The Labyrinth is the world between worlds, the maze that connects realities, and so much more. It’s a campaign overlay that lets your PCs world-hop between settings, experiencing the Ten Thousand Worlds and beyond that exist in all that is.
Once you get into the twisting realities of the Labyrinth, you discover that, as infinite as it seems, there are recurring groups and themes. A trickle of factions consistently populate the maze, for good and for ill.
Here is a mysterious faction (or the hint of one) for you to use in your campaign.
The Ancients
Untold millennia ago, the Labyrinth produced a giant race of primeval builders, sometimes called the Qorads or the Demoshar by scholars. They are more commonly known to everyone else as the “Ancients”.
These primordial peoples built titanic structures, strongholds, and bridges all over what is now known as the Labyrinth. They were the first great builders of the Ten Thousand Worlds, but the history of their civilization has been lost to time, and time has reduced many of their great works to dust and ruin.
From the scale of their remaining works, it appears that they were humanoids who stood at least 25 feet tall, towering over even giants. Remaining sculptures or frescoes from their time have been vandalized and destroyed, with the heads and faces of any of the Ancients removed or erased. Minotaur scholars and explorers of the Labyrinth claim the Ancients had bull heads and were the primordial ancestors of the current minotaur population.
What’s their deal?
Little is now known about the lost civilization of the Ancients, but the remains of their culture remain scattered around the length and breadth of the Ten Thousand Worlds.
Their massive, awe-inspiring ruined cities can be found on a number of ancient worlds. They almost always have a circular layout, with four to sixteen great avenues spreading out like the hands of a clock. These mighty avenues always terminate in a grand central plaza, dominated by a wondrously tall step pyramid. Each avenue radiates out from the grand plaza, ending in a ruin of a huge, stone archway, portal gates that used to lead to many other worlds in the Labyrinth. Only a few remain intact and functional. Most have been scavenged for their ancient marble and orichalcum.
Many remaining active portals lead to dead worlds, destroyed long ago, now populated by ranks of undead (such as the deathless hordes of the Last Cathedral or the Great Chantry). Several are used by the Concord, Keepers, and Old Ring factions—those are jealously and guarded as precious resources.
Outside of the cities, some massive ruined Ancient fortresses bear giant orichalcum doors covered in bas-relief scenes of (now headless) gargantua engaged in massive works, fighting unknown enemies, and worshipping mysterious gods.
See the Labyrinth Worldbook for more details on the history of the Ancients faction, and its mysteries that have passed into Labyrinth lore.
Explore the twisting passages that connect planes of reality with the Labyrinth Worldbook!
This campaign overlay connects your world with anything you can imagine!
Using the Ancients in your World
Even if you don’t have an explicit link to the Labyrinth in your game, the Ancients, with their mighty legacy and impressive antediluvian ruins, can bring an aspect of wonder and awe into your campaign.
Try one (or all!) of the following drop-ins to bring the mysteries of the Ancients into your campaign:
1. A Keeper of the Keys agent has found a way to reactivate an Ancient stone archway portal in one of the Ancients’ fallen cities. It directly connects two crucial locations: Dragonhome and the Dragonbone Bridge. The Keeper has asked the PCs to protect the portal while she travels to Dragonhome and returns with Old Ring and Keeper forces to protect it.
The Keeper has spotted a band of Great Chantry scouts in the area. If they learn of this functioning portal or even suspect the Keepers are up to something, they’ll never stop trying to infiltrate, and having this sensitive portal in the open before it’s properly fortified in unacceptable. She tasks the PCs with redirecting the scouts without killing them—if the scouts went missing, it would only bring more trouble. She has also secretly planted an arcane explosive device, to destroy the portal in case the PCs fail.
2. An Infernal faction researcher claims to have found the path to the Ancient Crypts of the Glittering Gods and a method to open the wards and locks on the mausoleums there. Can the PCs help this duplicitous syderean get past the Void angels and celestial guardians protecting the ways that lead to the Ancient burial ground? Will the Infernal find a way to betray the party? Will the PCs and the researcher be able to bypass the sepulchral locks and wards to penetrate the giant mausoleums? And if they do breach the ancient tombs, will they find fabulous magic and treasures within, or will they release unimaginable horrors? Or both?
3. In Axanapeque, on the dead world of Whispering Dunes, a void rift has opened into a (fortunately?) remote location on the PCs homeworld. Undead creatures now stalk the countryside, and Void corruption is leaking through, poisoning the nearby landscape. It drains the local flora and fauna, sometimes twisting and warping them into monstrous Void-tainted dangers. Can the characters find the rift and close it before it does more damage? Can they defeat the undead and Void-corrupted threats coming through it? Who opened this rift? Will this entity need to be defeated and destroyed before the rift can be closed?
OPEN CALL CLOSES SOON!
If you backed our latest Northlands Kickstarter campaign and want to submit an adventure for our open call, the deadline is OCTOBER 19!
The Kobold Press team will review all entries, pick two winners, and commission those backers to complete the design. Designers will be fully paid and credited, and their completed adventures will be mapped, illustrated, and published in late spring of 2026.
If you want in on the action, you can still late pledge!
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