#makor chronicles

[makorchronicles]

The Bad News Bears, having recently found the Tears of Serraih and stopped a selfish, reckless summoner from bringing destruction to the world, are setting off on the next chapter of their adventure. They are traveling from Varwick to the ancient twin cities of Chanyeol and Cheadal. While Cheadal is considered the center of Ostesh faith, Chanyeol is a center of arcane magic learnings. The Bad News Bears will travel from Varwick to Craydon’s Ferry, then onwards to Stington where they will meet a merchant caravan to accompany north to Norton and finally to Chanyeol. Who thinks it will be a calm, pleasant journey through early summer? Not I, says the DM. And neither do my players.

[citynewscom]

Man Gets Shock of His Life as Mother Tells Him About Real Father After 32 Years

Man Gets Shock of His Life as Mother Tells Him About Real Father After 32 Years

File photo used only for illustrative purpose

  A 32-year-old Zimbabwean man from Bulawayo ran wild and damaged his mother’s property after she told him the man who raised him was not his real father.

  According to The Chronicle, Antony Tashinga Makore from Tshabalala suburb lost it when he discovered that he had been saying dad to the wrong man.

  His mother told him his biological father was…

[makorchronicles]

The Continent of Makor, located in the northern hemisphere of the world. 

The continent is called Makor. The grid is about 200 miles square. The southern reaches straddle the equator while the northern most mountains quickly give way to tundra and eventually arctic ice caps. The countries of Makor are listed below:

The Ranfus Sea: The countries around the inland sea were once united under the Osheth Empire until a great betrayal gave way to civil war and fracture the Empire into many different countries. The countries are a plurality human, with sizeable numbers of elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes.

The Osten Empire: The last remains of the Osheth Empire, now called the Osten Empire, they are the richest and most powerful country. They have a great deal of very fertile farmland in the lowlands and massive forests to the north. The capitol is Osheth, and major cities include Frington, Stington, and Treflund to the North. The ancient city of Cheadal is the center of Osheth faith. Stington is at the southern end of the Bleir Bore. It is bordered to the north by the Mhara Mountains: cold, monster-filled, almost impassable.

The Frelands: The Freland Forest is the name for the expansive, ancient forest across the straight from the Osten Empire. It is claimed by Osten, but in reality that claim only extends for about 50 miles from the coast, just enough for New City and it’s surrounding villages. Osten has also cut and burned a mile wide track along the cliff coast of the Frelands to link New City with Athye Harbor on the lowlands, creating the High Road. Outside of that area, the depths of the forest are impenetrable, unmappable, and unscryable. Adventurers tell the tale of ancient ruins, mysterious fey, talking trees, and intelligent beasts. The Frelands are bordered by a snow capped mountain range. Upstream from Athye Harbor lies Nanwei City, an ancient, isolationist city that is frequented by religious pilgrims of the Cult of the Maker.

Droiland, Achland, and Schauland have a long lasting and close allegiance, culturally and politically. Between Droiland and Osten lies the Druoi Drain, a land of lakes and rivers, the largest of which is called the Bleir Bore. Droiland’s capital is Guthaus, Achland’s is Khestaad, and Schauland’s is Lostrait. Schauland and Achland share stewardship of the only trade route to the western coast of the continent. The city of Dusmen lies in the mountains between Droiland and Achland and is the largest surface city of dwarves in the region.

Nonsu: This is a country of endless, rolling grasslands bordered by Schauland to the west, the Tomeri Desert and empire of the same name to the south west, the Shabok drylands to the south, and Freland and the great impenetrable mountain range to the east. The people of Nonsu are a mixed bunch of nearly every humanoid race, all tribal, clanfolk, or other roaming people. The one city is called Tenghar, the city that has never been conquered. The great Taivi river rests in the western region of the country and has rich farmland and the only real settlements in the country. The current clan that holds Tenghar is the Sun clan, lead by Chiakonee the bugbear.

Other Countries:

Mythashara: The country of elves rests in an expansive forest spanning hundreds and hundreds of miles. There is an even more ancient forest on the Shrenl’on Island, where most races are forbidden to set foot unless explicitly invited by a resident of Mythashara. The city of Elyhil on the northern coast is the most welcoming to visitors and is a bustling trade port, though they are in constant conflict with the Kaspians across the bay. The capital city is Illidell, and there is also a southern city of Motothalas.

