Possible expansion of the Dark Fantasy X setting

Let me give some context. Where did the Dark Fantasy X setting come from, and what are its direct antecedents? This is a brief summary of my history, which I've documented here, if you want a more long-winded version.

Back in 2002 I was already tired (again) of the D&Disms and started experimenting with settings that were obviously sword & sorcery fantasy settings, but not D&D-like settings, with elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. featuring prominently. Bloodlines was the first setting that I worked on that diverged significantly from D&D basic. The setting was a kind of analog to prehistoric Lake Bonneville with Rancholabrean fauna, and the non-human races were the aasimar, tieflings and the four genasi as they were presented in the 3e era of the game. This fairly early moved into a version of Dark•Heritage that was a kind of "steampunk Barsoom" overlay on the same idea. The giant lake disappeared in favor of more desert features, and the genasi and other planetouched races evolved into races that were superficially similar, but had a very different genesis. 

By 2004-5 or so, I'd gotten rid of the desert and resurrected an old floating islands idea that I'd had (which isn't unique; I've seen plenty of other people dabble with this concept) and I abandoned much of the steampunk aesthetic. This was now Dark•Heritage Mk. II. Although I actually ran this version of the setting for a while,  it was Mk. III that had the most development (up to this point) when I ditched the floating islands and went more with a Medieval Tarim Basin geography model. This version of the setting was fairly well developed, and I even had novel outlines for it. I did find, however, that I was a little too prone to moving in to esoteric purity spirals of certain setting elements that really didn't need as much development as I was giving them. In fact, the development was starting to hurt the setting rather than help it.

Meanwhile, I was doing some other stuff outside of the direct line of Dark•Heritage. I toyed with a big ole Jupiter-sized setting  (obviously I didn't develop that much surface area, but that was the idea) that used some ideas I had that probably fit a little better with a more traditional D&D-like setting, rather than the more esoteric desert environment that DH had become. I later reskinned some of these elements and the basic geography for another D&D-like game that I ran called Pirates of the Mezzovian Main, around a fantasy Mediterranean of sorts, but with Golden Age of Piracy like stuff from the Caribbean. And, noticing that I was re-using a lot of setting elements from my Jupiter-sized Leng Calling setting, I created a Modular DND Setting wikispaces.  What were originally meant to be drag and drop modules eventually started to coalesce into a setting that would deliberately be based around them being in more or less fixed geographical areas.

All of these threads combined; using Modular elements hung on a Mezzovian Main geography eventually became DH Mk. IV. I developed this quite a lot too; a lot of that development is still here on this blog, for instance. I drew a big map of the setting on a poster board (which I still have stuck behind my dresser and the bedroom wall; I occasionally pull it out and look at it even now.) Mks. III and IV got a lot of development compared to I and II, but ultimately, they weren't exactly what I wanted. Also, things were changing in the pop culture landscape, as well as my reaction to the pop culture landscape. While in the early 00s I was probably tired of traditional fantasy and experimenting with using another cultural baseline (14th and 15th century Crown of Aragon thalassocracy being a notable influence) and steampunk and whatnot all playing big roles for a time—until I decided that I didn't want to do exotica for its own sake anymore. In addition, I feel that maybe I was inadvertently getting caught up in movements that I didn't agree with; while maybe I was ready to  move on from overly traditional Anglo-Saxon, Norse or Celtic influenced fantasy after having been steeped in it for so many years, the fantasy zeitgeist was doing the same thing, but for different reasons. Not because they were caught up in novelty, like I was, but because they hated Western Civilization and deliberately wanted to avoid it. In other words, the seeds of what would become blatant wokeism were starting to infect the genre, and I guess maybe I was a little bit on the early side of detecting it and getting turned off.

So I started tinkering with stuff that would combine Old Country England and Viking nations (mostly) with either colonial or frontier American geography. These were separate activities from Mk. IV, but I gradually started to believe that I needed to leave behind the Crown of Aragon Mk. IV with its pseudo-Spanish "protagonist" nation and replace it with one that was more in line with the majority of my heritage; British-American. I settled on the protagonist nations being essentially calques of Robin Hood like Anglo-Saxons, except in an American Old West like frontier setting. Then, I jammed some other settings that I'd developed into it, notably the Timischburg "fantasy Transylvania" setting that I'd developed for my CULT OF UNDEATH project, and Mk. V was born.

