The church of the Lantern has finally restored peace in the northern reaches of Lux, where it had fought a civil war no more than 10 years ago. However, this peace has come at a price. The church no longer holds full religious authority over all its peoples, having to concede that other people may worship local gods and spirits if they pay a small tax. In an attempt to regain some of its legitimacy, it has sent many expeditions around the world to find definitive proof of the truth of their story, and perhaps some forgotten religious relics that were spread in the Great Expansion. It has sent your particular group to the island of Arcadia, where it has also sent some previous expeditions that haven’t returned yet. Are you simply hellbent on Arcadia’s exploration? Looking for glory, gold, or some specific thing on the island? Are you an outcast looking for a reason to leave home and find camaraderie on a crew? Or are you a dissident impressed by the church for political reasons? Regardless, you embark to explore the place that no one has returned from… yet.
Table of Contents
- Character creation info
- History
- The state of Lux and the world
- The Church of the Lantern and the Dream
- Homebrew, House rules and Arcana
Character creation information
I know you. This document is long, and you don’t feel like reading all the extensive lore I have written before diving into character creation. You are simply too hyped, too excited to start assigning your attributes and skills. Well, you will have to wait no more, as this chapter quickly tells you what is allowed and what isn’t. If something isn’t mentioned in this chapter but you really want to play it, please ask. I’m sure we’ll find a way to make it fit into the world. This joke is copied from the player doc of the Shifting Isles, but I hope it’s funny again after a couple years.
As for the content, you’re allowed:
- Player Handbook: all of it, except the half-orc which will be replaced by the homebrew orc race, and except the variant human (see character creation).
- Xanathar’s Guide to Everything: everything from chapter 1 (character options) and chapter 3 (spells).
- Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything: everything from chapter 1 (character options) except the optional class features should be discussed first (as normal), and everything from chapter 3 (spells).
- Volo’s Guide to Monsters: Aasimar, Firbolg, Goliath’s and (under monstrous races) Goblin become available as player races.
- Mordekainen’s Tome of Foes: Tiefling infernal legacies, the Eladrin Elf subrace and the Duergar Dwarf subrace become available as player subraces.
- The homebrew section (of course).
Character creation: We will start this campaign at level 3. Stats are assigned through pathfinder point buy (see table below). You may take feats and/or multiclass. In addition, each player may start the game with a free feat.
| Points | ability score |
|---|---|
| -4 | 7 |
| -2 | 8 |
| -1 | 9 |
| 0 | 10 |
| 1 | 11 |
| 2 | 12 |
| 3 | 13 |
| 5 | 14 |
| 7 | 15 |
| 10 | 16 |
| 13 | 17 |
| 17 | 18 |
Pathfinder point buy: buy stats with 15 points
History
It has been over 3000 years since the state of Lux was created from the conquered lands of Usen, and for all that time the Church of the Lantern has been dominant over its legislature. While the church itself holds in its public histories that assimilation has been quick and benevolent, the elvish oral historians remember that periodic revolts for religious freedoms have broken out. These revolts and movements often gain or lose small concessions to the church in a push-and pull, and the latest revolt, over 10 years ago, has managed to gain moderate religious freedom in exchange for having to pay a small poll tax (approximately 5 divine crowns per year per person).
The revolt was led by a group of elven history students, but what started as a small social movement quickly swept along the orcs, goblins and dwarves as well. The conflict lasted more than 3 years, and cost over 120,000 people their lives. When the peace was finally signed, it was done with the full expectation that it would hold not more than a year. The fact that it has held for 13 and counting has been a welcome surprise to the peoples of the northern reaches.
The Church of the Lantern has set up many labour programmes in the most hard-hit areas to help the local economies back to their feet after the devastation of the war. These programmes, funded by continued mobilisation of the army after the peace accord had been signed, have been as controversial as they have been effective, and with the hindsight of now they are generally seen as a necessary evil that brought moderate prosperity to an area that could have been left ruined for decades. The last groups of soldiers have only recently been demobilised, and finding a new job for these people - who have been separated from home, sometimes for almost two decades - has been one of the goals of the wave of new expeditions that have been sent out by the Church.
The state of Lux and the world
The state of Lux covers an area the size of approximately all of western and northern Europe. It is the only major political entity on its continent, although because of the high amounts of autonomy of its subjects it almost functions more as a super-governmental organization like the EU or the late Holy Roman Empire. It has a population of 56,740,401.
