Korth'an Disenchantment: Game Master Principles and Notes

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  This page covers GM Principles for this campaign frame, the Distinctions that make this campaign unique, and the Inciting Incident that kicks it all off. This is intended to be Game Master information! If you are a player in this campaign, this section may contain spoilers!  

This page includes materials from the Daggerheart System Reference Document 1.0, © Critical Role, LLC. under the terms of the Darrington Press Community Gaming (DPCGL) License. More information can be found at www.daggerheart.com. There are no previous modifications by others.

 

GM Principles

Keep these ideals in mind when GM'ing with this campaign.  

Show the Darkness in the Forest

Even during ideal times, the Korth'an Forest is still a vast wood with many areas dark under a thick canopy. While Felidasi villages exist, they are mostly around the Eastern and Southern periphery. The interior is somewhat patrolled by the Korth'an Wardens, with trails cleared and marked between landmarks and clearings. But it is full of wildlife (some of it violent and aggressive), mysterious ruins with dangerous magics, and mundane dangers such as sinkholes and simply getting lost.   Unfortunately, these are not ideal times. With the Fae withdrawing into their realm, a further darkness has fallen over the wood. Much of the interior is now filled with a lingering mist, making travel within more perilous. Predators are more aggressive. And the paths forged by the Wardens have rapidly become overgrown. Entering the forest must be undertaken with careful thought and preparation, for it has become a vastly more dangerous place - especially without the chance of a friendly fae taking pity upon you and offering to aid you for a price.  

Play Up the Uncertainty

The Malaise that has spread across the Conclave has thrown the region into turmoil. With its seeming to disproportionately affect the more notable and powerful within the area, questions are being raised about how to approach it. The city of Conclave has especially been suffering, with multiple high-ranking diplomats from a number of species shutting themselves up in their homes. While others are suffering as well - most notably seemingly randomly-selected beings from villages around the periphery of the forest - leadership within the Conclave has become disarrayed.   In some circles, this has led to people wondering if this is showing an insuitability in those leaders. In others, whispers that this would be a great time to take advantage of the wealthy suffering by committing thievery. For the most part, though, families try to get on with their lives - especially those without anybody showing any signs of the sickness. But even as they push on, they talk amongst themselves and wonder what it all means.  

Humans as Outsiders

While in the City-States Region humans are by far the dominant species, in the southeast of the continent humans are exceedingly rare. When humans do visit the region, they are generally viewed with distrust or even outright hostility, thanks to the isolationist nature that the Mages are more than happy to promote in the north. The few humans that have actually settled near the Korth'an Forest were already outcasts - Sorcerers fleeing the Mages, outlaws fleeing punishment in Southport, the odd priest of The Virtues seeking to minister to the few humans in these lands. Playing up the rarity of humans here can help set the region apart and to set up for future exploration by your players should they decide to journey beyond the immediate borders in the future.  

Important note: should one of the players choose to run a human character, the GM and other players should be very careful regarding to what degree that character is treated with distrust. Allow the player to express the level of comfort that they should have with such roleplay, and if they do not want that directed towards them (whether from NPCs or other PCs), do not do so.

 

Distinctions

Use this information to prepare for your campaign. Share it with your players as needed or desired to help set the stage. Players should definitely not read this section unless directed otherwise by their GM.  

The Malaise

The mysterious sickness that has spread across the Korth'an region has left beings exhausted, bereft of energy, confined to bed, or locked into wistful reveries. The effects seem otherwise mild though there are the odd beings whom have appeared to age several years in a few weeks, or those who suffered a recurrence of another sickness that they thought to be rid of years ago. The sickness seems to disproportionally affect the prominent but also has laid low random beings from small communities near the forest.   The reason for this illness is actually rather simple: every person suffering from it made an agreement at some point in the past with one of the Fae. Nobody within the Conclave has put together the pieces of this puzzle (or if they have they're not saying anything) but the cause of the suffering is that those agreements have been suddenly nullified. Any benefit that an individual may have received because of the magical benefit of a fae creature has been revoked. This could have been unnaturally long live, the curing of a disease, exceptional luck in business, or even something as simple as the memory of the most beautiful moment of their life. In some cases, the malaise has directly affected them and their body is suffering from the loss of "help". In others, there is simply a vast emptiness, something felt deep in the heart but unable to be explained or even described.   The malaise is not directly fatal, but for those who were gifted long life or curing of a disease, there may come a time when they do pass away from those causes.  

