The Eternal Campaign

[robertsconley]

In his blog Driver asked this question

Lately, though, I've developed a strong sense of curiosity about what it'd be like to invest one's effort into one project and actually keep developing it over a period of years. I think about what a setting, published or homebrew, would look like if I'd worked on it and gamed with it for the last two decades.

wilderlandsodnd.blogspot.com/2008/07/eternal-campaign.html


I started with with Greyhawk around 1980 and got sick of the howling emptiness of the 30 mile hex. Sure I like to make up stuff but every freaking hex wasn't my cup of tea. I wanted something like the Spinward Marches but for AD&D. And I found it in Judges Guild's City State stuff.

The early 80's was high school for me. I had three groups that I hanged out with at various times. The first one were my oldest friends that I gamed with and had the first impact on my wilderlands.

One Valeric became king of a land I created on Map Three called the Kingdom of Nome. Another Blackstone became a really powerful wizard. The player created a elaborate background for his family and craved out a small realm with a wizard's tower as the center. It was south of Valeric's realm and straddled Map 3 and Map 4.

The second group was a group in my neighborhood. While we role-playing several games we also did sports, and wargames as well. They were more interested in adventuring rather than having a big impact on the world.

However it was with this group that I honed the first element of my GM style. I became adept at taking commercial adventure and altering the premises so that it fit an original plot of my creation. I could take seemly unrelated adventures and make them part of a continuous "adventure path".

The last group I meet late in high school and I continue to game with them to this day. This group at this time also produced the first PC Character that had a lasting impact on my campaign. Lord Divolic Myrmidon of Set.

A Myrmidon, in my Wilderlands, was a LE Paladin. My opinion at the time the antithesis of a paladin isn't a chaotic evil anti-paladin. The devotion to a cause required by a deities champion is definitely not a chaotic trait. The antithesis of a paladin was the myrmidon a lawful champion dedicated to the cause of evil as a paladin is dedicated to good. And Divolic was a PC.

Divolic (and his friend Travlin) scored their big break in the Tomb of Horrors. The module was tough but they played it smart . They lost a couple of hirelings along the way but the main characters survived to the end.

The penultimate moment came when I was reading the description of the tomb where the demi-lich resides. The player with Divolic looks at me funny and asks me to read it again. During the second reading it dawned on me what the real treasure of the tomb was. The mithril and admanite that made up the doors and stairs of the tomb. The demi-lich battle was anti-climatic as the Divolic and Travline popped the skull into a portable hole and closed it up.

They then proceeded to City-State and onward to Thunderhold and hired a bunch of Dwarves to dig out the tomb in exchange for a split of the mithril and admanatine. This became the foundation for Divolic weath. He used his wealth to become the Overlord's Warden of the Southern March. (Located around Jarmoco and Black Baron Pass along the Old South Road). He organized the March and then proceeded to conquer Zothay, and the other coastal village up to Kauran to the east. After this the campaign ended.

I went to College in the fall of 1984 and found a group to DM. It turned out to be my last AD&D campaign. However it was my greatest AD&D campaign as I had fully fleshed out antagonists, multiple main plots, and numerous side plots. Like earlier campaign it was a mashup of original work and reworked commercial modules.

The early part of this campaign revolved around the party stopping the plots of good old Bargle from the Red Book D&D. Unbelievably I was able to engineering plausible escapes time and time again until around 8th level the party was able to corner him and take him out.

This group was noted for going up against the Viridian Emperor and killing him and his wife. Plunging the Viridian Empire into bloody civil war.

However that wasn't the greatest moment moment of the campaign. One player was a paladin named Endless Star who followed Mitra. His brother was a Myrmidon of Set named Dark Destroyer. Another was Mayster Leppler a thief. His father and brother were priest of Set.

The middle and late campaign was about going against Set and his Minions. A noted funny moment is when the player who played Divolic, (from my home town), sent the portable hole with the demi-lich head to Endless Star and the party. Fortunately the party played it smart and figured out that the Portable Hole had something really evil and destroyed it.

