Friday, September 25, 2020

Legends of Urheim

Each player character begins the campaign with one random legend, as determined by the roll of 1d20. This represents a bit of lore the character obtained by one means or another (research, tavern gossip, etc.), though there is no guarantee that that the lore is true. Some of the legends below are untrue, in whole or in part. No two characters can begin with knowledge of the same legend. Repeated results should be re-rolled until every character has a unique legend possessed by no one else.

  1. There are two sets of catacombs, one beneath the Upper Temple and one beneath the Lower Temple.
  2. The Lower Temple is dedicated to St. Evad filzArn and once housed relics associated with him.
  3. A dragon is said to dwell in the Lower Gatehouse and attacks any who approach the monastery from that direction.
  4. The Great Stairs leading to the Upper Temple consist of 100 steps – ten for every Precept of Mother Church.
  5. The White Hill is riddled with three levels of laura (hermit caves), some of which are still inhabited by zealous monks who were not driven away. 
  6. A group of mercenaries known as the Company of the Quarrel have taken up banditry and now use the monastery as their base of operations.
  7. The causeway leading to the underworld is trapped and only a cleric of Law can pass across it unharmed.
  8. The underworld beneath the monastery leads to one or more of the Demon Worlds. 
  9. The last abbot, Cassyon, gathered up the relics of St. Gaxyg and fled into the underworld with them.
  10. The ecclesiarch Majorian betrayed the monastery, leading to its fall; his damned soul still haunts the Upper Gatehouse. 
  11. The monastery's well provides a means to bypass the magical wards that seal the entrance to the underworld.
  12. The monks defeated the demon king Bael, imprisoning him within the underworld, where he still lurks to this day.
  13. The entrance to the Underworld is warded.
  14. Exposure to the raw power of Chaos can warp the flesh and taint the mind, which is what led to the fall of the monastery.
  15. The Rangers of Somtha used to keep watch on the monastery ruins but no longer do so.
  16. A powerful magician named Emmeran found a way into the Underworld and now rules over part of it as its master.
  17. Beastmen have established a lair among the surface ruins of the monastery.
  18. The Upper Temple is dedicated to St. Gaxyg the Gray, after whom the whole complex is named. 
  19. Margrave Vedast has sponsored three expeditions to breach the entrance to the underworld in recent years and all three met with failure.
  20. Chanting can still be heard in the Upper Temple on the feast days of St. Gaxyg and St. Evad.

2 comments:

  1. "St. Evad filzArn"
    Evad is "Dave" backwars, "filz" is like the French "fils", meaning "son.
    So, Dave Arneson. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This would not seem out of place in Warhammer.

    ReplyDelete