Hellhest

Congratulations on your appointments all, Hellhest welcomes you. As dictated by the Kaiser, you are all granted the titles of Baron or Baroness under the peerage of Numburg. This is a slightly unusual situation I must admit, as we typically have had a ruling family rather than a .. erm.. band of… Ahem. Regardless, in his infinite wisdom, the Kaiser (praise be his name) has a rather excellent solution to this novel complication: You are to be a ruling council. This is particularly excellent sires, as following Godsfall, many of our experienced and well-regarded experts were assassinated by that traitorous Mario. Thus we have a number of key positions that require immediate attention and crises to be dealth with. My undersecretary shall explain. I would request that you pay attention closely, as these are decisions that will affect not just this council , but all of the subjects you now rule over.

Hellhest:

  1. Read your strongholds and followers supplement to see your unique benefits – what exactly does the warlocks Thane provide? And the Druids grove?
  2. Rules for mass combat exist now, and shall be provided by your faithful DM if/when required. They are ultra-streamlined and one page thankfully. It is very difficult for a single hero to kill a unit. Even you guys. To fight an army, you will need an army.
  3. Hellhest has Stats! These are summarised on the Barony page in roll20, and below
  4. A number of key positions are now available to be filled in the barony.
    • General – in charge of military
    • Master of coin – in charge of economic affairs
    • Magister- in charge of arcane matters
    • Regent – in charge of maintaining order and stability
    • Grand diplomat – in charge of foreign relations
    • Curator – deals with cultural matters
  5. Decisions will need to be made by the responsible council member as issues are raised. Thanks to liberal use of the “message” spell this information can be relayed to you as you gallivant around Vaul and your decisions implemented in your absence. Thus these will predominantly feature on whatsapp as a “minigame” so to speak. The format will be roughly
    • The problem is presented to the relevant duke
    • Your advisers may suggest possible solutions. This will require a skill check if you are in the barony as you can see to it yourself. Failing this, you can assign one of your followers to perform the skill check if you are absent. If your followers are off adventuring, its just a straight d20
    • You can suggest your own solution, and the DM will generate appropriate reward/penalty/DC depending on the solution and proposed skill
    • The skills required will broadly align with the council position ( so military roles may require martial and strategic skills, arcane roles require more arcane , intelligence based skills) but if you can justify your skill of choice, its all fair game. If Camelot wants to be the cultural light of the barony, its entirely possible.
    • Success = barony stats improve, rewards, good things. Failure =the opposite.
    • As the barony’s stats change, new events, relationships, conflicts, problems and bonuses (!) will emerge.
    • The first of these challenges will arrive after the next session and over the Xmas holidays.

Moon Lore

Huddled on the deck of the airship, the grey clouds rolling beneath you, the capital was still a days flight away. Teach pulled up a stool and passed around this hipflask. Somewhere in the hold below, clink toss and turned in the sweat soaked blankets. Irdizavonax cleared his through and began to speak.

Key pints:

  1. There are an unknown number of these scholars, who travel between planets, harvesting the living, its unclear where they come from.
  2. Following a harvest they then sow the seeds for the next harvest – each time a little different, with different variations. Tweaks. Maybe this cycle, there are no elves. Or perhaps no magic, or too much magic. Dwarves are 10ft tall with skin like ebony next, only to be covered in leaves in the subsequent cycle.
  3. At the end of each cycle, as the world grows and begins to blossom and look beyond its skys, they come. They feed. They grow. We are at one such moment now.
  4. The gemstone dragons fled from these scholars as they consumed their world many millenia ago, and scattered throughout the stars.
  5. They tried to stop the scholars last cycle. They managed to make it to the moon. No easy feat as you cannot teleport or shift there, due to the surrounding barrier. You need to physically pass through it.
  6. When they arrived, the found to their horror, that their psionics were useless. While a few arcane spells were known by them it was woefully insufficient and they were ultimately defeated in their neutered state
  7. The moon itself is a vessel for travel, a fortress and maybe more. While inside the moon, a scholar can respawn or regrown after defeat. Like a gargantuan phylactery. This is the reason Moros trapped his younger brothers Namthar and Kossos on the surface of Vaul. Unable to simply die and respawn anew they were trapped in a limbo of sorts – one petrified in stone, the other, harpooned to the ground.
  8. For this reason, the gemstone dragons had planned on destroying the moon to stop Moros returning, but were unable to venture beneath the first layer or so. Each layer was a period from Vauls history, a challenge, almost a dungeon itself to traverse. Moros lay at the centre. Most of the Dragons were defeated, some fled, and hid around vaul to escape the coming harvest.