Drift
A D&D Campaign Outline
PROLOGUE:
The Sons and Daughters Of Faroud Al-Abin
The Restless Desert: a terrible wasteland made deadlier still by the lingering echoes of the woeful arcane weapons of the Last War. The players are travellers who must cross the desert, heading for the Adarian Protectorate, a nascent federation forming in the ruins of that war. They travel with Faroud al-Abin, a merchant and guide with a sizeable family.
They spar with his sons while waiting for one of Faroud’s family to give birth. An unprecedented chill starts to envelop the camp. The group can assist with the childbirth and corral the animals against the coming storm. Eventually a freezing mist envelops the caravan, and something within in starts to pick off the terrified travellers.
The group can flee, or make a desperate stand to buy the Faroud’s family time to flee. Their fate will be the same either way: a grim and terminal encounter with an ancient frost dragon. Incredibly, it deigns to talk to its prey, asking a single question:
“WHERE IS IT?”
The players, of course, have no idea of what it means. It speaks again:
“I WILL BE BEHOLDEN TO NO MAN.”
With that, it dispatches the players, with no more consideration than they would give the sand beneath their feat.
CHAPTER 1:
The Redoubt
The players wake up on The Redoubt, the airship of Darian, a knight of the order Hospitalier.
It is several weeks later. They have been resurrected: a ritual of tremendous complexity and cost. They were resurrected because the dragon has been attacking settlements and caravans along the edge of the Restless Desert since they died, and survivors from Faroud’s caravan reported that they heard the dragon talk to the players - an almost inconceivable event. If they helped Faroud’s family escape, he also intervened on their behalf. The Marquesa de’la Forenza, the leader of the Adarian Protectorate, hopes they may be able to explain the dragon’s sudden appearance and motives, potentially saving countless innocent lives. He cannot feign his disappointment at what little he learns.
The Redoubt is heading for Serach’s Rise, more usually called The Rise; it is a major trading outpost for airships crossing the desert or heading to Shah.
The players can make themselves useful for the remainder of the journey to the Rise, potentially earning some coin. On arrival, Darian informs them that the Marquesa may still have some use for their limited intelligence on the Dragon. As such, Darian expects the players to stay in or near The Rise in case they are needed.
He also lets them know that Faroud is in town, having successfully escaped the dragon with his new grandson and the remainder of his family and retinue. He has sent word he would very much like to see the players when they are ready.
CHAPTER 2:
Cerements
Faroud meets the players at his new premises in The Rise: smaller and shabbier than the ones you first met him in, he has been painfully reduced by the disastrous crossing. It has cost him not just his entire cargo, but also many friends, and worst of all, his two eldest sons, Haroun and Mukesh.
He expresses his gratitude profusely, and offers all the hospitality he can, while promising he will soon recover his fortune. He has a favour to ask the group: his sons were not resurrected along with the players as his clan forbids such magics, choosing to stay on the wheel of death and rebirth. However, without their remains, a proper burial is impossible.
Traditionally their bodies would be represented by certain cerements, sacred to his people. These cerements, however, are trapped in the town of Anasazi, the home of
his people, which lies ruined and abandoned after the closing stages of the Last War. Overrun by bandits and dangerous beasts, he employs the players to fetch the cerements and a tome of funerary rites, so his sons may conclude their journey towards resurrection.
Anasazi is a town carved into the cliffside some two days walk beyond the Rise. A precarious climb down the canyon wall, and across the ravine on a rickety rope bridge, is made more deadly by the presence of Kobolds hiding amongst the ruins.
Yet these dangers pale in comparison to what lies in wait in the catacombs cut into the cliff wall. There, in the ritual library of Faroud’s people, the players first meet Braid, a serpentine assassin of tremendous power. They will need to drive him off if they wish to claim the cerements and lay Haroun and Mukesh to rest.
INTERLUDE (I):
Security
On their return to The Rise, the players deliver the strangely weighty sheets and the funerary tome to a profusely grateful Faroud. He is already improving his circumstances, and rewards them.
Darian suggests he may soon have something for them, and asks the party to check back in with him later.
In the meantime, the landlord of The Broken Wing is looking for some able-bodied folk to work security at an event he is planning. Experimental Folk sensation Bastard Sword are to play a concert tomorrow night, but his usual bouncers are…indisposed after a ruinous night out with lead singer Fay Acorn. Can the players step in and prevent the concert from becoming a riot?
