The Campaign Builder's Guild

I love this setting. Keep going! Make maps, design small adventures, detail the outside world, write up some important NPCs, write detailed treasure lists, describe specific rooms, write down ten important things that happened in the last 1000 years.

I find if I get stuck on something, and can't seem to budge, the best thing to do is just write. Good luck!

She does not seem like much: a girl not yet come of age, with limbs like burnt twigs and eyes too large for a face always half-veiled by golden hair.

But She does not really fit into such a delicate vessel. It is inescapable, the aura of menace that surrounds Her. The sense that something more, something enormous, lurks just beyond perception, pushing against the thin, fragile façade. Something dark and hungry and indescribably monstrous.

She moves and acts without discernible rhyme or reason. She holds court with empresses and hierophants, bodhisattvas and devils. She reclines in salons and debates aesthetics, metaphysics, which of Her courtiers is the prettier than the rest. She feasts on the flesh of jeweled pears and slender thralls. She takes an intimate interest in the every affair of a single soul. She joins a courtier in their chambers for one unspeakable night. She executes those who would undermine, every death personal, loving. She sows seeds of discord and strife to someday bear bitter fruit. She reveals the patient wisdom of an ancient scholar in one instant and the hateful capriciousness of an unruly child the next. She looms over the head of each and every inhabitant of the Gardens like the sword of Damocles.


If a thing such as the Sovereign Babylon possesses the desire or even the capacity for true friendship, then it is Her Dragons that fill that niche. They the closest thing She has to peers in the Manticore Gardens, and though they number only a few dozen in all, every of them is an ancient monster in their own right. Unbound by the limitations of the Anthropomorphic Dictate, the bodies of the Dragons are often shocking in their enthusiastic rejection of anything resembling the human form. Their minds pickled and fermented over uncountable centuries, their thoughts a vintage unpalatable to younger sensibilities, their agendas so opaque as to make them nigh-impenetrable to lesser logic. They often seek to embroil Nobles in their convoluted webs, with fantastic treasure and esoteric secrets the reward for an oath of vassalage and a series of what are often seemingly-random errands.

It would be wise to remember, however, that such boons always come at the end of invisible strings and the Dragons are the only other beings besides the Sovereign Babylon Herself with the power to casually snuff out the existence of a Noble. They may restrain themselves, but the threat is sufficient to give pause to most Nobles who would consider crossing one.


If the existence of the Nobles is characterized by unbridled hedonism and self-expression, then the existence of the Knights is one of privileged, rewarding service. While their position is ultimately subordinate to that of the Nobles, they still occupy an unimaginably higher stratum than the hopeless, nihilist masses of Thralls. Their Essences grant them an eternal, ageless life that is preternaturally difficult to extinguish, though perhaps not quite as hardy as that of the Nobles they serve. While many led prior lives as humans, perhaps even as Thralls who managed to distinguish themselves through some extraordinary feat, a sizable portion of Knights were uplifted from animals, plants, inanimate minerals, or even soulless bodies woven from whole-cloth. While they only hazily-remember their previous existences, they often continue to inform their characters and personalities in small, subtle ways.

While they are entitled to their own identities, Knights are typically defined by a handful of tasks at which they excel and little more. They are valets, body-servants, scriveners, bodyguards, shield-bearers, sommeliers, courtesans. They spend centuries perfecting their chosen professions, honing their skills to levels that even Nobles would struggle to match: a swordswoman who can slice the wings from a moth mid-flight, a pipe-steward who knows their mistress' every narcotic preference, a spy able to move unheard across even the noisiest of nightingale floors. Beyond mere cosmetic alterations, many Knights refine their physical forms with the Uranus Loom to further enhance their inherent abilities, so a bodyguard might sport layers of chitinous plates beneath her skin or needle-like stingers beneath her fingernails.

