...trapped in the ice…
...i do not eat…i do not breathe…i do not sleep…
...trapped…
...trapped…
...many suns have risen…i feel the warmth, distant, not touching me…
...i am ageless now, without purpose…
...i was created to fight, to be part of the Legion that waits…all that is lost…
...trapped here…
...i must be found…the Legion must be found…
...kord grant me patience…i will endure…i will sustain…
...trapped forever, in the ice…
Trapped.
After months at sea the Aurora, and the almost 70 souls aboard her, are destroyed in a sudden nocturnal attack. In the frigid still of night the ship is struck violently, splitting the hull and filling the lower quarters with freezing water in a matter of seconds. Those not trapped below deck at this point frantically made for the smallcrafts, when the vessel suddenly broke across midships and all were plunged into the icy darkness.
A small group of adventurers gather in one of the Aurora´s remaining keelboats, facing no alternative but to make their way onwards looking for survivors. The small vessel, designed for exploration, bears it´s figurehead at the stern, where a bound air elemental can be commanded to blow into the sail and propel the ship forward.
The adventure begins as the players sail through the Nine Mothers Gap, a network of subterranean canals that join the oceans of the known world with the uncharted waters of the Swordlands. Believed to be all that is left of an exploratory expedition financed by the Royal Geographic Society, the party navigate the narrow channel in search of the legendary Himinborg. The maps they have been given take them this far, and indicate something of what lies beyond the Gap.
The 9 Mothers Gap is an extensive series of natural canals carved through the glacier that seperates the Swordlands from the Auslands. Networks of tunnels and caverns link the labyrinthine waterways, and their openings dot the towering walls of ice. A dim, frigid blue light pervades the gap, except for occasional swathes of bright daylight that spill across stretches of the waterways as the immense claw-like shards of ice that form the cavern rooves fail to meet. Below the surface of the water can be seen the pale glow of large luminescent dragon fish as they swim through the tunnels.
Welcome to the wild frontier known as the Swordlands, where Ysgard meets the mortal realms. In this campaign all character classes and races are available, the dominant race where the PCs start will be humans although everything else exists. Deities will be mostly core, there will be some merging of non-core planar and terrestrial locations into the game world for flavour.
The PCs are all ‘Auslanders’, who are journeying across the great lake Kindersee towards the home of the Knights Himinborg. The boisterous town of Himinborg is renown as the bithplace of great adventures, as the knights, who serve Kord, the god of competition, strive ceaselessly to undertake ever greater quests, and in doing so win greater fame and accolades.
Here the unprincipals of Kord hold sway: Fortune favours the bold; A stranger brings good luck if one dares meet the challenge; It is better to fight and lose than not to fight; The brave shall live forever. Everyone, from the greatest knight, Siegfried, to the hardy fishermen of the Kindersee, relishes a challenge. Every waking moment should provide a chance to compete against your fellow men and women, or even perhaps oneself, in order to prove ones worth in the eyes of the mighty Kord. Adventure spews forth from the festhall of the knights great temple, at least for those who are able to reach it and join in the nightly revel. Auslanders, Himinborg welcomes you!
