[4e Setting Concept] Inspired by the Wish Upon a Star Article
Acamar: Acamar is a corpse star whose motions and behemoth size send celestial objects that draw too close spiraling to their doom.
The world is dying.
The elves have fled, abandoning their changeling children to the cold mercies of the devouring star. The stone halls of the dwarves lie silent but for the echoes of their doom, blood splashed on earth. The hellbred fall to madness, the children of the dragon to savagery. Humanity’s topless towers crumble into the dust. All, but the coldest of the gods have turned aside their faces, she continuing alone in her silent vigil.
The earth rots slowly, and doom creeps in little by little. Children are born dead or, worse, monstrous, as the devouring star rises in the east. Corpses lie restless in shallow graves, living again as necrotic aberrations suffused with the hunger of the Corpse Star.
In the night, when the sun is gone and the star is ascendant, maddening whispers pollute the minds of men. Mothers devour their own children. Supplicants sworn to silent meditation screech with rage as they cut one another to ribbons, whether to placate the hungry eye gazing down from above, or recall the attentions of vanished gods it is impossible to discern in the charnel houses of collapsed churches.
Some few still strive to aver this fate, but what hope can be held under the gaze of a hunger that predates gods, that exists even beyond death? Overview
Inspired by the above passage from Dragon Magazine 366, this game takes place upon a world being drawn into the grip of the dead star entity Acamar. This has been going on for some time, with a steady decline through the ages. Many cities, realms, and whole peoples have collapsed into the dust thanks to the entropic influence of the Corpse Star.
At the beginning of the campaign, it would not be generally recognised that the world is falling into Acamar’s mouth, nor that the malefic star exerts any sort of influence. The history of the world is littered with the relics of past dark ages. The Heroes take the part of individuals investigating the most recent ruins, gathering evidence that the present decline may very well be the final one. Investigating the churches of gods departed, vacant cities and the observatories of star-touched viziers in their search for answers, the initial tier culminates in affirmation that the world is falling into the maw of the Corpse Star.
Armed with this knowledge, the Paragons must formulate a plan of action. Not only must they uncover and wield potent magic if they hope to change the course of a world’s path in the void, they will be opposed by mad cults and the horrors of a world increasingly saturated in the energies of necrosis and aberration. Further, factions in the Church of the Raven Queen will oppose them, who the Ravens see as trying to avert the wholly natural demise of the world.
Finally, having gathered together the necessary might, alliances and knowledge, the Destined will take the final steps in ensuring the safety of their world. By this point, the balance of forces is almost wholly necrotic. Every night brings rains of terrible fire, followed by the emergence of worse and worse aberrant spawn of Acamar, and no corpse remains still for more than a few minutes. The walls between the middle world and the Shadowfell collapse so close to Acamar, and the other worlds are shut off. Ideas
• The most common classes are the Martial ones. Divine characters must, by necessity, be worshippers of the Raven Queen. Most Arcanists cannot resist the whispers of the ever muttering maw of Acamar, and become Star-pact warlocks. True Wizardry is rare, and the fae and infernal powers have long since abandoned this doomed world.
• Humans are the most common race surviving. The half elves are the legacy of the fled and slain elves. Both Tieflings and Dragonborn still exist, but have fallen into a degenerate state. Tieflings cluster in rural communities rife with incest and xenophobia, their sensitivity to the arcane and otherworldly powers filling their dreams with visions of mouths within mouths. The Dragonborn, without the comfort of the Platinum to aspire to, have become brutish and uncouth, and many bands are whispered to engage in cannibalism.
• The air is stale, water has a slight, sickly tang. Rot sinks into the stone of high walls and the wood of sweeping forest. Every village has its pariah, and dark tales of deformed children muttered when the locals are too much in their cups.
• The last tribe of Orcs has descended on the grand observatory of the High Vizier. It is likely that to find the secrets locked within, one would have to be willing to extinguish the final remnants of this fierce race.
• The faith of the Raven Queen is riven by strife. Factions come to blows and blood is shed between those who would avert the apocalypse, and their opposite number will kill to ensure what must be will be.
Re: [4e Setting Concept] Inspired by the Wish Upon a Star Article
Thank you for your kind words.
I'm still tossing around some ideas in my head presently. I always find it helpful to think of possible characters in a given setting, to help frame it in my own mind.
