Kalervo's Blade | Time of Two Crowns | Sundered Hill | Galvac | Mounds of Starry Doom
Welcome to the Sunday Supplement, Raging Swan Press’s weekly email for GMs. This week, we have one free download, one piece of legendry, one piece of lore and three miscellaneous campaign components for your game.
Should we develop any of these idea further? Comment below.
01: May’s Inner Cover
Download
20 odd words along with 20 courtyard names for your next game.
02: Kalervo’s Blade
Ashlarian Legendry
Kalervo’s Blade, a legendary sword of fell repute, was carried into battle by Kalervo Saarelainen, the most favoured (and feared) lieutenant of Crown Prince Ilasual Nenonen, Ashlar’s Bloodstained Prince.
Kalervo wielded the blade for years in his perfidious lord’s service until his death at the Battle of Selka River in 208 NR. During the chaos of the Bloodstained Prince’s utter defeat, the blade was lost—probably carried from the field by some common warrior who knew not what treasure he bore.
The blade has appeared and disappeared several times through the intervening centuries. Many believe it has an even longer (hidden) history and that Kalervo was not the first to wield the blade—he was merely the most infamous.
Wielded by the hero Valentin Ironwolf and recovered from his fallen fortress by a goodly paladin of strange mien, the blade resurfaced this year in Dulwich briefly before promptly disappearing. The renowned elven weaponsmith Dulannis Fisfelond in Dunstone swears he handled the sword, but what became of the strange paladin and the legendary weapon remains unknown.
This preternaturally sharp blade is a plain weapon. Supremely well balanced, it has one purpose and one purpose only: killing. Extensively enchanted, the sword is reputed to have many powers: beyond being able to cleave through even the strongest armour, it can make the wielder’s voice heard over the clamour of battle. Old stories of Kalervo Saarelainen’s foul deeds also speak of other, darker powers.
See Also: The Time of Two Crowns (below), The Bloodstained Prince
03: The Time of Two Crowns
Ashlarian Lore
The Time of Two Crowns (NR 207 - 208) was a short period of bloody civil war in the Duchy of Ashlar’s history. Crown Prince Ilasual Nenonen—The Bloodstained Prince—precipitated the crisis when he tried to wrest the throne from his older sister, Aelliah Nenonen.
The conflict culminated in the Battle of Selka River, which was fought to the north of present-day plague-wracked Ashford. The battle resulted in the utter destruction of the pretender's forces and although Ilasual Nenonen’s ambitions died on the field, his body was never found among the heaped dead. He is generally assumed to have been slain in the final moments of the battle when the tattered remnant of his army gave way and his most favoured lieutenant, Kalervo Saarelainen, fell defending a silken pavilion of curious and archaic design. Aelliah Nenonen, who had led her forces in the battle, ordered the pavilion, along with all its contents, burned after she alone had ventured inside. She never spoke of what she saw within, but the pavilion gave off terrible clouds of black and grey noxious smoke when her loyal soldiers set it aflame.
See Also: Kalervo’s Blade (above), The Bloodstained Prince
04: Sundered Hill
Campaign Component (Dungeon)
Rent by a huge jagged crater gouged into its western flank, the Sundered Hill has the look of a boil or pimple that has exploded violently outwards. The shattered remnant of an ancient fortress—the Shattered Citadel—cling to parts of the crater’s rim.
An unknowably deep lake of oily, strangely-coloured water fills the 200-foot-deep crater, and sometimes unidentifiable noises are heard issuing from within. Sunlight rarely caresses the lake’s waters, and few folks have dared the torturous climb into the crater’s depths to investigate further. Some brave souls have explored parts of the gravity-defying ruins clinging to the crater’s edges but have found little interest or value therein.
Persistent rumours, however, among wizards and their ilk speak of an eccentric guild of spellweavers who dwelt in the fortress and who sought to control a powerful reservoir of primal magical power lying deep beneath the hill. The rites, rituals and unique enchantments of such a group could be supremely valuable to the right person, and so, every year, a trickle of adventurers trek to the Sundered Hill to try their luck in the Shattered Citadel.
05 Galvac
Campaign Component (Fallen Empire)
Subterranean Galvac—elder empire of the troglodytes—was old when humans first discovered fire and gazed up with wonder at that stars. Born in fetid darkness, Galvac thrived on bloody war. The troglodytes spread their noxious taint throughout the Underlands, destroying all who would stand in their way. Their priests—chanting terrible, forbidden rites in veneration of ancient otherworldly powers—harnessed the primal elements and wrought terrible wonders with their essences.
Hubris, ambition and ego spelt Galvac’s doom. The empire eventually splintered into a half-dozen successor states that incessantly fought amongst each other through long centuries of bloodshed, sacrifice and suffering. One by one, these successor states fell—victims of their brethren or the other subterranean civilisations that pressed closely in upon the increasingly weakened troglodytes.
Thus, did Galvac pass, and the troglodytes begin their slow but certain descent into barbarity and savagery. Now the descendants of once mighty Galvac dwell amid the fallen ruin of their race’s faded magnificence and gaze uncomprehendingly upon their once-glory.
Scattered glimmers of Galvac’s glory yet linger in distant and out-of-the-way parts of the Underlands. Warded tombs, profane fanes, crumbling ziggurats, and more yet await discovery in the deep, dark places of the world.
06 Mounds of Starry Doom
Campaign Component (Dungeon)
These five ancient, time-worn burial mounds of stupefyingly vast extent squat as they have done since time immemorial in the vast and unending southern grasslands bounding the Glittering Wastes. Surrounded by a vast ring of obsidian marker stones, the mounds squat at the centre of a nest of terrible legends and traditions.
Ancient tribal tradition among the nomadic centaurs roaming the grasslands has it that the barrows are laid out in the same fashion as the Sickle of Fire—a minor constellation of stars thought by doom-mongers and demonologists to be a harbinger of inescapable doom. They believe that when the stars are right, the barrows will open and that the ancient and terrible enemy lurking within will pour forth to destroy the world.
The centaurs do not allow outsiders to investigate or even gaze upon the massive mounds. To do so invites death at the tips of the centaurs’ lances and arrows.
The Mounds of Starry Doom are also called, whimsically by some, the Barrows of the Stars. Travellers and explorers are not known to have gazed upon the mounds for generations, and some sages now believe they are nothing but a fairytale told to terrify and excite the feeble-minded and the gullible.
Ashlarian (proper noun) of Ashlar; Campaign (noun) a connected series of adventures; Component (noun) a constituent part; Legendry (noun) a collection or body of legends; Lore (noun) knowledge and stories about a subject
Thank you for reading the Sunday Supplement; I hope some of the above material makes it into your game or sparks your creativity.
Remember, Everything is Better with Tentacles!
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