Post by dmtom on Jul 5, 2016 6:51:15 GMT
Below is information about my 5th edition D&D world, Ra-Theris. Being so busy these days, it is easy to run out of time to find inspiration to continue making the most of my campaign, as it approaches its 3rd year in play, since the launch of 5th edition. We play once a month. The story, as the reader will see, has become very complex and is hard to contain sometimes (but I guess that's D&D for you). The current story arc has had the players hunting for the MacGuffin(s): powerful artifacts that will help them defeat the ultimate bad guy. The MacGuffin hunt is nearing its end though and I am trying to determine where to go next... what the next arc will be. This story arc will need to be the one that leads to the big bad fight at level 20 (they are about level 10 now). My options could include defeating various factions of the enemy cult army led by various djinn sons. I want to see what you guys think of though. What would you guys suggest? Thanks for reading! 
World:
Superna. Roughly the same size as the planet Earth. Seasons match that of Earth as well.
Empire where the campaign takes place:
Ra-Theris (pronounced "raw-thair-ees") is an empire formed by three desert kingdoms. The architecture, culture and geography of the Ra-Theris empire is similar to that of ancient Egypt. Each of the three kingdoms of Ra-Theris is lead by a pharaoh, who each claim legitimate descent from the first pharaoh and relatively new god of civilization, Ozer-Kan-Ra. One kingdom is ruled by the elves, another by the dwarves and the last kingdom is ruled by the humans. Each kingdom is a representative of one of the first tribes of their desert valley.
The calendar of Ra-Theris:
The calendar of Ra-Theris has twelve months, each month comprised of four weeks, and each week containing seven weekdays. At the end of each 3 month long season, there is a one week transitional period into the new season, dedicated to one of the celestial elements (Sun, two of the moons and the stars). There are 365 days in each year. The final week of the year (Stars Week) is 9 days long, with the last day of this week being the first day of the new year.
The gods of Ra-Theris:
There are six good, six neutral, and six evil deities worshiped or known throughout the realm of Ra-Theris. What the people know about the gods is what they hear preached and what they see written on building walls by the priests and acolytes of the kingdom. The pharaohs deem their priests as skilled interpreters of the divine, but often push the priests to interpret the signs and omens of the gods in ways that conveniently backs their own political desires. The truth of the gods is shrouded in mysteries that pre-date the formation of Superna. Divine worshippers have indeed seen the power and work of the gods manifest before their very eyes, and are right to believe in that power. However, their interpretation of the divine is sometimes limited by their mortal mind and kingdom politics. Click here to read more about the gods.
The History of the world according to the Priests of Ra-Theris:
Within the priests’ temples, in the holiest of holies, engravings on the sand stone walls tell the story of Soreth-Kan-Ra, the creator god. He who took a handful of sand from the Night Desert, and with a single breath, sent the sand grains in his palm swirling and wheeling, invoking the powers of infinity to found the cosmos. The sand grains clashed, multiplied, eddied and expanded into billions of stars and worlds and amidst the heavenly roar of creation, in a sequestered galaxy of an expanding multiverse, the four corners of this world emerged. According to Elven records dating back to the early Stone Age, this world’s given name was Superna…
The Actual Campaign World History:
In the Age of the Colossus, the first gods appeared and created the mortal races, and a perfect world as seen in their eyes. The mortal races vied for their gods love. They became greedy and eventually fought amongst each other for that love. The fighting turned into war and the wars eventually became catastrophic to the world that the gods had created. The creator gods became very angry and decided to punish their children by abandoning the world. The creator gods vowed never to return, and thus the mortal world would no longer have the love and protection of the gods. The forces of entropy would surely take advantage of this and consume the mortal's world. Knowing this, the gods gave the mortals once chance for survival: to become gods themselves. A challenge for only the strongest and most worthy of mortals was laid forth for anyone who felt worthy to take on. Failure meant eternal death with absolutely no chance of resurrection, but success meant that a mortal could ascend to godhood. Many powerful individuals were cheered on by their people as they arrogantly strode forth to these trials, assuming that they were great enough to succeed and in the end they were completely humiliated and failed, never to be heard of or seen again. Even the most powerful warriors and wizards of the realm began to claim that the test was impossible to succeed at, and was merely a cruel trick played upon them by the gods. All seemed hopeless. The forces of entropy were about to rip the world apart into nothing. It was during this last moment, with such impeccable timing that the first person passed the test of godhood. Her name was IO. She became the first god of the second age.
