Locations

The upcoming sections offer locations for you to pull inspiration from, repurpose for your own game, or use whole cloth. Each location has the following elements: a number of themes that give you a high overview of what it will be like, and is designed at a certain tier so that you have a campaign path built in if you’d like one.

• Themes to emphasize throughout the location.
• Intended tier—while you can use each location at any tier, but following the recommendations can help you craft a full campaign that spans all levels. (Tier 1 is for Level 1, Tier 2 is for Levels 2-4, Tier 3 is for Levels 5-7, and Tier 4 is for levels 8-10.)
• Principles for the GM to consider.
• Important landmarks, settlements, and factions.
• Resources to add flavor; these include moments of Hope and Fear to inspire benefits and complications in the location, along with interesting rumors and thematic equipment, items, and consumables.
• Adversaries and environments to flesh out each location.

This book contains the following locations:

• Sablewood- Verdant, Serene, & Ancient - Tier 1 - A dense forest region known for its bustling economy and hybrid animals. Starts here.
• Rime of the Colossi**-** Frozen, Desolate, & Haunted - Tier 2 - A hostile stretch of frozen wastes where colossal metal limbs reach toward the sky while their bodies remain encased in the ice below. Starts here.
• Gindalia - Opulent, Urban, & Haunted - Tier 3 - A fabulously wealthy city whose obsession with debt haunts its citizens long after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. Starts here.
• The Solsunk Sea - Aquatic, Strange, & Ancient- Tier 3 - A vast expanse of open water where ancient secrets lie in wait in the fathomless depths. Starts here.
• The Kinekozan Jags****- Mountainous, Underground, & Strange - Tier 4 - A moving mountain where the stone dances by day, slumbers by night, and the deep mines provide only questions. Starts here.

(More locations coming soon!)

Sablewood

Designed by Spenser Starke & Rowan Hall

Verdant, Serene & Ancient

Tier 1

A dense forest known for its bustling economy and hybrid animals.

Distinctions

The Sablewood is an ancient, expansive forest where the trees are rumored to be older than the Forgotten Gods, standing hundreds of feet tall. This dense wood is widely known throughout the Mortal Realm and many who visit are surprised to learn that the stories they believed were exaggerated legends are, in fact, stark truths.

Endless Verdance

As far as the eye can see in all directions, and farther still, there is an endless verdancy. The canopy is so thick that one often cannot tell if it is day or night, and those who travel through must be careful not to lose their path. Anyone that moves through the treetops could easily make it from one end of the Sablewood to the other without touching the forest floor. The soil of the Sablewood is notoriously dark and fertile, and though it is a dangerous place, it is the welcome home of a number of communities and creatures.

You might find:

• An entire village taken over by Hunting Trees in the night, now abandoned.
• The deafening whispers of a thousand leaves rustling in the wind.
• The scent of sweet honey-like nectar leaking from between the cracks of the sablewood.

Hybrid Fauna

The fauna of the Sablewood are never quite what unseasoned travelers expect. Always a blend of two familiar beasts, or even animals and elements, they operate in unfamiliar ways. These creatures range from docile and friendly to territorial and aggressive. Many are larger than might be expected, by virtue of their profoundly long lives. Some say the animals that live within the Sablewood are the emissaries of the Forgotten Gods.

You might find:

• Tiny cat-squirrels jumping from limb to limb as massive giraffe-deer move gingerly along the forest floor.
• The hooting-howl of strix-wolves calling in the night.
• The whoosh of air passing over you as a lemur-toad swings by in the darkness.

The Spires

Within the Sablewood there are a number of Spires with attendants that are granted the position any time the previous tower tender dies, causing their signal fire to extinguish. To become a Spire Keeper, one must run through the woods, entirely off of a known path, and make it to the unattended Spire to light the signal fire. No one knows the true job of these Keepers, only that someone must always reside in each tower within the forest.

You might find:

• Twisting towers of stone that reach beyond the canopy of the Sablewood.
• The soft clatter of Spire stones falling from great heights to toss among the trees.
• The ozone smell of powerful magic.

Well-Worn Pathways

The pathways of the Sablewood are worn so deep that they are sunken into the rich soil of the forest undergrowth. Those who live on the edge of the woods will warn travelers not to leave the path, as those who do never return and their bodies are never found. Maps leading through the Sablewood are handed down through generations and are quite costly to acquire.

You might find:

• New travelers walking with their heads and eyes down, while experienced merchants whistling common tunes.
• The creak of wooden cart wheels passing over packed dirt.
• The smell of campfire as strangers crowd to scare away the darkness.

Underroot

Because the surface of the uninhabited Sablewood is dangerous, many people choose to live in the network of subterranean tunnels carved in and among the roots of the Sablewood trees. Each community keeps the entrance to their underground home secret, and many maps leading to Underroot communities are coded.

You might find:

• The winding stairways and tunnels, lit only by faerie lights.
• Raucous laughter over meals shared with small communities.
• The acrid scent of roots and herbs brewing over a fire.

GM Principles

Make the world lush, vibrant, and awe-inspiring - The wood is full of life in all forms, every corner occupied by strange and unusual creatures. What is terrifying is also beautiful, and the risk for such a sight may offer incredible reward.

Show how the natural and the fabricated interact - Travelers must adapt to the wood, it does not adapt to them. Those who live in the Sablewood must learn the rhythms of the trees and animals. In the end, foresight and cleverness beat out brute force every time.

Put the power of nature on full display - Nature knows no good nor evil, only need. The Sablewood is too long established to bow to any power but that of the Forgotten Gods. There is neither guile nor guilt, no blow withheld, or storm corralled.

Landmarks

The Titan’s Steps

Height of the Highest Pillar: 1,189 vertical feet

Number of Bridges Built Between the Pillars: 562

Stories say that in the time of the Earliest Age, there was a fight between the Old and the New in the place where the Sablewood now grows. During this battle, numerous portions of the Mortal Realm were razed, and others were crafted afresh. One such craft is known as the Titans Steps, or the Pillars of the Sablewood, that stand within the forest at variety of incredible heights. Some say one of the Forgotten Gods was foiled in an attempt to craft a stairway leading to the Hallows Above.

The rocky cliffs of the formation stop neither plants nor creatures from climbing their height. Wooden structures old and new cling to the rock with nets strung between pilars like cobwebs, while flying creatures and massive beasts hunt within the reaches.

Duskwatch Outpost (Settlement)

One of the many encampments hanging from the edges of the Titans Steps. This outpost is known to be the largest and easiest to reach, due to a network of bridges and steps that are reasonably well maintained (if you know which planks to avoid.) Within the economy of the Steps, Duskwatch serves as the primary market for merchants willing to travel from the Sablewood below. There is a rumor that the Duskwatch Outpost is establishing a militia, though for what purpose, no one will say.

Mountain Crabs (Threat)

Many people who’ve climbed the pillars have been killed before they even knew what got them. Sometimes confused as rock fall when they awaken, the giant Mountain Crabs are a unique hybrid of crustacean and stone that camouflage themselves with their unique gray shells. They can be small enough to carry, or as large as a building, and will continue to grow until they are killed. These massive hunters move with incredible speed and adventurers must be wary of the clicking of their steps over rock.

Dilapidated Nets (Feature)

Many of the Step communities craft nets below their buildings and walkways as a last resort for those who misstep or fall through a rotten plank. Very few, if any, of these nets are intact, as rain and age causes rope to deteriorate and flying creatures will tear through the fibers when caught. Some communities string nets between the pillars specifically to trap birds and other animals to eat, and among those groups there is an entire economy built around the buying and selling of strongly crafted rope and the materials required to make it. Sablewood custom dictates that anyone who falls off a walkway into a net pay for its repair in order to pay forward the lifesaving presence of such a tool.

The Lucent River

Common Modes of Transportation: Riverboats, many of which employ chameleon-crayfish to pull their vessels by scurrying on shore or underneath the surface.

**River’s Nickname:**Lucy

The Lucent River cuts a luminous ribbon through the Sablewood, at parts deep and clear and other parts rocky and tumultuous. It is the primary source of fresh water in the region, and may be one of the key reasons the trees and plants grow so lushly. The common mythology of the Sablewood describes the river as the everflowing tears of the Forgotten Gods, and once their true names are remembered the river will run dry.

The waters of this river are famed for their healing ability, likely due to their moonglow. The alchemists of Root’s Hollow brave dangerous portions of the wood to access the regenerative waters. In distant regions Lucent Water sells for incredible sums.

Moonglow (Feature)

The Lucent River is so named for the soft blue glow it gives off when the moon rises, though the moon itself is barely visible through the canopy above. This feature allows travelers to navigate by night and is an excellent means for keeping time when the sun and the moon are not discernable through the trees. The water of the Lucent River keeps its moonglow, even when removed and placed in other containers.

Eeligators (Threat)

The largest predator in the Lucent River is the Eeligator. They sleep in the deepest portions of the river, but can travel both in the water and on the shore, making them a ferocious predator to combat. They have slick skin covered in a number of spots that can be used to dictate their age, if the swimmer could survive long enough to calculate. The large eggs of the eeligator are a delicacy in some portions of the Sablewood.

The High Falls (Feature)

In the mountains of the Sablewood, the Lucent River transforms from small stream into the cascade that creates the massive High Falls. This waterfall is formed of an incredible drop that, when examined, covers a large cave system that shows evidence of once having been a home to a large community, though no one knows why it was abandoned. Directly behind the High Falls there is a massive cavern with nothing but a carved stone throne. Moss covers an illegible series of symbols and and ancient blood stain decoates the cave floor.

Open Vale

Unique Flora: Sunfire Lily, a flower that only blooms once a year for eight days. It is harvested to make a powerful hallucinatory tea.

Memory: Everyone who has ever entered.

A perfect clearing within the middle of the Sablewood; no one knows why the trees will not grow here. It is covered in a layer of particularly lush grass and receives an incredible amount of sun in comparison to the rest of the thick forest. This meadow is resistant to farming efforts, and those crops that manage to thrive grow in their own seasonal patterns.

The Open Vale is the site of numerous spiritual rituals, performed by a variety of communities that live in and around the Sablewood. “The Meadow Demands Peace” is a common phrase, and fighting within the bounds of the Vale is punishable by banishment in the wood—off train and without a map.

The Miremist (Feature)

The Open Vale seems to contain its own weather system, resulting in a perpetual fog. This mist permeates the nearby portions of the Sablewood and adds to the confusion of any who lose their way nearby. The fog is so thick and wet that numerous creatures that live in the Lucent River will come ashore to hunt when otherwise they would not. “When the moon is low, they dance in the miremist and are neither seen nor heard, fully in the mortal realm, nor passed into the realms beyond…”— From the Song of the Vale

The Stones of the Vale (Feature)

The standing stones dedicated to the Forgotten Gods mark the edges of the Open Vale. They are carved with a variety of symbols that come from a wide range of languages. The secrets of their magic are lost to the Mortal Realm, but they are rumored to glow with soft blue light when the eyes of the ancient gods turn upon the Sablewood meadow. Travelers that find the clearing are warned to leave an offering at the base of one of the Stones of the Vale, lest the Forgotten Gods send their animals to find the mortal that ignored their power.

The Claravale Market (Festival)

Unlike the spiritual practices that take place within the Open Vale, there is one celebration with a focus on the material world. Once a year there is a market established within the meadow and all who know how to find their way are invited to come, trade, and celebrate. It takes place over three nights, during which time no gold or coin of any kind is permitted to change hands. Traders are expected to give one another a fair deal, and those who do not follow the tenets of the Claravale Market are removed from the premises. The merchant was thrown into the trees, the sound of coins clattering in her pockets. She attempted to return the next year, but her map was wrong, and she could never find the clearing again.

Settlements

Hush

Village Leaders: The Faceless Six

Known for: Welcoming travelers with food and drink.

The small village of Hush sits nestled into the heart of Sablewood. It’s quaint and quiet, renowned for its friendly residents who are accustomed to providing room, board, food, and drink for any travelers and merchants who need a place to stop off during their journey.

Wards maintained by the Whitefire Arcanist keep the most dangerous animals from disturbing anyone within the four dwarven-stone pillars assembled at the edge of town. This provides a haven for those who wish to get a good night’s rest and fill their bellies with delicious food.

The Sunless Farms (Location)

On the southern end of Hush is the community farm that grows fruits, vegetables, grain, and more without the need for direct sunlight. These unique crops have been adapted over centuries to grow in symbiosis with a dark blue-green moss that covers them. This moss must be cleaned off before the food can be consumed safely. When the Faceless Six arrive to meet with the Whitefire Arcanist, the sunless farms grow a three-month cycle in one day.

Guest Privileges (Feature)

There are no inns or traveler’s camps in town. The culture of Hush dictates that when any outsiders come to visit, they are taken in by a family and given shelter for three nights. During this time, the guests have priority over everyone else in the family for anything that belongs to them. After three nights, the visitors must trade families or leave Hush. Those who prey on the kindness and selflessness of the residents of Hush often find out the meaning of the town people’s common phrase “leave it to the trees”.

Clover’s Tavern (Location)

At the center of town is a massive six-story tavern built around the trunk of an ancient tree. Considered by most to be the oldest building in Sablewood, this is the hub of activity and socialization in the city. When newcomers arrive, they must take off their shoes and hang them over the clothing line that runs down the center of the bar. It is not uncommon for the shoes to be polished and for trinkets to be left in them by the residents of Hush. The sixth floor of the tavern requires a counterweight lift to access and is in the highest branches of the treetop, providing a glimpse of sunlight and a stunning view of the forest beyond. Regulars of Clover’s Tavern will sometimes take travelers they’ve made friends out of to the Inner Rings, a private drinking lounge in the center of the ancient tree.

The Refuge

Local Habit: On-duty guards watching the Sablewood will spit over the wall if they believe something in the forest is watching them in return.

Most Popular Drink: Fire Wine, a strong golden liquor that is not made from grapes.

The first stop before entering the Sablewood from the east, or the last (grateful) stop if you’ve made your way out after a journey from the west, this community considers itself to be the last bastion of “civilization” before one enters the wilds. The large town is walled on all sides, and the townsfolk are forbidden from entering the Sablewood.

In order to “stop the progression of the all-consuming trees” firewatchers burn the edges of the Sablewood to keep it from growing beyond its bounds. The most devoted among the firewatchers speak of their efforts like battles, and their lives like a war with the woods. Every so often, these arsonists do not return to the Refuge after a day of burning.

The Fire Walk (Festival)

There is a yearly festival to initiate new firewatchers that is welcome to all who wish to witness, but few to participate. Those invited to join the ranks of the Refuge “soldiers” must walk through a massive pyre of Sablewood and live to tell the tale. Many die from their excruciating burns, but those who survive are immediately invited to live and work in the enclave. After healing from the Fire Walk, initiates will have their burn scars read by the elder firewatcher to learn details about their fate.

Fly Fishing (Custom)

Off-duty guards and trusted townsfolk will climb to the watchtowers of the Refuge and cast long lines into the canopies of the Sablewood. In this way, they catch a wide variety of animals to eat including town favorites such as rabbits-gliders, moth-possums, and turtle-mice. Fishers must be wary of badger-hawks that will pull their catch from the line, or pull the fisher off the tower.

The Ash Quarry (Location)

Because of the number of trees burned, the Refuge sits adjacent to a vast field of charred Sablewood. The Refuge claims, cleans, and sells the Sablewood ash as a remedy for any ailment a person might want curing, though there is a general consensus among the residents of the forest that the ash does nothing when sold alone. The firewatchers of the Refuge struggle to protect the Ash Quarry, as the heat and nutrients from the burned trees attract spider-manders that enjoy coating their skin in the black soot. They use this as a reason to justify burning more of the forest, creating an endless cycle of retaliation. If a citizen of the Refuge comes upon a spider-mander dozing in the ash, they are likely to be snatched and consumed, with the beast moving little more than a single limb.

Root’s Hollow

Legendary Beast: Hellbender, an ancient spider-mander known for its impeccable ability to sense anything moving underground.

Combat Style: Citizens of Root’s Hollow are known to fight with sharpened shovels.

Although reclusive, there is a thriving Underroot community carved into the roots of the northern Sablewood trees. Root’s Hollow is one of the few known villages within the inhospitable forest, but though it is hard to get to, it is famed for its size. Few merchants know the locations of the hidden doors within the trees, but those that do make a fortune trafficking specialized potions and medicines from the Root’s Hollow apothecaries.

Those who live in the deepest levels of Root’s Hollow must contend with the giant bugs that make their homes deep in the ancient dirt of the Sablewood. Though Root’s Hollow is practiced at deterring the centi-beetles and spider-manders, occasionally these mammoth crawlers destroy entire portions of the underground village. Once they carve their way through the earth, people will use the giant tunnels to form new portions of the village.

The Latch (Location)

There is an elevator within Root’s Hollow that leads deeper underground than any level of the village currently reaches. Only members of the Village Council and their guests are allowed to enter this lift, and it is only utilized once a season. No one outside the council knows what lies at the bottom of the lift. There is a rumor that the Village Council sacrifices outsiders to a behemoth spider-mander that guards the community. Stories describe the ancient beast’s nest in a secret pit beneath the city.

The Sable Stills (Feature)

The apothecaries of Root’s Hollow are known across the Realms for their powerful potions and healing concoctions. They would never reveal any details of their process, but a key ingredient is the sable sap that is harvested and fermented in the large stills that lay beneath the earth. When improperly fermented, sable sap is highly toxic and imitators of this process are often revealed when they cause a client’s death.

Knock Wood (Custom)

When people venture into the far reaches of Root’s Hollow, or even into uncharted territory, they communicate via the tree roots that lace through the soil of the Sablewood. By knocking on roots in specific patterns, they’re able to relay complex messages to one another, in particular, signaling that they are safe and well. Outsiders have attempted to utilize this form of communication to no avail. Members of Root’s Hollow have come to believe that the Sablewood trees are helping their messages travel vast distances.

Factions

Thistlefolk

Most Commonly Sighted: In the underbrush and bramble, off-trail.

Misconception: They are a rogue band of anarchists and criminals.

The Thistlefolk take up residence in the place where nobody else dares—within the thickest, thorniest bramble of the Sablewood. They are known for wearing armored clothing made up of thousands of tiny polished stones that have been cut to fit together seamlessly, like scales. This attire allows them to move through the barbed thickets without being caught up in its tangle.

Because the only Thistlefolk who emerge from the seclusion of their hidden villages are often thieves coming out to steal goods from unwitting travelers or sleeping merchants, they have received a reputation for being a syndicate of criminals. In actuality, most of the Thistlefolk are quite docile and vulnerable, choosing to live within the safety of the bramble for their own protection from the large predator species who stalk the woods looking for an easy meal.

Eclectic Villages (Feature)

Though functionally invisible to outsiders, the villages within the bramble are vibrant, sprawling, and eclectic. The mudstone walls holding back the dangerous thorns are typically painted with abstract strokes of green to camouflage the villages from any passerbys who might noticing them. Within, the buildings and walkways are typically painted in bright hues and large murals and lit by bioluminescent moss. When not armored for traveling out into the open forest, most of the Thistlefolk dress in a similar artistic fashion, with self-dyed and sewn garments. An abandoned Thistlefolk village near Hush was discovered after a large fire cleared some of the thicket that it was hidden within. It has since been co-opted as a local hangout for the young people of Hush when they want to get away from their elders.

The Wandering Briar (Threat)

A living thicket of briars estimated to be more than fifty feet tall, one hundred feet thick, and about a mile long, it crawls its way through the endless forests of Sablewood, frequently blocking routes and forcing travelers to take a different pathway to their destination. This moving tangle also serves as a home for a group of traveling Thistlefolk who live within its ever-shifting walls, known as the Wanderers. The Wanderers have learned that when the Wandering Briar draws blood with its thorns, it can absorb the blood to move at a more rapid pace. Clever poisoners may grind the thorns of the Wandering Briar and feed the powder to a target. It inhibits the clotting of blood, turning minor wounds into major injuries.

Tumblers (Technology)

When approaching the tangles of thorny vines that grow along the shoreline of the Lucent River, it is not uncommon to hear an ominous rattling coming from within. Though this scares many inexperienced travelers who might think it’s a creature of some sort warning them to stay away, in fact, the sound derives from the stone tumblers built by the Thistlefolk. They utilize the water’s powerful current to tumble stones in the sentiment of the river’s edge until they are as smooth as glass. Thistlefolk must brave the less dense underbrush to retrieve the stones, which can be cut and placed into their specialized armor. The lapidary of each village is responsible for choosing and then cutting the stones that go into the tumblers. They are said to have hands so densely calloused that they could catch the edge of a sword in their palm without bleeding.

Principles

The Thistlefolk tend to be reserved and insular, focused on preserving the safety of their home above all. Those who leave the safety of the bramble are viewed by some members of their community as brave and others as foolish.

• The thorns only catch those who let them.
• “Look over your shoulder. You don’t know who you are leading home.”
• Combat the darkness of the world outside with the brightness of life within the bramble.

NPCs

Proven Navir of the Sixspire Tangle, Stone Retriever [ Wildborne **** Fungril , they/them]

Difficulty: 12

Quiet, Focused, Dedicated

Experience: Navigation +2, Engineering +1

Description: A small, rotund fungril with bulging eyes covered by goggles to keep them safe from the thorns. They carry a bag twice their size when retrieving stones from the river.

Motive: Open a trade route with the Ninespire Tangle across the river.

Xen, Lapidarian of the Highbrush [ Wildborne **** Dwarf , she/her]

Difficulty: 8

Cocky, Practical, Discerning

Experience: Rocks +10

Description: As wide as she is tall with a shaved head and fasceted nails, Xen has an assortment of finely polished and cut emerald stones embedded into her right arm.

Motive: Get her hands on a mountain crab’s shell to polish and use as armor.

Yikyik Trahll, Driftwood [ Wildborne **** Katari , he/him]

Difficulty: 14

Curious, Charismatic, Daring

Experience: Out of Sight +3, Dodge +2

Description: A humanoid cat covered in black fur, with a tail that’s shorter after a childhood fight and a mischievous glint in their eyes.

Motive: Visit every Thistlefolk village in the Sablewood.

Story Hooks

• A Thistlefolk stole something of importance from a merchant and they need help to get it back.
• The Wandering Briar has cut through a small village, decimating homes and causing them to relocate.
• Three kids have gone missing after sneaking off to the abandoned Thistlefolk village outside of Hush.

The Sable Sinecure

Highest Earning Settlement: The Refuge

Motivation: Gold

The Sable Sinecure got their name from years of joking by the fireside—for such a dangerous job, accomplishable by so few, to look easy? Well that’s just a walk in the woods! This merchant’s guild closely guards their territory, in that they will protect any traveler that walks the Sablewood paths, rather than try to run them out of town. In this way, they have an incredible number of members in proportion to the size and danger of the region they transport goods through.

The Sable Sinecure is home to the only merchants willing to transport their goods up the Titan’s Steps–as the guild will guard any goods left or lowered to the forest floor so that the merchant might reclaim them and go about their business.

Fire-Falcons (Feature)

Cousin to the phoenix, but by no means immortal, fire-falcons are the preferred companions of the most powerful merchants in the Sable Sinecure. They use the birds to fly the path ahead, both leading the way with their natural light and signaling danger approaching. Though small, they are violent adversaries. Fire-falcons will hatch only one clutch of eggs in their lifetime, and the locations of their nests are a closely guarded secret.

Secret Caches (Location)

To keep their packs and carts as light as possible, the Sable Sinecure utilizes a number of secret caches throughout the forest. These locations are not guarded by members of the guild but by a number of other hidden traps. Those who attempt to steal their wares will have their eyes removed and fed to the fire-falcons. Thieves come shopping with nothing to pay, so they pay with the poor sense that led them there.

Wood Wage (Feature)

Only within the bounds of the Sablewood, members of the merchant’s guild and surrounding communities will use a phrase known as “wood wage,” which is a way of asking the cost of something that quantifies the danger it took to acquire and transport the item. The higher the wood wage, the more costly the barter. “You earned your wood wage today,” is a phrase tossed at weary travelers when they come to a campfire worse for the ware.

Principles

The Sable Sinecure does not have a written code of conduct but rather operates by an unspoken code of ethics.

• “All goods to the highest bidder, even death pays our price.”
• One must make reasonable efforts to protect those around them. This does not extend to anyone who strays from the well-worn paths.
• Do not sell that which was not earned. Gifts must gifted anew.

NPCs

Helena Corain [ Ridgeborne **** Human , she/her]

Difficulty: 12

Straight-shooter, Affable, Brave

Experience: Climbing +3, Strike a Deal +2

Description: An elderly human that free climbs the Titan’s Steps to collect mountain crab eggs to sell. She’s not from around here but commands more respect than most locals of the wood. She can get free lunch just about anywhere she goes.

Motive: Reach the top of the Titan’s Steps.

Will Scild [ Wanderborne **** Galapa , he/him]

Difficulty: 15

Unphased, Dry, Fair

Experience: Merchant +2, Retaliation +7

Look: A Galapa of indeterminate age. Though he moves slowly through the Sablewood with goods of exceedingly high value, no one dares disturb his journey. He carries no weapon, but he is known to toss a small stone back and forth between his hands.

Motive: Find the lost treasure rumored to be in Cradle of the Forgotten Gods.

Simrith Luhaj [ Loreborne **** Giant , he/they]

Difficulty: 14

Coy, Intelligent, Flirtatious

Experience: Out of Sight +3, Dodge +2

Description: The premiere trainer of fire-falcons. He has an old burn scar covering one of his arms, and when asked, claims a “giant eeligator got me” with a smirk.

