Chagrinspire

 

Chagrinspire
Mud, Misery & Madness
The Chagrinspire is a mountain famous for its dark storm clouds purple lightning and strange auroras. Long ago a dark band of alchemists began work on a doomsday device. As the various peoples of the world learned of this they united and amassed the largest armies ever known. All alignments and peoples who did not wish the universe destroyed were united. Orcs and elves were side by side with dwarves, trolls, goblins and humans. Necromancers and priests of good even cooperated and failed together. The war raged for years in a race to stop the doomsday device. Millions died. The lands around the mountain are choked in ruins and mud and remains of dead. Many of the inhabited villages and towns in outlying areas were once waypoints for massive armies that poured to their doom.

There was no evil mastermind or evil god or demon responsible. A dark school of alchemists united with evil gnomes from the Underland and began their master plan to destroy the universe, gods and all to place their chosen beyond the reach of death and the flaws of matter forever. The material of the multiverse and the souls of every being in it were to be fuel for the doomsday creation of a great black metal sphere that scholars today know little of. The greatest wonderworkers of magic and even the gods could not stop this. Nobody quite knows what happened to end the threat of Chagrinspire. Some say the loss of resources and lives on both sides destroyed everyone. Others believe the lives lost were part of a sacrifice and the great black sphere is still awaiting its destiny.

The lands for hundreds of miles around the Chagrinspire are still scarred and wretched to this day. People and other beings still live in the region still shunned by the civilised peoples. Many humanoids live in foul places where humans cannot. This was so long ago most have no knowledge of it. Such lore is forbidden in many lands and the script of the dark alchemists is a sign of witchcraft in many lands.

But as memories fade some scraps of magic have been found on the magic black markets. local villages like Flatspur and Shankheim have become bases for looters gathering remains buried in mud and shattered ruins. Most only plunder the surrounding outposts and battlefields but some have even begun climbing and searching the mountain again despite brooding weather and dangers.

Basics of the setting
This is a post-apocalyptic world made to put the merely grim and dark fantasy worlds to shame. It is a squalid and filthy land of dispair that sucks the life from surrounding lands. The common folk are ignorant and indifferent to the history of the land. They just want to live free of famine, plague and mutations.

From Flatspur and Shankheim desperate people are exploring the muddy ancient battlefields looking for scrap metal and magic to sell. Many people here were banished exiles and outcasts from civilisation. It's the same for many monsters here but they cope better with the horrific landscape of torment.

The ancients were more advanced and among the ruins and battlefields are remains of machines and weapons strange to modern peoples. As the war was so long and destructive the technology and magic became increasingly backward and the last battles were fought with clubs and stones while the first had vast iron land leviathans, blackpowder, germ bombs and hellfire. Flying machines and automatons of the doomsday cult killed millions. Some of this technology could be recovered and operated and possibly replicated. Outside the region of Chagrinspire such arts and sciences are shunned as blasphemy.

Will explorers find wealth and glory or could they reset the countdown to the nullification of all reality? Or will they die in a ditch with all the nameless corpses before them.

d12 Weather
1 Light showers and intermittent sunlight or moonlight
2 Clear skies an occasional blessing
3 Grey cloudy skies with infrequent fingers of light peeking through
4 Wind and dust storms that dump toxic soil over the land
5 Light mists at dawn and dusk with grey clouds in between
6 Thick pea soup fog that blocks visibility and muffles sound
7 Gloomy dark clouds surround the mountain circling it eerily
8 Heavy rain all day that turn ground into mud
9 Acidic burning rain that can ruin crops and buildings unprotected
10 Vast black moving clouds that are in fact flies
11 Strange violet and cyan auroras that affect magic
12 Violent storms with purple lightning

d12 Terrain
1 Shattered woodlands of dead trees and mud
2 Stubbly grasslands or poor soil where crops can grow poorly
3 Black stinking marshlands choked with corpses
4 Broken rocky ground with cliffs, canyons, mesas and rubble
5 Fetid wetlands of sickly greasy streams and foul lakes
6 Mudfields where battles fought with craters, trenches and ruins
7 Grim woods choked with thick thorns, sinister trees and life 
8 Saltflats where ancient toxic waters long ago dried up
9 Toxic zones of volcanic craters, ash, sulphur and boiling mud
10 Sprawling ruins of ancient forts and supply bases choked in mud, craters and rubble
11 Radiant fields which glow by night, with shattered, burned out and poison crystals 
12 Mountains of jagged glassy cliffs and crumbling slopes

