The World of Somna: A Brief Primer
The World of Somna
A land cursed by magic…
An ancient, advanced civilization, lost to time and arcanely obscured...
A future forged by indomitable will and ill-fated luck...Welcome to Somna, the cursed lands.
At first blush, the world of Somna is very much your typical fantasy adventure setting: knights, elves, dwarves, giants, dragons, kings and kingdoms, witches and wizards, etc. But there’s one catch: all magic is cursed.
It is as if the very fabric of magic itself has been irrevocably altered, not so much torn as...poorly tailored. Magic is still prevalent in the lands, downright prolific in some parts, but there is always a price to be paid. The greater the magic, the greater the cost and danger to the magic user, and by extension to the world at large. But there are, and always will be, those who defy the fates, reaching for greater and greater heights of power, risking everything, in the pursuit of glory, honor, conquest, riches, or even (though perhaps too rarely) the greater good.
Thus, heroes and villains alike turn to magic, flawed though it is, to achieve their ends, despite the fact that, as often as not, they are betrayed by the very instruments of magic that aid and empower them.
Somna, the Cursed Lands
In the Somnaverse…
☠️ All magic is cursed. Though there may not always be an immediately apparent downside, there is always a cost that must eventually be paid in full.
🧙🏽♂️ There are many theories on how and why magic came to be cursed, but no clear thoughts on how to actually lift the curse.
👑 Where once existed three far-reaching Magearchies that spanned the whole of Somna, a host of individual kingdoms, fiefdoms, and city-states now dot the landscape, with unclaimed or contested regions of varying sizes between them. The “lands between lands” are collectively known as No Man’s Land, though it is understood that La Familia has staked an unspoken claim on them.
🌊 With magical transportation becoming either completely unusable, or at best, wholly unreliable, geological barriers have once again asserted their influence on travel, commerce, and politics. Some oceans, mountains, and deserts became nearly impassable, cutting off whole populations from each other. Merchant trade routes have been established by La Familia, who now facilitate trade, travel, and communication between the nations.
🎸 A coalition of magic users has adopted, and over the years absorbed, the bardic traditions of old, leveraging its vast social network to form La Familia Bardicum aka “La Familia” or more colloquially (if less respectfully and less accurately) “The Bards.” Today, they are the nomadic masters of No Man’s Land to whom all nations, large and small, pay tribute. While the ruling classes of Somna may view the Familia with begrudging respect, the general populace still typically see bards as merrymakers, entertainers and wayfinders. Either way, it’s universally accepted: meeting a bard may bring good fortune, but crossing one bodes only ill.
🧝🏼♀️The elves, many of whom were well integrated within the courts of the Wizard Monarchs, made mass pilgrimages to their ancient homes to regroup and investigate the problem of the curse. Today, this once proud culture is now largely mercenary in nature, loaning out archers and blademasters in exchange for goods and capital to support their efforts to rebuild.
🧚🏽♀️ Fey creatures, which were once numerous and thriving in Somna, have largely returned to the chaos of the Feywild. Those that chose to remain are closely aligned with their elvish kin and reside within or nearby one of the two great ancestral elven homelands, either in the deep of Silverwoods or the relative seclusion of the Celestine Valley.
⚗️For years, people have been searching for, and finding with some limited success, ways to mitigate the effects of the curse. This has given rise to magical alternatives such as the natural sciences and alchemy or mechanical constructs and advanced tinkering. While advancements of this sort are still in their infancy and prone to much trial and error, they have improved the quality of life and increased the overall reliability of magic use.
⚒ Dwarves have returned to their roots of mining, stonework, and metalsmithing, with only the most adventurous of crafters forging magic into their works. Their partnership with the deep gnomes has become somewhat strained due to the increasing overlap of subterranean territory.
🛡 There are no longer any true paladins or divine heralds in Somna. Once the Magearchies collapsed, the need for formal Oaths, and the Holy Paladin Orders that kept them, died away. A remnant of their mythical power can be seen in some of today’s knightly traditions, but the art of blessed chivalry is gone from the world.
🌿 Beholden to nature, most druids intuitively sense the “wrongness” of the curse, and have delved deeper into the mysteries of the natural sciences in order to diminish the effects of the curse on their own magical craft. They are largely at a loss as to how to bring greater healing to the lands. Those most attuned to the forces of the universe, however, sense a change in the winds...though whether for ill or good is as yet uncertain.
