"Thousands of years ago, the Builders constructed an enormous monument to their own glory. Using means that are lost to us, they erected a great tower, dozens of kilometers across, stretching from the depths of the earth into the heights of the heavens.

They took up residence within this tower, and used their strange technologies to create lesser species to serve them and maintain the comforts of their civilization. And then, quite abruptly, they vanished, leaving behind their tower and their servant creatures to fend for themselves.

Those servants were, of course, our distant ancestors, and the tower they built is the Tower in which we all live. In truth, nobody knows who the Builders were, why they created us, or why they disappeared. What we do know is that they left behind a boundless hoard of treasures; ours for the taking, if we only have courage enough to claim it." - The Delver's Handbook, 6th Edition, Introduction

Pillars of Heaven is an online tabletop roleplaying campaign that is seeking players. It will be run in text over Roll20, and played in the Valor roleplaying system (with some house rules to allow for loot).

The Tower

This campaign is set within an enormous tower, known simply as The Tower, which was constructed thousands of years ago by a technologically advanced species known as the Builders. The tower is dozens of kilometers across, and impossibly tall. Nobody has ever seen its top. Nobody has ever seen its base. As far as anyone can tell, the Tower stretches on in both directions forever.

Each floor of the Tower is different. Some contain jungles, or rolling plains, or mountain peaks. Others are labyrinths, filled with traps and monsters, while still others contain great engines of unknown purpose. Some floors were created to be one way, but were overrun by a neighbouring climate when the Tower's climate control systems malfunctioned after millennia of disrepair.

The tower is full of danger, from wild beasts to territorial Builder-worshippers to mechanical traps. But it is also, in equal measure, full of treasure; gold and jewels, aye, but also historical artifacts and Builder tech so advanced that it can be better described as magical.

Delvers

The further you travel from Median and its surrounding floors, which have been made safe through no small expenditure of effort and human lives, the more dangerous the journey becomes. But also, the more lucrative. Builder artifacts sell for a pretty penny, to say nothing of precious stones and metals that can be found. More than one technological revolution has been kicked off by the recovery of Builder technology.

The brave souls who journey afield in search of wealth are known as Delvers. Those who venture upwards, towards the heavens, are known as Astral Delvers, while those who descend towards the earth are known as Infernal Delvers. There is wealth aplenty to be found in both directions, and indeed, most Delvers alternate trips above with those below, to mitigate the effect of Time Distortion.

Membership in the Delver's Union is not required to be a Delver, but it helps. Of the services they provide, probably the most helpful is the sale of artifacts on their behalf. Most delvers are not business-minded and have little desire to spend their time hunting for a buyer for the treasures they uncover. Members of the union can bring their discoveries to the nearest Union outpost, where a trained assessor will provide an estimate of their sale value at auction. The delver will receive 50% of this value immediately, with the remaining amount - minus a hefty 20% commission - coming after the final sale. Some delvers prefer to sell their own findings to avoid that 20% fee, while others take commissions from wealthy patrons to seek out specific artifacts, but most simply choose to let the Union take care of the business side and take that immediate payday.

There have been rumors of corruption within the union, of assessors conspiring with buyers to rip off delvers, but no cases of this price-fixing have ever been proven.

Time Distortion

Beyond the traps and monsters and etcetera, the Tower has an additional property that makes Delving dangerous: the higher you climb, the faster time moves. And conversely, the deeper you descend, the slower time moves. Astral Delvers, who climb into the heavens, return to find that hardly any time has passed...but they have still aged beyond their friends and loved ones. Infernal Delvers, who descend towards the earth, return home to find that time has passed them by.

Most Delvers alternate trips above with those below, to try to balance out the effects of the time distortion. But of course, there are those who never return at all. Delve deep enough into the tower, and you will find yourself meeting the survivors of expeditions which set off hundreds of years ago. Climb high enough, and there are rumours of a city of the descendants of a former expedition who, with all that extra time, have cracked the secrets of the ancients’ technologies and wield godlike powers.

Median, The City at the Center of the World

There are many settlements scattered throughout the Tower's many floors, but there is only one true city as far as anybody knows. Median straddles five full floors of the Tower, and is gradually expanding to encompass the surrounding floors as well.

Floor numbers are counted relative to Median’s middle floor, with positive numbers ascending and negative numbers descending.

Floor Zero

Officially, the floor at the very center of Median is floor zero, and the city district contained within it is known as True Center. In practice, however, most people call the floor and the district Midtown, and use True Center as a synecdoche for the city government.

