Southland Adventure: Stone Grave-Setting Background

STONE GRAVE

A Fantasy Core and D&D 5^th Edition Southland Adventure

© Jerry Harris 2015

Published here as Open Game Content. 

(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Playtest Rules.)

Southland Index

Stone Grave Index

Setting Background

The Catastrophe didn’t kill everyone all at once.  It made them suffer first.

The Ancients

Before the time of the Ancients, Stone Grave was originally a miner-killing hole in the ground under Atila dedicated to extracting silver and a few other metals.  As the body count rose, the strike was eventually played out and the mine was abandoned. 

The Ancients would later turn the inside of the plateau into an immense internal living and work space and the area underneath into an unspeakable den magical depravity.  The Civil War would further morph Atila into a survival bunker, as refugees flooded the facility seeking shelter from the conflict.  As the main production facility of Humanoids and the all-important Vegemite, all sides left the mountain untouched, so long as the Wizard-Kings there continued to supply all sides equally.

Finally, the Catastrophe stuck and slowly worked its way across the continent, draining all human lifeforce it encountered.  The disaster took long enough to develop that various counter-measures were attempted.  At Atila, some fled into the Deep Dark, hoping to be shielded by the earth (and would later become the Grimlocks).  By this time, the Stone Grave section had been converted into an upscale survival bunker.  They attempted to create a magical shield powered by tapping demonic forces. 

It created some interesting effects when the soul-draining wave finally hit, none of which allowed anyone to survive.  As the human bodies were removed of their spirits, demonic ones entered, causing the overcrowded bunker to now be filled with killer undead creatures.  Lucky that Stone Grave had been sealed off from the rest of the complex to keep non-residents out.  This ended up keeping all the undead trapped inside. 

The Humanoids

The Wizard-Kings’ Humanoid creations were the bulk of the survivors and now ruled the mountain.  There are several sealed off and hidden areas of Atila’s massive internal labyrinth.  The various Humanoid tribes are constantly trying to get into them for lost magical items, weapons, and precious goods, even though most were sealed for a reason and the robbers find that out the hard way.

Stone Grave was a known major subdivision with an obvious entrance.  After long, hard effort the sealing blocks were broken into.  (The tunnel had, of course, violently changed hands any number of times in the process, thus greatly slowing the excavation.)  The rupture unleashed a veritable hoard of undead that had been trapped inside.  An unlikely coalition of various tribes defeated the rush.  Because of the obvious danger, they decided to work together, at least for a time, to clean out the level.

A large, mixed force moved in and began systematically removing the vast undead presence in the work level and residence level.  This was not easy work, causing many casualties.  The coalition held together remarkably well, but only because they hadn’t found anything worth looting to fight over.  Eventually, they reached the Noble Level, which was also sealed.  The various tribes figured this was where the goodies were and everything broke down at that point.  The groups holed up in individual sections and proceeded to make war on one another.  Runners were sent out for reinforcements, which in turn, started fights between the tribes outside the complex. 

Things only got worse from there as the various forces bunkered in.  Most Humanoids instinctively avoid the Deep Dark under Mount Connor.  Greed and frustration drove hasty expeditions into the mine level of Stone Grave looking for anything to justify the continuing effort.  This stirred up the Grimlocks living there, who had previously avoided these undead infested levels.  Unfortunately, this tribe controlled a group of the Ancient stone sentinels, Gargoyles.  These magical creations couldn’t be harmed by normal weapons.  With this backup, the Grimlocks took the work level and have feasted upon ongoing reinforcement efforts being sent to Stone Grave. 

The remaining forces on the residence level have hunkered down and attacked one another with increasingly pitiful forces.  They are trapped and cannot go back or forward to this point.  The Grimlocks seem inherently reluctant to go any higher up in the complex to finish them off and keep Gargoyle sentries there instead.  The specter of starvation will eventually drive them into final conflict at some point.  Meanwhile, the Gnoll tribe with their pet Troll, holds the entrance to the Noble Level and are just about to make a breakthrough.  Here’s where the Characters come in.

The Adventurers

This high-profile site would also attract the attention of the later arriving Commonwealth colonists.  Mount Connor, as the colonists would call it, was overrun with Humanoids, fanatical about defending it.  Daring (and very lucky) raiders would return from strikes inside with treasure and magic items.  (Though most adventurers would never return at all.) 

With a little military assistance (who decided this would be a nice thorn to put in the Humanoids’ side), Camp Connor was established nearby the mountain to facilitate expeditions inside.  The Humanoid residents are annoyed by this squatting, but are generally too busy fighting each other to successfully gang up and destroy this fairly powerful collection of warriors.  This will probably continue, as long as the humans don’t try to hold any territory inside Mount Connor. 

Player Briefing

The Characters are, by good fortune (?), the first group of humans to enter this part of the complex since the Catastrophe.  If you were starting this as part of an ongoing Southland campaign, the Characters could somehow acquire a map from their adventuring showing a secret entrance into Mount Connor and pointing at a hidden treasure cache. 

While it seems legit, the map immediately ends up leading them into the Deep Dark, which will prompt them to quickly attempt to find an exit.  They would then find the way back has been blocked off and must proceed forward blindly.  From here, they’d find a ruined ladder with an entrance hole 10’ above it.  Disturbingly, there the remains of a stone cap that had obviously placed into the hole, but was later jarred loose by erosive flooding.  Wherever they’re going was sealed off, but at least it’s going up.

Otherwise, just use whatever backstory you want and start the adventure at the hole.