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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 4306185" data-attributes="member: 48965">Well since I've seen a few other threads asking for advice on their homebrews with 4e, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I tried to incorporate the implied PoL setting bits with my own twists.  I am trying to give my campaign a strong Swords & Sorcery feel to it while still staying relatively close to D&D as presented in the corebooks.  It will be based mainly around and within one city, the short description of which is below.  More will follow.The City of ScyllaCity of RuinsGem of the Markune PeninsulaSeat of the Enigmatic Gray LordsAncestral Home of an Ancient Race, Long ForgottenScylla: Ally to the shattered remnants of the Dragonborn Empire that lie south, beneath the thick vines and dark canopy of the Arkhosian jungle.  Those Scyllans with money hire mercenaries, bodyguards and gladiators from the scattered tribes who continue their fierce war against the Yuan-ti over crumbling structures and relics considered holy by both races.Scylla:  It’s merchants ply their wares across The Broken Sea, risking annihilation or worse to cross the swirling depths so they may barter with the decadent and debased tiefling noble houses that remain amongst the sand strewn and volcanic lands of once-mighty Bael Turath.  If they survive the perils, these brave and foolhardy men and women, return with treasures both fell and exotic and more often than not a refugee from that scorched land.  However, some citizens whisper of darker things brought back within the very souls of the traders.Scylla:  Buildings of dark wood and mountain stone are continually raised atop the foundation of disturbingly alien architecture that was constructed by the city’s original inhabitants.  It is said those who spend an inordinate amount of time studying Scylla’s strange angles and odd materials end up either mad or enlightened.  Either way, these individuals are taken by agents of those enigmatic and faceless rulers of the city, known only as The Gray Lords.  Their fate is unknown and rarely discussed, but none are ever heard from again.Scylla:  The city, it’s rulers and it’s citizens still honor the ancient pacts Scylla itself has with the city of the dead, known only as Necropolis.  Any citizen of Scylla, who dies beneath a full moon, must be delivered by way of the Bone Road to the gates of Necropolis within 3 days, to become one of its undead inhabitants.  As long as this pact is upheld, the risen dead will leave Scylla in peace.  The same protection does not apply to those who stray from the Bone Road and into the Shadelands, between this world and the Shadowfell, the undead claim as hunting grounds.Scylla: Taboo land to the ancient dwarven clans that dwell within stone fortresses in the mountains to the north.  None save the most ancient of their race know why Scylla is taboo to them, and those dwarves who do would rather cut their tongue out than speak of it.  Thus the dwarves who visit or reside in Scylla are the outcasts, young rebels, curious, and deviants of honorable dwarven society.  For them Scylla is a place of new beginnings and frightening unknowns.Scylla: It looms miles from the lands of the elven moon tribes, strangely repulsing and attracting the noble hunters with a sense of something familiar.  Whether this is a good omen or a bad omen, the chieftains cannot determine.  It has caused them, for the first time in over a hundred years, to cease their tribal warfare and cooperate in seeking more information about Scylla.  It becomes more and more common to see lithe cat-like tribesmen prowling the city’s streets in search of something they can only sense like a half-remembered dream.Scylla: The city has always welcomed the halflings and they, in turn, repay it with gossip, news, stories and items of the furthest lands on the continent of Ghosha.  They are the river riders and caravan masters, soothsayers, entertainers and manipulators of crime in Scylla.  Halflings are second only to human’s in numbers and while an individual Halfling could be the product of any one of a hundred bloodlines they all present a unified front in the city against other races.  If one does wrong by a Halfling in Scylla it is said he has done wrong to the Halfling race, and they do not forgive or forget.Scylla:   They say it welcomes all and the fact that representatives from all five of the tribes of man walk its grime slicked streets is hard evidence to argue against.  Within Scylla’s walls walk the ritually scarred dark-skinned warriors named Nubians who battle the Yuan-ti alongside the Dragonborn tribes, the dusky skinned and sharp featured Osirians, dark sorcerers who once worshipped tieflings as god’s and built monuments in their honor, pale Nord’s with long hair of blonde or red and eye’s the icy blue of their frost covered northern homelands, the dark-skinned and lithe bodied Mekhet, wanderers and one time rulers of the human empire of Nerrath that shave all their body hair and tattoo arcane symbols upon their bodies in respect of half-remembered traditions even they no longer fully comprehend, And finally, the Tzu, golden-skinned mystics and philosophers who study the meaning of the universe and themselves in order to shape destiny towards their own burgeoning empire in the east.  Yes each of the tribes as well as those of mongrel blood have come to call Scylla home. Within its obsidian walls they struggle against one another in games of political maneuvering, open assassinations and expeditions into the depths of Scylla to wrest the city’s dark secrets for themselves, while treading lightly beneath the scrutinizing eye of agents of the Gray Lords.Scylla: Home to more than its fair share of those fey known as the Eladrin. A place where, banished from their homelands in the Feywild and cursed to long for it’s ethereal beauty, they sate their grief in a lethargic state within the numerous psychotropic drug parlors that serve such exotic brews as Dryad sap and Glamour oil.  Only a few leave the comfort and solace of their waking dreams and muster the willpower to seek a new path back to their homelands.  A goal none has achieved as of yet, and it is whispered that those who come too close are brutally murdered by strange beautiful warriors who fade in and out of shadows like ghosts.</blockquote>

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