Yeah, it definitely could. I'm concerned that it might feel too similar to Kaddish though, where that sort of structure is built in with the orthocrats already.

I'm back - the family health situation is a little closer to resolution than it was four months ago.

Places to Go, Things to Kill:

Once the Dawnmen had slain eternal Night to first let light into the world, they turned their attention to its children, slaying and maiming them to prevent them from seeking revenge against the Dawnmen. The legacy of that slaughter lives on into the present day.

The Moon

The eldest child of Night was named Moon. It was a great unclean thing that profaned all things that beheld it. Even the weapons of its enemies rotted and mouldered as they came near to its flesh. The lands it had roamed over in the eternal Night withered away and became the oceans.

But as a creature of darkness, it could not profane the sacred light of the Dawnmen, and they cut it into many pieces and buried them deep in the lands it had already ruined, under the seabed. But its head was too large, and still possessed life though the rest of it had died. It continued to hurl curses and to invoke words of power and other spells at them.

To bind its power, they covered its face with a mask of light that it stopped its mouth and blinded it. They took the head and threw it into the sky so that it could not touch anything to destroy it again. But his head spun around, and when it is the dark of the moon, the shielding mask faces away from the earth and his malign powers may yet blindly reach down to the world.

Moon still lives and plots, and mutters faint words below the hearing of the gods that drive certain sensitive mortals mad with terrible purpose and power. He seeks the end of his imprisonment, and after, the end of this bright world he hates.

The Cursed Fingers

Giant, ancient, rotting fingers of flesh, the colossal hands of a dead giant, jut out of the stone of Cursegrave Mountain in the Stormbreakers. They extend hundreds of feet out from the side of the mountain, are as thick around as the hull of the largest ships, and are stiff with centuries of death. Eight fingers remain, two others having been destroyed or consumed, or missing for some unknown reason. The rotten flesh of the fingers no longer draws scavengers, but once it did, and these first intrusions have been extended by foul undead things into tunnels through the fingers in which they hide, hunting explorers, treasure hunters and other fools.

What draws explorers and treasure hunters is that the fingers themselves bear rings, giant rings of gold and silver, with gems as large as a wagon. There are only six rings remaining, but any one would be enough to establish one in a life of luxury for eternity.

The undead protect the fingers though, and they are led by a powerful lich who has taken up residence in a great web spun between the fingers for unknown reasons. He has not touched the rings, instead setting his numberless legions of zombies, skeletons and ghouls to dig into the earth and free more of the great dead creature, whatever it may be.

Damnit, I just lost a big post on some of the gods of the setting. My computer's been acting wonky lately.

The Wandering Stars:

The fixed stars are the divine heroes, who stay in place because they are resting after a lifetime of mighty deeds. However, there are in the night sky three wandering stars, exiled from the rest of the heroes. Two are malign and malefic, one a friend.

The Leper Star

The Leper Star is green-yellow, and it wanders the most amongst the night sky. The Leper Star is the patron of outcasts, exiles, the banished, criminals, murderers, lepers and revenge-seekers. It is the Sign of Injustice, the Record of Grudges and the Lord of Hate. It is said that it sees everything, remembers everything, and hates everything. Its cult is found only in the leper colonies of the Hill Elves and hidden amongst the murder gnomes of Kaddish. Its priests know many secrets and demand terrible prices for those who would learn from them.

The Herald

A remnant of the Dawnmen, it can be seen in the morning shortly before Dawn, and in the evening shortly after nightfall. It is white-grey. It is responsible for announcing the sun's arrival and departure to the wise, and it is strangely linked with the ruins and treasures of the Dawnmen. Many entrances and exits to their ruins can only be found during the time between the Herald's appearance and the sun's rise or fall, trapping the unwary. It is not worshipped, though oaths are sworn on it.

The Bloody Star

A red star. It is the prison of the first murderer, the Dawnman who struck the killing blow on eternal Night and who was cursed by its death to be the doom of the rest. He waited aeons until his hair grew long enough to let himself down, and escaped to an unknown fate. It is known that the star is now inhabited by something else, some terrible creature that licks the drippings of Night's blood from the inside walls of the prison. The sharpest-eyed astronomers of Kaddish see the occasional lash of a black tentacle out of cracks on its surface, but the creature has never revealed itself.

It's worth pointing out that Moon and the Leper Star are not gods but rather great monsters that demand service from their followers.

Edit: They are also ideal creatures for Star Pact warlocks to receive their powers from.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;274821The Leper Star

The Leper Star is green-yellow, and it wanders the most amongst the night sky. The Leper Star is the patron of outcasts, exiles, the banished, criminals, murderers, lepers and revenge-seekers. It is the Sign of Injustice, the Record of Grudges and the Lord of Hate. It is said that it sees everything, remembers everything, and hates everything. Its cult is found only in the leper colonies of the Hill Elves and hidden amongst the murder gnomes of Kaddish. Its priests know many secrets and demand terrible prices for those who would learn from them.

