Campaign Background

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Over the last few weeks, rumors have begun to circulate that the magical wards that once sealed off the great fortress Dwimmermount have fallen. Shadowy figures are reportedly going into, and coming out of, the magical mountain.

For hundreds—maybe thousands—of years, Dwimmermount served as a fortress for a succession of empires. It fell two centuries ago, when a rebel uprising culminated in a mysterious cataclysm that sealed the dungeon off from the outside world.

Dwimmermount is located a few miles to the northwest of the fortified town of Muntburg. Many of the inhabitants of Muntburg and the nearby region known as the City-States are there to keep an eye on Dwimmermount. Some hope to enter the dungeon to get rich, others to free one of the powerful beings which the local authorities hope will remain locked away in Dwimmermount’s extra-dimensional prison.

Dwimmermount was excavated from the tallest mountain in the Wintertop range and is reputed to have at least half a dozen levels, if not double that number.
The dungeon was the site for the most important magical research of past eras, including investigations into time, space, and the creation of life.

Now, the race is on to uncover the secrets locked within and either claim them or keep them away from the competition. Several adventuring parties have been converging on Muntberg. Some are agents of local powers, others are simply seeking to make their fortune. Who will come out on top is anyone's guess. How will your group fare?

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Adventurers in the world of Dwimmermount may be men, dwarves, or elves.

Men

When adventuring in the world of Dwimmermount, men may belong to the following classes: assassin, barbarian, bladedancer, cleric, explorer, fighter, mage, priestess (or priest), shaman, thief, venturer, and witch. Each of these classes functions as described in ACKS or ACKS Player’s Companion, except for the religious classes, which have some variation in weapon choice and code based on chosen deity.

Dwarves

Dwarves in the setting of Dwimmermount differ slightly from the way that they are described in the ACKS rulebook. The most significant factor is that they are exclusively male; there are no female dwarves. Consequently, dwarves do not reproduce as men do, but rather by carving their “sons” from rock and magically imbuing them with life. Many outsiders consider dwarves to be artificial beings, akin to animated statues or golems. Exploring the truth about the origin of the dwarven race and what conclusions should be drawn as a result was a central theme in the original Dwimmermount campaign, and could be a strong motivation here.
Because of their unusual nature, when dwarves die, they turn to stone. Thus, they cannot be restored to life through the use of raise dead, but instead require the spell stone to flesh. However, dwarves do benefit from other healing effects including spells such as cure light wounds and magic items such as rings of regeneration.

All dwarves belong to either the delver, machinist, or vaultguard class. There are no dwarven craftpriests or furies in the world of Telluria.

Elves

The term “elf” is a Thulian word used to describe those intelligent, humanoid beings who can claim descent from the Eld. At the climax of the uprising against the Eldritch Empire, the Eld nobility retreated en masse back to the Red Planet in the face of the Thulian onslaught. Those Eld unable to return whence they came, in time, came to be known as elves. As relatives of the evil Eld, elves are generally looked upon with suspicion by men and dwarves to this day.

The defining characteristic of the elves is their longevity: so far as anyone knows, elves are immortal. They can be killed and certain ailments may slay them, but they never die of old age. All elves, regardless of their chronological age -- and many elves claim to be over a thousand years old -- look as if they were approximately in their late teens or early 20s from a human perspective.

Interestingly, elves, unlike most other races, cannot be raised from the dead if slain. The spells restore life and limb, reincarnation, and resurrection simply have no effect.

Though there are many tall tales of “half-elves”
— the result of a star-crossed romance, usually between a human hero and a beautiful elven maiden — there’s no evidence that such a thing is even possible. For their part, elves take no interest whatsoever in humans (or any other race) as objects of affection. Furthermore, though elves do have two genders that, outwardly at least, resemble those of humans, elves do not marry or form pair bonds or have any other kind of social arrangements that suggest either the formation of families or indeed any purpose to the physiological differences between the genders. It’s almost as if elves were male and female in imitation of humans!

