Darth Wiki / Dead Evil

Dead Evil is a dark fantasy/horror Pathfinder campaign.

Noxerra - Old World Map

The story is thus: Long ago, the powerful Sol Empire ruled supreme over the world of Solerra. Headed by an elven man that history remembers only as "The Mage-Emperor," the Empire was torn asunder by a series of civil wars between the Emperor and his Nine Knights over magical, divine artifacts known as the Apotheon Shards. The Emperor, the Knights, the Shards, and the nine kingdoms that made up the Empire were ravaged by these wars and collapsed - leaving behind a fractured world that even the sun seemed reluctant to rise over. No one remembers exactly how the Empire collapsed and the world seemed to end, but this new, harsh landscape was renamed "Noxerra" by the survivors, who grimly set about trying to rebuild in the wasteland that remained.

The campaign picks up 200-something years After the End, and follows the exploits of a typical Player Party as they traverse the wasteland of Noxerra - facing off against dark cults, demonic beasts, corrupt aristocrats, cannibals, mechanical monstrosities, and a variety of other horrors - all the while slowly uncovering answers as to just what happened all those centuries ago. Below is a basic summary of the campaign's main characters - the Party - and the individual story arcs they go through.

The Party

• Jorg-Hammer: A human fighter, who is a "tribal" hailing from the North, in what used to be the nation of Halestrom. Belonging to the honorable but weakened Havsbladen Tribe who name their warrior caste after their favored weapons, Jorg-Hammer is a bold and brash warrior with a strong respect for his tribe's traditions. Jorg-Hammer aims to do right by his father Ragnar the Bold's memory, after he was lost in a storm that swallowed a fleet of Havsbladen ships bound for the west, seeking a new land to conquer. In addition to the party, Jorg-Hammer also travels with his pet goat, Tanngrisnir, who is said to be a sacred animal gifted with magical powers of clairvoyance called "the Sight." Deeply spiritual and determined to bring glory back to his tribe and unite them with the other Northern Tribes, Jorg-Hammer is tasked by the Havsbladen's elder and seer, Ysilda to confront the Forgeborn army near the beginning of the campaign, a task that is only the beginning of his intricate destiny.
• Merric Mandrake: A halfling sorcerer who was exiled from his community of other halflings who lived in "the Crater," - a literal crater in the Deadwood caused by a mysterious meteor. After Merric descended and made contact with the meteor, he lost consciousness and awoke with magical, draconic powers - as well as a voice in his head he calls Rekuza. When his powers were discovered, he was cast out into the wastes by his family, where he was quickly enslaved by a band of roaming slavers and sold off to the Blood Dog tribe to the North, where he eventually met Jorg-Hammer who won the halfling in a duel (with Merric's help) and freed him. Merric is an unhinged and curious sorcerer, masking his darker side with beguiling charm and cunning, and is determined to exert his will on the world with his newfound freedom. He is Put on a Bus at the beginning of the campaign's third arc, when he is lost at sea during a storm, meeting an Uncertain Doom.
• "Doctor" Pandora Von Smythe: A dhampir alchemist and vivisectionist, whose sisters resented her for killing their mother in childbirth. She wandered the wastes for years before she was found and adopted by Doctor Mordecai Von Smythe, an alchemist in the city of Dreadmont. Von Smythe elected to mentor the girl in alchemy, instilling in the young Pandora a demented fascination with the darker aspects of magical science. Obsessed with understanding her own condition as a creature sitting between life and undeath, she travels the wastes in search of answers and research, taking with her the Necros Arcanos, a legendary book of necromantic magic she found in the campaign's first arc. She is also in search of her true heritage, curious to find the vampire that sired her so many years ago. She is eventually Put on a Bus to pursue her parentage.
• Pezzack: A tengu cleric of Calistria and a fledgling necromancer. Despite the unfavorable view most wastelanders have of necromancy, Pezzack is driven by a kind of altruistic ambition to create an undead army to serve as agricultural workers - bringing plentiful food and luxury back to the world. This vision is an uphill battle though, in no small part due to the stigma associated with it and Pezzack's own limitations and narrowed focus. As a cleric of the goddess of revenge, Pezzack is prone to pettiness and does not take slights against him or his work lightly, and has an ever-growing list of individuals to kill in Calistria's name. He was mentored by a mysterious elven woman known only as the Priestess, who disappeared on her own quest for vengeance, leaving Pezzack to pursue his goals alone, until he joined up with the party who have proved to be a welcome addition to his plans for the wasteland at large.
• Esther, "the Crimson Mirage": A tiefling swashbuckler, hailing from the desert ruins of Sethulhmet. Sold into slavery at birth, she managed to find a place for herself in the city of Kaath as a pit fighter steadily climbing her way to renown under the name of "the Crimson Mirage." She eventually managed to earn her freedom after killing the arena's top champion with his own gun, which she claimed for herself. With her freedom, the girl renamed herself Esther and made her way out in the wastes, carving a living out for herself by aiding a small abolitionist militia of former slaves and just trying to survive, but she eventually abandoned the group after a falling out. The tiefling got a second chance at redemption however, when she was offered a chance to travel across the sea to the east and confront the threat of the Forgeborn and put an end to their slave labor. Reluctantly she took the opportunity and found herself a stranger in a strange land - taking up arms alongside the party to defeat their mutual foe and walk the wastes with newfound allies.
• Nymue, "the Nightshade:" A changeling inquisitor, working as a member of the Taken Sisterhood - an order of Wee Jas worshipers living in the forests of Golgotha. The product of an unknown hag and human man, Nymue was left on the doorstep of a couple in Sunvale, in Yarmouth. She worked within the local church of Pelor there, the Church of the Lost Dawn, until she was excommunicated by one of the priests after she discovered he was a murderous dhampir. After a time of hardship trying to make a living elsewhere, she felt the "calling" of her hag mother, but instead stumbled on a member of the Sisterhood, who recruited Nymue into the order. Indoctrinated into the Sisterhood, Nymue was tasked with helping them reclaim magical artifacts and destroy magical creatures to "take back" the domain of magic for the goddess Wee Jas. She is eventually sent eastward to investigate a strange source of powerful magic - her fate intertwining with that of the party's.

Arc 1: The Forbidden City

The fates of four strangers converge on the road to the same destination - Kethis, a ruined city in the frigid Tribal North of eastern Noxerra. Jorg-Hammer is entrusted by Jorrick, chieftain of the Blood Dogs, to venture into Kethis to retrieve the legendary sword of the long-dead "King of Tribes," in the hope of using it's power to unite the four northern tribes under one banner. With his recently-earned slave, the halfling sorcerer Merric, in tow, they embark on this quest. On the road they meet Pandora and Pezzack - two students of necromancy also seeking entrance to Kethis in pursuit of a tome supposedly written by the Archlich Vecna himself - the Necros Arcanos. With each party seeking lost treasures in the same ruin, they combine forces and enter the city. Unfortunately, it seems that the warnings were true - as the city is plagued by the undead, raised by a plague curse caused by a Cult of Orcus (the Demon Lord of the Undead). In order to claim their treasures, the party must fight through hordes of zombies and cultists and free the city from the curse - as well as decide whether they can even trust one another along the way.