As I was saying the campaign moved on from Bargle to the general problem of dealing with Set's malign plans. During a raid against an outpost of Set (A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade) Mayster Leppler was unexpectedly captured.

Dark Destroyer threaten Mayster's family including his mother who was in captivity. Mayster's was to lead the party into an ambush so that Endless Star could be captured by Dark Destroyer. In exchange the remainder of his family and the party would be released.

All this went down without the party finding out and with the player playing the role to the hilt. So Mayster lead the party to the ambush site. And the party was surrounded. Dark Destroyer came up and gave Mayster his thanks and told Endless Star to surrender.

The room was dead silent. Note at that time we had a player playing with a character named Bubba. A big barbarian and the player was a Bubba as well. Well Bubba roared and stood up, all 6 foot 2 inches of him, shouting "We been betrayed! I draw my sword!"

Endless Star got up and told Bubba. "No not now, we will have a better moment later." Managed to calm him down. Mayster was sweating both in and out of game. Having a 6' 2" guy roar at you is some experience.

So Endless Star walked off with Dark Destroying leaving the party, Mayster, and Mayster's Family. Immediately bickering ensued most at Mayster. Mayster surprised the party by hold his father at knife point and forcing him to to reveal a secret entrance into the stockade.

With this information the party was mollified and began to return to the Stockade. I then switched to Endless Star where we played out the encounter between him and Dark Destroyer. It ended up that Dark Destroyer wanted to dual Endless Star one on one. What followed was the greatest AD&D fight I ever DMed.

How I worked it was I did everything with Endless Star first and kept tracked of the number of rounds (like 25 or so, it was a lot) until they got below 10 hit points. I halted the fight there.

Then I ran Mayster's group. They found the entrance on the lower level and made their way into the stockade. Suddenly in a large chamber Mayster's father and brother steps away from the party laughing evilly.

As it turns out Dark Destroyer anticipated the party returning to help Endless Star. Mayster's father and brother were plants to ensure that if the party did so they were lead into the trap. Maysters' mother ran to her husband pleading and he smacked her done. This angered the party and the fight was on.

Well at this point things became frantic because while it was kinda of OOG everyone knew the clock was ticking on the Dark Destroyer/Endless Star fight. Finally Mayster was able to break free of the fight and made his way to the arena where the fight was occuring.

As it worked out it was within two rounds of where I left off so I knew the amount of hit points everyone had. Mayster sneaked into the arena and got behind Dark Destroyer. Note this wasn't a public fight but rather a private one between DD and ES. Mayster then backstabs DD killing him (does something like 35 points and drops him below -10).

Shocked at Mayster's intervention, the betrayal, and now the death of his brother. Endless Star goes berserk and attacks Mayster. The party comes in and witness the two fighting. Mitra himself intervenes and freezes everyone.

Mitra said that everything was for a purpose. That the party done well and that there is still more to be done. He gave the party a blessing. But he then said that Endless Star in his anger violated the tenets of his paladinhood. That Mayster and Endless Star needed to go on a Solo Quest together. Mitra's purpose will be served and their differences will be resolved.

The campaign continued with the party reaching higher levels. This was the time when the Virdian Emperor was killed by Endless star. Shortly after this Endless Star was killed and as a reward he was placed in the sky as a new constellation. Sadly I didn't record what happened to the rest of the party. I think the campaign petered out and we never picked it up again.

Next Fantasy Hero

[robertsconley]

The Divolic and the Endless Star campaign were the best AD&D campaigns I ever ran. But for as good as they were they also showed the limitations of options in character creations.

Understand back then, without the internet, we didn't have a internet of information to draw upon. With 6 years of AD&D I was chafing at the limits of the rules. Plus my major weakness as DM was keeping my ruling consistent. This was a complaint of my players that while I was good at the Roleplaying, plot, and adventure. My ability to make the same ruling twice was well.... lacking.