A human ranger, who comes from a line of lumberjacks (possibly poachers), but ends up a ranger simply because the woods are dangerous now. Martial characters, I think, engage in stoicism, but also a certain self-possessed determination to see things done. Humans are the only surviving race that is really trying to hold on - or at least ignore how bad things are getting. The Ranger, of course, has seen how bad things are getting. Shades of Strider, I suppose!
A tiefling cleric, a woman I am imagining, who sought to escape her hideously insular family and took up the vows of the Raven Queen. As an adjunct to this, part of the reason Tieflings started down their incestuous path is because tiefling/tiefling pairings are the least likely to result in aberrant deformities. Of course, combined with the danger of travel, this means tieflings are, shall we say, wading in a shallow pool. New Tieflings in town are rather popular. I'd have this cleric focus on Wisdom and Charisma, and probably take the Star Pact Initiate - though devoted in her waking hours, she hears the voices in her dreams and, worse, listens to them!
An exiled Dragonborn Rogue who was driven out for being unwilling to devour their own parent and chieftain. A stalker, a hunter and a dirty rotten liar. Dragonborn are long distanced from the gleaming glory of their past, and this one is particularly far gone - they killed an ate a sibling in a fit of maniacal rage and whispered urging.
Half elves I can see as mournful souls, with half of their heritage drifting away from them. A paladin of the Raven Queen, taking up vows to have some ties to something, but at the same time wishing to quest into the feywild to find the paths the departed elfkin fled down. The half elves as a race have moved to wilder areas to seek for signs of their lost relatives but, given the increasingly bizarre and hostile nature of the lands beyond stone walls, and the melancholy that grips them, these often amount to little more than mass vigils lit by candlelight, held at the treeline.
Re: [4e Setting Concept] Inspired by the Wish Upon a Star Article
Only problem is that Wizards are the only Controller class that's been published to date, and Divine classes don't actually need to worship a god; once the ritual to grant them power has been completed, they're good to go.
What about Shifters or Changelings? They'd seem to fit into the theme fairly well, and a Warforged PC could very well be a knight of the past re-awoken from his long slumber to protect the world.
Last edited by nick012000; 08-24-2008 at 08:01 AM..
Re: [4e Setting Concept] Inspired by the Wish Upon a Star Article
Quote:
Originally Posted by nick012000
Only problem is that Wizards are the only Controller class that's been published to date, and Divine classes don't actually need to worship a god; once the ritual to grant them power has been completed, they're good to go.
What about Shifters or Changelings? They'd seem to fit into the theme fairly well, and a Warforged PC could very well be a knight of the past re-awoken from his long slumber to protect the world.
All fair and valid points to make, if I this were intended as a standard Dungeons and Dragons game. As is, one would formulate the game with class balance in mind. Equally, the Divine classes still need someone to ordain them and put them in touch with the power of their god. The only people still around in that business are those of the Raven Queen. If it helps to justify it, then assume the other gods quietly took all their faithful away.
Shifters have fallen to the same sort of degenerating savagery as the Dragonborn, but even worse as they are themselves far more bestial. Changelings suffer a corruption of the mind, making their personalities as mercurial as their features. An interesting adventure presents itself of a village or town brought to ruin by a sole changeling, who now spends their time flitting between the identities of each of the townsfolk. Most Warforged awoken but have gone insane from whispers from the long years of its slumber.
I'm speaking only in generalities here, in the same sense that Dragonborn are cannibals are Tieflings are all their own mother's cousins. The image of the only Warforged to awaken intact in mind amongst its squad carries a certain pathos, as does a Changeling desperately trying to hold on to some sense of self.
andreww
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Re: [4e Setting Concept] Inspired by the Wish Upon a Star Article
This is sweet as hell. I don't see it as a post-apocalyptic setting, exactly - it's more of a mid-apocalyptic.
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Re: [4e Setting Concept] Inspired by the Wish Upon a Star Article
Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonK
This is neat-sauce. I'm not normally one for (post-)apoc settings, but this one works keenly.
I'm curious what other critters are out there, though. What happens to dragons, f'rex?
~ jason
One day, all the dragons, as if on cue, simultaneously took flight. Up they soared, further and further, up and west, away from the hideous star.
They never returned. Nobody is sure if they escaped this doomed world, or if they met their demise.
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