Arc 2: The Forgeborn

Eastern Noxerra is set upon by a mysterious army of automatons and biomechanical soldiers calling themselves the Forgeborn - led by the would-be conqueror, Scourge. After killing the Drakemunde tribe's prize dragon, Scourge offers the wasteland one month to surrender or perish. The Tribes converge during a summit, and elect to begin an exodus across the icy land bridge to the West. Jorg-Hammer and the party remain to deal with the threat, and embark southward. Along the way, they witness the horrors caused by the Forgeborn's conquest, and must deal with the politics of the powerful city-state of Dreadmont - making new enemies, friends, and unlikely allies. The party also come to learn about the legendary Apotheon Artifacts - weapons forged by the Mage-Emperor's Knights, the same weapons that destroyed the world - and it appears that the Forgeborn have found one. The party are forced to delve into Noxerra's past if they are to have any chance of preserving it's future.

Arc 3: The Sunken God

With the wasteland saved from the Forgeborn, the party - having been abandoned by Pandora and joined by Esther - resolve to head west themselves in search of signs of the other Artifacts. The journey across the sea however proves more perilous than they expected when their ship is caught in a magical storm and attacked by a mighty kraken. Losing Merric in the confusion but gaining a new ally, Nymue, the party are shipwrecked on the mysterious island of Krakengard. They learn that the storm that stranded them here is no ordinary storm - but one of magical, cursed origin. The island exists within it's own pocket dimension, occasionally materializing on Noxerra during these storms. Looking for a way off, the party are not alone, with several factions competing across the island. There are the survivors of a Havsbladen fleet led by Jorg-Hammer's father thirteen years ago that have made a home for themselves in the township of Nightport. There's a tribe of aloof and suspicious sea-elves that live in a ruined castle called "the Stronghold." Then there's the savage descendants of a marooned, dragon-worshiping pirate crew called "the Mariners." And most unnervingly - an elusive, malevolent cult called "the Drowned" who are preparing for an eclipse during an upcoming storm, where they intend to perform a dark ritual to summon "the Sunken God." The party must cross the wilderness of the island, rally it's many factions together, yet again unearth Noxerra's past, and confront their own demons if they are to prevent an even more devastating apocalypse.

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Dead Evil provides examples of the following tropes:

• Abusive Parents: A recurring theme; almost none of the party have ideal parents, with Pandora's adoptive father Mordecai being the best example as a mentor with impossible standards. Jorg-Hammer's uncle and adoptive father figure Thor-Axe, while well-meaning, is also very harsh and demanding. Merric's parents had him exiled from the Crater because of his powers. Pezzack's parents seemed like decent folk, but evidently not decent enough to warrant him checking in on them.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: The campaign is often paced as such, with many sessions having quiet narrative moments between intense combats.
• Action Girl: A good many female characters qualify - and of course within the party there's Pandora, Esther, and Nymue.
• Action Survivor: The party are all action survivors, as one has to be to survive for long in Noxerra if they're venturing beyond one of the safer communities.
• Admiring the Abomination: Pandora does this after the party kills a wendigo, drawing anatomical sketches of the creature and harvesting some of its body for study. Pezzack, being a necromancer, has a similar - though more understated - reaction to Doctor Mordecai Von Smythe's necromorph that he had kept in his basement.
• Affably Evil: Many of the villains and shadier characters the party encounter, with Dre'Gardde the lizardfolk crimelord in Dreadmont's Witching District being a good example.
• After the End: A fantasy variant. The campaign is set 200-something years after the collapse of The Empire during the "War of the Nine Knights" - a devastating civil war that left an apocalyptic wasteland in its wake from which new societies have risen up from the ruins.
• Agent Mulder: Jorg-Hammer often takes the visions of his supposedly magical, clairvoyant goat Tanngrisnir as gospel, as well as other soothsayers who possess "the Sight."
• Agent Scully: By contrast, Pandora, Merric, Pezzack and just about everyone else the party encounter are highly skeptical of Tanngrisnir's abilities.
• A House Divided: The Empire's collapse is at least somewhat known to have occurred due to infighting and civil wars between the Empire's nine provinces. In the present, Dreadmont is also somewhat plagued by minor squabbles between the five ruling families.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Nalder, the cook of the Blood Dog tribe, begs for his life in his duel with Jorg-Hammer, who does not oblige his request and mercilessly kills him.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Many of the campaign's villains have rather tragic ends.
  • Marro, the party's first Big Bad, is rather pathetically killed by his own spell when he summons a vermlek demon that instead possesses/invades his body from the inside out. He then comes back as a ghost haunting the Necros Arcanos, where he relays his backstory to Pandora as a former slave turned necromantic overlord-wannabe.
  • Sister Mary, the religious leader of the village of Marbury, who explains how she turned from worshiping the sun god Pelor to worshiping the dark goddess Urgathoa and turned the townsfolk to cannibalism to survive the harsh winter and enslavement brought on by the Forgeborn. While fanatical in her dark religion, she's clearly broken and haunted by her actions right before the party fight against her and the townsfolk, and she's killed by gnoll invaders who arrive in time to rescue the party.
  • Scourge, as his lower body is submerged in the Forge's flames and being burned away, practically begs Jorg-Hammer to kill him, gaining a moment of clarity and humanity as he recognizes his madness and failure to "save" the wasteland from the mysterious "Illuvari," as he had intended. When Jorg-Hammer states that he'll die if he won't give them more information, all he has to say is "I already have."
• An Adventurer Is You: The party, naturally.
• An Arm and a Leg: Pezzack cut off the hand of a half-elf that refused to pay him for a job in his backstory, carving Calistria's insignia into it and using it as his holy symbol. Merric's sister Marissa's hand is also eaten by a wendigo.
• Ancient Tomb: There are several scattered in the wasteland that are common targets for treasure hunters. Notably, the party have to traverse the Iron Tomb, the resting place of the dwarf Osmand Stoneward, the Knight of Iron.
• And Man Grew Proud: When the party meet Aloysius O'Dare he reveals himself to be an elf who actually remembers the time before the Empire's collapse, and he seems convinced that the Mage-Emperor's pride and pursuit of immortality and the Knights' dependence and "mastery" of magic is what doomed Noxerra to become the wasteland it is now. As the party uncover more details about the past, it becomes clear that the Empire's ambitions ultimately did contribute to its collapse.
• Animate Dead: A signature ability for Pezzack, who constantly raises skeletal (and sometimes zombified) minions to serve him.
• Anti-Hero Team: The party are definitely one of these, with not a straightforward do-gooder among them.
• Anti-Magical Faction: The Blood Hunters of Dreadmont are a Classical example, hunting down and persecuting mages and supernatural creatures (including magically descended races like tieflings), calling these people "darkbloods." The Taken Sisterhood in Golgotha are a Hypocritical example, also hunting down dangerous mages and creatures, but out of a desire to horde magic for themselves.
• Apocalypse Cult: The Drowned - the villains of the Krakengard Arc. They worship "the Sunken God," an Eldritch Abomination foretold to flood the world. They're essentially a cult of StrawNihilists who Go Mad from the Isolation of being stranded on the island and separated from their homes and loved ones and undergo a loss of identity. Disillusioned with the harsh realities of the wasteland, they believe that the only hope for Noxerra is to simply wipe it all out and let those that survive rebuild a new society devoted to the God from the wreckage.
• Apocalypse How: The world of Noxerra (or at the very least the continent) was ravaged by a series of civil wars waged by warriors using weapons and artifacts with divine powers, causing societal collapse, environmental devastation, and interdimensional invasions that left everything in ruins.
