The Campaign Builder's Guild

The storylines, especially how the very recent is affected by the middle term, and how the older histories still rain down, is still my favorite part.
Case in point with Elm...he still could recognize that Klaxik's voice from that cell today.  He does not know, however, that it was a younger Kasarack Kabi Bekin (see earlier post) that lft him there.  

[blockquote=Tybalt]Out of curiousity is Elm being presented as a villain type or what? It almost seems as though there aren't exactly really any heroes at times save for those Grey Legion folk. It seems very much like a Renaissance type era in which it is more about allegiance and accomplishment than 'doing good'.[/blockquote]

Hmm.  That's a pretty deep observation.  
Elm in particular is a follower of Grak, Captain of the Collegium Tortoris.  That's the guild of torturers, and though they are diplomats and anti-terrorists, they are also assassins, poisoners and yes, torturers.  There are 6 members of the Collegium Tortoris in the Miston group, and Grak is pretty much the sole leader of the whole band.  The rest of the group includes a Knight of the Order of Stenron (Jolen Iberhardt, Human), a commoner turned Knight turning priest of Amrist, (Drono Biddlebee Hobyt), A sage from Vicol the Artificer (Morgan Faerie-Omwo~ female), and a Fire/Chaos mage from Vicol the Artifier (Amber Sweetwater-Hobyt).
There is a level of (dare I say it) reality involved.  The Mistonians are currently doing 'good', trying to find the totem, the key, or the lock that is missing from the barrowlands holding the Ancient Vampyre, the Dreadwing.  However, most of them are doing it to help Grak, and the contingent from the Collegium Tortoris would as gladly throttle an enemy with their large intestine for Grak as stand in front of a charging Vrock for him.

I would say allegiance to faction and friend dominates all 4 current goups, though the Grey Legion definitely has some members that might be more interested in promoting weal than the Mistonians.  You are certainly onto something, as usual, with that.  Chaos vs Law dominates my world, Good and Evil are so often confused by the point of view.

Thanks for the clarification--it also confirms my belief that alignment is something a campaign builder or dm can work with in their own way--your world is much more concerned with law versus chaos as you say than mine which is more about good versus evil. The dm can certainly pick the main conflict and in fact should--the worlds of fantasy gaming offer many possibilities to choose from but some don't seem to make a distinct choice. By doing so in your campaign world you make it clear that the players are involved and important in the scheme of things.

Quote from: LordVreegThe last rolled up a Knight of the Armor of Trade, the warriors who serve the Platform of Trade, which is the Church of Ogleic.  Ogleic's aspects include trade, a fair dedal, the scales, and building an honest relationship.  Rolling tremendously, he will be able to use the Knighthoods proclivity for a big flail to devastating effect.  He also took a bit of restorative and necromantic spell ability.

The Armor of Trade
The Platform of Trade is the name for the Church of the TradeGod Ogleic, He of the fair deal and of the balance.  The Platform of Trade is three quarters Church and a quarter moneylender, a strange aglomeration of worship, prayers, homliy, and sweet dealings.  
The Armor of Trade began as caravan guards for the church-sponsored wain-rides that drove from Stenron down to the Argussian Empire, stopping in the Bright Lands, Orbi, aand in the Theocracy of Nebler in between.  As these guards became more of a formalized part of the mercantile events, Joran Parle, human ex-knight of the Crying Sun rose to the top of the guards.  That was back in 798 R.O.N., and he established the Armor of Trade as the name of the guards of the Church of Trade.  
Over the next decades, the guards moved slowly to being more of a Knighthood, but in 841, Gerod Kax Colishaw, Klaxik priest of Ogleic, went from the priesthood into the guards, but with the express idea of making them more like some of more pious knighthoods, Like the Tristonian Brotherhood of the Neblerians.  So it came to pass that the Armor of Trade training included philosophy and Restoration, economics and Necromancy, social grace and the nature of Order.
Today's Armor of Trade wear the grey tabard emblazoned with the gold scales proudly, embodying the values of fairness, prosperity, cooperation, and getting what you deserve.

