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[D&D 4E] Points of Light and Darkness
Hexmage-PA
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I have a feeling this thread will fare about as well as the other non-general discussion 4E threads have, but here goes:
The Points of Light style of setting is meant to be kept deliberately vague and underdeveloped to facilitate both the ability to plug new material in wherever a DM wants and to encourage the DM and players to cooperate in building a shared world. With that said, I thought it would be interesting to create a bank of "setting modules" that DMs could browse for ideas that they would want to use.
It's simple: just come up with a brief description and a few adventure hooks for an interesting town, city, region, dungeon, astral dominion, elemental realm, fey demesne, dark realm, demiplane, etc, and post it here.
PEARLTIDE
This city-state was largely built by dwarves and stretches from their ancestral sea cliff dwellings to a sparkling lagoon. Merfolk and other races of the sea mingle and trade with terrestrial races at the waterfront; it is not uncommon to witness a mermaid singing to the tune of a land born minstrel. Several waterways cut through the city allow access to the interior for intelligent creatures that cannot walk on land. Pearltide extends to small underwater communities in the lagoon. Harpies constantly seek to lair in the cliff dwellings while hydras and other amphibious monsters lurk in the lagoon and its shores. The monsters don't pose as much of a threat to the city's stability as the rising tensions between merchant guilds do, however. The competition between the terrestrial merchants who ply the waters in ships and the aquatic merchants who brave the depths is becoming increasingly fierce.
Hooks
- Adventuring parties that come to Pearltide are greeted with solicitations from both the terrestrial merchants' guild and the aquatic merchants' guild.
- Some areas of Pearltide's bay are significantly more affected by run-off from the land than others. It is in these areas that the poorer aquatic residents live, predominately those races that are particularly distrusted (such as sahuagin).
THE SEALED CITADEL OF DRULOCK
This windowless tower lies in the center of an abandoned complex of colossal stone walls. The nobility of a long vanished civilization attempted to use this impregnable fortress to escape a devastating plague. Not only did the plague find its way inside, it still lingers in the haunted halls of Drulock. Having gained some semblance of sentience through the tortured psychic energy of its ancient victims, the plague waits for someone to enter through the teleportation circle that serves as the tower's sole entrance and carry it back out with them.
Hooks
- Clues as to what the ancient inhabitants of Drulock were like and who created the plague in the first place could be found.
- The plague could infect intruders into Drulock and use them to spread throughout the outside world. Fortunately it's unique nature gives it an unusual weakness: an embodiment of the plague lurks in the deepest levels of the citadel's dungeon, and should it be destroyed the plague will be wiped out as well.
ONTIRLAND
Inspired by an article on demiplanes from a Paizo-era Dragon magazine. This elemental realm is under construction by a league of powerful dwarves, free azers and galeb duhrs, and even a few duergars. The organization hopes to create a fortress from which it can mount slave liberation missions to free azers and galeb duhrs from the tyranny of giants and titans. An exarch of Moradin is currently serves as the leader of Ontirland.
Hooks
- Duergars loyal to the devils of the Nine Hells might fear that the dwarfkin freed by the warriors of Ontirland could be used by Moradin against their masters. These duergars could attempt to claim the azers and galeb duhrs for the Hells.
- Ancient elemental beasts lie entombed throughout the plane. Workers attempting to expand Ontirland could accidentally awaken powerful foes, perhaps even abominations.
- Primordials are not all malicious, and it is possible (although a rare occurance indeed) that some could be reasoned with. Perhaps they could ally themselves with a benevolent primordial that could help protect Ontirland from the dangers of the Elemental Chaos?
