A Light in the Darkness, with 6 SubCampaign Categories

thomasocourtney
thomasocourtney

This is the first time I have packaged my campaign for others to view.  It is massive after 6 years of play and writing.  Find the entire campaign, including gazetteer, campaign stories in their entirety, Introductions, NPC folios and and many short stories here at https://alightinthedarknessbythomascourtney.wordpress.com

Here is the introductory story, from Tiresias the Sage...

Tiresias, The Sage

 

The Following is Secret Lore, Told by Tiresias, Most Respected Sage, and Enemy of the Order of the Flame and the Lighted Races of Cellinor.   Simply hearing this tale is considered High Treason by the Inquisition of the Crimson Order.

An oaken door on rusty iron hinges creaks open.  The slightest hint of various laboratory chemicals meets your nose, the aroma masked by a fragrance of beautiful sweetness, something floral.  All around the room spreads a vast collection of dusty things, and other oddities draped with linens.  Columns of stone rise from the floor to the ceiling, with stern images carved into them of both ghastly demons and creatures of soft beauty in white stone. The room is large, and the ceiling exaggeratedly tall. There is too much to take in, but your eyes fall upon a table placed nearly central to the odd shaped room, it’s top is orderly and clean, and is almost as out of place as is a faint but traceable wild and earthy smell masking the odors of the items held on innumerable shelves.  Seated at the table is a ragged old man in simple clothes, with his head bent low, a shaking quill in his hand.  As you walk forward, his hand stops and he looks up through long, thick golden hair streaked with grey.  His eyes are hidden through the strands, and when he speaks, he does so in a hoarse, yet elegantly fluid tone.

“Welcome. My name is Tiresias.” He then poignantly leans back over his scroll, and completes the line.  Dropping his quill back into the ink bottle, he looks up and this time, you realize that he is blind.

“My friends tell me that you have come to learn more of the past, and perhaps of your future.  Is that so?”

“Well then, we should get started.  We never know when the Inquisition will beat down our doors, now do we?” Tiresias chuckles to himself, and rising slowly and with great care, makes his way with the help of a servant to a table covered in maps, and other parchments scribbled in various signs and other notes. What looks like bones still protruding from rough hewn slabs of earth removed from some hole and brought here rest atop the stacked sheets.  As he walks, his hands glide gently along feeling what must be a familiar route, and they land next to the pile where rests a pitcher. Amongst the fossils, Tiresias gingerly finds the pitcher with trembling fingertips outstretched and pours you something to drink.  He invites you to sit on pillows scattered on the floor.

“Well, then, where shall we begin, my friends….it’s so hard to know when so much of it is…well, what do they know?” Tiresias looks blankly around and with a call from your sponsor, finally in the direction of your host with a patient expression.

“They know nothing, my Lord.  They must hear it all.”

“All? Is that it?” Tiresias smiles, “Well, then, we better pour our drink slowly, and talk quickly. The wine of the Southern Valley’s best orchards is hard to come by these last few months and I fear we won’t have enough to complete a tale of  ALL.  If it’s all for you, then for the Sake of All, we best begin at the beginning.”

Tiresias leans back on a pillow embroidered with the image of a snakelike beast.  A moth flutters up and disappears amongst his many dusty piles of ancient treasures.  “The world was not always as simple as it is now.  It was once, complex. Complex and much more… misinformed, even than you are now.  Long ago, long before Kasil, Mankind was all there was.  The maker, the creator, the thinker, the dreamer.  The user. The slave. Yes, but we were also the Slaver!

You see my goodly Celns, the Order is most correct about many things. Mankind is who made the elves, the dwarves, the Halfs as you most likely call them as well. Mankind was the manipulator of the world.  He changed himself  in order to live longer, to live heartier, to live with less.  He changed the earth to give more to him.  He was invincible, but not….to himself.  He used the resources of the land, and then he overused them.  He destroyed the world, and then he nearly destroyed himself.  But that, was a very, very long time ago. And little of THAT time is known.

