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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9370537" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/R26l5wI.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 3: Caer CyflenNow that we covered the big picture of Solasta, we’re going to zoom in on the locations of pertinent interest to PCs for the next two chapters. The first is Caer Cyflen, capital city of the Principality of Masgarth. The book even notes that it was designed to be the starting area/central hub for campaigns, given its prominence to the adventuring economy.Caer Cyflen has its origins as a meager fishing and trading settlement at the meeting point of the Soiltafyn and Galisca Rivers. During the days of the Manacalon Empire it was turned into a fortified way station to shepherd troops and goods around, which explains its teleportation network. Like many other settlements it suffered greatly during the Cataclysm, and its ruler instituted martial law in order to maintain control of what territory they had. But humans and other refugees were allowed to settle in pre-designated sections of the land, and helped in reconstruction efforts. In particular, horses aided in establishing trade and contact at greater distances, while various clerics of Einar and Arun helped reduce casualties. Various duchies came into contact with and then under control of Caer Cyflen, turning the land into the Principality of Masgarth as it’s known today. The land’s standard of living gradually improved over the centuries, especially from reactivating the teleportation gate. It has also sponsored multiple expeditions into the former imperial heartland, helping grow the local adventuring subculture. The monarchy is a high elven family known as the Silverflowers, and the current ruler is Princess* Ceiwad Silverflower. During her tenure, she managed to re-establish contact with various isolated civilizations in the Marches, most notably Copparan. Realizing they had a lot to lose from invasion due to their favored economic status and position near the Badlands, the Princess established the Legacy Council to pacify the Eastern Kingdoms’ desire to profit off their findings.*As to why not Queen, it’s a more popular term by the general populace and it since stuck as official designation.Caer Cyflen’s major districts are separated by walls, with three bridges spanning the rivers giving primary access to the city itself. The Palace Complex is where the Princess and those in close contact with her live and do business, and is protected by heavy security in the form of well-trained guards and multiple magical effects along with invitation-only authorization. The Inner City is right outside the walls of the Palace Complex, originally a neighborhood built for human priests and is home to many temples of the various deities. It is also a hub for adventurers, being home to the popular inn known as the Gravekeep’s Cask as well as as shops specializing in gear and magical items. Three of the major factions of the Legacy Council have offices here: the Scavengers’ Guild, the Circle of Danantar, and the Tower of Knowledge.The Noble Quarter is where the nobility unconnected to the Princess and various wealthy merchants live. Several Ducal Palaces are located here, serving as temporary residences for the rulers of Masgarth’s duchies for when business takes them to the capital. The Garrison is a neighborhood that was originally dedicated to the Manacalon Empire’s soldiers, and it still has a similar function today along with having the city’s major navy that regulates and taxes river-bound trade. The Merchants’ Quarters are a series of business-focused neighborhoods dedicated to all manner of trade and industries, while the Harbor and Fish Town are Caer Cyflen’s poor districts where people can find all manner of illicit goods and services.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/I8F8SkR.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Legacy Council is a multinational alliance of five organizations representing different political groups, plus a sixth one with honorary observer status. In addition to acting as a goodwill gesture on Masgarth’s part, it allows Princess Silverflower the opportunity to have better access to the various representatives of foreign governments. Each organization sponsors and makes deals with adventurers operating out of the Badlands, offering rewards and favors in exchange for their discoveries. The Council is capable of prosecuting adventurers who act independently and without the blessing of said organizations for the crime of smuggling. In practice, such smugglers most often take the form of adventurers hired by factions paying for exclusive access to knowledge or artifacts, as all findings purchased from expeditions must be reported to the Council. Sometimes the Council as a whole hires adventurers rather than specific groups, usually when multiple factions have something to gain.Each organization has its own preference for adventuring types, the types of treasure they’re interested in, and the kinds of quests and services they offer to PCs. In the video game, this took the form of granting access to exclusive vendors once you earned enough favor with them, which took the form of a points system based on treasures donated to them. Sadly there is no such robust