THE NECROPOLIS OF THE WATERS and MOLDERPORT
This stretch of water serves as a massive graveyard for both scuttled ships and the men who sailed them. Galleons from long ago molder here under thick curtains of slime, but never quite rotting away. The grandest ships that find their way to the Necropolis are claimed by a being called the Dockmaster. The Dockmaster lairs within Molderport, an eerie patchwork complex made from the flotsam and repurposed hulls of galleons. The facility exists simultaneously in both the Middle World and the Shadowfell, and it is here that a pirate captain's vengeful soul must come if it wishes to reclaim the ship it had in life. The Dockmaster treats with potential customers through proxies, so what type of being he is is unknown (many assume he is a devil, seeing as his primary payment plan involves collecting the souls of those slain by his customers, although he might be another kind of being that sells soulstuff to devils, death giants, and the like). Aquatic undead and water "necromentals" (water elementals corrupted by necrotic energy) swim throughout the rotting hulks, and small tribes of myconids clamber aboard the decaying wood. The weather of the Necropolis of the Waters remains calm even when storms rage around it, presumably out of reverence for a pact made between the Dockmaster and the storm giants of the Middle World.
Hooks
- The Dockmaster has sent out minions to sink a grand ship so that he can sell the wreck and claim its precious cargo. The PCs could guard the ship from being scuttled.
- The necrotic energies suffusing the Necropolis of the Waters periodically corrupts water elementals, transforming them into "necromentals" composed of unholy water (the blood elemental from Open Grave could serve well as a water necromental). When water necromentals begin attacking seaside temples of Melora the PCs could be called upon to destroy them. Alternatively, normal water elementals could ask the PCs to destroy their corrupted kin.
- The ghost of a dreaded pirate captain appears once every decade to wreak havoc on the coast. The communities of the coast have approached the PCs with an offer: prevent the dread pirate's attack this year by purchasing his ghost ship from the Dockmaster before the ghost captain can claim it.
- Though most of the wrecked galleons somehow remain floating above the water, sometimes the mysterious forces supporting them give way. The Dockmaster himself might hire the PCs to dive to the sea floor and use a special ritual to raise a particularly desirable wreck to the surface.
- The Dockmaster's buying and selling of the souls of those lost at sea has angered the Raven Queen. The PCs must brave the Necropolis of Waters, infiltrate the floating fortress of Molderport and slay the Dockmaster.
The Points of Light style of setting is meant to be kept deliberately vague and underdeveloped to facilitate both the ability to plug new material in wherever a DM wants and to encourage the DM and players to cooperate in building a shared world. With that said, I thought it would be interesting to create a bank of "setting modules" that DMs could browse for ideas that they would want to use.
It's simple: just come up with a brief description and a few adventure hooks for an interesting town, city, region, dungeon, astral dominion, elemental realm, fey demesne, dark realm, demiplane, etc, and post it here.
PEARLTIDE
This city-state was largely built by dwarves and stretches from their ancestral sea cliff dwellings to a sparkling lagoon. Merfolk and other races of the sea mingle and trade with terrestrial races at the waterfront; it is not uncommon to witness a mermaid singing to the tune of a land born minstrel. Several waterways cut through the city allow access to the interior for intelligent creatures that cannot walk on land. Pearltide extends to small underwater communities in the lagoon. Harpies constantly seek to lair in the cliff dwellings while hydras and other amphibious monsters lurk in the lagoon and its shores. The monsters don't pose as much of a threat to the city's stability as the rising tensions between merchant guilds do, however. The competition between the terrestrial merchants who ply the waters in ships and the aquatic merchants who brave the depths is becoming increasingly fierce.
Hooks
- Adventuring parties that come to Pearltide are greeted with solicitations from both the terrestrial merchants' guild and the aquatic merchants' guild.
- Some areas of Pearltide's bay are significantly more affected by run-off from the land than others. It is in these areas that the poorer aquatic residents live, predominately those races that are particularly distrusted (such as sahuagin).
THE SEALED CITADEL OF DRULOCK
This windowless tower lies in the center of an abandoned complex of colossal stone walls. The nobility of a long vanished civilization attempted to use this impregnable fortress to escape a devastating plague. Not only did the plague find its way inside, it still lingers in the haunted halls of Drulock. Having gained some semblance of sentience through the tortured psychic energy of its ancient victims, the plague waits for someone to enter through the teleportation circle that serves as the tower's sole entrance and carry it back out with them.
Hooks
- Clues as to what the ancient inhabitants of Drulock were like and who created the plague in the first place could be found.
