We are ALL divided. On either side of a new rebellion brewing in Empire of Vaahar. Here Casters classes struggle to survive the oppressive control of the Shepherds of Truth. Magic is meant to serve man and not be his master. A motto seared into the memories of those who would wield magic outside the confines of religion. Now under the guidance of the four sister Goddesses of Talamh and the Empire of Vaahar, Talamh is safe once more. In detention camps all over the Empire, the Caster classes are imprisoned for their own “protection”. Some in the Empire felt after the repair of the Weave that all Casters should have been put to the sword. It did not happen. Instead, for the last fifty years Emperor Aurelian I has shown mercy. The great Emperor saved all those who survived the rebellion as well as are born with magical gifts are imprisoned. Casters are allowed to live a life of repentance and of servitude. If found using magic outside of the temple's of the four the Caster is put to death. All are cut off from magic outside the temples of the four Goddesses. Casters live separated from a now thriving Talamh controlled by Aurelian and hopefully to be saved the light of the four Sister Goddesses.
Our story takes place in the White Waste. This is an area of Talamh in the Empire of Vaahar as well as the detention camp. It is known as one of the most brutal camps in Talamh where most of the criminals of the Empire are sent as punishment in an Adamantine mine. A large island, the mine in a long-dead volcano, six miles away from the frozen harbor outside of the former capital Caorthann which now lay in ruins. Caorthann was the site where a small group of powerful Casters failed an attempt to raise a sorcerer into Godhood. Instead, they fractured the Weave killing themselves and the sorcerer they attempted to exalt as well as millions of Talamhians in the disaster's wake. The Weave has since been repaired but left a barren region now where no magic can be conjured not even from the Goddesses known as the Weave Waste! The landscape is harsh. It is mostly snowy mountains, ice fields, or frozen seas. The White Waste camp is on outskirts of this magicless rift serves roughly three hundred magical souls and their seventy-five Shepherds of Truth who hold them there. A small group of Sisters of Mercy also reside in the camps working intermediaries between the two tense groups. The smallest and most persecuted group are the Casters. These are magic classes: sorcerers, warlock, and wizards. If not already imprisoned after the rebellion they are taken from their families on the first site of magical abilities or informed upon by their neighbors. The second smallest group of people are the Clans of the Wilds group: druids, barbarians, and rangers who live outside the empire's laws staying on the fringes. The third and largest group the Shepherd's of Truth are classes: clerics, paladins, and monks who are responsible for protecting the Empire by spreading the faiths, keeping the land fertile, and policing the Casters. Shepherd's of Truth magic abilities are not controlled by the Talamh Empire but their religious affiliations. This is a polytheistic Empire with four sister Goddesses of Talamh authorized and recognized Goddesses. Outside worship is not permitted. The approved Goddesses are Mystra, Mielikki, Sune, and Chauntea. These Goddesses have temples throughout the Empire where all Shepherd's of Truth are recruited from.
Fighters are just fighters seen as sellswords. Choosing a fighter with magical ability, however, will have them end up in camps. Bards and rogues are often painted with the same tarred brush. Their magic is seen as laughable to the Caster classes but they make the Empire wary. Both are on the fringes of society but due to the inherent arcane abilities of both classes practicing their ‘craft’ often gets put to death sans a trial. Bards and Rogues are in prison for non-magic crimes or end up in camps during roundups right alongside all other Caster classes who look down on them.
PLEASE READ ALL BACKSTORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.
SoT Commitment requirements:
DM is Eastern Standard Time looking for likewise players but will take players who can keep up with EST and can make multiple posts a day or more as the story calls for it. Missing more than two days of posting, without notice, you will be removed unless otherwise arranged.
Joining this adventure:
Experienced players wanted with knowledge of PbP basics, please!!
To apply to campaign see below requirements
SoT Races restrictions breakdown:
NO dragonborns. Dragons are VERY much feared and hunted in Talamh regardless of color or intention.
Tieflings are seen as devils, as evil incarnate much like dragons. If found among Talamhians they are automatically killed.
Humans are the largest race in Talamh. They are both magical and non-magical.
Halflings, Elves, and gnomes are the largest rare groups of subjugated races. Due to their heritage being magical they do not move freely in the Empire and tend to keep to themselves in the areas outside the major cities and settlements of humans. They can be found in the detention camps if caught by Shepherds moving in human areas. They can NEVER be Shepherds of Truth or Sisters of Mercy.
