Twenty Questions on the Sorrowfell Plains

Barking Alien's campaign tour is a little more deep in the weeds than I tend to get on world-building, but it's still good to review the state of the campaign setting every once in a while. Almost fifteen years ago, I did Jeff Rients' twenty questions regarding the Sorrowfell Plains. As often happens, information blooms, changes, and evolves over expanded timeframes, so those questions now have different (and hopefully more precise) answers.

1. What is the deal with my cleric's religion?

It's the standard Renn Faire, D&D-style polytheism nonsense. There's a whole pantheon of gods great and small, but people traditionally choose a patron deity (or two) and worship them like household spirits or patron saints. (Although plenty of folks venerate the whole pantheon, as needed.) Individual temples aren't typically networked into organized religions, but they're also not not networked; a cleric of Ioun can pray at any temple of Ioun without risk of defying tradition. That having been said, if a church has a seat of power, it's probably in Scandshar; a pilgrimage is likely in order if you have the time and money.

2. Where can we go to buy standard equipment?

There's bound to be at least one general store in your average city or town. Villages are a little more dicey, and might only have supplies if a merchant caravan passes through. (Or if Old Harold is willing to part with his grandfather's breastplate.) There are some trading posts in the borderlands, but it's best to stock up before your next expedition.

3. Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?

Scandshar, the major city in the region, is still your best bet. Grimwald, far to the northwest, mostly comprises what hardliners still sometimes call "monstrous humanoids" and so has many armorsmiths who cater to inhuman body plans.

4. Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?

A surprisingly difficult question. Historically, the answer is Archmagus Iandak Voiddrake, Supplicant of the Quaint and Curious Spheres, but he has been unseen so long that it is no longer even clear if he's alive. (Of course, he held so many secrets and so many magical contingencies that it seems unlikely that he's actually dead.) Ebenezer Cascata Mararnith Jepson, headmaster of the University of the Study of the Arcane Arts and Sciences in Duchy Jepson, is the "safe" answer.

Of course, Baron Adeptus Bezaldooz of the adventuring company known as the Shields of the Sorrowfell might have surpassed the Headmaster and the old Archmagus. And nobody is entirely certain what to make of recently-seen planar travelers like Barnabus Sleet or Pete Loudly.

5. Who is the greatest warrior in the land?

Also a difficult question. The best answer, assuming he's a real person and not just a legend, is probably Swordsaint Rishi, an immortal devotee of the god Kord who is alleged to be such a skilled swordsman that he is capable of fighting Death itself such that it either cannot or will not claim him. (If the tales are true, he's been alive for millennia.) The gladiator Thalia the Bloody-Handed is perhaps better known, although with the uncertain future of the gladiator matches in Scandshar, who knows what that means? Although she is not as well known as the other two listed people, the fey noblewoman Lady Graunwen Dwin'altin is also an incredibly formidable warrior.

Of course, Baron Sergeant-at-Arms Peren and Baron Sergeant-at-Arms Torinn, both of the Shields of the Sorrowfell, might be more accurate choices. Some also claim that recently-seen planar traveler Malice A'forethought fits the bill. Still others wonder at the bloody swathe carved by the escaped gladiators of the Scandshar Six, especially Nobody or Southie.

6. Who is the richest person in the land?

Until recently, the answer was probably one of the lords of the crime syndicate known as the Illustrious Menagerie of Peacocks — most likely Lady Victoria Loveless MacBeth, also known as Lord Key. However, with the collapse of their operations and the death of their leadership, the answer is probably someone with access to government treasuries: Duchess Sophia Taika Jepson, Governor Svetlana Zupan, or similar. It could also be a merchant or a noble whose intrigues lead them to avoid disclosing their true wealth.

Of course, groups like the Shields of the Sorrowfell and Those Who Remember have been pulling treasure out of the depths of the earth, so it's possible the actual answer is one of those nouveau riche adventuring companies.

7. Where can we go to get some magical healing? 

Several villages have a faithful priest or a village witch who can aid you, but if you want The Good Stuff™, a major temple in a city or town is your best bet. Expect to "donate" or pay, of course.

8. Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath?

As above. Some of those are easier to heal than others, so the village witch might be able to help you with a minor poisoning, while you might need a priest of great faith in a major population center to heal some curses. Some of these things are beyond the ken of most established religions, even in major population centers like Scandshar.

There is a recent tale that if you can find the lost city of Argent, Valna of the Shields of the Sorrowfell resides there and can heal any ailment.