[note]I think it is the closest thing to an unbalance in my world, but some of these church knighthoods have, in the GM's humble opinion, the best chance of survival of any of the guilds, schools, or factions of my game.  Fierce combat mixed with a little restorative and other spellcasting?  Sign me up...All that, and normally a really firm social standing in any town (except maybe the Order of Bone...). [/note]

It seems like these knightly orders do have the best of all possible worlds...well in your world at least. ;) However it also seems that they have many obligations, not only to their faction but also to those their faction has become attached to. It is yet another example how your society has evolved from a complex series of relationships that overlap.

[ic=Heard at Hostem's Hospitality]
Mourning at Dever's Gate]

Lo, and Lo, The dame at Dever's Gate doth cry,
As leading Tribin then Gerin begin their rise,
The mournful dirge dark-colors the sky,
The night-ghouls have claimed another prize.
An inward sob, drawn bow of breath, and again begin,
'Her curls, her laugh, her happy eyes,
Her gifts, her questions, her youthful unlearned sin,
To Orcus' dark train bound with fetters and ties'.
Another morn, another mother's dark day,
A cold listing by Bone Knights compil'd..
Keep close your younglings nor stray
Yourself into the night so wicked, so wild.

Hosta Hab Needleswine,
Credited to the Frigid Song.
2-12-895

[/ic]
As the nights become grimmer, and the twin moons glint on mail and lpate that patrols in droves, the tavern's bright lights induce many a listener to stay for just one more song.
One more song for an hour, maybe...

And the songs that are sung in Igbar these days are fearful.

Quote from: TybaltIt seems like these knightly orders do have the best of all possible worlds...well in your world at least. ;) However it also seems that they have many obligations, not only to their faction but also to those their faction has become attached to. It is yet another example how your society has evolved from a complex series of relationships that overlap.

I think it comes from years of players wanting to play clever and sneaky types.  If you read posts on the Miston group, half of the group is from the Collegium Tortoris!!  I think I might have been overcompensating.
And to boot, not one gets experioence in my system like a fighter on the front lines.  Every time they protect, or take damage, or succesfully use a skill, they get experience!

Your songs are cool but kind of dismal--it would be like listening to death metal all the time. Does it rain a lot in Celtricia?

I have to say that I like the way you've found a rules based system that supports a fighter's experience--you should consider putting it up in the other part of the forum so that people can possibly give opinions or make use of it. Are you planning to publish it in some form?

Quote from: TybaltYour songs are cool but kind of dismal--it would be like listening to death metal all the time. Does it rain a lot in Celtricia?

I have to say that I like the way you've found a rules based system that supports a fighter's experience--you should consider putting it up in the other part of the forum so that people can possibly give opinions or make use of it. Are you planning to publish it in some form?

Dismal?  Good.  These songs are topical, and the current atmosphere is charged with fear and misery.  The Dead Walk, dammit, and no one can seem to stop it.

  I included a pdf of ELM's basic sheet, for any who are interested.
File: 1184783413_392_FT31806_elm.pdf