• Apocalyptic Log: The party occasionally stumble across old journals, notes, and the like of doomed travelers like themselves - such as a treasure hunter in the Iron Tomb who was left for dead by his partner to be eaten alive by the creatures infesting the tomb, leaving behind an unfinished, paranoid note with his skeleton.
• Arch Nemesis Dad: Ragnar becomes this to Jorg-Hammer when he is revealed to have become the Drowned's High Trident.
• Arc Number: 13, tying in with 13 Is Unlucky. The whip that Pezzack is given that belonged to the Priestess is called the 13th Lash, the Duergar fleet that Nymue is shipwrecked on Krakengard with has 13 ships, and the Havsbladen fleet were stranded on Krakengard 13 years ago.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Or at the very least, typically unpleasant. The leaders of the Five Families are all dispassionate, judgmental rulers, with only Viceroy Tyrithia Halstein seeming to have much compassion for the rest of the wasteland.
• Artifact of Doom: Ancient cursed items are common through the wasteland - but most notable are the Apotheon Artifacts central to the campaign's plot, some of which are implied to be massive superweapons that corrupt whoever uses them.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The general attitude of the Northern Tribes; notably, the Drakemunde were the most powerful tribe on account of their leader Dorumarr having a black dragon as his mount and companion that he regularly terrorized the other tribes with if they encroached on the Drakemunde's territory. That was until the Forgeborn took Dorumarr and the dragon out, crippling the tribe's advantage significantly.
• Back from the Dead: There's a few examples.
  • Jorg-Hammer is killed in a duel with the Blood Hunters' High Commander after defeating the Forgeborn. He's resurrected not long after with the aid of the gnoll seer Vixandria, with the party trading the soul of the demon within the Blade of Calleus for Jorg-Hammer's.
  • Jorg-Hammer's father Ragnar the Bold drowned in the shipwreck that stranded him on Krakengard, but was resurrected somehow by the Drowned, and became the new High Trident.
• Badass Army: All of the Northern Tribes, the Forgeborn, and even the Blood Hunters in a more clandestine sense. Dreadmont forms one with some of the other settlements in the east to fight the Forgeborn.
• Badass Family: Jorg-Hammer descends from a fairly badass line; his uncle Thor-Axe is the Havsbladen's most fearsome warrior, and his father Ragnar was allegedly one of the most daring and capable Shipmasters before being lost in a storm.
• Bag of Holding: Like many Pathfinder adventurers, the party have one of these that they store various loot and other items in.
• Barbarian Tribe: The four Northern Tribes of eastern Noxerra. They include:
  • The Havsbladen: Jorg-Hammer's tribe, a Norse Viking-style tribe with seafaring warriors and a deep spirituality.
  • The Blood Dogs: A merciless and bloodthirsty people, whose default state of mind is Rape, Pillage, and Burn.
  • The War Riders: A tribe where every member is The Beastmaster with a sacred mount or animal companion, with a cruel but fair sense of honor.
  • The Drakemunde: A tribe of dragon-worshipers with a healthy stock of drakes and wyverns at their command, and perhaps the most efficient and militant tribe.
• Battle Trophy: Jorrick, the Blood Dog's chieftain, kept the skull of the dragon Drak-Vo-Ruul's mate as a trophy during his ultimately failed attack on the Drakemunde in his youth. Jorg-Hammer is also fond of collecting trophies of some his greater conquests, such as the King of Tribes's horned helmet.
• Benevolent Mage Ruler: The Mage-Emperor was one of these before he became corrupted by his search for immortality.
• Big Bad: The campaign doesn't have a central overarching antagonist, instead settling for an Arc Villain that functions as the Big Bad for each individual arc. So far, they include:
  • Myron Marro, the leader of the Cult of Orcus based in Kethis attempting to find a way to spread the necromantic plague in the city out to the rest of the wasteland.
  • Scourge, the self-proclaimed "Lord of the Forge" and leader of the Forgeborn, an army of automatons and cyborgs built using an ancient superweapon that are bent on conquering Noxerra.
  • Cthar-R'yatha - also called the "Voice of the Deep." An aboleth prophet of the cult of the Drowned on the island of Krakengard - who has gone mad from being the Last of His Kind and is intent on summoning an Eldritch Abomination called the Sunken God to flood Noxerra in it's entirety.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Forgeborn Arc primarily features their leader Scourge as the primary antagonist, but High Commander Aloysius O'Dare of the Blood Hunters is arguably just as much of a threat to the party.
• Big Good: Ysilda, one of the elders of the Havsbladen tribe and a powerful seer, is the one most responsible for putting the party on the path towards the campaign's main Myth Arc, and regularly guides Jorg-Hammer (and by proxy, the others) on the right path through the Sight.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Many of the Forgeborn have a retractable arm blade as part of their Magitek augmentations.
• Blood Magic: The Mage-Emperor used this to curse the Knights to create the Blood-Runes to place a Power Limiter on their Apotheon Artifacts.
• Blue Blood: Even After the End, many of the societies that sprouted up retain some kind of aristocracy to maintain some kind order. There are the Five Families in Dreadmont, the Barons of Yarmouth, and the various rulers of Sethulhmet's slaver states.
• Body Horror: Regularly invoked. Marro is consumed by his own worm-like vermlek demon that possesses him physically from the inside, and then sheds his skin like a snake. The Forgeborn are also biomechanical monstrosities with their skin often torn open and their organs replaced with machinery. Many of the Drowned have developed alien amphibious traits, like gills and webbed limbs.
• Born in the Saddle: The War Riders, who have a sacred connection with their chosen mounts which range from worgs to conventional horses and more exotic predators like their chieftain Rathos's snow leopard, Cleo.
• Born Under the Sail: The Havsbladen are a viking-inspired culture, with one of their three castes being the "Shipmasters" who perfect the art of sailing. In recent years however, the tradition has lost ground on account of Ragnar's fleet's disappearance.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: A seemingly platonic gender-inverted example with the aloof and angsty Pandora and the surprisingly compassionate and understanding Jorg-Hammer.
• Burn the Witch!: A common fate for magic-users, especially in Dreadmont in Eastern Noxerra and parts of the province of Yarmouth in the West. The party at one point witness a fire witch actually being drowned at the stake in Dreadmont by being locked in a glass case and slowly submerged for a crowd to see.
• Canon Immigrant: Although the campaign is played in Pathfinder and generally uses its mythology, several gods and goddesses from Dungeons & Dragons feature heavily in the setting's lore and story - including the Arch-Lich Vecna, the Demon Lord Orcus, Pelor, and Wee Jas.
• Cast Full of Crazy: Almost all of the party members are some kind of unhinged. Pezzack's solution to everything seems to be to revive it as an undead. Pandora has an obsession with death and regularly experiments on people. Merric has a voice in his head. And Jorg-Hammer talks to a goat he thinks can see the future.
• The Caper: The party take part in a heist on Wuulgruf's Vault, the personal treasure chamber of the Margrave Family in Dreadmont in order to steal the key to the Iron Tomb in order to stop the Forgeborn. The heist is botched, however, when one of their crew turns out to be The Mole for the Blood Hunters.
• Catchphrase: Jorg-Hammer always introduces himself the same way;
  • "I am Jorg-Hammer, son of Ragnar the Bold. Nephew of Thor-Axe the Impaler. I hail from the Havsbladen Tribe to the north."
