Blood Feud: A world torn between the Demon Prince of the Gnolls and the Ghoul King

Paka

Explorer
"His "holy" sites are bloodstained rocks in dark corners of the wilderness. Some include a single, jagged chunk of rock thrusting from the ground and scrawled with crude paintings and blistering curses smeared in blood and feces."

- Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of the Gnolls by Rocert J. Schwalb, art by JAson A. Engle and Brian Hagan

To the east, murderous blood cults have been on the rise in many of the cities, one lord and lady ate their children in bloody rites to a hyena headed murder god. In the country, long dormant rocks that were once altars are once again covered in blood.

The gnolls stormed through the gates soon after the 666th altar was used in a ritual murder.

"The mightiest of Orcus's servants are his exarchs, undead demons imbued with shards of his semidivine power. Dorsaine, the Ghoul King, is foremost among these servitors."


- Dungeons and Dragons: Monster Manual by Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert and James Wyatt

To the west, several caravan of merchants became lost in an off-season storm and each had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Anyone who travels, knights errant, merchants, messengers and tax-collectors have had run-ins with the ghouls, all smelling of the sea's salt.

The ghouls rose out of the sea, as if they had walked on the bottom of the ocean from a far-away continent over the horizon or lost gates hidden deep under the ocean.

The barons of the east and the city-states of the west had no idea, no inkling that they were in a central planar position for a feud between the exarch of Orcus known as the Ghoul King and the Demon Prince of the Gnolls known as Yeenoghu.

Once, long ago, Yeenoghu had held reign over the ghouls but Orcus took the hungry throne for his own exarch, taking the Hungry Legions for his own Abyssal Layers. The only ghouls left in Yeenoghu's realm are pitiful rabble, masterless rogue packs.

The gnolls invaded the east through gates directly linked to Yeenoghu's Realm in the abyss. The pour through, hoping to link the gates together and allow one of the rolling fortresses, a rolling city-fort built on blood and murder, into the prime continent.

The ghouls invaded through the White Kingdom, Doresain's domain in Thanatos, an abyssal kingdom where the cities are all made of white bone and is peopled only with beasts that eat raw flesh.

Player Characters could be:

  • A crack troop of soldiers sent across the worlds by the Raven Queen to oppose Orcus's exarch and weaken the Demon Lord of the Dead's hold on the world.
  • A pack of gnolls who have rebelled against their Demon Prince and wish to see him fall.
  • Adventurers from a town directly in the middle of the conflict, a flickering Point of Light in real danger of being snuffed out by these demonic invaders and their petty feud that is being waged on an epic scale.
 

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That is how you conceptualize a setting. Crank up the death metal and bash your head against the wall until inspiration gets driven into your brain like a rusty nail.
 

Interesting stuff, Paka. I like it.

I'm curious why two replies of 3 mention metal?!?

Not to hijack the thread (although it hasn't been posted in in weeks, so that's probably not really an issue) but I'm seriously pet peeving on the idea that D&D and metal are correllated.

This doesn't need metal for inspiration, it needs dark movie soundtracks like Sleepy Hollow or Batman Begins or something to create the mood.

My hat of metal... or any "popular music" while playing D&D know no limit.
 

I have no problem with metal -- I don't personally like it, but if listening to it helps people conceptualize there game, that's cool.

As for this campaign idea, I like it. Assuming the third bullet point, the party could (try to) play one side off against the other with the hopes of saving the innocents caught in the middle.

You could also mix in other gods/demons/exarchs as they try to take advantage of the chaos in some fashion, or "help" (like first bullet point - Raven Queen).
 

Fittingly enough, this idea will rise from the grave.

Looks like this is going to be the premise of our upcoming D&D campaign.

Sweetness.

We are looking at the town-caught-in-the-middle concept and running with it.
 



It folded in on itself for a half a dozen different reasons.
Such is life, and the nature of gaming.

More on topic, I have an idea.

The bad blood between Yeenoghu and Dorsaine is certainly there; every victory a score settled for past slights. But each success is also a step towards a goal. Instead of this being just a feud, there's a purpose behind the conflict: Yeenoghu and Dorsaine are competing for a Title:

The Demon Prince (or God) of Scavengers.

The previous title owner is dead, killed by an entity that cares not for the portfolio. Therefore, the title is up for grabs. There still is quite a bit of power to be had as the Patron of Scavengers; many beasts and humanoids rummage and take what they find, and all of their actions would funnel power back to the Scavenger Lord. All those entities calling out for a good find today, saying thanks for the fresh carrion they find.

Yeenoghu sees it as rightfully his, as he is the Patron Saint of Hyena and All that Gnaw Bones. But Dorsaine has greater ambition: getting out from beneath the thumb of Orcus, stepping up into the bottom rung of the big leagues himself.
 

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