Fouredged Sword
2017-04-28, 01:54 PM
Darkness is insidious, dangerous... It claws at the mind with fear and more than that, eats at the soul. Darkness is not the absence of light, darkness is that which consumes light. Only in the City is it safe. Only in the City do the lanterns shine and drive the darkness out. Praise the light, for it protects us. Praise the Church of the Lantern for it protects the Light... Fear the delver, for the darkness clings to them even as they return to the safety we strive to protect.
- Unknown Light-bringer Evangelist preaching in Citymarket square.
In Depths of Darkness is a setting for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 or pathfinder, and the rules are primarily designed with 3.5 in mind. Conversion to Pathfinder should be fairly simple as most of In Depths is more setting and story information than additional rules.
In Depths is a setting that places harsh light surrounded by metaphysical darkness that is worse. The setting itself should remind people of the game Darkest Dungeon or Lovecraft. The setting is designed with an E10 power level, with level 8 characters being the assumed maximum power level for NPC's and a strong suggestion to limit players to ECL 6-10. It is a survival horror setting, with strong emphasis on danger lurking in every shadow and light being only somewhat safer. The setting itself is a human focused Underdark game with the elements of the Underdark being even more pronounced than standard 3.5. Darkness is a direct enemy that must be driven back and will advance to consume any space the light leaves even for an instant.
The game is based around The City, a island city in the middle of an underdark lake that is the only human city in the setting. Everything else is lost to history, forgotten ruins at best, infested sites of darkness at worst. Much of the setting revolves around that dichotomy, light and darkness. While good and evil exist in the setting, much more important is the Law and Chaos axis. The Law axis roughly correlates to Light and the Chaos axis to Darkness. Many classes that previously required alignment on the Good/Evil axis are relaxed and now operate on the Law/Chaos axis only. Paladins can now be any Lawful. Clerics are restricted to not be neutral on the Law/Chaos axis.
Here are the main elements of the setting
Light - The Light is a metaphysical element and the center of the only human church. Humans worship the light to protect them from the dark. The City is never dark, not in one corner, not for one moment. To allow darkness is to cut a hole into the defenses of the city and let The Darkness in. As such, The City is run by the Church and it's Lantern-bearers, paladins in the church order. Light is the element of Order. Light brings vision, structure, control. The element associated with light is fire, and fire is used to drive away the darkness. The lesser holy servants of light are Lantern Archons, LN outsiders. These are the only light beings that can be commonly called, though other outsiders with elements of Fire or light magic are appropriate for Planer Binding and Planer Ally spells. Fire elementals are also considered holy but are more associated with the order of Lantern-Bearers than the priests of the church.
Darkness - Opposed to the light is the The Dark, or The Darkness, or The Hungry Dark, as it is referred to in various Light texts. It exists not as a church, though some heretical humans worship it in hopes of being spared, but as the all prevailing magical darkness that fills the setting. Every space is considered to be filled by magical darkness unless lit by something. Dark vision does not allow you to see through this darkness unless specifically stated by the ability. If the need to see was bad enough, The Dark eats at the soul. Any creature without the Dark subtype that is standing in shadowy or lower illumination must make a DC 14 willsave or become shaken. Total darkness the save DC to 18 and applies the Frightened condition. True Darkness increases the save to 22 and applies the panicked condition. True Darkness is a new light level that is unique to the setting and is one level darker than total darkness. It exists in the presence of many of the more powerful dark creatures or in places tainted by darkness. Even the blind can feel the darkness around them, and act accordingly.
Worse still darkness is not the lack of light, rather a physical miasma. You cannot see THOUGH darkness, rather only though light. With the only exception of the brightest of lights you cannot see though any darkness less than shadowy and you must treat any thing you target as the worst level of darkness your line of sight passes through. You cannot see a lantern until you pass into at least it's shadowy light area. Two people holding lights can see one another only when their zones of shadowy illumination meet. The exception of course is the creatures that can see though darkness. They can sense light at great distances, though the majority have trouble seeing into the light the way beings of light peer into shadowy darkness.
Worse still the darkness is not empty. Anywhere there is total darkness or True Darkness it is possible for Dark Spawn to form. These are darkness elementals that live to feed of all creatures that cling to the light. They are very dangerous with the ability to extingush non-magical lights and, for the most powerful, suppress or even destroy magical lights of insufficient power. Safety can only exist if no space is left unlit. Though dangerous, these creatures are repelled by light, suffering penalties when in even shadowy illumination. Small Darkspawn are destroyed outright by bright illumination.