During this time I really positive experience playing in a series of superhero campaigns using Champion 2nd edition. When I read that Fantasy Hero was going to be released in the Fall of 1985 I was ecstatic.

I also got interested in Harn by Columbia Games and amassed a bunch of stuff so I wanted to give that a try. So in fall of 85 I ran a Harn Fantasy Hero campaign.

But Harn is not my Wilderlands, and by the 2nd term in the early party of 1986. I decided to return to the Wilderlands. Luckily Harn has these devices known as Godstones that act as portals. So it was easy to transport back to the Wilderlands.

The campaign also changed to a more Mythic plot. One of the players was named Bolthous who was a priest of Agrik (a LE god of Fire) Throughout the Harn campaign Bolthous reformed and turned away from Agrik. The party didn't quite bought this but accepted his aid.

The transition to the Wilderlands came when the party discovered a plot by Agrikan priest that involved them getting resources from another place. That place being the Wilderlands. Agrik was the same as Set and the serpent god was up to his old tricks.

The party used a godstone to go to the Wilderlands. There they discovered that minion of Set had the Crystal of the Ebon Flame. A powerful artifact. The only way to stop this artifact was to find the master crystal, the Crystal of the Chromatic Flame. This crystal was shattered and much of the campaign was about finding the various shards.

Along the way they visited Virdistan and overthrew the junta that took over the City after the death of the Emperor. The Junta was comprised of cultists of the death god Hamakhis so the city welcomed the coup.

A memorable moment came when a player was being chased down an alley by guards. He asked me if there was any doors or windows. I told them there weren't. He replied "Come on Rob don't be a dick, there got to be something." I pulled out the map of Viridstan. "Look this is the symbol for windows, this the one for doors. There are no doors or windows in that alley." After an impressed look he came up with an alternative plan.

Finally with the Chromatic Crystal they raided the main stronghold of the priest of set and gained the Crystal of the Ebon Flame. Also during this run they learned about the lore of the crystals.

There actually ten crystals in all. One for each color (7) and the Ivory Flame, and the Ebon Flame. Finally the master crystal the Chromatic Flame. After the Uttermost War at the beginning of creation. The god pinched off a section of the Wilderlands and created the abyss. They threw the demons the rebelled into the abyss. But because the abyss was part of the Wilderlands they had to guard the entrance.

So around the entrance they created nine towers and on each set one of the nine crystals. The chromatic crystal was the master crystal and used to activate the ward. The crystal generates the maelstorm that surrounds the entrance of the Abyss and prevent demons from escaping or man from entering. To guard the towers, which laid outside of the maelstorm, the gods created the first dragons. The chromatic crystal was entrusted to the elves who used it power to establish the Founder Empire the first civilization in the Wildelrands

A thousand years later a powerful archmage gained the Chromatic Crystal during the downfall of the Founder Empire. He used to defeat the dragon guarding the Crystal of the Ebon Flame and took the Crystal. While he was eventually defeated the Ebon Crystal was lost and the Chromatic Crystal shattered.

Because of the loss the Ebon Crystal a gap was opened up in the Maelstorm which allowed the demonic ancestors of the Virdian race to escape. They mated with a tribe of mermen and founded Virdistan shortly after.

The party realized that this gap much be closed. So an epic adventure follwed that lead the party to the top of the tower where the Ebon Crystal is supposed to reside. Only one player figure out how to put the crystal back; Bolthous. Even after all this time the party did not trust him. The player of Bolthous gave a great performance and convinced the other players that he truly converted. The crystal was handed over and Bolthous performed the ritual and returned the crystal to it spot as well as completing his path of redemption.

The party return to the Viridstan and ruled as the Council of Virdistan. They shattered the chromatic crystal into seven piece, one for each member of the council. They still rule to this day keeping Viridstan safe from the ravages of the larger civil war raging around them.


