Call of the Netherdeep
Characters knowledge
KRYN DYNASTY. The Kryn Dynasty is the dominant nation in Xhorhas. It was founded by a drow queen named Leylas Kryn, who fled the Underdark and the tyrannical rule of Lolth the Spider Queen along with her disciples. The Bright Queen still rules the dynasty centuries later, and its cities contain more than just drow. Orcs, goblinoids, tieflings, humans, and many others call the cities of the dynasty their home. Countless more denizens of the dynasty are nomads who roam the wastes in clans, hunting mastodons and other Xhorhasian megafauna.
JIGOW. This coastal settlement is actually a string of villages that are home to a collection of folk from all over Xhorhas. Goblin and orc clans founded Jigow, which explains why the settlement is governed by two elders—a goblin and an orc. The Aurora Watch (the military arm of the Kryn Dynasty) maintains a presence here, under the command of a drow called Taskhand Durth Mirimm. Townsfolk tend to be competitive, and friendly rivalries are commonplace. Most of Jigow’s residents live in a central region called the Jumble.
Neighborhoods…
* Meatwaters, main dock area on the shores of the Ifolon River.
* The Wetwalks, houses on stilts closest to the wetlands and marshes.
* The Jumble, densely populated among giant mangrove trees and houses on young horizonback tortoises.
Noteworthy locals…
* Durth Mirimm, Taskhand of the Aurora Watch, drow political liaison for Kryn Dynasty. (Think state sheriff.)
* Elder Ushru, orc tribal leader, civic and religious leader. (Think co-mayor.)
* Elder Colbu Kaz, goblin tribal leader, loves riddles and games. (Think co-mayor.)
THE LUXON. The official deity of the Kryn Dynasty, whose symbol appears on the nation’s heraldry, is the Luxon. This mysterious divine entity of light and rebirth has granted its faithful several esoteric secrets, the greatest of which is consecution—the act of preparing one’s soul for rebirth. Through consecution, some people within the Kryn Dynasty have lived many lifetimes, often in bodies different from the ones they were first born in. In the sequence of consecution, a drow might become a goblin, then be reborn as a bugbear, then an orc, and so on—all the while gaining greater knowledge about the world through their experiences. This process has no mechanical benefit, but players can make consecution and rebirth an interesting part of their characters’ backstories.
If a follower of the Luxon who has undergone the ritual of consecution dies within 100 miles of a Luxon beacon, their soul is ensnared by it and reincarnated within the body of a random Humanoid newborn within 100 miles of the beacon.
MYTHIC HISTORY: Proficiency in Religion or History automatically gets a character this knowledge…
Shortly after the gods formed the planet Exandria, Primordial titans attacked this new creation. A schism arose between those gods who wanted to abandon this world (those later called The Betrayer Gods) and those who stood to fight the elemental titans (those later called The Prime Deities). Some of the gods who would not fight even sided with the elemental Primordials and shared their fate when the Prime Deities were victorious, banishing their traitorous kin into secluded prison planes. These Betrayer Gods would remain restrained until the archmage Vespin Chloras freed them during the Age of Arcanum, setting off The Calamity of gods directly waging war across the mortal world. In the aftermath, the most lawful deities appeared before the City of Vasselheim (on the continent of Issylra) and announced a Divine Gate would block any god from manifesting directly on Exandria except through clerics and magical items later known as the Vestiges of Divergence.
THE PRIME DEITIES (who fought the Primordials)
* Avandra, The Change Bringer (CG) (Change, Freedom, Luck)
* Bahamut, The Platinum Dragon (LG) (Honor, Justice, Good Dragons)
* Corellon, The Arch Heart (CG) (Art, Beauty, Elves)
* Erathis, The Law Bearer (LN) (Civilization, Law, Peace)
* Ioun, The Knowing Mentor (N) (Knowledge, Learning, Teaching)
* Kord, The Storm Lord (CN) (Battle, Competition, Storms)
* Melora, The Wild Mother (N) (Seas, Wilderness)
* Moradin, The All-Hammer (LG) (Craft, Creation, Dwarves)
* Pelor, The Dawnfather (NG) (Healing, Sun)
* Sarenrae, The Everlight (NG) (Atonement, Compassion)
* Sehanine, The Moon Weaver (CG) (Illusion, Moonlight, Night, Wood Elves)
* The Raven Queen, The Matron of Death (LN) (Death, Fate, Winter)
THE BETRAYER GODS (who refused to fight the Primordials)
* Asmodeus, The Lord of the Nine Hells (LE) (Political Power, Devils)
* Bane, The Strife Emperor (LE) (Conquest, Tyranny)
* Gruumsh, The Ruiner (CE) (Slaughter, Warfare, Orcs)
* Lolth, The Spider Queen (CE) (Deceit, Spiders, underdark Drow)
* Tharizdun, The Chained Oblivion (CE) (Darkness, Destruction)
* Tiamat, The Scaled Tyrant (LE) (Evil Dragons) (Greed?)
