Otherwhere (Summer 2024)

Recap of the revised Otherwhere campaign setting used for an abandoned D&D5e campaign played via Roll20 during the summer of 2024. Players included Colette and James (in Brooklyn, NY), Dave (in New Jersey), and Cecilia (in Chicago).

ABOUT OTHERWHERE

Otherwhere is a small demiplane adrift between the celestial outer planes, an unnatural floating continent of lands ranging from historical echoes of Earth cultures at its center to unstable places of nightmares and madness at its furthest edges. Beyond Otherwhere’s borders stretches the silvery void of the Astral Sea where only psychic thoughts and sleepers’ dreams exist.

Of note…

THE GUILD OF EVERYWHERES: A cabal of professional magic-users who ostensibly claim only to want to protect their monopoly on teleportation services linked through a network of Transit Sphere portals. In truth, as keepers of an ancient Atlantean secret, they also conspire to maintain hidden plans for the multiverse.

THE VESTIGES: Tiny pieces of physical space existing at the evaporating edge of Otherwhere, a zone where matter dissolves from its actuality into formless potential.

THE AFTERWHILES: Unstable lands formed around corrupted or broken concepts, each surrounded by a border of magical mists.

THE TREE LANDS: A confederation of druids and noble houses of Celtic magic-users settled at the edge of a vast enchanted forest that manifests the Seven Deadly Sins as monsters: Pride as wood elves, gluttony as hill giants, wrath as fomorians, sloth as hobgoblins, lust as wood nymphs, envy as hags, and greed as dragons. From it magical capital of Tir Na Drayocht (“the land of magic”), the Tree Lands confederation includes:
* The Druids (the Old Faith religious sect centered around nature)
* The Merlins (a college of knowledge-seeking magic-users and bards)
* House Ulaid (royal bloodline of the Tuatha De Danann)
* House Duibne (a wealthy family of opulent high elves)
* House Silures (an elven family of forest explorers)
* House Erainn (an ambitious elven family of dragon-hunting warlocks)
* House Flachach (a family of adventurous halfling sorcerers)

THE MACHINE LANDS (NEW OZ): A neon-lit dystopian metropolis that promotes ultra-advanced technology under its twin rulers, the mortal mastermind Director Gale and the supercomputer called GLINDA (Global Logic Interface Network and Data Access). Social order in the Machine Lands is monitored and enforced through its secret police, the Scarecrows, and a legion of flying monkey cyborgs.

Other lands:

* THE DREAM LANDS: A psychedelic manifestation of the faerie realm (the Feywild, Arcadia, the Young Lands).
* THE ETERNAL LANDS (also called THE YESTER): A vast jungle of hostile monsters around the Temple of Everywheres, a nexus of teleportation portals controlled by a guild of professional wizards.
* THE FIRE LANDS: An Egyptian-influenced theocracy civilization along the River of Life, an echo of the fertile Nile valley through a vast desert.
* THE SHADOW LANDS: A vast toxic wasteland of urban ruins and ghost hordes (the Shadowfell, the Gloom, the Wraithlands.)
* THE STONE LANDS: A northern land of Norse clans and mythic creatures (dwarves, dark elves, and frost giants).
* THE WATER LANDS: A collective of rival seafaring merchant houses and bastard demigod heroes seeking glory.
* THE WIND LANDS: A kingdom of figures from Chinese mythology who rule over their land from a mountaintop capital fortress and various cloud-based flying cities.

BEINGS OF POWERTHE DEITIES: Gods, goddesses, and major celestial spirits avoid manifesting directly within Otherwhere for reasons kept secret from mortals. In extreme cases, such beings will project avatars of themselves into the Court of Heaven, a meeting site within the Vestiges.

THE ARCHQUEENS: Not deities, but immortal manifestations who serve as patron spirits over each of the nine settled lands. More figureheads than true sovereigns, they fill ceremonial roles in their societies, except for the mysterious Archqueen Eternal who appears to take an active role with the Guild of Everywheres.

THE PLANAR CHILDREN: A lineage of 27 celestial beings who embody and invoke various concepts (travel, trickery, healing, mechanics, music, and so forth). According to legend, each appears as a human child, though some speculate they might take other forms as well.

MYSTERIESCOLONIAL ROOTS: Otherwhere was either discovered or created by powerful magic-users from the lost Empire of Atlantis. About 1,400 years ago, all contact with Atlantis was suddenly lost, but their cultural legacy and magical knowledge lived on among those now isolated on the astral demiplane.

