Tag: Sheljar

  • An afternoon with Shelmigarii, mistress of cables

    An afternoon with Shelmigarii, mistress of cables

    It’s a crowded day. New groups from Fort Ooshar are coming, fleeing the Fox and Crow, they are rushed and harried. The journey is not long. The families are large, mixed with halflings, goliaths and humans.

    Work gets harder with these large groups. The gondolas are large enough for a few horses, maybe a cart. These families are multigenerational, at times there are dozens of animal companions. One may have only geese, another family with dogs. There was one with oxen — they took ages. The mulgobs don’t like when they need to come up.

    An 8-bit style image of a small dragon about the size of a large cat that is the color of bronze-ish ale with blue buggy eyes. They are flying over a small person, likely a gnome, with a blue head covering and dark nearly black robes. There is a magic spell coming out of one hand. They are on an stage that looks like autumn ground cover with a small golden leaved tree behind them. The names below or Oolia Estererlia and Brewst Grisselle
    Made with reroll

    But seeing so many descend into a home without judgement, with an opportunity to build, with an opportunity to meet elves and dwarves with their magicks, with an opportunity to meet women from Mehmd and men from Crinth, the opportunity to meet the ratchets and the alchems and others from the Queen, the opportunity to meet Brewst Grisselle the ale drake and learn that not all dragons are Proctors hoarding knowledge with threats of violence — Brewst hoards alcohols and is getting along quite well with the alchems guild.

    Every day there are new people. Every day another conversation.

    Shelmigarii and Lukhchizh do not charge for their service. They’ve earned unfurled flags and banners from the Free City. This means the other goblins (all the Kon) in the area support them. Shel’s recent ratchets development and springwerks mean the mulgobs don’t work as hard. Lukh is working on employing some beasts rather than mulgobs, which is only possible because of the Free City empowers all thinkers rather than the caste system the Queen’s Lyfe demands.

    At the top of the cliffs, summer heat bears down harsh on the Grand Entry. Those pilgrims working down the ramps and steps will be full of sweat, but not as much fear. These Kin don’t understand the sky-cables. Many shake in fear as they ride down the thousands of feet through the fog into the bog-city past and through the ruins over the brackish waters and abandoned orchards.

    Shel never laughs.

    She’s scored of all the beasts. The weather and the cables aren’t scary. These are knowable things. These are math.

    Beasts and peoples don’t act according to math and strangers aren’t knowable, even known friends aren’t knowable. She loves Lukh, but calling him knowable isn’t accurate.

    A long sip of cool coffee. The next gondola up from Chupmolea better bring more. That bean is a blessing, much better than the teas in the Queen’s Land (Tsavancoast). She once again ponders if there is a way that the bean can replace tar-tree pods as fuel — the switch of smells from oily smog to roast would be worth it. She doesn’t have the knowledge. But maybe the lesser power could be made up using gears and springs…

    Her mind wanders sometimes. Operating the sky-cables is boring and routine.

    Thoughts are for new things… maybe the fruits could become oils. Lukh’s been chatting with another hob freed from service to invention who won’t join the guilds, but is working on new ways to harvest steam.

    There’s an unlatched safety bar she doesn’t notice.

    Shel keeps thinking about this. Less power, more gearing, some springs, maybe using that fruit that’s waste now, then a steam box, could maybe the airxip props help the gondola and then we wouldn’t even need muls or beasts.

    She sends the gondola with a halfling family and their dogs.

    The windsock swings fast. An unexpected storm? She checks the broadsheet forecast section. Oh, no. This is on the schedule. It’s going to be a rocky ride for those hin.

    She looks as they descend. Notices the safety bar free. Notices the sway. Notices the storm. Notices the danger.

    Wandering thoughts are a blessing, except when they are a curse. She curses the queen. She curses herself. She curses the sky and for good measure she curses the gods of this land even though she doesn’t believe in them.

    “Urp! Stop loading. See if you can bring that gondola back. Use everything you have.” She rushes to the head wheel to help.

    There is a nasty screeching noise as the metal cables halt to change path. Then there is a scream of terror as the gondola rocks off the cables.

    Another noise, this time a squawk, rises above the terrors and shouting, the breaking metals.

    Panic. It’s all panic now.

    Beasts and peoples all learning that their fears are real. The sky-cable isn’t safe (they’re wrong).

    None feel empowered, none capable.

