Races of Old Night

OK, OK, I know that I'm not trying to just post AI generated images from my setting all of the time. But I need to work out my races and what they look like. Some of these images are of established NPCs, or even former iconics, in some cases, but others I didn't have that, so I had to just create "generic" versions of them. Let's go through them, shall we? Click on each image for a larger version. I want to keep this relatively small.

Humans: I'll do a separate post for the different ethnicities of humans. For now, let's skip them.

Grislings: the second most iconic race, because they're from Lomar mostly, which is smack dab in the northern Humberland Hill Country area. They're also probably the most integrated and commonly seen non-human race in the Hill Country. The male is an established NPC sage or expert, Drancent Hewe, the female is just a generic Grisling adventuring scholar or whatever.

Kemlings: Kemlings are the second unique race I developed, and so are important, but I don't necessarily think of them as super common until you get further west. The female version is Merra Kuzulash, an NPC "anti-PC" so definitely a villain. But that's the stereotype of kemlings, given that they are supposedly saddled with a daemonic taint or admixture in their genetics.

The elementalists come next, in four parts, so I'll break them up. I have a few images of each.

Surturs: The fiery surturs are one of my original races too, based on the fire genasi of D&D and encouraged by the azhar of Freeport. The woman is an image that I've used for actual NPCs; Vanisse Maledict, the bad girl twin sister of my D&D PC Vanze Maledict, but I also used it as a replacement image for even worse girl Javaira Khanwar, one of the anti-PCs, because I didn't like the look of her otherwise.

The male is just a big tough bruiser, but Javaira also has a twin brother. I have images of him too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. In general, of the elementalists, surturs are the best represented in my images.

After fire, why not water? Here's the tritons. These are both generics. I have no iconic tritons or triton NPCs yet.

I'm sure I will when I get to some of the later campaigns. I expect that they're relatively common on the Corsair Coast, for example.

Sylphs are the air elementalists. I don't have any iconics or NPCs of them yet either, so both of these characters are generic. The images have names, but that isn't meant to mean anything, and they may well change. I gave them names but nothing else yet. Sylphs have a bit more color variation than tritons or even surturs, with hair sometimes pure white like clouds and sometimes darker blue.

Dvergs are the earth elementalists, and have the most variation in their looks, so I generated a few images to get a few variations. I shouldn't post four images, but I have them, and they're sufficiently different that I feel like I need to. Their skin can be somewhat metallic (iron or copper being most common) or rocky (a grayish granite or red sandstone most common) and they tend to either have pale platinum blond hair or dark hair, and usually have dark eyes like obsidian.

Orcs are non-humans, but more human-like than they are in some other settings. This is kind of not actually true, however, as they are most definitely genetically a different "species" which the other races are not. The other races have a magical or supernatural admixture; the orcs and goblins are just different. 

Since I just mentioned them as the other morph of the orcling race, here's goblins too. Both sexes dressed in this case very similarly to each other. I do kind of like an almost pirate-like aesthetic, if you haven't noticed. I prefer swashbucklers to knights, I suppose.

Dhampyrs are the next race, but they're an expansion extra race, not a core race. That said, I have an iconic and another NPC that's pretty important to another iconic that both are one, so... yeah.

Seraphs are also an expansion extra race, and I'm not sure what to do with them. I've been on the fence, honestly, about eliminating them entirely. The one with the ghosts is because I was thinking of using the "ghost collector" medium idea and making her a seraph, but these aren't really characters yet with any background.

Finally, woodwoses are next. The female version is really me just asking for another iteration of one of Oisin's prompt, but saying make it a female and with blonder hair, so she's definitely generic.

Draconia Malfoy

I've been fascinated while traveling for work with the "Malfoid" meme, which I heard about on various YouTube channels that I occasionally watch. Real fake wizard and Shad talked about it, it was a major topic of one of the Friday Night Tights group discussion, and Jon Del Arroz made several videos of it. Even WDW Pro, Clownfish TV and That Park Place were forced to mention it—and they're pretty mainstream. Heck, even Variety made a mention of it.

What is it, you may be wondering? Basically it's a "meme" running rampant through fan fiction, fan art, and now fan AI animation of the concept of "what if Draco Malfoy had always been a girl?" The concept itself isn't super interesting just because, but what it says about the culture is fascinating. The general gist of these fan fiction rewrites is that Draco (or Draconia, as she's often called, although other alternative names have been made too) is still an arrogant, spoiled, aristocratic Slytherin princess, but because Potter, famous in his own right already, rejected her offer of friendship, she got mad at him and became his rival, just like Draco really did. The difference, of course, is that when a bratty little princess finds a guy who blows her off, she's immediately fascinated with him. Secretly underneath the barbs, rivalry, and sometimes outright bullying, she slowly starts to fall in love with him... and to a lesser or at least slower degree, he with her. This usually culminates in them going together to the Yule Ball in book four as normal.

However, the complication comes up when Voldemort returns later in that book, since the Malfoy family is heavily embedded in his inner circle, and Draconia (or whatever name they use) gets put in an impossible situation. Her true love and what she knows is right means sacrificing like she cannot believe; her family, her position, possibly even her life, as she becomes an obvious easy target if her true sympathies are known. And... of course, what are her true sympathies? What she grew up with and was indoctrinated in, or what she is slowly coming to understand is really right?

And, she eventually makes the right choice, at incredible cost to herself, proving herself to be the worthy love interest that Ginny Weasley never does.

