Vast Kaviya

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Vast Kaviya is a Sword & Sorcery themed 3rd-party campaign setting by Legendary Games for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. It is set on a mega-sized primeval world whose sheer scale prevents the fast advancement of technology or sorcery, where primal tribes battle prehistoric monsters and struggle under the opposing rule of 21 different warlords, ranging from a diplomatic tribal chieftain to a sapient coral reef which absorbs humanoids and animals into its telepathic mind hive to an orc pyromaniac to a genocidal lich who lives in a mobile castle carried around by an ever-growing army of undead minions.

Official Fluff

Blood, grit, and survival are at the fore in these primordial lands. If you like Conan the Barbarian, Xena the Warrior Princess, Tarzan, Fafrhd, Khal Drogo, Thundarr, Red Sonja, Grognar, the Scorpion King, Beowulf, Kull the Conqueror, Fire and Ice, or are just a fan of savage adventures on a primal and untamed world—Vast Kaviya is for you!

Races

Vast Kaviya is home to a number of new races, as well as a couple of new subraces for core races.

New Races:

• Aasimar
• Alai
• Boggard
• Gnoll
• Kanca
• Mongrelfolk
• Ottunni
• Taino-Kar

New Subraces:

• Dwarf: Mistdweorg
• Halfling: Mistling
• Genasi: Acid, Ash, Mist, Mud

Classes

Vast Kaviya has a number of unique subclasses for the common PHB classes. But it also includes two unique classes; the Gemini and the Monster Tamer, as well as the mechanic of Prestige Classes, which core 5e experimented with but never made official.

PHB Subclasses

• Barbarian: Path of Psion-Primal
• Cleric Domain: Lunar
• Druid: Circle of Burning
• Fighter: Primal Leader
• Monk: Pyrokine
• Paladin: Oath of Webs
• Ranger: Primal Hunter
• Rogue: Savage Poisoner
• Sorcerer: Animator, Dreamer
• Warlock: The Grandmother, Hivemind

Prestige Classes

• Elementalist
• Fractured Soul
• Magic-Eater
• Primal Shaman

Mana and Alignments

To emphasize the primal, savage sort of world that Vast Kaviya is, the system incorporates a new ability score called "Mana", which also replaces the traditional 9-grid of D&D Alignment with one representing the six fundamental elements; Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Holy and Evil. Mana checks are used to try and influence or draw power from expressions of these six elements already physically present in the world around them.

Air

The forces of the winds are everywhere and nowhere, here and gone with the bat of an eye. Creatures of a naturally fickle inclination are aligned with this element as are unseen supernatural forces.

Aspects: Swiftness, Divination, Guerilla Offense, fey, elves, halflings, mistlings

Behavior: Wild. Those associated with air are frequently of a chaotic alignment. Confinement drives them mad and they embrace the freedoms of life, reveling in being their own masters.

Earth

It’s said that all comes from the dirt and it’s certainly true that’s where everything that lives eventually goes. Of the elemental themes in Vast Kaviya this is the least changing and most final, the traditions of those aligned to it engraved into their cultures like etchings chiseled into rock.

Aspects: Hardiness, Abjuration, Strong Defense, alai, dwarves, kanca

Behavior: Stoic. Association with earth means a stalwart attitude toward life and a confidence in what is known to be certain. They find being surprised to be extremely unpleasant and do as they’ve set out to, resolute in achieving the goals they set for themselves. Usually they have lawful alignments.

Evil

There is little mercy in the world and those who rapture in inflicting pain or cruelty upon others. These are the mad warlords that seek power at any cost, utilizing the forces infernal or the service of undeath to complete their foul plans.

Aspects: Necromancy, Aggressive, fiends, mistdweorg, ottuni, tieflings

Behavior: Malicious. An evil alignment means more than simple nefarity or a pitiless soul—in Vast Kaviya it marks a genuine desire to inflict harm for the sake of it and a zealous willingness to strike first.

