Once again, the goal is to have a fairly broad campaign outline. Details shouldn't be planned too far in ahead, because you want to react to what the PCs are doing. I generally plan for about 2-5 sessions, depending on how slow the PCs move, and then based on what they do, I plan the next section. But these different "fronts" aren't chapters, there are five of them, they each have five steps, creating a matrixed plan. The point is to try and weave the different fronts together so that the PCs can interact with the entire tapestry all at once throughout the campaign, if that isn't too tortuous a metaphor. So, this isn't supposed to be taking place after the earlier front about the Grand Duke and Duchess; rather it's something that they encounter while traveling north, and probably solve entirely before they get all the way there, because it mostly takes place in territory that is north of Barrowmere, but west and south of Garenport. It's a great "on the way" campaign thread.
This threat is a regional specific threat that will cause a great deal of problems for entire area that's west and south of the Darkling Sea. This means that it doesn't really impact the whole Grand Duke and Grand Duchess scenario that I described in front #1, on purpose. In my attempts to weave stuff together, the PCs will encounter a "damsel in distress" as a kick-off moment in one of the following fronts, but she also has a role here in this one.
In order to do this, however, I need to set up some setting context. I initially wrote this about linguistics and languages in my setting, but since that neatly establishes the cultural and racial landscape, I'll repeat part of that original post here, with some parts edited out since they don't apply to this particular campaign. So, here goes. Wall of text incoming:
Common. I like the use of the word Common, because it's understood by all and is used by both D&D and Tolkien both. For all intents and purposes, Common is the language of the Hill Country or Humberland, and is also called Humbrian. For our purposes, it is equivalent to English. Because of the presence of Humbrian colonists, traders and more throughout the region, Humbrian has become... well, Common. There have been significant inroads of the language as the native language (albeit with different accents, perhaps) throughout much of the region. While clearly not everyone speaks Common fluently, or in some remote places at all, throughout the entirety of the Three Realms+, you can usually get by pretty good if it's the only language you speak.
Humbrian is closely associated with the Humbrians, of course, and their country, the Hill Country or Humberland. For purposes of comparison, the Humbrians should be like British Americans; essentially the same as the British, but in a newly settled frontier territory. Unlike in the real world, the Humbrians don't have access to return home, however; Humberland is their new home and there's no going back even if they wanted to, nor can they be supplemented by new arrivals or settlers from the old homeland of Culmerland (et al.) Except more Medieval rather than Colonial in dress and manners, etc.
Normaund. While not directly closely related to Old Culmerian, a strata of Normaundish aristocrats ruled Culmer for a time. While they were eventually assimilated and integrated (mostly) their language was distinct for many years, and many old texts in this language still exist too. It also added greatly to the vocabulary and structure of Common, and the dividing line between Old Culmerian and Common is somewhat arbitrarily pinned to the start of the Normaundish influence. Real world analog: Norman French. Many of the "nobility" of Humberland should have these kinds of names.
Brynach. A language that existed alongside Old Culmerian, and predates it in what was later called Culmer. In spite of its age and lower prestige, this stubbornly didn't die for a long time; there are still a few older people in rural parts of the Hill Country who speak or read this language, although there's not nearly enough of them to maintain a viable speaking base, and nobody speaks this as their every day language. That said many people identify culturally with the Brynachs. Real world analog: Gaelic and other British Celtic languages.
Skellish. Distantly related to Culmer, but from a neighboring Old Country kingdom called Skelldale, some of the Colonists spoke this language. While all have assimilated linguistically to Common, literature in this language is important because it maintains elements of history and myth that were analogous to what the Old Culmers would have believed, but which they themselves lost. Some people still identify culturally to some degree with these guys, and even iconic character Ragnar obviously has a name from this language. Real world analog: Old Norse.
Timischer. The native language of the aristocracy of Timischburg, the kingdom immediately to the west of Humberland. Most of them still learn it, but for various social reasons, their Tarushan subjects have resisted using it natively, and the utility of the language has faded. As more and more trade with the Hill Country has penetrated the region the last several hundred years, most people in Timischburg have learned Common, and because the Tarushans and Timischers have largely resisted using each others languages to a large degree, Common (with a German accent) has largely emerged as the consensus language that both groups already knew and were willing to use to speak to each other. Timischer is on its way to becoming a dead language; well known by the scholarly, but spoken very infrequently, even in the homes of the native Timischer nobles as of the last few generations. However, it retains prestige legal status in Timischburg; signs are written in it, and many documents, especially older ones, are written in Timischer. Timischer nobles also use it to speak with each other when they want to separate themselves by language from those around them. Many Timischers of lower social class use it as well as a kind of insider language; Timischer mercenary companies push it as the official language of their companies (although most speak it as a second language) and some Timischer criminal groups outside of Timischburg have cultivated it as a way to keep their communications more secret.