Much of this is pretty cliché, but it's a story that people really yearn for; in fact, the hashtag #yearn or #yearning is heavily associated with this theme. This is definitely the boy's fantasy; a girl who really is worthy. But it's hardly new. In fact, Edgar Rice Burroughs perfected essentially this same story back in 1911 with A Princess of Mars (my second favorite book of all time, I might add) where John Carter goes to Mars, meets an aristocratic princess, immediately offends her, manages to kind of claw himself back into a brief friend-zoned relationship where he discovers that he's falling in love with her, only to quickly offend her even worse than before, engender all kinds of rude and dismissive behavior, even though part of this is because she has fallen for him, but is terrified of the consequences of it. After a series of incredible misadventures worthy of a true hero, he saves her from whatever dire fate is in store for her, which means that not only does she prove herself worthy of him, but he proves himself worthy of her too.

It's also worth pointing out that the plot of Pride and Prejudice is essentially exactly this too (without chases, swordfights, aliens and naked beautiful people on Mars) although Malfoy has many of the personality traits of Mr Darcy, and having the roles gender reversed has obvious changes on how it develops unless you want Harry Potter himself to come across as an unlikeable beta who acts like a woman. Which, in some versions, he does.

What is the interesting cultural discussion around this? Multiple things. Here's several in a dot point format.

• A big part of this is being associated with dissatisfaction of the new "Black Snape" streaming show. Also, the fact that a very traditional romance, but a "guy's romance" plot is at the heart of this complaint, especially after years of gay romance, race mixing, and girlbosses being pushed on us in spite of their unpopularity. This is being associated by Hollywood as a frightening thing; due to the timing, it's seen like a fan uprising of sorts against their new interpretation of the IP.
• In fact, that's become such a thing, that this is anti-Blake Snape, anti gay romance, very traditional, etc. means that Malfoid has become, at least in the twisted and ridiculously broken minds of the BlueSky Left, that Malfoid is a MAGA character that appeals to chuds or something stupid like that. Although it's making the rounds among the West just recently (relatively) and is, probably, mostly associated with boys and men who wish that this had been the original plot all along, that's not where the root of this actually is. It really started mostly in Asia, and most of the purveyors of the art, fan fiction and AI short movies are from Asia still.
• Sadly, this has a downside to what otherwise sounds like a good thing, and which mostly is. The most common interpretation of the characters is very anime/manga, or that the plot is a typical "k-drama". Although the story beats and character tropes have a long English language tradition, including Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jane Austen, and William Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew was basically a riff on a stock story and stock characters in his time, so it's not like he invented them either) a lot of people call this a Japanese tradition, and casually drop some anime Japanese stock plot label (borrowed from Western literature) in conversation about it. This is... sadly cringe. Actually anyone with any form of Yellow Fever is kind of cringe unless you're Asian yourself and it's your culture and your people, I think, but people who are unaware of how cringe it is and drop anime terms in discussions about other fandoms with the expectation that people will get the reference are the cringiest betas I know.
• As mentioned briefly above, the fact that many betas find this fantasy very appealing means that a lot of iterations of it are kind of beta. Harry is often a passive victim, an object with no real personality or agency, and the plot is just what happens to girl Draco and her emotions. Why exactly is Harry supposed to be the object of this burning love in girl Draco if he's not masculine, decisive, or in any way likeable or attractive really? Just because? That's part of the beta fantasy, and its one that mimics the girl fantasy, of being some mid nobody who for no reason whatsoever is suddenly the object of intense pursuit by a bunch of hyper-high status rich powerful guys, or even rich powerful but sexy brooding monsters like vampires or whatever. It's kind of an entitled fantasy; the idea that all you have to do is show up and not be anything really likeable or special, but somehow you're treated is if you are in fact both of those things for no reason whatsoever. 
• Of course, the better ones have Harry being Harry, much as he's written in the books. He's famous, he's mostly a nice guy, and he's likeable, but he also gets angry and doesn't take that much crap from Malfoy before he decides he can give it back just as hard. Harry starts falling for Malfoy too, because he sees that there's more there than initially meets the eye, but he sees that there's more there than meets the eye, he doesn't see something that isn't actually there, like in the fantasy version that is unrealistic. And, of course, Malfoy's character development has her turn into the kind of woman that any man would be happy to have at his side; she earns the right for Harry to love her; she isn't just entitled to it.
• In fact, this last development, which would typically happen in the "typical" Malfoid arc to a small degree before the Yule Ball and kinda sorta reconciliation and early attraction/dating vibe, but most especially after Voldemort returns and Malfoy has to make the hard decisions on what she's going to stand for kind of makes it somewhat different than the Edgar Rice Burroughs prototype of the story arc... although similar themes are certainly explored in Pride and Prejudice. In an Edgar Rice Burroughs story there is less character development and more characters actually just understanding that their counterpart actually was worthy all along. They don't become worthy, they already were and just need to prove it. Girl Draco has to become it in order to prove it. Part of that, of course, is that the characters are young. Teenagers, of course.
• It's also interesting to me that so much of it is AI generated, which is deflating a lot of the "moral panic" around AI. Lots of people who a month or two ago thought AI was the worst thing ever are now literally saying, bring on the data centers if they're going to give us Malfoid content!

