Darkness Rising

## **Speculating About a Magical Past**

This campaign is an epic exercise in contrasts and accelerated evolution.

This is a historical fantasy setting, complete with sword and shield, but mundane weapons will only carry characters so far. The scenario opens the door to a magic-infused adventure, where the power of the arcane – and the divine – will quickly surpass the comparative role of firearms in contemporary adventures.

This is designed around the Speculation simulation method, with liberal use of the ARCSYS and PSISYS rules. At the moment, the previously-contemporary focused system is still in development for magic and psionics, and as those grow, that will inevitably affect the details of how this campaign is organized.

This campaign, hosted on a wiki, also leans heavily on the consensus scholarship of wikipedia itself. Our maps here are derivatives of what is found there, with a sense of world history on every part of the globe gleaned from that online encyclopedia.

### **Plot Reveals**

Sprinkled through the pages of this campaign, especially in the *Hall of Records*, are links to pages that are meant to be discreet. In this case, the reader may see "**REO**" – which stands for ***Referee Eyes Only***. This is generally deep background about the non-player characters and setting details.

Obviously, there's nothing stopping an enterprising player from researching these points on their own. For beginning players, caution that these are "spoilers." In the context of a game, it translates into an unnatural awareness on the part of the character. If that's their thing, so be it – but this journey may be a shared narrative with other players. In that case, premature reveals risk diminishing the experience for others who are hoping for a dramatic reveal.

Don't be *that guy*.

On the other hand, mature players can often metagame while staying true to the character and context. *Speculation* doesn't take an official stance on metagaming itself – this is really a question of player expectations and referee capacity. Sometimes this greater context may help to bridge the gap for some of the assumptions and artificialities inherent to the system, allowing the player to be that character's finely tuned intuition or divine inspiration.

The natural progression of playing through is meant to reveal all the "top secret" plot points – though admittedly, depending on the players' goals, that could take real-world *years* of playing.

## **A Referee's Guide to Navigating 1389**

This campaign begins in 1389. The timeline has already changed the world drastically from anything you could find in the history books.

The first noticeable changes start in the mid-1360s, and it was a worldwide phenomena. Very subtle at first, these are mostly minor magical or mystical oddities that would come to be known as the *Incidence of Incidents*.

By 1367, Richard of Bordeaux is born on the Christian holiday of the Epiphany, and strange events began to follow him, too. While he *would've been* King Richard II of England, this timeline shaped him and his destiny into a different path. *King Rickard I of Aquitaine* is not thesource of the changes, but he becomes a critical catalyst between divergent factions of "heaven."

 The bubonic plague has recently ravaged England (as well as the Eastern Hemisphere), and people aren't sure where all that comes from. Common perceptions are either a transmissible imbalance of humors or punishment from God. At this point, "plague" isn't a term in common use: most call it the *Great Pestilence* or the *Great Death*. Penicillin hasn't been invented yet. *Beer* hasn't been invented yet. Perhaps the most barbaric, inhumane condition of this primitive age...? *No WiFi*.

Into this world, the Player-Characters are born. The maps for this campaign are literally *the entire earth*... and maybe a little beyond. The plan is to bring in characters at low capacity (called "Tier Three" for the WAFT campaign). This puts them at the scale of itinerant adventurers, giving them time to gradually grow as they get a sense of context of how primitive the 14th century world is versus how advanced it is becoming with magic. This can be a serious didactic role-play commitment or a footnote on the way to fireballs.

### **Quest List**

There are a million "adventure hooks" to get PCs out the door, and players start building those themselves during character creation. This is the "Road to London" process that brings players up to speed on that side of the role-play. Suffice it to say, whether it's exploration, growth or revenge, they'll be starting with momentum.

The primary quest-giver is usually some branch of the *Commonwealth of the Magna Carta* (CMC). This is a multi-kingdom organization based on a shared charter that emphasizes liberty and justice. The Commonwealth has a central imperial crown, and several component crowns, as well as a myriad of support groups. The most prominent group is the *Order of Merlin* (OM, and everybody knows it as "the Order").

