BLACK SUN RISING campaign info.

Last updated 07-02-06


OERTH - CY 624

The half-drow sorceror D'Suul Baedre met the ranger Loric in the Free City of Dyvers in mid-624. The two travelled west together to Hommlet, in search of the recently reactivated Temple of Elemental Evil. Over the course of several months the pair were distracted by various adventures, and eventually heard that the Temple had once again become the site of conflict between forces of good and evil.

One of the factions involved is thought to be composed of agents of the newly crowned Overking of Aerdy, Morgant, Ivid VI. These agents are rumoured to be searching with feverish intensity for something in the Kron Hills. D’Suul still feels drawn to these hills in the west by apocalyptic dreams in which he feels he is visited by the “sleeping god” Tharzdu’un. Loric also intends to travel to the Kron Hills again himself to investigate, but first must deal with the situation at hand.

The ‘situation at hand’ is an expedition into the Abbey of Thelema, a (perhaps not completely) abandoned ruin in the woods of the Wild Coast, near the city of Fax. That city has recently become the seat of power of ‘Utgard-Loki’, an Elder Being of considerable power which has manifested in this world through the works of an evil epic level monk known only as “The Cenobite”. Loric now serves Utgard-Loki and The Cenobite as an evil shaman (having been turned from the druidic path by D’Suul), and seeks to either bring the Abbey under their control or destroy it. Similarly, D’Suul seeks to either control or destroy the place (for his own ends, but at the suggestion of the Black Councillor Ienkarach, soon to be Lord-governor of the Furyondy).

The Abbey itself is of such interest because it sits at the intersection of 3 ley lines, and is a place of considerable psionic power. The place’s ancient power is interfering with an extradimensional gate invoked by the Cenobite at Fax, the source of his power, and is thus of vital strategic importance to the opposed forces of Utgard-Loki and the mysterious dark factions united behind Ivid VI and his allies to the far north and west. The Abbey and the city of Fax both lie at the centre of a region known as “The Eldredd Fear” – a boiling void of darkness and insanity which has covered almost all of the Wild Coast. Only a few handfuls of people around the world know that soon the Black Sun of the Oeridian Overking and his dark gods will rise, and the Eldredd Fear will then become an oasis of light and life in a dying world.


LEVELS - LONDON 2006

Kevin Gould and James Dryden are a pair of graphic designers who live in a studio loft in Soho, London. Together, they run a company which does subcontract work for computer game companies and the like, while running the occasional art show and club night on the side. Kevin and James have known each other for around 8 years.

Late in 2005, while the two were finishing work on a trading card RPG for an American company, James noticed that the old Last Dance Club on Dean Street had re-opened under new management. James was himself a regular at the club in the early-mid 90’s, until the place was burned down in the wake of a gang war between London’s underground occult factions.

The club has been reopened as an alternative/techno venue, completely remodeled, and the new manager (Xavier Calm, representing ’21 Holdings’) was looking for promoters to run club nights and events. James & Kevin signed up to do a night with a Cronenberg-esque ‘body horror’ theme, and the opening night (December ’05) was a hit with a motley collection of alt types.

Simultaneously disturbing and interesting, however, was the appearance of various “talent” people on the opening night – refugees from the “war of ‘95”. These days, such people fall broadly into two factions, which no longer have the inclination or resources to fight outright. The first faction is the chaos magi, loosely grouped into small tribes and occult societies. The second is the ‘psi-ops’ people who now work for the government and its various ultra-clandestine agencies (e.g. Section 6, Section 13, and the Paranormal Investigations Squad). Finally, there is a third group, apparently new on the London scene: the Archons.

The Archons are ‘Outsiders’ (nonhumans, or perhaps posthumans, from another plane of existence), “demons” or “angels” which walk the world in human guise, and which have been appearing on the streets of London in increasing numbers lately. At least one Archon even attended Kevin & James’ opening night at the club. Something is going on, but no-one seems to know what.