Blashyrkh Campaign

These campaign notes are very loose and open to interpretation and expansion. I'll do my best to organize them in a reasonable order but I don't feel like putting much effort into it for the time being.

Setting:

Realm of Blashyrkh

• grim, dark, stormy
• Small map, mostly mountains and forest with a small lake
• frozen ocean coast land on one side of kingdom or have it as an isolated valley
• long nights, snowy
• large fields of battle carnage
• skeletons of men, humanoids, orcs, horses, weaponry, banners
• Always full moon* "The Sun No Longer Rises"
• *Full moon actually a portal to a demonic realm
• "eye of demon king looking in"
• blood red
•  "A Perfect Vision of the Rising Northland"
• fire burns blue because world is so cold
• "Millennium black bells of eternal frost - chain lightning"
• ice blue lightning = sound of deep bells chiming
• Death angels (?)
• Potentially low magic setting
• can be re-flavored to be powers of will but only certain schools
• gone bc demons are gone
• Illusion magic still present. Leaks out through portal

• "Winds of Torment"
• cause necrotic and freezing damage
• this is either a wilderness feature or an idea that eventually became the 7 winds of hate

• Rain blood at some point (Inquisition/Slayer)

• Castle in the Mountains of Madness
• looks like the cover of At the Heart of Winter

• party serves the king
• king sends them out on missions that slowly seem morally wrong/grey
• set up king as big bad but actually he is the key in preventing the entry of a demonic horde and demon king

Lore

 There are no religions in Blashyrkh. The gods have been forgotten because 2000 years ago demons invaded the land and waged war. The gods sealed the demon horde into a planar prison behind the moon which is a portal/gateway separating the prison from the land. The king was set in place to guard the realm and acts as the key/seal to the portal/gateway. The gods faded from memory after their power diminished from creating the prison. The demons are now just myth/fairy tales. Only a few remember the reality

The king's life is tied to the prison remaining locked. He has lived so long that he has forgotten about the gods. He remembers his purpose but only vaguely as madness has consumed him in his old age.

There are 4 Germanic/Nordic gods that can be rediscovered by the party by locating their hidden shrines. It will be difficult for the party to find these shrines before the demon hordes are released. The gods could be part of gaining power to defeat the demons.

NPCs

• The King
• The gods
• Heimdalr
• foreknowledge, sight & hearing

• Skaði
• bowhunting, skiing, winter, mountains
• jötuhn
• wolves
• shrine: an inscribed ski on a forgotten mountain top

• Mímir
• wisdom, well of knowledge (Mímisbrunnr)
• Hoddmímis holt (a forest)
• shrine is the well hidden in the forest
• can gain wis/int increase by sacrificing eye to well
• results in disadvantage on perception, investigation, nonmagic attacks
• needs balancing

• Freyja
• love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr (magic), war, death
• sometimes takes the form of Gullveig the witch
• last god to be found, the key to restoring life to Blashyrkh
• seiðr involves destiny magic/shamanism

• The Trickster
• similar to Loki but look to other trickster gods for inspiration 
• CN with hidden motive
• master of illusion magic
• genderless
• sometimes helps party, sometimes doesn't
• not quite a god but nature unknown
• still present but rarely seen

•  Völva named Gyða
• Appearance shifts from old hag to deformed but beautiful woman dpending on the light and perspective
• hard to focus on her and brain always unsure if taking in her appearance correctly or not 
• Inspired by the seer from Vikings (History Channel)
• Eyes gone/scarred over, black chapped lips, bite out of right ear, otherwise beautifull
• wearing a similar rough, woven, black cloak
• wearing lots of bone and rune fetishes
• lives in an isolated wilderness cottage
• Sometimes itinerant 
• exalted, feared, longed for, propitiated, celebrated, scorned

• Demon Lord/General
• similar to Baphomet maybe?

