Arcanapunk noir in a world where magic is technology. The continent of Khorvaire has barely recovered from the Last War — a century-long conflict between five nations that ended not with a peace treaty but with the mysterious Mourning, a cataclysm that annihilated an entire nation in a single day. Airships traverse the skies, the lightning rail connects great cities, and dragonmarked houses wield corporate power that rivals nations. But in the shadows of this magitech civilization, spies, war criminals, and secret societies maneuver for advantage, and the cause of the Mourning remains unknown — a ticking time bomb that could go off again anywhere, at any time.
Story Arcs
The Sharn Dossier
The adventurers are drawn together in Sharn, the City of Towers — a vertical metropolis of soaring spires connected by bridges and sky coaches, where the wealthy live in the clouds and the desperate scrape by in the lightless depths. A professor at Morgrave University hires them to retrieve a pre-war research journal from a contact in the Cogs — the industrial underbelly of the city. The contact is murdered before the handoff, and the party finds themselves in possession of a journal containing partial schematics for a weapon that could replicate the Mourning. Multiple factions — the King's Dark Lanterns (Breland's secret service), House Cannith (the dragonmarked house of making), and agents of the secretive Order of the Emerald Claw — are all hunting for the journal, and the party is caught in the crossfire.
The Lightning Rail Conspiracy
The journal points to a hidden research facility in the Mournland — the dead-gray mist-shrouded wasteland that was once the nation of Cyre. To reach it, the party must take the lightning rail across Khorvaire, a journey that becomes a rolling thriller as agents of multiple factions converge on the train. The Emerald Claw plants operatives among the passengers, House Cannith sends a retrieval team of warforged soldiers, and a Dark Lantern agent offers the party a deal: hand over the journal in exchange for official Brelish protection. The rail journey takes them through a nation still scarred by war, past refugee camps and ruined cities, toward the border of the Mournland where the tracks end and the dead mist begins.
Into the Mournland
Beyond the dead-gray mist lies the Mournland — a nightmare landscape where the rules of nature no longer apply. The dead don't decay, wounds don't heal naturally, and the terrain shifts between frozen battlefields and surreal distortions of reality. The party must cross this wasteland to reach the hidden facility, navigating fields of perfectly preserved corpses from the Last War, packs of living spells that roam like predators, and zones where gravity or time behave erratically. The facility itself is partially intact, containing the final schematics and a prototype weapon — but it is guarded by its original warforged security detail, still following orders from a nation that no longer exists. The campaign climaxes with a race against the Emerald Claw to secure or destroy the prototype before it can be used to trigger another Mourning.
Session Outlines
These outlines are for planning reference only. Actual sessions are not created by the template.
Murder in the City of Towers
Open with the party arriving separately at Morgrave University in Sharn, each recruited by Professor Nephret d'Sivis — a gnome scholar researching the cause of the Mourning — to serve as bodyguards for a meeting in the Cogs. Establish Sharn's vertical geography: the gleaming towers of the upper wards, the middle-class bridges and markets, and the dark, smoke-filled industrial Cogs at the bottom. The party descends to a tavern in the Cogs for the rendezvous, but the contact — a former Cyran soldier named Bonal Geldem — is found dead in an alley outside, killed by an Emerald Claw operative who fled without the journal, which Bonal had hidden. The party recovers the journal from a secret compartment, and the session ends with a chase through the Cogs as Emerald Claw agents close in.
The Depths of Sharn
The party must escape the Cogs with the journal and report to Professor Nephret. The Emerald Claw has agents throughout Sharn's lower wards, and the party is followed through the industrial maze of the Cogs — foundries, sewer tunnels, and warforged labor camps. Combat encounter with Emerald Claw operatives (spies and an assassin) in a narrow bridge over a forge pit. Introduce the noir atmosphere: rain-slicked walkways, neon-like everbright lanterns, and the constant hum of the magical infrastructure. When the party reaches Nephret, she translates enough of the journal to realize its significance — it contains research notes for Project Agonist, a weapon designed to channel massive destructive magic. Someone on the Cyran side was building a doomsday weapon before the Mourning happened. Could it be connected?
