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View Full Version : My Pathfinder Campaign Can't Have This Much Backstory - A Loredump in Infinity Parts



Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-05, 10:50 PM
Okay so, I've received popular demand (like no less than two guys have asked me) and since it's just moldering away in folders otherwise I've decided to share with you all the lore, maps and scenarios of my Pathfinder campaign, which I dubbed The Eastwylde (that's pronounced "wild" just with a fake Renaissance Y. I love fake-Renaissance Ys so get used to that).

This is NOT a campaign journal. My campaign has gone on over a year and is closing in on 30 sessions. Just the idea of giving each session a detailed writeup totally unmanned me back when I was planning on sharing it on my blog. I may refer back to what my players have done or how they reacted/changed things here or there but basically I will present my setting "as it was" before the PCs began messing with it, only with all the details that have accrued as I was forced to answer questions and think things out more closely in-game. When I started the campaign I didn't know how many Shield Baronies there were, hadn't come up with the backstory of Beatrix, or defined much of anything about the City of Rubene, Redmarch or the Kingdom of Pellegrine. Believe it or not this operation is far more haphazard and ramshackle than I make it look!

MY PRECIOUS CAMPAIGN SETTING

The Backstory

I don't think my players retained anything from the initial one-page handout I gave them a year ago. They have picked up some of this (mainly the Legend of Beatrix) through my repeating it session after session, which is about all you can hope for.

I could go aeons back into the past and talk about the Birth of the Orcs, the Death of the Vanir, the War of the Giants and Elves, or even before that---the Elemental Age when the Dragons wrote the rules of magic, carving its first syllables into stone with their claws. I could talk about the Fall of the Elves, the Rise and Fall of the Hobgoblins, or the First Empire of Man and the birth of the Cult of the Saints under its aegis. But that's all so much crap and if you just mash up Lord of the Rings, Elder Scrolls, real history, anime, and squint that's basically what it is. I was deliberately trying to be sort of vanilla with this setting so all the High Fantasy tropes are there and basically about what you'd expect.

Things get interesting 500 years ago. At this point the First Empire has disintegrated into proto-feudal kingdoms and burgeoning city-states. Think 11th Century, loosely. That's when the Giants return.

All you need to know to begin with is that the Giants were trapped underground by the Elves for a very, very long time, and 500 years ago they burst out from the Mountains of the North and the Seas of the South, all out of bubblegum as the saying goes. All the UGo'I*---Orcs, Drow, Hobgoblins, Dragons---glommed on to the Pain Train and had a grand old time smashing and burning the cities of Men and Elves. Things were super-super serious.


*Usual Gang o' Idiots

Enter this chick Beatrix. She's super important. She's basically Wizard Jesus and She Sacrificed Her Life to Stop the Giants but Also Became God and She Loves You. Yes I totally ripped the name/broad idea from that one Greg Egan story. The one with the penises. Anyway: Beatrix is the central figure of The Cult of Saints, which is the formal name for western humanity's currently-mainstream religion. The story goes that at the eleventh hour she cast a spell that banished the Giants back beneath the earth, at the cost of her own life. But the spell's power ascended Beatrix's consciousness to the heavens where she Became One With the Universe.
https://i.imgur.com/CFDYiwb.jpg
Nobody today knows what Beatrix really looked like, but artists tend to assume she was mega-hawt.

Sidebar: In general because I am an insane stickler I don't use the words Church or Crusade (and I try to avoid Priest) in-setting as there's no reason for those words to have developed. I don't think my friends have noticed. The Cult of Saints does have Crusade-equivalents but they're called Rampages. People talk about "The Great Northern Rampage" and "The Dasanian Rampage."

Back to history: so the Giants have been defeated, Beatrix has vanished and most of the other heroes are dead. There are a lot of displaced people, devastated regions and completely demolished political orders to rebuild. So naturally, people start fighting.

Least-effected by the chaos was the Mageocracies of the East, also known as the Wizard Cities or the Mage Republics. This collection of City-States, formerly part of the wealthy core of the First Empire, ruled swathes of fertile country fanning out from the vast chain of peaks called the White Mountains, which slash across the northeast like a snowy sword. Chains of hills and gorges shielded the Mageocracies from the worst of the Return. These Republics were rich, arrogant, and steeped in arcane learning. Each city had permanent gates to the Planes Beyond Earth, and other wonders. In the wake of the Return, they were poised to become the most important nations anywhere on the continent. There was just the little question of which wizard-dynasty would be primus inter pares in The New Order.

