INTRODUCTIONMagic is a strange thing in the lands of Arhosa. Once, it would have been considered all of a piece, a single whole of slightly disparate but otherwise homogeneous behavior. Now, it has broken apart into tens of competing factions, if not hundreds. Now, when one meets a man on the street who says he is a mage, the next question one must ask him is what tenets he follows, and, if he answers wrong, slay him. For that is how the talented of Arhosa greet one another in this day and age: with curses, anger, hatred, and violence.
Arhosa has always been a violent place, a land where might most certainly has made right. But it has also been a land where the violent used their skills in that direction to promote unity, to promote the growth and prospering of riches and wealth. Foremost amongst those was the Llethu, a race of near-giants who, although lacking in the traditional graces of magic, more than made up for their untalented children with brilliant strategists, silver-tongued diplomats, and warriors of unsurpassed skill. But above all, it was their utilization of the teleport gates that dotted Arhosa that gave them their greatest advantage. Thus were Arhosa's greatest strategists granted access to unbelievable feats of logistics, a capability that they were to abuse time and again as they conquered their empire.
What resulted, after the bloodshed and the dying had time to fade into the distant past, was a flowering of civilization the likes of which had never before been seen upon this dreary continent. Cities all across the land, linked by all-but-free teleportation and run by administrators trained in the most admirable of styles, flourished as never before. And with the free exchange of people and goods came the free exchange of ideas, and no guild took more advantage of that than the wizards, for they wished to delve deep into the secrets of magic, to use their freedom and wealth to find such powers as had never before been dreamed. And in the security of their rich existence, the Llethu gave to them that freedom.
Much to the disappoint of the wizards, who had believed that magic flourished in the world all around them, and could be drawn from it at will, they found that magic was granted by but a single god: Lledrith. To the arcanes, this was the greatest of errors, for the world could simply not work in such a way. Lledrith, passive god that he was, smiled and laughed at the error of his children, but left them to their own petty researches.
What occurred to wizards and priests alike was that in a world where there was one god who could be named and discovered, there were likely more, and so, as the empire of Arhosa flourished, the wisest of the scholars poured over ancient texts, hidden archives, and cast a great many spells, all in search of knowledge. And, eventually, that was what they found, for Lledrith was no solitary creator. Rather, he was not even the greatest of the gods.
At that revelation, the clerics and priests and other assorted believers splintered into various factions, each one holding their own tenants highest. The arcanes laughed at their petty politics, so childish and foolish did it seem. But to a number of the wisest scholars, there had occurred another thought – that if one god was able to grant magics to those who begged for his assistance, perhaps the others were capable of such acts as well.
And so was born in secret dungeons, hidden laboratories, distant towers, and concealed caverns a race amongst the learned, each one seeking a way to propitiate a different god. The first to be approached in this manner was Drancedigaeth, god of death, for to please him simply required the slaying of an appropriate creature, no doubt. What the mages had not counted on was the sheer indifference Drancedigaeth gave to the insignificant mortals who died and filled his realms. Compared to the span of time and space that was his to oversee, the death of a single creature was not even worth a glance.
But eventually, enough sacrificed to him to attract his notice. And when Drancedigaeth noticed, he felt his power increase, for the lands of his kingdom swelled as life, precious life, flowed through the gates of death and was locked away there. And so, he began to parcel out minuscule helpings of magic in return, appropriate to the measure of what was granted him. Thus was ritual magic born.
Other gods granted to their worshippers powers befitting their station upon seeing the example that Drancedigaeth had wrought, and thus were born the magics of runecarving, chronomancy, spellsong and others.
And for years, all of the gods were content with such an arrangement. Until Lledrith felt weakened, and looked again in detail at the world, and realized that what had once been his and his alone was now the plaything of all the gods, but Drancedigaeth most of all. He grew vengeful, and approached his compatriot to ask for recompense, only to be rebuffed by a god already his superior in power. In spite and malice, Lledrith turned the tables about, and invented the realm of the undead. No longer would all souls pass into the kingdom of Drancedigaeth. Some, now, would come to Lledrith. And those that did, why, when they slew the living they would gift those souls to Lledrith once more. The last of the great magics, necromancy, had come into being.
