Our home game takes place in a world which is essentially a HEAVILY edited Forgotten Realms. Same old gods, brand new plane, and they didn't waste a whole lot of time making things really difficult for these poor people. Back story crash course is that Ilmater and Kiltzi are having a fling, and they created the Brijakabel Plane as a hideout for quite some time. Well, there was a planar traveler who found it too, and started settling the place. Then when a ton of people started showing up, so did the rest of the gods. Ilmater and Kiltzi were a bit salty about their hideout being spoiled, and then getting completely steamrolled by the rest of the pantheon, so things were a bit tense to begin with even before the gods began strutting around, vying to become the mortals' favorite. That strutting quickly turned into a contest of strength, then acts of sabotage, and then wouldn't you know it, demons staedrt sneaking around when nobody was paying attention and now it's the apocalypse.
This event came to be known as The Vanity of the Gods, or simply, The Vanity. A team of wizards and smiths who were real sick of all their holy nonsense got together and made some IMPOSSIBLY OP armor to send one guy up to go have a discussion with the gods about their behavior, and eventually he succeeded in talking them down from destroying the whole ding dang planet. Exposure to all their heavenly radiance did end up killing him, but he managed to save the world. While the armor is strong enough to fight a god when it's all assembled, each object on its own is totally useless. They were shared among the artisans who made them and scattered around the world. Most people assume all that's just a tall tale now.
One, two, skip a few, 100 years in the future, and life on our little planet is starting to look basically normal again. There are a huge number of Tieflings on this planet, only being outnumbered by humans and elves. The reason for this is Asmodeus and friends rolled into just about every harbor town they could find, tried on some disguises, and got friendly with everybody's great-grandmothers. In fact, it's considered a friendly greeting between Tieflings to refer to each other as "cousin".
Our story begins in Port Onirith, a bustling peninsula overlooking an inlet with an island smack in the center, and a large ruined temple to Mystra on it. Naturally, Cyric's first order of business upon arrival was zeroing in on that thing and kicking it over like a sandcastle. The resulting earthquake pretty much leveled the island, and it's still mostly uninhabited today. Rather than rebuild that temple, the much smaller temple in Onirith got made over instead, and boy did they go ham on that thing. It is...a little bit extra, my friends. But what do you expect out of a magical temple designed and run by a bunch of sassy Tieflings who have a very personal message for Cyric. My man put the symbol of Mystra on the map and I might have misunderstood a little bit that he didn't actually intend for the temple to be IN THE SHAPE of her holy symbol. But I took that concept and ran allll the way home with it, y'all. He's been in charge of the map and all the encounters, and I've been mostly in charge of world lore. Up until this point, my power has been almost entirely unchecked.
Anyway, I totally turned it into a giant urban hippie commune. I felt this also gave me enough of a roleplaying excuse for my cleric of Mystra to be life domain lol. Here's a little writeup I did on the temple layout and its daily functions. My favorite part is the spell firing range out back!
Aww, thanks friend! I suppose I'll tell you a bit about where we are in our present campaign then!
We set the stage in Port Onirith, where Lia, a teenage Elven Fighter princess and her escort to another kingdom, a Dragonborn Paladin named Shamash, happen upon a Drow boy in the process of being curb stomped to death outside a tavern by some dudes from a crime syndicate called the Hand of Marquet. A Tiefling Cleric happens upon the scene as well, and they manage to chase off the thugs and heal up the Drow, whose name they learn is Rolen. Rolen has apparently stolen a pretty little ring that the Hand of Marquet has had their eye on, and they didn't feel like asking for it nicely.
They bond a little over drinks and Rolen and Music ask if they can join Shamash and Lia for the last leg of their adventure. It's only a day's travel from Onirith, and Music and Rolen can afford to be gone for a few days.
