[4e] Starfall

[Lackhand]

Inspired by all the other "Here's my new campaign idea", here's my slice of Clive-Barker-Knockoff. Comment, throw rocks, steal for yourself (all I ask is attribution if you make money!), edit my wiki.

Hook: Starfall. Three hundred years ago, the world of Man was shaken when the heavens opened up and a mountain a mile high fell to earth, signaling the end of an age. Twelve years ago, strange horns were heard in the hills, and men began to go missing again as in fairy stories: The fallen empire of the elves was on the march again, and the night was no longer safe.

Race:
Most players are human. The three races of man with which I wish to deal are the stolid Dverning (for those who must play dwarves), big viking analogues; the pastoral Terrnovan castle dwellers; and the mystical and "generically foreign" Khenlanders, the people of the empire.
The city of Starfall hosts another fairly unique race: the Daeva, "Starchildren", bloodlines which breed erratically and unpredictably with normal human stock and produces madness and strange aspect. They are seen as holy, and as cursed, and as good luck, and as omens; they were created from those conceived and birthed in the light of a falling star.

The armies of the fey are progressing in from the Wildwood, laying seige to Blackwall in the west, and wending their way east erratically. Their armies of Hoblings (Goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, minotaurs, and gnolls; bestial humanoids manufactured by hags via mysterious rituals and fanatically loyal to their commands) and Calibani (Shifters, warped from Humans and gifted with free will and souls -- and memories of who they once were, albeit new and terrible loyalties) march under the keening and strange songs of their warlords.
Players might also choose to be Satyrs (Tieflings; the most capricious of the Fey Armies and thus occasionally throwing a lot in with humanity for fun) or Woodlings (Elves; the bulk of the elves are within the Fey Armies but entire clans have defected to the side of the humans; they are not mercurial in their alliance, and so while they are subject to racism, they are safe so long as they have someone to vouch for them).

Planes:
There aren't any. Well, that's a lie, there's several: sufficiently powerful Fey Lords (as well as any others who learn the trick of it) may cheat space, and build for themselves a new domain. These are tied to space but loosely, permitting (consigning?) their armies to erratic movements and uncountable numbers. The Mourning Tower is the center of their war machine, and the domain of the Storm King, their Dux Bellorum, and lies in a plane not reachable from the mundane world, at the center of the Wildwood far to the west of Blackwall.
There is also a strange place called Near which can be reached by prophets and madmen, a bleak and blasted landscape whose sky is populated with ghosts, and whose seas are as dust and salt. There are no men or fey here, merely chittering animals made large -- ravenlike Kenku are the highest form of life, with ratmen and the Hive (or the Webwalker's Guild) preying in the wastes. The bodies of men are everywhere, and the enigmatic unbreathing Loveless murmur and feed on those with warm blood who pass too close.
Finally, there is Unbeing, the home of demons and those things which are not and should not be. None have visited there, but many things are drawn from it nonetheless.

Gods:
Just the one, the Bright God of the Ternovan. He has a variety of apostles and exarchs, however, who mediate for his priests and provide divine channeling feats. The Dverning used to have a norse-like polytheistic pantheon, but have mostly converted; the Fey have no true religion, though hold their leaders in a position of reverence similar to a deity. The Khenlandish have a pantheon of a thousand gods, and do not attempt to list them all.

 

[Lackhand]

Religions:
The Bright God of the Ternovans is by far the most popular deity in the campaign. His church (and the anthropomorphic image of that deity is certainly male) spans multiple nations, with well respected priests everywhere.

Its modern form was created during the rise of the Ternovan people from bronze-age hunter gatherers to iron-wielding nation-builders during the Dverning incursion two thousand years ago. Before this time, it was a mostly unformed solar worship; afterwards, the Bright Host and the Sun Spirit were co-identified and a more human face was placed on the religion; similarly, churches and cathedrals were some of the first buildings whose stones were laid atop one-another. It is a religion with a very large number of archangels, saints, martyrs, and semi-divine beings, but only a single (solar) deity.