Fire

To many the flame is life. Societies of fire are often tribal in nature and prone to leaders that are the most lethal (not necessarily the wisest). Like their element they are usually a force to be reckoned with, appearing and disappearing with ease, expending most of their resources to make a big, brief impact, and there is always evidence of their passing.

Aspects: Strength, Evocation, Fast Offense, gnolls, half-orcs, orcs, taino-kar

Behavior: Spontaneous. Those associated with fire have a need for spontaneity and feel dead when their lives are lacking in variety, eager to explore and see more of the world or master what they consider their own lands. Typically their alignments are chaotic.

Holy

They are few and far between but there are those who believe in higher ideals and a better way of life, willing to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of others. Societies of this ilk are bastions in whatever regions they reside in, used as mediators between warring factions and as a safe haven for trade.

Aspects: Healing, Protective, celestials, aasimar

Behavior: Altruistic. The holy of Vast Kaviya are almost always of good alignment. They seek a better world noticeably improved by their own efforts, encouraging the same samaritan attitude in others. Unfortunately they are often abused because of their positivity and taken advantage of or lured into danger.

Water

Nomadic societies and those that respond quickly to new threats or changes to nearby regions are aligned with water. Like their element they are a constant, inexorably evolving through the most applicable means at their disposal. Perhaps more noticeably they are quite prominent and common, though their ability to outlast other elements does not impress.

Aspects: Psionics, Mobile Defense, boggarts, half-elves, humans, gnomes

Behavior: Adaptive. Those associated with water are frequently of a neutral alignment. They are fast to change tactics, rarely staging the same kind of assault twice in a row and usually moving their forward attack posts as well. When faced with obstacles they consider a variety of solutions, employing a different one with each failure.

Warlords

Kion Gozi (CR 2) is known as ‘Peacemaker’ for unifying the tribes of the Endless Plains of the N’Elu, but how firm is her hold over the nomadic region? Her diplomatic skills are as strong as her arm and she should not be underestimated, able to lead her people against some of Vast Kaviya’s deadliest natural creatures.

Puteri, Mother of Kanca (CR 4) is the bloated insectile queen of the kanca that infest the titanic Kanca Colossus corpse, her once small hive now grown into a small empire. She hides behind illusory magic and appears to all but her closest confidants as a beautiful butterfly-winged fairy queen.

Akal, Avatar of the Devouring Moon (CR 5), is a feared weretiger granted power by one of Vast Kaviya’s many moons. With cunning, ferocity, and lycanthropic strength she controls a cannibal cult in the Urimak Valley and believes she is a true incarnation of Kalune, performing ritual sacrifices on kidnapped villagers and devouring sentients’ flesh to strengthen their intertwined spirit.

Jayallie (CR 5) is a seer sorceress of the mistlings, a race of wild halflings that live within Tay Ninaivakam Rainforest under the protection of ‘Mother Remembrance’. The region is shrouded in whispering mists, a psychic fog that saps the intellect and changes those within it into feral beasts. Immune to its effects, the mistlings use the fog to their advantage, raiding nearby settlements and luring the unwary into the mind-sapping haze.

Ligéi Xóon (CR 5) and the Maiden Eagles dwell in the black caverns beneath the Shaa Litká Mountains, fiercely defending their territory and paying homage to the dangerous harpies of the deep crags. The clan members all devote themselves to the monstrous Grandmother spirit that protects the labyrinthine passages they call home.

Trevolee (CR 5) is the oldest of the Gone, a people of disparate races unified by their loss of memory. A mystery to themselves, they live deep underground beneath the light of the magical Sun Stone, a bubble of light allowing the City of Lost to survive where none should. Trevolee channels its radiant power to protect her people, because on all sides monsters are closing in seeking to snuff out the light.

Nilaiyarra, the Transient (CR 7) is a force of nature that leads the Children of a Hundred Masks to do the bidding of Vast Kaviya as they see fit. They make their home in the Spiraling Woods, traveling throughout its countless trees to settle in different areas depending on the season.

