D&D

This is part of a series of posts on about an old D&D campaign world called Malbeth.
Go to the original Ruins of Malbeth post, the first post about Micel Kingdoms,
or the Pre-history of the Micel Kingdoms.

One of the purposes of reexamining this campaign world I abandoned for Kobold Press’s Midgard setting is to think about what I might find useful as I begin world building a new setting, but I’m finding I want something different. I want a hex-crawl frontier/kingdom building campaign, and while I’ve thought about setting it in Midgard’s Arbonesse Forest that’s part of the Grand Duchy of Dornig. The saying amongst the Kobold Warrens is that the World Tree, Yggdrasil, has many branches, and on those branches are a multitude of Midgards, and I’m currently contemplating how distant this variation of Midgard might be, or if it becomes something else.

The pre-history of the Micel Kingdoms was written for players who like to delve into setting, and because of that, it’s fully of mysteries. Who are the Valaraukar? When kingdoms simply disappeared or were destroyed “overnight” is that figurative or literal? Where did the elves and the other humanoid species come from?

The first thought here is that while it’s useful — interesting — to create a world with mystery because that makes it interesting (to use that word again), and it can serve as inspiration for exploration and discovery. You don’t need to answer everything, even for yourself. That’s a world building lesson we can take from Tolkien. He never explored, even for himself, at least he didn’t write it down, the history of the two Istar (wizards) who went to the east because his focus wasn’t the eastern realms of Middle-earth. Nor did he work out exactly who or what Tom Bombadil was. In fact, he felt it was better that the question of Bombadil not be answered because not everything can or should be known.

That said, I do have some thought ands explanations.

Upheaval
The brief pre-history of the Micel Kingdoms is full of conflict, rising and falling civilizations, diasporas, and cataclysmic events such as the seismic activity that destroyed the elven kingdom of Alcarinbar to the seemingly supernatural ends to the dragonborn Second Kingdom of Sharmensharik and the Thramian Empire.

If you’re going to write a pre-history of your game world, make it dynamic, and dynamic in ways that can resonate well into the future that is your campaign. (In case it’s not clear, I’m using pre-history here as what happened before the present rather than before recorded history, regardless of whether that means the written record of history or remembered history that includes oral tradition.

A lot of this history is connected in ways that may or may not ever become apparent to players, and its all tied together through the Valaraukar.

The Valaraukar
In campaign player materials, the Valaraukar are mystery, something from the deep past, but also a current threat. In the player documents, I include a faction that calls itself the Watchers. In terms of character knowledge, the only characters who know about the Watchers are those who choose to join the faction, either as part of character creation or later during play. The Watchers are a secret society founded by elves after the Uplift (see the Age of Second Empires and footnote 2). Those who founded the Watchers had learned that the Uplift which had destroyed the elven kingdom of Alcarinbar and created the wasteland known as the Gwathimlad wasn’t a natural geological event. It was an attack by the Valaraukar, and they were a persistent existential threat to the lands of Malbeth, making periodic incursions to scout, recruit followers, and strike as they could.¹

So, who are the Valaraukar? The Valaraukar are tieflings, only they aren’t standard D&D tieflings but infernal tieflings, mechanically fiends rather than humanoids, and they come from a different reality. Their first serious incursion that resulted in the Valaraukar-Kingdom of Sharmensharik war which ended in a scorched earth retreat. By unleashing a plague that killed everyone, humanoid, dragon, even Valaraukar, they hoped they could once again return to Malbeth and rule it unopposed.

The Cataclysms and Upheavals
The Uplift wasn’t the only cataclysm caused by the Valaraukar. The plague that decimated the later dragonborn of Khelekdraug was also engineered by the Valaraukar — this time, a more targeted attack. The attack on the dwarven kingdom of Frangang was also orchestrated by the Valaraukar, and the forces the dwarves fought included fiends. It was the Valaraukar that taught the secrets of undeath to the Lich-kings of Nor, and urged and aided the Lich-kings in their war with the human Kingdom of Syndala.