But despite the options of Fantasy Hero and the greatness of it's build your own magic system. It still had too much of it's champion origins in the rules. After an infamous incident where a guy was thrown through four walls during a bar fight and still got up. We abandoned Fantasy Hero.

Next the Coming of GURPS and the Theme Game.

[driver]

I love reading this stuff.

[robertsconley]

The Coming of GURPS

After throwing a guy through four walls in Fantasy Hero, we returned to AD&D for awhile. I didn’t do much DMing in my fantasy campaign and ran a succession of Harnmaster, Champion and Star Trek (FASA) games. I was also president of my college’s gaming club. Our bread and butter attraction in the late 80’s was BattleTech both Tournaments and massed battles.

When I encountered GURPS in 1989 it was with the 2nd edition boxed set along with 1st edition Magic. The thing that appealed about GURPS was the more realistic combat, the flexibility of character generation, and the fact the game was very playable. I tried convincing my friends to switch over and they agreed; provided that if it didn’t work out this would be the last system I inflicted on them and return to AD&D.

The first session went well and the game was largely sold on the character generation flexibility. For one I remember I was walking him the options, when we got to quirks. “Quirks?” he asked. I said he got to pick five “quirks” about his character. That you get 1 point apiece (out of 100 you normally get) and that they are just for role-playing. GURPS did this to give a tangible reward for giving your character a personality. After that he was sold on the game.

Like for Fantasy Hero my campaign remained City-State of the Invincible Overlord and the Wilderlands. The first campaign was mostly us learning how to use GURPS in a fantasy setting. The second is where things took off.

I was always pretty lenient on alignment preferring to describe moralities in a more realistic fashion based on who you were loyal too, what gods you worshipped. Thus my fantasy campaign had a darker tone then most in my area. The consequences player character suffered were the natural ones when making bad choices or betrays someone. So it was no surprise when for the next campaign I ran revolved around a captain of a slave raider, William Endril and his Captain of Mercenaries Draco-lindus.

William Endril’s main motivation was to be rich, really really rich. They were based in City-State and sailed up the Estuary into the Winedark Sea and began raiding; mostly the Skandians along the Pagan Coast. One memorable fight involved a landing near a clan house. Draco-lindus fought his way into the main longhouse where the wife of the clan chief nails him with a critical. I roll well and Draco drops like a wet sack. Luckily William and Draco’s men were nearby and Draco suffered little more than wounded pride and the loss of a couple of healing potions.

The “getting rich” scheme was going well for William Enderil and he was making a lot of friends as well as a lot of enemies. One of them was wealthy enough to have a demon summoned to go after Captain Endril and his ship the “Sea’s Wind”. I used the stats for the Blue Demon out of GURPS supers. Well the fight didn’t go well and while the players survived the ship’s was wrecked. Also William’s player didn’t take the whole idea of this ship being destroyed and was obstinate about it out of game. I probably didn’t handle it well either. William Endril would not leave the beach where the Sea’s Wind wrecked and said he was going to try to put it back together. I thought the campaign ended at that point.

However a couple of weeks later, Draco’s player wanted to continue so I just ran things with him. This part of the campaign started him out on the beach with about 100 men plus Landarin and Thelaris two mages Endril hired for his raiding expedition. They decided to march through the lands of the Skandians, over the mountains, and back into the territory controlled by the Overlord of City-State.

During the time of last AD&D campaigns, the players complained about how short the distances were in the Wilderlands. Particularly between Viridstan and City-State. They expected them to be a month apart from the way I been presenting things but they are only a week’s journey by the book. So I expanded the hex scale to 12. 5 per hex. I chose 12.5 mile hexes because I could reuse rules out of Harn easier which used the same scale.

