The Secret Keepers

transformed into an azurin in the process of shattering the Wellspring. Dusklings, too, make their way to the world from whatever plane they call home. The fi rst incarnum-wielding characters have new abilities to explore, but they also must cope with the scarcity of incarnum-related resources. For instance, the incarnum items described in Chapter 5 might have to be crafted by the characters themselves, or discovered within ruins dating back to a time before the establishment of the Wellspring.

CAMPAIGN ARC: THE SECRET KEEPERS

Another approach to bringing incarnum into your campaign is to assert that it has always been present but has gone unnoticed by the masses or been kept secret through your world’s entire history—until now. How could it go unnoticed for so long? Perhaps it was discovered and implemented by a different culture far from the center of action in your campaign. If you’re running a game focused in the North of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, perhaps incarnum has been used for years in Durpar and Estagund, far away to the south and east. Or perhaps those who use incarnum are members of a tiny cabal sworn to utter secrecy about the nature of their craft. In the EBERRON setting, they might be a working group of an organization such as the Twelve, allowing characters with ties to the Twelve to earn the chance to become initiated into this secretive cabal. Imagine that incarnum has always been a part of your world, but its mysteries are hidden away in dusty tomes buried in ancient libraries, awaiting discovery by a group of explorers or treasure seekers. Incarnum occasionally makes its presence known, but few possess the understanding required to distinguish an incarnum wraith from a more mundane wraith or to differentiate the lost from the simply mad or possessed. Azurins are occasionally born among human societies, and travelers sometimes return from farranging expeditions with descriptions of skarns and rilkans, but meldshaping remains virtually unknown. In recent years, a cabal of erudite scholars has developed an interest in these widely scattered but apparently related phenomena. This cabal, known as the Society of the Learned, begins a scholarly campaign to uncover the secrets of incarnum and handsomely pays adventuring parties who bring them tomes containing such secrets. Unfortunately, the actions of the Society bring them (and the PCs, if they undertake missions at the Society’s behest) into confl ict with a secretive order of meldshapers known as the Azure Sentinels. This tiny organization has actively preserved the knowledge of incarnum from ancient times down to the present, while going to great lengths to keep that knowledge utterly secret from anyone outside its own membership. Members of the Sentinels include incarnates posing as clerics within religious orders and soulborn hiding within orders of knights and paladins, as well as umbral disciples and witchborn binders who serve as assassins for the order. Quickly noticing the increased efforts of the Society of the Learned, the Azure Sentinels step up their own efforts to keep this knowledge out of the hands of outsiders, and they begin offering their own bounties for ancient tomes. Initially, the player characters might be contacted by either organization and hired to retrieve lost tomes from ancient ruins. If it suits your preferred style of play, these adventures can be very straightforward: The PCs enter a dungeon, fi ght its denizens, defeat the evil opponents (members of the organization they don’t work for), and return to their benefi cent employers with the tomes. The element of racing with an opposing force to recover an item that both groups seek can create a high level of tension and excitement in these adventures. You might also consider a more complicated possibility: The Society of the Learned puts the word out that it is seeking the Tome of Murthien the Soul-Render, a book of ancient lore last seen in the Temple of the Nineteen Stars before it was overrun by the Darkling Horde. This news spreads primarily through scholarly circles and makes its way to a PC wizard through learned connections. At the same time, the Azure Sentinels make inquiries about hiring adventurers to enter the ruined Temple of the Nineteen Stars, and word reaches the PCs through the underworld connections of the party’s rogue. Lacking more specifi c information, the PCs decide to take the job, believing that they are accepting a commission from a single employer. When they discover the Tome of Murthien the Soul-Render, however, they have to decide what to do with it, lacking any real information about either organization. Perhaps they simply decide to keep the Tome for themselves, plumbing its secrets but earning the enmity of both organizations. A further twist is that neither organization is clearly good or evil. The Society of the Learned is motivated primarily by a thirst for knowledge. Many scholars among its ranks seek this knowledge for benevolent reasons or just for knowledge’s