Proposal: The Society of Sorrow

[Don Incognito]

While developing the backstory for my character, I eventually came to the conclusion that the organization it involved was complicated enough that it warranted a straight-forward proposal.


There is a place within the Valley of Bones that truly lives up to its name. An enormous skull rests upon a cliff face, and a river runs through its right eye, giving the illusion that the skull is crying. A small group, calling themselves the Society of Sorrow, built their compound (mostly centered around the main temple known as the Coronach) at the edge of the skull, studying it. In time, the society grew to house hundreds of members within its grounds. Although the Society keeps meticulous records, a fire some years ago destroyed much of their history, so no one truly knows how long the society has existed or why it was first founded.

What IS known is that the skull itself has some echo of sentience; through various esoteric rituals one can communicate with the skull, or even forge pacts with it. The most famous of these rituals is colloquially called "The Bath". A mixture of herbs and necrogenic acids is placed into a vat of boiling water, and a new initiate soaks in the chemicals for an hour and a day. The skull will not grant its power to those who do not go through this rite, so it is performed almost exclusively on new initiates. An unfortunate side effect of The Bath is that it removes all body hair and prevents any further hair from growing (as a result, there are almost no dwarves in the society). The Society also is known to take in orphans, so many local tribes (save dwarves) have been known to dump unwanted children there. The temple stresses physical prowess as much as arcane knowledge, so the scholars hunt and farm and practice their swordplay as well as debate and study.

There were two main schools of thought within The Coronach. The first is that the skull is simply a large untapped power source of unknown origin, and that therefor there is no right or wrong way to go about studying it. Scholars perform experiments, teach classes, or even simply live near the temple, tapping into the power that eminates from it. The second school believes that the skull is all that remains of a fallen deity, and that it demands proper worship. Meditation, fasting, and self-flagellation are not uncommon forms of praying to the one they call "Mourner".

The two schools had relative peace within the temple for some time, until somewhat recently. The chief of the temple, a wise old man named Jeremiad, was slain by the radical leader of the second school, a tiefling named Lament. Lament and his followers believe that the skull is nothing less than the source of any and all arcane power, that all those practice arcane or ritual magic who do not venerate it are heretics, and should therefor be put to death. He and his followers staged a bloody coup within the Coronach, slaying those who would not swear a blood oath to forever revere the skull as the one, true deity.

The coup was five years ago. Now, emissaries from the Coronach have appeared in the ports of Bacarte and Daunton, preaching that all those who study the arcane arts MUST obey the power of the Mourner or face serious consequences. If such threats have been followed through, none can say.

Note: All members of the temple are warlocks with a martial multi-class, and they all have sorrow or funeral related names. Good suggestions are Requiem, Eulogy, Epitaph, Elegy, Burial, Cremate, Entomb, Obituary, Sepulture, Agony, Anguish, and Repine

Well, that's it. Hope it fits into the setting well enough to get approved.

 

[covaithe]

Good stuff, a very nice read. I don't know that I feel any particular need as a judge to rule on this as a proposal, though. It doesn't involve any mechanical changes, and doesn't look likely to break the setting. It's localized, so it shouldn't interfere with DMs' ability to plan games around either Daunton or the Valley of Bone. I'd say just go ahead and write it into... well, either the wiki, or your character's background, depending on whether or not it's open to other players.

If it's open to other players, I'd avoid specifying that everyone in the temple is a warlock/martial multiclass. Leave it open to other classes with suitable stories: wizards, clerics, paladins, etc. Also, you might want to limit the...thoroughness of the coup by the monotheists. Perhaps there are still two schools, but Jeremiad died under mysterious circumstances, and now Lament controls access to the skull, and more and more often the intellectuals are excluded from his councils...

Having the bloody coup and a monolithic monotheism within the temple limits its availability to other players. Which is fine, if you'd rather keep it to yourself as backstory and a future plot hook. Perhaps a cleansing of the temple would make a good adventure, opening it up for other players later.

I'd say it's up to you. I'd slightly prefer the former option, having the mysterious non-total coup, since that still leaves a cleansing-the-temple adventure open if a DM wants to run it, but allows access to the temple for other players in the meantime.

The skull can serve as a power source, but we should probably avoid actually establishing it as a god. (Though of course it's fine if its followers think it is...) So far we've tried to avoid adding additional gods to the pantheon.

 

[ukingsken]

I think that the intent as read was the heretics venerate it as a god, but there is no hard evidence as to whether or not it is.

I think it would be good to leave it more open ended as well. I see some real possibility for other characters to use this society. And I like the subversive element that would emerge from less of a total coup. Instead of power hungry psychos standing at every door, you could take adventures involving the group in many directions, with a lot more possibility for RP situations, and subtle scheming.

I really like the naming convention though maybe you could make it something that all the residents do, regardless which school they follow. I like the feeling that assigning your character a ceremonial name to gain entrance gives off. Makes you really feel the almost oppressive weight that fanatical societies like that can exert over people.

 

[garyh]

I like idea, and the suggestions from covaithe and ukingsen.

 

[Don Incognito]

The naming convention extends to members of both schools.

Perhaps this is just echoes of 3.5e talking, but I still think of arcane and divine magic as wholly different kinds of magic. Arcane magic is obtained via years of study and practice, which eventually allows you to alter the world around you via various short cuts (spells). Divine magic must be granted to you by some higher power (whether it be a god, pantheon, devil, demon, nature spirit, or whatever). 4e warlocks throw a wrench in that system; they receive arcane power from a higher being by brokering various deals with them. In essence, warlocks use arcane magic in a divine magic sort of way.

