Regions of the Hill Country

I've tossed around several labels for some time for regions of the Hill Country, but I don't think that I've always been super consistent with my usage of them. I thought it would be good to document what I think that "latest" is. Originally, the Hill Country was just a region in itself, but of course, it's big enough to have more than one region; at least as large as a Western European country of the past, like France or Old Germany or the Austrian Empire, etc. or as big as one of the big western states of the US like Wyoming or Montana. 

This isn't meant to be a list of details of the map, but rather of higher level "regions" within the Hill Country, most of which I've already developed many smaller details already.

The "core" of the Hill Country is the two regions Northumbria and Southumbria, both so named because of their relation to the Umber River, which runs through the southern part of the Goldenwold. Northumbria is driven, in large part, by the major urban settlement Garenport, which is the most important city in the region, and a real city and a powerhouse financially, militarily and in every other sense. 

Southumbria, on the other hand, has Barrowmere in somewhat the same situation; by far the most important urban center; really the only truly urban center. Barrowmere and Garenport are rivals, both commercially and politically—and even philosophically, as the self-styled Grand Duke of Garenport wants to unite the two regions more intimately and set himself up as the king of the newly christened Hill Kingdom instead of Hill Country. Luckily for the other regions, he's got lots of problems at home that are distracting him from pursuing that agenda too hard.

Both regions have subregions. Northumbria's Garenkarst Peninsula is east of the Waychester Bay and therefore unrelated to the Umber River, and the Northwoodshire region is between the Umber River and the large forests to the south. Technically it belongs to Southumbria, and it looks to Barrowmere for leadership, but only a little; the region is really kind of autonomous and independent in many ways.

There are two more recent expansion regions, where settlement from Hillmen is relatively new, and has opened up new frontiers for the Hill Country. The so-called East Marches are really more to the north even of Northumbria, and stretch from the territory of Cayminster (which is definitely in the Northumbrian orbit) across the northeastern edge of the Darkling Sea, and have now started to spread southwards across the eastern edge of the sea a bit in the form of Woodrow's Hamlets, a small subregion that's considered part of the Marches. Burlharrow is the largest urban (using the term somewhat loosely) area here, and they have both some commercial dependency still on Garenport, but also a great deal of resentment about it, and it is largely made up of common folk who urge for breaking with Garenport more explicitly, at least politically. Regardless of its politics, it's far enough away from the remainder of the regular Hill Country to be an afterthought in many ways to them, but as more and more settlement is moving into this area, that will probably not be true forever.

The West Marches on the other hand are truly separated from the rest of the Hill Country, and far enough away from it to be independent. Settlement of Hillmen in the region also is shared with some few peoples who were already in the area, although much of the West Marches is ranchland or other depopulated wilderness. Bucknerfeld is the largest city in the area, and it thrives on trade across the Great Northern Road with distant destinations in Lower Kurushat, Baal Hamazi and places like Simashki. But Hillmen have also spread recently down into the so-called Cactus Balds, and homesteads, ranches and more are now common in these relatively dry hills—in spite of their names, they're not necessarily completely bald nor covered with tons of cactus, although to the Hillmen, the prickly pear and other cactuses were a unique element that caught their attention. Mostly they are lightly covered in pinyon-juniper savanna, gray oak and even mesquite, interspersed with lots of tough grasses and the iconic cactuses which so caught the imagination of the Hillmen who otherwise weren't familiar with them. If you want a real world analog, go check out the Davis Mountains in western Texas—but then moderate the climate a bit. The summers aren't so miserably hot.

I'll probably draw up a quick map that's specifically focused on labeling these regions, and otherwise sparse on more detailed labels, and post it when I get a chance.

