With my impending move out my brain has returned to D&D and running a game.

I can see myself running a few games at this point. Eberron would be interesting, Mutants and Masterminds 2E would be fun too. Also I'm very curious how the new edition of mage is going to go. Also I have been thinking about cooking up a homebrew d20 setting, and seeing what I can do.

For those of you not in the know I have homebrewed a setting before with some interesting results. It grew out of a fairly simple idea, of combining some Celtic lore with the old West. I'm a big fan of villians who have reasons for doing things besideds megalomania, and even have a point. Like Scorpius in Farscape, his goal is defeating the Scarrans no matter what the cost to himself or others. For that reason he joined the Peacekeepers and has worked very hard to rise in their ranks, and of course works hard to make John Crichtons life a living hell. I like villians like that, where they have a point, and are working towards something the main character would want too... but they are just doing it in horrible ways. Anyhoo that was kinda the focus of the campaign. It has some memorable moments if I do say so myself. The NPC Gwen, bastard, half-dragon, direct heir to the throne of a broken country, was a hit with the players and myself. I especially like the angle that Dragons are attunded to something mere mortals can't comprehend, and thus half-dragons are somewhat attunded to that source as well. The Spider forest was really fun. The jump forward in time by 17 years was a good idea, allowed me to REALLY shake things up, and show players consiquences of actions they took. Which was another a big theme of the game.

So I'm thinking about what I would like to see in a game. One early idea I hooked on to early was Leveling weapons. D&D suffers from the golfbag of weapons problem. The problem that your Sword +1 is a really great weapon, until you get that sword +2. In myth and literature there are TONS of swords that grow with the user, and gain power as the user does. But D&D basically has you throw one weapon in the trash as the new one comes down the pike. D&D has attempted to have improving weapons idea as well from time to time with mixed results. But I was thinking about a world where people were FORCED to have these weapons, mixed with my half-assed knowledge of Buddhism, and this came to mind. What if there was no such thing as a non-improving weapon. What if when somebody attempted to create a normal Sword +1 could make one, but in a fairly short amount of time (a few days perhaps) the magic with unravel and the weapon would loose it's magical edge. The only weapons that could hold a magic power, were the quasi-mythic ones that improved over time. Which lead me to the idea that perhaps weapons chose their owners for one reason or another, and then improved with their owners over time until their deaths. What if owning a magic weapon that lasted forever was not a privilage, not a right, but something of a calling and perhaps a curse. What if the owners of magic weapons were almost forced to become superheroes/villians. Which has spawned some interesting thought in my head. So on my blog I will talk about my campaign idea along these lines as ideas come up... it could be never again, it could be tomorrow.

What I do have now is that magic weapons loose their enchantment in a short amount of time, unless that character has a "Improving Magic Weapon," then that weapon can keep the enchantments of "mundane magic items" active for as long as they are attunded to the character. This has a few interesting tweaks to the way D&D functions. First off magic weapons in general will not be common, neither will magic items in general, because the magic within them would quickly die. Also it may encourage PC's to create magic items themselves, because with their "Improving Magic Weapon" they can keep the charge in wands, rings, etc. Magic becomes a much more etherial thing in the campaign, and much less commonplace. Also I like the idea that the Magic Weapon chooses the owner, rather than the other way around. So there are quasi-superheroes running around the setting, who have access to powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Also it means that NPCs will come to the players much more directly to deal with threats, for if a local rampaging critter requires a +1 weapon to defeat it, only the local superhero with an improving weapon could really come along and defeat it. Since I am a fan of superheroes I also like this idea as well.

Basically the setting will deal with quasi-medieval superheroes. Where I could do a lot of super-hero themes, but in a new "fresher" setting. Plus since D&D has spells like raise dead, characters being killed and coming back could become more commonplace. Also there are villians around because there would be "evil" weapons, or weapons that don't really care what their owner does with them. Plus powergroups would likely collect the Improving Magic Weapons of their enemies, to ensure that they do not rise again. But what I am most enthusastic about with this idea, is the idea of taking story arc's I like from various comics, and applying them to this fantasy setting. Think off the characters after many adventures suddenly thrust into something like the Crisis on Infinate Earths, or The House of M, Bruce Wayne Murderer, etc.

So some questions that this brings up is. 1) Who created these Improving Magic Weapons in the first place. 2) Can more be made? 3) Are there "cursed" weapons, which do strange things to the owner, a-la the Hulk. 4) How does the rest of the setting function. 5) Who created the "evil" weapons. 6) Should the setting be cosmopolitan or more frontier like. And many more.

My only thoughts beyond the superhero angle on the weapons, is that I'm a HUGE fan of Cthuhlu stories, and I think some ultimate uber-evil needs to be around in the world. Also this type of thing works best for a city scape at first, and as the heroes get better they move into the wider world. Like Spider-man in a way, at first he was just a New York dude, but now he is partying all over the world with the Avengers. I have some vague idea that I would like the local religion to be Egyptian flavored, aka death cults... but I'm not sure. Also I have toyed with the idea for many years to play a campaign on an island chain like in the Earthsea books, but I don't know if that would fit either.