The Scarab Ascendant - A D&D 5e Dark High-Fantasy Campaign of Forbidden Power, Political Upheaval, and Universal Secrets: Session 0

The Valedran Imperium is beginning to crack. For centuries, it has stood as a realm of wealth, magic, trade, and military power. Its cities are crowded with merchants, scholars, artificers, priests, soldiers, nobles, thieves, and dreamers. Its roads carry goods from distant kingdoms. Its libraries hum with arcane discovery. Its forges ring with invention. But beneath the prosperity, the realm is unstable. The monarchy has been weakened by scandal, death, and political manoeuvring. The young king sits in “protective custody”, while the Guild Court grows richer, bolder, and more powerful. Border tensions are rising. Soldiers in black uniforms move through the capital after dark. And people are disappearing. Sailors, labourers, scholars, prisoners, gladiators, and travellers have all vanished without explanation. Some are taken from taverns. Some from jail cells. Some from their own beds. Then it happens to you. You wake in a hospital ward, your memory fuzzy. The room is full of unconscious strangers. The air stinks of chemicals, sickness, and old blood. Your body is weak. Your thoughts are fractured. Your chest burns. Looking down, you see a golden scarab fused into your flesh. Its metal legs dig beneath your skin. Black veins spread from it across your chest. Somewhere inside the thing, something pulses. Most people implanted with the scarab die. You survived. Now impossible power is beginning to wake inside you — who did this to you and why? These answers will have to wait, first you need to get out of here.