Let’s learn all about the dark secrets of A’ Chiad Acarsaid & The Sea-King. Join Adam as he explores his DireLands fantasy campaign setting. You can learn more about DireLands here: https://eviliv3.com/direlands/
About DireLands Fantasy Campaign Setting
DireLands is a system agnostic, dark fantasy tabletop roleplaying campaign setting. It was created by Adam P. Campbell in 2024. DireLands is set in a land that is in the final century of an ice age that saw the rise of the Witch-Queen who subjugated the three realms’ populations and cast out the demi-human races. The Triumvirate rose in the last century and liberated two of the three nations, but after their victory, they have become corrupt themselves.
Transcript
Cold Open
Ninety miles off the coast of Bressus lies an island shielded by brutal hurricanes, where a rogue mariner culture guards secrets older than recorded history—and a dark curse born from the depths of the sea.
Intro
Welcome to this continuation of my DireLands system agnostic, dark fantasy campaign setting! My name is Adam and in this episode I will be discussing the dark secrets of A’ Chiad Acarsaid (uh KEE-ud AK-ur-shid) & The Sea-King of DireLands. If you appreciate the development of this campaign setting, or the features of other games on this channel, I would like to invite you to consider becoming a patron on Patreon. You can even purchase tabletop roleplaying games or get $10 by signing up to StartPlaying.Games using my affiliate links in the description below.
Details
Long before 1800 A.M. or ‘After Men Arrived from the West’, a legendary fleet of mariners known as the Stèidheadairichean (SHTAY-thuh-ra-ikhan), commonly referred to as the Beàrrta (BEE-och-te) by the first nations people of Faulest (FAW-lest), made landfall on a six-hundred-and-thirty square mile island. They named it A’ Chiad Acarsaid—The First Haven. It was meant to be a sanctuary, a staging ground for a grand enterprise across uncharted waters. But as this ancient culture began to push outward and gaze upon the vast mainland looming on the horizon, a bitter, irreconcilable ideological schism tore them apart.
One group, the Ceannsaiche (KYOWNS-ee-uh), burned with an unyielding ambition. They wanted to march inland, tame the wild interior, and conquer the primitive tribes of Faulest iron and blood. But the other faction, the Seòladair (SHAW-luh-dir), vehemently refused to abandon the waves that had borne them across the horizon. They believed their true destiny belonged forever in the open tides of Gierfah (jur-RAH-fuh) the sea god. This divergence of vision severed the mariners forever. The Ceannsaiche marched onto the continent to forge empires in the dirt, while the Seòladair entrenched themselves on the island, binding their souls to the cold brine.
While the Jhion Order’s grand archives and mainland histories have completely lost the true names and deeds of these original founders, students of this antediluvian age believe the Seòladair have never forgotten a single detail. Because they are the direct, unbroken lineage of those first ancient mariners, they still maintain their own private, secret histories. Through preserved logs, oral chants, and sea-charts hidden from mainland eyes, they safeguard an ancient heritage that the scholars of Bressus naively assume is long dead and buried beneath the dust of eras.
Today, in 10 F.A. or ‘Frozen Age’, the Seòladair maintain an absolute, ruthless grip over A’ Chiad Acarsaid through a sovereign known as the Sea-King. While countless rulers have held the tide-throne over the centuries, the current Sea-King is a man named Frentus Wors. He’s a giant bear of a man, imposing in stature, who loves his drink almost as much as he loves his women. Yet behind his boisterous and hedonistic exterior lies a calculating, vicious strategist. Over his twenty-five-year reign, Frentus Wors has transformed the Seòladair from isolated islanders into a terrifyingly profitable mercantile and naval powerhouse.
Under his banner, fleets of deadly corsairs regularly slip out from the island’s mist-shrouded coves to strike at coastal settlements. They raid the shorelines of Faulest, Quill, and even the heavily guarded shores of Haughlus (HAW-lus), dragging bound captives into the dark holds of their long-ships. Frentus Wors has systematically built a brutal human trafficking network, feeding a thriving, horrifying slave trade between Bressus and Locaston.
