The Episodes
Episode 1 - Encounter in the Market
The world. Not accurately colored according to climate/biome.
The center grid is the continent that the campaign takes place on. The red box is the regional area.
The regional area is represented here. The city of Kain's Atoll is slightly northwest of the middle tooth of land along the south sea. (It's currently not labeled, but it's the city directly north of Sawm Tawyer's Meat Buffet.) The Eastern City, Yondekaicys, is directly west of Kain's Atoll. The smaller village of Gonetown lies between the two.
The city of Kain's Atoll.
Aedet (left) and Tidev (right)
The Marianna moodboard
The Understream moodboard
20221225:
the jan's port knight took the entity with him after Q tried to get E back at the fish market--JPK hid E under the castle? and Jack later found E while searching for the same ingredients YeSeo (NoPo) was searching for?
ophiensis is deathly quiet (a lá that city in chessmen of mars). there's a lamp lighter that goes around magicking the lamps up ("stroking the lamppost and mumbling something). servants live in quarters of the property. every estate has the short property walls you see in norleans. everyone communicates through letters? (aol message board?)
ophi.. has factories where wizards work for the major industries. imagine: wizards in chairs, magic equivalent of monster energy hooked up in an IV, little toddler play station lap desk thing in front of them with the material components of the spell they need, grimy industrial quality arcane focuses imbedded in the desk thing, their 9-5 is just assembly-line doing spells on whatever the factory produces.
magic is highly regulated--the above wizards have permits from the queen. getting a permit involves the magic user personally stating their case to Q and Jack. Q and J actually want them there to knock them out, untangle their soul, cut the soul's tongue off, and feed it to the crystal. they then return the soul to the body, where it is now unable to tell anyone anything (effectively renders wizards mute). because their soul is missing from their tongue, their physical tongue starts to decay (in soul, not in material) and white spiderwebbing cracks cover it.
in creatures where their entire soul was fed to the crystal and their bodies were reinhabited by one of the queen's undead creatures (making them a revenant), their entire body begins to develop the white film. [Would Rasheed or Bilge develop this in any way?]
Dec. 28: Bilge, currently part of the Guild.
Four of the new gods: Shon, Aude, Wake, and Epocea.
Dec. 29: The Queen of Kain's Atoll. Human woman, elderly (exact age unknown).
Dec. 29: The Eastern King. Half-elf man, appears to be mid-30s.
Jan. 06: (1) Tidev's Tinder and Soot, (2) the Castle, (3) the Icebreaker, (4) the Royal Lab
20230115:
I am the Queen of Kain's Atoll. I have watched as the world has grown heartless and repulsive. The only love I have left in this place is the river spirit who comforted me when I was a shell of myself. Now, this city and its rulers have taken her away. I gave up everything to save her, only to be imprisoned and tortured by the King. I will never forgive the city for that. I saw my ambition mirrored in the court scientist, Jack. He too hated the city and the current rulers (for reasons I was not privy to). I lent him my help and together we designed a device that could imprison the King's soul like he had our selves. This crystal would allow me to question him and find the location of my dearest spirit. Even better, it would let us channel the magical powers of those within the crystal for our own use. Nearly everything was ready to go when we hit a snag--the crystal was faulty. On our first tests, it nearly killed Jack. We had to dispose of it and make a new one, one made of stronger base materials. If the original crystal had worked, I would have been in time to capture the King. Unfortunately, he died peacefully before I could get to him. We stuck with our plan and Jack found what he needed to finish the crystal, a heart of some kind. The Crown was weaker than it had been in years. Jack broke me out and we rose through the castle easily, collecting the souls of servants and magicians in the crystal without having to kill them. Their bodies fell inert without their souls, but did not decay. We reached the prince's bedchambers and collected Gar Gilgamesh. The prince woke and discerned our plan. He pleaded with us, saying that Yondekaicys knew of his father's death and his own reign. He said they would come looking for us if they suspected anything amiss. Jack and I discussed this and agreed. He was to be sent to Gonetown, my former home, and trapped there within a ring of apple trees. We would tell the Eastern City that he had been too young to reign and I had been assigned regent in his place. After we sent him away, I tested the crystal's powers. They were far greater than I expected. Jack was pleased that the high quality materials had proven their value. I drew up life from the earth and imbued it into the bodies of the castle servants' bodies, forming them into the Queen's Guard. With these constructs I gathered the written history of the city and destroyed it. The crystal gave me the power to change the memories of those within a certain distance of me, so as long as I did not leave Kain's Atoll, they would continue believing me as their longstanding ruler. Since our overthrow two years ago, I have been searching for the river spirit. She is the only good left in this world. When I find her, I will be done with this city. It is scum and it deserves to be razed to the ground. I will live out my few remaining years with the river spirit and we will be happy.
