THE SETTING: The small town of Tharsis north of the seat of the Dominarchy, Candor. This was a high-travel campaign, however, and took the adventurers around quite a bit of the Dominarchy. Some of the adventures were pulled out of Dungeon magazine or used maps from modules, but for the most part I created all of the adventures in here. [A first-edition campaign.]
THE CAMPAIGN: A group of people in the city of Tharsis joined together as adventurers. During the course of their adventures, they came across a magical staff called Necroarch that had soul-trapped a creature named Tocair, an asura-kevalin. The elven cleric-mage, Quesse, who'd claimed the staff started having nightmares and visions. The group ended up investigating Tocair's laboratories deep in the Icewind Mountains, freeing Tocair from the staff, and eventually coming to befriend Tocair (his post-campaign relationship with Quesse is described in one of the player's creations, The Ballad of Quesse and Tocair, and in my short wrap-up story, The Gift.)
Although the episode with Tocair was one of the overarching threads, the campaign cumulated in the Heroes of Tharsis uncovering a plot against the Dominarch's life. The clue they had to unravel was in a child's skipping rhyme (see The Prophecy of Magicbane Minor), and they duly figured it out and raised the revenent of Magicbane Minor, a paladin. On the night of Wraithwalk (you can read about that scary night under Holidays), they burst into Mynedd Palace to save the Dominarch from Dash Gerfalcon's treachery.
Other highlights of the campaign included Robyn shooting a facehugger off of a character's face; Merlin being raised from the dead and promptly dying again because they forgot to neutralize the poison first; dripping holy water on the floor of the Nine Hells and then running like hell away from the portal when the Bad Guys arrived to find out what was going on; Robyn and Deor sliding down after a remorhaz on their shields and suddenly realizing that the iceworm's back was searing hot ... and diving off the shields before they roasted themselves; the voodoo adventure in which Robin and Zell were possessed and "ridden" by the deities for a night; throwing the dwarf Deor into the fountain after she'd made a mess eating BBQ (and of course, the song "Deor, Deor, bad guy's comin' and I wanna go home"!); the thief Zell going insane and believing that he was an archmage; and much more.
DM's MUSINGS: This campaign began as a "trainer" campaign for people who wanted to join the UCSB Gaming Group but didn't know how to play AD&D. The campaign ran for several years and I thought it went quite well ... many of the people I taught how to play in it are still in my games, even though in the interim we've all moved to Los Angeles or San Francisco (Quesse's player is in Virginia, though we keep trying to convince her to move out here again)!
I've brought several things from this campaign into a later one. Eidolon, who owned a house that the characters were trapped in for a time ("We've been trying to get out of this house ever since we got in!"), made only a brief appearance in this campaign. He made another cameo in my Spelljammer campaign (trying to purchase Razor's Edge), and became the full-fledged villain of the Shattering Wars campaign (his prehistory is revealed in Arnim's time-traveling journal). Tocair showed up again in the Shattering Wars campaign, although for the most part the characters interacted with other kevalinu. He's currently Missing in Action. Magicbane Minor was an occasionally mentioned NPC in the Shattering Wars campaign, and he's also still around—he's undead, after all. In fact, he's prime candidate for the throne of Mynedd Palace in Candor! Robyn's family, the de Arilanes, continue to be played by the original player, and it looks like one of the family will be in my Cislunar II campaign. I understand the dwarf Deor went on campaigning after I ended the Heroes of Tharsis, eventually ending up befriending a baby dragon. Other than that, I can only hope that other characters continued their careers after the campaign's end....
A PLAYER'S COMMENTS: (from Deor's player, Leah) " An addition to Deor's continuing life (thought you might want to know): Wracked with guilt over destroying the city (review your notes) She ran away to the Icewind Mountains, and became a hermit. (She was always a bit unstable, I think....) One wintry night a large dwarf with coal-black eyes came to, ahem, take shelter and comfort. Who was that masked man? ;) Months later, Ruby was born with Mom's hair and Dad's eyes. Ruby grew up in the odd half-above, half-underground cliffside house, raising goats and helping her mother run a fur trading post. Over time however, Deor became more and more unstable (Read: Schizophrenia, with delusions, and occasional rages.) and her parenting style of 'tough love' ended with a long goat herding trip in midwinter. 'A test of Ruby's survival skills' became abandonment. After nearly dying from exposure, Ruby found her way to the nearest city, and began her adventuring career. Ruby still believes her mother is still alive in the Icewinds although she does not know where to find her. I think what really happened is that Deor really felt like a bad parent, but would never apologize, or admit failure. This combined with the delusion that 'parental love makes you soft—I never got any, and look at me!' well, you get the picture. Ruby has been an active character, Clangeddin-worshipper and 'Axe-Bearer' since last year, when the campaign up here ended."