The Conclave

The Korth'an Conclave is a unique body on Lasair. No other region has such an interspecies body organized around working together for a common good. In other places, at most there exists an uneasy peace between neighbors. In others, the boundaries between species is beset with conflict. In the southeast of the continent, though, direct conflict is rare and differences are instead worked out through diplomacy within the capital city of Conclave. Any species with a settlement in the region may send representatives to the city, where laws and agreements are forged to support the region.   This does not mean that the area is without conflict or disagreement. The city itself is beset with schemes and back-room discussions around getting the upper hand in diplomatic agreements, and spies and thieves find busy work in uncovering or implementing those schemes. Outside of the city, there are individuals who might not like the diversity of the Conclave, or who feel that they might be better off taking a bit more than they're allowed. And there are communities that even try to ignore or to work around the boundaries set by the Conclave - Lizardfolk are notorious for picking fights between villages, and those sometimes spill over into nearby settlements or even into Conclave when members of two rival towns cross paths in the city.   The Conclave tries very hard to keep towns and other settlements safe, and to protect trade between them (and to a lesser degree with Southport and Almina). But between the Korth'an Wardens (an organization full of opportunity), druids and other nature magic practitioners seeking to discover the secrets of the forest, and the Gleaming Fleet always offering a glimpse over the horizon, there is no shortage of interesting and dangerous adventure to be had in and around the Korth'an Forest.  

The Past Hidden in the Forest

The Korth'an Forest is a vast and varied wood, holding numerous secrets. From the portion that serves as an entrance to The Fae Realm, to the northern rim near the Horned Peaks, to the various entrances to underground caverns home to Fungifolk colonies, the forest has much to discover. No secrets are more interesting (or dangerous) though than the strange stone ruins that dot the forest across much of its area - especially towards the northeast corner.   These ruins range in size from small stone statues, strangely carved with seemingly melted features, to collapsed walls splayed out over a forest clearing. The grey stone has been stained with timeless rains and covered in moss and lichens but the unnatural shapes stand out in the forest. There are also oddly shaped and jagged chunks of glossy black stone, some a hundred feet wide and a dozen tall, sticking out of the ground as if they were daggers stabbed into a victim. These stones are more visible - nothing grows on them, and the rain has no effect upon them.   These items are debris dating back to the Dragonscourge - a cataclysmic event that occurred across the continent but was centered upon what is now The Desolation and Thousand Shards. An ancient human empire was beset by the Dragons of the world - and in the end, a chunk of one of the planet's (formerly) two moons was brought down upon the capital of the Empire. That apocalyptic event brought massive changes to the world - and flung detritus across the eastern half of the continent. The black stones found in the forest are literally the land upon which the empire stood, distorted and full of residual magical energy - capable of harming the unwary and creating weird effects from causing random lightning strikes to imbuing the dead with life.   The more mundane stone ruins are relics of outposts that the ancient empire had built within the region where the forest now stands. These outposts were shattered and scattered by the effects of the cataclysm, but artifacts and knowledge could be uncovered here - especially if any outpost included underground portions.  

The Inciting Incident

The following information can be used to help you start your campaign, as well as to decide what the true cause of the Malaise is in your campaign and how the players may help solve it.  

Possible Causes

Choose the "true cause" of the Malaise that best fits your campaign. This choice could just be made to fit the GM's preference (pick one that you'd be most comfortable running or which seems most interesting), but the ideal way would be to work with your players to determine which one would best fit the type of campaign your players would be most interested in playing. Each cause will suggest a "type of game" that goes well with it. This is not strict - be as flexible as you'd like or even combine elements from each!   View the Possible Causes  

Gathering the Wardens

The leaders of the Korth'an Conclave have been working tirelessly to understand the cause of the Malaise. As several of those leaders are themselves suffering from the ailment, they are particularly keen to get to the bottom of it. They have directed the Korth'an Wardens to summon parties to investigate the causes and potentially help divine a solution.   One of the Wardens' senior members - a venerable black-furred Felidas named Nymtonka (she/her) - has called a number of wardens to her. She has also sent out a call for any in the area who might be "seeking adventure" or even specifically requesting notable individuals from communities with particular skills. She is organizing groups to go into the forest - or beyond - to identify what is going wrong within its boundaries.   Nymtonka chose to meet with this party in a smaller village near the edge of the forest rather than in the city of Conclave. She asks the party to undertake a dangerous task: to find a path into the forest that leads to near The Fae Realm. She hopes that the Fae may be of assistance to the Conclave: their knowledge of deeper magics and of the inner forest could be of great help to understanding the Malaise.   How will the party proceed? Has any member of the group had dealings with the fae in the past? Are any of them particularly experienced with the deeper forest? Why do they think Nymtonka met with them out here rather than the city? And what happens if they are able to meet with the fae?