9. Is there a magic guild my MU belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?

The University of the Study of the Arcane Arts and Sciences in Duchy Jepson is the appropriate answer, although critics say that it's just a "wizard mill" designed for rich patrons in Scandshar, so there might be an expectation of service after graduation. Dirthzea'via University in Scandshar and Morgrave University in Sorgforge both have minor magical colleges, but you won't gain much in the way of arcane secrets there.

There are, of course, always rumors of secret societies that may function more like magic guilds. (Maybe skip ahead to Question #17 if you want a more nuanced answer.)

10. Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?

Any of the three aforementioned universities (Dirthzea'via University, Morgrave University, and the University of the Study of the Arcane Arts and Sciences) are good sources, as are most major temples. Of course, specific subjects might require specific sages, which could be very rare indeed. You might have to travel to a remote village or monastery to learn answers to the most obscure questions.

11. Where can I hire mercenaries?

Back before they collapsed, the Illustrious Menagerie of Peacocks was the preeminent mercenary guild in the region. Of course, the economy is bad enough that plenty of folks are looking for work; major cities are likely to have more people with actual martial training, but you can always outfit a crew with your own money and get experience that way...

Weirdly, there are a handful of reports regarding a Blackearth Mercenary Guild, found primarily in the northern Sorrowfell Plains and the Hoarfrost Ridge. They're all alchemical automata, leftovers from the Cackledread War, and they're soldiers in search of a war to fight. That might not be a terrible place to look if you're trying to build a warband.

12. Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?

The roads are dangerous enough that armed travelers aren't considered all that strange, although they might expect to be questioned if a crime is committed with no obvious culprit. There are some foreign lands where arms and magic are more problematic, however.

It is also an unfortunate truth that the law is more likely to hassle certain sorts of demihumans depending on how rare they are; best not to travel alone if you're from the Deepearth or some similarly exotic place.

13. Which way to the nearest tavern?

It's probably close. If a settlement is too small for a tavern, there's probably a public house. If there's no public house, perhaps the one of the locals will give you a meal and a pint homebrewed beer in exchange for work or a bit of coin.

Of course, if you want a proper tavern, head to your nearest city or town and go wherever the tourists and merchants hang out.

14. What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?

Gnolls. Despite the time that has passed between now and the Cackledread War, enough people remember the war that gnolls are still among the most feared creatures around. You could make a career as a professional gnoll hunter, no problem.

Also, there's still technically a bounty on the Scandshar Six even though no one has seen them in months.

15. Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?

Pundits and armchair sages are always running their mouths, saying that the future trouble is coming from the gnollish warbands scattered across the borderlands, as well as the various goblin and orc tribes to the east. Plenty of respected tacticians have made careers saying that the gnoll or orc attack is coming "any day now."

But it's hard to actually see what's happening in the borderlands when you're a philosopher going to aristocratic parties. Here are some spots people should be worried about, but aren't, in order of most threatening to least:

• A couple of traders are sounding the alarm about massing goblin armies to the south. The adventuring company known as Those Who Remember has recovered intelligence referring to a new "Boss" and "Asset" that appear to be driving this organization, but apart from a few tantalizing glimpses, there is relatively little information on this emerging threat. But rest assured: if not handled soon, it will become a problem for everyone.
• The Blackearth Mercenary Guild isn't well-known and isn't causing trouble, but everyone should probably be a little nervous about a growing group of immortal soldiers with no war to fight. Why are they gathering now, fifty years after the war ended?
• Nainimdul also isn't currently a problem, but this backwater burg features some weird, isolationist elves. If an elf supremacist is going to emerge anywhere, they're going to start in Nainimdul.
• It might not help that faith in a new half-elf deity has started to appear. Religious schisms always make for unstable times.
• Slavery is outlawed in Scandshar, which means that the economy of the Plains and the Sea of Sorrows just reorganized overnight. That is likely to increase tensions among 'Ichi, Nadhi, and the Sorrowfell Plains, which could result in a trade war or even an open naval conflict.
• There are always a bunch of conflicts brewing on the Isle of Anhak to the west. Fortunately, those conflicts don't tend to spread beyond the island, but if you really want to be a professional mercenary right now, get on a boat one of the major port cities. (Just make sure you don't get shipped off to demon-haunted Qelong.)
• There's a rumor that dark elves were organizing warbands of giants in the Hoarfrost Ridge, but the Shields of the Sorrowfell put a stop to it. But they didn't massacre the giants: the Three Corners withstood a siege while the Shields killed the giants' leadership. That means the routed armies are still out there, waiting for some charismatic leader to organize them. That probably won't happen soon, but someone should be thinking about the next couple of human generations...
• Speaking of the dark elves, a lot of Scandshar war hawks want to launch a campaign against the dark elves for their attempted invasion of the surface. The only thing really stopping them is logistics: outfitting armies and building supply lines for an extended foray into the Underworld is a foolish proposition. But if somebody figures that out — or if the right politician can effectively use the drow as scapegoats for enough problems facing Scandshar — then the tacticians are going to start training Scandshar Militia as tunnel-rats.