Anyway, I don't know. I like the idea. If a really good novel, animated movie or whatever is out there, I'd be happy to consume it. When the first Harry Potter movie was imminent, I decided I ought to read the book first, and I ended up reading all four of them that were in print at the time several times over.  When the movie wasn't really all that good, and then that was followed by the fifth book, which also wasn't that good, it lost me a lot. It never recovered the book 3 and 4 glory that it briefly had. And while I can't deny the cultural touchstone that it's largely become, I'm also ambivalent to what it's largely become. Plus, it's YA anyway, even to an extent that stuff like The Hobbit or the pulp stories never were; its a little cringe for adults to be too into Harry Potter, although adults who are my kids age and who grew up with it the same way my generation grew up with the original trilogy Star Wars movies get a bit of a pass there. Like I said, while I like some of what it's doing, and I don't mind seeing more of it if it can avoid the beta poseurs, what I think is ultimately much more fascinating about it is what it's saying and doing to the culture wars and the cultural landscape. It's indicative of a massive shift back to normalcy. Many long-time younger Millennial or Gen-Z fans are saying that this story arc is significantly better than the original with much more potential. Because of its roots in traditional romance and characters who earn and deserve an iteration of the greatest love story ever told, it is a fundamental rejection of years and years of indoctrination, which ultimately proves that Leftist dogma is incapable—in spite of many structural advantages in our culture that have lasted for many, many decades—of overcoming the core of human nature and what people yearn for.

And it's not really right wing. That's kind of silly. The reality is that Leftism is so alien and strange that anything that is normal and usual about human nature is called "right wing" because it's opposed to Leftism. I guess, if that's what you mean right wing is, and lots of people do, then sure, I guess we can call normal human behavior and human nature right wing. All that that really does is indict Leftism with demonstrating how anti-human and dysfunctional it really is, though.

My favorites are the cheeky ones probably made in the West, however. Sure, sure; they're almost more like skits than stories, but they're pretty hilarious and show that, even with AI generation, these characters have humanity, chemistry and charisma than anything that the Left can manage to create, and that is super engaging. Hence the Left's rage at the meme, I presume.

And speaking of not being too beta and passive...

Shule

When I make a character be different than it is in "common" fantasy (i.e., D&D) the AI often struggles to understand what I want. I had a really hard time with Shule and getting him to look like a more realistic version of what I'd made in Hero Forge. But, with the weird sudden unlimited ChatGPT images I managed to get what I wanted. First, my unsatisfactory early versions. These are almost a couple of years old now, so the AI is quite a bit better now.

Even with more modern AI generators, it was a struggle. I guess I needed to work on my prompts.

This final batch is what i pretty much always envisioned; however. 

The last one might be too thin. It makes him look taller, which makes him look proportioned less like a goblin.

Darkness in the Hill Country as a pdf product

I enjoyed spending the evening last night putting together that string of blog posts, but on re-reading them, they feel like... stream of consciousness blog posts. They need a lot of editing; there are typo and errors, and there is just poorly written stuff. I'd actually really like to make Darkness in the Hill Country an actual campaign; a product. That means a rewrite and reorganization of sorts, but it's less work than it sounds like, because I have all of the raw materials that mostly just need editing rather than complete writing from scratch. What do I need to do to make this work? Let me make a list! I still need to figure out the order and organization of how I want to do this, but that can come later after I make a solid list of everything that I want to actually include.

• 

  Lysander Draven

  I need to update the map. I found that it had some outdated names and a few other problems. I really like the hand-drawn Tolkien style map in black and white (and red), so I'm going to go with that format. It will not be a map of the entire setting, but just of the area associated with the campaign, just like the map that I'm replacing. I've been wanting to do this anyway, although not with much urgency. Seeing the state of my current map makes it clear that this needs to be one of the first things to do. I'll include the map in basically the facing page material, or at least at the very beginning of the pdf. You know, just like all of the fantasy novels do.
• I then want to take the annotated map text that I wrote a few years ago, update and flesh it out, mostly with other text from other posts that I've already done, so that I've got more details on the various races and places. This means that anyone could run the campaign in a pretty good facsimile of the setting as I myself imagine it, even though the sheer volume of text about the setting is still pretty low. What this will have, though, will be heavily concentrated on the stuff that's relevant to this specific campaign, and won't go in to stuff that is beyond it. This material will also help with character creation, since players will have a better handle on what all of the races actually are.
• Although I envision, of course, that people will make their own characters, I do want to include pre-gens at 1st level that would be not only example iconic characters, but could be used if you wanted to instead of home-made characters. I want to expand my current list of iconics beyond what I currently have so that I have at least one example of every race, including the Appendix extra races. This means that I can use the four basic iconics already; Ragnar and Dominic Clevenger (humans), Kimnor Rugova (grisling), Cailin Clevenger (dhampyr) and I'll need more. I can dust off a few of my other characters, like Shule (goblin) or Marshall Kazar Thorn (orc), Oisin Dughall (woodwose), and I can even convert my D&D 5e character Vanze Maledict (surtur) to the system, and his twin sister (Vanisse), which I'll probably make a different type of elementalist, because that's how that race works. That leaves me short an iconic kemling, two other types of elementalist, and a seraph. Each character would have a one page character sheet, and a facing page description, and for thirteen characters, that adds twenty six pages. It's a luxury; I don't really need to do that, but it's a pdf. Who cares how many pages it is? There's a good chance that I'll put them in the back as Appendix material anyway.
• I'll need to describe the 5x5 Fronts method of running a game, so that the material I have makes some sense. Although I'll flesh out the matrix with more detail than it currently has (including adding stat blocks for monsters and NPCs as needed), the basic format will remain more or less the same, so I'll need to explain how to actually use it and how it's meant to be interpreted.
• Then, like I said, I need to further flesh out and add a bit to some of the weaker or more vague parts of the my current supercut write-up. I do not intend to add anything like maps of buildings or anything like that; I will remain clear that even with the more fleshed out format, this will remain a framework that can't be used without some finishing polish to make it fit your actual situation with your actual group. But honestly, given how 5e campaigns are written, I'm not that far off from their format in terms of providing useable stuff right off the page. I know a lot of gamers really want their campaigns and modules and adventures to be ready to run right away, but that's just not how I roll. Customization, both to each individual group, and to developments within the campaign as it is being played.
• Also, if I'm adding some specific "blasphemous tomes" and other items, I should add specific stats or rules for them as well.

