I am currently detailing a world for use by a party of adventurers currently at 9th level. I continue to present the world and an adventure path to go with it this month. The setting started in August of 2013 with the playtest docs for D&D Next. This world uses maps (but not the world details) from Al-Qadim: Ruined Kingdoms and the last version of the D&D Next playtest rules available in PDF with D&D Next adventures.

More Backgrounds

Last month I provided some Riv-specific backgrounds for Riv natives. Here are the rest.

Industrial Accident

Sawmills are hard on workers with hangovers. You got a little too close to the pulping wheel and it pulled you in. How you survived you can't even begin to guess, but your scarred left arm and face remind everyone that you lived when you should have died. Maybe it would have been better that way, but you don't think so. You plan to live.

Trait—Scarred by the Man: Since you come from the ranks of the common folk and were injured serving a man of great wealth and power, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

Skills: Athletics, Deception, Medicine

Tools: artisan's tool (woodworking), disguise kit, healer's kit

Left for Dead

Everyone was slaughtered. You were wounded and should have died as well. You crawled out of the bodies. You live. But in your mind, you always seem to be trying to get away from that time of hell and blood. You try to find reason in religion, even though the gods only whisper now. Sometimes you play music to drown out the screams that still echo in your mind. The gods speak to you when you play.

Trait—Tragic Performer: You can always find a place to perform, usually in an inn or tavern. At such a place, you receive free lodging and food (within reason) as long as you perform each night. In addition, your performance makes you something of a local figure. When strangers recognize you in a town where you have performed, they typically take a liking to you until your drinking and/or rambling about the lost gods turns them away. The fringe element (village idiots, local drunks, beggars) will always stick by you and they know a lot more than most people think. You can even understand their rambling speech.

Skills: Perform, Persuasion, Religion

Tools: disguise kit, musical instrument

Languages: Sylvan

Natural Born Killer

When people push you, you hurt them. When people threaten you, you kill them. You're good at it. Whether you like or not is a question you are afraid to try to answer

Trait—History of Violence: No matter where you go, people are afraid of you due to your connections to the dangerous criminal underworld or your bad reputation. When you are in a place of civilization, you can get away with minor criminal offenses, such as refusing to pay for food at a tavern or breaking down doors at a local shop, since most people will not report your activity to the authorities.

Skills: Intimidate, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

Tools: poisoner's kit, thieves' tools

Languages: Orc

Natural Disaster

You were trapped with others. It might have been a blizzard, a forest fire, a tornado, or a wild bear. Whatever force of nature it was, it destroyed everyone except for you. You will never forget the fury and cruelty of nature at its worst. You are always ready but you no longer feel comfortable staying in one place too long.

Trait—Wanderer: You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.

Skills: Athletics, Nature, Survival

Tools: herbalism kit, horse, navigator's tools

Ruined Reputation

You worked hard. You had a life. Did you do something to the person who destroyed your reputation and took your life from you? You don't know. You don't know what you did. You don't know who ruined you. But you have had everything stripped from you once. You won't allow that to happen again.

Trait—False Identity and Forgery: You have created a second identity that includes documentation and established acquaintances. Additionally, you can forge documents including official papers and personal letters in a specific person's handwriting as long as you have seen an example of the kind of document you are trying to copy.

Skills: Disguise, Sleight of Hand, Search

Tools: disguise kit, poisoner's kit, thieves' tools

Sole Survivor

Everyone else died. You survived. You live with the nightmares and the guilt. And despite it all, you would be willing to do whatever it takes to live if death was claiming everyone around you again.

Trait—Refuse to Die: You always seem to find a way to survive. If your life is threatened, you can find concealment (within reason). If you need shelter you always seem to find a barn to sleep in or a rowboat to anchor away from shore (within reason).

Skills: Perception, Stealth, Survival

Tools: healer's kit, horse, navigator's tools

The West, The Haunted Lands

Shown on the larger map, the Haunted Lands are also called the West. The great capitol of Anbegriffon, Huzuz City of Delights, has fallen into ruin and its empire of Amperia has fallen. The League of Pantheon, a very loose collection of settlements, has risen from the dust of a lost kingdom.

The League of Pantheon

Nestled between the ruins of the Hilm, City of Kindness and Talab, City of Questing is the League of Pantheon. Ancient myth claims the return of the gods will spring from the outcasts and the dregs of the tough people of this land and that they will usher in the return of civilization to the world of Riv. Decades ago, the Leaguers bent the knee in fealty to Huzuz, City of Delights. The decadent capitol of the Empire of Amperia, the Great Anvil, was sprawled across the east, built on the ruined colonies of an ancient ruined realm to the west now simply called the High Desert. A kingdom of color castes, Huzuz was a realm where everyone had a place and everyone knew their place, for weal or woe. Colorless are those driven out of caste; some, the Driven, become the adventurers and sellswords that take on jobs no one else wants or can handle. Huzuz fell when its once fertile lands turned to dust, the gods themselves turned away, and reptilian monsters of all kinds began devouring villages, towns, and cities. The land itself heaved in agony and chunks of the earth shot into the air. Many sky isles still hang suspended above the desert to this day. Occasionally one falls from the sky bringing fresh ruin. Legend says a dark curse tore down the empire and drove the gods away. Today, the Leaguers have no one to send tribute to. However, they also have no one to send in the soldiers when danger threatens and no trade with far-flung colonies. The Leaguers are completely on their own. Despite the changes and isolation, the Color Castes continue and Colorless and the Driven still spring from the League.

Talab, Ruined City of Quests

Leaguers who want to try to make myth reality start with a quest to the City of Quests. True heroes can claim a mythic quest and forge a new destiny for their world. So far, no heroes have returned to the League to change the world for the better. Prophecy predicts that Colorless will enter Talab and wrest secrets from its dusty streets and haunted buildings. Perhaps an expedition to the Barrier Peaks, gateway to the Utter East, will give Colorless the change to forge a new realm of their own, free of the shadow of the Color Castes. If the Driven can survive.

The Utter East, Ruined Kingdoms

The Barrier Peaks

A forbidding range of tall peaks in the northern reach of Al'Sayaj Mountains, the Mountains of Desolation. Helps to separate the lands of the Great Anvil and the League from the coast of the Sullen Sea. From the eastern slopes of the Barrier Peaks, the Nogaro River flows south to the tiefling city of Kadarasto, City Most Sinister, and on to Dihliz, Gateway City, once filled with mechanical soldiers and their bizarre geometric masters, before finally emptying into the Sullen Sea. A strange, terrifying, and haunted ruined fort marks the transition to the Utter East. Anyone who can reclaim the fort would be well on the way to forging a new kingdom out of the ruins of the old world.

Upcoming Columns

The Barrier Peaks. Rules for characters at 9th level or higher such as armies, strongholds, followers, other planes, or other options. Drive on,
Charlie