The Age of Heroes... Having seen IO complete the trials of godhood, others began to see that it was not impossible to succeed and more powerful individuals did so, rising to godhood themselves. A new pantheon of gods forms in this way and order is restored for the mortal's world once again. The new pantheon presides over the mortal world, combating the forces that wish to tear it apart. Time was peaceful for a while. After much time passes, many powerful individuals are still succeeding at the task of becoming gods by succeeding in the trails. The trials are looked at like a god engine and some of the established gods begin attacking mortals during their trials, ensuring (unfairly) that they will fail and die. This causes a schism between the gods of the realm and a war breaks out between all of the gods. This fight drags the god's mortal followers into the fray and a war that literally shakes heaven and earth ensues. The conflict is dubbed the Celestial War. When some of the gods begin to lose, they decide that they are going to take the entire world with them and use all of their divine energy to self destruct. The last gods left use all of their remaining power to save the mortals of the world. They create a new world from the destroyed one called Superna and the war is over.
The Age of the Manticore... Superna, a smaller more elaborate planet is created from the detritus of the destroyed world. A world more akin to the understanding of gods who were once mortal, one fit more for humans, elves and dwarves. Some places within the old world are merged into unexpected locations within Superna (i.e. an old forest that was once on the surface of the old world, now appears in the Underdark in Superna). The mortals formed new tribes and began life in the simplest of ways again. Some of the tribes are spoken to by IO and the remaining gods. The gods power waned from using everything they had to save the mortals at the end of the Celestial War. The gods go into a deep slumber, but they leave certain mortal tribes with a power imbued into their very blood. These blessed mortals are given the ability to wield artifacts of the gods. The artifacts are in hidden places throughout Superna and require anyone who wishes to use them to face a trial (perhaps echoing similarities of the trial for godhood on purpose, without the harsh penalty for failing). In a time of great need, when the world would need to be defended, any of the chosen members of these tribes may seek out the artifacts to wield godlike powers and protect the world...the campaign takes place in this age.
The Game:
In game one, after we created characters, I had the group pick from a list of backgrounds that I created to explain how their characters met. They picked a background that had them meeting because they were all being hunted by the same assassin, but none of them knew why. They started adventuring together and eventually found out that the assassins were hunting them down at the behest of a new demigod that had secretly come to prominence in the world. The demigod's name is Tarkun. He resides in a strange moon above Superna. His plan is to become the new god of Superna. He figured out early on that some of the mortals of Superna have the ability to wield godly-powered artifacts, things that could destroy him. Since then he has been having his cult members hunt down all the members of this blood line and take them out before they have a chance to realize what is going on.
Working for Tarkun is the fact that hardly anyone remembers anything about the early days of Superna, when the gods blessed some of the mortals in the world with the ability to wield these artifacts. Working against Tarkun is a secret society called The Oracles of Dawn. The Oracles have memorized the history of the world from its beginning and pass on the story orally, never writing it down, and committing it only to memory.
One member of The Oracles of Dawn named, Upius, found the players characters and began helping them out from the very first adventure.
While the characters were traveling through the mountains to investigate one of the cultists possible hide outs within a sky-mine, they encountered an Illithid named Stazar and his Modron companion 54. Stazar informed the group that he was an ally of one of the player characters brothers, a half-elf named Tralis. Stazar and Tralis were part of a select member of the Oracles of Dawn who formed an inner-order called The Visitants Cabal, a group rumored to dabble in Chronomancy (time travel magic). He warned the group that there was more at stake than they originally realized. Tralis had been traveling through time to try to find clues to the whereabouts of the god-artifacts. During his travels a powerful Chronomancer in a gold cloak who called himself the Time Lord, stopped Tralis from succeeding. The Time Lord claimed that he was stopping Tralis from devastating the natural flow of time, but Stazar found evidence that the Time Lord was actually allied with Tarkun, the evil demigod trying to assassinate the player characters! In addition to this, Tralis had been sent to a prison in Mechanus by the Time Lord. Before Tralis was imprisoned, he did something that has now affected the time stream. This has caused strange time anomalies and Stazar is not exactly sure what he did, but assumes he had a good reason for it. (Note: This "time anomaly" thing was my way of dealing with players who show up to my game later or who have to leave early. Its like pulling teeth trying to coordinate schedules with people these days, so this was my solution. Time anomalies occur when players pop in and out of play and we can just run with it now.)