THE BLOOM: About 700 years ago, a large settlement of former colonial Atlanteans at the center of Otherwhere was wiped out by the sudden magical growth of a monster-filled jungle. Only one building survived, the old Atlantean religious center now known as the Temple of Everywheres, the current headquarters of the Guild of Everywheres. Those who escaped this “Second Doom” settled the eight lands around Otherwhere’s central mountains.

THE NECROMANCER: A powerful wizard named Mulgurd attempted to conquer all the lands of Otherwhere about 400 years ago, but after a century of warfare, he was destroyed and his undead legions scattered. Some of his followers still exist and promote strange cults in his honor. Recently, Mulgurd’s skull turned up as an assassination weapon during a coronation event, but it has since been hidden in the outer planes by a celestial of justice.

THE SOUL HEIST: Four heroes discovered hundreds of souls that had been ambushed from their destined afterlives. After meeting with several deities with authority over life, death, and eternal judgment (Anubis, Raven, Baron Samedi, Asase Afua, and Lucifer), the souls were rescued back to their intended final resting domains. Those responsible for this crime were never exposed, but the four heroes were hailed as saviors.

THE BLOOD OF CHAOS: These same four heroes discovered a chaotic red ichor capable of transforming living creatures and spirits into demonic-like mutations of elemental and spiritual chaos. A large volume of this stuff was used to corrupt an energy-harvesting space station in the Vestiges, and a small amount was found in possession by some hobgoblin slavers in the Tree Lands. The origin and purpose of this ichor has not been determined.

THE BLACK DAGGER: The four heroes who found and saved the lost souls were themselves each revealed to have been slain during different points of Earth’s history, all victims of the same black-bladed dagger. Each returned to life together in a dangerous Vestige before escaping and settling down in a shared residence in Tir Na Drayocht. From time to time, four psychics working under Project Star Gate in modern America (circa the early 1990s) attempt to communicate to the heroes through weak astral projection:
* Edward Pearl, an espionage officer with some shady connection to the parents of post-modern warlock Jervis Chevalier;
* Allison Hart, a former late-1980s high school classmate of the NYC magic-user Elora, the Darling Mage;
* Li Jushi, a distant descendant of a former wife to the famed monk and poet Li Bai;
* Opal Vargas, a mystic who shares a connection with The Traveler, the same spirit patron of the eladrin hexblade Pernicious Periwinkle.
The astral projection team appears to be investigating the murders of the four heroes, but those responsible have not yet been revealed or caught.

HOW IT ENDED

In terms of the characters, the last few sessions had the heroes rescue Baroness Boada Ulaid, who had been captured by hobgoblins and taken to one of the formorian’s forest outposts (repurposing the AD&D module A2: Secrets of the the Slavers Stockade by Harold Johnson with Tom Moldvay). Boada’s secret father was revealed as the red dragon Abusditahebir who helped the group escape (and, afterwards, returned to burn the outpost to the ground). Upon returning to Tir Na Drayocht, matriarch Flaith Ulit Ulaid paid each hero 1,000 g.p. and held a banquet in their honor as thanks from House Ulaid.

Elora, the Darling Mage: After recovering green dragon-scale armor from the hobgoblins’ outpost, she took to studying more spells from the books stolen from the Guild of Everywheres’ secret vault in the Vestiges.

Jervis Chevalier: His past support of the Fellowship of Thorns and Coins (thieves guild) led to several Machine Lands bounty hunters being misdirected away from the Tree Lands. Also, Jervis had a new clear vision of his undead warlock patron, suggesting perhaps she was not who or what she had claimed to be.

Li Bai: Upon being touched by the astral projection of Li Jushi, the monk gained an aura of protection (as per the Death Ward spell until needed).

Pernicious Periwinkle: Attempted, with partial success, to raise interest among the druids and Order of Merlins to investigate further cultists in red cloaks and a possible planar rift left behind at the site of the hobgoblin stockade.

Cipher the Guild Mage: Having lost all knowledge of operating Transit Spheres after a battle against memory eaters, the wizard was sitting out adventures and minding the heroes’ house in Tir Na Drayocht.

MORE INFO

Game Map of Otherwhere (with hex grid)

An Otherwhere Lexicon

The Library Vault of Avalon Station (clues to campaign metaplot)

Campaign Recap: Part One (Escape the Vestiges)

Campaign Recap: Part Two (Into the Dark Woods)

…lots more campaign handouts, notes