by Jason Campbell
My players and I began a Dungeons & Dragons 5e campaign in January 2022 using the Ptolus setting from Monte Cook Games (available for 5e and for the Cypher System.). The setting is an enormous fantastic city which was originally the setting for Monte Cook’s home game. The hardcover version comes in at 672 pages. It’s very intense and contains everything from the creation of the world to chaos cults operating in the city. I find that it contains as much detail as you need but still offers plenty of room to tell your own stories. There is a series of adventures in the book but I chose to create my own scenarios. Parts of the campaign story were also borrowed from an adventure supplement from Monte Cook Games called The Night of Dissolution. We have five characters in our campaign, Bright (Harengon Druid, Dre (Litorian Fighter/Wizard), Skarr (Minotaur Fighter/Rogue), Stray (Half-Elf Bard) and Maziem (Tiefling Wizard). The characters are currently at 7th level.
Here’s an outline of our last session, with notes about whether events were homebrewed or in the source material. The characters had been following a mysterious map that would eventually lead to a great treasure, The Machine of the Dwarvish Lords.
[NOTE: The map and the machine were my own creation, but the machine is an artifact of chaositech, a dangerous yet powerful type of item that is neither magic nor technology. Chaositech is part of the lore of Ptolus. The machine is part of the history of the Stonelost dwarves who are a part of the history of Ptolus.]
The characters found that the map pointed them to a legendary creature known as the Sovereign of the Dead.
[NOTE: The Sovereign is a homebrew creation who ruled over a village of the dead in ancient Ptolus. The characters will need to collect another item from the Sovereign to continue their search.]
Meanwhile the characters return to their lair (an estate they inherited from a noble) and meet with a young NPC they’d previously encountered named Iltumar Shon. Iltumar looks up to the PCs as he aspires to become an adventuring hero. They’d heard that Iltumar has been involved with nefarious people and a friend had asked them to have a sort of intervention to save Iltumar. The characters meet with Iltumar and he admits that he has been involved with The Brotherhood of Ptolus. The characters reveal that they’ve heard the Brotherhood of Ptolus is actually the evil cult the Brothers of Venom.
[NOTE: Iltumar Shon is a NPC from the Night of Dissolution supplement. His involvement with the Brotherhood of Ptolus is also borrowed from that supplement. Although we aren’t using the adventure as written, this will lead to a chaos cult which will likely have an impact on an impending barbarian invasion of the city, later.]
Iltumar reveals that he is supposed to meet with the Brotherhood in 2 days and the characters plan to attend or interfere with this meeting.
The next session will begin with the meeting, which is detailed in the Night of Dissolution supplement. Please let us know if you have questions about using the Ptolus setting, or comment with any stories you have about adapting published materials for your own campaign!