Motive: Find and train a Phoenix to join his ranks.

Story Hooks

• A traveler just ahead is attacked by raiders that come down from the trees. They scream for help.
• Members of the Sable Sincecure come to a party, asking for volunteers to join the guard of a particularly precious cargo they’re carting through the Sablewood.
• Claiming a nest of recently hatched fire-falcons perched high in the Titans Steps has become the only goal of every member of the Sable Sinecure, and they’ll kill anyone who stands in their way.

Resources

	MOMENTS OF HOPE		MOMENTS OF FEAR
1	A friendly merchant invites you to their fire and shares a story.	1	A merchant’s cart overturned, wheel spinning, only viscera left behind.
2	A map of the Briar, only slightly torn.	2	The snapping of twigs directly behind you.
3	A fox-bat takes refuge within your coat for the evening.	3	The wind roaring through the canopy, in its echoes reverberates your name.
4	A young hunter arrives back in town carrying her first kill.	4	A set of animalistic eyes watching from just off the path, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
5	The standing stones of the Forgotten Gods glowing many shades of blue.	5	Thistlefolk bandits cutting coin purses and disappearing into the underbrush.
6	A tree branch reaching down to catch you from falling.	6	A tiger-elk tearing its prey limb from limb.
7	A harvest of fresh twilight plums, ripe and pungent.	7	A wicked smile, then a hand snuffing out your lantern.
8	An ancient wooden chest buried beneath hundreds of years of overgrowth.	8	Skeletons skewered on tree limbs, old tatters of clothes blowing in the wind.
9	A Spire being ascended by its keeper, their nightly hunt over their shoulder.	9	A pit trap covered in leaves, hungry for its next victim.
10	A lively marketplace full of handcrafted goods and freshly baked pastries.	10	A tangle of thorns dripping with fresh blood slowly absorbed.
11	An ornately decorated carriage pulled by a fleet of goat-horses.	11	A shattered sword left behind in pieces, its hilt grown over in moss.
12	Endless drinks poured over merry music and hearty laughter.	12	Massive trees uprooted and thrown by something enormous.

Rumors

Every spring there is a part of the forest that expands six inches in radius, consuming the wider landscape. In one such expansion, a rare weapon known as the Sableblade grows from the ground.

An ancient faerie lives in a small cottage deep within the woods. It is said she will accept items of value in exchange for something the visitor is seeking. Her definition of “value” is unique.

While digging out their tunnels, Underroot communities found massive stone strongholds buried deep within the ground with no clear way to gain access inside.

If you fall asleep in the Sablewood without a campfire, you wake up in a different place than where you fell asleep.

Ember Lake, on the western side of the forest, is a hot spring lake heated by the still-burning forges of the Forgotten Gods.

If a creature you encounter has an extra eye on the back of its neck, it was captured and released by the Glimpse, a Faint Divinity covered in eyes who cares for injured animals in the Sablewood.

Equipment

Sableblade - Agility Melee - d10+1 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Ancient Power (Mark stress before a damage roll to increase your damage total by +3.)

Primary Weapon - Tier 1

Eeligator Scale Shield - Finesse Melee - d4 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Sharp (Add +2 to your armor score, add +2 to your damage rolls.)

Secondary Weapon - Tier 1

Thistlefolk Armor - Base Score: 3

Feature: Seamless (When you take minor damage, roll a d12. If it rolls your level or lower, you can mark a Stress instead.)

Armor - Tier 1

Items

Returning Stone: This small stone can be placed anywhere, and will teleport to your hand under one of the following conditions: somebody comes within close range, somebody within very close range is dealt damage, a certain amount of time passes, when you speak a keyword.

Ward of the Whitefire Arcanist: A carved figurine in the shape of a humanoid. While carrying this in the Sablewood, it gives you +1 to your Evasion.

Sableleaf Shoes: A set of shoes sewn out of the leaves of the Sablewood trees. They are light and flexible. Wearing them lets you spend Hope to take advantage on agility rolls while in Sablewood.

Consumables

Bugbane Berry: A delicacy among the residents here, this is a large, red-orange berry with a small insect floating in its center like a pit. When consumed, it provides resistance to magic damage until your next short rest.

Sable Sap: The sweet sap from the Sablewood trees can be drizzled over food or eaten by the spoonful. Once per long rest, when you have a calm moment to consume this, you may clear two stress.

Vial of Briarpowder: Made from shaving thorns of the Wandering Briar, when used on an enemy, it inhibits the clotting of blood. After coating a blade with this powder, the next successful attack you deal one additional hit point.

Adversaries

Bullfrog

Description: An amphibous bull-sized hybrid with springing legs.

Motives & Tactics: Leap Out of Danger, Spear with Horns, Strike with Tongue

Tier: 1

Type: Bruiser

Difficulty: 11

Attack Modifier: +1

Horns: Melee | 2d6+4 phy

Major 8 | Severe 13

HP: 4

Stress: 2

Experience:

Territorial +5

Features

Tongue Strike - Action

Make an attack against a target within Close range. On a success, deal 2d6 phy damage and pull the target into melee.

Powerful Gore - Action

Mark Stress to leap forward, making an attack with the bullfrog’s horns against all enemies in a straight line within close range. Any that are hit take 2d8+1 phy damage and must mark one armor slot. This does not reduce any damage.

Leaping Dodge - Reaction

Whenever an attack against this creature misses, the bullfrog may leap anywhere within Far range.

Strix-Wolf

Description: A wolf-owl pack hunter with wings and a rotating head.

Motives & Tactics: Stalk, Surround, Protect Pack

Tier: 1

Type: Skulk

Difficulty: 13

Attack Modifier: +2

Bite & Claw: Melee | 2d6+2 phy

Major 5 | Severe10

**HP:**4

Stress: 2

Experience:

Tracker +4

Features

Pack Tactics - Passive

When making a Bite & Claw attack, if another Strix-Wolf is also in melee range of the target, deal 2d8+2 phy damage instead. “When they work in packs, they’re more bold, more vicious.”

Powerful Senses - Passive

This creature ignores the Hidden condition on anyone within close range

Fly - Action

Mark Stress to make the Strix-Wolf take flight, increasing their Difficulty by +2 and making their attacks worth +2 damage until the Strix-Wolf lands.

Eeligator

Description: Reptile-fish hybrids that vary in length, armed with powerful jaws.

Motives & Tactics: Hide, Hunt, Subsume

Tier: 1

Type: Solo

Difficulty: 14

Attack Modifier: +3

Snapping Jaw: Very Close | 2d10 phy

Major 12 | Severe 25

**HP:**7

**Stress:**5

Experience:

Intrusion +3

Features

Healing Skin - Action

Mark Stress to heal 1 HP.

Pull Under - Action

If a target is within close range of a body of water, spend a Fear to make an attack against them. On a success, deal 2d8 phy damage, then move both the Eeligator and the target into the water that’s within close range. The Eeligator pulls the target under, making them Restrained and Drowning. While Drowning, every token that is added to the action tracker causes them to mark a Stress.

Death Grip - Action

Mark a Stress to make a Snapping Jaw attack. If successful, mark Stress to lock this creature’s jaw onto the target, dealing 1 additional hit point and making them Restrained until the Eeligator is dealt Major damage. When released, the target marks a Stress.

Environments

Bandit Hideout

Description: A shabby but well-defended hideout nestled among the brambles of the Sablewood.

Tone & Feel: Claustrophobic yet well-appointed, dark yet comfortable

Tier: 1

Type: Exploration

Difficulty: 12

Potential Adversaries:

Jagged Knife Bandits (Bandit, Shadow, Hexer, Sniper, Lieutenant, Lackey, Kneebreaker)

Features

Thorn Fence - Passive

The hideout is blocked by a wall of brambles as tall as a human. This wall can be passed in a few ways:

• Leap over (Agility 12).
• Carefully pick your way through (Finesse 12).
• Fly over with a flight feature.
• Cut your way through by dealing 10+ damage in one attack (roll to hit only to see if there are consequences on a result with fear) or by making two attacks (regardless of damage.

How would the bandits notice the brambles have been disturbed? How did the wall get there - do they have a druid or ranger among their number?

Patrols - Passive

The bandits post a constant watch, mostly directed outside the camp. Entrance will require stealth (Finesse 12), deception (Presence 12), or special knowledge (Instinct or Knowledge 12).

Fight Your Way Through - Passive

If the party decides to fight their way through but you want to abstract the battle to save time, call for a Group Action, asking each member of the party how they contribute to the fight, with one PC making the main roll for the group. On a success with Fear, each PC must mark Stress and 1 HP or 1 armor slot. On a failure, each PC must mark 2 Stress and some combination of 2 HP and/or armor slots.

What defenses do the bandits have to bring to bear? Does anyone notice the combat or is it over before other bandits take notice?

Alarm - Reaction

On a failure or success with fear, some of the bandits grow suspicious and more actively patrol. Attempts to pass through the hideout through stealth have disadvantage for the rest of the scene or until the actively patrolling bandits are defeated or distracted by something else.

On the Hunt - Action

Spend a Fear to have a pack of 1d4+2 hungry Strix-Wolves infiltrate the hideout, desperate for food.

Do the PCs avoid the animals? Do they try to use them as a distraction or backup? Do the PCs have food on them that would draw the animals’ attention?

Underroot Tunnels

Description: Fortified and well-kept tunnels leading to underborne communities within the great forest.

Tone & Feel: Musty yet breathable, alternatingly winding and steep.

Tier: 1

Type: Traversal

Difficulty: 10

Potential Adversaries:

Acid Burrower, Stonewraith, Jagged Knife Bandits

Features

Hidden Entrance - Passive

The first challenge of the Underrot Tunnels is finding them. PCs must complete a Progress Countdown (3) to find a viable entrance to the tunnels (Instinct and Knowledge are most applicable, though Finesse could be used to search manually for a seam or switch and Presence could be used to gain information from a denizen of the Sablewood).

A Series of Passageways, All Alike - Passive

Navigating to a particular location in the tunnels requires a Progress Countdown (4 for most known settlements, 6 for less-known or more-remote destinations).

Potential challenges:

• Identical passageways.
• Damaged stairwells leading to a lower level.
• Root blockage (see below).
• Flooded tunnel.

Root Blockage - Action

Reveal that the path ahead has been blocked by the shifting of a great Sablewood tree. The party can dig around the root (Finesse), try to cut through it (Strength), or double back to find another path (Instinct).

Toll-Keepers - Action

Spend a Fear to introduce a number of Jagged Knife Lackeys equal to the size of the party plus two Jagged Knife Bandits and a Jagged Knife Lieutenant seeking a ‘toll’ of two handfuls of gold per character for passing through their “protected territory”.

The Village of Hush

Description: A small but friendly village nestled into the heart of the Sablewood.

Tone & Feel: Musty yet breathable, alternatingly winding and steep.

Tier: 1

Type: Social

Difficulty: 11

Potential Adversaries:

Merchant, Bladed Guards, Strix-Wolves

Features

Guest Privileges - Passive

There are no inn’s or traveler’s camp, as the village has a tradition that any visitor will be taken in by a family and given shelter for three nights. During this time, the guests have priority over everyone else in the family for anything that belongs to them. After three nights, the visitors must trade families or leave the town.

Which family takes in the PCs? What visitor has been abusing guest privileges and what do they want here?

Clover’s Tavern - Passive

At the center of the town is a massive six-story tavern built around the trunk of an ancient tree. The tavern is where most of the village gathers in the evening, and PCs may learn rumors, meet the villagers, and relax. When they leave, the shoes they put up on the clothing line have minor trinkets inside that reflect how the forest sees them or that provide some minor portent of challenges to come.

What’s the talk of the tavern? What clues do the trinkets left in the PC’s shoes/boots provide?

Leave it to the Trees - Reaction

Spend a Fear when someone abuses guest privileges to summon a Deeproot Defender, 1d4 Sylvan Soldiers, and a Young Dryad. They kidnap the culprit and drag them off to face the justice of the Sablewoods.

Do the villagers notice when this happens? How do they alert the grove guardians to these abuses, or do the dryads just know? What is the origin of the guest privilege custom?

Arcanist’s Challenge - Action

The Whitefire Arcanist approaches the party with a request - investigate the nearby Spire, whose Keeper hasn’t been seen for a week. And now the eternal fire has gone out, suggesting misfortune.

What happened to the Spire Keeper? What will the PCs need to do to find them and put things right?

Rime of the Colossi

Designed by Carlos Cisco

Frozen, Desolate, & Haunted

Tier 2

A hostile stretch of frozen wastes where colossal metal limbs reach toward the sky while their bodies remain encased in the ice below.

Distinctions

The Rime is a vast stretch of frozen wastes, bordered by impassable mountains and accessible only by sea at certain times of year. It’s a place unwelcoming to most life, as resources are perpetually tight and weather conditions are rarely better than terrible. Still, life seems to have eked out a stubborn existence among frigid winds, ice-boring chaldworms, howling wraiths haunting the ice pack, and the limbs of the mysterious metal colossi encased in hundreds of feet of ice.

Infinite White

This is not a place of verdance and really only comes in three varieties: Rocks, thick ice covering rocks, and snow covering thick ice. It’s mostly flat, a great white plane extending to meet a gray-white sky, the horizon blurred. It’s often hard to orient without a compass due to the lack of topographical variance and visibility destroying blizzards that are more common than not. Travelers have described it as being not far off from the blasted, empty wastes of the Circles Below just much, much colder.

You might find:

• A churning snow storm miles away, moving slowly through the Chaldwastes.
• The crunch of snow under boots.
• The sharp pain of frigid air filling the lungs.

Dangerous Survivors

From the fauna native to the Rime, to the hardy folk who adopted it as their home, it takes a certain type to survive in this climate. Predators hunt for hundreds of miles to get their next meal, and won’t part with them easily. Similarly, settlements out here are hardscrabble and community-minded. Sickness and weather make no distinction between who lives or dies. Because of this, everyone and everything that lives here has hardened to acclimate. Most folk know how to jab a spear in the spot that hurts, and the animals are cunning and lethal hunters.

You might find:

• A chaldworm exploding out from underneath a mammoth, burning the pachyderm’s thick hide with its superheated headplate.
• Nightly howls of winter wolves on their nocturnal hunts.
• The hardened ice vibrates beneath, ominous and terrifying.

Colossal Limbs

The titular namesake of these frigid badlands. Throughout the Rime explorers and travelers will stumble upon pockets of warmth and calm. Places where the temperature is balmy and the weather is tolerable. The unifying quality is that they’re all near one of the myriad metal limbs, appendages, or heads poking out of the ice. All seeming to reach towards the heavens. Each belongs to a metal colossus that is hundreds of feet tall and buried in solid ice. Despite the warmth they radiate, the ice around them is no less solid or cold. No one knows their true origins, if they’re alive, or what they’re reaching for.

You might find:

• A small encampment has formed underneath the outstretched hand of the colossus.
• A stark transition, like walking through a membrane, between the bitter cold and the balmy warmth surrounding a protruding head.
• Five long shadows extend further and further as the sun rises behind metal fingers.

Cryomantic Beautification

Travelers braving the Chaldwastes have returned with reports of exquisitely sculpted statues of ice and snow that seem to defy the laws of nature. Often attributed to the same weirdness as the Colossi, the true artists are a sect of druids known as the Cryomantic Assemblage. Their ancient charge was protecting the beauty and sanctity of the Rime. With such a harsh and unforgiving climate, few despoilers find the risk worth the meager reward. So they took the beauty aspect to heart and began to dot the landscape with these Cryomantic Assemblages. Any who disturb or destroy these works of art will be met with swift, frigid justice.

You might find:

• A sculpture that defies logic. Four spears of ice, whose points are touching, are balanced on the corners of a cube of powder snow.
• The crunching of ice and snow as a sculpture springs to life, with limbs made of frozen shards.
• A broken statue. Nearby is a dead body, suspended in the air by whorling spirals of jagged red ice. The victim’s blood. A clear warning.

GM Principles

Embrace the beauty in desolation - Most think of lush forests or jungles when picturing nature’s majesty. But the stark emptiness of a seemingly lifeless ice field, or a remote glacier pushing into the ocean come with a special beauty all their own. It’s the beauty of the bleak and barren but also of tenacious endurance. Every animal that thrives here and every plant pushing through the tundra are miracles of their own making.

Make clear that survival is a struggle - The desolation is punctuated by the stark reality that most things that are living in this climate will soon be dead. The nights are colder than imagination can comprehend, and days are only marginally better. Food of any type comes at a premium in trade, or requires specialized skills to hunt or gather. Resources for building are scarce, so civilization’s hold here has been and will continue to be tenuous at best.

Define how nature’s harsh indifference has shaped life here - The people of these climes are a hardy and resourceful folk. No where else in the realm can you see rations stretched further, or more creative uses for traditional supplies. Travelers to these frigid climes will find folk are wary of outsiders, but should they make a true friend it will be one for life. Survival is paramount, and those not helping that cause are probably working against it.

Landmarks

Icecage Passage

Number of Unsuccessful Attempts to Chart Passage via Ship: 134

Number of Survivors That Have Returned from Unsuccessful Attempts: 3

Sailors and traders have looked at the frozen seas for years, hungering for a faster way around the continent. The Icecage Passage perpetually tempts them as they calculate costs and travel time, easily able to shave off weeks at sea. But it’s not without its pitfalls. To start, one needs a specialized icebreaker vessel to even hope to pass through. Second, no one has been able to properly chart it with as the topography changes with the whims of the sea ice.. Even if progress is made, it’s impossible to turn back as the ice seals the path behind them every night Running out of supplies is one of the more common ways crews have been lost… And there are things out in the ice floes worse than any natural danger.

Frozen Egress (Feature)

For three quarters of the year, this stretch of water just outside of Rimelock Bay is frozen solid and impossible to cross via ship and those foolish enough to cross it on foot deserve whatever is coming to them. In those few months where the ice pack is broken up, it’s not uncommon to see a number of ships docked at Rimelock Bay while they stock up on last minute supplies before attempting to push through the Icecage Passage. Locals in Rimelock Bay are happy to see the money roll in during the warm months, but it’s always with a tinge of guilt. It’s always a sad day when a regular merchant decides they want to cut corners and take the passage this year. They rarely see them the next.

Dorne Mike’los, Captain of the Shattersquall [Seaborne Inferis, they/them]

Difficulty: 15

Brave, dashing, loquacious

Experience: Commander +2, Navigation +2, Witty Repartee +

Look: A consummate explorer and ship captain who is too handsome for the amount of frostbite they’ve endured.

Motive: Chart the Icecage Passage. And be the first.

Haunted Ice Pack (Threat)

When the sea freezes over it creates walkable, albeit dangerous and chaotic, plates of jagged ice known as an ice pack. It can seal in ships, collapse randomly, and eventually crush anything held by it. It’s a place most locals warn would-be explorers away from. Do they listen? The menagerie of ghosts, shades, undead crews, and haunted ships evidences that they did not. Even for the most robust ships this isa danger filled trip through frozen waters, but the dead that stalk the floes of solid ice make it downright harrowing. Nightly attacks are common, and ships passing through these waters must be prepared for that inevitability as well. The cryomantic assemblers in the Rimegrove keep the worst of this place from crossing onto shore. Still, it’s always a nightmare to encounter a Graveship that has wandered into the Chaldwastes.

The Rimegrove (Settlement)

A small forest of trees made of ice, with a canopy of fresh snow, that skirts the borders of the Chaldwastes and the ice pack of the Icecage Passage. In the heart of this crystalline forest is a small walled enclosure full of huts, above a small network of tunnels that pop up throughout the forest. While they can be found all over the Rime, this place is the home of the druids of the Cryomantic Assemblage. They do not appreciate outsiders entering their grove, but have been known to entertain invited guests with shows featuring live sculpting and sweet delicacies made from flavored ice.

The Chaldwastes

Worm Runs: Local hunters can often be found partaking in fiercely competitive group hunts to take down roving clews of chaldworms.

Beautified Landscape: The Cryomantic Assemblage has used this flat, bleak landscape as a blank canvas and filled with icy wonders beyond compare.

What most folks picture when tales are told of the Rime. Flat, endless, white wastes cut through with frigid winds and blistering cold. Those stories are true, but they don’t paint the whole picture. Massive metallic heads, outstretched arms, hands, fingers belonging to the myriad of colossi dot the landscape and create pockets of warmth making travel conditions just a hair below unbearable. Pair this with the frozen statuary that peppers the ice and the right vista affords one of the most breathtaking views this realm has to offer… on the rare day a blizzard isn’t raging across it. Conversations between friends have been cut off mid sentence, only for the other to discover their traveling companion fell down a chaldworm hole.

Chaldworm Hunting Grounds (Threat)

With their huge bodies, superheated head plates, unerring tremor sense, and pack mentality travelers passing through the Chaldwastes are under constant threat from below. Moving in clews of three to six, these predators will attack anything smaller than them and regularly feed on mammoths… just to give a sense of scale. Still, their oil and armored plates, and delicious meat are in high demand, and hunters frequent these icy plains to get a cut of the action. Many make their livelihood hunting these worms, passing techniques from generation to generation. Young Wormhunters who have yet to earn their first burn scar from a worm are known as ‘Clew Chew.’

The Glass Gardens (Outpost)

One of the Cryomantic Assemblage’s outposts is surrounded by a wall of ice, polished clear, flanked on both ends by gates of solid snow that collapse into powder and reassemble when opening and closing. Inside is an impossible place. A fruit orchard and vegetable garden surrounding a small farmstead. All of it is ice but it’s extremely edible and is some of the most savory, succulent, and sweet produce if one can get past the universally crunchy texture and icy temperature. The druids who live here are happy to feed anyone seeking a meal, and are very proud of their unique culinary concoctions. It’s always delicious but sometimes unpleasant to eat when all one wants is a hot meal… but they do excel at cold soups.

The Cryoclast (Location)

Surrounding a large mining encampment, built over an exposed vein of platinum, are six humanoid skeletons clutching staves and made entirely of solid ice. The encampment is the size of a small village, complete with a clockwork mining rig, storage warehouses, company housing, store, infirmary, and the people who live and work there. To say it’s all frozen is an understatement. Everything has been changed, on a molecular level, into ice. There is no flesh or wood or iron. Nothing but solid ice. It’s haunting to pass through this place, doomed for their trespasses against the Assemblage. Every detail is preserved perfectly: the pores on someone’s nose, each individual beard hair, the slight warping of the wood on the side of a house, the intricate cog-work of the drill.

The Blood Glacier

Cult Activity: Many cults frequent this place, performing strange rites in the crimson waters

Feeling of Being Watched: Dark figures lurk at the borders of peripheral vision, disappearing when looked at.

The Blood Glacier is always a disturbing sight to come across when leaving the Chaldwastes, a crimson stain on a canvas of pure white. Situated at the edge of a mountain range at the far end of the Rime. This glacier is a craggy mix of black rock and red ice, as runoff from the glacier pools like blood in the snow. Because of its macabre appearance, most locals avoid the place, considering it cursed.

Sanguine Falls (Location)

A partially frozen waterfall that cascades down a cliff over 200 feet tall. The waters that flow from the top are tainted with a ferrous substance that turns the water a brilliant crimson color, and looks like flowing and frozen blood. It’s enough for most to get one look and turn away… in either fear or wisdom. This is a place where travelers always feel watched, where light moves in ways it shouldn’t, and where gravity behaves poorly. Explorers have returned with reports of strange cults performing rituals in the waters of the falls. The details of their tales are fuzzy and almost always end with them joining in the festivities somehow.

Ferrous Giant (Location)

Atop the falls are a series of massive, tiered hot spring pools and the source of the sanguine waters. Splayed over the springs are the bones of a colossal humanoid, pierced through with a spear three stories tall. The bones are solid iron, and the rust mingling with the spring water creates the flowing “blood” that is seen from below. This is the only colossus in the area that does not have a metal outer shell, leading some to speculate what is actually underneath the frozen colossi in the wastes.

Strange Happenings (Feature)

From the weird cults that flit about the crimson waters, to the odd occurrences of gravity reversal, to the giant bones that bleed rust into the water, to the piles of frozen bodies at the base of the falls dissuading climbers… this place is full of weird, eldritch energies. So much so that animals stay away from it, and even the biting wind seems to avoid the glacier. Some have claimed to feel like they are being watched the whole time, and they likely are. But by whom… that remains up for debate.

Awaken the Giant Countdown

A consequence for a miss can always be a mark against the countdown.

8 - Nine mysterious figures appear around the ferrous giant, chanting.

7 - Arcane runes and symbols light up the sky around the falls.

6 - Gravity begins to act strange around the falls as the figures bodies dissolve into liquid.

5 - A new star appears in the sky… no. A moon. The sun does not ascend that morning.

4 - The moon descends into low orbit, held aloft by thirteen wings.

3 - The moon warps, turning into a giant head from which it extrudes a proportionate body.

2 - The moon person pulls the spear from the giant, ascending back into space, disappearing.

1 - The iron skeleton awakens, its organs sprouting as sinewy flesh regrows over it. Skin callusing as the sun, rising again, passes over it.

0 - Fully reformed, the impossibly tall colossus pulls itself into the sun, curling into a fetal position inside its cosmic womb.

Settlements

Rimelock Bay

Severe Markups: Merchant’s and explorers wanting to cut through the Icecage Passage will find the price of goods soaring.

Worm Meat, Four Ways: Chaldworm hunters often return here to preserve, process, and sell the meat, oil, and carapace from the worms. When a successful worm hunt coincides with a provision shipment there’s always an impromptu town-wide cooking contest.