Factions Converge
Word of the journal spreads. Three factions make contact in a single day. Captain Viorr Maelak of the King's Dark Lanterns approaches the party at their lodgings, offering protection and payment in exchange for the journal — Breland's intelligence service wants to determine if the weapon poses a current threat. Lady Elaydren d'Cannith, a scion of House Cannith, arrives at Morgrave University claiming the research belongs to her house and threatening legal action. And a mysterious letter delivered by an owl familiar warns the party that the Order of the Emerald Claw will kill to retrieve "what is rightfully theirs." The party must decide who to trust, stall, or defy. Professor Nephret urges them to go to the source: the hidden facility in the Mournland.
All Aboard the Lightning Rail
The party boards the lightning rail at Sharn station, bound for Starilaskur and then overland to the Mournland border. The train is a marvel of magitech: elemental-powered coaches gliding along a conductor stone rail at high speed, with dining cars, sleeper cabins, and observation decks. Establish the passenger cast: a nervous halfling merchant, a Karrnathi diplomat traveling with a bodyguard, a warforged pilgrim heading to the Mournland, and a cheerful Talenta Plains dinosaur rancher. Some of these are what they seem. Some are not. The session is investigative — the party should notice inconsistencies, strange behavior, and the fact that at least two passengers are paying too much attention to them.
The Train Job
The situation on the lightning rail erupts. The Karrnathi diplomat's bodyguard is an Emerald Claw operative who attempts to steal the journal during a tunnel passage. Simultaneously, House Cannith's warforged retrieval team boards from the roof at a scheduled stop, cutting through the ceiling. The train becomes a running battle across multiple cars — a fight in the dining car with overturned tables and flying silverware, a rooftop confrontation at high speed with wind and elemental energy crackling from the rail, and a tense standoff in the baggage car. The warforged soldiers fight with military precision, and their leader, a warforged veteran named Bulwark, offers the party a chance to surrender the journal peacefully before engaging.
The Borders of the Mournland
The party disembarks at the last stop before the Mournland — the border town of Vathirond, a place haunted by the war and the ever-present wall of dead-gray mist on the horizon. Refugees from Cyre still camp in tent cities outside town, four years after the Mourning. The party must hire a guide to navigate the Mournland — a grizzled Cyran veteran named Failin who has made dozens of salvage runs into the mist and come back each time a little more hollow. Captain Maelak catches up with the party here, making a final appeal: let the Dark Lanterns handle the Mournland expedition. If refused, he warns that he cannot protect them beyond the mist. A foreboding session focused on preparation and dread.
The Dead-Gray Mist
The party enters the Mournland. The mist is cold, clammy, and disorienting — compasses spin, divination magic returns only static, and sound carries strangely. When the mist clears, the landscape is a frozen moment of apocalypse: battlefields where soldiers fell mid-charge, their bodies perfectly preserved but their eyes open and staring; forests of glass where trees were fused by whatever force created the Mourning; and pools of liquid magic that mutate anything that touches them. Natural healing doesn't work in the Mournland — only magical healing functions. Encounter: a pack of living spells — residual magical energy that has taken on a bestial, predatory form — attacks the party in a field of crystallized soldiers.
The Whitehearth Facility
Failin guides the party to the hidden facility — Whitehearth, a House Cannith research station built into a hillside, its entrance half-buried by the Mourning's effects. The facility is partially operational: everbright lanterns still glow, doors still respond to Cannith sigils, and the warforged security detail still patrols its corridors, following the last orders they received four years ago. The warforged are not hostile by default — they challenge intruders and demand Cannith authorization codes. The party can fight through, bluff, or find alternate routes through maintenance tunnels. The facility contains laboratories, a prototype vault, and extensive records of Project Agonist.
The Emerald Claw's Gambit
As the party explores Whitehearth, the Emerald Claw arrives in force — a strike team led by a powerful archmage loyal to the Blood of Vol, the death cult that controls the Order. They breach the facility from the surface, overwhelming the warforged guards with necromantic magic and animated undead. The party must race through the facility to reach the prototype vault before the Emerald Claw does. Running battles through laboratories and corridors, with the warforged security fighting both the party and the Emerald Claw in a three-way conflict. The archmage uses the facility's own magical infrastructure against everyone, redirecting security wards and sealing blast doors.
The Agonist Protocol
The climax. The party reaches the prototype vault, where they find the Agonist — a crystalline focusing device designed to channel massive destructive arcane energy, theoretically capable of replicating the Mourning on a smaller scale. The Emerald Claw archmage arrives and demands the device, revealing that the Order plans to use it to destroy Breland's capital in a single stroke, reshaping the political map of Khorvaire. The final battle takes place in the vault, a massive chamber crackling with residual energy. The prototype is volatile — stray spells risk triggering it. The party must defeat the archmage, decide the fate of the Agonist (destroy it, turn it over to a faction, or keep it hidden), and escape the Mournland before the facility collapses from the battle damage. The campaign ends with the party emerging from the dead-gray mist, the weight of their decision heavy on their shoulders — and the knowledge that the Mourning's true cause remains a mystery.
