Careers of the South: Nashir Cavalry

Nashir Cavalry (Lemurian Career)

Standard Skills
Conceal, Drive, Endurance, Evade, Locale, Ride; Combat Style (Nashir Cavalry)

Professional Skills
Craft (Animal Husbandry), Healing (Horses), Lore (Horse Breeds), Lore (Strategy & Tactics), Navigation, Survival, Track

Combat Style: Nashir Cavalry (Professional Style)
Recurve bow, javelin, broad sword, mace, hatchet

Nashir Mounted Archery (Benefit)
This style allows the cavalryman to ignore the skill cap placed upon ranged combat rolls by the Ride skill. In addition, when using a ranged weapon, mounted or on foot, the cavalryman may shift a random hit location to an adjoining body location.

Units of Nashir Cavalry are the mobile backbone of any Lemurian fighting force. Using horses bred from those few brought over from doomed Lemuria, these highly trained units are faster, more agile, and able to disrupt enemy formations from a distance with deadly, pinpoint accuracy. Used to open ranging through steppe and desert in their lost lands across the world ocean, Nashir cavalry have also adapted well to the mountainous, rocky terrain common throughout Stygia and the Southern Reach.

Cults of Asturia: St. Vacuna, the Golden Shield

The Cult of St. Vacuna, the Golden Shield
The patron saint of victory, sacrifice, and protection in the Solian Creed, St. Vacuna was once a noted bodyguard of the third Vanoran Witch-King, Marcian the Reclaimer. It was she who issued the witch-king's personal challenges on the battlefield; kept him alive during his headlong charges into the fray of a large battle; and died in battle taking a blow meant for the witch-king during the old Vanoran wars for the North. Once very popular amongst the Asturian legions, it has lost its favor and prominence since the rise of the Black Sun cult. Before battle, Asturian soldiers dedicated to the cult will hurl a flaming spear at the enemy lines and bellow "Ad Vacuna! Ad Vacuna! Ad Vacuna!" in Old Vanoran as an offering to the saint for her favor.

Lay Members
Standard Skills: Brawn, Willpower
Professional Skills: Combat Style (Asturian Legionnaire), Devotion, Exhort
Folk Magic: Alarm, Bladesharp, Demoralise, Firearrow, Fireblade, Protection

Initiates, Acolytes, Heroes, and Priests
Initiate Miracles: Aegis, Fortify, Shield
Acolyte Miracles: Clear Skies, Consecrate, Sunspear
Hero/Priest Miracle: Rejuvenate
Gift: Sanctuary (Heroes/Priests Only)

Vanoran Sites: The Portico of Borea

The tiled floor mosaic map of the world in the Portico of Borea.

In Regio.IX.Overlook about four hundred feet east of the Via Lata, in a semi-ruined neighborhood called the Campus Tullius, stands the Portico of Borea. Recently discovered again by delvers operating under the auspices of the Diggers College, this ruined double columned portico was supposedly built as a monument to the world-striding power of the Sixth Vanoran Witch-King, Sextus Tullius Incantator, known chiefly as the Servator ("To be loved or feared is immaterial; one only needs to be obeyed.")

Although much of the Portico has fallen or been looted for building stone through the years, its crown jewel remains somewhat intact: a 75x50 foot tiled floor mosaic that displays an ancient but complete map of the continent of Borea. Despite being outdated in its details, the great floor map remains an astounding work of art that will perhaps again serve as a focal point for Overlook regio once delvers have reclaimed the area from ruin.

Cultures of the South: Lemurian

Lemurian (Civilized Culture)

Standard Skills
Deceit, Endurance, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Sing

Combat Style: Lemurian Alubari (urban commoners)
As a recent refugee community, Lemurians have worked hard to develop and maintain basic fighting skills throughout the lower orders (alubari), who are trained with short spear, dagger, hatchet, and sling. [Cultural Style - Lower]

or

Combat Style: Lemurian Pahi (urban elites)
Primarily fights with short spear and hoplite shield; also trained in mace, akinaka short sword, dagger, javelin, sling, and short bow. [Cultural Style - Upper]

Defensive Fighting (Benefit)
When parrying a blow during combat, a Lemurian pahi's weapon is considered one step higher in size.