Arcane magic is the study or innate ability to use Darkness. As such it is considered evil, and while it is not completely forbidden, any use of it within the bounds of The City or any village is outright banned and harshly punished. Some Clerical magic is dark in nature. Any spell that deals cold damage or creates darkness or undead is Dark in nature and will not be granted by the Light. Some worship the dark in their madness though, and are forbidden magics to create light or fire.
Things of note
The City
Currency
The main resource in In Depths is crystal. Crystal is solidified light in the form of magic and is used as currency. It physically is a soft stone like material that is translucent yellow and shines with an inner light when held up to a light source. Players should track their lose wealth in the form of chips, shards, stones, and or jewels. Chips = copper, Shards = silver, Stones = gold with jewels worth 50gp. Chips are small flakes the size of a fingernail clipping. Shards are ten times larger, roughly the size of a fingernail. Stones are pebble sized generally, but vary is size and value but most used for commerce are generally the size of a marble and is the standard for stating number of stone. A jewel is any piece of crystal large enough to cast continual flame with (a roughly 2" sphere), and is the default denomination for large transactions. The values given for wealth are by weight and it should be assumed that players have no problem cutting crystal into smaller pieces as needed to make small transactions. A jewel weighs 1lb and smaller denominations have the same weight per value. An experienced individual can strike a stone or jewel with any hard flat object and turn it into shards or stones and snap a shard into chips with their fingers. Any divine caster associated with light can meld crystal into larger pieces by simply holding the crystal loosely and focusing for a moment. Most clerics form simple beads or balls, but there are artists who choose to shape crystal into art, though this is seen as wasteful outside the church.
Crystal is the only material used in the crafting of magic. Replace all material components with the GP equivalent value in Crystal. Light magic is bolstered by the crystal while dark magic feeds on it. Necromancy uses crystal to make false life just as light magic can, with sufficient crystal, raise the dead (though this is VERY rarely done. People are cheap and always breed more, crystal is rare).
It also resonates with magic directly. A chip of crystal can be used as an optional material component to add 1Cl to any healing, harming, light, fire, cold or darkness spell. A stone may be used as an optional component in any healing, harming, light, fire, cold or darkness spell with limited duration to extend the effect. A Jewel can be used as an optional focus for any healing, harming, light, fire, cold or darkness spell cast on the Jewel itself and the spell is treated as 1 level higher once it is in effect. All of these effects can be combined, but do not stack for multiple uses of a single material component or focus or for single spells with multiple subtypes. The ability to use shards to heighten spells should not be considered when determining if a character meets a prerequisite.
The City
The City is the center of the setting, literally. It sits in an Underdark lake large enough to almost be a sea. It is an hour by boat to reach the shore from the City in any direction. It is said, at the dawn of man when The Light first bloomed and pushed order and truth into the world it did so where The City now stands. Though humanity once existed solely on the island that has become the City it has grown too large and how the farms and pastures that once existed have been built over by homes and industry.
Surrounding the City is Shadowmoor, the lake. The waters are considered death and anything that sinks deeper than the light reaches is considered lost. The waters themselves absorb magical light effects and every round any magical light effect must make a CL check equal to 5x the depth in feet or be dispelled. The water eats light itself. Mundane light does not penetrate more than inches and magical light merely generates shadowy illumination and even that only out to 5X the spell level in feet. None would dare risk rowing the waters if the City did not exist directly in the middle. While the darkness around the lake is just as deep as in all the caverns the City itself, and the Lighthouses placed in eight points on the edge of the lake, are bright enough that they can be seen from any shore. The City shines as a indistinct blob of glow like the sun though heavy clouds. The Lighthouses like fireflies in fog, visible only for the darkness they stand out from. Boats are generally between the size of a three man rowboat to at the largest barges roughly 40'x20' used to ship food and goods to the city. Rowing the crossing is a harrowing affair, the darkness surrounds you completely save for The City and Lighthouses as navigation. The paddling is slow and quiet work with a keen ear for the sounds of other vessels that can appear out of the darkness with shocking suddenness if you are inattentive. Worse yet, while sound carries over the water it is unlikely that any can see you well enough to attempt rescue. A boat that looses it's light is rarely seen again unless the desperate crew can swiftly paddle to one side or the other. Boats disappear. Splashes that cannot be matched to boat oars are common and seem to follow boats, and the darkness stirs where the edge of the light is eaten.
