Campaign Coffee: Blood of the Earth

Welcome to our Campaign Coffee. This series of posts aims to look back at roleplaying game campaigns that have shaped the Cosmoneiron into its current state. We will discuss the plots and characters, but also how they influenced the development of the Twin Worlds. I hope you enjoy these. Happy Monday!

We're continuing our campaign retrospective by looking at roleplaying campaigns that have influenced, been partially set in, or taken entirely place in, the Twin Worlds setting. Each such campaign has driven successive waves of worldbuilding, enriching and expanding the setting far beyond its original inception.

Blood of the Earth was the campaign that followed Crown of Secret Fates, which we already discussed in previous posts. Like Crown, it only tangentially touched on the Twin Worlds, which at the time were not developed enough to be the setting of a whole campaign. Unlike Crown, Blood of the Earth was not a Planes-spanning campaign and didn't implement Planescape rules. Rather, it was set entirely in the Forgotten Realms, which at the time, was a setting that had been re-released for Dungeons & Dragons 3e. The players, however, were the same as Crown, with the exception of Gabrief's player, who left the group around the time the original party left the Twin Worlds, after the end of the War of Saints.

In keeping with a more grounded campaign (so to speak!), the characters were also less... cosmic in proportion. We also decided to keep a campaign journal, rotating writers, and made a mini-website to host the journal itself. I believe we started the campaign somewhere around 2000, although we didn't actually touch on the Twin Worlds for several months. When we did, it wasn't for long, but it led to the addition of a few noteworthy pieces of lore.

There were shenanigans - there always are, when you are playing - and by the time the characters entered the Twin Worlds (accidentally, I might add), they had changed quite a bit from their humble origins. At that point, the group consisted of Goil Pewterhand, a dwarf cleric (an interesting combination, since dwarves don't exist in the Twin Worlds, at least not in their stereotypical fashion - if you read North Star, you know what I mean!); Kadir Shazar, a fire genasi psion (essentially a humanoid with some fire elemental ancestry, with great mental powers - and, due to some unfortunate choices, in the shape of a hulking lion-headed humanoid); Kail "Thunderstorm" Astarel, a human druid, Uziel, an elf barbarian (who, due to other unfortunate choices, was a skeletal undead with a long tail), and Ebran Evenwood, a human ranger who was a Non-Player Character added to the group to round them up. The group had taken up the moniker of the Guardians of Vanqualië, after the name of a ruined elven fortress they had taken over.

Their arrival to the Twin Worlds was (from the story's perspective) a complete accident, but it was heavily connected to the end of Crown of Secret Fates. As you may recall, I described here how the characters eventually returned to the Twin Worlds, after 100 years had passed in the Cosmoneiron. Their second translation occurred much like the first time, with mists rising around them and transporting them there (this time, the mists were part of Faelar's summoning). It also occurred in the Forgotten Realms, in a cavern where the characters had found refuge after rescuing someone (a two-headed character called Laeryl and Faelyss, who would go on to also become one of the Ilelorn and the possible reason for the rise of a new ancestry). Well, the Guardians of Vanqualië came across the dissipating mists just after the original Crown characters had left, and so they were also sucked into the Twin Worlds.

There, their arrival didn't go unnoticed. At that time, the Ilelorn still manifested in physical form, and two of them in particular - Faelar and Mephiston, now calling himself Elindur - had taken up the mantle of watching for others who, like they had, strayed between universes. Faelar and Elindur welcomed the Guardians and told them they could help them get back, but also talked abou the Thielith, a once-in-fifty-years tournament held since the last Age, and which was about to take place again. You may recall this was a tournament that played a major role in Crown of Fates; well, the players loved the idea of doing it again, and furthermore, the gods would grant rewards to the victors, and several characters saw it as the chance to advance their storylines.

This Thielith was a far less catastrophic event than the previous one. From my perspective, it was a way to give the players a chance to blow off some steam, have some low-stakes fun while still advancing the story, and give them the option to see what had become of their beloved first characters, as well as several NPCs they had met in Crown of Fates.

A few participants to this Thielith were, in fact, the disciples of their old characters, which made for some fun roleplaying. Others were minor NPCs met in the previous campaign. Most, I have to admit, were disposable and never entered the story after that.

What matters is that the Guardians won a few victories, earning some rewards. Some of them were rewards that would not impact the story (such as Uziel's gift of the promise of a heroic death, something his character craved). Others would impact the characters, such as Kail's gift of the ability to turn into a bear. One gift - to Ebran - was an object that would allow her to solve her storyline, but which created issues for her, since she had changed enough that she felt she was no longer worthy of doing what she had been tasked to do.

After the Thielith, the Guardians were directed to the Black Marshes, a place on the border between Brightland and Erkanth, where a passage known as the Rift could be used to return home. The Marshes were another noteworthy piece of lore created during this short stint, as they would return again in two more campaigns, and feature prominently in one of them. Their guardian would also do so - a monstrous black two-headed dragon known as Milangriel. The Guardians fought her, defeating her and gaining access to the Rift, returning to Toril... minus one. Ebran decided to stay behind, believing she no longer had a place in the Forgotten Realms after all she had gone through. She sent the object she had won in the Thielith with the other Guardians, asking them to deliver it properly, and remained in the Twin Worlds instead.

While this decision wouldn't bear fruit for a while, Ebran's presence and deeds in the Twin Worlds would affect two more campaigns later on.

As a result of the Guardians' stint in the Twin Worlds, the Cosmoneiron expanded a bit, primarily adding some elements that would become important in later campaigns. While it wasn't clear back then - perhaps not even to me - I was already starting to lay breadcrumbs for the culmination of the entire story of this world... But that's for another time.

As always, thank you for reading, and see you at the next Campaign Coffee!