So a long time ago, at a high school that is very far away from me, I started getting involved in Role Playing Games. My friends and I started participating in game of Everway at lunch with people who would become part of our core group of friends (every single one of which I still think of as family). I was able to get my hands on a copy of the Everway box set during this time and began reading. My creative spark was inspired and I wanted to start running a game, but didn't know what I was going to do for a story or quest.
I truly had no experience or anything close to an idea of what I was doing. At this time I only had really shitty writing and random knowledge of Fantasy universes/writing to work with. I wasn't fully "out of the basement" yet and didn't embrace my geek nature and I didn't have much confidence in my ability to tell a story. This was all happening prior to the outbreak of Geek culture into the mainstream and the release of movies and TV series that would make it okay to talk about these things to normal people.
I don't know where I'm trying to go with this particular portion of this rant. Really though I think I'm just trying to get across the point that I was inexperienced and not ready for the big time, but I had some lofty ideals that I was trying to get across. I started coming up with what I thought was a neat idea and tried to create a world around it.
This world was what I called Charla (Char-lah). It was based off the idea for one of the literally hundreds of character ideas I had been coming up with during those early days. The character (who's name escapes me) was a humanoid character with Dragon wings, immunity to fire, and the ability to control fire (an inborn talent for pyromancy ran in this race). This was his home Sphere (Everway was a crossroads for many different portals to other "spheres" or planets and Spherewalkers always ended up in Everway proper some way or another). I never got to play him, but I liked the idea of his world a lot and started to think about what types of things it would have to deal with.
I created a world where there were two species of sentient beings. One of them were the Charlanites, who all had the dragon wings, fire immunity, and the pyromancy. The other race was the Dak'kon (I think... it's been about 15 years since I created this thing, maybe it was the Drakar... I wish I could remember. Dak'kon may have been a character's name the more I think about it) which were a race of Dragon like humanoids with a breath weapon, an extremely reptilian style body, and no wings. Both races had a strong magical heritage and had been warring for millennia.
The Charlanites were ruled by an Archmage in a magic skills based monarchy. They had no real society other than that. I was inexperienced, shut up. The Dak'kon were led by a war chief, or warlord or something... it wasn't important at the time. Whoever it was happened to be the main villain who was just kinda there with no motivation other than to fight the PCs because Noob GM.
The Charlanites worshiped a god they believed resided in the volcano in their capitol city. They held various ceremonies and combat tournaments in the god's honor because that sounded like a good idea. The Archmage would lead everyone in the ceremonies and used the gathered energy to protect everyone from the eruptions that would regularly take place during the height of the ceremonies.
It was during one of these ceremonies that the PCs were brought in. This being the Everway setting I had to come up with a reason for the PCs to be brought out there to a whole different "Sphere" via the portal network. I of course didn't want to give them an option to potentially ignore my "finely crafted" adventure, so I created an ultra powerful and very awful NPC named The Watcher. So called because he watched over many different spheres to ensure that prophecies were fulfilled. (A concept that is so ridiculous that it might actually make him a great concept for a villain now that I think back on his role in things. Maybe I'll write that down for later.)
Anyways, The Watcher (no I didn't know about the Marvel Comics character of the same name at the time) gathered the PCs together at his tower on a desolate and featureless sphere that may or may not have been a pocket dimension. There he told them of Charla and that they would play a vital role in protecting the future of that sphere. He then opened a portal for them (not really a power that anyone is really allowed to possess other than gods) and shoved them through into the welcoming arms of the Archmage as he completes a ceremony.
The specifics of this adventure become hazy from this point on, I'll do my best to retell it but no promises that it'll be even remotely right.
The Archmage welcomed them and then offered them a chance to prove their worth and abilities in various arena battles. I'm trying to remember what each PC was, because this would prove to eventually be important in a few cases. Let's see, there was the half-demon, a zombie-esque undead creature based off of Rob Zombie (I think he named the species a "Creeper"), a Gargoyle (as in Gargoyles the cartoon) with an amulet that kept her out of stone form in the day, a beserker named Orsen (whose battle cry was "SPOOON!!!"), some type of fighter... I think (it was an early Chris character, I can't remember and feel ashamed by that), and an magic sensitive, graceful dancer whom I think could spin illusions.