Around the lake are the eight Outposts and the outer villages. The eight Outposts are where the Lighthouses shine to allow navigation over the Shadowmoor. They are small forts built from the dark stones of the rocky shore with a single tower on the side towards the lake. At the top of each tower is a jewel of crystal the size of a man, lit forever with powerful light magic beyond any but the church to create. Lantern-Bearers man these forts and the docks nearby and keep it and them lit at all times and maintain the routs between the Outposts and the outer villages as safe as they are able, though they are too numerous and spread out to keep all but the most used lit.
The outer villages are the numerous homesteads and farming villages that feed and clothe The City. While once the island supported itself, over time crowding pushed people over into the surrounding shores and while it was once only a refuge for the desperate it is now relatively safe with the Outpost system ensuring at least mostly safe passage between the villages and The City. Without the villages The City would starve. Without The City there would be no Lantern-bearers to protect the villages. The villages mostly produce flax, grain and vegetables, with meat of any variety a rarity. Hogs, chicken and cattle are raised, but without pasture land they are kept to small numbers. Horses and donkeys are nonexistent and the only beast of burden are oxen, though most carts are pulled by men due to their rarity. The prices are not adjusted from the standard price, the common outervillager is unlikely to have more than barely enough food to feed themselves. Crystal is a rarely seen and eagerly accepted value. The most common form of protein is fish caught in the fishtraps near the shore. Baited with scraps they bring in much needed calories. The church discourages this, but realize that without fish people would starve. They would end it if they could. Nothing good can possibly come out of those waters.
The Outer Villages, far from the priests of The City, fester Heresy of Darkness. Those who live so close to The Dark are those who most easily give into the madness it offers. Sorcerers and warlocks born in shadow or wizards who foolishly seek to study it, all tend to find themselves in the outer villages where they can practice their crafts in hiding.
And finally past the Villages are the Depths. The Depths are the spaces past the furthest lanterns of the outer villages and into the twisting tunnels and passages that make up the space outside the control of man. Near the edges the paths are marked and patrolled on occasion, but it is said that in places light does not touch for too long the stones themselves shift. It cannot be mapped nor have any tried.
What is known is that in those depths are treasure. Crystal collected by long ago peoples, cities long lost to darkness, all there for the taking. Also there is danger. Shadowspawn are constant. Worse are the mysterious enslavers that can snare an man's mind and walk him willing into the dark to never be seen again, or the darklings, who's arrows find flesh from out of the darkness without warning. Trolls and orcs in chains under the command of the Deep ones fight as slaves almost as fiercely as their masters. Nothing that lives without light can be trusted. There are a thousand ways to die in the Depths, and if you do the Darkness will consume your soul and your bones will rise only to seek out those who still have light and drag them into the shadows to join you.
- Unknown Light-bringer Evangelist preaching in Citymarket square.
In Depths of Darkness is a setting for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 or pathfinder, and the rules are primarily designed with 3.5 in mind. Conversion to Pathfinder should be fairly simple as most of In Depths is more setting and story information than additional rules.
In Depths is a setting that places harsh light surrounded by metaphysical darkness that is worse. The setting itself should remind people of the game Darkest Dungeon or Lovecraft. The setting is designed with an E10 power level, with level 8 characters being the assumed maximum power level for NPC's and a strong suggestion to limit players to ECL 6-10. It is a survival horror setting, with strong emphasis on danger lurking in every shadow and light being only somewhat safer. The setting itself is a human focused Underdark game with the elements of the Underdark being even more pronounced than standard 3.5. Darkness is a direct enemy that must be driven back and will advance to consume any space the light leaves even for an instant.
The game is based around The City, a island city in the middle of an underdark lake that is the only human city in the setting. Everything else is lost to history, forgotten ruins at best, infested sites of darkness at worst. Much of the setting revolves around that dichotomy, light and darkness. While good and evil exist in the setting, much more important is the Law and Chaos axis. The Law axis roughly correlates to Light and the Chaos axis to Darkness. Many classes that previously required alignment on the Good/Evil axis are relaxed and now operate on the Law/Chaos axis only. Paladins can now be any Lawful. Clerics are restricted to not be neutral on the Law/Chaos axis.
Here are the main elements of the setting
Light - The Light is a metaphysical element and the center of the only human church. Humans worship the light to protect them from the dark. The City is never dark, not in one corner, not for one moment. To allow darkness is to cut a hole into the defenses of the city and let The Darkness in. As such, The City is run by the Church and it's Lantern-bearers, paladins in the church order. Light is the element of Order. Light brings vision, structure, control. The element associated with light is fire, and fire is used to drive away the darkness. The lesser holy servants of light are Lantern Archons, LN outsiders. These are the only light beings that can be commonly called, though other outsiders with elements of Fire or light magic are appropriate for Planer Binding and Planer Ally spells. Fire elementals are also considered holy but are more associated with the order of Lantern-Bearers than the priests of the church.