The biggest settlement in the region and really the only place with frequent visitors. Situated at the mouth of the Icecage Passage, a half-ring of basalt pillars, rising hundreds of feet tall juts out into the water, creating a large and welcoming bay free from rough waters and easy to keep clear of ice. It’s often called the last stop before the pole, as it’s the first and last spot anyone is able to reliably resupply in the Rime. It’s a safe community that watches out for its own and doesn’t have a watch. Criminals are dealt with swiftly, often bagged and left out in the Chaldwastes to fend for themselves with only a blanket, flint, and a handful of jerky. The locals here get on well with the nearby Assemblage, leaving them be and respecting their art by appreciating it from afar.

Rimelock Gateway Bazaar (Market)

A massive warehouse down by the docks, this is where all the moving and shaking happens. A boisterous place with its own meadhall, locals and visitors gather to eat and drink even if they have no trade to do. Worm headplates are competitively weighed at market, with the hunters taking home hefty purses from merchants eager to purchase the winning carapaces. Those looking for work can always find someone who needs an extra hand with a supply run or a rescue mission in the Bazaar.

Quentin ‘Qube’ Hubert, Frigid Wizard [Ice Elemental, he/him]

Difficulty: 16

Curious, unassuming, good-humored

Experience: Ancient History +1, Forbidden Knowledge +2 Magical Knowledge +2

Look: A block of solid, polished ice who can crush a portion of itself to form a face and limbs. He wears a bright yellow toga, wrapping around what would have been one of his shoulders if he had any.

Motive: Exploration. Qube was once a mortal man. But by discovering a powerful, frozen, and eldritch tome, managed to turn himself into an ice elemental permanently. Which suits him, honestly, as he uses his new form to explore the furthest reaches of the Rime.

Jaded Locals (Feature)

Locals have seen so many come and go through here, only to never return, that they don’t invest much in new faces. It’s not that the people of Rimelock don’t care, but they can’t afford to. If they start getting to know that fresh-faced adventurer they may come to realize they like them. If they like them they’re inevitably going to have to go find them when they fall down an ice chasm, get pinned down by worms, or frozen up to their necks by angry druids. It’s just not worth it. A true friend here is worth a thousand in a warmer climate. They are few and far between, so those that find them hold them close.

Cinthia Trin, Ice Runner [Ridgeborne Halfling, she/her]

Difficulty: 14

Tireless, indomitable, fierce

Experience: Athlete +1, Bloodhound +1, Quartermaster +2, Tracking +1

Look: Never without her snow hounds. Scarred, weary, and always draped in heavy pelts to ward off the cold.

Motive: The Loop. Take the package. Bring it to the destination. Take the next package. Bring it to the destination. Keep moving. Can’t stop. Too many rely on her.

Last Stop (Location)

While most inns have their own tavern below, the stewards of the Last Stop would just as soon send its tenants to the bazaar’s mead hall, or one of the many fine establishments around town if they need a meal. But if they need any last minute supplies… Some rope and pitons? No problem. A jar of worm oil? They probably have at least one. Some snow shoes? They’d love to offer some Friction Boots but sold their last pair to a sickly looking explorer just yesterday. If anyone happens to stumble onto those boots, they’d happily buy them back. All of their merchandise is branded so it’s easy to spot. Some people see the proprietors as shady and cold, but the truth is they are just incredibly practical. Out here it’s all finders keepers, they just make sure to let everyone know what a generous buyback policy they have.

Krulhatch

Fish Focused: Visitors to Krulhatch better have a taste for fish, because they aren’t likely eating much else around here.

Harder Partiers: Despite the harsh conditions, the folks who call Krulhatch home are a boisterous bunch who love an excuse to party.

A town situated at the outer reaches of the Chaldwastes, built on stilts atop a lake frozen all but two weeks out of the year. The lake below the small village is home to a unique fish that returns once a year to spawn in its unfrozen waters. The types of folks it attracts are those that loathe civilized society… or those that civilized society has summarily rejected. The families that rule the town are more like loose knit clans, composed of both blood kin and not. It’s hard living here, but those two weeks when the fish spawn make the rest of the year all worth it.

Krulfish (Feature)

A bullet shaped fish about three feet long with iridescent orange scales and knifelike spines on their tails. It gives off one of the worst smells ever smelled, but the gland can be removed making processing it much more tolerable. The Krulfish wine, smoked jerky, and pickle exports support the entire community. The oil from the fish is both flammable and pyrophobic, a valuable alchemical component. Foreign Krulfish orders are put in years in advance, in hopes of getting a delicious cut of the action. In such demand that even kings and queens have had their orders turned down.

The Spawnarch Festival (Festival)

The Spawnarch Festival takes place over the week leading up to the thaw of the lake and the two weeks after while the krulfish spawn in the waters below the town. It’s the most important time of year, and a bad festival portents a hard year to come. The whole town lays out nets on the ice, divided by family teams, and waits for the ice to crack. When the nets fall into the water the festival is in full swing. When the spawn finishes, the nets are drug up and the fish are sorted, counted, and processed. It all ends with an incredible feast where fish are prepared in more ways than could be imagined. The games at this feast are legendary. Competitors greased up with krulfish oil lit on fire and try to push one another out of the ring before the oil burns off. Families offer up fiercely competitive krulfish recipes for judgment with prizes awarded. Competitors flyt with one another, trading increasingly hilarious and personal barbs. The Trivig Family “Krul-Krunch Wafer” is the recipe to beat, remaining undefeated three years running. And don’t even try to go toe to toe, flyting, with anyone from the Gauso Family.

Spawnarch Festival Countdown

A consequence for a miss can always be a mark against the countdown.

8 - The town begins preparations. Colorful nets with weights and family markings are placed on the ice.

7 - Elaborate fish themed decorations are put out.

6 - The ice cracks, and the nets sink. The whole town gets really drunk that night.

5 - The falls at the end of the lake begin to flow again. The whole town gets really drunk that night.

4 - The first krulfish arrives to spawn. The whole town gets really drunk that night.

3 - The egg sacks float to the surface and begin to float down river, signaling the end of the spawn. Everyone… gets a good night’s rest.

2 - A brutal three day process of pulling the nets up before the krulfish are counted and weighed. The majority is packed in salt or put into fermentation barrels.

1 - A great fish feast where the town’s families and guests compete in cooking contests, feats of strength, and flyting.

0 - The Spawnarch is crowned! The whole town gets really drunk that night.

Family Champions (Feature)

Each family team is led by a champion. These champions are responsible for the performance of their team that year, and their decisions make or break their chances of victory. A mostly ceremonial win, but one that gives the winning family first press and pick on the krulfish goods they will sell. From where to position the nets, to leading the harvest pull, to choosing competitors (or participating themselves) in the feast games, it’s a position with a lot of inherent pressure. Families are very fierce about their internal selection process every year, as one bad champion can send their annual haul into a spiral they may not recover from.

Homer Noft, Noft Family Champion [Orderborne Dwarf, he/him]

Difficulty: 16

welcoming, cheerful, fiercely competitive

Experience: Animal Handling +1 , Athlete +1, Swimming +2, Wrestling +1

Look: Dresses for comfort and warmth, but always displays his family’s color (orange).

Motive: Sustainability. The krulfish count is lowering every year. They need to find a balance or their way of life will disappear. As long as he wins the Spawnarch crown the Nofts can can set the trade agenda for the year.

Yarla Boch, Trivig Family Champion [Orderborne Firbolg, she/her]

Difficulty: 15

ambitious, uncompromising, gutsy

Experience: Athlete +2, Keen Senses +1, Wrestling +2, Witty Repartee +1

Look: Unusually tall and sturdy, even for a firbolg. Either out of misplaced insecurity or genuine hardiness, she doesn’t dress for the cold.

Motive: Humiliate the Nofts. She doesn’t care if she wins the crown or not. The Nofts have looked down on the Trivig Family for years and it’s time they got their comeuppance.

Barit Gauso, Gauso Family Champion [Wildborne Human, she/they]

Difficulty: 17

cocky, amorous, dashing

Experience: Acrobat +2, Commander +1, Flirting +2, Witty Repartee +2, Wrestling +1

Look: More put together than they’ve any right to be out here. Great hair, especially. And shoulders. Gams too.

Motive: Spark joy. She just wants to have a good time and put on a good show for the village. Life is hard enough around here. She cares about Krulhatch so much and longs for a way to attract those who have left back to its way of life.

Klim Lanz, Stray House Champion [Slyborne Elf, he/him]

Difficulty: 14

Cunning, unscrupulous, nasty

Experience: Bandit +2, Feigned Incompetence +1, Intrusion +1, Spy +1, Witty Repartee +1

Look: Unkempt mountain of a man, with arms like tree trunks.

Motive: His house holding the crown means first tap on all fish oils and wines, which always go for the highest price. He doesn’t care what happens to Krulhatch, only what he can extract in the short term.

Silver Salvation (Excavation Site 2-A)

Silver Colossus: With just its fingertips poking out, encased in hundreds of feet of solid ice, is a humongous statue of a human cast in solid, untarnishable silver.

Faint Stirrings: On the rare night, when the howling wind prefers to whisper, some say they can hear a soft, slow beating in the giant’s chest.

While there is always a tent, or small cluster of shanties that form around the myriad limbs of the metal colossi, Silver Salvation is the only town that has managed to last. Situated in the middle of the Chaldwastes, the founders of Silver Salvation discovered a colossus that was surrounded by tunnels bored through the ice, all around its body and descending down to its waist. What’s not known to the folk who make this home is it was one of the first excavation sites, carved into the ice by the Ramiform Ecclesiarch Network, and where they found the first Prophetic Discs. Long abandoned, and for reasons the Network refuses to discuss, it has become a bustling community complete with a small underground ice farm, courtesy of the Assemblage, who keeps a watchful eye on this place.

Ice Tunnels (Feature)

When the folks who decided to make this a permanent home found it, they were surprised to find a network of tunnels snaking around the colossus. These tunnels are perfectly smooth and round, with a flat bottom. Some sort of tool and a LOT of worm oil were probably used to make them. Regardless, they connect all over the body, with larger chambers around the waist, left hand and arm, the chest, and the neck. Personal homes, shops, and even a little pub can be found tucked away, nestled in the comfortable warmth radiating off the colossus.

Wee Finger’s Pub (Location)

An open floorplan pub, built into a large chamber around the left hand, which is curled into a fist other than the little finger, which extends downward into the ice. The bar is built in a circle around the finger, which is stacked with shelves of spirits. Locals and visitors alike dine here, as it’s the only public house in the tiny settlement. There’s not really an owner, and the locals just take turns running the bar depending on who has the energy that day. Service ain’t great but what else is there?

Ice Farm (Location)

A gift from the nearby Cryomantic Assemblage. While the temperature makes it comfortable to live around the colossus, farming is still impossible and initially made for some months of empty stomachs. The Assemblage took pity on the small town and gifted them an Ice Farm, similar to the one in the Glass Garden. At least one assembler is always on hand to tend to the garden. In exchange, the populace has agreed to report any strange visitors seeking artifacts, cracks forming around the colossus, and not to dig any deeper around it. While the folks who call this place home are not inherently suspicious of visitors, their deal with the druids forces them to report on anyone entering and leaving.

Factions

Ramiform Ecclesiarch Network

Inscrutable Mythos: Depending on who is asked results in an entirely different answer as to “what it all means.”

Decentralized Network: This is not a group that gathers often, and it shows. Most don’t care for the others.

A loose knit group of powerful individuals who call themselves Ecclesiarchs, seek to quash the evils of this realm and bring about a new age. But their methodology is strange at best… and downright eldritch at worst. They base their beliefs around the writings from a disc made of a metal not found in the Mortal Realm. Through careful study of ancient texts and prophecy they created a translation cypher and extrapolated their core beliefs from there. They have fingers everywhere, seeking out powerful sources of magic and sites of ancient prophecy. Their search has become unified for the first time in many years, converging in these ice blasted plain to find… something.

Cure for Stagnation (Feature)

No one believes themselves to be the bad guy, and the Network is no exception. Where their goals converge is in the idea of a new genesis. Starting over from scratch with, presumably, themselves as the architects of a new era. This decision, of course, to reshape the realm is made while paying no mind to the people who actually live in it. What does this mean for this epoch? None of them care. This age is over, a decaying husk not fit to support life, progress, or meaning.

Artifact Caches (Feature)

They are nothing if not fastidious and efficient collectors. From auction houses to dungeon delves to secure vaults, the Network can always be found where the ancient and powerful surfaces. No one knows, even within the network, why they need such a robust collection of magical items. But they have them all the same. Stranger still, these same items are rarely utilized… even in instances that would further their goals. They are saving them for something. But what? The Ecclesiarchs exploring these wastes have been known to travel with massive sealed caches. Some of their expeditions have been less than successful, forcing them to abandon these treasure troves among the ice.

Excavation Sites (Locations)

The first prophecy disc was found at Excavation Site 2-A, clutched in the left hand. The second was found lodged in the eye of Surface Site 4-F. The Ecclesiarchs have been sourcing the colossi of the Chaldwastes and beyond, hoping to find more answers, context, or direction. They have enough collective wealth that when a site becomes too hostile or doesn’t turn up anything of value they have no problem leaving the entire operation behind and starting from scratch on the next one. The myriad of outposts and homes surrounding the colossi, along with Silver Salvation are all the results of abandoned Network excavation sites.

Principles

As the Ecclesiarchs are as varied as they are distant from one another, there are very few guiding principles, but below are a few of the translated lines of prophecy that seem to guide their hand and thoughts.

• “The New Age, birthed by the benevolence of the Ecclesiarch…”
• “ The fallen giant, sanguine and ferrous, holds the key. It must be made whole again…”
• “Call forth the moon above the land of unshed blood that always falls, only she can unpierce the cold heart of the realm…”

NPCs

Varlan Borillos, True Believing Ecclesiarch [ Slyborne **** Inferis , he/him]

Difficulty: 14

fanatical, compassionate, immovable

Experience: Wisdom of the Centuries +2, Divination +1

Look: Practically but impeccable, with everything showing the newness and quality of the material and make.

Motive: This realm holds so many evils… The prophecy states that by becoming the living vessel for change they can start the mortal realm anew, washing away the sins of the previous age. So why shouldn’t they?

Oskar Zahk, Wary Ecclesiarch [ Loreborne **** Katari , he/they]

Difficulty: 14

paranoid, brilliant, volatile

Experience: Magical Knowledge +3, Bloodhound +2

Look: Eccentric scholar chic. It’s clear he has great wealth so he chooses to look that way. Too many straps and buckles for books and scrolls.

Motive: Progress has stagnated. Innovation has died. We have failed as an age. Gods. Mortals. All of it. Starting over from scratch is the only way to make things right again.

Dara Mutte, Disillusioned Ecclesiarch [ Highborne **** Faun , she/her]

Difficulty: 15

Meticulous, hedonistic, assured

Experience: Experience: Socialite +3, Luxury +5

Look: A fashionable woman of luxury who looks delightfully out of place in this climate. She has gold and platinum facial tattoos that snake down from her chin to, presumably, her hooves.

Motive: There is nothing in this life left for her. She’s ready to move on, and doesn’t care if the rest of the realm isn’t, as long as whatever waits on the other end of it is something decadently different.

Story Hooks

A clade of crymantic assemblers guards an esoteric tablet he requires for one of his rituals but their ice fortress is seemingly impenetrable. Varlan needs a large supply of Worm Oil in order to get in.

Oskar needs assistance in breaking an ancient language cypher that may reveal key points of prophecy they’ve yet to unlock.

Dara has heard of a village at the far reaches of civilization reliant on a special kind of fish. She needs a champion so that she may assume the crown of the Spawnarch and, presumably, control the village’s trade.

Rimeblood Orphans

Genuine Heroes: It’s often hard to tell who the real “heroes” are. These folk are. Rarely staying in one place for too long, the Orphans wander the Rime searching for those in need.

Life of Service: Almost all of the Rimeblood Orphans began their training as children, but are not forced to continue as adults. Almost all of them choose to.

Settlements collapse, settlers go missing, travelers fall victim to chaldworm attacks… What unifies all of these is that the children traveling with these folk had no choice in this matter. Losing one’s parent to a misguided hunt, or a botched supply run is all too common. The Rimeblood Orphans are a group of wandering do-gooders who were all once victims of similar circumstances, childhood orphans who lost their parents for reasons beyond their control. No one knows how they started, but the Rimeblood Orphans continue their good work of rescuing lost, abandoned, and orphaned children in the wastes. If they have no kin to reconnect with, they are taken into their order and fed, housed, and trained in the ways of the Rime. They serve under a mentor until they come of age after which they are given a choice. They can leave and make a life of their own, or they can stay and continue their good work: serving and protecting the lost children of the frozen wastes.

Bear Sledges (Feature)

The Rimeblood Orphans are hard to mistake, and one of the main reasons is they have trained a large maul of snow bears to pull their heavy camp sledges. The bears are surprisingly docile and friendly, unless unleashed in a fight. The sledges they pull are laden with supplies, and even have places for several wee folk to sleep comfortably and warm while the sledge continues on its journey. It’s always cause for celebration when a bear sledge pulls into Rimelock Bay and five or six children come pouring out of every nook, cranny, and satchel on the sledge.

Peerless Guides (Feature)

If one needs a guide, travelers could do much worse and not much better, than employing a Rimeblood Orphan. They’ve learned how to read the path of blizzards, know where ice fishing is easiest, what parts of the ice pack to avoid entirely, and how to tell if a cryomantic assembler is friendly or not. Their services don’t come cheap, as these proud do-gooders need something to fund their mission. It’s not uncommon to see deals struck between adventurers and a Rimeblood Orphan where they will serve as guide, but should they need to rescue someone, their contracted mission will be put on hold at the orphans discretion.

Rimeblood Charity (Feature)

No Rimeblood Orphan pays for food or lodging anywhere in this area. The locals know who they are and what they do, and it’s become a long standing tradition to offer room and board to any who ride into town regardless of if they have children with them or not. In turn, the Rimeblood Orphans hold it sacred that they must be consummate guests. Even the gruffest and most misanthropic among them turn into charming guests, swapping stories, songs, and life lessons for their meals and board.

Principles

There is nothing written in stone, or ice, about the way a Rimeblood Orphan should or should not behave. Instead, these lessons are passed from mentor to initiate over multiple cycles, so much so that they may as well be permanently engraved somewhere.

• “Never forget that one guaranteed life saved is worth a dozen possible lives if it means you can still rescue someone tomorrow.”
• “Extend the same charity extended to us when hosted. Leave the bitter cold that surrounds your heart with the bears, and open yourself up to the warmth of companionship and friends.”
• “Every child deserves a choice. Arm them with the knowledge and skills to choose their life’s direction. Even if it diverges from ours.”

NPCs

Nicto Greel, Silent Savior [ Wanderborne **** Drakona , he/him]

Difficulty: 12

Stoic, Focused, Mute

Experience: Wrangle +2, Navigation +2, Quartermaster +1

Look: Ebony of scale, tall and wide of build. His face is covered with lacerations. He’s old, and been at this a long time.

Motive: Save whole families. Nicto doesn’t care to mentor anyone, and endeavors to rescue families along with their children.

Valah Sharpe, Wandering Songsmith [ Seaborne **** Dwarf , she/her]

Difficulty: 8

Boisterous, Talkative, Nurturing

Experience: Bloodhound +2, Witty Repartee +1

Look: Brightly dyed furs, easy to spot. Wildly dyed hair and styled beard. She definitely has a distinct and unmistakable flare, and stands out as a bright spot of warmth in the endless fields of white.

Motive: Give the kids a good time. Losing a parent is terrible. She would know. The least she can do is make them laugh.

Gunge Halfjaw, Worm Bait [ Wildborne **** Goblin , they/them]

Difficulty: 14

Thrill seeking, Brave, Selfless

Experience: Ambusher +2, Keen Senses +2, Tremor Sense +1

Look: Encased in worm carapace armor, his pale orange skin contrasting nicely with the gray-blue of the worm-shell. Half his jaw has been replaced by wormbone scrimshaw.

Motive: Keep the wormways safe. They’d rather prevent tragedy to begin with, so they focus their efforts in the Chaldwastes where chaldwormsare most frequent.

Story Hooks

A caravan, composed of four families, destined for Silver Salvation didn’t cross the third checkpoint and some fear the worst.

The runaway child of a monarch has gone missing out in the wastes, and a hefty reward will be bestowed on whoever can reunite him with his family.

In defiance of regional custom, a small outpost in the Chaldwastes is refusing to grant charity to passing Rimeblood Orphans. The Orphans seek no repudiation, just an outsider to figure out why and report back.

Resources

	MOMENTS OF HOPE		MOMENTS OF FEAR
1	A clear, crisp, blue morning.	1	A blizzard so thick it blots out the sun.
2	A warm fire after a cold day.	2	The ice rumbles and cracks beneath.
3	A huddle of penguins waddles past on the way to a fishing hole.	3	Unholy howls drift onto land from the icepack.
4	A swig of fine whiskey to warm the bones.	4	A body whose blood is drained and frozen in a macabre sculpture above it. A warning.
5	Sunrise glints off an outstretched, colossal hand.	5	Mysterious figures, chanting under an unscheduled lunar eclipse.
6	Fresh catch roasting on a nearby fire.	6	A maul of snow bears taking down a supply sledge.
7	A group of hunters bring down a massive ice worm in the distance.	7	A corpse, frozen and preserved for many years.
8	The sun sets, painting the white landscape in vivid pinks and oranges.	8	A Rimeblood Orphan gently explains to a child what happened to her parents. She weeps.
9	The howling wings abate, giving purchase to peaceful silence.	9	A roiling blizzard moves in quickly from the horizon.
10	A raucous mead hall, full of celebration and song.	10	A distant avalanche grows closer and closer still.
11	Ice sculptures, whose craftsmanship is beyond compare.	11	A group of frozen poachers, each in their own personal column of ice.
12	A lost child reuniting with their parents, their rescuer nearby.	12	In the distance, a ship is crushed into splinters by the shifting icepack.

Rumours

Someone is attempting to sabotage the nets during Krulhatch’s Spawnarch festival. The town elders need someone to investigate it quietly.

A mysterious group has been excavating a frozen colossi for unknown reasons. Some of the locals are scared of what could happen if the colossi gets fully uncovered.

The Rimeblood Orphans aim to take down an ice dragon that destroyed a small outpost in the Chaldwastes, and are seeking some extra hands.

Locals say that sleeping next to a colossi results in terrifying dreams. Some tell of a moon becoming a face. Others of a sun cracking open like an egg. Some even say they’ve seen metal giants wade through seas of blood and fire in their nightmares.

A merchant in Rimelock Bay was thrown in jail for selling tainted rations to an icebreaker frigate attempting the Icecage Passage. The Magistrate wants to make it right, and send a supply run of food to the ship… but it’s likely trapped deep in the Haunted Icepack.

Equipment

Rimeshot Crossbow - Agility Close - d6+4 (magic) - One-Handed

Feature: Iceburst Bolts (Mark a Stress before an attack roll to also attack any other creatures within melee range of the target.)

Primary Weapon

Worm Shield - Finesse Melee - d4+2 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Self Sealing Carapace (Add +3 to armor score. Repairs itself 1d4 armor slots during a long rest)

Secondary Weapon

Cryoclast Armor - Base Score: 4

Feature: Shattershard (When marking armor slots, deal 1d10 magic damage to the attacker per armor marked. This armor cannot be repaired.)

Armor

Items

Pocket Fire. The magic isn’t actually the fire, but rather the small square of magically treated cloth that it’s wrapped in. The flame can be removed from the cloth and placed on flammable material to instantly create a small campfire that lasts up to 8 hours unless doused. The cloth can be used to grab a handful of fire to be stored for future use.

Icesight Goggles. Many beasts of the frozen wastes use the ice and snow as camouflage. These goggles detect minute heat signatures in blood and breath while also sharpening focus and giving a more detailed view of the monochromatic landscape, giving advantage on instinct rolls when in icy climates.

Friction Boots. Heavy, warm boots with fantastic ankle support and magically attuned soles that adjust the friction to adapt to difficult surfaces of all kinds. The wearer is immune to slipping and falling on hazardous surfaces, and has advantage on rolls to keep themselves from being moved against their will.

Consumables

Hunter’s Ice. A small tab of black ice that, when placed under the tongue, lowers their body temperature to the same as the air around it, making detection by temperature impossible and renders them immune to the effects of extreme cold weather for the next 8 hours.

Ice Mansion. A tightly packed snowball that upon closer inspection is covered in complex creases and lines. When thrown it unfurls creating a large shelter made of ice. Inside is a bed, a cook pot, and some fur blankets. It can safely house up to 4 people for a long rest before it collapses into powdered snow.

Worm Oil. Excreted and distilled from the heat glands of the chaldworms, this oily substance can be used to coat an object or small area. Once applied, that object or surface is superheated, dealing 2d6 magic damage to any creature that touches it for the next hour. It will rapidly melt any ice it is pressed against, allowing creatures pushing or holding a superheated object to move at half speed through solid ice.

Adversaries

Chaldworm

Description: An armor-played worm traversing solid ice to strike prey from below.

Motives & Tactics: Separate, Ambush, Retreat

Tier: 2

Type: Skulk

Difficulty: 15

Attack Modifier: +3

Thrash: Close | 3d8 phy

Major 10 | Severe 20

HP: 5

Stress: 4

Experience:

Stealth +3

Tracking +1

Features

Frozen Delicacy - Passive

When killed, the worm can be harvested with a Finesse (14) roll for its succulent and highly nutritious meat, glandular oil, and armored plates. The glandular oil can be processed into Worm Oil, and the armored plates can be crafted into a Worm Shield.