So after a bunch of combat the PCs were told that they were to gather the ancient weapons of legend to use to defeat the evil warlord and were given the locations of these four weapons. Oh yeah, and everyone had a chance to get fire lizards bonded to them as pets, as in the ones from Anne McCaffrey because.
[Later edit: You have no idea how difficult this is to write, this storyline is just awful and it HURTS to remind myself of it.]
The weapons were a physical manifestation of the four elements that govern Everway; Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. I thought it was clever and neat. The first weapon they went after was the Sword of Inferno. Inferno being the name of the Charlanites' greatest hero whom used the sword to do something heroic sometime in the past.
That sword was meant to go to the person with the highest score in the Fire element when I initially designed the campaign but I couldn't justify giving the sword to the Creeper who used claw-like weapons. so instead I exercised my first bit of the Golden Rule and gave the Sword to the half-demon because of his connection with the element because it made more narrative sense. The sword was kept inside of some volcanic landscape somewhere and they had to sort of dodge the environments and fight something simple. If I had encountered this in a game now I as a player would expect that we were being set up at this point.
So after grabbing the sword they report back to get the next weapon's location and were then given all three of them. They headed up to the highest mountain peak to retrieve the Lightning Dagger, which was given to the Gargoyle. They wandered a frozen wasteland and retrieved the Bow of Ice which went to the dancer. Finally they descended into a deep canyon to retrieve the Stone Axe (or maybe it was the Axe of Earth) which was at the center of this canyon/ravine thing that it was in the center of which went to Chris' fighter. They reported back to the Archmage and then participated in an "epic battle" between the Dak'kon/Drakkar and the Charlanites which the players participate in and the chosen wielders learn the true power of their legendary weapons. (There may have also been gratuitous use of the word "Swack!" and the destruction of a carriage made of spoons during this time. Shut up, it made sense at the time! Okay it didn't, but shut your face hole anyways!)
The Sword of Inferno basically changed shape to fit with the personal style of the bearer. It was also able to coat the blade in flames and launch fireballs and other fire based attacks at foes. The Lightning Dagger did similar things, but used lightning instead. The Axe of Earth was made of stone and cut things super well while enhancing the strength of the bearer. The Bow of Ice generated its own arrows in its quiver that when they hit their target basically completely froze the target in an effect similar to what you see in movies where things get turned to stone by magic, but with more ice and it adding a couple of inches of ice around the body. They also had the ability to be willed back to their bearers but that was never used.
The characters were charged with chasing the warlord back to his castle and take him down. And so they did and then peace became the norm and the prophecy was fulfilled. At this point the story is very fuzzy and I can't remember it because I was flat out making it up as I went along. No prep, no notes, just winging it at lunch everyday with no thoughts given to it other than a general goal for the players. The PCs were allowed to keep what they had found and/or were given (including the weapons) and were picked up by The Watcher to be brought back to Everway. The two races may or may not have suddenly merged together and become full blooded dragons (I seem to remember that thought, but can't remember if it was just an idea or what actually happened. If it did happen though it raises a whole bunch of other questions that make my head hurt).
And that is basically the end of that story. I think there were gifts and abilities given out as the players so desired, but I can't remember what the rewards were. It was awful (but not the worst!) and there were more holes than plot, but it was my first time in the hot seat and I'm glad that I did it. I learned a lot from that experience.
My second time running a campaign went far, FAR worse. I won't retell that tale, but it is a shame filled thing that nearly stopped me from doing anything again ever. I'm glad I learned from that one. Let's just say that the second game evolved from the idea that aliens from X-Com decided to invade Everway and there was a Predator.
As for the first campaign though. I keep thinking I should try to rebuild it as a D20 module with a proper storyline and everything but every time I try to I run into the same problem I always do. D20 systems just seem to be too restrictive for it to work the way I want it to. Although it is very easy to transplant the legendary elemental weapons into any other system out there. I may use them again, but the base idea of this campaign may not ever see the light of day again.
I'm not sure I'm okay with that though. I want to go back and tweak and/or fix it.
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