Professional Skills
Craft (any), Commerce, Language (any), Literacy, Lore (any), Musicianship, Streetwise, Teach

Far across the world ocean was once a mysterious land of ancient cities, fertile river valleys, and arid deserts, the true name of which was unknown by those in Borea or simply forgotten to time. Vanorans called it Lemuria and spoke tall tales of demon lizard shibboleths and gods in living form ruling the land from great temple platforms in its cities. Older than Vanor, more ancient than Stygia, more antique perhaps than even Hyperborea and Atlantis, Lemuria was a primordial land -- the Garden of the Sun -- known only to those who could see into the Deep.

And then, within the living memory of only the most wizened elder, a great calamity befell Lemuria, and the land was gone.

But not its people.

The first refugees to Borea came as but a trickle, isolated landings in great sailing ships whose passengers carried statues of their gods and lamented the coming of Nibiru. Soon, a great flood of humanity swept across Borea, spreading throughout the southern lands of the continent from east to west. A proud people brought low by disaster, the arriving Lemurians were not content to remain as refugees and castoffs in a foreign land, and they soon turned their attentions to carving new homes into the face of the land.

Today, Lemurian communities are found throughout the South, both in Stygia and along the Central Coast. In some lands, they are a useful but distrusted minority, using their past learning and cultural knowledge as a currency to buy new stations from the old elites. In others, however, they have become lords and conquerers themselves. As armies prepare to clash across the South, Lemurians watch the preparations warily. They will not lose all they have regained so easily. The Doom will not befall them again.

Cultures of the South: Stygian

Stygian (Civilized Culture)

Standard Skills
Athletics, Boating, Dance, Deceit, Influence, Locale, Willpower

Combat Style: Stygian Soldier 
[Cultural Style] Primarily fights with two weapons, mixing and matching Stygian shamshir sword (scimitar), sagaris axe (one-handed battle axe), broad sword, shortspear; also trained with recurve bow, dagger, hatchet, and target shields.

Sweeping Strike (Benefit)
When dual wielding two weapons, a Stygian soldier can use a sweeping attack to push aside an enemy's defenses and immediately follow-up with another attack, as per the Flurry Special Effect. The follow-up attack must be with a different weapon than the triggering attack. Two weapons only.

Professional Skills
Bureaucracy, Commerce, Courtesy, Craft (any), Language (any), Lore (any), Musicianship, Seamanship

In the deep, distant past, Stygians were nomads and herders traveling a grass sea in a land far across the world ocean. But then that ended. They gave up their kumis, their goats, and their tent cities; built ships and learned the stars; and became nomads of the sea. That was then.

In the distant past, Stygian wayfarers made their first landings along the southwest coast of Borea, seeking plunder and good fortune. Instead, they found homes and bountiful resources, and soon the Stygian people drove their tent spikes deep into new, untamed earth. From this seed grew a great Empire, strong of ship and sail, dominant in commerce and trade, fierce in honor and pride. It spread north and east along the Borean coast, leaving its mighty stamp upon the world. And then the Witch-Kings of Vanor, covetous of all the western lands, descended on Stygia, bringing fire and war, and bent it under their yoke. That was then.

Today, the southwestern Borean coast contains the scattered seeds of Stygian hegemony, rich, discordant cities ancient in culture and distrustful of each other. Although the Vanoran boot is long removed, the scars of dominion remain, as no new Stygian Empire has thus been able to reemerge. Instead, new, hungry wolves prowl through the region: Atlantean wayfarers, dead Asturian legions, Lemurian refugees. The drums of war sound in the south, and it will be Stygian cities that will burn.

(This is something related to the War in the North campaign being run by my friend and co-blogger Rich Forest, which he has been writing about over on his Superhero Necromancer blog and will presumably link to here when he has the time. However, this is also related to a possible campaign I may run after War in the North is over, simply titled War in the South. There will be more coming. Enjoy!)