Currently, the steps in my plan are as follows: Search the city for the spirit, search the countryside for the spirit, search the region for the spirit, search the continent for the spirit. I have some leads--the last I saw the spirit was the night at the fish market. I saw her being taken away by someone who I now know to be the Jan's Port Knight. I have not found this man, but there were reported sightings of him at the market the day my cane was stolen. I have already sent my guardsmen searching the city for the spirit and none found anyone matching that description or magical signature. I am currently searching the countryside.
My cane was stolen one morning. Stripinton reported that he had seen the cane in flour bags exchanged between Aedet Secale and Tidev Bouillerathun, but I do not believe them to be the original thieves. They were captured and the bakery was searched, and the cane without the crystal was found. They then disappeared from prison, which makes me think that they may have more to do with this than I initially believed. There is the possibility of someone from the Eastern City being the mastermind behind this, even though the caravan showed up after my cane was stolen. Jack says that he has a way to track down the crystal, but it will take some time. I do not know if I have that time. If I wait too long, the people will begin to remember what I did.
The quinquennial negotiations with Yondekaicys and the concurrent festival have begun. This complicates my search for the crystal as I am to be in meetings for the majority of the day. There are also many more people in the city, which makes it harder for my guards to search.
Therefore, my immediate goals and steps are: Find the crystal (use Jack's method of finding it, when it's ready; search for the crystal's energy signature (have it pinpointed down to somewhere underground--the understream?)), find the Jan's Port Knight (he has only been seen once since the morning in the market), find aedet and tidev (they escaped from jail and fled to somewhere within the city. are they working with JPK? do they know where he is?), find the river spirit (use the crystal to continue searching the countryside for her; weaken external cities (including Yondekaicys) so I can implant spies there to search).
I am Jack, the royal scientist. I am a descendant of the God Slaughterer, who was cheated out of godhood by the evil ones who call themselves the new gods. My life's goal is to avenge my ancestor and bring godhood to my family line. I searched the land for the places where gods fell in order to use the magic residue they decomposed into. This city, Kain's Atoll, is where the oldest god Awbew fell. I also found the King and his son. They were favored by Aesop, one of the new gods. I got close to them and worked my way into position as the royal scientist. There, I listened in on the King's conversations with Aesop. The god talked of a powerful device that could capture souls, perhaps even the soul of a god. I took notes and designed this device, a crystal that I would use to trap the gods all at once. The perfect fodder came with the Queen. She was near blind with rage toward the city and the King. I would design this crystal and she would demonstrate it for me. I began calling on the gods, offering a product that I knew would interest them. These new gods have always been short-sighted and have valued entertainment over what is right. They were interested, as I expected. They saw in the crystal a device that would disrupt the balances of power on this world and start conflict. It would be a much more interesting show for them. What they do not know is that the crystal, as soon as they get it, will be activated by their overwhelming power and the lynchpin will break. The ensuing vortex will swallow them whole and seal them inside the heart of the crystal. I will eat this heart, as they ate the hearts of the gods before them. I will inherit their powers, the powers which should have been my ancestor's 562 years ago. They want a demonstration of this crystal, of course. They want to see the chaos it causes firsthand. The Queen would use it to bring chaos, but she got complacent and fell into a routine. I was lucky that the Jan's Port Knight came into town. He is the Eastern King, of course, though he pretends not to be. He had been favored by Aesop as well and knew something was off about the Queen. He stole her cane before I had time to and planted it on two unsuspecting citizens. He expected to get it back from them once it was safe to do so, but I knew an opportunity when I saw one. While they were at the Queen's speech opening the festival, I stole the cane back. Then, after the citizens' bags were searched, I stached it in one of them. I am keeping eyes on it. These two may not be the best vessels for dealing with chaos, but it's better to have the crystal on them than on the Queen or the Eastern King during this time. I am sending them chaos to deal with, to see what powers they unlock from the crystal.
