Main > Compendia > History > Campaigns > Azad's Anomaly

Details

Time Played: 2010
Historical Era: Dark Age
System: Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition
GM: Jason
Players: Alex (Azad)

Summary

This small campaign followed the adventures of Azad, an affluent landowner and community leader in the rural village of Aechemar in the fractured nation of Al Binn Haria in Vashad. The village paid tribute to distant vasharan lords, and one particularly ambitious lord decided during a tribute collection visit to announce a fortress that would be built near the village. Azad's political adversary, Simak, applauded this effort and the wealth it would bring to Aechemar, but Azad was skeptical of what a vasharan war fortress so close would mean for the village's future.

During this political difficulty, Azad discovered, in the main wine cellar of his sprawling vineyard, The Anomaly. Having no clue what it was, Azad took turns experimenting with the device and leaving it alone over the course of weeks. Some of its effects were terrifyingly dangerous, such as when he nearly killed his wife in his sleep with a deadly touch he had apparently acquired from the device, or when it summoned a wild elephant creature into the cellar. But other effects proved incredibly useful, such as when he discovered that the elephant obeyed his orders, or when it turned him into a silvery gryphon, which allowed him to slay the vasharan military lord and his entire platoon in a single night.

During the epilogue, while Azad was attempting to seal the Anomaly into a series of caves, the Anomaly's true owner, Pendulum, arrived to recover the device. He explained that it disappeared during Pendulum's own experimentation with the device. When Pendulum learned that Azad's daughter, Hashti, had some facility with the machine, he offered her to help him study it. After some convincing, Azad allowed it and Hashti joined Pendulum in creating magic after The Fall.

Through the numerous powers Azad gained through his experimentation, Aechemar entered into the myths of Vashad as the City of Mists. Azad's family became a line of rulers, protecting the village with a powerful magical mist that surrounded the land. The ruler of the city would have visions of those entering the mists, and only those that the ruler wished to reach Aechemar would be able to do so. This allowed the city to remain completely unscathed during the Dark March of Arcolon later in the Dark Age.

Canon

The events of this campaign are entirely canonical.