CHAPTER 3:
Dusk
The dearth of healthy trees in the immediate vicinity of The Rise means that good lumber is a vital resource. It is mostly supplied by the town of Harbriggen, some 6-7 days journey to the South East.
Knight-Captain Darian has received reports of an attack on the logging town, and the last two scheduled deliveries have not arrived. He heard from Faroud how the players handled themselves in Anasazi, and offers to recruit them to investigate Harbriggen. He is dangerously short on men with the dragon attacks a constant threat in the area.
Harbriggen is shabby, remote village, situated in a brooding forest growing on the foothills of the nearest mountain range, whose peaks can just be seen South East of The Rise on a clear day. When the players arrive, it is deserted.
Initial investigations suggest the local wolf population, or something…wolf-like, may have been hunting the residents. However, a more thorough investigation will reveal a secret research post has been set up in this location precisely for its remoteness. It transpires the study of a mysterious artefact has torn open a rift to a realm of aberrant creatures, and unless the players can close the portal the town will never be safe. If they look closely enough, they may even find evidence of a mysterious patron funding the research. If the group can close the rift and destroy the remaining creatures, then the logging can resume and The Rise will start to receive much-needed shipments again.
Whether or not they succeed, a figure concealed in the woods observes the entire encounter, and reports the players actions to their superiors. If spotted, captured or killed, the spy is found to bear a strange insignia. Later, the the safety of The Rise, Darian confirms the unlikely truth: it is the sigil of the Knights Justicar, a sister organisation to the Hospitalier, and one long thought to have faded into irrelevance and obscurity.
As a minor bureaucratic matter, in order for Darian to properly remunerate the group, they must be afforded a technical position in the Adarian military hierarchy. As such, he reactivates an old, defunct unit, and bestows its title on the party. So the 13th Expeditionary Force is reborn.
CHAPTER 4:
Lift
Faroud invites the 13th to visit him. He has taken control of the ruins at Anasazi, and runs his business from there with the rest of his family. He has a proposition for them.
Anasazi, the town, was once home to the Anasazi, the people. They were semi-nomadic traders, famous for their unique grasp of ritual magics. Ritual casting fell out of favour during the Last War, being too slow, complex and unreliable for battle. The Anasazi were among the last remaining expert ritualists, and Faroud's family are their only surviving descendants. His brush with death in the desert has focused his mind and he aims, if not to restore their fortunes, then at least to document their history and culture. Sadly, the Anasazi ruins have been thoroughly stripped and looted over the years.
Faroud has located a key Anasazi text in the possession of one Lady Constance: a noblewoman from the bridge city of Shah. He has tried to buy it from her, but he was thoroughly rebuffed. He would even be happy with a simple copy, but she wont even consider that. He feels she has left him with no choice - he would like the 13th to break in to Lady Constance's vault, and copy the tome, preferably without anyone ever realising they had even been there. Luckily, Lady Constance is soon hosting one of her famous masque balls, and Faroud has managed to obtain an invitation...
CHAPTER 5:
Guardians
After their adventures (or misadventures) in Shah, the 13th are recuperating in Anasazi with Faroud's family. One morning, they find a letter, left under a pillow as they slept. An old acquaintance wants to meet.
That night, they leave town and head for a nearby glade in the desert. A strange light suffuses the night sky, casting a purple hue over the lush foliage of the little oasis. In the centre of the glade is their acquaintance, Skamos, fast asleep. A single, beautiful doe stands guard over his body. When the players enter the clearing, it turns its deep, moist eyes towards them and says: "Fuck off."
So the 13th are drawn into the desperate rearguard action of the Guardians: the last remaining resistance in the neighbouring nation of Reidra. The three nations north of the Restless Desert - Khovar, Xen'drik and Reidra - have all been subsumed into a paranoid empire ruled by the Inspired, a race of enigmatic demigods. Though few in number, they are tremendously powerful psions, with abilities ranging from mind-reading to teleportation. The Guardians of Reidra have had their numbers decimated by counter-espionage.
With the leader of the Guardians, Baron, imprisoned in Bastion City, things look bleak. It is up to 13th to liberate him - or kill him - before the Guardians have no secrets left to protect. But the Inspired have command over more than the physical realm, and the 13th find they are not even safe in their dreams.
