Mark's Campaign
This website is a place where friends and strangers can browse the ancient and current RPG campaigns that I have created over the past 40 years. Rather than simply shredding my creations from past decades, I will hopefully engrave them in the dubious permanence of the internet. Enjoy the gallery!
If you are following this website, the most recent changes/additions have been highlighted in red text.
Finally, the party (and players) find out the details of their 'employment' and the end goal of their patron. All the pieces are in place, but the party will have a huge challenge ahead of them as they travel through space and time to retrieve one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. But with an object of such power, there are always those who are tasked to guard it and prevent its misuse...
Personal note: When I designed this chapter of the campaign arc, Paizo had hardly published ANY references to Xin-Edasseril, Belamarius or the exact location of the ancient city. The only reference to Xin Edasseril hinted that the ruins lay on Chakakoth Isle in the Ironbound Archipelago. The time-travel aspect of the adventure was completely from my own imagination and I had come up with the idea in 2015 as I was working on The Collector.
When we were concluding this part of the campaign arc and the party had used the device to travel back in time, a random internet search came back with a load of new information! I had not even heard of the Return of the Runelords adventure path and the volume called "The City Outside of Time" literally involved travelling back in time to Xin-Edasseril !!
It should be noted that this module was published in 2018 and the Word document I created that details my adventure is creation-date stamped 8/21/2017 (the outline was created in 2015). So I claim the idea first, so there. What say you, Paizo designers?
The Ancient Empire
When the father of Khemet III died in a freak summoning accident, he learned of the insidious infernal pact that one of his more foolish and greedy ancestors had inflicted upon his family line. Khemet became obsessed with trying to rid himself of his ‘curse’. He spent the last 8 years searching for a way to circumvent, dispel or nullify the contract – all to no avail. A small circle of his most trusted advisors know that he has opened up exploration of the ancient tombs of Osirion to foreign adventurers in order to covertly glean any information of old magic that may help him with his condition. There are not many people who know the truth of his pact, but many of those close to him have attributed his strange behavior to a ‘wasting disease’ that he is searching for a cure.
About two years ago, he finally received information that appeared very promising. An obscure manuscript, transcribed into Osiriani from the original that dated back to before the First Age of Osiron, referred to a spell of ancient Thassilonian origin referred to as ‘Multum Ruptor’ or Deal Breaker in Thassilonian. The spell was the creation of a Runelord named Belimarius, one of the most powerful Abjurists to ever live. The spell, if the writings were true, would essentially free a mortal soul from the binding pact of any infernal contract. (The unfortunate side effect is that the spell actually swaps the bound soul of the target for the soul of the caster, which would then be sacrificed as part of this evil spell). Furthermore, it was rumored that Belimarius had created a scroll with the Deal Breaker spell stored among her most prized possessions, as a line of defense in her paranoid dealings with the infernal lords.
Belimarius ruled the ancient Thassilonian kingdom known as Edasseril, which after the cataclysm, mostly sank below what is now the Steaming Sea. The only land masses that still exist above sea level are the string of islands to the northwest of Varisia and part of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings called the Ironbound Archipelago. The ruins of the ancient city of Belimarius’ power, Xin-Edasseril lie on the mostly abandoned island of Chakikoth. The old writings describe that the archmage kept the majority of her most prized creations in a place called the Temple of Desna’s First Dream, which disappeared completely after the cataclysm.
Khemet had planned to send an expedition to the ruins of Xin-Edasseril to search the area for the missing Temple, but when he recently learned of the strange time-traveling Numerian artifact, a better plan formed in his mind. He would gain the alien item, learn its secrets and then send his new champions back to the time of Edasseril’s power and retrieve the powerful Scroll.