# The Isle of Dragons - a campaign background in the works



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 14, 2004)

Note: Not running a game at the moment. Everyone move out to the desert outside LA, and we'll talk.

I haven't put in fantasy names yet because, to me, they're really the least important part of the creative process. I want to create all the key pieces first before getting to that. So excuse the generic names.

Over 1,100 years ago, the Great Republic, which was great not only because it was a scientific, arcane and political marvel, but also because it had conquered the barbarian hordes to the north, east and west, human, orc and otherwise. Hobgoblin riders from the northeast periodically threatened the borders of the empire, but the Great Republic was strong. Its military reach eventually stretched to the ruins of the Lost Empire, far to the east. It was there that a republic army wizard, looking for treasure to send back to the capital, discovered the beautiful girl trapped in stasis. He awoke her, and was amazed to discover she quickly learned the republic's Common tongue. His unit became entranced by her wit and charm, and by the time she'd been escorted back to the capital, they would have followed her anywhere.

She had the same sort of success in the capital, quickly being named a citizen of the republic, despite the fact that no one could help her unlock her memory, and Commune and Contact Other Planes spells were emphatically silent as to her identity and past. As she grew into womanhood, her charisma and intelligence let her rise rapidly through the ranks of the republic. She became the youngest senator in the republic's century-old history, and as she grew towards middle age, courted by suitors but not finding any of them worthy, she was the most powerful person in the republic.

On the 25th anniversary of being released from stasis in the distant tomb, she was crowned as Empress, and the Great Republic became the Great Empire. The Empress became increasingly cold and determined. She brought the hobgoblin riders under the heel of the empire, and sent armies south, conquering the Kingdom of the Sands, and northwest, conquering the barbarians of the Dragon Penninsula.

In the meantime, she created an arcane college the likes of which the world had never known, all dedicated to unlocking her secret history. Because not only had she grown to have unearthly intelligence and charisma, she was stronger, healthier and faster than any mortal, and her aging had slowed to a near-stop as she grew to adulthood.

Five decades after she was crowned Empress, and her empire ruled everything worth ruling -- only pockets of barbarian resistance in the most desolate corners remained free or not paying her tribute -- the wizards of the Imperial College unlocked the truth.

She was the daughter of the Mother Goddess and the demon prince of the Abyss who had seduced her a millennium ago. In that moment, fully aware of who she was, two things happened. First, she came into fully possession of her powers as an infernal abomination, which had been locked away from her when the gods together had blocked her memory, and secondly, she went irrevocably insane, losing the last shreds of human morality.

The Great Empire began to round up all clerics and druids of the Old Gods, forcing them to reveal the secret rituals meant to contact them and summon them to the mortal realm. The Great Empire officially moved towards the worship of archdevils and demon lords, watching the steadfast worshippers of the Old Gods die in the arena for their amusement.

Eventually, the Old Gods had enough, and appeared on the world to put down the girl they had been implored to let live by their mother, ages ago. To their surprise, though, the Empress had been ready for them, and with the help of the Imperial College, she killed the first gods who, in their hubris, had appeared individually and alone. Each death, whether of the God of Bards/Writing/Knowledge, or the God of Wizardry, or even her mother, just made her stronger.

The world was burning, and now the Imperial College turned its attention to how to breach the planar barriers and let her corrupted and evil army pour out into the Outer Planes, and slay the rest of the pantheon on their home territory, and from there, conquer world after world after world.

Finally, the World-Forger, god of the dwarves and husband of the Mother Goddess, acted. His plan had taken a long time to formulate, and the first stage was now complete: He had sealed the world off from the planes, and driven the knowledge of how to pierce the veil from all mortal minds so they could not rediscover the means any time soon. The Empress was trapped. He visited rebels throughout the empire, arming them with celestial weapons and armor.