Good stuff. I particularly like this cult. It will go nicely in Causoban : The City That Laughs at Death, which I'm stealing from Earthdawn.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;274943Good stuff. I particularly like this cult. It will go nicely in Causoban : The City That Laughs at Death, which I'm stealing from Earthdawn.

Regards,
David R

Glad I can help mate.

Glad to see this is back!

Whilst the thread has lain fallow I've still not had the opportunity to run your setting, which has been a real shame. Hopefully that's changing soon as I've hooked up with some new people who play 4E at least eight hours a week.

In the mean time I've made significant changes, peeling off aspects of Dwer Tor and Kadiz to form a third city based around traditions of oral history, material culture and mystical theology. It's called Aran-Cabal and I'm thinking of having it ruled by Eldarin symposia.

The Orthocracy has become Urad, City of Kings, and is held together by the authority of the Sorceror Kings, who aren't so much evil emperors as living embodiments of Guy Halsall's Diocletianic offshoot of Marxist slave-owning modes. Much of the Orthocracy stuff is intact, it's just that the economic forces that govern the city's survival can now materialise and flay you alive.

There's loads of other changes I could list, but needless to say it was your stuff that provided the kernel of inspiration that led to me writing a setting I'm extremely pleased with. Congratulations once again on some great work.

Thanks man. Glad I could provide some ideas. Let me know once you do run the game - I still want to hear about it.

People of the Dawnlands:

The One-Handed Rider

One-Handed Rider is the folk hero of the Kadiz, the embodiment of their common values. He is a clever trickster, a brave warrior, a clan-leader with a hundred wives, a skilled trader and the best horse thief on the plains. He has many legends, and each Kadiz clan has their own story of the adventures of One-Handed Rider, which is embellished and added to each year by the clan's storytellers at the annual potlatches.

It is said that he was the last direct descendant of the kings of High Kaddish, that he was the son of a dragon and a Dawnman; that he lost his hand by the sorcerous axe of the Autumn Ghost King  or that one of his wives cut it off to ensure his fidelity, or that it burnt away when he stole the Sun. It is said that he could ride the lost Whirlwind Path, that he knew the grazing grounds of the Secret Horses of Balten, and that he once sailed across the sea to the lands of the Salt Men and became their king for a time.

All the legends agree that One-Handed Rider did not die, nor did he become a divine hero, nor a god, but rather he turned into a spirit of the plains itself. It is said he still wanders the plains, getting up to trouble and protecting the Kadiz from great threats. He can be recognised by his grey hat, his single hand, and his piebald horse.

On Vampires:

All true vampires come from a single origin: The soulforges of High Kaddish. They were criminals and outcasts, the light smelted out of their souls and only the residue of darkness remaining. The day became anathema to them, and most perished. But a few escaped to mountain caves, or into the hidden tunnels beneath Kaddish, and plotted and waited for the time of High Kaddish to end.

During the revolution, the vampires, their progeny and their mortal cultists swarmed forth to support it, and in exchange for undead assassins, drug-crazed fanatical warriors and the sorcerous might of the godlings, the leaders of the revolution agreed. Since then, vampires and vampire cultists may live freely, if uneasily, amongst the Kaddish.

A young vampire craves flesh and blood. An old vampire drinks the spirit of living things. The oldest vampires can be satisfied with nothing but the souls of the divine heroes themselves. To this end, every vampire strives to become one of the gods: to rise into the sky higher than the sun's bane and feed on the slumbering souls of the stars. They feed off their cults, drinking the blood and souls of their followers, transforming the most promising into servile vampire-spawn, and using the rich and talented to gather the precious materials for the rituals they need to attain godhood.

In all the countless millennia they have been striving after this, only three have reached the threshold, and all were slain or imprisoned before they could ascend. The three are:

Tegon, who slain by Kakarna in single combat and whose parts were scattered across the earth. His cultists know him as the Maimed Lord and the Limbless Master and even now search for his body parts, for if they can be reassembled and bathed in the blood of a hecatomb held atop Kakarna's mountain, he will be reborn. It is said they already have his head, through which he commands the cult once more.
 
Herunaxos, who was chained beneath the earth in a great pit under a secret mountain by a cleric. He is a god, but a helpless one so long as he is chained. His followers know him as the Chained Lord and the Shadow of Secrets. They search for his prison in the hopes of freeing him. His followers are a feared assassin cult, known for hunting down clerics, paladins and other daimon-touched persons out of hatred for the cleric who imprisoned him.

