The Campaign Builder's Guild

It's a great system for getting those creative juices flowing, or if you ever need to do something on the fly.

By the way, the original article is here.

Isawa Tadaka, the Phoenix Clan's Master of Earth from the Legend of the Five Rings setting.

*Casts Raise Thread*

Here's the main map of my campaign thus far. I'm starting small, but I'm hoping to post the contiental map once I have a chance to work on it a bit more.

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Zipang is about the crew of a Japanese Aegis-class cruiser, the Mirai, who, along with their ship, get caught up in a storm and suddenly find themselves lost in the Pacific--on June 3, 1942. The night before the Battle of Midway.

Pic from the manga: Mirai vs. Yamato

Eureka Seven is a mecha show. It's very similar to Evangelion from what I've heard, but I don't think it's anywhere near as philosophical or angsty. Tons of action, too.

As for Fate/stay night:

QuoteShirou Emiya lost his parents in a fire when he was young and was later adopted by a sorceror. Although he was full of admiration for his adopted father and yearns to become an ally of justice, Shirou has limited powers and was unable to become a strong sorceror like his father. That is until one fateful day, he was drawn into the Holy Grail War and had to summon a female "Servant" known as Saber in order to protect himself. It turns out that the Holy Grail War involves a series of battles among powerful sorcerors to fight for the possession of a relic that will grant one's wishes, the Holy Grail. There are altogether seven "Masters" who can summon their respective "Servants" from different classes known as Saber, Archer, Rider, Berserker, Lancer, Caster and Assasin. These "Servants" have to hide their names in order not to reveal their weaknesses to the enemies. The story revolves around Shirou and his entanglement in the Holy Grail War.

- From AnimeNewsNetwork.com

I watch Yakitate!! Japan for the reactions... and Tsukino. ;)

Other than Evangelion, I seem to like more obscure anime like Full Moon wo Sagashite (yes, it's shoujo, but I like the music) and Zipang. I hear Fate: Stay Night and Eureka Seven are good, but I haven't gotten around to watching them yet.

I'm working on something that could hopefully make it into the next (ie, second) newsletter. I wish I could write faster.  :rockwall:

This sounds like a really good idea. Kinda like D&D meets Boot Hill or Deadlands. I think there was an article in the Voyage of the Princess Ark series in an old Dragon that touched on this too, although it seemed a little silly to me at the time.

What would you call it? The Good, The Bad and the Orcish? A Fistful of Gold Pieces?

Very well, thanks. It's just the two of them playing right now, but I think they're hooked. I might try my hand at some fiction as the campaign develops more.

I just ran my first session in my new world -- my son's first tabletop RPG session, and my wife's first 3.5 ed game. A lot of firsts last night, I guess.

Slaughtering a handful of goblins had never been so much fun.

Quote from: IshmaylJust curious; is a lot of the campaign going to actually take place in the Sea of Tears (ship-faring campaigns, or underwater campaigns), or is it mostly just used as a backstory to explain the current state of the world?

I'm thinking that it'll probably be backstory until the characters get caught up in the aboleths' plans, perhaps starting at mid-level. I may scatter a few seemingly insignificant details early on, though.

By the way -- do I post updates here as things progress, or should I start another thread in Homebrews?

Wow, that was fast! Thanks for the feedback!

I think I may have to go with the cliche 'mountain/asteroid/big-a** rock falling from the sky' type of cataclysm. The shockwave from something big enough to alter the land like that would probably do as much damage, if not more, than the impact itself.

Now, what if the elves knew about it beforehand and tried to prevent it from happening? What if the elves tried to erect a magical barrier that they thought would have been strong enough to ward off the asteroid -- but in order to do it, they would have had to strengthen it by adding their own life force to it? Agents corrupted by the aboleths sabotaged the ritual, the barrier was destroyed, and with it the lives of almost every elf that was involved. Considering how dire the situation was, I'd imagine that the majority of the elves would have volunteered to participate.

Quote from: RaelifinNow, the campaign as a whole... This seems like it'll be a bottom-up campaign, so where do you intend to start? Wouldn't the dwarves be like the halflings if they too were driven from their homes? A rough map (even a sketch in paint) would be nice.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Akodo_Tim/Macardia.jpg[/url]
( :heart: Fractal Terrains.  :P)

As for your question about the dwarves, I was thinking that only the capital city/citadel/stronghold would have been destroyed. The remaining strongholds throughout the mountain chain would have been unaffected, at least not physically.

[EDIT: map image didn't seem to work; posting link instead. :/ ]

Quote from: CYMRO of the Cabbage CabalAs in every issue a group of tables that may or may not fit a theme, but could come in handy on the fly?

I used to have a third party book along those lines, can't remember its name though...
Toolbox, toolchest, ...

Do you mean AEG's Toolbox?

Greetings,

I hope this is the right place to post this stuff. :P

Anyway, I'm dusting off the books and starting a campaign for my wife and 12-year-old son, neither of whom have played D&D 3.5E. My wife's played a little 2E, but my son's never played a pen-and-paper RPG before so I want his first taste of gaming to be a good one so he'll keep coming back!

I've been brainstorming a little bit about the world and have come up with this so far:

- The world (called Varrin) is a 'vanilla' fantasy setting for the time being. This is more because of the players' inexperience more than anything else.
- Long ago, a cataclysmic event turned much of the western half of the world's main continent, Macardia, into a thousand mile wide inland sea now called the Sea of Tears. The survivors have been squabbling over what's left of the known world (ie, the rest of the continent) ever since.
- There are rumors that ancient cities and lost magic still exist under the surface of the Sea of Tears.
- There is indeed a "city of the ancients" on the bottom of the sea, and it was occupied by aboleth and their skum minions soon after the sea was created. Maybe their actions started the events that led to the flooding.
- The aboleth have been biding their time for millenia, and have now set in motion a plan to enslave the divided kingdoms of the surface world and raise the oceans to submerge the land for all eternity.

Now, the creation of the Sea of Tears is the defining moment of the world's history. Besides the flooding of almost a quarter of the continent, the sheer amount of dust and debris thrown up into the air, as well as the smoke and ash produced by newly-formed volcanoes, blotted out the sun for nearly a decade. Disease and famine were widespread during the Years of Shadow, and the desperate survivors of the holocaust fought frequently among themselves and with the humanoid hordes that swept in from the north to take what they could.

Not only did the shape of the known lands change, but most of the races as well were greatly affected as well, each in a different way:
- The Halfling lands were swallowed up by the newly-formed sea, forcing the survivors to become the nomads described in the PHB.
- The geological upheaval caused the extinct volcanoes which housed the Dwarven homeland to suddenly erupt. The remaining clans, bound by centuries of tradition and suddenly without a ruling clan, fell into disarray and began squabbling amongst themselves.
- The Elves have been reduced to living in small enclaves, the largest no bigger than a small town, scattered throughout the land. (I'm not sure exactly why yet.)
- The surviving Humans fled southeast and managed to carve out new empire of their own. This was short-lived, as corruption and internal conflicts caused it to collapse under its own weight a century ago in a bloody civil war.
- Gnomes... um... I haven't found a place for them yet.

And that's all I've got so far. What do you all think? Do I need something else to make the world stand out? Any ideas why the Elves have declined (this may be important, since both of the PCs are Elves)? Any other factors I may have missed?