    That squawk is a massive beast. A raptor the size of an airxip swoops overhead and dives at the sky-car. There’s a tiny man on the bird, hard to judge size at this distance with the massive bird unravelling understanding of perspective.

    As the car jumps off the cables the bird rushes to it. The car starts to roll to a side dozens of feet under the cable.

    A sharp command, sudden and cutting through the winds and terror is heard. There’s some Kirtin-ish to the tone with a bit of the Crinth rounding.

    The immense bird grabs the cart, carries it up to Grand Entry.

    Shel doesn’t want more coffee. She wants to hang out with Brewst after she fills out an after disaster report to establish a new checklist, one that involves two peoples in case her mind wanders again. That’ll start when she’s done shaking.

    This narrative slice of life was an attempt at Tuesday Afternoon, a technique to test world building to see if the created world makes sense for normal people.

    The image features an abstract composition set against a dark background. A network of jagged island shapes outlined in gold creates a prominent visual centerpiece. These shapes vary in size and orientation, resembling a natural or geological formation. The area surrounding this central structure is filled with bold, textured colors, including vibrant blues at the top representing the ocean, contrasting shades of green to the left representing the hills, deeper black tones framing the right and bottom, and hints of rust-colored brown towards the lower section. Below the gold outline, a small, stylized blue waterfall appears on the lower edge of the graphic, providing scale and enhancing the sense of depth within the artwork.
    Bog-city of Sheljar in abstract paint

    The Free City of Sheljar was the result of my first campaign in the World of the Everflow.

    Once a city destroyed by dragons and later an empire destroyed from within by The Necromancer with their zombies and Tunneling Nightmares, Sheljar is now a Free City, open to all thinking peoples who respect other thinking peoples. Its leadership is the first group of PCs. A bog-city of a thousand islands each little piece of land offers a place for a family to return, a neighborhood to emerge.

    Shelmigarii is one of the Queen’s women, a member of the ratchet guild. She and her husband run the sky-cable gondolas at the Grand Entry with its faster path to the city center or to Chupmolea (the goblin neighborhood) than the thousand-year old steps and ramps down the cliff. Shel is a tiny goblin and her husband a large hobgoblin. They have no companions nor children. They hired mulgobs (bugbears) to operate the ratchets, declining to use alchem nor magicks. Her background would be a cabbie, if playing D&D.

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  • Inspiration is everywhere: Floating islands

    Inspiration is everywhere: Floating islands

    Creating memorable scenes and adventures is easier when fantastic elements are included. Many of these fantastic elements can simply be things from the real world, but amplified or expanded. In this case we’ll walk through the concept of floating islands and make those even more mythical.

    First off, yes, floating islands are real. In Lake Chippewa one is large enough it has to be pushed by motor boats so it doesn’t damage bridges.

    A floating island that drifts about on a lake or sea is already pretty fantastic. How can we up the fantasy to make it more memorable in D&D when the players are getting together every few weeks?

    This example is going to be for Sheljar, the bog-city once ruled by an intending-to-be-good necromancer, but could apply anywhere. Sheljar is a city of 100s of islands.

    Simple map of 100s of islands in a sea with a large waterfall in the south and mountains to the south and south east.

    What if a few of those islands floated like the bog-island of Chippewa?

    Rather than be moved by motorboat, they were moved by water elementals during the Age of Myths. The largest of these, Reylerel, at the time was the home of a power school of mages that integrated water, animals that live in and along water, and the peoples.

    As the Age was crashing they attempted to flee the city. The school wanted to isolate itself from the riots, to hide the dolphins, elementals, beaver and ducks that worked together to help the Kin survive. Reylerel went adrift, into the Sea of Sheljar.

    Now, thousands of years later the Free City of Sheljar is no longer ruled by the Necromancer. It is regrowing, discovering some of its influence from the Age of Myths. This bog-city isn’t a city of fog and depression, but a city of hope and humanity integrating gobkon teknology, love of animals and the lost magics.

    The leadership knows this is possible. Myth said it happened before, and drifting towards them is the Floating Island of Reylerel. At sea it moves with the swells and storms. The towers and buildings are rundown. Someone is going to need to go to Reylerel and find a way to prevent it from crashing into the docks.

    And that’s how you take a small trending topic on the internet and turn it into an adventure.