• Central Theme: Parentage and legacy, as well as misplaced reverence for the past and desperation in clinging to it. Almost the entire party are plagued with parental issues of some kind - whether it's Jorg-Hammer's missing father Ragnar who has become a villain since his disappearance, Pandora's mysterious vampiric father, Esther's demonic parentage, or Nymue's hag mother. The party - and many citizens of the wasteland - also revere the memory of the Empire and the time before its collapse, allowing the shadows of the past to continue to fall over the present rather than letting go and moving on.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Glintfang, the blue dragonborn treasure hunter that is part of the crew to steal from the Margraves in Dreadmont. He betrays the rest of the crew to the Blood Hunters, and later on the party find the remains of a former associate of his that he left for dead in the Iron Tomb.
• Citadel City: The city-state of Dreadmont is a small one, being a small metropolis behind tall walls that make it the most secure city in the eastern wasteland. Seraph, the capital city of the Dawn Imperium in the west is a more traditional, bigger example.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The Cult of Orcus in Kethis seemed to torture and kill many of the city's previous inhabitants before converting them into zombies with their magical plague. Their leader Marro, as a ghost, later aids Pandora in torturing one of the nuns that was behind the cannibalism in Marbury - starting by cutting out her tongue, before the scene fades into a Gory Discretion Shot.
• Cool Old Guy: Ivan Havelock, the uncle of the family's matriarch Lady Illyana. He only appears briefly, but in that short time he proves to care little for the pomp and circumstance of the Witching Royale and is blatantly bored by the whole affair. Given the other forcible personalities the party have encountered, Ivan's complete lack of fucks to give is refreshing.
• Combat Medic: Pezzack, as the party's cleric, plays double duty as both a healer and combatant.
• Convenient Questing: The main plot generally puts the party on a path where they traverse from one unfamiliar territory to the next closest one. The campaign is designed to be a "horror road trip," with the party rarely visiting a place more than once.
• The Corruption: Something happened during the War of the Nine Knights that caused Noxerra's magic to become twisted and corrupted - with those who dabble too heavily into the mystical arts often risking insanity.
• The Corruptible: Pandora, on account of her newfound tutelage under demon-worshiping cultist Marro. Also Merric, who is often prone to being driven temporarily insane by corrupt artifacts and turning against the party in the heat of battle.
• Corrupt Church: Subverted with the Church of the Lost Dawn; while generally a charitable and well-meaning organization with several missions sent out across the wastes - it's still corrupt as a result of some of the higher ups like the dhampir Reverend Daniel Becket using the Church as a front for more depraved purposes.
• Cosmic Keystone: It's implied that the Apotheon Shards were some form of cosmic keystones before they were used to create the various Apotheon Artifacts used by the Mage-Emperor and his Knights.
• Cosmopolitan Council: The Council of Dreadmont made up the leaders of the Five Families are a diverse group of different races and cultural backgrounds, including:
  • Viceroy Tyrithia Halstein, a half-elf.
  • Lord Wulfgar Margrave, a dwarf.
  • Lord Saddiq Sato, a human.
  • Lady Illyana Havelock, another human.
  • Lord Zarrath Ozren, a bronze dragonborn.
• Court Mage: The Mage-Emperor started out as a meager court mage to the High Queen of the elven nation of Sol, before he rebelled against her and conquered Sol and the other nine nations that would eventually make up the Empire.
• Crapsack World: Noxerra is generally not a pleasant place to live; slavery is common in certain parts of the world, supernatural monsters like demons and undead often roam the wilds, many communities persecute mages on sight, most religious organizations are either violently dogmatic or are horrifying doomsday cults, the more populated and safer cities and communities often have some kind of criminal underbelly, natural resources are scarce, and even some of the more honorable cultures like the Tribes have their vices and negative aspects.
• Creepy Child: Ingrid, despite seeming to be a relatively innocent young girl, is still a dhampir, with necromantic ritual symbols carved into her back. Reya Havelock is also rendered a creepy child on account of being a vampire's thrall, being a pale, sick child coughing up blood. Merric, while not a child, is often reminiscent of one with his more chipper and immature attitude, and is no less unsettling for it.
• Creepy Crows: Invoked by Pezzack, who as a tengu resembles a large, anthropomorphic crow. And given his penchant for surrounding himself with undead henchman he's rather creepy as well.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Aloysius O'Dare and Jorg-Hammer's duel. The Blood Hunter easily dodges his attacks, and cuts Jorg-Hammer down in two swift strikes, killing him.
• Curiosity Killed the Cast: While no one has died of it (yet), the party, particularly Pandora and Merric, are often drawn to dangerous situations on account of their morbid curiosities.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: This seems to be the case for the Forgeborn, who are all mechanized, blindly loyal fanatics with little free will or agency of their own.
• Cyborg: The Forgeborn are an army of cyborgs augmented with Magitek, with their leader Scourge's body almost entirely being bio-augmented.
• Damsel in Distress: Played straight and then subverted with Ingrid in Kethis, who is kept as a prisoner by the Cult of Orcus based there. This being Dead Evil though, Pandora and Pezzack instead Mercy Kill her. Played more straight later on with Sigrid on Krakengard, who despite being a competent Action Girl is kidnapped by a possessed Arkin-Hook, with Jorg-Hammer and Nymue going to rescue her.
• The Dark Arts: Almost every form of magic has been given this label, whether it's accurate or not.
• Dark Fantasy: The campaign's setting is a blend of this genre and typical Horror. Magic Is Evil (or at the very least commonly seen as such), there's a strong supernatural presence throughout the world with undead and demons running rampant, the organized societies that have risen up range from either oppressive near-Orwellian states or lawless Wretched Hives, and what few gods that are still worshiped tend to be petty, vengeful, or outright evil.
• Deal with the Devil: Pandora makes one with Vecna, in exchange for becoming the owner of the Necros Arcanos. As it's previous owner Marro explains - when she dies, Pandora will become a spirit tied to the book, intended to aid and guide whoever claims it after her, just as Marro has become for her.
• Death of a Child: Early on in the campaign the party encounter Ingrid, a dhampir child who serves as a living sacrifice powering the undead horde in the city of Kethis. While Jorg-Hammer and Merric attempt to rescue her, Pandora and Pezzack manage to outmatch them and instead kill the girl, helping to establish the party's own grey morality and the dark, somber nature of the game as a whole.
• Decadent Court: Common in the upper echelons of Sethulhmet's slaver states, and some of Yarmouth's Barons' courts.
• Deconstruction: The backstory of the campaign's Myth Arc regarding the Mage-Emperor, his Knights, and the Apotheon Artifacts is a deconstruction of a generic tabletop RPG plot. It's the story of a minor court mage rising from nothing with the aid of a band of diverse adventurers as they use an ancient relic to defeat an evil tyrant and then work together to make the world a better place by uniting it under a single flag. Only the story didn't end there, and the predictable happens. An Empire of nine different provinces is difficult to rule, godlike power proves to be corrupting to mortals, and the adventurers turn on each other once they lack a common enemy. In the end, for most of the people involved, the epic adventure was only ever about the treasure.
• Dem Bones: Undead skeletons are a common enough occurrence in the wasteland, and Pezzack makes sure to have a small squadron of them as minions at all times.
• Designated Hero: The party all have their darker aspects that make them questionable as "heroes," but Pandora and Merric are the worst offenders, with both of them having generally selfish and amoral motivations, compared to Jorg-Hammer and Pezzack being Well Intentioned Extremists at worst. Esther notably averts this, being the only PC with a Good alignment and being wholly altruistic and goodnatured.
• Destroyer Deity: The Sunken God of the Drowned - foretold to flood the earth so that the survivors can rise up and worship it.