16. How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?

All that stuff is in Scandshar. It's not entirely clear how the gladiatorial combat system is going to work now that slavery is outlawed, but that probably just opens the door for gladiators to get a bigger slice of the pie. Lucky for you.

17. Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?

The official word on the street is that the dread conspiracies are shattered. The Illustrious Menagerie of Peacocks was equal parts organized crime syndicate, pyramid scheme, and freaky apocalypse cult, but the group folded and its members scattered when the top brass was all slain over the span of a handful of months. The Broken Chain, a terrorist organization that was also a cult of personality around Morana the Forsaken — yeah, the same "Weeping Morana" from the child's nursery rhyme — likewise collapsed around the same time when a couple of members died and Morana the Forsaken was destroyed. (Uh, I guess she was real, by the way.)

But if you know the secret signs, there are a bunch:

• The Zookeepers/The Children's Crusade/The Sisterhood of the Swan. Not sinister, but they are technically secret societies. Primarily focused on slavery abolition (among other things), it is unclear what will become of them in the coming years. (One expects the Sisterhood of the Swan to keep defending the natural world, while the Children's Crusade will likely become a thieves' guild in the Peacocks' absence. It isn't entirely clear what will become of the Zookeepers, however.)
• The Banite Inquisition. A "secret" cult dedicated to the tyrannical god Bane, positioned at the top of the Scandshar Watch's leadership. (As the air quotes suggest, this isn't common knowledge, but the Banite Inquisition isn't exactly secret, either.) You have to be a guardsman in Scandshar to join.
• The Saraman Voluptuaries. A secret society with ties to organized crime and literally Hell, they've been trying to position themselves for years to take out the Illustrious Menagerie of Peacocks, even having infiltrated their organization. Now that the Peacocks have fallen, they're in the best position to take advantage of the chaos.
• The Raktamar. Although not native to the Sorrowfell Plains, their plans are far-reaching enough that you might still brush against them. Organized under the ancient vampire known in legend as the Blood Lotus, this cabal of vampires have co-opted Nadhi's state religion for their own purposes, essentially turning the whole continent into their private game preserve. With ties to undeath, infernalism, and Orcus-worship, they maintain fingers in many pies via their relatively ironclad control over Nadhi's government.
• The Bulwark of the Hypostases. This is the cabal of illusionists and enchanters teased a few years ago, and their aims are vast and cosmic: they're altering memories and manipulating geopolitics in the hopes of a total paradigm shift. In the long-term, they hope to bolster the membranes among the planes, finally allowing humans and demihumans to stand on their own two feet without extraplanar entities interfering in their affairs. It's a lofty goal, and it is unclear as to what would happen in the long-term. Would there still be magic? Would demihumans survive?
• This isn't a bad choice for a Magic-User guild from Question #9, if you plan on becoming an Enchanter or Illusionist. And don't mind having bosses with weird agendas.
• The Sodalicium Remegni. A group of vampire wizards, formerly a secret faction embedded in the University of the Study of the Arcane Arts and Sciences but forced to leave for greener pastures. Their current whereabouts are unknown, but since the rumors say they traditionally number thirteen but are down a member, they might be recruiting...
• They have ties to the Raktamar, which should be troubling to absolutely everyone. 
• This might also not be a bad choice if you're looking for a Magic-User guild from Question #9, as long as you're whimsically evil and willing to become a vampire.
• The Disciples of the Barrens. A cult dedicated to the demon lord Oublivae, they seek the downfall of Scandshar as part of their program of the complete dismantling of civilization as we understand it. They weren't taken all that seriously until they purged most of the other demon cults in Scandshar over the past year or so.