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  • Office Space | Dungeon 23

    Office Space | Dungeon 23

    Tucked in the back corner of the underground portion of the Temple of the Lords of the End is an office space. The last dual head clergy were two halfings, so the office has two halfing-sized desks with chairs. The chamber is packed with bookshelves, cabinets, decorative wall coverings and, like the main chamber has some damage from a Tunneling Nightmare.

    There are also a couple secret doors.

    1 – This secret door (DC 15) is to a small safe that contains gems and ingots. The interior is free from dust and it looks as if one ingot is new (DC 10, History or Culture(Sheljar).

    2 – One of the bookcases has a book-handle secret door system. It can be found with a DC 20 check. Behind that case is access to the alcove to one of Sheljar’s former ruling families, one that dedicated itself to Oun and Obscon rather than Quar. That chamber no longer has any remains.

    From Dungeon Scrawl

    We’re nearly done with the Temple of the Lords of the End. These two gods have a five chamber space that will be covered over three total entries. At this point there have been no monsters, but several hints that the Tunneling Nightmares, supposedly gone for several years, are active once again.

    Also, the remains that should be around are not.

    Maybe the death cult and the Necromancer were working together.

    I’m doing Lore 24, an attempt to write small lore elements daily in the year 2024. Each element will be something that’s come up in play or will come up in play within my homebrew World of the Everflow — there will be actionable threads for PCs to grab onto and advance the story.

  • Catacombs of the Lords of the End | Dungeon 23

    Catacombs of the Lords of the End | Dungeon 23

    After the intrepid explorers find the formerly sealed secret door they descend down into a small chamber using a ladder. That chamber is connected to a catacomb with 36 remaining alcoves for remains, four small doors to private burial chambers and a double door.

    The walls weep. Now somewhat below the waterline of the bog-city of Sheljar there is a heavy amount of moisture, plus the southwest corner is open to the brackish waters of the area. Outside of the open pool are a large pile of bones. It is clear that the opening is natural, not manmade.

    Created using Dungeon Scrawl.

    Possible learnings

    Intelligence checks attempting to understand what could make such a large opening could use Nature, History, Culture (Sheljar) to understand that damage was done by a Tunneling Nightmare (DC 15).

    Intelligence checks attempting to understand the alcoves and small doors could use Religion, Culture (Sheljar) to understand that the small doors are for former leadership of Sheljar (DC 10).

    Inspecting the bones using Survival or Perception would find that they are recent to the area, not covered in dust (DC 10) and there are now 4 skeletons attacking the group.

    Complications

    If 50% of the group takes enough damage to fall unconscious making death saves the roar of a Tunneling Nightmare echoes, partially muffled by the water.

    I’m doing Lore 24, an attempt to write small lore elements daily in the year 2024. Each element will be something that’s come up in play or will come up in play within my homebrew World of the Everflow — there will be actionable threads for PCs to grab onto and advance the story.

  • Temple of Oun and Obscon, the Lords of the End | Dungeon 23

    Temple of Oun and Obscon, the Lords of the End | Dungeon 23

    After the quick, safe ride on the sky-cable, you arrive at the top of a small tower. On the isle with the City Center this temple was abandoned when all of Sheljar turned their backs upon Oun and Obscon. These twin gods of death, endings, and darkness were rejected when the dead started to walk the earth again.

    The gondola stops atop the pillar shape of the temple, in a haphazard wooden frame, with large hole knocked out of the roof.

    Map by Dyson Logos, released as part of his commercially available project.

    This narrow temple is cramped for hobgoblins, mulgoblins, goliath and large animals. These tight turns in the cold stone pass quickly as most try to exit the dark temple to dark powers as fast as they can. Though the Necromancer had nothing to do with Oun and Obscon the stench of death is too strong.

    On the ground floor a search can result in finding the sealed secret door with an Intelligence check (DC 18). Intelligence, Culture (Sheljar), Religion are proficiencies that may apply if the characters act in ways that would connect them.

    That secret door is sealed tight with iron bands. A Strength check (DC 20) can break through. Athletics and certain tools will help open it. Magic could be used as well.

    If there is a desire to see how long that secret door has been sealed those that succeeded on the various checks would know that the seal is 25 years old, just as the Necromancer was coming to power. Is there a connection? Why not open the door and find out?

    Learn more about the Faiths of the Six Kingdoms here.

    I’m doing Lore 24, an attempt to write small lore elements daily in the year 2024. Each element will be something that’s come up in play or will come up in play within my homebrew World of the Everflow — there will be actionable threads for PCs to grab onto and advance the story.