Igbarian Story Arc-Looking forward.
The ideas behind all this rigamarole is that the Grey Legion did, despite warning of every type, let loose an ancient Vampyre of old Hagenos. It had been sealed in a tomb beneath the ruins of a refuge of one of the Orbaian Exile Clanhouses. Vampyres in Celtricia are similar to Liches, except that they are made and not self-created. This particular one, Grahaeme  Kexial Antroo, Justicar of Mammon's Hand, was imprisonned there some 475 years before, walled up behind his hidden temple. Letting this creature loose has brought a powerful undead lord, one that gained strength over the years, into the affairs of the Igbar area. He has taken over the caverns of the Underdark of the Orbian Exiles, where his people retreated to from Orbi half a millenia before. He has subjegated most of the firehazers humanoid tribe of the Wibble Hills.
So now they have paid the price. 2 of the group was killed in-game by the Vampyre, and the players made a mature decision to create a new group rather than be unbalanced.
[note]I am allowing them to start with 6500 exp to spend on skills, instead of the 4800 that is standard for beginning characters. This is to simulate a slightly experienced group that Pharren is gathering, as well as allowing the players to create a more mature character with a slight advantage in their areas of expertise. The players are also being allowed to choose one guild to major with and a minor guild as well, which gives them more potical power, as well as more skill choices. It also simulates a more mature and better connected character. [/note]
Two nights later, Hosta Hab Needleswine and Raphael Tungstolen, the Frigid Masterskalds, are awakened by the sound of a struggle in the Frigid Song Guildhall, and they rush to the bardic bachelor apartments, to find some dark man-like creature feeding on Pharren, Frigid Skald and member of the Grey Legion. They surprise it and manage to drive it off, but the walls are running with red wetness. Pharren's left hand is missing, and blood pumps through his wrist and his throat.
The two of them raise an alarum, and find 4 other apprentices in the downstairs hall and 2 other journeymen drained of blood, dead and dismembered.
Raphael and Teque Manus rush Pharren's unresponding body to the closest church, the Lawful Triumvirate, only to find it also in an uproar. Collective Hierophant Kaexiol, the most senior father of the Lawful Triumvirate, says that some awful presence tried to force it's way through the wards of the church earlier that night. The priesthhod begins work on Pharren right away, with his fellow Grey legionnaire Eodl standing vigil all night.
The next morning, As Pharren is pulled through the worst of the damage and after a ceremony of Restoration has restored most of the damage and cleansed Pharren, Eodl comes in with the news that Levy, Rumble Lou, Sam, and Martin are all missing. The rest of the Grey Legion is gone. The halls of the White Palladium are bloodstained, and there are already stories of Sir Garcellenti, Sir Thomasen and Sir Jamesen in a titanic struggle with some unclean evil during the night.
Pharren's hand partially regenerates, and he has a huge swath of white running through his hair. He can still play music, but the hand is gnarled and it has not the strength to wield his great bow. The struggle with the Undead leaves deeper scars as well, and Pharren is determined to find out what happened during the night, and what happened to his friends.

Another Hawaak passes. The night becomes even more dangerous. The Scarlet Pilums double the size of their patrols inside and outside of the gates. The homeless cry to not be left alone at night, and crowd together in the gates of the Pilum Towers. The boneyards become walkways each day with families bringing priest to bless their family dead and prevent them from walking the night, and patrols walk quickly through those same boneyards at night. One night in Early Spring, two members of a Scarlet Pilum Patrol return covered in blood and gore. They are the remnant of a 12-man group, and they say that a pair of skeletal Ogres along with dozens of other skeletal creatures set upon their band as they skirted the Wibble Hills.

Now, drawn yet resolute, Skald Pharren of the Frigid Song visits Vinivixias, Trader Prime of the Sceding Tree trading family. Lay-Brother Eodl at his side, Pharren walks heavy-hearted, bearing a secret guilt, but he has resolved to rebuild the Legion.
The call goes out through Igbar, and the folk of the city pause from the busy work they try to distract themselves with. The Grey Legion were heroes of Igbar before. Could they be so again?


Vinivixias, Trader-Prime of the Sceding Tree, has many reasons for helping this group out.  He supported them before, but that has little to do with it.  His caravan reports are lttered with fear and woe, and he is keeping secret the latest report, that there were Gnoll and Ogre skeletons and Zombies attacking a caravan 2 days before, on the Recum road.  