Partial Roster of the Diggers' College

Herein lies a selection of the Special Task Force for the Reclamation of the Overlook, initiated by the Diggers' College of Vanor:

"Howler" Hróðvitnisson is a Varangian barbarian who came in with a crew from the distant north. He arrived with his companions on a longship just two weeks ago, having braved many months at sea and on wild rivers, following the treacherous passage across the northern reaches and down the treacherous rivers of Groznaya to reach the city. They came in the night down the river, docked, and emerged as a shield wall raiding party of cultists of the Gullet, the Wolf who Will Swallow the Sun. That very first night, they raided the ancient tomb of Sol Invictus himself, to despoil the old bastard's tomb in the name of the Gullet and show him what is to come.

There they all died horrible, gruesome, unspeakable deaths.

"Howler" was the only member of the raiding party to survive. Now he is left without shield-brothers or companions, and he is not charismatic enough to gather a crew around himself. He sleeps in the longship that brought him here, and he hires himself out as a warrior, bodyguard, soldier, and raider.

---

Ivo Hermanni, an Arcanum Delver, has as his only goals to pick clean the bones of the civilization that subjugated his ancestors and recover any Rothari artifacts that may have found there way into those tombs.  And maybe to prove that he's as much of a badass as his six brothers (most of whom are gladiators)...

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Vasilisa, Slezan Warlock, a former urchin with a predilection for black things, dead things, vile things. When you cross her path, bad things happen...to you.

---

Once a monk devoted to Sol Invictus, Justinian Quintus Justero's curiosity, dour nature, and penchant for asking questions eventually drove him from the monastery. By then, he had taught himself the basics of magic from the monastery's considerable libraries. He now seeks to find out more about the Witch Kings and their ilk; not from a desire for power, but to see what drove them to evil. Despite his grim and pessimistic demeanor, Justinian is driven by a thirst for knowledge and desire to help his city reclaim its ruined districts. He is a proficient healer and sage in addition to his wizardry.

---

Bulb is a Kalingoi scavenger that has been shunned by her race. Her entire tribe was wiped out by a plague leaving her the sole survivor, weakened though she was. Other Kalingoi feared she would bring the disease to their camps and treated her as a pariah. She's rather used to being on her own and not fitting in, although she's made a few friends here and there. None the less, she's learned to look after herself first, and THEN think about others.  But a girl(ish)'s got to live... and thus why she's chillin' with this bunch.

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Velis Olegovich Ustinov is a boy of probably 13 or 14. Such a charming and innocent lad! And so studious. You would be, too, if you'd been taken in by Old Mad Yaroslav. Say, whatever happened to Old Man Yaroslav, anyway? How did this boy travel so far to this place of ancient tombs and magicks with no companion but a magpie, and why has he been going in there alone?

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Zaba Bradaslav is a Selzan Lackey that works as a porter for dungeoneering expeditions. He has a a no nonsense personality, do what has to be done, or do it because it needs doing.  He hates dead weight, because he will be the one that ends up carrying it.

From the journal of Zaba Bradaslav:

Holy Dungeoneers Expedition 001
A proper burial?  A proper burial?!  Feh.  Who's going to carry that meat soup and bones back up?  Me.  Who is going to dig the grave? Me.  Well I've got news for these religious delver's.  Those services cost extra.  It wasn't my idea to try to jump that puddle of pudding.  Nope.  My idea was finding an alternate route.  But this guy, wearing mail armor, rubbing a whet stone on sword every morning decides, "Nah, I can make it."  But he didn't.  Now, it turns out, the triune demands a proper burial.  I can see the satisfaction on their faces.  their shares just got a little bit bigger, and they want me, poor Zaba, to haul the dead fucking weight to the top in order to assuage their guilt.  Well, it's going to cost extra.  I'm taking his sword, and I'm getting his share.  I'm fucking done making 3 gold a day to put up with these triune worshiping bastards.

---

Korbin Vacarius is a native Vanoran Venturer. His main goal is the improvement of the city and its markets, reclamation. His general approach will be to use money to cover for his shortcomings, and to invest his fortunes so they bring even greater returns. As for dungeon delving, I suppose he sees the relics hidden away as lost opportunities. What good are the of the glories and riches lying among the ruin and the beasts, when they should be in civilized hands, circulating on the market as part of the bustle of life, their craft and aesthetics enjoyed by those who truly can appreciate them?