I don't want to think too far ahead, but there isn't any reason not to do Cult of Undeath after I'm done with this one. After that, Terror in Timischburg and the other campaigns aren't ready enough to even start this project; I need to do the 5x5 workup here on the blog first.

Darkness in the Hill Country Epilogue: Character fronts!

I created the 5x5 matrix plan for the campaign, but in reality, of course, I also really like to have details related to the characters, and challenges, nemeses, etc. from their past feature. Of course, because this is a plan in search of an actual game, I don't have any characters yet, but what I do have is iconics that are stand-ins! I'll create this epilogue post to talk about what I'd do with the iconics, and use that as an example, I guess, of what I'd do with the actual PCs when I have them. I added the iconics images to the Part 0 post, so I won't repost them here.

First, my lead iconic is Dominic Clevenger, a Humbrian ranger. He's in his mid to upper 20s; still young, but has been around enough to be skilled and experienced. He spent time not only as a Hillman Ranger, but as part of the infamous Shadow Division, which the Ranger Corps does not officially admit exists, and some people don't believe in. As such, his task was specifically to hunt down supernatural threats, as well as support the general Ranger Corps mission of blunting other threats to the people of the Hill Country. The Ranger Corps is an interesting organization, in that it ignores any of the political nonsense that goes on between the two largest rival city-states, Barrowmere and Garenport, as well as between the East Marches section and the West Marches (where Cayminster and Bucknerfeld are the most important city-states respectively, and which have tried to extricate themselves from the politics of Garenport, at least, as much as is reasonably possible.) The commission of the Ranger Corps is to the people of the Hill Country as a whole, and while various politicians and would-be tyrants have sometimes tried to lean on the Rangers for their own purposes, the Rangers have staunchly resisted being coopted as such, and the current crop of leaders of the various locations are loath to try again.

In any case, this post isn't meant to be about background on the Ranger Corps. Dominic is a former Shadow, but now is a freelance supernatural bounty hunter of sorts. He is often supported (and hired) by his old commander (Sir Liamond Wreldane) who appreciates having talented and trusted freelancers that he can work with "off the books." Dominic "retired" early after tussling with a corrupted ranger (Audrey Hardwicke). Hardwicke's corruption was exposed, but he fled from facing justice. He still has lots of supporters in the Ranger Corps (some of whom simply don't know the particulars) as he was a popular figure among them, and well respected before his corruption was outed to the leadership of the group. They decided, for better or for worse, not to make the cause of Hardwicke's fall public. What was Hardwicke involved in? Kidnapping women and children (mostly) for occult sacrifices. Hardwicke was no cultist; just a mercenary who was paid to not only look the other way, but even enable and assist with gathering "resources" for various cults. Now that he's been exposed, he's still doing the same thing, but he has to be more discrete, and he no longer has his wages from his Ranger Corps day job. He's gotten more involved with various crimes to pay the bills and has had to lay considerably lower than he's used to. In fact, he's mostly relocated out of the Hill Country entirely to Simashki. He's also consorted even more intimately with various shady characters, including taking as a lover the kemling witch Merra Kuzulash. (Who is actually another anti-iconic; I have one group of anti-PCs who are all bad guys, and she's in that group normally.)

Since I never came up with an origin for the voodoo dolls from the Tazitta Death Cults section, let's have Audrey and Merra be the source. Rangers, or former rangers, still loyal to Hardwicke keep him informed from time to time on the comings and goings of their organization and the Clevenger brothers specifically. He'll have a few ambushes set up for Dominic and his gang of meddling kids, although they'll just be lackeys, not Hardwicke or Merra themselves. When the campaign gets closer to its endgame, Hardwicke will himself make an appearance in an urban setting—probably Garenport itself—for a cat and mouse hunt at the worst possible time. 

It'll be nice for Merra to at least get a nod, although I don't intend to feature her much, or probably even have her make an in-person appearance at all. I intend for whole entire group of "anti-PCs" to be part of a future campaign when I get there. Some foreshadowing through this vector is cool. 

Audley Hardwicke

Merra Kuzulash

Second, Dominic's best friend and blood-brother is Kimnor "Kim" Rugova, an expatriate shadow sword from Lomar. As described in the background on Lomar and the racial description of the grislings, his people are cursed so that a small percentage of them fall victim to a cannibalism curse where they must eat the flesh of a human or demihuman or slowly turn in to a ghoul (damned if they do and damned if they don't, when the curse manifests.) A younger and more idealistic Kimnor was engaged to a pretty girl from his neighborhood, who later contracted this curse by pure blasted bad luck. Vowing to find a way to beat it, Kinnor tried to hide her in a Nyxian neighborhood. She was captured and lynched by a mob, and Kimnor fled in grief, disavowing his entire people and race and homeland in his despair. However... his fiancé (Bethan Arghavad) was actually not lynched, or at least not terminally, and was taken by a Nyxian cult and protected from the law which mandated her death. She was prevented from devolving into a ghoul by being transformed into a dhampir—but she now gleefully hunts, kills, and eats her own people as per her curse, but does so with enhanced physical abilities and lucidity. Kim is going to have to discover and face this when circumstances bring him back to Lomar over the course of the game.