The Winfire Trading Consortium, which has secretly been selling weapons to the Firehazer Tribem has heard form their contacts that the Firehazer's have withrawn to their fastness on the coast of the Wibble Hills.  Horatio Ger Metaleye, Klaxik Trader-Secundus and Seat on the Lower House of the Unicorn, has been told by the Blackstripe Thieves to blame this undead plague on The Teque Guild and the Church of Chaos.  The Blackstripes are trying to rebuild their political strngth in town, and are paying the Winfire guild well.

The Blue Turtles are publically mourning, with Lady Rumble Lou (former Grey Legionaire) missing, and with thier new outpost in the Wibble hills gone silent, they fear the worst.

[note]Rumble Lou was a PC female KNight, gaining social power in Igbar.  It was here that told hew guild about the House Killraven (old Orbic) keep they found on top of a plateau in the Wibble hills.  The Blue Turtles were rebuilding it, making a new secret chapter house, whichn was also a good base for the PC's continued forays into the Firehazer camps. Now held by undead Blue Turtles...[/note]

The Players have a great number of options, in their quest to reverse the power of the Vampyre Lord.  Research in the Steel Libram will reveal that elder undead create full Vamyres and 'partial fallen' at a rate based on their age.  The amount of other undead created is not possible for a vampyre, though commanding them is.  Therefor, the Vampyre must have been a necromancer of no small abiility.

The Boneyards to the north of Igbar are barely held in check, and the players will find that the amount of undead coming from the newer and older sections is beyond the experience even of the Bone Knights.
There are three small mausoleums that, unbeknownst to the Keepers of the Bones and the visiting Bone Knights, are infested with animated undead, and where Anginarian Ghasts rule with cunning, using their power to create more animated servants from the 3 centuries of bodies.  
The three mausoleums are from the now defunct Harissol (human) family, which actually has old ties to the Astrikon Traders, a previous culture, the Brave Cuirrass, an old, defunct Knighthood of the Argussioan Marchwardens, and the Catacombs of the Church of Chaos.
In the last of the three, they will find evidence of Vernidalian priests visiting...

Up in the Wibble Hills, the Grey Legion had already conquered an old Orbic keep that the Firehazers were using, and inhabited it with a contingent of the Blue Turtles, but the Vampyre has taken at and destroyed the knights and their friends who were there.  That is the next big test for the players.

Hm...it sounds like a nasty nest of undead is about to be stumbled onto...I can see why you're giving them a bit of an edge. It sounds rather exciting actually. Will they be able to count on the mercenary guilds for help or backup at all?

Also what are the ultimate goals of these undead lords?

Quote from: TybaltHm...it sounds like a nasty nest of undead is about to be stumbled onto...I can see why you're giving them a bit of an edge. It sounds rather exciting actually. Will they be able to count on the mercenary guilds for help or backup at all?

Also what are the ultimate goals of these undead lords?

Both groups grappling with a powerful undead lord are actually part of a connected storeyline, which in turn is actually the unfortunate mirroring of an even older rivalry.

Back in the Age of Heroes, when the Celestial Planars used men as their proxies, The Arch-Lich Arbor corrupted Pino Palladino, companion to the great Bard Numansongs, into turning traitor.
I won't get into the whole tale of Woe how Palladinio allowed the Oix Qumoimidi (New Police, Silverwood Omwo~) to overrun the secret fastness of the Great Bard, but after Labernium Fireheart slew Pino Palladino, the Arch-liched picked over the wreckage of the battlefield, found the traitor, and used awful magic to raise that ruined man into a potent Vampyre.
This happenned around -2700 Reckonning of Nebler.
 Millenia later, in around -370,the rumors of the Dreadwing, a suprememly powerful Vampyre, began floating through the north countries.  The rival city states of the north, Igboniat and Winter, came together to end this threat, but this horrible threat went on for almost 4 centuries, remembered in songs and fireside stories today.  The Igboniats were crippled after ending this threat, and were swallowed by the State of Winter.  They used Ward's of Law to bind the Dreadwing, ancient Palladino, to a toprous prison slumber.
The Igboniats and the Wintered took their dead and built them into a series of barrows, complete with three totems, three 'locks', and three 'key' items.  The totems actually are magically connected to the door of his barrow; for the Dreadwing was never destroyed.
Then, about 400 years later, the Venolvian SeaFolk had spread onto the Western Coast of the Marcher area, over the old Ambretton, Underearth, and Igboniat areas.  Their primary base was the Underthrone of the Mad Archevault Wizern, Voice of the Entropic Overlords.
The Venolvians almost released the Dreadwing in 418 R.O.N. taking a key and a totem that are now buried in the ruins of Wizern's Underthrone.  The Venolvians used their Entropic power to reseal the barrows, actually placing anotehr ring of Barrows around the old ones, sealed by Chaos magic to make up for the weakenning they created in the original binding.  many priests and mages died in the sealing, and some were taken by the Dreadwing before he was placed back into slumber.
By 494, the State of Winter, now called the Grey March, destroys the Venolvian settlements on the mainland in the War of the Shield, and the second sealing drops into the almost-unknown.

