The Foot of Blue Mountain

Axle's End, The City of Tombstones and Character Creation

Introduction

I wanted to make a blogpost, so I figured I'd share some of the stuff I'm working on for my home setting at the moment, in between working on the Line-Ways and the Setting Sun Adventure Jam. This might be pretty confusing if you're not familiar with The Spokelands already, so check that one out if you want some more background.

Character Creation

You have forgotten where you came from, but you are here now and that's all that matters. You awake on the side of an ivory pillar, high above the raging black mist storm clouds and the chunks of broken land below. Axle, the pillar that holds the City of God.

Like all those who came before you, there are two urges that sit in the pews of your mind, visitors to a house you have never had to share.

Leap says the first, cacophonous and proud with ten thousand voices in its chorus, Return to your home.

Climb whispers the second, barely audible amidst the choir's command. Take your place alongside God.

You watch as dozens around you leap from the ivory pillar, tumbling into the world below. You will climb.

Who are you?

(Cribbed largely from Sean F. Smith's OD&D houserules)

Roll 2d6+2 for hp.
Roll 2d6 in order for Strength, Agility, Soul.
With Soul 9+, gain a thrall, bound to your being at the end of its unlife (Quiet, mindless, d6 hp). With Strength 9+, increase combat modifier for melee attacks by 1.
With Agility 9+, increase combat modifier for ranged attacks by 1.

Roll 1d3 or choose for your origin:

  1. The Slain
  2. The Burned
  3. The Quiet

The Slain

Your kind is compelled, driven by fearpainsuffering to climb the Axle and slay God.

Weapons speak to you in your hands, telling you of their exploits and their wielders. Their knowledge is myopic, and their wielder's personality has melded with their own. Slashing weapons are cruel, scathing rhetoricians. Blunt weapons are straightforward and unshakeable. Piercing weapons are scattered and flighty, despite their precise knowledge. All projectiles are wicked little things, prone to lying and deception.

The weapon that slayed you lives in your flesh. Name it and choose what did you in. You may draw it out from your body at will to use. It speaks to you, even when hidden in your body, a mortal shoulder devil driving you upward at all costs. You do not like what it tells you.

Combat modifier equal to HD.

The Slain can make a number of attacks equal to their combat modifier against adjacent HD1 foes.

Begin play with chain armor and 2 items, not including your flesh weapon.

The Burned

Your kind is charred black with zeal, quick to right wrongs real or imagined even beyond death.

Flames, red-hot afterimages of God's radiance, view you as their messiah. Lead them upward. HD+1 commands each day. Use a command to issue orders to existing flames or conjure new ones from within you. (as maleficence from W&W when applicable).

Spend 2hp to compel flame without commands. If you die from this effect, your body becomes ash. You were not their savior after all.

Make minor requests to flame at will based on the number of commands left in your brain (more commands means more complex requests).

Only one feature from your living body has survived. Write it down. You are indistinguishable from other Burned except for this feature. All else about you is featureless, bodyslate wiped clean by a forgetful conflagration.

Combat Modifier as HD/3

Begin play with blackened rags and one item.

The Quiet

Your kind is lucky, a peaceful passing in an age of violence.

The quiet spaces of Axle speak to you, conduits for a greater presence at Axle's peak. Favors per day equal to HD, from these options:

  1. Become Shadows: In a dark place, lose your form. You will die if the shadow disappears. Use another favor to teleport between shadowed places. You must emerge into light or else be trapped in the shadow.
  2. Pierce Darkness: See in dark places as if dimly lit for 1d6 hours.
  3. Bolstered by Night: You or one of your allies may reroll a failed death save.
  4. Instill Fear: 2d6 creatures from within Axle of equal or lesser HD to you cannot approach / attack.

You make no noise when still and are incredibly quiet while moving.

You cannot speak. Most Quiet know a sign language that lets them communicate with others of their kind. 2-in-6 chance another Dead also knows it.

Combat modifier as HD/2.

Begin play with leather armor and 2 items.

SAVES

Base saving throw is 2D6 vs 10+.
If you are prepared for a situation, save vs 8+.
Preparation might include knowledge, high attributes, specialist tools. Save vs death is 2D6 vs 10+.

You can never be prepared for death.

COMBAT
Roll under target AC + combat mod on 2D6.

Unarmoured AC9, leather AC7, chain AC5, plate AC3. Shields lower this value by 1.

Weapons deal D6 damage.

1H weapons enable shield / torch.

2H weapons gives +1 on damage.

Two weapons give +1 to c-mod.

Once out of hp, each further instance of damage calls for save vs death.

Recover 1hp for each day spent resting.

The City of Tombstones

Great big abyssal black tombstones sprout like spearheads through the holy flesh of the Axle and serve as dinner plates for a meal of ancient city garnished by the dead. The whole city feels as though, just before this moment, it breathed its last breath and settled into quiet decay. Many of The Quiet stay here, drawn to the tombstones which mirror those that cradle their decaying heads in the Spokelands far below. The writing on these giant tombstones is angular and chaotic, each line radiating a dozen other lines until the face of each tombstone looks like ten thousand spider webs superimposed upon each other. Those who try to read the inscriptions feel their mind overflowing with a thought too viscous to fit inside and burst into tears.

Places in the City of Tombstones

  1. The Courtyard: The cramped buildings of the city pause their congestion for just a brief moment to allow a small circular courtyard to exist. it is choked with market stalls and silent auctions.
  2. The Mausoleum: A massive temple with burial niches on all sides. They offer a place to stay and sleep at a fair price.
  3. The Gap: A chunk of the tombstone has broken and fallen into the Spokelands far below, leaving a ravine in the middle of the city. Stone bridges arc over it like tangled eyelashes and The Quiet children hang from them by rope and shove one another as they swing.
  4. The Reliquary: The eldest of The Quiet sit in geometric patterns amidst this section of the city like tinned fish, meditating and listening to the deep rhythms of the Axle. Every year, one of them (it is never known which) stands up and delivers a prophecy.
  5. The Stairs: Elaborate stairs carved from ivory wind up and out of the City of Tombstones. At the base of the stairs, a statue of an angel with deer antlers. Anyone who attempts to ascend the stairs that does not posses 2HD or more is mauled to death by an invisible stag.
  6. The Entrance: an ornate entrance into the Axle. the steps in are dusty and dirt-covered with hopeful footprints leading in and harrowed, staggering footprints leading out.

I'd show more here, but I want to run this for folks! So that's all you're getting for today.