But Mk. V actually was stuck at a fairly high level without much real development for quite a long time. I had a sketchy map and talked a bit about stuff, but mostly I was still referring to Mk. IV stuff in a new geographical setting. By the time I really buckled down and drew a good map, started updating the rules for the game that it was meant to support, and really doing some unique new setting development, I was on the verge of converting Mk. V to DH5, which quickly evolved into Dark Fantasy X. Dark Fantasy X could therefore be seen as either a second draft of Mk. V, which only got minimalist unique development in its first draft, or possible Mk. VI of Dark•Heritage. But it's instead been rebranded as it's own new thing, Dark Fantasy X. Dark•Heritage, while it remains the name of this blog, is now officially a dead brand otherwise in my mind; the setting has now moved on and turned in to something fairly different than what Dark•Heritage in any iteration had ever been. 

It's still probably kind of weird and esoteric in terms of fantasy, but also it represents a focus on my own heritage coming through instead of being de-valued, and as such, is probably in part a reaction to all of the wokeness in our entertainment. I've decided that I'm now more tired of looking for something that's not "lily white" than I ever was of fantasy that is clearly based on the Northwestern European Medieval baseline that was the foundation of most of the fantasy I read from the 80s and earlier. The experiment with experimentation, if you will, was played out and I found I didn't like it as much as I thought I would when I started it years earlier.

Anyway, the Dark Fantasy X setting is mostly made up of three large constituent areas; not by coincidence, the three campaign 5x5s that I'm proposing are each centered on one of these, giving me the full coverage of all three areas when they're all done. It was my original intention to have a lot of discipline about not going beyond these, and for a long time that's exactly what I did. I'm kinda sorta rethinking that premise... but let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. These three Realms are:

• The Hill Country; the most Anglo-Saxon frontier America part of the setting.
• Timischburg, the Austrian Empire hinterlands that is fantasy Transylvania.
• Baal Hamazi, the most exotic of them, where the kemlings are from. Although it's also heavily based on my love of the geography of the American West.

While I'd made vague references to areas beyond these three realms, I'd never intended to do any real development of them. However, I may want to make some smaller "satellite" mini-settings that are associated with the main setting. These won't receive the same level of detail as the main Three Realms—at least that's not what I'm planning now—but we'll see how much development they do or don't get. These elements include:

• Nizrekh, a kind of island nation that's the stub of ancient, sunken Atlantis, which has a combination Yog-Sothothery snake cult and ancient Egypt vibe to it. The people living there aren't the descendants of Atlanteans; there's already a race for that, but rather some group that arrived and developed in isolation.
• The wreckage of old Hyperborea; a kind of Ice Age glacier and snow-socked analog to Kadath.
• Lower Kurushat, which actually does appear on my map, but which I haven't given much thought to yet.

Of course, I doubt I'll do any of these until I finish my racial deep dives and my 5x5s, because that will lay the seeds for this to be done by really expanding the material on the races and the main three areas before I start haring after the afterthought areas.  This makes some sense; although Nizrekh has been floating around on the periphery of the setting for a long time, Hyperborea was never meant to make any appearance at all until I did the Hyperborean Racial Deep Dive and "discovered" that there was potentially interesting material still lingering in Hyperborea. (It probably doesn't hurt that I got back into SWTOR again and did some stuff wandering around on Hoth, and that I've been very slowly going through a youtube zoom playthrough that some guys did of the Icewind Dale campaign of D&D.)

Sextus Vedius, Lord Mayor of Lomar

The Lord Mayor of Lomar, sitting in state in his Grand Hall, where he meets with the Council of Lomar. The chair that he sits on was made from stone brought back at great risk and expense from Old Hyperborea; in creed at least, if not always in practice, to remind the Lord Mayor of where his people came from and keep true to their heritage. 

These aren't my own work, but I really like them, so I'll add them for the heckuvit.

