My piece of the pie

Given the trailers of everyones' campaigns being posted lately, I figured I might as well add my bit.

My first Sylovia Campaign setting began in AF 239, and ended in AF 243.

Time has passed. The tide war, which resulted in the deaths of thousands, has left Sylovia a tired realm. Although the fear of the small folk has almost fallen into the realm of myth, the threat remains, and many behmous veterans of the war still dwell on those heroes who fell in the name of peace: Tao Kai, leader of the forces of both the LG Rebellion and the Tide Wars; Daiji Aishtor, a beacon of the Behmous people until his betrayal and death within Minos; Bragash Talcos, one of the two warrior brothers who assembled the behmous host that was key in the end of the war; and Mahul Towar IIX, the ruler of Mahul Towar, who struck out in vain to recover the mythical weapons lost by Tao Kai and his father. The secretive organization only known as “The Dark” continue to keep a vigil on the wastelands, fighting beyond death to keep the small folk at bay. The Deragen of Allos have spread East across the wastelands, forming a mercenary army in the slowly reviving wastes. The nations of Sidaujm and Mahul Towar are in conflict, both countries vying for resources, while Dazhor and Gigardcrest attempt to recover the lands ravaged by the war.

Mighty cities have fallen, and entire races have been decimated. The Blood plague ravages the Regaden, and even with the advances in medicine by the esteemed J’dor Plougsair, the Regaden continue to diminish in number, entire cities falling in mere days to the terrible affliction. The Suvini are of no consequence in Sylovia, children often growing into old age without having ever laid eyes upon one of the few surviving children of Subtergar.

People look upon Sylovia as a child looks upon an old man, obsolete, and no longer worth taking care of. With the works of engineering jumping foward in leaps and bounds, sailing ships have begun to depart Dazhoran docks, behmous warriors being trained to handle sails in place of sword. Explorations has become the new endeavor of the West, the landings at the islands south of Gigardcrest being the first great steps, and speak of journeys beyond the horizon in the works. In the now open cities of Allos, there is word of terrible monsters wandering the realms north of their territories, massive dark beasts hunting and killing entire parties of explorers.

Parties of trained warriors, many of which have served as the new first line between the nations and the small folk raiders, wander the trails and routes, hiring themselves out to all interested. Armies of reanimated behmous, gen, and suvini, led by small folk, strike at defenseless border towns. Many people thrive even in these dark times, such names as the Dariden family, the Talcos family, and the Ploughsairs live in wealth and power, their quick actions both aiding the reconstruction of nations both east and west, and helping to bring these nations together quickly enough to not only guarantee their temporary longevity, but that of these families.

Things have been dark, but a symbol of power and might has risen from the ashes of the ravaged world: Dazhai. This invincible creature, spoken of in both hushed tones and mighty hails, has returned to Dazhor with a band of three companions, single-mindedly seeking a band of warriors to aid him in his ventures. He speaks of a being even mightier than himself, which can only be reached with the aid of the mightiest people of Sylovia.

With the peoples of Sylovia thriving, suffering, and departing, the future is a shaky one, and the discoveries they are bound to make, will be more terrifying than anything they could ever imagine.

The year is AF 513. Welcome to Sylovia TNG

Hey Look, a Post

Richard just sent me an email today mentioning, among other things, that I never post on this blog. My reaction can best be summarized as "Woah shit, we have a blog."

I kept meaning to post something on here, but I've been juggling like eight different things every day these days. Thank God for vacation.

Anyway, since I have a week of vacation ahead of me, there's Nightwish blearing through my headphones and I'm far too tired to exercise better judgment, I feel now is a perfect time to talk about my summer campaign.

Yes, like seemingly everybody else, I want to run a campaign over the summer. I miss DMing, and I think I learned a lot from my past couple of attempts about what works or doesn't work. And I've been having this kickass idea bouncing around in my head for a campaign setting that I want to put out there:

It's basically a fantasized version of Ancient Rome. I'd pick and choose a few different races, but I can say right now that humans, elves and gnomes would definitely be in there, and most of the monster races with a few exceptions definitely would not. The level of technology would definitely be somewhat above what the Romans had, as would the level of magic, insofar that it would exist.

The main gameplay areas would be:

Aventium, and outlying provinces: Basically, the Roman Republic. Think all of the cultural, racial and economic diversity of Sharn, with even more blatant corruption, a far less efficient police force and a government that's about as stable as Ted Stevens' psyche (too obscure?). At the start of the campaign, there's a crapload of Carthaginian babarians (possibly halflings) at the gate, one of the two consuls has just died, and the other consul wants the senate to give him dictatorial powers so that he can beat back the invaders.

