A point of light (or dark??) from my own world, actually the place in which I got the campaign started...
ROS' HAVEJ: Flower of the Desert
Situated in an arid but mostly calm and tranquil spot, Ros 'Havej is a secluded shrine constituted by wonderful, tall limestone buildings and temples, perched on two spiky heights of eroded magmatic rock, last remains of a long-dead volcano. The two rock bodies are called the Dragon's Horns, and the hot water spring at the base of them is said to be heated by an ancient draconic or fire spirit inhabiting the ancient depths below the rocks. The simple but graceful buildings, often linked up from one spike to the other by solid bridges, are home to monks and priests who worship a celestial deity that they often claim to be the only real god. This for 9 months a year. Then Ros' Havej is said to give birth to its baby: the near river of Lanasur starts to bring water from the fertile north, quickly transforming the surrounding into a green heaven of high grass, bushes, cereals and flowers. And tents and abodes too. In fact, the blooming of vegetation also starts the blooming of commerce, and caravans from south, north and east, join seafarers from the near west coast, reaching Ros' Havej and starting to build up all kind of temporary and quick installments as well as occupying abandoned stone-carved refuges that quickly become dormitories, inns, and bordellos.
Radiating from the center marked by the so called high-city built on the two rock spikes, the caravan-city attracts people from all the near world, and rich viziers and pashas engage on a gold-riddled battle with the local priests and with each other for the best central buildings in which reside with their courts to attract the best artists. Big annual events are organized after the installment of the colossal local arena, with seats for thousands made of immense nets of thick rope attached to high wooden structures. At the center of it, violent combat or breath-taking concerts become a sensational experience thanks to the big crystals that sprout out of the underneath rock, the biggest among the many ones found in Ros 'Havej, which a tribe of the east know how to synchronize with the minds of mage-musicians in order to produce otherworldly sounds and vibrations that can instill powers into those who experience the trance inducted by the music. So a large number of people manages to live well in the area thanks to the ancient but still functioning sewers which lie below a vast area circling the high-city. They are said to be linked with the river and with the even deeper caves and tunnels inside and below the Dragon's Horns mounts. Besides the commodity lies the danger: the sewers are probably the cause of an always increasing annual loss of children, who enjoy exploring the places but many times never return. Mothers tell children not to venture there because the dragon will eat them, but priests are secretly worried that something worse could be happening to the ones lost in the ancient depths. The shrine was always said to be a point of contact with the "celestial worlds above", with its spiky form scraping the sky, but the loremasters know that this "world contact" facility could be used for dark purposes if ancient artifacts and rituals could be summoned in the right places of the complex. A warning for the priests that someone might have had plans to do it came this year, with strange illnesses striking many people, but strangely more authorities, priests and voluntary guards than artisans, women and traders. The increasingly high notoriety and prestige of a once mediocre pasha from the near east also represents the exciting news of the last year for many, but also the freshest and spiciest rumors among the courts and puzzled worries among the priests...
Converting it to 4e, Ros' Havej could be a last resort or ancient ruin of the dragonborn empire, and its underground could lead to a mirrored place in the Shadowfell from which an evil NPC is trying to use Ros'Havej to summon devils from the Nine Hells...
Join the Zendikar D&D Campaign Setting group: discover the fantastic world and contribute to make Zendikar a playable setting! - Warning! Spectacular visuals and lore ahead! ... Take a look...
Slightly silly, but a nice location if you need some comic relief. . . on the other hand, it could also be a great location to start off a campaign that begins light and happy then quickly takes on sinister tones.
Tarasville
This town seems like a perfectly ordinary trading hub: ruled over by a minor duke, the city is prosperous, although not particularly large. Its major economy is based on the river that runs through the center of the town, crossing a major trade route between two kingdoms.
Sharp-eyed adventurers may notice a strange trend in the city's tastes towards civic art: a twenty-foot statue of the Tarrasque dominates the city square (taken straight from the 3E monster manual). Bas-reliefs of Tarrasques dominate the friezes of civic buildings. The city courthouse has a statue of a blindfolded Tarrasque out front holding a pair of scales in one claw and a sword in the other.
When the adventurers first arrive, they are just in time for the most popular holiday in the city: the annual celebration of Tarrasquemas! On this day, the happy citizens of Tarasville take the day off of work. People dress up wearing stylized Tarrasque costumes, eat Tarrasque-shaped cookies and pastires, and take to the streets for the official Tarrasquemas Day Parade, with the giant Tarrasque leading the way (think Chinese New Year dragon masks, and you've got the right idea). Children will go to bed that night knowing that if they were good that year, the Tarrasque will fly through the air and give them gifts. Bad little boys and girls, however, will be snatched up in its massive claws and swallowed whole for 2d8+8 crushing and 2d8+6 acid damage a round.
Depending on the tone of your campaign, this could simply be a whimsical celebration or something far more sinister: perhaps the town culminates its celebration of Tarrasquemas by sacrificing an unlucky citizen in a ritual attempt to prevent the Tarrasque from attacking the town. Perhaps it is a reference to an event many years ago when the Tarrasque did come to town and devour hundreds of children before being driven away.