• Disappeared Dad: Almost everyone in the party has one, to the point that the campaign is sometimes jokingly called "Dad Evil" because of the party's collective daddy issues and missing parents.
  • Ragnar, Jorg-Hammer's father, whose expedition fleet to the west was lost in a storm and is presumed dead. He turns out to have been resurrected by the Drowned and become their leader as the High Trident.
  • Pandora's vampiric father, who impregnated her mother and was never seen or heard from again.
  • Esther's demonic father, who similar to Pandora's father has had zero presence outside of her conception.
  • Nymue's human father that sired her with an equally elusive hag.
• Dungeon Crawling: The party regularly go dungeon diving and tomb raiding, exploring ancient ruins and fighting through enemies towards some specific adversary or Macguffin.
• Eaten Alive: Apparently happened to the dwarf Norden, one of the slavers that captured Merric, at the hands of a wendigo that the party later fight themselves. It seemed that the same fate befell Merric's sister Marissa, though it's later revealed the beast only took her hand.
• Eldritch Abomination: The lovecraftian entity worshiped by the Drowned - the Sunken God. Allegedly banished to a prison dimension in Noxerra's ocean by it's own kind from the "Dark Tapestry" - the dark spaces between the stars where alien creatures that exist outside of space and time lurk. The War of the Nine Knights created a crack in the God's prison that allowed it to call out to the aboleth Ctar-R'yatha, who created the cult of the Drowned in order to eventually release it.
• Evil Mentor: Dr. Von Smythe was one to Pandora, being a ruthless and inhumane scientist who did experiments on living victims. When Pandora claims the Necros Arcanos Marro's ghost becomes one her to her as well, encouraging her to slowly worship Orcus and become as depraved as he is - at one point, instructing her on torturing one of the townsfolk the party capture in Marbury.
• Evil Overlord: The Mage-Emperor became one eventually.
• Evil Tainted the Place: This happened on a worldwide scale, with Noxerra's magic being inherently corrupted and the shadows of the past still hanging over nearly every corner of what was once the Sol Empire's domain.
• The Fair Folk: What are implied to be dark fey are said to haunt parts of the forests of Golgotha.
• Fantastic Caste System: The Havsbladen Tribe is composed of three castes; the Warrior caste who are land-based fighters, soldiers, and hunters. The Shipmaster caste who are seafaring raiders and sailors. And the Healer caste, who are spiritual advisers and medicine men and women.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Havsbladen are heavily influenced by vikings and Norse Mythology, Sethulhmet is intended to invoke Ancient Egypt, and Durkheim is an amalgamation of Tsarist Russia as well as Glorious Mother Russia under the USSR.
• Fantastic Naming Convention: The Havsbladen's Warrior caste name themselves after their favored weapon, typically with their birth name followed by a hyphen and then the weapon. Jorg-Hammer, being one example. Additionally, when a great deed is achieved, the Warrior is granted an honorific descriptor as well - such as Jorg-Hammer's uncle, Thor-Axe "the Impaler," who earned his epithet after impaling a yeti with his axe.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Subverted, as guns aren't exactly common but still in use by a few people in the wasteland who go through the trouble of scavenging for them. The Forgeborn notably have access to mass-produced firearm technology and cannons to demonstrate the technological edge they have over the rest of the wastes, and Esther makes expert use of a sawed-off double barrel shotgun.
• Fantasy World Map: There's the one above, which depicts "the old world" of Noxerra during the time of the War of the Nine Knights, right before the Empire's total collapse. It's still mostly accurate to the world as it is 200-something years later, with some minor differences.
• Flesh Golem: The party fight one in the form of a necromorph composed of several stiched together victims, left behind to defend Dr. Von Smythe's lab in Dreadmont.
• Fortune Teller: The gnoll seer Vixandria in Dreadmon't Witching District presents herself as one. Her possession of the Sight helps to steer the party in the direction of defeating the Forgeborn. She also helps Merric gain some insight over just what Rekuza is, clarifying that whatever the voice is - it's not some mere spirit, and something she doesn't recognize as familiar.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The original party have this dynamic.
  • Jorg-Hammer is the Optimist; for him, people should stick to codes of honor and laws like he does, and there’s always a solution and way out.
  • Pandora is easily the Cynic; she believes in the worst in people and doesn’t see herself or others as being any different.
  • Pezzack is typically the Realist of the group. He offers practical solutions and that’s the extent of his concern.
  • Merric is the Apathetic; he doesn’t care one way or another how something turns out, he’s just glad to be along for the ride.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The original party have this dynamic as well, with Nymue and Esther eventually settling into Temperaments as well.
  • Jorg-Hammer is Choleric, being decisive and often taking the lead in the party while remaining hot-blooded and more emotional than he'd admit.
  • Pandora is Melancholic, being cynical and overtly critical and possessing an introverted, analytical mind while also being astonishingly insecure. Nymue later takes up the Melancholic role in the party.
  • Pezzack is Phlegmatic, being the most socially reserved party member and is blindly idealistic regarding his necromantic vision for the wasteland, while also exhibiting stubbornness on that same front.
  • Merric is Sanguine, being generally easygoing and chipper despite his hardships while also lacking in impulse control and being quite the egoist. His role as Sanguine is eventually taken up by Esther.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: This is the case for the Mage-Emperor and his Knights; in the Mage-Emperor's case he went from a minor court mage of little significance to the ruler of all the known world.
• Funny Background Event: At one point, Merric mouths along with Jorg-Hammer's Catchphrase, seen above.
• Future Primitive: The Northern Tribes, who despite being descended from citizens of the Empire (namely the province of Halestrom), have regressed to being relatively primitive tribals and forming their own cultures without the help of technology and other luxuries, despite their close proximity to more advanced communities to the south.
• Gladiator Games: The city of Kaath in Sethulhmet is built on these, with gladiatorial slaves competing in the fighting pits there in fruitless attempts to earn their freedom.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: How the whole story started; the High Queen of the elven nation of Sol was a mad tyrant who the Mage-Emperor served as a court mage. He eventually rebelled and traveled the world, gathering his nine Knights as allies who helped defeat her using the power of the first Apotheon Shard. After her defeat, the Sol Empire was founded between the nine kingdoms.
• Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death: Shorter than most examples, but Dead Evil isn't exactly a subtle title, being a parody of another franchise detailed below.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Although he was defeated centuries ago, the Mage-Emperor himself is ultimately behind all the conflict that has led to Noxerra becoming the hellscape it is.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The Witching Royale conflict, with the party being hired by the crimelord Dre'Gardde to help him blackmail Lady Illyana Havelock by finding out what she's hiding about her niece Reya. Neither Dre'Gardde nor Lady Illyana are innocent people, but both have good reasons for the party to side with them - with the party ultimately managing to satisfy both parties.
• Grim Up North: The Tribal North in the east. Also the very dangerous Hellmouth is the northernmost region in the west.
• Guest-Star Party Member: There have been a few NPCs that temporarily join the party to assist them.
  • Gaffer, the dwarf survivalist in Kethis who helps the party cross the city to gain access to the church that serves as the the Cult of Orcus's base of operations.
  • The heist crew hired by Dre'Gardde to break into Wuulgruf's Vault with the party. It includes Rowan, the half-elf sorceress that competed against Merric and Pezzack in the Witching Royale. Also along for the ride are Vel and Ven - the two gnoll slavers who were part of the group that enslaved Merric, and Glintfang the blue dragonborn treasure hunter who betrays the whole crew.
