AuthorGirl
2018-07-26, 12:32 AM
As it was suggested, so it has become a wall of text!
Please be gentle.
The setting is homebrewed.
The entire world is the site of a territorial conflict. Various nasty things (demons, dragons, beholders, lichs, aboleths, really anything - I deliberately left myself some leeway there, with the idea that I could use it for side quests whenever I needed to) are vying for power and territory.
Here's the handout I made for my players:
Edelea
Note: this is intended to be a very quick introduction to the wider setting of the campaign. I’ve described the starting area in more detail in another document (“Haven”).
Imprisonment
As bad as Edelea is, no one leaves. That’s because they can’t. Anyone who tries to sail away will wash back to shore in a few days, completely dead.
The Kingdoms
Aipera
This is an absolute monarchy. The royal family is believed to communicate directly with their god (Lentrihx, the All-Seeing Eye). Aipera is currently ruled by Queen Adelisa, and the line of succession is very secure.
Aipera has a very large and well-trained army that it maintains through conscription. This army is used for the near-constant territorial fighting between Aipera and Eran, as well as for claiming pieces of the Wild Lands.
The laws here are draconian and all-encompassing, to the point where it is almost impossible to avoid being a criminal. Convicted criminals are sentenced to either slavery or conscription; those who try to escape their sentences are sacrificed to the All-Seeing.
Audran
Audran is governed by a council of immortals. No one knows who these beings are, how many there are, or how they gained immortality – let alone why they are interested in governing Audran. The Order of the Tainted Sigil claims that Audran has only one true ruler, and the Council of Immortals is only a façade . . . but they can’t provide any details on who or what that ruler might be.
Audran’s resources are somewhat sparse, but its population is low enough that there are no major shortages. Slavery and conscription are illegal; the roads and borders are maintained by golems.
All those nice things are, in some way, tied to the annual Harvest. During the Harvest, golems show up in every population centre and round up all the people who have been declared burdensome by the Council. These people are taken to the City of Spires and never seen again. The Harvest’s purpose is unclear, but it is very useful for keeping the population at manageable levels.
Audran is the only kingdom in Edelea that is not trying to expand its borders.
Eran
This is an unconventional sort of nation. It is ruled by the priests of Iridia, Lady of Chaos: an evil deity who is not acknowledged by any other religious group. These priests do not concern themselves with imposing laws on Eran’s inhabitants; instead, they focus on carrying out Iridia’s will. This usually means one of two things:
1. Conquer a piece of land that Iridia took a fancy to. These attempts at conquest tend to be spur-of-the-moment,
disorganized things, and as such are not very effective.
2. Attack and terrorize any towns in Eran that are displeasing to Iridia (she prefers for them to look pretty and perfect; Eran is supposed to be a jewel in her hoard).
Eran’s inhabitants make their own laws, and these vary from town to town. Here are the common ones:
1. Do not do anything to attract the Lady’s attention.
2. Do not murder.
3. Do not steal.
4. All crimes are to be punished by death.
The Wild Lands
This is an area of land that cannot be claimed by any of the kingdoms (despite their best efforts).
The Curse
No one knows if the Lands are really cursed – that’s just a handy way to describe what always happens. Within a few years of their establishment, most settlements are wiped off the map by a combination of raiders, crop failure, and mysterious disappearances. Priests and magic-users say the Wild Lands are constantly under a haze of magic, but its source and purpose are undiscernible.
The Villages
Curse or no Curse, the Wild Lands are the best place to live in all of Edelea. You won’t be enslaved, stolen, or even killed for sport . . . well, at least those things are less likely than in any of the Three Kingdoms. The Wild Lands are sprinkled with villages, encampments, and monasteries; the monasteries tend to last the longest, though a lot of them do still fall.
This adventure starts in a village called Haven, just outside the Aiperan border.
The Tribes
There are several barbarian tribes in the Wild Lands, and most of them survive by raiding villages. They seem almost totally immune to the Curse, perhaps because they’re part of its function.
The Isles of Exile
The Isles are visible from Edelea’s north shore. No one knows if they’re livable or not; many people have gone over the years, but no one has come back.