True Center contains the seat of city government. For hundreds of years, the city was ruled by a council of ruling families descended from the city’s founders. Fifty years ago, however, following a widespread famine, the council bowed to public pressure and, in an act of self-preservation, dissolved itself and transferred power to a democratically-elected Assembly. Currently, there are three significant political parties vying for control of the city: the People’s Traditionalist Party, a right-wing party whose leaders are mostly members of the old ruling families, the Liberal Republicans, a socially liberal party popular in the Twos, and the Labour Party, a smaller party which draws on trade unions for its voter base. Power tends to pass back and forth between the Traditionalists and the Liberals, with Labour extracting concessions for their votes on the government’s agenda.

As you may imagine, Midtown is extremely upscale. Only the wealthy can afford a Midtown apartment, let alone own property there. Midtown boasts beautiful parks, cultural centres and museums, and the finest research university in all of Median. If you enjoy the finer things in life, and can afford them, you’ll probably spend a lot of time in Midtown.

The Ones

Although Floors 1 and -1 are very different from one another, they have enough in common that they are often lumped together into a single unit. Both are rural areas devoted to resource production, but each has their own area of specialty. Floor -1 is Median's bread basket, covered in rolling fields of wheat and other crops, while Floor 1 is devoted to mining its mineral wealth and fuel reserves. What they have in common is that both are populated mostly by wealthy landowners and the people they employ to work that land. These landowners form a substantial part of the Traditionalist base, but the Ones also provide a few Assembly seats to the Labour party thanks to the influence of the Farmhands' Guild. The mine owners have thus far managed to successfully resist labor organization, although it feels like it's constantly on the cusp.

The Twos

Floors 2 and -2 were both initially settled for the purposes of industry, but have since grown well beyond that. Floor -2, which is half-covered in ocean (don't ask; as far as anyone can tell it's simply bigger on the inside), was initially settled as a fishing village, to provide delicious seafood to the rest of Median. However, over the past few decades, a number of technology firms have moved into the area, leading to a increased urbanization of the land mass. Floor 2, on the other hand, was developed as an area for industry, and fairly covered in factories, and high-rise apartments containing the workers. For decades, Floor 2 was heavily polluted, but the completion of the Fume Vents, which expel industrial fumes to the tower exterior, have made it much more livable, and lead to a boom in housing construction, as well as an increase in middle-class amenities, including a (smaller, less prestigious) University of their own.

The Outskirts

The five floor comprising Median proper have been completely denuded of treasure as well as traps, but the next few floors afterwards in both directions are mostly, though not entirely cleared out as well. This is frontier land, occupied by the brave and the adventurous, as well as archaeologists from the Delver's Union. There are grants for building on Outskirts land, as well as for people who want to move into it, but there's no mass settlement effort yet, and likely won't be for another few decades at least. The Delver's Union maintains outposts on the outskirt floors, where Delvers can stock up in preparation for their next venture, and turn in their findings for rewards.

The People of Median

There are myriad varieties of people currently occupying Median. In the distant past, the Builders crafted each one to serve them in different areas of their lives. Today, however, nobody is sure exactly what those roles were. There is speculation, of course, and it's the subject of much academic debate, based on physical traits, oral history, and historical documents. But nobody really knows for sure, and unless you're doing a degree in Builder-era history, caring too much about who used to do what is generally seen as unseemly at best.

In the distant past, these different species of humans lived separately, and had limited contact with one another. However, since the founding of Median, this has changed significantly. As many as 20% of Medianites can trace their ancestry back to more than one group; despite their differing appearances and anatomy, the different human species of the Tower are genetically compatible, although conception is often more difficult. The children of such unions may take after one parent or the other, or have a combination of traits from both.

Below is provided a selection of six of the species of human commonly seen in and around Median. Your character may be one of them, or you may invent your own (in which case I as DM will do my best to include them in the pool of NPCs as appropriate), or it may even be that your character is not part of a species, but some sort of singular creation forged for a specific purpose, or recovered by delvers as an artifact, or...you get the idea. Don't be afraid to go wild.

Please note: Your character's species/race/whatever you want to call it has no mechanical implications. There is as much diversity within each group as there are between groups. It's up to you to build your character to reflect the abilities you want them to have. Likewise, feel free to play against type; these descriptions are not intended to be read as universal statements about each human species, but rather a bird's-eye view to help you familiarize yourself with the differences between them.