* Torog, The Crawling King (NE) (Enslavement, Torture)
* Vecna, The Whispered One (NE) (Necromancy, Secrets)
* Zehir, The Cloaked Serpent (CE) (Assassins, Poison, Snakes)
ANCIENT HISTORY: No proficiency needed to know this info, it’s the much-simplified version of history told in oral traditions and tales to children.
In the beginning, the gods came and seized upon primordial chaos, creating the world Exandria and populating it with mortal beings (first elves, then dragons, later came humans, and so forth). About 1,000 years ago, mortals became so powerful with magic during a time called the Age of Arcanum that they challenged the gods themselves, accidentally releasing the evil Betrayer Gods that had been held in check by the good and neutral Prime Deities. War escalated until many gods themselves walked the world, causing an apocalypse known as The Calamity and ending with The Divergence, a permanent ban on divine beings physically entering the prime material plane.
RECENT HISTORY: It is now the year 836 PD (“Post-Divergence”) on the continent of Wildemount, a year into the ceasefire between the Dwendalian Empire in the west and the Kryn Dynasty in the east. Tensions between the two states had been building for decades, and after an inciting flashpoint involving stolen relics, both sides suffered violent losses during eight months of open warfare until the truce was made.
The adventure begins in a rural northern coastal area of Xhorhas, the home nation of the Kryn Dynasty. This land was once the seat of power for many evil gods during The Calamity, though hundreds of generations later the goblin, drow, and orc decedents of those monstrous armies now live together in peace and prosperity. Kryn military forces known as the Aurora Watch patrol against the dangerous demons and mutant creatures that still roam the local wilderness.
ELSEWHERE AROUND THE WORLD…
* Wildemount: Your home continent, largely divided among the Dwendalian Empire (think: pre-Aragorn Gondor) in the west, Kryn Dynasty/Xhorhas (think: a recovered post-Sauron Mordor) in the east, and The Clovis Concord trade empire (naval merchant princes) along the southern coast.
* Tal’Dorei: Continent beyond the seas to the far west; feudal lands of humans, elves, and hobgoblins.
* Marquet: Continent beyond the seas to the south; lands of deserts and mountains, exotic merchants and scholars.
* Issylra: Continent beyond the seas, on the other side of the planet; mostly wilderness and home to the world’s “cradle of civilization” in ancient times.
* The Underdark: Subterranean regions with significant connections to the alien Far Realm.
* Catha: Exandria’s bright moon, very similar to Earth’s moon in size, cycles, and mythic significance (lycanthropy, sacred to some elves).
* Ruidus: Exandria’s smaller red moon, an unpredictable object associated with strange magics, curses, and overall bad luck.
FYI: The module begins with characters meeting in Jigow, a fishing town on the far northern coast of Xhorhas, during the fun-filled day-long party called the Festival of Merit.
EXANDRIA-WIDE ORGANIZATIONS. I’m just listing these here as non-Xhorhas options if anyone wants to expand their character’s background beyond the scope of the adventure set-up…
* Library of the Cobalt Soul, guild-ish independent archivists and archaeologists.
* The Ashari, elementalists who guard rifts between the Elemental Planes and Exandria.
* The Claret Orders, secretive users of blood magic (blood clerics, blood mages, blood hunters) who seek to destroy undead.
* Houses of Kraghammer, ancient ancestral dwarven subterranean city-state below Tal’Dorei. (Pretty much the only dwarf community in Exandria?)
* The Myriad, an organized crime organization active on the continents of Wildemount (Dwendalian and Clovis Concord lands) and Tal’Dorei.
Exandria timeline
Years are noted in relation to The Divergence (negative years before the event, positive years following it).
Mythic past … The Founding: Several gods (and/or The Luxon) conflict with chaotic elemental titans called Primordials. Exandria is given order and shaped. Mortals are created, after which the primordials attempt to destroy the new world. The gods split between Prime Deities (who defended mortals and order) and Betrayer Gods (who sided with the Primordials to return to chaos). Losers in this conflict are imprisoned until The Calamity.
-2,000 PD (approx.) … Age of Arcanum begins as mortals master the art of magic.
-665 PD (approx.) … Age of Arcanum nears its peak. Magic users learn to manipulate the flow of time.
-480 PD (approx.) … The City of Avalir atop Mount Ygora in Domunas breaks off and becomes a flying metropolis.
-310 PD (approx.) … A mortal mage usurps the God of Death and becomes The Raven Queen.
