This is an old revision of the document!
Table of Contents
Eldritch Earth: Five Hacks Deep
Set in an alternate earth, the heroes create their own expeditions to leave small pockets of safety to explore a wilderness dotted with the horrors and riches of a decadent, fallen civilization. This Lords of Hack 5e/OSR crossover game aims to embrace a “Western Marches” style of play. We hope to use the skeleton of the 5e open-source ruleset, overlaid with the OSR goodness of Five Torches Deep along with our own house rules sprinkled on top for a middle ages “chivalry and sorcery” feel.
The Campaign Setting
This campaign is set in a world we will call “Eldritch Earth” that is a parallel to our own world in the 12th century. Everything in Europe, Asia and Africa is just like our world. However, many of the mythic elements of antiquity are in fact real and the Americas are discovered and colonized much earlier.
The civilization of Atlantis was real, as was the Pacific Continent of Lemuria. Both of these continents sunk beneath the waves in prehistory burying these advanced civilizations. Refugees from Atlantis settled in North America, and refugees from Lemuria settled in South America. Angry with the gods for the destruction of their homelands, the Atlanteans and Lemurians turned to dark sorcery, necromancy and demonology and created nightmare civilizations in the Americas. As Europe grew into the high Middle Ages, these civilizations degenerated further and fell into complete collapse. They left behind ruins crammed with the demonic products of their wizardry, the undead remnants of their peoples, the monstrous products of their experiments and strange artifacts of power and danger.
Centuries later, settlers fed up with serfdom and perpetual war in Europe create small pockets of civilization in North America. One “cash crop” of the English Kingdom (called the Kingdom of Nessex) is gold and artifacts taken from the remains of the Atlantean civilization, making adventuring a serious business. Our campaign opens in 1130 AD as our characters are recruited by the Earl of Jorvikshire, settled in the geography that would be York County, PA in our world.
Character Generation
Characters roll dice for attributes and create a hero from a number of heritages who takes on an archetype from one of the four core classes.
Custom Rules
While this campaign will stay true to a core mechanic that is nearly identical to 5e, this game will include some new crunchy rules particularly around spellcasting and combat.
Social Contract
Please reference the Lords of Hack Manifesto for details of the social contract for this campaign.
Design Notes
This wiki is the collaboration space for the Lords of Hack 5e/OSR crossover game aimed at being a “Western Marches” style of play. It is set in a world very similar to ours in the high middle ages known as Eldritch Earth.
We hope to use the skeleton of the 5e open-source ruleset, overlaid with the OSR goodness of Five Torches Deep with our own house rules sprinkled on top for good measure.