Darkness - Opposed to the light is the The Dark, or The Darkness, or The Hungry Dark, as it is referred to in various Light texts. It exists not as a church, though some heretical humans worship it in hopes of being spared, but as the all prevailing magical darkness that fills the setting. Every space is considered to be filled by magical darkness unless lit by something. Dark vision does not allow you to see through this darkness unless specifically stated by the ability. If the need to see was bad enough, The Dark eats at the soul. Any creature without the Dark subtype that is standing in shadowy or lower illumination must make a DC 14 willsave or become shaken. Total darkness the save DC to 18 and applies the Frightened condition. True Darkness increases the save to 22 and applies the panicked condition. True Darkness is a new light level that is unique to the setting and is one level darker than total darkness. It exists in the presence of many of the more powerful dark creatures or in places tainted by darkness. Even the blind can feel the darkness around them, and act accordingly.
Worse still darkness is not the lack of light, rather a physical miasma. You cannot see THOUGH darkness, rather only though light. With the only exception of the brightest of lights you cannot see though any darkness less than shadowy and you must treat any thing you target as the worst level of darkness your line of sight passes through. You cannot see a lantern until you pass into at least it's shadowy light area. Two people holding lights can see one another only when their zones of shadowy illumination meet. The exception of course is the creatures that can see though darkness. They can sense light at great distances, though the majority have trouble seeing into the light the way beings of light peer into shadowy darkness.
Worse still the darkness is not empty. Anywhere there is total darkness or True Darkness it is possible for Dark Spawn to form. These are darkness elementals that live to feed of all creatures that cling to the light. They are very dangerous with the ability to extingush non-magical lights and, for the most powerful, suppress or even destroy magical lights of insufficient power. Safety can only exist if no space is left unlit. Though dangerous, these creatures are repelled by light, suffering penalties when in even shadowy illumination. Small Darkspawn are destroyed outright by bright illumination.
Arcane magic is the study or innate ability to use Darkness. As such it is considered evil, and while it is not completely forbidden, any use of it within the bounds of The City or any village is outright banned and harshly punished. Some Clerical magic is dark in nature. Any spell that deals cold damage or creates darkness or undead is Dark in nature and will not be granted by the Light. Some worship the dark in their madness though, and are forbidden magics to create light or fire.
Things of note
The City
Currency
The main resource in In Depths is crystal. Crystal is solidified light in the form of magic and is used as currency. It physically is a soft stone like material that is translucent yellow and shines with an inner light when held up to a light source. Players should track their lose wealth in the form of chips, shards, stones, and or jewels. Chips = copper, Shards = silver, Stones = gold with jewels worth 50gp. Chips are small flakes the size of a fingernail clipping. Shards are ten times larger, roughly the size of a fingernail. Stones are pebble sized generally, but vary is size and value but most used for commerce are generally the size of a marble and is the standard for stating number of stone. A jewel is any piece of crystal large enough to cast continual flame with (a roughly 2" sphere), and is the default denomination for large transactions. The values given for wealth are by weight and it should be assumed that players have no problem cutting crystal into smaller pieces as needed to make small transactions. A jewel weighs 1lb and smaller denominations have the same weight per value. An experienced individual can strike a stone or jewel with any hard flat object and turn it into shards or stones and snap a shard into chips with their fingers. Any divine caster associated with light can meld crystal into larger pieces by simply holding the crystal loosely and focusing for a moment. Most clerics form simple beads or balls, but there are artists who choose to shape crystal into art, though this is seen as wasteful outside the church.
Crystal is the only material used in the crafting of magic. Replace all material components with the GP equivalent value in Crystal. Light magic is bolstered by the crystal while dark magic feeds on it. Necromancy uses crystal to make false life just as light magic can, with sufficient crystal, raise the dead (though this is VERY rarely done. People are cheap and always breed more, crystal is rare).
It also resonates with magic directly. A chip of crystal can be used as an optional material component to add 1Cl to any healing, harming, light, fire, cold or darkness spell. A stone may be used as an optional component in any healing, harming, light, fire, cold or darkness spell with limited duration to extend the effect. A Jewel can be used as an optional focus for any healing, harming, light, fire, cold or darkness spell cast on the Jewel itself and the spell is treated as 1 level higher once it is in effect. All of these effects can be combined, but do not stack for multiple uses of a single material component or focus or for single spells with multiple subtypes. The ability to use shards to heighten spells should not be considered when determining if a character meets a prerequisite.
