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Gaming Resources AD&D High Level Campaign Background High Level Campaign History, Book 1 High Level Campaign History, Book 2 High Level Campaign History, Book 3 High Level Campaign History, Book 4 High Level Campaign History, Book 5 Fad's High Level Campaign History 3rd. Ed. D&D Ereggsig Campaign Background and History Red Leaf and Other Barbarian Villages The Invasion of the Nizi'Ghalli Orcs Rifts Rules for Recovery from Injury Alternative Cyborg Construction Rules The UAR Stronghold of Mount Magnet Heroes Unlimited Disclaimer |
  The first role-playing campaign of mine which lasted for any length of time at all was my first AD&D campaign. It's inception in 1985 was done with great fanfare among the gaming community at my high school, where I was a Year 10 (read: senior) student. Since that first brutal session, players have come and gone, but the game has gone on. After the first few years I ran other games on occasion, but because the characters in the campaign were generally more experienced than those in more short-lived games, the campaign came to be referred to as "HIGH LEVEL". And so it remains. In 2000 I created a simple setting to introduce my players, and myself, to 3rd-Edition D&D. To my surprise the system and the setting were popular enough to pursue, and it evolved into the Ereggsig setting presented here.
 What you'll find here:
 When I commenced the HIGH LEVEL campaign, I had done very little preparatory work other than purchasing module T1 "Village of Hommlet" and reading it. Looking back, "Village of Hommlet" was awful. It was a fleshed-out village and nearby dungeon. There was no plotline, no calendar of events, and even the most powerful local characters had no agenda as such. It was a more detailed version of "Keep on the Borderlands", your basic dungeon crawl. We all loved it. Although I purchased T1-4 "Temple of Elemental Evil" to expand my campaign I also wrote side adventures to give the players a chance to gain more experience before they went on to the Temple, which I regarded as a pretty deadly ground even for a large group of 2nd-level characters. Most of my adventures at this stage were of the "at this point, you encounter a ..." sort or arose from the players doing something interesting or repulsive to an NPC. I did start producing some pretty good original adventures of my own at this point, but they were merely small described regions, dungeons or missions added on to the existing setting. "Temple of Elemental Evil" is a good dungeon - one of the best - but it still has that 'trapped in time' feeling, leaving it to the individual GM to make changes as time passes in the game. Also, it remains a dungeon crawl: a nebulous mission to "stop evil" and amass loot in what has to be the most moronic way to try and make money - robbing monsters and demon-worshippers. Finally the temple was smashed, Zuggtmoy was banished to the Abyss, and the characters were lauded with titles. Again, I was ready: I'd purchased A1-4 "The Slavers", and after a few more of my home-brewed adventures, we embarked upon it. I underestimated how pissed off my players would be when, after years of painstakingly gathering magic items, their characters were kidnapped, stripped and chained to an oar. Given the chance, they'd have fought to the death first. Ever notice how most players don't know when to quit? Even when the odds are against them, when most of the party lies dead, when they are severely wounded and out of spells, they'd rather fight to the last drop of blood rather than run, or surrender. Most characters lack a sense of their own mortality. Being raised from the dead probably has something to do with that. The Slavers perished and the characters were triumphant, again. By now I was well and truly bored with playing games written by other people. I wanted more scope, more politics, more me in my campaign. I wanted something big. So I wrote, and implemented, the "divine quest" adventure. This kind of thing has a great mission to it - a god, or representative of one, says "do thus and so" and the characters tend to stick to it. Usually. I mapped and fleshed out a new region, and off they went. "The Quest for the Seed", as it was known, was the real apex of the campaign to that point. There was a clear mission, a new land full of original dangers, and everything was mine. Also, the nature of the quest made the leader clear - Zephyr, a druid whose patron deity was responsible for the quest. The Quest lasted for years (both game-time and real-time). When it was over, I was at a bit of a loose end. I played with some intriguing political adventures for a bit, and a new set of problems emerged. Without a clear mission, the team fractured. Ramdale, the self-interested magic-user, whose mischief had been only a minor irritation now, was likely to provoke his own murder by his companions. Zephyr the druid suddenly had no goal except administering all her new temples. Everyone else had no reason to do as they were told anymore, and everyone wanted to do something different. I wrote a new narrative arc to link together some of Gygax's classic dungeon crawls. This was "Queen of the Spiders". The old G-1-2-3, D-1-2-3, Q-1 series. It proved entertaining at first, but once the characters entered the dungeon and resumed the familiar old kill-and-search behaviour, the stodgy diet of blood and gold proved unsuccessful in firing the players' imaginations. The players lost interest in the mission. My attempts to coax them into following my storyline were effective only outside the dungeon, where they could interact with my original characters and deal with a political situation they were familiar with. I am not suggesting my characters and settings were better than Gary's published material. What it was, was I could breathe life into my own work better than his. It was evident from the difference in how the players acted, from disinterested and bored in the dungeon (ho-hum, keeping track of hit points and gold pieces) to active and anxious outside it. I wrote a new story arc, terminating the old one early (putting it out of our misery, really). It was ambitious - a "world's end" concept, with the party fast-forwarded in time to deal with a wrecked world - but it gave me the opportunity to rewrite my setting so it was totally my own, to use all original material, to retain the existing player characters, and to deal with a power creep problem I'd inferred in recent months (it seemed like I had to bring out Sauron and an army of dragons to scare my players. Maybe they had too much going their way. Well, no more.) Fifteen years on, the campaign lives...
