Heh... I like. Gonna cause some headscratching I betcha.

The major question now is whether I want to introduce a half-gnoll template and deal with the implications of that...

Places to Go, Things to Kill

Giant's Grave

One of the more peculiar landmarks that a traveler in the south-western plains can navigate by is Giant's Grave. It is the incomplete burial site of some long dead titan, though why it is incomplete is unknown. A great chasm opens in the earth, plunging down for hundreds of feet into near-blackness. On a bright day, the faintest of light makes it way down and a massive humanoid skeleton can just barely be seen. A single great mound of earth runs the length of the chasm on the western side, though it's now pockmarked with warrens and tunnels for all sorts of beasts that live in the darkness.

People

Karl Alen Torbail, Karl the Jaw-Breaker

If any one chief can be said to be pre-eminent amongst the Kadiz clans, it is Karl the Jaw-Breaker. Fierce and clever, he boasts that he has never bought a single head of cattle, having won his herd solely through raiding. He is synonymous amongst the Kaddish with bloodthirsty murder, and uncountable widows have begged him to return their husbands' bodies. Amongst the Kadiz, he is the finest of patrons. To be in his warband is to return home safe and rich, with wives, cattle, gold and steel in abundance. His horses are the finest, and he alone amongst the Kadiz owns a full suit of plate. His clan, the Torbails, operate close to the Death River, the southern border of the Orthocracy.

Akoin, formerly of the Gilded College, Stellar Heresiarch

Akoin was once one of Dwer Tor's finest astrologers, until it was discovered that he not merely observed the stars, but venerated them. Accusations of barbarous rites to new and foreign gods caused a scandal, and he was sent to quietly retire to the countryside. There, he built a large cult using sorcerous powers obtained from his star-gods until he was forced to flee with his closest and most fanatical followers. His whereabouts are unknown at this time.

Marcion Trin Greyward, High Priest of the Black Vermin Gods

Marcion rose to prominence when a plague swept through the Grey Ward of Kaddish. The miracles of healing his followers accomplished led to the distinctive and ubiquitous obsidian statues of swarms of rats and insects that can be found throughout the ward. He went from local fame to city-wide reknown when he started punishing criminals by feeding them to the pits of starving rats in the temples of the Black Vermin Gods, including the ring-leaders of the North Canal Work Riots five years ago. The Grey Ward artisan guilds approved of this as exemplary treatment for traitors, and elevated his name from "Lastblock" to "Greyward" in thanks.

There are rumours that the Black Vermin Gods are devils in disguise, but the only demand they make on their followers is that the vilest criminals be fed alive to the vermin pits, which most consider an improvement over the endless lust for money that other gods seem to have.

Edit: The mad sorceror content of this setting was far too low. Also, this is the first detailed description of the insanity that is ordinary life in the Orthocracy that I've written out, I think.

Places to Go, Things to Kill

Screaming Fields

Screaming fields can be found across the plains. Thousands of small stones have had holes bored through them that whistle and shriek when the wind blows the right way. The noise can be heard for miles, and frightens away most creatures. They are the haunt of demons and great wind spirits that devastate any who try to press too far into them.

Nightmare Vine Ziggurats

Nightmare Vine is a potent hallucinogen, often used by shamans and priests to speak to supernal entities. It is harvested in the western rainforests that stretch north of the Little Road. Many travelers claim that under its influence, one can see great ziggurats throughout the jungle, with great golden altars atop them. Sober travelers see no such buildings. And yet, more than one golden knife has been found with the same carvings as the vine-crazed dreamers. Where the gold came from (not Dwer Tor) and who carved it (the Forest Dreamers?) is unknown.

The Forest Dreamers

Often referred to as the "jungle tribes", the western rain forests beyond the Little Road are home to dozens of tribes of savage halflings, kobolds, lizardmen and yuan-ti. Though politically fragmented, their cultures and cults revolve around the Forest Dream, a great other world, far more vivid than the real one, which lays overtop it. They deal with it through rituals that provoke ecstasy through dancing, intoxication, mortification and other extreme states. They tend to be hostile to outsiders and foreigners, though internally, a complex web of trade unites the entire rainforest. It is claimed they guard lost wonders, including some that exist only in the Forest Dream.

Monsters of the Plains

Warforged

In all the history of the city of Kaddish, from the Dawnmen to the Kings of High Kaddish to the reign of the Orthocracy, only once has the knowledge of soulforging been stolen. The hobgoblin thief, whose name has been lost to history, taught his people  - the mightiest tribe in the greatest freehold the goblins have ever built - the secrets of soulforging. He warned them to use this art only on slaves, but the hobgoblins, heedless, began hammering steel into their own souls. They did not use the prescribed amount of steel, or the correct binding rituals, so that the steel would remain within the soul. Instead, it burst out into their bodies, hardening into steel joints, steel bones, steel fingers and steel muscles. Their old skins sloughed off like cocoons and the warforged were born.