Organizations of Note
This is incomplete, but it will do for now.
Religious Orders
Order of the Mantis
An order of monks worshipping Majere. They refuse to live in any of the established kingdoms; their monasteries are established in the Wild Lands. These monasteries often avoid the Curse for quite some time, and some of them even protect other settlements from it. See the “Order of the Mantis” document for more information.
Order of the Tainted Sigil
A collection of smaller religious orders dedicated to destroying every evil power in Edelea. For more information, see the document titled “The Order of the Sigil.”
Solinari’s Vigilant
A loosely organized, intensely secretive group of wizards serving Solinari. They are most active in Aipera; many noble families are loyal to the Vigilant, though of course they would be executed if anyone knew.
The Blue Mendicants
An order of monks and nuns serving Mishakal by giving food, education, shelter, and healing to the needy in each village they travel to. Commonly called the “angels of mercy.”
The Holy Artisans
A group of artisans serving the various gods of creativity and learning.
The Gods
Deities Unique to Edelea
Iridia, Lady of Chaos
The black dragon who rules Eran. She is commonly associated with other evil deities, but her followers contend that Iridia is the one true deity and the only way to survive in her world is to bow to her will.
Lentrihx, the All-Seeing Eye
The deity officially worshipped in Aipera. No one knows much about the All-Seeing – just that he is in fact all-seeing and does not take kindly to lawbreakers.
Other Deities
And here we have a giant list of Dragonlance deities with slight modifications. Truly, it's not necessary to bore you guys with it.
Why yes, most of those names were pulled from random generators. Why do you ask? :smalltongue:
Prologue
About seventy years ago, a group of Aiperan fugitives established a village in the Wild Lands. They named it Haven and relied on a group of monks for protection from the Curse. The monks were part of the Order of the Mantis. They established a monastery for themselves just outside the town walls.
Things started to go wrong when Brother Aldebrand disappeared. The monastery sent out a group of five monks to find Aldebrand and return him safely home. Their names were Eldred, Theodore, Benedict and Gary (see if you can spot the PC). Unfortunately, these monks were ambushed.
Enter Alisteren Valius, disgraced inquisitor, stage right. He found one unconscious monk in a puddle of blood by the side of the road. One healing potion later, Gary was awake and babbling about his missing brothers (okay, you should definitely be able to spot the PC now).
Session 1
Alisteren and Gary headed to the local tavern (let the tropes begin) to discuss what had happened and what to do. Gary asked for help in finding his missing brothers; Alisteren was happy to assist. While in the tavern, they met several other people who agreed to help them: Beak (kenku rogue), Lo (goliath fighter), Shadowblade (human edgelord homebrewed ranger thing), and Cassarola (gnome wizard). After some discussion, the newly formed party went to investigate the ruins of the nearby town of Sunbright.
On their way to Sunbright, the party encountered Godfrey the necromancer and his zombies. Under duress, Godfrey told the PCs that a shadow demon was responsible for the monks' disappearances.
Once inside Sunbright's walls, the party discovered several newly built structures: a small temple, a storehouse and a workshop. They went inside the temple, fought some cultists and discovered that the missing monks had accepted a pact with the local demon (Aldebrand had done so willingly; the other three had been threatened with death).
Beak and Shadowblade sacrificed Aldebrand to the demon. They were both offered a warlock's pact; only Beak accepted.
Session 2
There were some shenanigans with Beak trying to sacrifice other PCs in exchange for the power of flight. Eventually, the PCs found the demon in its lair and "killed" it (at that point, Alisteren discovered that his axe has magical properties).
Beak tried to save the demon's amulet while the rest of the party tried to purify it with fire.
Session 3
The shenanigans with the amulet were interrupted by the appearance of some cultists and a golem. The golem was a terrible, last-minute "solution" to the problem that Beak's player hadn't shown up so we couldn't play as planned. Everyone nearly died because I didn't use CR correctly.
One sloppy transition later, Alisteren was interrogating Brother Eldred and one random cultist. He found out some stuff about how the demon had promised stability and safety (rare commodities in the Wild Lands).
The PCs explored Sunbright's ruins for a little while. Cassarola found some potions and a spellbook in the workshop.