We do know that sometime after this ancient destruction, Mankind discovered two very important things, and they would change the world forever. They were not tools of the world, or machinery, but a part of his nature.  Mankind discovered magic, and he discovered true divinity

What’s that you say? Different? Not so fast, children of Cellinor!!  Magic, as Man found, was the manifested, the external will of his being. The use of his conscious mind to do great works.  Far superior to His muscles!  Far superior to “machinery”.  He had hintings of it, but ancient man could not recognize them.  It wasn’t until his tinkerings with Himself that he discovered it’s raw power.  It has always been thus, nothing more. Some can harness it. Some cannot.  Divinity, though, as the Flame will surely tell you, is nothing more than that collected will, meant to do great works to better All. For those who can’t use It, others can. Religion, my friends, is the government of our souls.”  Tiresias’s words echo around the chamber. You find yourself leaning closer, Tiresias seems to sense the looks you share with your comrades.

“Well, then, I can ‘see’ we are getting somewhere with you lot at least….”

“Many a generation passed, Mankind used both Magics and Divine Powers to create the Gods, that’s right! He created the Gods! In this the Order is most ardently correct as well. But Mankind was deceived.  And over eons, as the Liberation Texts tell, He forgot who had created who, and his worship left him a slave to the will of vast and powerful beings.  Beings which arose from the leaders of the time, as Lords of Man, Gods. The Immortal Ones!

And in this time, with his new powers he began to work the land for the betterment of his race. Governed now by his WILL, his Gods manifested. But power breeds more power. He then created those who could serve his will, to do the “dirty work” as we say.  Other races who could harness this power did the same. Some for benign gain, and others for the taking of it. Thus the age of Kasil, was a time of Glory. A time of harmony and beauty on Gaia for those in the Light at least.  Mankind lived in harmony on the surface, achieving great things, building incredible monuments, but not all were happy.”

 

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  • thomasocourtney
    thomasocourtney
    Posts: 14

    The old sage pauses and uncorks a bottle of The King’s Grapery.  Selling for 12 gp a bottle, you are sure to answer when he asks if you’d like a glass. “This is the finest vintage of the last several seasons. I enjoy it with leisure, yet somewhere, South of here, dozens of hands sweat and toil to bring it to me in this manner.”  A young servant pours the rich red liquid in your cups.

    “To your health, Celns.” Mutters Tiresias, who after a long, slow pull, places his cup down upon the table and resumes his tale. “And now to blasphemy of the most highest!”

    “For as long as Mankind has been on this good earth, Gaia as it were, He has possessed slaves of one form or another.  And in the time of the Golden Era of Kasille, it was no different.  Mankind discovered the resources of the deep earth.  And he needed slaves to bring him his ‘leisures’. But, no slave can be given the power of the master. Thus, slaves worked the great machines of the earth, deep and down into the very heart of this world, but they were not given the gifts of magic as man knew.  Over millennia, they changed, they adapted.  They lived without the surface light, and in fact they began to thrive without it. Unbenownst to Man, they worshipped their own Gods. Beings who in the same likeness of power, grew into immortals themselves.  Some developed their own sense of magic.  Their gods were different.  They were, like all gods, made in the image of KET, for that is the name they gave to their world. They were vengeful and industrious, nefarious and cruel. They were made in the image of the creatures that made Them, just as The Four were made in the image of you, goodly Celns…

    “I am sorry my Celn friends, but Ket is most real. And it is most nearer to you then it has been in four millennia.”

    But, let me complete my tale. Below you now, mighty Erebus stirred then, the great Capital of the Underworld, land of Eternal Darkness, set to work against the Kasillians and her neighbor races.  And in the mechanisms of their affairs beneath us, they found a way to change the very fabric of the surface world.  They could not live in the Light. But they COULD bring Darkness to us.  Great floods.  Upheavels and earthquakes, the very shift of the world, so that the surface would be a place for them to dwell.  Many died.  It was the end of the most beautiful Era we know of. If you call this time of slavery in one form or another, beautiful of course…”

    “But something happened that these “Ketians” had not expected.  Mankind made a discovery.  In their hour of need, just as your Liberation Texts warn you friends, they learned of the nature of the Gods.  And they set about to cast off their own chains.  This part of the Liberation Text is most accurate.  The Kasilians learned that the Gods harnessed Their power. And once Mankind knew this, He wanted it back. Especially under this dire threat.

    “The Flame will tell you all of this.  They will tell you that a great battle was waged against the Gods, but not with KET.” Tiresias moves a hand towards a small pile of scattered parchment pieces.  Many of their edges are burned as if they had been saved from a fire in some catastrophe long ago.  An invisible force brushes the tubes aside as a skull emerges and sails into his outstretched hand.  Horns protrude from it, and enough of it’s skin clings to it’s bone to reveal that it was once the head of an orc. 