You would think with a bunch of INT 24-27 guys at the helm things wouldn't have deteriorated so badly. But ultima ratio regis it was, and among the cities of the East erupted what became known as the Third Mage War. Thanks to the Return of the Giants there was no more Arcane Order, no neutral body of high-level Wizards to stop the madness. Fortunately for the exhausted West, the war was too brief to envelop the rest of the world. When you've got a bunch of dudes Meteor Swarm-ing each other and dropping Poison Cloud all over, things resolve fast.

Not one of the Mage Republics survived the war, and most of the small towns in-between their high walls were annihilated as well. From hundreds of miles away, people in the slowly-revivifying western realms could see discolored atmospheres blossoming over the eastern uplands, storms of Wild Magic created by the destructive powers unleashed by hellbent Magearchs. Wild Magic mutates and twists whatever it touches, and throngs of refugees poured out of the hills and swards fleeing noxious arcane airs. This was known as The Flight From The East. For the next 400 years the East was abandoned by Man for fear of the lingering radiation. As the centuries went on the forests reclaimed the remnants of crumbled cities and roadways, until much of the East's rifts and dells were covered in tree stands, and the region took on a new name: THE EASTWYLDE (woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo)

Short Thing I Wrote on the Destruction of the Magearchies

You have to bear in mind just how devastating the Return of the Giants was on the burgeoning Western Kingdoms and the stil-proud Elven realm. Cities were obliterated and vast stretches of land deserted. Several of the wealthier and more prominent new kingdoms simply didn't exist anymore. The Giants had interrupted a pivotal moment of change in Man's civilization. It was a shift away from the decadent remnants of an urbanocentric, Imperial culture economically and politically centered on the Polis, towards a flexible feudalism better adapted to the challenges of its day. For the deeply conservative mageocracies of the eastern vales and uplands--they clung still to Imperial institutions such as the Senate and the Sacred Theater--it was impossible not to see Divine Providence in the turn of events. A few years ago the Republics' terraced plantations had seemed moribund compared to the villages of the west. Now it was as if they were the last human nations on earth.

Celebrations were declared in the nine great cities and all their satellite towns, colonies and rural vicarages. The Primarchs of the Temples met in a special pan-regional conclave, and declared it the Will of Heaven that a new calendar be drawn up marking an age of rebirth and splendor for Man. The nine ruling Magearchs agreed to meet in a neutral place to work out face to face a New World Order, and once the spot was chosen a suitably grand house was raised amidst the wilderness. With a carnivalesque atmosphere a village of onlookers, peddlars and mountebanks and celebrants from all over grew up at the place, nearly overnight.

Imagine nine men--men with minds like oiled clockwork, quick of imagination from decades traveling the twisted mental labyrinth of spells, quick to seize an idea and to leap to conclusions. Cold and proud, twisted with the study of alien worlds. Genius unbound by plain, tepid reason. Nine powerful men used to instant obedience, to holding the power of life and death. Now imagine them standing in a circle, bent to negotiate the division of a check or wheel of cheese. Now imagine each man has a loaded gun pointed at the one on his right.

Negotiations turned ugly fast. Clashing imagined orders created chaos. This Magearch's city was better positioned for trade. That Magearch had a larger army. Wither would the New Order turn, to the wealth of the Further East or the possibility of the leveled West? Days of circling arguments, veiled threats and quick alliances, quicker betrayals, before the first Magearch withdrew in high dudgeon.

The New World would not be shared. It is now lost to history who first declared war from their loggia balcony to the approval of citizens who already considered themselves nature's masters. Initially, there were alliances--three on three on three, then four on five, which turned into three on one. War was a free-for-all. Cazarno unleashed its trained ogres on the territory of Huorna; the griffin riders of Cauornos raided against Valcuores; the vicars and castellans of districts sold their loyalties; and the Magearchs with their choruses of mighty casters rained fire from afar down on their enemies.

There was scarcely ever a war like the Third Mage War. A season's coda to the long years of destruction that withered the West and North. Shaking the ancient mountains and burying the valleys. It must seem strange to historians, a puzzle of eternal frustration, that with all the world at their feet the proud ancient culture of the Mage Republics chose to commit suicide on a grand scale. Many mark it a sign of Divine Providence in the turn of events.
So, obviously, things pick up again about 100 years ago. The Kingdom of Pellegrine is the nation closest to the East, separated from the wastes by the mile-broad and swift White Horse River. It was that king's seers who first apprised him that the wild magic in the Eastwylde had sunk to reasonably safe levels. By more-or-less de facto right, the Kings of Pellegrine had incorporated the Eastwylde or "Eastern Wastes" into their patrimony, not that anyone cared. But now at last the desolation might be of some profitable use. And so the King of Pellegrine issued a proclamation: whosoever could wrest for themselves a stronghold out of the wilderness, and make its surrounding country safe and useful to cultivation, would be created a Baron of that place and enter into the Peerage of Pellegrine. In other words, anyone, from anywhere, if they could carve a territory out of the forest, would GET NOBLED*. The only proviso was said territory needed to be at least a day's ride across (defined as 24x24 miles as the crow flies).