The group discovered that Tarkun's cult was amassing a small army led by several different types of djinn, that were all apparently Tarkun's sons and daughter. They explored a vast castle in the elemental plane of air and fought against one of the djinn (who was found carving and eating one of the group's allies at a dinner table when they arrived). During another part of the campaign they were attempting to hunt down cultists throughout one of the biggest cities in the empire. The cultists were harboring extremely destructive elemental bombs. The mission went south and all of the elemental bombs planted throughout the grand city went off. The entire city was blown to bits, corpses choked the lake docs and river. The group was hunted as the culprits of the destruction by a group of sword and sandal style Medjay (Paladins in my game world) called the Doom Guard. They were eventually acquitted after being tried beneath a great gem of truth (gem of the Triptych Eye) in one of the vizier's court (who happened to be a couatl). From there, they traveled the Steps of Judgement, to gain entry into the citadel of the pharaoh (in the middle kingdom - human lands), and made allies with the pharaoh. With his assistance they were able to track down locations for some of the hidden god-artifacts and they have been attempting to hunt them down since. They managed to get some of the artifacts, one of them was obtained through a glass pyramid on a blue plateau that sent them traveling through time.
At this point in the campaign they have discovered that their existence was "forked" and that a powerful artifact called "the black book" (which they originally encountered while time traveling)has created aberrant clone versions of themselves. One of these clones has stolen one of the artifacts they need too.
In the last adventure they were attacked by the clones and another enemy of theirs, a pit fiend named Neffy. Their base was completely destroyed and the clone got away... but they killed the pit fiend. Win one for the team!
A side quest is also taking place, where two of the players are tracking down the time lord. The Time Lord met them within Temporal Prime during a time anomaly that sent them there. He duplicated himself into twelve versions (yes, one for each hour on the clock), and began attacking the two PCs. They were overwhelmed. Stazar appeared and cast a spell via his staff to banish him. The spell interacted strangely on Temporal Prime and opened portals to other worlds. Each of the twelve Time Lords was then banished to another world. I am using this to have the players explore other game worlds while taking the Time Lord down, one version at a time. Stazar also got stuck in one of these worlds on accident. The two players who are hunting the time lord now jumped through one of the portals and ended up in the world of Godsfall in the city of Ani. Why there? Well, I tweeted Aram and asked him where a bad guy from my game would be. Guess who else I tweeted... thats right the DMB! The characters in my game will also be encountering the Riders of Shemesh in a future game now.
World:
Superna. Roughly the same size as the planet Earth. Seasons match that of Earth as well.
Empire where the campaign takes place:
Ra-Theris (pronounced "raw-thair-ees") is an empire formed by three desert kingdoms. The architecture, culture and geography of the Ra-Theris empire is similar to that of ancient Egypt. Each of the three kingdoms of Ra-Theris is lead by a pharaoh, who each claim legitimate descent from the first pharaoh and relatively new god of civilization, Ozer-Kan-Ra. One kingdom is ruled by the elves, another by the dwarves and the last kingdom is ruled by the humans. Each kingdom is a representative of one of the first tribes of their desert valley.
The calendar of Ra-Theris:
The calendar of Ra-Theris has twelve months, each month comprised of four weeks, and each week containing seven weekdays. At the end of each 3 month long season, there is a one week transitional period into the new season, dedicated to one of the celestial elements (Sun, two of the moons and the stars). There are 365 days in each year. The final week of the year (Stars Week) is 9 days long, with the last day of this week being the first day of the new year.
The gods of Ra-Theris:
There are six good, six neutral, and six evil deities worshiped or known throughout the realm of Ra-Theris. What the people know about the gods is what they hear preached and what they see written on building walls by the priests and acolytes of the kingdom. The pharaohs deem their priests as skilled interpreters of the divine, but often push the priests to interpret the signs and omens of the gods in ways that conveniently backs their own political desires. The truth of the gods is shrouded in mysteries that pre-date the formation of Superna. Divine worshippers have indeed seen the power and work of the gods manifest before their very eyes, and are right to believe in that power. However, their interpretation of the divine is sometimes limited by their mortal mind and kingdom politics. Click here to read more about the gods.