Also during the Fantasy Hero phase, my maps were wearing out. Unlike today with the internet, trying to find replacements for out of print products was not easy. Especially if you live in rural Western PA. Luckily I was taking a Geography Minor at the time and learned how to use Rapiograph Pens, Vellum, and other tools to make maps. So…. I redrew all my maps.

home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/localantilmap.jpg

So compared to by the book Wilderlands, the journey from the Pagan Coast to City-State wasn’t a 2 or 3 day march but could take up a fortnight. A fortnight where many things could go wrong.

The situation among the mass milling around the Beach wasn’t ideal. The captain was crazy obessed in putting back the ship. The mercenaries looked towards Draco-lindus, but the mages believed that they should be in charge, the crew didn’t know which way to jump. Finally the march got organized and they head inland. Dracolindus’ player was fairly good at playing his fighter and being a captain but he had taken the backseat in the major decisions to this point.

The Skandian Lords got wind of the march and started congregating to get some payback for the recent raids. Finally after a couple of days a major force consisting of a couple of hundred warriors intercepted the march. Draco was reluctant to fight but the mages convinced him that their magic would tilt the balance. So they made a stand.

The mages were wrong.

Their magic probably prevented an outright slaughter but the hundred or so guys with Draco wasn’t enough. When the battle turned and it’s was obvious that the battle was going to be lost they teleported out, leaving Draco alone. Draco tried to save as many as he could, but by night fall he left with only a handful of men. They escaped under the cover of darkness and continued to make their way west back to City-State. Draco was pissed and vowed vengeance on the mages.

Draco did make it back to City-State. When he attempted to confront Landarin and Thelaris, the Guild of Arcane Lore pulled strings to get the matter quashed by the Overlord’s Court. Denied justice he obtained a license to organized a 20 man mercenary company. In my City-State you have to post a surety which you will get back in two years. This was 9 crowns which equates to about 2,500 gold pieces in buying power. This drained most of Draco’s buying power.

The 20 mercenaries he hired proved to be the loyal core for his later adventures. Sillar, Thessia the twin reptile men bodyguards, Lt Raidonus, Sergeant Wesslek, Sergeant Hendrix, Corporal Halimar, Corporal Laveer, Lamisso, Valens, Louis, Geran, Molar, Kerak, Nollis, Verel, Rectari, Newon, Asirk, and Greymantle.

At this time I firmed up the background of my City-State and the different cultures that inhabited the region. Ghinorian, Tharian, and Elessarian. The interaction of these cultures, their religions, and their rulers provided much of the plot for the rest of the campaign. In a nutshell, the Elessarians were the celtic-like original humans of the region. The Ghinorians came up from the south and established a colony on the site of City-State. The Elessarian and Ghinorian united under the banner of the Dragon Empire to push back the Viridians. Later the Dragon Empire collapsed and the Tharian barbarians came in and conquered the region including City-State. From the High Chief of the Tharians comes the current line of the Overlord of the City-State. Lots of tensions, lost of possibilities for adventure.

For the next year Draco-lindus had various adventures in the hire of the various factions of City-State. He managed to become blood brother to a prominent scion of a Tharian noble clan. However during these adventure one thing was true, that Dracolindus did not like to be pushed and somebody tried he would push back hard. During this time there was a romantic sub plot involving Greymantle whom he learned was really a women.

Finally one mission went sour, and Greymantle turned out to be adopted daughter of the High Dukes of City-State. The situation escalated to the point where Draco managed to kidnap Greymantle’s father and hold him hostage. He used the Duke to get to the border with Viridstan where he released him in exchange for a sentence of Exile. Greymantle choose to stay by Dracolindus’ side. Also at this time William Endril returns to join Draco-lindus band. The player heard a lot about the campaign and wanted to rejoin. The session where he and Draco got together against was a classic. Draco explained all that happen and Endril did a lot of “How the hell that happened?”

