# New Campaign Starting: The Drowning Time



## Tormenet (Nov 26, 2007)

"True, our people are great warriors. But what can those that know only destruction teach their children?”
- Niclaos Sotiries, Tyrant of the Citadel at Three Rivers

*Concise Introduction*​
Where: Springfield, VA (Northern Virginia)
When: Every third Sunday, 1-6 p.m.
Start Date: Sunday, December 9, 2007
Player slots: 5 open
Contact: c p s a y l o r at y a h o o dot c o m 

Imagine the epic heroism of Jason and the Argonauts combined with post-apocalyptic pulp.  The Drowning Time is an episodic TV series style campaign using the Iron Heroes rules. Each session is a minor storyline. A larger story arc will be revealed. Characters will start at first level.

The campaign’s keywords include the following: over-the-top personalities, mega-predators, daemon possession, island hopping, pirates, elusive conspiracies, naked power grabs and unmapped territories.

The great nations have fallen to plague and self-interested men; tsunamis have violently rewritten the coastline. The unknown awaits. Law exists only in the sight of those who care to enforce it; no one knows what lurks beyond the horizon. 

The heroes are a cut above other warriors. They are defined but their actions- not alignment, spell buffs or equipment. Outside forces will seek to control or manipulate the PCs. Rarely will they be able to bully you. In the end you set your plans, you decide on your goals, and you determine your fate.

I put more than 25 years gaming experience into what will hopefully be a challenging and exciting campaign. Past players have kindly written the following about my campaigns:

"(I like) the great detail. The feeling that my character is actually not in the standard European D&D setting- instead of just the same game with funny names for the characters."

"(I like the) intricate plot lines…(the) campaign setting is very cool."

"(I like) the emphasis placed on character development" and "political intrigue."

*The Campaign Stage*​
The warrior aristocracy of Draconia spent 10 years encamped in siege works on the beaches of the City of the Bulls. Then The Drowning began to claim men on both sides. Their skin would turn blue and their blood become salty. When their minds went they would rave and slaughter their former comrades.

Hierax, the first warlord in generations to unite the people of Draco, left his warriors and sailed to the Oracle at the Island of the Arcane seeking an explanation.  The day after he was due to arrive at the island men on the beaches of the City of the Bulls woke to a reddening sky. In the island’s direction a high plume of smoke reached upwards. 

Two hours later a wall of water swallowed two generations of Draconia’s finest. Coastal towns all around the Inner Sea were obliterated. The shoreline was rewritten. A New Sea burst into existence, filling once fertile valleys.

“The Catastrope” was followed by the “Year Without a Summer.” Crops failed; the largest fires could not relieve the outside chill. Starvation and The Drowning claimed three quarters of the population. Fear took hold. Foreigners, beggars and lepers were blamed and persecuted. The uncertainty of daily survival eroded morality and law.  Men no longer knew who, or what, awaited in the next valley. Hard choices were made: relative protection of the city or better chances of food in the countryside. 

And now, just as the filthy madmen in the streets claim the gods’ wrath is spent, rough beasts are being birthed out of the region known as Kafear’s Profanity.    

It is the year 1569 After Proof of Faith, but that fact matters little even to educated men. It is two years After Catastrophe. 

*The Setting*​
The setting does not mirror any historical period, but players may use the period between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (476 A.D.) and the first Viking attack at Lindisfarne (793 A.D.) as a framework; however, the cultures are not typical western European derivations.  

The story starts in the Draconian town of Red Springs. Initially founded as a marble quarry the town evolved into a mountain retreat for the wealthy and then went to seed as warriors replaced scholars in the lowlands. Decaying villas still dot the landscape. The quarries remained the economic lifeblood of the town when the Catastrophe occurred. Today, the mountain town sits isolated on an island in the New Sea.

Red Springs survived the Year Without a Summer with a dirty conscience and a number of secrets. Refugees were turned away at spear point. Neighbors refused to share their food. Several foreign slaves and one priest of the obscure Equilian Cult were murdered without any serious intervention. Vlas Stilios, a vacationing scholar of ancient works, summed up the general consensus citing a very ancient scroll, “The best among us did not survive.” Vlas then stepped off Dog Slaughter Crag, preferring smashing on the rocks below to the mad, liquid death of The Drowning.

*Rules Set*​
All rules found in Iron Heroes, revised (except “Special Spellcasting Class: The Arcanist” and Chapter 10: Magic); Iron Heroes Players Companion; Mastering Iron Heroes; Iron and Heroes Bestiary. The Spiritualist class is best for those wishing to play spellcasters.

Iron Heroes vs. D&D 3.5
"You are not your magic weapons and armor. You are not your spell buffs. You are not how much gold you have, or how many times you've been raised from the dead. When a Big Bad Demon snaps your sword in two, you do not cry because that was your holy avenger. You leap onto its back, climb up to its head, and punch it in the eye, then get a new damn sword off of the next humanoid you headbutt to death."

*The Heroes*​
The heroes are men and women of iron and self-reliance. They do not need weapons crafted by suspect arcane powers. They need only their wits and their capacity to do unto others. They are personality and force that lesser beings will not soon forget. 

Who is an iron hero? He could be the sniper whose uncannily sharp arrows make all in power feel uneasy between the shoulder blades.  He could be the warrior of the shield wall whose armor makes him an iron citadel in a melee. She could be the cultist whose battle madness is a gift to the raging fire of the Sun. He could be the businesslike killer who sees no sense in silly honor concepts like fighting his foes face-to-face when a simple throat-cutting will do. She could be the huckster with an overdeveloped personality and a gift for prospering in the shady fringes of society. He could be the spiritualist who bargains with unseen daemons to tap into arcane mysteries.   

*What are the Threats, Conflicts and Villains*​
Political power is now in the hands of those who used the chaos to seize it by force. New cults are emerging as men fall into worship of the psychic remnants of past insanities. The expanding New Sea is drowning ancient cities whose towers may yet contain wealth and glory. Deep caverns contain life that is ancient and crazed. In the Province of Ten Thousand Mighty Graves, long dead heroes of the Ionian phalanx wish to pass their secrets to their current era counterparts. From Kafear’s Profanity come mindless beings of fang and claw. Empty cities and towns are haunted by victims of The Drowning.


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