---

Ardo Valerianus is an Expert who has studied Natural Philosophy and Alchemy, along with Naturalism. He’s not really cut out to be the brightest candle in any guild's candelabrum, but has gotten by thus far on the Sterling Principle: Always Follow the Directions Carefully. He is native to the city, although one side of his family looks to be Rothari (and then there’s his first name).

Alas, most collegia prefer alchemists who already have a full lab, along with full training. Ardo thought he’d take over from old Brontus eventually, but then Brontus and the lab disappeared in a distinctly impressive cubic explosion of wailing mauve vapors, leaving nothing but an eight-foot-tall stone sheep statue with rather unpleasant lichen on it.

Ardo had nothing to do with that. He wasn’t even in the area at the time. You can all rest easy on that count.

“Who forgot to wash the alembic? It’s got tiny talking demons again."

“Goals? Goals? Oh, that’s a good one. Right, let me just line my plans out in front of you, since there’s probably no chance at all that you might be some variety of brigand or mountebank, let alone one of that sort of people who delight in stepping on other people’s aspirations just to hear that despairing squeak noise as they’re demolished. Wait, no, on second thought, I’ll be just a smidge less trusting. Call it a character flaw.

So. Alchemists use what you might call stuff. Stuff we need expensive stuff to do things with and to. Glassware. Ingredients. Leaves, roots, seeds, calyxes, tubers and rhizomes; integumentia, sundry organs from uncanny beasts (or at least, insufficiently canny ones), scales, horns, liquors, ichors, and oozes; effluvia, perfluvia, humours and ylem. Are you going to give me all of those free of charge? No? Then stop asking me why I’m wearing a backpack and heading into a hillside. I have a Potion of Nasal Compression I can happily jam into your face if that’ll make you happier.”

***
Image Credits:

Because these were submitted images by the players to illustrate their PCs, I've not made any effort to hunt down where they got these. Obviously, we didn't make these (except for Image #2, which was drawn by the player) and all rights belong to the artists and/or business entities that paid for the images. If anyone has the lowdown for sourcing these, please let me know, and I'll update the post.

Updated Image Credits:

Image #2: "Ivo Hermanni" by Bill Spytma (link).

Image #5: "Magia" by Andre Bdois (link).

Mapping Vanor: The City

The following post contains the neighborhood capsule descriptions I sent to my players before the Ruins of Vanor campaign started properly. All neighborhoods (or regios, as the Vanorans call them) refer to locations on the Big Board map to the left, which is mounted on a piece of poster board 3ft x 2ft in size. At this early stage of the campaign, some areas are more defined than others, hence the abundant white space for most of the map. We'll add more to the Big Board as the campaign goes on. 

Oh, and three guess which historical city I have based Vanor on...

***

The ruined city within the outer Marcian Walls consists of ten districts. Of these ten, only four have settled habitation; the remaining six are in ruins and teeming with beasts, kalingoi goblins, and undead. As residents of Vanor, you know much about the settled districts and significantly less about the ruined ones.

The Settled Districts

Regio I. Campus Marcianus
This district (the "Fields of Marcian") is the second most populous area of the ruined city. Originally a marshy plain outside the walls of the original city, the Fourth Witch-King, Marcian the Reclaimer, had the marsh drained and used as a staging area for his wars of expansion and conquest. Eventually, the fields became a built up area of grand public buildings, temples, and theaters; refined boulevards and columned porticoes; and dense urban apartments clustered in between. Bordered by the Basana River in the west and the Via Lata (aka The Broadway) in the east, the current district is anchored by the great and still functioning Baths of Tullius and the massive but crumbling Stadium of Marcian. Retaining walls along the Basana have fallen into disrepair, and repeated flooding has turned part of the district into ruined marsh, which now serves as a den for thieves and criminals. Closeness to the neighboring Regio IX. Overlook district has meant repeated monster, undead, and vermin incursions, threatening the stability of the Marcian Fields. It has seen better days.

Regio II. Campus Vaticanus
This district ("Vatican Fields") is the smallest, newest, and most orderly of the ancient ruined city's districts. Anchored in the west by Vatican Hill and the massive Solarium of the Unconquered Sun at its base and in the east by the looming Barbican fortress, Vatican Fields is a planned district of detached villas, domus residences, marble porticoes, and religious statuary. Isolated from the ruin sprawl by the Basana River, Vatican Fields suffers little of the monstrous incursions that trouble the Regio I. Campus Marcianus district directly across the river. Silver and gold-clad sun priests stroll along the Via Cornelia on sunny days. Country gentry visiting their urban villas move through the streets on covered litters. Street vendors hawk their wares from tabernacle shops. And at night, the streets are lit by the soft blue glow of lumin lamps. Life in Vatican Fields is truly touched by the Sun.