NPCs
Professor Nephret d'Sivis
Gnome · Scholar at Morgrave University
A brilliant but disorganized gnome linguist and historian who has spent years researching the Mourning, much to the irritation of colleagues who consider it a career dead end. She wears ink-stained robes, speaks at twice normal conversational speed, and has a habit of forgetting meals when she's onto something interesting. Beneath her scattered exterior, she is genuinely terrified of what she's uncovered — the journal confirms her worst theories, and she knows that publishing her findings could start another war.
Captain Viorr Maelak
Human · King's Dark Lantern Agent
A career intelligence officer in Breland's secret service, middle-aged with close-cropped gray hair and a face that has learned to show nothing. Maelak is pragmatic, patriotic, and not above manipulation — he genuinely believes that Breland's security is the highest good and will lie, threaten, or bribe to protect it. He is not a villain, but he is willing to sacrifice individuals for the greater good, and his definition of "greater good" is narrowly national. He respects competence and despises idealism.
Lady Elaydren d'Cannith
Human · House Cannith Scion
A young, ambitious member of House Cannith — the dragonmarked house that created the warforged and much of Khorvaire's magitech infrastructure. Elaydren is elegant, politically savvy, and haunted by her house's role in the Last War — Cannith sold weapons to all sides and bears significant moral responsibility for the conflict's devastation. She wants the journal to bury it, fearing that if Project Agonist becomes public, it will destroy what remains of Cannith's reputation. Her motives are a mix of genuine guilt and calculated self-preservation.
Bulwark
Warforged · House Cannith Retrieval Specialist
A heavily armored warforged veteran built for frontline combat during the Last War, now employed by House Cannith as the leader of a retrieval team. Bulwark follows orders with military precision but struggles privately with the warforged condition: created as a weapon, granted personhood by the Treaty of Thronehold, and still treated as property by the house that made him. He is professional and restrained in combat, always offering surrender before engaging, but once committed to a fight, he is relentless and extraordinarily difficult to stop.
Failin
Human · Mournland Salvager and Guide
A gaunt, hollow-eyed Cyran veteran who makes a living guiding salvage expeditions into the Mournland — the dead wasteland that was once his homeland. Failin lost his family in the Mourning and returns to the Mournland compulsively, telling himself he's searching for answers but really looking for closure he will never find. He knows the terrain intimately, including its shifting dangers, and his survival instincts are razor-sharp. He drinks too much, sleeps too little, and speaks of the dead land with a tenderness that is deeply unsettling.
Garrow
Human · Emerald Claw Commander
The field commander of the Emerald Claw strike team pursuing the journal, Garrow is a fanatic devotee of the Blood of Vol — a philosophy that reveres undeath as the ultimate form of existence. He is charismatic in a feverish way, utterly convinced that the Agonist weapon is the key to establishing Blood of Vol supremacy over Khorvaire. He is willing to die for the cause, which makes him terrifyingly difficult to deter. His tactical cunning is matched only by his cruelty — he views collateral damage as acceptable and hostages as tools.
Saber
Warforged · Whitehearth Security Commander
The warforged officer who commands the security detail at the Whitehearth facility, still following the last orders issued four years ago: "Secure the facility. Allow no unauthorized access. Await further instructions." Saber has spent four years in the Mournland with no contact from House Cannith, guarding a facility in a dead nation, and the isolation has given him an existential perspective unusual for warforged. He questions his purpose but cannot abandon his orders. He can be reasoned with — unlike most of his patrol units, who are simpler constructs that respond only to authorization codes.
Locations
Sharn, the City of Towers
The largest city in Khorvaire — a vertical metropolis of impossibly tall towers connected by bridges, sky coaches, and flying buttresses, built on a manifest zone that enhances levitation magic. The upper wards gleam with everbright lanterns and house the wealthy; the middle wards bustle with commerce and entertainment; the lower wards and the industrial Cogs at the base are dark, dangerous, and home to the desperate. Rain falls constantly between the towers, and the city hums with arcane energy. Every dragonmarked house has a presence here, and every intelligence service has agents on every level.