It should be little surprise that the relationships Knights and their Nobles are often exceedingly close. Many transcend the platonic, and it is not uncommon for masters to wed their servants, though there is an inevitable inequality in such unions. These connections make Knights prime targets of rivals seeking to strike a blow against the Nobles they serve: while a Thrall, no matter how useful, is a tool that can be easily replaced, a Knight is more: a friend, a sibling, a lover. It is a sad dimension of their existence that Knights are often cut down as mere plays in the machinations of their betters, something that most try to accept with a quiet dignity and the hope that should they die, they will at least be avenged. Some of the most epic romantic ballads in the Gardens are about Nobles who found their most beloved companion butchered and the fiery storm they bring down upon those responsible.


With a position in the grand scheme somewhere between Knights and thralls, Würme are an uncommon sight in the Gardens, of the same order or rarity as golems; whether this is because their numbers are as few or because they eschew social contact is a matter of contention. The Würme are the creations of Dragons, grown from the matter of their bodies to act as servitors in much the same way as Knights. They are not so strictly contained by the Anthropomorphic Dictate, so it is not strange to see a Wurm with multiple or bifurcated limbs, too many heads, or a profoundly-inhuman visage. They also do not think in strictly lateral, three-dimensional ways like other courtiers, which make them unsettling conversants at best but highly-efficient servants to creatures similarly unbound by conventional logic. For their part, the Dragons seem to adore and coddle them like their own spawn, but then show little remorse in treating them like expendable pawns. It is likely the only reason they do not eclipse Knights is that the Dragons appreciate outside perspectives, no matter now limited they might be; not to mention, the presence of more than one Wurm can easily kill a party.



The writhing, shrieking, stinking masses, the flesh and firewood that fuels the Manticore Gardens, thralls live an existence that is as wretched and hopeless as the courtiers' is decadent. Though human in form, they are denied any privilege of identity, considered kine at best and animate furniture most often. Actually, to say that they're furniture would be the best way to characterize how the courtiers view them: you sit on them, they hold your drinks and scrolls, pretty ones subtly enhance the room, and if you get too cold, you can hack them up and toss them in the fire. Thralls die in uncounted scores every day, but there are always more, bred in the sunless bowels of the Gardens or purchased from flesh-traders in great bronze cages.

Thralls perform the numberless tasks too foul for Knights to stoop to and too mundane to waste the service of a golem on. They are cupbearers, waiters, sous-chefs, bed-warmers. They pick the fruit and raise the cattle that will end up on the feast-tables of the Nobles. They dredge and smelt the ores and salts from veins buried deep below the tower-palace. They are thrown to Loom-spun beasts with only daggers in their hands. They are vivisected in casual experiments. They are slaughtered and served the same as any fattened pig.

For some, there is the siren song of exaltation to the Knighthood, perhaps even the Golden Essences of the Nobles, but for every thrall blessed or talented enough to grasp such an elusive prize, countless more are ground to nothing by the nihilistic Gardens of the reality. And indeed, the courtiers are well aware that their grotesque lifestyle is bought with blood and flesh. They usually just don't care.

While technically not considered true 'courtiers', there exist a number of artifice-crafted entities whose presence and utility are so ubiquitous that they are nevertheless considered an indispensable part of the Manticore Garden's social clockwork.

Exquisitely rare, golems are artificial automata crafted of any number of nonliving materials: polished basalt or jade, lacquered wood, gleaming brass, riveted steel, filigreed silver and smoky glass. Anthropomorphic in design, their features are typically striking, realist almost to the point of being exaggerated. The creation of a golem is a process beyond laborious, requiring a flawless vessel, many exotic minerals and reagents from which to construct a consciousness, a perfectly-sterile birthplace, and countless hours of work by a master craftwright and sorcerer, the level of expertise necessary more commonly found among the Dragons than Nobles. The difficulty of the undertaking dissuades most, but for those willing to devote the time and possess just the right degree of luck, the product is one that cannot be easily replicated by either Knights or thralls.

Firstly, let it be said that golems are implacable. Their motivating principle not bound to any single organ, they are next to impossible to slay or even mar in any significant fashion. Possessed of the willpower and single-mindedness of a revenant, not to mention the patience of a stone, they will undertake any task they are assigned literally for the rest of eternity, until such time as their body degrades to the point of uselessness (though they'll still think about completing it) or they are ordered to do otherwise. The task can be as simple as making sure a stone floor stays clean, or as broad as ensuring no harm of any sort comes to any of the guests at a party. While this makes them incredibly useful servitors, the downside is that golems are incredibly boring. They have no real creativity, no wit or passion beyond their current purpose; they are little more than human-shaped machines, and machines are no fun to talk to. It is for this reason that they are more commonly employed by Dragons than Nobles: not simply because the ancient monsters find it easier to craft them, but they are less put-off by the gap in understanding.


