The main villains for this new campaign I'm thinking about will be a new, insurgent cult of Chaos that is attempting to take over Karameikos. Why them?
- Clear cut bad guys - very few people will be upset or morally outraged if adventurers kill chaos cultists and chaos marauders. They are among the worst of humanity (and demihumanity).
- A wide range of members - certainly humans from all 4 of the basic classes (fighter, mage, thief and of course cleric), but also corrupted demihumans, humanoids (orcs, gnolls etc) as well as more monstrous recruits, mercenaries and pets.
- A wide range of power levels - a campaign about beholders or dragons might not have a battle with the main bad guys until adventurers have been through plenty of previous adventures to get them to the requisite levels. But chaos cultists can start off at 1st level and progress upwards.
- Switching from stealthy infiltration to brute force and back again as needed allows for a variety of adventures. Chaotic humans can easily enter towns, get jobs and (as long as they maintain their cover) even rise to positions of authority within civilised society. But also they can muster their forces (both human and inhuman) to form legions of destruction.
There have been hints and mentions of a cult of Chaos in the classic modules - most notably B2: the Keep on the Borderlands where they occupy the uppermost cave, surrounded by chaotic humanoid footsoldiers, and a camp of chaotic fighters in the wilderness. They have even infiltrated the Keep itself! Also B3: Palace of the Silver Princess and X3: Curse of Xanathon have powerful chaotic clerics as the main villains - the latter is interesting in that until the events of the adventure, Xanathon and his clerics of Cretia are tolerated within the town of Rhoona. Also X5, the Master is a chaotic cleric, leading an army of chaotic beings. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to have them all part of a network of chaotic cultists that stretches across the Known World.
Inspiration comes from a wide range of sources, including Michael Moorcock's Elric series, where both the decadent Melniboneans and fantatical Pan-Tangians are followers of the gods of Chaos. Moorcock used Law vs Chaos rather than Good vs Evil in many of his books, and this carried on into a number of early RPGs and other games. Basic/Expert D&D, Warhammer Fantasy (both Battle and RPG, especially the classic volumes Lost & the Damned and Slaves to Darkness), Empire of the Petal Throne and of course the Stormbringer RPG all used the clash of Law vs Chaos, with Chaos generally being the bad guys.
There are lots of other evil cults that can be drawn on for inspiration, including R. E. Howard's Conan stories, the Cthulhu mythos, the cultists from Diablo III, even Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
I'm going to depart from "official" Mystara in that I won't use specific deities, immortals or the like. Instead, Law and Chaos are not just belief systems and loyalties, they are forms of energy that can power clerical spells directly without gods or the like granting spells to clerics. Clerics of Law and Chaos have enough faith and belief to channel these energies into spells. Neutral clerics can draw on both energies at the same time as long as they keep the forces in balance. These forces can be represented by gods and the like, but these are ficticious personalities - this is how I am treating the Temple of Cretia in X3 - Cretia does not really exist but represents the mischievous and disruptive aspects of Chaos for the people of Rhoona.
For the cult within Karameikos see also:
- Scenario #1: The Captured Cleric
- Scenario #4: Lair of the Twisted Summoner
- Chaos in the Black Eagle Barony
- Logos Location #4: Kamroth's Cairn
I like that idea about the immortals being fictitious. I also have Law and Chaos being cosmic warring energies, but have the Immortals being something like Angels that have taken aspects to fight the war.
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting. I've gone for abstract forces rather than individual deities/immortals mainly because Mystara's pantheon has always seemed patchwork and haphazard, scattered among lots of different supplements (unlike Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms where the the pantheons are established in the core campaign settings). But immortals as optional additions to these primordial forces could work.
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