D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Veridian Incline: Rails of Rust and Ruin

# Magitech# Wilderness# Dungeon# Economic

The Veridian Incline, a monumental feat of gnomish engineering, is a catastrophic deathtrap. Runaway ore-carts thunder down miles of rusted rails, their brake shoes worn to useless nubs, threatening to obliterate the last refuge of the surface world. Veteran delvers are called to navigate this industrial hellscape, not as heroes, but as desperate negotiators in a conflict between the engineers who built the doom and the miners who now worship it. The path to the central brake mechanism is a gauntlet of collapsed tunnels, deranged factions, and moral compromises where the only 'good' outcome is choosing which part of the community to sacrifice.

Chronicle Prelude

The Miner's Respite, a cramped, foul-smelling warren of shacks and tents built in the shadow of the Incline's massive lower terminus. The air tastes of ozone and coal dust, and the constant, distant rumble of carts is a permanent heartbeat. Survivors here are gaunt, paranoid, and divided. The only structures of note are the makeshift temple to the 'Iron God' and the besieged workshop of the Incline's original engineers.

Environmental Traits

The entire region is defined by the Veridian Incline itself—a miles-long, steeply-angled railway carved into a mountainside, connecting a depleted upper mine to a vital lower refinery. A catastrophic failure in the primary brake system has sent the system into a runaway state. Fully laden ore-carts now accelerate uncontrollably down the rails, periodically derailing and causing seismic shocks, rockfalls, and toxic dust storms that threaten to bury the Miner's Respite. The players must ascend the Incline to the 'Heart of the Incline' control station to enact a manual shutdown, a journey through layers of industrial ruin and ideological warfare.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Halgra Steward
A gaunt gnome with deep-set eyes and grease-stained fingers. Her leather apron is covered in diagrams and soot. She moves with a nervous, clipped energy, her voice a low, pragmatic rasp.
High Priest Orin Rustvoice
A tall, scarred human miner with a wild, prophetic look in his eyes. His skin is a roadmap of old burns and coal dust. He wears vestments of layered burlap and rusted iron plates, and carries a heavy, ritualistic staff.
Mira 'Throttle' Vex
A wiry half-elf woman with one milky-white eye and a sharp, knowing smile. Her hands are calloused from a lifetime of pulling brake levers. She smells of axle grease and cheap spirits.
Krickket the Scrap-King
A hunched, clever-looking goblin adorned in a crown of bent copper wire and teeth. His tribe of scrap-goblins chitter around him, clad in armor made from tin cans and old leather.
Fanatic Warden
A massive human miner turned zealot, his body covered in self-inflicted rust-oxide tattoos. He carries a heavy, spiked wrench and wears a breastplate made from a repurposed pressure gauge. His eyes burn with fervent light.
'Vox' the Saboteur
A nondescript, nervous-looking miner with a patchy beard and darting eyes. He wears the rust-ochre robes of a Faith acolyte, but his boots are those of a Steward's engineer.
Cart-Wraith
A terrifying specter of a miner, his body fused with the twisted metal of a runaway cart. He drags a spectral rail behind him, the air around him freezing with unnatural frost and smelling of burnt ozone.
The Last Brakesman
A dying old dwarf, propped against a massive piston in the Heart of the Incline. His breath comes in ragged, bloody gasps. His uniform is the old, forgotten style of the mine's first engineers. He clutches a broken piece of metal to his chest.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Chasm-Fisher Rail-Severing

The Firedamp Cataclysm of Coalholm