In addition to the above factions, the noble families of Scandshar and the mercantile families of Sorgforge probably also count as secret societies, given their vast resources and far-ranging schemes.

18. What is there to eat around here?

Culturally, the Sorrowfell Plains are the standard European, Renn Faire-style amusement park you have come to expect, so the food is an anachronistic morass of things that should never share an ecosystem. (Especially since the presence of the Olman suggests that the oldest human cuisine in the area is Aztec or Hispanic!) Root vegetables, grains, and meat and dairy harvested from livestock form the base of the diet. Beer and clean water are plentiful. Trade with 'Ichi, Anhak, and Nadhi mean that urban centers or trade routes may enjoy exotic dishes, while local customs (such as the corpse cakes of the western Sorrowfell Plains) may prevail in certain spots.

19. Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?

A few. Some claim the Crux of Eternity, the weapon forged by the gods to slay the Primordials, has recently reappeared in the Sorrowfell Plains; if true, it is a treasure with powers beyond measure. Its antithesis, the Doom of Divinity, is also a frequent target for Primordial cultists and blasphemers. Other legendary treasures include Cage (a luckblade that imprisons the efreeti Padishah Nurhan Solak, allowing the wielder to utilize his wishes but freeing him if the third wish is used); the Giantbane Hammer of Onyxarm (a standard dwarven thrower but with a legendary backstory rendering it as dwarf Excalibur); the Seeker's Staff (a wizard's staff developed by demonologist Gingor the Seeker and maybe containing his soul); and the snailstones (artifacts from the Temple of the Snail that draw dreamers across time and space to ally with the holder).

20. Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure?

Make no mistake: dragons are here, but they haven't been seen in a long time. Go back a few hundred years and the big news in Scandshar was the reign of terror of Benthosruthsa before he either left the area or went to sleep. More recently, there are a few sightings of younger dragons like Vilustuminen the White (which has since been slain) or Daurgoth the Toxic Foetor (last reported in the Feywalk Woods). A few legends of mature dragons spread, but they are likewise spotty (like sightings of silver and topaz dragons in the Hoarfrost Ridge) or describe dragons that have since been slain (like Urytenurarveia the Bogbeast of the Bogbeast Fens). In theory, Urytenurarvei's sister Silhouette is still at large, although she has not been seen in many years.

But if you want to go after big game, here are a few of the tales occasionally told around campfires:

• Hjertavbeybrannen the Smoldering Ember. Said to have disappeared many centuries ago. This raises the uncomfortable possibility that it is sleeping, and may yet awaken. Interested parties look to the recent schism in the kobold lair of Okarthelvrant in the foothills of the Hoarfrost Ridge with no small amount of trepidation.
• Jalanumerrurr the Bastion of Bahamut. Said to lair in a secret place guarding a treasure known only to the dragon-god Bahamut. Clues in old tomes suggest this secret place might be in the Sorrowfell Plains, and the occasional tall tale is told regarding a gold dragon of enormous size in the borderlands.
• Stórskjaldbaka the Invincible. A dragon turtle of enormous size, said to be the offspring of the World Turtle described by the sea peoples and worshiped as a god by some tribes. If it exists, it is both ancient and powerful, and might not even reside in the world anymore. (Some obscure records suggests it makes its home "among the stars.") Some tales claim the lost city of Orpokoti rests on its back, so it likely carries its hoard with it.

Other monsters with large amounts of treasure might include the legendary vampire known as the Blood Lotus; the lich Lazghul, the Opal of Chaos with Teeth of Jet and the Dress of Silence (presumed destroyed, but a couple of recent anecdotes suggest he is still around); and the undead beholder Lord Sepsis, one of the few remaining lords of the Illustrious Menagerie of Peacocks.

2026 Io, Lupercalia! Jam

There is another Game Jam over at the Unknown Armies Fan Club Discord, but you can participate no matter on what platform you find yourself:

Io, Lupercalia! Jam

The most important part of Lupercalia is to have fun and be yourself, so start with that.

Sharpened Hooks: The Bloody Contests of Tanadara

The real-life Frank Dux of Bloodsport fame claims that the Kumite is a secret 60-round single-elimination tournament held every five years. A sixty-round single-elimination tournament would require over a quintillion (~1.2 × 10¹⁸) participants, which is several orders of magnitude more than the total number of humans who are estimated to have ever lived on earth (~1.2 × 10¹¹ as of this writing) and would obviously be impossible to keep secret.

