Bitter Wounds- A Dark Fantasy

[Waterdeep Merch]

I am certain that none of my players frequent these forums, hence my certainty that I may speak plainly about the setting that they are embarking on without fear of spoiling certain cosmic revelations. If I am mistaken, this is your warning to turn away immediately. Perhaps check the other homebrew forum instead.

I'll wait.

This is an original campaign world that I am about to take my players through, beginning on the 10th of this month. I've been working on the setting for months in preparation. My initial inspiration for the setting was the Dark Souls series. I'd love any and all feedback on how to make this campaign a memorable trip into the lost kingdom of Silma, the land literally abandoned by the gods.

As the campaign continues I will update this thread with tactical maps, custom rules, items and monsters, and whatever else is needed for others to run the same game. I will also narrate the doomed adventures of my players.



Chapter I: The Players' Preamble

It is the year 758 in the Black Age. The gwain country of Aiherenth, long engaged in a bloody war alongside her Turinastic allies against the oira nations following holy Calaventë már doctrine, has suffered an attempted civilian uprising that has led to brutal suppression by the gentry against the peasant class.
Between the thuggery of the nobility and the oncoming shadow of a massive Calaventist invasion on the horizon, many seek to escape Aiherenth and head to the eastern Sogodorian countries, neutral in this religious war. The borders with neighboring Xesta are treacherous, having fallen to Calaventist forces years ago and undergoing a horrific gwain pogrom.
There is another way to the east, but it is not easy. The passage in the north travels through the legendary, cursed kingdom of the gods, Silma. It is unnaturally cold regardless of season, and many caravans have disappeared looking for the lost city. Regardless of the danger, it is the only hope those seeking refuge in Sogodor have.
A caravan escaped the northern borders of Aiherenth in the early spring of 758. It travels now where many have died before them. Though the summer months have come, the weather has only turned colder and more inhospitable. A blizzard has overtaken them that shuts out all sight, howling with a deafening fury.
In the distance, the freezing refugees make out eerie lights. Rather than die to the endless fury of ice and snow, they move, ever closer.
They will be upon them soon.


As the players, you will be part of the caravan seeking Sogodor from Aiherenth. Though Aiherenth is a gwain country and notoriously intolerant to religions outside of Turinasticisim, the chaos of civil war and the fall of Xesta has left many others stranded in Aiherenth that would want out, be they oira or secretly practitioners of other faiths.

The gwain are the races of men, orcs, halflings and gnomes. The first two are the original Turinastics, believing they were made by the goddess Adral after mating with the oira before her death at the hand of the false god Glórim, making them the promised people destined to inherit the world under the last living goddess, Atta, mother of the oira and grandmother of the gwain.
Observant Turinastics believe that Adral had a twin sister named Esral that mated with Glórim's righteous brother Menel before they both took their own lives in memory of Adral, thus giving birth to the halflings and gnomes. Orthodox Turinastics, however, believe halflings and gnomes were made by Tura-Bosat, the king of hell, and thus are satha- monster-kin.
Many halflings and gnomes ascribe to their own religion, called the Covenant, that teaches that Menel and Esral are the only gods and that the others are false gods that have taken undue credit for the creation of all the other races. They do not believe themselves to be gwain like men and orcs, and instead call themselves the People and everyone else the Mockeries, creatures made through inbreeding of the People with demons on the eastern continents. While the Covenant takes pity on their warped cousins, they consider physical contact with them an abomination that requires ritual cleansing to prevent giving birth to further Mockeries.

The oira are the races of elves and dwarves, and they believe they came before the gwain. They predominantly believe in Calaventë már, which teaches that Glórim, Menel and Atta made the world and the heavens, and continue to watch them from the sun, stars and moon. They do not recognize any other gods, and consider Turinasticism particularly blasphemous. Most believe in an inherent superiority of oira over gwain, believing them to be slave races born from soot and moondust sent from the heavens expressly for them to rule over. There was an ancient exception for kingdom of Silma, a gwain country blessed by the goddess Atta.
Mostly apart from the other Calaventists, the drow and duergar are said to be cursed people, the original inhabitants of Silma in mythic days that were overcome with lust and mated with the gwain and were thus banished to never look upon Glórim again. Other Calaventists believe them to be promiscuous and prone to sin. The drow and duergar themselves live in the deep parts of the earth and believe in a radically different form of Calaventism. They proudly believe they themselves slew Glórim in the grips of a genocidal insanity rather than fight Menel and Atta, who would later die off over the centuries without Glórim's guidance. They're known as the Godslayer Cult, and believe that no god remains in the world.

