Their Submission Only Shames the Victor - Campaign Primer

Steamboat in a Storm, Turner, 1841

Brythwin Island

Petty Queen Gloran is a pale, cruel-faced woman, about fifty years old, strong willed and sharp-minded. She wears pearls, rubies, opals, lead, and glass. Her colours are black and red. She hates the capital, and hates the Baroness. 

Gloran has hired you and your companions to investigate nearby Brythwin Island, which two weeks ago was enveloped in an unnatural and apparently perpetual storm of great intensity. Horrible things have been emerging from this tumult and killing people in the surrounding region. The locals are calling them Curse Men, and they are, apparently, something like demons. 

Details are currently not known. The first team of fixers she sent to investigate have not returned, and she does not want to risk sending in house troops without some idea of what she's walking them into. 

Your missions, should you choose to accept them, are:

• To discover the source of the unnatural storm, and if possible destroy or neutralise it. 
• To discover the source of the Curse Men, and if possible destroy or neutralise it.
• Failing that, to get word back to her with as much information as possible about the nature of the disturbance on the isle. 

She offers a reward of 25k silver for each of the first two, and 5k for the third. 

The island in known to house strange ruins, originally built by one of the ancient, pre-Old Capital Baronial kingdoms. Before the storm came it was deserted and uninhabited save for the local feral cat clans. The name Brythwin is known to have once meant 'castle of light', or maybe 'castle of heaven', in a language now long-extinct. 

The Journey

Two days by foot, and then a barge across the lake. The sky looks scrubbed clean in the mornings, and the sun is pale and beautiful. It is chill this time of year, but very bright. 

You have with you, in addition to anything given by your class:

• 1000 rations, packed such that they will not spoil. Oil, coffee, salt, eggs, sugar, dried fruit, salt meat, and other luxuries to last two weeks - after these run out, this store will count as iron rations unless you can find some other way to supplement it. 
• 150 torches, 6 oil lanterns, 50 INV of lamp oil. 
• 50 doses of stimulants, 50 doses of sedatives, 5 bottles of white alcohol. 
• The necessaries for making camp: tents and bedrolls, pots and pans, soap and incense. A writ of passage and a banner that proclaims you as the queen's men and women. 
• Basic tools: 2 crowbars, 2 sledgehammers, 5 buckets, 5 hammers, 5 shovels, 1000ft of rope.
• A pack mule and cart, laden with your gear.  

In addition to these essentials, you may choose x of the following options, where x = 2 + the group's highest CHAR mod. Any of these (with two obvious exceptions) can be taken more than once, and the 'essential' options listed above may also be chosen again, at the cost of one of your additional picks.  

• Medicine: 50 doses of Prophylactics, 50 doses of Painkillers, 10 doses of Curatives, 500 doses of Immune Boosters. 
• Specialist Kit: 2 iron files, 2 long-handled bolt cutters, 20 climbing spikes, 5 hand mirrors, 5 vials of acid, 5 vials of petroleum, 5 vials of holy water. 
• Whatever mundane armour or weapons you want from the royal armouries, true for the entire party, up to one set of armour and two weapons (or a weapon and a shield) per person. 20 pieces of ammunition for any ranged weapons. All in addition to your class gear. 
• 10 civilian attendants, who will not follow you underground, or fight in combat. Two of these can be trained specialists (blacksmiths, carpenters, etc.) of your choosing, with all tools necessary for their work - these two specialists can also be men-at-arms (HD1+1, medium weapon, chain, shield) who will fight and adventure with you. 
• 1 of the Queen's personal retainers: loyal, courageous NPCs with character levels. Roll on a table below for each that you pick. If anyone in your party has a CHAR mod of +2 or better, you may modify the roll up or down 1 at your option. All options not picked to accompany the PC party at campaign start will be retroactively declared to have departed in the first, vanished expedition. 
• Histories of Brythwin Island. There has not been time for you to take proper notes of all of this before you leave, but the Queen might be persuaded to let you pack these tomes and old maps with you, to aid in your undertaking. She will want a sincere promise that they will be returned unharmed. In practical game terms, a collection of lore snippets, rumours, incomplete maps, and contested histories of the island you're about to travel to. 
• The Glorani familial heirloom sword, THIS WAY OUT, a huge, black heavy runeblade of ill favour and dark repute. This option will cost two picks on this table (which represents whoever gets to carry it actively charming and ingratiating themselves with her majesty before you leave), and its gifting will mark your party as the Queen's personal executors, not mere employees. THIS WAY OUT has not been wielded in combat in a generation, and its properties are no longer well understood, but in the family histories it was said to steal the souls of those that it slew, and use them to fuel ever greater feats of carnage. THIS WAY OUT comes with a suit of ornate black plate called the Mournful Harness, which you can ask the armourers adjust to your frame if you wish - wearing it will mark you as a Glorani Champion. 
• Anything else you might reasonably request.