This war amongst the gods soon became a war upon the fields of Arhosa, for Lledrith and Drancedigaeth influenced their clerics and priests one against the other, and from that diplomacy of daggers and lies came outright warfare. Other gods and kingdoms were dragged into the conflict, and soon a land that had once been a great, rich, empire broke apart, a hundred warring kingdoms becoming a thousand, and then ten thousand.
And magic, once a single, beautiful, whole, was now a disparate ruin of factionalism, brutal demands, and internecine conflict. Thus were born the scrolls of Arhosa. Today, they are all but vanished, for although the gods would dearly love each of their powers to be considered foremost, all but a few kingdoms have lost the knowledge, ideas and wisdom buried beneath centuries of hatred, bigotry, and murder.
But that does not stop each of the gods plotting the return of their own power, seeding the knowledge to the best of their abilities amongst those most amenable to their craft. And one day, knowledge long thought lost might burst into the harsh light of day once more.The
Arhosa Campaign Setting is a custom and long-running world that completely replaces the standard Dungeons and Dragons classes with new and unique designs that fill old roles in new ways, as well as attempting to ensure a more equitable power balance between those on the martial and magic sides of the divide. The mechanical design of the setting is wrapped in the life of a fantasy continent, once almost entirely ruled by the old Arhosan Empire, now a fragmented mass of small kingdoms and tribal societies, many of them living among the ruins of their far-greater forefathers. Above all of this swirls the undying hatred of two gods, each having directly opposed themselves to the other and staked their claims to the future of all Arhosa.
THE WORLDThe fantasy world of Arhosa is a place of magic and monsters, where arcane energy infused the Arhosan Empire and greatly influenced society and industry. Thanks to a mastery of the arcane arts, skycities flew high above the Hanian lands, gates sent goods and people across the world in the blink of an eye, races were birthed by mortal hand, and deep underground, a slave kingdom of the undead came to be.
But much of that is in the past. For the world of high-flying arcane blessings has crumbled, torn apart from within by greed, by strife, and above all by impetus from the gods themselves. Where once there was a solid empire, stretching from one corner of Arhosa to the next and ruled over by the conquering yet noble Llethu giants, now there is a patchwork quilt of squabbling clans, tribes, and holds, with large stretches of ruins or emptiness in the spaces between. There are pockets of civilization, held steady amongst peoples too resilient, too strong, or too distant to be caught in the disruption that shattered the Arhosan empire, but they are few and far between, although they still hold beacons high in a world otherwise cloaked in darkness.
Travel between regions is sparse, the spaces between the civilized areas dangerous and bleak, populated by anything from bandits to wild animals to whole peoples who never felt the yolk of civilization. But more than anything else, what lies beneath the tension of the world is the duel of the gods, Lledrith and Drancedigaeth, Magic and Death. Each has secret schemes to force the overthrow of the other, and their operatives and priests move as commanded, hither and yon, each served in their own way by decay on a massive scale. As the gods race one another to see who profits off of the destruction of Arhosa, only a brave few can seek to reverse the course the world now lies upon.
THE DESIGNFrom a mechanical point of view, only classes designed explicitly for the Arhosa Campaign Setting are allowed, and the same can be said for races and a large portion of other material. This is in order to both keep with the unique flavor of the setting, but also to ensure that all of the classes are roughly balanced. For those players familiar with the tier system, the goal is for all Arhosan classes to exist at a Tier 3 level, until approximately 15th level, at which point abilities begin to spiral upwards. This is because, much like Eberron, play in the
Arhosa Campaign Setting is intended to run from 1st level up until approximately 13th. While there can be campaigns that carry beyond that limit, the material herein is aimed at the described levels, with a large number of the prestige classes being finishable by a character between their 6th and 10th levels.
