Premise

In a world where words carry weight, a simple greeting can bend reality. A long-forgotten Covenant of Voices stirs as people say “Hi” with honest intent, unlocking ancient runes and awakening the Echoing Gate. When greetings ripple through the land, memory shifts, towns misremember names, and a creeping silence threatens to swallow sound itself. The adventurers are drawn into a conspiracy that ties every hello to a living artifact and a hidden architect of silence.

Setting

The campaign unfolds in Aeloria, a realm of salt-spray cities, whispering forests, brass-mechanized towers, and ruins sunk beneath the sea. Key locations:
- Brinewatch, a storm-wracked port where gulls cry in the language of tides.
- Verdant Spine, a forested ridge of ancient trees that alias themselves to travellers who listen closely.
- Gildenspire, a mountain-city and Clockwork Bazaar where merchants speak in gears and songs.
- Sunken Library, underwater ruins in the Coral Reaches, where drowned texts glow with bioluminescent glyphs.
- Cradle of Echoes, a sealed gateway realm whose walls hum with countless voices and whose thresholds only open to true intention.

Main Quest

The heroes must recover five Vessels of Greeting, each hidden within a different locale and guarded by trials that test speech, intent, and courage. Collecting a Vessel weakens the Echoing Gate’s bonds and reveals clues about the hidden mastermind, a former maestro who believed silence was power. The ultimate objective is to perform the Welcome Rite at Cradle of Echoes, sealing the Gate and restoring balance between sound and silence.

Step-by-step:
1) In Brinewatch, uncover a specter of lost warmth that feeds on forgotten salutations. Gain the Vessel of Dawn’s Greeting by convincing a sea-spirit to lend its voice without exhausting it.
2) In Verdant Spine, win a trial of living vines by phrasing the right greeting to unlock the Vessel of Verdant Echo.
3) In Gildenspire, outwit clockwork guardians during a festival of spoken rhymes to acquire the Vessel of Steel Salutations.
4) In Sunken Library, retrieve the Vessel of Submerged Words from a submerged archive guarded by memory-wraiths.
5) In Cradle of Echoes, unite the five vessels, perform the Welcome Rite, and confront the Maestro of Silence who seeks to rewrite every hello as a final goodbye.

Side Quests & Hooks

A traveling chorus of performers seeks help to recover a stolen chorus line; a harbormaster’s child trades stories for protection against voices that vanish mid-sentence; a word-smith guild (the Dictionari) asks the party to find a lost lexicon before it erases a town’s history.

Challenges & Encounters

Puzzles encoded in rhythm and tone, social intrigue with guilds and spirits, underwater exploration, and combat against soundless wraiths and silent sentinels. Environmental hazards include echo-laced storms, misheard commands among golems, and shifting thresholds that require true intent to pass.

Rewards

Artifacts that bend sound: Amulet of Clear Speech, Voicebound Blade, and the Echo Cloak. Reputation with the Guild of Orators, access to rare linguistics-inspired magic, and the mercy of towns freed from the Great Silence.