Near the end of the session, a pair of druids showed up (I was running out of stuff for the PCs to discover). They had been curious about what was going on in the area (demons and so forth are fairly disruptive to the balance of things, I guess). After talking to the PCs, they suggested that Beak retrieve a flight charm from a dragon's hoard and repair the charm. The idea was to take away his motivation for doing crazy things like signing pacts with demons (actually, the idea was "help, I need a side quest and a reason for the PCs not to kill each other"). The druids also mentioned to Alisteren that the Inquisition was looking for him.
Session 4
The game picked up with the PCs back at the tavern, eating and figuring out what to do next. They ran some errands (acquiring crossbow bolts, bear traps, holy water and a new spell). Then Cassarola ran back to the tavern, got drunk and talked loudly about her newly-learned necromancy.
The party set off along the forest road (the direction the druids had pointed them in). They fought an ettercap and some spiders.
Then they came to a desecrated shrine. Entering it, they found that it was still inhabited by the ghost of its keeper; he was waiting for someone to take the shrine's holy relic to an appropriate resting place. The ghost asked them a riddle and entrusted them with the relic (the holy symbol that had been worn by a very important dead person from a particular religious order).
The PCs fought some more spiders.
Yes, there were only four sessions. Yes, the campaign has been "running" (limping) for several months.
As explained in another thread, planning is difficult.
So. Tacky as it is, I'm thinking of literally dropping the PCs into a pre-made dungeon module. Specifically, dropping them through a hole in the forest floor and into an abandoned dwarven city.
I have two days to find a good map with traps and monsters appropriate to Level 3 characters - I don't think I can make my own, considering that all my encounters have been either impossible or ridiculously easy so far.
This should let the PCs level up to the point where they won't die if they fight a dragon. If it doesn't, I can graft more layers onto the dungeon.
Hopefully, it should also give me a few sessions' worth of breathing room - I can make plans, learn rules and hopefully get less scared.
The only issue is that I can't seem to find any big, complicated dungeons full of things. A few modules look promising, but they cost money (and I don't have a means to buy things over the Internet). Does anyone have suggestions for where I could look?
Please be gentle.
The setting is homebrewed.
The entire world is the site of a territorial conflict. Various nasty things (demons, dragons, beholders, lichs, aboleths, really anything - I deliberately left myself some leeway there, with the idea that I could use it for side quests whenever I needed to) are vying for power and territory.
Here's the handout I made for my players:
Edelea
Note: this is intended to be a very quick introduction to the wider setting of the campaign. I’ve described the starting area in more detail in another document (“Haven”).
Imprisonment
As bad as Edelea is, no one leaves. That’s because they can’t. Anyone who tries to sail away will wash back to shore in a few days, completely dead.
The Kingdoms
Aipera
This is an absolute monarchy. The royal family is believed to communicate directly with their god (Lentrihx, the All-Seeing Eye). Aipera is currently ruled by Queen Adelisa, and the line of succession is very secure.
Aipera has a very large and well-trained army that it maintains through conscription. This army is used for the near-constant territorial fighting between Aipera and Eran, as well as for claiming pieces of the Wild Lands.
The laws here are draconian and all-encompassing, to the point where it is almost impossible to avoid being a criminal. Convicted criminals are sentenced to either slavery or conscription; those who try to escape their sentences are sacrificed to the All-Seeing.
Audran
Audran is governed by a council of immortals. No one knows who these beings are, how many there are, or how they gained immortality – let alone why they are interested in governing Audran. The Order of the Tainted Sigil claims that Audran has only one true ruler, and the Council of Immortals is only a façade . . . but they can’t provide any details on who or what that ruler might be.
Audran’s resources are somewhat sparse, but its population is low enough that there are no major shortages. Slavery and conscription are illegal; the roads and borders are maintained by golems.
All those nice things are, in some way, tied to the annual Harvest. During the Harvest, golems show up in every population centre and round up all the people who have been declared burdensome by the Council. These people are taken to the City of Spires and never seen again. The Harvest’s purpose is unclear, but it is very useful for keeping the population at manageable levels.
Audran is the only kingdom in Edelea that is not trying to expand its borders.
