High Druid

The High Druid is the champion of the resurgent Wild, and the spiritual and magical leader of spirits of nature and the elements that were chained by the Empire but are now working themselves free. She might be the great force that shakes the Empire to pieces, or she might be the hero who destroys the destroyers and points to a new way to live.

Quote

“There’s a place for your roads and your cities: hunched tight to the shores of that fangless thing you still call a sea.”

Usual Location

For the first time in ages, the High Druid has established her environs within the bounds of the Empire, in the Wild Wood near New Port and Santa Cora.

Common Knowledge

The High Druid conducts sacred rituals from the age before the gods or the worlds. With these rituals, she calls up the mighty powers of nature. Druids everywhere, in turn, gain this power through allegiance to her. It has been a long time since there was a High Druid who lived anywhere near the Empire. So far as anyone knows, the Druids have been strongest far to the North. But this new High Druid, a young half-elf woman, was born in the Empire and has turned the Wild Wood into her place of power. Her influence is being felt in all the other wild spaces, with effects ranging from increased growth of impassable forest to vastly increased amounts of game in the forests, schools of fish in the Midland Sea, and flocks of birds migrating across the land. Even Imperial officers admit that the High Druid’s influence seems to make the Empire’s lands in the region around Wild Wood healthier. Of course, they are also rightly concerned that it’s a region that would not mind shaking off the Empire’s cities, farms, and crowns.

Adventurers & the Icon

Many rangers and druids have a relationship, one way or the other, with the High Druid. The High Druid herself may or may not be sending agents into the field. Certainly various high- power druids who respect the High Druid are using resurgence in wild power to pursue their own conflicting agendas. Some of these powerful druids have hired adventurers, and others have responded by hiring adventurers to destroy their rivals’ hirelings.

Allies

The High Druid is a force unto herself. She is figuratively half- sister of the Elf Queen, but there’s more sibling rivalry than love.

Enemies

The High Druid challenges the Emperor’s authority in the territory she has colonized. The Archmage has been restraining the tempestuous forces of nature to protect civilization, and the High Druid can feel it in her bones.

History

There usually is a High Druid. Sometimes there are two, but not for long. The High Druid’s affairs mostly concern the wilds, and civilized people know little about them.

The True Danger

Everything will be all right unless the Emperor and the High Druid truly go to war.

Priestess

The Priestess hears all the Gods of Light and speaks for those who please her. She is part oracle, part mystic, and part metaphysical engineer, since she created the Cathedral, an ever-expanding temple with rooms or entire wings for each of the faiths she favors.

Quote

“If you listen carefully, you can hear the world’s song of hope.”

Usual Location

The Cathedral, a towering edifice in Santa Cora, the City of Temples.

Common Knowledge

The Priestess and her followers could be the most approachable and humane of the icons. She clearly cares about most everyone, somehow managing to convert that emotion into action and organization that helps the world. She’s giving religion a good name.

Adventurers & the Icon

When the Priestess selects heroes of great heart to brave the forces of evil for her, she sends them into danger with miraculous blessings.

Allies

The Priestess serves the Emperor, alongside the Archmage. The Great Gold Wyrm is on her side in the abstract, but her followers and his have a notorious tendency to rub each other the wrong way.

Enemies

Villainous icons drive people to the Priestess, where she can protect them. But the Crusader draws people to darkness. His victories are her losses.

History

If the Priestess has come to the land in previous ages, it was in some other form, perhaps an oracle. Even so, she seems to be something new under the sun. Some say that she is this age’s embodiment of the Fool.

The True Danger

As long as the Priestess’s Cathedral unites the people of the Empire, civilization will surely stand.

Dwarf King

The Dwarf King is lord of Forge, the dwarves’ new homeland beneath the mountains. He’d love to reclaim the dwarven Underhome lost to war against the dark elves and the creatures of the deeps. But now that the Empire is stumbling, the dwarves find themselves manning the mountain walls that shield the Empire from the orcs and monsters of the north.

Quote

“In the name of the Ancestors of Adamant, I accept the return of these stolen dwarf treasures.”

Usual Location

Forge, the dwarves’ underground throne city. In rare circumstances he’s been reported seen outside the city.

Common Knowledge

The Dwarf King is the master of treasures, pressing a claim on all marvels pulled from the earth. His halls are filled with legendary marvels. As the Emperor rules the civilized lands above, the Dwarf King rules the civilized lands below. Adventurers & the Icon The Dwarf King has the means and the cause to hire mercenaries to represent his interests or retrieve items that the dwarves lay claim to, whether on the surface world or deep underground.

Allies

The Dwarf
King works reliably with the Emperor, and he respects the ages-old truce with the Elf Queen.

Enemies

When the Elf Queen’s dark elves get out of hand, they are the worst sort of enemy. The Dwarf King has offered a king’s ransom for the head of the Prince of Shadows.

History

There is always a Dwarf King. This one has been in place for centuries, and no one would be surprised if he decided to end his reign fighting on the battlefield.

The True Danger

Everything will be all right provided the Dwarf King does not unseal the Hall of Vengeance and retrieve the legendary Axe of Seven Bloods.

Human

+2 any ability score
Bonus Feat: At 1st level, human PCs start with two feats instead of one. Quick to Fight (Racial Power) At the start of each battle, roll initiative twice and choose the result you want.
Champion Feat: If you roll a natural 19 or 20 for initiative, increase the escalation die by 1 (usually from 0 to 1 since it’s the start of the battle).

As in most recent fantasy games, we like using humans of various ethnicities and styles. Some map to cultures in the game world, while others are part of the magical mixing pot. Six of the major cities of the Dragon Empire are predominantly human (Concord being the exception). Even Drakkenhall, the City of Monsters, has a human majority, along with minorities of most everything else. You can tweak the racial mix of your version of the Empire anyway you like, of course. Our assumption is that the Wizard King ran the first human empire in the area and the Dragon Empire is the second. So far all the Dragon Emperors have been human, though in a genealogical sense it would be possible to have a half-elven emperor.