Campaign Introduction
The days are getting shorter,
And the wind is blowing colder.
In the distance, a void-black cyclone tears at the clouds of the southern horizon. A tempest rages endlessly above the rime-encrusted crater of the Abyss. You aren't close enough to feel its acrid fury yet, thank the Witnesses. But neither have you ever relished the sunrise untainted by it's smokey tinge. And every day it seems to loom just a little bit larger.
Beneath your feet, the land hums and rumbles along, drifting atop a sea of clouds stretching out beyond your sight. You have heard of continents far below, but only in the history books. There now are only leagues and leagues of frothing ocean, raked here and there by the tectonic scars of a sundered planet.
You've heard stories that in eons past the Scream tore Gahla apart. The world drowned in a great flood, and fell silent for centuries under a blanket of ash. The stragglers took refuge on sea vessels. They fought over precious rare footholds on the tallest peaks of the crater-pocked continent of Thambria. No other lands remained, at least on this side of the Veil. That was until the Arkwood trees took flight, and brought ayrlands with them above the Cloudsea. Basking in the radiance of sacred Coronnus, The Sun Triumphant, and nourished by rejuvenating sprays of Gahla's lumenous clouds, life flourished once again.
But the storm above the Abyss never stopped turning. Tormunthrask's hungering vengeful call - an inexorable current of ash-black wind - draws the ayrlands a few hundred miles closer to center of the maelstrom every year. Flying lower and lower, they swirl around the meridians like the hands of a clock, each at their own inscrutable pace. Then, at the end of their lifespans, the ayrles, and everything on them, finally sink into the void. That's if they don't freeze first, and crash down into the sea to become food for the Leviathans.
Every year, hundreds of ayrlands are lost to weather, to collisions, to plague or war or rampant extraction. Many are uninhabited, but many are not, and most take their secrets with them. Yet every year new ones also arise from the northern mists.
by August Albrecht Schenck (PD)
Ayrlands form in the swampy coral jungles of the north. Drunkenly they float, up and away from the wall of karsts and steamfalls that encircles the planet, just below the shimmering cosmic rings of Kalyptia. Trembling and precarious at first, these rugged heaps of earth are kept aloft by a brittle under-crust of steamy skycoral reefs. Their scalding, hissing, huffing vents exhale the spent life force of the myriad ecosystems above, and propel them up beyond the clouds.
Each ayrland depends on its sapient Arkwood trees to orchestrate the marvelous symphony of bio-alchemical processes that keep it level and steady on course. In turn, the ecosystems that develop on the ayrles keep the Arkwood tree protected and nourished. Any fool or villain who threatens the Arkwoods will soon find an ayrland's inhabitants turned against them. But this doesn't stop folk from trying. The Brillesap is just too valuable not to.
Most Gahls live nomadic lives, frantically hopping from one small ayrland to the next. The wealthy and their attendants make their homes in the Chainlands, where ayrles get tethered to an anchorspire. These are rare and coveted pillars of rock that stand tall and proud above the Saltsea. A massive meteorite-forged chain holds the ayrles fast against the pull of Gahla's ceaseless winds. But all things wither and erode in time, and not even the lushest ayrland, nor the strongest spire, can resist the assault of the elements for long.
We know that the Abyss is a festering wound from a barbaric war, and its corrupting ashes are choking Gahla to death. The Veil is a wall created by a flawed and angry god that may be long dead by now, or may have survived, but certainly not unscarred. Folk aren't sure which is worse. Monarchs and ministers speak of grand plans, but all fall short of meeting the severity of the crisis. Tormunthrask seems to be getting bigger, stronger. These days, most ayrlands don't last a century before their tightening orbits finally bring them into the storm where all things end.