Tarushan. Tarushan is the native language of the "aboriginal" people of Timischburg, which largely corresponds geographically with the old kingdom of Tarush Noptii. As noted above, it has no official status, but the Tarushan people still cling to it stubbornly, and many of the old Tarushan people refuse to learn or speak or read Timischer. Tarushan has less official status, but more actual use, and there are people in the rural areas, or among the Tarushan Gypsies who only speak Tarushan, with at best a smattering of Common. There are a number of older documents in a slightly archaic version of Tarushan that predate the arrival of the Timischers as well. Tarushan is clearly related to some of the other older languages in the region, although distantly, and has cultural, linguistic and presumably also genetic ties to the ancient kingdom of Kinzassal, which we'll cover later.
Tazittan. This is a minority language, distantly related to Tarushan but not mutually intelligible, of a number of primitive, rustic and hostile peoples deep in the wildernesses of Humberland, like the Haunted Forest, especially on the eastern slopes of the Sabertooth Mountains, and the Tazitta Badlands, of course. Although it descends from a literate society, there is no written Tazittan that anyone really uses today. For a social analog, you could consider Tazitta to be not unlike the Sioux language spoken in the 1860s or 1870s—except that there is less open conflict between the Hill-men and the Tazitta, mostly due to no resources in Tazitta territory tempting Hillmen settlement at the moment. The geographical and social limitations of this language make it one that's unlikely to be one that PCs would know or speak. Although much more primitive in their dress and equipment, as befits a xenophobic and isolated population living in a hazardous and forsaken place like the Haunted Forest, physically and genetically, the Tazittans more or less resemble the Tarushans in their build and coloration; the original phenotype of the Kinzassal people who were ancestral to both—shorter and slighter than the Colonist nations mentioned above, with dark brown hair, dark eyes, and a tendency towards more olive skin, although some of them are actually rather pale. Think of the Black Irish in that case.
Grendling. The language of the Grendlings, or Wendaks, the actual descendants of Atlanteans who were on the mainland when Atlantis fell. Because the Grendlings are themselves a debased and rapidly devolving population, super xenophobic and isolationist, few speak this language other than them, and they teach it to no one. It is—presumably—a distant descendant itself of the language of high Atlantean civilization, but even that is not for sure, and certainly they don't resemble each other much now. The Atlanteans relationship to humanity is dubious. The Grendlings are not exactly human anymore, and the Atlanteans, their direct ancestors, probably were, but were very different than any human population around today. Many of them live in the Haunted Forest, where they clash with Tazitta barbarians and any Humber travelers who get too close to their territory.
Thurse. The bestial language of the thurses, at least of Thursewood. Because the anatomy of thurses is very different than that of humans and demihumans, it is widely considered impossible to learn to speak this language, although it is possible to learn to understand it... assuming you can do so without being killed and eaten.
Orcling. The language of the orcs and goblins from Gunaakt. Still widely spoken amongst that race, especially the most recent arrivals in the area, but not by much of anyone else. There are few written texts in this language, and many orclings who have been in the Three Realms+ for more than a couple of generations have lost this language and only speak it haltingly if at all. While obviously not a human language, it needs to be mentioned because it's not an insignificant one, and some scholars are taking an interest in it as the Orcling population becomes more important.
Nyxian. The language of the minority population in Hyperborean Lomar (a city primarily of the Grisling race—both Zobnans and Nyxians are two "factions" of this race). The majority Zobnans who founded the city no longer speak their original language, and only speak Common, or whatever other trade language they've learned. The Zobnans mostly speak Common, and have no records of their former language, but it was probably a dialect closely related to Nyxian.
First, the Damsel In Distress from the southern regional scenario won't be detailed too much here, because she more properly belongs to the other front, but it's important to note that she's the daughter of, if not a Lord exactly, then certainly a landed gentleman, with estates in the more northerly part of South Humberland, near the Humber River that divides the Humberland Hill Country into its north and south halves. Specifically, she's from a little north of the town of Waller's Grove. Her father's lands, and the villages that have grown up around them are not on the map, but would be a bit north of Waller's Grove, but not all the way up to Cockrill's Hill. They're nestled in the fairly wide lands between the Chokewater Forest and the Garenkarst Bay (I should probably repost the map here, right?) There's an inland village of tenant farmers and freeholders who provide food for the whole area called Rettersville, and near the shores of the bay itself is the small port town of Benchley. This isn't a major center of trade; it's on the top of a cliff that goes down to the water's surface, for one thing. There isn't a good place to land large loads of goods for miles, but the townsfolk have built a trail of switchbacks that goes down to a broad pier, and mules or donkeys bring smaller loads down to the water, or up to the town. Small numbers of passengers make this run too, because it allows easier access to the interior towns north of the Chokewater Forest, Chokewater Ridge, and the Copper Hills than wagon trains from the Barrowmere or the rest of Southumbria. (Note; I've made a few minor changes to a few names, but I haven't redrawn the map. You'll have to figure out that Northumbria is now North Humberland, for instance, or that the Umber River is the Humber River.)