- The plague could infect intruders into Drulock and use them to spread throughout the outside world. Fortunately it's unique nature gives it an unusual weakness: an embodiment of the plague lurks in the deepest levels of the citadel's dungeon, and should it be destroyed the plague will be wiped out as well.
ONTIRLAND
Inspired by an article on demiplanes from a Paizo-era Dragon magazine. This elemental realm is under construction by a league of powerful dwarves, free azers and galeb duhrs, and even a few duergars. The organization hopes to create a fortress from which it can mount slave liberation missions to free azers and galeb duhrs from the tyranny of giants and titans. An exarch of Moradin is currently serves as the leader of Ontirland.
Hooks
- Duergars loyal to the devils of the Nine Hells might fear that the dwarfkin freed by the warriors of Ontirland could be used by Moradin against their masters. These duergars could attempt to claim the azers and galeb duhrs for the Hells.
- Ancient elemental beasts lie entombed throughout the plane. Workers attempting to expand Ontirland could accidentally awaken powerful foes, perhaps even abominations.
- Primordials are not all malicious, and it is possible (although a rare occurance indeed) that some could be reasoned with. Perhaps they could ally themselves with a benevolent primordial that could help protect Ontirland from the dangers of the Elemental Chaos?
THE NECROPOLIS OF THE WATERS and MOLDERPORT
This stretch of water serves as a massive graveyard for both scuttled ships and the men who sailed them. Galleons from long ago molder here under thick curtains of slime, but never quite rotting away. The grandest ships that find their way to the Necropolis are claimed by a being called the Dockmaster. The Dockmaster lairs within Molderport, an eerie patchwork complex made from the flotsam and repurposed hulls of galleons. The facility exists simultaneously in both the Middle World and the Shadowfell, and it is here that a pirate captain's vengeful soul must come if it wishes to reclaim the ship it had in life. The Dockmaster treats with potential customers through proxies, so what type of being he is is unknown (many assume he is a devil, seeing as his primary payment plan involves collecting the souls of those slain by his customers, although he might be another kind of being that sells soulstuff to devils, death giants, and the like). Aquatic undead and water "necromentals" (water elementals corrupted by necrotic energy) swim throughout the rotting hulks, and small tribes of myconids clamber aboard the decaying wood. The weather of the Necropolis of the Waters remains calm even when storms rage around it, presumably out of reverence for a pact made between the Dockmaster and the storm giants of the Middle World.
Hooks
- The Dockmaster has sent out minions to sink a grand ship so that he can sell the wreck and claim its precious cargo. The PCs could guard the ship from being scuttled.
- The necrotic energies suffusing the Necropolis of the Waters periodically corrupts water elementals, transforming them into "necromentals" composed of unholy water (the blood elemental from Open Grave could serve well as a water necromental). When water necromentals begin attacking seaside temples of Melora the PCs could be called upon to destroy them. Alternatively, normal water elementals could ask the PCs to destroy their corrupted kin.
- The ghost of a dreaded pirate captain appears once every decade to wreak havoc on the coast. The communities of the coast have approached the PCs with an offer: prevent the dread pirate's attack this year by purchasing his ghost ship from the Dockmaster before the ghost captain can claim it.
- Though most of the wrecked galleons somehow remain floating above the water, sometimes the mysterious forces supporting them give way. The Dockmaster himself might hire the PCs to dive to the sea floor and use a special ritual to raise a particularly desirable wreck to the surface.
- The Dockmaster's buying and selling of the souls of those lost at sea has angered the Raven Queen. The PCs must brave the Necropolis of Waters, infiltrate the floating fortress of Molderport and slay the Dockmaster.
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A small town on the edge of the River Wander, it exists as an outpost for local trade caravans traveling through the thick surrounding forests. The greedy Baron Rockinham has been overtaxing the populace, and recently something of a civil war has begun. A former adventurer by the name of Dyn Riesel has half the city under his control, and requires aid in assaulting the Baron's keep, located on a small island on the river, reachable by drawbridge. Other notable features include a retired Wizard of the Gilded Rose and a mine known for producing quality tin and copper.
I'll think of more later. By the way, you might want to rename "Urinal Land" unless that was intentional.