-290 PD (approx.) … The archmage Vecna, a native from the planet Oerth, becomes active on Exandria. Vecna draws many followers before retreating with them into the Shadowfell, possibly part of his multiverse-altering plan to achieve supreme divinity over the cosmos. (Vecna is also active in the Demiplanes of Dread/Ravenloft, Oerth/Greyhawk, Toril/The Forgotten Realms, and Sigil, the City of Doors/Planescape campaign settings prior to the events of Die, Vecna, Die!)
-190 PD (approx.) … The Calamity begins when the archmage Vespin Chloras and others unseal Asmodeus from his prison. Soon all Betrayer Gods are freed to return to the mortal world. Elemental rifts burst open across Exandria. War between gods rages across the mortal realm, destroying civilization and almost wiping out mortalkind. Only the first human city of Vasselheim (aka The Dawn City, The Cradle of Creation) on the continent of Issylra survives into the modern era. The continent of Domunas is shattered, leaving only an archipelago of scattered islands now known as The Shattered Teeth. The continents of Tal’Dorei, Wildemount, and Marquet suffer major topographical and climatic changes.
1 PD (approx.) … The Calamity ends when the Betrayer Gods are defeated at their stronghold of Ghor Dranas (now the modern Kryn Dynasty capital of Rosohna along the southern edge of the Barbed Fields region of Xhorhas). The Divergence seals all deities off from directly entering the mortal realm. Exandria’s ley lines are shifted.
After The Calamity … Mortals slowly recover and again settle across the continents of Tal’Dorei, Wildemount, Issylra, and Marquet. The Library of the Cobalt Soul, a religious/scholastic order, forms to rediscover knowledge lost during The Calamity.
445 PD (approx.) … The City of Ank’Harel is founded on Marquet by the mysterious J’mon Sa Ord. Around the same time, Zehir cultists seal the elder thing Uk’otoa under the ocean floor.
500 PD (approx.) … Archeologists increase study of relics found around the City of Ank’Harel.
725 PD (approx.) … Archeologists formally form a guild called the Allegiance of Allsight in Ank’Harel. Headmaster of the Crystal Chateau James Cryon is a founding member.
809 to 810 PD … A Briarwood noble is revealed to be a necromantic cult leader seeking to help Vecna achieve godhood over Exandria. Four dragons form the Chroma Conclave and prey upon the lands of Tal’Dorei. (Adventures of Vox Machina, pre-show and Critical Role Campaign 1.)
823 PD … Apex War fought in Marquet between the Stratos Throne and the Court of the Lambent Path.
830 PD (approx.) … Consortium of the Vermilion Dream society forms in Ank’Harel to collect and study an exotic red mineral called Ruidium.
835 to 836 PD … The War of Ash and Light fought across Wildemount between the western Dwendalian Empire and the eastern Kryn Dynasty. The conflict ends in a truce with little change in national borders.
Rivals
Catha and Ruidus
When the people gaze into the morning sky, they see the sun, a blazing disc the size of a gold piece, looking back at them. It is the domain of the Dawnfather, a god of life and light honored politely by nearly all the realm’s denizens. At night, the skies are filled with countless distant stars, a gleaming silver-white moon called Catha, and occasionally, a dim, ruddy moon called Ruidus that is nearly half Catha’s size. Both moons are the domain of the Moonweaver, a capricious god of trickery and illusions, but there are sects throughout the world that believe only Catha represents the Moonweaver’s cunning and grace. Catha’s pearly glow is said to bless the just with cunning and caution, and to make hidden the goodhearted when they require stealth and subtlety. Ruidus, the second moon of Exandria, is much smaller and farther away. With a slower rotation around the world and dark redbrown coloring, Ruidus is often difficult to see among the stars of the night sky and nearly impossible to spot during the day. Little is known of Ruidus, though older cultures and texts speak of it as an omen of ill tidings, or even a remnant of a Betrayer God plot left abandoned and unrealized. Ruidus is so surrounded by disquieting rumors and folkloric tales of misfortune that some believe another unknown god or power rules this small, reddish-brown moon.
"During the Founding, a time when the gods still walked the face of Exandria, the world's divine creators discovered an unidentifiable power seeping through the fabric of reality. Legends assert that this alien influence was a threat to all life on Exandria, and the gods banded together to banish it. This cancerous incursion of dark power is said to have crystallized into Ruidus, the small, vermilion moon that hangs in the sky along with Catha, the world's natural moon. The gods agreed to create a tale about Ruidus to conceal its alien origin from the mortals of the world, informing them that it was a moon of ill omen, and its magical influence was always to be avoided. This tale concocted by the gods was not a lie, for Ruidus's alien magic twists the fate of those who are born or embark on ventures while bathed in its vermilion light."