The City
The City is the center of the setting, literally. It sits in an Underdark lake large enough to almost be a sea. It is an hour by boat to reach the shore from the City in any direction. It is said, at the dawn of man when The Light first bloomed and pushed order and truth into the world it did so where The City now stands. Though humanity once existed solely on the island that has become the City it has grown too large and how the farms and pastures that once existed have been built over by homes and industry.
Surrounding the City is Shadowmoor, the lake. The waters are considered death and anything that sinks deeper than the light reaches is considered lost. The waters themselves absorb magical light effects and every round any magical light effect must make a CL check equal to 5x the depth in feet or be dispelled. The water eats light itself. Mundane light does not penetrate more than inches and magical light merely generates shadowy illumination and even that only out to 5X the spell level in feet. None would dare risk rowing the waters if the City did not exist directly in the middle. While the darkness around the lake is just as deep as in all the caverns the City itself, and the Lighthouses placed in eight points on the edge of the lake, are bright enough that they can be seen from any shore. The City shines as a indistinct blob of glow like the sun though heavy clouds. The Lighthouses like fireflies in fog, visible only for the darkness they stand out from. Boats are generally between the size of a three man rowboat to at the largest barges roughly 40'x20' used to ship food and goods to the city. Rowing the crossing is a harrowing affair, the darkness surrounds you completely save for The City and Lighthouses as navigation. The paddling is slow and quiet work with a keen ear for the sounds of other vessels that can appear out of the darkness with shocking suddenness if you are inattentive. Worse yet, while sound carries over the water it is unlikely that any can see you well enough to attempt rescue. A boat that looses it's light is rarely seen again unless the desperate crew can swiftly paddle to one side or the other. Boats disappear. Splashes that cannot be matched to boat oars are common and seem to follow boats, and the darkness stirs where the edge of the light is eaten.
Around the lake are the eight Outposts and the outer villages. The eight Outposts are where the Lighthouses shine to allow navigation over the Shadowmoor. They are small forts built from the dark stones of the rocky shore with a single tower on the side towards the lake. At the top of each tower is a jewel of crystal the size of a man, lit forever with powerful light magic beyond any but the church to create. Lantern-Bearers man these forts and the docks nearby and keep it and them lit at all times and maintain the routs between the Outposts and the outer villages as safe as they are able, though they are too numerous and spread out to keep all but the most used lit.
The outer villages are the numerous homesteads and farming villages that feed and clothe The City. While once the island supported itself, over time crowding pushed people over into the surrounding shores and while it was once only a refuge for the desperate it is now relatively safe with the Outpost system ensuring at least mostly safe passage between the villages and The City. Without the villages The City would starve. Without The City there would be no Lantern-bearers to protect the villages. The villages mostly produce flax, grain and vegetables, with meat of any variety a rarity. Hogs, chicken and cattle are raised, but without pasture land they are kept to small numbers. Horses and donkeys are nonexistent and the only beast of burden are oxen, though most carts are pulled by men due to their rarity. The prices are not adjusted from the standard price, the common outervillager is unlikely to have more than barely enough food to feed themselves. Crystal is a rarely seen and eagerly accepted value. The most common form of protein is fish caught in the fishtraps near the shore. Baited with scraps they bring in much needed calories. The church discourages this, but realize that without fish people would starve. They would end it if they could. Nothing good can possibly come out of those waters.
The Outer Villages, far from the priests of The City, fester Heresy of Darkness. Those who live so close to The Dark are those who most easily give into the madness it offers. Sorcerers and warlocks born in shadow or wizards who foolishly seek to study it, all tend to find themselves in the outer villages where they can practice their crafts in hiding.
And finally past the Villages are the Depths. The Depths are the spaces past the furthest lanterns of the outer villages and into the twisting tunnels and passages that make up the space outside the control of man. Near the edges the paths are marked and patrolled on occasion, but it is said that in places light does not touch for too long the stones themselves shift. It cannot be mapped nor have any tried.
What is known is that in those depths are treasure. Crystal collected by long ago peoples, cities long lost to darkness, all there for the taking. Also there is danger. Shadowspawn are constant. Worse are the mysterious enslavers that can snare an man's mind and walk him willing into the dark to never be seen again, or the darklings, who's arrows find flesh from out of the darkness without warning. Trolls and orcs in chains under the command of the Deep ones fight as slaves almost as fiercely as their masters. Nothing that lives without light can be trusted. There are a thousand ways to die in the Depths, and if you do the Darkness will consume your soul and your bones will rise only to seek out those who still have light and drag them into the shadows to join you.