  • Kartov, the half-orc Blood Hunter who is assigned as the party's "handler" while they make their way to the Iron Tomb and is assigned to actually help them defeat the Forgeborn.
  • The Krakengard Arc has several that rotate in and out. Kzzartha - a tengu pirate, Sigrid - a Havsbladen young woman, Ysuvara - the Captain at Arms for the Stronghold, Z'yarthox - the wereshark captain of the Mariners - and Shaw, a half-orc pirate and one of Nightport's community leaders.
• Half-Human Hybrid: This being a fantasy RPG, there are plenty of half-human races around. Within the party there's Pandora whose mother was human and whose father was a vampire, Esther who is a tiefling with a demonic father, and Nymue whose mother was a hag.
• Haunted Castle: The Havelock Manor is clearly haunted, as seen by Pandora when she experiences the death of Helena Havelock at the hands of her maddened husband Illyan firsthand via a ghostly vision. It's implied the curse that the Knight of Shadows placed on the family's lineage has had a lasting effect on the family even after they die, their memories lingering behind.
• Hell on Earth: There are certainly several demons and devils scattered throughout the wasteland that have arrived through interdimensional portals between planes, but it's especially bad in the aptly named Hellmouth in what used to be Valtoria, where legions of the hells and the abyss roam free along with undead.
• Helpful Hallucination: When the party are reeling from barely escaping a horde of the undead in Kethis, Pandora is stricken with hallucinations - but one of them is of her mentor, Dr. Mordecai Von Smythe which gives her an encouraging - if characteristically aggressive - pep talk.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The Blood Hunters, and especially their leader High Commander Aloysius O'Dare - who is so consumed with protecting Dreadmont and the rest of the waste from magical and supernatural threats that he borders on becoming an Orwellian shadow-dictator.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Crater is a hidden halfling village, though Trask's slavers and the Forgeborn find and raze it.
• Holy City: Seraph, the capital city of the Dawn Imperium - which itself is a hyper-religious nation state devoted to the worship of its Empress.
• House Rules: Jorg-Hammer's specialized "bastard hammer," which is not an official Pathfinder weapon. Also the Sanity System which is an original composition as opposed to Pathfinder's own method of playing with Sanity Rules.
• Humanoid Abomination: Several monsters - but the state that the party find Sartorius the Knight of Storms in is pretty horrific. He's been transformed into a kind of cephalopodic centaur with his legs replaced by tentacles covered in mouths and his face partially covered in leeching tendrils, with his Apotheon Artifact - the Tempest Armillary - embedded in his chest, hooked into his veins by alien growths in his internal organs.
• Invisibility: Pezzack, among others, makes common and pragmatic use of this spell.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The campaign's overarching plot is one, somewhat, with each individual story arc being its own entity that ties into the general mystery of uncovering the past piece by piece.
• Knight in Shining Armor: When the party find a tapestry in Osmand Stoneward's tomb depicting the Nine Knights, the Knight of Kings is depicted as a rather stereotypical, heroic armored knight.
• Locked in the Dungeon: The party meet the dhampir girl Ingrid in Kethis this way, having been locked beneath the city's church for years, chained to the walls in a cage. The party also temporarily are locked in Dreadmont's dungeon by the Blood Hunters after a botched heist on the Margrave family's vault.
• The Lost Woods: The province of Golgotha - a massive, sprawling forest with little in the way of civilization.
• Lovecraft Lite: There is certainly a shadow of cosmic horror over the campaign's setting, but the party generally have some hope of prevailing against the mortal and supernatural horrors of the world - though even their victories have their consequences.
• Losing Your Head: Gaffer, the dwarf survivalist in Kethis, has kept his ghoulified neighbor's head preserved and alive in a glass tank.
• Macguffin: How the the campaign kicks off; Jorg-Hammer and Merric being sent to find a legendary sword and Pandora and Pezzack are in search of a legendary book of necromancy - both in the ruined city of Kethis. The campaign continues to feature various Macguffins, most notably the Blood-Runes and Apotheon Artifacts that are central to the main plot.
• Mad Oracle: Anyone who possesses the visionary powers of "the Sight," slowly becomes one - with the toll of seeing possible futures taking quite a mental toll. While still lucid, Ysilda and Vixandria both speak in riddles and seem thoroughly detached from reality and more concerned with their visions.
• Mad Scientist: Both Pandora herself and her mentor Doctor Von Smythe.
• Madwoman in the Attic: Reya Havelock thematically serves as one to the Havelock family, her cursed blood disease and status as the Knight of Shadows' thrall being a shameful secret the family want kept secret, so they keep her locked out of sight in a tower in their manor's northern wing.
• Malevolent Masked Men: There are a few examples; the Butcher in Kethis is a cannibalistic cultist in Kethis whose cursed helm covers most of his face save for his inhumanly sharpened teeth. High Commander Aloysius O'Dare of the Blood Hunters wears a white plague doctor-style mask to disguise his identity as an elf.
• Magic Is Evil: Many people believe this is the case. It's generally accepted that the magic of Noxerra is plagued by The Corruption created by the collapse of the Sol Empire, and magic-users tend to be warped and corrupted themselves over time - even if they aren't truly evil themselves.
• Magitek: It's present in some parts of the world, but the Forgeborn make the most use of it, being biomechanical soldiers engineered with ancient magitech.
• Manly Tears: When Jorg-Hammer and Pandora are exploring the Havelock's manor and Pandora experiences a ghostly vision of the past in which she is thrown about the room by spirits and stabbed, Jorg-Hammer starts crying as he cradles her while she bleeds out for seemingly no reason.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Occasionally invoked with the validity of Tanngrisnir's visions. It's also ambiguous as to whether or not Merric actually has some kind of magical voice inhabiting his mind or if he's just insane.
• Multiple Government Polity: How the Sol Empire operated, with the original kingdom of Sol being the technical seat of power but the other eight provinces retaining a semblance of traditional regional governance, at least until the Mage-Emperor became more and more tyrannical.
• Mystical Plague: The zombie plague in Kethis is caused by a curse from the Necros Arcanos, masterminded by the necromancer Myron Marro, who the party defeat in the campaign's first arc.
• Myth Arc: The campaign's overarching narrative is that of the party uncovering the truth about the legendary "Apotheon Artifacts" used by the Knights during their civil war and figuring out just what exactly happened to the Sol Empire.
• Necromancer: There are several in the wasteland, with no shortage of undead servants. Pezzack is one, and regularly raises undead servants to aid aim, with the title of "Necromancer" perhaps being his most prevalent label.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Several characters - perhaps most notably Karrean Graves, who purchases a variety of cursed or corrupt artifacts as a collector. Within the party, Pandora, Pezzack, and later Nymue all have a tendency of Admiring the Abomination and dabble in dark magics out of sheer interest.
• The Night That Never Ends: Some magical event in the past has reduced the amount of sunlight that Noxerra receives, with nights being incredibly dark and there barely being any sunlight during the day, in a kind of constant twilight.
• The Notable Numeral: The Mage-Emperor's Knights, who came to be known as the Knights of Nine. They abandoned this title when the Mage-Emperor turned against them however, and referred to themselves as either "the Betrayed," or the "the Forsworn Guard."
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Averted, zombies are regularly referred to as such.
• Off with His Head!: A regular finishing move of Jorg-Hammer, his eponymous weapon often cleaving enemies' heads clean off.