The moniker 'gargoyle' refers to the uncountable diversity of Loom-spun creatures that prowl the halls and chambers of the Gardens. As the Uranus Loom can bring animation to more than simply animal or plant-like matter, they are typically as 'organic' in the traditional sense as Nobles or Knights are themselves. As a rule, gargoyles may not appear or act as human: even those with two pairs of limbs that walk upright always possess some distinctive, unmistakable deformity, and they are typically of much more limited intellect and creativity, well on the other side of the boundary that separates bestial instinct from rational thought.

It is virtually impossible to make any broader categorizations, for gargoyles are every bit as varied as worldly flora and fauna; perhaps even moreso, as their forms were conceived by the unhindered imagination of the Nobles and not some evolutionary mechanism. Some are made to be pets and companions, some to be guard-beasts and pit-monsters, others to produce some specific substance that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere, and some were crafted for no other reason than to serve as fascinating decoration.


Born of dizzyingly-complex quasi-mathematical formulae, tulpa are ephemeral spirit-servitors. For ease of interaction, they are typically designed with human-like silhouettes and voices, if only to mask the bizarre, inscrutable processes that animate the programs. If the sorcery-codes are inscribed on a pearl that is then placed inside a courtier's head, the tulpa will follow them as a constant familiar they can selectively tune in or out: they can be allowed to wander elsewhere, and then recalled instantly with a thought. If the runes are inscribed on nonliving matter, such as a mirror frame or a marble obelisk, then the tulpa will possess that object instead. Whole choirs of tulpa are sometimes bound together inside such 'cogitators'. The thought-forms are typically created to perform, at most, a handful of purposes that they focus on to the exclusion of all others, the exact extent of their utility dependent on the characters and complexity of the code that birthed them. The most common uses are as viziers, scribes, pensieves, messengers, or virtual-courtesans. Existing as bodiless spirits, they are impossible to harm through conventional means, but certain tulpa are created with the express purpose of devouring other tulpa. It is also possible to ward a threshold against intrusion by a tulpa, but such boundaries always possess their cracks.

Yesterday I had a pleasant conversation with Superbright for quite a while on IRC about various things, but especially the Manticore Gardens. The main points of that discussion, summarized, are:

I did and do still like this setting a lot. It has quite a bit of certain evocative imagery, and I like the "Hey! We don't follow early 21st century American social conventions because there's no reason we'd really have to!" feel to it.

That said, I still say the Sovereign Babylon, and, to a lesser extent, the Dragons, seem kind of "Mary Sue"ish. They're probably not intended that way, but there's this ugly Forgotten Realms quality of "look at these more-awesome-than-you'll-ever-be" people. At least, they have that potential-- maybe in the hands of a good GM they won't be and in the hands of a bad GM there's no hope anyway, but writing this stuff into the setting feels like trouble that doesn't need to be invited. Were I to GM a game set here, I personally wouldn't be sure what to do with the powers that be; I wouldn't want to use them as an arbitrarily railroading device, but the real feeling seems to be that they're not there for the players to beat at all-- and on some level I feel like everything in a setting should be "beatable."

Just my two cents. :D

Sovereign Babylon sounds a lot like the Empress in Exalted sparkletwist, except this Empress looks younger than the Empress even... I don't think there's too much to worry here :D unless you also think the Empress is too mary-sueish. It also seems to fit the eastern-style setting- a mythic totalitarian figure of unity existing in the world (as opposed to western-style where the mythic figures [even the greek ones] didn't directly rule (only their demigod children did :p)...I know it's more complicated than that, but I am painting with broad strokes here)

Except, in Exalted, the Empress isn't there any more. One of the main recent events of the canonical backstory is her abrupt disappearance. So, she's not a problem because she's not there. As brought up in my discussion with Superbright previously, Sovereign Babylon seems more like the Lady of Pain to me, and I'm not a big fan of the Lady of Pain either.

