Isles of Maedsid Progress

So, I've actually finished the maps for the burial mound (I'll post them later today hopefully). I've got them numbered and now writing up the room/encounter descriptions. I wanted to write a little of what I have in mind for the adventure. As I mentioned, this will essentially be part of two adventure paths. First, it'll be part of the Sea of O'SR adventure path as well as the Shadow of the Umbra Palace Saga. Maedsid is a grouping of three islets that have been used over the centuries buy a druidic sect as a ritualistic isle for the life of their "Summer King" - a temporal ritualistic leader that oversees the prosperity of the Moinar people (a bronze age/iron age like people loosely based on the ancient Celts/Picts/Brittons) and an earthly representative of the god Daegraed, the Lord of the Dawn. The main purpose of the isles over their history is for the members of the druidic heirarchy to elect, coronate, sanctify, sacrifice and inter into the earth the "Summer King". Every four years, the druidic priesthood assembles on Maedsid and a "Summer King" is elected from the body of the druidic hierarchy. After a series of ritualistic ablutions, the "Summer King" is sanctified and sits as the ceremonial head of state of the Moinar people. As the term of rulership progresses, the King will return to Maedside four times each year for ritualistic observations of the passing of the seasons. At the end of the four year term, the King returns to the island and is ritually sacrificed, lain in state, cremated and returned to the earth. The process then begins again.

I've always been fascinated by Iron Age/Bronze Age history as well as Celtic myth and stories of druids. I have been wanting to do something with all of that for quite some time. Also, the ideas of higher geometric dimensions (i.e. the geometic fourth dimension) and transhumanism, ritulistic behaviors/observances and other like things have really been of primary interest to me. The main isle of Maedsid sits in a higher geometric diemension and is only accessible from the smaller "gatehouse" islet. It seems to be perpetually indistinct and etherial. Think of the Isle of Avalon. Thus, it sort of "floats" in a dimensional pocket and is tethered to this reality (and possibly others). I've also been fascinated by the whole ancient idea of a sacrificial king that as the land prospers, the king sits in rulership and when things go bad, the king is sacrificed for the good of the land. I really wanted to use that idea for something and tie it into the whole transhumanist thing that you sometimes encounter in Sci-Fi stuff. So the idea is that the "spirit" of the Summer King merges with the spirit of the newly elected Summer King and makes this being in essence an immortal that inhabits a series of bodies over time. Not really undead, but each druid that is elected becomes a willing sacrificial vessel of the essence of the Summer King, the earthly manifestation of Daegraed, Lord of the Dawn.

I have always liked the druidic character class from 1e but it seemed that it was kind of hamstrung or that no one really did much with it. Maedsid is I guess my attempt to do something about that. So if you like that sort of quasi-Celtic druidic type stuff you might want to look into this. I might flesh out the druidic hierarchy as a sort of optional rule set, but I'll have to see when I get there.

Oh yeah, I also wanted to do something with the monsters I've been posting (damn, I really need to get back to that). I'd like to have things like the Black Dog make an appearance here. Well, enough rambling. I'll try to hopefully have this all coalesce into something fun and useful. More to follow!