I have to say, this is really good stuff. I esp like the Warforged bit. One of the few...okay two, settings that I don't mind the elves & dwarves.

Regards,
David R

Thanks mate. Glad you like it.

Edit: Use anything you feel like here, obviously. I'm putting it out here to help other folks as much as to get it straight in my own head.

Places to Go, Things to Kill

The Marktongue

A volcano in the northern range whose long red magma flows resemble the tongue of some great beast. The entire mountain is covered in the ancient writing of the Dawnmen. The words are of a normal size for writing, and any fool with eyes can see that there must be millions upon millions of them. The entire mountain is surrounded by lunatics from Kaddish who claim that the text is a vast prophecy, or perhaps the ultimate spell, or the sacred words by which the first Dawnmen cut the world out of the darkness, or a compendium and almanac of all that they knew.

The magma flows shift periodically, revealing new sections and covering old ones. No matter how much magma is deposited over an area, when the sun's light touches the stone, the words appear on the new rock just as they did on the old. The writing continues into the caves and vents throughout the Marktongue, but there are ancient passageways where sunlight cannot reach.

Stuff to Steal:

The Crimson Pyx

Said to contain the heart of an ancient hero, the Crimson Pyx is one of the high treasures of the blood-drinking cultists of Basilion, the vampire-martyr of the Orthocracy. It is constantly full of a rich red blood highly sought after by vampire and mortal alike for its restorative properties. The pyx itself is made of priceless onyx and white jade, and rests in the vampire caverns of the northern mountains, guarded by fanatical cultists whose family members were saved by its power. From there, the blood is transported in great casks to the city proper, staying fresh and liquid until consumed. The Basilion cult anoints the sick with it, their families giving up a single child to the cult to serve it in exchange.

The Dreamsilk of Zagara

The finest silks, finer than even the Salt Men bring, are bartered for at high cost from the Forest Dreamers. They demand precious steel weapons and often, living sacrifice, but bring a silk so rarefied that optimates of Dwer Tor gladly pay. No one has ever found the source of this silk, but when tortured, prisoners claim that it is harvested from a great and massive silkworm - the size of a hundred oxen - that feeds on the Forest Dream itself. Only the Zagara ("Silkworm" in the southern dialect) tribe can propitiate it, but no one knows where they can be found.

The Rune-Eyes of the Cyclopean Prophets

There are twelve great seers who belong to a secretive order known only as the Cyclopean Prophets. Each one is ritually blinded and their eye replaced with a Rune-Eye, a powerful tool of divination. Rune-Eyes look like small steel balls, marvelously engraved with runes picked out in jet that change as one rotates the eye. It is said that replacing one's own eye with a Rune-Eye will allow one to see the future, to weep fine ink instead of tears, to smite one's enemies with a gaze, and to exert a powerful control over the minds of anyone who looks into the eye. The Cyclopean Prophets are believed to be hobgoblins, gnolls, and other monsters - they are often credited with inventing the Sarxian branch of gnosticism - but their whereabouts are unknown.

Stuff to Steal:

Greenswords

Bronze is the holy metal of the Dawnmen, composed as it is of the metals of sunborn men (copper) and moonborn elves (tin). Their armaments were composed of many clever alloys of bronze, into which they forged mighty enchantments. The passage of time has turned these bronze weapons a brilliant, distinctive green that holds even when scrubbed with sand. These weapons rust steel and crack stone (to better aid the Dawnmen in subduing the hobgoblins and dwarves, for whom these are sacred materials respectively) with even the slightest strike, and they are highly prized as the secret of their enchantment was lost with the Dawnmen.

Even today, the Orthocracy forbids green patinas and lacquers on armour and weapons. The greatest accomplishment a Kaddish smith can earn is to be known not as a "Blacksmith" but as a "Greensmith", and this is reserved for the rare few artisans who are capable of ensorcelling metal.

The Spider's Fangs

In the far south are two sharp-edged mountains between which stretches a great web of stone nearly two miles across, in the centre of which is a colossal statue of a spider rearing back to strike. It can be seen miles away, and is famous for the fact that the unknown builders carved the spider's fangs from what appears to be solid silver - a fantastic, unimaginable sum of the stuff, more than the slaves of Dwer Tor could pull out of the mines in a year. The scale humiliates the imagination, and if only one could get up onto the web, overcome whatever guardians keep it safe, and wrench them from the statue, one would be first amongst the merchant princes of the Dawnlands.