Tunnel - Passive

While superheated, the Chaldworm can move through solid ice at a rapid speed, up to aFar distance per activation. It leaves a large tunnel in its wake.

Superheat - Action

Mark Stress to secrete oil from its glands and superheat its headplate for the next hour. It glows white hot, dealing an additional 1d8 magic when it uses Thrash. The Chaldworm can only use its other abilities superheated.

Ice Breach - Action

+6 Attack Modifier

While superheated, mark a Stress to accelerate rapidly while under a target, bursting out of the ice and launching them into the air. As the ground rumbles, the target must first make an Agility (14) reaction roll or be made Vulnerable. Then, as the worm bursts out of the ice, it makes a melee attack with a +6 attack modifier. On a success, the target takes 2d10 phy and 1d10 mag damage, and is thrown into far range.

Cryomantic Assembler

Description: A heavily-bundled druid crafting ice and snow.

Motives & Tactics: Summon, Surround, Observe

Tier: 2

Type: Standard

Difficulty: 14

Attack Modifier: +4

Cryomantic Blast: Close | 2d10+5 phy

Major 8 | Severe 15

HP: 5

Stress: 4

Experience:

Preservation +3

Navigation +2

Features

Living Ice - Action

Spend a Fear to bring nearby ice to life. Roll 1d6 and create a number of humanoid sized chunks of ice animate as constructs based on the result. They use the following stats:

Animated Ice

Tier: 1

Type: Minion

Difficulty: 10

Attack Modifier: +0

Ice Shards: Melee | 1d6 phy

HP: 1

Stress: 1

Whenever the Cryomanic Assembler activates, you may activate one Animated Ice as well.

Frigid Detonation - Action

Mark a Stress to choose up to 3 Animated Ice constructs to detonate. Each one does 2d6 direct magic damage to all targets in Close range and is removed from the battlefield.

Icepack - Action

When 3 or more living ice are in melee range of a target, mark a Stress to make an attack against the target. On a success, they take 2 Stress and are Restrained as the living ice grows over them.

Icepack Graveship

Description: A gestalt entity composed of ghosts and the ragged remains of a doomed ship.

Motives & Tactics: Bombard, Shed, Consume

Tier: 2

Type: Solo

Difficulty: 17

Attack Modifier: +4

Ice Hull: Melee | 3d12 phy

Major 16 | Severe 25

**HP:**7

**Stress:**5

Experience:

Sailor +5

Features

Skeleton Crew - Reaction

Whenever the graveship takes HP damage, a Skeleton Dredge emerges within Close range of the attacker and immediately activates.

Soul Shackle - Reaction

Creatures with a soul that are killed by the graveship or its crew are added to its roster. Each time a soul is added to the crew, Icepack Graveship clears 1 Stress.

Load Cannon- Action

Load the onboard cannon to prepare it for firing.

Fire Cannon - Action

+2 Attack Modifier

If the cannon is loaded, choose a target or group within Far range and make an attack. On a success, they take 3d20 phy damage. When fired, the cannon becomes unloaded.

Ship Shape - Action

When the graveship has 3 or less HP available it can mark a Stress to reform into a ship to quickly escape. It cannot attack but can move quickly across and through solid ice (a Far distance per activation), leaving a wake of broken ice chunks behind it. Difficult to follow, easy to track (Instinct 10).

Environments

Coming soon!

Gindalia, City of Obligation

Designed by Carlos Cisco

Opulent, Urban, Haunted

Tier 3

A fabulously wealthy city whose obsession with debt haunts its citizens long after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil.

Distinctions

Gindalia’s rigid class system allows for little in the way of upward mobility. A sprawling and bustling city carved directly into the side of a sheer cliff overlooking a lush valley, rich in veins of unique metal that attracts spirits like a magnet. When refined, this metal can store souls indefinitely. This is not a place for people who adhere to more traditional moral frameworks. Excess and avarice are held up as prime virtues alongside fortitude and hard work. The class system is enforced very seriously by those with a vested interest in preserving power.

Power of Capital

Nowhere is the power of the coin more apparent than Gindalia. Between its influential banks, the immortal Debtguard that walk its walls and patrol its streets, and its vast disparity between the rich and poor, this is one of the best places to live for the wealthy. Magnates populate the highest levels of the city, and represent legacy wealth and wield unmatched power in Gindalia. Merchants, financiers, and wealthy entrepreneurs make up the Mercentalia. Below them are the Essentialia, which is just propaganda-speak for ‘laborers.’ Finally are the debtors, or insolvents as they are referred to, whose arrears follow them long after death.

You might find:

• The Debtguard patrolling the upper levels of the city, harassing anyone not dressed well enough.
• The jingle of a heavy coin purse
• Cloying, expensive perfume… and too much of it.

Political Parties

Lavish balls, treacherous masquerades, and decadent carnivals all serve to delight and intoxicate the senses, on the surface. It’s not in the halls of any senate but rather the drawing rooms and grand balls of the elite. Here politicians shake hands with bank owners, who are in turn whispering advice into the ears of military commanders, who can strong arm merchants, and the chain goes on and on and on. Appearances are paramount here, and fashion is as much a weapon as it is a statement.

You might find:

• A grand masquerade ball where each outfit is more exquisite and ostentatious than the last.
• The peaty smell of whiskey and cigar smoke.
• Low lights and lower whispers.

City of Splendors

Expensive furniture, exotic pets, and lavish decor are all commonplace in this nexus of wealth. Fine dining is easily accessible to those who can afford it. High fashion and art galleries can be found in ample supply. This city caters to the wealthiest of the wealthy, and anyone with substantial coin who’s willing to flaunt it will blend in quite nicely.

You might find:

• A luscious cocktail lounge full of beautiful servers and exquisite delicacies.
• Soft throw pillows and heavy velvet curtains.
• The dulcet notes of a string quartet drifting out from an open sunroom .

Debt Weight

Pneumatite, the spirit caging mineral this cliff face is known for, has birthed one of the most exploitative practices the city is known for: Death Relief When a person of any class dies with debt to the state remaining, they are bound to serve out their remaining payments in death. They work most commonly as a Debtguard, soul animated armor that acts as city watch and military. But personal debts are often fulfilled in much more humiliating ways, depending on the relationship between debtor and lender.

You might find:

• Empty shells of gleaming gold armor patrolling the streets
• The soft scratch of quill on parchment, a deal struck.
• The pale, white glow of pneumatite, as a spirit possesses it.

GM Principles

Make the world lavishly wealthy, exploitative, and treacherous - Gindalia is where coin is considered equally divine to the gods—may seem stable and orderly, but it harbors an undercurrent of exploitation and malfeasance that is hardly divine. Money can buy respect, but how one pursues that wealth is just as important.

Show how capital and class interact. - In order for the fabulously wealthy to exist, there must be those with nothing to their names. The wealthy live lives of luxury, power, and potential. Those without are subjected to exploitation, invisible to the ruling class, and seemingly powerless to change their station.

Wealth is power, and power is displayed openly - The latest dress styles from far-off lands, a coat cut with elemental threads that glow with power, and expensive body modifications that defy logic and reason. Fashion may seem frivolous to those who lack it, but for those lucky individuals who can burn money on luxuries, fashion becomes a form of political warfare and power.

Districts

Coinhalls

Financial District: Most of the city’s wealth ends up in the Coinhalls at some point along its journey… usually forever.

Designer Pets: One will run into all manner of exotic, strange, and hybrid pets both on sale and on walks with their owners..

The Coinhalls contain everything from luxury shopping, exclusive auctions, fine dining, and prestigious banks. All it needs to cater to the ultra-wealthy populace and keep them spending money. The buildings here are made of imported marble and gilded with gold. The cloying smell of expensive perfume hangs in the air. Every interaction is laced with a profit motive. The people further enrich themselves simply by moving numbers around on spreadsheets as opposed to actually working, deciding the fates of thousands with the thoughtless stroke of a pen. Banks and businesses alike are guarded by lockdown automata, each ornately designed to suit its owner’s taste.

Jewel Alley (Location)

Less an alley and more of a cascading thoroughfare featuring some of the most luxurious stores that cater to the bourgeoisie and ultrawealthy. Clothing made from rare wildlife. Galleries and museums filled with art stolen from far-off lands. Banks as large and exquisitely built as any god’s temple. Most impressive of these banks is the Arkvault, a bank with magically entangled vault that has interconnected branches across the Mortal Realm. A playground for the rich where those who work to make this place possible are invisible and the products sold result from suffering and exploitation.

Debtguard (Threat)

“In debt you serve. In death, relief.” A saying coined by one of the first Magnates, and a clever bit of wording that sounds relatively benign. If a debt is owed, it must be paid in full… but at least in death there is relief to be found… right? In truth, the relief means “relief of debt.” For those who pass while holding the shame of debt in their heart and over their accounts, will continue to serve until their debt is paid. The Debtguard is both the standing army and the city watch of Gindalia, composed of soul-animated armors made from pneumatite alloy that house the souls of debtors. It’s a sad existence, that of the Debtguard. Riding like a passenger in one’s own soul, granted agency but once a year.

Madame Ulia’s Auction House (Location)

One of the most notorious auction houses in the entire mortal realm. Renowned for the exquisite art, curios, and artifacts that go up for sale. Whispered rumors of illicit procurement tactics are brushed under the rug. The people who can afford to purchase these items care not how they were acquired. Just that they are now afforded the ability to acquire them. “I once saw a king’s crown go up for auction. And that king is still very much alive and quite unhappy about it.”

Precious, Objectively Beautiful [Highborne Clank, they/them]

Difficulty: 16

Curious, Extravagant, Naive

Experience: Aristocrat +2, Magical Knowledge +1, Socialite +1, Witty Repartee +1

Look: A luxurious and ancient clank composed entirely of thin strips of precious metals woven together around masterfully cut gems.

Motive: Self Improvement. Precious is determined to achieve perfection at all costs, but their view of what that means is skewed by the stratified, wealthy society that created them.

Gaol of the Insolvent

Working Dead: Laborers are often replaced by Debtbound spirits known as insolvents, whose cobbled together forms are a far cry from the ornately armored Debtguards. Kept out of sight, commonly working in foundries, mines, and warehouses.

Lifetimes of Servitude: Most will find their lives were not worth much and woefully discover upon death that they will serve as Debtguard much longer than they lived.

Sometimes called the Soulcage or Debtor’s Woe, the Gaol of the Insolvent is a brutalist testimony to the weight of debt. It’s where spirits in arrears are drawn and bound into pneumatite armors to serve among the Debtguard or as an insolvent. The massive structure is positioned at the base of the city so all who look down upon are reminded of how far they can fall, and how quickly debt can overtake them. Because of this, most prefer to keep their view fixed upward.

Pneumatite Gyre (Location)

Located deep within the Gaol, the Gyre is a two story obelisk of pure pneumatite, with meticulous necromantic rune carvings running its entire length. Surrounding the spire is a howling vortex of spirit energy. Spirits of the dead coalesce here, joining the vortex. Actuarians are assigned to read the debt of the deceased, allowing spirits free of obligation to pass on. Those burdened by debt will often attempt to flee Gindalia so as not to die within the gyre’s reach. The punishment for absconding on one’s debt is eternal servitude.

Insolvency Jubilee (Festival)

One of the most important local holidays in Gindalia. It’s a day when the dead, both Debtguard and insolvents, are granted a day of agency and freedom. It’s a day where they are released from service and may do with their time whatever they desire. While some use this agency to get as far as they can from Gindalia, only to be snapped back into service upon the day’s expiration… Most use their time to reconnect with their families. Some families are visited by indebted spirits from generations long past. On this day, and on this day only, the indebted can collect Arrear Tithes from family, friends, and descendents to help pay down their balances and shorten their terms of service. It’s a day of joyous grief. Visitors who sojourn to Gindalia during the jubilee are often taken aback or horrified by the casual relationship with the dead that many in the city have.

Pneumatilurgic Forge (Location)

Positioned near the Gyre, the Pneumatilurgic Forge is where Isolvents work day and night smelting pneumatite alloy ingots and pressing them into Debtguard armor molds. It’s a place of raging heat as pneumatite has a much higher melting point than iron or steel. The smoke that results is highly toxic and quickly kills any living creature that comes into contact with it. The insolvent laborers, constructed from mispoured armor cast-offs, do the dirty work of creating new armor, further entrenching the city’s status quo in an eternal cycle of debt and repayment. Living laborers used to do this dangerous work, in the early days of Gindalia, but so many of them died that it led to the city’s first uprising, known as the Three Days of Gold Tears.

The Lush Descent

Hedonistic Hotspot: A popular place to unwind after a hard day’s work… for those that want to lose themselves for a week diving into their basest pleasures and hidden desires.

Customers Served Daily: [Redacted]

This long and curvaceous stairway is somewhat of an anomaly in Gindalia. This is a place where class holds no sway and a purse only goes as far as the imagination of that who carries it. A place of art and music and pleasure. While coin is still king the true power sits with the queen, pleasure. Artists, sex workers, and musicians have carved out a life of freedom and fulfillment here. Folks from all walks of life ascend or descend this grand, spiraling staircase in hopes of finding sensations, the likes of which exist nowhere else in the realm. So come take a journey of pleasure beyond compare. Of pain beyond comprehension. An ecstatic exploration beyond the limits of rhapsody.

The Veiled Gaze (Location)

Housed in one of Gindalia’s first pneumatite mineshafts, now decommissioned, is a perpetual dance party. No matter the hour of the day patrons will find this naturally occurring cavern filled with pulsing music, undulating bodies, and the smell of old sweat. There is no charge for entering, but leaving can prove difficult. The lack of any natural lighting makes it hard to tell time underground and folk often lose themselves for a day or two, enchanted by the music and lost in a labyrinth of pulsing debauchery. The rich and poor alike rub shoulders in this cavern of abandon. It’s one of the few egalitarian businesses in the city.

Ferrous Giant (Location)

Atop the falls are a series of massive, tiered hot spring pools and the source of the sanguine waters. Splayed over the springs are the bones of a colossal humanoid, pierced through with a spear three stories tall. The bones are solid iron, and the rust mingling with the spring water creates the flowing “blood” that is seen from below. This is the only colossus in the area that does not have a metal outer shell, leading some to speculate what is actually underneath the frozen colossi in the wastes.

Palace of Enterprise (Location)

A palatial structure with no known owner whose interior changes and warps to suit the most secret, debaucherous, and violent desires of the elite. Rumors swirl about this place… whispers that some who enter do not leave. Some say they’ve seen bones littering the grounds around it. Despite any ugly gossip, it’s still a favorite location to host grand soirees and clandestine meetings. The Palace of Enterprise is well known but rarely accessible but for the privileged few. Some say the Palace is alive, but they’re often laughed out of polite company.

Unwelcome Guests Clock

An action roll’s consequence can always be a mark against the clock.

8 - Unregistered intruders are detected.

7 - Registered guest rooms are sealed.

6 - Entrances, exits, passages, and hallways are shuffled.

5 - Passageways narrow making traversal difficult.

4 - The trappings of opulence bleed away, revealing fleshy walls underneath.

3 - Digestive fluid floods the halls.

2 - Bone spears plunge through the fleshy walls, piercing intruders.

1 - Tooth-filled maws in the walls and floors swallow any remaining intruders.

0 - Intruders are digested.

Power of Pleasure (Feature)

The Lush Descent holds a fascinating grip on the people of this city. It’s as if everyone acknowledges that while coin makes the realm go round… The axis on which it spins is pleasure, play, and fun. Impossible to separate one from the other. For in Gindalia hedonism serves a dual purpose. For the wealthy, who have it all, it’s one of the few sources of exploration and novelty. For the poor, it’s bread and circuses, a means of release… and control. The Magnates understand that cutting the poor off from pleasures and distractions makes them grow angry. Then they organize. Then the whole thing falls apart.

The Goldband

Working Rich: The fierce competition and high rate of failure sees the business owners of this city working harder than most… should they want to keep their station.

Crab Bucket: If anyone starts to rise too fast and far, the rest of the Mercantalia will conspire to ruin them. No one rises, but plenty fall. As cutthroat as the Magnates designed it to be.

Making up a substantial portion of the central cliff face is the district known as The Goldband. Here the Mercentalia capitalize and innovate in order to rise above their station. It’s a place of fierce competition and hard work. Even those who would be wealthy anywhere else in the realm are beholden to their businesses and are caught up in the endless grind of achieving ever-increasing profitability.

The Counting House (Location)

A fine inn by any city’s standards, this retreat wouldn’t rate among the most luxurious domiciles in Gindalia. It’s a new establishment, and there’s still some construction going on as the owner is renovating his recently purchased gambling house next door. Currently, the dealers and games have been moved into the tavern, crowding it and cutting down on the available space. Horton insists that once the renovations are done this place will have the dead skipping the Jubilee to come gamble here instead.

Horton Grippe, Owner of The Counting House [Ridgeborne Galapa, he/they]

Difficulty: 18

Churlish, Hardworking, Scorned

Experience: Bureaucracy +1, Intimidation +1, Shrewd Negotiator +1, Temptation +1

Look: A heavy-set galapa who, in a citythat wholly embraces form, entirely embodies function. They’re unafraid of an apron stain or other indicators of hard work.

Motive: He’d see The Counting House become the premier inn and gambling house in the Goldband, but his rivals at the Hucked Bones and the Platinum Paten have been sabotaging his renovations.

Broker’s Row (Market)

One of the most famous merchant promenades in the realm. While the stores in Jewel Alley boast some of the most exquisite shopping, Broker’s Row is for the more practical consumer. Highly organized, and laid out in a tiered grid where all merchants of a certain type are clustered together. This has led to some customer windfalls when merchants begin competitive price drops. But price gouging and fixing in times of tragedy and hardship is just as common. Poorer locals prefer to wait until they hear whispers of cascading price drops before they do any shopping, sometimes waiting years to replace worn-out equipment or clothing.

Yorb Gameer, Owner of Yorb Logistics [Wanderborne Ribbet, she/her]

Difficulty: 17

Sly, tenacious, covetous

Experience: Animal Handling +1, Quartermaster +2, Shrewd Negotiator +3

Look: A new money ribbet, who’s dressed as if she’s trying a bit too hard to fit in with the old money crowd.

Motive: Driven by insecurity and a covetous nature, she wants to amass so much wealth with her shipping company that she’ll be accepted into the Magnates.

Unshackled Debt (Threat)

This place of business is often one of the unfinished. Merchants will spend their whole lives pushing to accrue more wealth, sacrificing their families, livelihoods, and souls in the process. Some become vaultgeists; hollow, angry shells that consume vast hordes of wealth in their grief. This city, obviously, is no stranger to or is afraid of the dead. Vaultgeists are disturbingly frequent here, as many of the Mercantalia tie their entire self-worth to their wealth. In death, they follow the same path. Unshackled misers are common here. Angry spirits so bound to their wealth that the pull of pneumatite can’t even drag them away from it, resulting in vaultgeists… or worse.

Platinum Point Vistas

2%: The percent of the population that resides in this district.

90%: The amount of the city’s wealth that the 2% of the population controls and hoards.

If the Coin Halls are where the ultra rich go to play and… work… presumably… Platinum Point Vistas is where they return to their palatial homes to lay their heads down on pillows filled with rare bird feathers, nestled into their ornate canopy beds. The top of the cliff, literally. It’s gated, obviously, and is as secure as some of the most well-guarded banks in the city. After all, they can’t have just anyone getting in. The Magnates all reside here, concentrating almost all of the power in the city into the top of the cliff. As always, this is by design.

Gilded Enclave (Location)

Guarded day and night by the Debtguard, this is the closest thing to a government building that Gindalia has. This stronghold is often where the most influential Magnates gather to discuss policy in a formalized setting before they disseminate to various parties, balls, and secret vaults where the wheeling, dealing, bribes, and even assassinations dictate how policy will be decided in Gindalia. Positioned on an outcropping that can be seen from below, it’s a constant reminder of what most wish they could achieve but likely never will.

Regimar Poss, Entrenched Magnate [Highborne Orc, he/him]

Difficulty: 15

Calculating, authoritarian, exploitative

Experience: Aristocrat +5, Religion + 2, Bureaucracy +4, Nobility +10, Veiled Threats +2

Look: Accentuates his albinism with a combination of exquisite makeup and gleaming facial tattoos inked with precious metals. His clothing boasts unassailable silhouettes and design, tailored to his broad form. He’s as striking as he is influential.

Motive: Maintaining the status quo. The top down arrangement of this city works for Gindalia. Or at least for him. Either way, he has no interest in change or upheaval and delegates effectively to keep it that way.

Camila Coruska, Leveraged Magnate [Slyborne Firbolg, she/her]

Difficulty: 16

Paranoid, miserly, bullying

Experience: Deception +3, Shrewd Negotiator +7, Spy +2

Look: Always a season behind the latest Gindalia fashion in looks that would kill anywhere else. Always one or two hairs out of place in an otherwise immaculate stylings.

Motive: Keep her place. She’s one of the few members of the Mercantalia who has risen to be among the Magnates. But it was the Radiant Obligation that got her there, and she knows full well the weight of that particular debt.

Restricted Access (Feature)

Those not among the Magnate class will find their entrance to this district barred by the elite Debtguard who serve as its watchmen. Laborers who work here r must undergo an extensive screening process, looking at their financials, personal ties, and political leanings. Solicitors are unheard of. It’s rumored that someone in the Goldband is selling forged passes. No one has yet discovered their identity.

Austentatious Opulence (Feature)

Something about extreme wealth rots the brain, especially when it comes to decor. It’s uncanny how quickly taste goes out the window in favor of gaudy and garish displays of prosperity. It’s as if each family is trying to outdo their neighbors. Statues, fountains, gates and hedgework surround homes plated in solid gold or encrusted with fine gems. It’s competitive maximalism and excessively wasteful. Those who have visited Platinum Point vistas joke that if the rest of the city ever saw those hideous houses, the Magnates would lose all credibility and be laughed out of the city.

Kaligrasto’flymmar’duk (Kaligra), Dithering Philanthropist [Highborne Dragon, she/her]

Difficulty: 20

Generous, indecisive, fabulous

Experience: Aerial Predator +2, Ancient History +2, Magical Knowledge +2, Spy +2, Wisdom of Centuries +3

Look (Dragon): A serpentine, wingless dragon with scales graduating from mother of pearl to a burnished gold. Every subtle shift or movement sheds coins that were trapped beneath her scales.

Look (Katari): When moving about the city she often dons the disguise of a gold-furred katari bearing the markings and ear tufts of a caracal cat.

Motive: Accumulation and redistribution. There is nothing that Kaligra loves more than the accumulation of wealth… other than redistributing it to those who need it. But she suffers from choice paralysis and cannot often decide who to help. So she helps no one.

Silvercrown Estates

Misleading Nomenclature: Sure, Silvercrown Estates sounds like a great place to live… It’s not.

Dreams of Delusion: Most who live here have bought into the twisted philosophies of Gindalia, believing themselves to be temporarily embarrassed members of the plutocracy instead of simply poor and easily exploited.

The base of the cliff and the foundation that keeps it standing. The name “Silvercrown Estates” is a clever piece of propaganda making a district that is packed with company housing, rife with crime, and with very few of the amenities the rest of the city enjoys. This is the neighborhood of the exploited. Of the labor class. Still, it’s not a place devoid of joy. The folk living under this authoritarian capitalist regime still create art, sing songs, and raise children. Their lives are ones of toil and hardship and many buy into the illusion that they could one day be among those at the top of the cliff. As many of their jobs are disappearing, and being handed over to the insolvent, more and more folks are getting desperate. Some turn to crime. But it’s here that a burgeoning labor movement threatens to upend the delicate social order the Magnates have so carefully constructed.

Pneumatite Mines (Location)

Once a bustling mine, where laborers could be seen entering and exiting at all hours of the day, now folks never see a living soul enter or exit. After a series of accidents, the Magnates have cut back on the number of laborers working in the mines, slashing their hours and laying off hundreds of folks only to be replaced by insolvent workers. Today, the mines are almost entirely devoid of living workers. While this is cited for safety reasons, the truth is that the Magnates no longer saw any reason to pay the living when the dead already owe a debt. Recently it’s been more and more common to see protests outside the mine. The picketers wave signs and sing songs about the power of living labor.

Company Housing (Feature)

The labor class of Gindalia resides in a state of perpetual precariousness. No one who lives in Silvercrown Estates owns their house. They are all leased to the worker as part of their job. Depending on what kind of job that is, that could mean anything from a comfortable single family home to an overstuffed dormitory. Because the laborers live under the threat of homelessness should they lose their job, they are often obedient and efficient workers. But the stress takes a toll, leaving most in poor health and with shorter lives. A business shuttering almost always leads to a cascading series of predatory loans, failed repayments, and an ocean of debt. Working exactly as the Magnates intended, this is how the Debtguard maintains such robust numbers.

Burgeoning Solidarity (Feature)

The people have had enough. There is a growing undercurrent of rage spreading through the Essentialia like wildfire. And it’s different than just the typical dissatisfied grumbling. People are waking up to the fact that it doesn’t have to be this way. This is a city of immense wealth and somehow it all ended up at the top, with the people who do the least. In secret places, hidden from the gaze of the Magnates and the cold grip of the Debtguard, meetings are taking place. The tavern workers compare pay stubs beneath Viridian Field’s Pub. The tailors and textile laborers discuss worker safety in the back room of the Trench Goat Tavern. The former miners, and their now adult children, discuss plans to seize the means of production. Unions are forming. Solidarity is growing. And the Magnates are oblivious. The Magnates have unintentionally set the kindling, and built the bonfire, of their own demise. All it needs is a powerful spark to ignite into a conflagration that will burn this system to the ground. Even ash is better than this.

