Invisible Fortress:Main page

Invisible Fortress Campaign

Exalted Dungeons & Dragons 5e
Game details
Game master	Lithl Notes
Number of players	5
Game time	TBD

The Invisible Fortress takes place in a homebrew campaign setting based on the world of Exalted. This is an attempt at converting an adventure which is not well-suited to the game it was printed for, into a system where it is likely to work better.

Background and setting

The world of Creation is flat, and if you were to venture beyond the borders of Creation, you would reach the Feywild without the need for interplanar travel magic. It is Realm Year 768, the "Second Age", according to scholars, and the "Age of Sorrows" by those sympathetic to the godlike heroes of the First Age.

The Second Age began when the Scarlet Empress established the Realm after single-handedly defeating the Balorian Crusade. The Scarlet Empress's rise to power quelled the worldwide unrest and uncertainty of the Shogunate Era, which lasted for seven hundred years after the violent overthrow of the rulers of the First Age, who had reigned for the four millennia before.

The Realm directly controls the Blessed Isle in the center of the world, and many of the lands bordering the Inner Sea are tributaries to the Realm. Most of the regions which are not beholden to the Realm nonetheless bow to its military power and accepts its coin, and those who have studied history will always have a small fear in the back of their minds that the Scarlet Empress might make use of the Imperial Manse to quell an uprising in the same way she used it to defeat the armies of the fey in the Balorian Crusade.

While in theory the Realm's government is a meritocracy where anyone can get ahead with skill and commitment, in practice the top positions are held by members of the 10 Great Houses (well, 11 houses, but House Iselsi has been disgraced). Each of the Great Houses is a branch of the Scarlet Empress's family, with the head of the house being one of her children. During Calibration of Realm Year 763, the Empress disappeared without a trace, and the world discovered that the Scarlet Dynasty in fact had no system in place to determine her successor. The leaders of the Great Houses are scrambling to control the throne or to curry favor with whoever takes it, and the Realm is on the verge of civil war.

To add to the developing strife, Thorns, one of the largest cities which paid tribute to the Realm, was conquered by an army of undead in RY 764. And it seems that the essences of the long-dead heroes of the First Age have begun to infuse people in the present with power, to create a new generation of heroes.

Campaign starting location

Rumor has spread in recent months of First Age artifacts found in the northeast. For one reason or another, you find yourself in Sijan, the City of Tombs. Sijan lies at the intersection of the River of Tears (to the west, flowing from the north) and the Avarice River (to the south, flowing from the northeast), while the River of Tears continues south to Lookshy and the Inland Sea which surrounds the Blessed Isle.

Character Creation

Race

Humans, Variant Humans, and any of the Dragonmarked Humans (Finding, Handling, Making, Passage, and Sentinel) are all available without restriction. If you are a Dragonmarked Human, you may create a character who is a member of one of the Great Houses of the Realm (you do not have to be a member of a Great House, but it is an option). Any mark can be part of any house, although certain marks are more common in some houses than others. See the Great Houses page for details.

Other races which you may select, and any restrictions or notes related to selecting them:

