What have your players been through to get them to lvl 11? By now they've probably gained some notoriety/fame/infamy. I'd be inclined to spin the next part of the campaign off some of their previous adventures. Did they leave any villains alive who could come after them? Did any of their actions effect the game world in a significant way? Are they loved through out them realm, so NPCs may seek them out for help/justice/etc? Are they hated, so they may end up hunted? Like I said, delve into their past experiences for inspiration. This will give them a sense of continuity and that their world is interactive.
|
well, i've ran a champaign were all of my player's where undead in Eox but i'm guessing that one doesn't help. i've also run a game where my player's had to escort an evil (but lawful) villain to a trail, being beset by an evil cult that wished to murder the innocent (ironically) NPC so that the truth would never be known. and i've also run a game where the PCs had to go into hiding in the wilderness for a crime they didn't commit
well, i've ran a champaign were all of my player's where undead in Eox...
My favorite PBP I've ever played in.
I ran a campaign that was analogous to WW2, with the elves and magic-users persecuted like Jews. It was fun, but some of it was pearls before swine.
The campaign I'm running these days is loosely based in Forgotten Realms, and the characters are trying to use their adventuring wealth to carve out a new dale in Sembia.
I took a campaign in Greyhawk's Gran March and added a plane-traveling wizard about to become a lich, and his fortress of incompetent hirelings, including the wizard's son, who were clueless as to what the Master was actually up to. Needless to say, although our adventurers were able to recover the stolen plane-traveling intelligent sword, and kill the son and half the fortress' staff, they missed the wizard due to a fake self-destruct mechanism. The wizard is now a lich, the son a death knight, and the adventurers were clueless that they didn't get the job done right the first time. The lich wants the uber-intelligent sword back. Lots of story potential there.
Then there's the B4: The Lost City I ran another group of bumbling adventurers through. Although they cleared out the pyramid and were working their way down into the subterranean city, they missed all the hints that it wasn't undead that they were destroying, but the lost people of an ancient civilization that had a habit of mummifying all their dead. A deus ex machina took them back home to the Gran March before they could discover the truth.
There's always loose threads in any campaign to wrap up, especially if your players are the "love 'em and leave 'em" type, or after they clear out the humongous fortress they just go back to town and clink a beer at the bar. Yeah, right. That fortress is going to be full of monsters again in just a month's time.
|
Previous games that have worked:
Players have been called together by a respected scholar to look into various artifacts that have gone missing over the years, with a large compensation given for good returns of various items.
When investigating they find a cult worshiping some sort of demon dragon. Over the years, and several levels they find out this ancient dragon was trying to gain godhood and has several cults and servants striving to help him and thereby increase their own power.
Their patron the scholar turned out to be a shape-shifted Silver Dragon intent on destroying the demon dragon. The Halflings in the world are blamed for the death of a dragon child and are now on the menu of all dragons associated with said cult. In fact, they are wiped out, save for the PC’s within the region. An ancient Vampire walks away into the realms at large with a powerful artifact that allows him to walk in the day.
Years later in the same world, powerful artifacts associated with the PC’s now survive in the world. The Frostfell queen of the fey court protects the realm due to a bargain with a group of adventurers, while earth elementals continue to plow the depths bringing forth more and more riches to be left within a group of menhirs to be collected by an ancient silver dragon.
One game - The bad guys had won and took over three countries in an expanding evil empire. Half the PC races were slaves, the other half were food. The PCs were from outside the region and sent in to aid the resistance movement. Some of the resistance were double agents, some of the oppressors were sympathetic etc. Several of the evil cults/groups that 'supported' the empire fought amoungst themselves which the PCs used to their advantage. There was alot of sneaking around and charisma skills used. The gained in power and influence, but not really money as there was little coin rewards though. They smuggled some people out of the evil empire, and managed to take down a few evil barons. Style was grim but not hopeless.
Another game - PCs were royal family or the royal guard. Two royal cousins, a prince and his guard were sent by the king on missions. They each had hobbies and their own goals, but half the missions were for the king. The PCs were good guys but still did some dungeon bashing for ancestorial artifacts and cleansing an undead infestation.
Years ago I did a game based on the Diablo computer game. The PCs were members of a barbarian tribe who's local area was getting raided by humanoids. At the centre of the humanoids lair was an old dungeon, full of undead and fiends. The quests from the game translated easily.
Some ideas I used for high-level adventures:
A planar bleed from the plane of shadow had opened in the home village of one of the PCs. This was caused by a wizard who was an evil advisor to the jarl and who was experimenting with shadow magic. The whole village was drawm in the plane of shadow and the houses and other structures were becoming animated. The most frightening animated creatures were an animated shadow windmill (colossal creature with 4 attacks per round) and an animated shadow Viking ship.
All the residents of the village were changed into shadow creatures. Their souls were linked to an enormous shadow dragon by means of a sort of dimensional shackle (which was a partly visible, shadowy chain running from the neck of the resident to the shadow dragon). Of course they had to defeat the shadow dragon in order to solve this and close the bleed.
I also did a series of adventures based on the Odyssey (where the group had to escape cyclopses, fight Scylla and Charybdis etc.). The reason for this was that Zeus sort of put them under a geas for stealing a part of his spear. This was actually a magic item the PCs found in an earlier adventure, and they had no idea it was part of the spear of Zeus.
Then I did a series of adventures having to do with a god of magic who caused the destruction of a continent because of irresponsible use of magic. He was locked up in a plane by four other gods. However, this plane was the prime material world the PCs are living on. Because of the presence of this god on this world for millennia magic had been heaping up on this world and was now reaching a critical mass. If the god was not set free, the whole world would explode.
The PCs had to find several objects and construct a chaos ritual in order to free the god. It was a long-drawn epic running from level 12 until level 20. As a result of participating in the ritual, the characters became epic characters.
I ran a campaign based around a war with undead. The players found out that a very powerful cleric of a fallen god of undeath had managed to seal off the borders of Perrinland and turn everything inside those borders undead. I do mean everything, right down to the grass.
The players had the role of warning the kingdoms so they could band togather to stop it. They then spent several adventures searching for allies in unlikely places.
Once the war started they were involved with the initial battle to keep the undead from swarming down the mountain and laying waste to civilization. They had to protect a key point from hundreds of skeletons and zombies as well as a few more powerful undead. Succeed and the battle goes okay, fail and the line starts to falter and crumble.
Next they got tasked with sneaking into Perrinland to find out what the enemies goals are. They weren't the only team, so when they failed one of the other teams used them as a distraction to succeed. A set of plans for a magical divise was discovered. Since no one knows what it did they decided to have the players gather the parts so it could be made.
Once they got the parts togather it turned out to be a way to located the fallen god's corpse on the astral plane. They gather their allies and got there in time to disrupt the ritual and prevent his resurrection.
All in all the campaign was a blast.