Factions

Radiant Obligation

Infinite Growth: There is no peak high enough or sea deep enough that the Radiant Obligation would not have designs of exploiting it in some way.

Versatile Leverage: Money isn’t the only way to control someone, especially those who don’t need to worry about it. Reputation, scandal, blackmail, and forgery are all common tools in their kit.

A villainous organization with designs on soft domination of the entire mortal realm, through controlling the ebb and flow of currency. Their temples are banks. Their gospel is coin. Their priests… they’re accountants. They idolatrize and extoll those born into or who have achieved wealth while scorning and ignoring the struggles of those that have not. They spread throughout the realm like a malignant, capitalistic tumor by way of their Arkvaults. Some believe them to have founded Gindalia, though the Radiant Obligation would take no such credit, preferring their names to be left out of historical records. Numerous Magnates in the city fall among their ranks, and many more are pressed under the thumb of obligation, usually a scandalous debt weightier than gold. They prefer to exploit the debt of the living, rather than the dead, largely eschewing the service of the Debtguard unless absolutely necessary.

Entangled Arkvaults (Technology)

Boasting a security force that rivals that of the most powerful monarchs in the realm, and an arcane trap-laden approach to a locking mechanism designed by the greatest minds at Brightmark University. No one has ever robbed an Arkvault successfully. While some have made it inside, surviving the escape has, so far, proven impossible. Most of the realm’s wealth flows in and out of this bank and its subsidies, all of which are magically entangled and share the same enormous vault in an undisclosed location. The local branch is competitively placed in Jewel Alley among the Coinhalls. Should the Radiant Obligation need something to disappear it’s as easy as moving it through an Arkvault to another part of the realm.

Capital Control (Threat)

The Radiant Obligation prefers soft power and veiled threats over overt shows of violence and force. If you can pay someone to look the other way once, it’s a sure bet it can be done a second time. They understand that dominance requires patience, time, and investment. What most see as the long game is the short game for them. Where most are concerned with their day to day survival, they’re, reading the flow of the markets and making moves that will impact generations to come. But most folks will never realize the true source of their problems or misery. Bribes, blackmail, fabricated scandals, and forged claims of lineage or ownership are the bread and butter of the Radiant Obligation. Why get their hands dirty when just a few coins keeps those white gloves clean?

Boundless Coffers (Feature)

The Radiant Obligation has wormed its way into most major metropolises, and even some smaller but economically viable locations. Once they sign a new customer, they immediately begin using that money to grow their own coffers. Imagine this being done by Actuarians in every city across the realm to multiple wealthy clients. Through investment portfolios, real purchases, and hostile acquisitions they are in a constant state of growth. The Radiant Obligation requires its Actuarians to bring in increasing profit margins every quarter, lest they quickly lose station within the organization.

Principles

The Radiant Obligation is not a consortium with a strong moral foundation, but it is a place of conviction and staunchly held beliefs. Even if those beliefs lead to a near universal disdain towards those they see as lesser than them. And those lesser merely exist to be exploited.

• A life without expansion, growth, and prosperity is not a life worth living.
• Everyone has a price. Everyone.
• Those beneath you are merely rungs on the ladder to your own greatness. Do not hesitate to step on them.

NPCs

Fortinbras Le’Quain Relkist III, Grand Actuary of the Radiant Obligation [ Highborne Human , he/him]

Difficulty: 16

Calculating, Avaricious, Authoritarian

Experience: Aristocrat +3, Bureaucracy +3, Commander +2, Nobility +3, Shrewd Negotiator +2

Look: A rail thin man dressed like a cross between a high priest and a bank executive whose gaunt features betray expensive magical anti-aging treatments.

Motive: He seeks control of the realm’s purse strings so that he continues his agenda of “effective altruism” which is just him controlling where and what is funded, supported, and who holds power.

Oskar Zahk, Wary Ecclesiarch [ Loreborne **** Katari , he/they]

Difficulty: 14

paranoid, brilliant, volatile

Experience: Magical Knowledge +3, Bloodhound +2

Look: Eccentric scholar chic. It’s clear he has great wealth so he chooses to look that way. Too many straps and buckles for books and scrolls.

Motive: Progress has stagnated. Innovation has died. We have failed as an age. Gods. Mortals. All of it. Starting over from scratch is the only way to make things right again.

Nama Ho’o, High Vaultmaster [ Highborne **** Giant , she/they]

Difficulty: 18

stubborn, imposing, effective

Experience: Ambusher +2, Forbidden Knowledge +1, Military Scholar +2

Look: Conservatively lavish, favoring practically valuable items over gaudy opulence.

Motive: Forever tuning and improving the defenses of the Arkvault, she’ll never be satisfied.

Jun Yoo, Radiant Mouthpiece [ Highborne **** Faerie , he/they]

Difficulty: 17

Duplicitous, charming, haughty

Experience: Aristocrat +3, Nobility +2, Spy +2, Socialite +2, Veiled Threats +1

Look: Effervescent and effortlessly fashionable. Not one hair out of place, nor a stray thread.

Motive: Overseeing their network of blackmail, bribes, and political dominance to ensure their power never wavers.

Story Hooks

A regional Arkvault has gone dark, untangling itself from the central bank. They need to know why and how.

One of the Magnates the Radiant Obligation has leverage over has begun speaking out of turn and they need them silenced. Permanently.

A state Actuarian’s audit has determined that a recently deceased member of the Radiant Obligation will serve out their arrears as a Debtguard. Jek needs someone tofree the soul from its weighty dues.

The Bankskimmer Union

Banks Robbed: Said to be hundreds but actually ten. But they do nothing to dissuade the rumors. It’s great street cred.

Just Stumbled Into It: They, like most folks here, are motivated by gold. At least they were. They had no intention of becoming labor heroes… but here they are.

When a group of out of work friends and colleagues realized their particular set of skills would be a quite useful combination when it comes to robbing banks, they did just that. Starting small, at one of the lenders in the Goldband, they quickly moved up to the Coin Halls and gained a reputation as compassionate criminals. They rarely took lives unless they were forced to, and were generally convivial with any hostages. When escaping, they became known for using portions of the gold they stole to help throw off the Debtguard by dumping bags into the streets of Silvercrown Estates and slipping away through the crowds. They had no intention of becoming the nexus of communication and resources that is bankrolling the various burgeoning unions. What started as a group of friends trying to make a purse for themselves has become a tight-knit union working to better the lives of everyone in Gindalia. Even if it means burning the whole system to the ground.

Crack Team (Feature)

While their fingers and influence reach throughout the Essentalia, their membership consists of only five people. Exra and Pallas Finn are the masterminds behind the group and have been married a long time. Crem Golsimer is a former Magnate who fell into disgrace after they tried to make some labor-favoring public policy changes. Tula Garr is the prodigal daughter of one of the most influential merchants in the Goldband and a brilliant arcanotechologist. Nolo Finn is the great, great, grandfather of Exra and one of the few Debtguard that has managed to unburden himself of his debt. Unlike most, instead of moving on, he purchased his armor and stuck around in hopes of ending this barbaric practice. They are small but mighty, and any touched by their efforts are immensely grateful. A local bard wrote a song called “Bankskimmer’s Cut” that’s sung on picket lines and wildly popular in taverns throughout Silvercrown Estates.

Multiple Hideouts (Locations)

The advantage of only having five members is it’s easy to stay mobile. They have hideouts peppered throughout the Silvercrown Estates, along with hidden caches of equipment and supplies, and friendly faces that are willing to overlook things they shouldn’t see, or to open the right door at the right time. They don’t enjoy as much influence in the Goldband but the owner of the Counting House has let them stash tools and supplies among the renovations of their gambling hall. The Coin Halls have a single point of safety for them, inside a gallery on Jewel Alley owned by Crem’s cousin. These hideouts are little more than back rooms or tiny apartments. They aren’t elaborate or trap filled fortresses. Decentralization and ease of movement has been the key to their success and they have no intention of changing things.

Galvanizing Force (Feature)

With every success their power and influence grows, but so does the morale and spine of every laborer in the city. Being born into an exploitative and unjust system can make it hard to see what better life could lie outside of it. It’s not the fault of the oppressed that the systems that they prop up keep them down by design. When the people see someone standing up to the broken system and creating change, it empowers them to do it themselves. The Bankskimmer Union has become a mote of hope for those without… that things can be better.

Principles

The Bankskimmers union holds no formal code of conduct or ethics. They simply operate under the simple assumption that everyone who is wealthy is that way because they have exploited someone else. Thus, relieving them of their wealth is simply balancing the scales.

• Only take from those with too much and take as much as possible when doing so.
• Give the people their cut. It’s already their money to begin with anyway.
• Power belongs to the people, not the coin. But coin still feeds people.

NPCs

Exra Finn, The Organizer [ Slyborne **** Simiah , she/her]

Difficulty: 18

sneaky, driven, inexorable

Experience: Ambusher +2, Commander +2

Look: Similar to a Vervet monkey, with gray and white hair covering her body. Draped in loose fitting clothing, giving her a full range of movement with a dagger hidden in every fold.

Motive: Redistributing wealth from the rich to herself. If there’s time they can get to everyone else.

Pallas Finn, The Alchemist [ Slyborne **** Drakona , she/her]

Difficulty: 16

Unpredictable, volatile, loyal to a fault

Experience: Alchemist +2, Forbidden Knowledge +1, Intrusion +3

Look: A stout, violet scaled drakona wrapped in voluminous robes containing a seemingly endless supply of alchemical bits and bobs. Always smells of smoke and sulfur. Singe marks on the edges of her robes and a couple of missing fingers suggest somewhat unpredictable working conditions.

Motive: Break the class system that is holding everyone down and keeping Exra focused on the bigger picture.

Crem Golsimer, The Face [ Highborne **** Orc , they/them]

Difficulty: 17

sly, comforting, stoic

Experience: Aristocrat +1, Nobility +1, Intimidation +1

Look: An older silver tongued orc (literally) dressed in fineries that suggest a few stations above “petty criminal” —pretty criminal is closer to the mark.

Motive: A quiet life. But also revenge on Regimar Poss, the Magnate who destroyed their life.

Tula Garr, The Tech-Wiz [ Slyborne **** Halfling , she/her]

Difficulty: 15

brilliant, nimble, tenacious

Experience: Alchemist +2, Feigned Competence +2

Look: A teenage halfling, alchemical prodigy, saddled with a strange metallic rig that looks like it contains a multitude of attached tools.

Motive: Learn as much as she can from Pallas in order to build a better tomorrow. Even if that build results in some explosions today.

Nolo Finn, The Muscle [Unshackled Debtguard , he/him]

Difficulty: 19

gullible, fearsome, undeterred

Experience: Huge +4

Look: The hollow armor of a Debtguard, painted over with flowers, dragons, and a few too many dead tax men. He humors the children in Silvercrown Estate, letting them paint him regularly.

Motive: Free the Debtguard. He knows firsthand what it means to be bound into service after death. He wants that practice to end.

Story Hooks

The Union is planning a heist of the Arkvault, and looking for reliable help to fill the gaps in their team.

The Magnates have gotten wind of the Tavern Workers union’s meeting location and have sent the Debtguard to round them up. The Bankskimmers would see them protected.

Tula thinks she can reverse the flow of the Pneumatite Gyre, but needs some assistance testing her newest invention: the Deblifter.

Resources

	MOMENTS OF HOPE		MOMENTS OF FEAR
1	An aristocrat empties his coin purse on the street, attracting a crowd.	1	A passing merchant kicks a beggar. No one bats an eye.
2	A Debtguard knocks on the door of their family home, eager for a reunion.	2	The hard clink and heavy footfalls of Debtguard armors approaching.
3	A home cooked meal, surrounded by friends.	3	A family is forced out of company housing and onto the streets.
4	An unexpected, and rather large, Writ of Inheritance is delivered.	4	The Debtguard round up protestors, carting them off to prison.
5	The clinking of Debtguard armor falling to the ground, empty. Its occupant freed of obligation.	5	A Magnate sends down a tithing decree, forcing the already impoverished to scramble for any extra coin.
6	A robust wine of exquisite and rare vintage.	6	A lockdown automaton swivels its head ominously.
7	A stylish fur-lined coat that feels perfectly tailored.	7	A blaring alarm sounds as shadowy figures flee from a bank.
8	A merchant offers an excellent deal on scrolls and potions.	8	A man close to death tries in desperation to unload some of his debt.
9	The cliff glitters in the morning sun, glinting off all the precious metals that cut through the sheer face.	9	The staff of a tavern was just replaced by insolvent workers.
10	Songs of solidarity from protesters outside the mines.	10	A state Actuarian performing door-to-door, pre-death audits.
11	Children playing stickball in the streets offer an invitation to join.	11	An unhoused family is swept off the street by the Debtguard.
12	Bottle service at a swanky lounge, poured by an exquisitely beautiful server.	12	The acrid scent of the toxic fumes spewed out of the Pneumatilurgic Forge.

Rumours

A vaultgeist has overtaken one of the personal vaults of the wealthiest Magnate in the city.

A burgeoning union among tavern laborers is forming, but the Magnates would see it quashed.

As whispers of war drift in from a neighboring nation, one of the Magnate’s has been offering reduced arrears if citizens will join the Debtguard today. The poorest of Gindalia have been offering their lives too early in hopes of a shorter term of service.

A lockdown automaton has malfunctioned and trapped a bank full of customers and employees inside.

A member of the Mercentalia has petitioned for entry into the Magnate class, and must unload some incriminating debt before Actuarians discover it.

Equipment

Pneumetic Spear - Agility Melee - d10+6 (phy) - Two-Handed

Feature: Soulshear (For 24 hours after a person is killed with this spear, spend Hope to add an additional 1d10 magic damage to attacks)

Primary Weapon

Miser’s Bulwark - Finesse Melee - d4+4 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Avaricious Hunger (You may feed the shield up to 5 handfuls of gold per long rest. When you do, add +1 to your armor score for each you add until your next long rest.)

Secondary Weapon

Magnate’s Tunic - Base Score: Variable

Feature: Liquidity Bastion (Your base armor score is equal to the handfuls of gold you are currently carrying. This armor cannot be repaired.)

Armor

Items

Savings Pouch. A magically entangled set that includes a coin pouch and a gilded chest. When coins are deposited into the pouch they are instantly transferred to the chest, so long as the two objects share the same plane of existence. This effect is one way only and coins can only be recovered directly from the chest.

Fast Fashion. Enchanted threads woven through these garments allow the user to shift the color, structure, and silhouette of whatever they’re wearing on a whim. However, when removed the garments instantly revert to their original form.

Silver Tongue. A hollow metal tongue with attached molar bands. When worn over one’s own tongue they are granted the advantage on Presence checks to persuade or deceive.

Consumables

Propagator Coin. When this seemingly unremarkable coin is thrown at an object or creature it doubles itself, then both doubles again, and again, and again… This continues until a ten foot cube is filled with coins. Once thrown, the propagator coin and all resulting duplicates disappear after 1 hour.

Promissory Note. A devious enchantment created by the mortal realm’s greatest con artist. The holder can walk into any bank and hand this ensorcelled piece of parchment to a teller who will relinquish the contents of one random safety deposit box. Feel free to make up your own or use the following table of safety deposit boxes:

• 1-2: A box containing birthright papers and detailed lineage reports of what appears to be an illegitimate goblin royal heir.
• 3-4: An old thief’s forgotten stash containing detailed plans to crack the Arkvault.
• 5-6: A cursed necklace that emanates power and refuses to let go of the wearer.
• 7-8: A powerful magic weapon whose previous owner still seeks control of it.
• 9-10: A deed to a local manor that has lain empty for years and is presumed haunted.
• 11-12: A mysterious egg.
• 13-14: An invitation to an exclusive party at the Palace of Enterprise, addressed directly to the adventurers.
• 15-16: A dangerous prophecy that, once read, marks the party for death at the hands of a mysterious cult.
• 17-18: A forbidden scroll of magic contains a spell outlawed long ago.
• 19-20: A box of gold and gems worth 1 chest of gold.

Showstopper Elixir. Whoever drinks it will feel no direct effects, but to everyone around them, they will suddenly be stunning, terrifying, or awe inducing. Used most commonly by those who wish to make an entrance. Within one hour of drinking this potion, you can choose to make a Presence Roll at advantage against a close target whose attention you want to capture. On a success, you do it, narrowing their field of view and drowning out any sound but your voice.

Adversaries

Debtguard

Description: A soul fused to armor to continue service beyond death.

Motives & Tactics: Crush, Extract, Put their Might on Display

Tier: 3

Type: Standard

Difficulty: 15

Attack Modifier: +4

Warhammer: Melee | 3d8 phy

Major 12 | Severe 30

HP: 5

Stress: 4

Experience

Intimidation +1

Unveiled Threats + 1

Veiled Threats +2

Features

Magnetic Accounting - Reaction

When the Debtguard deals HP damage it may mark a Stress to cause the target to lose 1 handful of gold per HP dealt. The gold adheres to the head of the warhammer, increasing its damage by 1d8 for every 2 handful stuck to it.

Leverage Assets - Action

Mark a Stress to detonate the head of the warhammer, sending gold flying like shrapnel. For every handful of gold adhered to it, deal 1d8 damage to all targets within Close range. Targets may make an Agility Reaction Roll (15) to take half damage.

Lockdown Automaton

Description: Massive statues placed in precious metals, designed to prevent theft.

Motives & Tactics: Slow, Apprehend, Decimate

Tier: 3

Type: Bruiser

Difficulty: 17

Attack Modifier: +4

Massive Sword: Very Close | 4d10 phy

Major 22 | Severe 45

**HP:**7

**Stress:**5

Experience:

I See You +3

Features

Heavy Pockets - Action

Spend a Fear to weigh down their opponents by using their wealth against them. Choose a target within close range, for every bag of gold they are holding temporarily reduce their Agility score by 1. This condition ends when they reach Very Far range from the Lockdown Automaton or they drop all their gold.

Golden Arc - Action

+2 Attack Modifier

Mark Stress to make a Massive Sword attack against all enemies within close range. Any targets hit suffer 4d10 phy damage.

Conductive Metal - Reaction

When attacked with magic damage, mark 1 Stress to add 2d8 magic damage to Lockdown Automaton’s next attack.

Vaultgeist

Description: The covetous ghost of a rich person bound to their hoard.

Motives & Tactics: Decimate, Spread, Regenerate

Tier: 3

Type: Solo

Difficulty: 18

Attack Modifier: +6

Coin Spray: Far | 3d10+8 phy

Major 25 | Severe 50

HP: 6

Stress: 6

Experience:

Intimidation +1

Unveiled Threats + 1

Veiled Threats +2

Features

Loose Gold - Passive

During this encounter there may be preexisting piles of Loose Gold or ones created by the vaultgeist. Assign an HP value to these equal to the amount of handfuls of gold they are comprised of. The vaultgeist can absorb up to 5 HP beyond its maximum.

Hostile Acquisition - Action

Mark Stress to suck in the wealth around this adversary to heal it. All PCs within close range holding gold must make reaction roll with Strength (16) to hold onto their money. Failure results in the loss of up to 1 handful of gold. The vaultgeist heals 1 HP for every handful of gold stolen in this way. Vaultgeist also absorbs other gold as per the Loose Gold feature, gaining HP equivalent to its value.

Fiscal Irresponsibility - Action

+6 Attack Modifier

Spend 2 HP to shift this adversary’s form into a heavy orb of gold coins, making an attack roll to smash down on a target within very close range. On a success, deal 4d10+8 phy damage. This creates a pile of Loose Gold worth 1 handful on top of the target.

Covetous Howl - Action

Mark a Stress to emit a howl that causes all gold within close range to vibrate violently until the Vaultgeist is defeated. Each creature within range that has gold can take 1 damage for each handful they’re holding, or choose to cut their coin purses loose, creating a pile of Loose Gold at their feet (that the Vaultgeist can use for HP).

Miserly End - Reaction

Upon its death, the vast treasure hoard comprising the vaultgeist tarnishes to worthless tin, but any gold stolen during the encounter is available to take.

Environments

Radiant Obligation Bank

Description: Stronghold-temple of the worst among Gindlia’s plutocrats, a testament to cancerous greed.

Tone & Feel: Opulent but heartless, tidy yet soul-stained.

Tier: 3

Type: Exploration

Difficulty: 18

Potential Adversaries:

Debtguard, Lockdown Automaton, Vaultgeist, Banskimmer’s Union Thieves

Features

Temple of Greed - Passive

Access to any part of an Arkvault is tightly-controlled. Access is allowed only by specific invitation or through presenting yourself with impressive deception via forgery, lush garments, and more. (Presence 17). PCs that gain entry may get a tour of the Arkvault’s facilities and security features, but access to the vaults themselves are another matter.

Who can you trick or bribe into inviting you to visit? What persona do you adopt to bluff your way inside?

Undying Vigilance - Reaction

Any character noticed where they shouldn’t be is intercepted by 1d4 Debtguard who will take them back to ‘acceptable’ areas if they appear like they belong or arrest them if they don’t. If the PCs slip past the Debtguard, activate a Lockdown Automaton to intercept them at any major entrance or exit.

Who are these debtguard? What pointless ornamentation was actually a magical sensor?

Arkvault - Passive

Breaking into an Arkvault requires a Progress Countdown (8) to successfully align the entangling co-location runes. Characters with the unique vault key (held by the Bank Manager) may tick the clock down twice for free.

What does the vault door look like? Which of the entangled vaults are the PCs trying to access and how can you tell them apart?

Another One for the Hoard - Action

Spend a Fear to reveal that this vault has been possessed by a Vaultgeist, jealously guarding their hoard.

Who was this Vaultgeist in life? What remnants of their memory and personality remain, not yet consumed by avarice?

Pneumanite Mine

Description: A tightly-controlled mine, worked almost entirely populated by the insolvent dead.

Tone & Feel: Rich yet hollow, the boiling-over rage of the living

Tier: 3

Type: Traversal

Difficulty: 16

Potential Adversaries:

Debtguard, Stonewraith, Acid Burrower, Katari Burglar

Features

Do Not Cross - Passive

Protestors form a picket line outside the mine, decrying the exploitation of the dead and demanding a chance to earn a literal and figurative living.

Can they provide cover for your entrance? Do you join them and incite a riot?

The Dead Don’t Need to Breathe - Reaction

The tunnels and shafts of the mine are not safe for the living. When characters travel below the surface level, activate a Countdown (Loop 4) that ticks down any time a character rolls with Fear. When triggered, each character must mark Stress from smoke and fumes.

Tunnels & Shafts

The stairs and tunnels are barely safe enough for the debtguard, let alone the living. Moving up or down a level or navigating to a particular part of the mine requires an action roll (suggested: Finesse for moving safely through an unstable tunnel, Agility for climbing/descending, Instinct for navigation).

Cave-In - Action

Spend a Fear to trigger a cave-in caused by lax safety standards and rapacious mining. All characters within a Far distance must make an Agility Reaction Roll (16) or be pummeled by rocks, taking 2d8+20 phy damage and marking 2 Stress (half damage and 1 Stress on a success). Digging out or through a collapsed tunnel requires a Progress Countdown (8).

Madame Ulia’s Auction House

Description: Renowned for exquisite art, curios, and artifacts. Whispers of illegal procurement tactics are brushed under the rug.

Tone & Feel: Eclectic and covetous, refined yet excessive.

Tier: 3

Type: Social

Difficulty: 17

Potential Adversaries:

Bladed Guards, Merchant Baron, Monarch, Spy, Courtesan

Features

Unparalleled Selection - Passive

Madame Ulia’s offers the greatest treasures you’ve ever seen. Roll 5d12+12 on the loot tables (p.XX) three times to select the marquee items for the day (on a 61+, create a legendary item or enhance an item between 51-60). Anything below 20 on the Item and Consumable lists are also available.

Who is selling the items and what villainy was required to acquire them? Who else wants these items?

What Am I Bid? - Passive

During the auctions, PCs may bid on any item. They make a Presence roll (17) to see how well they handle the auction. On a success with Fear, it costs more than they’d imagined. On any failure, they have to bid more than they have or let someone else win.

Cut a Deal - Passive

Characters can attempt to convince other interested parties to not bid by promising favors, making other trades, coercion, or other methods. On any failure in those attempts, Madame Ulia’s people may ask to have a word with them about interfering in house business. Summon 1d6 Tier 3 Bladed Guards to ‘escort’ them to the auction manager’s office.

Information is the Greatest Treasure - Action

Reveal a Spy or other agent of an adversary in the scene, eavesdropping on the party. The PC with the highest Instinct or best chance to notice the Spy makes an Instinct Reaction Roll (17) to notice the observer. If they fail, they can mark Stress to know that they’re being observed but not where the observer is.

Who do they work for? Were they here for you, or was this a happy coincidence?

Solsunk Sea

Designed by Carlos Cisco

Aquatic, Ancient, & Strange

Tier 3

A vast expanse of open water where ancient secrets lie in wait in the fathomless depths.

Distinctions

Hundreds of miles of open sea, dotted with the occasional island, atoll, or even rarer settlement, where the bizarre is commonplace. Covering much of the seafloor are pieces of an immense and shattered city that, if local legend is to be believed, sunk beneath the waves when they called an ancient sun down upon themselves. Navigation here is challenging as the firmament never seems as firm as it does over other oceans.