Lady of Pain from Planescape... she's as good as not there in the first half of the video game? I don't see how there's much of a problem there to have an all powerful leader somewhere in the campaign so that at the very least the players don't get it into their minds that it's a good idea to burn down every town?

re: Exalted- well, if you get the final book in the series "Return of the Scarlet Empress", she 'is' there :D. But to be fair, in the vanilla game you are correct, she is not there.

Quote from: Light DragonI don't see how there's much of a problem there to have an all powerful leader somewhere in the campaign so that at the very least the players don't get it into their minds that it's a good idea to burn down every town?

Like I said, I like everything in a campaign to be "beatable." I don't like for there to be any "all powerful" anything at all, because that means nothing that the players do can ever oppose them, if that's what they should decide to do.

While it's true a bad GM will always find ways to have rocks fall and make everyone die, considering the GM can do whatever, making there be actual characters that can do this in the setting means that the GM may be tempted to involve those actual characters in plots and such-- and then the players are getting plot points handed to them by all powerful characters they can't ever oppose. All aboard the railroad.

I'm not sure that I can agree with you, Sparkle. Does the presence of an entity several orders of magnitude more physically powerful than the players preclude player opposition? There are plenty of other options aside from violent confrontation. Do you feel that a being of immense political power is similarly rendered unopposed by the player characters? - for example, an autocrat who controls all the organs of state, has an iron-clad grasp on its military and its means of production, has all the right commercial and political connections, and could conceivably put so many walls between the players and itself that it is nigh unassailable.

I've actually been trying to think of a way to dial back the Sovereign Babylon's implied omnipotence without sacrificing the weirdness-factor that comes with having a preteen Lovecraftian god-monster up and walking about the joint.

So, what I propose is: Babylon is dying. Whatever ancient, unspeakable, malignant horror it is that wears the face of a young woman, it's dying. She shouldn't be able to die, but She's dying all the same. She's been dying for an eternity. Wherever She walks within the Gardens, She trails a tangled bundle of wires and pipes and tubing, seemingly far too heavy for Her slender knees to bear, pumping Her body with strange formula and preservatives to keep Her from imploding in upon Herself. She sips constantly on foul-scented alchemical brews, swallows all manner of bizarre pill, bathes in bubbling unguents, all to indefinitely-delay Her own heat-death. Some say that's why She built the Gardens, if it was truly Her who built them: something about the particular geometries inhibiting the flow of normal time. Make no mistake, She is still a terrible god-monster, just a crippled one. One now consigned to rule by the weight Her name carries rather than by shows of awful force, for She is loath to exert herself nowadays and risk damaging the arcane machinery that sustains Her. She is feared, but also, perhaps, pitied.

Just a thought. What do you lot think?

Quote from: TheMeanestGuestDoes the presence of an entity several orders of magnitude more physically powerful than the players preclude player opposition? There are plenty of other options aside from violent confrontation. Do you feel that a being of immense political power is similarly rendered unopposed by the player characters?

Merely several orders of magnitude is one thing; the words used were "all powerful." To continue the Planescape example, the Lady of Pain (if I remember correctly) doesn't even have stats, because she's intended as a plot device/DM railroading stick and is not really intended to be confronted or overcome in any normal game mechanics driven way whatsoever. "In any way whatsoever" is also a key point, because I understand and agree that there are multiple ways to have a confrontation and I never meant to imply otherwise. I never said that there had to be a violent confrontation. I said "beaten," and I put it in quotes, specifically to imply that the only point was to "win the game." How the players do that is up to them. Canonically, there is no way at all to "beat"-- physically, politically, or whatever-ly-- the Lady of Pain, and that's the part I dislike.

Quote from: SuperbrightSo, what I propose is: Babylon is dying. Whatever ancient, unspeakable, malignant horror it is that wears the face of a young woman, it's dying.

