I've been planning on posting about this funny thing for awhile, but never got around to it. When I read through the preview for STAP in Dungeon #138, I had to laugh at some of the stuff that was going to happen. Not because of any badly written aspects of STAP (far from it) but because of the campaign I just finished. Major STAP spoilers ahead, of course.
The campaign I just finished running was just me and my brother, with him playing several characters. (Sucks, I know, but sometimes you make do with what you got.) I don't need to bore you all with too many details of the campaign to see the humor of my situation, but some are neccessary. It was set in a homebrew world and featured undead and demons quite heavily. It centered around a plot of Orcus to turn the world into another layer of the Abyss, which would give Orcus the power to achieve godhood and wipe out all his enemies (read: everyone who isn't Orcus.) The main villian was named Lord Vridath and in the first adventure he tricked the PC's into shattering a powerful evil artifact, releasing a huge amount of undead into the world and starting the process that would Abyssify the world. This great rush of evil energy around Vridath turned him into a half-fiend. Much later in the campaign the characters killed Vridath, but Orcus brought him back as a death knight. The characters ended up fighting him one more time when he was a half-fiend death knight, destroying him for good. Then they went to the Abyss and stopped Orcus' plans for good, even getting to tangle with Orcus for a few rounds before performing the neccessary steps to save the world and be the big heroes.
So what do I find when I read the STAP preview? Vanthus (another "v" name) starts out as human, becomes a half-fiend. He is defeated by the PC's, and then will return as a death knight. And the big bad guy at the end? Demogorgon! Of course these are the only respects in which the STAP storyline is similar to my own campaing, but it is really wierd. I had thought I was done with demon princes for awhile when I finished my campaign, but apparently they weren't done with me. Pesky demons!
I think my fate as a DM is inexorably tied to the Abyss. I'm thinking my next campaign should take a big leap and feature Grazz't or if I get really crazy perhaps Dagon. :)
Dude, you are ahead of your time.
"No, bro, I swear it's in the freakin magazine. I'm not just reusing the same campaign because I'm only playing with you."
it's kinda like this:
http://www.orwelltoday.com/jfkcoincidences.shtml
now if we could only make the connections between James Jacobs and Gary Gygax... then we would really have something.
