The Everwyrm, the Reviled One, the White Dwarf Tavern and More
Welcome to the Sunday Supplement, Raging Swan Press’s weekly email for GMs. This week, we have one free download, one piece of legendry, one piece of lore and three miscellaneous campaign components for your game.
(I’d love to know what you think of this new format for the Sunday Supplement; please leave a comment below.)
01: Skeleton Coast Colourised Maps
Download
An isolated point of light amid the savage dark of the Wilderlands, Solonor Island—a haven and bulwark for humanity and its allies—is ever in need of heroes to push back the forces of evil seeking to overwhelm it. Scores of miles from the nearest friendly port, the Citadel on the Wilderlands and Solonor Island are a rare safe harbour on the storm-wracked, danger-haunted Skeleton Coast. Civilisation’s light has never burned bright in this part of the world. Trackless forests, rugged hills, noisome mires and sodden moors run along the Skeleton Coast. Further inland, the mysterious, rumour-choked rock pillars of the Gray Spires thrust skywards as they have since time immemorial.
Opportunities for gold, glory, and death gather thick upon the Skeleton Coast.
GM Richard LeDuc colourised the Skeleton Coast maps for his game and has very kindly allowed us to share them here. Thank you, Richard—I think they look amazing!
02 Asheldon, the Everwyrm
Ashlarian Legendry
He Who Endures, the Everwyrm, the Undying One
Asheldon was the mightiest and most learned of the draconic sorcerers of old; a legendary figure, his knowledge and magical powers were said to be boundless. Most who know of him believe Asheldon is long dead—he last appears in ancient chronicles about 700 years ago—while others claim the Archwyrm found a way to cheat death. Other persistent myths tell how he slumbers in the mythical Auntyr-Mal (“Knowledge Vault” in the dragon tongue)—his ancient fastness—or perhaps upon the lost island of Eir-Guth (“Hidden Fortress” in the dragon tongue)—awaiting a time of great need when even the mighty dragons will face annihilation at the hands of some unnamed, terrible enemy from Beyond the Stars.
Heroes and villains alike still seek Asheldon's lair, for not only had the ancient dragon accumulated a hoard of legendary proportions, but he was also said to guard the greatest collection of lore in history. Surviving accounts recorded by now long-dead heroes and wizards who studied under or consulted He Who Endures speak in hushed, awe-struck tones of cavernous halls filled with uncountable books full of elder lore and spell-craft written in long-dead languages.
03 Emrikol the Reviled
Ashlarian Lore
Enrikol the Reviled came to the nascent settlement of Dulwich in 162 NR following hints in ancient, worm-riddled texts of foul provenance that the town stood upon the buried ruin of another, far older site. The region's deep, long history fascinated the black-hearted wizard, and he craved to learn its secrets.
Emrikol built his home over the ruin of an even older structure and began his subterranean delvings and doings. Like most obsessed with power, Emrikol chose the easy, dark path. Sacrifices and compromises had to be made, and Emrikol gladly made them in his quest.
Although surpassingly powerful, Emrikol was not loved by his neighbours, who gifted him his epithet—the Reviled. They suspected him (correctly) of unwholesome practices of the blackest and foulest sorts. In 191 NR, when Emrikol had not been seen for over a year, his neighbours gathered their courage and acted—burning down his house, slaying his apprentices and forever—they thought—wiping away his stain from the town. (This event is immortalised in the yet-popular ballad Burn the House Down.) They were wrong.
04 Cult of Valam Deszeld
Campaign Component (Cult)
The Cult of Valam Deszeld—literally Cult of the Dragon Queen—are (or were) a cabal of wizards, priests and other degenerates who worshipped the Queen of All Evil Dragons—Tiamat. They dwelt in isolated places—fortified monasteries, mighty citadels, and the like—and served and protected evil dragons. Their agents were abroad in the world, removing threats to their mistress, gathering treasures and so on.
The cult is now thought extinct, but remnants of its allegiance and devotion persist. Sages identify certain far-flung, crumbling ruins as once being centres of the cult's worship, and certain items of power and tomes or knowledge yet survive in various collections across the world.
Members of the cult identified themselves through the display of special coins. On the face of it, these coins seemed to be nothing but old, slightly oversized silver or gold coins from a distant land. However, they were not wrought from metal but from the preternally hard bones of slain good-aligned dragons. With a dragon's head on one side and the draconic sigil for "faith" on the other, these tokens have a thin silver or gold coating, enabling them to pass—to the untrained eye—as normal coins. Dragons always recognise these coins for what they are. Adventurers sometimes find the cult's coins intermixed with other treasures in old hoards and the like and pass them on without realising their significance or provenance.
Some learned folk believe that the cult is not dead and that its remaining members yet serve their mistress.
05 The White Dwarf Tavern
Campaign Component (Tavern)
Marked by a sign obviously painted for comedic effect, the White Dwarf tavern is a well-known drinking den. Previously named the Prancing Pegasus, the regulars changed the tavern's name to celebrate the ignoble fate of an arrogant dwarf warrior who once drank within.
The dwarf—whose name is lost to fading memories—visited the tavern decades ago. While drinking several locals under the table, he listened to the local legends of a haunted, cursed cave a few miles away. Pouring scorn on the regulars for not exploring the place, he vowed to end the mystery of what lay within.
The warrior returned a few days later a changed dwarf—his skin and hair bleached white, and his reason snapped by whatever he had encountered in the cave. Driven mad, he soon wandered off, never to return. To mark the event, the barkeep changed the tavern's name, and the legend of the haunted, cursed cave continued to grow with each retelling.
06 Fonthill
Campaign Component (Hamlet and Adventure Locale)
A ruined church—the victim of a terrible and savage but unrecorded fire an unknown length of time ago—stands atop a craggy, wind-worried hill overlooking the farming hamlet of Hillside. It stands thus as it ever has—a jagged, ignored remnant of a faith fallen into obscurity. Tumbled stones, too large to move easily, lie amid the wildflowers, leafless shrubs, and coarse grass growing over the hill.
However, amid the blackened walls and tumbled stones the church's high altar and font yet stand. The crude font and altar are old and both predate the church built around them. The rough-hewn altar is immense—ten feet long, five feet high and four feet wide. Faint runes, blurred and smoothed by uncountable rainstorms, decorate the font's rim. The runes are unreadable but clearly of elder artifice. Water still trickles forth from the font, and in the autumn and spring, the ruins are a boggy morass of mud, while in the winter, a frozen puddle oft-fills the church.
Sheep farmers from Hillside use the ruin as a pen for their charges when wolves are in the area, having filled the gaps in the ruin's walls with crude wooden fencing. They have no idea what lurks in the bowels of the hill below the ruin.
Ashlarian (proper noun) of Ashlar; Campaign (noun) a connected series of adventures; Component (noun) a constituent part; Legendry (noun) a collection or body of legends; Lore (noun) knowledge and stories about a subject
Thank you for reading the Sunday Supplement; I hope some of the above material makes it into your game or sparks your creativity.
Remember, Everything is Better with Tentacles!
Want the Markdown Files? Every member of our Patreon campaign gets the markdown files for the new-look Sunday Supplements to make it even easier to add them to their campaign.