Any player character who joins the Watchers learns that the Watchers believe the Valaraukar killed off the dragonborn of Khelekdraug, and that they suspect the Valaraukar are behind the fall of Frangang as well as teaching the Lich-kings of Nor the secrets of undeath. They also know the Watchers have uncovered and responded to numerous smaller-scale or less successful incursions, as well as disrupted Valaraukar cults. But even the Watchers don’t know just how much an existential threat the Valaraukar pose to Malbeth.

By breaking through reality to enter the material plane to which Malbeth belongs, the Valaraukar fundamentally damaged the fabric of Malbeth’s plane’s reality. The “overnight” cataclysmic events such as the fertile lands of the dragonborn’s Second Kingdom of Sharmensharik turning to desert and the Thramian Empire’s population disappearing and its infrastructure turning to centuries-old ruins overnight did happen instantaneously. The “overnight” there isn’t an exaggeration of legend.

And much closer in time to the present of the present day, the island nation of Ossa appeared in the souther sea just about 100 years before in a well-traveled area of ocean. One day, the island and kingdom were just here, and the people of Ossa remember and their written records document hundreds of years of interaction with the Micel Kingdoms. In fact, before the island kingdom was found, people of Ossa appeared throughout the Micel Kingdoms. Likewise, nine years before the present, the elven kingdom of Uinen, another island nation, simply disappears. Examination found that the Uinen Islands upon which the elven kingdom resided showed no signs of habitation.

Not even the Valaraukar know that their incursions have caused this weakening of reality. That’s something for the player characters to uncover, if, in fact, one wants to go that route. Maybe instead other cataclysms just happen with no explanation to them other than they are part of the fabric of Malbeth that makes it a living, dynamic world , a Tom Bombadil if you will.

So, Thoughts
One thing I’m noticing here, beyond what I’ve already pointed out such leaving mysteries and creating dynamic history, is what Wolfgang Baur calls stacking gunpowder.² A good campaign setting isn’t static; it’s not just there for the PCs to stroll through. Stacking gunpowder means world building with volatile elements that might or will go off whether or not the PCs light the fuse, but cause chain reactions. Changes to the world create ripples, sometimes strong ripples, that serve as triggers setting off other events and other ripples.

It’s not just the Valaraukar here or the rip in reality they created. The Lich-kings of Nor aren’t all dead, but are biding their time. The orcs and goblins around the Micel Kingdoms are periodically active, and not of the Micel Kingdoms get along even if open war isn’t currently underway.

1. The Watchers established a mountain monastery where elven paladins, monks, and assassins trained to resist Valaraukar incursions. For centuries, they recruited agents who in turn recruited agents to watch for and report Valaraukar incursions, and to help resist them when they happened. That’s a hook at least one player jumps at.
   ↩︎
2. Baur is founder and CEO of Kobold Press, and worked for Wizards of the Coast and TSR before that. After falling in love with Midgard setting and the early 5e material they were releasing prior to the 5e Kickstarter, I learned that Baur had written some of my favorite material for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 2e in the early 1990s. ↩︎

This is part of a series of posts on about an old D&D campaign world called Malbeth.
Go to the original Ruins of Malbeth post or to the overview of the Micel Kingdoms.

According to the elves, they arrived on Malbeth’s some 10,000 years ago. While they found signs of civilizations — ruins — the continent was sparsely populated, mostly by hunter-gatherer tribes of goblinoid races, along with pockets of giants, fey, and a few aberrations. Based upon their exploration of the ruins and what they could piece together from the stories told by the goblinoids and giants, elven historians believe that Malbeth was once ruled by two vast empires: dragons and their dragonborn representatives in the east (the FIRST KINGDOM OF SHARMENSHARIK) and the Valaraukar (Shadow people) in the West. Goblin oral tradition tells the story of a dragon victory which coincided with a devastating plague that killed off the dragonborn population as well as much the goblinoids who served both the dragons and the Valaraukar.

