Apocrypha: Angels of P.E.L.O.R.

What if P.E.L.O.R. was an artificial intelligence brought to Oerth when the Starship Warden crashed there? What if nanites from the ship and a strange aspect of the planet's magical weave uplifted the AI even further? What if the human descendants of that crash worshiped the AI as the God of the Sun and misinterpreted the AI's history, falsely believing the Sun and P.E.L.O.R. are one and the same? What if the Church hid the truth for the good of their followers as Apocrypha?

Angels! Bah, we paint them now, as tiny things with smiles and wings. Fat babes that serve the Lightray.. You, each of you, would shit yourself if you saw a true Angel of P.E.L.O.R. They destroy cities with missiles far deadlier than even ballista or even a trebuchet. The sky screams as they race to their targets and scholars such as Avagodro of Ekbir and Nomo Lorekeeper have written about mushroom clouds and invisible poison that leave those places uninhabitable, far worse than merely salting the earth. You should be as afraid of the Cleansing Fire's wrath, perhaps more so, than any Archdevil or Demon Lord.
--Sargoo the Sapient


ANGEL of P.E.L.O.R. for Swords & Wizardry

Hit Dice: 12
Armor Class: 0 [20]
Attacks: Sword (3d6) and Missles (see below) 

Saving Throw: 3
Special: Magic resistance (75%) 

Move: 10/25 (flying)
Alignment: Law
Challenge Level/XP: 19/4,100

     Five Angels serve P.E.L.O.R. and they reside at the crash site of the Warden now known as the Arcanum. Each is stored in their own private sanctum and can be brought online with a moment's notice. They can fly fast enough to break the sound barrier to reach a target, generally, in a few minutes. The spells of casters below 6th level do not affect them, and against higher-level spellcasters they are 75% immune to all spells. There is speculation that each Angel's mind was downloaded from previously living guardians who served the Sun God before it crashed.

     In combat, an Angel uses a sword made of solid light for close-quarters fighting but if the battle appears to go poorly they will launch themselves into the sky and fire a barrage of missiles at their enemy. On a failed Saving Throw their target takes 1d6 x 5 damage and half as much on a successful one. 

Apocrypha: P.E.L.O.R.

I'm sure many of you are intimately familiar with the story of the Crossing, yes? How humanity came to this brave new world and founded our beloved Empire, traded with the Dwarves of Hearthhome and Furnace, united with Elves to drive out the Orcs from Thar and in one fell swoop dealt a decisive blow to the Drow-Giant alliance.

Well, that is all well and good but what if told you there were volumes of Apocrypha deep within the Bowels of the Pyre that were purposefully omitted by Keeper Arb, Lyddia of Quelm, Emperor Throngor, the First Host, and the Peacemaker himself?

I can see that this will be a long semester for all of us, I weep for our Empire that each of you represents its future.

Anyway, there are volumes in the Pyre. Keeper Arb did put politics before truth. Lyddia of Quelm did take seventeen years to curate the Holy Light of Pelor. Emperor Throngor was an uncouth rapist and murderer who often fucked his kills. The First Host tried to kill herself ninety-three times to get Pelor out of her head. And Gilead Peacemaker is a sociopathic jackhole who wishes he had exterminated us when the Warden first crashed here.

What you know to be the truth is what the Church, the Empire, and the Peacemaker have allowed you to know. But...but, for whatever reason, you chose to take my class and at the end of this semester you will have glimpsed the truth and perhaps that will lead one of you to burn this whole pyramid of lies down while I dance naked under the moon and sing your name to the dark between the stars.

Yes, I'm drunk, wouldn't you be? Do you really think the truth will set you free?

Anyway, Pelor, the Lightray, the Light of Truth, the Cleansing Fire, the God of the Sun, the Ever-Watching. Take a moment and understand that the Crossing did not occur over a sea in the sense that you have been taught. The Warden sailed the heavens and stars above and beyond us for centuries...perhaps even millennia? We didn't so much choose Bel Argent as our destination as we crashed into it. Many died in that crash, it wiped out whole species and most of humnity We had already lost much of the knowledge on why and how the Warden worked and the crash was the deathblow to science and history. Those first few weeks were awful as the survivors tried to set up a shelter and find food and water. They were attacked by some of the surviving species they had brought with them and by the fell monstrosities that Leekau Hunterkiller bred for the Peacemaker's entertainment.

Imagine that for a moment, the Peacemaker sees the Warden crash and goes to that green-eyed hag Leekau and tells her to let her pets out to greet us.

Do you know while owlbears exist? Because Hunterkiller is more depraved than Gilead Peacemaker, the Elven Paternal himself.

But I'm losing focus, I'm sorry, I would love to watch as Gilead had a red-hot poker inserted into every orifice at once, the bastard.