With this army at his back, his army met hers in the mountains southeast of the Dragon Penninsula, where the Empress was seeking to find the dragons' home, so as to enslave them and add them to her army. Before she could do that, the armies clashed, and tens of thousands of dwarves, humans and imperial soldiers died in the clash. In the end, the Empress slew the World-Forger, although she was gravely wounded. One pair of human heroes, a paladin of a slain Old God, and his mother, a cleric of that same god, were all that remained nearby in the moments the Empress was so weakened. They struck quickly, and everything changed in a moment.

The Empress died, and combined with the death of the World-Forger a moment before, quakes and eruptions ripped through the mountain range, plunging it beneath the seas, drowning a nation of dwarves and nearly all survivors. The imperial capital burst into flames, as generals psychically linked to their Empress collapsed and died, and the barbarians and rebels, recognizing what this meant, struck. A pair of new gods appeared from the roiling waters where the battlefield has sunk beneath the waves, a man and his mother, bathed in light, crossing the continent in a matter of steps. The son, wielding the sword that had slain the Empress, slashed through the imperial armies and trampled the imperial college. His mother retrieved a battered chalice and the waters she poured from it healed the wounded and dying, raising the rebels up from their deathbeds to throw off what remained of the imperial army.

Then, their ascension to divinity entering its final stage, son and mother ascended to the Seven Heavens.

That was 1,100 years ago. Most of the Old Gods are dead, although the God of Wizardry, with the help of some young heroes, has been reborn and taken the form of a phoenix. Today, nearly everyone worships the Son or his Mother. The Son is a stern god, who rules justly, but for whom guarding against evil or corruption is the most important thing. The Mother is a nurturer, who champions the weak and blesses the downtrodden. The Old Gods, those that remain, are worshipped in the shadows. Many blame them for creating the Empress or for not having struck her down in the time of the Lost Empire. And demon or devil-worship is viewed as an unforgivable crime.

The Isle of Dragons has risen from barbarism, and the High King has united the kingdom under one banner, sometimes with military conquest, but just as often with words. Orc barbarians live far to the north, and legends say the dragons are beyond them.

The dwarves of the kingdom are a dying race, mournful and sad, each generation producing fewer children than the generation before -- other dwarven lands exist beyond the Haunted Sea, but no dwarves will get near the water; rumor says that they can hear the screams of tens of thousands of drowning dwarves, but the dwarves themselves will never speak of it. Instead, they serve throughout the High Kingdom as smiths and squires. Few humans have gone beyond the Haunted Sea themselves, although human barbarians in longboats periodically raid from the mainland, or traders brave the ghost-haunted waves to bring word of a continent dragging itself out of a dark age.

It is an age of chivalry. The High King may have died at the last battle to unify the kingdom, but the kingdom is unified ... for now. His son is a mere toddler, but his wife rules as Queen Regent, and she is beloved. His knights, embodying all the greatest values of the Son and the Mother, keep the peace and inspire the commoners in tourneys and jousts.

The elves retreated back into the Plane of Faerie (the last plane accessible from the world) over a millennium ago, although fay creatures lurk around the edges of civilization, as do hags and witches and sorceresses who are the creatures of the Goddess of Sorcery, along with scholarly wizards who are the creatures of the risen God of Wizardry. The knights of the Green Chapel serve the Antlered God, as do druids, but for the most part, all their days are past.

Now, the knights of the boy High King have to defend the realm against outside enemies, and inside forces who are already chafing at being ruled by a child heir and the widow of a man they respected.

It's Arthurian, but filtered through John Steinbeck's stories. There are dwarves and sorceresses and wizards and bards, but most of the action centers on the knights, the clash of religions new and old, the mysterious world of the fey, and a kingdom teetering between The Once and Future King and A Song of Ice and Fire.

So, that's my campaign background. I'm slowly putting it together in a Word doc, and ripping ideas (like the Honor system) from Sword & Sorcery's Excalibur book, but the setting timeline extends into the future as well, to another campaign of Renaissance era swashbuckling in the demon-haunted shadows of the capitol of the Great Empire, now the seat of the worship of the Son and the Mother.

Sorry for the long-winded stuff, but the god stuff sets up the other stuff, and was important to understanding it, I think.


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