The Lightning Rail
Khorvaire's primary long-distance transportation system — a network of conductor stone rails along which elemental-powered coaches glide at speeds no horse can match. The rail connects every major city on the continent, and a journey that would take weeks by road takes days by rail. Coaches range from spartan third-class benches to luxurious first-class cabins with dining cars, observation lounges, and private compartments. The confined space of a lightning rail coach makes it a perfect setting for intrigue — there is nowhere to run at sixty miles per hour.
Vathirond
A border town in eastern Breland, situated where the lightning rail tracks end at the edge of the Mournland. Before the Mourning, Vathirond was a thriving trade hub; now it is a haunted waypoint, its eastern districts abandoned and its remaining population supplemented by Cyran refugees who camp in the ruins of their own cultural centers. The wall of dead-gray mist is visible on the horizon from anywhere in town, a constant reminder of the cataclysm. Salvage companies operate from here, outfitting expeditions into the Mournland for profit and occasionally for truth.
The Mournland
The dead-gray wasteland that was once the nation of Cyre — destroyed in a single day by the Mourning, a cataclysm of unknown origin. A wall of gray mist marks its borders, and beyond lies a landscape frozen in apocalypse: battlefields preserved perfectly, their dead soldiers still standing; forests of fused glass; rivers of liquid magic that flow uphill; zones where time stutters or gravity reverses. Natural healing does not function here, the dead do not decay, and magic behaves unpredictably. No one knows what caused the Mourning, and every nation fears it could happen again.
Whitehearth Facility
A secret House Cannith research station built into a hillside in what is now the Mournland. Before the Mourning, it was a classified weapons development laboratory working on Project Agonist — a theoretical weapon of mass arcane destruction. The facility is partially operational: everbright lanterns glow, doors respond to Cannith sigils, and the warforged security detail still patrols. The interior is a sterile environment of white stone corridors, sealed laboratories, and vault doors marked with hazard glyphs. The prototype vault at the facility's heart is shielded against divination and teleportation.
The Prototype Vault
The innermost chamber of the Whitehearth facility, a massive circular room lined with arcane dampening wards and reinforced mithral plating. The Agonist prototype sits on a central plinth — a crystalline focusing device the size of a human head, pulsing with barely contained energy. The vault's defenses include antimagic fields, animated armor guardians, and a failsafe mechanism designed to destroy the prototype if the facility is breached. Four years of operating in the Mournland have made the failsafe unreliable, adding a layer of unpredictability to any conflict within the vault.
Quests
Uncover the Truth of Project Agonist
The journal recovered from Bonal Geldem contains partial schematics and research notes for a weapon of mass arcane destruction. The party must follow the trail from Sharn to the Mournland to discover the full scope of Project Agonist — what it was designed to do, who commissioned it, and whether it has any connection to the Mourning that destroyed Cyre. The truth may be more dangerous than the weapon itself.
Navigate the Faction War
Three powerful factions want the journal and its secrets: the King's Dark Lanterns want to assess the threat, House Cannith wants to bury it, and the Emerald Claw wants to weaponize it. The party must decide who to trust, who to deceive, and who to defy — knowing that each faction has the resources to make their lives very difficult. Playing factions against each other is possible but risky; alienating all three is suicidal.
Survive the Mournland
The dead-gray wasteland that was once Cyre is one of the most dangerous environments on Eberron. Natural healing doesn't work, the terrain shifts unpredictably, and the Mournland's inhabitants — living spells, warforged patrols, and worse — are hostile to all intruders. The party must cross this nightmare landscape to reach the Whitehearth facility, conserving resources and making difficult choices about when to fight and when to flee.
Decide the Fate of the Agonist
The Agonist prototype is a weapon capable of devastating destruction — potentially on the scale of the Mourning itself. The party must decide what to do with it: destroy it and risk the knowledge being recreated from the surviving research notes, hand it to a faction and trust them to keep it safe, or hide it in the Mournland where no one can easily retrieve it. There is no perfect answer, and every choice has consequences that will echo across Khorvaire.
Encounters
Ambush in the Cogs
Emerald Claw agents corner the party on a narrow bridge spanning a forge pit in Sharn's Cogs district. The bridge is slick with condensation, the air thick with smoke and heat from the elemental-powered forges below. The lead operative is a trained assassin who strikes from the shadows, while spy operatives block the exits and attempt to corner the party. The forge pit below is a lethal hazard, and the industrial machinery provides both cover and environmental dangers — steam vents, moving gears, and molten metal channels.