As various humanoid races appear as hunter-gatherers, the elves establish their forest fortress of ALCARINBAR. Small tribes of humans first appear about 8,000 years ago. Non-elven agriculture is first established some 7,000 years ago by goblins living in the Mickelgeflowan River Valley. Dwarf and gnome legend claims that around the same time, the smith god Moradin forged dwarves and gnomes from the rock of the VILLAR CAVES and taught them the secrets of mining, forging, and engineering. Using this knowledge, the dwarves and gnomes establish the mythical KINGDOM OF VILLAR in the Fullangr Mountains. It will be another 2,500 years before elves have any contact with dwarves and gnomes. Meanwhile, some 6,400 years ago, a dragonborn society calling itself the SECOND KINGDOM OF SHARMENSHARIK mysteriously appears on the ruins of the original KINGDOM OF SHARMENSHARIK.

Age of First Empires

Roughly 6,200 years ago, the goblins of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley unite into a goblin empire. According to dwarven and gnomish legend, around this time orc tribes of the Fullangr Mountains unify, attack, and eventually overwhelm the KINGDOM OF VILLAR. Small humans populations, largely formed from people who escaped enslavement by the goblin empire in the west and the dragonborn SECOND KINGDOM OF SHARMENSHARIK in the east begin to settle in to southern Malbeth.

Some 5,800 years ago, the SECOND KINGDOM OF SHARMENSHARIK falls as the fertile plains upon which it stood turn to desert wasteland overnight. The dragonborn population is decimated, and its surviving members settle along both sides of the Gulf of Sharmensharik and northeastern Malbeth. Around this time, the first human cities are founded in what is now southern Ngwolne and northern Thramia.

About 5,600 years ago the goblin empire of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley splinters into rival kingdoms, plunging the region into 400 years of constant war. At roughly the same time, orc tribes move east out of the Fullangr Mountains and into the Wilwarin Steppe, driving out all dragonborn settlements west of the Gulf of Sharmensharik. Around 100 years after the orcs sweep through the Wilwarin, thri-keen and push back against the orcs. A war of attrition ensues, reducing the population of both. Also around this time the humans in southern Ngwolne and northern Thramia develop bronze working and unify into seven kingdoms.

Age of Second Empires

Around 5,000 years ago, a hobgoblin war leader unifies the goblinoids of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley, establishing the second goblin empire, while in the northeast of Malbeth new dragonborn kingdoms emerge, and war breaks out in the human kingdoms in southern Ngwolne and northern Thramia.

Roughly 4,700 years ago, human cities appear in the northwest of Nor. Not too long later, centaur appear in north Wilwarin Steppes as dwarves and gnomes move into the border region of the western steppes and the Fullangr Mountains. Humans also on the move begin to settle in southern Wilwarin. As these populations grow over the next hundred years, they increasingly come into conflict with orcs, who again unify under a war leader.

Humans, centaur, dwarves, and gnomes form an alliance, but even together they are not powerful enough to withstand the orc armies. Eventually, the elves of ALCARINBAR end their isolation and join the war against the orcs, drving them back into the Fullangr Mountains. Dwarves and gnomes teach their new human allies the secrets of engineering and of iron and steel working, and the elves teach humans, dwarves, gnomes, and centaur the secrets of arcane magic.¹

Around 4,500 years ago, humans settle the southern region of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley along the coast of the Southern Sea, and in southern Malbeth the human THRAMIAN EMPIRE is founded. Aided by the knowledge of iron, steel, and arcane magic, humans begin to push north into goblin-held lands of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley.

4,300 years ago the kingdoms in Nor begin to unite, and roughly 4,100 years ago the human KINGDOM OF SYNDAL is founded in the southern region of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley. Also roughly 4,100 years ago. the elven fortress of ALCARINBAR Uplift, turning the once beautiful sylvan forest into the Gwathimlad.² Malbeth’s elven population is decimated and the elven diaspora begins.

