Once when I was dming I had this whole long adventure going, but the players went through some dungeons too fast, and i didnt have time to make new ones yet, so I called up one of my players and asked if he could pretend to keep playing as himself, but really be playing as a doppleganger. Unfortunately he played too well and killed one of the other players. He was finally caught, but my whole campaign got so derailed that there was no fixing it. We all had a lot of fun with it, but i wish i had just taken the time to draw some maps.

I was just finishing another session of my group's Evil Campaign. All three characters are CE and more or less spellcasters (one sorceress, one favored soul and one binder).

In a previous adventure, these evil mistresses took over the ruling army of what is known as the Tribal Lands. The Tribal Lands were mostly divided tribes who recently had been united by a bugbear named Groar the Unkillable - who some Innmates might recognize from my dead Eberron Campaign here at the Inn. Like in Eberron, Groar was actually killable, and the evil party declared themselves queens over the Tribal Lands.

This time was different. This session, the girls head off to meet the king of a neighbouring country called Markiin (both the king and the country) to strike a deal with him. Their plan was for one of them to marry the King's younger son, have the King and the crown prince killed, and take over the rulership of the country and the army after producing an heir. To do this, they first needed to seduce the young prince.

Markiin's capital, a metropolis named Everburn, was a city that was built as a gigantic fortress, spiraling upwards with the actual castle on top. Within the city was the temple district, the barracks, the magic school, the great market, and the city's advanced heating system. Homes were built within the walls, and the city's complex sewage system was built within the walls where homes were not taking up space. The city was nearly indestructable, and no army had ever breached its walls, but the city was also very advanced.

I got very short time to plan this as we decided to play only a day before. I planned an adventure where Gnomish freedomfighters were hiding within the sewage system, and striking at slave camps in the city's heating systems to free Gnomish slaves. Because of this the castle was sealed off from the sewage, and was starting to stink heavily. Because of the stink, the young prince had left the city until the problem had been taken care of, and thus could not attend the ball in honor of the visiting queens who could use the event for seduction. My plan was for them to head into the sewage system personally, locate the primary camp of the freedom fighters and eliminate their leader.

What they did took me completely off guard.

They deviced a plan for one of their servants to head into the sewage with a flaming torch that would ignite the built up methane gas all over the city. They of course made a good excuse for not being in the city at the day of the big ball, where many of the most important individuals of the country would gather. While far, far away, the built up methane exploded, completely leveling the metropolis that was Everburn to the ground.

Over 96,000 people were killed, not including children, slaves, traveling merchants, the guests of the royal ball, or their servants. All in all, it is possible that 100,000 people of nearly any possible race were killed in the explosion. Then there was the town that was built around the city, but did not actually count as part of it. That got hit by massive pieces of the outer walls. That could have killed dozens more.

This plan was so awesome, I really wanted to give them enough XP to go up two levels. I mean, the political rulership of the country of Markiin was demolished completely. The king was killed, his oldest son was killed, his queen to be was killed, the high priest of the ruling religion was killed, the prime minister was killed. There is no one to rule the nation or officially crown the new king of Markiin. Three women completely destroyed Markiin's rulership. So of course I gave them enough XP to go up two levels. To heck with the rules that say otherwise. This was too awesome not to

And on another note, they did take care of the Gnome problem

A) Holy Thread Necromancy Batman!

B) You named your city Everburn...and it exploded in a massive ball of flame...hmm.

Agreed, to hell with the rules, that's too awesome.

I've made mention of this campaign in other threads: my on-going game of twenty some-odd years. Well we had the longest "guest spots" ever played in this campaign when for close to three years a pair of players joined us. So, the group consisted of the usual suspects: fighter (Drizz't knock off), ranger (Perin knock off), monk, cleric (NPC), elf bodyguard (NPC), bard (guest player), psion (guest player). The crux of this portion of the campaign was that the psion was actually a part of a prophecy, that his powers were foretold to be the undoing of a world, and as such, his death was sought by many good religions while his power was sought by many evil beings. He was pretty much the most popular person in the Realms (Forgotten Realms). The rest of the party was trying to protect him from harm while they figured out how to counter the prophecy.

In my version of FR, a massive war had caused the Elves to return from Evermeet, and in doing so they'd reclaimed the Cormanthyr and Myth Drannor. Well, while this party was visiting Myth Drannor a small cult organized the capture of the psion, using teleportation magic to deliver him to the cult's transport group: Orcs, bugbears, goblins, ogres, and trolls.

Now, I've got one player separated from the rest of the group, but I didn't want to put everyone out, and I didn't want the one player to just hang around until they caught up to him. So, I created a character sheet for each of the players consisting of one of each of the humanoids, and instructed them to play the psion's captors.

At first they were skeptical. They were completely unsure of how to handle this situation since I've never let them play any of the non-standard races, and we don't allow evil PCs since my kids are around all of the time. Then, they got really into it. I mean, they acted the parts superbly. It was one of the most entertaining gaming sessions we've ever had. I enjoyed it so much that I changed my plans and allowed them to take the psion all the way through Anaroch, deep into its northern mountains where they deposited the psion into the clutches of the cult. I was originally planning to allow the party to catch up with their evil goblinoid characters and slay them, rescuing the psion. It made for more work for me as I had to quickly create the mountain keep and further detail the cult, but it was well worth it.