    “The Order will tell you that this creature is simply a figment of the land.  That it simply is, as other creatures are a product of their world.  But further investigation reveals this isn’t so, my friends.” The skull floats closer to you, willed by Tiresias’ magics and rotates so that you can see decaying and shriveled up cartilage of it’s ears.  “This is an orc, cousin to the smaller goblin races. You see, goblins live to tunnel, they build grand highways in the shadowy places and are not suited to the light.  In fact, they were created that way. They are much older than orcs.  Mankind wanted goblins to slave in the deep, to bring them precious minerals, but a good slave should never enter the Master’s house and so He made them ill-suited to the surface world….But this orc, now this is far more robust isn’t it, and far more difficult to take down let me tell you.  Look at it’s cranium!  It is a creature of war. It hungers for war.  It breeds to make war, and it waits to hunt in the night, to roam on the surface before the dawn comes.  It was made to serve Mankind in a time of great need.   It is a weapon.  But, by far and away it is not Mankind’s greatest weapon.  No….”

    Tiresias’ tale is interrupted by a bell that echoes in the chamber.  Several plates of food are brought in.  Tiresias reaches out and finding the dish, begins to eat as he continues on. As he begins again, he gestures for you to eat as well.

    “And now you all know the rest, good Celns. Do you not?  You’ve all sat at Riften Nacht and heard the Temple Mount’s sermon.  How the Three rose and were struck down by the masse. How the women do suffer that eave? How the Flame harnessed the power, the power that had once been reserved for the Gods, now of the people, how they used it to cast down the Three?” Tiresias chuckles a bit to himself.

    You nod, of course.  Every Celn knows this part of the Liberation Text by heart. 

    “Well, of course they did. Except they didn’t give power to themselves as it is written, my lads.  They gave it to the Three!”

    ‘What?” you hear yourself blurt out.  “Why would the Lighted Races, the Kasilians, give power to the Enemy?” Nods all around.  What an old fool this is. The rest of his story begins to waiver to you. What else has he told you that is false?

    “To the enemy?” Tiresias laughs heartily, “My, my, we are good little Celns aren’t we ‘Heroes’? Well, of course they didn’t give it to the enemy!”  Tiresias points to a suit of armor, a dazzling suit behind him on a stand, emblazoned with the Order’s Tree, The Tree of Awakening.

    “Tell me, friends, what is engraved on the inside of every suit of armor worn by the Order of Inquisition, The Order of Crimson?”

    “Know ye not?  Well let me see if I can help you remember…

    slowly he begins to chant the Order’s most well known verse. You find yourself following along. It’s your oldest known nursery rhyme.

    “United Light, Mankind’s Might.

    Darkened Flame, Mankind’s Shame.

    For the Sake of All, We Cannot Fall

    In our darkened hour, we grant (ourselves) power.”

  • thomasocourtney
    thomasocourtney
    Posts: 14

    “But ye know this verse, don’t you? Of course you do…” Tiresias pauses. “Will you please unhinge the breastplate and bring it here, friend.” 

    Stupid old fool you think.  Conspiracy theorists are usually kept to the Inner Wilds, or Outer Wilds even.  God worshipping lunatics. As the breastplate is brought to him, Tiresias holds it out with worn hands and shaking arms.  “Will someone please take this armor and read me the inscription underneath?”

    No harm in humoring the old man, one of your party takes the item. “Please, be careful with it, it is very old, and of course, quite magical. In fact, I believe it to be the last of it’s kind, the last of course that has not been destroyed by the Order or kept by them…”

    Turning it around, you begin to read the unfamiliar words from the back.  Tiresias mumbles something under his breath, and as you read the old script, you begin to understand it’s translation.

    “Light of Me, The Might of Three.

    Darkened Flame,  Mankind’s Shame.

    For the Sake of All, They* Cannot Fall

    In our darkened hour, we grant our power.”

    A silence fills the room as odd stirrings in your belly rumble.  If what this man has shown you is true, than everything you thought you knew, is a lie.

    “You have been deceived. All of you. The Order must not let people know of their past for the fear of another mutiny.  They must not let the people know of their Darkened History.  They must not let the people think that the Dark could rise again, but again it must, and it will.”