Bloody Mary coming through the bathroom mirror

A great rendition of Frankenstein's monster

5x5 Fronts: Chaos in Waychester: Front #3: Subregional Front (Northumbria) (spoilers)

A quick personal note: I had anticipated that I'd be both too stressed and too busy with job-hunting to blog much. That hasn't really been the case. I have been busy, but I've been somewhat less stressed than anticipated. I'd seen other people in prior waves of layoffs struggle for months to land on their feet. I'm now at about two weeks since my last paycheck (although I got another last paycheck for my unused vacation; I haven't even had my severance arrive in my direct deposit yet, and I'm sitting on enough money for some time... although we're obviously being more careful with it than we used to be.) It's just over three weeks since I was told that I was going to be laid off. In the meantime, in the last seven business days—since after Labor Day, I guess—I've had nine interviews; one of which was a second interview, and one of which was a third interview. I've got another first interview tomorrow, I'm traveling on Friday, and I have an in-person second interview on Monday, and two more second interviews scheduled for early next week, even though I'll be out of town. Now, granted, I haven't had any conversions (yet) to an offer, but I'm quite encouraged by what's happened so far. The one I had a third interview with today will likely make an offer, I think, and one of the first interviews I had today told me that if it were only up to her (and she's the one that I'd report to directly) she'd hire me on the spot. I think both of those guys will try to lowball me a bit on salary, but we'll see. I'm also thinking that the in-person second interview I have on Monday will likely convert, unless I blow something badly in person, but I'm experienced enough not to make that likely. The other first interview I had today was also extremely promising, and a job that I'd very much like to have. On top of that, I've got a couple of other guys who've told me outright that they want to schedule an interview, I just haven't done it yet. In any case, my stress is significantly relieved, although I'm busy fielding all of these interview requests and calls from recruiters. I never thought I'd be glad to get a job just so I can finally turn off all of these notifications and phone calls that I don't want.

So, I'm feeling a bit encouraged to blog more than I expected to. Here's the next column in the 5x5 front for CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER, and today's column will focus on the Northumbrian orcling pirate threat. But first, as is my wont, some setting background. I thought it appropriate to talk a bit about the northern Hill Country border region just a bit. I need to draw a specific CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER map, but until then, I'll use my earlier draft, cropped just a bit, to showcase the area; it'll still be close enough.

The northern edge of the Hill Country is partially made up of some other cultural entities. The Wolfwood is a significant barrier (I haven't even bothered to develop what lies beyond it except in the very vaguest of terms), and the Plateau of Leng is, as you can probably imagine, hostile to all human and demihuman life. I think it's worth taking just a second to detail what Lovecraft himself (and a few other writers in his oeuvre) said about Leng

• inhabited by a human corpse-eating cult ("The Hound")
• inhabited by degenerate satyr-like "Men of Leng" as well as The High Priest Not To Be Described and his prehistoric monastery (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
• possibly the location where the frozen Antarctic city of the Elder Things was located, before being abandoned to shoggoths and weird gigantic blind albino penguins (At the Mountains of Madness)

I've also had the Plateau of Leng in my setting since at least Dark Heritage Mk. IV as well, although there is starts to coincide a bit too much with the source of the Cursed, who became the Hyperboreans. I don't want those two to converge too much. Suffice it for now to say that the Plateau of Leng is some seriously bad medicine, and you don't want to go there. But the malign influence of it does occasionally spread to its closest neighbors, which in this case would be mostly Lomar and Bucknerfeld. 

Bucknerfeld is an interesting place; although adjacent to the Hill Country, and a city of Hillmen, geographically it's just beyond the Hill Country, being sandwiched between the Plateau, the Indash Salt Sea, the Sabertooth Mountains and the lands of Lower Kurushat to the north. Hillman also have significant settlements along the north shore of the Darkling Sea, like Cayminster especially and the more far-flung city of Burlharrow. However, smack in the middle of this is Lomar, which has some hillmen, but is not part of their nation.

Lomar was founded by Hyperboreans fleeing the destruction of their far northern city-state of Zobna some generations ago. Whatever the culture of the Zobnans once was, it's become syncretic now, and the Zobnans have traded with and been influenced by the Hillman for some time, adopting their language, many of their fashions, traditions and even structure of government. Many of them have also converted to the Christian faith of the Hillmen, although Lomar officially has no state religion of any kind.