Dwarves and half-orcs although they do have hearty constitutions thanks to lingering innate magic abilities but are never found among Caster classes. The instead are most favored of the non-human races by the Shepherds of Truth as they are never tempted to use magic outside of holy rights.
Half-elves are the second rarest of races since it's extremely taboo for humans and elves to create offspring. These are usually prized servants/slaves of Empire Noble Houses.
Aasimars are the rarest of ALL races in Talamh. They are rarely seen in the Empire but are coveted most by both sides of the struggle due to their innate magic as well as divinity. They are usually however divine messengers or guardians of the faithful. *Your backstory has to be really good to be an Aasimar*
SoT Class breakdown:
Castors: sorcerers, warlocks, or wizards. They are all in camps and have an anti-magic means, insanely hard to remove manacles, that prevent innate and learned magical abilities. Each rune covered manacle is discipline specific but can be worked around. (Rolling with disadvantage when trying to cast level 1-3 spells and if a Nat 1 is rolled its an auto-fail with 1d12 of damage which permanently effects maximum HP. If a Nat 20 is rolled with disadvantage your spell is an auto-success dealing maximum damage! Cantrips are d100 rolls calling high/low to grant success by the roll matching you call versus attack/saves d20 rolls)
Shepherds of Truth: clerics, paladins, or monks. They have access to ALL equipment and spells provided by their temple’s piety. The more aligned with their faith they roll with advantage for class-specific spells. Ex: Cleric cure wounds, Paladin remove curse, or fighter Eldritch blast etc.. but Shepherd’s turning from their faith or doing something unaligned with their oaths to protect the Empire gets disadvantage.
Clans of the Wild are barbarians, druids, or rangers. Their magic is well hidden because their connection with the earth but they can end up in camps. They can be played per RAW but with limits due to being in camps.
Bards are considered in the same vein at rogues, both exist on the outside of society but if found to have magic are sent to camps.
Fighters are all sell-swords.
Sisters of Mercy will always clerics and NPCs.
PLEASE READ ALL BACKSTORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.
Base rules:
NO multi-class
NO evil alignments
NO murder hobos
NO metagaming
DO roleplay
DO ask questions
RAW attacks, actions, spells etc..
Homebrewed monsters, traps, magic items etc...
Rolling levels 1d8, backstory suggestions for Casters ONLY:
1-2 very young, born at camp or abandoned as a young child/teen.
2-3 brought/caught as a teen
4-5 teen/young adult, you managed to stay outside the Empire's notice but were caught after being implicated you were found guilty and sentenced to life in the camp.
6-7 late eruption of magic or orphaned in the camp
8 You're a descendant of the first rebellion. You've grown up in the camp all your life or you are a prisoner of the Empire at the mines.
Notice: Everyone is in the detention camp at the beginning but now you're escaping. We'll discuss your situation and how you join up wuty6the existing party.
Examples: grew up in the camp, grew up outside with camp but brought to the camp when you magic manifested, are you a Shepherd of Truth and if so why did you choose this path, and if you choose Clans of the Wild why are you at the camp? Are you a smuggler, got captured for a magic, turned over by your clan for magic etc..
Roll 1d8 to determine class level; it will make the ‘camp’ setting more organic! *If you rolled high on the levels you might get more info about your role in the hierarchy among Casters or Shepherds.*
PLEASE READ ALL BACKSTORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.
Apply with the following:
Name Level 6 Class/Race Alignment Background Backstory.
Name: Warnick Baergalnack ("Nicknack" for short) Level 6 Forest Gnome Diviner Wizard Lawful Good Hermit
Nicknack was born in one of the great forests of Talamh 38 years ago, from the erstwhile one-night union of a shepherdess mother and a guild artisan father. His mother had no interest carrying a crying baby around during her wanderings, so she left him with his father's family, where he was raised by a series of eccentric aunts and uncles. He has two older brothers, Celbrick and Dimpick. Celbrick sails the Sea of Uaine as the sailingmaster of a small merchant ship, while Dimpick is his father's apprentice in the business of syrup-making. Their small clan squabbles constantly with other clans over the rights to certain sweet sap-bearing trees in their forest.