Kelotik, who was frozen under a ziggurat of ice in the hyperborean lands of the goblins. He is known as the Frostbitten Lord and the Herald of Winter's Night by his followers. It is said that Kartak-Who-Blinds, the lord of winter, keeps Kelotik imprisoned until the end of time, when he will release him to blot out the sun and freeze the earth.

Dozens, if not hundreds, more lurk and wait, learning from the mistakes of those who have gone before, and preparing for the time when they shall rise to feed off the gods themselves.

Places to Go, Things to Kill:

Mugor's Spears

Half bandit-king, half-mercenary captain, Mugor built his infamous company out of the exiles and accursed of the Kadiz clans, men too vicious to live under any other flag. He has some secret compact with the priests of the wolf, and each year, one of Mugor's red-flagged riders visits each clan and asks the wolf priests to recite the list of exiles for the previous year and their crimes. If the exile survives and is judged suitably vicious, Mugor's rider will collect them, and bring them back to join "Clan Mugor".

The company itself is under long-term retainer to Dwer Tor, engaged in punitive expeditions against the Gnollish prophet Finder-of-Eyes and his desert jyhad on behalf of his demonic master. Both sides have been fighting for years now, with no mercy given nor asked.

Black Blades

The Black Blades are a Dwer Tor revolutionary group composed of halflings, humans, elves and other helot races. They are the most violent and dangerous of all the revolutionary groups, though their agents rarely act directly. Rather, they prefer to subtly warp the minds of innocent victims through magic and psychotropic chemicals. Victims, usually an optimate or thaumate, are secretly dosed with one half of a chemical compound known as Black Cyret. Perhaps a slave slips in it their food, or a trusted masseuse rubs it into their skin to soften it.

Then, at a later date, the Black Blades apply the second half of the compound through simple contact. It might be smeared on the door handle to the family villa, be mixed in with ritual incense at the temple, be dripping off a veranda the optimate walks past - the choice of location seems almost random, and the methods of delivery infinite. When the two halves of the compound mix in the bloodstream, the person is driven into a murderous frenzy, their tongue turning black and their strength increased tenfold. They will murder their friends, families, lords; anyone they can get hold of.

The cruelest part is that the Black Cyret itself is not fatal, and the drugged victim will recover some time later with full knowledge of what he has done. Worse yet, he remains partially primed for further doses, requiring only the second half to be driven mad once more. There is a known cure, but it is expensive even for optimates, and requires the fresh harvesting of many rare ingredients from across the Dawnlands. Most victims simply commit suicide.

No one has yet caught a member of the Black Blades, and it is only through the urban graffiti of Dwer Tor that the name is even known. The same graffiti claims that even the king of Dwer Tor has been dosed with the first half of Black Cyret.

Ruined Hill Elf Cities Part 1

Here are some ideas for mega-dungeons. These are all ruined Hill Elf cities which would have been destroyed in-setting perhaps 300-700 years before the time the game starts.

Dlak

The inhabitants of the City of Light were slain when wizards from High Kaddish caused it to fall into a great chasm. Anyone who attempted to climb to safety was thrown back in, and the whole thing torched. Only its king "survived", becoming a powerful lich. He has since reanimated many of the city's inhabitants as undead. Many weapons and wonders from the city's wars with Kaddish remain, including a powerful but bound demon-lord underneath the city which is served by roving gnoll tribes. It is surrounded by the Ashlands, a broken, parched wasteland.

Jakan

The City of Glass Thorns was shaped like a gigantic rosebush made of glass, with elves, gnolls and other monstrous races living in the "blossoms" and great walkways and markets amongst the stems. The Kaddish summoned a mighty whirlwind to batter it apart, and the inhabitants were flayed alive as glass shards and dust flew with supernatural speed. Even to this day, it is populated by elementals feeding off the magical residue that remains from the ritual. They can summon glass storms that will shred flesh off of bone to defend their nests. Like all places of extreme elemental energy, a giant claims it as his kingdom and demand tribute from all who approach. It is surrounded by the Glass Desert, created when it was destroyed.

Tlana

The City of Red Shadows was destroyed when a falling star was called down upon it. One of the feared "Dark Stars", it possessed no divine hero's soul, but rather was a concentrated ball of evil that burst into thousands of tentacled and fanged monsters that subjected the inhabitants to fates worse than death. Strange ruins project out of the impact crater at odd angles, and weird, previously unknown creatures can be found wandering the Burnt Hills surrounding it. A lone hobgoblin bastion nearby provides refuge to travelers, though many of their slaves have mysterious scars on their heads and necks.

