Darth Wiki / Heart Of Kaldira

Heart of Kaldira is a D&D fifth addition campaign that surrounds a group of down-on-their luck citizens looking for a job. They soon find work in the form of hunting down and eliminating a dangerous monster that has been ravaging the land, killing everything in it’s path. If they succeed, they will be set for life, but if they fail, they will surely die

This Work Contains Examples Of

• Arc Villain
  • Left-Hand Sam for the Krim arc. An aggressive ruler of a small cartel in Krim that comes into conflict with the party as they search for Amara
  • Yuzuru, Towa’s bodyguard, and the true culprit behind Rin’s curse.
  • Left-Hand Sam again for the New Venalii arc, before the role is usurped by Jamieson and the Skarja Ferme
• Asshole Victim: No one is too upset when Hawlry dies, especially after we see his experiments
• Bad Boss: During Left Hand Sam’s escape following Kaleya’s attempt on his life, he sets off explosive runes that end up killing a lot of his own men
• Big Bad: The Monster. Until the second half, where Morgantha and the rest of the God Eaters reveal themselves as the true villains
• Big Eater: Hilda and Kaleya, thanks to being absolutely massive
• Body Horror: Some of the students of the setting’s Wizarding School use spells to transform their bodies in order to require as little energy as possible. This leaves the more extreme ones as featureless mounds of flesh or floating metal spheres filled with organs
• Breaking Old Trends: This is the first of the D&D games not to involve previous established locations such as Osharia and Athar
• Cain and Abel: A weird case. A gender-flipped and accidental variety plays out when Hilda inadvertently leads Merry to getting poisoned and almost dying
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Cave Fishers are often simply referred to as “crabs” despite being an entirely different kind of organism
• Corrupt Church: The Vethnian Church. They stamp out groups of druids, alchemists, and anyone else that uses healing magic so that anyone who needs has to rely on them to get it. They justify this with blatant misinformation and fear-mongering about slaad eggs in “unclean” healing magic. Perhaps worst of all, in order to get healing with them, you need to not only be a member of the church, but also fit into their narrow social ideals
• Evil Colonialist: The Free Republic Of Atrea in general
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Kaldira overall is a loose counterpart to South America. Yama and Atrea are pretty direct stand-ins for Japan and the US respectively
• Gaslamp Fantasy: Technology like guns, prosthetics, and cars exist alongside the magic in the setting
• The Good King: King Leo was known as a wise and fair ruler who truly cared about his subjects and wished to make Kaldira a better place. Unfortunately, by the time the campaign starts, he has been chased out by his brother, Happa.
• Jerkass Gods: Although he can’t be understood, STARMAN’s mannerisms are snooty and judgmental. There’s also the fact that he’s making his host slowly rot
• Nepotism: The general Kaleya served under during her last mission is an incomplete buffoon who only has his title because of family connections. His stupidity gets him and almost everyone in his platoon killed when the fighting breaks out
• Perverse Puppet: The haunted bunraku puppets that Yuzuru uses to attack the party
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The city of Yama gets it’s magic from three fae sisters in exchange for a monthly sacrifice of two infants
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The players. Rather than being any kind of grand heroes, they’re just a bunch of random people desperate for money
• Save the Villain: It turns out that the only real way to defeat the Monster is to cure it if it’s curse
• Wretched Hive: Krim, also known as “Kaldira’s asshole”. Nearly every time it’s brought up, someone chimes in about how awful it is.

YMMV

Characters

Hilda

A half-Orc barbarian with a guilty conscience

• Amazonian Beauty: Hilda is very large and muscular thanks to her Orc blood, as well as very pretty thanks to her elf blood
• Big Eater: She is often seen scarfing down massive amounts of food like it’s nothing
• Cool Mask: Her mouth and nose are usually covered by a steel beak-like mask
• Disappeared Dad: She never knew her father, having been conceived as the result of her mother having a one night stand. She eventually finds him in Yama
• Gentle Giant: Despite being a barbarian, she is typically a calm and gentle person
• Half-Sibling Angst: Hilda never knew her father and spent her whole life being abused by her mother and older brother. She has come to view herself as an outsider and burden to the family
• The Quiet One: Compared to the rest of the group, Hilda is much more reserved, and rarely speaks unless spoken too