• Aasimar: You are a human infused with the essence of one of the First Age champions of the Unconquered Sun. If you choose the Fallen Aasimar subrace, your essence has been corrupted by the Shadowfell. The forces of the Realm will be hostile towards you if you are identified, and will likely attack. Other humans may fear you, and humans sympathetic to the Realm may report you to authorities.
• Dragonborn: Dragonborn are very rare in the Second Age, but they do still exist. Standard Dragonborn and Chromatic Dragonborn are both options. For your Draconic Ancestry or Chromatic Ancestry feature, you may select Red and be from the south (a member of the Anklok tribe), Black and be from the west (a member of the Mosok tribe), Blue and be from the north (a member of the Pterok tribe), or Green and be from the east (a member of the Raptok tribe). Dragonborn generally worship the Unconquered Sun, and would venerate his champions from the First Age if they met one. Most humans will have never seen a dragonborn before, and their reaction to seeing you for the first time will vary widely.
• Genasi: You are the half-blooded child of a human and an elemental. In addition to the normal Genasi subraces, you may also select Wood Genasi. A genasi would be an unusual sight outside a major city, but not an alarming one.
• Tiefling, Feral Tiefling: You are the half-blooded child of a human and a fiend. Although your fiendish parent would be suspect, human spellcasters summoning demons and devils for labor, entertainment, or... entertainment are not unheard of.
• Aarakocra, Bugbear, Centaur, Harengon, Kenku, Kobold, Leonin, Lizardfolk, Locathah, Loxodon, Minotaur, Owlin, Satyr, Tabaxi, Tortle: You are one of the beast-folk, created by one of the First Age champions of Luna (or descended from such a creation), as part of their grand plan to populate Creation with new races. Humans are likely to view you with suspicion, but humans living closer to the Feywild, where beast-folk are more common, may be used to your presence. Your creature type is both beast and humanoid, instead of its normal type.
• Shifter: You are a human infused with the essence of one of the champions of Luna. Humans will generally treat you similarly to beast-folk.
• Triton: You are either one of the citizens of the sunken city of Luthe (humans unfamiliar with Luthe will treat you the same as beast-folk), or else a member of the terrifying Lintha family of pirates (being identified as one of the Lintha will inspire fear, even far from the western oceans the Lintha call home).
• Any race which has the creature type Fey, or which has the Fey Ancestry trait, other than previously mentioned races: You are one of the Fey from the Feywild (perhaps a survivor from the Balorian Crusade lost in Creation), or the descendant of one. Humans will be hostile towards fey and severely mistrustful of their descendants if you are identified.
• Reborn (replacing any form of Human, Genasi, Tiefling, or Half-Elf): You are a human (or half-human) infused with the essence of one of the champions of the Unconquered Sun, Luna, or one of the Maidens of Destiny, or an essence of a champion of the Unconquered Sun which has been corrupted by the Shadowfell or the Nine Hells. Humans will treat champions of the Unconquered Sun (corrupted or not) the same as they treat Aasimar. Champions of Luna will generally be treated similarly to beast-folk. All champions of the Maidens of Destiny are employed by the Celestial Bureaucracy in some capacity, and are most likely members of either the Gold Faction (who support returning the champions of the Unconquered Sun to power) or the Bronze Faction (who support keeping Dragonmarked humans in power).

Ravages of Creation

Creation itself is mildly harmful to those who are "outsiders". Merely staying within Creation hurts.

At the end of a long rest, any creature with the fey creature type takes 1d8 psychic damage if they did not spend that rest in the Feywild or a Feywild pocket. A non-fey creature with the Fey Ancestry trait takes 1d6 psychic damage instead. Creatures with the Fey Touched feat take damage as though they were a creature with Fey Ancestry. Triple the number of damage dice rolled if the rest takes place within 1 mile of a Reality Engine.

Creatures with the Shadow Touched feat take 1d6 radiant damage at the end of a long rest if they did not spend that rest in the Shadowfell or in a Shadowfell pocket. Triple the number of damage dice rolled if the rest takes place within Yu-Shan, the City of Heaven.

If a fey creature or a creature with the Fey Ancestry trait takes the Shadow Touched feat, or a creature takes both the Fey Touched and Shadow Touched feats, they can take both the psychic and the radiant damage after a single rest.

Level and multiclassing

At character creation for the beginning of this campaign, player characters will be level 5.

Multiclassing is permitted without restriction.

Ability scores

• Use point buy (33 points) to assign your ability scores. Note that this is greater than the number of points available for point buy within D&D Beyond. You will have to choose "Manual/Rolled" in order to enter your ability scores correctly.
• You may purchase ability scores above 15. Purchasing 16 and 17 cost 3 points each, 18 and 19 cost 4 points each, and 20 costs 5 points. (Yes, this means you can spend 28 of your 33 points to get an ability score at 20 before racial modifiers, or spend 19 points to get a score at 18 then add +2 from your race.)

See ability score arrays for possible ability score spreads with this point buy system.

Character details

Alignment

Any alignments are acceptable, but you must create a character capable of working with the party.