Nicknack grew up without much in the way of family connections, sleeping in a cupboard or a wardrobe in one aunt and uncle's home or another. He came to young adulthood and entered the family business, but never found the cooking and infusing of flavors into exotic syrups and sweeteners to be an exhilirating life path. There was a legend whispered through the clans, though, of an ancient gnome dwelling deep, deep in the forest and still training gnomes to be wizards! Nicknack spent all of his free time over the better part of a year gathering all the information he could, and then set off to find the Illustrious Zannazook. For weeks, he searched. Lower and lower on supplies he ran, until the old wizard finally took pity on the young Nicknack and revealed herself. For the next nineteen years, she put him through rigorous training to develop the mental and spiritual discipline necessary to manipulate the Weave and perhaps one day rewrite Fate itself. Zannazook gifted him with a lovely book with thinly-tapped out copper sheets and a collection of bottles of fine acids for etching his spells onto the sheets.
Then the Shepherds of Truth came, pitiless in their zealotry for ridding the world of uncontrolled arcanery. Nicknack never knew how they found his master's hidden home, but for the last three years, he has been imprisoned in the White Wastes camp. If Zannazook is alive, he will find her. If she is dead, he will avenge her. Either way, he will rewrite Fate itself so he never succumbs again to the powers of Death or Tyranny.
Eshuvenniel Kazander Ravid,Valor Bard and Acolyte of the Goddess of Luck Caradoc Langham, Halfling Rogue - Lost Magics - Epic of Pre-made Proportions! I'm not looking for heaven or hell... just someone to listen to stories I tell...
Before I post, I wanted to know something about the Shepherds, are they only permitted to use their magic in religious means? and if so who defines (in the game as I know the DM will be out of the game) what is a religious mean?
No Longer Recruiting
We are ALL divided. On either side of a new rebellion brewing in Empire of Vaahar. Here Casters classes struggle to survive the oppressive control of the Shepherds of Truth. Magic is meant to serve man and not be his master. A motto seared into the memories of those who would wield magic outside the confines of religion. Now under the guidance of the four sister Goddesses of Talamh and the Empire of Vaahar, Talamh is safe once more. In detention camps all over the Empire, the Caster classes are imprisoned for their own “protection”. Some in the Empire felt after the repair of the Weave that all Casters should have been put to the sword. It did not happen. Instead, for the last fifty years Emperor Aurelian I has shown mercy. The great Emperor saved all those who survived the rebellion as well as are born with magical gifts are imprisoned. Casters are allowed to live a life of repentance and of servitude. If found using magic outside of the temple's of the four the Caster is put to death. All are cut off from magic outside the temples of the four Goddesses. Casters live separated from a now thriving Talamh controlled by Aurelian and hopefully to be saved the light of the four Sister Goddesses.
Our story takes place in the White Waste. This is an area of Talamh in the Empire of Vaahar as well as the detention camp. It is known as one of the most brutal camps in Talamh where most of the criminals of the Empire are sent as punishment in an Adamantine mine. A large island, the mine in a long-dead volcano, six miles away from the frozen harbor outside of the former capital Caorthann which now lay in ruins. Caorthann was the site where a small group of powerful Casters failed an attempt to raise a sorcerer into Godhood. Instead, they fractured the Weave killing themselves and the sorcerer they attempted to exalt as well as millions of Talamhians in the disaster's wake. The Weave has since been repaired but left a barren region now where no magic can be conjured not even from the Goddesses known as the Weave Waste! The landscape is harsh. It is mostly snowy mountains, ice fields, or frozen seas. The White Waste camp is on outskirts of this magicless rift serves roughly three hundred magical souls and their seventy-five Shepherds of Truth who hold them there. A small group of Sisters of Mercy also reside in the camps working intermediaries between the two tense groups. The smallest and most persecuted group are the Casters. These are magic classes: sorcerers, warlock, and wizards. If not already imprisoned after the rebellion they are taken from their families on the first site of magical abilities or informed upon by their neighbors. The second smallest group of people are the Clans of the Wilds group: druids, barbarians, and rangers who live outside the empire's laws staying on the fringes. The third and largest group the Shepherd's of Truth are classes: clerics, paladins, and monks who are responsible for protecting the Empire by spreading the faiths, keeping the land fertile, and policing the Casters. Shepherd's of Truth magic abilities are not controlled by the Talamh Empire but their religious affiliations. This is a polytheistic Empire with four sister Goddesses of Talamh authorized and recognized Goddesses. Outside worship is not permitted. The approved Goddesses are Mystra, Mielikki, Sune, and Chauntea. These Goddesses have temples throughout the Empire where all Shepherd's of Truth are recruited from.
