Main Page — Main Index — Share — Comment — Guilded
Amber of the Woods tells of current year Penumaria. Tablelake Arisen, tells of a chapter of Penumaria’s past. As the (shorter than Amber of the Woods) story suggests, it will focus on the lost city of Tablelake, and its return. And the key to that lost city’s existence and return lies inside the psyche of a young man.
Set about seven hundred years prior to Amber of the Woods, this story focuses not just on the young man in question, but on two Celestials: Amaunator Izayoi and a Celestial that will have her origin here, Astarte the Matriarch. Astarte is—in her way to steer clear of the ‘no religion’ rule—the CEO of a company that already has a presence here in Tales of Penumaria: Regal Care Interplanetary. This company will be focused on in the next article, but for now, Regal Care creates health, beauty, and home products that can transform the person using it into an idealized version of them-selves. While during this story, Regal Care is known only to those who
For the record, I didn’t makeup Regal Care and Astarte. That honor goes to Mythical Mistress @ DeviantART, who created the initial form of both company and deity CEO. I was given permission to adapt it to Penumaria, and then work some more into it. (As always, I do provide all the proper credits for the use.)
Like with Amber of the Woods, the main character will have an Evolving Stat Block. That would be that youth, Zachery Riverty. Zachery starts off as an orphaned street urchin being pursued by an evil cultist until he was found by Amaunator. At first, the Angel of Shadows thought he was just bringing home another stray, but the Angel of Shadows will sense that there is more to this kid than meets the eye. What he finds about Zach will give him some clues over Penumaria during the First Age and find a way to bring part of it up from the ashes.
What does that pertain to, how does Amaunator deal with this, and where does Astarte come into play? That would be spoilers.
About Tablelake
Tablelake had its heyday in the First Age. (Refer to the Penumaria Campaign Setting Document for more on these time periods.) Situated next to a natural artesian spring that for some physics-breaking reason that could be attri-buted to Yeshu flicking off atheists, exists on a plateau. That’s how Tablelake got its name. Tablelake used to be an arcane and technological research & development mecca with the largest academy of its time (this is before Winterhaven) and plenty of wizards and artificers researching a multitude of areas and items. A new wonder is presented almost daily, and over time they become something to be taken for granted, such as a city-wide power grid, self-propelled vehicles, transmitted and received signals over the air, and even computing machines.
All that got erased in the First Sundering, as the Force Lords with their armies rush through Tablelake like a proverbial flood and leveled the whole city, leaving no survivors, and then proceeded to throw any knowledge of Table-lake’s existence to the pyres, be it written record, or anyone who even knows about Tablelake, let along step foot there. By the time the Force Lords were finally defeated, even the memory of the loss of Tablelake has been lost.
It wouldn’t even be thought of once in the Second Age if it weren’t for one of the nobles of Tablelake finally getting reincarnated.
About the supplementary documents
It is with Tablelake Arisen where I formed a format that already spilled into Amber of the Woods. Originally, I had it so that the story is in one article and whatever worldbuilding material that appears will go to another article, usually the one following the story. This would come into play if the material made was larger than expected, such as the village of Oakroot, but if the material is small enough, both the story and the worldbuilding will combine into a single document. The next article of Regal Care would be an example of something big enough to warrant its own article.
As with articles that focus on worldbuilding, the four-dimensional spread-sheet format comes into play. First come people, then places, then things, and finally others. There might even be a section on spoilers that might give you an insight into what might happen in the future. There will be an ample spoiler warning before you get there.
Most of the material you find in this small worldbuilding section is the pro-duct of the line ‘Necessity is the mother of Invention.’ Not only for my own needs but also for the characters in the story. Especially Amaunator. By now you noticed that he is not above snatching a machine from another world, or another timeline from that world, which just wasn’t invented in Penumaria yet. He is not above reverse engineering any of these inventions (such as the Linotype machine) so it can be built using current Penumaria technology. He hates doing that for obvious reasons. The possibility of a Flashpoint caused by his actions is always in Amaunator’s mind.
(A Flashpoint, taken from the comic book story of the same name, is a single event in history that was intentionally altered, which changed the timeline tremendously, and the change would often create a dystopic present and an ash heap for a future.)
That is why the Angel of Shadows takes exceptional care when pulling in an item he needs but couldn’t get through normal means. He has to make sure that the impact is as minimalist as ever, trying to account for every butterfly that is anywhere near his presence. He had to set up a safe house away from the rest of the world, melt gold into an unmarked ingot to invest in the host world’s coin to put in a bank, and set up a local figure to do the purchases for him. He did this in more than just Toril, Eberron, and especially Earth, but several other worlds. Amaunator also has a safehouse (as listed in the Story File) in Sigil. He can get there. Officially, Celestials are not Gods.
You can download the PDF of Tablelake Arisen Episode 0 at this URL: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjNYReLtj6OIn3ZhJOwwEw0bU6VU
Paid Tier coming soon.
If you have subscribed to Tales of Penumaria at any time up to now, even though I haven’t started the paid tier yet, you have my thanks. No, really, I could never thank you enough. Even though I intended to make a Paid Tier with the larger projects, such as campaigns, modules, and larger world-building; I did not expect to get one person to part with their money for it. But if anyone actually steps up and supports Tales of Penumaria, it means more than I can say. Thank you in advance for that.
I still have a few more free articles. But right now I’m working on the first campaign of the paid tier, which will involve the first module made for Penumaria, a conversion of The Sunless Citadel titled The Sunken Tower. There will be a couple more conversions before I start creating original adventures in the setting. I just have to work toward that point, but until then, breathing new life into these overworked campaigns every D&D player has played about a dozen times now, would be an excellent start.
In the next articles…
Astarte and Regal Care take center stage in the next article. The one after that will be Episode 2 of Amber of the Woods. Followed by the next Inspiration article, with more from Minsc and Boo’s Journal of Villainy. And eventually the introduction of the first Paid Tier campaign.
Main Page — Main Index — Share — Comment — Guilded
Tales of Penumaria is Copyrighted ©2022 David “David Foxfire” Gonterman, and is licensed under the ‘BY-NC-SA’ Creative Commons License. All Dungeons & Dragons related material is available under the Open Game License from Wizards of the Coast. Follow this link for credits and details on the licenses.