Shroud of the Empire

It’s been over thirteen years since the efforts of the Sleeping Iles team interrupted the soul sucking efforts at the high end casino and pit fighting venue hidden away in Lothlorien. It had been a plan of one of Sarak’s trusted necromancers to create a philosopher’s stone and empower Sarak with blood/soul magic that would transcend his already extreme power into one of the most powerful beings on the Prime. However, Hotah’s discovery of the thousands of souls that been trapped and ready to convert were destroyed by a combination of Idris, Urus, Kalani and Aethlin’s magic. Another failed attempt to truly alter the balance of power on Al’Akwannon, despite many measures being put in place to hide activities from oracles and other diviners, priests and wizards who seek to marshal forces to stop such insidious activities.

However, Sarak has been paying attention to these failures both small and large, both from his personal projects as well as the projects of the Empire. Dulzinaar, the head of Straakhoun (the Empire’s secret service/CIA type of org) and the Imperial Intelligence Minister, also has been evaluating the Imperial failures over time. He’s collected genius level autistics from around the globe over many years using them collectively as a human super computer to decipher ley line and dimensional flaws of the Prime Material Plane and has developed the one plan to rule them all. Your team is a key part of that plan.

Sarak, of course, also has his own plan, nestled within the Empire's, to let him come out on top. Your team's success will be closely tied to that as well.

Session 24 will be Tues, Nov 16th at 6:30pm PDT/9:30pm EDT

The gates have been opened and something major has happened with dimensional anomalies sensed all over the place by Onos. The group is now engaged with a ten headed hydra and a couple griffons.

For those of you who played in the Sleeping Isles campaign, the events of the Shroud of the Empire happen approximately fourteen years into the future from the end of that in year 54 AD (Age of Darkness)

Note to Players

This is a new campaign and this time, it’s an evil campaign. The Age of Darkness needs to go out with a bang and I need player characters to create those fireworks. As always, we’ll be using my normal new character guidelines to create a character. Starting level is 3000 xp and that generally works out to 2nd or 3rd level depending on what you decide to play. For those that may have forgotten, this immediately puts you in roughly the top 7% of people globally when it comes to skills and abilities (roughly 80% of the world consists of zero level humanoids who have roughly half their CON score worth of HP from a game mechanics perspective.)

This game is starting pre-spring in the game world, just nearing the end of winter before the buds start showing and things start to bloom. The location of this game will primarily take place in the Fey Kingdoms in the Far West. The lands here resemble Ireland, Wales, coastal France and the like. I will be assembling pictures on the Maps & Visuals home page (link on the left & bottom of the page) which should help you visualize the look of this part of the world.

As mentioned in my opening email, each new character will need to have a background that correlates with working for the Eastern Empire, the big bad empire of the world. Additionally you’ll likely want to have some sort of connection to Grand Duke Sarak, be it that you think he’s cool, you have been hand selected for special assignment, you have been utterly bent to their will, etc. And/or finally a strong connection or extreme loyalty to Aewynn or Yaelneilis, the PC leadership team.

The game will have its core targets and objectives in the Far West, a land of high fey influence (though still mostly human, though there are elves in positions of power) so your character will need to be able to not draw undue attention there. Thus there are some races you cannot play and a few races that need an impressive back story in order to play. If you’re not planning on playing a human, half-elf, elf, avariel, centaur or the like we’ll need to talk about your concept and figure out how to make it work.

Additionally, your character must be committed to the success of the Imperial mission. You can come up with the why’s for that, but you have to have an iron clad determination to make things succeed.

The Mission

For those who've played in many of my games, you'll know things will not be this simple. However, the objective of your team's mission is to open three gates simultaneously. These gates apparently open into the Astra (aka - the Border Astral), the Umbra (aka - the Border Ethereal) and the Plane of Mana (aka - the source of magic). Where this must be done is at a secret location within the borders of Daig Duirn. The team will have some starting information on how to locate this secret and sacred location where ultimately the goal of the Empire can be executed.

Setting Info

History of Daig Duirn

Between year 50 and 60 in the Age of Wars, approximately 2400 years in the past, three princes took their entourages to the Far West. Leaving under disagreement with the Elven Emperor on their dealings with the war against orcs and their handling of the protection of the elven homelands. These three princes set themselves up in three broad areas:

Elroeheir, the crown prince, setting up around the core of the world tree in the area now known as the forest of Rynd and ranging toward the northwest coast of the Far West peninsula. This area currently covers the span of these modern countries: Forests of Rynd, the Principalities of Northern and Southern Armaegh and the western half of what is now ui Mhaine.

Aegeirwaen, the middle brother kept the eastern region and the area now encompassing the eastern portion of ui Mhaine, the Lordship of Banalt, Astron and edging slightly into northern areas of Bragnaca.

Ingleoraiel, the youngest brother kept the southwest region and the area that encompasses what is now the High Kingdom of Kheron, the Archduchy of Daig Duirn, the Kingdom of Lythandia and the western portion of Bragnaca.

Through the first hundred years, or so, after the Holocaust, the areas began to solidify into the countries that are in place today. Daig Duirn was named after a gray elf, who has in some way confirmed himself to be a descendant of Ingleoraiel and calls himself Archduke Cielduein. He has been in power since then and is about 550 years old. In Eldarin, Daig Duirn is actually known as Gloereindaan, but only educated scholars and Gray Elves would ever call it that.