Languages

The following languages are spoken around Creation:

• Old Realm: The language of the First Age, magic, and the native language of most supernatural creatures.
• High Realm: The language of the Realm's aristocracy and modern scholarship.
• Low Realm: Common (if you would learn Common from any source, the language you learn is Low Realm). The trade language of the Realm. Due to the Realm's global power, it is the de-facto trade language throughout the world. Occasionally called "Earthtongue", especially outside the Realm.
• Rocktongue: Dwarvish (if you would learn Dwarvish from any source, the language you learn is Rocktongue). Dwarves are not playable as a PC race in this campaign, because an ancient geas prevents them from leaving their cities underneath the Imperial Mountain.
• Luthan: A butchered dialect of Old Realm, spoken by the inhabitants of the sunken city of Luthe.
• Flametongue: Native language for most people from the southern regions of Creation.
• Forest-tongue: Native language for most people from the eastern regions of Creation.
• Seatongue: Native language for most people from the western regions of Creation.
• Skytongue: Native language for most people from the northern regions of Creation.
• Riverspeak: A patios of Earthtongue, Flametongue, Forest-tongue, Seatongue, and Skytongue. Native language for many people in the Scavenger Lands, although the influence of the Realm in the region means many people also speak Low Realm and more scholarly types in the region may speak High Realm. The Scavenger Lands also plays host to many non-natives, so there are plenty of people living in the region with different native languages.
• Clawspeak: Druidic (if you would learn Druidic from any source, the language you learn is Clawspeak). A written-only language created by champions of Luna, which can be easily scratched into the bark of a tree using claws. While Clawspeak is not restricted to being taught to Druids, it is rarely taught to anyone who does not have claws and cannot grow them at will.
• Guild Cant: A more mercantile version of Thieves' Cant, taught to members of The Guild. Rogue PCs may substitute their Thieves' Cant knowledge for Guild Cant at their discretion, though Guild Cant is not restricted to Rogues.
• High Holy Speech: Draconic (if you would learn Draconic from any source, the language you learn is High Holy Speech). Native language of the Dragonborn. Occasionally called "Dragontongue".
• Aalu: Infernal (if you would learn Infernal from any source, the language you learn is Aalu). Aalu devils write their contracts exclusively in this language.

The fey in the Feywild do not speak in the same sense as creatures do in Creation, but they do communicate in strange ways. When a fey enters Creation, it assumes a form and one or more of the languages spoken in Creation. Creatures of the Shadowfell generally speak the same languages as those spoken in Creation.

There are also hundreds of tribal and barbarian languages spoken across the world, and secret codes used by various organizations.

Any D&D languages not mentioned above do not exist. If a feature would give you a D&D language that's not mentioned above, you many select any of the above languages instead. (Unnamed tribal/barbarian languages may be selected as well, but it is not generally recommended as they are almost guaranteed to not come up.) Preferably, select a language which bears some kind of similarity to the language being replaced. For example, replacing Celestial with Old Realm would be an appropriate substitution. In D&D Beyond, adding languages which are not standard D&D languages must be done manually.

Backgrounds

All background features are allowed–including Lorehold Student, Prismari Student, Quandrix Student, Silverquill Student, and Witherbloom Student–although you are encouraged to create a custom background to fit the setting over the literal Strixhaven (or other setting-specific) backgrounds.

Locations detailed in the Invisible Fortress namespace on this wiki are largely focused on places that are common knowledge to many people in Creation, and which are likely to be directly relevant to the campaign. However, there is significant material on other locations available. If you would like to make a character hailing from a particular area and would like more information, do not hesitate to reach out to the DM.

Equipment & currency

You are starting at level 5, and this will be considered a "high magic" campaign. As such, in addition to your standard starting equipment/gold, you get 500 gp, plus 1d10 * 25 gp, and one Uncommon magic item of your choice. (Don't forget to check 5e homebrew uncommon magic items!)

While the world does not use platinum, gold, electrum, silver, and copper, we will use the standard D&D currencies as an abstraction. If you are interested in currency used in-setting, see jade standard.

Bonus feats

Each player may take one free feat which is not a half feat. (Half feats are feats which give +1 to an ability score.) This is in addition to any feats you may have gotten from your race, background, or level 4 ASI.

House rules and rulings

Main page: House rules

House rules and specific rulings for this campaign will be tracked on this wiki.

Places

• Blessed Isle

• Sijan
• Lookshy
• Thorns

• Yu-Shan

Organizations

• Realm
• Great Houses

• The Guild

• Celestial Bureaucracy
• Gold Faction
• Bronze Faction

People

• Scarlet Empress

• Unconquered Sun
• Luna
• Maidens of Destiny