• Ominous Fog: There seems to be one constantly hanging over Kethis when the party traverse the ruined city.
• Our Elves Are Different: The Mage-Emperor came to believe in the superiority of the High Elves of Sol, the seat of the Empire's power - however it was ultimately their mortality that drove the Emperor mad in his pursuit of eternal life. Essentially, it was the fact that the elves weren't better that led to the Empire's collapse from within.
• Organ Theft: Implied to be a pastime of Doctor Mordecai Von Smythe and Pandora, harvesting organs for experimentation and the like. It seems that their associate Karrean Graves is on the action to some extent as well.
• Parody: The campaign's title is a parody of the Evil Dead franchise. When pitching the campaign, one of the players likened it's grimdark tone to that of the film's on-the-nose title but got the words mixed up and the resulting name of "Dead Evil" sounded even more excessively grimdark that it stuck.
• Patricide: Jorg-Hammer ultimately chooses to kill Ragnar/the High Trident, believing redeeming him to be a lost cause. The decision both literally and figuratively haunts him thereafter.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: After capturing and interrogating the goblin Rook - who was one of the slavers who captured Merric - the halfling sorcerer freezes Rook to death as revenge for his enslavement.
• Point Build System: The campaign uses one of these for Player Character Creation to create a more balanced party.
• Police State: The duergar city-state of Durkheim, in the west. Ruled by the iron-fisted Orrukov Regime, it is heavily policed by a strict and watchful military.
• Post-Final Boss: The party regularly confront a secondary antagonist not long after defeating the main Arc Villain. For the first arc, it's Mersanda the alu-demon wife of Jorrick the Chieftain of the Blood Dogs. For the Forgeborn Arc, it's Aloysius O'Dare, who actually manages to kill Jorg-Hammer and nearly executes the party before he's talked down by Kartov and the Council of Dreadmont.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The undead in Kethis are created by a ritual plague for which the young dhampir girl Ingrid serves a kind of keystone for. She's kept imprisoned below the city until the party find her and Pandora and Pezzack resolve to kill her to stop the plague - but her death doesn't kill the undead and only makes them harder to control.
• Power Limiter: The Blood-Runes are an inversion; the Mage-Emperor placed a blood curse on the nine Knights that limited the power they had over their Apotheon Artifacts, unless they have the Runes to bring the artifacts up to their full power.
• The Power of Blood: A recurring theme, between the shadow of Pandora's vampiric parentage hanging over the story and the central role the Blood Magic surrounding the Knights' Blood-Runes play.
• Prophetic Dream: Jorg-Hammer has them on occasion. At one point he has a dream of Ysilda, Vixandria, and Tanngrisnir collectively warning him about "the White Raven" - a figure who turns out to be the High Commander of the Blood Hunters, Aloysius O'Dare. True to the dream, Aloysius forcibly employs the party's aid in his plan to defeat the Forgeborn, betrays them once they've fulfilled their purpose, and even goes on to kill Jorg-Hammer himself in a duel.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: This is the path that the Mage-Emperor's story took - going from a generic Fantasy RPG hero to a generic Fantasy RPG villain. Also possible for the party, given that alignment shifts are a factor to consider.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Many of the Northern Tribals can be considered this.
• Psycho Party Member: The role seems to shift mostly between Pandora and Merric, with the former being more aloof, scheming, and openly demented and the latter having unprecedented outbursts of unhinged rage.
• Public Execution: The Blood Hunters regularly execute mages and "Darkbloods." When the party first enter Dreadmont, they witness an innocent fire sorceress being "drowned at the stake" as a kind of poetic Karmic Death.
• Punny Name: There are a few instances of this, Thor-Axe, Jorg-Hammer's uncle, being one. Also Pandora's friend and criminal associate, the shopkeeper Karrean Graves (pronounced like carrion).
• Put on a Bus: Pandora eventually leaves the party towards the end of the Forgeborn Arc to more actively pursue both her vampiric father and adoptive father Doctor Mordecai Von Smythe.
• Pyrrhic Victory: A recurring theme is that even if the party manage to defeat whatever challenges and horrors they're confronted with, their victories come at such a high personal cost that they're often rendered hollow.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Slaver Band that captured Merric in his backstory - made up of a sadistic dragonborn, an aloof half-elven archer, two cowardly gnolls, a one-eyed dwarf, and a very skittish goblin. They're a colorful group of minor villains that feature briefly but significantly during the Forgeborn Arc.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Naturally, the party are one - all of them being deeply flawed outcasts in some manner
• Rape as Drama: Only subtly alluded to, but one of Merric's fellow slaves in the Blood Dog tribe is a young woman who was sold along with him and serves as both a healer and "companion" to various tribesmen, hammering home the fact that there is a great deal of suffering present in Noxerra, even among the relatively honorable Northern Tribes.
• Religion of Evil: The Cult of Orcus in Kethis is one, worshiping the Demon Lord who is the "Prince of the Undead." The party also encounter a minor cult to the dark goddess Urgathoa in Marbury - made up of disillusioned former members of the Church of the Lost Dawn (who worship the sun god Pelor).
• Run or Die: The party often find themselves confronted with swarms of enemies they simply can't hope to overcome and are forced to bolt to the nearest (supposedly) safe zone.
• Sanity Slippage: The campaign comes with a homebrewed Sanity System, with certain events or actions causing the party to roll a sanity saving throw and potentially suffer the consequences of slowly losing their minds.
• The Savage South: Sethulhmet, the southernmost region of Noxerra, is easily one the most vile and dark places in the aftermath of the wars. It's a desert wasteland whose culture is heavily built on slavery, various monsters roam the sands, and nearly half of the whole region is basically inhospitable.
• Shadow Archetype: Rathos, chieftain of the War Riders, is one to Jorg-Hammer. Like Jorg-Hammer, he's a fierce warrior with a strong bond to a sacred animal - the goat Tanngrisnir for Jorg-Hammer, the saber-tooth snow leopard Cleo for Rathos - and a strong personal code of honor and loyalty to his tribe. The difference is Rathos is a blatant sadist, and he's essentially what Jorg-Hammer could become if he adhered too closely to an eye-for-an-eye type philosophy and failed to see beyond the immediate needs of his people and his people alone.
• SkeleBot 9000: The Forgeborn's automatons are slender, mannequin-like robots - skeletal enough to be mistaken for zombies the first time the party encounter them. They're described as looking like medieval Ultron drones.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The blue dragonborn treasure hunter, Glintfang.
  • To summarize, Glintfang's betrayal of the party during their heist on Wuulgruf's Vault leads to them being extorted by the Blood Hunters and Aloysius O'Dare to aid in his plan to defeat the Forgeborn. In the aftermath of the Forgeborn's defeat, Jorg-Hammer is killed in a duel with Aloysius to decide the party's fate, and is resurrected not long after - which comes with its own unforeseen consequences. It's also implied by a letter left behind by a skeleton in the Iron Tomb that Glintfang was responsible for rediscovering where the tomb was - information that he at some point passed along to Aloysius. Essentially, if it weren't for Glintfang - the Iron Tomb's location might never have been found, and the Blood-Rune with it, the party never would have been captured by the Blood Hunters, and Jorg-Hammer wouldn't have been killed and revived. For better or worse, for a character who only appeared in one session, Glintfang is responsible for many of the consequences resulting from the Forgeborn Arc.
• Speaks In Shoutouts: Rekuza, the voice in Merric's head, speaks by combining words sampled from Merric's memories as spoken by people he's heard before into complete sentences - creating an eerie, tonally inconsistent, and disjointed form of speech.