Kaleya Apuna

A goliath paladin scarred from a great war

• The Big Guy: She is the largest and most physically powerful of the party, and typically the one dealing the most damage
• Dark and Troubled Past: Possibly the worst of the entire group. She was sent into war and traumatized as a teenager, only to find her family murdered when she finally returned home.
• Facial Markings: They have tattoos across their face as part of their goliath heritage
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: She are traumatized by her time as a soldier fighting in Sol, specifically the events of their last mission
• Team Mom: Kaleya is very protective of the smaller members of her team, particularly Morp, who she often carries around like a baby. This instinct is also shown through her relationship with Morgantha

Morp

A human cleric that shares a body with a trapped god

• The Chosen One: Downplayed. It is implied that STARMAN is attempting to steer them towards fulfilling some kind of heroic goal, but we don’t know much more about it than that
• Forced Transformation: They are turned into a mink for several hours after disrespecting the Sisters
• Jerkass: Morp has moments where they can be quite nasty to their party members and have suggested killing them several times
• Kleptomaniac Hero: They have a habit of stealing shiny things such as gold and jewels.
• Powers via Possession: Morp’s cleric abilities come from STARMAN residing in their body
• Token Evil Teammate: While not quite evil, Morp is the most antagonistic and immoral member among the group.
• Token Human: Morp is the only human member of the party

Chloris Tavarnae

A satyr rogue with a fondness for pirates

• Fangirl: She’s a major fan girl of pirates. She fantasizes about running off to adventure with them, dresses like one, and put aside hundreds of gold to buy a sword like them
• Fauns and Satyrs: She is a satyr with features similar to a deer
• Nice Girl: She’s one of the nicest and most down-to-earth people on the party. She’s shown to be very sympathetic and trusting towards anyone she comes across, whether it be people who deserve it, like Riko, or not, like Sam’s drugrunners.
• Pirate Girl: She sees herself as this. The closest she’s come is doing physical labor for some of Sam’s dealers out on sea
• Really Gets Around: Chloris has sex with a woman in the Krim Cabaret early in the game, and is the first player to get in a relationship with an NPC

The Capital

King Happa

The current king of Kaldira

• The Usurper: He became king after chasing his brother Leo off the throne and taking it for himself

Lady Noname

A strange woman who hires the party to kill the monster

• Big Good: Being a wealthy woman using her power to attempt to rid the country of a great evil, she’s the most powerful force of good in the game

Sai

A young wizard working as Noname’s assistant

• Butt-Monkey: Nothing seems to be going right in poor Sai’s life. They are overworked, broke, and constantly at risk of being kidnapped and trafficked
• Sleepyhead: Due to their heavy work load as a wizard student who often uses their own blood for spells, Sai is in a near-chronic state of sleepyness

Kragg

A dwarf who owns one of the most famous restaurants in the Capital

• Jerkass: Kragg is a very blunt person who will yell and insult anyone who he believes isn’t respecting him or his family

New Venalii

Merilana

Hilda’s kind-natured older sister

• Delicate and Sickly: She’s a very attractive, fragile woman who suffers from severe brain damage as a result of eating poisonous berries
• Nice Girl: Merry’s first priority is always to care for and help others, no matter what trouble it gets her in
• Spoiled Sweet: She throws gold around like it’s nothing and doesn’t know how to talk to poor people, but she has a good heart and wants to help people

Lady Mireth

Hilda’s abusive mother

• Abusive Parents: Mireth is verbally and physically abusive to Hilda and treats her like a servant. She isn’t much better to her other kids, grooming Elial to be her surrogate husband and neglecting Merry
• Hate Sink: She’s a stuck-up, racist, abusive pedophile who disowned her daughter and pressured her son to work with drug dealers to make her more money
• Incest Subtext: She is uncomfortably touchy and intimate with her son