EDIT: Actually, it's there as a subtle cue that he's supposed to be a good guy, or at least morally ambiguous. Similarly, Barons are always jerks. This is a fact.
Faylynn was once one of the largest cities in an kingdom who's name is now forgotten. When 4 brothers when to war for the crowd of their late father's kingdom, Faylynn was the center and final battleground. The brother's and their armies fought in one of the kingdom's darkest weeks. Faylynn had high walls, and houses built so that archers could stand on the roof tops and everyone would have a clear shot. It was protected by a machine that used crystals to make a magic force field that stopped Arcane magics and by priest who would offer every god a sacrifice to protect it from any Divine attacks. The city was neutral to the war but it housed the Grytific School of Sword and Spell, the top college for young warriors in service to the King. But even all its protection couldn't save Faylynn. After weeks of bloody war, terrorist on the inside of the town were able to destroy the crystal machine and the armies poured in. The battle was bloody and thousands lost their lives. The four brothers all died in this battle. In the end, the kingdom lost its king and all rule. Later, the nobles and the peasant leaders came together and created a council government, a new nation called Ashland, as it was formed from the ashes of one kingdom, and rose from the ground like a phoenix. Faylynn was ruined, and only in the last 20 years or so have people returned to the ruins. The town named after the once grand city, lies outside the city walls. Kobalds, Thieves, and (rumored) undead live in the ruins.
Edit: Many adventures could come from a place like this.
Dammit, now I've gotta spend hours trying to come up with a new name.
EDIT: I've gone through like 20 freakin' names so far because of you.
PSN: ChemENGR
ANGRIM THARAZ
An ancient dwarven fortress-city constructed under the mountains. While mining, the dwarves happened upon a unique, valuable ore that acted as the seal on a prison of an ancient demigod's prison; ignorant of what lied beyond, the vein was mined out, releasing the evil within. The dwarves only managed to collapse the entrances of their city, sealing all within, before the entity enslaved them all. Now they are little more than its thralls as it recovers from its long imprisonment and schemes for the day when it breaks through the dwarven city's exterior, making its presence known once more.
Hooks-
-One of the party members knows someone from the city/has relatives within/is an escapee, and decides to return to discover the city's fate.
-A magic-user of the party or one who can see the fates (ie, star pact warlocks) detects the doom rising from within and sets the party on a path to stop it before it's too late.
-Dwarves hire guards (the party) for an exploratory caravan to the city to investigate its fate. Once inside, they are beset by gibbering monstrosities and mad dwarves, horror-movie style, and must fight to survive.
-A teleportation ritual gone wrong warps the party into the depths of the city and they must escape before the entity controlling it discovers them.
I still haven't been able to fabricate a name I like enough to replace "Urinal Land".
Constructed over dragonborn ruins by the eladrin, most view New Theropolis as a dying party-town on the edge of the swamps. Visitors who only stay to see the lily-covered canals and empty townhouses would be inclined to agree--but those who stay longer, and accompany the city as it "overlays" itself onto Old Theropolis in the Feywild every fortnight might think otherwise.
Too bad Monster Manual 2 didn't include Derro. They would have fit perfectly here!
Pulled the name out of my ass.
I don't know if anyone else cares, but I'll use these as starting points for making my own place names.
Ly Rithkin, the Underwater Deathtrap
Although the art of creating large bubbles of air underneath the surface of an ocean has been lost to the world, many of the communities created underneath these pockets still thrive.
Ly Rithkin is not one of those communities.
Formerly a trading town, Ly Rithkin (called 'The Rith' by its former inhabitants) suffered a catastrophic failure of its airpocket. The airpocket managed to reform itself, but not before a few feet of water filled the place...and that few feet of water allowed creatures in. Creatures that didn't like human under the sea (At this point is is okay to start humming Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid. I did it the entire time I was designing the city). From the mundane underwater kobolds to the terrifying underwater beasts, it seemed that anything and everything evil had decided that now would be a good time to destroy The Rith once and for all.