by Dino Romero
For a time, the Prospero Consortium and the trade houses of the Guildersligue assured people that more homes would materialize from the northern mists. But as ecologists eventually discovered, new ayrlands take centuries to form and the size of the harvest varies every cycle. So the mechant lords flew daring pioneers out to the edges of the Karthinian wilds to tame and chart the virgin ayrlands. They were to find suitable lands to colonize, and tow them out from the giant mangrove swamps that grow between the tropics. It did not go well. The extraction expeditions ignited the anger of the ancient Kalyptian dragons, and soon all-out war raged across the Southron skies. So much blood was spilled, and so much abyssal alchemy was brought to bear in the conflict that the Leviathans of the Deepsea awakened and grew into colossal mutated monsters. The victory over the dragons was costly, and the spoils meager. In the end, the ayrlands that were pulled from the mists would serve only as a feeble stopgap. The harvest was too small and too weak to hold up all the trappings and burdens of the world's growing nations. Rulers and citizens turned upon each other as they jockeyed for dominion over the new territories. The industrialists got to most of them first, of course, and soon the new ayrles began to sag under the weight of silver and iron. In the Chainlands, the Federation's ministers and assessors swore the tethers would hold for a few more years. But they rusted and they buckled, as the repairs were delayed, again and again, for a hundred reasons. The crownlords of Thambria promised relief vessels would come and airlift citizens to a new home, but passage came at far too high a cost for far too many. Those that did make it onto a northbound ship would be met by the fiery rage of the Karathi Drakkengard. These honorsworn wyvern-riding legionnaires refused to let outsiders enter the sacred jungles of their cold-blooded masters. Southerners had despoiled too much already, and they had dragon's blood on their hands, still fresh from a war that had never really ended. Now they dared to venture further north? To settle in the domain of the true and only living gods? The prospect was simply intolerable. Folk wrote prayers. They sent them floating upwards on candle-lanterns to the scrivener-monks of the Mazzarothi order. But even when the fearless Whitewing Sentinels finally arrived to bring supplies and succor, there just wasn't enough. Not enough food. Not enough birds or balloons or baskets. Never, never enough time. Families were separated. People got left behind. Many lie drowned at the bottom of the sea, or frozen deep beneath the ice of Fryggidios, where the Deepshards echo with the howls of tortured hungry ghosts.
by Harry Clarke (PD)
Still, there is always hope.
Even at the rim of the Abyss, people find ways to survive. To hunt and build and learn and plan. To laugh and dance and nurse the light of small comforts. The Widow's Guild cares for the orphans of Gahla's fallen nations, as children play hide-and-seek in the tombs of ancient ayrles. The Veteran's Union keeps people fed and drives back the ghasts that shamble up from the deepshards, while the dauntless Mor'Rahan glider aces and kiterayders patrol the fjords on the lookout for Leviathans. The Bannerless King plots revenge against the League of Federations, while the Crooked Queen oversees the salvage yards in the outlaw city of Brokenbow. Under their command, the Roseblade Syndicate lashes together skyrafts from the passing debris. New heroes rise from among the driftwood and the dregs.
Wild-eyed ayronauts and pilgrims begin to ask questions.
"Why were we the ones left behind?"
"Whence comes the Abyss?"
"What lies beyond that misty Veil?"
by Caspar David Friedrich (PD)
A ship is arriving soon...
So is another Furia. The Abyss thrums again with energy, and it will soon let out another ear-shattering scream. The tempest shall howl and gyre in response, devouring the sky for miles. And those caught in the wake of the ghostly winds will be marked with the scars of the Black Iris Curse.
You have to leave. Fortunately, there’s room aboard for a few more brave travelers, but the trip back to the Clearsky won't be easy. Neither will outrunning the Grand Federation's blockade, or finding a place to call home after you do. The spirelords manage their duchies with meticulous rigor, and take only the select few who are able and willing to work at their pleasure. And as far as the law-abiding citizens of the Chainlands are concerned? Well, why should they have to make room? After all, everyone knows that once you've been corrupted by the storm's curse, it's only a matter of time before your demons come unleashed.
by Leon Benett (PD)
Maybe there's a good reason you were left adrift. Maybe you're already marked. Can you even prove you're who you say you are? Even if you aren't cursed, aren't you just another deadweight? Another outsider to feed and shelter?
Freedom surely awaits, somewhere beyond the horizon. You know it in your heart. Beyond the blockade, and beyond the chains that hold the Federation together there is an open sky waiting to be explored, and a frontier waiting to be defied. If you want to make it out, you'll have to be clever, bold, and relentless. You'll need to be ready to get knocked down, quick to get back up, and quicker to strike back.
But first, and most importantly, you'll need allies.
Friends that you can trust to catch you when you fall.
by Ivan Aivazovsky (PD)
This setting is best played in the Savage Worlds system, but is also suitable for a number of other systems, including Genesys, FATE, or For The Queen. Character Creation Rules for Savage Worlds