Battle on the Lightning Rail
House Cannith's warforged retrieval team breaches the lightning rail from the roof, cutting through the ceiling of the baggage car. The battle rages across multiple coaches — overturned tables in the dining car, passengers screaming in the corridors, and a rooftop confrontation at high speed where the wind threatens to sweep combatants off the train. The warforged soldiers fight with coordinated military tactics, and their leader Bulwark is a formidable opponent who uses the confined space to his advantage, blocking corridors with his armored body.
Living Spells in the Mournland
Crossing a battlefield of crystallized soldiers in the Mournland, the party is attacked by living spells — residual magical energy that has coalesced into predatory forms. A living cloudkill drifts toward the party as a toxic green mass, while a living lightning bolt zigzags between the glass trees with crackling hunger. These entities are mindless but attracted to magical energy, and spellcasting in their vicinity risks drawing more of them. The surreal Mournland landscape provides no natural cover, and the crystallized soldiers shatter unpredictably underfoot.
The Emerald Claw's Final Assault
The Emerald Claw archmage Garrow leads his strike team into the Whitehearth facility for a final confrontation in the prototype vault. Garrow is a powerful spellcaster who combines arcane magic with Blood of Vol necromancy, raising fallen combatants as temporary undead allies. The vault's arcane dampening makes high-level spells unpredictable, and the Agonist prototype on its plinth pulses dangerously with each stray spell that strikes near it. The fight is a desperate, close-quarters battle where the stakes are not just survival but the fate of a superweapon.
Factions
The King's Dark Lanterns
Lawful Neutral
Breland's elite intelligence service, operating under the authority of King Boranel. The Dark Lanterns handle espionage, counterintelligence, and covert operations throughout Khorvaire, staffed by trained agents who are part spy, part soldier, and part diplomat. They are loyal to Breland above all else and view the post-war peace as fragile — any weapon that could restart the conflict is a threat to be neutralized, preferably by acquiring it for Breland. Their methods are ruthless but not evil; they see themselves as the thin line between civilization and chaos.
House Cannith
Neutral
The dragonmarked house of making — artificers, engineers, and manufacturers who created the warforged, the lightning rail, and much of Khorvaire's magitech infrastructure. Cannith sold weapons and war machines to all five nations during the Last War, making them both indispensable and deeply complicit in the conflict's devastation. The Mourning destroyed their headquarters in Cyre, and the house has since fractured into three competing branches. They want Project Agonist buried to protect their reputation, but some within the house see it as leverage in the internal power struggle.
The Order of the Emerald Claw
Neutral Evil
A militant order officially disbanded by Karrnath but operating as a covert terrorist organization throughout Khorvaire. They serve the Blood of Vol — a philosophy that reveres the divinity within mortal blood and views undeath as the ultimate expression of self-mastery. The Emerald Claw seeks weapons of mass destruction to destabilize the post-war peace and create conditions for Blood of Vol ascendancy. Their operatives are fanatical, well-trained, and willing to die for the cause, making them among the most dangerous adversaries on the continent.
The Cyran Survivors
Neutral Good
The displaced people of Cyre — the nation destroyed by the Mourning — who now live as refugees across Khorvaire, clinging to their cultural identity in tent cities and borrowed rooms. They have no nation, no army, and no political power, but they have a burning need for answers: what caused the Mourning, and could it have been prevented? Some Cyran survivors have become salvagers, making dangerous runs into the Mournland to recover treasures from their former homes. Others have joined radical movements, willing to do anything to reclaim or avenge their lost homeland.
Recommended Characters
Pre-built characters designed for this campaign setting. Create them separately from the character templates page.
Vex Lantern
Human · Rogue · Level 4
A former agent of the King's Dark Lanterns — Breland's elite intelligence service — who went rogue after the Treaty of Thronehold. Vex uses a blend of arcane tricks and espionage tradecraft to navigate the shadowy underworld of post-war Khorvaire.
Sergeant Dolgrim Mroranon
Dwarf · Cleric · Level 4
A dwarf field medic who served with Breland's army during the Last War and now struggles with the aftermath. Dolgrim channeled his faith in the Sovereign Host into healing magic that saved hundreds of lives on the battlefield, but the horrors he witnessed left deep scars.
Use This Template
Create a new campaign pre-populated with all the arcs, NPCs, locations, quests, encounters, and factions from this template.