I like this step because it kills two birds with one stone. It's directly tied to step one of the South Humberland front too, since rescuing the D.I.D. there is, voila! the same girl we have here; one Joan Wilmere. She's fairly young; hopefully the PCs don't think that a 16 year old girl should be traveling across the Hill Country on her own, especially as she's been a fairly sheltered and naïve 16-yo at that. But if for the some reason the PCs rescue her and just stuff her on a boat, then there's more hints here; she says that before her own kidnapping people had been going missing in Rettersville and Benchley, and that gossip of strange disappearances were coming down the road from Cockrill's Hill and Pineytop even. They can also hear more gossip from sailors or traders at Burham's Landing, or on the ship before it stops briefly at the Benchley docks. Obviously something is threatening the good people of this area.
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| Joan Wilmere |
Anyway, this first box isn't usually how I do things. Rather than describing what villains are doing, it is just kind of a set-up and scenario for this particular column of the 5x5, and how the PCs would hear about it.
The second part of this column on the matrix plan is that Tazitta tribesmen have been targeting the narrow strip of land from the Copper Hills to the mouth of the Humber River; the majority of the Northwoodshire area. This has so far been small raids on isolated farmsteads and homesteads, so only a single family or small group have been vulnerable. But there's an escalation underway. The village of Roan's Mill which is between Rettersville and Cockrill's Hill, has been attacked by a much larger raiding party, but given that Roan's Mill has some several score people living there and a low stone wall around the settlement, as well as—more by luck than by design—a more defensible situation, they've managed to hole up and hold out, and are under a minor siege. This isn't going to last forever, but they can hold out for a day or two, and if—as I think is likely—the PCs have come to Rettersville or Benchley to return Joan to her father, or because of the rumors of trouble that they've heard, they can be right there when a desperate rider from Roan's Mill shows up looking for help.
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| Tazitta Death Cultists |
But, again, this happens whether or not the PCs come to this Northwoodshire area, although naturally if they don't come, then Roan's Mill will be in a more serious situation, and will likely suffer many more losses; both deaths in the attack and kidnapped victims who are dragged into the woods for sacrifices. A more curious detail, which again, I'll have to figure out how to have the PCs find this out if they aren't here for the attack, but find out they will is that the Tazitta attackers have created little effigies of the PCs out of bones, feathers, a bit of cloth, etc, and hanged them (by the neck) with small cords from the branches of the trees on the eaves of the forest where they entered with their captives. Once in the forest, their trail is lost as they walked over rocks and through a stream to throw off pursuers. A man from Roan's Mill will know of a famous scholar who lives in nearby Cockrill's Hill after leaving a post at the prestigious Academy of Mittermarkt to retire to to the countryside. He supposedly knows more about the forest Tazitta than anyone, having spent many hours interviewing captives or quislings over the years specifically to gain this knowledge. This will, of course, be Professor Anton von Lechfeld himself, a major NPC in a completely different campaign (coming in the next supercut I do after finishing this one!) I love that tie! Of course, it's entirely possible that the PCs don't go to Roan's Mill or Cockrill's Hill. But the effigies are still there nonetheless. If the PCs ignore that for too long, they'll find that the Tazitta bokor witch doctors have some kind of voodoo doll like effect on the PCs, and they'll start to notice that things are happening to them because of this.
Why do the Tazitta bokor witch doctors have these, and why the PCs? I'm not sure yet. Plenty of time to figure something out there, though.
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| Tazitta witch doctor |
In any case, what I think is most likely to happen is that the PCs will be in the area, will consult with von Lechfeld, and he will tell them that a Tazitta quisling a few years ago gave him a crude yet accurate and useful hand-drawn map of Tazitta sites in the Haunted Forest, including a few clearings with henges or menhirs, and a village deep in the woods almost against the mountains. There is the Mother of All Henges in a clearing in the forest. The sacrificial victims won't be sacrificed right away, although the PCs won't know that, so there'll be an element of trying to get there before it's too late. But the cultists waiting on a Nyxian sorcerer to perform the sacrifices, so if the PCs are in the area, they could get there before they're actually done. If they're not, then obviously they won't, and the sacrifices will be worse. In fact, they'll power the voodoo dolls against the PCs, and they'll start working almost immediately.
