The Celephais Campaign is very loosely based on the "Dreamlands" stories of H. P. Lovecraft, and The Complete Dreamlands supplement to the Call of Cthulhu game. If gamemasters and players wish to read (or reread) some of Lovecraft's tales in order to get a better feel for this setting, the best plan would be to start with the short stories "The Cats of Ulthar," "The Quest of Iranon" and "The Doom That Came to Sarnath." A key concept is that is a fantastic and colorful realm, but not quite high fantasy.
A group of old gamers sat around my table and said:
"Wouldn't it be great if we had a game where we could have constant characters and rotating GM's"
"Yes, but what game? Probably D&D 'cause it's the favorite of some and accepted by all."
"Yeah, but not some ordinary D&D campaign world. I like making new worlds and places."
"We need a map first."
I looked around my huge gaming shelf, and pulled out the Dreamlands book from Chaosium. It had a great map to start with, and some interesting cultures.
"How about this one?" I asked. The group looked around and said "Good. We start with that."
So we took the basic information and map from the excellent Chaosium sourcebook and created a new hybrid fantsay world for D&D. A world based not on pseudo-Medieval (Grayhawk) or pseudo-Renaissance (Forgotten Realms, Birthright) but on the myths of Ancient Greece. Of all the ancient world, Greece is the most well known. So we chose an area and begin to prepare and plan for our new saga.
Celephais itself is a Theocracy on the Eastern shore of the Arcadian Sea. The Arcadian Sea gives it's name to the Arcadian League, a league of six kingdoms joined to protect each other. The Original idea was inspired by the excellent suppliment for Call of Cthulhu titled "The Dreamlands". Here is a scan of the Arcadian Sea area and the known area of our Campaign (copywright by Chaosium).
An exellent site, now defunct, was the Theoi project.
Here is a list of the Characters, both player and non-player.
Most of the adventures take place in the hinterlands of Celephais, in the Naraxa river valley. Here is a map of the campaign area.
A land as enchanted as Gaia has numerous Drugs and Magical Materials.
There are many languages of Gaia.
Here is a list of the Realms of Gaia - the Kingdoms, Republics, Theocracies, Despots, and Khans of Gaia.
Religion is a very important factor in this campaign. The Gods of their activities touch every life every day. They are not nebulous entities on distant planes but divine creatures that live on the same world the players live on. Here is a page on the many Relgions, Cults and Mysteries present on Gaia.
The campaign deviate from the standard D&D Planescape. Here we list the Worlds and and an explanation of what other planes of existence are.