The Puissant Ravens

Carved from aquamarine beryl and then painted by a deep black ink, the Puissant Ravens are in the possession of the hobgoblin lord Kartak-Who-Blinds, duke of the unknown hyperborean domains beyond the northern mountains. They grant him the powers of the winterlord: To freeze his foes dead, to shape primordial ice like clay, to command the ancient spirits of winter. By his possession of the statues, he is the one who sends the winter flocks of ravens south, where they torment the Dawnlands until summer returns once more and his power diminishes.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=grand+canyon+arizona&ie=UTF8&t=p&ll=36.189152,-112.888985&spn=0.120532,0.21286&z=12&iwloc=addr

I'm gonna use this as the basic map for the area surrounding a dungeon - the Ashlands of Dlak, an ancient Hill Elf city that was cast into a chasm by the warmages of High Kaddish centuries ago.

Edited: Moved it to get rid of the "Colorado River" and "Flatiron Butte" labels to make it easier to trace.

The Ashlands of Dlak
An Adventure Area for 4-6 5th-8th level PCs

Intent: To design a cool adventure to get some practice with encounter building in 4e. I would also like to make this adventure just generic enough that people can use it even if they don't go for the rest of the Dawnlands setting.

Background:

Dlak was once the capital of a mighty Hill Elf kingdom. Centuries ago, during one of the wars between the elves and Kaddish, the Kaddish war wizards used powerful rituals and spells to crack the earth, dropping the centre of Dlak into a chasm hundreds of feat deep. The besieging Kaddish army poured into what remains, slaughtering the inhabitants and casting their bodies into the chasm. Rather than dispose of the bodies properly, the Kaddish army set the chasm alight, hoping to burn whatever still lived.

Since then, Dlak has been a wasteland. The central chasm, Lower Dlak, remains unexplored by any civilised race, while the upper ruins are the haunts of gnolls and other demon-worshipping monsters.

Though the PCs do not know this, the inhabitants of Dlak rest uneasily in their graves. The central chasm is filled with undead creatures under the command of the archon of Dlak, whose malice and willpower have transformed him from an elvish noble into an undead monster.

Recently, the upper ruins have been seized by demon-worshipping gnolls, who have been raiding the countryside for slaves at the behest of their demon masters. The demon wishes to see the gnolls ally with the archon, and they intend to sacrifice the slaves to buy his good favour.

Introduction

The easiest way to get PCs involved is either to have the gnolls kidnap someone they know, or to have them approached by someone whose loved ones, relatives, business partners, friends etc. have been kidnapped.

Sample NPCs:

Peter, a young nomad boy - The PCs can find Peter wandering the plains, lonely and afraid. He will attempt to hide from them, but a successful Perception check (DC 15) will spot him easily. He is afraid of the PCs. He will attempt to flee if attacked or intimidated. He is starving, lonely, and afraid. If given food and reassured that the PCs are not hostile (Diplomacy / Bluff DC 20), he will tell them that his family was attacked a few days ago to the north, near a great chasm. A Nature or History check (DC 15) will let trained PCs know that they are only a few days from Dlak, a ruined city that fell into a chasm. Peter has nothing to offer the PCs in exchange for freeing his parents, but good-aligned PCs might feel pity for his plight. It is clear that if left alone, he will die in short order on the plains. He will accompany the PCs to find his family if they let him. He is a human rabble from the Monster Manual. If not, he wanders off onto the plains, almost certainly headed towards death.

Peter gives the party two quests:

1) Protect Peter (minor quest) is worth 150 XP to each player if they can keep Peter alive until he is reunited with his family.

2) Rescue Peter's Family (minor quest) is worth 250 XP to each player if they can rescue Peter's family from the clutches of the gnolls.

Wargus, a rich merchant - The PCs can find Wargus in a nearby settlement, where he is an honoured guest. He is a well-to-do trader who deals in weapons, armour, tools and other ironworks. He is expecting payment from another nearby settlement three weeks to the west. The shipment is already two weeks late, and Wargus is under tremendous pressure from the chieftain to produce.

He doesn't know what happened to the shipment, but he knows their route and that they were going to pash - in his opinion - foolishly close to the ruins of Dlak, about three days ride to the west. He is unsure why they have been delayed, and suspects that they have in fact run off with the money into the ruins, relying on legends and ghost stories to prevent pursuit.

He wishes to hire the PCs to search the ruins for the caravaneers, and to punish them if it turns out that they have fled with the money. If they have been robbed, he wants them to recover the payment - and, as an afterthought - rescue any survivors. He offers rare goods, weapons, and other useful items instead of gold (which is almost impossible to find on the plains).

Wargus gives two quests:

1) Recover Wargus' payment (minor quest) is worth 100 XP to each player if they can recover Wargus' payment and return it to him.

2) Rescue / Punish the Caravaneers (minor quest) is worth 200 XP to each player if they can discover the fate of the Caravaneers and act appropriately. DMs who use quest cards may want to leave the quest card ambiguous (like the above listing) so that PCs don't automatically know what happened to them.