Glorani Retainers

1. Belaphon and Selinae, Murderers. Two mannequin soldiers, who will follow verbal instruction dispassionately and to the letter. A gift to the Queen from one of her noble friends years ago; they have since given good service. Belaphon is made from iron, Selinae is made from cloth. 
2. Charlie. A rising star in the Queen's staff, known as a competent, ambitious, and withdrawn young man. Good with a sword, but more valuable to his employer for his considered and discreet counsel. Wears fashionable clothing and a neatly trimmed black beard, and carries a pistol, buckler, and sabre. 
3. Executioner Smaug. An advocate for modern and enlightened judicial execution practice, which means that she is a professional chemist with the knowhow to produce high-quality poisons that have a similar effect to a lethal injection. Separately, known to be a hobbyist shooter and a crack shot with a musket. Comes with a mobile chemistry setup and limited reagents. 
4. Advisor Cylon. The Queen's court academic, a sociopath by reputation. Does not wear any makeup or jewellery, which decidedly others her in Baronial company. Nasty rumours about a chronic illness kept well-hidden. Trained as a historian, and keeps a stable of entities myopically focused on killing and maiming things in horrible ways - also wears a brace of pistols. 
5. Golgotha. A trained war hound of frightening size and ferocity. Grey coat, looks a bit like a borzoi with a lot more muscle - comes up to the shoulder on most adults. Exceptionally well trained, loyal, and intelligent, and extremely dangerous in a fight.
6. Dame the Vivisector. A friendly, chatty, and eccentric older woman who wears plate armour everywhere, known especially for her distinctive and terrifying Vorpal Shears. She is, apparently, from the nobility, but no one knows where her estates are. Queen Gloran treats her with extreme affection, almost like family, and the Dame treats everyone, including the queen, like a beloved and slightly exasperating grandchild. Her reputation is for insane bravery and viciousness bordering on sadism. 

Player Rules and Expectation Management

Barony rules unless specified (which are, of course, mostly G24 rules). 

Initiative is procedural, not rolled for. Reach weapons go first (they are controlling the terms of the engagement), and initiative proceeds in order of weapon reach. Inside this rubric, PCs go before monsters. Ie Orcs with spears go before PCs with swords, but the Fighter with a polearm goes before the orcs. Orcs with swords go after the PCs with swords. The PC with the knife goes last. 

Reach is not strictly codified, and is adjudicated 'as makes sense', depending on the weapon. This is probably not going to be worked out at the level of, say, individual medium swords (my estoc goes before your sabre or whatever) - that's too greebly. A heavy great sword longer than a medium straight sword? Yes. A medium sword described in x way instead of y way to give it the reach advantage over another medium sword? Probably not. If ever in doubt, all DM rulings are final. 

Long weapons roll attacks with disadvantage in cramped confines - in very bad conditions (crawling, squeezing through gaps) normal medium weapons might as well. A dagger or similar will never roll with disadvantage because of the environment. 

Typically this will mean that heavy weapons strike first, because typically these have a longer reach, but there will be all manner of exceptions to this (a medium or even a light spear might have reach on a medium sword, a monster's claws that hit as heavy weapons might strike after a medium mace, and so forth). Surprise rounds ignore these rules - the whole side acting with surprise simply gets a full round of attacks with whatever they are carrying.

Dual-wielding with a light weapon in your off-hand gets you +1 to hit with your main-hand weapon, and +1 AC. 

Weapon degradation is tweaked to the following: every weapon and piece of gear rolls a d6 at the end of each day of adventuring as long as it was used at least once. You get -1 to this roll per terrible, unwise thing you did with it (anything it's not built for), and on a 1 or lower, the equipment is damaged. If it was already damaged, it breaks and is lost. Repairing damaged gear is possible (but not broken/lost gear) if you have the skillset, tools, and spare time, and most looted gear will already be damaged. 

Armour and shields are harder wearing, and typically only damaged by acid and similar. 

Class list here. Blank Character Sheet here. 

Everyone starts with two templates, which means that your starting HP is 6+CON, or 2d6+CON, whichever is higher. Baronial humans can multiclass freely between the Baronial classes at character creation.

If you die, you probably remain dead. You might find a limited number replacement characters inside the dungeon, which might give the group limited 'respawns' in situ, but actual reinforcements will have to wait for a hypothetical second party arriving from Queen Gloran, the timeframe of which is by her royal fiat.

Since this is technically a playtest, the first character sheets submitted for each of the classes will be allowed to roll on a special hidden curios list. 

The game can have as many players as are interested - this is the fixer group of mercenaries hired in the first instance. Actual delves will be limited to (probably) four or five people at a time, because I haven't run games in a while and get mental overwhelm quite easily. As the dungeon progresses this may increase. 

Asynch chatting and other stuff can happen in the base camp in the public server; delves will be in real time. 

XP is awarded 1 to 1 (silver standard) for loot (coins, gems, treasure) deposited in the company war chest, and is divided evenly among surviving members of a delve. Saleable goods including art count for half their value, unless sold in town. XP might also be distributed for other achievements by DM fiat. Multi-classing after character creation will be difficult without access to specialists. 

Third template is 800xp, fourth is 1600xp (first is 200, second is 400, if that ever becomes relevant). 

Expect: 

• A small megadungon, with a focus on dungeoneering, resource management, and combat. Very little, if any, social and domain stuff. 
• Relatively high lethality I think?
• Some light and enjoyable scrambling of Barony lore :)