Ebrea: Within this mysterious jungle filled peninsula lives the deadly and xenophobic yuan ti. The snake people use the more violent lizardfolk as the lower class, soldiers, servants, and slaves. The ruling yuan ti have little need to trade with any of the northern countries, though some trade of magical items and luxury items exists. The capital city is Kespa.

Ichtaca: Little contact is had with this region. It is inhabited by tribes who worship strange animal gods. Strangely, for the last five hundred years, a small diplomatic contingency of Ichtacans reside in the Nonsu capital of Tenghar, though little of trade or treaties is ever discussed and the Tenghar Lord is always tightlipped about anything that may be discussed.  

Thessana Island: The homeland of the tabaxi cat people is a jungle filled island dominated by a long dormant volcano. Though tabaxi live in many other places on the continent, Thessana is their cultural homeland and the place where their legends say the Cat Lord created them. The capital is R’lasso.

The Tomeri Empire: The empire might compare to Osten in political and economic power, if it wasn’t mostly desert. They have compensated for a lack of economic power by becoming the most magically powerful country, second only to Mythashara, or maybe the dragonborn of Xaelryss. Often struck by droughts and internal strife, they used to adhere to a strict castes system until about thirty years ago when an uprising of the lower classes overthrew the ruling regime. The Empire opened its borders and diplomatic relations only within the last twenty years. They have a tense relationship with Schauland after generations of border raids. Cities known include Gostri, Triele, and Askel.

The Land of Xaelryss. The large island is topped by three active volcanos, each supposedly housing an ancient golden dragon. The dragonborn of all colors live on this island (some small communities live elsewhere, usually in large cities). Chromatic and Metallic dragonborn usually belong to different families and have quite a bit of tension between them.

Kaspian: This swampy, forested country is bordered by the Frelands and impenetrable mountains. They have little in the ways of tradeable goods, but they hold themselves to be the best sailors (and pirates) in the world, and they just might be right. The capital city of Jashea is a lawless wreck of a town filled with pirates funded by the corrupt ‘Pirate’ King.

The 100 Tribes of Asmund are the denizens of the frozen northwestern coast. There are at least a hundred tribes of goliaths, dwarves, orcs, and humans, each claiming their own territory. They follow shamanistic religions, and are famous for their berserkers.

[makorchronicles]

Long Rest? What’s that?

Our heroes (plus Swish) awaken to a somewhat drizzly morning. The druid remembers that Druidcraft can tell the weather, so knows it won’t rain for another 24 hours. They walk for a ways, and come across a wide, flood swollen creek that’s swept away a section of the road. The bridge that should be there is nowhere to be found. After some discussion, the three decided to proceed by shooting a grappling hook with a rope across. Then Comfort, with Neni, wades across, while holding onto the rope with Sahzal anchoring (despite having a negative modifier). Comfort, the tol redhead, succeeds easily. Swish the Kenku bounds easily across. Then Sahzal tries to get across, fails her check, and is almost swept away by the current. Luckily she succeeds Dex (rogues are good at Dex, go figure), and holds onto the rope, so Comfort and Neni can drag the drowned tiefling to the other side. Sahzal is cold and wet but mostly unharmed. They were clever enough (and rolled well enough) to tie a knot in the rope that they could undo from afar, when needed.

DM notes: I didn’t actually like this challenge… didn’t seem interesting enough. But hey, it worked.

After a short rest to dry off, the three plus Swish continue on their way. They soon come across the remains of a merchant caravan. Nothing much is left besides a few scraps of clothing, blood splatters almost worn away by the earlier rain, and smashed wagons. After a few investigation and survival checks, Neni concludes the attackers were gnolls, and Sahzal and Comfort find some valuable stones and a small figurine of a Halfling that looks like it has been chewed on. Sahzal also finds a roughly made dagger someone made out of worg’s tooth, and keeps it.

The three hear howling of gnolls, but manage to stay quiet and unobtrusive enough to avoid notice. They bed down for the night.

On day three, they rise bright and early to the sound of more howling. The gnolls have found them! Sahzal, Neni, Comfort, and Swish try to escape through a Skill Challenge! By using skills they are proficient in, they try to lose the gnolls in the woods. I think they got the allotted 3 successes before 3 failures and managed to lose the gnolls… for now. The great thing about being the DM is you can just move the encounter you planned to somewhere else so you get use out of the encounter and make it seem like the players still got away from something.