Sister Brightmeadow/Lovely Lidda

A nun of Nedea that moonlights as a club dancer

• Big Beautiful Woman: She’s a very curvy woman with a round stomach that’s known throughout the land as a figure of beauty and sensuality
• Naughty Nun: While she’s a regular nun by day, her alter-ego is a sexy dancer with a flirtatious personality

The Buzzard

A bitter old nun that runs the Oceanside House

• Nun Too Holy: Despite being a holy sister that cares for children, she’s a rude, foul-mouthed woman, especially to other adults

Rucea

The young leader of the Skarja Ferme religious order

• Blatant Lies: It’s incredibly obvious that she changes her beliefs on the fly to back up whatever point she’s trying to make
• Dirty Coward: According to Rucea, all of humanity is suffering and should just peacefully embrace death…except for her of course, she needs to stay behind and guide everyone
• Mercy Kill: Subverted. She thinks euthanizing disabled people is the most sensible thing to do, but this is treated as horrific by the narrative.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: She is built up as a major threat once she uses her water form. Unfortunately, Morp’s realization that they have the Create and Destroy Water spell leads to her being taken out in seconds
• Teens Are Monsters: Rucea only a little bit older than Morp, and the leader of a dangerous cult that tries to force children to kill themselves

Krim

Amara

A shapeshifting monster-slayer who worked for Noname

• Dirty Coward: They threw one of their comrades to The Monster in order to save themselves
• Properly Paranoid: Her paranoia is understandable considering she’s suffering from immense guilt and PTSD, as well as being hunted by Left-Hand Samu

Left-Hand Sam

The boss of a smaller cartel that operates in Krim

• Establishing Character Moment: He is introduced gleefully shoving a lit cigar into a business owner’s eye while his men hold him down
• Hate Sink: Sam is a pretentious, racist pervert that built a criminal empire by getting children addicted to drugs and has the audacity to whine about how no one praises him for it. It’s safe to say he’s not meant to be liked
• Karma Houdini Warranty: He gets away with all the horrible things he does during the Krim arc. However, his schemes don’t end well for him in New Venalii
• No Kill like Overkill: Kaleya has been fooled before, so she makes sure Sam stays dead, slashing his throat, stabbing him in the chest, and letting Bear smash his corpse’s head just to be safe
• Small-Town Tyrant: Sam is just a minor player in the Kaldira organized crime scene, but he basically owns Krim and oppresses the population by getting the youth addicted to drugs and attacking anyone who speaks out against him
• Squick: Any time he starts monologuing about his weird, rapey fantasies
• Starter Villain: He is the first major enemy that the players have to deal with

Rook

A stylish assassin sent after the players by an unknown party

• Affably Evil: He’s friendly towards the party as he tries to murder them, even hitting on Chloris and Hilda several times

Yama

Towa

The Daimyo of Yama, a powerful Marid with a large family

• Anti-Villain: Towa is a sexist, slave-owning bastard, but is also shown to be a loving family man who desperately wants to save his daughter, and a competent leader who fought to protect his community from danger
• Big Fun: He’s a loud, boisterous djinn with a portly frame with a flair for the dramatic. Unfortunately, he has a darker side
• Energy Being: Riko describes his true form as closer to a concept that a tangible entity
• Humiliation Conga: The second half of the Weeping City arc is not kind to Towa: he is betrayed by his surrogate son, trapped in a vase, and forced to give up all his slaves
• Kick the Dog: He physically abuses the koto-playing slave that accompanies him as a signal for her to play

Riko

The daimyo’s oldest daughter

• Lipstick Lesbian: She is a very feminine and proper lady that is attracted to other women
• Lonely Rich Kid: Despite technically being a grown adult, being a young woman in her culture means she’s still mostly cut off from the outside world and sheltered
• Love Interest: To Chloris
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Riko fits this role perfectly, partially as a result of Yama’s social standards as well as her general personality