Djala

The City of Silver Towers was flooded, and its inhabitants drowned. It now sits at the bottom of a rift lake. The water is warm but has some strange impurity that renders it completely and perfectly reflective, as if it were a mirror. It slowly dissolves everything it touches, and the sides of the rift are very steep from its work. Only the elvish buildings themselves are resistant, the largest and most important sustained by powerful sorcery. The tops of the highest buildings still just above the surface, and strange creatures now inhabit the lake. Access to the lake is in the hands of a gnollish tribe who claim to worship demons that live in the water. The demons themselves are said to be powerful oracles, existing half in the future and half in the present. This can be maintained only by drawing on the power of the lake's waters, and the gnolls will defend their masters and their home against all intruders and interlopers.

Ruined Hill Elf Cities Part 2

Most Hill-Elf cities have long since been destroyed, their stones or glass or iron or brass or wood stolen by roving humanoids. The cities presented in these sections are those whose destruction by magic was so awful that no one would loot them or rebuild on their sites. DMs are encouraged to come up with new ones if they don't like any of them here. Most of these cities are fables or legendary locations, and few know exactly where they are anymore.

Tabal

The City of Doors was destroyed by an invasion of kruthiks, giant ants, centipedes, termites and other insectoid creatures summoned by the Kaddish. The inhabitants were devoured within their walls, unable to escape from the besieged city. The creatures remain, and Tabal has become a massive warren, with few elvish building still standing. Those that do have been converted into massive nests. Deep in the centre of the city is a gateway to the Hivehome, the astral domain of the Black Vermin Gods, the Many-Legged Queen, and the other insectoid gods and demons of the Dawnlands.

Dabawa

The City of Shadows was not truly destroyed. Instead, its inhabitants were transformed into insubstantial shadows and then bound to the city by powerful spells. Thousands of translucent, now-mad Hill Elves remain in the city, shrieking and wailing at all hours except for the height of noon and the night of the new moon, when they vanish. There is a colony of leper-priests nearby who seek to reverse the transformation and return Dabawa's citizens to flesh so that they may march forth once more to subjugate the plains. Their rituals require many rare substances and much flesh given to their god, the Leper Star.

Edit: Bonus City!

Balwan

The City of Madness was destroyed when Kaddish warmages summoned a volcanic geyser that dispersed a vapour that caused insanity. The inhabitants ran through the streets scratching out their own eyes and murdering one another in a bloody frenzy. The mist lingers even now, but a group of hobgoblins live nearby. Their warforged members are immune to the effects of the vapour and have plundered the ruins to build the Toruum Bastion. The warforged still look through the ruins, attempting to find the strange and horrific weapons the Hill Elf war-wizards had created to defend their city. Undead creatures also roam the city, and while they ignore the warforged, they will attack all others who approach.

Things to Sell Your Soul to

Infernal Pact Warlocks:

The Black Vermin Gods - Warlocks who worship them are most commonly found in Kaddish. They are the gods of things that crawl and slither and infest. Petitioners' souls are taken to the Hivehome and infect with certain spiritual parasites that allow them to channel the arcane power of the Hivehome.

The Silver Tower Oracles - Petitioners must journey to the city of Djala, slip past the gnollish guardians, and immerse themselves in the water. Those found most pleasing to these strange half-real demons are kept alive while they drink of the waters and fall into a strange dream. Once they awaken, they are infused with the power to manipulate reality.

The Blind God - Those who would bargain with the Blind God must tear out their own eyes and wander the desert until the servants of the gnollish prophet Eyefinder come to them. They will stake the petitioner in the desert sands and leave him there, until the Blind God comes to bargain. Those who take his bargain may live. Those who do not die. He will restore the eyes of his followers, but only as he is leaving so that they cannot see him.

The Horsemen of the Sirocco - Petitioners must stand naked in a sandstorm for the horsemen to come. They will tie the petitioner by a long rope to the back of their saddles and ride him across the Dawnlands. If he survives, they will flay off what remains of his skin, and bathe him in the dark waters of the land of the dead. When he emerges, he will be bound to their power, able to ride the burning wind.

The Broken Mountain Ravens - Petitioners must climb to the very top of Broken Mountain in the Stormbreaker Range, and then hurl themselves off a certain cliff edge. The correct cliff edge can only be discerned by deciphering complicated runic clues carved into the mountain itself, which the petitioner must find as they climb. If the choice is correct, then a flock of ravens will descend to peck at the petitioner as he falls. Each will devour a small piece, and the petitioner will find himself reborn out of a giant egg back at the top of the mountain. He will forever carry within his soul the mark of the raven-demons of Broken Mountain, and they will answer his call when he wishes.

Edit: These are meant to be examples of possible creatures that infernal pact warlocks can get their power from, along with ideas for what they might've had to do to get them. DMs are encouraged to use or fiddle with them as they please.

This is seriously great; I love the pulpy sword-and-sorcery feel you're really bringing to the fore. I haven't gotten the chance to read the whole thing yet, but I'm looking forward to it.