It is currently undergoing a several decade long upheaval; the Khendish Archives contained many prophecies of the Falling Star, and the event of its fall created a schism in the church.
The more pastoral members, removed from the Templum Ops, have dropped the Book of Visions from their liturgy, and instead begun to extemporize or otherwise customize their sermons to their parishes.
The more rigid members, the Vetus lacuna, hold that the book is not yet fully discharged, prophecy has not yet fully come to pass, and that the vigil is not yet ended. This is the position which the orthodoxy of the church has taken, and it views dropping the book as a grave error, though admittedly the prophecies are significantly less interpretable and immediate after the singular event; there are no interpretations which are clearly true and have obviously come to pass post0-caedo.

Naming conventions are Latinate (which I don't speak -- blame the mistranslations on the software I'm using!), with the hierarchies being byzantine but, ultimately, three parts.
The Orders of Judges are the enforcers of the Law, and includes the ranks of Templar (squire, Templar, High Templar), the soldiers of the Bright Host (noviate, knight, captain, commander), and the Monks of the Inquisition (ranks, titles, and honors are held in secret -- most are addressed as 'brother' or 'father'). This is the most male-dominated branch of the church, and is below the council of Bishops and the Prince of the Church.
The Orders of Grace are the teachers and caregivers of the Law, and include the convent and abbey schools and hospitals (with their attendant novices, sistren, and abbesses), the pastoral village priests (generally passing through Laity, Parent (Father or Mother), Reverend Mother/Father, and finally Bishop), and the Blessed Ones, those saints and martyrs outside the strictures of the church who, nonetheless, seem to be holy or divine in some way.
The Orders of Law are the unifying caste around these and are proper to care for temples and relics of the faith; the orders of Exorcist are drawn from these ranks, as are the Council of Bishops which elects Archbishops. There are also a variety of functional titles within these ranks, which an individual might hold regardless of other position. Mastery of rituals is required for advancement within these ranks.
The Prince of the Church commands all Bishops, as do Archbishops and the collective decree of the Council of Bishops, which itself commands the Orders of Judges and the Orders of Grace, with certain regulatory duties meted out to its members specifically.

 

[egarvue]

I like it, especially the part about the Bright God. You don't see monotheism too much in D&D worlds, its a nice change of pace. Also having the fey the bad guys is interesting too. Consider some of your good ideas yoinked for my own nascent homebrew campaign.

 

[arcanaman]

Like the way the religion is ordered

 

[Serendipity]

Wow, I really dig this - it's distinctive without being alienating.
Please do post more?

 

[Lackhand]

Gladly I'm glad you guys like! (the Plots & Places forum doesn't have as many flames as general isn't as well traveled as general, so it sort of slips under my radar)

Let's talk about edifices for a minute.

The city of Starfall is a large city, population in the low tens of thousands, independent for over a hundred years. It lies in the rolling hills of what was once the kingdom of Farnholt, along the banks of the Farenwash, a wide and placid river. Its people are of mixed Ternovan and, increasingly, Dverning stock; its main claims to fame are its government, several monuments, its Daeva, and, of course, the fallen star.

The Government: Unique among the cities of the West, Farnholt is a city-state ruled by the Steward and his Council of Speakers (modeled after the archbishopric and prince-of-the-church of the Templum Ops). It maintains the increasingly-misnamed King's Roads to all points west and north, mints the coins that spread throughout the rolling hills of Farnholt, and maintains a small militia in these relatively peaceful times.

