Solace: Collapse
Currently ongoing
See Completed Adventures and Scheduled Adventures for up to date info.
A brief history of this world can be found here: A Brief History
This is a West Marches style campaign, and if you don't know what that is, don't feel obligated to google it, I've explained anything and everything you need to know below. If you do find yourself intrigued by the history of it, you can find more info about the origin of West Marches [here] or [here]
Prologue
Unlike so many cities scoured by The Great Awakening, Solace was imbued by a surplus of resources, skills, and survivors. Out of the ashes of the cataclysm, was born an efficiently designed city, with public utilities, a parliamentary governance structure, and minimal poverty, a true rarity in these times.
As if to accentuate Solace’s singular nature, the city’s roadways were built entirely of limestone, giving everything a faint white glow. Resting atop a newly forged cliffside overlooking the Kraken’s Ocean, the largest city in the world is home to nearly a million residents. A veritable melting pot of cultures, languages, and mixed races, Solace is well-known for its modern city feel, tall buildings, expansive universities, and most notably, a floating disc of land that hovers 3000 feet in the air above the city, where temples to every deity known reside.
Dawn approaches on Elitia Kisaturna (Fourth Sunday of the Sixth Month, 6/28), and you have all completed your vigils. Only one candidate dropped out during the final night bring the total number of deserters up to a dozen. 29 of you remain. Feeling exhausted and sleep deprived, a young, beautiful human woman you recognize from the start of this vigil silently walks by each of you, touching you on the shoulder and beckoning you to follow. As it was for the previous 5 days of your vigil, everyone remains silent, but there is a tension in the air, a thick, invisible fog. It is as if you are not sure if you could make a noise even if you tried.
Your escort leads you into a towering, stone structure covered in vines and moss, capped by a turquoise dome it must reach at least a hundred feet into the air and spans a few hundred across. Following your escort, you walk down long hallways bedecked with bas-reliefs, extravagant paintings, and magically lit display cases for curios and trinkets you have barely an inkling about. You are led to a large room with a strangely convex and rough floor, the door on the far side of this 75 foot wide oddly shaped room is ornately decorated with what appears to be some ancient text inscribed over top. Those of you who know the Dwarven alphabet can read it, but the words themselves not Dwarven. Your escort walks to the far door of this strangely large antechamber, and swiftly about-faces, and as her long hair and flowing robes fan out from the spin and settle back down, an unmistakably different person, an aged, but not old, Elvish man, appears to be appraising the group.
The old man stands stoic and hale. You can see the thousands of years of age in the lines around his mouth as he begins to speak.
In the year 5412 BCE, Forseti and Heironeous founded the Magistrate’s Office in this, the great city of Solace, with the sole mission of bringing light to truth, and truth to light, to carry out justice where it was needed, to bring order to a chaotic world.
In the year 3591 BCE, Isis, Obad-Hai, Pelor, Osiris, Boccob, Surtur, and Odin founded the Mage’s guild, to further the knowledge and application of magic in all the realms.
Over the millennia, these organizations became cornerstones of the world stage. Believing in our founders’ guiding principles, we carried these institutions forward. We evolved.
In the year 100 CE, the centennial of the Great Awakening, the Magistrate’s Offices and Mage’s Guild held the Terrapex, a joint summit in Solace during which these two ancient orders merged into one.
The Magistery’s founding precept is Truth from Knowledge, written in the Old Tongue above the door. De Scientia Veritas.
In the spirit of accepting all forms of knowledge, the Magistery has opened its doors to all who wish to join, as long as your heart remains true to our purpose, you have a home here.
The initiates’ primary duty is to care for this hall. For 6 days of the week your waking hours will be split between learning Magisterium teachings, various work details keeping this tower clean, stocked, and maintained. In your own time, you will embark upon 5 quests, a self-directed blending of training, funded missions, and real world investigations.
Quests are made available for you on the Quest Board. This listing is not all encompassing, and if you are so inclined, with any Master’s approval you may embark on an independent investigation and receive credit for your findings.
