can you tell us more about the campaign you’re running? 👀
So, Gharmyra! It's been on hiatus for... months now, due to some real-life happenings (family drama that ended up with me moving, which- Made campaign prepping hard), but I'm planning to get back to it once spoons are collected
The campaign is set mainly in Gharmyra, a nation formed by two smaller nations that ended up becoming a single one following a war between the two. Here's a map of it:
It's set in a high fantasy, industrial-revolution sort of setting. Factories are starting to become a common sight and steampunk vibes are definitely there. The two main nations are Gharda, a theocratic nation with an imperialist past, and Remyra, a democratic, heavily magic-dependant nation.
Ghamyra as a nation is technically democratic too, but there's definitely issues with how is that ran. The capital for both nations is Vemros: A huge city built in a Tower-of-Babel like building, which separates the territories for both of them. An organization known as the Dharka Savada serves as the government force. Here's a knight of the Dharka, Dalshen:
Gharda follows a religion known as the Davnrros, which followed (originally five), now four deities that are known as the Guardians. The deities are physical beings which have quite directly get seen amongst the people, although they've been more absent of late. The society is divided in fourth castes (originally five), each of them linked to one of the deities. The power each caste holds is terribly unbalanced though: The first caste rules over the others, using divine right as an excuse. It's also the only caste who can actually vote for their own representatives. The religious force of the first caste is known for wearing masks, and there's just a whole lot of intrigue. Here's Iratha, one of the baddies the party had to deal with, and first caste member:
Remyra, on the other end, holds democracy with great esteem. They don't follow deities- They're actually a nation born from the people who ran away from a heavily theocractic/imperalistic regime (Mith-Sharorr), and hold a lot of hate for deities. The war between them and Gharda had to do with murdering the fifth deity, in fact. I'd describe Remyra as "political parties where PvP is always on" (with few limitations). These limitations have grown over the years and the clans do not wage war with each other very often, except for a couple that have a very long-running feud. At this point, violent conflcit between parties is seen as barbaric. Violent conflict is strictly regulated, having designed zones for it, and being kept very far away from the regular population.
Here's Zyrphae, head of one of the clans! Have I mentioned Remyra is a mostly underground nation composed of mostly drow, dwarves and elves?
It's also in the underground where one of the main aspects of the setting comes to play: Crystal corruption. Crystals grow almost everywhere, and are the result of an excess of magic getting condensed up. They serve as power sources, can be used to create artefacts and power machinery, but are also dangerous if miss-used. Dalshen above has got a crystal arm, as he's been victim to crystal corruption: When exposed too much to this magic without proper equipment, it can stick to your body. And as far as Gharmyrans are concerned, it's a death sentence. Sometimes it takes months, most times it can go on for years, but crystal corruption never ends well.
Crystal corruption lures another thing: Watchers, like the one up above. These are undead, lich-like creatures. Their origins are directly tied to crystal corruption. They have a "seed", which is where their soul is stored after they go through the process in a controlled manner, which is installed in their "chorus", a nest made out of crystals and living batteries they extract energy from, like this:
They can live on forever as long as they feed on living creatures. Most keep a few half-digested corpses in their chorus, and also pester those with crystal corruption, which become susceptible to watchers messing with them. Watchers themselves are incorporeal most of the time, travelling through crystals. However, they usually have the remains of their physical body in the chorus (like the example up above), and can form other bodies with any source of crystal. Breaking these bodies apart can weaken them, but never kill them: Only the destroying of a seed will end a watcher for good.
The party has now advanced enough to know that watchers are directly tied to Ark'Voss (currently known as Aar'Voss), one of the Remyran clans. Said clan, together with the Ark'Sava (The old version of the Dharka Savada, the current running force in Gharmyra), worked for the betterment of Remyra. Ark'Voss was tasked with finding a cure for crystal corruption, which ran rampant when violent conflict was common in Remyra. However, when they found the solution (becoming undead), the Ark'Sava was horrified by this, and tried to destroy said research. Violently. A conflict started between both clans. The Ark'Sava came out triumphant, with Ark'Voss (seemingly) mostly extinguished. Instead, most of the members had gone into hiding, or ended up becoming watchers themselves. Under this, another watcher!
Fast forward to nowadays, several millenia late: Most people have no idea about what happened. You've got two nations who have been together for a thousand years, but they're starting to resent each other again. The murder of the fifth Ghardan god is up to the table. Mith-Sharorr, the theocratic nation up north, is also becoming a threat again. A lot of the conflicts betwene Gharda and Remyra are lead by small extremist groups, who have been using crystal grenades liberally, and sowing everything with crystal corruption. And the watchers have been pulling strings for long, awaiting a violent conflict to have a long-due vengeance.
Amongst all this drama, enter the party: Laestis, my partner's kalashtar (pictured above) is a pretty good example of what is going on. An overly anxious Ghardan first caste, who had inherited a cursed sword from times before the war. The sword had given their family an uncanny connection to a psionic entity, which (unknown to them) had been one of these watchers. The watcher was far more friendly than most of their kind, even if no one before Laestis actually tried to understand their nature.
It's been 90 sessions almost. Together, they've found companionship in each other, and an objective to avoid an inevitable war arranged by undead creatures, which would possibly end very violently. A warlock pact later, they've become inseparable in many ways, and are doing their best to get a good ending to what would be otherwise a terrible catastrophe.
Anyways, that's a mouthful! I really want to resume the campaign at some point. It went for REALLY long. Two of the players have moved on from DnD due to life happenings, and two new players were guests before the hiatus started (and will become permanent afterwards), so there's a lot of change. I have a lot of love for this, but I have certainly ended up putting it aside after the campaign I'm a player in ended up occupying most of my brain-- Hopefully, that'll change soon!