In the meantime, Kim has been hiding from both the terror of facing the supernatural, and his grief over Bethan (as well as his fear that it could come to him too) by being loud, boisterous, boastful—a hard partier, basically. But he also has a small pseudodragon as a pet. Kim's arc is rife with potential for really good character development as he faces his past and shows himself to be a much more serious person than he pretends to be.

Bethan Arghavad

I actually decided to turn the next two iconics into contacts, rather than continue to use them as iconics. But, since I already wrote this, I'll just repeat it here. I actually need to write the corresponding stuff about Ragnar and Cailin Clevenger, so I'll do that as part of the next campaign supercut, maybe.

Thirdly, Shule is an itinerant goblin thief. One of the main reasons Shule is wandering around the Three Realms with Dominic and Kim is because he's looking for his brother, who disappeared mysteriously. He occasionally runs into an old orcling pal who claims to have seen him, but the clues are always vague, often second-hand, and they've pointed to little other than the fact that he's still alive somewhere. As the party gets closer and closer to Garenport, the sightings and rumors increase. Turns out, his brother (Kemish) was press-ganged by orcling pirates on the Darkling Sea, but has done well with them and embraced their lifestyle. He's now first mate to an orc pirate (Charakaz Rees) who runs a sloop associated with Captain Taurak (of earlier campaign infamy). I'm not a huge fan of contrived moral dilemmas, but even I'm curious what happens when Shule's brother doesn't want or need to be "rescued." Or, at least he doesn't think that he does.

Shule

Fourthly, we have Oisin Dughall, a woodwose outdoorsman. He spent some time in his youth running with a bad crowd, and was an enforcer for a Chersky Mafia-type in Simashki (the true wretched hive of scum and villainy in the Three Realms, if you haven't gathered that already.) Because Oisin was fundamentally too principled to be successful as a mafia tough guy, he bailed on an operation that was a bridge too far. The operation proceeded anyway, but was a total mess because Oisin wasn't there doing his part. The boss's (Vaspar Oksandros) brother was killed and others of his organization were snatched by the Watch, necessitating expensive bribes to free the most important ones. Assuming Oisin had betrayed him on behalf of one of his rivals, Vaspar put a death mark on his head. Vaspar's rivals would also like to get their hands on him to find out what he knows. Oisin fled to the Hill Country, hoping that beyond the Sabertooth Mountains he'd be free to the gangster turf wars of Simashki. For a few years, this was true, especially as Oisin stayed in the rural areas. Vaspar himself has fled east as Simashki started to get too hot for him, and now operates a "startup" in Lomar, although he's got agents and spies throughout the Humberland Hill Country looking for opportunities. Oisin's ability to hide from his past is likely to take a turn for the worst, since Vaspar still blames him for not only his brother's death, but now even his entire fall from his perch in Simashki.

Oisin Dughall

Vaspar Oksandros

Darkness in the Hill Country Supercut Part V: Scourge of the East Marches

Last one! If you haven't, read the others in order first. Well... there will probably be an epilogue one that follows this, actually.

The northern shore of the Darkling Sea is disconnected from the rest of the Humberland Hill Country; although you can travel by land to this area, you will pass through the separate polity of Lomar to do so (discussed in the past), and most people arrive from Garenport or elsewhere by ship. Cayminster is the largest town here, and while it has strong commercial, political and cultural ties to Garenport, the hinterlands beyond is much more independent and has, at best, a kind of resentful dependency for some things from the bigger cities. They prefer to be left alone and not get involved in anything from the cities; from commercialism, to politics to even fashion, where they are stubbornly and in fact defiantly rustic. 

There are, again, many smaller communities which the map does not show, but Burlharrow is the largest of those that does show up on the current iteration of the map. (By large, I mean a few thousand people, though. Burlharrow in size should be comparable to some of the classic D&D and Pathfinder small starting towns like Hommlet, Sandpoint or Saltmarsh, etc.)

North of the Darkling Sea, the land is mostly clear of trees, except for relatively small stands, copses, or riparian stretches of forest. It mostly looks like shrub savanna with rolling hills, occasional lakes, streams or other waterways where thicker vegetation and trees grow, and small buttes, mesas and other rock formations that pop up too. The ground slopes steadily yet slowly upwards too, and once you hit high enough elevation, you get to the southern eaves of the Wolfwood, the great boreal forest that separates the Three Realms from whatever lies to the north (Old Hyperborea, Kurushat proper, etc.) This region is called the East Marches, and is kind of an expansion region for the Humbrians, as more and more of them are seeking new lands to settle away from the hustle and bustle of Garenport in particular.