Five successful quests allow you to begin your Apprenticeship. Discipulation, Adeptness, and even Mastery may follow.
As survivors of the vigil, I welcome you, the 245th class of Initiates into the Magistery.
And with that, your escort throws open the double gilded doors behind him and light floods into this chamber, as you enter, you are in a library, too large to fit inside the building you originally entered, several stories tall, cavernous openings from balconies show you a nearly endless expanse above and below, far and wide. Off to your right, you see a collection of desks each with a placard, and you find each of you has a desk assigned to them. Behind the desks is a massive bulletin board, signed “Quests.”
The Setup
The Magistery is an ages old guild founded in 5412 BCE/BK
The players are all recent initiates of the Magistery located in the capital city Solace. Initiates have numerous onerous tasks for maintaining the basic needs of the Magistery hall. Under the guise of "learning the ropes" and "earning their keep" the Magistery leverages its initiates as cheap labor to keep the hall clean, well staffed, and stocked with magical ingredients, foodstuffs, and specialty items.
As initiates, the majority of your time will be spent doing menial tasks and maintaining the grounds for the Magistery (this will be almost exclusively your out-of-game time) but you are required to undergo a minimum of 3 missions before you can apply to take your Apprentice's Examination to become an apprentice.
At that time you will be able to join a Dominion, and eventually a House.
How this works
So, we're going to roll up a bunch of level 1 characters. You'll choose all of the starting stuff, fine tune your personality, expand on your background if you wish. All that matters is at some point you determined to join the Magistery, and as such you are a fresh Initiate.
This game will progress in what will be called "Psuedo Real Time" where time in game passes at approximately the same rate as it does on Earth, in terms of weeks and months.
If you want to play a game, you will have to look through the Magistery Board for something you're interested in doing in your rank (at the start of the campaign only the Initiate board will be visible). You may also opt for something off-board, meaning a self driven mission (Work with me to figure out the details).
Once you decide on what you want to do, you may want to explore the Roster for players and/or characters you think you would like to play with, and/or are well suited for the task at hand. Groups of 1-5 are acceptable (Yes, Solo Missions are allowed, but there should be a reason for it)
Once you've got your group and game, work with me on scheduling. Games will either be in-person, or online, no mixing because it's too challenging. In-person is waaaaaaaay better obviously, but not everyone is able to come to our house.
Out-of-game
Besides scheduling and playing, there's also the post-session summaries. Someone in your group will be tasked with writing a post-session summary, detailing what happened, what you discovered, and any new rumors that merit investigating. The player or players who write these summaries will be rewarded with in-game bonuses, XP, or perhaps even some loot.
Additionally, it is assumed that while you're not actively playing your character, your character is performing his or her regular duties at the Magistery, and your days off are spent however you want them to be spent.
Actual games are considered synchronizing your "off-duty" days with the other players in the group so you can go on an adventure together. Initially these adventures will be short and local, but as you grow stronger and gain levels, they too will grow larger and more complex.
Getting Started!
Finally. You read all this random stuff, accidentally got lost in the wiki reading about some fantastical event that happened in a fake world 3000 years ago and now you're all confused about what system and stuff we're using. I get it, there's been a fair bit of mixed messaging, so here's the important stuff for getting into things:
This will be a D&D Fifth Edition (Also called D&D Next) campaign. We will be starting at level 1. If you've got some D&D experience and want to go ahead and get started, feel free to start character planning at this point. Actual character creation will be done WITH me however. We will be rolling for your attributes (which is done by rolling 4 six-sided dice, removing the lowest roll and adding together the remaining three, and we do this six times)
I encourage any newcomers to D&D or D&D 5e to read through the Player's Handbook or the Basic Rule Set (Yes, it's very long, no you're not expected to have read or memorized all of it, just flip through and read some sections that might interest you as a primer). More details to follow soon.
There will be certain restrictions on races that you may be able to choose, but if you're REALLY into one specific race that may be a little "out there," feel free to make a case for it and I'll see if I can make it work.