There was running. So much running. There’s a nice list of chase mechanics and random chase complications in the DMs guide. I used a few of them for flavor. 

The successful skill challenge did give the players time to set some traps. Neni and Comfort had hunting traps, which they combined with ropes stretched across trails they thought the gnolls would take. Then, they hid.

DM notes: as part of my homebrew, I let the players use a Survival check to hide the hunting traps versus the gnolls’ perception/passive perception. If they failed, disadvantage on the dex check to avoid the traps. Unfortunately, the gnolls rolled decently. 

The gnolls, one gnoll and one hunter (multi-attack, higher perception and stealth than normal gnolls, plus their arrows slow the attacked creature) brought two hyenas (CR 0 monsters are good to flesh out an encounter at early levels, just watch out for damage amounts!). One of the gnolls tripped and fell prone, and eventually fell victim to Comfort’s quarterstaff. Swish, as an NPC, offered some support by climbing a tree and offering a few shots from a light crossbow. They also used Healing Word when Comfort or Sahzal fell to too much damage. I had Swish climb a tree so they couldn’t tank hits, and mostly just offer healing so Neni could figure out her spellcasting abilities instead of always being the healer (I also wanted her to keep spell slots for later for Reasons).

They won, but barely got time to rest before more gnoll howls and barking laughter was on their tails. They thought they had gotten away… and eventually settled down to rest.

But, cackles the DM, they didn’t get to rest for very long. A very fun mechanic is to cut your players rests short so they don’t get the benefits! But, don’t be too mean. I had a back up if it looked like the group was going to be killed. While I’m not against player deaths, I wanted the new players to at least get to town before they got themselves killed. Level 1 PCs are VERY squishy! The thief had 9 HP! That’s two hits!

Anyways, the poor players are awoken by howling gnolls and shadows around their camp. Luckily, they found a defensible location up against some huge boulders and warded avenues of attack with rope, caltrops, and hunting traps again. Unluckily… their friend Swish the healer was nowhere to be seen. Also luckily, for Comfort the non-darkvision human, at least, Sahzal the Abyssal Tiefling rolled Light as her daily cantrip.

This is why I tried to help Neni conserve spell slots before.

They were attacked by two more hyenas, a gnoll, and two witherlings. The gnoll was caught by a trap and never had much of a chance to attack as he was focused down. One of the hyenas stepped on caltrops and was slowed enough to give the players some time to focus instead of being surrounded. However, things still looked quite grim.

Sahzal tried one of her favorite techniques—run away just a little bit but never enough to actually get out of range of the monster so I’ll get run down anyways! Note to Sahzal: 20 feet does not outrun many monsters. Neni and Comfort didn’t stay very close together, either, much to Comfort’s chagrin as she tried to tank for people who just wouldn’t stay close…

I was going to only make the players last for some number of turns, but they managed to kill everyone except for a hyena or two, which ran away injured once the gnolls were down, before my deadline. But once all of the gnolls were down, the three still heard howls, still heard yelps, and still saw dark shapes out in the shadows. Sahzal used Light on the large boulder they had their backs against and they stood ready for a last stand…

Only for a familiar shape come leaping out of the shadows to take down a leaping gnoll. It was a kenku, but not their friend Swish, another kenku with a red spot on his neck. The kenku was accompanied by a huge dog that took down another gnoll from the woods. More humanoid and canine shapes in the woods cleaned out the gnolls that had the three players cornered. One, a human female with the biggest, fluffiest mastiff/wolf dog they’d ever seen at her side came out of the woods and introduced herself as Dannyl Riswick, and her dog Butterscotch. The kenku introduced himself as Strawberry, and called them a bunch of idiots… but thanked them for helping out Swish. It turned out that Swish had run along ahead to the town and made a nuisance of themselves until the gates opened and a rescue squad was assembled to save Comfort, Sahzal, and Neni.

Dannyl and Strawberry (and Butterscotch of course) accompany the three tired and wounded travelers to the gates of town, where they are lead to warm, fur-covered beds, and collapse into an exhausted, healing sleep (and finally get that fucking long rest they wanted).

Ding ding ding! Level up! The players have reached level TWO!