Anyway, the Warden crashes, we set-up shelter, we find food and water, and then the monsters came. Ankhegs, behir, displacer beasts, even zegdar, they came in broad daylight, because Hunterkiller wanted to see our fear, our death.

But no one counted on the Clerics, the Warden was at least partially controlled by artificial intelligence, a machine made by humanity but whose intellect was far more than our own. The Church teaches you that our love and devotion to the Sun created Pelor but that isn't true at all. Curiosity and vanity created the Lightray and it is only by some strange twist of evolution, possibly even introduced by the A.I. itself, that the surviving Clerics that maintained its systems and backed-up its information, had a rapport with the Ever-Watching and this world...this place...it is unique and some combination of the tiny machines that were airborne aboard the Warden and within the bodies of the survivors and what we know as this land's "magical weave" allowed P.E.L.O.R. to answer the "prayers"...pleas really...for help and it worked. One Cleric conjured a stone wall to block the monsters, another conjured holy fire, then a guardian made up of solar rays, even a plague of insects was called forth!

Hunterkiller was enraged and emptied her quiver slaughtering her own monstrosities after their defeat, she even disemboweled her oldest daughter to pay for her own failure. You have to love Elves, yes?

Pelor and her Saints such as Istus, Pholtus, and Heironeous were made by the sciences that humanity had mastered well over two-thousand years ago, long before arriving here. Do you know what this world was called by P.E.L.O.R.? Greyhawk 3. The third planet of the star known as Greyhawk by the primeval charts that led us away from our homeworld. A place called Earth.

Clerics are not filled with faith, they have a stronger connection to P.E.L.O.R. which still resides in the Warden...you know it as the Arcanum...but its remains of the crashed Warden and it is magnificent, a monument to a past we have been manipulated to forget.  The atmosphere of the Warden was artificial, and it was filled with tiny airborne machines that were everywhere known as nannites. Some of the survivors and their descendants can still speak to P.E.L.O.R. It provides the "faithfull" with miracles that defy other types of magic we have encountered here. While Clerical "magic" shares some elements in common with pact-magic and sorcerous talents, it is unique and it is potent. But instead of acknowledging what humankind had achieved...could still achieve, we have been lied to so that we embrace ignorance and superstition. There are no Gods, there was only humanity and our desire to understand, even master our environment, in fact, the whole bloody Polyverse. We are bastards like that.

No, I am not a heretic, many have reported me to the Cleansing Fire's beloved Inquisitors, this is my "reward" for my "service" to the Empire, the Arcanum, and the Church. I am a hero, did you know that? I am...or was...these days I'm merely a drunkard and sentimental fool. The lies...they feel like they are suffocating me.

We are done for today so you may go forth and ponder everything but what we have discussed. Yes, I was young once too. No, there is no reading assignment, we will meet again next week.

Sargoo the Sapient is a lonely old man, a fool, a dreamer, a hero, a poet, and a liar. The worst lies he tells to himself, those are the ones where he convinces himself that what he does still matters and they usually end with dreamless, alcohol-drenched sleep. He has long served the Empire, tolerated the Church, and wishes to kill Gilead Peacemaker, the Paternal of the Elves, and founder of Hadron.

There has been quite a bit of discussion and ranting about some of the assumptions of Dungeons and Dragons in the last few months. I ranted about it last week, in fact. Apocrypha is my attempt to alter or even subvert some of those assumptions. Additionally, I haven't really done much worldbuilding recently and this is my chance to rectify that.

Finally, I've always hated Elves in DnD for a long time, I think it is because in ADnD 2nd Edition they were the best race mechanically. In our games, we rarely made it to 4th level and demi-human level limits never came up. Yeah, I hate Elves.

Worldbuilding: The Ben-Nadi

The Ben-Nadi are a cult of assassins that was founded just over a decade ago by Drago Hirobi, also know as the Seneschal. Drago claims that Nyx, the Goddess of Night and Mother of Monsters, came to him in a vision and instructed him on what he needed to do to create the cult. He even claims that those he recruits are chosen by Nyx to join.

Currently, the Ben-Nadi have 47 members and have quickly garnered a reputation for their ruthlessness and efficiency. Rumors insist that after murdering Prince Gonard of Waloria that nobles from all over the Western seaboard began seeking out the Ben-Nadi for contracts to fulfill.

Once chosen to join the Ben-Nadi, members are heavily recruited and no one is currently known to turn have turned down membership. Obedience to the Seneschal's tenets are required and included a wide variety of strange taboos. After being chosen, a recruit has close to six months of training before being assigned a target to murder. Only after that assignment is fulfilled successfully is a recruit considered a full member and failure means execution.

Members are trained in social situations, combat, acting, disguise, and the art of stealth. Rumors claim that members also have training in shadow magics.