Burlharrow also specifically lies in the floor of a shallow valley, and small lakes and marshes surround the town, but make for good irrigation for farming and the watering of herds; it's much drier in the rolling hills around town. The lieutenant-mayor of Burlharrow, one Gothbert Erhard, is determined to make Burlharrow independent. The mayor himself (Gunne Woodrow) is weak, indecisive and self-indulgent, and has become moreso over the years, so his advisors and other powerful people in town have taken to ignoring him and attempting to enact their own agendas, for good or ill. As rumors of the nonsense happening in Garenport that makes up the first post here about the Grand Duke and Duchess reaches his town, Erhard is even more committed than ever to this independence-minded course of action for the good of the region. However, other relatively wealthy and powerful players in town make a lot of their money with trade through Cayminster, much of it ultimately destined for or coming from Garenport. As this difference in opinion becomes more rancorous over time, the two factions have even acquired labels: the Loyalists, who favor closer ties with the cities to the south and west, and the Sovereigns who see Burlharrow as culturally but not politically allied with any of the greater powers with their intrigues and ambitions on the entire Hill Country region. In this, they are more similar to the Southumbrians, who also resist Garenport dominance and the Grand Duke's ambition to turn the Humberland Hill Country into the Hill Kingdom with himself as the first king, but South Humberland is far away and has its own local concerns rather than ambitions on bringing Burlharrow into its orbit. That said, Lieutenant-Mayor Erhard looks to Barrowmere as a model for how to create an independent political axis as long as you have enough geography between yourself and Garenport, and has even recruited a few Southumbrian advisors and others to support him; the militia captain of Burlharrow (Berold Geissfalk) was a successful soldier in his youth in the Rabb's Hill campaign in the south, and then retired from the Rangers. Erhard has also started an aggressive plan to lure homesteaders to the countryside around Burlharrow. There is plenty of open and empty (well.. empty-ish. You know how it goes) land to the south, along the eastern edge of the Darkling Sea. This is still an initiative in its infancy. Of course, the Loyalists, led by Dockmaster Murchad Gibson is alarmed by the attempt to grow his opposition by migration of people who have every reason to be Sovereigns and oppose the Loyalist agenda. 

Gothbert Erhard

Berold Geissfalk

Murchad Gibson

Anyway, this is the context in which the Burlharrow part of the campaign will be set. First, assuming that the PCs are playing along and biting on the hooks that I've set up for them, the first column would have them going to Burlharrow anyway to look for Morcant, the Duchess' former huntsman, who's got important clues about the whole "who's actually got a canopic talisman and who doesn't" affair. If they don't, however, someone they trust, like a Ranger, or someone else can set more hooks that there's urgent trouble up there that needs some attention right away. In reality, the town is beset with a plague, but it's not a natural plague, and the townspeople suspect that it isn't. Rats are all over the town, staring at people unnaturally, showing little timidity, and generally being creepy. Reports of rats the size of dogs attacking people are starting to make their way around town. This is true. The plague is man-made. Or... well, ratman-made. And the rats are the delivery vehicle for it. Why is some ratman trying to depopulate Burlharrow? Actually, the ratmen don't really care about Burlharrow at all; it's just a dry run of a new plague that they've developed. Of course, ultimately, they want to depopulate much of the rest of the Hill Country and spread from their home on Leng in the lands where humans once lived. (Wow, this could be a whole 'nother column by itself. But I'm not developing it for now.)

Secondly, the rats need to be stopped before they can spread more of the plague. While they've gotten bold enough to wander the streets by day, they can be traced to a nest outside of town which they normally enter through the sewer systems. Here the PCs will not find the absolute source of the plague, but they will discover lots of swarms of rats, some giant rats, and a handful of ratmen and maybe even a rat brute (see monster list.) This confirms that the plague wasn't natural. They'll find some clues here, though, that with a little effort and investigation will lead them back in to town (maybe not right away; other problems will also be pressing on them; see below) where they will discover that the mayor himself had something to do with the ratmen; they have his signet right in their possession among the detritus of the nest.

Ratman plague sorcerer

Rat brute

Thirdly, because so many of the townsfolk died so quickly, the graveyard outside of town hasn't really been properly tended to; many of the townsfolk have been buried hurriedly in shallow graves. As sometimes happens when graveyards are poorly tended, necromancy seems to coalesce almost of its own will, as if a malignant force with its own sentience, and ghouls are starting to plague the town; also stealing victims, eating them, or otherwise turning them into ghouls in their own right. While fighting off ghouls who have also become too emboldened to be left alone (I imagine, possibly an attack on the inn at night; which I'll conveniently locate kind of on the edge of town near the graveyard.) Curiously, through much of this trouble, the mayor has been seen very infrequently.

They'll find that there are quite a few more ghouls and bodies than they would expect from the townsfolk, and through a series of clues which I haven't yet invented, they could eventually be able to discover that many of the recently arrived settlers and homesteaders who have set off to establish and build homes in the hinterlands have been murdered and brought here. This is a major black eye on Erhard's plan to grow the region into an independent place that doesn't need Garenport, but even more so because it turns out that Geissfalk has been murdering them. He's brought in a number of mercenaries to stiffen the militia, who are actually little more than brigands, pirates and other murderers and criminals, and he did it because he was paid off by the mayor himself to blunt Erhard's plans, in spite of the fact that he showed up (publicly) at Erhard's request in the first place!

Of course, I imagine that everyone will want to confront the mayor when they discover this, but if they attempt to, they will find that the mayor has been dead for two weeks, and he's been Weekend at Bernie's-ified around town while mostly being holed up in the mayor's mansion. There are more ratmen there, as well as the ratmen mad scientist who created the plague, and rat brutes eating the flesh of the mayor's dead household and servants. The PCs can eventually discover two important things at the mayor's place: 1) the mayor was actually murdered and had nothing to do with the plague; it was Gibson who murdered the mayor, offered Burlharrow to the rats for their experiment, and paid off Geissfalk to murder the settlers and homesteaders, and 2) there is a horrible black book made of dried and withered human skin with the remnants of a face on the front cover. It will take the PCs some time to decipher and read this book, and it will have many of the same problems as a magical tome or grimoire, save with a study time in days instead of weeks and its not really about spells (although if any PCs are in to that, they could find a couple); it does have a cure for the plague detailed in it, though. In a pinch, the dried leather human face on the cover could even whisper the hints to the PCs.

I imagine that many sanity checks could be made as a result of what's found in the mayor's mansion. I love it.

