There are 109 portals in the Cave of Worlds, and an unknown number of other universes which are reachable through secondary portals in some of those worlds. Some of those worlds are based on books, movies, or TV shows; others are original, or represent a concatenation of similar game-worlds or genres. Basically, I opened up the back of my head (and my library) and put in whatever seemed interesting and fun.
I rarely identify the worlds by name or source material in these session writeups for two reasons: First, because the players may not have recognized some of the worlds, and they could (and probably will) read this. Second, I hope that it might be fun for readers to try to guess what sources the worlds are based on! But in fairness, my sources are sometimes very obscure. I like old books, and often relatively unknown ones. I'll note when a world is original or based on an unpublished source.
Some of the sessions were never written up, unfortunately (I'm going to try to be better about that in the future). When it's necessary to make sense of the ongoing plot, I'll write fill-ins from memory. Fortunately we have the best note-taker of all time in the group - she literally records every single action - so some day it may be possible to expand the writeups a bit.
I should note that I also post private non-player information and ask for suggestions to a couple of restricted circles on Google Plus; they're restricted since they include information that the players mustn't have. I've also done a few video "writeups" there, when I'm too tired to try to type it all up. If you're interested, drop me a line.
This is an ongoing project. I'll keep posting past sessions until I'm caught up, and then I'll stay current. Since I have three years worth of writeups to post, though, this could take a while!
Or even longer. But I post a lot of writeups and video blog entries to my Google Plus account, specifically to my RuneQuest and Roleplaying circles. If you'd like to be added to them, let me know.
Update 12/18/2014: Unfortunately it's now 99% certain that the campaign is over, without (sadly) reaching any sort of conclusion. I'm a little bitter, but I will GM again when I can find enough players. I may even reuse this setting; it's a hell of a lot of fun.
Session #2, 07/09/2011 - The Beginning
Session #3, 07/18/2011 - Angst (and Baboons) In Paradise
Session #4, 08/01/2011 - A New, Scary World
Session #5, 08/08/2011 - Something's Rotten In Apple Lane
Session #6, 08/14/2011 - Roasting Apples and Zero Goodbyes
Session #7, 08/20/2011 - Home is Where the Heart Isn't
Session #8, 08/27/2011 - A Trial, a Decision, and...Wedding Bells?
Session #9, 09/03/2011 - The Thing In the Coffin, or, Hello Blue Sky
Session #10, 09/10/2011 - A Tree Grows In Dominica
Session #11, 09/16/2011 - A (Fortunate?) Escape From Liator #12
Session #12, 09/23/2011 - A Curious Carnival (Beard of Red, "Go Find Sed!")
Sessions #13 - 14, 09/30/2011 - 10/07/2011 - Fast Forward On the Trail
Session #15, 10/14/2011 - Welcome to Hell
Session #16, 10/21/2011 - A Tale of Two Pities
Session #17, 10/29/2011 - Goodbye To All That
Session #18, 11/05/2011 - There's No Place Like Home!
Interlude - Two-Year Catch-Up!
- BREAK -
Unfortunately after three years the Cave of Worlds campaign crashed and burned. I'm still angry about how it ended; I'll refrain from going into detail apart from saying that the cause was some extreme player misbehavior. I'm easygoing, but as a GM and a friend I feel totally abused.
So I started a new campaign after a while. The problem players were not invited back. Well...not exactly. One of them begged to join the new campaign, promising to be better. Against my better judgement, I allowed it. Long story short, I had to kick him out again. The new campaign ran for several years, but eventually player problems made me lose my temper and I ended it. Games need to be fun for the GM, too!
A very brief writeup of the replacement campaign: I called it the Dolman City campaign. It was inspired by Vika's Avenger, a great science-fantasy novel by Lawrence Watt-Evans. It was the first science fiction/fantasy campaign I'd run, and it was a real pleasure. I borrowed liberally from some of my favorite authors, including Cordwainer Smith, Barry Hughart, and Roger Zelazny. The game started as a casual pick-up; the characters started in a remote village that was effectively a fantasy setting. As with almost all of my campaigns, I used the Avalon Hill RuneQuest III rules with some patches and some rules from the rewritten Basic Roleplaying. That was particularly necessary as the players' home village was soon destroyed by what seemed to be a magical plague. A few villagers escaped, carrying many of the village's children - but the children were all in comas. So the PCs set out to go to a legendary distant place where they hoped to find help, Dolman City.
As they traveled they discovered that the world was much more complicated than they realized. By the time they got to the city, they found that the world was a place of science as well as magic - in fact, it was hard to determine the difference between the two! The city itself was full of all sorts of species, including intangible ones (ghost and spirits, or programs and energy beings if you prefer), self-aware robots of all sorts, aliens, genetically modified beings, created beings...it was an incredible place.
But as before, some of the players essentially ruined the game. That's not a common event for me, but I have to say that I really hate when it happens. I'd like to start a new campaign, but I need to find new players, good ones with a good group chemistry - and so far, I've had no luck.
Googe Plus RIP - Since Google killed off Google Plus, and their "takeout" feature was seriously flawed, all of the campaign writeups I posted there are gone. I'm furious. Google has successfully changed me from a fan and supporter to an absolute detractor. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft...all of them should be dismantled.
Copyright 2012 by Peter Maranci. Revised: September 27, 2021. v.1.18