system in the sourcebook, instead being guidelines for the DM. We also have brief write-ups on important NPCs and their relations with specific factions, but I won’t be covering those and instead focus on the organizations in broad terms.The Church of Einar serves as the neutral party on the Council, for it is popular across the continent (save for the New Empire) and thus doesn’t owe allegiance to any one government. They are your typical “good-aligned church” and like PCs who conduct themselves honorably and fight the forces of evil. Their goods and services specialize in healing, divine magic, and martial weapons and armor.The Arcanaeum is the representative of the New Empire. Members of the Silent Whisper are present among them in disguise as various academic occupations. They are most interested in archeological findings of the Manacalon Empire, even more so if they’re given to agents without the rest of the Council knowing about it, and give preferential treatment to high elves over other races. Their primary goods and services center around arcane magic, particularly scrolls.The Circle of Danantar is the representative of the Principality of Masgarth that originated as a military institution training spellblades (OGL equivalent to Eldritch Knights) in the Manacalon Empire. They are tasked with securing discovered routes into the Marches and Badlands as well as watching over dungeons recently cleared by adventurers. Favor can be earned with them by undertaking tasks ensuring the safety of Masgarth’s citizens and are interested in items and research that are helpful to gish types. Their goods and services are the jack-of-all-trades of the factions, being a broad variety but with gear of interest to aforementioned warrior-mages.The Guild of Antiquarians are representatives of the Snow Alliance, a broad network of scholarly adventurers that act as a decentralized university. They are primarily interested in powerful magic items from the Badlands, and actual knowledge takes a secondary priority. Their goods and services specialize in academic resources, divination magic, and translating texts.The Tower of Knowledge are representatives of Gallivan, and are similar to the Antiquarians in being primarily an academic institution albeit they have a serious rivalry with the Arcaneum. Engaging in skullduggery against that faction is another way to gain their favor along with engaging in covert smuggling for their exclusive use. They also give favors to those who can make scientific and artistic breakthroughs regarding the Manacalon Empire, although the book notes that this is something adventurers don’t typically do since it’s not their area of expertise.The Scavengers’ Guild is an observer member on the Council and maintains neutral relations with everyone else. This is due to the fact that their services are of use to everyone and they don’t discriminate when it comes to patrons. Given that ruins in the Badlands are sprawling places, your typical 3-6 adventuring party cannot hope to even scratch the surface of archeological findings as well as treasure in general. Whenever a group of adventurers clears out a place of dangers, they can report the area to the Scavengers who will undertake extensive clean-up operations to find and transport everything of value back to civilization. In exchange, the Scavengers take 20% of the proceeds from such treasures sold, and have access to spells and equipment that can transport particularly large and cumbersome items like furniture and broken pieces of architecture.PCs can still gain favor with Scavengers by making sure that cleared-out dungeons are safe of hazards, and leave enough sellable items for them to profit off of as opposed to virtually empty ruins with hardly anything of value remaining. Favor can provide better share of proceeds, being given first dibs on items they sell at auctions, and new information pertaining to otherwise cleared-out dungeons.Thoughts: I like the concept of having various factions for PCs to do business with, and can turn overwise bland “we just sell everything for X amount of gold” shopping trips into more involved cases of political intrigue. Exclusive goods and services for treating one or a few groups as favored clients gives more substantial rewards than mere gold pieces, which tend to be a flavor thing in 5th Edition past a certain level. Barring the Antiquarians and Tower, the factions have little overlap in this regard, so most players should immediately be able to figure out the trade-offs: “okay the Arcaneum are racist jerks, but they may be our best shot at getting more spells for the party wizard.”<img src="https://i.imgur.com/6n1Fbvx.