The History of the world according to the Priests of Ra-Theris:
Within the priests’ temples, in the holiest of holies, engravings on the sand stone walls tell the story of Soreth-Kan-Ra, the creator god. He who took a handful of sand from the Night Desert, and with a single breath, sent the sand grains in his palm swirling and wheeling, invoking the powers of infinity to found the cosmos. The sand grains clashed, multiplied, eddied and expanded into billions of stars and worlds and amidst the heavenly roar of creation, in a sequestered galaxy of an expanding multiverse, the four corners of this world emerged. According to Elven records dating back to the early Stone Age, this world’s given name was Superna…
The Actual Campaign World History:
In the Age of the Colossus, the first gods appeared and created the mortal races, and a perfect world as seen in their eyes. The mortal races vied for their gods love. They became greedy and eventually fought amongst each other for that love. The fighting turned into war and the wars eventually became catastrophic to the world that the gods had created. The creator gods became very angry and decided to punish their children by abandoning the world. The creator gods vowed never to return, and thus the mortal world would no longer have the love and protection of the gods. The forces of entropy would surely take advantage of this and consume the mortal's world. Knowing this, the gods gave the mortals once chance for survival: to become gods themselves. A challenge for only the strongest and most worthy of mortals was laid forth for anyone who felt worthy to take on. Failure meant eternal death with absolutely no chance of resurrection, but success meant that a mortal could ascend to godhood. Many powerful individuals were cheered on by their people as they arrogantly strode forth to these trials, assuming that they were great enough to succeed and in the end they were completely humiliated and failed, never to be heard of or seen again. Even the most powerful warriors and wizards of the realm began to claim that the test was impossible to succeed at, and was merely a cruel trick played upon them by the gods. All seemed hopeless. The forces of entropy were about to rip the world apart into nothing. It was during this last moment, with such impeccable timing that the first person passed the test of godhood. Her name was IO. She became the first god of the second age.
The Age of Heroes... Having seen IO complete the trials of godhood, others began to see that it was not impossible to succeed and more powerful individuals did so, rising to godhood themselves. A new pantheon of gods forms in this way and order is restored for the mortal's world once again. The new pantheon presides over the mortal world, combating the forces that wish to tear it apart. Time was peaceful for a while. After much time passes, many powerful individuals are still succeeding at the task of becoming gods by succeeding in the trails. The trials are looked at like a god engine and some of the established gods begin attacking mortals during their trials, ensuring (unfairly) that they will fail and die. This causes a schism between the gods of the realm and a war breaks out between all of the gods. This fight drags the god's mortal followers into the fray and a war that literally shakes heaven and earth ensues. The conflict is dubbed the Celestial War. When some of the gods begin to lose, they decide that they are going to take the entire world with them and use all of their divine energy to self destruct. The last gods left use all of their remaining power to save the mortals of the world. They create a new world from the destroyed one called Superna and the war is over.
The Age of the Manticore... Superna, a smaller more elaborate planet is created from the detritus of the destroyed world. A world more akin to the understanding of gods who were once mortal, one fit more for humans, elves and dwarves. Some places within the old world are merged into unexpected locations within Superna (i.e. an old forest that was once on the surface of the old world, now appears in the Underdark in Superna). The mortals formed new tribes and began life in the simplest of ways again. Some of the tribes are spoken to by IO and the remaining gods. The gods power waned from using everything they had to save the mortals at the end of the Celestial War. The gods go into a deep slumber, but they leave certain mortal tribes with a power imbued into their very blood. These blessed mortals are given the ability to wield artifacts of the gods. The artifacts are in hidden places throughout Superna and require anyone who wishes to use them to face a trial (perhaps echoing similarities of the trial for godhood on purpose, without the harsh penalty for failing). In a time of great need, when the world would need to be defended, any of the chosen members of these tribes may seek out the artifacts to wield godlike powers and protect the world...the campaign takes place in this age.
The Game:
In game one, after we created characters, I had the group pick from a list of backgrounds that I created to explain how their characters met. They picked a background that had them meeting because they were all being hunted by the same assassin, but none of them knew why. They started adventuring together and eventually found out that the assassins were hunting them down at the behest of a new demigod that had secretly come to prominence in the world. The demigod's name is Tarkun. He resides in a strange moon above Superna. His plan is to become the new god of Superna. He figured out early on that some of the mortals of Superna have the ability to wield godly-powered artifacts, things that could destroy him. Since then he has been having his cult members hunt down all the members of this blood line and take them out before they have a chance to realize what is going on.
