Sancturi Campaign¶
"In reverence to the High Lords who serve Kalar we keep these Golden Orbs; let those who seek glory cast their eyes down in humility." — inscription in the Monastery of St Morgan (S185)
A campaign of the Fifth Age, played in forty-one sessions from 12 January to 21 December 2019, on the northern frontier of the Sancturi Imperium and in the Riven Kingdoms it was conquering. It opens with a handful of travellers bound by a Blood Pact to a devil when a Hollow swallows the village where they slept, and follows them from that pact through the temple-vaults of Kilmarn, the hunt for a rogue Eldritch in Miralt, the prison of the Elder God Seth'Arax, the demon-hollowed kingdom of Alghert and the Battle of Angels, the Sancturi occupation of Brusau, and the dwarves of the White Towers, to a last expedition into the Hollow of Acadia. Across it the party carried the Eye, a piece of the Mithis Heartstone sought by the Imperium, the Araxians and the devils alike. The arc session by session is on the companion Sessions page.
The party¶
The party changed over the year; the documents use character names in play and players' names in two gamemaster-only planning sheets (S125, S202).
| Character | Sessions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Riorden | from #1 | A human Hollowlock and pyromancer, "Mithis-Cursed (Half-Elven ancestry)" (S202); held the pact totem; took Quorvain's ring; taken "under the protection of the faith" in Miralt (S165, S173, S174). |
| Cassia | from #1 | Shunned by creatures of Necatus (S163); carrier of two fragments of Seth'Arax, Power and Knowledge (S178); framed and tried in Miralt (S174). |
| Khol | from #1 | Among the first four bound by the pact (S161). |
| Belgriffin | from #1 | Among the first four; carried the black triangle from Kilmarn (S161, S165). |
| Abithar | from #8 | Also written Abither and Abithor. From Gar'Agor in Dru'Bazan (S192); took a shade's form (S174); spymaster of the Doomguard; ended the campaign in an Eldritch body (S201). |
| Almund | from #10 | Carried the red fragment of Seth'Arax, Vigor (S178), until he cast it out (S196); leader of the Doomguard and given land for an Aryal temple (S187); killed and "brought back with an Araxian body" (S198). |
| Owl | from #16 | Also called The Owl. Known by "his always worn Owl patterned helmet"; posted as "The Bloodfiend Owl" (S192). |
| Nicoleta | from #26 | Countess of Badengrove and the Doomguard's "Loremaster & Deathlord" (S187); posted as "Dreadwitch Nicoleta" (S192); her soul "entwined with" the Araxian hive (S198). |
| Belgrad | from #31 | Joined in Brusau (S191). |
The Group of Nine¶
The Blood Pact bound the first four player characters with five others, played as party characters by the gamemaster (S161, S138): the rogue Neven Hayes (S149), the Sancturi lord Rakai Karanovic (S150), the tailor Zaena Greyson, secretly possessed and spying for the devil (S151), the innkeeper Normand Haket, and the runeblade Kaito Tadaheik, a gentled slave of the sawmill. Kaito died at Kilmarn and Normand in the deep beyond it (S163, S165). A relic-hunter possessed by an Eldritch soul fragment, Athu Marised, was prepared for the same role (S148). Their own pages tell who they were; this page tells what they did.
Arc¶
The arc falls into seven parts (see Sessions for each):
- The Blood Pact (sessions 1 to 7). The Hollow of Hal'Gamesh swallows Harwith; the witch Zaela sends the party to the Eldritch prince Amer, who wants a lantern from the vault of Kilmarn, the Godfire Lantern of Helis Sunblighter, which hides an Eldritch soulcrux; they take it from under a Hollowlord's demons and go on into the deep.
- Miralt (sessions 8 to 14). Hunted on the Sancturi frontier, the party reach Miralt and run down the rogue Eldritch Quorvain at the court of Duchess Lavinia Zul-aw-ta.
- Seth'Arax (sessions 15 to 20). An Aquitanian temple built over the prison of Seth'Arax, where the party trap the Pitch and come away carrying fragments of the god's soul.
- Alghert and Pemeril (sessions 21 to 26). With Sivar of the White Fire, the party enter the mega-hollow of Alghert, where the demonlord Adramycos and the witch-royals of the Tugard line are breaking into the Vault of the Eye; Pemeril falls around them, and the Battle of Angels is fought in the vault.
- Brusau and the Doomguard (sessions 27 to 32). Rewarded as "Heroes of Alghert", the party found a company, rescue the Great Library of Altandon from the Sancturi purge, and become wanted across the occupied kingdom.
- The White Towers and the Thur'arax (sessions 33 to 38). Among the dwarves of Queen Melkorka, the party fight their way to a dwarven shipyard and destroy the Thur'arax Bhol-tho on the Araxian Plane.
- Acadia (sessions 39 to 41). Through the deep realms below the White Towers to a last, scattered landing in the Acadian Hollow.
The Doomguard¶
The Doomguard was the party's own company, raised in Brusau after Alghert (S187). It numbered thirty-three: twenty-one fighters, four of whom wished to become witch hunters, three seasoned lieutenants including the Aryal squire Sander, a Thorn Knight, eight seasoned rangers and an apprentice witch hunter, with two wagons and forty horses. Its officers were the party with Commander Ailen Vester of the Keepers of Abaddon as quartermaster; Almund led it, Abithar was its spymaster and Nicoleta its "Loremaster & Deathlord". With them went the Alghert ambassador Landrict, a ranger; the Eldritch priest Xugax of the Runebinders; Temeluch, a bloodthorn dryad and "Thorn Cleric of Arya"; and the witch Lorenza (S187). Its aims are noted as "Gather Soulcruxers" and "Build a Strong Military". Ailen and Temeluch were still with the party on the expedition to Acadia (S201).