Fathomless Seas

Foolish is the sailor who does not respect the sea. Calm waters can turn dangerous in moments and the currents can shift unfavorably at the most inopportune times. Most of the water here is so deep that drowned bodies and wrecked ships are rarely recovered. Whatever sunk this continent into the sea made sure it was deep enough that no one would be foolish to seek the secrets in its deepest reaches. The water is unusually warm, with the blisterstone buildings on the seafloor radiating an ambient heat.

You might find:

• What were once mountaintops now make up small island chains throughout this vast stretch of water. Most are deserted but are teeming with local wildlife.
• The crumple and creaking of a sail, fat with wind.
• Briny sea air fills the air while ocean spray kisses the sand.

Fickle Weather

Just as the water can change on a whim, so too can the wind and weather. Sunny skies can give way to shipbreaking storms in mere minutes. Bad weather takes on a different type of meaning here and there is no escaping it. Only by embracing the storm and riding it out would one have any chance for survival. So enjoy the calm when it comes, but do not grow complacent.

You might find:

• Thunderhead clouds as tall as mountains where giant birds ride on arcs of lightning.
• The boom of thunder and the howling of storm winds.
• A lightning strike leaves the scent of ozone lingering in the air.

Primordial Wildlife

The seas were here first. So too were the things that live there. While all manner of mundane wildlife thrives in these waters, ancient and powerful creatures lurk in the depths and hunt the surface waters. Compression symbionts, a cross between a trilobite and an octopus, cluster around settlements. They bond with swimmers, allowing them to breathe underwater while feeding off their breath. Marrowshank whales, massive sperm whales with bladed bone protrusions jutting off their skulls, are among the region’s apex predators. They are dwarfed only by the behemoth gapesharks, which could fit several whales inside its gulper eel-like maw.

You might find:

• A pod of marrowshank whales carving up a ship in hopes of devouring the crew.
• The sharp clicks and clacks of immortal crabs snapping their giant claws.
• The songs of seabirds that sound like crying infants.

Drowned Secrets

The seafloor is completely covered in the ruins of a drowned and ancient city. Mostly consisting of sundered structures and crumbling edifices, much of the city has survived and keeps its deepest secrets in the most extreme depths where the pressure is lethal. Overflowing treasure vaults, preserved ancient libraries, and temples to forgotten gods all await discovery by the brave and foolhardy. But some things were meant to stay buried and drowned, and if surfaced could threaten the entire region.

You might find:

• A six-story sealed library, whose stained glass windows are magically sealed against the pressure. It’s completely dry inside.
• The distant clicks, chirps, and bellows of the marrowshank whale song.
• Intense pressure crushing anything that sinks too deep without protection.

Uncanny Phenomena

The Solsunk Sea is an inherently weird place. Between the fallen celestial bodies, peculiar communities, and the primordial beasts that swim these waters, those seeking something strange could do a lot worse than some time spent here. Gravitational anomalies, a curiously shifting firmament, and islands that aren’t are all commonplace here, making it a sea that caters more to “advanced sailors” than those just starting their careers on the water.

You might find:

• An upside-down waterfall in the middle of the ocean where water falls upwards before hitting an unseen apex and cascading back down.
• Bioluminescent jellyfish whirl through the air, lifted up by intense storm winds.
• An unfamiliar and unsettling night sky filled with unrecognizable constellations.

GM Principles

Grip the world in nature’s hostile indifference - Whether charting these waters on the surface or below, it should be clear at all times that this is a hostile environment. The sea cares not whether mortals live, die, or if their grand quest is completed. The hope is for calm waters, smooth sailing, and safe passage. And it’s generally best not to imagine the worst outcomes.

Beauty belies danger - Why is that island, so heavy with fruit, deserted? What wretched poisons does that orange banded wrasse release when eaten? What lies beneath that mysterious halocline layer? What is the source of the hauntingly gorgeous singing just beyond the shoals? What is that beautiful light? Much of nature’s aquatic beauty is a warning. Do not be fooled. Do not be enchanted. And definitely do not touch.

Live with Abandon - Folk that make their life on the waves, on volcanic islands, or beneath the crushing depths all have one thing in common: They fear no disaster, natural or unnatural. Upheaval, unpredictability, and controlled chaos are all ways of life here. Between the fickle wind patterns, the roving bands of pirates, and the unfathomable whims of the currents, it’s easy to find oneself marooned out here. But the fruits are sweet, the fish is plentiful, and the weather is mostly agreeable. So make the best of it and get some sun while you still draw breath.

Landmarks

Solsunk Atoll

Trading Speed for Safety: The quickest trade routes take ships through the storm surrounding this atoll and the unlucky ones don’t make it out the other side.

Uncharted Waters: Few have made it into the atoll and survived, fewer have made it back out to tell what lies beyond the howling bale-winds and walls of lightning fog.

A site popular for mythologists and tale spinners, and would be the crowning jewel on the cap of any explorer who successfully navigates the storm to find what secrets lie beyond its wall of wind and fog. The gravesite of many a ship and its crew, who valued expediency over caution.

Eternal Hurricane (Feature)

Churning with bale-winds and where lightning arcs from both the sea and air. A typhoon crackling with arcane energy and fog that carries fatal currents of electricity through water vapor. Outside of the sea’s deepest trenches, this is the most hostile environment in the region. Ships skirting the edges of this storm end up limping back to port and take the gamble by cutting through these waters do so knowing they’ve likely consigned the crew to a watery grave. No conventional vessel can pass through the storm, but the shapers at Blisterstone Cove are designing new hull plating capable of withstanding it.

The Iris (Location)

Sandwiched between the first layer and a secondary storm structure that surrounds the eye of the hurricane, is a peculiar island. It’s halo-shaped, a perfect ring that fills the entire space between the two walls of raging winds and fog. Growing on this island is a unique biome filled with bizarre flora and fauna found nowhere else in the Mortal Realm Here, the air has a heavy quality to it, making it difficult to breathe. The plants are not safe for consumption, though some of the plants would consider interlopers safe for their consumption.

A Fallen Star (Wonder)

In the eye of the storm is a stretch of water that’s as calm as glass. Positioned at its center is a hole in the water about 30 feet around that goes all the way to the sea floor in a smooth column. No one truly knows what lies at the bottom but some have suggested it’s where an ancient sun fell and still remains. Some theorize a Forgotten God waits there to grant its favor to the first to discover it. Others believe it to be a cursed place and the source of the ancient city’s calamity. In truth… it could very well be all three or none of them. “Sail not into the sun’s eye, a good sailor. No fortune awaits you there.” - A common regional refrain about avoiding the storm.

Isles Of Rot

Decaying Titan: These islands are the remains of a long-dead kraken, whose decaying underbelly is a seemingly endless feast for the unique biome that has emerged underneath it.

Life Finds A Way: It takes a special type to survive in this place but the creatures carving out a life here have managed to thrive on this unconventional bit of dry land.

A small, shoal-filled archipelago of craggy, flesh-like islands. The water for a mile around the place is putrid, foul smelling, and kills most fish that come into contact with it. Immortal crabs that have grown to immense proportions, feasting on kraken flesh, dominate this place. A few folks have eked out a strange life here and even found a valuable trade commodity deep beneath the island’s rotten carapace.

Inside the brown lagoon is an island shaped like a shattered spine, jagged and gnarled white rock, thick and sludgy water surrounding it. Past that is a large, sloped and slick black island with crude signage hanging off it. At the center of all of it is an island pulsing and quivering with every movement, where footprints pool black blood in their wake. Something living remains on this dead thing.

Decaying Biome (Feature)

This is a dead place, where rot lingers in the air and entropy plays out in real time. But for the creatures that live here, it is home… and a delicious one at that. Like whale falls that create a feast for creatures of the deep, the perpetual cycle of decay and regeneration provides an endless gorging platter for those who can stomach it. Which is mostly the crabs. “When they say you should observe animals when determining if something is safe to eat, they didn’t mean these ones.”

Bulbous Growth (Location)

The island is a flesh-like, malignant growth bursting out of black chiton. Immortal crabs skitter all over the mass, consuming its ever-growing mound of flesh. Occasionally this foul growth erupts in a shower of rotten meat, expelled from a place that even gods dare not envision. The crabs do not like sharing and snap their claws threateningly at any who approach.

Feeding Frenzy Clock

A consequence for a miss can always be a mark against the clock.

8 - The island chain begin to rumble slightly, like an earthquake but with a squishier quality

7 - Immortal crabs swarm from underneath the islands and into waters surrounding the bulbous mass

6 - The island chain shakes again, this time more violently

5 - The crabs float to the surface, filling the space between the islands so tightly they could be walked across.

4 - The bulbous mass begins to unfurl a pulsing orifice at the top.

3 - The crabs all raise their claws, snapping them in anticipation.

2 - The bulbous mass erupts, spraying a foul fleshy substance into the air and raining down across the crab cast.

1 - A frenzied battle for the delicious rotmeat ensues, with immortal crabs fighting for dominance and severing limbs left and right.

0 - The crabs return to their hunting grounds while the limbs regenerate into a new cast of crabs.

The Butcher Of Headcave (Location/Merchant)

An island composed of black chitinous plates with few handholds where a plunge into the water reveals a terrifying truth: This island is the head of the kraken, the gigantic eye milky and dead as the rest of its decaying visage. Gaps in the plates lead to a cave system that snakes through its flesh leading into the hollowed-out brainpan where a unique butcher selling artisanal sweetmeats eagerly awaits customers who rarely come. She’s a bit too enthusiastic about the rotten kraken meat and… other delights. Adventurous eaters may find some delicious delicacies if they can overcome the smell.

Koma G’do, Eccentric Butcher [ Wanderborne **** Drakona , she/her]

Difficulty: 16

Fanatical, generous, quirky

Experience: Animal Handling +2, Forbidden Knowledge +2 Quartermaster +2, Shrewd Negotiator +1

Look: Always flecked with various ichors and bloods. A slick apron over his ivory-white scales does little to keep the fluids off him. A variety of homemade butcher’s tools, crafted from kraken bone, hang off his waist.

Motive: Delve Deeper. Find sweeter flesh. More flavor.

Drowned Megalopolis

Subocean Sprawl: Less a singular location and rather the entire seafloor. Covered in the half-buried ruins of an ancient city where treasures and terrors alike await discovery in equal measure.

Competitive Megafauna: Razor-headed marrowshank whales and colossal gapesharks devour almost anything weaker or smaller than them.

The nameless, ancient city that spans the entire sea floor is a place where every answer begs three more questions. What happened here? When did this continent fall? Why is there no evidence of the people who lived here—either in the form of fossilized bodies or even written records? Because there are no firm answers to easily find, the fantastical fills the void. Stories of old gods, ancient destroyers, and primordial beasts are as valid an explanation as any. Because of this, it’s a place defined by daring and adventure. Of treasure and discovery. A world where the foolhardy and the brave lock arms and leap into briny depths. But some secrets are best left buried, and there are dangers yet to unearth that those above dare not comprehend.

Sunken Citadel (Location)

Situated directly beneath the settlement of Plunger’s Trove, the sunken citadel was (presumably) the seat of power of the ancient species that once called this city home. The entire city is constructed from a red stone that radiates heat, once common, now only mined in a single location. This is where most of the exploration of the sunken city has taken place. Its halls and floors are well-plumbed, and any treasures here have long since been inherited by the folks living in Plunger’s Trove. Built atop one of the continent’s highest peaks, even after sinking the twisting spire at its pinnacle juts out of the water. The secrets of the citadel are well-kept, despite being thoroughly explored. Perhaps seekers just aren’t viewing this place through the correct lens.

Fast Travel Currents (Feature)

Snaking through the waters—from just below the surface to skirting the rooftops of the ancient city—there is a network of water columns, pumping currents through them at breakneck speeds. The wildlife utilize these as part of their migration and hunting patterns. Recently they’ve been mapped by the Deep Seekers, a group of intrepid underwater explorers. Utilizing compression symbionts, folk have begun to traverse these currents as a means of accessing previously undisturbed parts of the city. Inexperienced divers who aren’t mindful of predators are often devoured by marrowshank whales or gapesharks who feed along these currents.

The Pressure Oubliette (Threat)

Deep in the city is a being; powerful, forgotten, and sealed away. From the outside, it looks like a perfect sphere of liquid metal, held at four points by a massive ancient technological device that’s now crumpled and useless. Luckily the pressure of the water is exerting enough force to contain whatever is imprisoned in the sphere. If it were to be raised… no one knows what it might unleash. Sailors passing above can often hear a sweet song coming from below. The language is unknown but the words fill the listener with an ancient longing for freedom.

Settlements

Plunger’s Trove

Ancient Protector: An ancient leviathan has adopted this tight-knit community, keeping it safe from disaster, both natural and unnatural.

Known For: It’s position above the ancient city’s pinnacle, making it a popular destination for those who want to explore the sunken city with relative ease.

What started out as a couple of boats and some temporary wooden structures has metastasized into a combination of lashed-together ships, floating shanties, and other dubious constructions that would not be up to code… anywhere. All constructed around the crimson spire of the Sunken Citadel. It attracts all types, most seeking their fortunes in the ancient city beneath them. They have adopted some unique customs surrounding weddings, trials, and funerary rites. The former of which is tied to the city’s ancient guardian, and the latter is born out of the raucous spirit of the treasure seekers who call Plunger’s Trove home.

The aforementioned guardian is a primeval aquatic dragon, Naligros, who once protected the ancient city and has adopted Plunger’s Trove as his own these past three generations. After living many years without purpose or companionship, Naligros is grateful for the company, protects Plunger’s Trove from any outside threats, and keeps the locals from delving too deep into the secrets of the past.

Naligros the Jolly, Jovial Ancient Guardian [Dragon, he/him]

Difficulty: 17

Protective, Just, Patronizing

**Experience: **Ancient Knowledge +3, Divination +3, Forbidden Knowledge +3, Swimming +5, Wisdom of Centuries +5

Look: A dragon who has over his multi-millennia-long existence evolved to aquatic life. Long and serpentine, over time his wings moved and split, becoming dorsal and pectoral fins.

Motive: Protect Plunger’s Trove. These tiny treasure seekers were such a welcome amusement that he’ll be damned if he’d let anything threaten that. Including telling them what happened to the sunken city’s previous occupants.

Moonpool Plaza (Location)

Extending out from the spire is a ring of scuttled ships that form a series of homes, taverns, and shops surrounding a pool about 300 feet wide. The moonpool is a community space, the primary access point for divers, and the beating heart of Plunger’s Trove. Here tourists and locals alike trade stories and meals, arrange dive tours, and weigh their hauls. While most of Plunger’s Trove has dubiously safe architecture, the Moonpool is expertly crafted and keeps the worst wave conditions at bay. Compression Symbionts swim freely near the surface, allowing those who approach slowly to bond with them.

Rof Blibb, Crab Hunter [ Seaborne **** Goblin , he/him]

Difficulty: 14

Harty, Boisterous, Puerile

Experience: Athlete +2, Swimming +3, Tracking +1

Look: A green skinned goblin with a perpetual, leathery tan. Ever shirtless, with a tight swimmer’s build. He has one hand, and the other is fitted with a metal brace onto which a variety of crab hunting tools can be attached.

Motive: Hunt down Empress Crakshell, a particularly long-lived and vicious Immortal crab that took his hand. He wants to capture her live so he can take her claw and eat it in front of her, just as she did to him.

Geff Lysher, Divemaster [ Seaborne **** Fungril , he/they]

Difficulty: 12

Mischievous, knowledgeable, lucky

Experience: Ancient Knowledge +1, Feigned Competence +2, Keen Senses +1, Navigation +2, Swimming +3

Look: A wide set fungril with a morel-like head. Rarely seen without his desalination skin, begrudgingly putting a shirt over it only in formal settings.

Motive: Discovery. They’re one of the best Trove Divers in the community. He’s been tracking the final founder’s treasure since he arrived and thinks he getting close.

The Leviathan Presides (Rituals)

Naligros presides over criminal trials and civil disputes, as well as officiating weddings. Those found guilty of heinous crimes such as murder, or theft of a funerary cache are granted a choice of animal forms from which they will live out their remaining days in exile. Weddings, on the other hand, are a joyous community affair where the entire populace is lowered on colorful floats to the base of the sunken citadel. There, in a temple of the ancient ones, Naligros grants his blessing to those wishing to wed. A week of celebrations commences upon returning to the surface. Naligros is considered a fair and just judge and jury, though he is not without his biases. He will enact harsh punishments for those who violate the laws.

Funerary Caches (Rituals)

The founders of Plunger’s Trove enriched themselves, pulling up unreal hauls of treasure and selling them to whoever would buy them. Their children wanted for nothing. But as the community grew it forced the plungers to delve deeper and deeper to keep up with the population boom. It became clear that this way of life would soon disappear, birthing a peculiar funerary rite that embodies the spirit of adventure and exploration that the Plungers embrace. The deceased are affixed with weights and their three most precious possessions. Carried out in boats by family members in the dead of night, they’re sunk over the citadel. The items are marked with dates (50, 75, and 100 years) after death. Until those dates pass, looting or moving these treasures is strictly forbidden. Inheritance maps are treasured heirlooms, marking when and where discovered funerary caches lie, often leading to competitive races generations later.

The Golarza Merchant Flotilla

Mobile Market: The flotilla is always on the move, both for security and to avoid damning up the waters of commerce.

Anything You Need: The flotilla has been everywhere that touches the sea, and has extended its reach far beyond. If a buyer can imagine it, they can probably find it here… for a premium.

A flotilla of merchant ships lashed, strung, and built together to form a massive floating settlement the size of a small city. It might be one of the most well-defended ports in the region. Never staying in one place too long, the flotilla moves with the currents of commerce, taken wherever the winds of arbitrage direct them. Visitors be warned: come with a heavy purse or a hold fat with trade goods or be turned away from the docks. Flotilla ships, flying purple sails, often break off from the whole for smaller trade runs and can be encountered wherever there is something to trade.

Pirate’s Folly (Threat)

The merchant fleet has access to some of the most advanced and exotic weaponry in the region. Hull-shattering giga-canons and aether-rocket ballistas line the outer perimeter ships. Even if they were to be boarded, they have some of the finest mercenaries and tamed monsters at their disposal. It’s even rumored they keep a pod of trained marrowshank whales beneath the flotilla. The only pirates brave, or stupid, enough to attack the flotilla have been the Marrowshank Raiders, having recently sunk a Holdship. Omiriel is living and wants revenge for the gold lost and employees killed.

Grand Matierum (Market)

The central hub of the entire flotilla, and where the vast majority of the open trading is done. A massive barge onto which a cascading tower of markets and billowing cloth is built upon. Any item the Mortal Realm offers is more than likely to be here in one of the many merchant stalls. But that doesn’t mean it’s affordable. The further it’s traveled the more valuable it becomes. If there’s something more exotic or illicit that one desires, that can also be arranged for a price. Along with merchants, it’s easy enough to find work here–both mercenary and arbitrage, depending on one’s mettle and taste.

Golarza Cutter (Location)

The fastest ship on the Solsunk Sea rarely gets to display this fact. This nimble vessel is often situated next to the Grand Materium, as it is the seat of power for the family dynasty that has commanded this fleet for many generations. The captain, Omiriel, comes from a long line of fleet commanders. She was born to do this. Raised to be perfect at it. And she’ll keep the sails full as long as she draws breath. There’s no savvier merchant than Omiriel. Even devils envy her meticulous contract language.

Omiriel Golarza, Merchant Princess [ Seaborne **** Elf , she/her]

Difficulty: 11

Dazzling, proud, fair

Experience: Acrobat +2, Bureaucracy +1, Navigator +1, Shrewd Negotiator +4, Swimming +2

Look: Draped in loose-fitting layers of canary yellow and royal purple, Miriel dresses to impress but also for freedom of movement. Lousy with gold bangles, rings, ear and nose rings.

Motive: Find places with too much of one commodity and not enough of what they need to a reciprocal destination, thus perpetuating the flow of coin, commerce, and exchange.

Blisterstone Cove

Hot Rocks: The only above water source of Blisterstone, the unique heat-radiating rock that the ancient city is constructed from.

Scarred Hands: It’s easy to tell if someone grew up in Blisterstone Cove due to their scarred and calloused hands.

Built into the ruins of a former quarry that was situated on a mountaintop that’s now an unusually warm island. In ages past this was one of the sources of what the locals now call Blisterstone, which was used to construct all the buildings of the ancient city. The mine is operational again, though now it’s used primarily to make a blasting agent for explosives. The large community that sprung up around it is one of innovation, competitive sports, and using the blisterstone in a myriad of creative ways. Most striking is how they blend ancient architecture with their own.

Blisterstone (Feature)

A smooth red stone that radiates heat. When the raw ore is pulled out of the ground it requires specialized tools to handle, and can melt the skin right off the hands. It’s a versatile stone that can be made into explosives, concrete, and added to metal alloys which are shipped off to colder climes to make insulated armor. Trade ships from Blisterstone Cove are a popular target for pirates and are often in need of mercenary protection.

Blisterbath Springs (Location)

If it sounds unappealing, then the locals who named it did their job. It’s a three hour trek from the docks but everyone who makes the journey insists it’s worth it. Dense jungle and switchback trails give way to an incredible view of the ocean from a series of tiered hot springs, warmed by the blisterstone beneath them. A small wooden deck with seating has been constructed above the pools, that cascade down about 7 tiers before dropping off a sheer cliff. One of the most beautiful and remote parts of the island, it’s a well kept secret from tourists. The locals would prefer to keep it that way.

Blisterball (Game)

A local game created by bored children that became a fiercely competitive sport. It’s a mix between water polo and Tlachtli, played in artificial tide pools, where raw Blisterstone is dropped in the water and the two teams of four compete to get it through a tiny hoop. It’s brutal, leaves burn scars, and draws out the whole island to watch league games. Local families comprise some of the most successful teams but loose groups of independent players have formed their own teams, as well as a couple from other settlements. The biggest rivalry in the league is between the local favorites, the Exploders, and the Leviathan’s from Plunger’s Trove.

Factions

Marrowshank Raiders

Undiscovered Hideaway: No one knows where they make port or unload their hauls.

Whale Tamers: Few encounter a wild marrowshank and live to tell about it. But these raiders have somehow learned to tame them.

The most feared pirate clan to terrorize these seas in some time, for good reason. Unlike most pirates in the Solsunk Sea, these attack from beneath the waves. Their bullet-shaped, hermetically sealed vessels are each pulled by a tamed marrowshank whale and launched into ship hulls at high speeds from below. They take what they can and disappear just as quickly as they appeared, making off with their ill-gotten gains and absconding to a place no authority has managed to locate.

Marrowfall’s Crown (Location)

A couple of miles off the cliffs of a craggy and cave-filled island is a strange geological formation. It would have been a plateau impossibly taller than it was wide, crowned by six pointed spires that now just poke out of the sea in the current age. No one knows why the marrowshank whales will travel hundreds of miles when their time is at an end, or if they are mortally wounded, to die above the crown. Their lifeless bodies fall atop this naturally formed altar, where they are summarily devoured by crustaceans and fish. Their bones eventually slide off the edges and into the depths. The Crown is considered a cursed place that most sailors avoid, making the nearby island’s network of caves an ideal hideaway for the raiders.

Pirate Pod (Feature)

It’s no easy task to tame a marrowshank whale, but these raiders discovered a unique method that remains a closely guarded secret. The whalefalls on the crown are more than just a feast for wildlife. They give the raiders an opportunity to harvest ambergris from the dead whales, which they use to create a salve that makes them smell like marrowshank calves. The whales form a protective bond with the pirates, adopting them as their own children. Once bonded it’s an easy enough process to train them but both sides of this relationship consider the other family. Once boarded, most crews will abandon their arms for fear of the marrowshank’s retribution if any raider should die.

Shankbreacher Pod (Technology)

Nothing fills a local sailor with more dread than the screaming breach of a marrowshank whale. Other than the snapping sound of their keel being penetrated by the shankbreachers. Relatively small, shaped like a barbed bullet, and are affixed with large, retractable blades made from marrowshank bones. These pods are designed to pierce and lodge themselves in a ship’s hull. From there a hatch opens, out of which the pirates emerge and attack… can hold six to twelve raiders, with a small area for loot. Each is pulled along by a marrowshank whale, and launched into the bottom of ships at high speeds as the marrowshank whale breaches next to it. The Raiders have little use for prisoners and only kill who they need to. Survivors of these attacks are found floating on the wreckage, clinging to the few valuables that were left behind.

Principles

The Marrowshank Raiders are not a particularly principled lot, but they are practical. And they share a special bond with the marrowshank whales, tamed or wild.

• Be mindful of weight and develop an eye for value. You only have so much space in a shankbreacher.
• Harm no whale. Slay those that do. Give deference to wild pod crossings.
• Just as the Raiders seek a life of freedom, they will keep no whale that yearns to join a pod with their kin.

NPCs

Sarna Hozzat, Whale Surfer [ Seaborne **** Human , she/her]

Difficulty: 14

Thrill-seeking, insensate, fearsome

Experience: Ambusher +2, Bandit +2, Intrusion +2, Navigation +2, Swimming +3

Look: Adorned in hydrodynamic crab shell armor, with a marrowshank bone trident and bladed net.

Motive: Strike fear into the hearts of her enemies. Instead of riding in a shankbreacher, she prefers to ride the whale itself. Leaping off its back when it breaches, and onto the decks of ships to terrify the crew.

