The Campaign Builder's Guild

I generally avoided incorporeal undead and when for the more bodily stuff.

Fair enough.

It was kind of a "design goal" of sorts, actually.  I wanted to keep the setting mostly super-visceral.  I think the Wraithwaste was going to be a kind of weird exception.

Makes perfect sense. Definitely makes the Wraithwastes stand out.

Here's a question that has arisen a couple of times in my irregular table-top CE game:

In what Aeon did the Poxbringers rise/fall? Put another way, did the City of Creeping Flesh have its heyday before or after the Membrane Wars? What about relative to the Imperium's rise and fall? 

I'm sure at one point, I'd have known this. I'm kind of impressed that this question came up!

Digging through old stuff, I found this timeline:

Common Reckoning

The most widely used calendar is the so-called Common Reckoning (C.R.), which marks the beginning of each new Aeon as year 0.

Aeon of Dust (The Desiccation) – many records of this time have been destroyed; the dates provided are approximations (at best) – or, in some cases, educated guesses – on the part of scholars

0 – The Membrane Wars end

6030 – The dementia epidemics of Moroi reach their peak

7650 – The Pallid Decimation; the cestoid Imperium begins

9003 – The cestoid Imperium falls

10450 – The Red Ravishing begins

Aeon of Putrefaction (The Festering)

0 – The Red Ravishing ends

42 – Pandemics of the Sanguine Dissolution wrack the world

453 – The Branded Crusade

457-478 – The Northern Uprising

466-468 – The Adumbral War

473 – Present Day

This doesn't include the Poxbringers, though. It's possible I never actually slotted them in to a specific time, though; a lot of CE lore was pretty vague, sometimes deliberately.

My best guess is that the Poxbringers and the City of Creeping Flesh were ascendent in the earlier parts of the Desiccation (and thus post-Membrane Wars) but before the cestoid Imperium took over.

Quote from: SteerpikeMy best guess is that the Poxbringers and the City of Creeping Flesh were ascendent in the earlier parts of the Desiccation (and thus post-Membrane Wars) but before the cestoid Imperium took over.

That works perfectly -thanks!

Q: What empires/nations/states/twilight cities were temporally co-existent, even partially, with the Cultivar Technocracy?

I'd say most of the Twilight Cities save perhaps Lophius would have been around in some form, although Dolmen would not have been inhabited by the lilix (at this point it would just be a necropolis, and the lilix would not exist). The Revenants would have arrived relatively recently and only beginning their colony. I imagine many scattered across the world and sometimes infiltrating mortal soceity rather than banded together into the decadent industrial power they became.

The Technocracy and their Urbs Viva should actually be partially co-existant with the Poxbringers, I think.

I imagine there would also be demoniac remnant-kingdoms (vestiges of the Demon Dynasties), infernal fiefdoms and warlords. These would include Dracheen, the City of Weeping Stones, which fell after lengthy siege during the war. Morghenna the Deathless, a Witch from the last Aeon with a demon-husband, would have had a small realm somewhere.

There'd also be the City of Creeping Flesh, of course.

I'll let you know if I think of/turn up any others.

EDIT: Skein probably would not be around, actually, at least not in its present form. A version of it might be held by the Technocracy. Macellaria would probably look pretty different.

There's also an empire of a people called the Tsathii that existed near Lophius in that period. Their thing was clockwork and demonism; some of them probably went on to become the Moth-Kings.

Dolmen, as mentioned, would have been a necropolis - Llech-Urgol, also called Barrow City or the City of Crypts, where the Cromnites buried their dead.

Awesome. Thanks so much for all the info.

Geographically, where was/is Dracheen (roughly)?

It's in Dour Erg at the southernmost tip of Etiolation. In the present day it's a ruin. The main site of interest is the Evisceratress' Tomb, which is in a secret location sealed with powerful wards. This prevented the city's conquerors from ever looting it.

EDIT: If your PCs ever end up at the tomb, feel free to make stuff up, but I do have notes for some of it.

If you happen to have those notes on the Evisceratress' Tomb and are still willing to share them, that would make a wonderfully appreciated holiday gift!

My daughter asked for me to run an adventure during our mutual break. I asked her what kind of adventure, and she essentially said "I want to kill weird monsters, loot treasures, and have a good chance of dying." In other words, my daughter's a hack-n-slasher. I don't know if I've done something very wrong or very right. :)

EDIT: Also, did you ever decide what Baron Phtannoc did to be exiled? Semi-relatedly, how long has he been in exile (out of his 100 year exile, roughly)? Even less relatedly, how long have the Revenants been in the region (i.e., CE)? For example, do they post-date the Imperium?

I'm away from my old notes currently but I'll have a dig through them. If I recall correctly I had some things planned out, but I don't think it was complete.

In terms of the Revenants arriving, I think it was post-Imperium, but I'll sift through and see if I can find any other timelines.

Rose, have you run Death Frost Doom? It definitely fits the bill, especially the revised version they put out semi-recently.

Thanks for checking on those two things, Steerpike. Also, I greatly appreciate the negadungeon recommendation. I was not familiar with DFD, but given your suggestion and the fact that Zak helped with the revision, I'm buying it tonight!

I've run it once, had a great time, out of I believe six players, one survived. Ten Foot Pole says the following about it:

Quote from: Ten Foot PoleIt has a near perfect antechamber/lead-in, lots of unguarded loot, tons of weird shit, is very deadly, and can totally change and/or wreck a campaign. It's a perfect pick-up-and-play adventure and for cons. Running this in a home campaign is akin to throwing Tomb of Horrors at your players unannounced.

You could probably run it with lots of different systems, but Lamentations of the Flame Princess has a free PDF version of the rules if you want to run it with the rules-as-written.