Cleming, a dying nomad man - The PCs can see smoke from nearly a mile away. If they approach, they will see that the smoke is coming from a pile of tents and tepees that have been heaped together. Bodies of horses are strewn about. A DC 20 Perception check will reveal Cleming hidden under some brush, pretending to be a corpse. He is badly injured and near death. If approached by PCs, he will call out for water and help.

If the PCs do not heal him, he will expire within a few minutes of their arrival. If they use the Heal skill, he will not die, and can tell them what happened, but is too weak to help them further. If magical healing is used, Cleming will be able to travel on his own.

He will tell the PCs that most of his party was kidnapped by gnolls who fled to the east, and that he wants to return to his clan to organise a retaliatory strike. He will play on the sympathy of good-aligned PCs, and offer them the hospitality and thanks of his clan for helping him rescue his friends. Cleming was part of a hunting party out seeking food for his clan. Accompanying him were several of the clan's best hunters, and without their help, his clan's food supplies will not be able to last the coming winter.

He asks the PCs to look around for his friends while he returns to his clan to muster their forces. PCs familiar with gnolls (either through a knowledge check or experience) will know that by the time he manages to muster enough men, the gnolls will almost certainly have killed their prisoners. Speed is of the essence. A successful Diplomacy check (DC 26-28 depending on PC level) will convince him to accompany the PCs to find the rest of his party. He is a human bandit from the Monster Manual.

Once again, a Nature or History check DC 15 should reveal to PCs that they are only a few days east of the ruins of Dlak.

Cleming gives one quest:

1) Rescue Cleming's Hunting Party is worth 50 XP to each PC per member of Cleming's hunting party they return with (there are seven of them, but they have a chance of dying before the PCs reach them).

These are three sample PCs. Wargus is useful if the PCs are greedy or currently settled in a location, while Peter and Cleming may be better suited to good-aligned parties. Cleming is more useful for low-level parties, as he provides a useful back-up, and politically minded PCs may want to ally with his clan. DMs are encouraged to come up with more NPCs as necessary - many people have been attacked, and there may be more than one award the PCs can collect if they rescue the prisoners. Generally speaking, each PC should get 50 XP for each prisoner they successfully rescue, and there should be between 4 and 10 prisoners. Larger numbers of prisoners (7+) should be riskier, with a chance of losing some of the prisoners to the gnolls or other monsters before they can be rescued.

I do maps and shit by hand, so I'll have to wait until I visit my buddy Brian who has a scanner so he can scan them in and stuff. Until then, writing up various locations etc. is a bit pointless. I'll also see what I can do about getting a Dawnlands map up. Every time I visit him, I forget the stupid things.

The Ashlands of Dlak now has a map, and it just needs to be scanned.

Upper Dlak - Approaches

North:

The chasm runs north-south, with the collapsed portion of lower Dlak in the southern end of the chasm-cum-canyon. There is no Upper Dlak when coming from the north, only the chasm.

The chasm of lower Dlak extends to the north for about ten kilometres, well beyond the limits of the city ruins, and is almost impassable. It breaks into a series of small gorges and defiles which join together into a main canyon broken up with towering pillars of stone. There is a strong wind that blows dust, ash and sand about and obscures vision. The ground becomes more and more broken, with smaller, deeper pits in the chasm. Some of the pits might contain unintelligent unable to escape them, or they might be filled with dust and ash that form quicksand for the PCs to slip into.

The ash, dust and sand accumulation ceases about 1.5 kilometres from the northern limits of lower Dlak, but there are no approaches in this narrow corridor. The cliffs are sheer drops, and the ground at the bottom of the chasm remains fragmented and unstable. This portion of the city is completely ruined and exposed, with large heaps of rubble that were once temples and warehouses surrounded by decaying piles of wood, rubbish and skeletons. PCs can continue on, but will begin encountering barriers constructed out of the ruined materials, including skeletons, stone and scraps of wood sharpened into stakes. The PCs will need to climb the barriers to destroy them. A barrier can be climbed with a DC 27 Athletics or Acrobatics check, and can be destroyed by dealing it 50 points of damage. Destroying a barrier creates enough to attract the Palace Guard Strike Force (see next post).

If they continue past these obstacles, and overcome the Palace Guard Strike Force they will eventually reach the palace of the archon (Zone Z). They will be up against the northern wall. The Palace Guard Wall Force (see next post) will be on duty, and if the PCs fought the Palace Guard Strike Force, they will be alert and ready for attack. The archon himself may be present to command his forces, and/or he may have sent for other reinforcements.

Even if the PCs overcome these encounters, they must still find the kidnapped victims and/or prevent the gnolls from selling them to the archon, and/or prevent the archon from completing his ritual. They may also wish to explore the ruined city further, and may move south to do so.