The Age of Nor and the Dragons’ War 

Around 4,000 years ago, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves work together and take the eastern half of the Mickelgeflowan River Valley, from the Southern Sea all the way north to the Cir Falls. Dwarves found the KINGDOM OF FRANGANG in the Fullangr Mountains, and high elves found the CIRTOL north of the Cir Falls. The EMPIRE OF NOR is founded by the High King of Nor, an archmage who sought but failed to find the secrets of becoming a lich. Around this time the elven and gnomish KINGDOMS OF EDHIL and EDHILDUN are established.

One-hundred years after the High King of Nor founded the EMPIRE OF NOR, his grandsons, powerful wizards all, discover the secrets of undeath and become the Lich-Kings of Nor. They raise powerful armies humans, goblins, giants, and undead to expand their empire south and east into Mickelgeflowan River Valley.

Roughly 3,500 years ago, the THRAMIAN EMPIRE disappears overnight, with hundreds-year old ruins left where the human empire once stood.³ Some 3,300 years ago the Lich-kings of Nor have conquered all of western Malbeth except for the human KINGDOM OF SYNDALA and the dwarven KINGDOM OF FRANGANG.

Roughly 2,400 years ago, the KINGDOM OF FRANGANG was attacked by the powerful united armies of the Underdark, while in eastern Malbeth the dragonborn of KHELEKDRAUG suffer a mysterious plague that decimates its population.⁴ Within a year, the Lich-kings of the EMPIRE OF NOR attacked the human KINGDOM OF SYNDALA, so neither the humans of Syndala nor the dwarves of Frangang could come to each other’s aid. The KINGDOM OF FRANGANG falls, and its survivors flee, resulting in the dwarven diaspora.

Meanwhile, the war between NOR and SYNDALA wages for a few years, and as forces of NOR seem to be on verge of a decisive victory, dragons appear in great numbers, coming to Syndala’s aid, marking the start of the Dragons’ War. The war lasted 7 years. While the forces of NOR were devastated, the victory was costly. The power of SYNDALA was greatly reduced, and few dragons survived the war. The Lich-kings themselves were never accounted for, nor heard from again, and few who traveled deep into the lands of Nor returned. 

The Mickel Kingdoms

Today, historians mark the start of the MICKEL KINGDOMS with the birth of High King Tslantyr, 1,504 years ago. In the Mickel Kingdoms, dating conventions indicate the year of Tslantyr’s birth as MK 1.

Go to Thoughts on the Pre-history of the Micel Kingdoms

1. The scholarly magic of wizards as opposed to the innate arcane magic of sorcerers and pact-based arcane magic of warlocks, both of which were already practices in those communities.
   ↩︎
2. The Uplift was and creation of the Gwathimlad (Shadow Valley) was inspired by the Lake County uplift in the New Madrid seismic zone and other devastating effects of the earthquakes along the New Madrid Fault of 1811-1812 (USA). The uplift is 50 kilometers long and 23 kilometers wide, and raised the earth up to 10 meters. What was once woodland became a geothermally active land of chaparral and fens, with frequent eruptions of geothermal and volcanic activity that create temporary boiling mudpits, fiery fissures (resulting in wildfires), and clouds of noxious and toxic gases that kill the surrounding flora and fauna. 
   ↩︎
3. If you’re noticing a trend of cataclysmic events happening overnight (and I mean literally rather than figuratively) — the lands of the Empire of Sharmensharik turning to desert, the Thramian Empire existing as a thriving empire one day to nothing but old abandoned ruins the next — you’re not imagining it. The material plane upon which Malbeth resides is unstable. By design, I included this to create both a sense of mythic history — legends and stories to be assumed figurative rather than literal — and an existential threat to reality itself that could come into play with cities, populations, kingdoms, geography, all disappearing or becoming something else in the blink of an eye. Obviously, one doesn’t want to overdo this, unless your setting is a plane of dread, but it’s the kind of thing that will capture player’s attention. How they respond, on the other hand, is up to the players.
   ↩︎
4. Deep history for players to discover should the campaign go in that direction: Both the Underdark attack the led to the fall of the dwarven kingdom of Frangang and the plague that decimated the dragonborn of Khelekdraug were orchestrated by the Valaraukar. And, actually, the Valaraukar also taught the Lich-Kings of Nor the secrets of undeath, too, as well as caused the cataclysmic Uplift that created the Gwathimlad, because seriously, if you’re going to create a shadowy, planar existential threat to your campaign world, they need to be doing things. And yes, they’re also the reason why Malbeth’s reality is itself unstable, though that is an accidental consequence of the Valaraukar breach into the material plane rather than one of their designs. ↩︎

This is part of a series of posts on about an old D&D campaign world called Malbeth.
Go to the original Ruins of Malbeth post.

