Mourningstar is a large city built on the back of a giant turtle swimming the astral sea.
The population varies around 10,000 or so and is about 70% tiefling.
The city of Mourningstar is run by alliances of arcane guilds, some are ancient, others new and range in size from a dozen members to several hundred. Each alliance has its own 10 story basalt tower, the towers occasionally shift around the city during the night. The only other large structures in the city are the seven mud brick ziggurats of Ioun, one in each quarter of the city.
The arcane guilds of Mourningstar build gates to other planes and use them for trading and raiding. Guild members start out as slaves, only arcanists can rise in ranks, others, like fighters for example, can only hope to appease their masters or escape. Taking the multiclass feats for wizard or warlock qualifies the individual as an arcanist.
Character Creation
Assigned stat method: put 16, 14, 13, 12, 11 and 10 where you want them
Choose a class
Roll 1d8 for race
1Dragonborn
2 Dwarf
3 Eladrin
4 Elf
5 Half-Elf
6 *see below
7 Human
8 Tiefling
*Note:
A roll of 6 on race, which is a halfling, means you pick an animal or terrain type instead. Halflings have been changed to no longer resemble Tolkien's hobbits so much that I don't really feel it adds any coolness to the game from playing one.
No one I game with has wanted to play one in years. When I made this simple change two people have played them so far.
So instead all the stats are the same just the physical description is a bit different, they are the anthropomorphic animals now. I'm not an especially die hard furry freak, just wanted to change things up a bit. So in the first part since it was a frozen world, the local halflings were a race of humanoid arctic hares.
Either pick one or roll a d6.
1 Arctic Hare (tundra)
2 Raccoon (forest)
3 Monkey (jungle)
4 House Cat (city)
5 Opossum (swamp)
6 Red Fox (plains)
Background
The characters were sold to an arcane guild of the city as children by slavers. Those players who write up a brief world background and make up their own guild start out as level 2 characters. This will help me plan the adventures.
Some NPC guilds are
A.P.E.S. - Arcane Princes of the Elder Sign - tiefling nobles
S.A.P. - Society of Arcane Purity - bitter rivals of SPAR
S.O.F.T. - Society of Forensics Thaumaturges - necromancers, undead, infernal pact warlocks
S.A.F.E. - Secret Assassins of the Forbidden Elders
L.O.V.E.R. - Lactating Ogre Vampires of the Enchanted Ruins
and the player created ones
S.P.A.R. - Society for Preservation of Arcane Research - splinter group from SAP
N.A.S.T.Y. – Natural Arcane Services for Terminating Yuan-ti - an ancient once powerful guild with only 12 members
R.O.T.T.E.N. - Riot Optimized Torture Technicians of the Elder Necropolis - inquisitors
E.V.E. - Eternity Versus Evil
Killominatu's background is an example of what kind of crap I'm looking for.
Chapter I - Lair of the White Wyrm
The PCs have finished their apprenticeship with their various guild masters and have been turned over to the alliance for their final test. The current leader of the alliance is an exceptionally cruel tiefling named Atabeg Tealjaw who delights in sending lesser guild members to their doom.
Chapter II - Zombies!
Chapter III - Easy Drider
Chapter IV - Giant Gnomes
Chapter V - The Lich Queens Love
Chapter VI - Tharizdun