01-07 Shrine of The Errant

Shrine of the Errant is on the eastern edge of Misty Tops, high on a hill overlooking plains of the Ride. It is said that in days of yore a champion on Tempus known only as The Errant, fighting alone,  defeated an army of marauding horse lords here and saved the Dalelands from their outrages. He took 7 mortal wounds but Lord Tempus, pleased by his tenacity in battle, saw fit to give him strength to carry out until last of the foes lay dead. Ten great barrows crown the hill, nine for the slain horsemen  and one in the middle for The Errant. The shrine itself is a plain marble dais on the Errant’s barrow. The hill is fortified with crumbling stone walls and would make for a fine defensive position. Once there was an order of clerics standing guard at the shrine but their number shrank as Zhentil Keep rose in power. Now there are but 3 left - father Elekos (HM, Clr 8) and brothers Pereon and Basilio (HM, Clr 3) his acolytes.

Of the acolytes Pereon was his favorite but the “boy” has gone missing. Elekos tells that he went on an errant quest to the hills some months ago, searching for a ghostly wolf that is said to haunt the northern parts of Misty Tops. He has not come back and Elekos’ worries are mounting. He is willing to pay good price (1000 gp in money, services or goods) for knowledge of Pereons fate, and if the worst might come to pass, his remains to be brought to the shire for burial.

Brother Basilio is younger of the acolytes and far too lax in his devotions to father Elekos’ tastes. The boy claims to come from Phlan but when questioned displays only passing knowledge in the city. His knowledge of the faith of Tempus is shallow as well. Since Basilio is Elekos’ last remaining acolyte he is unwilling to banish the boy on hunch alone and needs for someone to find solid evidence of the boy’s misdeeds. A perfect way would be to follow Basilio on his monthly supply run to the nearby waystation “Fox and Hare” and see what he does there and who he meets. For this father Elekos is willing to give 10% discount for his goods and services. Should the adventurers find Basilio guilty of any wrongdoing Elekos wishes them to mete out any punishment they see fit.

Basilio is in truth a devout of Bane sent from Zhentil Keep to keep tabs on the shrine. The church of The Black Lord aims eventually to send an assassin to rid them of the priest and bring an end to the Shrine of the Errant. At Fox and Hare he meets with his contact.

Father Elekos carries compliment of priestly potions and scrolls up to 300 gp in worth. He also provides priestly  spells (up to 3rd lvl) and counsel.

01-06 Hill City, MN

In the ruins of Hill City, MN a family of farmers toils on their fields, raising a meager crop of tubers and corn. Their walled compound, built on Quadna Mountain overlooking US 169, contains one notable feature - a windmill used to pump water and ground flour is built out of the rotor of an Arizona National Guard Cobra attack chopper that once stood on display in the local veteran’s park.  Other parts of the chopper like the canopy and weapons pods have also found use as building material. With suitable technical know-how the parts could be used to aid building a workable helicopter.The Hill family is naturally reluctant to part with their windmill and will either require a new, better windmill (5 build, 2 weeks) or 8 Food.Lately a pack of Burst Wolves (1 per PC) has been haunting the area, causing harm to the farmers and scaring away game. Dealing with the pack will see the farmers more willing to co-operate with the PC:s, their price demand in food halved.

Scrap value: 1 (max 1)
NPCs: 8 Farmers (Broken Earth pg. 161), 6 children.
Threats: Burst Wolves (Broken Earth pg. 151)

01-05 Malebolge, the City of Order

Deep in the center of an irradiated wasteland a rift in reality has formed and a whole block from some unknown city has spewed forth. This alien city is inhabited by corpulent creatures larger than man with flabby pale skin and unpleasant jowly faces. They call themselves functionaries of Malebolge. Their days are filled with making plans for projects of cyclopean scale, filing forms of mind wrenching complexity and accumulating an archive of otherworldy facts.

One venturing deeper into the block soon finds himself lost in a city without end. Oppressively huge office blocks are arranged in complex geometrical patterns and a hot wind blows rags of partly filled forms everywhere. Hordes of desolate petitioners line the streets, some of whom have queued for an aeon or more.

A truly monstrous office complex rises in the center of the city. It's reflection can be seen in every window, it's looming shadow cast on every wall. This is the High Tower of Bureaucracy. One who manages to find his way to it's halls may endeavor to fight his way through near impenetrable procedures and find the highest office where resides the Archivist. Perhaps he will let you fill the Ultimate Form.

Broken Earth Campaign Map

I found the campaign map presented in Broken Earth to be a bit lacking. It is very hard to tell where anything is supposed to be, rivers seem to go in weird places and locations are off in general. So naturally I needed to make one for myself. I went for simple look. Just four colors and eight map symbols. This one is for the DM and contains all places mentioned in the campaign book plus scap markers for places where one might find ruined towns.

So now I have pretty much all I need to start running the game. 

Broken Earth Campaign Map

Map of Wright Town

Another map for Broken Earth. This time it's one of the likely player home communities and adventuring hot spots, Wright Town. Done in rough and ready style with only a few map markings.