To protect this lucrative dominion, foreign ships are strictly forbidden from passing their naval blockade; any unauthorized vessel entering these waters is hunted without mercy. However, the Seòladair scouts continuously monitor the desperate smugglers sneaking through the shadows between the continents. They tolerate these black-market runners only so long as they pay their unspoken dues, but stand ready to strike the very second anyone strays too close to their territorial waters.
Yet, for all their localized aggression, the Seòladair are looking even further outward into the unknown world. Whispers persist among maritime taverns that they maintain secret diplomatic and trade contact with their original homeland across the vast expanse of the Praulix Sea. Furthermore, bold rumors suggest their heavy long-ships have begun venturing far to the south, pushing past the brutal waves of the Ruz Ocean to explore the uncharted coastlines of the southern continent.
But as formidable as Frentus Wors’ corsair empire seems, the island of A’ Chiad Acarsaid itself is an unpredictable, terrifying hellscape. The surrounding sea is violently hostile. Seasonal hurricanes regularly pound the jagged cliffs with catastrophic force, throwing monster waves over the sea walls. Deep beneath the surface, active subaquatic volcanoes bubble and groan continuously, venting plume clouds of superheated gas and spewing fresh magma, slowly expanding the island’s landmass from below year after violent year.
And then there are the ancient, bizarre mysteries hidden within the island’s interior. Deep beneath the rock, sprawling through a subterranean network of flooded, volcanic caverns, sailors speak of a legendary sea dragon’s lair—an ancient, primordial leviathan sleeping in the scalding, pitch-black depths below the tide lines. Meanwhile, high above the surf, where the island’s steep, jungle-draped volcanic peaks pierce through the clouds, lives a reclusive, sentient avian culture. These feathered beings rule the high canopy, guarding their mountainous perches and keeping an eternal, silent watch over the violent corsairs operating on the beaches far below.
Perhaps most ominous of all, however, are the island’s original inhabitants. Driven off the main landmass by the arriving Seòladair centuries ago, these primitive locals were forced onto the scattered, barren islets surrounding the harbor, utterly isolated from the rest of the world. They are deeply attuned to the strange magics of the archipelago and practice dark, potent witchcraft born of isolation and vengeful anger. Their hatred for the Seòladair runs exceptionally deep.
Back in 1710 A.M., during an aggressive push by the mariners to expand their slaving operations into these outer islets, the native shamans retaliated with horrific force. A swift, horrifying wasting disease suddenly swept through the mariners’ ships and shore camps like wildfire—a grotesque sickness universally believed to be a deadly curse conjured by these native practitioners. The biological and supernatural toll was so devastating, rotting crews at their oars and turning entire warships into floating tombs, that the Seòladair immediately pulled back. To this very day, the Sea-King enforces a strict, absolute no-contact policy with these cursed islanders, leaving them to their dark rituals on the outer rocks.
A’ Chiad Acarsaid is a land of profound, deadly contradictions: an antediluvian mariner sanctuary turned brutal corsair stronghold, flanked by dragon-filled ocean depths, avian-ruled canopy peaks, and cursed, mist-shrouded islets. What true secrets do the Seòladair keep from their ancestral homes across the Praulix Sea? And could the terrifying leviathan sleeping in those volcanic sea caverns one day stir to shatter Frentus Wors’ ironclad blockade? Only your home campaign can answer these questions, as the future of these DireLands are in your hands!
Outro
Thank you for watching today’s DireLands Fantasy Campaign Setting episode. Subscribe and ring the bell if you are new to the channel. Don’t forget to click the like button and comment to let others learn about this system agnostic, dark fantasy tabletop roleplaying game campaign setting. I would like to invite you to become a patron on Patreon, remind you that you can join my actual plays and get $10 by signing up to StartPlaying.Games, and even pick up other tabletop roleplaying games using my affiliate link in the description below.
Thank you Creator Patrons Aaron Hardy & D. Robert Handy, Producer Patrons David Galindo & Joe Lyons, and Developer Patrons Chris Androu & Sam Ruiz!
And as always, remember that evil spelled backwards is live, so get out there and Be Evil!