Fighters are just fighters seen as sellswords. Choosing a fighter with magical ability, however, will have them end up in camps. Bards and rogues are often painted with the same tarred brush. Their magic is seen as laughable to the Caster classes but they make the Empire wary. Both are on the fringes of society but due to the inherent arcane abilities of both classes practicing their ‘craft’ often gets put to death sans a trial. Bards and Rogues are in prison for non-magic crimes or end up in camps during roundups right alongside all other Caster classes who look down on them.
PLEASE READ ALL BACKSTORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.
SoT Commitment requirements:
DM is Eastern Standard Time looking for likewise players but will take players who can keep up with EST and can make multiple posts a day or more as the story calls for it. Missing more than two days of posting, without notice, you will be removed unless otherwise arranged.
Joining this adventure:
SoT Races restrictions breakdown:
SoT Class breakdown:
PLEASE READ ALL BACKSTORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.
Base rules:
Rolling levels 1d8, backstory suggestions for Casters ONLY:
1-2 very young, born at camp or abandoned as a young child/teen.
2-3 brought/caught as a teen
4-5 teen/young adult, you managed to stay outside the Empire's notice but were caught after being implicated you were found guilty and sentenced to life in the camp.
6-7 late eruption of magic or orphaned in the camp
8 You're a descendant of the first rebellion. You've grown up in the camp all your life or you are a prisoner of the Empire at the mines.
Notice: Everyone is in the detention camp at the beginning but now you're escaping. We'll discuss your situation and how you join up wuty6the existing party.
Examples: grew up in the camp, grew up outside with camp but brought to the camp when you magic manifested, are you a Shepherd of Truth and if so why did you choose this path, and if you choose Clans of the Wild why are you at the camp? Are you a smuggler, got captured for a magic, turned over by your clan for magic etc..
Roll 1d8 to determine class level; it will make the ‘camp’ setting more organic! *If you rolled high on the levels you might get more info about your role in the hierarchy among Casters or Shepherds.*
PLEASE READ ALL BACKSTORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.
Apply with the following:
Name
Level 6
Class/Race
Alignment
Background
Backstory.
Let’s play!!
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
Name: Warnick Baergalnack ("Nicknack" for short)
Level 6 Forest Gnome Diviner Wizard
Lawful Good Hermit
Nicknack was born in one of the great forests of Talamh 38 years ago, from the erstwhile one-night union of a shepherdess mother and a guild artisan father. His mother had no interest carrying a crying baby around during her wanderings, so she left him with his father's family, where he was raised by a series of eccentric aunts and uncles. He has two older brothers, Celbrick and Dimpick. Celbrick sails the Sea of Uaine as the sailingmaster of a small merchant ship, while Dimpick is his father's apprentice in the business of syrup-making. Their small clan squabbles constantly with other clans over the rights to certain sweet sap-bearing trees in their forest.
Nicknack grew up without much in the way of family connections, sleeping in a cupboard or a wardrobe in one aunt and uncle's home or another. He came to young adulthood and entered the family business, but never found the cooking and infusing of flavors into exotic syrups and sweeteners to be an exhilirating life path. There was a legend whispered through the clans, though, of an ancient gnome dwelling deep, deep in the forest and still training gnomes to be wizards! Nicknack spent all of his free time over the better part of a year gathering all the information he could, and then set off to find the Illustrious Zannazook. For weeks, he searched. Lower and lower on supplies he ran, until the old wizard finally took pity on the young Nicknack and revealed herself. For the next nineteen years, she put him through rigorous training to develop the mental and spiritual discipline necessary to manipulate the Weave and perhaps one day rewrite Fate itself. Zannazook gifted him with a lovely book with thinly-tapped out copper sheets and a collection of bottles of fine acids for etching his spells onto the sheets.
Then the Shepherds of Truth came, pitiless in their zealotry for ridding the world of uncontrolled arcanery. Nicknack never knew how they found his master's hidden home, but for the last three years, he has been imprisoned in the White Wastes camp. If Zannazook is alive, he will find her. If she is dead, he will avenge her. Either way, he will rewrite Fate itself so he never succumbs again to the powers of Death or Tyranny.
Eshuvenniel Kazander Ravid, Valor Bard and Acolyte of the Goddess of Luck
Caradoc Langham, Halfling Rogue - Lost Magics - Epic of Pre-made Proportions!
I'm not looking for heaven or hell... just someone to listen to stories I tell...
Before I post, I wanted to know something about the Shepherds, are they only permitted to use their magic in religious means? and if so who defines (in the game as I know the DM will be out of the game) what is a religious mean?
Knights not really sure what you're asking. Thanks for your interest however I've found players. Good luck on future adventures!!
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.