The Awakened Reef Tohgai (CR 8) is the central hivemind of the Thamash Archipelago. The psionic coral seeks to grow their power by melding more minds with theirs, and will stop at nothing to finally defeat the storms that destroy it every year with the changing of the seasons.

The Beast of Three Karm’ra (CR 8) is a sleek, powerful chimera and the Xerica’s apex predator. She has dominated it unchallenged for centuries and cares nothing for tribes, beasts, religion, or politics—like a force of nature, she simply is. Gnolls worship her and manticores envy her, but all who dwell in the arid grasslands share a healthy fear of and respect for this majestic matriarch.

Witch of Mana: Rowena (CR 8) is an old crone that’s learned all the tricks needed to survive in the Kalavaiyaip Badlands, harnessing the raw mana hidden within and ruling over the intruders it transforms into mongrelfolk.

Zivrasa of the Truest Green (CR 11) zealously believes in the purity and superiority of nature over all things, hunting down dabblers of the arcane arts to capture and bring back to the Verdurous Grove so they can be sacrificed to Vast Kaviya.

Auntie Gonfler (CR 12) is a conniving boggard shaman who’s taken the reigns of a monstrous creature that her fellow toad folk in the Bellows worship as a god. She keeps the beast fed with regular sacrifices as she expands her influence over the other shamans and out into the world at large.

Gragth Bloodfire (CR 13) leads a vicious orc warband obsessed with the power of flames accessing pyromancy by burning many of their own to death in tribal practices that use the lava pits of their primitive settlement in Bloodfire Gulch.

Psionicus (CR 14) is an ancient ottunni of great psionic potency, growing in primal power with every passing season and protected by vicious cannibals in the Maṉanōy Caverns—underlings that consume the flesh of other sentient creatures in an attempt to gain but a fraction of their leader’s psychic mastery.

Sawfin, The Slithering Horror (CR 15) Already an apex predator in life, the gift of intelligence and the horror of undeath have turned Sawfin from a simple mosasaur into a walking nightmare—she scrabbles across the ground on decaying fins, stalking her prey at high speed while calling out in a soft feminine voice. Leader and adoptive mother of all creatures in the Wake of Maws, Sawfin is also thought to be the first of its members.

Corryn, the Abandoned (CR 16) was discarded into the Kaṉavu-Valai by her noble parents, only to be saved by a community of similarly displaced driders in The Web. The supernatural waterways changed her and after their touch she returned to slaughter her callous parents along with any other tyrants who dare endanger the downtrodden.

Kalar the Lizard Lord (CR 16) was mutated by waters empowered with lunar energy from the many moons orbiting the planet and has created a society of intelligent reptiles like him, though none wield the mental powers at his disposal or dare challenge his control over Sickle Canyon.

Oscarvol the Timeless (CR 17) is a sorcerer of unparalleled power whose mastery of magic has extended his life, allowed him dominion over the hidden city of Undermist, and helped him keep a dark secret. Within the deep caverns he holds court over the mistdweorg dwarves; artists, philosophers, gladiators, and sorcerers protected from the chaos of the world above.

Grandfather Triskal (CR 18) claims to be the first vampire, barbaric and savage, more beast than man. He is the patriarch of a nearly feral clan of vampiric savages and he works to expand his territory to beyond the Blind Grove to better feed his ever-growing bloodthirsty brood.

The Earthstorm (CR 20) is an impossibly potent amalgamation of earth and lightning obsessed with the raw mana it needs to continue building the mass on its body, using the primordial energies and the sacrificial victims drawn from its followers to both transform its minions and attain more power for itself.

Varasuul the Necrolord (CR 21) thought to be the oldest creature in all of Vast Kaviya, this master of undeath is surrounded at all times by a field of corpses and skeletons—which it animates to lift the stone fortifications of Death Castle in an inexorable march forward to wipe out all that which still lives.