Lux’ head of state is called the Keeper of the Light. The Church of the Lantern is called the Keeper of the Dream. Both are elected by the council of high priests of the Church. Its councils of ministers are also elected by the high priests. Its top-level bureaucrats are assigned by merit, but must still be members of the Church.
The human language has been designated as “the common tongue” by the state. Local languages are taught alongside it, but it can be difficult to find teachers for local languages of races that are not your own. The state religion is the Church of the Lantern (duh). The state of Lux has spread a common coin: 1 divine crown (1 gp-equivalent) which subdivides into 50 eyrs (2 cp-equivalent). The further you travel from the divine homelands, the more people barter with goods rather than coin, with at the extreme the northern orc tribes, which barely accept crowns. The state backs its coin with promise: 1 divine crown can always be earned with 1 day of manual labour for the state or the church.
The state leaves a lot of its social institutions to the Church. Schools are Church-run, as is social security, and hospitals cure Church members free of charge. Infrastructure and housing is managed at a local level, and each citizen is incentivised to pay some part of its taxes in the manual labour required for these projects. Lux has a small professional army that doubles as its police force, alongside a conscript army for fighting large rebellions. Its high court is run by the church, but many of its federal subjects have regional courts that may be independently run. Slavery and serfdom are seen as abhorrent, but community service among the poor is socially enforced.
Months are 24 days, and the Church observes two monthly holidays. The day before the new moon it holds a fast where no animal products may be eaten, and the day before the full moon it holds a feast where the entire community comes together in a large potluck. While the feast is generally liked, a lot of tribes in the north do not observe the fast, largely because of the lack of access to vegetarian foods. The practice has become more common in recent years, with the devout mostly relying on canned foods and bread during the fast.
Each year has 12 months, and the Church observes four holidays. On the longest day, it holds the Flower Festival, a day (and night) of music and dance. On the day of the longest night, it holds the Lantern Festival, where communities come together and make a large meal alike the monthly feast, except significantly more elaborate. At the end of the sowing period it holds the Great Dance, where the Church organises theatre and music events. And finally, at the end of the harvest period, it holds a Harvest Feast, another food festival focused on the fruits and other quickly-perishables that were harvested. After the harvest feast, the leftover fruits are turned into alcoholic drinks, or (more recently) canned.
Lux has a fairly primitive industry, mostly relying on traditional artisans rather than manufactories. There are three major exceptions to this: the food industry, the clothes industry, and the tools industry. Because of great technological improvements (respectively vacuum canning, the automated loom and the steel furnace) these industries have slowly come off the ground and have significantly increased people’s access to simple consumer goods like canned vegetables, potted fruits, clothes, bed linen, household tools and building materials. These goods becoming cheaper combined with labour programmes that helped artisans switch to other jobs have been instrumental in keeping the peace since the last great revolt.
The Church of the Lantern and the dream
The Church of the Lantern believes that the world was dreamed up by the goddess Ashling, nearly corrupted by the nightmare, then saved by the human people led by their messiah Usen. Read more about this in the genesis myth. The Church is led by the Keeper of the Dream, who has an advisory body in the Council of the Dream, made up of 24 high priests. To become a high priest, one must become an upper priest (who administers a church in a great city) - a position gotten mostly by merit - and must then be elected to the council by the other high priests. Rarely, the Keeper of the Dream might elect anyone they want to the position of high priest, but this is generally only done when a large amount of high priests suddenly become unavailable to fulfil their voting duties. The last time this happened was during an attempted Great Schism, which saw almost 15 former high priests try to move away from the Church. They were put to death.
The Church has local heresies throughout Lux, as well as competing religions of spirit worship or ancestor worship. It tolerates these religions at the cost of members of these religions paying a tax called the Dissenter’s Tithe. While many of these dissenting religious groups have wildly different opinions on how the world should be, almost all of them agree on one major point: the dream.
In Lux (and everywhere in the world), people often get prophetic dreams. They may also have dreams in which they communicate with each other, and some more powerful people and creatures may be able to steer this dream, whereas most common folk are simply dragged along by it. This is not limited to religious people, and far from all people receiving these dreams aim for a formal position in the Church. The dreams can often be vague, and interpreting what they mean exactly is something that religious movements do often disagree on, but no one can refute: the dream is real.
