The very first campaign I wrote has never been used by me, because I decided that it would be too demanding of players. But I'm open to modification suggestions to make it more open.
Quest for the Holy Sword
Plot: The Archdevil Baalzebul has long desired revenge against Asmodeus for damning him to live as a bloated slug like devil, and now he has found his chance to claim ultimate power. With the help of his mortal agents in the Mortal Realm, Baalzebul has set in motion the chain of events that will lead to his invasion of the Mortal Realm. If he mananges to conquor the realm of mortals, and absorb the power of the mortal realm, he will be more then powerful enough to not only conquor the 9 Hells, but all the Outer Realms and rule as the supreme God.
But fortunately, one of the Angels of the Seven Heavens caught wind of the Lord of Flies plans, but the law of Heaven limits how much aid they can give. So, she willfully forsook her immortality and removed her wings, and descended to the mortal world in the form of a female of one of the playable races. But durring her descent, her sword broke into pieces and the shards were scattered. In her search for the shards, something unexpected happened. She meet, and fell in love with a male of the same race as her.
They eventually married, and had a child together. But she unsuspectingly died after delivering the baby. On the child's seventh birthday, the Church of Torm(who have learned of the child's Angelic heritage) have come to conscript him or her to be trained to become a Paladin or Cleric, for Baalebul's invasion is nigh. Upon the the child's 18th birthday, they have finished their training as a holy warrior, and just in time, for Baalzebul's invasion has begun. The Holy Warrior is now fully trained, but without their mother's sword, stopping Baalzebul will be a pipe dream. So, they must embark on a quest to find the 4 shards of their mothers sword, only then, can Baalzebul be challenged and defeated. But the Holy Warrior will not go alone, for they are joined by a band of supporting characters who have their own reasons for going on this quest.
On this quest they will battle devils, their servants, save lives, and travel through forests, marketplaces, shops, caves, haunted castles, the underdark, taverns, battlefields, and finally Maladomini itself. But here's where the big plot twist comes in. Some of you might be wondering "How did the Church of Torm know about this child, their lineage, and how is it that Baalzebul's invasion began just as the quest began?" Well I'll tell you... it's because the Church made a deal with the Archdevil, or rather, they scammed him. Before the invasion, there had been centuries of peace, and the Church's influence was on the verge of collapse. So they planned to stage a false flag crisis to save their power and influence. So, with the help of Baalzebul's cult, they pretended to offer a deal to the Lord of Flies, to allow him to invade the world in exchange for power, and using cleric and paladin magic, they also managed to leak the information to one of the Seven Heavens angels, knowing that she would forsake her immortality. The church then manipulated events so that the angel would meet the man who would become her husband, and have a child, poisoned her after she gave birth, and have been raising the child to become a pawn in a staged scam.
The final stage of the plan, is that after Baalzebul's defeat, the Church will assassinate the Holy Warrior and their companions so that they never learn the truth, and make it look like they sacrificed themselves to save the world, making them martyr heroes, and allowing the Church to take credit for saving the world by bringing the heroes together. That way they can keep their power and influence. But in the end, they forgot one very important thing. They still made a deal with Baalzebul, and all deals made with him, are doomed to end badly.
Whew!
The plan I had was to have one player play as the Holy Warrior, with the other characters as the supporting cast. But I decided not to run it like that because I thought that forcing a player to play as a certain play style would be too restrictive.
But enough about this. What did you write as your first written campaign.
Honestly I cannot remember, I wrote my first campaign in 1985. I still have the map and remember my form of government and the great seal of the government was the cross section of a phallus.
I took 20 years off of gaming. Fast forward to summer of 2019 when I got back into it. My local shoppe has open DND on Wednesdays. After playing with other DM's series of one shots I decided to lead the charge. I have a lot of time to think while driving to and from work. My process. I created my new map and decided on a starting town. I went with level 1. I started by defining the End Game. My intent is to take everyone from Level 1 to meeting every creature in the base Monster Manual CR 0 through The Tarask. I created a form of government, money system, trade, and guilds. To me it is important to write everything down, so I have pages and pages of documents. I started my campaign on day one with the entire company standing at attention in the training yard of Paddy's Training Company and Doughnut Shoppe on graduation day. They are gathered in the Tavern celebrating their accomplishment when the thief discovers a secret door leading into the depths. Along the way they encounter the NPC and learn of their destiny. One player said "Well what if we decide not to do this?". I said then we can go home this is all destiny has written for you.
I try not to plan out individual modules to far in advance as I really endeavor to create new content based on things the group has done. The scope of the end game keeps growing.
