JADE's Arachnophobia Campaign

Ever since JADE finished the first part of our Traveller Campaign: Interstellar Exports, we have had some trouble figuring out what to do next. After a solid 3 years of mainly playing RPG's, the group was a little tired and wanted to return to the card, miniature, and board games that got us together as a group in the first place. Of course, there was the occasional one-off game of Ivershill, or an intense round of Maze of the Minotaur, and through all of that my cousin and I were playing through our rules heavy 1st ed AD&D game Hymns of a Vagabond, but as a group we hadn't returned to seriously RPG's in a while.

And we had a lot of games to pay.

We had planned at the start of the year to run Jeff's latest version of his Elementia Campaign after our break, but unfortunately his work schedule made that impossible. Then we planned to try out the 1st ed AD&D module DL1: Dragons of Despair, however we couldn't get enough people to cover the 6-8 players required for the game.

After another Month's planning, JADE has finally agreed to start a new campaign. I call it Arachnophobia.

Not quite like that...

Arachnophobia, is a 2nd ed AD&D campaign that takes place in the world of Zendar in the Grayland Country. For aeons Zendar has seen a species of giant spider travel across the world, consuming all in their path. This thousand year long migration, has again come full circle and returned to the Graylands But the people are ill prepared. The last migration destroyed much of civilization, and most of what was known of those times has been long forgotten.

The story, as it is remembered, now states that 1000 years ago a dark and terrible force laid waste to the lands. It came from the North West destroying the fertile Orcish lands to the North, and the preceded into the Graylands. Only the harsh Mountains Wastes of the Range of Aguraush between the Orcs and the Graylands quelled the dark forces enough to save the Graylands from the from the full brunt of their assault. They were able to hold them off, and though much of civilization was destroyed they were able to rebuild; founding the 2nd Age of Mortals.

Nearly 1000 years later this is more of a story then fact, as survival was more important than preserving history at the time.

Love those reprints!

We are currently 1 game into the campaign, which saw my players start as peasants from the simple farm hamlet of Barleydale. There they stumbled upon an ancient temple deep underground, and saw a 16yr old NPC villager become the target of a strange prophecy involving a green gem that embedded itself into his hand, a Colossal Spider and the coming arachnid hordes.

To keep my players in the loop, I let them know that they would need to keep this NPC alive in order to complete the game. It only seemed fair to warn them, though given their track record it will be enough of a challenge in itself.

The next game they will begin their journey to the Lord's castle (some 200 miles from their isolated village) to inform him of their find, their encounter with a giant spider, and (due to some player actions) the sudden and "accidental" death of the area's Tax collector.

In some later posts I will go over each of the characters the guys picked, as they really do deserver their own article each. However, we have a Gnome Thief using a Beggar Kit, a True Neutral Death Priest, a Chronomancer and a Ranger using a Greenwood kit. So some really ridiculous characters this time around, with the guys really using all of my 30 or so 2nd ed books.

Now, the party is strange enough that I have had to balance it with a few NPC's, but I intended that to be a main feature right from the start of this game. We have only just started utilizing NPCs to their fullest potential as a group and I wanted to continue the trend. While before we used NPCs as simple canon fodder, they have now grown into valued members of our parties, and I wanted to see just how attached they could become.

So look forward to more discussions about weird 2nd ed rules, 15mm miniatures and stories from around the table as we start our Arachnophobia Campaign!


Written by: Andrew Gregory