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View Full Version : [Mini-Setting, in progress] Nocturne



Lord_Gareth
2009-02-23, 01:11 PM
"It's a dead man's party
Who could ask for more?
Everybody's comin', leave your body at the door."
- Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo

History and Society
Nestled in the mountains is a quiet village where the people are friendly, the food is good, and life is simple. The folk there work hard, welcome strangers to their tables, and gladly send their sons and daughters to serve for the greater good of the kingdom when the nation calls.

And most of them are undead.

To many normal, law-abiding citizens, the village of Nocturne is a story to threaten one's children with, but the Night Village (as it is called in the outer world) is quite real, even if it doesn't quite match up to the legends told about it. A place where living and unliving live in surprising harmony, Nocturne is, in a very real sense, protected in a bubble of its own naievity and unintentional power. Like an omnipotent child, Nocturne is treated with respect because it is utterly unaware that, should it try, it could easily overrun a greater part of the rest of the world.

History: Nocturne began as a sort of breeding pen for a cabal of necromancers. It was founded to hold the various humanoids they used for manual labor and in their experiments, and it eventually grew into a culture of its own. Eventually, the necromancers grew into a mighty organization that attracted wizards, priests, assasins, and other beings obsessed with death, and they began recruiting from the village and leaving their apprentices there to learn some of the more practical aspects of death.

This semi-symbiotic relationship was shattered when an army of celestials was summoned to clear the mountains of evil. Unable to withstand the onslaught, the necromancers hid their work in the village and fled, only to be hunted down and ended. What could have been the start of further evil in the mountains was instead, by a strange twist of fate, the founding of Nocturne.

An apprentice discovered some of his former master's notes, and therein found an incomplete ritual for the binding of the restless dead. Adding his own flair, the apprentice attempted it and was horrified to discover that he had called forth uncontrolled spirits. But they did not destroy him - indeed, several greeted him warmly and embraced him.

The apprentice had created free-willed undead, free of the hellish hunger that their bretheren shared, and thus were the traditions of Nocturne begun. He shared his work with the other mages and priests left in the small village, who agreed to limit their work to such benign beings in order to avoid another purging. Since then, with the help of the dearly departed, Nocturne has been thriving.

Current Sketch: Nocturne is a thriving village of nearly five hundred living members, with over four thousand undead citizens (most of whom are ghosts and wraiths). Its most thriving industry is mining, and it exports iron and mithril to the royal foundries in exchange for foodstuffs and other goods. Each child in Nocturne is watched over by one of their ancestors, and several celebrated holidays belong to cultures long since thought dead.

Though primarily human, Nocturne has sizeable dwarf, elf, and orc communities, with the occasional savage humanoid as well (ogres and gnolls, generally). Nocturne takes a very lax approach to citizenship, and the peace is more or less constant. Occasionally a war tries to sweep through the village, only to be stymied by furious counterassaults by the undead residents.

Nocturne is ruled by a theocracy, led by a council of liches and the Dirgesinger. For the past six hundred years, Nocturne has been ruled by Krialla Brightone, a dwarven lich-cleric of Pelor, "Lanky" Lavlin Venn, a human lich-cleric devoted to Nerull, and Kolask Brin, a lich-necromancer. The Dirgesinger, by tradition, is always a living bard, and is ironically the spiritual identity of the village, serving as a symbol of the bridge between life and death. The people of Nocturne treat both life and death with great respect and celebration; births are celebrated by the entire village, and Nocturne funerals are legend across the continent.

Unless they indicate otherwise, citizens of Nocturne are raised into an incorporeal undead (again, typically a ghost or wraith) upon their death, to continue their participation in society. The unliving are treated just as they were in life, with obvious concessions made to their condition (hugging the ghost of one's grandmother is obviously impossible), and are not denied any rights on account of their condition.

Nocturne boasts a few corporeal undead, most notably the vampiress Lillianna Croix, the captain of the local militia. Though they still hunger terribly, their needs are met (Lillianna's many lovers are a subject of much good-natured teasing) and they are treated otherwise as good, law-abiding citizens unless proven otherwise.

Undead created in Nocturne retain any alignment they had in life. Clerics from Nocturne always rebuke undead and channel negative energy, regardless of alignment. Nocturne boasts few paladins, but they, too, rebuke undead instead of turning them. Nocturnian paladins gain the ability to cast animate dead once per day as a spell-like ability instead of a mount.

Nocturne Feats: Natives of Nocturne treat a few feats differently than other characters do, and they have access to certain feats that other characters might not.

The following feats have altered prerequisites for Nocturne characters:

- Tomb-Born feats: Nocturne natives of any alignment may take these feats.

- Divine Feats: Nocturne natives obviously may not take any feats that require the ability to turn (rather than rebuke) undead.

Monster Entries: To come

Important NPCs: To come.

DracoDei
2009-02-23, 05:40 PM
I like this. Are you sure they wouldn't swap over to deathless eventually?

Lich in the service of Pelor gets a smile from me (sorrow not QUITE a LOL).

As for not hugging granny, I suspect that ghost touch gloves would be popular items in the area...

If you go by GP value, then Black Onyx is going to be the primary import unless they mine it locally or have found a way to trade off the control they lose for a reduced cost of the material component.


Undead created in Nocturne retain any alignment they had in life.
It seems to me that that would require an epic/major artifact enchantment of the terrain itself. Say rather that this effect applies to necromancers trained in the area.

You might want to consider a local NPC PrC that grants ability to move further than ones space into unworked stone when eithereal/incorporeal. Would let the undead map out ore veins better... maybe the capstone would be that CHA times per month they may make someone similarly incorporeal as long as they remain in contact (and contact can be established in the first place. This would let them rescue living comrades from cave-ins...

Also, a ghost-touch candle-stick and/or canary cage could be good for scouting out dangerous areas.

Lord_Gareth
2009-02-24, 08:34 AM
Thanks for the comments and questions. There's a few answers forthcoming:

On Deathless - I have no real issues with the Deathless type, but Nocturne would be surprised as hell to hear that they exist and would likely scoff at the story until actually confronted with one. As far as most Nocturne citizens are concerned, there's nothing wrong with the undead - or negative energy - anyway.

On Black Onyx - There is a large market for it in Nocturne, especially among necromancers and farmers (go go undead plow horses!), the citizens are not raised with animate dead or any of the create undead spells. More on the Ritual of Rebirth to come later on.

On the Raising of the Dead - Nocturne itself does it, thanks to a rather extensive degree of magical residue, magical experimentation, and deliberate alterations that add up to a unique environment around the village. More on the Necromatrix to come later on.

On the PrC - No.

DracoDei
2009-02-24, 05:41 PM
Ok, the history just didn't seem to mesh with a permanent property of the geographic location... I mean an apprentice working from notes pulling off a new version of Create Undead is pretty cool, but permanently altering the terrain the first go round without some pretty cinematic and destructive fluff doesn't quite fit to me.