This Nyxian is from Lomar and he is even known as a researcher to Professor von Lechfeld, although he's not known as a cult-sorcerer; that's news to him. His name is Ampelius Pictor. If the PCs stop the sacrifices and kill or incapacitate Pictor, the threat from the forest Tazitta clans will be blunted. Honestly, they're not really into that whole Death Cult thing, and they were wary of the Prophetess who's leading their current aggression all along. They'd love an excuse to give the whole thing up and slink back into the woods.
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| Ampelius Pictor |
If they don't, they will still be unreliable and surly about their involvement, but they will remain a threat to the Northwoodshire region nonetheless. Pictor is an ambassador from the Cult, sent to shore up their support with these sacrifices and a show of witchcraft meant to intimidate and frighten the people of the Haunted Forest. Oh, by the way, the Haunted Forest, as its name implies, can be a source of all kinds of other bad news if more is needed. It's famously "haunted" by Grendlings, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The third part of this front is to figure out what the devil is going on with the Tazitta and why do they have a Nyxian sorcerer working with them; one who's actually well-enough known that people in the area can even give the PCs his exact address in Lomar! If the PCs are not around addressing this stuff, then this stage can be skipped, or if they decide that they'd rather tackle the greater Tazitta cult-lands head-on, they can also skip it. At least for now, although that will leave the greater Nyxian conspiracy (see below) unresolved. This involves going to Lomar, investigating Pictor's home and or office (Lomar also has a University on par with that of Mittermarkt, and Pictor was a scholar there professionally.) Lomar has problems right now; the Nyxians are getting a little restless and unruly, and while the Zobnans are sympathetic to their cousins' situation, being a mirror of their own in many ways, they also have established a new life here in Lomar, and become relatively friendly with the locals; they trade extensively with the Hillmen, and other peoples further west, for instance. And even before settling in Lomar, both the Zobnans and the Nyxians had a very different and mutually exclusive view on what it meant to be Hyperborean Grislings. The Zobnans have no desire to take on the Nyxians' strange dark cults and culture, and are starting to get impatient at their lack of assimilation. Pictor was heavily involved in sedition and treason against the government of Lomar, and his people have no desire to see the PCs or anyone else poking around in his affairs. One of the reasons that this particular box in the chart works well for me is because not only does it give an opportunity to explore a new area and new people, but it also has a different vibe than the rest of the arc, with intrigue and skullduggery being a major theme.
Pictor's death, if it happened, will set the Death Cults back a bit, but the potential fourth and fifth boxes, if the PCs "trip" them and cause them to happen are related to this conspiracy. The Tazitta death cults have had their grip on Tazitta society slip in recent generations, and their witch doctors were on the lookout for a way to re-cement their role. The Nyxians, on the other hand, have been increasingly frustrated with the Zobnans in Lomar being unwilling to embrace what—to them—were clearly the "pure" form of Hyperborean culture and cultic religion. The Tazitta witch doctors and the Nyxian death priests, who were forced underground by Lomarian law, entered into a pact to enable each other, brokered by the true master of both cults. The Tazitta wanted to rid all of the Hill Country, or at least Northwoodshire and the surrounding area, of Hillmen and return to their traditional way of life while the Nyxians needed a place to establish their own new city and settlements. The deal that the Death Cult of the Tazittans made with the Death Cult of the Nyxians requires that the Tazitta clans unite under the leadership of the Prophetess and the Nyxian death priests to drive the Hillmen out of the area.
By the way, the Prophetess of the Tazitta Death Cults was directly inspired by the real life Xhosa prophetess Nonquawuse. Except, y'know. More murdery. Instead of killing their cattle, they're killing Humbrians, mostly, and instead of starving to death, they are likely to bring down revenge genocide against them if the PCs can't stop it all from happening. You should read at least the Wikipedia article on her; she is fascinating, and I see the situation there as very similar.
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| The Prophetess |
The driving force behind both cults, in spite of their fairly different appearance among two very different ethnic and cultural groups, is one of the feared Heresiarchy of the Twelve, specifically Jairan Neferirkare the Soulless. She hides Outside of the world, in a realm all of shadow and darkness. It may well be beyond the PCs to storm her fortress in the Shadowlands and kill her; in fact, I very much suspect that it is unless they are willing to muster an army of Humbrians to support them and still make it a Pyrrhic victory, if victory can indeed be achieved. If you've ever read Glen Cook, imagine a group of scrubby Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay characters taking on one of the Ten Who Were Taken. From my own monsters section of my rulebook, starting with the Heresiarch monster list and always customizing it slightly for each individual Heresiarch is the way to go. But still; players are clever. Maybe they'll figure something out.
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| Jairan Neferirkare |
