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I'm starting to plan out my Abomination Vaults campaign, and while the adventure itself is thoughtful and extremely well designed, I'm having trouble with the 500 years old part.
500 years is a looong time. In the real world, 500 years ago is Shakespeare's time. Yet Gauntlight feels like a haunted house that's around 50 years old max. Rooms are described with dead wilted plants or moldy furniture or even readable books. That stuff would be dust in 500 years! Especially in a swamp!
I know I can just hand-wave it away with "Magic!", and I understand that 500 years isn't that long for an elf, but I'm interested in knowing how the rest of the community is justifying this inconsistency. Maybe I'm the weird one!
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I'm starting to plan out my Abomination Vaults campaign, and while the adventure itself is thoughtful and extremely well designed, I'm having trouble with the 500 years old part.500 years is a looong time. In the real world, 500 years ago is Shakespeare's time. Yet Gauntlight feels like a haunted house that's around 50 years old max. Rooms are described with dead wilted plants or moldy furniture or even readable books. That stuff would be dust in 500 years! Especially in a swamp!
I know I can just hand-wave it away with "Magic!", and I understand that 500 years isn't that long for an elf, but I'm interested in knowing how the rest of the community is justifying this inconsistency. Maybe I'm the weird one!
It is not just magic though. It is an artifact of immense power that the people of Otari scarcely recognize as being such a big deal. The magic that runs through the Gauntlight itself is nearly indestructible and holding everything together. Play up the weirdness of this place still standing, especially the surface parts, where no one seems to be caring for it. The setting as a whole feels so low key compared to other APs that it can be easy to forget that this thing is one of the most powerful artifacts on the planet.
When my party figured out that it is so old, but that there are still functioning doors, it got them curious, and then when I described the interior of the lighthouse itself as pristine, it down right freaked them out. When they try to identify the magic of the lighthouse itself at level 1, they are almost certain to critically fail to identify it. Play that up! Have dark whispers about the promise of an empty death infiltrate their minds as they try to make sense of what they are seeing and then have the towns folk treat them like lunatics when they comeback talking about its power (except of course for their close allies and for Wrin).
What the heroes are doing in this campaign, stopping a level 20 artifact from destroying the city of Absalom is way, way, way above their maxed out level 10 pay grade. SO I guess the answer to your question is, yes! It is just magic.
But it is "just" some of the most powerful magic in the world and the players are going to be dealing with it as mere pups, in comparison to the general guidelines of power for APs. It is up to you as a GM to make that "Magic!" feel like the kind of magic that could erase the souls of every living or even undead thing in Absalom.
Hey, that's a great answer! Thank you!