Locations

• Mountains of Madness
• Dwarven underground city - like Norse dwarves (Svartalfheim)
•  2 villages. One is the hamlet outside the the castle, the other one is hidden in the mountains
• forts for other factions

Races/Monsters

• Elves (weakened bc of absence of gods and magic)
• Dwarves (dark, like dead humans, similar to elves)(combo of Drow and Duargar) 
• Men
• Orcs
• Half Orc
• Tiefling
• Half Elves (innate magic from spawn of elves)
• Goliath
• no halfings, gnomes, dragonborn

• trolls, frost giants, blue dragons 

• A lot of ravens
• wise, can speak, messengers
• don't willingly let on that they can speak

•  Horned Goatmen
• wander countryside in herds
• passive, communal
• will retaliate but won't instigate
• look like cover of "Show No Mercy"

• "Blizzard Beasts"
• Yeti with frost powers 

Factions

•  The Mad King
• Party belongs to his task force

• The Black Wizards
• Secret cult seeking to kill the king and unleash the demon horde from their prison bringing magic back to the land

• Tiefling Resistance
• organized in forts throughout the kingdom
• see the evils of the king and want to free the common people from his oppressive rule
• don't know about the demon prison and the kings role in protecting the realm
• Will ally with party if party wants to overthrow king

• Elves
• Nomadic forest wanderers
• mostly neutral

• Dwarves
• Live in Svartalfheim underground
• Primary influence should be Norse dwarfs not Tolkien dwarves
• Can take societal ideas from Drow and Duergar without the evil aspects
• Other inspiration from Orzammar from Dragon Age: Origins

Items

Seven Winds of Hate

• Trying to be harnessed by the black wizards to release the demon lord and restore magic
• Cold
• Blood
• Darkness/Madness
• Plague/Disease
• Smoke/Fog
• Heat/Dessicating
• Ravens

Seven Legendary Weapons

• Can absorb the winds to stop and control them

•  Bloodwind Blade
• Sacrificial Dagger
• take 1d10 damage and add that to damage of attack 
• Umbra arrow (dark/madness) 
• deals Int damage
• controlled by mind and returnable (like Yondu's Yaka arrow)

• Necro scythe (necrotic damage)
• Spear of cold
• icicle
• found in Svartalfheim

• Ancient White Raven
• magical creature that controls the wind of ravens

• Pipe of smoke
• Hammerhate
• controls heat wind

• Dwarfs have the spear, Elves have arrow, Tiefling have hammer
• Scythe, bloodwind blade, and pipe are lost
• King's pipe is the pipe
• Trickster has the scythe
• blade is lost in wilderness

Encounters

Session 1

• The goal of this encounter is to show the party in action serving the king. They need a reason to trust him and see that they have a history of comaraderie with him. Tweak as you see fit. It will be a challenge to make their relationship with the king confusing. You want them to be loyal to the king but eventually question him as they start to see his corruption. It should be a difficult choice on whether to unite with a faction against him or save him from the black wizards.
• In medias res
• Party in the thick of battle with the king against some kind of undead horde
• end maybe with the king being super awesome and saving everybody. Need a reason for the players to love their king.
• skeleton horde led by a wraith. Wraith supplied by dying soldiers with a vanguard of spectres
• fight is at night inside the castle grounds (its always night here idk why I included a note about avoiding sunlight sensitivity of the creatures)
• after fight ends, King sends group on mission to stop 2 druids who are starting the summoning process of the winds. Also have a minotaur (CR 3) (probably need to scale down)
• have some minor creatures for action economy
• druids wear goat masks
• write up some dialogue to point towards the winds coming but be vague

 Goat Men

• Goat men mission from king.
• Go kill the goatmen who are surrounding the hamlet outside the castle walls
• Make sure to describe them in a nasty degrading way.
• filthy, half-breeds assaulting the innocent, hard working villagers 

• Free the town from these assailants
• "Show No Mercy", slay the goatmen
• Don't be deceived by them, they are demon-spawn and we must defend teh land form the demons
• Have an encounter on the way to the village
• maybe a thief attempt caught or an attempt on the king that they thwart
• a villager trying to kill the king?
• disguised as a servant? Just a kid. Need perception check to notice they are a kid before killing them.