Cultures around the world tell countless legends of prideful rulers who made grand plans or attempted deeds under the moon’s full light—when it shines a brilliant vermilion rather than its usual ruddy color—and were forced to watch in horror as their endeavors fell to unforeseen misfortune. It is said those who fall afoul of Ruidus failed to give it the deference it is due—and so superstitious folk rarely dare to make plans while the full light of Ruidus shines above, let alone enact them. Worse yet, some tales forebode dark fortunes for those born under the light of a full Ruidus, a curse of ill luck that will follow them throughout their lives. Though the cruel practice of moon-sacrifice is no longer permitted in any city, some far-flung settlements still secretly sacrifice children born under a full Ruidus to “save” them from a cursed life, and to appease the dark and unknowable appetites of the red moon. Fortunately for the superstitious, Ruidus is rarely full. While its cousin, Catha, completes a full cycle approximately once a month, Ruidus’s haunting, halfyear orbit, combined with its eerie and unexplainable tendency to simply not appear in the sky on certain nights or glow with unknown light, creating an unexpected full moon, has only added to its mythic reputation as an omen of ill fortune.
"O Ruidus, grant humble chorus leave
To sing the song which hails the zenith of
Your accurséd, thrice-blessed Apotheon;
Remember’d best by deeds in war, and yet
Whose acts were driven oft by fate most foul.
His kindly brow bore gifts from gods
of change,
And art, and moon, yet in his soul was pain,
The suffering of your vermilion light
Drove the Paragon to a desert realm
Bestrewn with blades and drenched
in crimson blood.
So hear, O moon of curséd deeds and fates!
The song of he who rose above your great
And mighty pow'r, to save Exandria.
From flames of war fanned by the Ruiner's blade."
Jigow
Bazzoxan
Population: 2,610 (81% dark elves, 8% goblinoids, 11% other races)
Government: Martial law is enforced by Taskhand Verin Thelyss and maintained by the local military.
Defense: The Aurora Watch defends the town and keeps the demonic incursions at bay. The few citizens learn combat skills out of necessity.
Commerce: Very basic supplies are available, if scarce, due to the dangerous circumstances surrounding the town. Most trade involves provisions and goods for survival and defense.
Organizations: There are a number of partially destroyed temples and a handful of small ones that are still intact.
Bazzoxan was once a dark temple instrumental in the machinations of the Betrayer Gods during the Calamity, but the remaining ruin was left to gather dust like many relics of those terrible times. After Ghor Dranas was claimed by the Kryn, settlers roamed north through the Barbed Fields to discover this site with hopes of renovating it as well. A community began to flourish within
the ruins of Bazzoxan over a few generations, building the foundations of a new city around the looming stone structures of the abandoned sanctum-until demonic forces from within the old temple threw the burgeoning society into chaos. Bazzoxan is now perpetually locked in a stalemate between the dynasty's forces and the abyssal incursion from within the temple. This unholy site is the subject of constant research and of growing worry for the dynasty.
Never left alone
About forty years ago, a group of curious local dungeoneers uncovered a long-dormant gateway to the Abyss. Its demonic influence drove them mad, and they accidentally reactivated the gateway of Bazzoxan-an immense rift between the Abyss and Exandria. This enabled demonic forces to pour out into the ruins and surrounding city. The incursion was eventually stifled,
though at a great loss of life. The civilians that remain in Bazzoxan support the warriors who keep the forces of the Abyss at bay, as well as the arcanists who work to reseal the rift and reclaim the city.
Government
The town is under martial law, with Aurora Watch soldiers keeping the peace under the current governance of Taskhand Verin Thelyss. The taskhand's lieutenants serve as minor officials and bureaucrats, and even the civilians who continue to stay are trained to defend themselves and fall into rank if malevolent forces rise from beneath their home.
Crime
With the tension of living in constant fear of demonic threat, the focus on survival in Bazzoxan leaves little room to break the law for personal gain. Even so, the rare grifter sometimes profits from gouging the price of provisions or swindling the fearful. Criminals who are caught by the Watch are sent south to Rosohna for punishment or simply executed, depending on the severity of their crimes.
Geography
The towering ruined temple sits against the rocky southern base of the Penumbra Range, carved directly from the natural stone of the mountains. The ominous onyx doors that lead into the heart of the temple remain barred and under constant watch. Surrounding the temple are over a hundred abodes and structures, as well as a partially reconstructed town square. Construction equipment lies abandoned in the streets, and vacant homes sit untouched since their denizens were slain or forced to flee. Makeshift Aurora Watch barracks are continuously expanded to make room for the reinforcements sent to push back the fiends that assail the city from beneath.