Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Do Not Die in Kantium

Kantium
Do not die in Kantium; this is the fact that everone in the isle knows. Kantium was the first of the cities to throw off its Fey masters, and, through a fluke, remained in control of the rebel sorcerors. Since then, Kantium is a dark and shrouded landscape, home to necromancy.

Culture: Barbarian, Physical, Solitary
Main hexes: 0707 and surrounds. Shares land borders with the broken marches, Ostsexan and Visaxia.
Direct control into 3 hexes based on capitals influence& control modifer.

Capital City: Kantum-Broch 8-385-9C8(-6)
Local culture: Barbarian, Mystical , Urban
Corrupt reputation
50-100 hearths
well off+ wealth
Unremarkable size
Tyrant ruler
Total law control
Influence =8
Control Modifier(-6)

The capital at Kantum-Broch is a largely deserted fey city, inhabited only by the sorceror of the rebellion and his descendents and apprentices. The population of the remainder of the land is almost entirely composed of the "half dead" and the undead. The undead are almost entirely a poor relation of the skeleton/zombie, being the slowly decaying corpses of slaves and serfs programmed to continue their work after death - from whatever cause, accident, murder or the creep of the half death. In general, any that die in Kantium, for whatever reason, will, if unprotected, arise as undead at the next sunset. If uncommanded, they will simply wander, eventually attacking all the living as their need for direction fades.

Half death is a peculiar state into which humans in Kantium eventually and invariably lapse if they remain in the realm for an extended length of time. They become uncommunicative, unresponsive and unmotivated, able only to carry out direct commands; the more familiar the task, (such as "raise a crop") the more general the commands are. Eventually, they pass from half death to full death without note or comment, and continue their unending tasks until they slowly rot to scraps. The half dead can be commanded by anyone with sufficient autority or any of the inhabitants of Kantum-Broch. The undead continue their last task unerringly, and are only commandable by necromancers (of whom there is no shortage locally).
Kantium relies on Mercenaries who are protected from the half death by talismans, and the animated corpses of warriors who die in Kantium. So, don't die in Kantium. Unless you really, really want job security.....

4 comments:

netherwerks said...

What a fun place to let players go a'wandering! Great use of atmosphere. A very foreboding place directly tied-into the history and lore of the setting, and it's done organically, not arbitrarily. Very cool. This place reminds me of Clark Ashton Smith in all the right ways. Excellent post.

Doc Grognard said...

High praise indeed , especially the CAS comparison - his stuff is a definate inspiration for this site and campaign.
thanks !

Blogger said...

Did you know you can shorten your long urls with Shortest and get $$$$ for every visitor to your short links.

Blogger said...

Need To Boost Your ClickBank Commissions And Traffic?

Bannerizer made it easy for you to promote ClickBank products by banners, simply go to Bannerizer, and get the banner codes for your favorite ClickBank products or use the Universal ClickBank Banner Rotator to promote all of the ClickBank products.