Findings from Northmarch Keep

The expedition to Northmarch Keep went too well, if you ask me. The following notable items were recovered from the ruins after the party concluded committing war crimes:

Map Fragment

 

Log entry by Commander Tamara Vanova

15 September 647 A.R

We haven't heard from Stoneguard in nearly six months. I've sent Matyas and Lukas to make contact with the other posts, but they've been gone too long. Reports of goblins and giants in the northern parts of the region have me uneasy. Winter supplies are low - we've resorted to hunting mountain goats and pulling tubers from nearby streams. None of the provisions sent by Stoneguard have kept well in the dampness of these highlands."

The Journal of Hazdrubal

Hazdrubal is a PC-turned-NPC who was among the first to explore the lands to the north of Ram's Horn. What follows are his notes taken from his adventuring journal. 

Day 1, First Month of Spring

"The party, like the rest of everyone, has only a vague memory of their past.
After being driven north, a band of 400-500 refugees founds a makeshift town known as “Ram’s Horn,” after the goats and sheep that populate the craggy hills. It’s often informally called “Mudhole.”
A group of teenage boys goes hunting and scouting to the north, but do not return when they said they would. With little else to do, the party gathers and goes to find them.
The party finds a ruined site, apparently a temple, filled with statues of snake-headed humanoids. They find a severed hand and a knife at the entrance of an underground chamber.
The underground chamber extends quite a bit. There are rooms with coffins inside, along with statues that release poisonous gas.
The party explores further, ultimately finding the dead body of one of the teenagers, who had been killed by a trap. The party manages to evade the trap and go further into the temple, where they find a grotesque statue of a toad-like creature, presumably the temple’s deity.
Exploring further, the party encounters a large room featuring several snake statues surrounding a pit of some foul liquid. The mural on the walls depicts snakes falling from the sky and biting normal humans, under the watchful eye of the same grotesque toad diety.
Zorba, uncomfortable with the temple’s contents, goes to stand watch outside."

Day 2, First Month of Spring

"Party unchanged. The party returns to Ram’s Horn, bringing the effects of the boy they found. The party agrees that the town can’t afford to lose three more young men.
They head out to the north in an attempt to track the boys down. They follow the smoke of a large campfire, finding a group of cyclops.
The cyclops are preparing to cook the surviving three boys, but Combosto manages to convince them to hold off. The party promises to find giant meat, which the cyclops say is their favorite.
The party returns to Ram’s Horn and enlists the help of a mercenary in tracking down some giants. They manage to find a pair boxing in the hills.
The party proposes to the giants that they join forces to kill or expel the cyclops. After a brief standoff, the party agrees to disarm and meet the giants’ chieftain, Graf. Graf agrees to the alliance, but the party must agree to take back the chief’s severed arm from the cyclops’ lair.
Two teenage giants accompany the party back to the cyclops’ camp. The cyclops have already eaten one of the boys, leaving just two. However, the party easily defeats the cyclops by putting them to sleep, after which the giants dispatch them.
The remaining cyclops flee into the hills. The party sends the mercenary back to Ram’s Horn with the two survivors."

Day 4, First Day of Spring

"The party pursues the cyclops through the hills. During one night, they encounter some type of wilderness hermit who speaks an old version of a dialect known to Hasdrubal, however he flees into the night before they can get any information out of him.
A mage named Ruark joins the party.
After tracking them over a day or so, the party finds the cyclops’ main lair: a ruined castle. There appear to be at least a dozen cyclops inhabiting the ruin.
Not liking their odds of attacking the castle directly, the party returns to the giants’ lair and informs them of the cyclops’ location, hoping to forge an alliance with them to attack the cyclops. However, Graef rebukes them, not willing to risk his own number. Unable to change his mind, the party leaves the following morning. Graef reiterates his demand of the party retrieving his severed arm.
The party returns to Ram’s Horn and speaks with Clara Wolfheart, as close to a leader as the fledgling settlement has. Wolfheart rewards them for rescuing the surviving boys.
The party attempts to convince Wolfheart to meet with the giants to come to some sort of agreement regarding attacking the cyclops, but she is as reluctant as Graef. Hasdrubal suggests poisoning the cyclops’ water supply, prompting Wolfheart to direct them to an elderly herbalist who lives in the village.
Wolfheart asks the party to return to the snake-men’s temple, where several artifacts were retrieved. The village is nervous as to what the temple’s presence means and whether it may be dangerous."

On Day 17, the party returned to the Snake-Men's Temple. While exploring its contents, Hazdrubal was mutilated by a spear trap. He remains gravely injured but is recovering back at Ram's Horn.

Campaign Background

"The Old Realms have fallen to the twisted horrors and mystical aberrations of an arcane event. You and a few hundred survivors have fled north to the Basin, the northern edge of the Old Realms across the Winterwyne River, to make a new life in the hopes that the calamity will not spread further.

In the wake of the migration, duty calls. Your new settlement needs to be defended from threats unknown, and the land around you is as foreign as the lands across the sea. In the haste of your flight, maps and books on the Old Realms were tossed to make room for essential supplies. What’s more, this mass arcane aberration seems to have disrupted the collective memory of the survivors. As a result, even the lands you once called home are unfamiliar.

The caravan arrived in the early fall. Without a crop to harvest, you gathered what you could to prepare for the winter. When it came, you huddled around your fire inside your hastily-built mud house. You scraped by on spare oats and the small winter animals that you could catch. All around you, your neighbors succumbed to sickness and starvation. But you held out.

Now that spring has thawed the ice and snow, it’s time for the refugees to repair their homes and sow what few seeds they can. But a different fate awaits you. You feel the call of adventure. What lies within the highlands you’ve found yourselves in? What treasures might be glimmering in dark places? And what is the nature of the arcane aberration that drove you out of your home and into the north?"

- Introductory text from the Old Realms Player's Guide

What is the campaign about?

The Old Realms Campaign is an open-table, old-school roleplaying game using Necrotic Gnome's Old School Essentials ruleset. The characters are among the survivors of an arcane calamity that disrupted their memories and transformed the common creatures of the world into magical aberrations. After fleeing to the northern highlands, the survivors established the settlement of Ram's Horn. The PCs are using the shanty village as their base while they explore the surroundings. 

What were the Old Realms?

The namesake of the campaign refers to the lands from which the survivors fled. They were a collection of closely-related kingdoms and principalities united by a desire for peace and prosperity. They were as follows:  

• Pravdia: a land of rolling hills covered by dense evergreen forests. Pravdians primarily speak Common and Pravdi, their ancestral tongue. Pravdian names are similar to those found in the Czech Republic. 

• Avanolia: the heartland of the Old Realm. Gentle hills, scattered deciduous forests, and grasslands used for farming. European names with a twist.  

• Kezkaza: the western plains region. People here lived a semi-nomadic life. Armenian names. 

• Hiacenia, the Emerald Vales: Dense forested region to the south. Sylvari names. Traditionally, Hiacenians don’t have last names unless they earn them by accomplishing some great feat. 

Other peoples live beyond the borders of the Old Realm, but nobody in the settlement remembers who, what, or where they are.