Akaea: Think Greece. Basically a bunch of city states scattered over a dozen different islands or so. Unlike in reality, the Aventines in this reality only control a few of the islands, either through outright occupation (to varying degrees) or restrictive trade agreements. They're eyeing the rest, although if they take their eyes off the islands they already have, they may lose them.

Aferius: Carthage, Persia, Egypt. Mostly halflings, although Egypt (Aegyptus) is probably more elven. Carthage is a huge military problem for Aventium. They have fucking elephants.

Britannica, Germanica: Duh. A few forests but mostly big open foggy green space with smelly (dwarven?) inhabitants that Aventium wants to conquer just for the hell of it. Of course, the locals may turn out to be a bit tougher to smash than Aventium realizes.

Clearly, the politics here would be a bit complicated, especially with all of the intrigue in Aventium, but I'll leave it up to the players whether or not they want to get into all of that. They could just as easily just higher themselves out to a single senator and smash stuff for him without giving too much thought about what his motives are.

Like with Richard's campaigns, this one would have a clearly defined arc, plotted out loosely ahead of time by me to span the three months of summer. I might be going away for a month in the middle, in which case I would abridge the arc, and most likely put a huge cliffhanger in right before I go away.

Right now here's how I'm thinking it would start out: the players all wake up to find themselves sharing a cell at the gladiatorial arena in some backwater province. Apparently, through some channel or another, they've all been betrayed and sold into slavery. From there they can either attempt to escape from the arena or stay and attempt to win their freedom through valor in the ring, but one way or another they're going to find themselves caught up in events larger than their own personal liberty.

One more thing, even though this post is already far too long: gods. I'll obviously be using the Roman pantheon, but the Romans had a habit of acknowledging other gods that weren't explicitely part of their pantheon. It wasn't unusual to find cults dedicated to gods imported from Africa or Europe in Rome. In that spirit, there will be a bunch of gods from outside the traditional pantheon. And they'll be far dumber, and far less aloof, than the gods you guys are used to. They'll take an active interest in the stuff that goes on, and use persuasion, bribery and seduction to get mortals to do stuff with no reason more farsighted than to piss off their siblings (who they'll probably be having sex with in a matter of days). I'm not sure whether or not the PCs might actually meet a god, but it would be nowhere near as unusual or exciting as it is in other campaigns.

Anyway, for those of you who actually made it all the way to the end of this post, what do you guys think?

Summer Campagin Voting begins

One slightly off topic thing first, I need a name for the universe that all my campagins take place in. Bryan is considering using that world for his campagin, and Tom is thinking of a one shot there...it needs a name, we all built it so i'm open to names.


I've spoken to a few of you about what i'll be doing for the summer, but now i'm ready to tell everyone. You know how when you get a demo for a game it says at the begining "Actual release may vary from current product" Well that's what both GTA:Sharn and Mournlands was. Both were Demo's and I'm allowing you the players to choose which one I should run for the summer. Cyre was just a trial campagin, to get my creative juices flowing, Cyre won't be run in the conciveable future, hell i'll probably never get to it.

I'm allowing you guys to choose which campagin I run. Each person gets one vote (someone tell tim and ned about this, they never check the blog) to decide which campagin I run for the summer, why? Well I have two major things that i'll be working on in each campagin, the Setting, and the Engine. I can't work on four, but two is acceptable. There's already a book for sharn (Sharn: city of towers) but not for the mournlands, so i'll have to write it. Kinda like the setting books (sandstorm, stormwrack and frostfell) but slightly different. The book for Sharn is detailed but not enough for sharn so it will require major detailing.

As for the engines both campagins work off differnt offshoots of the Quicksilver engine. Sharn uses the "Requiem" module and Mournlands uses the "Enigma" module. What is a module? It's a big packet of variant rules culled from Unearthed arcana, other rulebooks, and my own twisted imagination. The highlights are thus:

Enigma: Strange convolutions of reality, including the runic magic system. (uses d20's)

Requiem: Gritty realism, as befitting the dank streets of Sharn (uses 3d6 in place of d20's)

Sharn will be even dirtier and grittier than you remeber, much more
real and fluid. The Mournlands will be crazier, and it will really
remake quite a lot of the world.

Whichever campagin is choosen it will restart back at the begining and you guys will not know IC anything, but you can keep your OOC knowledge (won't help much, but it might) If Sharn is chosen I will do my best to keep in IN SHARN. I make no such guarntee with the Mournlands. I have overarching storylines planned for both, but thi is a mutaully exclusive choice, Once you pick one campagin you can't go back to the other one.

I'm only one DM and I can't run both campagins at once. I've found my niche, and It's the Breland/Mournlands corridor. I'm at my best when I'm in my element so i'm going to run my campagins in that element.