But of course, in imaginary worlds, fighting tournaments can remain unconstrained by size or secrecy. What if the whole world were embroiled in a fighting tournament?

Aeons ago, the apocalyptic elf cabal known as the Thorns of the Haemophage succeeded in their ages-long goal to summon the Blood Gods to the world of Tanadara. The forces of Chaos ran roughshod across the surface of the world, only stopping when the elves—rightly horrified at the destruction they had wrought and realizing that the end of the Age of Man would probably also be the end of the age of everything—invoked desperate spellcraft to bind the Blood Gods long enough to bring them to the negotiating table.

The price of peace was ultimately the Malraninin, a vast tournament requiring the participation of all able-bodied sapients on Tanadara. Occurring only once every hundred years, the Malraninin takes years to finish, comprising a single-elimination tournament featuring every healthy humanoid in the world. (Just wrangling everyone and pairing them takes weeks if not months.) Although most fights are not to the death, there are no restrictions, and enough fights are deadly that the Blood Gods remain quiescent for now.

As the longest-lived race, the elves are the keepers of the Malraninin, charged with ensuring all participate. (The average human is born and dies without ever participating in the Malraninin, which is more than enough time to forget the grave import of the contest.) Participation is mandatory; any who refuse, or who run and are caught, or who voluntarily maim themselves to avoid the contest, are executed. Cutting a deal with your opponent ahead of time to throw a fight is considered poor form and also a form of refusal, but it also tends to be rather hard to prove and so is somewhat commonplace in the early rounds. (But then again, sadistic opponents might take advantage of you taking a dive, so make sure you trust your fight partner before you coordinate a fight.)

It will probably surprise no one to learn that high-level magic-users are exceedingly rare on Tanadara, because they usually flee when they first learn teleportation or planar travel. Conversely, unknowing planar travelers may find themselves in a The Return of the Archons situation, being conscripted into the chaos of the Malraninin without a full understanding of the situation. (And the locals are unlikely to believe your claims of being from another world or dimension, because that sounds like exactly the sort of tall tale someone would spin if they were trying to claim an exit from the tournament. Not that it would help you even if they did believe you; the Blood Gods hunger for you just as well as any native-born Tanadaran.)

Incidentally, even those cosmologists who know of other worlds don't know about the Malraninin, because the folk of the world do not often speak of it, especially with strangers. The spies of the elves are always watching for tournament-dodgers, and it is best to avoid their scrutiny.

Unsurprisingly, however, Tanadara has a much higher concentration of martial artists than most other worlds; most inhabitants know at least the rudiments of boxing, swordplay, offensive magic, or some other self-defense art, even if they are not especially skilled.

During any given Malraninin, thousands if not millions of people can die, so the Malraninin is equal parts celebration and mourning ceremony. Despite the violence, the final rounds of the Malraninin bring pilgrims from across the world, so there is a certain level of cultural exchange brought by tournament season.

After the tournament, survivors often return to their lives a little more harrowed than before. (Which is especially unfortunate, given the silence and shame around the Malraninin. Domestic violence and suicides often spike after a Malraninin, not that anyone keeps track of such statistics.) Life continues apace, at least until the next tournament.

It goes without saying that the Malraninin requires years of planning, and that several large-scale projects (like war) stop for it. Farming and other necessities of course continue, although such responsibilities do not prevent participation. If your community needs you, you had better fight like it.

Story Hooks:

• Your village's headman was just and giving, but he died during the Malraninin and his sons are not quite so altruistic. You and your band have undertaken a quest to retrieve him from the lands of the dead (and maybe to get revenge on his killer along the way). But the elves claim bringing back one of the Malraninin dead risks the Blood Gods' wrath. Will you risk taboo to restore your village's fortunes? Will the elves allow this trespass to go unanswered?
• In the midst of adventuring in your GM's typical setting, you somehow stumble into Tanadara and are recruited into the Malraninin. (Perhaps you delve too deep into the Deepearth and emerge on the surface of Tanadara, or perhaps a wizard's trap sends you very far away.) Do you fight, or do you attempt to flee? If you flee, can you return to the anomaly that sent you here? And if you fight, what if one of your opponents seeks to fight to the death?
• Your remote tribe was uncontacted by the outside world until thirty years ago, when trade opened with your neighbors. Your village prospered under the trade agreements until now, when elves appeared and said all must participate in a fighting tournament or die. Will you go along with the strange foreign elves' wishes to avoid trouble, or will you resist their demands?