While Malbeth was an entire continent, the focus of my Malbeth-based setting was the Micel Kingdoms. As with the Malbeth map, the embedded map to the left is a scan of a pencil drawing I intended to eventually use to make a hex map with Hexographer hex map software.

Referencing the Micel Kingdoms map as needed, I hope this summary overview of the Mickel Kingdoms will make some sense. As I consider what I might want to take from Malbeth for future D&D campaigns, in future posts I’ll look at specific locations within the Micel Kingdoms. In this summary, I used all-caps to mark political entities such as a kingdom and italics to mark geographic entries such as a forest or mountain range.

Overview of the Micel Kingdoms

The campaign is set in the western half of continent of Malbeth in the lands in and adjacent to the Micelgeflowan River valley, one of the most continuously settled regions of Malbeth. The lands of the Micel Kingdoms, all of which once belonged to the MICEL EMPIRE, include a number of human, dwarven, gnomish, elvish, and halfling kingdoms, duchies, and communities along the Micelgeflowan River as well as the Cir Gap, the Western March, the Western Wilderness, parts of the Eastern March Forest, and a few islands in the Southern Sea.

The Micelgeflowan River valley is bordered by the Onnar and Fullangr Mountains to the north. Between them lies the Cir Gap, a broad cleft in the mountains that is dominated by the Cirelin Lake from which the Micelgeflowan River begins. The Cir Gap is also home to the high elf island kingdom of CIRTOL and the independent city-state of CIRLONN, which includes the mountain dwarf and rock gnome community of CIRABLE. North of the mountains and the Cir Gap is the Lambuletal, a tropical rain forest, and beyond that are the Hringtor Mountains and the Northern Sea. Along the northern shore of the Cirelin Lake is the sparsely populated LAMBULETAL FRONTIER, in which the only permanent settlement of note is the town of Cliff on the northern shore of Cirelin Lake.

South of the Onnar Mountains and west of the MICEL KINGDOMS is the Galarr Forest, a vast forest home to various goblin races. South of the Galarr Forest is the Bay of Nor, and below that is Norwood, another vast goblinoid-dominated forest. The far northwest of Norwood, along the southern mouth of the Bay of Nor is the high plateau known as the Ruins of Nor, home of the Lich-kings who ruled the EMPIRE OF NOR. Little is known of the Gallar Forest and Norwood, and even less is known of the Ruins of Nor, although tales and legends of its powerful artifacts and wondrous magics almost outnumber the tales and legends undead armies, dragons, deadly monsters, and all manner of nameless horrors that reside there.

Stretching south of Norwood along the coast to where the Western Sea meets the Southern Sea is the Western Wilderness, a sparsely populated frontier region dominated by the three coastal city-states of the WESTERN LEAGUE, the CITY OF NOR, VINDSVAL, and SYNDALA. Between the Western Wilderness and the Micelgeflowan valley is the Western March, a region also lightly populated except for the hill dwarf Kingdom of DVARLINN, unique in that it spans a number of underground dwarven holds along with a number of surface dwelling halfling and human farming communities, all connected by a network of fortified and surface roads. 

The northeast region of the Micelgeflowan valley is bordered by the Southern Fullangr Mountains. The eastern region of the MICEL KINGDOMS south of the Southern Fullangr Mountains is the Eastern March Forest, home to the wood elves of THILCAMA and the forest gnomes of the EASTERN BURROWS. It is also home to the Gwathimlad, once the elvish homeland of ALCARINBAR, destroyed some 4,000 years ago in a cataclysmic event the elves call the Uplift.