Besides the more organized religions, many tribes and nomads called Elementalists exist that worship an aspect of nature, believing the world itself to be the only truly holy thing and gods to be a construct of tyrants for control. They war constantly, with themselves and others, but consider it an honorable tribute to the subtle and fierce interplay of the elements they represent. A conquered people are expected to take up the aspect of nature of the victors, and to accept their new place in nature gladly. A person who does not is considered an animal not of the earth, and may be culled.
There are several cults dedicated to Tura-Bosat hidden in the dark corners of the world, the king of hell that appears in many religions. He is said to be the father of all monsters and dragons, the satha, and is sometimes known as the Tyrant. There are many smaller cults that follow the Twin Shadows, two gods that are said to watch the affairs of mortals from afar and remain mostly unknown to all but the most worthy. The Twin Shadows cults are often mistaken for Tura-Bosat cults, and are usually destroyed without mercy.

Silma is a mythical city said to have been built by the gods themselves in nearly every religion. It was said that Glórim lived here amongst the elves and dwarves. Over 4,000 years ago, at the end of the Mythic Age, the city vanished into legend until it was rediscovered less than two millennia ago by the Ceolfre Dynasty, gwain men who were said to trace their lineage directly to the goddess Atta, who served as their god queen.
Under the Ceolfre Dynasty, Silma had become the most powerful nation in the world, and even the neighboring Calaventists did not dare move against a Turinastic kingdom that had the direct protection of one of their major goddesses. Their empire controlled the known world for many centuries before the Black Year occurred.
On the dawning of the Black Age, there was a worldwide catastrophe that greatly shortened days, caused the weather around the world to become deadly unpredictable, and saw a tremendous rise in the number of satha. Once the Black Year had finished and the days became normal and the sky normalized, entire nations of monsters and dragons had sprouted into existence and waged war with the other countries. Some time during the Black Year, Silma had been completely lost, its territories impossible to navigate due to lingering weather anomalies, and the remaining nations were ill-equipped to deal with the sudden rise of satha. The gwain and oira nations that came into being after the first few centuries of terror were much diminished from before the Black Age began.
While the various peoples of the world have mostly recovered, satha remain a serious threat everywhere, a great deal of historic knowledge has been lost and Silma remains unseen by outside eyes to this day.



Chapter II: Homebrew Rules

All of the races and classes in the PHB are legal with two exceptions- the dragonborn and tieflings may not be played, as they are considered satha by the other intelligent races and would be attacked on sight more often than not.

All alignments are legal, though no player may intentionally cause serious harm to other players or the caravan they are with, or make arbitrarily unintelligent decisions based on 'alignment'. Chaotic evil in particular will be under close scrutiny, and may be subject to change.

We are using the honor and sanity abilities as outlined in the DMG. Honor will have many perks but is considered purely optional unless you are playing a paladin. If you want to have an honor score, you must have three core tenants that must be approved by the DM. Failure to uphold these tenants will drop your honor score. Any honor score that falls below 6 will simply cease to be, and will not be earned back over the course of the campaign. A paladin that loses his honor will become an oathbreaker, permanently. Atonement is simply not possible in Silma.

Short rests will last 5 minutes. Long rests will restore all lost hit dice. However, your hit points will not restore during any rest without the use of restoratives, magic, or those same hit dice.

Critical hits and dropping to 0 hit points will incur a Constitution test. Failure will result in a permanent injury as outlined in the DMG.

We will be using the speed factor variant rules for initiative. Each player will be expected to keep track of their own changing initiative and respond when I call for the count they act on in combat. Failure to respond in a timely manner will result in the turn being lost. No amount of arguing will change this.

We are using the flanking and marking variant rules.