A chalk escarpment dominates the land, standing as the only dry land in an area of marshes. A ravine has been carved into the escarpment by a winding river; the walls of the ravine are hundreds of feet high and sheer.
At the head of the ravine, about four miles from the entrance, the ravine widens into a small valley. A huge waterfall fills the valley with mist and on a hill in the centre of the valley lies the fabled City of Calkis.
Calkis is built upon the ruins of an older civilisation, fashioned of pure white stone. The city has only 200 inhibitants, but all of them are lords of their own great houses and are scholars. Each person in Calkis is attended by an entourage of undead, for the waterfall behind the city is enchanted and animates any corpse placed into it. The corpse then obeys the first person to touch it without any magical knowledge being required. The corpses are destroyed if they leave the valley for more than a few days but are animate until destroyed otherwise. They do not rot or smell (as a permanent gentle repose spell) and are clothed by the Calkians to cover their nakedness and wear beautifully crafted masks. The Calkians refer to them as the ancestors and they accorded respect. They cannot speak but can understand humans but obey their masters without question. Only Calkians may animate the ancestors upon pain of death and a large number of undead guardians prevent access to the falls. Indeed, the valley is only open to those who the Lords summon and any others can be slain for disturbing the piece of the ancestors.
There are more than 2000 undead in the valley, including a giant undead snake and a school of undead eels that are 7-8 feet long. They all obey the Lords of Calkis, most of whom are level 1-2 experts. Calkian scholars trade with other city states to obtain knowledge and the library of Calkis is one of the last of its kind.
The Lords of Calkis regard it as their solemn duty to protect the lands around their city and now farm their valley with undead servitors and pass out the food to the marsh people, who are constantly preyed upon by lizard folk and other creatures of the marsh. They also send giant undead eels out into the marshes to protect the marsh folk at night.
The small villages of marsh folk live by simple fishing and also cut reeds for making paper. They send the reeds and all their dead to Calkis as a tribute. There is a market town called Namir in the middle of the marshes because a major river flows through the marsh out to the sea and the marsh people sell salt in exchange for wood and grain from PoLs further inland. Namir is mainly halfling with about 45% humans.
Calkis arose two centuries ago when a group of scholars found the valley. The scholars were fleeing the destruction of their former PoL and one of them; Calkis; met an Eladrin spirit in the moonlight while walking in despair. The Eladrin was long dead but told him about the waterfall and that a sacrifice was needed to activate its power. So killed himself in the waterfall to save his companions from starvation. He arose as an undead and now lives at the bottom of the waterfall. He animated some of the dead buried in tombs carved into the chalk and the undead saved his companions from death by starvation. It is he who truly commands the undead and he loves knowledge and his fellow men more than anything else.
The players will begin in the marsh town trading port of Namir. They will only gradually discover the secrets of Calkis over the course of the campaign. The Lords of Calkis may become their patrons, but the PCs may have a hard time accepting that the lords are benevolent. This could eventually lead to conflict when the PCs discover the true nature of the ancestors.
Adventure sites in the surrounding lands will include lizard men lairs, ancient tombs in the chalk, giant snake attacks, and raids by a tribe of humans (the Sandmen) ruled by Druids who view the Lords of Calkis as monsters and their practises as abberations. According to the world view of the Sandmen, the Calkians are interrupting the cycle of death and rebirth. They burn their corpses and hate the rites of Calkis. They have spies in Namir and seek to find pawns they can manipulate into destroying Calkis. But all is not as it seems because Gurdrel, the leader of the Druids is under the thrall of an Aboleth...........
The Mushroom Kingdom: For untold centuries civilizations have risen and fallen, each built upon the ruins of the last. In ages long past, when the foundations for these cities were laid, powerful magics forged portals in the deepest parts of their waste aqueducts. The wisest sages have never found the exits to these portals, and would be deeply disturbed were they to find out the truth.
These portals were all tied to one gate from whence all manner of filth flowed into the sea. Over the centuries, the algae blooms and life that they attracted formed a basic reef, and then an island, then a small continent, at the center of which is a slow oozing volcano of filth.
Wild and bizarre are the inhabitants of this great isle, from the noseless dwarves that work the soil, selling fertilizer back to the cities that produced it along with mushrooms of all shapes, colors, and textures, to the giant dung beetles that roam the surface crust.
Most newcomers to the island arrive by accident. If they survive the trip through the gate and out the volcano, they must then deal with sicknesses wrought by the filth. Barring disease, there are still other threats, like strange turtledoves and living mushrooms of only base intelligence, the minions of the great fire-breathing orc shaman, who controlls much of the mushroom kingdom.
Some resist Bowser, the great orc shaman, like the humanoid survivors that litter the island or the more intelligent diminutive race of living mushrooms, like the more adapted nose-less, hairless dwarves, who wear giant mushroom caps as hats and look much like toadstools in the right light. These inhabitants worship a porcelain god, and believe that one day the filth will all be flushed away.
