Monstrous Heroes!

Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rich Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

I’m getting ready for D&D in a Castle! This year my group want to play monstrous player characters fighting against the dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans of the world. I thought I would share my idea of the world with you all. Let me know if it sounds interesting. Map coming soon!

Welcome to Avalor

Avalor is a high-magic fantasy world and was once an untamed, wild place. Its first inhabitants were dragons. The chromatic dragons, who wanted the world to stay untamed and wild, and the metallic dragons, who valued order and wanted to bend the world to their will, never got along. Their war raged across Avalor until only a few dying dragons remained. The chromatic dragons used the last of their blood to create goblinoids, gnolls, orcs, minotaurs, and other such creatures, while the metallic wyrms created dwarves, elves, halflings, humans, and the like. As the dragons died off, their spirits melded with the land, sea, and sky of Avalor, and they became the deities of the new peoples.

The dwarves, elves, halflings, humans, and other metallic creations built small, defensible bastions, islands of permanence in a sea of wild nature filled with the chromatic creatures, deemed monsters. Yes, some monsters attacked the people of these bastions when they left to hunt or travel (for the the bastion-folk had built in the monsters’ lands without even caring to ask), but most were content to live their lives outside the walls without bothering. It wasn’t until these bastions expanded, taking more and more of the land and resources to become great cities that the monsters began fighting back. Even these attacks were small, disorganized bands that the bastion-folk easily repelled. The monsters never truly rose up as an organized force, for they often had petty squabbles among themselves that kept them from working together.

Maribell Gorric, an elf and self-declared empress, set about conquering the land more than a thousand years ago. She wanted to tame Avalor, and claim the world for the people created by the metallic dragons. A tactical genius, the warrior mage organized her armies, united the bastion-folk, and invaded the land from the monsters. Her bloody, grueling campaign never slowed, keeping a steady pace of advancing and building more cities to hold areas conquered.

A century ago the few surviving monsters retreated into poisonous, volcanic caves of the Blackspire Mountains, Maribell’s war paused. It was time to help the Gorric Empire flourish. She believed the monsters would not survive long in the caves. The empress thought wrong.

The monsters, knowing the gases of the volcano were poisonous, called on the last of their priests to purify the air daily. Disparate bands of survivors found each other forming a community of interdependence for survival. In these caves they trained, planned, and watched. Raznack, the great oni, came forth to lead and brought the first victory to the monsters in over a hundred years. Fort Falon was razed to the ground then the monsters drew back into the caves. More strikes were made. More settlements burned. But the shock only lasted so long. Maribell has mobilized her forces, this time determined to put an end to all chromatic creations.

Deities

There are ten prime deities in Avalor, each named for the color of the last surviving great wyrms. The Avalor Deities table shows their domains. (Note: Some dragons have had their alignment shifted from what is in the Monster Manual to reflect the fact that the struggle of Avalor is one of chaos and law.)

Avalor Deities

Deities	Alignment	Domains
Black	CE	Death, grave
Blue	NE	Arcana, tempest
Green	NE	Knowledge, trickery
Red	CE	Forge, light
White	CE	Nature, war
Brass	NG	Forge, knowledge
Bronze	LG	Nature, tempest
Copper	NG	Arcana, trickery
Gold	LG	Light, war
Silver	LG	Life, order

 

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