• Go to town. Villagers locked in their homes frightened of the party and the kings wrath but make it seem like it is the goatmen they fear.
• Despatch goatmen and have some hunters come to their defense. 2 or 3.
• make goatmen one-shottable or low hp
• have party report back to king and talk about confusion
• king reassures them that they did the right thing. goatmen are spawn of demons and not to be trusted

"Unholy Forces of Evil"

• Use early on for foreshadowing during wilderness exploration
• bloody river flowing down a mountain to a black forest
• follow the river through the forest to a clearing
• "as you all walk through the woods the forest seems to expand outward. What looks like a short distance stretches out further than seems physically possible."
• complete silence in clearing, anti-magic, anti-sound field
• circle of thorns in center of clearing
• sound of burning goat and bleating come in
• dark clouds gather and condense at center as party approaches
• in the center of the thorns is a burning pentagram
• black souls and demons seen in the flames
• very dark in center near the flame
• as center is approached a wind picks up and blows the fires stronger and then it goes out
• a black wind blows away towards the north star
• the clearing is empty, everything is normal, the river is gone

Gyða

• Party sent to her by king to learn more about winds after he starts being plagued by them
• Put her hut somewhere remote in the mountains
• "Listen closely for I will only say this once. Ancient secrets must not fall into the minds of the dark ones."
• "The winds of change, Change is ever blowing what was into something new. You have already witnessed [insert wind]."
• Cryptic descriptions of the legendary weapons
• Energy slows, the will comes to a halt in a frozen spike
• Intense fire makes malleable the resistant. Striking hard is the only way to tame the flame.
• Eroding decay. Time is the enemy that slices through all chaff.
• Absence of light. pierces the mind leaving only madness.
• Plant to air. The instrument is not far from the wind itself.
• The alpha soars between the peaks inseparable from bright wasteland
• The companion of assassins pays the ultimate price

• Offer clue for finding the white raven
• Do not wander far to seek your pale friend. She roosts near

• She offers out her hand after telling a fortune or riddle. She expects it to be licked. She will drop or ignore anything else. If proper payment is no give, she will not divulge more. It is a sign of humility she requires. 

• They have seen the king with the pipe
• they have seen the elves with the floating arrow
• king doesn't know what he has, elves do
• Dwarfs hold their iceycle spear secret
• Tieflings only share hammer if party agrees to attack king
• trickster may give party the weapon disguised as something else depending on when they meet him
• otherwise if they seek him outright for the scythe they can't find him. 
• If they learn of the scythe before receiving something form him, he will only give it if they make a pact with him

Blood Wind Blade Encounter table and Perception check DC

• Roll percentile dice to determine wear the dagger is. This can be done whenever the party is in an area it could possibly be or done once and then the location is set. Maybe have a 5% chance on a D20 that the dagger is present in the current wilderness location
• 20% stuck in a log DC 15
• 15% in a brooke DC 20
• 10% in a rock DC 17
• 5% on a bandit DC 13
• 50% on a bloodied battlefield DC 25

• This can be done however the DM wants. The party could even discover the dagger early on and not know its significance

White Raven

• Walk at least 1 hr from Gyða
• Roll perception 50% chance its there
• DC 15 to hear call
• DC 20 to hear flying 50% chance it is flying
• DC 22 to see

• If fail keep walking 30 min 
• Can adjust percentages and DC but remember this is an ancient white raven in a white wilderness

  
Events/Quests/Session Timeline 

1. Goatmen (1 session)
2. Defeat elven highwaymen (similar to scoia'tael from Witcher)

• actually just a nomadic group, not brigends

3. Go spy on the dwarfs, learn what they are planning (1-3 sessions)

• by this point should suspect king
• need a way to meet Tieflings
• can ally with Tieflings or dwarves to kill king
• or fight wizards to save king

4. king likely attacked by 1st wind while party vising dwarfs. send party to Gyða
4.5-5. Gyða sends party deep into the mountains to find white raven
6. Party seeks out weapons
7. king dies or party confronts wizards
8. Demon Horde Released

• magic returns
• rumors of gods?

9. Demon Lord comes

Black wizards are sending winds against the king during steps 4-7.

Timetable for actions of Black Wizards

Need 4 out of 7 winds for victory

1. Every session roll percentage on finding wind, then roll on table

• 0-25%: No wind
• 26-95%: wind
• 96-100%: 2 winds

2. Three sessions to capture first wind (roll percentile for which wind)

•  01-14% Dark
• 15-28% Blood
• 29-42% Cold
• 43-56% Heat
• 57-70% Smoke
• 71-84% Disease
• 85-98% Ravens
• 99-100% reroll 

Unless they have all 7, party can find weapons and attack group harnassing the wind to steal it from them

or

Send winds one at a time to plague king. First one is how party learns of the winds. King explains lore and says there are 7 winds. Someone is attempting to harness them to kill them. He then sends them to Gyða in the mountains. She speaks of the weapons.