4.0 KiB
type, world, system, status, tone
| type | world | system | status | tone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| campaign | worlds/Eldar | D&D 5.5e | active | intimate mystery, melancholy wonder, creeping unease |
The Hollow Between
[!info] At a Glance World: worlds/Eldar Starting Region: worlds/eldar/geography/the-lantern-moss Premise: A buried place beneath the marsh-country around Briarcross is waking, and the party must decide whether to quiet it, understand it, or bargain with it before the region changes around it. Campaign Shape: Simple central problem, complex local relationships
Premise
The village of Briarcross sits beside old roads, reed-choked waters, and a hill no one claims to own. For generations, the locals have kept to a set of habits they no longer fully understand: no bells after dusk, no fires on the marsh road, no one sleeps on the hilltop during rain.
Now those old habits are failing.
At night, a bell sounds from under the earth. Paths through the marsh arrive in the wrong places. People wake with mud on their feet and no memory of leaving home. A few villagers insist the land is not cursed at all, only returning to what it used to be.
The party arrives just as the village can no longer pretend this is a private problem. They are not here to save the world. They are here to deal with one waking place before its influence spreads beyond Briarcross and the marshlands around it.
The Throughline
The story is easy to summarize:
Something under Briarcross is waking up, and the party must learn what it wants before the region is remade by its return.
Everything else branches from that:
- locals who want the old rules restored
- locals who want the waking place opened
- a small rising faction that treats the waking as revelation rather than danger
- spirits who remember older bargains
- secrets about why the place was quiet in the first place
- consequences that reshape the region if the party hesitates or chooses poorly
Party Role
The party works best as outsiders asked to act where the locals cannot. They may be caravan guards stranded by the changing roads, travelers drawn by the bell, hired problem-solvers, or people with private reasons to answer a summons from Briarcross.
What matters is that they are:
- new enough to ask questions no one local will ask
- useful enough that competing locals want their help
- free enough to choose between containment, investigation, or bargain
Tone
- Local over epic - the stakes start with one village, one marsh, one waking hollow
- Wonder with cost - every useful answer creates a debt, a wound, or a difficult choice
- People first - scenes should turn on trust, promises, resentment, fear, and hope
- Eldar at its best - places have rules, spirits have opinions, old things are never entirely asleep
Starting Situation
The campaign opens in Briarcross after three bad signs arrive almost at once:
- the buried bell rings three nights in a row
- a child returns from the marsh carrying a key made of root and peat
- the village ferryman swears the hill has moved closer to the water
No one agrees on what these signs mean. Everyone agrees they are connected.
Player Characters
- Add links here as characters are created
- Consider ties to old debts, place-magic, missing family, or an unexplained pull toward the marsh
Active Quests
Core NPCs
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/mara-thornfield
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/brother-hale
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/ysa-of-the-reeds
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/tam-rowan
Rising Faction
Important Locations
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/briarcross
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/the-hushmere
- campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/the-hollow-bell