This was my vision of the town, lodged between a raised freeway and rail bridge with most of the surrounding ruins picked clean and turned to farms. The Wright family residence, Wright Towers are nestled in the bend of the freeway, good position for further defensive buildings and a more impressive "family warren" than the renovated pre-war houses suggested in the book.

Wright Town

A few maps for Broken Earth

I recently bought Broken Earth for Savage Worlds. Though I'm pretty excited about the whole post-apo/hex crawl/community management thing I am a tad dismayed about the maps. While the large hex map is okay(ish) the detail maps are just taken from that and scaled up a bit. As such they are not very useful.

Furthermore the campaign starter adventure specifies two maps as handouts but they are not included. These needed to be done before I can start GMing.

John Malina's Map

Jessica Shaw's Map

I'm going to do a series of other maps for the game as things progress and post them here.

01-04 Love is Blind and Carries a Big Stick

Up in the hills skirting the place where Anauroch trail enters the desert proper lives a tribe of orcs. They are a dark skinned, feral breed whose ancestors were pushed south from the Tortured Lands by gnoll invaders. The tribe subsists by small time farming and occasionally attacking caravans on the trail. Some time ago they hit a lightly defended caravan coming out of the desert, with surprising results.

Among the loot they found a locked box that held a live nymph. Her beauty struck many of the tribes literally blind, among them the leader Mugrukh. He fell in love with the nymph and she now rules the tribe with him as an adoring puppet. Those who dissented against the new rule are now outcasts, some of them still blinded. Among the dissenters is the tribe shaman Ernoghu who would gladly see the “devil woman” gone.

01-03 Who Dares Enter the Grove of….Oh Who am I Kidding.

Somewhere in the woods one may find a positively fey-infested grove full of magic and enchantment. Giant mushrooms, brilliant colored butterflies, talking chipmunks, morning dew that glistens like pixie dust - the whole nine yards. The guardian of this grove is an old hermit who has been driven nearly mad by being constantly harassed by the fey folk he is supposed to protect. One can tolerate only so much of  being the butt of a brownies practical jokes or having one’s sleep interrupted by late night frolicing.  The magic of this place flows from Taproot Idol, an ancient stump of some great magical tree deep in the heart of the grove. Should it be destroyed the fey would leave the grove.

In his desperation to be freed from his guardianship the hermit tries to antagonize the characters just enough to get them to destroy the grove but not enough to kill him.

01-03 My Sylvan Lover

A small peasant boy sits on a rock, crying, his cows grazing on the roadside. If asked why he is so sad he tells that “a horseman” took the prize of his herd. If the cow is not returned he cannot ever return home.

What he neglects to tell is that the horseman is actually a centaur. This particular sylvan creature imbibed a cursed potion of love that drove him mad with lust for anything resembling a centaur female. His amorous advances on the tribe’s females soon led to his banishment from the tribe. Since then he has drifted south, wooing anything on four legs as he went. Finally he reached the edge of Misty Tops where he encountered the village herd. He fell madly in love with one of the cows, stole her away and spirited her up the wooded slopes. There he found a glade onto which he built a shrine/love nest of spring flowers and green saplings for his chosen one. Content mooing of the cow can be heard from afar as the sylvan Casanova pampers it with finest grass and clearest spring water.

If the couple is disturbed the love crazed centaur will defend his bride, to death if necessary.

01-02 Pilgrim's Rest

This ancient stone building is built on a low hillock, said to be a burial mound for steeds of horsemen slain by The Errant, a champion of Tempus. Many pilgrims headed for his shrine spend a night here, not that many continue their journey. The proprietor, Bethe of Horse Hill (human female barbarian lvl 3), makes a nice little side business of enslaving lone travelers and selling them to vaegould tribesmen. Two of the rooms have trapped floors that can be collapsed into pits below the hill (treat as pit trap with 20 ft drop). With little on no risk of vaegould raids Bethe keeps a much smaller number of guards than other way stations on the road. She breeds a nasty variety of guard dogs in a dirty kennel yard out back, however.

The slaves who are kept in filthy pens inside the burial mound say that at night they hear moans and scrapings coming from somewhere. Perhaps there is a hidden passage into deeper, forgotten parts of the tomb?

01-01 Nigummu's Tiny Hut (In the Woods)

Travelers tales speak of a great house that lies somewhere in these hills. It's wide lawns, strange orchards and terraced flower gardens are ringed by a tall iron fence with no gates. Silent gardeners tend the grounds, their faces obscured by hooded cowls. All manner of statues line the garden terraces, some fair, some repulsive, all weird and unsettling.

The house itself is built in style not known in these parts, tall glass windows run around it's facade with no visible doors or portals to grant entry inside. It's roof is a great dome of bronze, adorned with florid patterns embossed in the metal. 

This is the manor of Nigummu the Dry Hand, a necromancer in search of everlasting life. In this house he works, served by skeletal beings and guarded by living statues and shadows that live in the walls. To elude his many enemies he has set the manor loose in space and time, only manifesting at this spot for 1d10+2 hours every fifth day.