Shortly after leaving town, things get real in a hurry. They arrive safely at their destination, the Elven city of Vrapolis, a SUPER DOPE place full of nothing but interconnected tree houses and just the coolest Wood Elves of all time to complete the trade proposal that Lia was sent there by her father to present to Lord Estuar. They aren't able to make it out of town before the Hand of Marquet shows up AGAIN looking to break into the royal vaults, but also they'll take that ring too if you don't mind. Things are starting to feel weird, so they take the ring to the local shop keeper, Mylbin Soilweed. Mylbin drops some knowledge that this ring is actually a super important piece of armor- part of the Godslayer Ensemble that was used to talk sense into the gods a long time ago. The party is starting to feel like maybe the Hand of Marquet is trying to collect these pieces for some reason. King Estuar isn't super convinced, but the party is motivated to get the hell out of there and go literally anywhere else.
Sprinting from farm town to farm town, mostly avoiding the Hand along the way, they eventually made their way to Port Astralis, which is essentially Tortuga from the Pirates of the Carribbean movies, minus pretty much any actual ships except for one. No laws, the shops there are basically all fronts for criminal endeavors, and so much crime that the GodSquad nearly fainted upon entry. An incredibly tall Tiefling named Rolmenus claims mayorship over this town, and he is quite the fancypants. As luck would have it, he can't stand those Marquet dirtbags and feels kind of sorry for us, so for the paltry sum of 50k gold (which a party of level 4 bumbleturds definitely has, for sure), he will take us to Ipario, Mouth of the Underdark (because we were scared and it sounded a lot more badass than going to Braedorn, Kingdom of the Moon Elves) on his equally fancy ship.
Rolmenus has warmed up to the party a bit over time (he's especially...fond of Music) and seems to look at them more as companions now than as a business transaction. Which is good, cause somebody on the ship seems to be alerting the Hand of Marquet of their location and it's intense enough at this point that an encounter with the Hand isn't gonna go well unless the party has Rolmenus' help. Marquet himself even made an appearance in our last session and since the closest thing we have to a tank also happens to be a Paladin....our Cleric had to be out in the fray so he didn't have to waste his turn healing and we almost lost them both even WITH Rolmenus out there with us. I'm so ready for this week's session, the drama is killing me,
Our home game takes place in a world which is essentially a HEAVILY edited Forgotten Realms. Same old gods, brand new plane, and they didn't waste a whole lot of time making things really difficult for these poor people. Back story crash course is that Ilmater and Kiltzi are having a fling, and they created the Brijakabel Plane as a hideout for quite some time. Well, there was a planar traveler who found it too, and started settling the place. Then when a ton of people started showing up, so did the rest of the gods. Ilmater and Kiltzi were a bit salty about their hideout being spoiled, and then getting completely steamrolled by the rest of the pantheon, so things were a bit tense to begin with even before the gods began strutting around, vying to become the mortals' favorite. That strutting quickly turned into a contest of strength, then acts of sabotage, and then wouldn't you know it, demons staedrt sneaking around when nobody was paying attention and now it's the apocalypse.
This event came to be known as The Vanity of the Gods, or simply, The Vanity. A team of wizards and smiths who were real sick of all their holy nonsense got together and made some IMPOSSIBLY OP armor to send one guy up to go have a discussion with the gods about their behavior, and eventually he succeeded in talking them down from destroying the whole ding dang planet. Exposure to all their heavenly radiance did end up killing him, but he managed to save the world. While the armor is strong enough to fight a god when it's all assembled, each object on its own is totally useless. They were shared among the artisans who made them and scattered around the world. Most people assume all that's just a tall tale now.
One, two, skip a few, 100 years in the future, and life on our little planet is starting to look basically normal again. There are a huge number of Tieflings on this planet, only being outnumbered by humans and elves. The reason for this is Asmodeus and friends rolled into just about every harbor town they could find, tried on some disguises, and got friendly with everybody's great-grandmothers. In fact, it's considered a friendly greeting between Tieflings to refer to each other as "cousin".