Four Kingdoms

A friend was soliciting ideas for foreign dominions, and I came up with four kingdoms plus their attendant problems. Use them as you see fit:

Mercantile Stratocracy. The kingdom bought its independence with blood, selling its mercenaries to the other nearby states. The gold from these campaigns has made the country rich beyond its wildest dreams, and enhanced the lives of its people. But everything has a price: the land's leaders are haunted by the things they have done and seen (sometimes literally!), and the kingdom's neighbors now look upon its natural resources and newfound wealth with hungry eyes. The merchant-generals are skilled enough warriors to earn their wealth, but are they skilled enough to keep it?

The Warren. Beneath the forests and glades, the tunnel-folk carry out their endless digging. What they cannot grow in the forest or in the mushroom farms, they trade using gems mined from the long night below. No enemy can penetrate their labyrinthine tunnels, and no natural disaster has yet threatened their kingdom. But all the tunnel-folk know is to dig, dig, dig. Do they dig towards their doom? Will they awaken something that slumbers below, or might they move so much earth that the forest above collapses into the pits below?

Utopian Mortocracy. It's a real nice place to raise your kids up: crime is low, manual labor is carried out by the Honored Ancestors (read: your grandpa's zombie), and people are finally free to fulfill themselves in arts and philosophy. But the undying wizards who run the place are focused on arcane studies and don't like surprises; upward mobility is practically non-existent, and the secret police ensure that nobody upsets the status quo. There's a lot of pressure to solve your disputes out of sight, away from the vigilance of the state's panopticon, and resentment simmers among the intelligentsia. Beneath the veneer of utopia lies the seeds of revolution, awaiting fertilizer.

Steam-Powered Theocracy. The wonders of a new age! Praise be the Intersection of Fire and Water! Their capital city is built around their god and the source of their technological wonders: a steam vent fed by underground aquifers and uranium deposits to form a natural nuclear fission reactor. If the underground rivers ever run dry (or if sappers from hostile nations dam them up), the uranium deposits could grow hot and reach criticality, destroying the city and spraying toxic effluvia across the land. 

Secret Paths of Silver

Man and the related humanoids are pattern-sensing creatures, time-binding animals. So it is of little surprise that they determined how to bind concepts into words, how to bind words back into concepts, and how to link these to the Tapestry that holds reality together. (Modern physicists would call this Tapestry "spacetime," but fantasy sages don't usually include spacetime in their worldken.)

The first humanoids to do this can be considered the first natural philosophers, as their conclusions arose from careful study of the natural world. Beyond the mere archival qualities of the sage, however, these were experiential, empirical philosophers. They go by many names, but players and game rulebooks typically call them druids.

The druids of Khaldun were the first to wrest the secrets of magic out of the land, the root from which the other magical traditions spring. (It makes sense when you think about it. They channel divine magic from the land like priests, but wrap their arcana in secrets and codes like wizards.) The druids were among the first to enumerate (and then, over the aeons, forget) the slow, green war. And in the Age Before Ages, they were the most powerful magic-users on the face of Khaldun.

They shaped the world.

Before the war between gods and Primordials, they created strange wonders, chief among which is the system of Moonpaths that once connected the far-flung corners of the world. Available wherever moonlight shines, the Moonpaths were relatively stable shortcuts allowing nearly instantaneous travel among disparate locations. They usually connected between druidic sacred sites and other important places, allowing druids to meet and defend these strategic locations at a moments' notice.

But such magic was long ago. The gods and Primordials made war, the Tapestry changed, and the Moonpaths collapsed. Most that remain are broken, dangerous, and unstable, often appearing only at certain times or when summoned by ancient chants and blood rites.

Strangely, archaic records suggest that druids often met on Khaldun's moon, implying that it was not the lifeless ball of rock it currently is. But this may be poetic, as archaic records often claim many metaphorical things that are not true, like saying there were two moons.

(Of course, some of these things may be true. The Dark Powers of Ravenloft claim that the ancient elves hid thousands of years of history in the hopes of destroying a potent world-emperor. And while most sages blame the ancient war between thought and matter for catastrophes like the convergences, they were instead caused by this forgotten empire — meaning that all manner of history might be lost to time. Likewise, the Archfey Vance recently informed his subjects of a civilization on the Faerie reflection of the moon, so maybe there is something to the moon once having held life...)