Any caster may use the spell point variant if they wish. They will decide whether they are using this variant at character creation, and cannot change their mind later. Not even if they multiclass into a new casting class.

Multiclassing and feats are available.

The variant human is allowed.

The Gish class I made is allowed.

We will be rolling for stats at 4d6 drop the lowest. If you aren't playing a variant human or a half-elf, I will allow two 5d6 drop the two lowest rolls. The half elf may have one 5d6-2 roll. The variant human can suck it up, you get a free feat.

Resurrection is extremely rare. Prepare multiple characters, they're all part of the caravan.

We are using a physical map and miniatures in a standard tile-based grid for tactical combat.

The players will award each other inspiration as per the guidelines for doing such in the DMG. The exception is whoever buys pizza or beer, they get inspiration from me.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Chapter III: The Truth About the World

In the beginning, there were the spirits. Three of the darkness, three of the light, two of magic, and eight of the elements. These sixteen spirits lived apart in the vast and bountiful world of dreams.
The Dreamer, Lord Olamaosa came, a being from outside their world. Lord Olamaosa brought the spirits together to make a paradise. They populated their new united world with many peoples and great wonders. Peace and prosperity reigned for time untold.
Then Lord Olamaosa died. The spirits and their people turned on each other, searching for someone to blame for the Lord Olamaosa's death. The eight spirits of the elements went to war first, drawing their people into the fighting and creating terrifying weapons. At first, the spirits of light and darkness joined forces to put an end to the fighting. But they found that without the Dreamer to reconcile them, these six spirits felt nothing but malice for each other and soon they lost sight of their original cause and found themselves also drawn into a war without end.
The world of dreams changed and rent itself as the fighting grew darker. The two spirits of magic, the twins Esral and Adral, sought a way to end the war. They reached out into the cosmos to find a savior akin to Lord Olamaosa, one who could unite the spirits once more and bring peace.
What they found was not the bringer of peace they had imagined.
A sinister force entered the world of dreams, the Tyrant, Tura-Bosat. He was powerful, certainly, and seemed to know Lord Olamaosa. He promised to bring peace back to the world. The spirits of darkness bent the knee quickly, their war with the spirits of light having taken a turn for the worst.
Tura-Bosat shocked the world by executing the spirits of darkness. He tried to bind the remnants of all three to himself- he managed to grasp one, but the other two remnants slipped away. The armies of darkness went into disarray and caused chaos and destruction wherever they went. Some joined with Tura-Bosat, and they set out to unmake the world.
The Madness of Tura-Bosat, the Rot, infected not only living creatures, but even the remnants of the dead and the land itself. As each of the elemental spirits were slain, the elements became erratic and treacherous. Of them, Tura-Bosat absorbed two more of the spirits, gaining control of the elements of fire and ooze. Plagues and disasters devastated whatever war didn't, and left the entire world on the brink of ultimate destruction.
The three spirits of light and the twins Esral and Adral, facing annihilation, sought a means to escape Tura-Bosat. They gathered what remained of the spirits that he could not absorb, the six elements and two spirits of darkness that rebelled against joining the Tyrant. They joined their power and tried to remake the world with it. They were unsuccessful in repairing the damage done to their own realm, but instead managed to siphon the chaotic energies left by their world into a new one, shaped by their desires for a new home.
This world would be named Vinyamar, after the tongue of the spirits of light. They, alongside Esral and Adral, became the gods of this realm- Glórim, god of the sun (domain of Light), Menel, god of the firmament (domain of Tempest), and Atta, goddess of hearth (domain of Life). Esral became the goddess of secrets (domain of Knowledge) and Adral became the goddess of change (domain of Trickery). They physically walked Vinyamar and made many wondrous creatures and great cities. The spirits of light gave birth to the oira peoples- the races of elves from the mating of Glórim and Atta, the dwarves from Menel and Atta.
