ADVENTURE PREMISE

En route to the bustling metropolis of Graveseal, you are seized and detained by the city’s military order, the Grave Watch—and quite far from their jurisdiction. Perhaps your reputation as a heroic adventurer is what drew their attention. Perhaps your unscrupulous criminal infamy. Whatever the case, Guard Wynd, the Watch’s knight-commander, has cut short your journey to Graveseal until you complete a task for him.

With your services ensured by whatever means necessary—be that payment, the promise of glory, or extortion—you’ve been diverted to Dustfall, a mining town not far from Graveseal that supplies the city with mithral, one of the few magically conductive metals known to exist. For several weeks now, no new shipments of mithral have arrived at Graveseal, and every agent dispatched by the Grave Watch to investigate has disappeared. Only rumors have returned—talk of vengeful ghosts disturbed by the intrusions of the living.

Your job is twofold: determine the fates of the missing Grave Watch agents, and restore Dustfall’s mining operation by eliminating whatever evil has taken residence within those mithral-lined tunnels.

WORLD LORE

Welcome to Ishtyr’s World... 

A world divided as politically as it is geographically. A world of monsters and mystery.

A world that serves as the tomb to a dead god.

Across a vast archipelago known as the Shatterlands, airships ply the sky, ancient ruins abound, and for those who can hear its song, magic hums a chaotic tune along the seams of reality. It is home to seven civilizations, each said to be created by one of the seven gods—Ishtyr’s siblings—in honor of their fallen brother’s sacrifice.

As taught by the Revelation, Ishtyr died while battling the Voidfather, father of the eight gods. The two battled across the void of existence for eons until Ishtyr sacrificed himself by dragging the Voidfather into the depths of a star. 

Their divine energy combined and transformed the star into Ishtyr’s World itself. With his dying breath, Ishtyr reached out and channeled the last of the star’s light to the heavens above, creating the life-giving sun we see today.

The history of Ishtyr’s World is as fractured and storied as its many islands. Much of that history is lost to time prior to the Intervention a thousand years ago, when the seven remaining gods manifested in physical form to save their creations from the Corroded Legion, a nearly unstoppable evil that emerged in the wake of the Artifact Wars, a tumultuous period defined by the rampant creation and abuse of magic-infused objects.

The Intervention plunged Ishtyr’s World into societal collapse and cultural deterioration, and eradicated what many believe to be an eighth, lost civilization created by Ishtyr himself. Only their ruins remain.

This led to the formation of the Revelation, the now dominant religious organization in the Shatterlands. The Revelation acknowledged and integrated all seven of Ishtyr’s siblings as a diverse pantheon that reflected the collective races of Ishtyr’s World, instead of the monoethnic interpretations of Ishtyr’s Kin that each race worshipped prior to the Intervention. 

A period of growth and cultural expansion followed the Intervention for 500 years, though rife with territorial disputes and political struggles. These hit their zenith upon discovery of Ishtyr’s Reach, the colossal outstretched hand of the dead god extending from the depths of the Fractured Sea at the center of the Shatterlands. 

Claims to its rights led to the Provenance War, during which multiple factions vied for ownership of the holy territory. Resolution ultimately came in the form of separation, with a new, independent city-state formed—one built upon the palm of Ishtyr’s hand itself and populated by members of every race. 

Peace, of a sorts, was restored for another 500 years.

WONDERS OF ISHTYR’S WORLD

The Miasma, also known as the World Storm—a persistent magical storm. The massive energy ribbon sweeps across Ishtyr’s World, leaving a variety of monsters wherever it passes. A thousand years ago, following the Artifact Wars, the Corroded Legion emerged from the Miasma. Some scholars believe the Miasma is the source of magic. Formally trained mages know that there is a secret to the Miasma—one they keep to themselves in order to avoid persecution.

The ever-shifting, mechanized mesas of the mountainous maze that safeguards Interlink, homeland of the Gnomes. 

The towering and luminous arcologies of Parmenidinarmal and Nevarnaesharal, homelands of the Elves.

The earth forge of Vulk’non and the glacial valley of Mit’la, the only known source of the star metal aethercite. These two city-states are part of the Unbound Chain, the homeland of the seafaring Dwarves.

The Fawlu Steppe, and somewhere amid its sea of grass, the roaming city of Ilwrack, homeland of the nomadic Orcs. 

Zahadoth Keep, the island-spanning bridge castle of the feudal Enmashin Order and homeland of the Tieflings.

The relatively young Kingdom of Galdria and the Tethra Empire, one of the Shatterland’s oldest nations, both homelands of the Humans.

And the sovereign city of Graveseal, built upon the palm of the dead god, Ishtyr, and where you were headed before the Grave Watch intercepted you.