99 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
99 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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type: campaign
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world: "[[worlds/Eldar]]"
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system: D&D 5.5e
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status: active
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tone: intimate mystery, melancholy wonder, creeping unease
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---
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# The Hollow Between
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> [!info] At a Glance
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> **World:** [[worlds/Eldar]]
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> **Starting Region:** [[worlds/eldar/geography/the-lantern-moss]]
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> **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.
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> **Campaign Shape:** Simple central problem, complex local relationships
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## Premise
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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.
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Now those old habits are failing.
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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.
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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.
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## The Throughline
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The story is easy to summarize:
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**Something under Briarcross is waking up, and the party must learn what it wants before the region is remade by its return.**
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Everything else branches from that:
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- locals who want the old rules restored
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- locals who want the waking place opened
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- a small rising faction that treats the waking as revelation rather than danger
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- spirits who remember older bargains
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- secrets about why the place was quiet in the first place
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- consequences that reshape the region if the party hesitates or chooses poorly
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## Party Role
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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.
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What matters is that they are:
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- new enough to ask questions no one local will ask
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- useful enough that competing locals want their help
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- free enough to choose between containment, investigation, or bargain
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## Tone
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- **Local over epic** - the stakes start with one village, one marsh, one waking hollow
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- **Wonder with cost** - every useful answer creates a debt, a wound, or a difficult choice
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- **People first** - scenes should turn on trust, promises, resentment, fear, and hope
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- **Eldar at its best** - places have rules, spirits have opinions, old things are never entirely asleep
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## Starting Situation
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The campaign opens in Briarcross after three bad signs arrive almost at once:
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1. the buried bell rings three nights in a row
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2. a child returns from the marsh carrying a key made of root and peat
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3. the village ferryman swears the hill has moved closer to the water
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No one agrees on what these signs mean. Everyone agrees they are connected.
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## Player Characters
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- Add links here as characters are created
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- Consider ties to old debts, place-magic, missing family, or an unexplained pull toward the marsh
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## Active Quests
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/quests/the-waking-hollow]]
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## Core NPCs
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/mara-thornfield]]
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/brother-hale]]
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/ysa-of-the-reeds]]
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/tam-rowan]]
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## Rising Faction
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/npcs/the-listeners-below]]
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## Important Locations
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/briarcross]]
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/the-hushmere]]
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/the-hollow-bell]]
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## Session Log
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/sessions/session-01-the-first-toll]]
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- [[campaigns/the-hollow-between/sessions/session-02-the-reeds-remember]]
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