Some Locations:
Lead Hills, Cinnabar Slopes, Bismouth Crags, Dankmire, Ashen Plains, Vile Hills, Putrid Marsh, Corpse Fields, Apocalypse Hills, Crater Fields, Poison Peaks, Fang Gulley, Smoking Valley, Choking Hills, Cadaver Flats, Misery Valley, Burning Plains, Nightmare Valley, Scar Creek, Offal Bogs, Stinking Medows, Fever Stream, Defenestration Rock, Witch Hill, Blood Hills, Vomit Lake, Bile Stream, Phlegm Pass, Pustule Valley, Bubo Lake, Plague Pass, Heartache Pass, Massacre Valley, Weeping Sore Hills, Woeful Pass, Sorrow Hills, Squallar Cliffs, Sordid Samp, Skank Marsh  

d12 Colours
1 Dun 
2 Ochre 
3 Beige
4 Umber
5 Mauve
6 Rust
7 Bile
8 Moss
9 Lichen
10 Ash
11 Bone 
12 Black

d12 Ruins
1 System of trenches often boobytrapped
2 Underground bunker complex
3 Fortified outpost 
4 Watch Tower
5 Defensive wall
6 Battered factories
7 Blasted village
8 Shack built from debris and garbage, possibly hidden
9 Wrecked war machines
10 Crashed airship
11 Burned-out land leviathan
12 Crumbling citadel or castle

d12 Hazards

1 Sucking bog

2 Mud or rock slide

3 Covered pit 

4 Snares or other simple traps

5 Toxic fungus

6 Stinking miasma

7 Barbed wire or thorn hedges

8 Land mines

9 Cloud of d4 1=fog 2=poison gas 2=smoke 4=flamable gas

10 Sinkhole into cave or complex

11 Acid rain or burning gas or boiling geyser

12 Waking war automaton

d12 Common Finds

1 Long dead mass of exposed dead soldiers

2 Scattered body parts 

3 Broken weapons, sometimes intact 

4 Pile of skulls

5 Unexploded shell or bomb

6 Soldiers kit d4 1=Trench tool 2=gas mask 3= 4=

7 Remains of metal cars or horses

8 Shattered artillery gun

9 Helmet or cuirass badly damaged

10 Cache of d4 1=food 2=ammo 3=first 4=aid kits

11 Flooded trench full of floating mould and corpses

12 Garbage mound is nest of a swarm of d4 1=rats 2=bugs 3=maggots 4=flies

Encounters of outer regions
Any animals or even people may have minor mutations or diseases
For low levels use only one creature or make them have low morale or even damage
For higher levels increase numbers add mutations

d12 Day Encounters

1 Wild dogs, jackals or wolves

2 Rats, giant or swarm

3 Flesh eating flies, giant or swarm

4 Nervous scavengers looting

5 Chaos hunting zealots (barbarians or crusaders)

6 Pathetic mutant looking for food

7 Gang of ravenous mutants

8 Gang of kobold hunters

9 Beast folk hunters

10 Beetles, giant or swarm

11 Giant vultures

12 Orc warband

d12 Night Encounters

1 Hyenas

2 Panther (lone ambusher)

3 Bats, giant or swarm

4 Mutant war band

5 Orc warband d4 1=Bloody Bones 2=Night

6 Zombie or skeleton soldiers

7 Ghouls, if a pack is ed by ghast

8 Ogres hunting

9 Cultists 

10 Beetles, giant or swarm

11 Slime or ooze or jelly

12 Lesser demon or devil looking for something

d12 Unwelcome Secret Cults of Charginspire
1 Underworld Death Cult Templars in black robes who lead undead 
2 The Slime Gods Cult seek to restore the primordial slimes to renew the world by raising slime monsters, hybrid elementals and mutants. They are infamous kidnapers

3 The Machine cult who seeks to restore ancient factories and weapons and automatons. Many cultists have non living body parts made like golems. They need forced labourers
4 Carrion Cult of Bird folk come here to feast and find treasures and the old magic dolmen stones

5 Cult of the Worm seek to raise the worm gods over other life 

6 Cult of the Amphibian of humans, frog folk, hybrids and were frogs and their various pets and drug trade
7 Cult of Chaos seek to destroy the world to save surrounding cosms, so they send hordes of mindless mutant maniacs
8 Cult of the gun wear masks to roam the waste and shoot anything they deem impure. Each cult has a cannon or mortar they use for sieges and often for hire. Guns all have demon faces faces
9 The cult of Hell instigated some of this mess aeons ago and now come offering to help people with pacts to hell and friendly familiar imps to do all your chores
10 The Black Sun seek to incubate the last brood of their dread gods in the sun for the apocalypse
11 The Plague Cult Seek to cleanse the old world with plague 