Glórim appointed himself the king of the gods and demanded tribute from the other four. While Menel and Atta, used to following Glórim, agreed, Esral and Adral would only agree if either Glórim or Menel would bed them and grant them a race of their own. Glórim found the idea of a spirit of light mating with a spirit of magic to be a disgusting affront and had the oira imprison them for what became millennia in the great tower of Tharlómi in the city of Silma.
In the end, Adral allowed herself to be executed by Glórim in exchange for the freedom of her twin. Afterwards, the oira were instructed to wipe out all mention of the twin goddesses Esral and Adral. Unknown to Glórim, Adral had already found a way to avenge themelves on Glórim- she had mated with the oira during her long incarceration and secretly given birth to a new race. At first, they appeared mostly elven, but in generations some of them lost their elvish features and from them, two new races emerged- the humans and the orcs, the first of the gwain.
Glórim was outraged by Adral's final indignance and demanded the races of men and orcs be wiped out, and Esral be brought back to be executed in retaliation. The armies of the oira committed many atrocious acts of genocide by the order of Glórim, but in doing so managed to alienate himself from Menel and Atta, who grew sickened by all the slaughter. Instead, they turned on Glórim and united the armies of gwain against the oira. Soon some of the oira would join them, and at last a cult of elves and dwarves of Silma betrayed Glórim and murdered him. With his last breath, he cursed the oira of Silma to never again gaze upon the sun without fear, changing them into the drow and duergar. They then had to abandon Silma, and the city was lost for centuries.
Atta became despondent after the death of Glórim and the destruction wrough by and against her people. After the great war, the oira and the gwain would still remain enemies, bitter at the generations of genocide. Many elves would blame the dwarves for the death of Glórim, considering them traitors and fighting between themselves in the great cities of the gods, leaving many in ruins. Vinyamar would never again be as grand as it was before the war. As Glórim had declared mention of Esral and Adral apostate, knowledge of the births of the gwain was lost- the gwain themselves believe they had been the offspring of Menel and Atta which had made Glórim jealous, or that they were the original inhabitants of Vinyamar, while the oira mostly believe they were created by the demons of Tura-Bosat to invade Vinyamar.
Menel himself journeyed to find Esral, who had gone into hiding. They met in lands untouched by their previous wars. There, Menel admitted that he had always loved Esral and had avoided her for fear of Glórim's wrath. Esral would never forgive Menel for the death of Adral, but did allow him to stay with her in penance. Together, they gave birth to two more races of gwain- the gnomes and the halflings. Then one morning, Esral disappeared. The gnomes and halflings believe that she went back to the world of dreams to die. Whatever happened to her, Menel shortly chose to take his own life rather than continue an eternity without Esral.
Atta became the only known goddess left in the world. When the gnomes and halflings encountered the rest of the gwain and the oira, their religion barely resembled their own. Atta, now seldom seen or heard from, did nothing to stop the splintering of religions throughout Vinyamar. The gnomes and the halflings venerate only Menel and Esral, called the Covenant; many of the oira continue to believe that Glórim is still watching over the world from heaven, called the Calaventë már; the oira that believe Atta is the last living deity, called Turinasta; the nature-loving dwarves and men who worshiped the vesper remnants of the elemental spirits, Elementalists; many demonic cults that followed the insane remnants of the spirits of shadow; and finally, rarer still, a select handful of powerful individuals knew of the true creation of the world and seek out the Tyrant himself.
Through the machinations of this last group, many terrible things have been loosed upon Vinyamar. Elementals and demons were only the beginning. Things were born on Vinyamar that could breed and multiply, monsters that continue to threaten civilization and endanger both the oira and gwain. Chief among these monsters are the satha- beholderkin, giants, goblins, manticores, gargoyles, krakens, lycanthropes, and the most fearsome of all, dragons.
Tura-Bosat desires a way into Vinyamar to continue his conquest. The world of dreams is broken and chaotic now, a maelstrom that is difficult to survive for long, let alone navigate. To accomplish this, he does everything he can to manipulate mortals into his fold, searching for a way to open a gateway.