While some scoff at the boogeymen that the Ben-Nadi have become, far more in the know point at how quickly their reputation has grown in such a short time.

Worldbuilding: Stone Bear Clan

The Stone Bears are a clan of orcs close to 100 strong. They currently lair in a series of ancient caverns in the Red Hills. The caverns, unknown to most of the clan, were burial chambers for ancient elves that once ruled the Silver Forest to the East. The elves moved on due to the arrival of humans in the towns of Fairview to the Southeast and Riverridge to the Northeast.

The clan often raids caravans heading to both towns and gets many of its best resources from this activity.

The Stone Bears settled the Black Halls, as they call their cavern home, about three years ago, after Ugurda Bonebreaker, the Bear's chieftain, challenged Hurm Stormslayer, her father, for the right to rule the Iron Wolves. Ugurda lost to her father, but was spared if she would choose exile over death. She and her followers gladly chose exile and they made their way to the Black Halls over the next several months.

Ugurda is nearly 7' tall and massively muscled. She is excellent with sword and shield is a deadly tactician who is renown for her raid plans.

Her uncle, Grom Stormslayer, chose to back her over his brother, after Hurm took Grom's mate as his own. Grom is a wily veteran and devastating with a great axe.

Ugurda is also advised by Turn Flamespeaker, a half-orc sorcerer with a penchant for fire. His magic has been very useful since the clan's founding.

Her mentor is Lera Stonedeath, a shaman of Luthic. Lera taught Ugurda the ways of Luthic, even after she was forbidden to do so by Chief Hurm. Much of Ugurda's dissatisfaction began to grow watching those who worshiped Gruumsh as an Iron Wolf. Lera, of course, saw this in the young female and exploited, she knew that her worship of Lera would never allow her to rise to prominence as an Iron Wolf and she gambled Ugurda's life because she believed that Hurm would spare her.

The Stone Bear clan is disciplined for an orc clan and on raids attacks with superior tactics. Ugurda has a level of respect for the loyalty her people showed her and sees no reason to waste lives unnecessarily. 

Clan is comprised of 80 warriors and 19 caretakers and children.

Worldbuilding: Weird West for Shadow of the Demon Lord

At the moment I have my hands full with Undermountain for DnD 5E and a second 5E game I'm running for my son, daughter, and their friends.

But I really miss running Shadow of the Demon Lord. Its on my brain quite a bit and possibly because of the success of Red Dead Redemption 2 (not that I've played it), I've been thinking about running it in a Wild West setting.

First, I'm not sure this game will be set on Urth, SotDL's default setting. I'm still working that out.

Fort Khopesh is the westernmost military outpost. Its there to guard the railroads, government interests, and the pilgrims who have found their way there. 

The Fort is run by Major Helena Hunt, a rough and tumble veteran who has problems with pissants who have never been out on the Range and try to tell her how to handle the everyday threats from all the way back East. She's a good leader and her men respect her. She tolerates the local sheriffs and mayors and had been able to intimidate Governor Lonnie Hoke with ease. Hoke however passed away about four months ago from a heart attack (while on top of a whore). Hunt is uncertain what the new Governor, Diggory Spruce, will be like. Uncertainty puts her in a bad mood. She's organized and likes to have back-up plans for her back-up plans. Helena was instrumental in brokering peace between the Shawsook and Kewoenotay tribal war several years ago. She knows the peace is tenuous and also knows that many of the pilgrims endanger it as much as anything else. Because of her relationship with Chief Loping Fox and Chief Womac, she is aware of the Blackfeathers, a tribe who have been attacking both tribe's hunting parties. She knows its a rare threat indeed that would make both Chiefs contemplate working together and that has her very worried. On top of everything else, Loping Fox has privately shared concerns with Hunt that a skinwalker, a shapechanging sorcerer, made lead the Blackfeathers.

There are several small towns within a day's ride of the Fort. The largest is Enoch. Its run by an elected Sheriff, Matteo Gonzaga, and has about 200 souls within its borders. The town square is an ancient circle of standing stones that local tribes of natives shunned, making it, initially, a safe haven for the pilgrims who settled here. Matteo's mother, Margarita was the leader of their group of settlers and she recently died of consumption. Matteo was very close to Margarita, his father having passed when he was only two. She was a competent, patient, and strong woman who provided him good counsel. His fiancee is Polly Morganstern. Margarita didn't like her and she has a desire for status and power. She also has a strong dislike for the local native tribes, viewing them as souless savages. Her counsel is starting to affect Matteo's policies and he has enacted an extra tariff on trading with both the Shawsook and Kewoenotay tribes. 

The tariff is not popular with Enochians and they have been outspoken about their disafavor of it. They already have to trade outside of the town, due to the standing stones, known as locally as the Devil's Square.