Vigo Xis, Reluctant Monarch [ Seaborne **** Inferis , they/them]

Difficulty: 12

Weary, organized, practical

Experience: Bandit +3, Commander +2, Feigned Competence +2, Quartermaster +1, Swimming +3

Look: Skin of an orangish umber with thick curling horns crowning their head. Pretends to not care about their clothing, but has an effortless sense of style.

Motive: Keep this rowdy crew together, profitable, and paid on time. Vigo didn’t intend to be crowned monarch of the raiders but takes their responsibility very seriously… even if they desperately need a break.

Story Hooks

• Vigo is looking for a worthy successor, but none of their ideal candidates want the responsibility.
• The marrowshank whales used by the Golarza flotilla yearn for freedom and must be set loose.
• Privateers have discovered the location of the raider’s hideaway and are planning an assault. Both sides are seeking outside assistance.

Deep Seekers

Frequently Found: All over, but primarily Plunger’s Trove

Unearth, Uncover, Understand: They seek to unlock the secrets of the ancient city, with a focus on discovering the source of its calamity.

A group of explorers, thrill seekers, scholars, and cartographers unified under a singular banner of truth. They seek to understand the tragedy that befell this city-continent in order to protect their home from enduring a similar fate. This puts them in direct opposition to the dragon Naligros, who would see the secrets of the ancient city stay that way. They see him as patronizing and untrustworthy. Why would such a creature that purports to protect them bar them from the very knowledge that would accomplish that goal? They can be found all over the region but congregate most commonly in Plunger’s Trove where their headquarters is stationed.

Fearless Explorers (Feature)

There is no better guide to the ocean’s depths than a Seeker. They are well-funded, have access to topography maps, have knowledge of fast moving water columns and current charts for quick underwater traversal. Their Cog-Smiths are even attempting to build a submersible capable of diving into the deepest trenches but all attempts have met with crushing failure. However, setbacks only serve to galvanize them and failure is a necessary step towards success. “You ever ride the back of a gapeshark to an underwater door taller than a giant? No? Would you like to?”

Compression Symbionts (Creature/Feature)

Originally all exploration done was with a combination of magic and diving bells. But the discovery of a sealed chamber full of strange eggs changed everything. They hatched into a mucilaginous, tentacled arthropod that exists in symbiosis with surface dwellers. It painlessly affixes to the wearer’s spine, extending a transparent membrane over the eyes. Its fleshly limbs whip under the user, spreading like an insulated pressure suit over the entire body. Lastly, its long mouth curls around, extending down the user’s throat, expelling an oxygen-rich fluid into the lungs that allows them to breathe underwater and the creature to feed off of carbon dioxide. When bonded underwater the wearer can move at full speed, withstand intense pressure, has advantage on reaction rolls, and can breathe comfortably for 8 hours. These friendly arthropods have spread all over the region and can be found, most commonly, congregating around settlements.

Spirepoint Lodge (Location)

A kitschy mix of tavern, museum, and headquarters. Treasures from the deep are displayed proudly on every surface, and sections of the tavern with dedicated theming. It’s here that the Deep Seekers gather, trade intel, and drink off the “sinking feeling.” Colm Rulligan, the founder’s grandson and current leader of the group, is most commonly found here swapping stories and keeping an ear out for rumors. Looking over the map of the undersea travel network will make anyone’s head spin. It connects nearly the entire sea.

Principles

The Deep Seekers hold truth as a paramount virtue, knowing that only by uncovering the secrets of the past can we prevent repeated tragedies in the future.

• Hide no knowledge, especially from fellow seekers. Shared knowledge empowers the greater whole.
• Seek the Forbidden. There are those that would prevent this knowledge from being unearthed. Secret keepers cannot be trusted.
• History is a treasure far more valuable than gold.

NPCs

Colm Rulligan, Consummate Explorer [ Seaborne **** Galapa , he/him]

Difficulty: 15

Intense, tenacious, fearless

Experience: Ancient Knowledge +3, Intrusion +2, Navigation +1, Swimming +2

Look: A spiny shell painted with colorful patterns and a shark beak pierced with several rings. Mottled reddish brown skin covered in naval tattoos.

Motive: Find out what happened below so he can prevent it from ever happening again.

Ikthan Xobo, Star Scholar [ Wanderborne **** Ribbet , they/she]

Difficulty: 13

Crackpot, conspiratorial, zealous

Experience: Ancient Knowledge +2, Swimming +3

Look: A perpetually damp scholar who never seems to have an outfit that doesn’t clash with itself.

Motive: Discover the fate of the ancient race that disappeared entirely from the city below.

Story Hooks

• An ancient sealed library has been discovered, but the Seekers research team never reported back. They need some muscle to escort their investigator to determine what happened.
• Naligros has barred entry to a portion of the city and all attempts to circumnavigate him have all failed.
• A group of pirates made off with an ancient gold tablet, which held the first written record of the city discovered by the Seekers. The Seekerswant it back… and some want revenge.

Resources

	MOMENTS OF HOPE		MOMENTS OF FEAR
1	A message in a bottle suggests a bittersweet tale of lost love.	1	Storm clouds on the horizon portent a terrible storm.
2	A survivor of a shipwreck excitedly waves you down.	2	Your fishing line snaps and your catch escapes.
3	Dolphins ride the wake of your ship.	3	A dead body splayed out, the word mutineer carved into its skin.
4	Bioluminescent plankton illuminates the shore with every wave.	4	Shark fins circle in the water at dusk.
5	A sunrise over a cloudless sky.	5	The moaning cry of a marrowshank whale breach.
6	A tailwind fills your sails, speeding you along.	6	A leak in the lower decks threatens to sink your ship.
7	A huge haul of fish in your net.	7	A great shadow passes under you in the water, too deep to make out what it is.
8	A barrel of vintage wine floats by in the ocean.	8	Skeletons in gibbets hang off a rocky shoal.
9	A local fisher gives you a recipe for his homemade fish sauce.	9	A dead ship full of blighted corpses with sea birds circling ominously overhead.
10	Spinner dolphins leap out of the sea, twisting in the air before splashing back into the water.	10	Ghostly pirates dig up a spectral treasure on the beach.
11	A merchant ship arrives to lend you some much needed assistance.	11	A massive wave knocks you off your feet.
12	A sea shanty sung with friends lifts your spirit.	12	A colossal sea serpent is torn apart and dashed against the shore. But by what?

Rumours

• Something deep in the sunken city calls out to passing sailors, but the dragon Naligros has warned against curiosity.
• The forbiddance on the Founder’s Cache of Plunger’s Trove is set to expire any day now. The race to find it will be intense.
• A Plunger claims to have discovered a sealed library deep in the sunken city, and seeks the means to open it.
• A newly formed island settlement, positioned midway along a popular trade route, has been mysteriously abandoned. Reports of strange plants and animals appearing is cause for concern.
• A wealthy noble gave up his life of luxury for one of piracy and adventure, and seeks to commandeer a vessel… by killing the crew and taking it by force.
• Merfolk, not traditionally found in these waters, have been spotted migrating towards Plunger’s Trove for reasons unknown.

Equipment

Clamshucker Axe - Strength Melee - d10+4 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Shuck Armor (Mark stress to permanently reduce target’s damage thresholds by 1 before striking.)

Primary Weapon - Tier 3

Leviathan Scale Shield - Finesse Melee - d4+4 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Bladed Scale (When you use at least 3 armor slots to reduce damage of an incoming melee attack, also deal 1 hit point to the attacker.)

Secondary Weapon - Tier 3

Immortal Carapace - Base Score: 8

Feature: Chitinous Regeneration (Mark a Stress to repair 1 armor slot.)

Armor - Tier 3

Items

Desalination Skin

Made of a unique composite of ground up immortal crab shell and kelp that’s treated with a variety of rare fish and whale oils. The result is a skin tight, flexible suit that filters salt water and automatically hydrates the wearer. By spending one hour immersed in salt water the wearer gets a day’s worth of hydration and has no need to drink water.

Navigator’s Wheel

An enchanted ship wheel that gets the navigator where they need to go, storms be damned. When attached to a water vessel, this wheel allows for unerring navigation, despite rough waters or storm conditions. It grants the user +3 Navigation and advantage on all rolls to maintain a steady heading.

Consumables

Bottleship

Crack in case of emergency! An enchanted ship in a glass bottle often kept as a failsafe for pirates and merchants alike. When broken, the small frigate inside grows to normal size and can hold 20 people. It always has a tail wind and lasts for 48 hours before dissolving into sea foam.

Pirate’s Friend

Enchanted maps that guarantee paydirt! Appearing normally as a blank piece of leathery parchment. When unfurled, on an island at sunrise or sunset, a map with a marked X will appear on the vellum. Choose one of the following results below or roll a d20 to determine it randomly. Once the map is revealed it slowly burns to ash within 5 minutes.

• 1-2: A chest containing 5 handfuls of gold and gems.
• 3-4: A small box containing a skeleton key
• 5-6: A skeleton crew guarding a mysterious idol that holds an Arcane Prism
• 7-8: A corpse holding an ornately crafted casting sword
• 9-10: An IOU from one long-dead pirate to another.
• 11-12: An otherwise empty chest filled with dried blood and scratch marks that spell out the word “friends” over and over and over again.
• 13-14: An entire ship, intact in the middle of the jungle. The ship is filled with unstable explosives that could go off at the slightest disturbance.
• 15-16: A cave full of macabre symbols and runes written in an indecipherable script. Pictograms depict the moon falling from the sky over the northern seas.
• 17-18: The hat and coat of a notorious pirate queen of ages past. Worth something to the right buyer.
• 19-20: A chest containing 20 polished skulls with the words mutineer carved into each one.

Sailor’s Sanctuary

A fist sized golden anchor and foot long chain that, when flung from a ship creates a close range circle of perfectly calm, flat water and warm sunny skies around the ship. While within the circle, the ship is unable to move or reposition in any way and must remain anchored for at least 24 hours. The effect lasts up to 72 hours but may end earlier if the anchor is pulled up.

Adversaries

Immortal Crab

Description: A massive crab with incredible regenerative abilities.

Motives & Tactics: Sunder, Shuck, Devour

Tier: 3

Type: Bruiser

Difficulty: 14

Attack Modifier: +3

Pinch: Melee | 2d12+12 phy

Major 22 | Severe 35

HP: 6

Stress: 4

Experience

Strong +2

Features

Effectively Immortal - Passive

Whenever the Immortal Crab loses an HP, one of its limbs is severed. When it reaches 2 HP it can no longer attack or use Claw features. When it reaches 1 HP it can no longer move. If the crab is unprocessed for 1 hour after reaching 0 Hit Points, it will completely regenerate itself. If a severed limb is unprocessed for 1 hour it will begin to regrow an entire Immortal Crab over the course of the next 8 hours.

Sundering Claw - Action

Mark a Stress and make a Pinch attack. On a success, it also reduces the target’s Evasion by -1 until their next short rest.

Shucking Claw - Action

Spend a Fear and make a Pinch attack. On a success, it also reduces the target’s armor score by -3 until their next short rest.

Stormshear Albatross

Description: With a 20 foot wingspan, these creatures look like a cross between a crane and a giant falcon, with glimmering cerulean feathers that crackle with electricity.

Motives & Tactics: Divebomb, Snatch, Obliterate

Tier: 3

Type: Skulk

Difficulty: 15

Attack Modifier: +2

Arctalon: Melee | 4d6+5 phy

Major 16 | Severe 26

HP: 5

Stress: 6

Experience

Aerial Predator +3

Features

Airborne - Passive

Stormshear albatross live their entire lives in the sky, laying their eggs in portable nests of coiled lighting that they carry with them until the eggs hatch. Even in combat they will rarely touch the ground, hovering slightly above it. If the albatross is unable to fly it is considered Vulnerable.

Ride The Lightning - Action

Mark a Stress to catch a lightning bolt from a nearby stormcloud in this creature’s talons. If you make a successful Arctalon attack, you may expend the lightning bolt to deal an additional 2d10+5 damage.

Divebomb - Action

When Far above a target, spend a Fear to rapidly descend onto them. On a successful attack, deal them 2d8+20 phy damage. If the albatross is carrying a lightning bolt, you may expend it to also use the attack roll against all enemies within close range of the target. Any you’re successful against take 2d10+5 magic damage. Any flammable objects within close range of the target are lit on fire.

Discharge - Action

While holding a lightning bolt, mark a Stress to use it as an explosive discharge. Enemies in very close range of this creature must make an Agility Reaction Roll (15) or take 2d10+5 magic damage. The albatross may immediately move straight in any direction up to Very Far range.

Solsunk Siren

Description: The sirens of the Solsunk Sea fill the ocean air with a beautiful and mournful song. These deadly creatures resemble both human and fish, and will consume any creature that falls under their spell.

Motives & Tactics: Lure, Paralyse, Eviscerate

Tier: 3

Type: Solo

Difficulty: 16

Attack Modifier: +6

Trash Fling: Far | 2d12+15 phy

Major 27 | Severe 42

HP: 6

Stress: 9

Experience

Vortex +5

Features

Aquatic Creature - Passive

Sirens can breathe and move as easily in water as on land. They have been known to use this ability to drown their land-dwelling adversaries, holding them beneath the waves until they run out of air and drown.

Siren Song - Action

When you take this action, describe the strange song they sing. Any target within Far Range that can hear it must place a token on the action tracker and move within very close range of the Siren.

Rend the Flesh - Action

Mark a Stress to lash out and attack all targets in Very Close range at advantage. Any you are successful against take 2d12+12 phy damage and are Vulnerable until they heal at least one Hit Point.

Drown - Action

While in water, choose a target within Very Close range who is Vulnerable. Make an attack roll against them, and on a success, they are Drowning. While Drowning, for every token placed on the action tracker, the target must mark a Stress. Dealing Severe Damage to the Siren, or defeating them, will end the Drowning condition.

The Eye of the Beholder - Reaction

When a Siren is attacked, they can mark a Stress to take on the appearance of the person the attacker most loves. This immediately deals the attacker a Stress and they must make an Instinct Reaction Roll (16). On a failure, while the Siren holds this form, any additional attacks they make against them are at disadvantage.

Environments

Coming soon!

The Kinekozan Jags

Designed by Felix Isaacs

Mountainous, Underground, & Strange

Tier 4

A moving mountain where the stone dances by day, slumbers by night, and the deep mines provide only questions.

Distinctions

A living mountain of rough, hard-edged grandeur. The rocky slopes of the Kinekozan Jags spring to life with each sunrise, an outer shell of stone shards flowing and reshaping around a deeper lithic mind.

The Waltz of Stone

Though there’s much to be said of the mountain’s interior, it’s the mantle that first draws the eye—shards and slabs, boulders and scree, a ponderous avalanche of stone that coats the peaks in constant movement. The inhabitants of the jags refer to this as the mountain’s dance or, more properly, the waltz of stone—a dance that travelers would do well to learn the steps of if they want to survive. This monumental mobility only slows as the light fades, dusk bringing a geological calm that lasts until the first rays of the next day’s sun.

You might find:

• Chains of arcane power glimpsed deep in the space between stones, the mechanism behind the mountain’s restless nature.
• A cockatrice call, slowly fading into the distance as the beast’s nest is carried from base to summit.
• A feeling akin to seasickness, quelled only through familiarity with the mountain’s movements.

Patterns In The Flow

While the movement of an individual shard may at first seem random, the infrequency of collisions speaks to a broader pattern in the seething shale. Those who watch for long enough, or who make regular trips out across the slopes to fish, farm, or scavenge, come to understand the mountain’s whims and rhythms; one might identify a copse of pines that circles one of the greater cities twice a year, or a twisting spire of stone that always reaches one of the peaks at high noon. The most experienced dwellers of the Kinekozan Jags can scale an entire mountain in a handful of strides, stepping from piece to piece as they ascend.

You might find:

• A faded chart printed with mathematical equations and careful observations.
• A sudden jolt, evidence that the shard you’re riding has fallen out of sync with its fellows.
• A guild member of the Here-To-There’s, ascending the slopes with minimal effort by stepping from stone to rising stone.

Industries of Dusk & Dawn

As confusing as the slopes might be for newcomers, long-time denizens of the Jags have adapted to their environment admirably. Settlements are built on larger slabs that frequently pass shards containing fertile earth or pooling water, allowing farmers to hop from home to field and back again as the dance dictates. And, as the moon rises, heavier industry comes into its own—segmented rail lines snap into place as the mountain-skin settles, allowing passage between areas otherwise kept distant by the dance, and miners light their lanterns as they descend into the calmer heart of the mountain, eager to take what they can and return to the outer layers before the next day’s motion covers the mouths of their tunnels.

You might find:

• The hiss and creak of a funicular locomotive, racing toward the nearest summit before the dawn pulls the rails it travels on apart.
• Sweating labourers relaxing in the shade, hampers full of harvested produce balanced on the edge of a bridge that, for now, leads nowhere.
• Coded whistles, miners counting down the moments until nightfall opens up a valuable shaft.

A Mountain-Hewn Mind

The dancing slopes aren’t the only wonder of the Kinekozan Jags. The deepest mysteries, suitably enough, are found in the quiet stillness of the mountain’s interior. It’s there that miners’ tunnels and natural caves converge, leading to the dwelling place of an ancient intelligence, the Mesolith—a sculpted shepherd of questions and stone.

You might find:

• A brief, yawning gap between the moving slabs that beckons incautious visitors beneath the mountain’s skin.
• Miners carefully sawing calcified questions free from tunnel walls.
• A scrape of stone on stone, that might be a sigh. A grinding echo that sounds remarkably like a good-natured chuckle.

The Shatterwood

There was a time before the mountain moved. None remember it, but the signs are there—some structures so weathered by time that you can barely see the split in their walls, the occasional unsettlingly barren shard that still bears the mark of a long-dry riverbed. But there’s no other piece of evidence as singularly compelling as the shatterwood, a great forest that must once have covered the mountainside, now split into distant fragments doomed never again to touch.

You might find:

• Predatory birds making daily migrations, hunting in one copse and nesting in another tens of miles away.
• A whiff of toxic musk—the sure sign of Kinekozan hogs.
• Delicious fruit that can only be eaten within the shade of the tree it grows upon, withering to dust if carried across the gap between stones.

GM Principles

Use landmarks to aid groups as they traverse the shifting slopes - One jag of stone looks much like another, and sometimes it might even be difficult to tell which direction a piece flows in. But towers, farmlands, rail-lines, and the distant peaks? They’re all worth navigating by, points of the world you can anchor description to as well as direction.

Highlight the ingenuity and adaptability of the locals - It would be easy for those who dwell in such an unstable landscape to carve out their own niche and stay there, but the various communities of the jags develop new techniques that make their lives easier, share them without a second thought where they can, and stay in contact through even the toughest times. It’s a hard place to live, but not a barren one.

Respect the mountain as a living creature, one that permits passage by default but that can also choose to revoke it - The Mesolith dwelling in the mountain’s core has its own wants and needs, only rarely aligned with those of the folk that make a home for themselves on its flanks. It has moods too, and opinions—it can be bargained with, outsmarted, bribed, or offended, but it will almost always have the upper hand.

Landmarks

The Iron & Blue

The Jarbone Inversion: Considered bad luck to mention near an aqueduct.

Gallons of Water Shuttled Down From The Peaks Each Night: Too many to count.

A confusion of raised rail lines and staggered aqueducts built over centuries, each section anchored to (and looming over) one of the larger slabs of moving mountainside. Though these sections admittedly spend most of their time disconnected due to the waltz, every sundown brings a new opportunity; great gears turn, bridges spin, and elevated tracks snap together in drunken, temporary forms.

With each reconnection, the Iron & Blue opens for business. Sluices open as aqueducts are levered into place, sending a deluge of snowmelt and captured rain careening into the water storage towers of a hundred settlements. The air fills with the sound of train whistles and squealing brakes as passengers and produce are shuttled, sometimes almost vertically, from place to place. The network lights up the Kinekozan nights, a friendly reminder of connection and cooperation amid the geological whirl.

Sunpeak Station (Settlement)

Resting atop one of the mountain’s many peaks, on one of the few craggy stones too massive for even the mountain to move, Sunpeak Station is the domain of rapid-response repair crews and water-wise alchemists. Whenever there’s a problem on the lower sections of the Iron & Blue, you can bet the workers of Sunpeak will be on their way there in a heartbeat. While most Sunpeak Station employees work the night shift, where travel is at its easiest, a rare but venerated few brave the unconnected rails of the daily dance in order to help when they’re most needed—when nobody else can.

Tethered Balloons (Feature)

A convention created by a single lower settlement that has since spread throughout the range, most smaller stations run a tethered balloon of lighter-than-air gas from their rooftops, acting as an elevated watchtower. Actual stone towers were used in the past, but the lessons taught by the Jarbone Inversion have most definitely stuck. Rarely spoken of in the modern day, Jarbone was an oversized settlement that built one too many towers for holding stored water, eventually overbalancing and completely inverting the shard it was built upon, with catastrophic results.

Funicular Raiders (Threat)

Riding scrappy but cleverly-designed trains that can hop the spaces between disconnected rails, these piratical types race up and down the Kinekozan by day, hoping to ambush stranded trains and distracted farmers. The raiders rarely kill, but they have absolutely no problem with taking everything they can in a single swooping pass, then circling back around (sometimes even hours later) to do the same thing to any rescue crews that might have been called in the wake of their first assault. The most famed of these raiders, a Clank known as Mortuko the Swift, is said to have adapted her entire body into something that can run the rails faster than any scrap-built train.

Lake Ladenscree

Largest Stone in the Lake: Breaker’s Isle, the size of a small cart.

The Colours Beneath: Raw. Chameleonesque. Dissembling.

Another source of water perhaps, fed by some determined spring? If only the Kinekozans were so lucky. Lake Ladenscree is a miles-wide stretch of broken stones, each no bigger than a fist, tumbling endlessly up and down the range in a manner that defies expected patterns. It’s a place more dangerous than most—these unmoored rocks will barely take the weight of a smaller creature, let alone something as heavy as a giant—but also of outstanding beauty, with passing communities having painted as many of the rocks as they could reach with a variety of colours over the years. Lake Ladenscree is a stone rainbow, lit from below by skeins of arcane force.

Raw Magic (Feature)

Though never far underfoot, the thicket of magical energy that keeps the surface of the Kinekozan jags in motion is rarely visible. A traveler might catch the glow of it at night if they’re close to the gap between stones, and miners will carefully pick their way through it when digging to the mountain’s calmer heart, but it’s only on the shores of the Ladenscree that it can be seen with any real clarity from the surface. Scholars argue back and forth over the nature of the forces beneath them, some positing that they’re threads, others veins, others chains… And the taciturn nature of the Mesolith ensures debate will continue for decades to come.

The Ladenscree Swell (Threat)

Unlike with heavier sections of stone, the arcane forces that keep the mountain moving have less of a grip on the Swell—when they come into contact with a larger shard, the smaller stones are just as likely to move over and through this new obstacle as they are under it, shredding foliage, smashing trees, and hammering like horizontal hail against windows and walls. More than one settlement that drifted out of the pattern of the dance has been leveled by contact with the Swell.

Adding To The Lake (Festival)

A common pastime for local youths, settlements that pass close to the Lake will often find smaller objects going ‘missing’—pots, cups, silverware. This is all in aid of adding to the lake, a somewhat delinquent tradition of drinking too much, painting whatever you’ve stolen bright colors, and seeing if it stays near the surface when thrown in amongst the smaller stones. It’s rare that anything does, almost vanishingly rare, but every child seems to have a sister, brother, cousin, or best friend that managed it once. You wouldn’t have met them, though. But they definitely did it.

The Asking-Mines

Shortest Question Ever Mined: “Why Only Twelve?”

Number of Active Shafts: 32

There’s an old joke about the asking-mines, the kind that makes philosophical sorts wince and travelers furrow their brows, if they have them: “Why dig for an answer, when a question is worth its weight in stone?”

The miners of the jags realized long ago that the mountain’s ores and crystals were of secondary concern. The real bounty is the stone itself, not of the ever-moving outer layer but of the mountain’s heart, stone shot through with weighty curiosity, drenched in arcane thought.

Heavy With Questions (Feature)

The closer one draws to the Mesolith, the heavier with questions the stone around them becomes. Just under the surface of the slopes a hewn block may, if you run your hands over it, seem to ask why the clouds move so strangely, or how you got such a shine on the buttons of your lapel. Move further from the light and you might find a pebble asking how one might train a cockatrice to sing, or a lump of quartz laden with complex, unsolved equations. And, deeper still, the truly insightful—questions that open the mind to arcane potential, divine revelations, secrets of a lost age, or the truths behind myth. The issue is with the mining; the more potent a question, the weightier the stone. More than one group of miners have found themselves wrestling to drag a hyper-dense chunk up through their tunnels, convinced that the question it contains, when posed to the right wizard, might grant them the kind of rewards that only an adventurer could usually earn.

Day-Delvers (Threat)

There are some for whom profit outweighs the value of honesty. Day-delvers are mining scavengers, small bands equipped with pickaxe and drill who track the movement of tunnels through outer stone, risking their lives to enter the mountain’s heart while the waltz is in full progress. Many are crushed between stone walls, torn apart by unexpected contact with bands of raw magic or simply lost to the darkness of a poorly-chosen tunnel, but the activity offers bounty enough that there are always some willing to try. The Ancient Mind promises, in the Contract, that no citizen of the slopes shall ever be harmed on purpose. This may, or may not, be true.