Adventurers who happen upon the mushroom kingdom are often recruited to help fight the orc shaman and his minions, though will most likely spend much of their time searching for the portal that will return them back to their homelands.
It is rumored that the orc shaman, Bowser, keeps a human woman hostage, who is rumored to smell delightful, like the scent of peaches.
Strongbadia A small kingdom ruled by a king who wears a red mask and gloves. The peasants of the land are currently at the mercy of a large mutant red dragon named Trogdor. www.homestarrunner.com
I'm both orderly and selfish. I act mostly for my own benefit, but I respect and help my community - Specially when it helps me. At best, I'm loyal and dedicated; at worst, I'm elitist and shrewd.
Strongbadia A small kingdom ruled by a king who wears a red mask and gloves. The peasants of the land are currently at the mercy of a large mutant red dragon named Trogdor. www.homestarrunner.com
Trogdor was a man. He was a dragon man. He was a dragon. Which means he is either an advanced half-dragon or some sort of dragon shifter/therianthrope. Really his accomplishments include burninating small villages and peasants, and in the video game, armored soldiers were able to defeat Trogdor the Burninator.
Hearing about the D&D experience kobold adventure inspired me to create a town--and an adventure hook--connected to it.
Auren is a small farming community located on the Aurenmir, one of the tributaries of the Black Mountain River. It's a peaceful, mixed race community, but it has a kobold problem. The little bandits have been a pain for years, stealing tools and food and whatever else they can get their hands on, but lately they've been getting bolder. They're now stealing sheep and cattle, and maybe even children. It's almost as if they've got a new, and bigger, mouth to feed...
Trogdor was a man. He was a dragon man. He was a dragon. Which means he is either an advanced half-dragon or some sort of dragon shifter/therianthrope. Really his accomplishments include burninating small villages and peasants, and in the video game, armored soldiers were able to defeat Trogdor the Burninator.
True, but during burnination (a rage-like effect in which his breath weapon recharge time is extemely short, and the damage is maximized) he is impervious to attack.
I'm both orderly and selfish. I act mostly for my own benefit, but I respect and help my community - Specially when it helps me. At best, I'm loyal and dedicated; at worst, I'm elitist and shrewd.
What an awesome thread. With the DDI game table, we could potentially be playing in each others' campaigns, and have a chance to explore this all.
The Coppermount Dwarves This is a new settlement that was formed fifty years ago, largely by dwarves, but humans and halflings have found homes there too. Gnomes and kobolds have been discovered indigenous to the region. Elves and dragonkin are rare here, except occasionally passing through, resting on their way to another destination.
Copper was discovered in abundance in these mountains, and a small expedition of dwarves set up camp to mine it. Caravans were organized, families moved in, and the outpost grew into a bustling settlement. Now there is never a shortage of work for metalsmith, miner, or adventurer.
Gnomes and kobolds have lived in these mountains for generations. The gnomes welcome their new neighbors, and the possibilities of trade and cultural enrichment. The kobolds are not so welcoming, except for a rare few. Most have been known to attack poorly-guarded caravans, though occasionally a kobold craftsman or merchant will set up shop -- under the watchful eyes of the rest of the settlement.
A portage camp is set up twenty miles to the south, at the nearest river, and this river takes the Coppermount trade goods to the more civilized places in the world. The river and the camp are both simply called "Portage." The river originates within the mountain, though no serious expedition has been mounted to explore it fully...yet!
Since Coppermount is a new community, most people know each other, and laws are nonexistant and unnecessary. The hundred or so permanent residents police themselves. The most lawlessness comes from the occasional gnome dissident who does not care for new neighbors; thieving, sabotage, and even a rare assassination or two. It is not known if there is an organized force of gnomes behind this terrorism. Some have speculated a different race of gnome is behind it (svirfnebli?) or perhaps an unheard-of alliance between gnome and kobold. Could the few kobold merchants of Coppermount be acting as spies? Are all the dwarves so law-abiding as they let on? And there are rumors of an even more sinister evil pulling the strings from deep beneath the mountain....
The Cardiff Wastes Past the snow capped peaks of the Deep Mountains the land gradually levels out into a barren desert full of large stone structures. The air here seems almost unnaturally still, and few creatures of a non-magical nature are ever seen in the wastes. Giants are known to hold the Cardiff Wastes sacred because oral tradition states that this was the site of their greatest empire in some long forgotten age, before an angry god decided to punish their queen for spurning his advances. According to legend the spiteful deity destroyed the giantesses kingdom by unleashing a plague of "elemental chaos" upon the land. In any case the area has a well deserved reputation as a haunt for both elementals and demons. Today many giants travel to the wastes during the hot summer months on a pilgrimage to see the "Weeping Lady", an enormous rock formation near the exact center of the Cardiff Wastes which they believe to be the petrified remains of their long dead queen. On the night of the Summer Solstice each year the titanic eyes of the shattered statue (which is far larger even than a titan) seem to shed tears which are said to cure any ailments both natural and magical. Many adventurers are lured to the site each year, but very few manage to evade the throngs of giants surrounding the Weeping Lady, and fewer still are able to bring back any of the precious fluid.