Fourthly, hopefully the PCs are willing to bite on that hook all its own, but while they're perusing the book, the plague's real diabolical nature starts to make itself manifest; some of the townsfolk who survived contracting the plague are now turning into plague-zombies on their way towards becoming ghouls as a secondary set of symptoms, and have to be put down, probably. The situation is now quite dire, as they can probably deduce that the experiment has been going on longer than they thought and that's the source of the ghouls in the graveyard that they faced earlier.

Unfortunately, and fifthly, the cure isn't exactly easy to get. It involves, in fact, finding a rotted fairy ring in the woods nearby (referenced or whispered by the Book) and traveling to the Shadowlands, a parallel realm similar to the Plane of Shadow or the Upside-down, to use two references that most will probably get. I'm a little hazy on what exactly they'll need to do here, and maybe I can play it by ear as I get closer. I'm thinking that they need to find one of the shadow rosebushes with black roses and bring back enough of the flowers to brew a cure, but fighting off undead and minor daemons, and avoiding daemons that are probably over their heads to defeat, like a nosoi daemon might be involved. 

I also like the idea that having traveled to the Shadowlands and partaken of a black rose draught, that they will be marked going forward in some subtle way that will be plot hooky in the future, although again; need to determine exactly how that will play out as I get closer to it actually happening. I'm thinking of giving them a benefit/cost; something that's a cool thing to have, but also there's a cost to it. Shadowy animal companion for the group, and an improved resistance to any disease or poison, but their shadows now occasionally move independently of them. It takes them a while to realize out of the corners of their eyes, and they start to suspect that they've brought back something with them that they can't identify and confront, but which was not invited...

Darkness in the Hill Country Supercut Part IV: Savages of the Thursewood

Do I still need to do one of these? This is the 5th part (because there's a part 0.) Be sure and read the others before you read this one and you'll be all set. These last two matrixed columns are also all regional; this one taking place even further south than Barrowmere, but the PCs will likely pass near enough to it to get involved.

First off, recall that the original, core 5x5 has the PCs starting in the largest city and de facto capital of South Humberland: Barrowmere, and from there they have to get to Garenport, where the majority of the campaign's most direct challenges takes place. There really aren't a lot of options to get there, and the most obvious is to take the road directly east to the southernmost shore of the Darkling Sea and Burham's Landing. This will take them through the territory near Rabb's Hill. If, for some reason, they don't go near Rabb's Hill, which seems unlikely because it's by far the most obvious way to make the trip, the encounter can still be relocated to somewhere in the wilderness near Barrowmere. Even if they're going directly north through the impassible forest (which I don't recommend), or something else bizarre like that.

They'll encounter a caravan that's been recently raided (within a day or two tops) and robbed; there are dead guards and other members of the caravan that are still being buried, etc. A gentleman's daughter, Joan Wilmere, who I also made use of earlier, is missing, as is a number of important parts of the cargo. One of them is a chest that Professor Anton von Lechfeld was shipping to a correspondent in Roanstead (notice the attempt to reuse elements and tie these threads together to each other?) One of the survivors of the raid, who is too injured to immediately move, is nearly apoplectic with anxiety about this missing shipment; he admits if pressed that it included an incomplete copy of Nameless Cults being sent for protection, because von Lechfeld, even though he should have destroyed the thing, couldn't bring himself to get rid any source of knowledge, even one so balefully evil and obviously illegal. Von Lechfeld is actually a recognized expert on the occult, and is consulted semi-regularly by government agents, including the Shadow Rangers, so he has a bit of an indulgence against being arrested for holding illegal and blasphemous tomes of witchcraft and sorcery like that. This wounded caravaner (Eoman Gast) strongly suspects that the raid on the caravan wasn't about any petty robbery or kidnapping in a mundane sense, but rather that was the cover for the theft of the book. He also is very anxious about Joan Wilmere, suspecting that she's the chosen sacrifice for some horrible ritual from the grimoire. This conjecture is actually wrong; Joan was taken for a completely different reason that has nothing to do with the theft of the book (see below), but it makes sense, at least.

Joan Wilmere again

The robbery was carried out by bandits, but Eoman and others from the caravan note that several members of the caravan, who had been standoffish, seem to have disappeared at the same time; they are not among the bodies. Although this isn't conclusive, he's right in assuming that they were agents of evil the entire time, and arranged the ambush to run off with the grimoire. Their patron is a hermit witch-lord in the forest who seeks to "upgrade" his situation before he dies of old age and become a lich. This is Jareth Grym, and he was an infamous necromancer, heretic and murderer in Barrowmere a generation ago when he was younger. Presumed dead, he was merely lying low all these years instead. In reality, although he's certainly a terrible person and a force for evil, he's not been terribly concerned with the doings of South Humberland or anywhere else for that matter since he prompted the thurses to attack Rabb's Hill some time ago and burn it to the ground. The ritual he needs from the book doesn't require any sacrifices or damsels in distress, although it will eventually mean that daemonic and undead forces will congregate in the Thursewood around his tower. This will directly threaten South Humberland eventually, but it indirectly threatens them more immediately, as the thurse population has rebounded significantly since the purge of the forest after the Massacre at Rabb's Hill, and will be stirred up by the comings and goings of Grym and his undead.