• Spirit Advisor: When Marro's spirit is bound to the Necros Arcanos as part of it's contract, he becomes a ghostly adviser to its new owner, Pandora, appearing as a specter only she can see and hear.
• Spooky Painting: The portrait of Illyan Havelock in his study that also houses his haunted journal. Also the portrait found in Pandora's childhood home, depicting her pregnant mother and three older sisters.
• Succubi and Incubi: Jorrick's new, suspiciously beautiful young wife Mersanda is revealed to be an alu demon (a kind of lesser succubus), who seduced him in order to manipulate him into sending Jorg-Hammer off to retrieve the Blade of Calleus for her.
• Supernatural Team: The party qualify as one of these - being composed of "Darkbloods" who are often trusted with defeating other supernatural horrors that are often worse than themselves. The least "supernatural" member is Jorg-Hammer, but even he has some innate power of foresight through Tanngrisnir.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: Subverted with the Blade of Calleus that Jorrick sends Jorg-Hammer to recover at the campaign's beginning. Initially the blade seems to be one of these, but the tribes don't seem to respect its legend all that much and the quest was just a fool's errand cooked up by the alu demon Mersanda so she could take the blade herself. The Blade does later gain more relevance when it seems to have some sort of connection to Esther, with the entity in the sword claiming to know more about her parentage. It's revealed in a vision that Vixandria grants Esther that Calleus was actually her uncle, and was at some point sealed in the sword by her father. The sword does eventually fulfill its final purpose when the party trade the soul within to resurrect Jorg-Hammer.
• The Team Normal: Jorg-Hammer is the closest to this in the party, being a Badass Normal among a necromantic cleric, sorcerer, and half-vampiric alchemist. He's also the Token Human to boot. Esther fulfills this role to some extent as well, lacking in any magical or supernatural abilities - but she is an exotic-looking tiefling.
• Team Pet: Tanngrisnir, Jorg-Hammer's pet goat, who is supposedly a sacred animal that possesses "the Sight," and has psychic, prophetic visions and intuition.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The party have never been a fully cooperative unit, with outright resentment settling in between some of them. Nevertheless, they work together for one reason or another.
• Token Good Teammate: Lieutenant Kartov, a half-orc member of the Blood Hunters assigned to watch over the party. While he's just as dedicated to purging dark magic as any other Blood Hunter, he's far less zealous and grows to respect the party over the course of their time together.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Necros Arcanos, an ancient text written by the Arch-Lich Vecna (an old school Dungeons & Dragons villain/god). Pandora and Pezzack are both looking for it at the campaign's beginning and find it in the city of Kethis, where it's responsible for the city's undead plague. Pandora ends up keeping it after the party defeat the arc's villain, Marro, and makes a pact with Vecna. Marro ends up sticking around as part of the tome's pact, serving as a spirit guide to Pandora until she too will eventually die with it in her possession.
• Took a Level in Badass: Naturally, being a tabletop RPG, the party regularly level up and improve in their skillsets.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Marbury devolved into one when the Forgeborn came and extorted it for slaves and supplies. The townsfolk turned to worshiping the dark goddess Urgathoa and have taken up cannibalism to feed themselves, selecting sacrifices with a Lottery of Doom.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: High Commander Aloysius O'Dare, who sends the party out on the final leg of the journey to defeat the Forgeborn. Once they've served their purpose and won, he doesn't hesitate to demand their execution anyway - and ends up killing Jorg-Hammer in a duel.
• Two-Fisted Tales: The campaign is intended to be evocative of the pulp fantasy and horror genres, like the works of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
• Überwald: Yarmouth mostly has this flavor to it, with a side of Campbell Country and Southern Gothic.
• Undead Child: Ingrid, the dhampir girl in Kethis. Also, to some extent Reya Havelock, who is a vampire's thrall as part of the "cure" for her family's cursed blood disease that she's inherited.
• Undead Laborers: Pezzack's ultimate goal is to raise an army of undead for this purpose - to simply put them to work as agricultural laborers and actually get some universally beneficial use out of the undead rather than live in fear of them.
• Unspecified Apocalypse: It's common knowledge that there was a civil war among the Sol Empire's provinces, but how exactly that war led to the world becoming the wasteland it is now isn't clear to most people. Uncovering the truth of the matter is part of the overarching story for the campaign.
• The Usurper: The Mage-Emperor himself was one, usurping the throne of Sol from the High Queen and then making way for the Empire.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: The Blood Hunters are accused of this in-universe by a few, mostly by those living outside of their jurisdiction in Dreadmont's Witching District. Their dogmatism is heavily questionable, and they're easily one of the campaign's grayer factions - technically being devoted protectors of Dreadmont in spite of their prejudices (which are often somewhat justified).
• Vestigial Empire: The Sol Empire that ruled all of Noxerra became one over time, with its various provinces warring against first the Mage-Emperor himself and then each other until it collapsed entirely, leaving only the wasteland in its wake.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The slaver band led by the dragonborn Trask manage to hijack the Forgeborn's airship and escape Mordenheim before Merric and the party get a chance to confront them. Worse still, they take Merric's enslaved sister with them.
• Villain of the Week: A rare case for the campaign is Seamus Walsh, a werewolf from Nymue's past who turns up in Durkheim as a serial killer - the "Butcher of Blind Alley." The party spend a session or two trying to track him down before confronting him, but he's a small-time opponent and doesn't truly qualify as a typical Arc Villain.
• Wasteland Elder: Ysilda, the ancient seer and elder of the Healer caste for the Havsbladen Tribe. Her visions guide Jorg-Hammer - and by extension the party - on his quest that kickstarts the rest of the campaign after the first arc. The deep one seer Xaal-Tuogurrath on Krakengard is another example.
• Wendigo: The party encounter one during their stay on Kaylen Farm and manage to slay it. When Pandora dissects its body, Merric discovers evidence that it might have eaten both one of the slavers that captured him and his little sister.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the aftermath of the Forgeborn Arc, Merric calls Jorg-Hammer out for wasting the party's time searching for his horse instead of pursuing the slavers that took his sister.
• White Mask of Doom: The gnoll seer Vixandria refers to Aloysius O'Dare as "the White Raven" on account of his white plague-doctor's mask.
• Wizard Duel: The Witching Royale, an annual competition that Merric and Pezzack compete in while in Dreadmont's Witching District, facing off against three other opponents that are slowly eliminated over the course of three rounds. Merric ends up winning, defeating Han Havelock in the final round.
• The Worf Effect: The Drakemunde's dragon, Drak-Vo-Ruul, and their chieftain Dorumarr are killed by the Forgeborn's airship to establish them as far more dangerous than anything else in the wasteland, and the next major villains the party are going to face.
• Wretched Hive: There are several throughout Noxerra. The Witching District in the city-state of Dreadmont is one due to the lack of interest in really policing the district by the Havelock Family. Almost every city in the desert wastes of Sethulhmet is one, but Scarab in particular is a lawless city of thieves, killers, and vagrants. Karstein in Yarmouth has some semblance of a responsible government, but the city is so full of corruption that it doesn't even matter.
• Zombie Apocalypse: This was essentially Marro's plan - to find a way to release the cursed plague in Kethis to the rest of the wasteland so he could have an undead army at his command. The party manage to foil him, killing Ingrid, the living sacrifice maintaining the curse, and then burning the page of the Necros Arcanos with the curse on it.