Commonly Held Beliefs
Most mortals who inhabit Somna subscribe to one or more of the following widely held beliefs:
The gods have deserted us. While clearly untrue (most folk still turn to clerics when in need of divine healing or blessing), the gods are often viewed as untrustworthy, and there are times when even the devout have good reason to doubt.
Modern ingenuity will soon make magic unnecessary. The absence of reliable magic has indeed spurred many technological advances, but often it is still assisted or infused with magic. In addition, there are still many who work unceasingly in the pursuit of either restoring magic to its former uncursed state or in discovering new (or resurrecting ancient) pathways to magic that could bypass the curse altogether.
Only the foolish and foolhardy meddle with magic. While it is true that fools will always be fools, most often it is those most knowledgeable, experienced, and cautious that risk working with the various manifestations of magic.
All magic is evil. Perhaps so, perhaps not. Only time will tell….
Adventures in Somna
When adventuring in Somna, a few additional mechanics are in play, including the Cursed Number(s) of the Day and special rules regarding Inspiration.
Cursed Number of the Day
At the beginning of each game session, one person rolls for 1-3 cursed numbers of the day:
Roll d3 (or d4, rerolling 4s).
Roll d20 a number of times equal to the d3 roll.
Record the d20 results. Each result is a cursed number of the day.
During the session, anytime a cursed number is rolled naturally (before applying modifiers) on a d20 in conjunction with a magical effect, a negative magical effect occurs, additional to the intended magic. This applies to both dice when rolling with advantage or disadvantage, even if the result of the die that rolls the cursed number is not used.
Typically the negative effect is somewhat opposite of the intended magical effect, but does not negate the intended effect nor prevent it from occurring. The negative effect is at most half as powerful as the intended effect but always targets the caster and/or their allies. For example, a wizard casting fireball (a 3rd-level spell) at a creature that rolls a cursed number for its saving throw (which succeeds or fails as normal), might feel a freezing sting travel up his arm as if struck by the ray of frost cantrip cast at its lowest level (suffering 1d8 cold damage and reducing the wizard’s Speed by 10 feet until the start of their next turn).
For spells and magical actions that do not require a d20 roll, healed hit point totals or damage dealt totals (after applying modifiers) that match a Cursed Number of the Day trigger a cursed effect.
For magical spells and actions that do not deal damage or heal hit points nor require a d20 roll, the Narrator rolls a d20 once for the entire session. If the result rolled is a Cursed Number of the Day, for the duration of the session, all such magical effects trigger a cursed effect.
Inspiration and the Curse
In Somna, adventurers have additional ways to earn and spend Inspiration.
Earning Inspiration
All PCs gain the following options to earn inspiration.
Overcoming a cursed effect that has manifested with your use of magic
Pairing magic with non-magic to mitigate potential curse effects
Identifying/ non-magical solutions to magical problems
Using Inspiration
The Cursed Number of the Day does not affect rolls granted by spending inspiration or rolls made as part of an Inspiration Feature.
Inspiration Feature: Cursed Redistribution
PCs that can cast at least one spell gain the following 3 options for utilizing Inspiration:
Re-gift. You use your reaction and spend Inspiration to shift a negative cursed effect from yourself to a creature you can touch within 5 feet of you. If the creature is unwilling, your reaction includes making a melee spell attack against the creature; the cursed effect is only successfully transferred on a hit.
Draw In. You use your reaction and spend Inspiration to shift a negative cursed effect to yourself from a creature you can see within 15 feet of you.
Manifest. When a creature you can see within 60 feet uses magic with no cursed effect, you use your reaction to cause a cursed effect to occur. Your reaction includes making a ranged spell attack against the creature; the cursed effect is only successfully manifested on a hit.
Author’s note: In a past blog post, I introduced Somna, the Cursed Lands, the campaign setting of my home table. But looking back, perhaps jumping straight to an in–character discourse on whether calling something “cursed” actually makes it so was not the best first introduction to the world. It was less “let me introduce you to Somna” and more “you abruptly find yourself in this world I’ve created, talking to an old, rambling grandpa complaining about, ‘What do they teach kids these days?’ and leading with, ‘Well, we’d better start at the beginning–and I mean the very beginning…’”
The follow-on post detailing the creation myth of Somna and the deities of the Somnan pantheon wasn’t much better in that regard either. Sure, it’s a good resource to reference later, especially if you want to play a cleric, but I zoomed too far into a particular detail of the setting before first laying out the basic premise and providing a digestible overview. This post is meant to correct that oversight as well as set the stage for future monthly installments of in-somna lore drops.