Player Characters Alcestis Tneretsdottir: half-elven mage-thief, level 8/8; neutral good alignment. This sharp-witted, pale-skinned woman is something of an enigma to her companions, with whom she has travelled for only a few weeks. She's been less than forthcoming about her background, though she has a good heart, and her skills are indispensable. According to her story, she stumbled across her companions while they were in a magical sleep, and was likewise enchanted. They awoke together. Her accent places her from Furyondy, and from a large city such as Skarnside or Hondheir. Half-elves are not uncommon in Furyondy, though some fled or were killed during the recent, brief war with the elf-kingdom of Celene. If Alcestis is skilled at not answering questions, she is nearly as good at asking them. She has a curious nature and seems sometimes like a sponge, absorbing clues from all around. If her interests, or motivations lie in finding out about something in particular, she's given no clue to its nature. In using magic, she is flashy. She has turned the tide of battle on several occasions by assuming the form of a golden dragon, terrifying opponents of a lesser kind and routing them. Her interest in magic has led to recent enquiries regarding the sole remaining Elvish college of magic, Silverymoon. Hubert Dinklehoffen: half-elven fighter-thief, level 10/11; neutral good alignment. Hubert is a paradox. His surname is a fiction, though since his father still refuses to tell him his real first name, he still uses it. A convicted felon in some places, he is a lionised hero in others, with knightly titles and perogatives. Originally from Mitrik, in Veluna, he has travelled far and wide, especially since the kidnapping of his parents by slavers. In appearance, Hubert is small, unassuming even, until he removes his gauntlets to reveal his hands and forearms, apparently charred black to the elbow. This is but a seeming, though a permanent one, a mark left by his involvement with divine forces a year ago. Since then, he has begun to be called Hubert Black Hand. Those self-styled Slaver Lords are dead now, all but one, and their organisation smashed, but Hubert has only recently located his father Harlan. His mother, Shemyra, was sold on to Drow slave merchants, and since the removal of the entire party a distance of nearly a thousand years, she may be now lost forever. This selfsame removal has separated Hubert from many of his paid spies and henchmen; their fates are unknown to him, though he fears the worst. Hubert is a firm believer that birth has nothing to do with ultimate social status, that merit should determine how one is treated. He treats arrogant nobles and arrogant brigands with the same contempt, and when possible takes opportunities to humble them. He guards his own honour, according to his own principles. Nathan Kikura: half-elven cleric-ranger, level 10/10; neutral good alignment. Nathan is a tall, weathered half-elf who has seen about half a hundred summers. Born to a tough frontierswoman and a wood elf, he grew up skilled in woodcraft. In his early teens he was lucky to be prenticed to the exiled patriarch of Odin, Mabandrigund, whose presence in Nathan's hometown of Hyborea was due to his unpopularity with the narrow-minded church hierarchy. One of his eyes appears blind, as though by a cataract, though he sees with it well enough. It may have been due to a blow to the head, suffered in rough-and-tumble games with his boyhood friend, Quetzal, another of Mabandrigund's students. Although he has been guided in the past by friendly druids, his eminence as a high priest of Odin (despite his complete estrangement from the church proper) has led him more and more to seek the path indicated for him by Odin. This has proved difficult and it seems perhaps Odin is little inclined to offer guidance. Nathan has poor social skills (he is a skilled spitter) and is not pretty to look at. Discoveries over the years have hinted at royal elvish blood in him, from the line of elvish kings thought extinguished centuries earlier. What use he might make of this is not known, since he's hardly the kind to be accepted by elves as their king. His mother's unsophisticated techniques for bringing up children instilled in Nathan a strong sense of right and wrong, and a desire to right wrongs where they exist. Mabandrigund's more subtle teachings took off some of his naivete, but his relationship with the All-Father is murky. Nathan is as well known for his boldness, some would say brashness, as for his heroism in combat. His most prized possession is his helm, called Albion. A helm of brilliance, it usually appears as a dented, rusty headpiece, suitable for a ragged wild-wanderer. It is a talisman to him, for it once belonged to his royal ancestor, if his visions be true. Romilda: half-orcish cleric/thief, level 8/10; chaotic neutral alignment. Romilda is a roguish-looking woman, with keen dark eyes peering out from under ragged mid-length black-brown hair, and a muscular build. A mature woman in body, she is still growing up inside, despite having seen sights and done deeds which remain forever foreign to most people. Her mother was probably taken as a slave by orcs in a raid. She grew up among the other children of the Hidden Blade orcs, fostered by an orc woman. She learned to speak orcish, to fight, to sneak, and to kill things at night. From slaves taken in raids she learned the Common tongue. Her quick wit and stubbornness made her a protege to the foul-smelling old orc shaman, who inducted her into the patronage of Shargaas the Night