[makorchronicles]

Introducing Varwick

Now is the year 2394 OR (Osheth reckoning) and it is an exciting time to be an adventurer around the continent of Makor. The dragon turtles are swarming outside of their normal breeding times within the Ranfus Sea, cutting off many of the trade routes between countries. Nonsu reports that the orc tribes of the Shabok Drylands are amassing under one banner: that of the Bloodfist. They prepare for war. The fey Freland Forest are expanding almost as fast as Osten’s mages and soldiers can burn it back. Societies of the deep roads, the surly deep dwarves, the stoic deep gnomes, even drow, speak of civil war among the great undercities; unrest that is quick spreading through the depths of the earth. Diviners at the ancient city of Cheadal and across the lands of the inland sea speak of grave portents… but are blind to exactly what is to come.

This is a land of magic, arcane, divine, and mundane, where the great dual Creator deities Ran-Mah cycle through sleep and awake as they watch over the planes of existence. We start our adventure in the north west Osten Empire, in the region called the Druoi Drain, a series of large lakes and rivers that span the wilderness and forests between Droiland and Osten. On the northern shore of the largest lake, the massive, bottomless Bleir Bore, fur traders and fishermen have beaten back the Svatzvald Forest and the monsters within to build the small town of Varwick. Filled with the rough and ready and those otherwise disinclined to join more heavily populated areas, the town is home to a varied and motley crew of adventurers and trappers, and a famous summer bounty on monstrous creature heads. The bounty brings people from far around, looking for a quick fortune or an out of the way corner of the world to escape responsibility.

We join our heroes midway on the muddy and wagon-rutted road between Craydon’s Ferry and Varwick. They are a group you don’t see together very often. Comfort, a fighter, left her farm home in the night with all the weapons and supplies she could carry and set out to see the world, find adventure, and prove herself. Neni the Halfling druid rides on Comfort’s shoulders most of the time, taking notes about her observations in this strange land so far from home. She left her home, the equatorial islands of the ghostwise Halfling clans, on a journey to learn of the world and find the balance within herself. Last, we come to Sahzal, a tiefling of grey and black and fiendish magic running through her veins. She flees unfortunate attention placed on her by the regional thieves’ guild, of which she was a member until a falling out occurred. Neni joined Comfort because she likes to climb tall things. Sahzal joined because there is strength in numbers and faith in her ability to outrun a farmgirl and a Halfling

The three have travelled together for a few days and are just getting to know one another when they hear a commotion up ahead. Comfort urges the other two to come with her to see what is wrong, Neni agrees, and Sahzal reluctantly follows, setting the stage for many an adventure to come. They find a trio of blighted skeletons with hunched backs, canid skulls, and jutting, black stained fangs attacking a small, chirping, leaping kenku, who peeps “Help help!” to the ladies when they see the group. Neni identifies the creatures as Witherlings, undead gnolls, and the trio remembers hearing that the road to Varwick was particularly dangerous this spring because of a gnoll warband harassing travelers.

The trio dispatches the witherlings, with Neni learning how potent her Produce Flame cantrip can be incinerating desiccated scraps of flesh, and Comfort using her quarterstaff on her very first mobile (if non-living) target. The kenku introduces themself as Swish, though they have a very rough grasp on the Common tongue and spend most of their time peeping or echoing words said to them to learn more.

That night, Neni ruins her first DM plan by rolling a Nat 20 to find a safe place to rest, and the heroes conclude the session for the evening, unsure of what is to come.

[makorchronicles]

Varwick is about 6 days walk from Craydon’s Ferry on a muddy, wagon-rutted road that follows the shore very, very closely. 

The Blier Bore is a large lake that is so deep, not even merpeople have reached the bottom of it. The dark, cold waters are said to hold ancient monsters and deadly secrets. Storms rush down from the Mhara Mountains and gain strength over the lake to batter the few towns that border it.

The Lumbering Lamprey is a large, slow vessel that brings supplies and merchants to Varwick from Craydon’s Ferry every fortnight. All other travelers go by foot or by horse along the dangerous road. 

Varwick numbers in the few hundreds, Craydon’s Ferry in the few thousands, and several hundred or so transient or tribal members roam the Svatzvald Forest, only occasionally wandering into town for resupply. 

Trivia: The name Svatzvald comes from a word in the old tongue of the north west once spoken by the countries that existed in the territory that is now Droiland, Schauland, and Achland before the Ostesh Empire. It means Black Forest, so the Svatzvald Forest is really the Black Forest Forest. 

Created with Inkarnate.