Viridstan was in the midst of civil war so there lots of opportunities for mercenaries. This area of Viridstan was once the Province of Gommorah now the Empire of Gommorah. This region of Gommorah was under the authority of the Sheriff of Nho who was of the evil sheriff variety. It wasn’t soon when Draco grew pissed off at the sheriff and joined forces with the local outlaw Michael Greene. Together the two staged a rebellion that soon had half of Gommorah under their control. Finally the Emperor of Gommorah was forced to sue for peach. In return for a land grant in the extreme southern extent of the empire and the appointment of Michael Greene as Sherriff. The Empire was reunited. [Michael Greene guest stars in Borderland in the upcoming Points of Light]

Endril and Draco decided to build two settlements in their new land. New Caelam in the interior as Draco’s main seat and Porttown as Endril’s town and the main location for commerce. By this phase I was playing up the epic nature of the campaign. Draco finds out that Mitra has taken a special interest in him. William discovers clues that it would be possible to recreate the Order of the Silver Dragons, an ancient order of dragon riders.

I am little fuzzy in my memory, but I believe before they could do anything with their knowledge an enemy of William and Draco causes them to become unstuck in time. The next sessions involved them hopping around the timeline of the Wilderlands visiting various important locales in the history of the Church of Mitra and her chosen people the Ghinorians. The players got a real kick out of it and played quite well. There were a few near disaster where they thought the dwarf, Atrabilorin, who saved City-State from the collapse of the Dragon Empire, was an enemy instead of an ally.

The timeline jumping ended when they met St Caelam the founder of the Order of Silver Dragon and learned how to summon the Silver Dragons. Draco also met his Silver Dragon, Alexandros. My dragons speak with their mind. They also remember everything about their life from their birth to their death. The main incentive that Dragons gain by associating with humans is that when they chose one as a rider they also gain the ability to change their preordained destiny. It was my plot twist to explain why dragons being uber beings would work with the mortal races. Of course the evil dragon use humans to gain a future of pleasure, power, and wealth. After the arrival of the Silver Dragon Dracolindus also marries Anastasia, Greymantle’s real name.

We played a handful of sessions of barony building with some minor plots keep the two on their toes. To the south of Draco’s barony was the Kingdom of Antillia centered around Antil. The Duke of Actuan (one of the major nobles of Antillia) saw this new barony to the north and see an opportunity to gain some land for cheap. He mustered his forces and attacked Draco-lindus. At first the battle was touch and go as Draco’s forces were outnumbered. (1,500 men vs 500) but the Silver Dragon proved decisive and turned the tide.

Draco then marched south and besieged Actuan (a castle town). During the siege he uses all his old contact among the mercenary community to expand his forces. After he took Actuan, volunteers began to flood his army. After several weeks he moved eastward where he met King Marovech of Antilla outside of the town of Tenoch. There he defeated Marovech army which fell back on Antil. After this victory one of the Dukes of City-State, Dagobert of Halnar, formally allies with Draco-lindus. With the addition of Dagobert forces Draco is able to impose a siege around Antil.

During the siege the Overlord invades the eastern territories of Antillia and sends his chancellor to Draco-lindus. Draco and the Overlord agree to split the Kingdom of Antillia between them along with making Dracolindus one of the Dukes of City-State and the granting of seats on the City-State’s Senate. See my City-State article about how my City-State government functions.

King Marovech was captured during the fall of Antil. Organized resistance throughout the Kingdom collapse although individual keeps and castles still needed to taken or surrendered. At the end of the year the Overlord formally welcomed Dracolindus, champion of Mitra as a Duke of City-State along with our old friend…

Lord Divolic Myrmidon of Set.

It so happened that Divolic’s old player was the player of William Endril. The two of them were stunned at this turn of events. Duke Draco-lindus was going to be one of the most powerful nobles of City-States but by investing Divolic with a Duchy a lot of Draco’s new influence would be checked by Divolic’s connections (so adeptly built up by Endril’s player)

By this time the campaign has continued for nearly three years into the early 90’s. We were about ready to “retire” William and Draco and try new characters. But there was one more chapter of this long campaign. Angered by the appointment of Divolic and unable to outright rebel, Draco and William schemed for a way to get back at the Overlord.

