Gehenna & Harrowheim - Session 0

This series is going to be a very simple log of a 5e homebrew campaign that I am now running on Fridays. I don't have much time to write these, so they will be summaries and highlights.

This is the setting pitch for the campaign:

The world has no name, but the destruction of the world has a name, and it is Gehenna. This is what the people call the ever spreading desert at the center of the large continent. The marching sands bring with them demons and dark magics that have minds of their own. As civilization has retreated, treasures, gold, and magics from another age were lost or abandoned, buried in now sunken ruins and caverns that await visits by curious adventurers.

Harrowheim is an ancient stronghold in eastern Gehenna. Where it stands was once a wooded cliff, lorded over by a vampire that had sewn powerful wards into the walls and grounds. Now, a hostile desert surrounds the oasis of dark wood and stone, but fails to penetrate the old dweomers of the place. As Gehenna has pushed past the fortress, the unfinished road from Harrowheim to the coast has gradually fallen into disrepair. What once was a guarded thoroughfare is becoming a highway of terrors, and frequent monster attacks, particularly at night, keep travelers at bay. Harrowheim houses a syndicate of worldly elves (drow) of varied aims, and abbutting the fortress is a shantytown of restless refugees. The political situation is... tenuous, to say the least.

The coast to the east, the Fertile Coast, hangs on to the luxuries of the past. Things are much the same as they were years ago, before the desert began to engulf the world. But every place on the continent dances on the edge of a knife, and on the coast that knife is fought over by two powers.

One force descending upon the coast are the waves of refugees fleeing from the desert. What might otherwise be just a large nuisance to local lords has marshalled into an insurgency. A group calling themselves the Black Flame Zealots has emerged from the refugees and recruited starving young men and women into their ranks. Wearing the image of the infamous black phoenix, the zealots have assassinated prominent figures on the Fertile Coast, burned down government buildings and stoked revolutionary ideas in the major cities.

Sorcerer Kings are rising among civilized lands that have become desperate to keep the Zealots at bay. These beings run the gamut of morality, but they are all willing to crush rebellion and treason with an iron fist and burn the will of the insurgents to ash with arcane fire.

Meanwhile, the old gods are being abandoned daily as the world becomes a husk, and a new faith, the Burning Erudition, is taking root among refugees and settled peoples alike. The cults of this new religion are varied and fractured, but prominent figures are beginning to emerge and seize power.

Adventurers who stray deep into the woods and swamps of the world may find themselves stumbling into the Fae, a place and a peoples of singular purpose: to toy with outsiders and belittle their mortal machinations. The faces of the Fae can range from benevolent elves to the murderous Wild Hunt.

Stretching vast around the other planes of existence is the Astral Sea, a mythical starfield that houses whole continents suspended in its aether. Only great civilizations have achieved the magic necessary to send their peoples into the astral plane. Some, such as the high elves (eladrin), used it as a new home. Others, like the giants, use it as a cosmic prison for the worst of their kind.

And we haven’t even mentioned the Spirit World or the Underdark...

Session 0

After character creation, we begin in a tavern called The Stone's Throw, a few leagues out from the edge of the spreading desert. It is run by a human man names Grouse, and his half-drow half-human daughter Minna.

Already in the tavern were two player characters: Calphire, a halfling wild sorcerer with hair like blown glass, and somewhere else in the tavern Niobi, a half-elf ranger (homebrew version of the class that I'll post some time) and her panther companion Frida.

The first of the players to enter the tavern after play had started was Derek, a dwarf druid. He came in, asked for a glass, cast create water into it, and started to drink. The bartender asked him for some money for renting the glass, and Derek promptly threw the water into Grouse's face and walks out. He runs into Hob, the Goblin merchant sleeping in a barrel outside, but doesn't buy any of his magic wares. He goes to sleep in the stables.

Next in was Navo, a half-elf arcane archer who uses daggers instead of a bow and arrow. He tried chatting up the ranger and her panther pet, but was unsuccessful.

The last PC is delayed because his player can't make session 0.

Calphire goes over to the edge of the bar where various jobs are posted and finds one put there by the barkeep himself. His shipments of rare desert liquors from the Hammersted brewery stopped a month ago and he needs someone to go check out why. The brewery is further into the actual desert a few leagues. He's promising a fair amount of money. Calphire accepts, then goes to the two half-elves to talk teaming up for the job.

I end the session there, because we're already well past three hours due to character creation.