5x5 Fronts: Chaos in Waychester: Front #5: Far Flung Front (Burlharrow)

Yesterday while in a waiting room, I busted out one of the many notebooks and journals that I try to remember to carry around with me exactly for this reason and jotted down some ideas for the final official x5 column of the CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER 5x5. I should point out that this doesn't mean, of course, that I'm ready to run after this post is finished. This 5x5 structure is pretty bare bones, high level—more of a treatment than an actual screenplay to use a Hollywood analogy. For some purposes, this is OK and in fact desirable. The whole point in doing it this way as opposed to writing a traditional campaign module or adventure path is to give the PCs freedom to focus more on the threats that they find more interesting and less attention to what they do not; plus, some of the down-column entries do make a few assumptions about what PCs will do or will have already done that may or may not turn out to actually be true. It's more of a vague guide of what I expect that can't be finalized until the rubber hits the road. Or the PCs hit the gaming table, to be more precise. To quote Ray Winninger's classic "DungeonCraft" series, "Never force yourself to create more than you must." You don't need much to start. A high level outline like this, with a few details for the first few sessions is sufficient to get going. Not only that, I might have better ideas as the campaign rolls along, probably sparked by the players themselves and things that they do, so having the freedom to rewrite down-column entries is nice.

But the very earliest up-column entries will be encountered within the first session or two, and in order to actually be useable, they do need some definition and detail. But that can wait until I've finished creating the 5x5 matrix. I'll also want to create some potential encounters and finds for random things that happen to them while traveling. I'm officially integrating my appendix travel rules in to the main ruleset as "Appendix II." Longtime readers (ha! as if!) may recall that earlier versions of the rules did have encounter tables in the appendix that were heavily influenced in their format by the travel stuff in the Expert set of the B/X series, but I removed them deliberately. This new travel system more closely resembles this system described here in a blog post. It doesn't require the same preparation, but it does require some preparation, and I haven't yet done so for the setting, so I'll put something together before I start playing. I'll need some other things too; my old Dark•Heritage homemade GM screen (I just printed some WAR images on cardstock for the front panels, and created my own stuff in Word and Excel for the back side, laminated them and attached them with clear packaging tape. It worked, but wasn't beautiful.) I had stuff like name lists so I could name NPCs on the fly if they encountered someone I didn't expect, and other stuff like that which, given the way I run, I need to have to be as successful as I want to be. So there's some work involved in actually preparing this to get out of the gate, even though getting the 5x5s done is the major thing that needed doing. 

Anyway, before I do this, I should stick with my custom and offer some background setting material that's relevant to either this 5x5, or at least this column of the 5x5. I thought about some detail on the very northern part of the Hill Country region, which I haven't really talked about much because I've been more focused on south and central Hill Country areas. When I next come back with a 5x5, after all, I'll be in Timischburg doing the CULT OF UNDEATH 5x5!

(Well... actually, I'm going to use my Dark Fantasy X Iconic Group 1 as an example and show you how I'd do a 5x5-like structure that is character specific. This is just for show, though. If I run this, I'll actually have PCs that my players have made, not iconics that I've made. In any case, I can do some more setting background as I do those too.)

I've long suggested that much of the Dark Fantasy X setting is meant to be an analog to the American West, my true home (even though I live in the northeastern Midwest in real life, that's not my home. That's just where I live because of work. My heart belongs in the Rocky Mountains and southwestern deserts.) The spine of the Sabertooth Mountains could be seen in some ways as an analog to the Rockies. That doesn't mean that it's meant to be too exact of an analog—for one thing, I tend to assume that the climate is more mild, with warmer winters and cooler summers than you get in, say, Wyoming, where both can be pretty brutal. And this applies much more to the Hill Country specifically than it does to the stuff even further to the west; Timischburg and Baal Hamazi are hardly supposed to be similar to California and the PNW, even though geographically maybe you'd expect that. While the CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER game would take place entirely to the east of the Sabertooths, the Hill Country—sorta—does spill across the range, especially up in the north. I've long said that the Hill Country can be divided into two halves; Northumbria which is dominated politically, culturally and socially by Waychester, and Southumbria which is dominated politically, culturally and socially by Dunsbury, and the two are rivals sometimes for what the vision of the Hill Country should be. In spite of this, both halves are made up of the same people, with the same ethnic origins and whatnot.

