The world of Riv strains under a curse that has laid waste to the land and crippled the minds of divine casters. A heroic effort by a third tier party may reduce the power of the curse and lay the groundwork for lifting it completely when they enter the fourth tier of play at 17th level.

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 along with the D&D Basic PDF and D&D Starter Set rules.

This column continues to develop a high level world for D&D and is converting to 5th edition as the new rules roll out. This month will be the last column without full access to the new Player's Handbook. Next month, the new rules will be available.

The God Curse

The world that the party adventures in, Riv, labors under the God Curse. This curse makes preparing divine spells an exercise in madness and has driven worship of deities away from the world. The major quest for the PCs is to end the God Curse.

World of Riv

This description applies to the world of Riv as the campaign started. With 14th-level characters, the fort of Dragonflight Castle has been claimed. The next step is to adventure over the Barrier Peaks and work to lift the lingering effects of the God Curse.

Despair Deck
The despair deck found in Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond works well to represent the effects of the God Curse on divine casters. Here are the rules for using the deck. Following those rules are translations of any 4E rules over to D&D Next for any card that does not translate directly.

1. After completing a long rest, a divine make a despair save. Saves are rolled using magic ability plus proficiency bonus versus DC 21. A natural 20 counts as 2 successes and a natural 1 removes a success (or increases the number needed to 4 if no successes have yet been made).
2. A caster needs 3 total successes to become immune to despair. Instead of a success, a caster can take a boon but it does not count toward the needed 3 successes.
3. If a divine caster has prepared divine spells and is not immune to despair, a caster draws a despair card and keeps it until completing the next long rest.

Drowsy boon: You can make an opportunity attack against an opponent that disengages.

Indifferent: You cannot gain advantage until you overcome this despair effect. Indifferent key skill: Deception.
Indifferent boon: You cannot suffer disadvantage until the end of your next long rest.

Lethargic: You take a -2 penalty to Constitution saves until you overcome this despair effect.
Lethargic key skill: athletics.
Lethargic boon: You gain a +2 bonus to Constitution saves until the end of your next long rest.

Sluggish: an adjustment to speed of 1 equal 5 feet.

Unconcerned; You take a -2 penalty to Dexterity saves until you overcome this despair effect.
Unconcerned key skill: sleight of hand.
Unconcerned boon: You gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity saves until the end of your next long rest.

Craven key skill: Survival.

Frail: Vulnerability/resistance to piercing and slashing attacks.
Frail key skill: athletics.

Insomnia: You can only spend up to half your maximum number of hit dice during a short rest. You only regain a quarter of your hit dice after a long rest. This card is not discarded as normal at the end of a long rest.
Insomnia boon: You regain all your hit dice at your next long rest.

Jittery: you are intoxicated during your first turn in combat until you overcome this despair effect.
Jittery key skill: search.

Paranoid: replace Will with Wisdom saves.

Phobic: instead of a change of 1 to defenses, AC changes by 2.

Scared Stiff: you provoke an opportunity attack if you disengage from a Large or larger enemy until you overcome this effect.
Scarred Stiff boon: replace immobilized with restrained.

Covetous: you suffer disadvantage if you attack a target with another enemy of that target within 5 feet of it and that enemy is able to take actions.
Covetous key skill: sleight of hand
Covetous boon: After you overcome this despair effect, you gain advantage if you attack a target with another enemy of that target within 5 feet of it and that enemy is able to take actions.

Haunted boon: You suffer disadvantage (or gain advantage) when rolling to prevent being inflicted with the conditions of Charmed or Frightened. Until the next long rest.

Jealous: Until you overcome this despair effect, you cannot use the help action.
Jealous boon: After you overcome this despair effect, if you use the help action you gain advantage (if applicable) on your action in the next round. Until the next long rest.

Quarrelsome: Until you overcome this despair effect, an enemy gains advantage against you if you have an ally within 5 feet of you.
Quarrelsome key skill: deception.
Quarrelsome boon: Until your next long rest, you can use the help action as a swift action.

Reckless: You cannot roll hit dice during a short rest or dodge.
Reckless boon: You can use second wind as a fighter. If you are a fighter, you gain a second use of second wind. Until your next long rest.

Squeamish boon: -1 (+1) to hit creatures that are not at maximum hit points.

Wrathful boon: one enemy within 5 feet of you and able to take actions gains advantage (suffers disadvantage) against you.

The West, The Haunted Lands

As the player characters prepare to cross the Barrier Peaks they continue to explore the Haunted Lands. While the place names on the Al-Qadim: Ruined Kingdoms maps are the same, the descriptions are changed as follows to work for the world of Riv.

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 it's 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 utterly 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, 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.

The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb
The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb lies beyond the Barrier Peaks and in the Utter East. The dungeon holds an artifact called the mud ring. If the evil entity of elemental earth and water that created the mud ring has its influence over the ring broken, that action will break part of the curse afflicting Riv.

D&D 5e

As of this writing, D&D 5E has released rules and setting support in many forms. Twenty-five pages of the new Player's Handbook have been revealed. The entire equipment chapter from the PH is in the D&D Basic PDF. And the new D&D website details in story form many of the races, classes, and monsters iconic to D&D along with new art. The monsters are amazing. The website also features five heroes whose story and art inspire me as a D&D player and make me want to game right now.

I have been on a long journey with 5E from not wanting to have anything to do with the playtest, to trying the playtest, to being drawn into and loving the playtest. I resisted the idea of getting the actual rules and considered moving over to Castles & Crusades. $150 is a lot of money. I purchased three different sets of core rulebooks (nine books total) in a span of time less than a decade for 3E, 3.5, and 4E. That is a lot of rehashed rules and books I will never use again.

But the previews that started coming out for 5E drew me in. And continue to do so. The price tag is steep to get into D&D 5E. I don't want to get burned again with a half edition or an essentials edition coming in a few years.

However, I think that if the three core rulebooks are done well I can survive any future changes I don't like. I didn't buy one essentials book for 4E but I was able to run my 4E campaign without them with no problems. If necessary, I can do the same thing if a 5.5 debuts.

I hope, though, that that doesn't happen. I hope that 5E continues with a slower TRPG book release rate and that what is released is so good that many DMs and players will struggle to resist buying the newest thing for D&D.

Whatever happens, I am close to meeting one of two goals I always wanted to achieve way back when I started this column. One goal was to get a D&D campaign to 20th level using a world of my own devising, something I haven't done since 1E. I am close with D&D Next and when we convert to 5E I plan to meet that goal and really test out the new rules.

My other goal, the focus of this column, is to build a living and breathing D&D world that supports play not just to the mythical 20th level once. But in further campaigns develops the same world and watches it grow.

Riv will not be that world as I made it quickly just for the playtest. My goal after Riv supports D&D play to 20th level is to start a new world with 5E and see if I can keep in going for most or all of my future D&D campaigns.

If things work out, I'll document the journey from 14th level to 20th level using D&D 5E here. And then I'll start a new world for D&D 5E and detail that endeavor here when my work on the world of Riv concludes.

Drive on,
Charlie