The Monuments: Unlike the great city of Nag'm Amun in Khend, Starfall has no sewers. Its sloped stone streets channel the waste towards downstream, and several sunken wells, hundreds of years old, pull clear water back up. The Publius Ops is the seat of government, a stone-roofed building that holds the Council (when in session) and countless bureaucrats (when it's not). Aster Place is the site of the eponymous Starfall, and is still in ruins, even two hundred years later, and is often visited by wise men and pilgrims during the daylight hours, but shunned at night, due to strange visions and madmen that wander the blasted and empty castle. The great Wall around Starfall is also a work of art, with close-fit stone blocks, and a large community of vendors clustered around each of the Gatehouses, and some poorer families living within the wall (or its bridgelike structures inside the town -- they're swept for vagrants, occasionally, but there are more ways into the hidden places than there are guards to sweep them). Paving stones that are engraved with the name of the city call it Varenhold, but that name is ancient and used aloud only in official proclamations.

The Daeva: Pale and mad and lonely. There aren't that many of them -- perhaps a few hundred -- and they're even rarer outside of Starfall, being drawn by strange compulsions to the Free City. They travel in small kinship groups usually consisting of one or two Daeva and the rest Men -- engaged in strange acts of altruism or occasionally perfidy. They eat very little and never sleep, seeming instead to drink in starlight. When they die, they leave behind a very small trace of Astral Matter, or Residuum, which is also that which was left behind when the star fell. They mostly speak Ternovan, although there are more than a few who came from Khend, where it is said that there is a rite which some temple priestesses may perform to turn unborn children (still in the womb) into Starchildren. It is not a pleasant ritual.

The Fallen Star: Two thousand years ago, give or take a hundred, the Dverning arrived on the Western Shore in their dragonboats, bringing with them the secrets of crafting iron into steel. They established a raiding kingdom to the north, making war with the peoples who had populated the land until then. This was a dark time, and as the Dverning language rarely recorded anything other than ridiculously exaggerated battle exploits, relatively little is known about the period. It is known that they established a few human kingdoms as they traveled north in search of a suitable clime, and after a few hundred years of lazy rule, fell to internal strife and lost contact with their vassals. Upon reemerging on the stage of history they discovered that the Ternovan People, had formed their own patchwork empires of feudal responsibilities and were engaged in trade relationships with Khend, a strange and desert-dwelling people far to the east. In short, the Dverning had been replaced in history.
These trade relationships ran hot and cold, with a few years of war separated by a score of years of peace, and this state of affairs continued more or less statically until two hundred years ago (212 years ago, in fact), during Starfall.

One of the mightier states in the patchwork that was the West was Varenheim, which was ruled by King Varian during the Year of Starfall. Varend was a trade empire, exposed to the East and serving as a link to the other kingdoms of the West; however, during the Year of Starfall, Khend and Varenheim were once again at war. It ended when the city of Varenhold was struck by a small mountain that fell, dripping liquid flame, from the sky. It had been seen in the sky drawing nearer for months (indeed, it had precipitated the war) -- and, among other things, it destroyed a quarter-mile of the city, and flattened the ancient Varenholt and its king. The war was immediately halted, given this sign, and priests and oracles were consulted -- all to no avail. Neighboring monarchs withdrew, fearful of their crowns, and for a brief period, all things that walked beheld a true mystery. Sages came to study what had fallen, but could find no source of it, save traces of a silvery fluid which burned with magical energy, long known to them as "Residuum", and a great hill where there had been none before, somehow under the ruins of the castle.

Twenty years later, a full government was created to replace the vacuum; life went on.

Until fey horns were heard, far to the West.

 

[Lackhand]

The Fey.

Twelve years ago, the first stragglers from the Wildwood, the expanse of thorns and dripping oaks that lays from the north-west of the Blackwall to the coast of Cliff Even, covering a journey that would be four weeks on foot, even if there were straight roads in that wild place, came to the border town.
They were barely human.

The woods had always been haunted, with strange happenings and monsters rambling around its borders. Blackwall, with its mad king, was built on this presupposition, with mercenaries and adventurers traveling there to seek names for themselves, and study the strange magics that arose there. That was a long time ago, though, and the danger levels in the woods varied through history; in the last few generations, nothing worse than wolves, bears, oversized insects, or the occasional witch was to be seen; the laughing of elves was (if not kind) at least mirthful.