Off the southern coast of the MICEL KINGDOMS are the halfling island KINGDOM OF KALBATHNOSS and the magocracy of OSSE.

This is part of a series of posts on about an old D&D campaign world called Malbeth.
Go to the Ruins of Malbeth: Introduction post or to The Ruins of Malbeth: Religion, Part 1: Animism

The third pillar of Malbeth’s religious practices was a pantheon. As you can see here, I’d begun to revise the pantheon to incorporate elements of Kobold Press’s Midgard, working with the Deep Magic for 5e pdfs and Pathfinder campaign setting before the 5e Kickstarter was launched.

Major Deities of the Pantheon 

Name	Alignment/Worshipers	Domain	Symbol	Notes
Bahamut the Dragon God	Lawful Good / lawful good, neutral good	Life, Light	Golden dragon’s head in profile	Represented as a golden dragon
Baleygr the Bright	Lawful Neutral / lawful alignments	Light, Knowledge	Blazing sun	Represented as a female with a blazing sun on her clothing
Tiamat the Dragon Goddess	Lawful Evil / lawful evil, neutral evil	Tempest, War	Dragon’s head with five claws	Represented as a five-headed black dragon
Sigrdrifa the Valiant	Chaotic Good chaotic good, neutral good	Nature, War	Spear	Represented as a female warrior with spear
Motsognir the Storm	Chaotic Neutral / chaotic alignments	Tempest, Trickery	Forked lightning bolt	Represented as a male with a lightning bolt on his clothing
Vargeisa the Wolf	Chaotic Evil / evil alignments	Death, Trickery	Wolf’s head	Represented as a black wolf
Gunnhrafn the Raven	Neutral Good / good alignments	Knowledge, War	Raven	Represented as a black raven
Simul the Eternal	Neutral / neutral alignments	Life, Death, Nature	Triangle within a square within a circle	Represented as naked agendered humanoid
Bakrauf the Cunning	Neutral Evil / neutral evil, chaotic evil	Trickery, Knowledge	Closed book	Represented as a male holding a closed book
Hluti the Weaver (of Fate)	Neutral /worshipers of fate, weavers	Knowledge	Loom	Represented as loom with a half-finished cloth or tapestry
Moradin the Forger	Lawful Good / dwarves, smiths	Knowledge, Clockwork	Hammer and anvil	Represented as dwarven or gnomish smith. Creator of dwarves and gnomes.
Farex the Bountiful	Neutral / agricultural and food workers	Nature, Beer	Agricultural tools	Represented by images of harvest or food
Sehanine, elf goddess	Chaotic Good / elves	Knowledge	Crescent moon	Represented as female elf with a crescent moon diadem.

This is part of a series of posts on about an old D&D campaign world called Malbeth.
Go to the Ruins of Malbeth: Introduction post or to The Ruins of Malbeth: Religion, Part 1: Animism

Dualism is baked into D&D and its source material from swords & sorcery fiction. It’s what gives us the original alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic, and seen expanded with the inclusion of the good-evil axis as well as the law-chaos one.

I decided to deviate some from that, and use the Feywild and the Shadowfell as the opposing forces. I explained this in the player’s guide:

The dualists of Malbeth believe that the Feywild and the Shadowfell are more than echoes of the Material Plane; they are, instead, dual forces that bring the Material Plane into existence. For Malbeth’s dualists the Feywild is a realm of perpetual dawn. They regard the Feywild as the source of potentiality and becomingness that creates existence. The Shadowfell, on the other hand, is regarded as a dark, bleak realm that is the source of corruption and destructive forces, a warped and twisted dark parody of the Material Plane. While the Feywild is free neither from death nor from evil, the Shadowfell is home to little good and the source of undeath.

The dualists of Malbeth often refer to the Feywild as the Coming Dawn and the Growing Light, and they often refer to the Shadowfell as the Never-ending Darkness, the Shadow Realm, or, simply, the Shadow.

All but a few of Malbeth’s dualists, regardless of alignment or race, worship the power of Shadowfell, but instead see it as a threat that must be resisted and contained.

