Quaint/NorthernDragonblooded

Northern Dragonblooded - a game of exalted modern

I will keep some campaign notes here and update as needed. This is a campaign in my own exalted modern/cyberpunk setting.

The characters are all Dragonblooded of house tepet, and the tepet haven't yet been humiliated, but are still going strong, a mighty military house if not all as powerful as House Mnemon or House Cathak. The characters include

- Tepet Rafat, originally an outcaste from chiaruascuro, he is very thin and wiry and not very well respected; he is a bit of spec ops, spy and criminal; he has some augmentations to increase stealth and combat powress. He also leads a team of specialists a bit like section 9 of ghost in the shell

- Tepet Sira, originally an up and coming young businesswoman, but then she got burned and she had to get a full body prosthetic, severely limiting her access to essence and supernatural power; now infertile she was dumped in the immaculate order, her career taking a massive dent

- Tepet Hasim, idealistic Officer of the mechanized infantry, "brother" of rafat (rafat was adopted however, but they still get along pretty well)

- Tepet Nerdal, a nerd more interested in first age tech than anything else but also a combat pilot with his very own special flying machine

- Tepet Nirai, a very rich and very socialite dragonblooded and also somewhat of a sorceress; not very good at fighting however

The State of the World

The empress is gone, for maybe 2-3 years now. A regent has been appointed and people are wondering if she is ever coming back. The realm has declined a bit, with each house trying to get as much of the pie as possible. The tepet are still going strong, having gotten a couple of very powerful military units from the split of the imperial army. As we play mostly in the north, I will focus on that. Whitewall is an esteemed trading partner of the realm and we will quite possibly spend some time there. The Haslanti League used to pay a sizeable tribute, but it has stopped to do so some years ago. There have been excuses and polite refusals but now the realm is fed up. It has granted the Tepet lease to bring the Haslanti back in line, war is brewing. Since the goal is to make them pay again, not conquer them, a ground war is deemed unnecessary at the moment. Everybody is expecting an air war, with the Realm and the Tepet expecting it to be a short, victorious war. The Haslanti have a huge airforce and even some flying and swimming carriers, the aircraft outnumbering the tepet air force by 2 or 3 times. The Tepet have more advanced carriers and aircraft however and even have some elite dragonblooded pilots flying hyper-advanced artifact aircraft, so they aren't worried. We will see how that plays out in time. The plan is to devastate the Haslanti Air force, destroying their carriers and bombing their airstrips and then negotiate again and bomb their cities to weaken their resolve as needed. The Bull of the North hasn't much reared his head until now. His people, the icewalkers, are commonly regarded as backwards and only of limited danger, especially as they don't have that huge numbers and mostly use outdated technology. There was a robbery at a jade mine near whitewall obviously perpetrated by the icewalkers. Some 50 of them won against 200 security troopers at the mine and now talk is big about demons or anathema among the icewalkers. That gig in Thorns went down and deathknights are now officially considered anathema, but detailed knowledge about them is rare, although they are regarded as extremely dangerous. Deathlords are also known, but only few people in the realm know any details. Talk about mighty lords of the underworld that have their own, often dangerous, agenda abounds. I also use vampires Quaint/Vampires.

First session

Called to a hostage situation in amber river, things go bad when the cybered slaves are hacked and throw themselves at us. We survive and free the hostages, but 150 or more innocent deaths mar our conscience. Apparently a ghost had possessed the servers and manipulated the slaves (their minds can be put in a dream world while their bodies work under computer control, a pilot project for more humane slavery made possible by advanced cybernetic implants). Interrogations lead our merry group to the shadowland of Marasma's Fell and there to a small settlement called Tranter's Rest. We go undercover as guild employees. Apparently a guy called Silent Salvation has helped the guerillia fighters with informations and weapons - and with the services of the electromancer ghost. The guerillias themselves where more than shocked by the behavior of the slaves. We now endeavor to find out more about this guy Silent Salvation and bring those responsible for the massacre to justice if at all possible.

Tranter's Rest

is a settlement of some 7000 mortals + about the same number of ghosts. It is a rundown, sickly town whose better days are long past. A small guild outpost is established, somewhat fortificated and protected by salt lines. There are three local powers, two vampire clans and one nemessary lord. Most mortals are beholden to one of them, getting some protection but unable to leave and having to pay taxes in silver and blood.

Following sessions

We have now played several times. The PCs were able to determine who send the ghost that led to the massacre, bombed the guy (apparently some kind of exalted, he called himself the verdigris prince and resided in a shadowland where he had his own small nation), only to have him become a ghost, possess a descendant and continue right on. We have also done some unrelated adventures, some downtime etc. A memorable event was the valley of summer, a place in the north where a godblooded daughter of the god of summer lives - and her father has bestowed eternal summer and bounty upon the valley. There was a plot by some fierce winter spirits working with fair folk to destroy the valley. They had accused the god of summer in Yu Shan and while he and his daughter had to appear in court, they made their move. We were able to defeat the invasion however, finally got our troops some action. There also was a nice adventure where we mingled with people at a party in Whitewall, then fought some monsters brought on by a wyld storm and finally tracked down a lunar saboteur who had infiltrated a thaumaturgical institute where they were fooling around with wyld transmutation. There also was a plot with an ancient evil dragon king, entombed in a magical sarcophagus by the primordials. He wound up on a guild transport ship because they went treasure hunting. He killed the crew by projecting his spirit and consuming them, ripping them out of the physical world, slowly gaining strength to escape. We had to investigate the ship. Was a nice mystery-detective plot with a hint of horror. In the end we resolved not to kill the dragon king, fearing he would just be reborn, but instead put the sarcophagus back on the southwestern island where it came from. The place is protected by ancient and powerful magic, unreachable unless the stars are right, so we hope he can't get free and will remain isolated for quite some time. What vile magics and forbidden knowledge might that ancient lizard-man possess that the primordials saw fit to imprision him for eternity? Recently we have been investigating what appear to be murders by a lunar. Some mortals send by the verdigris prince also tried to autobomb us. We are currently enganged in hunting a full moon lunar warrior in the northwest. We tried to assassinate him, but that just made him angry. Next up will be a pretty badass battle against him and his cannibal cronies. This lunar might well be the partner of that saboteur we caught and killed some time ago.