Settlements

Hognito

Closest Dance To The Summit: Spitting distance, they swear.

First Settled By: An irate hog-herder on his way to Sunpeak Station, who put down roots and never left.

While settlements on the Jags are hardly a rarity, Hognito stands out due to its sheer size. An entire city, complete with multiple districts and its own overground rail system, taking up every available inch of the moving stone it’s built onto. The foundations run deep enough that basements thrum with the mountain’s magic, and blocky tenements shift their positions throughout the year, sliding and grinding their way through the city to carefully balance it no matter where the waltz takes it.

Directional Districts (Feature)

Smaller settlements don’t have to worry too much about weight distribution. The stones upon which they move are far heavier than a cluster of houses, and even the steepest slopes aren’t enough to tip them over. But the designers of Hognito learned from Jarbone’s catastrophic capsizing, and the local architectural guild have essentially created a city that moves much like the mountain does—as weight shifts and directions change, districts rearrange themselves like the segments of a sliding puzzle, ensuring the city stays upright. Districts are named after the compass point they’re closest to, but this might change several times a day thanks to the movement of the waltz and the counter-movements of Hognito’s foundational mechanisms.

The City That Chases The Sun (Festival)

The residents of Hognito are a diverse bunch, but they hold one thing in common—a desire to reach the summit of the Jags, to equal the heights of Sunpeak. The dance of Hognito’s stone takes it from the base of the mountains to so close to very highest points, but always turns them away in the very final moments. But still they hope—every time they draw close to the peaks the entire city is drawn into a raging festival, complete with chants and dancing, feasting and fireworks. The festival always ends on something of a whimper, but by that point most residents are too caught up in the celebrations to care.

Hogling Heights (Location)

With cramped streets and shifting architecture, Hognito doesn’t have much room for the greener side of life. Most farmers leave at dawn to tend orbiting shards of tilled soil and greenery, but a trusted few are elevated to work among the Hogling Heights—rooftops given over to barns and piggeries, where tamed hogs are fattened, milked, and butchered in a never-ending cycle. Their lives, though cut short by the necessity of an omnivorous society, are often seen as far more free than those of the average citizen. For while none among the citizenry have ever reached that fabled peak, the rooftop hogs gaze over the mountains and out to the world beyond with every failed ascent.

The Crawling Villages

Settlements That Have Passed Close to Hognito: Racketattle, Day-By-Day, Tortoiseholme, Steam Town

Most Famous Derailment Site: Track 187B, Spar 46 (which has claimed two villages in only twenty years)

The Kinekozen waltz is undeniably beautiful, but it’s also fickle—settlements may spin apart from their fellows for weeks, months, or even years at a time, thrust into the wilderness of the outer peaks and away from larger centers of habitation. For some, this is a fact of life on the slopes. For others, it was a problem to be solved.

The denizens of the Crawling Villages are firmly in that latter camp—rather than trust the dance, they put their faith in the engineering prowess of the Iron & Blue. Their homes are constructed around heavy-duty railcars, flatbeds carrying farmland and hog-pens, markets and village squares. And while their lives are no less movement-driven than any other Kinekozan, at least they choose where they travel… When the rails are willing, of course.

Life on the Rails (Feature)

Every Crawling Village has an oversized steam locomotive pulling it along, usually acting as a combination of town hall and courthouse. Many also have additional, smaller engines providing more torque, essential for when the Iron & Blue turns steep. The average railcar holds four to six houses, their fixtures bolted to the floor to absorb the constant rattling sway of the village’s movement. Hammocks are the preferred sleeping accoutrement for all but the most stubborn of villagers.

Lazy Days (Custom)

The Crawling Villages are named more for their speed than their mode of transport—as impressive as these trainback settlements are in terms of engineering, their uphill speed is rarely faster than an amble. Inhabitants tend toward the same sedate lifestyle, their rhythms set by the engines that pull them. There are definitely hours where a passing grove spurs apple-pickers into action, or a brace of wild hogs sets hunters swinging down from the elevated rails, but on the whole the villagers busy themselves only when they absolutely need to. Work fast or work slow, as the saying goes, we’ll always get where we’re going eventually.

Derailment (Threat)

‘Stable’ is a word few would use to describe the Iron & Blue. It’s a marvel of engineering, but it’s still an imprecise system. All it takes is for a set of tracks to not quite mesh after the nightfall adjustments, or a heavy train to push them out of alignment, and an entire village is at risk of toppling onto the drifting stone below. Instances of derailment are actually quite rare, thanks both to the attentions of the network’s engineers and the slow pace of most travel, but there’s more than one village left shattered and abandoned on the mountainside from an unfortunate choice of path.

Contract

Hands of the Mesolith: One fewer than there should be.

Attendants: With their eyes reverentially lowered at all times, their hands running across the scarred floors.

A huge, hollow space deep within the mountains, Contract is the dwelling-place of the Mesolith. While it started as a natural fault, generations of Hollowing Hands miners have expanded the space into an ordered settlement, rooms hewn straight into the stone walls and connected by twisting walkways. The floor is kept clear of habitation and machinery, reserved for the Mesolith’s dais, and those making pilgrimage to read the scrawls that surround it.

It’s these scrawls, as much as the presence of the mountain’s geological overseer, that draws visitors into the lamp-spoiled darkness. Contract is also home of the Kinekozan rules, spiraling text carved into the floor by the very first miners, under the direction of the unmoving Mesolith itself. These are the tenets by which the entity has chosen to operate, part contract, part declaration, part warning.

The Mesolith (Individual)

Though barely larger than the average giant, the physical form of the Mesolith is still an overwhelming presence—a reclining, faceless figure swaddled in carven robes, posed as if waking from an eternal dream. It’s not quite a statue, not quite a god, immobile save for the movements of a hundred flexing hands. And it’s these hands that hold the tethers of the mountain slopes, strands of raw magic leading up and out into the fissures of Contract’s carven ceiling. The steps of the dance follow the Mesolith’s whims, and some spend entire lifetimes trying to decrypt them. Close observers may notice that one of the arms ends in a rocky stump, the strand once held by that missing hand now hanging untouched.

Reading With Fingers (Custom)

With enough of a vantage point (such as could be gained from standing on one of the many walkways or bridges), one could read the carven rules of Contract by the light of lamps and magic alone. But that, the knowledgeable proclaim, would be to miss their intent. For a true understanding of the scrawled words that give this place its name, one must start at the outer edges of the room and work along the spiral, hands on the floor, reading each rune with fingers and palms. It takes hours of shuffling motion to do so, but each turn brings you closer to the dais of the Mesolith—and closer to understanding its wishes.

Hidden Histories (Feature)

Few working miners ever make it to Contract—there’s nothing to be taken here without the Mesolith’s direct permission, and communication is hit and miss when you’re working on a geological timescale. But some come anyway, eager to take in the history of the place or pay their respects—it’s here in Contract that the principle of trade was first established, that the entity first spoke with the head of the Hollowing Hand… And that the First Deep Theft, so shameful as to have been scrubbed from the history books, was committed.

Factions

The Hollowing Hand

Preferred Tools: Steel picks for the newcomers, diamond-edged fingersaws for the experts.

Current Leader: Flexile, technically, though it’s Dashan that makes all of the daily decisions

It doesn’t take much in the way of specialist equipment to tunnel down into the innards of the Kinekozan Jags, but it does take years of training to do so safely. The Hollowing Hand are more than an experienced group of miners—they’re cartographers of a shifting skin, delvers into stone and thought, merchants of the Mesolith’s bounty.

The Contract Fundamentals (Custom)

Anyone can steal a stone from near the surface, if they get lucky, but the Hand pride themselves on following the first fundamental rule of Contract with every stone they take: a question must be traded for an answer. Luckily for those of a less metaphysical bent, the Mesolith has made it clear that ‘an answer’ can really be anything from the outside world that it finds interesting. Groups of miners can often be seen approaching their tunnel entrances laden down with gifts to be left in the tunnels, anything from finely-crafted blades to rocking chairs, alchemical mixtures to books of poetry. Some members of the Hollowing Hand put a lot of thought into these items of barter, others tend to grab whatever’s lying around as they leave the house. One in particular, Utherin Glasbenit, takes great pride in boasting that he’s swapped over a hundred shoes for question-heavy stone.

Riddler’s Eve (Festival)

Once a month, at the start of a moonless night, the miners abandon their usual tasks and come together for a celebration of all they’ve acquired. Stone after stone is brought before local townsfolk, and their questions released into the world by the eldest of the Hand, read by their ungloved fingers and spoken through their ale-wetted lips. Stones containing simple questions that the crowd can answer are set aside, but those that pose queries fit to set a mind afire are cataloged and packaged up, ready to be sold onto wizards, tutors, and traveling philosophers of all stripes. Every sale is final, even if the eventual buyer answers their question before they leave the mountain’s slopes.

Flexile (Absent Leader)

A nearly skeletal figure dressed in the remnants of mining gear archaic by the standards of the modern day, immediately identifiable thanks to the stone hand that clutches his face, covering every one of his features save a single eye glimpsed between two fingers. Flexile spends his time in a converted balloon watchtower, unwilling to touch the stone of the mountain the Hollowing Hand spend their lives exploring. It is Flexile, or the person he once was, that committed the First Great Theft - the breaking and looting of one of the Mesolith’s own stone hands. It’s said that if the question it contains is ever answered, it may relax its grip—but Flexile refuses to let anybody other than him ever touch it.

Principles

The Hollowers are revered by the Kinekozan locals, their work bringing in the majority of outside funding for the building and maintenance of settlements. Along with their lofty position comes a certain level of arrogance—earned, perhaps, but sometimes representing an organizational weakness. The principles are there to keep newer Hollowers in check.

• No stone is yours - it merely passes through your hands.
• No shaft is yours - each exploration is shared with your fellows.
• No question is yours - and if the Mind wanted your answers, it would ask for them.

NPCs

Dashan, the Never-Exiled [ Underborne **** Ribbet , he/him]

Difficulty: 19

Cheerful, Exuberant, Meticulous

Experience: Storekeeping +3, Mining +2

Look: A squat ribbet with a ‘beard’ of floating stones, Dashan’s small stature doesn’t get in the way of him ordering larger miners around. He’s respected throughout the Hollowing Hand as having a cool head in a crisis, a propensity for catching small but important details, and a laugh that booms as if he were three times his size.

Motive: Ensure that miners aren’t just equipped for the journey down into the dark, but the path back up as well.

Quirrelus Kivian, Historian of Hollow Places [ Underborne **** Orc , she/her]

Difficulty: 12

Long-Suffering, Haunted, Quizzical

Experience: Patience +4

Look: Orc history speaks of the Stone Father, and the hands that brought the entire ancestry into being. Who better to answer questions on such matters than the Mesolith? If only it wasn’t so taciturn…

Motive: To have her questions about the Stone Father answered.

Story Hooks

The Flexile wishes to walk the Asking-Mines once more, but requires an escort to do so.

A powerful mage has summoned an answer of great import, but it struggles for freedom—she must match it to one of the mountain’s unmined questions before it tears free.

A band of errant locals have taken to stealing the barter-goods left by the Hollowing Hands, hoping that if there are any consequences they’ll fall on the miners themselves.

The Nomadic Guild of Here to There

Where is Here?: The place you have no love for now the sun has set.

Where is There?: The place you want the day to meet your brow.

Anyone that intends to put down roots on the moving mountains will, inevitably, come into contact with the Nomadic Guild of Here to There.

They’re cartographers of a sort, though some prefer to call them artists, or engineers, or mystics. No term quite encapsulates their totality, their skills at once so diverse and so specific. For it’s the Guild that chart the flow of the dance, and predict the next steps, entirely independent of the Mesolith. Who lick quartz and tell others which way the rains are going to come. Who decide where the newest extensions of the Iron & Blue are planted, and how those tracks are designed to swing.

The Guild see the mountain as few others can; as answers, rather than questions.

Absent a Mind (Feature)

Unlike the members of the Hollowing Hand, the Guild prefer to leave the Mesolith to its own devices. In fact, as a rule, they stay out of the interior tunnels of the Jags whenever they can help it. They’re there to interpret and discern, not to mine more questions that may never have an answer. The Guild and the Hand have forged an uneasy alliance over behavior and beliefs, meeting only to discuss the most effective spots to begin drilling a new shaft entrance.

Meat, Milk, & Paper (Custom)

With the mountain spurring a question-based economy, the Guild are perhaps alone in being paid purely for the answers they provide. When they can be found, that is; membership requires a huge amount of dedication, and acolytes are lost almost as often as they progress through the ranks. This results in a huge amount of respect and power commanded by a relatively small number of individuals, which would be a recipe for disaster if the Guild’s nomadic lifestyle didn’t prevent them from accepting gifts of material value or weight. Meat and milk are the two most common gifts for a member of the guild, though clothing, paper, and charcoal are also gratefully received.

A Stumble in the Waltz (Threat)

A nomadic lifestyle spent on the Jags comes with its own host of dangers. Stilt scorpions step delicately from shard to slab in search of warm prey, venomous hogs snuffle through flimsy tent flaps, and railway pirates are opportunistic enough to strike even the loneliest of figures. But the worst fate a member of the Guild can come to is with a stumble, a misstep that sends them sprawling through the gaps between stones and into the sizzling magic that moves them. And at that point, death is a kindness—there are tales of stumblers that manage to pull their way back up onto the outer slopes, changed in mind by what they’ve learned and in body by what they’ve endured.

Principles

The principles of the Here-To-There are never written down. Why waste paper on such banalities when there are other, more pressing answers that warrant the space?

• No puzzle is impossible to solve.
• Pose only questions, take only answers.
• Match the mountain’s rhythms with your own.

NPCs

Long-Strider Levine [ Ridgeborne **** Katari , they/them]

Difficulty: 15

Gentle, Precise, Focused

Experience: Navigation +4, Pathfinding +6

Look: Long of wooden limb and even longer of stride, Levine lost their first set of legs in an unfortunate jag-related collision. Their replacements, whittled from the boughs of the shatterwood, are made for sure purchase on even the least stable of surfaces.

Motive: Chart the mountain’s movements, learn the waltz of stone.

Evening Over Low Lakes, Hog-Hustler [ Seaborne **** Halfling , she/her]

Difficulty: 16

Belligerent, Brusque, Caring

Experience: Hogling Affairs +10

Look: Stones and rails? That’s the easy stuff. Evening Over Low Lakes has dedicated her life to the tracking and training of venomous hogs, and she’s quite happy with her progress, thank you very much!

Motive: Wrangle a kingly beast.

Story Hooks

A rare meeting of the Guild - they’re asking for visitors to attend as well, particularly those that have arcane potential or an eye for cartography.

A member of the Here-To-There’s has been tasked with tracking down a child, carried far from home on a flow of the mountain’s stone. They know where to go, but they’re not sure they can make it through the intervening territory alone.

An argument between the workers of the Iron & Blue and the miners of the Hollowing Hand has erupted over a proclamation by the Guild on where a new shaft should be sunk.

Resources

	MOMENTS OF HOPE		MOMENTS OF FEAR
1	A passing stone from the Shatterwood, laden with unique fruits.	1	The Ladenswell arrives without warning, a cascade of painted stones traveling at dangerous speeds
2	A shout of greeting from a passing train, followed by the thump of a bag of supplies hitting the ground nearby.	2	A jarbone spirits rising from the glow between stones.
3	A diminutive figure sits atop a distant rock, playing a delicate flute.	3	Two tracks of the Iron & Blue haven’t quite meshed together…
4	A scorpion-wrangler passes by, pack laden down with unusual venoms.	4	The soft clucking of a cockatrice as it hunts for fresh meat.
5	A stone-soaked question is read, one that sets your mind on the path of an answer.	5	A drawn-out crunch, of two moving islands grinding together.
6	A chance meeting with one of the Nomadic Guild, an elder with answers you sought without meaning to.	6	A question escaping from a split stone, a question about something you’d rather forget.
7	A nearby village is holding a festival. The smells of fresh milk and roasting meat are unmistakable.	7	Whistles blare in the distance. A train is under threat.
8	Rail workers share secrets from upslope.	8	The creak of beams overhead, and the miles of rock above them.
9	A Sunpeak train clatters overhead, toward the very threat you were facing.	9	The corpse of a Guild member, still aglow with raw power.
10	Tucked into a cairn of balanced stones, a detailed map of recent movements and careful predictions.	10	Movement without sunlight, a denial of the natural order.
11	A swift-moving shard passes close, on an unerring route to the peaks.	11	The stinger of stilt-scorpion glimpsed briefly through the trees.
12	An eclipse stills the waltz for precious moments.	12	A sudden loss of balance—the shard you’re on is sinking.

Rumours

While the citizens of Hognito desire more than anything else to catch that rising sun at its zenith, doing so would likely crash the entire city into Sunpeak Station.

The First Deep Theft may have been erased from the history of the region, but the Mesolith still remembers, and hasn’t yet forgiven the exiled head of the Hollowing Hand.

A painted glass jug is sometimes seen bobbing in the Ladenswell Lake - what are the limits of stone, one wonders?

An oracle of the Here to There, captured by funicular raiders, was close to discerning the greater pattern of the waltz.

A dissident group is working toward derailing one of the crawling villages over a crack beneath two plates of stone, sending the whole settlement tumbling into the raw magic running beneath them.

One building of Contract is off limits to all but the highest ranking members of the Hollowing Hand, the walls within scrawled with rules that have been unwittingly broken.

Each portion of the Shatterwood, though still divided by miles, is drawing closer - the wood yearns to reform, and to still the stone of the mountain once more.

Equipment

Asking-Stone Staff - Knowledge Far - d10+10 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Curious (During a rest, you must spend one of your downtime moves answering its questions, or every attack made with it until your next rest is at disadvantage.)

Primary Weapon

Diamond-Saw Glove - Strength Melee - d4+2 (phy) - One-Handed

Feature: Delicate Touch (Mark stress to add your Finesse to any damage rolls made with your Primary Weapon)

Secondary Weapon

Ladenscree Swarm - Base Score: 9

Feature: Coruscating (Your armor score is increased by your Proficiency against ranged attacks.)

Armor

Items

Strand of Raw Magic: This animates an object temporarily when wrapped around it, causing it to move erratically and (sometimes) take on sentience. Do not touch this with your bare hands. Ever.

Untethered Tent: A floating tent weighted down with stabilizing stones, the perfect place to rest for one that wants to stay just off the ground while they sleep. During a long rest, you always gain a Hope.

Jag-Striding Boots: Boots with soles of stolen stone. Heavy, but they remember the motion of the waltz. Mark stress to increase your Evasion by +2 until your next roll with Fear. When you avoid an attack, you can immediately move anywhere within close range.

Consumables

Hollower’s Folly - A hand made of quartz, shaped to resemble the one stolen from the Mesolith. On a successful Spellcast (16) roll, it will skitter along the ground and up onto a target’s face, latching on and making them temporarily Vulnerable and giving them disadvantage on any attack rolls until they are no longer Vulnerable.

Hogling Crunch - Sweet and savory, fatty and acidic - if you can get past the mild dose of toxins it contains, it’ll perk you right up. Mark 2 Stress when you consume. You can move anywhere within far range when taking an action (instead of within close range) until your next short rest.

Crushed Questions - These are less than fragments, sand-like stones containing the offcuts of larger questions. Sprinkling them into the wind provides questions on a topic you wouldn’t have thought to ask. Use this when making a Knowledge roll to make your Hope die a d20 instead of a d12.

Adversaries

Toxic Hog

Description: Poisonous beast bristling with hair and a bad attitude.

Motives & Tactics: Charge with Wild Abandon, Catch and Toss, Trample

Tier: 4

Type: Standard

Difficulty: 17

Attack Modifier: +5

Tusks: Melee | 4d12+6 phy

Major 35 | Severe 80

HP: 5

Stress: 2

Experience

Cliff Hopping +4

Features

Charges Like a Train

The charge of a Toxic Hog hits like a freight train. When charging a PC, spend a Fear to slam the player back into far range. When they land, they take 1d10+2 phy damage.

Bristles - Reaction

Mark a Stress when Toxic Hog is hit by an attack from within very close range. Immediately make a counterattack using their poisonous bristles. On a success, deal 3d8+4 phy damage. A PC hit by these bristles must also mark a Stress from the poison when they act until their next roll with Hope.

Stilt Scorpions

Description: Large scorpions that track and ambush their prey.

Motives & Tactics: Shadow, Surge, Use Terrain

Tier: 4

Type: Bruiser

Difficulty: 18

Attack Modifier: +5

Pincers: Melee | 3d8+12 phy

Major 50 | Severe 90

HP: 3

Stress: 2

Experience:

Tracker +5

Features

Out of the Shadows - Passive

On the first attack a Stilt Scorpion makes against a target, their attack modifier is increased by +3.

Stinger - Action

+3 attack modifier

Make an attack against a target within Very Close range. On a success, deal 5d10+5 phy.

Kinekozan Cockatrice

Description: Reptile-fish hybrids that vary in length, armed with powerful jaws.

Motives & Tactics: Hide, Hunt, Subsume

Tier: 4

Type: Skulk

Difficulty: 19

Attack Modifier: +7

Beak & Mandibles: Very Close | 6d10 phy

Major 25 | Severe 80

HP: 4

Stress: 4

Experience:

The Waltz +8

Features

Stone Snare - Action

Spend aFear to turn an area of stone within close range of the cockatrice in to a quicksand-like slurry, slowing anyone who moves through it. Any PCs who attempt to pass through must succeed on an Agility (19) roll or become Ensnared. While Ensnared, the PC is Restrained and Vulnerable.

Leech Moisture - Action

+5 Attack Modifier

Mark Stress to make an attack against an ensnared target in melee. On a success, deal 4d20 mag damage. The cockatrice sinks its mandibles into its victim and sucks all liquids from the flesh around the wound, turning affected areas to stone as it does so. Until their next long rest, they cannot heal Hit Points.

Keening Dive - Reaction

Once this adversary only has 1 HP left, you can mark a Stress to have it keen, discharging large amounts of raw magic and diving into the stone. From there it acts like an aquatic hazard, swimming through the stone. Its difficulty becomes 22.

Environments

Coming soon!

Themes

This section offers a palette of themes to utilize when crafting locations for your Daggerheart adventures. We recommend choosing 1-3 words to use as jumping-off points when you need to create a location, landmark, settlement, or faction.

When building a campaign, you might choose or create regions that have overlapping themes in order to preserve the verisimilitude of the world you’re playing in together. For example, the Locations in the next section suggest starting themes, which overlap in Ancient, Haunted, and Strange. Consider how these themes vary between each location:A city that is “verdant and serene” is very different from one that is “verdant and martial.” That difference is made even more pronounced when “devout” is added to the themes. How would a militarized community protect the forest home of their god vs. a quiet collection of worshippers that make a home in the remote woods with little outside disturbance?

Ancient - Artifactual, awe-inspiring, excavated, fossilized, hushed, irreplaceable, lost, preserved, primeval, risky, ruined, sacred.

Aquatic - Abyssal, bioluminescent, briny, calm, endless, enigmatic, monstrous, navigable, overpowering, peaceful, stormy, tumultuous.

Arid - Dry, golden, inhospitable, parched, remote, sunbaked, tranquil, unbroken, unforgiving, vast, waterless, windblown.

Desolate - Abandoned, conquered, desperate, expansive, hazardous, hopeless, lonely, polluted, ravaged, ravenous, remote, weary.

Devout - Ancestral, ascetic, blessed, fanatical, heartfelt, isolated, obedient, pristine, restrictive, sanctimonious, sincere, unyielding.

Frozen - Beautiful, bitter, bleak, breathtaking, brittle, crystalline, frigid, harsh, pristine, remote, stark, uninhabited.

Haunted - Alluring, captivating, covert, cryptic, cursed, eerie, gloomy, harrowing, lethal, nightmarish, terrifying, unfathomable.

Impoverished - Alienated, blighted, collaborative, disadvantaged, empathetic, enterprising, forsaken, hardened, resilient, restive, scrappy, tenacious.

Innovative - Accessible, advanced, balanced, efficient, exacting, experimentative, hierarchical, meticulous, orchestrated, revolutionary, sustainable, technological.

Martial - Austere, dutiful, fortified, honorable, lethal, overbearing, regimented, safe, stoic, strategic, trained, violent.

Mountainous - Alpine, barren, formidable, jagged, majestic, perilous, remote, rocky, scenic, towering, unexplored, valuable.

Opulent - Artistic, comfortable, elegant, exaggerated, insatiable, lavish, privileged, stratified, superficial, treacherous, vibrant.

Scholarly - Acquisitive, assiduous, curious, cultured, deliberate, dismal, obsessive, progressive, refined, serene, sinister, strict, unconventional.

Serene - Bucolic, communal, euphoric, harmonious, innocent, insincere, placid, quaint, quiet, riant, specious, welcoming.

Strange - Devouring, ethereal, illogical, imposing, monstrous, paradoxical, playful, spellbinding, surreal, uncanny, uncharted, weird.

Tropical - Balmy, bountiful, breezy, coastal, deceptive, flowering, infested, invigorating, teeming, tempestuous, tranquil, vivid.

Underground - Cavernous, claustrophobic, cooperative, dark, foreboding, hazardous, inaccessible, precision-engineered, resourceful, secretive, secured.

Urban - Bustling, efficient, industrial, innovative, labyrinthine, lively, loud, multicultural, political, rapacious, stratified, utopian, wrathful.

Verdant - Biodiverse, dense, feral, flourishing, fragrant, harmonious, hushed, picturesque, unrelenting, unspoiled, vulnerable, wild.