The Oppidan War

X Worldbuilders:

GM James R

A collection of postcards from the Oppidan cities involved in the war

The Oppidan War was the name retroactively given to an era of high tensions between the five major cities of the Oppidan peninsula. The tensions were present independently of each other, but were used as tools and aggravated by the leader of Jewelspar, Archmage Nimz , in an attempt to throw the area into a full fledged war. Jewelspar's attempts to overthrow the other cities in Oppidan stemmed from ancient grudges held by their millennium old leader Nimz. It is agreed that Archmage Nimz death at the hands of Sick of this Shit was the major reductive force that stopped a realm-wide war from ever occurring.  

The City Relationships

Dardin

• Hates Jewelspar because of their racial history
• Hated by Rwendia because they refuse to recognize the siege or send aid
• On good terms with Granite, whose adventurers often support the troops and hire slaves
• On good terms with Lunas, who are hiring out their slaves

Granite

• On good terms with Jewelspar and Dardin because Adventurers travel to both cities often.
• Uneasy with Rwendia because the Granite adventurers did not take action to prevent Dragonborn siege
• Hated by Lunas because "Heroes" are the enemy of the wealthy.

Jewelspar

• Hated by Dardin because of their racial history
• Hated by Rwendia because they refuse to recognize the siege or send aid
• On good terms with Granite as they offer lots of exotic items and riches, and are fans of magic.
• Is uneasy with Lunas because the rich are suspicious of Jewelspar's history with shadow magic.

Lunas

• Hated by Granite because Granite sees the segregation as a disservice to its people.
• On good terms with Dardin as Lunas sees religion as something that keeps peasants in place.
• On good terms with Rwendia because the wealthy love tourist traps.
• Uneasy with Jewelspar because of it's constant use of magic and Shadar-Kai connections.

Rwendia

• Hated by Dardin because Rwendia publicly shamed them for providing no aid.
• Hated by Jewelspar because Jewelspar threatened to out them using clairvoyance
• Ueasy with Granite because adventurers often times try to "solve" the "mystery"
• On good terms with Lunas because the wealthy love tourist traps.

Major Tensions

Jewelspar's Hostages

Jewelspar consistently kept the upper hand on Dardin by keeping the bodies of the city's ancient dwarf founders in a location nobody would ever think to look: inside of animals inside of cages. It was rumored centuries ago that Erland Nimz had been keeping these dwarves secured on the chance that they would make the ultimate trump card against Dardin or any other dwarf sieges. By simply resurrecting and then "saving" a Dardin leader, they could instantly restore trust and wiggle out of any dwarven conflict. Alternatively, if things were to get rough, they planned to resurrect the dwarves and keep them hostage. In any case, these bodies were Jewelspar's most strategical advantage over Dardin as they antagonized the city. However, rumors of the kidnapped corpses began to spread in the year leading up to Nimz' death.

Dardin's Collectors

A religious group of money-lenders, known as "The Collectors" operated out of Dardin and offered loans at high interest to parties all over Oppidan. However, taking the loan did not just require payback in money, but also in service. If the loan-taker did not follow through with the demands, the Collectors would resort to dark means, including blackmail and occasionally violence. This meant that Dardin citizens were given free reign to enter other cities and beat their citizens under a legal agreement. Such an agreement did not sit well with everyone, especially those who witnessed or suffered the beatings.Because of Jewelspar keeping city leaders hostage and now attacking the city, Dardin tried extra hard to get Lunas on it's side, leading to a very strong alliance between the two.

Lunas' Shadow Criminals

A diagram of the tensions between cities. Red links are hostile, green links are allies, and yellow links indicate unease.

Around this time, Lunas came under attack by a mysterious force known only as "The Shadow Man" (Zierda Cindall). The little intel they could dig up on the rogue seemed to reveal she was connected with the Shadar Kai. Lunas had intel on Jewelspar that seemed to suggest a connection between the city and the Kai, and demanded that Jewelspar lend them aid in their search for the Shadow Man. Jewelspar refused, believing the whole operation to be a conspiracy by Lunas to turn other cities against Jewelspar. In return, Lunas started a smear campaign focused on drawing attention to Jewelspar's inability to provide aid when Dardin and Granite had already provided assistance.

Dardin and Lunas grew close during this war as they had sold convicts as slaves to the wealthy in Lunas who were looking for muscle to protect them from danger of the shadow people. This was great for Dardin's economy, and led to a strong alliance between the two cities (even though Dardin betrayed Lunas to keep profits up. See incidents below.)

Rwendia's Tourism

Rwendia was very quickly rising to become the town with the greatest profits during this era thanks to their very recently reopening and rebranding as a major tourist site. After there was a dragonborn siege in 691 PR, Rwendia quaruntined itself for nearly a year. When they reopened, they claimed that there was a rare and ancient draconic disease that gave people scales and fire breathing powers, called "The Dragonscale Disease". Most people were oblivious of the tourist trap, but leaders of finance in all four of the other cities saw through the trick and did their best to try to reveal Rwendia's scam. These attempts became attacks on the city itself, and Rwendia distanced itself from Jewelspar and Dardin, while sharing profits with Lunas. Granite was uneasy, and even though the city's many adventurers tried to reveal the scam, Granite itself never condoned the acts.

