"Kirthfinder" Aviona PBP

Game Master Kirth Gersen

This PBP is a continuation of the Beta playest of the "Kirthfinder" rules, which are intended to promote swashbuckling action, interesting and viable martial characters, and casters that play powerful behind-the-scenes and support roles.

Rules are HERE
See ongoing online campaign HERE

Current play is centered in the Estren Territories (see below), but will likely transition into Aviona at some point.

THE KINGDOM OF AVIONA
The Kingdom of Aviona is the primary area of play. It is a culture of ancient, decadent elven aristocracy and their halfling servants, with human immigration and intermarriage increasingly common in the last few centuries as the pure elven population wanes. Style-wise, it draws most heavily from two or three sources; familiarity with some or all of these is helpful, but in no way necessary:

Anderson, Poul, Three Hearts and Three Lions.

Brust, Steven. “Vlad Taltos” series.

Dumas, Alexandre (Père), The Three Musketeers, et al.

Aviona’s current monarch is Elcore I, a young, weak king who in the past relied on his minister of state, the Chancellor Palamis, to do most of the actual governing – much to his regret, as Palamis proved to be a demonic high priest who nearly toppled the kingdom before he was unmasked. The Queen, Elfreyja (“Ellie”), a half-elf, half-sirine, is beloved of the elven nobles and believed by them to be the reincarnation of the historical Queen Silmar the Good.
The sky in Aviona is a peculiar indigo color not seen in most other places, indicative of a sorcerously-thick ozone layer above (a boon to the fair-skinned elven folk) – this one of the attributes of the elven lands that makes human visitors immediately aware that they have left the mortal world behind.

The City of Hylore: Hylore is the capital of Aviona, analogous to Dumas’ Paris. It is here that the Elvenking holds court; duels in the streets are fought between the swashbuckling, adventure-loving King’s Guard on the one hand, and the plotting, scheming remnants of the sinister Chancellor’s Battalion on the other. Sheraviel (played by Jess Door), the former leader of the main adventuring party in the campaign, was a young elf attached to the King’s Guard. Hylore is also home to a human criminal mob enterprise, run by the enigmatic “Mr. C” – Cadogan (played by Derek) is a professional criminal in Mr. C’s organization.

THE ESTREN FRONTIER
To the east are the broad Estren Territories, which owe something to James Fennimore Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales” and to Robert E. Howard’s “Beyond the Black River.” The forests of Estren are the last strongholds of the Wood Elves – xenophobic near-savages living in tribal villages, skirmishing with neighboring tribes and beasts. The wood elves represent those elven folk who rejected settling in cities, and who met human immigration with violence. They especially hate “civilized” elves from Aviona, whom they view as unnatural traitors to their race.

The Estren Territories are bounded to the east by the impassible Elder Mountains. Beneath these snowy peaks is the kingdom of the insular Mountain Dwarves; Agun (played by Jeff) and Rim (played by Jerry “Silverhair”) were the first of their race in centuries to emerge from beneath the mountains to adventure in the surface world.

South Estren: Recent settlement by human farmers along the eastern shores of the great river and lake separating them from the civilized west have been met by raids, followed by reprisals, and have finally settled into an uneasy truce after the extermination of the Blackbird Clan of wood elves. For a time, South Estren was combined with other elven duchies to form the “League of the Southeast,” with the city of Kaisersburg as its capital; unfortunately, Queen Käcia was imprisoned in a pore 45 miles beneath the surface of the earth at the shore of Estren Lake during a magical duel, leaving Autrisch and Balvora independent again, and Estren largely ungoverned.

North Estren: The Estren Highlands are the home of the hill dwarves, enemies of both elves and men, who have largely turned to Sicilian-style banditry in response to human incursions. Goblin and hobgoblin tribes are also numerous. The main bastion of humans and elves here is Fenrift Keep (the “Keep on the Borderlands”), where young, ambitious soldiers from Aviona come to serve.

FOREIGN KINGDOMS
Most of the hemisphere has been intentionally left undetailed, so as to provide individual groups the opportunity to explore (and create) new areas as the campaign progresses. Areas already established as part of the campaign setting include the following.

Aramni: Southeast of Estren lies the human Kingdom of Aramni, a nation of strict laws and secret police, in which slavery is legal and worship of Asmodeus is the state religion. Nevertheless, a triangle trade exists with Aramni, dominated by unscrupulous Northwind traders: liquor (which is illegal in Armani) is smuggled through the ports and sold in Balakash (see below) for slaves, which are in turn sold in Aramni for silver.
Aramni owes something in flavor to what Spain might have become, if the Moorish occupation had been permanent and had become totalitarian in nature.

Bailakash: Far to the southeast, off the map beyond Aramni, stretch the vast reaches of the Bailakash deserts, including a Caliphate built with the aid of bound genies. This is an Arabian Nights setting, the original homeland of Jazeed (played by Jeff).

Northwind: Viking-like human kingdom north of Aviona, source of the first wave of human immigrants there.

Pentabrin Isles: Lying off the map to the southwest, the Pentabrin Isles are where many of the natives of Aramni fled when their nation was conquered by the followers of Asmodeus. These isles are now a haven of pirates and buccaneers of Aramnic descent.