What they didn't account for is the cities Civil Engineer, Delrin Shava. Delrin had helped expand the city in his youth, and under his guidance The Rith grew to massive size with very little overcrowding or people jams that seem to mar every other large city. In his now old age, however, Delrin had only one objective: to make the underwater creatures pay for every inch of his city they flooded. With every civilian evacuated, he and the cities Corp of Engineers set about making every inch of human controlled land a death trap. Huge death spikes, giant rolling balls, false floors into pits of floating acid, if you can think of it and it can hurt, Delrin Shava and his corp stuck it somewhere in the city.
That was twenty years ago. Recently a relic has been found allowing an underwater passage to open up to Ly Rithkin again.
Hooks
Map The Area: The local cartographer's guild does not have a map of the Ly Rithkin bubble. Get in, get to a high point, map out the bubble, get out.
The Lost Husband: A wife of one of the engineers that stayed behind to make the place into a death trap has waited twenty years for word of her Husbands fate. With the gate to the city back open, she hires the PC to get in and find her Husband, or, if he is dead, to bring him back for a proper burial.
The Sole Soul Kraken: A local religious order has heard whisperings that a Soul Kraken has been spotted near the Ly Rithkin bubble. Get in, find any signs of it's activity, then gtfo and call in the big guns.
THE GET OF OLIDAMMARA
The Get of Olidammara is a traveling theater troupe that traverses the countryside in a large wagon that doubles as their stage. Many such companies exist throughout the world, but the Get is by reputation the best. Their renown is such that many imitator troupes have sprung up, appropriating the company’s name in part or in whole. The number of impostor troupes, as high as maybe a half dozen, makes it difficult for theater enthusiasts to track the path of the real Get; false sightings abound, and the Get never so much as hints at their next destination. Many theatergoers have gone their entire lives thinking themselves veterans of the Get’s productions, unaware that they have been hoodwinked by counterfeits every time.
The company’s secrecy is puzzling. Most players interested in turning a profit advertise their itineraries loudly and exuberantly to any who would listen. But the Get’s course is as secret as it is unpredictable. They have been known to play in the churchyard of Yellow Brook in the far north one week and then show up the next in a tavern common room in Ridgemark in the distant south, stopping to perform at none of the hundreds towns and villages in between. The profusion of copycat troupes makes it easier to dismiss these tales of seemingly supernatural speed. Only the members of the company know the truth.
There is hardly an actor in the world who would not raise a glass to Olidammara, the patron god of revelry and music. But the Get’s affection for the god of minstrels runs much deeper than this. Unbeknownst to all, the Get is far more than a mere theater company: it is a secret society of Olidammara worshippers, dating back to the time of the Ancients.
Even within the insular world of the company there are layers of initiation. Temporary hired help—extra stage hands and freelance actors—join and leave the company routinely, never thinking anything out of the ordinary. The permanent actors with the least experience are formally initiated into Olidammara’s fellowship, but still have only the vaguest notion of the company’s history and purpose. They are led to believe that the company exists to spread the blessings of Olidammara through the joys of revelry and song. This is true enough, as far as it goes, but is not the whole story.
After a member has been with the company long enough, they are introduced to another purpose. The Bard is an aspect of Olidammara, but not the only one. Just as important as the Bard is the Thief, and the Get of Olidammara is as much a mobile thieves’ guild as it is a wandering theater troupe. Actors are notorious the world over for picking the pockets of their audiences, of course, and the players in the Get do more than their fair share of this mundane thievery. But it always has its eyes set on higher prizes. A particularly popular pastime is using the cover of the theater company to visit churches in distant villages and steal the relics of rival gods from beneath their clerics’ noses.
The majority of Get members are in on the secret so far. New initiates are taken in on a strict “move up or move out” basis, and the ones who look like they won’t be cut out for the thieving life are forced out of the company before they learn enough to do any harm. However, while most in the company are well-apprised of the troupe’s illicit activities, only three at a time are aware of the Get’s true mission: to promote the primordial forces of chaos.
The Plays
The Get of Olidammara performs versions of a wide variety of plays from around the world, but they are world famous for their interpretations of the works of Lancerock the Blessed, a legendary bard who lived in the time of the Ancients. Lancerock’s plays are known to all experienced playgoers and educated people, and the Get has made them their specialty.