Working for Tarkun is the fact that hardly anyone remembers anything about the early days of Superna, when the gods blessed some of the mortals in the world with the ability to wield these artifacts. Working against Tarkun is a secret society called The Oracles of Dawn. The Oracles have memorized the history of the world from its beginning and pass on the story orally, never writing it down, and committing it only to memory.
One member of The Oracles of Dawn named, Upius, found the players characters and began helping them out from the very first adventure.
While the characters were traveling through the mountains to investigate one of the cultists possible hide outs within a sky-mine, they encountered an Illithid named Stazar and his Modron companion 54. Stazar informed the group that he was an ally of one of the player characters brothers, a half-elf named Tralis. Stazar and Tralis were part of a select member of the Oracles of Dawn who formed an inner-order called The Visitants Cabal, a group rumored to dabble in Chronomancy (time travel magic). He warned the group that there was more at stake than they originally realized. Tralis had been traveling through time to try to find clues to the whereabouts of the god-artifacts. During his travels a powerful Chronomancer in a gold cloak who called himself the Time Lord, stopped Tralis from succeeding. The Time Lord claimed that he was stopping Tralis from devastating the natural flow of time, but Stazar found evidence that the Time Lord was actually allied with Tarkun, the evil demigod trying to assassinate the player characters! In addition to this, Tralis had been sent to a prison in Mechanus by the Time Lord. Before Tralis was imprisoned, he did something that has now affected the time stream. This has caused strange time anomalies and Stazar is not exactly sure what he did, but assumes he had a good reason for it. (Note: This "time anomaly" thing was my way of dealing with players who show up to my game later or who have to leave early. Its like pulling teeth trying to coordinate schedules with people these days, so this was my solution. Time anomalies occur when players pop in and out of play and we can just run with it now.)
The group discovered that Tarkun's cult was amassing a small army led by several different types of djinn, that were all apparently Tarkun's sons and daughter. They explored a vast castle in the elemental plane of air and fought against one of the djinn (who was found carving and eating one of the group's allies at a dinner table when they arrived). During another part of the campaign they were attempting to hunt down cultists throughout one of the biggest cities in the empire. The cultists were harboring extremely destructive elemental bombs. The mission went south and all of the elemental bombs planted throughout the grand city went off. The entire city was blown to bits, corpses choked the lake docs and river. The group was hunted as the culprits of the destruction by a group of sword and sandal style Medjay (Paladins in my game world) called the Doom Guard. They were eventually acquitted after being tried beneath a great gem of truth (gem of the Triptych Eye) in one of the vizier's court (who happened to be a couatl). From there, they traveled the Steps of Judgement, to gain entry into the citadel of the pharaoh (in the middle kingdom - human lands), and made allies with the pharaoh. With his assistance they were able to track down locations for some of the hidden god-artifacts and they have been attempting to hunt them down since. They managed to get some of the artifacts, one of them was obtained through a glass pyramid on a blue plateau that sent them traveling through time.
At this point in the campaign they have discovered that their existence was "forked" and that a powerful artifact called "the black book" (which they originally encountered while time traveling)has created aberrant clone versions of themselves. One of these clones has stolen one of the artifacts they need too.
In the last adventure they were attacked by the clones and another enemy of theirs, a pit fiend named Neffy. Their base was completely destroyed and the clone got away... but they killed the pit fiend. Win one for the team!
A side quest is also taking place, where two of the players are tracking down the time lord. The Time Lord met them within Temporal Prime during a time anomaly that sent them there. He duplicated himself into twelve versions (yes, one for each hour on the clock), and began attacking the two PCs. They were overwhelmed. Stazar appeared and cast a spell via his staff to banish him. The spell interacted strangely on Temporal Prime and opened portals to other worlds. Each of the twelve Time Lords was then banished to another world. I am using this to have the players explore other game worlds while taking the Time Lord down, one version at a time. Stazar also got stuck in one of these worlds on accident. The two players who are hunting the time lord now jumped through one of the portals and ended up in the world of Godsfall in the city of Ani. Why there? Well, I tweeted Aram and asked him where a bad guy from my game would be. Guess who else I tweeted... thats right the DMB! The characters in my game will also be encountering the Riders of Shemesh in a future game now.
