Crown of Athar is a D&D 5e campaign following the adventures of a trio of adventurers. When a standard fetch quest goes wrong, Asti, Lola, and Jingle end up in possession of the Blackstar, a dangerous and unstable weapon of mass destruction, and are tasked to deactivate it before it falls into the hands of those who wish to harness its power
This Work Contains Examples Of:
- Always Chaotic Evil: Subverted with this setting’s gnolls. They’re for the most part perfectly ordinary sentient humanoids. However, their entire species is cursed by Yeenoghu, which could turn them into feral, cannibalistic monsters at any moment
- Asshole Victim: The adventuring party Lenie traveled with. They constantly berated her to the point of tears for not being a good enough healer, so it’s not much of a tragedy when they’re devoured by a pack of feral gnolls.
- Banana Republic: The Islands of Sol
- Broken Bird: When we first meet Asti, she’s still deeply traumatized by her encounter with the Nightwalker.
- Fantastic Nuke: The Blackstar’s strikes were powerful enough to allow Athar to win the war against Sol. The precise details of how it works are unknown, but Renli says that if it goes off accidentally, it could sink half the country
- Genki Girl: Jingle is upbeat and enthusiastic, even when tasked with carrying around a doomsday device. Even seeing her cousin murdered right in front of her doesn’t seem to phase her much
- Ms. Fanservice: Lola, as is customary for a dancer at a seedy club
- Temporary Scrappy: The first session sees the party accompanied by Jingle’s cousin, the misanthropic art collector Rocks Colliding In The Morning Air. They’re obnoxious and condescending to the party the entire time, so when they betray the party and are killed by assassins, it comes as a relief that they weren’t a permanent addition
- Villain with Good Publicity: Admiral Brandywine is beloved by the masses as a war hero, a fact which he uses to threaten others into giving in to his demands
- Wretched Hive: Outer Taytria, where the Dragon’s Dream, the club Lola works at, is filled to the brim with crime.
Characters:
Lola
A tiefling bard working as a performer at a seedy club
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Lola’s only in her mid-twenties and has a son
- Action Mom: Lola’s a caring mother as well as a capable magic user who can be deadly in combat
- The Chanteuse: She’s a beautiful woman who performs equally beautiful songs known to lull the crowd with into a trance-like state. Grima’s thugs often take advantage of this to rob her audience
- Sexy Slit Dress: Her signature white dress that she wears to perform
Asti Sylva
A tiefling barbarian from a village in the woods
- Amazonian Beauty: She’s a very buff tiefling woman who tends to tends to turn some heads despite being somewhat dirty most of the time
- Broken Bird: When we first meet Asti, she’s still deeply traumatized by her encounter with the Nightwalker.
- Cool Big Sis: Despite the occasional bickering between them, Asti is supportive and caring towards her younger brother Renli, despite his eccentricities.
- My Greatest Failure: She blames herself for the incident with the Nightwalker that took her father and tore her family apart
The Kingdom of Athar
Taytria
Grima Flintspittle
The owner of the Dragon’s Dream, the club that Lola works at
Rudger Brandywine
An admiral of the Atharian Navy. A famous war hero, beloved by the masses
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: He’s described as looking and sounding like Stephen Root
- Villainous BSoD: Brandywine is ridden with guilt over his drunken murder of Lucien. Rather than actually improving as a person, he instead channels his guilt into being worse, harassing Lola and trying to steal Remeny away
- Villain with Good Publicity: Even people like Renli sing his praise as a war hero, unaware of his true nature as a selfish, murderous cultist
Lucien
An officer of the navy, and Lola’s lover
- Adorkable: Despite being a soldier, he was a awkward, bookish man at heart, and would have much rather spent his life in a library than in a battlefield
- The Lost Lenore: Lucien was the love of Lola’s life who was tragically taken from her
- Posthumous Character: By the time of the campaign’s beginning, he’s already dead, having been shot in the heart by Brandywine
Remeny
The young son of Lola and Lucien
