Campaign Setting

Introduction

The world of Final Fantasy 8 is broad and interesting and there are several options for running a campaign in it. The easiest option is to simply play a campaign that mimics the key points of the Playstation game either using Squall and his friends or using new characters in their place. Another option is play during the same time period, but not following the game's campaign. An additional option is presented here as well.

Squall's Story

This campaign would begin just prior to graduation of the most recent Balamb Garden class and should include the party attempting to capture their guardian forces for the first and the field exam for SeeD operatives (the battle at Dollet in the game). This campaign would continue all the way through to Time Compression and the battle against Ultimecia. The characters would become pivotal in the events of the world, much like Squall did, and a player or a close NPC would be chosen by Ultimecia to become a Sorceress (or Sorcerer). The characters would also become enemies of Galbadia, several Sorceresses, and rogue SeeD members.

This campaign option does not force a party to play the specific characters from the game, and Squall's connection to Ellone and the other party members through the orphanage is not necessary for the central story. However, the campaign could faithfully reproduce these elements easily if that is desired.

Same World, Different Story

This campaign involves any group on the planet during the events immiediately before and during the main story of Final Fantasy 8. What would it be like to be Galbadian soldier attacking Dollet? What would it be like protecting Ellone as members of White SeeD? What would it be like being soldiers for hire from the other Gardens? These questions can be answered with this campaign and the party could have an influence on the events of the story by interacting with Squall's group. Although they failed in the real story, maybe the party will have better luck stopping Squall than Seifer.

The possibilities of this campaign can stretch back many years to the Sorceress Wars before Esthar isolated itself from the world or to the rise of the Galbadia Republic and the conquest of Timber. This campaign can easily deal with the side stories presented in Final Fantasy 8, such as the results of the Lunar Cry on Esthar or the conquest of Balamb by the Galbadia Republic. While not direclty tied into the main story, this type of campaign can be both interesting and important as the party could alter the fate of the story, which allows for more freedom for the GM and satisfaction for the players, especially those that have played Final Fantasy 8.

The end of Time Compression and the official story of Final Fantasy 8 is hardly the end of the story. Campaigns involving the time closely following the end of Time Compression can interesting and would allow the GM to write his own story in this world.

The world has been dramatically changed since the beginning of the game's story and events afterwards would reflect that. The world has just suffered from a Lunar Cry, especially in the area just around Esthar; those monsters are on a rampage and could bring the Esthar military to its knees without help. The Galbadia Garden is still under the control of a faction of the Galbadian Military and are still very dangerous, even without the leadership of the possessed Sorceress Edea. General Calloway has led a change in the government of the Galbadia Republic, but these changes are new and the government is still unstable. Seifer still controls the powerful Lunatic Pandora (assuming in your story that he survived Gilgamesh’s attack just before Time Compression began), which is a very dangerous artifact. Balamb Garden, Trabia Garden, and White SeeD must rebuild and regroup to remain effective and there are still many other dangers in the world that need to be dealt with.

In a near-future campaign I created, I had SeeD leave Balamb Garden and build their new headquarters on the site of the Centra Ruins on the Centra Continent. From that site the campaign had the party scouring the world for the most powerful Sorceress of each type. Their main goals was to prevent Time Compression from ever happening again by placing the most powerful Sorceresses under the direct control of SeeD by either joining forces with good Sorceresses, inheriting the powers from reluctant Sorceresses, or imprisoning evil Sorceresses. This would prove to be quite a challenge, because these Sorceresses were very powerful and dangerous opponents, but the players needed to role-play well when they encountered a good Sorceress that did not wish to lose her powers, but was reluctant to join SeeD. And they had to deal with betrayal from within as a SeeD operative chosen to inherit a Sorceress’s power left the organization to begin a reign of terror. Again, the possibilities are endless.

Campaign Rules

The world of Final Fantasy 8 is a mixture of ancient weapons, magic, and modern technology. To best play in this world, I recommend using the rules as presented in a contemporary setting like Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition, Beyond the Supernatural 2nd Edition, or Nightbane. These worlds have both modern technology, like guns, and supernatural elements, like magic and monsters, which are present in the world of Final Fantasy 8

The campaign uses the occupation character class system, not used in Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition, but most of the OCCs should be taken from the Palladium Fantasy RPG as they best reflect the general occupations available to characters that do not want to play one of the OCCs created exclusively for this campaign. The starting equipment and some of the skills would have to be changed, but GM's should not find this too difficult.

There are two important pieces in the Final Fantasy 8 campaign that need to be addressed in this campaign rules section. The first piece are the elements and how they affect damage and creature's types. The second piece are the statuses and what affects they have on characters.

There are eight elements in the world of Final Fantasy 8 and they represent four groups of opposed pairs, with each of the elements opposing one of the other elements. The elements are Air, Dark, Earth, Energy, Fire, Holy, Ice, and Water. Creatures that have one these elements listed in their racial type line in their statistics is considered to be a creature of that element, which effects the damage it takes from its own element and from the opposed element, but such a creature does not necessarily always cause damage of its type. For example, a Fire Elemental is of the Fire element type and its attacks inflict fire damage, but another creature might be of the fire element type, but not inflict fire damage with each attack.

• Air: Inflicts double damage on Earth creatures and half damage against Air creatures.
• Dark: Inflicts double damage on non-supernatural creatures and half damage against supernatural creatures.
• Earth: Inflicts double damage on Air creatures and half damage against Earth creatures.
• Energy: Inflicts double damage on Water creatures and half damage against Energy creatures.
• Fire: Inflicts double damage on Ice creatures and half damage against Fire creatures.
• Holy: Inflicts double damage on supernatural creatures and half damage against non-supernatural creatures.
• Ice: Inflicts double damage on Fire creatures and half damage against Ice creatures.
• Water: Inflicts double damage on Energy creatures and half damage against Water creatures.

There are eleven status effects that a character can be affected with. The status effects are Asleep, Berserk, Blind, Confusion, Cursed, Haste, Paralyzed, Silence, Slowed, and Zombie. These status effects are often the result of spells or special abilities of monsters and magic items.

• Asleep: You fall asleep, you are helpless. If you are attacked, you will immiediately wake up.
• Berserk: Each turn you must attack an enemy with a physical melee attack or move closer to an enemy until you are in range of making a physical melee attack. You will not attack friends or allies unless they attack you.
• Blind: You can't see, you suffer -8 to all combat rolls.
• Confusion: There is a 75% chance that you take no action on your turn instead of performing the action that you tried.
• Cursed: Anytime you would take damage, you take double that damage instead.
• Haste: Gain +2 attacks per melee and +2 to all combat rolls.
• Paralyzed: You can't move, you are helpless.
• Silence: You can't speak, so you can't cast spells or use psionic powers that require talking.
• Slowed: You receive -2 attacks per melee, to a minimum of 1 attack per melee, and -3 to all combat rolls.
• Zombie: Spells that heal you inflict that amount of damage instead of healing you.