Campaign Premise

Edyn and the Magisters

• Edyn Silvercrown discovered a Netherese magical device that allows him to manipulate chance.
• He created a new school of magic, Magisters, a branch off the School of Divination of which he was a senior member.
• The Magisters use divination to identify possible outcomes, then use a magical Netherese Prism they found to force the outcome they want.
• The Prism allows them to turn improbable outcomes into reality.
• The Prism discards unwanted possibilities, putting them into the Shadowfell and preventing them coming back.
• The Magisters use this for personal gain.

Their experiments have consequences beyond the desired result:

• The Feywild is being drained of potential to fuel improbable outcomes.
• The Shadowfell receives the discarded possibilities.
• The Magisters treat the consequences to both planes as externalities.

The inhabitants of both planes eventually realise something is wrong:

• Feywild: Their world is dying.
• Shadowfell: Their world is filling with discarded people, places and outcomes.

The existing ways between the planes still function normally. Normal inhabitants can use them in either direction.

How an Experiment Works

1. Magisters want a particular capability or outcome.
2. They choose a subject.
3. Divination reveals possible outcomes.
4. The Prism forces the desired outcome.
5. The world experiences the chosen outcome normally.
6. Other possibilities are discarded into the Shadowfell.
7. Prism magic pushes those discarded possibilities away from the Prime Material.
8. The Magisters leave the consequences behind.

The PCs and the Prism

• 20 years ago: Edyn and his wife Garnet experimented with genetic probability on Tikva; many alternate versions of her were discarded into the Shadowfell.
• 18 years ago: Edyn uses what they learned to create Dario and Zindi, his genetically superior children.
• 10 years ago: Edyn creates smaller portable Prisms for his kids and trains them in their use
• 5 years ago: Edyn divines that Tillion is going to uncover his work and destroy it, uses the Prism to send Giles to the Feywild.
• 3 months ago: Edyn divines Nova's father will discover them, causes Click's compulsive theft of his pitons that leads to his death.
• 2 months ago: Edyn and his wife experimented with the Prism in the ruins outside of Beregost, opening a portal to the Shadowfell to learn more about the Prism's mechanism. The floor had carved runes from their work. Inga walked in. Something came through and possessed Inga. Possessed-Inga attacked the Prism and killed Edyn's wife who tried to stop her. Edyn killed Inga and as the creature was about to possess Sahra and kill him, he activated the Prism in desperation and picked a different outcome: himself being possessed and killing Sahra. The broken Prism left him and Sahra in an anomalous half-dead, half-possessed state. It is possible that discarded versions of Sahra and Edyn exist in the Shadowfell and have become different people from their Prime versions.
• Present: Edyn fixed the Prism and is helping his new wife Rosalind's business by sabotaging competitors. He uses his familiar to spy on Sahra, knowing his fate is intertwined with hers but not how, as the experiment made divination on Sahra muddy. She could be an ally or an enemy. Nova sees a possibility of her father alive and kidnapped by goblins. She takes her Dreamglass lantern that can reveal possibilities discarded by the Prism on an adventure to find her father.

The Lantern

• The lantern is made of Dreamglass and reveals possibilities that were discarded.
• The lantern does not have unlimited range. It cannot remotely solve mysteries.
• It can work with a scrying crystal to reveal possibilities at a distance.

Example Magister Incidents

The Paranoid Noble

A paranoid noble believes somebody is trying to kill him.

• He keeps having terrible accidents.
• His guards keep dying.
• The Magisters are experimenting with assassination by probability.
• The guards haunt the Shadowfell.
• The dead guards believe their deaths were accidents.

Possible evidence:

• Arcane runes related to Conjuration.
• Trace ingredients associated with Divination.
• Heavy gouges in floorboards.
• Evidence suggesting a magical assassin.

The Spurned Lover

• A woman asks the players to stop a wedding.
• She knows the groom loves her.
• She knows he does not love the bride.
• Various unlikely events prevent the party from reaching the wedding on time.
• The outcome can genuinely go either way:
  • Families are satisfied. Alliances are formed. The groom is miserable. Or,
  • Families are outraged. The lovers elope happily.
• Evidence
• The Magisters were present.
• The players may catch a glimpse of them escaping.
• They may witness the Magisters using the Prism and see an improbable event occur immediately afterward.