Our story begins in Port Onirith, a bustling peninsula overlooking an inlet with an island smack in the center, and a large ruined temple to Mystra on it. Naturally, Cyric's first order of business upon arrival was zeroing in on that thing and kicking it over like a sandcastle. The resulting earthquake pretty much leveled the island, and it's still mostly uninhabited today. Rather than rebuild that temple, the much smaller temple in Onirith got made over instead, and boy did they go ham on that thing. It is...a little bit extra, my friends. But what do you expect out of a magical temple designed and run by a bunch of sassy Tieflings who have a very personal message for Cyric. My man put the symbol of Mystra on the map and I might have misunderstood a little bit that he didn't actually intend for the temple to be IN THE SHAPE of her holy symbol. But I took that concept and ran allll the way home with it, y'all. He's been in charge of the map and all the encounters, and I've been mostly in charge of world lore. Up until this point, my power has been almost entirely unchecked.
Anyway, I totally turned it into a giant urban hippie commune. I felt this also gave me enough of a roleplaying excuse for my cleric of Mystra to be life domain lol. Here's a little writeup I did on the temple layout and its daily functions. My favorite part is the spell firing range out back!
This is sweet, I'd like to hear more!
Aww, thanks friend! I suppose I'll tell you a bit about where we are in our present campaign then!
We set the stage in Port Onirith, where Lia, a teenage Elven Fighter princess and her escort to another kingdom, a Dragonborn Paladin named Shamash, happen upon a Drow boy in the process of being curb stomped to death outside a tavern by some dudes from a crime syndicate called the Hand of Marquet. A Tiefling Cleric happens upon the scene as well, and they manage to chase off the thugs and heal up the Drow, whose name they learn is Rolen. Rolen has apparently stolen a pretty little ring that the Hand of Marquet has had their eye on, and they didn't feel like asking for it nicely.
They bond a little over drinks and Rolen and Music ask if they can join Shamash and Lia for the last leg of their adventure. It's only a day's travel from Onirith, and Music and Rolen can afford to be gone for a few days.
Shortly after leaving town, things get real in a hurry. They arrive safely at their destination, the Elven city of Vrapolis, a SUPER DOPE place full of nothing but interconnected tree houses and just the coolest Wood Elves of all time to complete the trade proposal that Lia was sent there by her father to present to Lord Estuar. They aren't able to make it out of town before the Hand of Marquet shows up AGAIN looking to break into the royal vaults, but also they'll take that ring too if you don't mind. Things are starting to feel weird, so they take the ring to the local shop keeper, Mylbin Soilweed. Mylbin drops some knowledge that this ring is actually a super important piece of armor- part of the Godslayer Ensemble that was used to talk sense into the gods a long time ago. The party is starting to feel like maybe the Hand of Marquet is trying to collect these pieces for some reason. King Estuar isn't super convinced, but the party is motivated to get the hell out of there and go literally anywhere else.
Sprinting from farm town to farm town, mostly avoiding the Hand along the way, they eventually made their way to Port Astralis, which is essentially Tortuga from the Pirates of the Carribbean movies, minus pretty much any actual ships except for one. No laws, the shops there are basically all fronts for criminal endeavors, and so much crime that the GodSquad nearly fainted upon entry. An incredibly tall Tiefling named Rolmenus claims mayorship over this town, and he is quite the fancypants. As luck would have it, he can't stand those Marquet dirtbags and feels kind of sorry for us, so for the paltry sum of 50k gold (which a party of level 4 bumbleturds definitely has, for sure), he will take us to Ipario, Mouth of the Underdark (because we were scared and it sounded a lot more badass than going to Braedorn, Kingdom of the Moon Elves) on his equally fancy ship.
Rolmenus has warmed up to the party a bit over time (he's especially...fond of Music) and seems to look at them more as companions now than as a business transaction. Which is good, cause somebody on the ship seems to be alerting the Hand of Marquet of their location and it's intense enough at this point that an encounter with the Hand isn't gonna go well unless the party has Rolmenus' help. Marquet himself even made an appearance in our last session and since the closest thing we have to a tank also happens to be a Paladin....our Cleric had to be out in the fray so he didn't have to waste his turn healing and we almost lost them both even WITH Rolmenus out there with us. I'm so ready for this week's session, the drama is killing me,