The Tarrozian Campaign-Around the World in 20-30 years

I wrote the following notes in November of 2007 and the players are at this point are eight years and 9 months of real time into their journey.

At the conclusion of our most recent game session, my players told me that they have been discussing it and have decided that they want to confirm or disprove the the story that is coming from a certain Grand Wizard of very advanced age that his research has revealed that the world is indeed round and not flat as many have believed. As I have mentioned this game world is the size of Jupiter and as such it is much more difficult to detect the curvature of the world than it would be on an Earth-sized planet. None of them, however; including the wizard has any idea of how big the planet really is. I should note that this world has almost continuous cloud cover.

So during this week, they are making preparations for a planet circling journey which will begin when we play on Friday (tomorrow) and we will see how long it takes and whether or not they can survive the trip. The equatorial circumference of the world is 279,118 miles and since they are not going to be able to travel a perfect circle, figuring for detours, backtracking and what not I am using that full distance plus at least half for the length of their trek. Averaging out the distance traveled per day on land with the distance traveled per day on the sea I am guessing that this will take between 20 and 30 years of game time.

We have a party of 12 that is making the trip. We have the following:
1 Paladin - Human
1 Ranger - Human
3 Clerics - Human
1 Magic-Users - 1 Human
2 Fighting Men/Magic-Users - 2 Elves
4 Fighting-Men - 2 Human and 2 Dwarves

I will be introducing them and posting their stats. I am running it as an OD&D the 3 books campaign with bits and pieces from elsewhere. We are not running thieves in the campaign. I am not making any real adjustments to the way I ref but will just be throwing things at them as usual.

We have a party of 12 that is making the trip. We have the following:

All stats were rolled with my dice in front of me at the time of character creation 3d6 in order, they started at different times over a period of about 8 months Real World time:

1 Paladin - Human

Theron Braveheart - Str 12, Int 13, Wis 10, Con 10, Dex 11, Cha 17

1 Ranger - Human

Jeven Longwalker - Str 15, Int 12, Wis 13, Con 15, Dex 10, Cha 13

3 Clerics - Human

Cononelos The Wise - Str 10, Int 13, Wis 17, Con 10, Dex 9, Cha 14

Lucero The Just - Str 9, Int 10, Wis 14, Con 9, Dex 12, Cha 13

Kaler The Peacemaker - Str 12, Int 13, Wis 15, Con 9, Dex 9, Cha 16

1 Magic-Users - 1 Human

Knorwin The Quick - Str 9, Int 16, Wis 12, Con 9, Dex 17, Cha 13

2 Fighting Men/Magic-Users - 2 Elves

Tadrien Treewalker - Str 9, Int 15, Wis 11, Con 9, Dex 12, Cha 15

Elvomir Waverider - Str 10, Int 14, Wis 10, Con 10, Dex 14, Cha 13

4 Fighting-Men - 2 Human and 2 Dwarves

Yarlemieux The Fierce - Str 14, Int 9, Wis 9. Con 12, Dex 14, Cha 12

Ehbrecht The Mighty - Str 18 (90), Int 9, Wis 10, Con 16, Dex 12, Cha 12

Thiudimir The Builder- Str 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Con 17, Dex 15, Cha 10

Odotheus The Shipwright - Str 14, Int 11, Wis 14, Con 16, Dex 13, Cha 11

The highest that any of my players has gotten before retiring a character is 15th level and usually we retire them somewhere between 10th level and 12th or 13th level. In 36+ years[now 45+] (Chainmail Fantasy & OD&D combined) we have just chosen to not play any higher than that. However, this current adventure that we have started where they have decided to try to circumnavigate the world is going to take 20-30 years or more of game time if they survive to complete it. I have not yet posted all of their info, but they are a party of 12 that range from 8th level to 10th level for the humans and there are two dwarven fighters that have already maxed out their level at 7th level (house rule max level) and there are two elven fighting-men magic users that have maxed out their level at 5th level fighting men (house rule max level) and 9th level magic-users (house rule max level). My players are fine in starting a major adventure with characters that have already maxed out their levels. On the other hand if they survive the human characters are likely to reach levels that we have never played to IMC in all these years.

I use variable hit dice for the PCs and for monsters. Hit Dice range from d4 up to d12 depending on what we are talking about. A purple worm for instance uses d12 Hit Dice. A Hatchling Dragon is a d4, while an Ancient Dragon is a d12.