The Pagan Coast territories of the Skandian was a thin strip along the coastline. In the hinterlands was the Ghinorian Kingdom of Nomar lead by King Artos . Artos was famed for his sword of power Caliburn. Yes, yes, I know. But like Michael Greene I took a clichéd legend and made it my own for my Wilderlands. The Skandian were steadily taking away chunks of Nomar for the past century. King Artos was on the verge of turning the tide when he disappeared three years ago. The rumor was that Divolic was behind the plot.

Deciding to start by striking back at Duke Divolic, William and Draco decide to find Artos and return him to the throne. William tracked down the Codex of Infinite Planes and used it to transport him and Draco to the Swamps of Acheron, the home of Set. There they encountered the Boglings, frog like creatures that were slaves of Set. They promised the Boglings freedom in exchange for their help. The Bogling acted as guides and showed them the way to Artos’ tomb where he was imprisoned.

However before they got there they rested on an island which turned out to the back of a giant Turtle Dragon. The Turtle Dragon told the pair they were going to be meet his master Set and that if they tried to get away they will be killed and eaten. Knowing the power of my campaign’s dragons they sat down and tried to think up a plan of escape. Finally William decided to talk to the dragon and went up and sat down on the dragon’s head. The conversation went nowhere then William started to read from the Codex.

Earlier it was established that the Codex worked by transporting the reader and a 10 foot globe around the codex to another plane. The Dragon’s head was about 10 feet. When William stopped reading he and the Turtle Dragon’s head were shifted back to City-State. Then Endril used the Codex again to return to Acheron and the now dead Turtle Dragon’s body. Later the Turtle Dragon’s head was boiled and the skull used as the entrance for Endril’s Dragon Head’s Inn in City State. Artos was rescued after an epic fight with a Son of Set and returned back to Nomar. Swamp of Acheron in Points of Light is based directly on this part of the campaign.

William’s player is the type of guy who can pour over financials and stats and figure out the best way to make it work out. He asked (and got) various breakdown of City-State’s population and noble structure. (presented how a person would actually get it in that time period). He figured out that the Overlord’s family has been conquering various territories send the foundation of City-State and ruling over as his own personal territory. When City-State was found the combined power of the nobles dwarfed that of the Overlord. But now the Overlord controls enough territories so that his power exceeds that of his nobles.

Draco and William had explored enough of the surrounding lands to know there were a couple of territories that were fragmented and ripe for conquest. In particular they choice the territory between Lenap and the Southern boundaries of the old Viridstan Empire. They assembled a coalition comprised of the various nobles of City-State but not any of the Overlord’s favorites nor Divolic. From Porttown they sailed an armada across the Trident Gulf and proceeded to conquer the entire river valley that was between Lenap and Viridstan. This was the last on-stage actions of Draco-lindus and William Endril.

The Draco/Endril campaign is where my version of the Wilderlands came of age. It epic nature and shear scope meant that many part of my Wilderlands were fully developed for the first time. It established the conflict between Mitra and Set as the central drama of my setting. I developed so many interesting organizations and groups that my players wanted to play some of them.

Also aside from using GURPS as the “physics” of my campaign my campaign was still very much old school Judges Guild.

Next the Zoo Crew and the Theme Campaigns of the mid 90s.

Enjoy
Rob Conley

My City-State write up.
home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/csland.html

[driver]

Good stuff, Robert.

If you ever decide to devote a thread to mapping techniques, I'd be very interested. Mapping landmasses is one of my least favorite activities and a major reason I like the Wilderlands.

[Deleted]

This is really great stuff! I haven't played much in a long, long time, but reading about other people's stuff is really making me want to. I found some notes on my old campaign world from years ago and have started dusting them off. I am currently looking for some people to play with since I came to this site. Again great, great stuff.