Granite's Adventurers

As Cliffedge had only set up a chapter in Oppidan in the past decade, most of the cities were not accustomed to having adventurers flow in and out so freely, tackling quests and breaking laws in the name of "the greater good". While some cities like Jewelspar welcomed the free-spirited, others like Dardin struck hard against Granite, attempting to ban the city from sponsoring Cliffedge or allowing quests to be taken in Dardin. As the mayor of Granite was previously a member of Cliffedge, he stood strongly by them, and continued to allow the guild to perform quests wherever they were needed.

Spies

Norman Apswitch

A spy for Dardin, Norman opened a restaurant called "Poachers" outside of Nimz' palace, where he operated a small but elite team of infiltrators who got in and out through tunnels under the restaurant. Norman and Dardin discovered Nimz was trying to incite violence in the area, and knew that if Jewelspar fired first, they would have trouble getting others to be on their team. Norman played the role of an innocent Jewelspar restaurant owner who took a loan from Dardin, and then was beaten by a group of Collectors looking to get their money back. The plan worked, and Jewelspar was tricked into firing first after assuming Dardin had beaten one of their citizens.

Killis Goodman (as Zorian Waymer)

Not a spy for the city itself, but a strong force from Lunas, Killis Goodman ran the most powerful assassin's guild in Oppidan, and thanks to adventurers in Granite, he was losing men and jobs. In order to stop the nosy adventurers from peeking into his business, he planned to overthrow the city government by becoming the right hand man of President Orlando. From there, he convinced Orlando to step down from office, and temporarily became the president of Granite. His goal was to fake a plot and blow up the city, making it look like an attack from Jewelspar, but he was revealed to be a con-artist before the plot was undergone.

Saendra Swifthands (Cindell)

A spy for Jewelspar, Saendra was hoping to get out ahead in the oncoming conflict so that she could find the money to buy a cure for her sister's curse. Saendra got herself hired by the council of Dardin as a freelancer, doing odd jobs for the government that they didn't want others to know about. Unfortunately, every quest she was given, she reported directly to Archmage Nimz for.

Paulette Strummings

A spy for Rwendia, Strummings was tasked with infiltrating Lunas' library and collecting as much gossip from the locals as possible in order to help Rwendia's tourist trap meet every need, complaint, and request of the Lunas citizens, while also allowing Rwendia to stay savvy of the other tensions currently facing Oppidan.

Important Events

Dardin Forces Jewelspar's Hand

After Norman Apswitch (see above), was beaten by the Collectors, he approached the city watch of Jewelspar, who then approached Nimz. Nimz planned to send in an envoy of soldiers with Norman to show off to the Dardin locals how the collectors were treating people. The mission was to turn the city against the collectors, and incite some civil violence. However, after the first brigade went into Dardin to alert the citizens what the collectors were really up to, they were harassed by various dwarves and drunk locals. While they had things thrown at them, Norman convinced the brigade to return fire...lethally. Thus making Jewelspar fire the first real shots. After this, the Dardin forces advanced and killed the brigade, the assembly had Norman arrested, and has put laws into order that cut all political and trade ties with Jewelspar. Showing Lunas the events that had ocurred, Lunas nobles pulled together some financial aid, as well as the signing of a document that would later go on to become the OWPC.

Dardin Spooks Lunas, Jewelspar Betrays Dardin

In response to the shadow rogue attacks in Lunas, the wealthy there hired out slaves from Dardin who were muscular and imposing in an attempt to stave off danger. However, Lunas at one point believed it had killed and stopped the shadow attacks. When Dardin realized that it was about to lose a lot of potential profit, they hired Zugs McFlair to join their spy Saendra Cindall in breaking into several nobles houses and causing a scene. Saendra revealed this betrayal to Archmage Nimz, who would then go on to try to stoke the fires between the two cities. Nimz tells her to go along with it until Dardin is making a good amount of money, then let Zugs get captured, revealing the whole sham and collapsing diplomatic ties between the two. Now estranged, Dardin would lose it's wealthiest ally, and a siege can begin to remove the Collectors and start civil war in Dardin. In the Lunas spooking efforts that followed, the bard Anema E. Core summoned a mammoth and had it run rampant through the streets, causing mass panic and profits for Dardin.

Dardin Prisonhouse Explosion

Because Dardin was selling out laborers through its labor camps, some adventurers questioned the ethics of the deal, and over time took to more extreme measures against it. A lone-wolf adventurer known as Brynhild Skaldmiere worked with Sick of this Shit to smuggle prisoners out of the prisonhouse, after which she personally executed the chief of the guard Xeet and used magical explosives to destroy the entire facility from the basement up. Though Dardin was convinced Granite was behind the attack, after they learned Brynhild was not registered with Cliffedge, they put the blame instead on her easy access to magical explosives via Jewelspar's magic mart.