The Aloi

It's generally believed that the Aloi were created to be the Builders' personal servants. They have four highly-dexterous arms, and tend to be tall (average height of 198 centimetres), slender, and red-skinned. A ridge of bone runs from the bridge of their nose all the way to the back of their neck.

The Aloi are generally non-gendered. Although they do have two sexes, their external appearances are almost identical, and the vast majority of Aloi do not attach a great deal of their identity to their sex. In general, you won't know whether an Aloi is male-sexed or female-sexed unless and until you get them in the bedroom.

The Darman

It's believed that the Darman were created to be the Builders' craftspeople; to do the physical building of the tower and its contents. As such they tend to be tall, with an average height just slightly shorter than the Aloi, and muscular. Two horns jut out from their foreheads, and while their skin comes in all colours, it changes colour towards orange when their emotions run high.

'Darman' means 'child of the forge' in the language of the Builders, and they live up to it; when their emotions are roused, their skin can actually be hot to the touch. This heat is the result of the Darman rapidly metabolizing fat and sugar reserves, generating energy for a burst of strength that leaves them exhausted afterwards. There are even stories of particularly passionate Darman breathing flame, although this is generally regarded as myth.

The Kinder

What role the Kinder played in Builder society is unclear, but it's speculated that they were created as entertainment. They are the shortest of the human species, with the tallest capping out at around 140 cm. Their bodies are covered by a layer of fur, their ears are pointed and positioned on the top of their heads, and they have sharp fangs and retractable claws on their hands.

Kinder are natural acrobats, with powerful leg muscles that allow them to leap surprising distances. They say that a Kinder, launched into the air, will always land on their feet. Actual Kinder, however, tend to disapprove of people trying to prove this hypothesis.

The Kala

The Kala have dry, scaled skin, three fingers to each hand, and an unusually shaped head, with eyes pointing in opposite directions. These eyes can move independently, and a Kala is capable of processing and reacting to images from both directions in parallel, making them exceptional multitaskers. It's believed that the Builders created them to process data on their behalf.

Kala lack the ability to regulate their own body temperature; they thrive in the heat, but tend to get very sleepy and low-energy in cold environments. There's a thriving market in Median for space heaters and other devices to help Kala manage their temperatures.

The Holta

Holta are physically unremarkable; they're not as tall as a Darman or Aloi, but taller than a Kala or Kinder, with skin tones ranging from a dark brown to a pale pink. They are not particularly strong, or particularly dextrous, and they have no remarkable physical abilities. However, they have at their disposal a unique mental power. Holta are born with low-level telepathy, which can be developed into a potent weapon for a disciplined mind. By the time they reach adulthood, all Holta can project their thoughts into the minds of others, and skim surface-level thoughts from the minds of those around them; in fact, during their adolescence, Holta need to learn to filter out the thoughts of those around them. A skilled Holta telepath can do far more, reading memories, detecting truthfulness, even performing mental attacks.

It's unclear why the Builders gave the Holta this ability, but it has been proposed that the Holta were intended as taskmasters over the other servant species.

The Samm

The Samm are the most recent human species to take up residence in Median, and the most unusual. While the other varieties of human are bipedal, the Samm are many-tentacled blobs surrounding a central core covered with eyes and a mouth. Their bodies are extremely soft, and can compress down into incredibly small spaces...which is exactly what the Builders had in mind when they created them. The Samm were created to maintain the Tower's many mechanisms - a task which many Samm perform to this day.

The Samm have their own society which lives inside the external walls and between the floors of the tower. They live among the mechanisms there, and maintain them, just as they have since the age of the Builders.

The other humans only became aware of the existence of the Samm when their construction of the Floor Two Fume Vents brought them into contact with one another. There was a tense confrontation that, thankfully, ended peacefully, with the city government agreeing to pay the Samm for the rights to build the Vents through their territories.

Since then, a number of Samm have chosen to immigrate to the city proper, mostly taking up residence on floor 2. Despite their unusual appearance, scientists have confirmed that the Samm were created from the same base stock as the rest of the human species, and are not fundamentally different from the others.

The Game

Pillars of Heaven will be played in Valor. We will be using some prototype rules for loot and other mechanics that suit the game's flavor. The game will be played over Roll20 via its text chat. The party will be made up of 3-4 players, preferably four.

If you have any interest in playing, let me know by filling in the following form and leaving it in a comment on this page:

Pillars of Heaven