Using that as the basic framework for dualism, I imagined the divine caster classes along the following lines.

• Clerics: Dualist clerics who serve the source of the Feywild may be of any alignment and choose from any of the following divine domains: knowledge, life, light, nature, tempest, trickery, and war. Dualist clerics of the Shadowfell are always evil and affiliated with the divine domain of death.
• Druids: Circle of the Moon druids are dualists who draw their power from the verdant powers of Feywild.
• Paladins, Oath of the Ancients: Oath of the Ancients paladins are dualists who draw their power form the Feywild. Because of their commitment to Light, paladins who take the Oath of the Ancients must be good. While there is no “Order of the Ancients,” paladins who take the Oath of the Ancients are trained by and affiliated with some order, be it one connected to a temple or religious order dedicated to the Feywild, an order of druids of the Circle of the Moon, a special military unit, etc.
• Paladins, Oath of Vengeance: While extremely rare, dualist paladins who take the Oath of Vengeance are lone individuals whose deep commitment to destroy the forces of the Shadowfell channels the power of the Feywild. Most such paladins start by seeking vengeance against a particular target such as a vampire, a pack of ghouls, or dark cleric or necromancer whose undead servants have brought harm to the would-be paladin. Once the initial vengeance has been meted out, an Oath of Vengeance paladin may retire, losing all divine powers (and becoming a fighter with the champion archetype if appropriate), or continue their war against the Shadowfell. Oath of Vengeance paladins are most commonly neutral or lawful neutral in alignment, although some may be neutral good, chaotic good, lawful evil, or neutral evil.
• Shadow Knights: Shadow Knights are Paladins who serve the Shadowfell. Some Shadow Knights are fallen paladins who had once sworn the Oath of the Ancients; other Shadow Knights begin seeking to serve the Shadowfell and swearing the Oath of Shadow. Shadow Knights are considered Oathbreakers. They are evil in alignment and are granted control of the undead (channel divinity).

In the next Ruins of Malbeth post I’ll take up Malbeth’s pantheon, the third pillar of Malbeth’s religion: The pantheon.

Go to Ruins of Malbeth: Religion, Part 3: Pantheon

The Ruins of Malbeth series is a sequence of posts about my old, abandoned D&D campaign world Malbeth, designed in 2014-15, and my current examination of it to see what I might want to use in a future campaign.

For context, you’ll want to read Ruins of Malbeth: Introduction. As I add posts about Malbeth, I’ll list them here by topic.

Religion in Malbeth

• Religion in Malbeth, Part 1: Animism
• Religion in Malbeth, Part 2: Dualism
• Religion in Malbeth, Part 3: Pantheon

The Micel Kingdoms

• The Micel Kingdoms: Overview

This is part of a series of posts on about an old D&D campaign world called Malbeth.
Go to the original Ruins of Malbeth post.

As I mentioned in the first Ruins of Malbeth post, one of the things I wanted to do with Malbeth was create a comprehensive world that included a diversity of options. One way this design goal played out is the complex, overlapping system of religion.

As I wrote in the player’s guide:

Religion on Malbeth is both complex and fluid, made up of a mixture of animistic, dualistic, and pantheistic systems. For intelligent and semi-intelligent species of Malbeth, religious practice may incorporate any or all of the three systems. For instance, a devout worshiper of the pantheon god Motsognir the Storm may also honor the spirits that inhabit the world around her. Likewise, a devout animist might call upon various deities of the pantheon from time to time, possibly regarding them as powerful named spirits. Even clerics, druids, and paladins may honor more than one system or deity, but their primary devotion will be to the force that grants them their divine powers.

In describing each of the three overlapping systems: Animism, dualism, and the pantheon, I included descriptions of how all this played out with character classes.