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The very first campaign I wrote has never been used by me, because I decided that it would be too demanding of players. But I'm open to modification suggestions to make it more open.
Quest for the Holy Sword
Plot: The Archdevil Baalzebul has long desired revenge against Asmodeus for damning him to live as a bloated slug like devil, and now he has found his chance to claim ultimate power. With the help of his mortal agents in the Mortal Realm, Baalzebul has set in motion the chain of events that will lead to his invasion of the Mortal Realm. If he mananges to conquor the realm of mortals, and absorb the power of the mortal realm, he will be more then powerful enough to not only conquor the 9 Hells, but all the Outer Realms and rule as the supreme God.
But fortunately, one of the Angels of the Seven Heavens caught wind of the Lord of Flies plans, but the law of Heaven limits how much aid they can give. So, she willfully forsook her immortality and removed her wings, and descended to the mortal world in the form of a female of one of the playable races. But durring her descent, her sword broke into pieces and the shards were scattered. In her search for the shards, something unexpected happened. She meet, and fell in love with a male of the same race as her.
They eventually married, and had a child together. But she unsuspectingly died after delivering the baby. On the child's seventh birthday, the Church of Torm(who have learned of the child's Angelic heritage) have come to conscript him or her to be trained to become a Paladin or Cleric, for Baalebul's invasion is nigh. Upon the the child's 18th birthday, they have finished their training as a holy warrior, and just in time, for Baalzebul's invasion has begun. The Holy Warrior is now fully trained, but without their mother's sword, stopping Baalzebul will be a pipe dream. So, they must embark on a quest to find the 4 shards of their mothers sword, only then, can Baalzebul be challenged and defeated. But the Holy Warrior will not go alone, for they are joined by a band of supporting characters who have their own reasons for going on this quest.
On this quest they will battle devils, their servants, save lives, and travel through forests, marketplaces, shops, caves, haunted castles, the underdark, taverns, battlefields, and finally Maladomini itself. But here's where the big plot twist comes in. Some of you might be wondering "How did the Church of Torm know about this child, their lineage, and how is it that Baalzebul's invasion began just as the quest began?" Well I'll tell you... it's because the Church made a deal with the Archdevil, or rather, they scammed him. Before the invasion, there had been centuries of peace, and the Church's influence was on the verge of collapse. So they planned to stage a false flag crisis to save their power and influence. So, with the help of
Baalzebul's cult, they pretended to offer a deal to the Lord of Flies, to allow him to invade the world in exchange for power, and using cleric and paladin magic, they also managed to leak the information to one of the Seven Heavens angels, knowing that she would forsake her immortality. The church then manipulated events so that the angel would meet the man who would become her husband, and have a child, poisoned her after she gave birth, and have been raising the child to become a pawn in a staged scam.
The final stage of the plan, is that after Baalzebul's defeat, the Church will assassinate the Holy Warrior and their companions so that they never learn the truth, and make it look like they sacrificed themselves to save the world, making them martyr heroes, and allowing the Church to take credit for saving the world by bringing the heroes together. That way they can keep their power and influence. But in the end, they forgot one very important thing. They still made a deal with Baalzebul, and all deals made with him, are doomed to end badly.
Whew!
The plan I had was to have one player play as the Holy Warrior, with the other characters as the supporting cast. But I decided not to run it like that because I thought that forcing a player to play as a certain play style would be too restrictive.
But enough about this. What did you write as your first written campaign.
Honestly I cannot remember, I wrote my first campaign in 1985. I still have the map and remember my form of government and the great seal of the government was the cross section of a phallus.
I took 20 years off of gaming. Fast forward to summer of 2019 when I got back into it. My local shoppe has open DND on Wednesdays. After playing with other DM's series of one shots I decided to lead the charge. I have a lot of time to think while driving to and from work. My process. I created my new map and decided on a starting town. I went with level 1. I started by defining the End Game. My intent is to take everyone from Level 1 to meeting every creature in the base Monster Manual CR 0 through The Tarask. I created a form of government, money system, trade, and guilds. To me it is important to write everything down, so I have pages and pages of documents. I started my campaign on day one with the entire company standing at attention in the training yard of Paddy's Training Company and Doughnut Shoppe on graduation day. They are gathered in the Tavern celebrating their accomplishment when the thief discovers a secret door leading into the depths. Along the way they encounter the NPC and learn of their destiny. One player said "Well what if we decide not to do this?". I said then we can go home this is all destiny has written for you.
I try not to plan out individual modules to far in advance as I really endeavor to create new content based on things the group has done. The scope of the end game keeps growing.