Eran
This is an unconventional sort of nation. It is ruled by the priests of Iridia, Lady of Chaos: an evil deity who is not acknowledged by any other religious group. These priests do not concern themselves with imposing laws on Eran’s inhabitants; instead, they focus on carrying out Iridia’s will. This usually means one of two things:
1. Conquer a piece of land that Iridia took a fancy to. These attempts at conquest tend to be spur-of-the-moment,
disorganized things, and as such are not very effective.
2. Attack and terrorize any towns in Eran that are displeasing to Iridia (she prefers for them to look pretty and perfect; Eran is supposed to be a jewel in her hoard).
Eran’s inhabitants make their own laws, and these vary from town to town. Here are the common ones:
1. Do not do anything to attract the Lady’s attention.
2. Do not murder.
3. Do not steal.
4. All crimes are to be punished by death.
The Wild Lands
This is an area of land that cannot be claimed by any of the kingdoms (despite their best efforts).
The Curse
No one knows if the Lands are really cursed – that’s just a handy way to describe what always happens. Within a few years of their establishment, most settlements are wiped off the map by a combination of raiders, crop failure, and mysterious disappearances. Priests and magic-users say the Wild Lands are constantly under a haze of magic, but its source and purpose are undiscernible.
The Villages
Curse or no Curse, the Wild Lands are the best place to live in all of Edelea. You won’t be enslaved, stolen, or even killed for sport . . . well, at least those things are less likely than in any of the Three Kingdoms. The Wild Lands are sprinkled with villages, encampments, and monasteries; the monasteries tend to last the longest, though a lot of them do still fall.
This adventure starts in a village called Haven, just outside the Aiperan border.
The Tribes
There are several barbarian tribes in the Wild Lands, and most of them survive by raiding villages. They seem almost totally immune to the Curse, perhaps because they’re part of its function.
The Isles of Exile
The Isles are visible from Edelea’s north shore. No one knows if they’re livable or not; many people have gone over the years, but no one has come back.
Organizations of Note
This is incomplete, but it will do for now.
Religious Orders
Order of the Mantis
An order of monks worshipping Majere. They refuse to live in any of the established kingdoms; their monasteries are established in the Wild Lands. These monasteries often avoid the Curse for quite some time, and some of them even protect other settlements from it. See the “Order of the Mantis” document for more information.
Order of the Tainted Sigil
A collection of smaller religious orders dedicated to destroying every evil power in Edelea. For more information, see the document titled “The Order of the Sigil.”
Solinari’s Vigilant
A loosely organized, intensely secretive group of wizards serving Solinari. They are most active in Aipera; many noble families are loyal to the Vigilant, though of course they would be executed if anyone knew.
The Blue Mendicants
An order of monks and nuns serving Mishakal by giving food, education, shelter, and healing to the needy in each village they travel to. Commonly called the “angels of mercy.”
The Holy Artisans
A group of artisans serving the various gods of creativity and learning.
The Gods
Deities Unique to Edelea
Iridia, Lady of Chaos
The black dragon who rules Eran. She is commonly associated with other evil deities, but her followers contend that Iridia is the one true deity and the only way to survive in her world is to bow to her will.
Lentrihx, the All-Seeing Eye
The deity officially worshipped in Aipera. No one knows much about the All-Seeing – just that he is in fact all-seeing and does not take kindly to lawbreakers.
Other Deities
And here we have a giant list of Dragonlance deities with slight modifications. Truly, it's not necessary to bore you guys with it.
Why yes, most of those names were pulled from random generators. Why do you ask? :smalltongue:
Prologue
About seventy years ago, a group of Aiperan fugitives established a village in the Wild Lands. They named it Haven and relied on a group of monks for protection from the Curse. The monks were part of the Order of the Mantis. They established a monastery for themselves just outside the town walls.
Things started to go wrong when Brother Aldebrand disappeared. The monastery sent out a group of five monks to find Aldebrand and return him safely home. Their names were Eldred, Theodore, Benedict and Gary (see if you can spot the PC). Unfortunately, these monks were ambushed.