Chapter IV: What Happened at Silma

WORK IN PROGRESS

The ruins of Silma were rediscovered two thousand years ago by human Turinastians. Upon finding it, they declared it a holy city and resettled it. As they grew in power, the Ceolfre Dynasty looked to solidify its influence over its warlike neighbors, mostly Calaventist elves and dwarves. To do so, they had agents search the world over for Atta. Eventually a man they'd later name Saint Leony managed to find the goddess and bring her back to Silma, where she became a 'guest' in Tharlómi and proclaimed queen.
The Calaventists of the nearby kingdoms were subsequently butchered for heresy by a renewed religious fervor, and Silma became the most powerful nation in the world. Despite their supposed 'marriage', few of the kings of the Ceolfre Dynasty ever even laid eyes on their 'queen', passing off children born of noble mistresses as those born of Atta. Atta herself was kept safe by a retinue of holy handmaidens and eunuchs, the Ceolfre Dynasty worried that anything done to upset the goddess might bring wrath and ruin on them all.
Over the centuries, Elementalists from the south began wearing at the integrity of Silma. Their power in the world was being supplanted by newer nations and religions that rejected Turinasticism, believing that the woman they kept in Tharlómi was just an ordinary, if listless and beautiful, elven woman. King Rithulf, the last of the Ceolfre Dynasty, was impotent and had no living heir- his brothers and uncles had died in the wars in the south, and neither his wife nor his sisters could supplant Atta as queen.
King Rithulf's adviser, Clortvus, the son of one of Atta's handmaidens, suggested that his proper 'wife' Atta may be able to give him a proper heir, having been the goddess of hearth before her malaise. Rithulf went to Tharlómi and met with Atta for the first time. Atta remained inattentive, so Rithulf came back the next day, and the next. He would come to see the goddess every day for three years. In the third year, she finally spoke- she said it was time to leave Vinyamar and search for what remained of her people, as the 'Awakening' would soon begin. For hours, she told King Rithulf of the many prophecies that had come to her in the past centuries, of a final battle with Tura-Bosat and the cleansing of the world of dreams. But first, she would leave Silma and all of Vinyamar a precious treasure, an eternal king who would bring peace and prosperity for a thousand years.
King Rithulf laid with the goddess Atta that night. When he awoke, Atta had vanished. In his arms was a newborn infant, swaddled in gossamer silk and etched with a golden name- Almaren.
The prophecies received by King Rithulf were spread throughout Silma, and young Prince Almaren was hailed as their savior. Everything seemed right until an attempt was made on Rithulf's life. After halting the assassins, he discovered that there was a cult dedicated to overthrowing him earlier in favor of his son.
Many attempts were made on Rithulf, driving him further and further into paranoia and insanity. In one final attempt to discredit him, King Rithulf was infected with lycanthropy, which would mark him as a creature of the Tyrant and unfit to rule. He tried to keep his affliction a secret, but after two full moons, he had left much of his court a bloody mess and rumors were beginning to spread of a terrible curse. Desperate, he asked Clortvus if there was any way to cure his condition. Clortvus told him there was a way, but it would require a great price.
On the night of the third full moon, the Gilded Palace was sealed so that only Clortvus and King Rithulf remained inside to conduct a 'sacred ritual'. Rithulf awoke shortly after being transformed to find his young son Almaren dead in his arms, having been mauled by Rithulf. As promised by Clortvus, his lycanthropy had been cured. Rithulf became mad with grief as the divine powers left by Atta were perverted into a terrible new curse, with Rithulf as its first victim- necromancy.
Unknown to Rithulf, Clortvus hated the Ceolfre Dynasty as well as Turinasticism and the goddess Atta. His mother, the handmaiden and priestess of Atta, was assailed with knives by haughty noblewomen in front of Clortvus and the goddess herself out of jealousy for her station. The young Clortvus cried into Atta's lap for help, but the goddess never flinched or so much as glanced at his mother. As he grew older, he found that many in the kingdom had these inexplicable bouts of rage and violence. Practicing many arcane arts, he eventually found that these events, including his mother's murder, were influenced by the semi-conscious remains of Glórim, who's spirit remained in Silma after his betrayal. From that day he pledged his service to Glórim to take revenge on the kingdom and Atta, secretly also planning to one day betray Glórim himself and have his final vengeance on the gods and Silma.
When King Rithulf Ceolfre murdered Almaren, the divine essence of Atta, left inside him, was absorbed by the remnants of Glórim. He took control of a dragon's corpse and proudly proclaimed that Silma was once again his. He thanked Clortvus for his services by making him into a powerful lich, and began raising the dead of the city into an unspeakable army.

More to come...