Namtar Ashan | Amulet of the Shadow Born | Moonwater | Well of Tears | Greywing
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: Low City at a Glance
Download
This week, we continue our exploration of Languard by daring the Low City.
The name given to the bulk of Languard sprawling south of the Svart, the Low City is home to most of the city’s populace. (Some use the name “Low City” in a derogatory fashion to refer to everything south of the Svart.) The Low City is named both for its position below High City and for the low-born status of the folk dwelling therein.
02: Namtar Ashan, Lich Lord
Ashlarian Legendry (Personality)
The lich lord Namtar Ashan is a figure of legendry from Ashlar’s earlier years.
The self-styled Lord of the Nineteen Obsidian Steps dwelt in the depths of the Forest of Grey Spires, in and under one of the forest’s innumerable rocky pillars. For a century, sleepless and indefatigable, he toiled over a matchless artefact, the Twenty of Obsidian Steps. This structure plunged deep into the bedrock below the forest and was steeped in the foulest of black arts and soaked in the lifeblood of countless sacrifices. The purpose of the Twenty Obsidian Steps remains unclear. Some sages argue it was built to form a permanent gate to one of the Hells or a layer of the Abyss. Others argue that the steps would have trapped a spark of dark divinity and that they would have enabled Namtar Ashan to ascend—or, more accurately, descend to godhood.
He had almost completed the Twenty Obsidian Steps when Kal Voren, paladin of Darlen and wielder of the holy blade Demon Bane, slew him in the depths of his lair. Thus was the lich lord’s scheme and threat ended.
Kal Voren never spoke of what he saw in the lich lord’s lair and only revealed its location to a few faithful companions. Its ruin, and the completed Nineteen Obsidian Steps, likely yet slumber and decay somewhere amid and under the numberless boughs and pillars of the Forest of Gray Spires.
See Also: Kal Voren
03: Amulet of the Shadow Born
Ashlarian Lore (Magical Item)
Wrought of black steel forged in the Shadowlands, this ornate amulet is always cool to the touch. The Amulet of the Shadow Born has many powers; chief amongst them is the ability to protect vampires and other creatures of the night that fear daylight for its enervating effects.
For the last hundred years or so, this singularly foul object has been held in Languard’s Watcher’s Spire. There, it lies in a locked vault safe from the influence and grasp of evil’s agents—or at least that’s what the clergy believe.
The amulet was stolen a decade ago and swapped for a cunningly-wrought facsimile. The necromancer Niku Ikitiera blackmailed Viljami Ikitiera, his brother and an acolyte of Darlen, into performing the deed. Niku sought the amulet so that his lover, the vampire Kaiju Venemies, could walk abroad during the day. The cunning pair have disguised the amulet by covering it in gold and adding several glimmering gems to its facade. Thus, Kaiju walked the streets during the day, hiding—literally—in plain sight until the pair departed for an unknown location across the Bitter Sea.
See Also: Shadowland of Ashlar
04: Moonwater
Campaign Component (Item)
Moonwater is sacred to the druidic followers of the Mother.
The ritual required to create moonwater is a sacred mystery of the faith; outsiders and non-believers are forbidden from observing or participating. The process is similar to that required for normal holy water, but it can only be performed on nights of the full moon.
The addition of fresh wolfsbane harvested by the light of a full moon by a druidic of the Mother, using a silver sickle, gives it its extra power. Moonwater acts as normal holy water in regards to fiends, devils and the undead, but it also injures lycanthropes in the same fashion.
Glowing motes of bluish-purple light floating alongside glimmering flecks of silver distinguish moonwater from normal holy water.
05: The Well of Tears
Campaign Component (Dungeon)
Discovered in the bowels of a deep, natural cave system, filled with the ruin of an extinct civilisation now fallen and forgotten, the Well of Tears is a singular place of mystery and peril.
Four 40-foot-high statues depicting terrible, monstrous beasts of nightmarish countenance surround a ragged, 30-foot-wide water-filled shaft of unknown depth. The ghoulish statues jut from the surrounding walls and leer horribly over the well. Water oozes and dribbles from their gaping maws, brutish nostrils and wide eyes into the circular shaft. A ramp encircles the shaft and spirals downwards into the cold, dark water.
Sometimes, when the rains are poor and the land above bakes in the heat of a fine summer, the water in the well recedes. When it does so, it reveals numerous passages radiating outwards and downwards from the shaft. Brave and swift adventurers have made brief forays into the dripping passages thus revealed; tragically, some do not return before the water levels inevitably rise. Those that do return speak of a bewildering array of passages—some flooded, some not—and of a chasm ravaged by fiendishly strong winds—that cuts even deeper into the heart of the world. What lies therein is unknown.
06: Greywing
Campaign Component (Dragon)
Legion are the stories and rumours of the ancient red dragon Greywing and his uncountable, hideous atrocities. Long has the shadow of this ever-hungry and insatiably greedy wyrm loomed large over the world, vast is his hoard, and peerless is his reputation.
Greywing is not a true red dragon. Warped centuries ago by profane and unknown energies of the foulest sort seeping into his lair, Greywing is now both part of and apart from the world. Greywing is a shadow red dragon. Able to cloak himself in darkness and manipulate it to do his bidding, he breathes shadowfire—a terrifying and potent mixture of fire and the very stuff of the Plane of Shadow.
Greywing dwells in the bowels of an extinct volcano hollowed out by a long-annihilated clan of dwarves. His lair lies far from human lands—because Greywing has destroyed any encroaching tendrils of civilisation with a hundred miles or more of his gloomy, ash-filled home.
Many have sought to end Greywing’s existence; most have fallen foul to the dragon’s personal might, the cloying, living darkness filling his lair or the swarms of cultists and adherents—some of them undead—that willingly serve him and worship him as something akin to a god.
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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