  • thomasocourtney
    thomasocourtney
    Posts: 14

    Find the entire campaign gazetteer, background, maps and introductory narratives, and all 6 subcampaign journals at: https://alightinthedarknessbythomascourtney.wordpress.com

  • thomasocourtney
    thomasocourtney
    Posts: 14 edited July 2017

    I'll post this here for basic information

    “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

    “When hell freezes over.”

    “The light shone in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”

    Copyright 2008 Thomas Courtney, Tom Courtney

    Chapter 1: Introduction to the Campaign

    Welcome to Cellinor! Known as “The Realm” to it’s citizenry, Cellinor is the Light in the Darkness of a world without a memory.  A world that does not understand it’s own past, or for that matter understand it’s own future. It is a world that knows of a destruction so powerful that it nearly annihilated every civilized race, and yet left few records as to what occurred.  

    The Realm  is growing, and bringing peace and prosperity to many and yet it is still deadly and mysterious. Outside of the Realm the lands are much worse; they can be savage and wild, brutal or beautiful, and they are chocked full of adventure and discovery.  Ruins and ancient monuments protrude from hillsides, and it’s more common to stumble across something from the “Old Time” than not doing so.  Even in the Known Realm itself where “civilization” is but a few generations young, the Old Time, the time before the End Days, manifests itself in ruin, brick and stone, recycled  and built upon for modern use. The truth is, even commoners know that the New Age, the Celn Age, is not as sophisticated as that of the Old, the time of Kasille. Kasille is named after the few deciphered monoliths scattered amongst the world. The Kasillians were an empire of many races, prosperous and advanced, who either annihilated themselves, or came to some doom the like of which is hard to imagine. And yet, the evidence is all around but the clues are scattered and do not yet tell the tale.   People search for lost knowledge and lost artifacts that can’t be made in current times. Magic and technology are the trade of those brave enough to search.  And many do, for the risk is great but so is the reward. Others fear what is discovered may lead to a new doom. The mystery of what happened to these ancient civilizations remains a mystery. But that mystery is beginning to unravel to you!

    What is known is that once there was an ancient and powerful civilization that was brought to ruin by an unknown cataclysm, the End Days. Too much time has passed, and the truth of what was before, and why it was destroyed has been filled with superstition, rumor and perhaps, exaggeration. That empire and its secrets have now been reclaimed by the primordial forces of nature and lost to the knowledge of men.  The wilds are simply too savage a place to explore for these answers, unless you’re willing to risk your life and maybe more.

    A hundred generations have passed since that time .and now a single Kingdom shines as a beacon of light for the land. The inhabitants of this kingdom love their king who has faithfully defended their borders and now ensures peace and prosperity for all citizens.  This is not an easy task since the few major cities are built upon the ruins of ancient ones, and these are scattered in the wilderness adjacent to the resources large groups of people need to survive and to thrive.  Only a lone highway, the King’s Highway, connects them as it meanders through still inhospitable and ruthless wilderness.  Fiefdoms outside the major cities exist by means of a lord and a protective garrison. While most do quite well, it is not uncommon to hear of one that has been taken back by the evils of the Wilds.  In many ways, the entirety of the Known World is a vast belt stretching from East to West.  Above, lay the Forbidden Lands, below the Empire lie the Lands of Ice and Night.  Even the bravest of explorers do not return from these lands.  The mere mention of either is enough to send commoners into panic.

    Unbeknownst to the common folk however, this kingdom is under dire threat from secret enemies within as well.  The king’s loyal servants have been ordered to seek out brave souls who would aid the defense of the kingdom. Some in secret, and some in leadership roles. Others search for the knowledge of what led to the End Days, and to the meaning of the coming signs, which point to yet another unyielding end for the Lighted Folk, The Darkening!

    Your heroes can help Lord Borindin, and the Celn Empire, or they can help themselves or other allies.  Regardless of your motivations, the Darkening comes for all.  For as they say in Celn lands “Every wick must reach it’s end”.  Will you fight to keep the flame alive? Or will you prepare for the Darkness? Consider these adventure motivations carefully. You and your party will choose one to begin and change or keep your allegiances depending on your actions and decisions!

    Post edited by thomasocourtney on
  • thomasocourtney
    thomasocourtney
    Posts: 14

    I didn't realize until after I posted this was some kind of campaign submission.  Just wanted to share my campaign. :) Thanks! Sorry!

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