Green Pass Campaign: The Savage Reaches

 Petty Warlords of the Savage Reaches

The Savage Reaches lie only a few hundred miles from the City of Durnovar, directly across the straights. The lack of a sheltered harborage and the northern upflow of rivers away from this land, however, has resulted in little interest in settling this territory. The quality of the land on the boundary between the Elysion forests and the southern wastes is relatively poor, and mountain passes through the region are difficult to maintain and easily threatened by bandits and worse.

The principal inhabitants of the region are various degenerate bestial races of monstrous intelligence, preying on travelers and on one another. With little aptitude for honest labor, these creatures have turned to importing slave labor from unscrupulous pirates, and over several generations have developed a native population of ill-treated peasantry. The Crown of Durnovar grows inpatient with this continued affront to justice, and ordains that able-bodied knights and lords-militant be notified that they may discharge their yearly obligations of fealty and service by liberating any of these lands as have fallen under such unwholesome dominion.

The following minor baronies and city-states have been reputed to be influential in the region:

• The Vosskoff Crutch, a notorious band of human and hobgoblin miscreants under the command of a master thief. Their woodland-based network is implicated in all manner of trafficking in illegal goods and captives.

• Pallid's Abode, a dismal swamp infested with saurian crossbreeds serving the famed albino black dragon, Pallid.

• The Forked, Middle, and Upriver Lashcamps, a cruel collective of slowly migrating gnoll encampments devoted to training slave-soldiers and inclined to various forms of recreational torture, of no certain leadership.

• The Clench, a lair of trolls served by countless kobold minions who extort road fees from travelers, dragging away uncooperative victims to become choice entrees in the cannibalistic feasts of the troll warchief.

• The Citadel of Gash, a remote goblin mountain redoubt that serves as the seat of power for Baron Gash, a scar-covered bugbear of immense size and dubious sanity.

• Certain outposts of dwarves and elves who, although not themselves of evil repute, are at war with one another and might prove to regard human interference in their disputes as unwelcome. A savvy diplomat might be able to secure the aid of one or the other, but surely not both!

Provided that any human captives are released from their bonds and allowed to return to their own ancestral homelands, the liberators of the Savage Reaches are entitled to all revenue of their crusade obtained by looting and pillaging the strongholds and tenured lands of such warlords as dwell in these domains, as well as the spoils of battle.

This is playtest scenario for the Domains at War: Campaigns rules covering operational-scale movement and fast combat resolution. Each player will get the ability to control one or two divisions in a small army on the platoon scale. The scenario will run until the army encounters an opposing army that is within a factor of 1.5 of its own power, based on battle rating. Then the playtest will conclude, and the following week's tactical scenario will be based on the order of battle from this encounter!

Although this is still the playtest stage, I'm going to rule that any surviving divisional commanders of this expedition are eligible to be carried over as henchmen/vassals into the main campaign, and can bring with them any magical items they win. Feel free to generate starting character stats (using 3d6) and 5th-level hitpoints (you can max out one die to represent "1st level"), and then pick a character class off the hero list from the file in the previous post. (I didn't include the lengthy lists for proficiencies and spells, but I can provide those on Saturday if you like.) Otherwise, I'll provide a few pregen options as before.

Post any questions below, if you have them.