- The Cutie: He’s just a sweet, lovable little guy
Nona
The elderly bouncer at the Dragon’s Dream
- Cool Old Lady: Nona looks out for Lola and acts as a grandmother towards Remeny, even being willing to care for him full time when Lola gets involved with the Blackstar
Lana Osha
Renli Sylva
Asti’s brother, a recluse obsessed with the Blackstar
- Adorkable: Renli’s a sweet, dorky guy with a passion for science. He tends to have trouble with social cues and often goes off on awkward tangents
- Agony of the Feet: His feet rotted away during his encounter with the Nightwalker, and had to be amputated
- Genius Cripple: He is wheelchair-bound thanks to the loss of his feet, and an expert in mechanics. He’s also a collector of Atharian military artifacts and documents, which he’s used to piece together knowledge on the Blackstar
Jingle
A kenku rogue on a search for adventure
- Genki Girl: Jingle is upbeat and enthusiastic, even when tasked with carrying around a doomsday device. Even seeing her cousin murdered right in front of her doesn’t seem to phase her much
- Guest-Star Party Member: They’re only part of the group for the first few sessions
Rocks Colliding In The Morning Air
Jingle’s wealthy, misanthropic cousin
- Asshole Victim: Following their betrayal, it’s hard feel all that bad when Mask of the Beckoning Shadow slits their throat
- Jerkass: Morning Air is a pretentious snob who immediately decides they’re the leader upon joining the party and coldly shoots down anyone else’s attempts to help them
Lenie Hemlocke
A beautiful satyr cleric with tragically awful luck
- Butt-Monkey: Things just never go right for this poor satyr. When the players first meet her, she’d spent months being dragged around and abused by a party of adventurers, who were slaughtered by gnolls right in front of her, leaving her splattered in their remains.
- Ms. Fanservice: She’s described as having a voluptuous body and a breathy, Marilyn Monroe-esque voice.
The Underdark
Dimmin Gisk
A deep gnome blacksmith operating deep within the underdark
- Ambiguous Disorder: Dimmin is sensitive to certain stimuli, and uncomfortable talking to people unless it’s about his interest of smithing, suggesting he may be on the spectrum
Wing
An aspiring blacksmith studying under Dimmin
- Fangirl: Wing is a massive fan of Dimmin’s work, and looks up to him
- Poor Communication Kills: She dismisses the hostile behavior of the myconids as them being territorial, when the whole time they were trying to warn her and the party away from a patch of toxic fungi they were about to stumble into
Forgemaster Krel
A duergar ironmonger who runs a mithril mining operation
- Arc Villain: Of the Underdark arc
- Flunky Boss: Krel wears down the party with waves of duergar miners before finally emerging to fight them himself
- Hate Sink: Krel’s smarmy, holier-than-thou attitude he takes while operating a business through slave labor and environmental destruction makes him incredibly easy to despise
Grugan
One of Krel’s vicious slavedrivers
- Hate Sink: Grugan is a sadistic, loudmouthed brute who torments the party when they’re given to him as slaves. He also never shuts up, spending every moment he’s around screeching at the top of his lungs. He’s by far one of the most unlikable and annoying characters by design
Creatures
The Nightwalker
The monster responsible for killing Asti’s father and crippling her brother, which now stalks the party
- Ominous Fog: A cold, noxious fog rolls in to signal that Nightwalker is near
Fang of Yeenoghu
The progenitor of the curse among the gnolls in Lana Osha
- Madwoman in the Attic: After being cursed, the Fang spends his days shut in the basement covered in the bloody remains of his murdered family
- Tragic Monster: He only picked up the curse trying to defend his family, who were tragically the first ones it drove him to kill. When Lola and Asti see him still clutching their remains, they recognize him as another victim of Yeenoghu’s wrath rather than a villain.
- Warm-Up Boss: The Fang is the campaign’s first true boss fight, and the first time the players are bit against a truly tough opponent
Sol
Nobles
Sol Beros
One of Sol’s four kings, known for his hatred of Athar and cruelty towards his people
Military
Hahn
Faces in the Dunes
Mask of the Beckoning Shadow
Mask of the Clenching Fist
Mask of the Midnight Lily