[note]Yes, my playes up in the Grey March are always going through layers of Ambretton, Underearth, Igboniat, Old Winter and Venolvian ruins up in the North.  Often, they find them as in Troy, where one built on the ruins of the last.  [/note]

One of those priests that was turned was Grahaem Kexiol, actually a devilkin priest of the Church of Mammon from Hopiton.  The Dreadwing took the priest and made him into a Vampyre in 418 R.O.N., and he went on to Hagenos, in Orbi, joining House Antroo of the Devterian Corporatus.  
Grahaem was part of the orbian exiles that stole away to the Northern Argussina Marches past the Astrikon trading region, that founded a small community of 3 keeps, an underground town, and 2 monastaries in and near the Wibble hills, in the mid fifth century.  He made a bid for power, and his Vamyricy was discovered, and he was imprisoned, like his master, in the back of his secret temple of Mammon the Redeemer in 446, R.O.N.
Grahaem Kexio Antroo is who the Grey Legion let loose.  He has the Anginarian Necromancy (origally called Y'Gorl's curse back in the Age of Legends) that his master taught to the Venolvian Entropics, so he can create an area, based on his age, that is charged with his Necromantic power.  Also, all of his direct agents have it in a lesser fashion.  It makes him and his hard to affect with the priest skills, and makes servants much more likely to animate.  This is one thing the players have somehow stayed unaware of, in both groups.
[note] and yes, my Old Miston Group has actually stomped around the Barowfield of the Dreadwing far to the north, further weakenning it.  They are currently battling the Entropic Undead of Wizern, trying to find the Totem and the Key the Venolvian's removed[/note]

He's old, and has been defeated before.  He is also aware that his master is slowly rousing to wakeness in the north, that the Dreadwing's bounds are loosening.  So he has already cowed the Firehazer humanoids and taken the Blue Turtle stronghold in the Wibble hills.  His goal is to slowly and carefully create the third ~Ohiu Deoso, (Night of the Cairn, White Omwo~), to replicate what the Dreadwing created in the North for 4 long centuries, an undead empire of night.  [note]The first ~ohiu Deoso actually goes back to the Age of Legends, when Anthraxus retreated back to his Cairnhold after he broke the Accords of Presence.[/note]But he and his master are old, and wise, and slow.  They have already, through unwitting intermediaries, recruited the hierarchy of the Church of the Green Mother, Vernidale.  The Anginarean Ghasts that are slinking around the mausoleums on the Outskirts of Igbar are not trying to overwhelm the town, they are actually sending a large portion of the raised/animated back to ther master...for leter use.  As long as they can pin the Igbarians to their homes at night with Terror, they are doing their job.    

The Bone Knights will be scornful of the PC's at first, though the local institutions, such as Garcellenti Euridios' School of the White Paladin and the Blue Turtles, will offer a lot of aid.

Very exciting and in depth plot, well done. Your monsters are very clearly rooted in the region's history.

