Witnesses of the Doom Inevitable | Treachery Ridge | The Black Mausoleum | Castle Rocks | Six Atypical Tavern Patrons
Welcome to the GM’s Sunday Supplement! Behold four campaign components and a handy d6 list to add to your campaign and GM’s toolbox.
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Witnesses of the Doom Inevitable
Ashlar | Cult | Languard
Eighty-seven years ago, Darlen’s Chariot did not appear. Savage storms ravaged Ashlar, and the harvest failed. Famine and unrest stalked the land. Against this doom-laden backdrop, strange religious practises blossomed.
Aarne Kivinen, a fabulously rich but paranoid Languardian merchant, became obsessed with the end of the world. In particular, the teachings of the blind seer-priest Tuevo Varala fascinated the merchant. Tuevo led the Witnesses of the Doom Inevitable—a cult that believed shadow and darkness would soon shroud the world. They named the end of the world Shadowsfall. Only the righteous—those who gave themselves to the cult—would survive this doom.
Seeing Aarne as a useful tool, Tuevo bent all his powers of persuasion upon him until he joined the cult. Now convinced the Shadowsfall was imminent, Aarne financed the construction of a hidden redoubt. The subterranean citadel took five years to build. When the cult’s lair was complete, the now aged and senile Tuevo pronounced that Shadowsfall was at hand. The cultists fled to the redoubt there to serve as witnesses to the end of the world.
Shadowsfall never came to pass, and the cult faded into obscure legendry and quickly became nothing more than the butt of tavern jokes and the stuff of misguided legend. But some more thoughtful folk wonder what became of them and their secret subterranean lair. Such folk often also ponder what happened to Aarne Kivinen’s legendary wealth, but thus far the Witnesses’ hidden redoubt has not been located.
See Also: Chariot of Darlen
Treachery Ridge
Hills
Vicious winds and terrible storms batter this bare and desolate knife-edge of a ridge that cuts through a craggy, remote part of the hills. Named for the sudden, savage changes in the weather—particularly the wind—Treachery Ridge is a dangerous place. So terrible, vicious and unpredictable is the wind here that several folk have been blown off the ridge to their deaths. However, Treachery Ridge also offers a tempting shortcut through the hills and thus, every year, brave or foolish travellers dare the route.
At a few places, along Treachery Ridge, rude stone shelters huddle just below the ridge line. Most stand in a hollow or shallow cave for extra shelter. Of drystone walls, stone harvested from the surrounds by travellers long ago, they are simple affairs often in need of repair. Travellers report being trapped in these shelters for days or weeks at a time, and that such times are lonely and dismal. They report the wind screaming over the ridge for days at a time and the deep, pervasive chill it brings.
Local folklore has it that Treachery Ridge is haunted and that the weather does strange things to the minds of travellers trapped thereon. Some believe the ridge is home to the hills’ primal spirits and that they summon forth potent winds to rid themselves of the interlopers who dare trespass in their domain. Whatever the source of the winds, the locals all agree that Treachery Ridge is dangerous; only well-equipped and seasoned travellers should attempt it. Prevailing local wisdom is that it is better to spend a few extra days taking the longer route through the hills than to take the shortcut and never arrive.
The Black Mausoleum
Graveyard | Mausoleum | Subterranean
The Black Mausoleum stands at the centre of an old graveyard full of tottering or fallen, weather-pitted gravestones several miles outside town. Choked with weeds and bushes, the graveyard is a forlorn, abandoned place whose only living residents are the birds nesting in the surrounding trees. The track leading to the graveyard is but a memory of what it once was. No one has been buried here for centuries, and few folk visit the cemetery, although all the townsfolk know of the place.
Part-covered in an unruly riot of sickly, ill-coloured vines and creepers, the Black Mausoleum broods over its surrounds. An odd, but distinct feeling of repulsion and dread radiates from its centuried, vine-strangled bulk. Old stories tell of the building’s fell emanations and of the queer effect—driving many visitors mad with fear and loathing—they have on those who get close.
A single stone door, cunningly fitted so that its hinges and lock are not evident, pierces the building’s outer wall. Within, all is dust and shadow. A long corridor, replete with many steps and alcoves, spirals around and down into the dark abyssal gulfs below the mausoleum. The corridor makes nine full circuits of the building as it plunges ever deeper. Eventually, it terminates at a sheer drop into a black gulf of endless darkness. A slender tower rises out of that darkness, and its battlemented roof is but 20 feet below the level of the lowest step…
Castle Rocks
Caves & Caverns | Subterranean
Buried in a distant cavern, smothered in darkness and legend, a singular, rambling rock formation looks, for all the world, like the queerly melted and warped ramparts of a phantastical castle. Bizarre towers, of outlandish profile, rise from the slumped and solidified melted walls that dominate a ragged plateau overlooking a tributary of the mighty Starless River.
Adventurers sometimes come to Castle Rocks to gaze at the “ruins” and to imagine-dream of those who once dwelled within. Several stones scattered through the site have the aspect of altars, and the largest of these sits amid the still waters of a placid pool. Legends whisper that those who sleep on the Great Altar Stone, sometimes otherwise called the Dreaming Stone, disappear—transported to another world in which the castle is yet occupied and a merry people throng its halls in endless revels and feasts. Some explorers tell of faint, otherworldly music drifting through the ruins and of odd shadows that dance and move where there should be none. Other folk who hear and see nothing put such flights of fancy down to weak, easily suggestible—or perhaps overly romantic—minds.
Odd disappearances have been reported at Castle Rocks over the years, however. Adventurers have fought several battles and skirmishes in years gone by between adventurers and the many foul monsters that dwell in the surrounding caverns. The surrounding caverns are dangerous, and this ensures that only the bravest, skilled or most determined of adventurers reach Castle Rocks.
See Also: Starless River, the
Six Odd Tavern Patrons
Six Things | Tavern | NPCs
Auvo Jurva: Stubble dusts this fat old man’s face. He wears dirty clothes, burps loudly and has deep bags under his unfocused eyes.
Matilda Hopea: Dressed well, this young woman is clearly out of place; her eyes rove around the common room.
Timo Kuura: Down on his luck and nursing an ale, this mail-clad warrior wears a mishmash of clothes in several different, exotic styles. His armour is of a similarly exotic style. He has a scarred right hand and mournful brown eyes.
Elrak Ovlag: A heavy backpack rests at this black-haired, mail-clad dwarf’s feet. He studies a map while absentmindedly drinking an ale. He radiates an aura of “stay away”.
Rauna Ilma: Dressed as a street walker, this young woman moves with grace and poise, and deftly avoids the clutches of the tavern’s drunker patrons. (She is a skilled pickpocket who preys on drunk men—this is a target-rich environment.)
Noora Kaivas: On a pilgrimage, this middle-aged woman is a priest of a lesser, little-known god. She is friendly but tired. Her clothes are travel-stained.
Campaign (noun): a connected series of adventures; Component (noun): a constituent part
Thank you for reading the Sunday Supplement; I hope some of this week’s Campaign Components make it into your game or sparks your creativity.
Want the Markdown Files? Every member of our Patreon campaign gets the markdown files for the new-look Sunday Supplements to make it even easier to add them to their campaign.
Remember, Everything is Better with Tentacles!