Jareth Grym

Secondly, as I just mentioned, the thurse's are gathering in great numbers, and a powerful war-chief and his cannibal-shaman are whipping up the thurses into a frenzy deep in the forest. So far they've clashed with daemonic and undead servitors of Jareth Grym, but they don't recognize the source of them, but they've been raiding southwards into Gunaakt, and have hit the migrant route through the forest towards Chersky Island a number of times. They're tired of the incursions of the orclings into their territory and want to strike hard against both the orcs and the Southumbrians (who they imagine are inviting and harboring them; in truth, the Southumbrians aren't very happy to see migrant orclings either and encourage to keep moving.) They will continue to cause loads of problems for anyone in and around the Thursewood—which will include the bandits hired by Jareth Grym, and the PCs themselves, until the chieftain Gorthos and his cannibal shaman Morghox are both killed. That's easier said than done, given the vast number of thurse savages gathered to their human-skin banner.

Gorthos

Morghox

Thirdly, as noted, the corridor of migrating orclings comes right through the forest. Gunaakt is suffering a prolonged drought over much of its farmland, ironically and flooding through much of its jungles. In addition, a population bloom ofthe orclings has stretched resources thin. Not just the orclings, but also dangerous wildlife which preys on them has increased in population. These problems have exacerbated political and social chaos as warlords and self-styled bandit kings have replaced whatever passed for the status quo in Gunaakt previously. There's been a fairly steady stream of orclings heading for the new colonies on Chersky Island for some time. The journey isn't very safe, though—traveling to the Gunaakt border accounts for many deaths, and the territory south of the Thursewood isn't any picnic either. Passing through the Humberland Hill Country, they're not particularly welcome unless in small bands who behave themselves well and move on quickly, but the Thursewood itself has become the most dangerous part of the journey because of the thurses. 

It's entirely possible that the PCs won't care about the plight of orcs, goblins and their families. They are somewhat unlovely, and prone to violence and poor impulse control, and they're less intelligent and have less foresight than the people of the Hill Country. They're not really capable of integration except in very small numbers, and they don't make particularly good neighbors. But even if they don't take some compassion on the poor orcs and goblins and agree that allowing them to escape their basket case third world craphole of Gunaakt to try again on Chersky Island is a good idea, the orcs are at least more sympathetic than the thurses, who have no redeeming qualities whatsoever and are truly just monsters in a human(ish) form. To make it a little more appealing that the PCs might help a migrating caravan make it safely out of the forest, and maybe even establish a secure route that they can use for some time, I'll give the orcs and goblins a little bit of a friendlier face in the form of Balogh, a charismatic and even handsome orc soldier who's much more intelligent and civilized than the majority of them, as well as the orc sisters Cryn and Heren who are friendly and appreciative rather than entitled and demanding, hopefully making them a bit more likable and sympathetic too.

Of course, I want to challenge the character of the PCs; so there will be plenty of unlikable orcs and goblins in the group too. Are the PCs heroes, or just mercenaries, or even villains? This third column of the 5x5 will be a bit of a test for them; what will they do about this stranded caravan struggling quixotically against a forest that's a bit too tough for them to chew on their own?

Balogh

Cryn and Heren

I also like the idea that Joan was stolen by a hired mercenary who was supposed to just grab the book for Grym, but became infatuated with her and thought he could win her over by taking her along too. This hasn't panned out. He's a narcissistic and ridiculous man, not to mention amoral and inordinately self-absorbed. Evil in a very modern entitled toxic beta male kind of way. Frankly, he would have long ago raped her despite her protests, believing himself entitled to her, but as luck would have it, they fell in with the orc caravan, when he left Grym's tower. The orcs sensed that this mercenary Cesan Dughlas was shady and that Joan might be in some kind of trouble; Balogh has made sure that she stayed with them. Cesan has not been willing to run for it just yet, although he's very frustrated by the situation, but as the trip with the orclings becomes more dangerous, neither of them will be very willing to leave until they get out of the forest at best. Lots of roleplaying and drama for players who like that kind of thing to sink their teeth into.

Cesan Dughlas

Fourthly, speaking of mercenary pursuits, before the raid on the caravan that sparks this entire episode of columns, Eoman Gast was also tasked, if he could manage it, with sending any information about a golden idol buried in a lost villa in the forest back to his professor patron. The villa and idol go back to ancient times when the kingdom of Vuronezh stretched under the northern eaves of the forest. But Eamon has clues gleaned from von Lechfeld's research that makes him believe that he could find it. Sadly, in his injured state he can't, and frankly, the situation was more dangerous than he believed or even still believes. The villa is not unoccupied. I know this sounds kind of trite, but I'm not going to turn it into a sad dungeon crawl imitation. There is a hag named Eigyr Gwynn who lives there even though the villa has turned into a forested swamp and is very difficult to reach safely. Like all hags, she's not a good neighbor; she loves to eat children and all that jazz, but they rarely find their way in to her neck of the woods, and her forays abroad for human flesh are rare. But honestly, she's mostly just minding her own business when this opportunity to grab a solid gold Raiders of the Lost Ark head from the ancient house that she's squatting in comes the PCs way.

Eigyr Gwynn

Fifth, the last column may be one that the PCs don't choose. I like the idea of some kind of Predator-like monster deciding that it wants to hunt people in the forest, the more dangerous the better. Plus, the Erlking will be my first foray into what elves in Old Night could actually be like; maybe dangerous enough not to rate a routine monster line, but treated more like a unique monster of considerably more stature. The PCs might at first assume that finding the bodies of thurses or even orcs isn't a terrible thing; when they discover that the elf who's killing them wants to make a trophy out of their heads, and that he's much more dangerous than most other unique encounters that they'll have in the forest, they'll probably change their tune. Riding at the head of his Wild Hunt, the Erlking will be especially perilous, so I'll need to give some thought to exactly how to deal implement him.

The Erlking