However, there's another population of Hyperboreans living among the Zobnans of Lomar, and they maintain a significant plurality. Their original homeland of Nyx was also destroyed by the savage Inutos, but their culture seems to have been significantly different than that of the Zobnans, and they have also resisted integration of Hillmen culture of any kind, or even to the Zobnan culture. This tension between the Nyxians and the Zobnan elements of Lomar has been the source of considerable cultural and social conflict in Lomar. The Nyxians still maintain their ancient cults, and are seen as extreme and potentially violent, or at least those political factions that refuse integration. Lomar is almost at the point of open civil war in the streets.

Iconic character Kimnor "Kim" Rugova is a great example of a Zobnan, highly integrated into Hillmen-like lifestyle, who actually left Lomar in disgust over the socio-political situation there, but a great many other Zobnans are much like him, except that they remain in Lomar and refuse to give it over to the Nyxians. The Zobnans originally welcomed the Nyxians as fellow outcasts and brothers, but have gradually lost a great deal of patience with the stubborn hold-outs who refuse to integrate to the Zobnan majority culture of Lomar, and many have now come around to being in favor of forcibly expelling or even simply exterminating the Nyxians if they continue to threaten the peace of the Lomar lifestyle.

I've included a few new Hero Forge Nyxian models. My original plan was to simply take and slightly modify Shadar-kai models out of the library, but I found that I didn't like them as much as I'd thought I would, and that my own creations looked better and more in mind with what I had. The selection below is a bit mixed. I never liked the white dreadlocks and ridiculous piercing look that Wizards of the Coast thought was so cool for the Shadar-kai, for one thing, so the Nyxians have a somewhat more subtle barbarism to them; although many of them are perfectly capable of mingling in high society as well. The violence and savagery of certain castes in their society is more a cultural affectation for those castes than for the entire Nyxian population.

The Tazitta Death Cult second column will have the PCs most likely getting at least a little bit involved with current events in Lomar, as will this orcling pirate one, but in neither case are they expected to really tackle it head-on. Official hillmen rangers, of course, have no authority or jurisdiction whatsoever in Lomar, and while freelance Shadows like Ragnar and Stefan don't actually have any jurisdiction anywhere, they are usually deputized and happily by those who do. The Zobnans, at least, are aware of the reputation of the Rangers, and have even come up with an organization of their own that mimics it to some degree for the countryside around Lomar.

The final area which needs to be discussed, at least a little, is Chersky Island itself. A the name somewhat implies, it was named by the hamazin when their empire stretched its farthest colonies this far, but it has been largely abandoned except by a handful of secretive fisherfolk, hermits, pirates and runaways or criminals who have lived a precarious life on the island. Now, however, as the migrant crisis from Gunaakt has grown, many of the orclings (again; a common term for both morphs of the race; orcs and goblins) have decided not to try and force their presence on people who's way of life would be harmed by their presence, and have sought out Chersky Island as a refuge where they can live in peace and friendly relationships with the other city-states around the Darkling Sea such as Cayminster, Lomar and Waychester. For about ten years now, streams of orcs and goblin settlers have moved to the island and established small ports, fishing villages and farming hamlets. However, this is somewhat threatened by those who arrive and decide that fishing, farming and trading are less effective than piracy. Now the friendly relations with their neighbors are souring, and the piracy problem threatens to become a major international incident between the orclings and the hillmen and the Hyperboreans of Lomar. With that, let's get to the column, which deals, in fact, with exactly this piratical problem.

First, the PCs should be approached in one of the port cities that they are in. It could be Burham's Landing or Benchley, where they are trying to book passage to Waychester, or alternatively it could be in Waychester itself trying to book passage to Cayminster to follow up on the Morcant Gunderic clue. Or, if you've decided to make this a late game front, it could be in Cayminster or Lomar trying to get to Waychester back again, or even just in any one of those towns without the PCs necessarily looking for passage to anywhere. Here they will hear rumors all over the place of the latest ship to limp into port in the last day or two with its cargo stolen and its crew reduced significantly either because they fought or were taken prisoner by the orc pirate captain Taurak. There's another ship anxious to leave with cargo, but worried about the safety of the sea-lanes, who are looking for extra protection (I know, I know, it's a tired RPG trope, but it'll work.) This is especially helpful if the PCs are trying to book passage somewhere; just make sure that your own ship captain Borus is heading to the same place the PCs are headed. Naturally Borus' ship will be attacked by Taurak's, and there's be ship to ship boarding action and swashbuckling combat for the PCs to engage in. I envision that the most likely outcomes are that Taurak is driven off, but as he leaves he swears revenge on the PCs and the captain that thwarted him, or Borus surrenders before he's left with too few crewman to get the ship in to port, and the ship (and the PCs, probably) are robbed by pirates. But if you want to do something more dramatic, or if the dice and the PCs crazy plans head that way, awesome. 