Repo Men

Inspired by R.E.P.O., this is the usual XP-for-treasure format with a hook to tie the adventures together.

Aeons ago, various boss monsters borrowed money from some entity (probably a powerful fiend like Mammon or an ultroloth, although you can obviously use whatever entity you wish if you're avoiding canonical Dungeons & Dragons factions), and now the time has come to collect. You are agents of the entity in question, delving into dungeons and trying to repossess treasure for your infernal masters.

The characters would gain XP for treasure, as usual, although the twist is that they probably aren't keeping any of this treasure themselves. I imagine they receive a commission in scrip (maybe 10% or so) which can be spent at the company store. In addition to standard equipment, the company store also carries hirelings and magic items. (I would probably randomize the latter so that there's a constant churn of weird items coming through.)

Obviously, the GM has to determine how magic items from dungeons work. Can you keep them? Can you squirrel them away? Do they enter the company store after the adventure?

It's essentially the same idea as standard class-and-level adventure games: enter the dungeon, loot everything to the bare walls, and get out. This setup has a few benefits that might make it worthwhile for certain groups:

1. If your players aren't interested in overland travel, this is a good excuse to give them various dungeons in the same campaign without having to travel to them. The central "hub" of the campaign is Hell's mercenary barracks, or whatever other extradimensional base of operations you devise.
2. The company store allows you to put whatever weird items into your campaign you want without altering the original adventures. It's Hell's lost and found, essentially.
3. The format allows people to drop in and out as desired.

I haven't quite figured out what adventures I'd like to use. (Obviously, if you get to it before I do, you can use whatever you like.) I'm thinking of dungeons that have "boss monsters" in them, a creature around which the dungeon is built (and who might be in debt to a powerful fiend). As such, the capstone is likely to be something like I6: Ravenloft or S1: Tomb of Horrors, but everything before then is open to suggestion. A cursed house like The Cursed Chateau or Tegel Manor? A frontier ruin like Prison of the Hated Pretender or The Submerged Spire of Sarpedon the Shaper? A larger village investigation leading to a dungeon like Against the Cult of the Reptile God or The Village of Hommlet?

Apart from needing a central figure whose stuff can be repossessed, you can really run any adventure you like.

A final note: this also seems like a good campaign frame to have in your back pocket if you run something like Fires of Dis or The Shrike, where the characters go to Hell and so might end up indentured to some powerful demon. In which case, just start throwing dungeons at them with a mandate to deliver all of value to their master. Of course, intrepid players will probably try to determine how to wriggle out of their infernal contracts, which seems like an interesting wrinkle to this campaign...

The Slow, Green War

The slow war is all around us, but few of us can see it.

Some few druids of Khaldun know about it; those who can cast speak with plants or awaken sometimes come to understand the outer edges of the slow war. The dreaming druids of the Foxfire Forest were vexed (but somewhat sympathetic) when their fellow druid Bardo Urrok announced that the slow war of the wood is too noisy for him, and left their company for less-forested climes. Some travelers have since reported running into the eccentric halfling in the Hoarfrost Ridge, above the timberline.

Those Who Remember awakened a hawthorn bush, and were surprised (and amused) to learn that its morality was totally alien, with a very pragmatic view of murder and a lack of understanding of their own, seemingly-contradictory moral stances. (The bush didn't understand the elf druid's concept of an "invasive species," for example; a creature that outperforms others in an environment is clearly the victor to be lauded rather than lamented.) The bush's exploration of animal-scale life was sadly cut short by a group of dark elves as part of the far-reaching consequences of the Battle of Scandshar.

The key is this: plants are involved in an aeons-long struggle to survive amidst dwindling resources and increasing predation. There is plenty of sunlight and nutrients, but "arbitrarily large" is different than "infinite." They have defenses against herbivores, and are evolving new ones all the time, but herbivores are also adapting at the same glacial pace and move much more quickly. Humans and their ilk choose some plants and inhibit others, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. (And those selfsame creatures will often cultivate land in ways that make it inaccessible to plants of any sort.)

All of this to say that there is a war out there, happening much more slowly than any of us can readily bear witness. This is the slow war of plants. And while plants in folklore and stories are often ancient and placid, depicted as living in harmony with their environment, real plants are bloodthirsty, impatient, and downright Darwinian. They compete for resources, parasitize each other, or even engage in biological warfare. (To say nothing of defenses against herbivores such as poisons and spinose teeth.)

More grist for the mill of common druidic misconceptions.