Hmm. Now it's kind of got an Warhammer 40K Emperor of Man feel on top of it. The whole thing about the nigh-omnipotent leader actually being imprisoned and decaying and such. Since she's still there, I'm not quite sure what it changes, to be honest. I guess this adds new plot hooks centered around her (an adventure to save her?) but I'm on the fence as to whether I think that is a good or bad thing-- I am personally of the mentality that settings should not really revolve around a single (or group of) powerful NPCs, because it seems like it could lead too easily to "you don't matter" syndrome, like in Forgotten Realms and pretty much every White Wolf published adventure, but of course it's ultimately a question of how much you want the setting to revolve around her.

>>< Some say that's why She built the Gardens, if it was truly Her who built them: something about the particular geometries inhibiting the flow of normal time. Make no mistake, She is still a terrible god-monster, just a crippled one. One now consigned to rule by the weight Her name carries rather than by shows of awful force, for She is loath to exert herself nowadays and risk damaging the arcane machinery that sustains Her. She is feared, but also, perhaps, pitied.

That definitely increases the interest factor and the number of plot points that could go around her. :) And heck, I think it addresses sparkletwist's comment that "she cannot be defeated." Good development.

Keep in mind re: sparkletwists' critiques- Forgotten Realms, White Wolf, etc. are all highly successful commercially. On the other hand, settings that lack extremely powerful characters and rulers are: Eberron and Golarion. However, even though those settings lack an Elminster, I recall playing in many many games in each where we are given quests by people more powerful than the party and that are essentially railroads. And in Golarion a deity== almost impossible to defeat. So many players likely don't mind having a powerful NPC as a potential quest giver. It's more of an issue that the NPC has a reason for not getting involved and bailing out the characters when they're in trouble as a deus ex machina. In the end, the development is all about what sort of feel you want for your setting.

The Sovereign Babylon is meant to have a fairly central role in the mythology and social hierarchy of the Manticore Gardens, but I'm trying to limit Her somewhat to where She's not going to casually unmake characters simply for displeasing her. In fact, it's my intent that it would be entirely possible to avoid dealing with Her altogether; while having the Sovereign praise a Noble's name in front of the court is an excellent way for them to gain status, keeping one's affairs as far removed from Her as possible isn't going to penalize them either.

But, while I try and sort out what to do with Her, here's a sample of some of the foreign cultures I can see visiting the Gardens:

The Colossiwallah travel the Unknown World on the backs of their Nephilim: titanic stone beings of unquantifiable age, their features a mix of the human and the atavistic, bent and twisted beneath the weight of massive, pitted iron chains. As they walk, the giants sing to one another, like groaning, screeching whales, and the wallahs claim to be able to discern the meaning of their mounts' vocalizations. The Colossiwallah are traders, merchants, and gypsies, their teetering howdahs decorated with a schizophrenic riot of wares from cultures unheard of.

Unlike most of those who make pilgrimage to the Gardens, the rakshasa do not come to indulge themselves in the countless pleasures and vices found therein, for there is only one indulgence the stoic warrior-demons will allow themselves to indulge in: the cleaving of flesh. The smallest among them still stands nearly twenty hands high, formed of nothing but iron-hard bone and corded muscle, with skin that is either black as coal or red as blood, hands that end in long, curving talons, and tongues that drip a potent acid. When they appear in the Manticore Gardens, it is almost invariably to challenge the most martially-skilled of courtiers to public duels typically, as they term it, "to the pain." While a single rakshasa can slaughter dozens, if not scores, of thrall gladiators (and sometimes do, if only for the spectacle), such a massacre gives them little pleasure. Most would prefer to bloody their flawless weapons in single combat against a Knight or preferably a Noble. Because such opponents are difficult, if not impossible, to kill, the warrior-demons aim to inflict the most gruesome, painful, and visually-spectacular wounds possible, mutilating their opponents with savage glee: hence, "to the pain". Those who defeat a rakshasa in combat are entitled to his or her weapons, which are universally-flawless in craftsmanship, as well as the renown that comes with having bested one of a race who literally live for combat.