Of the first few men that came to Blackwall, only Tongueless Mors, a local beggar, was known; something had scared his wits from him. The others were furriers and loggers, trappers and charcoal burners; they showed signs of torture and raved like madmen, unable to understand simple Ternovan.

In the next year, the woods turned downright inhospitable. The winter, too, was a harsh one, and horses and cattle went missing. Talk turned to finding witches in the community, for surely something was amiss, and tempers began to rise.

The year after, the first hoblings were seen again, misshapen humanoids that growled and lowed and bayed, that looked like dogs or like horses or like cattle or cats or rats; sometimes, all at once. They crawled in from the woods in sixes and sevens, and dragged children from cradles, and hooted and cackled in their broken animal-tongues whenever the Black Guard came for them, laughing as they died in ones and twos, as the others faded back to the woods.

The year after, the stout men of the guard felled trees all through the summer and autumn, clearing land to try to grow crops to last through a winter which showed every sign of being as severe as the one before it, and the rising danger to unarmed peasants made the sight of armed or armored men riding three abreast a welcome one. That winter, however, terrible things befell Blackwall: It fell under siege from the west, as the trees began to enclose it, choking off roads and penning the township in; it was during the second summer after this that the roads grew too tenuous to be traveled; in the last 8 years, no word has been heard from the beleaguered kingdom.

The information above is mostly unknown to players -- most human kingdoms are somewhat insular and Blackwall has always been a home for madmen and risk-takers. This is exactly how the secret masters of the Elves would wish things, for their strange behaviors are utterly incomprehensible to any of the mortal races of men.

The goals of their war are strange, and gradual; they travel under cover of weather patterns, or as they can (through strange songs) move the forest to cover. They muster incredible numbers in impossible lengths of time, which fade away again as quickly, and use magic and control over their environment to ensure suitable terrain -- which is usually darkened, mist-shrouded, brush-choked, stormy, or otherwise unpleasant for those humans found within it. They expend incredible resources on a few isolated individuals, and turn away from large towns to encircle them instead, fading from view.

In short, they're confusing, frustrating, and dangerous.

They're led in this mad butchery by a mysterious being known as the Storm King, a fey lord of incredible potency. He was the source of the Dverning mythological deity Udunn One Eye, a lord of storms and death and rage, who is said to be undying and eternal. He is known to the Ternovans of Blackwall as the Grey King, an ancient of the distant mountain. He is known also as the Winter King, and he bears a long-seated hatred against all the works of man, and in his patient fury, he is slowly grinding them to dust. He is the king of the Fomorians, and has Cyclopes do his bidding. He commands legions of the fallen, and spirits of the air.
His consort is the Pale Lady, a being of nightmare and the queen of witches. Her handmaidens, the Hags, have the secret rituals that allow them to warp and change forms, and are served by the hoblings (goblinoids, gnolls, orcs), beings twisted from living men and dogs, cattle, horses, dogs, wolves, or nearly any other animal, and born in great litters. They are also the shapers of the Shifters, raised from children and feral. Their forces make the bulk of the strictly warrior-caste of the armies of the elves.
Their mistress of songs is the Spider Queen Lolth, who commands the drow in the field, who serve as assassins and enforcers, and hunt those who turn or rebel.

Not all fey are as devoted to the effort to destroy the works of men as the above, however. Whatever strange power has drawn the normally fractious elves together has bound them against referring to why they move against the younger race -- they will speak only of the Storm King's ancient hatred, and inviolate command.
A few bands of forest spirits -- the female Nymphs (elves) and male Satyr (tieflings), for instance, are entirely uncommitted, while the brutish ogre, giant, and centaur clans wage war on all who approach. The pixies of the deep woods do not march to war, but bear no love of man, and the treants, too, stand on the brink of either allegiance.

It is unknown what the Storm King's true plan is, but he is subtle and older even than kingdoms; it is certain to be a trap more than twelve years in the making.