With this last weekend, we finally reached the conclusion and successful end of our long running Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder campaign. Our campaign began back in June of 2016, and with a bi-weekly schedule, and 10 regular players, we have invested approximately 3300 combined hours in the storyline. Although we started back with the Cypher RPG system, we quickly converted to true Pathfinder, and continued thru.
For me, this has been a very major accomplishment – I have been gaming in one form or another since I was 9 (approximately 35 years ago), and until now, have never truly finished a campaign. We have had several that went a long time certainly, but they either ended in group death, or interest simply die off. This is the first time the group which started the story stayed together, kept interest, and ultimately reached the conclusion. And almost every player was a completely green novice to RPGs before we began.
In the end, Karzoug fell to the combined efforts of the group, a bit of divine intervention, and more than a little luck. And in true Heroic tradition, we have clearly set up for an eventual sequel. Of the original 10 characters, there were several deaths along the way, but only one replacement character (Harsk being swapped out for a custom Sorcerer). Others died, but were revived mostly intact (except for Kyra, who was reincarnated as a Half-Orc mid-campaign).
For now, everyone is taking a bit of a breather, before we jump into our next effort. At this point, we are looking at a short-term campaign, to last us thru August time frame (when the 2nd edition is released). The players, now veterans, will be creating and fully managing their own characters, which will be new. And the group now has to adapt back to level 1, and the threat level basic foes present again.