They still don't know who the Magisters are.

Player Characters

Nova

Theme: Dangerous curiosity

• Half-elf.
• From the High Forest.
• Has a Dreamglass lantern.
• Her mother dislikes the way she pursues forbidden curiosities.
• Her father disappeared while investigating the Magisters.
• Her lantern reveals possibilities.
• She travels to find her father and eventually meets Tikva.

Tikva

Theme: Prejudice

• Mostly halfling, with goblin heritage.
• Raised in a halfling home.
• Her unusual goblin traits are part of the Magisters' genetic probability experimentation.
• Many alternate Tikvas exist in the Shadowfell.
• Her father publicly disowned her.
• He secretly supports her by sending books.
• Fighter.

Her father Alden is unusually educated and sends Tikva books rather than money.

Potential subjects:

• History.
• Geography.
• Local politics.
• Goblin history.
• Practical knowledge.

If Tikva takes to the education, it can become a genuine part of her identity and eventually justify proficiency in a Knowledge/Intelligence skill.

Click

Theme: Hypocrisy

• 28-year-old Kenku rogue.
• Wants to prove a Kenku can be more than the stereotypes surrounding them.
• Hates being treated as a thief.
• Frequently steals things.
• Lies even when truth would be easier.
• Pockets unattended objects.
• Is greedy, opportunistic, dishonest and curious.
• Thinks he is clever and resourceful.
• Is often described by others as merely lucky.
• Is cowardly and prioritises survival over honour.
• Wants to prove he can be something other than what everyone expects.

His greatest contradiction: He wants to break every stereotype about Kenku while embodying an alarming number of them.

Sahra

Theme: Survivor guilt

• Living in the past.
• Shadow sorcerer.
• A run in with an experiment in which the Prism broke left her half-dead, half-possessed by a Shadowfell monster.
• Her discarded Shadowfell possibility may still exist.
• She is looking for her father.
• She suspects her father must somehow be a shadow monster. He is not.

Her shadows can potentially take the form of discarded consequences as they draw energy up from the Shadowfell.

Giles

Theme: Extraordinary ordinary

Giles:

• Succeeds without necessarily trying.
• Is supernaturally lucky.
• Is unaware of how extraordinary his heritage and experiences are.
• Is beloved by angels and Fey.
• Appears completely plain and dull to most people.
• Has extraordinary things happen to him and treats them as mundane.

Feywild

• Giles once spent one spring (5 years) in the Feywild working as a gardener.
• It was simply a very pleasant gardening job.
• The soil was rich.
• The plants were exceptionally easy to grow.
• He remembers little that seemed supernatural.
• Giles learned arcane magic from ordinary Fey gardening books. Their gardening methods simply happen to be magical.
• Giles therefore learned magic without necessarily realising he was learning "magic."

Celestial Guardian

Giles is watched over by a celestial angel known as Tillion or the Man on the Moon, a wizened godlike wizard, and a blink dog.

Character Connections

• Nova ↔ Sahra: Both travelling because of their fathers.
• Nova ↔ Giles: Nova seeks mysteries; mysteries seek Giles.
• Nova ↔ Tikva: Nova's vision associates goblins with her father's capture; Tikva challenges that expectation.
• Tikva ↔ Giles: Giles knows Phandalin halfling culture.
• Tikva ↔ Click: Both experience prejudice around their apparent race, but their responses are very different.
• Click ↔ Veyra: Both thieves; society treats them radically differently.
• Click ↔ Vrakith: Potential criminal associates through Veyra.
• Sahra ↔ Maribel: Grief / death / accidental contact with the dead.
• Sahra ↔ Elias: Someone senses something strange about her.
• Giles ↔ Percival: Giles's mundane memory of an extraordinary Fey experience versus Percival's reverence for him.
• Giles ↔ Bernard: Giles thinks he has a lucky dog.
• Tikva ↔ Alden: Public rejection versus private support.