*Nobles who performed this accomplishment would, naturally, GET DOUBLE-NOBLED.

For the first half of the next century, not a lot came of this. Turns out taming a wilderness full of Owlbears and various horrors natural and not isn't as easy as cutting down a few trees and laying out a welcome mat. Also turns out other creatures, like orcs, had a much looser idea of what "reasonably safe" Wild Magic levels were. Then, fifty years ago, the first Barony beyond the White Horse was created. More followed in subsequent decades. Finally, an intermediate region of six such Baronies, each formed by a former adventurer, created a buffer region between the Reach of Pellegrine and the Wylde. This area came to be known as The Shield Baronies.

This is Where You Come in

So the Big Idea of the campaign is you are Some Dudes committed to pooling your resources and efforts in order to conquer an (at minimum) 24x24 mile contiguous area of the Eastwylde, to build a stronghold thereon and to some extent attract independent settlement and development of your new castellany. This will vault your characters into the storied heights of the Nobility of Pellegrine and grant them access, should they choose to gun for more than a back-country baronage, to the corridors of power in the Royal City itself. It will take blood and guts, craftiness, and the acquisition of treasure and magic to achieve that aim.

The Shield Baronies

There are six. In order of foundation they are:

The Barony of Spellwyse (50 years old)
The Barony of The Verdance (45 years old)
The Barony of New Bastion (44 years old)
The Barony of Gardenwall (36 years old)
The Barony of Surgarde (21 years old)
The Barony of Stormcrown (15 years old)

I haven't managed to draw an exact map of the Shield Baronies to my liking. Crudely speaking, they're arranged like this:

https://i.imgur.com/gLB8Cy3.jpg
I am seriously just The Worst At Maps so get used to stuff like this

Each Barony is still ruled by its original founder. Here follows the name of each Baron and, where I happen to have one, a rough drawing (these were actually practice sketches for a more elaborate sextych of all the Barons, which I probably will never finish) - the exception is Otgar. As he was until very recently in my campaign the only Baron to actually appear onstage he has several larger drawings

Marisse Spellwise, 1st Baroness Spellwyse (????? Female of unknown Arcane class) - hasn't come out of her villa in 50 years

Silas the Vulture, 1st Baron Verdance (LE Venerable Human Rogue 13) - he has seven sons and he hates them all

https://i.imgur.com/tyNgtAg.jpg
This charmer's currently on his third wife

Sir Hugh-Hector Ogrebane, 1st Baron Bastion (LG Venerable Human Paladin 14) - he loves golf
https://i.imgur.com/kjC2FDF.jpg
Seriously, loves it.

Abel Silvertongue, 1st Baron Gardenwall (TN Half-Elf Bard 13) - obsessed with all things Elven
https://i.imgur.com/cDPSqoi.jpg
Hates shirts.

Abraham "Lightning" Van Hussel, Baron Surgarde (CG Middle-Aged Human Fighter 4/Sorcerer 9) - When his two natural sons fell in battle, he had their remains preserved, put on display in his castle
https://i.imgur.com/CRmneNj.jpg
Other than the whole 'taxidermying his kids' thing he's a pretty nice guy

Otgar Greatsword, Baron Stormcrown (CN Human Fighter 10) - he has a very unbalanced unique magic sword
https://i.imgur.com/cGDdYY1.jpg
If I was any good at likenesses I'd have tried to model him on Big Diesel Kevin Nash. Oh well.

https://i.imgur.com/9L1UCCE.jpg
Otgar's magically-infused dwarven stoneplate suit is worth his whole Barony several times over. That's the magic sword behind him. Did I mention Otgar stands precisely 6' 11" ?

I should say that when I started the campaign, most of these characters were of no immediate importance. Spellwyse, New Bastion, and The Verdance are no longer directly connected to the frontier. They're still relatively rugged places, but the orcs and monsters that once haunted their fields and woods have been driven back or wiped out. The major concerns for those Baronies is in building infrastructure and creating a productive economy----boring stuff for most adventuring-types. Although Gardenwall and Surgarde border the wilderness they have their own reasons for not being of much interest as gateways---Gardenwall's districts are screened from the Eastwylde by a branch of the Ogretooth Hills (which descend south-southwest forming the northern limit of Stormcrown) while Surgarde is parallel not to the forest but to a desolate flatland below it known simply as The Barrens, which forms the southern stretch of the desolated East.

So let's talk about Stormcrown, which if you're a newfangled explorer/treasure-hunter of the Wylde is the Barony of moment.

Next: Stormcrown