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 4: the BadlandsThe shortest chapter in the book, the Badlands stands in stark contrast to Caer Cyflen in that it doesn't have specific named locations so much as general trends. This is mostly to preserve the feel of danger and mystery, of how the Cataclysm turned this region into a place full of eldritch horrors where reality itself is no longer following a consistent set of rules. The region is the stuff of nightmares, full of monsters unseen anywhere else in Solasta along with entire cities’ worth of ruins still home to high elven treasures and magical wards. Being encircled by treacherous mountains, the Badlands remained largely cut off from most of the world before the discovery of the Copperhead Road as a reliable mountain pass.In broad terms, the terrain of the Badlands should be just as much a threat as random encounters with monsters, and magical weirdness should let the DM run their imagination as to what can be found: valleys filled with mist made from foul vapors, old Manacalon or Timarian ruins that have been literally turned upside down and whose structures are jutting into the earth, entire graveyards’ worth of dragon skeletons, and mobile forests whose plants are able and willing to attack travelers. The disruption of mana still persists in places, so arcane magic can be harder to cast such as requiring higher level spell slots for normal effects, or in some cases easier when it comes to concentrated pockets. There are no explicit rules modifications for this last part, but there is a small worldwide setting house rule buried in this section: post-Cataclysm, arcane spells of 9th level are impossible to cast, for the world’s mana supply hasn’t recovered to the point that such magic can be used.There is one sort of consistency when it comes to Badlands terrain in the form of Manacalon Ruins. Manacalon cities tend to have a lot of towers and other tall vertical buildings. Given that much of their economy and architecture was reliant on arcane magic working properly, most of their facilities are unable to be practically repurposed or used save as crude shelters by monsters and wildlife. Forts were rectangular institutions with practical grid layouts, and often served as equivalent to small towns in having a sizable civilian population providing goods and services so that the soldiers could focus first and foremost on warfare and defense. Each fort was also home to a teleportation circle, allowing for rapid transport of troops across the Empire. The vast majority of such circles are inactive or may end up leading into more dangerous places, and research is still being done on how to get them up and running. That being said, in the video game such circles served as a convenient “fast travel” system for moving quickly between locations, so I can see a DM using this as a method of convenience and reward for PCs.As the Empire was a slave society, the feudal style of small rural villages with town councils and commoners who may only occasionally see their barons was unknown. Instead, most rural Imperial population centers were sprawling slave plantations where a ruling high elf family was tasked with managing large groups of slaves growing crops. The slaves lived in squalid quarters that differed little from barns for animals, while overseers and armed guards lived in barracks and houses. The ruins of such plantations in modern times vary widely: sometimes all that remains are dilapidated buildings with parched soil, while others may have now-wild crops and cattle transformed by magical energies into their own alien ecosystems.Last but not least, centers of magical learning often took place in towers, and the high elves spared no expense in making architecturally impossible designs so as to show off their arcane skills. Stairs were the most rudimentary method of transportation, with levitation and teleportation magic being preferred means of vertical transport. Summoned extraplanar beings, constructs, and undead were favored methods of security, as their immortal natures allowed for them to serve as guardians far beyond their original summoner’s lifespan. Many such creatures still stand guard today. We get one more “buried in the text” change to setting assumptions mentioned here: in addition to cutting off 9th level arcane spells, the Cataclysm also cut off contact to the outer planes, so extraplanar beings cannot be summoned to the world. Any in Solasta have since existed before the Cataclysm, and as such are one of the “virtually extinct/nonexistent” monsters of the setting in the same vein as lycanthropes are in Eberron or orcs are in Dark Sun.The chapter wraps up with discussion on volcanoes and lava fields, but sadly there’s not much interesting to say about them that you can’t already imagine: hot, dangerous places where it’s hard to find potable water and food. The most interesting feature is that lava tubes are expansive networks home to orcs and other monsters, and are the most reliable method of safe travel and food sources in such regions.Thoughts: Personally speaking this chapter is a bit too brief for my liking. While it does a good job in setting up a broad-picture view of the Badlands, I would’ve liked to have more specific examples of terrain and dungeons.Thoughts So Far: I don’t really have any strong feelings on these two chapters as a whole. I do understand their specific regional focus, but Caer Cyflen feels rather skeletal as a described population center. Much of the meatier parts of the text focus on the Legacy Council’s factions instead, which is my favorite part. Due to this, the city feels more of a springboard to having exciting adventures elsewhere rather than a location in which to have adventures. Which then makes the section on the Badlands feel all the more odd, as it’s shorter than the city chapter.Join us next time as we cover new options for PCs in Chapter 5: the Peoples of Solasta and Chapter 6: Classes!</blockquote>

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