy to collect money to fund their community and their dragon, as well as collect captives to feed their dragon. Our players wandered haphazardly through the dungeon. We finished the first session with our players overwhelmed and captured. We started last weekend's session with our party in prison (minus the rogue that had been captured at an earlier time, but had managed to free himself and two members of the group they had come to rescue).
Our human cleric joined our rogue to come to the group's rescue. The cleric had been absent for several sessions reference holidays. We wrote him back in by telling him he has to go to this temple in the ruins in the Everclear Swamp and obtain a green amulet. They meet up with the rest of the group, right after they finish breaking out of the caves. The party now has a better idea of what they're up against. They also know there is someone or something the Histherians are working for, and that whatever it is likes sacrifices--one of our players was only pretending to be unconscious when they were captured at the end of last session and also conveniently spoke draconic. They clear the temple, where the prison was. They discover that there is a tunnel in the cliffs behind the city that leads to the "Master." They've also deduced that the Master is probably a dragon. They go to the dragon's layer and defeat the dragon, which was not played to the most ruthless it could have been because we'd determined that she had grown lazy and complacent. She was used to being provided with food. She hadn't had to hunt or take care of herself in years. We played her as if her combat skills were rusty. This is because the base dragon stats in the Monster Manual were meant for a slightly high leveled party. Now scattered around the ruins, along with mosaics of dragons in several different colors standing with people (although maybe a few with just green dragons), the party found several pendants with a particular symbol on it. They found an indentation that matched the pendant in the ground next to the dragon's hoard. Inside they find a tunnel and a glowing green portal. Inside the portal is a circular room with no visible floor except a narrow walkway. Green mist comes up from the pits on either side of the walkway. The walkway extends to the center of the room where suspended over a pedestal is a gold amulet with a green gemstone set in it. The gemstone has the same symbol that's on the pendants inscribed inside the gem.
Clearly this amulet is going to be a powerful magical object (and it is), but they have only been able to determine that it provides protection against and resistance to poison. It has other abilities, that should come out as we go through this campaign.
That's the game so far in as much of a nutshell as my rambling self could put it in. Future episodes will only cover events from one session and not need the introductory stuff.