Magical equipment is more restricted and higher cost in the Arhosa setting, but easier to craft, reflecting both the desire to allow characters who wish to go down the path of building their own items access to it, but also the belief that the focus should be on the character and what he or she is, rather than the magic items that he is carrying. This general focus on the character and their specific abilities is why there are so many options available as base classes with unique and varied strengths. Along that vein, although multiclassing is by no means discouraged in Arhosa, each of the base classes is designed in such a way as to allow a fully valid character from levels 1-20 without the need to create a class salad.
In order to accomplish the above, the way in which both magic and martial combat operate has been completely redesigned, both to utilize point-based systems allowing either access to player-designed maneuvers or spells. In addition, there are a number of supplemental books such as
Tome of Ritual Magic, Stone and Symbol, Vivisection and Resurrection, and
Magics of Arhosa that grant new and unique powers for characters spanning the spectrum from undead necromancers to holy martyrs and all those in between.
Because of the wide-ranging abilities and design decisions taken as part of the creation of the Arhosa Campaign Setting, some of the content will require access to material from Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks published by Wizards of the Coast, although this has been kept to a minimum, and the world is completely playable with no other book.
TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOWEvery Dungeon Master and player needs to know and remember these facts about the world of Arhosa.
1. IT'S UNIQUEArhosa is built to be its own unique beast. Unless a piece of rules text references or requires an ability from the base books (such as a prestige class requiring Power Attack or an ability granting spells with the Darkness descriptor), the playable content from the
Player’s Handbook and
Dungeon Master’s Guide does not exist. The only except to this is items, which carry over intact but highly modified, as discussed in the new Craft skill.
2. TONE AND ATTITUDEThe campaign can be played in a number of ways, but is generally of a darker and grimmer world-view than traditional D&D. This is a place where the supreme powers vying for control are Death and Undeath, each racing the other for supreme authority. And while other gods have power and resist the decline, they are either not strong enough or not interested enough to reverse what is happening, and this imbalance bleeds over into how characters view the world.
Because of this, alignments and affiliations are relative gauges of a character or creature's viewpoint, and not absolute barometers. A priest of death may well keep someone alive one day, and then help kill them the next. Likewise, tribal barbarians may well be kind, and Living Sun Wardens ruthless and cruel.
3. MAGIC IS EVERYWHERE AND DIVINEArhosa, for all that it is a world on the decline, is infused by magic, with each culture often having its own access to a source of power, and an affiliation with the deity who grants that power. Whether this is the direct access to the divine that ecclesiasts call upon, the powers of the earth itself that are the realm of the runecarvers, or the twisted and foul gifts granted to the necromancers by Lledrith, magic is a part of daily life, and well known to be granted by the gods above.
4. ADVENTURE FOR ALLFrom the urban realm of Setras Ra to the crashed skycities and barren lands of Hania, from the sandblasted desert of Pybyr Vestana to the deep underground realm of Marleath, Arhosa is a world of adventure. Adventures can and should draw heroes from one location to another across the world of Arhosa, perhaps by horse, perhaps by foot, or perhaps by restoring the fabled teleport gates and teleporting from place to place. Wherever they start, the close of one phase of adventure should open another, letting the players roam across the face of Arhosa.
5. THERE IS NO PEACEWhile the turbulent fighting and rebellion that ended the great Arhosan Empire are theoretically over, the world is by no means stable. Races such as the Yn Gyntaf and the Llethu vie for their place in the sun, Tandda fight Tokunnir, Marleath stirs and begins its ponderous march towards the surface, and bandits squabble and raid everything. Even the once formidable War Lands of the Cynddeir are now beset by outside forces, their military might a pale corpse of what it once was.
