The Godless Lands: The Troupe

In the last post, I told you how we settled on the setting of our current D&D campaign by mixing and matching current ideas with the lore and legends from our previous games over the last two decades.

Once we’d established the setting’s foundation, we proceeded to create the party. True to the principles of Cheetoism, we gathered together, ordered food and discussed the characters’ recent past to agree on a common raison d’être.

Franky’s ranger Tarya is the latest in a long chain of scions of Drake, the half-orc Conan-like king of the northern lands. As a noble, she holds the title of “Daughter of Drake” which makes her the next in line to the throne. Thing is, she wants nothing to do with anything her “father” is involved with. In fact, she decides that like her crusty throne-sitting great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, she’s going to become an adventurer.

She teams up with her longtime friend, mentor and bodyguard Ari, daughter of Merith, Grand Magister and guardians of elven arcane secrets. Merith’s council of Magisters and Drake’s kingdom have a tenuous alliance that dates back to the events that nearly destroyed the world half a millennia ago.

Ari is Math’s elven fighter, deemed too young by her father to sit on the council. Last timed they talked, he dismissively told her to go out in the world and enjoy her young years, she’s only 125.

Ari and Tarya know they need a few more companions to seek out adventure with any chance of success. Having both lived rather secluded lives and not wanting to, you know, ask anyone from Drake’s court or Merith’s council, they are desperate to find anyone.

Fortunately, Tarya knows her “dad” has recently put a group of 4 unusual outlaws in his castle’s dungeon. After meeting with them, she’s persuaded by the group’s leader, a half-elf rogue named Nornan (played by my fiancée Véro), that their captivity is the result of a huge misunderstanding.

Nornan introduces himself as a member and manager of an up and coming troupe of entertainers (dubbed The Comedenials): Yan’s thiefling bard 록온* , Nico’s Gnome wizard Samhain, and Chantal’s human monk Rilene Grandershall. Nornan convinces Tarya that she would be the perfect patron to finance and accompany the troupe as it travels the land, giving performances while seeking opportunities for lucrative adventures!

록온 is the troupe’s main attraction and a rare specimen of “Strong Outsider Blood.” Half a millennia after fleeing the crumbling Outer Planes, outsiders have mingled with the humanoids of the Material Plane. So much so that every humanoid has at least some aesthetic traits from outsider ancestry (one glowing eye, vestigial horns, a cloven foot, a strange aura, etc.)

Furthermore, some of the early outsiders half-breed stayed true across several generations. They are now called thieflings.

Nico’s wizard, Samhain, creates the props and special effects dor the troupe. As a budding necromancer and tinker, he dabbles with what he and some of his arcane colleagues call “Necro-Tech.” He joined the troupe a while ago so he could travel the world to pursue his own power-seeking // revenge agenda without attracting too much attention to it.

Chantal’s monk, Rilene acts as the troupe’s acrobat and accountant. She’s drunk all the time, and the rest of the troupe assumes she’s trying to forget something horrible from her past. She’s still strangely functional, so no one challenges her. All that the others know so far was that she used to be involved in piracy on the High Seas and is now on the run.

Véro’s half-elven rogue Nornan is what you might call a con man, a hustler, and a charlatant. Of course, he would argue that you are mistaken and that you just fail to see the opportunities he’s trying to offer you. Suffice it to say that Nornan is the face of the troupe and handles “all the little details”.

Of course, not all is as it seems, as Nornan and Samhain have a little soul-harvesting business on the side.

Up next: The Fall of the Divine, Necro-Tech and the Soul Economy.

*It supposedly means “Rock On” phonetically in Korean, Yan has been taking intensive classes in the last few weeks.