Regio III. Transbasana
This district is the largest and most densely populated of the ruined city's districts. When access and services fell away from other districts as the city collapsed, Transbasana across the river retained key water and infrastructure services, so people poured in. Today it is a teeming slum and manufacturing district that completely covers the summit and slopes of the Janiculum Hill. It is home to the great basilica known as the Hall of Work, headquarters of the powerful Labor Collegium; the looming and twisted Tower of Mysteries, holding the secrets of the Arcanum Collegium; and the Naumachian Pits, a former artificial lake that's been converted into gladiatorial arenas.

Regio IV. Aventinus
This district was once the key port of entry into Vanor for river trade and commercial traffic, with its river banks converted into long, porticoed quays fronting row upon row of storage warehouses that reached all the way back to the slopes of the Aventine Hill. Today, commercial traffic is fairly limited, and most of the quays and warehouses have been converted for other purposes or left to ruin. Instead, due to its direct border with the ruined Regio V. Via Interius district, Aventinus is the key staging area for explorations into the city's ruins, centered on the Delver's Porch, a portico along the river serving as the key mercenary market; the Emporium, the largest quay and chief docks; and Northmen's Landing, the quay and warehouse compound taken over as a Varangian holdfast. And adding to the district's dangerous character are the two witch king tombs squatting on the Aventine's twin summits.

The Ruined Districts

Regio V. Via Interius
Sparsely built and serving as the chief overland entrance from the ports of the Inner Sea, this district is dominated by ruined caravan posts, religious shrines, and a large bath complex overrun with kalingoi goblins.

Regio VI. Celian Heights
In its heyday, this was a fashionable residential district, dotted with wealthy homes and villas, recreational baths, and opulent basilicas. Today, delvers target the family crypts dug deep into the Celian Hill's north slopes and beneath the ruined villas as sources of lost wealth.

One small section of the Imperial Necropolis on the Esquiline Hill

Regio VII. Esquillae
Largely made up of the Esquiline Hill and the upper greenbelt ridge that divides the eastern Marcian Walls with the summits of the Quirinal, Viminal, and Cispian Hills, Esquillae is a dangerous regio dominated  by the tomb of the evil Third Witch-King (remembered only as the Anti-Pater) and the imperial necropolis contained behind it, which serves as the chief source of all the undead in the ruined city.

Regio VIII. Alta Semita
Containing the Quirinal, Viminal, and Cispian Hills and the upper summit behind the hills, Alta Semita was a rich and sumptuous district of villas, basilicas, schools, and temples affording excellent views of the lower regios of the city. Today, it is perhaps the most dangerous and overrun ruin in the city, due to the presence of two witch king tombs on the lower summits of two hills and one witch king tomb built beneath a massive and ruined bath complex on the upper summit.

The old Temple of Sol Invictus

Regio IX. Overlook
Dominated by the long ridge of the Pincian Hill, Overlook was known as the Hill of Gardens due to the overabundance of pleasures gardens and recreational complexes. Bordering with the Regio I. Campus Marcianus district, this densely built district is a key focus for exploration delves and holds the ruins of the first Temple of Sol Invictus, rumored to be filled with great wealth in its hidden lower vaults.

Regio X. Velabrum
Once the political heart of the mighty city centered on the Capitoline and Palatine Hills, today the Velabrum is littered with ruined forums, crumbling market porticoes, overgrown horse tracks and amphitheaters, and, at the heart of it all, the dangerous and deadly tomb of the First Witch King, Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, perched atop the Palatine Hill.

***
Image Credits:

Images #1-#5: Map by author, working from the public domain image "Plan of the Hills of Ancient Rome," engraved by C. Smith, Strand (link).

Image #6: Roman Graveyard Image from Lapham's Quarterly (link).

Image #7: "Model Temple of Aphaia Glyptothek Munich" (link).