Lord. Things changed when she entered her teens. The Hidden Blades did not have female shamen or warriors, and Romilda would not submit to life as just the mate of a warrior. She fled and they could not catch her. Romilda found that travel, new experiences and danger were to her taste. Eventually she mastered most of the nuances of human behaviour. Romilda rejected the tenets of evil. She did not embrace those of good, however. All her life had been a series of chances, and together with her contempt for all authority this confirmed her preference for chaos. She serves the interests of the group while they serve her, or while she feels like it. Many of her decisions are based on luck or a whim, and the rest on pure self-interest. The only exception to this is her service to her deity, to whom she is dedicated - often bloodily. Non-Player Characters Harlan Dinklehoffen. Half-elf bladesman-thief (but, usually, con artist). Harlan encountered the heroes, including his son Hubert, while attempting to escape the frost giants' fortress. He has not really begun yet to deal with the loss of his wife Shemyra, marooned a thousand years hence. He is dashing (despite reaching middle age, he remains trim and agile) and roguishly charming. Eadin. High elf lieutenant of the Edge Guard of Perilous Heart, and also knight of the Fleur & Stave. A scarred, usually silent, even frightening individual, he prefers Tanzel's hardships and perils to Heartwood's ease and intrigues. Hates politics and looks down on those who fail to consider the threat beyond the border. Duchess Yancy Seth. High elf mage-priestess (of Odin). At the age of 1049, Yancy is old but not elderly. Like all elves her age shows mostly in her slow, graceful movements and her inward-looking nature. Until Nathan’s arrival she was Matriarch of Odin. Her chief cares are for the people of Perilous Heart, whom she protects and loves, and who love her. She is mannerly, compassionate, and gentle. She is the widow of Emreth Kikura, Nathan’s brother, and was also his convert. She refuses to display partisanship to either the Interferers or Protectionists. She does not evince, or tolerate, racism against half-elves or non-elves. Hidari Shimizu. Orc priest of Shargaas. Hidari is the sole priest of Shargaas in Gotha. A scholarly type, pious, and not terribly imaginative. He seems anxious to please Romilda, who outranks him as a priest of the Night Lord, but relatively low on the ladder of local clerics. Gav. Family father of a score of wild human tribesmen. He is old and fairly slow, but he is hale and quick of wit. Although he and his people have decided the player characters are the legendary Sun Heroes, they are filled with fear and wonder at the things they have seen since they followed them to "the Forest of Death" - Perilous Heart.
As told by Gav, human tribesman: "Once the land was green and the sky was blue, and the golden sun took turns with the black night. Humans [insert appropriate race] and their allies ruled the days, and were fair to look at and merry. And the creatures of darkness, because they hated the sun, had to hide in the holes when the sun shone. But the peoples of the sun in those days did not appreciate what riches they had, in light and warmth and freedom. In their holes the creatures of darkness plotted. Though they were not unified, yet they were many, and among them many a strong, many a fierce and many a scheming mind. They plotted a mighty plot, to blot the sun and let the night rule. And they wrought a dark magic, to blot the sun. Some among the sun peoples wrought with them, for even in those days among the sun peoples there were those whose hearts were as black and cold as night. And the sun was blotted, and the Day ended. A Night fell that would never end, till the Sun Heroes come. With the Night, the Sun Peoples were blinded, and their swords were weak, and their warriors sorely troubled. And with the Night, each of the Sun Peoples looked to protect himself, and looked not to aid his friend or his brother, when he was hungry, or cold, or in peril. And with the Night, the cold came. And the crops failed, and there was hunger. And with the Night, the creatures of darkness need fear no sun, and they left their holes and took the lands of the Sun Peoples. And the Sun Peoples they slew, or took as slaves, or drove into the wastelands. And with the Night, those of the Sun Peoples who lived in the wastelands knew cold, and hunger, and darkness, and fear. And they knew also pestilence. And among them the creatures of darkness would hunt, and they killed where they would. And many of the Sun Peoples grew up in bondage, and knew nothing of the Sun or the Day. And many of them served the creatures of darkness, who were evil, yet some spoke with beguiling tongues. So many generations passed. The Great Cold has come forty times in my life, and I look not to see many more. This story has been passed to me from more fathers than I have fingers and toes to count. The creatures of darkness are strong beyond any hope of ours to overcome them. But among those of us, the Sun Peoples who live, there is hope. The Heroes of the Sun Peoples, who vanished beyond knowledge, yet are not in the lands of the dead. The Heroes of the Sun Peoples will return, though where and when is a mystery. When they return, they shall battle for the Sun against the Night, and bring back the Day, or else the world ends in darkness. We tell this tale so that our children shall know, and remember, and tell their children. One day, our children, or our children’s children, shall look up to the Sun again."