The most notable dream is the dream of life. When a person becomes pregnant, they receive a dream of what their child will become, and most people will be able to steer this dream, as this is where the dream grants the dreamer a lot of autonomy. The dream’s content and the dreamer’s feelings about their present and their future will decide a lot of important characteristics about the child - including their race. While most people dream of having a child like themselves, this can create some unusual children should the parent feel out of touch with their community. On a comedic note: goblins, gnomes and halflings are often granted special help by the Church should they dream their child to be a goliath, firbolg, or other unusually large race. Because the dream of life can happen to anyone, anyone can become pregnant regardless of gender or sexual involvement with others (although it can generally only happen to people living in a community with at least a few others).
Nightmares are regarded as a bad omen by many (but not all) religions. People having frequent nightmares are often sent to the Church to find out what bad fate is plaguing the person. Nightmares in the dream of life are especially catastrophic, and can lead to dangerous things happening to the parent or the child, or in extreme cases lead to the birth of monstrous creatures. People with frequent nightmares are often shunned from society to reduce the risk to their communities, and while the Church has set up specialised care facilities, it is no secret that these have a high rates of people running away.
Homebrew, house rules and arcana
Most of the homebrew stuff is GM-facing for this adventure. I have doctored up some rules for travel and wilderness survival, as well as the campaign (obviously) being a hexcrawl - a format that 5e doesn’t natively support. I also have a homebrew orc race that replaces the 5e half orc (if you want to play the phb half-orc, make an orc and choose the “tundra orc” subrace). I’ll send you the player-facing homebrew in a seperate pdf.
As for house rules, I will run with my usual house rule for campaigns that could hit high levels:
- The spell Wish (phb 288) loses its second to last paragraph (“You might be able … the item’s current owner.“) This means you may only wish for the as-described options.
Reason: I have found that breaking reality in a monkey-paw way is often, actually, not that fun. It’s bound to end campaigns in a single casting, either in the player’s favour or to their detriment. Because most of the spell is fine as-written, I have chosen to remove the monkey-paw, free-form bad-faith-interpreting rule-lawyery do-whatever choice, leaving with a spell that can do more than enough reality shaping without accidentally ending a player for stupid reasons.
Further, there is a house rule that I have been subconsciously running with since forever, but never formally put to paper. It’s time to finally do that:
- The spell Remove Curse (phb 271) is changed to a 2nd level spell, and its text is changed to: “At your touch, all temporary curses, such as those caused by spells such as Hex and Bestow Curse cast at lower than 9th level, end.” The spell Greater Restoration (phb 246) has its second bullet point (“One curse, including … cursed magic item”) changed to “One temporary curse, such as those caused by spells such as Hex and Bestow Curse cast at lower than 9th level.”
Reason: 5e’s curse rules suck in a way that makes them mostly unfun. Low level characters are often unable to handle any curse that is of a “fun” amount of strength, but once characters enter tier 2 curses become completely deflated because the party cleric can just undo a curse after a night’s sleep. This leads to unfun play patterns where player’s can only explore the interesting gameplay and roleplay opportunities that curses bring by purposefully roleplaying against the solutions the system gives. I will concede: poorly designed curses can be unfun, and I believe this is why Remove Curse is given so freely by the player handbook, as a lot of the suggested curses WotC gives are also poorly designed. By implementing this house rule, I give the following promises:
- A curse will never be debilitating to moment-to-moment roleplay. While a curse obviously affects a character’s choices, I will design them more as a “sword of damocles” than as a “you must now roleplay a personality trait I have given you.” Examples of this are the Vortigern great tempest possession, and the Phil lycanthropy.
- A curse will always have an in-universe way of dispelling it, and that way is never practically impossible. There will always be silver-fountain-equivalents or specific rituals that can rid you of the curse.
- A curse will always be designed to be fun to play with. Whether it gives you cool abilities at a cost, or causes trouble in an interesting way, the curse will never be bad in a boring way. I will admit that the aforementioned lycanthropy is not a great example of this point, I’ll make a better on in the future if any of you is gonna get himself in a biting contest with a werewolf again.
- If a curse is actively making your character unfun to play, come to me outside the game, and we’ll see if we can either make it more interesting or speedrun the dispelling.