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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fox Lee" data-source="post: 5469454" data-attributes="member: 4346">Well, I've had a horrid day and one of my ferrets died. I thought I would distract myself by writing up a summary of last night's gaming session, where I started on GMing the 4e WotBS path (albeit heavily homebrew hacked). So... it's War of the Burning <a href="http://gamebrief.wikidot.com/skies-of-escarnum" target="_blank">Skies of Escarnum</a>. Or something ^^;- - - A QUICK SUBSTITUTION GUIDE - - -So, since WotBS was being inserted into an existing setting in this version, lots of things got changed to fit. Lots of names have been changed also, to make them sound right for the race/nation they belong to in this setting, but most of the will still be recognisable by role if not name.For the first adventure, all the encounter critters also got remade, as I had to level everything up four or six times; the group wanted to start at level six, but since so much of the setup is in the first module, I wanted to start in the same way. Instead, the second module got cut; as cool as the concept was, I was having tremendous difficulty fitting the fire forest into my setting, ditto for its backstory. I may keep some elements I liked and transplant them into the ghost forest later down the road, since I expect it will also require liberal tweaking.Many changes will just be mentioned as they come up, but here are the basics:Ragesia: Aurion. Gods are absent from the setting and there are few actual religions, yet Aurion is a theocracy that claims to have revelation from the one true deity of Escarnum. They also believe that anybody who isn't a believer is a heretic, especially magic-users.Gate Pass: Arc. Due to the layout, the city is not a mountain pass between the two lands, but rather a huge bridge built between a river gorge that divides them. The city is not it own state, but is part of a country called Independence, which established itself as a neutral party and trade hub during the last war, and happens to own all the surrounding river-ways.Shahalesti: Tenebrae. Small and generally weaker than the surrounding kingdoms, Tenebrae is rumoured to have made some inappropriate deals with extraplanar entities, to maintain its position during the war. It also specialises in producing arcane casters, making it a prime target for the Aurite forces. The city of Tabris, in Tenebrae, houses the Ialean Academy, which will be standing in for Lyceum.Alternatively, the kingdom of Callan'Shae is home to most of Alm's eladrin (including Shealis and Larion), who are generally snooty racist courtiers. It's actually on the other side of Aurion from Tenebrae, which may have interesting repercussions later in the AP.The Poison Apple Pub: Brewers' Bar. Run by a trio of abilen (homebrew race; mercantile feline humanoids) sisters, though the eldest, Iriah Brewer, was recently arrested on suspicion of magic use. It's actually the youngest sister, Olive, who has magical talent, but Iriah deflected suspicion onto herself to protect her sibling. Olive feels dreadfully guilty about this. The middle sister, Brynn, is mostly enraged, and signed on with the resistance almost immediately.- - - The characters - - -The White Mask: A native to Arc. A very rogue-ish ranger who wears a mask and performs dashing not-entirely-legal exploits; under the mask, he's actually a thull (homebrew variant half-orc - same stats but of gnollish descent) named Gustav Pennyrow.Not long ago he was in Aurion, where he pinched some indecipherable church intelligence documents. He was attacked by a church thug and briefly held prisoner, during which time the documents were stolen by somebody else, whom he then pursued. He found the man dead on the road, the case of documents gone and the trail leading back to Arc. He retrieved a signet ring that identified the unfortunate man as a resistance spy, and a small key, and is now scoping out the resistance to see if they ever got the case.Acid: A fragment of the elemental chaos which was summoned for extended periods by an eladrin mage to do participate in arena battles at her uppirty magic school, and somehow developed a personality. Eventually he got stuck in the material plane; mechanically he's a genasi barbarian, though he disguises himself as an eladrin going by the name Fasrain Undertow. Water is his native element, but he turned caustic after a magical mishap caused by his summoner (who has long since forgotten about him). He tries to drink a lot of pure water to dilute the acid in his system.Acid isn't sure what his goals are, except to get back to the elemental chaos somehow, but he knows that Aurion would consider him an abomination if they knew what he was. He was just sort of hanging out at the pub.Sun Pan: A young wu-kan (homebrew race; slightly anthropomorphic tricksters based on the Legend of the Monkey King) monk with a rather "punk" aesthetic.Pan was mistaken for somebody else (whether on purpose or not, we don't know) and sent on a holy quest by a celestial messenger. Technically she did a grand job of fulfilling the prophecy, but she got the "chaotic good" ending rather than the "lawful good" one, which upset lots of people. She also did something quite inappropriate with a Callish princess, and was subsequently chased into Aurion by eladrin royal guard. After the church identified her as a psionic heretic, she fell in with some resistance members who recommended she flee to a meeting spot in Arc.Yoshikazu: A soratami (homebrew race; oriental ancestors of the eladrin) artificer of indeterminate age and gender. Yoshikazu is a brilliant technician (which did not mesh well with the soratami's insular and xenophobic culture), who invented something so dangerous to soratami society that it provoked assassination attempts. Now far from home, Yoshikazu is trying to sell this invention to the rulers of another nation.It seems Yoshikazu wound up in the bar kind of accidentally; there were some mistaken directions, and Olive kind of assumed the soratami was there for a resistance meeting.Steelblood: A jotun (homebrew race; reclusive, gigantic fey trolls) paladin who was trapped at a young age and used by the Aurite church as a general workhorse/strongarm, with the assumption that he was too stupid to cause any trouble. He actually knows more about the church's darker dealings than is good for him, since they were less cautious around him when they thought he couldn't understand human speech. He has had a viciously manipulative religious upbringing, and developed huge guilt/duty/obedience issues in response.Steelblood is in Arc because about a week ago, he captured a thief who had stolen a case of Aurion's military intelligence - whom the jailers lost again almost immediately. Steel isn't normally allowed out on his own, but it was far too arduous a journey to push the Inquisitors' horses so mercilessly. Steel has just arrived in town, and is tracking the thief to a condemned pub.</blockquote>

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