To begin with, I used a lot of published material. There is nothing wrong with that - it is a good ground to build from, that you can use as a structure on which to hang or base your own extrapolations or new structures. After a while, you begin to see ways in which it can be improved, and you can do things differently, or do rewrites (a good way to get more use out of published modules is to rewrite them). Many times I tried to create my own, entirely original, "starting town and nearby dungeon". I used them, but no matter how interesting the characters, no matter how desirable the treasures, they seemed to be boring. In hindsight I can see that the concept can be improved with an axe. Adventures published in recent years have tackled this problem, supplying player characters with ready motives and a hook to get them involved, and a storyline to encourage activities. I used to read a lot of fantasy novels and plagiarised them shamelessly. There's nothing wrong with that, either, as long as you don't derive a financial advantage from it (which would be stealing). The only major thing to watch out for is plagiarising books that your players might have read, or heard of. The same goes for movies (though fantasy movies, sadly, typically don't have a lot of material to plagiarise - just fights, visual effects, and sex). You can pillage plot ideas, characters and more from books and movies and they don't have to be the same genre as your campaign - you could take a plot concept from a western and use it in your sword & sorcery campaign, or a character from a sci-fi film and use it in your thirties adventure campaign. If you steal small things, players notice less. As noted before, eventually I wanted my own world, one I could brag about without saying "Greyhawk" or "Temple of Elemental Evil". I wanted my own characters and countries. I got them too, but a world from scratch is hard to build. The trick here is not to try and do it all. The players don't need to know at the start who the dogcatcher in the next town is, or even who the king is. You decide on an overall theme, or feel, or style, then decide on a starting area which will facilitate that style. You detail what the characters will know - where they're from, and what their country is like, and a few things about the wide world - and you make general notes about anything they haven't seen personally. If they plan to go there (or you plan for them to go there), then you work out details. For good ideas, you have to go to the old masters. Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Jakes, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber. My campaign has always been cast more in the mist-shrouded worlds they created than in the more hip fantasy novels of recent times. I love reading Feist and the Belgariad, but they have a modern feel I don't wish to use IMC. I do still use ideas from them :) Use music. I was introduced to the use of music in role-playing by Steve Caldwell. His use of cinematic techniques and NPC acting was, and is, amazing and an inspiration. He demonstrated that you can get up, walk around, do poses, mannerisms, as well as voices and manner of speech to convey a character. He is downright scary. Decide what your long-range goals are - in keeping with your overall theme. Break it down into major stages (i.e. defending the village from the migrating orc tribe, travelling to the capital to ask for help, becoming scouts of the crown). If you know what the next major stage (or two) is, you can introduce characters which will become important later, or use omens of major events - foreshadowing - just like in the movies or novels. One of the main problems I have with most published adventures is their linear style. Look at Dragonlance, which is worse than most in this respect, especially the first dozen modules or so. Players don't like to be forced to dance like puppets. I recommend that GMs should provide motivations which will appear to their players (this may take a while to learn) and then be prepared to go with the flow. The characters don't want to general the army for the battle, they want to sneak into the enemy camp and kidnap the enemy general? Fine. Go with it. If you try to force them to stay on one track, they'll get frustrated and so will you. This is not to say you should put up with players deliberately sabotaging adventures, especially if they make other players unhappy. This sort of thing generally works itself out - the character causing problems gets killed, or otherwise disciplined, by his companions - but if you have players who insist on robbing the nunnery, killing the patron who hires them at the start of the adventure, etc., then you're probably writing them the wrong sort of adventures. If they act like bad guys, write them a bad guys' adventure. That means they'll have to cope with the good guys as the opposition, heh heh. This started as a list of my creative inspirations and has turned into an essay on GMing and game design. Hell with it. Someone may find it useful.
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