CHAPTER 6:
The Rolling Court
The 13th's exploits have not gone unnoticed. Darian has kept Marquesa de’la Forenza informed, and now the 13th have been summoned to meet the Adarian leader at his court.
The Marquesa never really held with castle's however - he preferred to visit his provinces in person, rather than rule from a central throne. As such, he created the Rolling Court: an armoured and armed wagon pulled by a massive team of warhorses, with which he toured the young nation.
The 13th have not been summoned to kiss the ring, however - the Marquesa has come to believe that a single force has been behind the events in the Restless Desert, in Harbriggen, and in a dozen other minor flash-points across Adar. Individually minor, the net effect has been to subtly but deliberately destabilise the entire region, just at a moment when the Adarian Protectorate was finding its feet. Someone is making them vulnerable. But vulnerable to what?
This cold war suddenly erupts when the Rolling Court comes under attack. An ambush as the caravan crosses a rocky pass threatens the Marquesa himself, and saboteurs prevent the Marquesa's security detail from coming to his aid. The 13th suddenly find they are his last line of defence.
CHAPTER 7:
Death & Taxes
The Marquesa has survived unharmed - just. Rather than reassure his people, he and Darian concoct a plan to use this moment to draw out the poison. This is no scrappy uprising: these attacks are well-coordinated and would have needed years of planning. They have the story put out that the Marquesa is at death's door. Who will come out of the woodwork to try and take his place?
Things are complicated, however, by strange tremors in the arcane fabric of the world. The magics used to provide instant communication between cities and outposts are suddenly fractured and unreliable. Spies and betrayers are cropping up like weeds. By dint of their actions at the Rolling Court, the Marquesa finds that the 13th are among the few he can unquestioningly trust - were it not for them, he would certainly be dead.
The plan is dangerous, however, and leaves the Marquesa perilously exposed. As the emboldened traitors make their move, the 13th must uncover their identities while protecting the Marquesa at all costs. Even so, are they prepared for the awful truth at the heart of this insurrection? And even if the Marquesa survives - will the Protectorate?
CHAPTER 8:
Crux
With key conspirators captured, and the immediate threat to his life over, the Marquesa moves to take control of the situation. Darian and the 13th are dispatched to The Rise to arrest Faroud al-Abin.
Darian struggles to believe the evidence - Faroud has been as staunch an ally as the Marquesa has ever enjoyed, and Darian considers him a personal friend. Reluctantly, he gives the 13th orders to head for Anasazi and detain Faroud. He asks the 13th, though, to handle the matter delicately and sensitively. Surely there is some explanation for this?
The night before the 13th are due to ride for Anasazi, they bunk at the Broken Wing. Their old watering-hole is now a garrison for Darian's men, although Wilson still tends the bar for old friends. That night, as they sleep, they dream the same dream. A stranger, a cliff, and, ultimately, a fall.
Whether they fall or fly, the stranger's advice is the same: "WAKE UP!"
The advice proves life-saving: assassins stand over them, ready to strike. The next day, Darian informs the 13th that he has captured the person who hired them, In the dungeons they come face-to-face with Lady Constance. She admits to being a high-ranking officer of the Knights Justicar, and excoriates the 13th for their clumsy interventions across the continent, claiming they have endangered countless lives. Any protestations of ignorance infuriate her. She is also quite certain that she will be free and flying home to Shah by the same time tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the Marquesa's spies have returned with a report on Faroud. It seems that he has been very busy indeed: it was he who funded the operation in Harbriggen, it seems likely he somehow unleashed the frost dragon, organised the attack on the Rolling Court and provoked the ensuing attacks on the Marquesa's life. There were other operations too: an orphanage in Ghoza, a mercenary training school in Skarrik, a trading house in Shah, a dozen inns across Adar. All conducting suspicious activity, and all liquidated in the last month.
So the 13th must confront Faroud. But Anasazi is no empty ruin: it is his place of power, and Faroud is the true inheritor or all the Anasazi's ritual prowess. And he has been planning his moment - not for years, but for decades. They will not find him unprepaped.
There 13th must realise there is no question of his culpability. They will discover that there is no chance of his capture. And as the skies above Anasazi crack open, they understand that the only question left is: will they join him?