Yuzuru

The head officer of Palace security

• Bodyguard Betrayal: Yuzuru is Towa’s trusted protector and the one responsible for plotting against him and placing the curse on Rin
• Face Death with Dignity: When he realizes his plan has failed, he lays down his weapon and sits down to watch the sunset, not resisting as the party repeatedly stab him
• Jerkass: He’s generally a snappy, condescending asshole, but he gets even meaner when something happens to his mannequin
• Rōnin: Yuzuru a master swordsman who personally serves the Daimyo due to his past association with his daughter
• Tragic Villain: He’s a pretty monstrous person, but his devotion to his lover, Eri and his inability to accept her death are pretty tragic.
• Villain Has a Point: He’s right about Towa being an awful person who’s never held accountable for his actions. Unfortunately, he only really uses it as an excuse of why it’s okay to hurt his family
• Would Hurt a Child: He is willing to let the Sisters murder a teenage girl in order to resurrect his lover

Kurtz

A slave working inside the Palace

• The Friend Nobody Likes: Even after he joins the party, no one really trusts Kurtz or enjoys his company
• Kill and Replace: An odd example. He is responsible for killing Hilda’s real father, and attempts to pose as him when he meets her in order to fulfill the role he took away from her life. It’s also because he wants Hilda for a similar purpose, still grieving the loss of his own daughter
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He is revealed, or at least all but confirmed to be Hilda’s father. Or so it seems

The Sisters Of The Mountain

A trio of hags that live in the mountains above Yama

• Body Horror: Middle Sister’s limbs are misshapen and swollen, and there are massive boils all over her body
• Eats Babies: They demand infants as sacrifices from the Daimyo, which they take up the mountain to devour
• Evil Old Folks: They are thousands of years old, and take the form of elderly women.
• The Fair Folk: The sisters are powerful and very malicious fae beings
• Kick the Dog: Youngest Sister transforms into Kaleya’s dead sister and re-enacts her horrible death purely out of spite
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Eldest Sister’s current form matches this aesthetic.
• Villains Want Mercy: Youngest Sister spends her last moments cowering and begging to be spared before Kaleya kills her

The Old Man’s forces

The Finger (spoilers)

The avatar of the Goddess Nedia

• Fish out of Water: Since she’s only a fragment of a goddess, she doesn’t have the infinite wisdom that the full Nedia has, and has a bit of trouble adjusting to things like making mistakes and considering people’s feelings
• Floating Water: She takes the form of a little floating ball of perfectly clear water in the physical world
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Her form in Chloris’s vision is a curvy triton woman in a Seashell Bra that thinks that making out with people is a standard mortal greeting

Mysterious Old Man

A recurring figure that Morp encounters that seems to hold the key to defeating the monster

• King Incognito: His true identity is Leo, the exiled king of Kaldira
• Parental Substitute: Attempts to be this for Morp, only to be immediately shut down
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He is working tirelessly to help the country even without his noble status, while his brother fails to serve as a proper king,
• Signature Headgear: He is easily identified by the poorly-taxidermied raccoon he wears as a hat

Bear

An old war buddy of Kaleya’s that now works as a traveling mercenary

• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: He’s described several times as looking exactly like Brendan Gleeson

Other Citizens of Kaldira

Timbly

A kenku farmer that the players stay with

• Politically Incorrect Hero: He hates foreigners and wants them all to die, but still acts like a decent, caring family man

Maldus

A dwarf that guides the party during their stay in Red Rocks

• Head-Turning Beauty: Apparently by dwarven beauty standards, she is an absolute heartthrob

Atrea

General Morgantha Ironbird

A young soldier that was saved by Kaleya and later returns to hunt the Monster

• Big Bad: She’s the true villain of the campaign. Morgantha is responsible for creating the monster as a failed attempt to make a weapon of mass destruction to intimidate other countries into giving into Atrean colonization. Now, she’s trying to kill the monster to cover up any evidence of her wrongdoings, not caring about the catastrophe this would unleash on the country
• Frontline General: Morgantha is no coward, and despite being a high ranking military commander, is very much willing to throw herself straight into the battle
• New Meat: She was only 18 when she was drafted, still wide-eyed and eager to serve her country

Jessup Hawlry

An infamous Atrean war criminal

• Mad Scientist: He performed horrific experiments on prisoners of war, often involving cutting them apart and attaching machines to them
• Posthumous Character: Subverted. Hawlry is supposedly killed by Kaleya at the beginning of the campaign, but it turns out that might not be the case…