What changed¶
The session logs give no year in the setting's calendar. The Brusau events follow the death of Queen Aalina Lorimer, which the Timeline places after 704 SM; everything below falls in the Fifth Age before the fall of Sanctorum in 904 SM.
- The pact totem in the party's hands: by session 5 Riorden held the totem of the Blood Pact (S165); the logs do not say when, or whether, the pact itself was broken. See Hal'Gamesh.
- The Godfire Lantern recovered from Kilmarn for Amer, and with it the knowledge of the Eldritch soulcruxes (S164). See Eldritch Soulcruxes and Kilmarn.
- Quorvain run down, his ring passing to Riorden, and Bishop Meven Varecca of the Order of the Crimson Sun killed by Amer (S174). See Miralt.
- The fragments of Seth'Arax taken from his hidden shrine by the party (S178); later they learned that at least one of the seven seals of Seth'Arax had failed (S196). See Seth'Arax.
- Pemeril's wards broken: with Malo and Apuuk dead the north ward failed and devils entered the city (S183, S184). See Pemeril and Alghert.
- The Eye taken from its vault beneath the Monastery of St Morgan, after the Battle of Angels against Adramycos (S185, S186). See Arcane Eye.
- Brusau made a Sancturi province, after 704 SM, on the death of Queen Aalina Lorimer; the Lorimers and nobility granted provisional Sancturi citizenship, and the worshippers of Arcantus purged (S187). See Brusau and Sancturi Campaigns.
- The Great Burning of Altandon, two thousand dead, and the Great Library emptied by the party ahead of the Sancturi purge (S189, S190). See Altandon.
- Nicoleta made Countess of Badengrove and land in the hills above Toffeld given to Almund (S187). See Brusau.
- The Thur'arax Bhol-tho destroyed at the White Towers' shipyards (S198). See Thur'arax.
After the campaign¶
The Post-Sancturi lore of 2023 records what became of the party, centuries later in the Age of the Divine (S112):
- Owl died, having founded a mercenary company, the Steel Raptors.
- Almund died "in a vain attempt to help Arya", and founded the Blood Cult of Arya.
- Abithar became a Witch-King, one of the rulers of the Eldritch kingdoms.
- Belgrad is imprisoned in the Abyss.
- Nicoleta "still presently serves Seth'Arax". The Proturan campaign's first plans name her as "the Araxian High-General" (S076); see the Proturan Campaign.
The same document dates the end of the Sancturi Age to 904 SM, "when the capitol Sanctorum fell to an Araxian onslaught led by the Thur'arax Dread Overlord NIkee" (S112); see The Redemption for what followed.
Planned and unplayed¶
Before play the gamemaster wrote a set of plot seeds; these are intentions, not events (S127 to S145, S202, S203). Storylines were to be "Meaningful", "Dark. Evil. Scary.", "Interwoven" and "Non-linear" (S139). The great arcs proposed were the ownership of Mithis and the restoration of the god of magic, rising in a Great House of the Imperium, destroying the Acadian Hollow, and uniting the Riven Kingdoms against the Empire (S202). Smaller seeds included a plot to kill Volgin, king of the dwarves of Dru'Bazan (S134); the Brotherhood's sabotage of a Vigil (S131); a library threatened by a hidden Hollow (S130); the famous grey witch Maefrel (S129); the secret pacts of Alghert's king and princess (S127); the hidden machine of Koradikken, "The Last Augur", that clouds all divination (S140); the scattered heart and bones of Pravustiratel (S143); the three-fold division of the Mithis Heartstone (S142); and the Eldritch factions of Phaendar, Allannia and Luiranar (S141); a rampaging Eldritch horror forging a kingdom in the far West (S136), the elves' hope of a kingdom of their own (S135), and the choice to unite the Rivenlands, keep them independent or help the Sancturi conquer them (S137). The first part of the campaign was to be about "fellowship … glue … character commitment" (S133). Some of these were played in altered form: the Alghert seed became sessions 21 to 26, and the Heartstone seed the Eye.
Earlier accounts¶
The first drafts of the opening set it in the village of Hearnst near a crossroads, under the Hollowlord devil Hez'Vandros, "Haz", whose pact totem is "a carved granite dog skull" (S144, S145); the character sheets of December 2018 call the devil Zul'Ruggamesh (S151). The start document of January 2019 moves the opening to Harwith and names the devil Hal'Gamesh (S138), and the first session log follows it (S161). The witch Zaela "was supposed to be Maefrel" (S161). The cast sheets for a village innkeeper and villagers (S203) belong to the same drafts.
Gap
No session log gives the in-world year. The Sanctuary Age Timeline runs to 704 SM and the Post-Sancturi lore dates the Imperium's fall to 904 SM; where the campaign falls between them is not stated. The documents do not record when or how Riorden, Cassia, Khol and Belgriffin left the party, nor how the expedition to Acadia ended. The name lists the gamemaster kept for the campaign's peoples (S157) record only naming conventions.