Combining Obojima and Umora from Worlds Beyond Number. (Spoilers for WWW)
tl;dr: I’m planning an Obojima campaign that incorporates Umora lore and themes while taking place on Obojima. The premise is that, after the death of the Witch of the Wandering Isle, Obojima loses its magical concealment, becomes vulnerable to the Corruption, and is eventually discovered by the Empire. An imperial expedition (>!possibly survivors from the Callibel Nautomantic Apparatus incident!<) sees Obojima as a strategic military outpost and begins establishing a teleportation circle, creating a long-term countdown for the players, to decide what to do about the empire and the corruption and gather enough allies to do it. The cosmology matches almost perfectly, no gods or planes of existence other that spirit and physical. The corruption, Ooghmai, the Empire, the great beasts and other elder spirits, the Obojima factions and villages will all functions as possible allies and threats. It's up to the players who they side with and what they decide is the biggest threat. Among the themes will be the threat of war, propaganda, colonisation, non violent resistance, centralisation vs decentralisation of power and risky alliances. But also the more whimsical side of Obojima to make clear what little paradise they are protecting.
Disclaimer: Yes, i will throw a little bit of the canon from Obojima and WWW out the window for my campaign idea. All in all, i think both worlds allow for a surprisingly tight fit.
So far it's more of a collection of ideas. I want to keep it rather sandboxy and the full campaign is going to happen on Obojima. The campaign will still be 90% Obojima, but i wanted some outside influences and more defined threats to the island than just the corruption. Players will be absolutely free to choose their priorities and which direction they want to turn the story. Should they go for a violent route I'm ready to draw inspiration from Ghibli when it comes to war stories and absolutely make it a tragic / bad ending with no heroic winners, only victims of war and people changed for the worse. A "happy ending" could mean expelling the empire, restoring the islands magical protection, keeping its sovereignty and detaching the Corruption.
So why add in Elements of Umora?
- Same or similar Cosmology: Umora has no gods or other planes of existense (that I'm aware of) outside the great spirits and the spirit realm including the "near spirit". It's not explicitly described as overlapping with the material realm as strictly as the Obojima Spirit realm does and is supposedly much more vast (than the physical realm), but that doesn't matter for my campaign.
- Mostly human stories: Both setting focus on how communities, institutions and humans interact and where "Evil" often has some kind of "justification" (even if it's an unethical one). It's never evil for evil's sake. It's also not the super standard fantasy of "go kill dragon", "go fetch magical artifact", factions defined by species (Humans vs Orcs vs Elves...). The Characters are almost all human (The Nakudama could be partial decendants of the Great Bullfrog, >!who will probably not be happy if they somehow hear what happened at twelve Brooks!<). Any Ideas on Daru? Maybe connect them to the Temori somehow. >!(I like the implications towards the end of Book 4 that living spells are essentially spirits already)!<
- Themes: I think the crossover offers awesome opportunity to explore what happens, when a peaceful and completely uninvolved nation (that doesn't even remotely have a centralised government) gets asked to get involved with a World spanning conflict. Obojima is peaceful, decentralised and very in tune with the spirit world. The rest of the world is very much focussed on war, has a few centralised Nations and extremely powerful Institutions, and is either uncompromising towards spirits or tries to Instrumentalise them as weapons of war.
-Witches!: I love the idea of "community witches". So far there have been much less witch characters in Umora (but much more powerful ones), than on Obojima but i think i have good lore reasons for that. In my lore, there was a "Witch of the Wandering Isle(s)" >!in the Coven of Elders!< that has kept her hand over Obojima at least since the Founding of the Citadel (ca. 200 years ago). She basically made it so that noone could find her domain (the island) on the vast ocean and >!potentially had some help from great spirits like Naram, the Wave Lord!<. With her death (relatively recently), that protection fell, also allowing the corruption to latch on to the island, keeping it in place leaving the very peaceful people of Obojima defenseless. There might be more witches in Obojima because A) they are very respected and useful community members and B) Knowledge is shared more freely in Obojima. Also none of the witches are anywhere near the power of >!Indri, Hekea and the others, !<so it balances out. Another point for the "decentralisation of power"-motif in Obojima)
- "Non-high fantasy tech": We already know that the Citadel has become basically an arcano-industrial powerhouse since its foundation. Also, the established, partially magical, railways and "wild west" type technology in Umora lends plausibility to the Obojima 80's Tech.
Story Ideas: I'm gonna have a full ship of imperial soldiers and mages either seek out Obojima or shipwreck there after what happened >!at the Callibel Nautomantic Apparatus !<thrust them out to sea too far. The Empire being the Empire (potentially including a handful of low ranking citadel wizards) would immediately see the potential of establishing a military outpost in the middle of the ocean (think Hawaii). To set up a Teleportation circle is no easy task in Umora (Obojima has straight up omitted the spell so we can assume there are none on the island). The completion of the Circle (in a year and a day of repeatedly casting the spell in the same space per D&D rules), will mark a ticking timer for the players. The decentralised nature of Obojima Society will make it really difficult to raise arms against the intruders. The Empire might offer alliances, or help with the corruption (they'd be interested in getting the island moving again too as a military project, especially including the non-detection abilities, they probably don't know about the Witch of the Wandering Isle tho). Most Obojimans will be oblivious to the fact that they might get pulled in to a devastating conflict or even "just" gain a new Overlord as a colony of the Empire. Some might be sceptical or fascinated by the idea of "outsiders", since all they know is the ocean all around them and maybe a few tall tales about other "islands" from ages ago.
The Empire might also try and uncover some mysteries of Obojima themselves, trying to subdue (greater) spirits >!(clearly not having learned from that mistake)!<.
Other threats / plot points:
- Ooghmai, the Demon Usurper could easily be handled as a sealed away seneschal of the Man in Black >!(like Obulvind later)!<. The Man in Black would have no Dominion over Obojima from where he is currently, since no "Roads", not even Trade Routes lead to the Island. For his purposes >!(destroying the citadel)!< , an Island with such a plenty of powerful Spirits (i.e. the great beasts) would very valuable. Ooghmai might offer their help against the empire when the Party becomes desperate enough or fails to convince enough villages and greater spirits to protect their autonomy.
- The Corruption, will be just as much of a hazard. Detaching the Island might mess with the Empires setting up of the teleportation circle (shifting leylines when moving). Some of the Corruption will remain, but as less of an immediate threat. That would allow especially allow villages / factions for whom the corruption was the #1 priority to now assist in other tasks like reaching out to great spirits or unifying for better diplomatic leverage against the empire. The Corruption might be biggest source of combat encounters, since the Empire Colonists would easily overpower a group of adventurers and a re more of a diplomatic threat or one that needs to be dealt with more cleverly.
- Ruuv and Gaothmai: If i feel like they play too nice with the empire and i need to raise the stakes a little / make the threat of getting pulled into a war more personal, i might involve the other Nations in Obojima. But for now i think having the empire present and potentially a report from the battle of >!twelve brooks!< making it there should be enough motivation to try an not get involved.
That's it so far. Ruleswise i'll allow the witch class for my players (Someone might need to step into the shoes of the Witch of the wandering Isle at some point). Other than that I'll use some of the rules for the Nimble 5e hack.
If you have any suggestions or if i have missed some obvious cool opportunities for connections, please let me know.