Looking for descriptive players who enjoy both social situations and combat equally. Creative types who will take initiative and seek adventure wherever it may be found.
The setting is loosely Greyhawk-ish mixed with homebrew.
Introduction:
For ten thousand years the Emptiness has baked beneath a scorching sun. Violent winds destroy and remake the landscape daily. Mountainous dunes vanish and new ones are born after each howling sandstorm. It is a labyrinth of barren desert void of settlement or habitation.
But it wasn't always so. Great forests grew and withered there in the dim past. Mighty cities rose and fell, their names half-remembered and kings long forgotten.
Merchants skirting the edges of the wasteland speak of tantalizing glimpses of gleaming spires polished by white sand glinting in the far distance. They dance like a mirage in the perpetual haze of unbearable heat. But those few who venture to chase these fleeting clues are soon swallowed by the restless sand. The desert keeps her secrets.
One thousand years ago, the wizard Nolazar Bone-Caller fled the persecution of his fellows to pursue his fascination with death and the dark arts amid the comforting solitude of the Emptiness. Legends say that he sacrificed his mortal life for undeath and, thus inured to the elements, delved deep into the haunted waste to seek that which all men seek--power.
And as the centuries wore on, even the oldest of The Wise forgot the name of Nolazar Bone-Caller. Until, that is, a madman staggered from the desert, blistered and nigh unto death. White paint of powdered bone coated his flesh and the name of Nolazar spilled from his lips in an agonized cry.
His blasted mind disgorged horror after horror before he succumbed to merciful death. The shriveled man-husk whispered of bones rising from the sand, of ancient beasts stalking the dunes red-eyed and silent. He gibbered feebly of the cold eyes of a long-dead wizard and his hatred of the living who'd chased him from civilization so many centuries ago.
But the dying man brought something besides a warning. Those who touched his shattered corpse contracted a mysterious wasting disease. Slowly but surely it eats away at the lifeforce of its victims until they are empty, shambling vessels of flesh and bone. Death comes for them, but only until nightfall. When the moon rises, so do the dead. Cold eyes gleam and awkward limbs creak.
They rise from the grave and march unerringly into the Emptiness and are lost from sight. The disease has spread like wildfire and the king himself is offering a bounty of 10,000 gold coins to anyone who can find a cure or somehow break the spell of Nolazar Bone-Caller.
Over all lies the unspoken fear that, with each corpse that marches into the silent sands, an ever-growing army of the dead looms over the living with ill intent.
How long will it be before their master commands them to return in force?
But it wasn't always so. Great forests grew and withered there in the dim past. Mighty cities rose and fell, their names half-remembered and kings long forgotten.
Merchants skirting the edges of the wasteland speak of tantalizing glimpses of gleaming spires polished by white sand glinting in the far distance. They dance like a mirage in the perpetual haze of unbearable heat. But those few who venture to chase these fleeting clues are soon swallowed by the restless sand. The desert keeps her secrets.
One thousand years ago, the wizard Nolazar Bone-Caller fled the persecution of his fellows to pursue his fascination with death and the dark arts amid the comforting solitude of the Emptiness. Legends say that he sacrificed his mortal life for undeath and, thus inured to the elements, delved deep into the haunted waste to seek that which all men seek--power.
And as the centuries wore on, even the oldest of The Wise forgot the name of Nolazar Bone-Caller. Until, that is, a madman staggered from the desert, blistered and nigh unto death. White paint of powdered bone coated his flesh and the name of Nolazar spilled from his lips in an agonized cry.
His blasted mind disgorged horror after horror before he succumbed to merciful death. The shriveled man-husk whispered of bones rising from the sand, of ancient beasts stalking the dunes red-eyed and silent. He gibbered feebly of the cold eyes of a long-dead wizard and his hatred of the living who'd chased him from civilization so many centuries ago.
But the dying man brought something besides a warning. Those who touched his shattered corpse contracted a mysterious wasting disease. Slowly but surely it eats away at the lifeforce of its victims until they are empty, shambling vessels of flesh and bone. Death comes for them, but only until nightfall. When the moon rises, so do the dead. Cold eyes gleam and awkward limbs creak.
They rise from the grave and march unerringly into the Emptiness and are lost from sight. The disease has spread like wildfire and the king himself is offering a bounty of 10,000 gold coins to anyone who can find a cure or somehow break the spell of Nolazar Bone-Caller.
Over all lies the unspoken fear that, with each corpse that marches into the silent sands, an ever-growing army of the dead looms over the living with ill intent.
How long will it be before their master commands them to return in force?
I tend to take whatever good luck I can get. At least in gaming, real life has been pretty stingy!