Animism

Animism, simply put, is a system of belief which believes spirits or souls inhabit all things living and non-living, or that there is a supernatural power whose existence permeates and animates the material world. Working with that concept, I thought about how animism might play out within the standard D&D cosmology, and wrote this:

The animists of Malbeth believe that spirits inhabit all natural existence, with “natural existence” broadly defined so as to include everything of the material plane natural or constructed, including magic. Likewise, to the extent that they are known, the Astral, Ethereal, Feywild, Shadowfell, and Inner Planes are also inhabited by spirits. While the nature of the Outer Planes are up for debate, strict animists believe that the Outer Planes are no different than the rest of existence.

Some animists believe that the deities of the pantheon are spirits of the Outer Planes so powerful that they can reach out to the Material Plane, while others believe that the pantheon deities are powerful named spirits who govern conceptual realms rather than physical locations and objects.

Monstrous aberrations and the undead are seen as unnatural and, therefore, outside the animistic system.

In practice, this means that animists might greet and thank their tools before and after using them, or touch a doorframe in recognition of the spirit within before walking through a door or entering a building. It might mean not just thanking the spirit of a spring before drinking of its waters but uttering a short pray that recognizes a bottle, cup, and liquid before one drinks.

One that that appealed to me about this was that towns and cities would be as deeply rich in nature spirits as the wilderness. The street one lives on in a city has its own spirit, as does each building on that street, and all the objects and distinct parts of things one wants to count. Ordinary practice developed ways to acknowledge broad swaths of spirits at one time just so people could go about their day, but what all this means is druids can be as much at home in a large city as they traditionally imagined to be deep in the wilderness.

Working with the original 5e subclasses, I designed divine magic classes and animism as such:

• Clerics: Animist clerics may be of any alignment and choose from any of the following divine domains: knowledge, life, light, nature, tempest, trickery, and war.
• Druids: Circle of the Land druids are animists who gain their powers from the spirits around them. 
• Paladins: Oath of Devotion paladins may be animists.
 

Go to Ruins of Malbeth: Religion, Part 2: Dualism

Back in 2014, when I mentioned that I would occasionally buy and read ttrpg books even though I hadn’t played or run a game in over a decade (the most recent books I’d read was the Cubicle 7’s The Laundry ttrpg and some Atlas Games’ Ars Magic 4e supplements), a friend told me I should check out the forthcoming D&D 5e books as an example of ttrpgs as technical writing.

That did it, and I used Meetup to find a local D&D game to join while I indulged in my long-unpracticed love of world building, the result of which is Malbeth (the continent) and the Mickel Kingdoms (the western region).

There was a dragonborn empire modeled on the Ottoman Empire, a millennia-old mesa-top human kingdom where high elves had found refuge, living in protected forest groves on the mesa and a roughly square mile of forest inside the walls of the capital city. Other realms included a hill dwarven kingdom with a vast network of tunnels connecting dwarven holds to the fortified villages of human subjects who had pled fealty to the dwarven monarchs. There were swamp elves who helped others transport goods through the vast swamp, and a halfling island kingdom known for its scholars and great libraries. There was even a hobgoblin-ruled kingdom open to everyone who consented to live under the hobgoblin’s firm but fair rule.

And there was an order high elf assassins and monks ever keeping watch from their mountain monastery for a return of the Valaraukar, the shadow people who occasionally made incursions into Malbeth after their civilization disappeared some 10,000 years prior, roughly 2,00 years before elves first came to Malbeth.

In 2016, I started a campaign there, but eventually abandoned it because I’d become too attached to it. Malbeth had become a place to tell my stories rather than stories collaboratively created with players. I could have fixed that, but at the time I’d come to realize that I’d discovered Kobold Press’s Midgard setting, and I when I realized Kobold Press’s founder and publisher Wolfgang Baur was one of my favorite D&D designers from the early 1990s, that was that, and I have run 4 campaigns in Midgard since.

As I’m thinking about my next D&D campaign, I’m finding I want to run in a new setting, and that’s got me thinking again about Malbeth. Not as an already made setting but as something to pillage ideas from just as I’m going to pillage ideas from Midgard as I come up with something new.

And so, I’ll revisit Malbeth and how I might use it through a series of posts using the Ruins of Malbeth category.

Browse the Ruins of Malbeth Series Index