The idea behind the Society was that they have taken this belief to the extreme; that ALL arcane or ritual magic is simply divine magic granted by the skull. Those who use such magic without paying respect to the skull are viewed as, say, a person who has had training as a cleric of some lawful good deity using that power to his own, chaotic evil ends. The PHB goes out of its way to say that once you've learned the tricks, divine magic isn't GRANTED anymore; it is simply another source of power that you can tap into. It is up to the followers of that specific deity to hunt down those who invoke its power yet do no venerate it.

As such, clerics and paladins probably wouldn't find too much to do in the Society. At the end of the day, the skull is an ARCANE power source, not a divine one. If you want to play a character that invokes the power of the skull in order to smite his foes, play a wizard or warlock.

Also, the intent was to make this more of a villainous organization for the campaign as a whole that my character just happens to have an affiliation with, the seed for multiple adventures that don't necessarily involve my character. Working other people's ideas into your own games is what makes Living Worlds really fun for me; next time you want your party to get attacked by some bandits, consider having them instead be confronted with a group of Sorrowsworn (not sure where I've heard that before, but I like the word for members), accusing the party's mage or cleric of stealing their god's power and immediatly attacking.

I simply didn't want to drop a whole group of evil cultists into the setting without first seeking approval from the community as a whole.

 

[ukingsken]

I'm totally for that, although from a flavor standpoint I could personally never condone a priest "learning a divine trick" then never having to follow his deityies tenets to use it thereafter. Even if he continues to use prayers against the deities teachings it would have to be another deity powering them. Some deity wouldn't just randomly let anyone who can dance the right way draw on their power... Stupid PHB.... Sometimes it hurts my brain.

As for Clerics I still think they could have their place. Maybe there deity has sent them to spy or maybe they venerate both their deity for divine magic, and the skull for arcane? I just think saying "priests or Paladins wouldn't be there" is unnecessarily limiting, instead why not say they are uncommon, leaving it open.

And I agree it is a mostly villainous orginisation, but it would also be perfectly possible for other P.C's to have characters coming out of the sorrowsworn (Wicked name btw) both evil and good.

 

[Don Incognito]

Well, unless you are FROM the Valley of Bone, I wouldn't necessarily think this all of this would be common knowledge. The public at large's first interaction with the Society of Sorrow wasn't long after the death of the Five, when their "missionaries" began their work. So I don't see why a Sorrowswrorn couldn't act as an ally (or even patron!) for a party that is, say, trying to kill an evil warlock. Even if the party includes arcane casters, their goal meshes with that of the Society at large; namely, the death of arcane casters who don't worship the skull. Why not send some mercenaries instead of loyal Sorrowsworn? Even better if you can get arcane casters to kill other arcane casters; either way, the Society ends up ahead in the long run.

Also, my character (Dirge, who I think is the only hairless dwarf in the history of D&D) fled the Coronach rather than be put to the sword or forced to serve under a maniacal dictator. I don't see why other characters couldn't have also escaped. Death or total sublimation don't necessarily have to be the only options. I mentioned a "blood oath", but it doesn't necessarily have to be magically binding. Perhaps some stayed out of fear, some are truly loyal to Lament, some fled, some died, and some are attempting to destroy the organization from within. I imagine that most people belong to the first group; there were more threats than killings when Lament took control. Of course, over the course of a few years and some good old fashioned brain washing, most now would be loyal to Lament and his vision to the death.

As for the "cleric problem", I still believe that allowing the skull to grant divine power would be adding a deity to the pantheon, which is not my intention. Again, the fact that the Society THINKS that it is a god doesn't necessarily MAKE it a god (of course, since Dirge left, who knows what progress the Coronach could have made? Certainly don't be afraid to give an Sorrowsworn NPC a healing word-type ability, just make sure you flavor it to be some sort of arcane healing, rather than divine. Perhaps the NPC could cast some sort of spell that makes his followers cry tears of blood, which find their way to their wounds and immediatly begin to clot). I just don't think that a PC cleric who worships the Mourner would be able to cast spells in its name, and the Society isn't exactly the most accepting of other religious beliefs. But if you can find a way to make it work (maybe a paladin who claims to worship the skull, but in reality is praying to some other deity), then by all means go for it.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Sounds like a really cool idea, and I think having a couple evil cultist groups out there defined before someone ends up tackling one is a great idea. That way it feels less like a DM's invention for the next invention and more like something which has been there all along which was built up to.

Also, I think I know where you recognize Sorrowsworn from. They're a type of powerful Shadowfell humanoids in the 4e MM. Of course, that doesn't mean we can't have sorrowsworn shadow-demons and sorrowsworn cultists. Perhaps the two even work together at times - it IS the Valley of Bone after all.

 

[Roger]

My non-judge opinion: Recommend approval.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[ukingsken]

I think so too. I didn't mean to suggest the skull could grant spells, because you're right, they believe its a deity but it isn't necessarily one. What I meant was that they could be some sort of arcane caster, who believes the skull is granting their arcane energy, who also venerates a deity with a cause that lines up with those of the cult? Again you're right I think its basically a "if your story can make it work" kind of thing.

Beyond that I think its all very good. I think we should get some Wiki action going on here in the near future.