To Restore a Kingdom

This campaign begins with a trio of adventurers finding a treasure map pointing them to the Crown of Kings. This powerful artifact can be used to unite the kingdom of Alamayne under an authentic ruler instead of the puppet regent (the so-called “Black King”) installed by the Church of Deem to legitimize their theocracy.

The Party

Akram (Elf Rogue) – Mark C.
Nihl (Dragonborn Monk) – Kasey
Rosetta Stone (Human Cleric) – Sarah
The Dude (Human Fighter) – Jake

Round 18

More Giant Problems

July 7, 2024

As the adventurers exited the mine where they had won the Replenishable Potion Bottle of Strength, Nihl suddenly reappeared. He was brought up to speed on the magical flask and what it took to get it.

Back at the Gold Mine Tavern and Inn, the adventurers were hailed as heroes for vanquishing the monsters that had made the town abandon the mine. The crowd of interested townsfolk grew with the passing of the day, as did their optimism that the adventurers could indeed deliver on their promise to slay the Frost Giants.

It was past noon when a mysterious traveler calling himself Cairo entered from the heavy snowfall outside. He made their acquaintance and offered to help them against the giants, later revealing himself to in fact be a Wizard named Wyll Wadyne as the party staked out Altar Point.

He proved his value early by banishing one giant right at the start, causing the other to flee. When the banished one returned it was swiftly killed by the combined efforts of the adventurers and Nihl took its eyes and ears as trophies before the corpse was left behind in the gathering snow.

Patting themselves on the back for having the job half in the bag, the party was surprised to find the mood of the town so negative. The people rightly feared the wrath of a bereaved Frost Giant roaming the countryside seeking vengeance for its fallen brother and it was highly doubtful that waiting for it at Altar Point was going to work again while the snowstorm made any attempt at tracking futile. The mood only got worse the more the party argued and they ultimately had to flee town to avoid being lynched!

After spending the night in a magical shelter provided by Wyll, the party used the Decahedron of the Realms to reach the upper slopes of Mount Zova where the Kobold caves could be found, saving themselves a day’s climb in doing so. The Kobolds recognized Nihl not only as one of the “kind ones” from Harkin’s hunting party but also, as a Dragonborn, their liege. Combined with Rosetta’s devotion to the Cult of the Dragon, the party was welcomed and shown the way to the steam chute into which the Kobolds send their offerings to Zovatora.

One by one, the heroes slid down the dark wet tunnel onto a cliff overlooking a cave thick with steam that made it impossible to see beyond ten feet. Here and there the flat tops of rock columns offered places to stand amidst the precipitous drop into deadly hot springs below but the party used their powers of flight and levitation to make their way across until they found themselves entangled by a Roper and menaced by Steam Mephits.

The monsters were dispatched and the heroes passed through the cavern into a tunnel curving off toward an orange glow from which emanated the most powerful heat.

Campaign History

Campaign Log

Alamayne

The isle of Alamayne is a land ruled by the oppressive theocracy of the Church of Deem. They came to power a century ago in a crusade that swept away King Olaf the Old and replaced him with Virigoth, the Black King, a seemingly immortal figure who still rules to this day. Only the independent city-state of Ludinium on the south coast remains as the lone hold-out, an oasis of enlightenment amidst a land in a Dark Age.

For millennia, Alamayne was the domain of barbarians and bandits with endlessly shifting lines of succession and many periods without kings at all. Many believed unified rule of the island was folly, fractured as it was by feudalism and an inablity of its nobles to get over historical slights, but then, a hundred years ago, the Church of Deem emerged in the north as a power to be reckoned with.

With a zealous and brutal pursuit of justice, the Church was able to unite people against the institutional corruption and abuse of the ruling classes. At first, the devoted were dismissed as a fringe cult, but in the span of a few years they swept to power, ousting King Olaf the Old and installing Black King Virigoth in his place. His apparent immortality is their proof that he was divinely selected to be king of Alamayne, but nobody knows exactly why he is ageless.

Before the Dark Age of theocratic rule, Alamayne celebrated a pantheon of gods who were multivarious in form and function. Chief among them was Vatael who identified closely with the spontaneous energy of Chaos. The Church of Deem, obsessed with order and control, swept away the old gods, assimilating those they could, erasing those they couldn’t, and setting up Vatael as the ultimate villain.

Alamayne is a cold, dismal place of rugged terrain, lakes and forests, about 800 miles north-south and 600 miles east-west. The overall style and flavour of the setting is Northern European, Celtic/Norse/Mongolian of the 12th-14th century. Think Frazetta’s Conan the Barbarian paintings or the first 20 minutes of the 1982 film. Only the southern tip of the island is in the temperate zone, the rest is sub-arctic, so lots of wind, rain and snow.

Ludinium

The campaign begins in the independent city-state of Ludinium. Home to about 25,000 people, it covers an island just off the southernmost tip of Alamayne connected by a bridge with a large fortress gatehouse. The surrounding countryside is soft marshland which discourages any attack by land forces.

Ludinium has been around for centuries but became an independent city-state shortly after Virigoth was coronated, when the most wanted man in the kingdom, Temvorian the Sorcerer, formed an alliance with other magic-users and took the palace of Ludinium in a swift coup that ended the reign of Duke Miderran. Temvorian had a special relationship with Ozeiaza the Bronze Dragon who helped repel the avenging armies of the Black King long enough for the magic-users to turn the surrounding land to intractable swamp which claimed many an enemy soldier.

Whereas Alamayne resembles a Dark Ages European backwater, Ludinium is an oasis of culture and enlightenment more akin to Renaissance Florence. It is governed by a council of eight guildmasters who are selected from the dozens of trade guilds in the city, serving for two years before being replaced. Presiding over the council with veto power is Lady Marade, the latest in the line of Temvorian’s descendants to take the leading role. As long as Ludinium has a ruling Sorcerer of the line of Temvorian, Ozeiaza will be its patron and protector.

Alamayne’s navy has never fared well in the waters around Ludinium where Ozeiaza loves to swim and capsize hostile vessels. The city-state, lacking any arable farmland, trades heavily with the Kingdom of Falay across the channel for everything they need, so the merchant marine class is vital to Ludinium’s survival and the Dragon is known to favour trade ships over war ships.

Ludinium has a sizeable University Arcanum where magical tomes from across Alamayne have been sequestered rather than be burned by the church. There is a population of Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcerers in Ludinium which puts it on the map for travellers from the Skyrealms. The University Tower even has a dock for skyships which come to visit on a semi-regular basis.

All races and classes are available in Ludinium, but outside the city things get a lot more restricted.

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