In reality, there's a "third half" that doesn't really look for guidance to either, and is too far flung from either to be dependent on them anyway. This is the region up in the far northwest, near Bucknerfeld, the largest town of this region. Being on the shores of the Indash Salt Sea, and nestled in between non-Hillmen settled areas, the Hillmen here aren't necessarily quite as dominant, and have to share the territory with some others who are also here; plus the climate isn't quite as forgiving. From Bucknerfeld, Hillman hamlets and settlements continue along the road until the crossroads in the Vajol Downs, at which point you're more likely to run into traffic and settlement related to Lower Kurushat, or even leftover from the days when Kurushan power was ascendant along the shores of a much larger Indash Sea and the Great Northern Road was heavily trafficked. In those older days, the Hillmen hadn't even expanded beyond the Sabertooths at all, and the Kurushans were only vaguely familiar with their existence.

Although not shown on the map, with the exception of the Rackgrove's Folly, smaller Hillmen settlements, towns, hamlets, homesteads and ranches range all through the Cactus Balds, the western foothills of the Sabertooth Mountains. Because the mountains themselves and the Boneyard desert farther to the west are very lightly inhabited by anyone or anything at all, the Hillmen who spread into this zone encountered no resistance or complaints at their setting up their homes other than environmental; the western lands are considerably drier than the eastern lands until you hit the Onyx Peaks and the Black River, at which point you are leaving the Boneyard and crossing in to the northern marches of Timischburg. These small communities rarely if ever have any trafficking of any kind with either Dunsbury or Waychester, and have evolved in isolation from the concerns of either. Their only guidance, if you want to call it that, from a more major metropolitan center comes from Bucknerfeld, and Bucknerfeld is strange for a Hillman town, being independent, but also in sheltering a larger plurality of non-hillman, and being much more focused on caravan traffic across the Great Northern Road. This traffic has started to pick up again in recent years after decades of isolation and what really should be considered a short dark age enveloped the northern lands of Lower Kurushat and Baal Hamazi. As these northern lands started to rebuild themselves as smaller, autonomous city-states in the wake of the collapse of strong Imperial power from either of their mother regions, they looked more to having friendly commercial and political relationships with their neighbors, and the relatively newly arrived Hillmen were an important component there. Bucknerfeld is the only place where jann, kemlings and Hillmen cross paths on a regular basis, and the Hillmen provide an important link between the western kemling and jann countries and Lomar and the Hyperboreans further east.

A prosperous Jann trader who regularly passes through Bucknerfeld on his runs between Lomar and Simashki

The northern shore of the Darkling Sea is also disconnected from the rest of the 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 Waychester or elsewhere by ship. Cayminster is the largest town here, and while it has strong commercial, political and cultural ties to Waychester, 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.)

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 Waychester that makes up the first column of the 5x5 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 Waychester. 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 Waychester dominance and the Grand Duke's ambition to turn the Hill Country into the Hill Kingdom with himself as the first king, but Southumbria 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 Dunsbury as a model for how to create an independent political axis as long as you have enough geography between yourself and Waychester, 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 column of the 5x5 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.

Ratmen from the rat nest

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 Waychester, 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 Shadow Realm, 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 this Shadow Realm 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...

——( † )——

Anyway, that concludes the main body of the 5x5. As you can see, it's not really meant to be "runnable" in the sense that a module is. But it's also meant to be fluid and flexible. If I need to develop details—and I will—then I'm only going to need to invent details a session or two in advance at most, and other than that, the 5x5 is more for me to keep track of what the major NPCs and antagonists are plotting rather than what the PCs will be doing. The players will decide that, not me. All I can do is come up with hooks that I hope will be interesting enough for my fish to bite on, and then pay attention at the table to see what they're really taking an interest in and what they seem to be more apathetic or indifferent to, and trying to make sure that they get more of the former and less of the latter.

If large chunks, or even entire columns get ignored the PCs, that's OK. There's no requirement that they investigate every last lead on every last hook in this game. I can decide what (if anything) happens with hooks that they ignore. Some of them will mean that the villains advanced their plots with a free hand because the PCs weren't around to stop them, and will result in negative repercussions that the PCs will start to see in the setting as the game goes on. Others will... well, if the PCs aren't interested in them, maybe I don't need to be either. I won't feel too committed to them, because I didn't do too much development in advance, just a bare treatment that can have details hung on it when and as needed.

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.