I have 2 D&D campaigns running post-End of Time event: Wilderlands 5th Iteration and the shared Psychedelic Deadlands / Dreamer of Dreams (co-DMed with Dr. John PhD), both running 5th edition 2024 rules. The new Wilderlands game incorporates 5e recreations of the original Judges Guild by Goodman Games (Caverns of Thracia and City State of the Invincible Overlord) and Frog God Games (Tegel Manor) with plans to very loosely lay "Tula, City of Mages" over the 5e Historica Arcanum "The City of Crescent" (Victorian-era Istanbul with magic) from Metis Creative. My Psychedelic Deadlands piece of the shared campaign is set in a nascent Outlands centered - again very loosely - around Monty Cook Games 5e version of Ptolus, City By the Spire and surrounded spreading outward, among other things, with hacked bits from the Ultra Violet Grasslands (2nd Edition) by Luka Rejec and Numenera, also by Monty Cook.
My longtime gaming and jamming buddy J.A.S. has moved to a big piece of property waaaay up in the higher foothills California side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The makes it quite a hoof to journey up there for D&D and playing music. After our first visit there we had an idea that we could re-enact anew one of our old gaming traditions: the annual camping trip (albeit with the comfortable situation of electricity, running water, and no Park Rangers).
We had left our New Old Weird World campaign hanging just at the time our heroes were on the the Mind Flayers' home planet of Penumbra searching for the Annulus psionic nullity device with pursuing Githyanki warriors barking at the party's collective heels. I thought a great idea would be to have an overnight affair up there with the gang for guitar jam and a tournament-style session of gaming to resolve the mess of the Mind Flayers traveling back in time to re-enslave the Gith origin peoples.
However... it seems the New Old Weird World campaign must have started before the end of time event, although definitely far in the future of the campaign multiverse and seemingly near the end of time event itself.
During the seminal sessions (heh, heh ... he said “semen”) of the New Old Weird World campaign the party met Sick Rick’s old PC “Ranger Rick” from the Original 90s Blipping Campaign. At the time Ranger Rick had been for “hundreds of years” magically kept in an undying state deep in a dungeon designed to keep something in (Deep Carbon Observatory by Patrick Stuart). When he encountered the party he offered a warning, “They’re here from the shadow,” then used the dispel magic ability from the Blipping Campaign’s Amethyst Throne to remove the magic keeping him “alive” and permitting him to die.
Now I’ve looked back to see where we left of the Blipping Campaign PCs. This was before we rolled characters for a “less good” Blipping Campaign in December 1997 when I began to have other priorities... I don’t have any notes from the last session we gamed with the original Blipping PCs, but there is a video (oh god yes) from the second-to-last session titled “The Astral Asshole” no less.
This also happens to be the last video from our classic AD&D 1st Edition period of gaming which lasted from December 1977 through February 2005. (Out of preservation for our battered original rule books and to have some welcome updates to the somewhat confusing original Gygaxian rules, whenever we’ve played “AD&D”-style since we’ve used some retro-clone.)
Now that I am getting closer to the End of Time event, I'll also note (again) the New Old Weird World Campaign wasn’t the only party of PC adventurers who had reached the Mind Flayer home world of Penumbra. Our “Blipping #2” campaign from a far-future Wilderlands had discovered in undead caverns on Ghenrek IV an Illithid Spelljamming Nautiloid ship which had an autopilot taking that party to Penumbra.
So there are two parties on Penumbra as the Illithids attempt to flee. Could there be two sets of time-traveling Illithids? There are for sure the Illithids planning to escape the End of Time event by time travel to the past. But there are also the ancestors of those Illithids fleeing the past back to the future. Should they meet, hmmmmmmm...