Save for the fact that they cannot benefit from restore life and limb and related effects, the elves of Dwimmermount are functionally identical to those presented in the ACKS rulebook. All of the elven classes in ACKS (spellsword and nightblade) and ACKS Player’s Companion (courtier, enchanter, and ranger) are available.

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The clerical classes (bladedancer, cleric, priest, and priestess) represent men and women who have devoted their lives to serving one of the deities of the Thulian Great Church and been gifted with miraculous powers in return for their service. Only the races of man worship the gods; and all of the gods, regardless of their spheres of influence, support and protect the civilization of man. As a result, the various clerical classes are generally available only to humans of Lawful alignment.

The Great Church was a religious institution of the Thulian Empire, formed from an amalgamation of the nine most influential faiths among the Thulians. Eight of the original deities honored by the Great Church are shown on the table below. The ninth “deity” was called Anyastos, who was, according to orthodox interpretation, not a deity at all, but rather an abstract concept—The Divine— representative of the power above and beyond all the other gods. Anyastos had no priesthood or temples of his own, instead being revered by all of the Church’s constituent faiths. Of course, there have always been tales of secret societies and esoteric orders devoted to him. Later, Turms Termax identified himself with The Divine and his worship eventually supplanted that of Anyastos within the Great Church.

Anesidora (L/G) -- goddess of grain, fertility, marriage, and law
Asana (Law) -- goddess of strategy, heroism, and science
Caint (L/G) -- god of medicine, poetry, and music
Donn (Law) -- god of the dead
Mavors (L/E) -- god of warfare
Tenen (Law) -- god of travelers, craftsmen, and invention
Tyche (Law) -- goddess of fortune, prosperity, and destiny
Typhon (L/E) -- god of judgment, discipline, and trade

Anesidora -- Clerics, priests and priestess
Asana -- Clerics, bladedancers, priests and priestess
Caint -- priests and priestess
Donn -- cleric (male) or priestess (female)
Mavors -- Bladedancer or Cleric
Tenen -- priests and priestess
Tyche -- bladedancer, cleric, priest or priestess
Typhon -- clerics, priests or priestess

All martial clerical classes have custom weapon selection based on deity, and priests/priestess have custom vows based on deity.

Some men and women possess the ability to cast divine spells, although they serve neither Law nor the deities of the Thulian Great Church. Such men and women have – knowingly or unknowingly - thrown in their lot with Chaos, as embodied by the various demon lords and princes of the Great Void. The classes in this category include shamans and witches of Neutral alignment.

Shamans and witch PCs may be of Neutral alignment. They are calling upon both Lawful and Chaotic powers for their spells. They function exactly as described in the ACKS Player’s Companion.

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Languages in Dwimmermount area:

Common: The trade and diplomatic language spoken by the nations and City-States that were once part of the Thulian Empire. This varies from place to place, so there is some chance of not understanding someone from a different area.

Low Thulian: The historical form of Thulian once spoken by the lower classes and subjects of the Thulian Empire. It is very similar to Common, but would seem archaic to modern ears. It will be understood by most speakers of common.

High Thulian: The elegant language of the aristocracy and scholars of today, it was the language of the literary classes in the Thulian Empire. It is also used in the Liturgies of the Church. This is the main language that someone who would consider themselves a scholar would want to know.

Ancient Thulian: The language of the original Thulian barbarians. Preserved mostly by sages. The oldest books of the Church are written in Ancient Thulian. This is the language of the early Thulian Empire, not god language of the "Ancients". That language is lost to history.

Bestial: The tongue of the various beastmen. A rough dialect of Low Thulian. This will sometimes be understandable to those who speak common.

Elven: The liquid, lilting tongue of the elves.

Dwarven: The workman-like language of curt words with a highly regular, efficient grammar spoken by the dwarves.

Goblin: The fast and gutteral language of the goblins.