6. THE ONCE-DOMINANTThe Llethu giants who ruled the Arhosan empire still exist today, although their reach is severely diminished and the nobility that made them the popular conquerors that they were has long since faded. The grand city of Setras Ra, once capital of their empire, still exists, although its beauty has been diminished without the funds to keep it whole. Many of the giants have returned to their tribal roots, little more than the noble savages they were when they first swept out of the mountains.
7. DEATH IN THE SHADOWSAlthough not an overt conflict, the shadows of Arhosa hold a great threat to the safety of all. Marleath, a secret kingdom spawned deep beneath the ground in darkened caverns by Lledrith’s new magic, is his hidden weapon with which to break Drancedigaeth’s power. So far, it has made no moves against the surface world, but the undead hordes of Ve Angau have grown stronger while those who must prevent its unforeseen arrival have grown weaker.
8. ARHOSAN BORNArhosa is a new realm, and populated by never-before seen races designed exclusively for this setting, but that doesn’t mean players haven’t seen their like. Biyou are a caste-driven race of lizardmen, skilled in the arcane arts but brutal harsh on their servants. Flonha are gifted with a magical talent for healing, one that follows them regardless of what life path they follow. Hanians are the humans of the Arhosan setting, but with a talent for magic, especially the magic of flight, rarely seen before. Llethu are, despite their physical size, leaders with excellent Charisma and the ability to inspire those around them. Pybyr are the most versatile of races, born of the desert but able to turn their hand to any and all tasks. Finally, the Yn Gyntaf, the fleet-footed rulers of the plains, untouched by the fall of Arhosa and still living as they always have.
9. GODS ABOVEThe gods of Arhosa are a small collection, each holding a vast array of power and distributing it to their followers. For much of the life of Arhosa, the primary gods as seen by the mortals of the world were Lledrith and Hannhangnefedd, god of war. Others watched over Arhosa, but were content with their place. Now, with the conflict growing ever stronger, each has thrown their hat into the ring, in the hopes of either saving or damning the people of Arhosa, although the impact of several of the gods doing so is currently minimal, having not had the time to distribute their powers widely.
10. SKILLS ABOUNDArhosa does not use the normal skills of the traditional D&D world, having combined and reordered many of them so that there are less skills, but more useful. In addition to this, there are a number of new skills designed to make using that category overall more impactful on the campaign world, and more interesting for characters to invest in.
ONWARD!The great civilization of Arhosa persisted for over one thousand years, a monument to the strength and the power of the bureaucracy that imbued the empire, more powerful than even the emperors that ruled over the vast land. A beautiful, fair, and prosperous terrain graced the kingdom, marking it as the chosen land on earth.
Until one day the bureaucracy began to fail, the emperors weakened and became vain, and nobles within the land focused on their own gain and their own wealth, and let those around them fall into ruin. The empire split apart, each little village, town and city becoming its own kingdom, able only to claim the lands within a day's march of their center. Armies devolved and bandits grew, and the best of those claimed their own kingdoms, cutting out baronies by capturing villages, demanding tribute, and marking the land and as their own.
That state persists today, and the land is a broken ruin, for the temples, the roads, the books, the knowledge that marked the high point of the culture of Arhosa, all are slowly being lost and eroded. The castles that marked and ruled the land are occupied, but as often those residents are ghosts and crickets as they are nobles and servants. Populations have crashed, plagues sweeping across the land wiping out towns and villages, famine now a danger where once it was a remote memory, staved off by copious grain reserves. Today those silos stand empty, collapsed and hollow, mold climbing the walls where wheat used to feed thousands.
It is into this desiccated world that you have been born, a world drained of all the great things in life. Perhaps it is possible to restore Arhosa to glory, to recreate the empire and the knowledge and the life that once occurred. Or perhaps there is a life to be made in this new land, taking for yourselves a kingdom and a rulership, passing it down to your children, or even create a new empire, a land remade in your image. All of these things are possible, and Arhosa is open to you.DOWNLOAD THE ARHOSA CAMPAIGN SETTING!