The ambassadors of the Painted Kingdoms are something of a novelty. They do not veil their bodies in any sort of textile, instead decorating their skin with layer upon layer of vivid, ornamental paint and cosmetics. They grow their hair long, twisting it into thick braids and dreadlocks which they dye with kohl, henna, and indigo. Many of the plants and minerals from which they grind their paints possess narcotic or hallucinogenic properties, so the moods of the Painted People are strange and unpredictable even by the standards of the Manticore Gardens. When they come, they come bearing great casks of their dyes and inks, which they are only too happy to paint across the bodies of curious courtiers.

I love love love the vagueness and poetry of this setting. It's very dreamlike, very bizarre, and I think the lack of overt detail plays strongly to a strange, fanciful setting such as this.

What is the cosmology, or the very least least how does the sky look and in turn is interpreted, within the Manticore Gardens? What are the thoughts on religion, philosophy, and whatever "after-lives" and other worldly places may exist? I think you could do some really cool heavy philosophical things with this setting : aesthetics, epistemology, metaphysics, thaumaturge, free will, theology, etc. 

First off, I'm glad you dig the setting! I'm a little worried it might be too vague, but it's good to know that someone finds a certain poetry in it.

Quote from: Señor LeetzWhat is the cosmology, or the very least least how does the sky look and in turn is interpreted, within the Manticore Gardens?

The sky above the Gardens is the intense, awful blue of lapis lazuli, its terrifying vastness rarely marred by clouds; it is a common superstition among the courtiers that those to wander in the flat, bleached-bone wastes invite the infinite heavens to swallow them up. At night, it is full of stars, and the colorful, graven moons that number anywhere from three to seven, and few of these heavenly bodies seem content to maintain a fixed position. There is a great orrery and telescopic array in one of the uppermost levels of the Gardens, though most Nobles and Knights find its complexity worse than baffling.

Everything that cannot be seen from the parapets of the Manticore Gardens is considered the Unknown World, of which no sensible depictions exist. It is charted on shifting maps and globes that resemble puzzle-boxes, which can be rotated and realigned to form multiple,  paradoxical cartographies, each seemingly as valid as the rest.

There are Lands Outside Creation, though as they exist wholly beyond sensible experience, describing them is impossible. Through the magical art of High Summoning, it is possible to touch minds and draw creatures from Beyond into this world.

Beyond that, I'm somewhat stumped in what I want to do. I'm probably going to pinch a little from Exegesis' Apocodritch Lords and have the world exist between a chthonic underworld and a cold, searing overworld. A concept that I'm bandying about but aren't married to is that the Sun, Moons, and the more lordly of Stars hold their own personified courts and sometimes literally visit the Gardens themselves (a la Sandman).

Quote from: Señor LeetzWhat are the thoughts on religion, philosophy, and whatever "after-lives" and other worldly places may exist?

There are Gods in the world. Either because I'm too lazy to come up with a distinct pantheon or I just have a fetishistic obsession with tarot (probably a little of both), the twenty-two Gods of the Invisible Clergy embody the archetypes of the Greater Arcana: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Justice, The Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, Strength, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, and The World. However, each of them possesses multiple, often contradictory emanations and aspects, which are fully capable of existing in the same location and even interacting with one another. When they arrive in the Gardens, they often do so with their own servitors, spirits, and mortal acolytes in tow.

There are also Lovecraftian, Babylon-esque god-monsters that dwell in the blackness between stars, and they also sometimes deign to send emissaries and avatars to pay homage and experience the pleasures of the Gardens.

Of course, despite the literal Gods and comparable entities walking around, most courtiers are profoundly areligious, concerned with the sensible matters of the Manticore Gardens. Those that do align themselves with any deity typically do so only in exchange for tangible, immediate benefits, never for the promise of rewards in an afterlife that they (as immortals) are hopefully never going to reach.

To put it in a nutshell, courtiers are often contemptuous of the Unknown World and any worlds beyond. While they will entertain those who make the journey from their own lands and may find themselves fascinated with their strange foreign cultures, they are typically disinclined to risk the dangers of travel themselves when an eternity of hedonistic self-expression is already at their fingertips.

Vague, I know. These are some of the things I've been having difficulty putting down into words that match the rest of my style. Any responses/suggestions/further questions?

Added a section on the Knighthood, the Nobles' loyal servants and companions.