My immediate goals and steps are: Cause chaos for the citizens to deal with (send a monster or two their way), stop the Queen and the Eastern King from finding the crystal (keep them both busy in meetings. always keep someone around them).
I am Doc, the current King of Kain's Atoll. Shortly after my father passed and I came in to power, the court scientist and a prisoner led a revolt and trapped me in a small village a couple days away from the city. The apple trees that encircle this place are magically charged or something, so I can't get through. I tried to contact Pax in the city, but he did not remember me. Aesop visited me in a dream and explained that the prisoner, who now calls herself the Queen, had deluded everyone within the city to thinking that she had been in power the whole time. I was devastated, because this meant Pax wouldn't remember me at all. Aesop offered a solution, and a contract. With his help, I met with Pax in a dream and explained the situation to him. Slowly, he began remembering. He promised to free me and recapture the city for me. He contacted Zigmund and they revived the Guild, a school club we had created during our time at Ilan University. It has taken two years, but I truly believe we are making progress. I miss Pax, but I know I will see him again. He has been doing well running the Guild in my absence.
My immediate goals and steps are: Keep supporting Pax in the effort to remove the Queen, keep trying to find a way out of Gonetown.
I am Yond. I have lived for eons. I am the Eastern King. I moonlight as the Jan's Port Knight. I change forms every half-century or so, to throw off suspicion. I was created from the pact between the new gods in the year 0. I am administration, and order. The Queen stinks of disorder and chaos. I need to stop whatever she's doing. I know she's using the crystal that is a part of her cane to do her work, so I stole it from her. I hid it on two commoners, with plans to get it later. It disappeared--in its place? That stink. While I get my fix of order and recordkeeping from the negotiations with the Queen during the day, I am searching for those commoners at night. They did something to take the crystal, and I need it back to keep everything running smoothly.
My immediate goals and steps are: Figure out the Queen's intentions regarding causing chaos (subltly interrogate her?; investigate the castle for anything out of the ordinary), find the crystal (confront A and T and terrify them into giving up its location).
I am Paxton William, and I run the Guild in Doc's absence. These past years have been confusing beyond belief. I wouldn't have believed anything Doc said if I hadn't begun remembering small bits of our lives together. It's a strange feeling to miss something that you never knew you had. If I ever want that life back, I have to remove the Queen. Aesop told me to look for the backpack knight. The two newest members of our guild were in contact with him, apparently.
My immediate goals and steps are: Find JPK (ask Aedet and Tidev about him, reason to believe he is being held at the guardhouse?), stop Q from finding A and T and the crystal shard (get the guards busy with other rowdiness), find the crystal (JPK may have been the one to steal it?), depose of the queen and restore everyone's memories (use the crystal to stop the queen's spell, use the crystal to kill the queen and rescue doc).
20230115: possible play: help guild, fight with queen, interrupted with jack being revealed as bbeg, hesitantly band together with queen to fight jack, queen finds river spirit as sludge lady and rips her own heart out, defeat jack?, doc is reinstated?? (or maybe: the queen was doing pretty goddamn well runnign the place and the citizens want her as a legit ruler, doc and pax are able to hang out and adventure the world with each other)
queen reagent lol