[drpete]

We'll be starting in a village of Muntberg, close to Dwimmermount. Muntberg is near Adamas, one of the big City States in the area. Other major nearby City-States are Yethlyreom, a City of Lawful Necromancers, full of undead, and Retep City, a rival of Adamas several days south.

Dwimmermount1.png (219.81 KiB) Viewed 987 times

[kalstone]

Thanks for moving all this here.

[drpete]

No prob. I realized stuff was starting to get lost. ..

[drpete]

Human Beliefs about Dwimmermount

Human Beliefs about Dwimmermount
Dwimmermount was created by the Great Ancients, the ancestors of men and the founders of the world’s first civilization.

Centuries ago, Dwimmermount became the foothold by which Eld from the Red Planet, Areon, subjugated the natives of Telluria.

The gods inspired the Thulians, barbaric men from an island far to the north, to overthrow the Eldritch Empire and replace it with one of their own.

Dwimmermount is a sacred place to the Great Church, the institutional faith of the Thulian Empire, and contains many of its most important temples.

A man entered Dwimmermount and became a god. This was Turms Turmax, who was arrested and imprisoned by the Thulians for denying the Great Church’s ban on mages and preaching the pursuit of immortality. After his apotheosis, Turms Termax became the most-worshipped god in the Thulian Empire.

Typhonians are followers of Typhon, mightiest of the Gods of the Great Church, who led the rebellion against Turms’ usurpation of the Thulian Empire and work to keep his dark secrets imprisoned in Dwimmermount. They are opposed by Termaxian cultists who seek to restore Turm’s empire and gain the secret of his apotheosis.

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Dwarven Backstory

Dwarves in the setting of Dwimmermount differ slightly from the way that they are described in the ACKS rulebook. The most significant factor is that they are exclusively male; there are no female dwarves. Consequently, dwarves do not reproduce as men do, but rather by carving their “sons” from rock and magically imbuing them with life. Many outsiders consider dwarves to be artificial beings, akin to animated statues or golems.

Because of their unusual nature, when dwarves die, they turn to stone. Thus, they cannot be restored to life through the use of raise dead, but instead require the spell stone to flesh. However, dwarves do benefit from other healing effects including spells such as cure light wounds and magic items such as rings of regeneration.

Though dwarves are very long-lived, known to have lifespans up to a thousand years barring accidents or violence, their population would soon have been reduced to nothing if there were not some way for dwarves to reproduce themselves. That way is through the carving of a “son” from living rock, with embellishments and adornments of precious metals and gems. With enough attention and craftsmanship—outsiders say obsession—a weird magic takes hold of the carving and imbues it with the spark of life, becoming a new dwarf.

A newly-carved dwarf is level 1 and has the same class and ability scores as his father. The new dwarf owes his father an amount equal to the cost spent in carving him. A dwarf player character, like any other dwarf, begins play in debt to his own father, to the tune of 1D10 × 10,000 gp. He is not under any obligation to make good on this debt, other than a social one— dwarves who do not attempt to repay their fathers are ostracized by others of their kind.

Gnomes are an offshoot race of dwarves, created when something goes awry in the process of carving a dwarf son. Like dwarves, gnomes are exclusively male, but unlike dwarves, they are incapable of creating their own sons. Some believe that their aptitude with magic somehow negates this natural ability of “normal” dwarves, but there is no evidence that this is so. Despite this, some gnomes believe that there must be a way for their kind to reproduce and work hard toward finding the means to do so. As if in support of this belief, there are tall tales of gnome-only enclaves in the southern lands which are self-sustaining after having discovered the means to propagate themselves.

Gnomes have a complicated relationship to dwarven society, being simultaneously a source of embarrassment—for the lineage of a dwarf with a gnome in it will generally die out—and pride, for gnomes are what enable the dwarves to create the enchanted items that maintain their dwindling society. Consequently, most gnomes are kept hidden away within dwarven strongholds; outsiders rarely hear of them, let alone see them. Needless to say, gnomish adventurers are extremely uncommon, although they are possible.

