Legacy of Obsidian Dreams

Gift is a land with a troubled past, one the natives have been reluctant to speak of. For longer than the living memory of any alive today, the borders of Gift were closed, its people held under the thumb of The Obsidian Queen. Barely a quarter of a century ago, those borders re-opened, and Gift has worked to re-establish itself as part of the larger world ever since. The first people to cross the border in half a millennium found a land torn apart by a desperate revolution, but working in high spirits to rebuild with a new sense of purpose and restored faith in the future. In the quarter-century since the re-opening, people have learned a little: Centuries of living under the yoke of an evil, self-serving ruler, and her pogroms of stamped out all magic save her own, including the Elves, Dwarves, and other folk bearing magic, leaving a land of humans who knew no spark of magic. Then, a violent revolution, an uprising involving nearly every man and woman in the land, as general rose to lead the people to freedom. At the head on his forces, he smashed the old queen's defenses, ran his sword through her, and liberated the land. Then he turned and walked away.

It was the new queen - She Who Dreams - newly ascended to the throne who immediately set to building a better realm for all. She Who Dreams opened the borders, sent messengers, trading caravans, and diplomatic missions to all corners of the continent. The dark times, she promised, were over, and her people sought to reintegrate into the larger world as they worked to build a new Gift.

Not every realm welcomed Gift back into the world. Many of the non-human clans and societies have kept a wary distance, still wondering at the fate of their missing kinsmen from within gift, and dreading to learn why there are now no nonhumans native to Gift. Some realms maintain their own guards at borders, and warily watch for a return to old ways. But some have embraced this new realm and welcomed the new opportunities and friendships. Memories are long, and trust is more hard-won for some. But She Who Dreams was patient and fair...

Was.

Queen She Who Dreams died several months ago. Not young when she accepted the throne, her death was not unexpected, and peaceful. News of her death spread along with this invitation: Come celebrate her life, and the coronation of her chosen successor. Rumors and stories and curiosity brought people in droves from all over the world, diplomats, merchants, those interested in history.

Those assembled watched as the old General, known to the people as The Bulwark, and the Queen's steward known as The Left Hand introduced Joy. The General's daughter had been raised as a farmer's daughter on the homestead the Bulwark retired to over 25 years ago. As the locals cheered and the visitors mostly wondered how this mere girl was chosen, the steward fulfilled her final duty to the old queen, bestowing a silver circlet of the queen upon Queen Joy, Heart of our Hearts.

But then all hell broke loose. Before Queen Joy could say more than a few words, the celebration was attacked from within, by seemingly ordinary people who inflicted sudden violence on the gathered audience. This was made worse as a faction of visiting Elves with an ancient grudge against the land joined the attack. With a battlecry for their clanfolk lost to the old pogroms, they fired arrows into the Queen's coronation while the killers from within, loyal to the long deceased Obsidian Queen, attacked the Queen.

While below the Heroes assisted in the defense of the innocents, above, the queen's defenders took serious injuries, stopping all but one attacker and taking arrows for her. The last attacker got through, and as the crowd watched, the attacker said something to the Queen... then slit her own throat. The queen collapsed as the attacker died.

As the queen collapsed, the attackers below retreated, melting into the huge audience, losing themselves in the crowd. The Heroes helped subdue the elven archers... with the help of one of the elves' own, a swordswoman who turned on her own to defend the queen.

In the months following this attack, the people have come to learn the awful truth. Ancient magic summoned the Obsidian Queen's spirit, and it now vies for control of the body of young Queen Joy.

Now three heroes from beyond the Borders of Gift search for a way to purge the Obsidian Queen from their fair Joy, These possess some of the only magic Gift has ever known, arcane talent being unknown in Gift after centuries of darkness. Their journey has taken them south, to the Desert Continent, and now carries them back north, to another part of the continent where Gift resides, seeking a way to stop the old queen's spirit from waking, to prevent her return and save young Joy.

This is a text-only 5e (2014) game playing alternating Sunday from 10am to 2pm Pacific Time. I have detailed much of the realm of Gift, and players have contributed to much of the rest of the world. I deliberately left the world beyond Gift as a blank slate. Your ideas and characters will join with the existing heroes, with the world they've created, as you race to save Queen Joy from her dark fate, and Gift from an even darker fate.

I use a few homebrew rules, namely:

-Ancestries other than human will have shortened life spans. The longest will be 200 years.
-Elves sleep. They are, however, still immune to magical sleep, and still gain the benefits of a Long Rest in 4 hours.
-No Dragonborn. They don't exist. There's a different setup for those with draconic blood.
-Other reflections of mystic influence - such as Aasimar, Genasi, and Tieflings - exist as expressions of that influence, but are not ancestries. Mechanically unchanged, you are considered whatever ancestry you descend from. For Ex, one PC is a Water-Blessed (Genasi) son of two humans.
-One new ancestry manifests in the blood of some very few humans: Dragonbloods. These display slightly longer lifespans - the one example known appear 30 though she is 40 - and tinges of draconic power. The envoy from the desert lands Itzel Saeaed has demonstrated her ability to produce heat and a tolerance for the sun's heat. One of her children, Feather, is immune to poison while her brother Thorn seems to command scorpions.
-I accept home-brewed or nonstandard ancestries, classes, subclasses, provided they are balanced, their societies will fit in this larger world, AND I have the work they come from in my library, but their lifespans will alter to fit this rule too.

The main point here is there is no-one alive today who remembers Gift before it was cut off from the world 500+ years ago. All recorded history from outside Gift talks about the sudden withdrawal and the effects it had, and speculations as to why, but even 25 years after the realm re-opened. most people don't know what happened.

At the moment, the PCs are en-route to a port city where that can hire a ship to take them back north, bound for a realm of Shift, a land where it's said all folk born there can take the shape of a animal.

If this might interest you, Read https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/10967657/read-this-d-text-via-roll20-inclusive-plus, and then leave an application. I'll reply to every application that at least tries to use these guidelines.