Captain Borus

Captain Taurak

Secondly, it seems likely that the PCs will be irritated at the villain that dared to rob them, but if that's not the way it goes, then the villain could well be irritated at the PCs that thwarted him. Spies from the Chersky settlement, usually corrupt goblins who can blend in easier than most, but possibly some paid humans or demihumans as well if that works better, will be keeping a watch on ships arriving in the various important ports, looking for the PCs arrival. Then, via messenger bird, quick communications will be sent to Chersky Island's pirate haven, Calak, where agents of Taurak or the pirates at large will send waves of thugs or assassins to kill them.

Meanwhile, regardless of what does or doesn't happen to the PCs, Waychester, Lomar and Cayminster and other port authorities are losing patience with the increased piracy and are talking of mounting a military expedition to wipe the orcling settlements off of the island, since they don't realize that the majority of the orclings are simply peaceful farmers and fishers, rather than pirates. There may even be an approach made to the PCs to scout the island before an invasion, but perhaps the PCs just want in on the action because they've been involved already. There are a number of peaceful settlements on the island, all relatively small, such as Wrynn, Edenna, Roclus and Barion. Even a quick and casual reconnoiter mission will demonstrate that only Calak is where the pirates are from, and that the majority of the orclings are very nervous and hesitant about the pirates; they are as much victims as the people of the other port cities, but are in less of a position to do anything about it.

A deeper reconnoiter mission will prove that Calak has an even more sinister side to it than simply piracy, although naturally that's bad enough. A priest of Dagon has started the violent and depraved cult of said daemon among the pirates. While not all pirates are members of this cult, enough of them are to make the pirates a force to be reckoned with because of their occult sorcery and zealot approach, as well as the sacrifices that they make on a regular basis. Those who are part of the cult also take a Deep One on as an officer, and this underwater perspective of the Darkling Sea makes them especially dangerous to the ships that they would target. Taurak and his crew are among the strongest supporters of the priest of Dagon, who's name is Guarg Dreghu.

Fourthly, whether the PCs reconnoiter on the island or not, there will be an eventual invasion; a joint operation coordinated between the Harbor-Master of Waychester, a self-styled "admiral" of privateers, who's the brother of the Lord Mayor of Lomar, and the ships of a consortium of merchants and marines from Cayminster, with a few additional boats or troops from other smaller port-cities all along the Darkling Sea. Without the PCs to direct them to the right targets (Calak and the pirate ships vs the other towns and the fishing and merchant fleet of the orcling civilians, they'll probably mostly just kill innocent civilians, farmers and fishers, while giving the actual pirates and cultists ample time to make their escape (mostly, anyway.) With any luck, the PCs could actually muster a militia of local orclings to assist in the cleansing of the pirate cove of Calak. Regardless, Guarg Dreghu isn't there when they attack, having been given advance warning of the approach by the Deep Ones. Although he wasn't given enough advance notice to evacuate most of the pirates, so he escaped with Captain Taurak's flagship to an even more remote cove with an even more remote temple to Dagon in it where...

Fifth, Guarg will summon a Ketos (or the Ketos, perhaps) to attack Lomar, which is the closest target. After that, if he isn't defeated or otherwise stopped, he'll continue to attack coastal cities, including eventually Waychester itself, until the PCs either do something about it, or Guarg and the cult of Dagon are the undisputed rulers of the Darkling Sea's waters.

As you can see, I've done my best to interweave this column with stuff going on in the two bigger, "major" columns, to reduce the temptation to ignore this one as a smaller threat that deserves to be ignored. It isn't, but I can see the players thinking that if they don't have really immediate reasons to get involved with it directly.