12 The Black Sphere Heretics of Chagrinspire serve to restore the Black Sphere

d12 Tolerated Cults of Charginspire
1 The Green Gods of nature and their druidic cult are here to restore fertility

2 Seers of the Eye who send observers into the region to report on certain signs or evils return

3 Cults of Light are here to heal the sick and protect the weak from evil

4 The Thunderer who set the swirling black storm clouds around the Carginspire

5 Cults of Law who purge mutants, witches, undead and otherworldly evils

6 Air cult come to help protect settlements from miasmas and deal with the winds

7 Earth cult come to purify the earth to help farmers grow food

8 Fire Cult came to burn away the wicked and the alien now act in secret as occult vigilantes
9 Water Cult came help purify water and keep communities alive
10 The Bard of the Gods a trickster who aids gods and heroes and carries messages and magic secrets
11 The hunter who brings herd beasts and slays monsters
12 Spirit Cults for ancestral, natural and minor land spirits administered locally by Shamen

d12 Visiting Factions
1 The Alchemist Guild seeks materials and magic of the fallen civilisation and experiment
2 The Mercenaries Guild expanding on the frontier anywhere fighting required
3 Merchants Guild opening new trade routes and reaching new resources
4 University of Ravenstien seeks lost lore and ancient books and acts like the Magicians Guild
5 Rangers of Auldwood send agents looking for signs of future enemies or conflict
6 Explorers Society seeks to map places and visit hard-to-reach locations for glory
7 Mechanists Guild seeks to understand the machines of the ancients
8 Green Dawn a movement of elves and druids seeking to purify the wasteland for settlers 
9 The Astronomers Guild seek advanced star lore of the ancients
10 The Beast Keepers Guild seek exotic creatures and the means to modify creatures for menageries and bloodsports
11 Slavers Guild find lots of runaways and worthless people here to kidnap 
12 Crime guilds of spies, assassins and bandits are gathering 

Mutations
These offer the weak and downtrodden survivors a chance to get revenge. Chaos gangs are common and these will have a few minor mutations and the sub bosses will also have a major mutation. Many creatures embrace mutations to survive knowing mutants are tougher than most humans. Bigger bosses have more major mutations and maybe some other character class levels.

d12 Common Minor Mutations

1 Gasmask for face

2 Polypous Tumours +d3 HP

3 Drooling or nose running phlegm or foaming at the mouth

4 Consant flatulace or diarreah

5 Weeping smelly sores

6 Extra fingers or toes or tail

7 Weird gibbering voice

8 Hairy all over

9 Cyclops

10 Extra metre tall or short

11 Skull is a helmet +1AC

12 Slimy moist skin like slug

d12 Common Major Mutations

1 Mechanical body parts

2 Extra d4 horns, tusks or antlers

3 Replace limb with d3 tentacles, 3 long 

4 Crab claws or spike club limb d6 unarmed

5 Mechanical body parts +1 Might +1 AC

6 Fire breath 3 range 2d6+HD half if save d3 uses day

7 Leap +1 range (3m)

8 Heal d6 damage with meal and rest 3x day 

9 Baleful gaze 3m range save of flee d3 rounds if 4HD or less 3 x day

10 Acid blood, non-magic weapons save or -1 to hit till fixed per blow

11 Trumpeting cry can be heard 1km away outdoors 100m indoors

12 Prehensile tongue 1 range can use an attack to grapple or hold 1H object 

d12 Mutoid Gang Encounters
1 Brutal gang of dim-witted thugs with clubs and rocks who eat people 

2 Shy gang smart mutants in hiding may help dim-witted strangers

3 Abhuman beast folk warriors with mutations

4 Gang of escaped hospital patients from a mad surgery wizard
5 Gang of filthy miserable cannibal clowns in a travelling kill circus
6 Armoured mercenary mutant land knights with swords and pistols 
7 Mutated chaos templars corrupted to darkness on the forbidden mountain

8 Plague mutants seek to capture and infect to judge the pure 
9 Necro mutants in service of necromancers who direct undead troops
10 Golden beautiful mutants of LAW come to judge the impure and save the universe by putting it in stasis forever. They have seen the law and it is written
11 Mutant orcs embracing their new forms, united against orc tribes and barbarians

12 Reptilian mutation gang exposed to the mutagen gas attacks of the serpent folk alchemists, may use dinosaur mutants as allies

Coming
Local Communities
d100 Mutant Maniacs
d100 Wasteland Weirdos
d100 Structures
d100 Encounters