Other associated CMC organizations include the branches of the Arms of any of the component Crowns. There's also the *Royal Academy of Natural Philosophies* (RANP), or "the Royal Academy" for short. They're the world leaders of scientific research, which *also* includes magic, making them the *Yin* to Order's *Yang*.

Optimally, Tier Three characters start unaffiliated save for their local hamlet (in whatever barony or county they hail from). They'll journey to bigger jurisdictions, see the world, and eventually be inducted and indoctrinated into some organization like the CMC or the OM, where they'll be trained, equipped and unleashed on forces demonic and darker.

"The Calm"
 1377 - 1383
"The Storm"
 1384+
"The End"

In retrospect, *the End* may have been the archangels' attempt to give humankind a merciful denouement. Or perhaps it was only to save themselves. In the two years since *Starfall*, a far darker, more personal peril has oozed through reality, threatening to devour all life from the inside out.

These are the events that have led pilgrims and adventurers to leave their homes and seek out the magic of Merlin. This is what sets the players on *the **Road to London***.

### **Stages of the Campaign**

#### **Convergence**

On the players' side, creating the background has already immersed them in the role-playing process. They've grown a person, created a home – and their place in it. For them, the game has begun.

Whether they're Tier Three characters on the heroic road to growth and self-realization, spell-slinging Tier Two wandists, or fully-realized Tier One magical special operations soldiers, the players are given the freedom to make their characters from anywhere in the world.

*That's a challenge for you*.

Hopefully, you helped guide their story-creation for their character, but left the majority up to them. Now it's up to you to create a story that pulls the PCs out the door and into one spot. Hence: ***Convergence***.

* How do you get them all in the same party?
* Even more, what if some want the challenge of starting with a Tier Three character while others want to hit the ground running at Tier One?

The *Convergence* should, if it can, address the individual motivational issues of the characters. If you can tie off those loose ends, perhaps bring some closure, this gives the PC a sense of progress. If they're really invested in their character, this helps them refocus on the future rather than past. They're going to need that focus for the *Connection*.

#### **Connection**

Once all the PCs have evolved to at least Tier Two status, the campaign starts a background clock. There's no particular overarching time requirement, but it will set up a sequence of events on a Master Scenario List. This starts with the party being recalled to London.

On the players' side, "The Road to London" starts out as metaphorical; kind of an update on the proverbial "All Roads Lead to Rome." In the Connection, the *Road to London* becomes literal. The Order of Merlin, already struggling to hold the world together, has a crisis and they call or recall everybody they possibly can. Problem is: they're a secretive group as it is and this is *exceptionally secret*.

The characters, and others (possibly old allies and/or rivals), arrive in London for an impossible mission: *Find King Rickard*. The Epiphinal King, the founder of the Order of Merlin, King of Aquitaine and Sovereign of the Commonwealth... *has gone missing*.

The party will participate in the search and rescue (or possibly search and recovery), until that portion of the mission is complete. There are several ways it can go.

However the Connection is resolved, it sets up the "open" phase of the campaign, the *Evolution*.

#### **Evolution**

The evolution refers to the party itself, especially as they transition into the Tier One phase of motivation and execution. There is a long list of threats and not all of them can be dealt with by the application of violence. Most of these threats, however, are complex and dangerous enough that characters should be Tier One before putting themselves in this line of fire.

Some of the missions are traditional fights, against adversaries foreign and domestic, but the growing focus will be the *Darkness*. At this stage, the characters are waist-deep in Rickard's decade-old fears of a darkness which "...pales the *Book of Revelation*."

## **Making the *Convergence* Happen**

The Ref has some interesting logistical issues right out of the gate. Check out "*Paving the Road to London*" for tactics and strategies on bringing the party together.

* ***Paving the Road to London***