Enter Alisteren Valius, disgraced inquisitor, stage right. He found one unconscious monk in a puddle of blood by the side of the road. One healing potion later, Gary was awake and babbling about his missing brothers (okay, you should definitely be able to spot the PC now).
Session 1
Alisteren and Gary headed to the local tavern (let the tropes begin) to discuss what had happened and what to do. Gary asked for help in finding his missing brothers; Alisteren was happy to assist. While in the tavern, they met several other people who agreed to help them: Beak (kenku rogue), Lo (goliath fighter), Shadowblade (human edgelord homebrewed ranger thing), and Cassarola (gnome wizard). After some discussion, the newly formed party went to investigate the ruins of the nearby town of Sunbright.
On their way to Sunbright, the party encountered Godfrey the necromancer and his zombies. Under duress, Godfrey told the PCs that a shadow demon was responsible for the monks' disappearances.
Once inside Sunbright's walls, the party discovered several newly built structures: a small temple, a storehouse and a workshop. They went inside the temple, fought some cultists and discovered that the missing monks had accepted a pact with the local demon (Aldebrand had done so willingly; the other three had been threatened with death).
Beak and Shadowblade sacrificed Aldebrand to the demon. They were both offered a warlock's pact; only Beak accepted.
Session 2
There were some shenanigans with Beak trying to sacrifice other PCs in exchange for the power of flight. Eventually, the PCs found the demon in its lair and "killed" it (at that point, Alisteren discovered that his axe has magical properties).
Beak tried to save the demon's amulet while the rest of the party tried to purify it with fire.
Session 3
The shenanigans with the amulet were interrupted by the appearance of some cultists and a golem. The golem was a terrible, last-minute "solution" to the problem that Beak's player hadn't shown up so we couldn't play as planned. Everyone nearly died because I didn't use CR correctly.
One sloppy transition later, Alisteren was interrogating Brother Eldred and one random cultist. He found out some stuff about how the demon had promised stability and safety (rare commodities in the Wild Lands).
The PCs explored Sunbright's ruins for a little while. Cassarola found some potions and a spellbook in the workshop.
Near the end of the session, a pair of druids showed up (I was running out of stuff for the PCs to discover). They had been curious about what was going on in the area (demons and so forth are fairly disruptive to the balance of things, I guess). After talking to the PCs, they suggested that Beak retrieve a flight charm from a dragon's hoard and repair the charm. The idea was to take away his motivation for doing crazy things like signing pacts with demons (actually, the idea was "help, I need a side quest and a reason for the PCs not to kill each other"). The druids also mentioned to Alisteren that the Inquisition was looking for him.
Session 4
The game picked up with the PCs back at the tavern, eating and figuring out what to do next. They ran some errands (acquiring crossbow bolts, bear traps, holy water and a new spell). Then Cassarola ran back to the tavern, got drunk and talked loudly about her newly-learned necromancy.
The party set off along the forest road (the direction the druids had pointed them in). They fought an ettercap and some spiders.
Then they came to a desecrated shrine. Entering it, they found that it was still inhabited by the ghost of its keeper; he was waiting for someone to take the shrine's holy relic to an appropriate resting place. The ghost asked them a riddle and entrusted them with the relic (the holy symbol that had been worn by a very important dead person from a particular religious order).
The PCs fought some more spiders.
Yes, there were only four sessions. Yes, the campaign has been "running" (limping) for several months.
As explained in another thread, planning is difficult.
So. Tacky as it is, I'm thinking of literally dropping the PCs into a pre-made dungeon module. Specifically, dropping them through a hole in the forest floor and into an abandoned dwarven city.
I have two days to find a good map with traps and monsters appropriate to Level 3 characters - I don't think I can make my own, considering that all my encounters have been either impossible or ridiculously easy so far.
This should let the PCs level up to the point where they won't die if they fight a dragon. If it doesn't, I can graft more layers onto the dungeon.
Hopefully, it should also give me a few sessions' worth of breathing room - I can make plans, learn rules and hopefully get less scared.
The only issue is that I can't seem to find any big, complicated dungeons full of things. A few modules look promising, but they cost money (and I don't have a means to buy things over the Internet). Does anyone have suggestions for where I could look?