D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Player Handout Excerpt #3: Geography

GEOGRAPHY

It’s a big world out there. Here’s a guide of the basic knowledge you have as we start the campaign:

Black Scar

Black Scar is a dreaded prison complex in a secret location. Black Scar houses the most diabolic host of criminals, creatures, madmen, terrorists and sentient magical energies ever seen. The Black Wardens, who are as corrupt and as mercenary as they are fearsome and merciless, are among the most feared individuals in the civilized world.

Blackmoon Canal

Built across a dangerously narrow channel that leads from the Blackmoon Sea to the Ebonsand, the canal is one of the most complicated marvels of Meldoarian magical engineering to exist, and its presence helps ensure Meldoar’s control over all southern sea trade.

The Bone March

An inhospitable cold desert that appears to have been drained of color, as the black soil and gray dust is only occasionally dotted by stagnant pools of water, lone and dead trees, and small clusters of dark rock; even the sky is always the same stale gray.

Corinth

A carefully guarded religious city once controlled by Jlantria, Corinth’s hundred-foot walls provide shelter from barbaric Gorgoloth raiders and harsh winter winds. Corinth’s remote location and its relatively weak military capabilities are the only reasons it is not the most desirable Sethian city-state to relocate to. The Church of Corvinia bears a stronger presence in Corinth than in any of the other city-states.

Dirge

Old Koth. Long thought destroyed during the Black Dawn, it was discovered a few years ago that Koth remained, though it has changed. Now a city-state of hostile undead and tainted by warped, chaotic magic that shapes matter seemingly at its own mad whim, the twisted and nonliving citizens of Dirge, thankfully, keep more or less to themselves, though that is bound to change.

The Dusk Hills

A solemn expanse of short hills, thickly populated by dense trees that keep the area dark regardless of the actual time of day. The Hills are most notable for the presence of the Sulaj, who quietly make their homes in the deepest, darkest folds of the area.

The Ebonsand

The largest body of water in the known world, the Ebonsand separates Sethia from the unknown lands to the east; it is vast enough that no one has ever crossed it in its entirety. The Ebonsand is a haven for pirates, brigands and unchecked criminal activity, and traversing its waters is considered risky, at best.

The Gray Sea

This cold body of freshwater was once completely controlled by Jlantria; it is so named due to the heavy mists that creep along the surface like smoky eels. Strange aquatic creatures roam the misty waters, as do human and exiled Dracajian pirates.

The Grimm Steppes

A deep set of earthy clefts, broken valleys and steep drop-offs dotted with blackened hollows and rocky hills. Though relatively small and isolated, the Steppes are incredibly dangerous, and are avoided by all save the strange denizens of Dirge, which lies to the northeast.

Kalakkaii

Kalakkaii has become one of the last bastions of civilization, a refuge for any lucky enough to escape the Bone March and the mad city of Rath. The population of Kalakkaii swells then ebbs due to disease and trouble with human bandits, red Dracaj and occasional Troj raiders; lately organized crime has also become an issue, as rival gangs have made attempts to subtly take control of Kalakkaii’s last remaining exports (namely wheat, dried fruits and nuts, silk, paper, skins, oils, parchment, clockwork tools, and wax).

The Nethermost

The Nethermost is a vast network of twisting tunnels, behemoth caverns and dark underground cities under the surface of Sethia, populated by underground cities and settlements belonging to the dominant subterranean races, places such as Meledrakkar, Il’draz'zakuul, Shul Ganneth, Voth, and Blackfang, ruled by bizarre races like the Cruj, the Eidolos, the Dracaj, the Maloj, the Tavash, the Regost, the Lith, the Shav, and the Gaj. There are many access points to the Nethermost, but most are difficult to locate, as well as heavily guarded.

Rath

Rath is the last city of Meldoar, a necromantic metropolis ruled by witchcraft, grotesque bio-arcana, astrochronomantic clockwork technology and depraved weaponry. It is widely accepted that Rath is a dangerous place, but the Meldoarians are bound by their own secret agenda, and little true information is available on Rath outside its own walls. The city remains a dangerous and frightening enigma.

The Razortooth Mountains

This sharp and craggy mountain range once served as a Jlantrian barrier against possible invasions. Difficult to pass and populated by dangerously sharp rocks in some places, the Razortooth Mountains are more notorious for the hundreds of Bloodspeakers slain there in Jlantrian run death camps during the Black War.

The Reach

The Reach is a vast expanse of snow, icy plains and frozen tundra. The Gorgoloth tribes make their home in these bitter plains, and the shells of Jlantrian military forts stand along the perimeter of the Reach in a ghostly chain. Besides the Gorgoloth, the Reach is also home to a great many snow bears, giant elk, ice worms and winter wraiths.

Rhaine

Rhaine is an ancient, dreary city of cold stone towers, well-used docks, cracked cobblestone streets and dismal weather. It is a haven for pirates, prostitution, slave trading, magical narcotics, black market steam-tech and general thuggery. Rhaine is currently at war with the rival criminal city-state of Thornn.

Rift

New Koth. Rift City. New Koth is a city that has been cleft into two sections by the unnatural canyon called the Carrion Rift. The larger section of New Koth is held by the military might of a band of mercenaries called the Ebon Hand, while the smaller, deadlier section of the city is controlled by a cadre of militaristic vampires known as the Hungered. Both sides wage battle across the Rift for the fate of the city and the magic and relics contained in the Rift’s dark nadir.

Rimefang Loch

Rimefang Loch is a vast and frozen lake in central northern Sethia, connected to the Gray Sea by the River Gray. The Loch is lifeless and cold, the mirror surface of its cold waters unmoving even in the wind. Rumor has it that a sizeable population of black and gray Dracaj has built malachite fortresses along the eastern bank. The remains of Old Koth – or Dirge – stand on the shore, casting a further pall over the area.

Tanith

Ruled by the sometimes feared Brotherhood of the Chain, the city of Tanith is a repository of knowledge and wisdom, as it houses some of the most impressive libraries and mystic channeling stones in all of Sethia. Tanith is also the only city outside of Rift to house a significant undead population, an undead caste that lives in harmony with its subjugated living inhabitants.

Thornn

Thornn is a black market city whose economy revolves around drugs, prostitutes, gambling, pit fighting and smuggling. Made from great sandstone blocks, magically reinforced tents and mecha-arcanically enhanced siege towers, Thornn’s outer walls sport deadly barbed lances. Thornn is currently at war with the rival criminal city-state of Rhaine.

Wormwood

The Wormwood is a large and blighted forest. The Wormwood has become a dead and corrupted place, filled with necrotic soil saturated by foul magical energies. Rumor holds that black blood flows through the Wormwood like water, that toxic ooze leaks from the trees and that foul, and that mutated creatures roam the forest. It is also believed that the terrorists called the Revengers have somehow made a lair in this dark place, inside an unnatural redoubt called the City of Thorns.