Questions: do the Bone Knights know about the necromantic advantage?

Can the entropic magic be detected and identified correctly?

How will the Church of the Green Mother's involvement become known?

The Anginarian Necromancy (Anginar is an old Venolvian Clan) is unknown to all the players.  I've left a few clues about it, but none of them have picked up on it.  I have left a few more clues about this in the Steel Libram and a questioning note left by a vernidalian (Green Mother) priest in one of the mausoleums.
It is also unknown to the Bone Knights.  
There are old references to Y'gorl's Curse (the older name fo it) in the Steel Libram, as well.

Entropic magic is magic that originates from the Eighth House.  it is very easy to detect, actually.
[note]
Spell Name Detection of Eighth Station
Major Sphere law
Spell Source
Initiative 5
Range 10'plev
Duration 1 min
Save none
Save effect
Spell Success 5
Area of effect arc in front of caster
Counter
Spirit cost 7
Earth cost 0
Water cost 0
Fire cost 0
Air cost 0
Life cost 1
Death cost 0
Law cost 4
Chaos cost 0
Restorative cost 0
Necromantic cost 0
Mentalist cost 0
Artificer cost 0
Animist cost 0
Total cost 12
Description
This enchantment is similar to the detection of ill intent spell, except it detects
emanations from the chaotic Eighth Station. It does not detect amounts, merely the presence.[/note]

The Church of Vernidale the Green Mother is corrupt already.  They have been cutting off access to the Herb lands for nearly a full-month (60 days) already.  They are allied strongly with the Winfire trading consortium and thus the Sheering Clan (an old, wealthy family that everyone seems to owe a favor to...Heshian Sheering has a seat on the Upper House of The Unicorn).
[note] The Sheering Clan is an Omnian Human clan that has been in Igbar for almost 2 hundered years, from back when it was an outpost of the Northern Argussian Marches.  Heshian, the patriarch is in politics, Jorik, an uncle, is a spear-captain in the Scarlet Pilunms.
They are also the family that owns one of the mausoleums that the Anginarian Ghasts are hiding in...[/note]
There will be some obvious presence of the Vernidalians int he SHeering Mauoleum, but that will look somewhat normal, as many of the Sheering's are followers of the Green Mother.  However, as the group works through the different rooms, they will find:
a) More recent signs of Vernidalian visits, on the person of the resident Anginarian Ghast.
b) Signs that the Sheering clan has connections to the worship of the cult of the Serpent Queen, an aspect of Vernidale long forgotten.

If the general situation is that freaky unknown then if it were me I'd steal a few pages from Call of Cthulhu. That is to say, make use of npc deaths/terror to give further hints, perhaps say having some person who is known to be sagely turning up gibbering and talking of horrors. I'd have mysterious events and character types create a sense of dread and confusion. Doing that kind of thing makes players (in my opinion) wonder more what the hell is going on than just trying to get things done.

I would add that if entropic magic is easy enough to detect then that's all to the good--having some vague sense of solidity will keep the players from being too timid but at the same time make them wary given the elements of the unknown.

This adventure path you are putting up has a great deal of potential to be truly creepy and terrifying. In the minds of the players they already had to make up a new group because they lost too many characters. The people who might look down their antiquated faction noses at them are actually as clueless as they are. That always makes for good horror---:) the experts going "Um, I actually don't know what's going on here" before something appalling happens to one of them.

Another of the Mausoleums that is corrupted is the newer mausoleum of the Steel Libram iteslf.  The oldest Keepers are buried in the sub basements under the Sprawling Library itself, but they have had as many as a hundered seekers (students) studying at a time, so they have their own cordoned off section. The gold-book insignia, as well as the different disciplines will be found there.
The players will also find a locked passageway that leads back under the city walls, back to the Steel Libram crypts, but with an entrance to the small, within city boneyard, which is next to the Church of the Green Mother...