Surrounding Timischburg

I was thinking on some stuff I said late last week: the fact that running something like the Carrion Crown adventure path—even if compressed and heavily modified into CULT OF UNDEATH—isn't really my style.  This is true; what I'd normally do is use the material (maybe) that I've already developed, factored out at a high level the motives and plans of some villainous NPCs, and then that would be all that I'd have done.  I'd probably also do the same thing for other villainous NPCs, except no relation whatsoever to the CULT OF UNDEATH plotline.  As with CULT OF UNDEATH, though, it'd focus on the Mittermarkt and Ebenbach area—at least to begin with—before expanding out from there.

So, I'll continue the next few phases of CULT OF UNDEATH, because that's what this blogging project is all about.  But I will also talk briefly about what else I would add to an actual campaign that I were to run—assuming that I'd run this as an open-ended, meant to last for a while campaign.  One of the things that I'll need to do in order to pull this off is talk at a very high level about what's going on outside of Timischburg itself, since some of the threats will have origins outside, and it's likely that the PCs will eventually travel abroad to deal with them.  Right now, I don't know for sure what those other plot hooks are, but it will help me figure them out to figure out who else is in the neighborhood around Timischburg.  And since I'm fond of calling Timischburg a bowdlerized Ustalav (which is in itself a bowdlerized Unversal Horror version of Transylvania turned into D&D) with just a touch of Karrnath from EBERRON thrown in as well,  it makes sense to use a shorthand of some other source first, and then bowdlerize it from there.  (I like that word, by the way.)  So, I'll pick another nation from another setting (or from history), place it nearby, and then come up with my own new names.  At this early point, I doubt I'll spend much time worrying about how I will differ from the prototype, but I'm sure that all of these nations will end up differing from them as much as Timischburg differs from Ustalav before I'm done: it will have the same themes, but otherwise resemble the prototype very little in terms of details.

Directly to the east, and southeast from Timischburg, following the coastline of the Mezzovian Sea, will be the Terrasan Empire (borrowed from the Mark IV version of DARK•HERITAGE) which is a Mediterranean pseudo-Spanish or Aragonese (to be truly pedantic and precise) fantasy country.  I'll also presume that the elves live in forested, autonomous "reservation"-like areas either within or on the borders of Terrasa.  Halflings can also have communities here and there.

North of Terassa (and therefore northeastward, mostly, to Timischburg) will be the Empire of Warhammer's The Old World; a very Holy Roman Empire Teutonic fantasy country, and probably the original source of the Timischer aristocracy that rules Timischburg.  Directly north of Timischburg will be a kind of northern steppe and forest, mostly populated by either various barbarians (Celtic in style, I'd wager) or small settlements of the Empire moving further west.  And to the north of that will be more seas, and ersatz Vikings.  A mountain range running north-south from here (t-junctioning with the Knifepoint mountains, following a large gap) will be one that's populated by various strongholds of dwarves as well as goblins and hobgoblins.  Needless to say, these two populations are often at war with each other, as well as with the settlers and city-states and tribes of humans who live in the lowlands around them.  Some hardy, La Tène style "Gauls" live in the mountains too.

The northern coastline dips southward after this, so the country immediately to the northwest and west of Timischburg will be a "classical" country—i.e., a Graeco-Roman Republic at its height, just prior to its conversion to an Empire under Julius and Augustus Caesar.  I'll borrow anything from any era of Greek and Roman, from Bronze Age Achaeans to early Middle-ages late Roman Empire and stir it all together.  While this is a relatively good "protagonist" country, there are a lot of very dark cults that eat through the social fabric of this empire like worms; daemonic and Lovecraftian type stuff that's become relatively socially and politically powerful, even though it must remain under the surface, technically.  Although I think having something like a smaller version of the Worldwound—at least the same concept as the Worldwould—smack in the middle of this country would be interesting.

South of this ersatz Graeco-Rome would be a savage country of orcs; a combination of the Hold of Belkzen from Golarion (although I haven't read the longer book on that area yet, so I don't know how many details it will retain) combined with some Skorne stuff from Iron Kingdoms.  Further southwest of that are the city-states of Baal Hamazi and the homeland of the kemlings.  It'll be different than the DARK•HERITAGE Mk. IV in some ways, because I'm sticking it on the coast, but I'm not worrying too much about the details of it yet.

In the middle of the Mezzovian Sea, mostly directly east of Baal Hamazi and directly south of "Belkzen", will be an undead country of pirates and slavers; very similar to Cryx from Iron Kingdoms (although probably less necro-steampunk, since that's too Iron Kingdoms to fit exactly in any other setting.)  And then there will be another shoreline to the very southeastern part of the map, south of Terrasa but across the Mezzovian Sea, which will be al Qazmir from DARK•HERITAGE Mk. IV and the home of the jann.

(As an aside, it's curious how much of the old MODULAR DND CAMPAIGN SETTING material ended up being just that; modular stuff that I'm reusing again and again.  This whole expansion of the Timischburg setting almost feels like it could be a revision of my old PIRATES OF THE MEZZOVIAN MAIN game that I ran a number of years ago, except now with Timischburg bolted in.  Lot of "full circling" going on.)

I whipped up a very quick, sketchy "map" that is just ovals representing these countries; more to show their relative location to each other than anything else.

This list also has the following great side-effect: it pretty much creates a nearby homeland for all of the races you could pick.  Most of these nations are human nations, of course, but I've got nearby dwarfs, elfs, halflings, and orcs.  Cursed are already present in Timischburg itself.

Of the appendix races, it gives me homelands for the kemlings, goblins and jann; the woses are already also present in Timischburg.  Everybody's now on the board, including even hobgoblins (I could probably add them to the appendix, taking them from my EBERRON REMIXED work—or maybe I'll just treat this as a different culture than the Belkzen orcs.)

I've got "Dark Lords" not only in Grozavest itself, to some degree, but up in the Haunted Forest and out on the island of Cryx.  "Graeco-Rome" has dark cults, and Baal Hamazi is the remnants of a tiefling empire, basically—so it's got plenty of dark lords too.  This gives me lots of obvious and iconic fantasy villains, as well as the opportunity for potentially bitter rivalry between human countries whenever I need it.