What is not widely known is that Lancerock was a founding member of the band of bards that would become the Get of Olidammara. More than merely being well-practiced actors, the inner circle of the Get are the sole inheritors of Lancerock’s arcane secrets. Namely, Lancerock’s plays are actually arcane rituals that—when played properly—unleash spectacular magical power.
Artifact: The Ancient Folio of Lancerock the Blessed
The Ancient Folio of Lancerock the Blessed is a collection of Lancerock’s original manuscripts and the most prized possession of the Get of Olidammara. While Lancerock’s works are widely copied and performed, all version except those in the Ancient Folio are defective in small but important ways, ruining their magic. Only the Ancient Folio preserves the subtle stage directions and cleverly disguised words of power that are key to successfully carrying out the arcane rituals.
Each play has its own effect on the audience, ranging in power from curious to marvelous and beyond. Not every production that the Get performs is magical, and when they do perform an arcane play it is usually one of the minor comedies that saps the audience’s awareness, making them easier to pickpocket. Other plays have more powerful effects, and there is one scene – the final soliloquy of Mad King Rael – that will kill all listeners if ever performed correctly.
Hooks
-The Get of Olidammara rolls into town. Bianca, the glamorous leading lady, flirts with a handsome PC, making note of any particularly pretty magical items. After the production is over and the troupe rolls out, the party finds some things are missing...
-Malvolio, the troupe's dour business manager, needs some extra muscle to get the troupe through a particularly nasty stretch of goblin-infested wilderness. After the PCs successfully get the Get to their destination, at least one perceptive PC notices Juliet, the troupe's understudy, sneaking off toward the High Cleric's Temple in the dead of night...
-The PCs meet leading man Romeo and special effects expert Prospero on the road and save them from attacking monsters. The actors thank the PCs graciously, and insist the PCs return with them to the town where the Get has most recently set up shop. The business manager gives them a reward for saving the leading man, and offers them an innocuous fetch quest to enter the ruins of an old library and find "some missing pages" from "the tragic masterwork" Mad King Rael.
The write-up could've been clearer, but I imagined that truly major heists would be uncommon, and be of objects that the owners wouldn't realize were missing until some time after the troupe had left. And they don't revisit the same town for decades, and the PoL setting assumes there are vast wildernesses that prevent too much communication between villages.
Well I didn't want to give everything away.
In the original campaign I thought these people up for I imagined that they used forgotten teleport nodes scattered across the world.
As far as the Io convention, this makes sense for the Dragonborn, at least racially. Io is the God of Dragons, so it would make sense for Dragonborn to use the name in their cities.
What exactly is a Soul Kraken like?
It was an encounter I had thought up to get around the issue of solos tending to be either extremely OP or get stunlocked. Each tentacle would be its own monster/minion creation factory. It was also planned to be the reoccurring villain, who would constantly cause havoc in the cut off city via destroying buildings/attempting to flood the place/etc etc etc.
It preserves the feel of the place name, while making it not sound like urinal
Uruland works too, and let's the people be called urulanders
Urnland works
Duruland sounds good
Drulland (pronounced Druhl-and)
Surely there are more people with ideas for this thread they wouldn't mind sharing!
The game would be set in "City 17", a Baldur's Gate/Waterdeep sized city, with a large tower in the center, similar to the Citadel. Instead of crazy aliens, it would be Demons/Devils, basically planar creatures, with a powerful Wizard in the tower communicating with the leaders and working out a plan to "dominate the world". The points of light setting comes in with the city in general being the darkness, with certain households occupied by the Resistance.
Eh?
If I did it it'd be Mind Flayers.
...
now I am going to do this.
No, go for it. It could be a really cool game. I might try to run the setting on here in a bit.
A fortified town in a remote part of the Shadowfell is protected by an unlikely guardian: a demon exiled from the Abyss by Orcus. Though the demon fends off outside threats, it periodically hunts the townspeople itself. The citizens know that Nesitrist is the only beacon of civilization in the region, so they do not leave. The demon has already wiped-out the population several times in the past; the corpses of his previous victims are stored in his castle to be reanimated as undead servants.