The God Eaters

The God Eater of Fire (MAJOR SPOILERS)

See General Morgantha

The God Eater of Stone

Donovan

The God Eater of Air, a bard who takes delight in the misery of his enemies

• Blow You Away: His main use of magic surrounds air, although typically in more brutal and horrific ways than usual. His favored method is whipping small pockets of air around fast enough that he can use them to cut people apart.
• Hate Sink: Donovan is a loudmouthed, sadistic asshole that kills STARMAN during his first appearance
• Hero Killer: His draining attack ends up leading to STARMAN’s death
• Musical Assassin: He’s a highly trained killer and bard who uses the music he plays on his light to deliver spell attacks at his enemies

Rusalka

The God Eater of Water, an obsessive wizard student who is completely detached from realty

• Creepy Child: Her projection looks like a young girl, and she’s a murderous sociopath that’s part of the God Eaters
• Evil Counterpart: Rusalka is basically what Sai would be if they didn’t have any tethers to the world and decided to throw away their humanity and let their thirst for knowledge consume them
• Evil Sorcerer: She’s easily one of the most powerful and twisted magic-users we’ve seen so far
• Time Master: Rusalka is able to briefly freeze time with her spells in order to take the finger from Hilda

Red Hand

Jamieson

The nondescript and unhinged boss of the Red Hand cartel

• Affably Evil: Exaggerated. Jamieson is so over-the-top with his hospitality that it’s easy to forget he’s a psychopathic drug lord
• Evil Hand: His demon arm has a mind of its own and becomes aggressive whenever its owner becomes agitated.
• Super Mob Boss: Not only does he have the power of the entire cartel behind him, but he has some sort of dangerous demonic entity fused to his arm
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Jamieson’s most notable feature is just how ridiculously ordinary he looks in comparison to the tattooed, blade-wielding muscle men that make up most of his organization

Mr. Slowly

Jamieson’s most trusted and strongest henchman

• The Dragon: To Jamieson
• Undying Loyalty: To his boss, who he sees as his best friend and savior. He almost kills Kaleya for even suggesting harming him

Elial

Hilda’s older brother

• Incest Subtext: He is uncomfortably touchy and intimate with his mom, who treats him more like her husband
• Too Dumb to Live: Elial threatens both Sloane and Jamieson during the Red Hand gathering, and was fully prepared to fight them before Kaleya dragged him away

Sloane

A single mother who works with the Red Hand

• Struggling Single Mother: She’s just an average single mom with five kids trying to make ends meet…by killing people for the cartel

Dargan

A renowned dwarven blacksmith that runs the drug trade in Red Rocks

• Villain with Good Publicity: He’s a local celebrity beloved for his smithing skills, enough so that the bartender doesn’t make him pay the tab

Other

STARMAN

A god trapped within Morp’s body

• Big Good: Implied. Despite STARMAN being a douchebag, he seems to be working towards some sort of noble goal
• Character Death: He is torn in half by Donovan’s attempt to absorb him, and succumbs to his wounds shortly after
• Jerkass Gods: Although he can’t be understood, STARMAN’s mannerisms are snooty and judgmental. There’s also the fact that he’s making his host slowly rot
• Language Barrier: He can’t properly communicate with the party since he was too proud to learn their “filthy shit-ape speech”. It ends up biting him in the ass when he’s unable to communicate essential information to Morp.

The Monster

An enigmatic beast that the party are hired to kill

• Big Bad: The Monster’s rampage drives the conflict of the plot, and defeating it is the party’s ultimate goal
• The Dreaded: It is highly feared by everyone that knows of it, despite how little information about it is actually known
• Humanoid Abomination: It is described as a giant, emaciated woman with glowing eyes that’s constantly covered in smoke
• Tragic Monster: She was once a beloved goddess before the God Eaters captured her, trying to turn her into a weapon for the Atrean government. They ended up twisted her body and mind so badly that they just abandoned her to rampage across the country when the experiment failed