A kobold is a twisted dwarf, one so obsessed with gold and gems that it retreats into mines, dungeons, and other such subterranean locales in order to sate its lust for riches. Kobolds are selfish, malevolent creatures with a penchant for trap-making and playing cruel practical jokes on other beings, most especially dwarves. Given the numbers in which they appear, kobolds are believed to be able to reproduce themselves much more easily than dwarves, although the exact mechanism is unknown. They are otherwise as described in ACKS.

As far as is generally known, dwarves cannot intentionally create gnomes or kobolds any more than they can intentionally create a man or an elf by trying to carve one from living rock. There’s no way to force the process to result in any particular outcome beyond the expected one. By the same token, a dwarf cannot carve a female dwarf and attempt to bring her to life, because there is simply no such thing as a female dwarf. The carving process produces male dwarves and nothing else, except by accident.

Sometimes the carving is “stillborn” and unusable. The dwarf may start work over again on a new son, but this practice is frowned upon. Inert dwarf sons are never discarded or destroyed. Instead, they are placed in sub- terranean cemeteries alongside once-living dwarves who have reverted back to the stone from which they were carved.

Although there’s no reason a dwarf couldn’t carve more than one son, dwarven society frowns upon it, seeing it as evidence of arrogance and self-aggrandizement. The social stigma against multiple sons extends even to dwarves whose sons were carved inert, which is part of why dwarves place these “stillborn” children in a place of honor and respect in a dwarf stronghold. The origin of the stigma is lost to history, though many elder dwarves suggest that it arose in the distant past, during a time known as “the Tumult,” when some dwarves attempted to rebel against their Makers and were ultimately defeated. According to this theory, the leading rebels had carved multiple sons for themselves in an attempt to create dwarven dynasties, which threw the practice into disrepute.

Obviously, the dwarf population is slowly and seemingly inevitably declining. Judging by the size of their underground cities, there were once many millions of dwarves in the world, but now most cities are lucky if they can boast thousands and many cannot even do that. More than a few dwarf cities are now totally abandoned, becoming famed underworlds filled with gold, magical treasure, and foul beasts. For their part, most dwarves are stoic in the face of the inevitable demise of their race, seeing it as the will of their Makers, though some hold out the hope that, one day, the Makers might reverse their fate and restore the dwarves to their former glory.

Dwarves and the Makers

Only men worship gods and have access to divine magic. Nevertheless, dwarves do revere supernatural beings whom they call “the Makers.” As their name suggests, dwarves believe that the Makers created them untold ages ago to delve deeply beneath the surface of the world. Once, the Makers spoke regularly—and directly—to the dwarves but those days are long past. No dwarf knows precisely when the Makers stopped speaking to them or why, though most believe it occurred sometime after the Tumult, when some dwarves turned away from the Makers and threw dwarven society into chaos.

Dwarven reverence for the Makers does not take the form of worship, nor is there a religious hierarchy associated with it. Instead, the Makers provide the ultimate foundation for dwarven society and culture, the answer to any question of why things are the way they are: “Because the Makers made it so.” Needless to say, such an answer carries little weight with outsiders and indeed with certain dwarves who fear that the continued unthinking adherence to long-held tradition guarantees the doom of their race. Nevertheless, most dwarves are content with this answer and have faith that the Makers will reveal a means to escape their current predicament.

Dwarven Beliefs about Dwimmermount

Dwimmermount is revered by all dwarves because it was home to the Makers who created their race.

Dwimmermount contains the cemeteries of the most venerated dwarven ancestors.

For centuries, dwarves have been the custodians of Dwimmermount.
A few dwarves in each generation have volunteered to join the custodians by climbing a path on Dwimmermount’s windward face visible only to those who can sense hidden construction and passable only by those created by the Makers.

The work of the custodians is too sacred to be spoken of, but recent disquiet among the elders suggests that something has gone wrong inside the mountain.