You are a prisoner of the Daethian Empire, aboard a prisoner ship bound for the Isle of Ostrastein, known as “Paradise Isle”.
Your crimes, no matter how trivial have lead you to a miserable fate. Sailing through storms west for two weeks, you are only a day away from live in prison.
Pitch
A dark fantasy world where civilisations are slowly crumbling and the mortal races scramble for resources. The Daethian Empire seems to be on the verge of a full scale invasion of Kairenya, where you seem to be heading. Why they plan on invading a wasteland is anyone’s guess.
This campaign will be (at least to start with) a vaguely sandbox game in the arid desert wastes of Kairenya, featuring some light survival mechanics and a focus on travel and exploration, where the story will be discovered gradually. You will be hunted as a fugitive by the empire, and will have to gain the trust of the locals to avoid capture.
Character Creation
Read first: Character Creation Advice
Also check out Character Backstory Questions.
You will be starting at level 1!
You will not have Any starting equipment or gold. This includes spellcasting focuses, meaning you won’t be able to cast spells right away.
Playable Species
Below is a rough guide of which species are available and how common they are in the world.
Very common:
Moderately common
Uncommon:
Unusual
Exceptional
Extremely rare
No Tieflings or Goliaths at the moment unfortunately.
Classes
All 10 Player handbook classes are available. Some classes may need extra work & discussion, specifically anything that interacts with the cosmology (Cleric, Druid, Warlock, etc.).
Homebrew: Talk to me about what you want, probably before session 0. I’ll have to add it myself to foundry, it’ll also have to fit in with the world and not be stupid OP.
Background / Story.
- I would strongly recommend having your PC be a citizen of The Daethian Empire. At the very least, they need to have been in Daethia to be imprisoned.
- Think of a reason why you are imprisoned. Mistaken identity? Wrong place wrong time? Politically outspoken against the Empress? Actual criminal?
- Avoid being from Kairenya. This is where you’re heading, and personally I’d like a bit of mystery / unfamiliarity. You could have some personal ties or vested interest there however.
Lore Index
The Daethian Empire
Your homeland, or at least where you’re coming from. see The Daethian Empire.
World
The world is made up of four continents:
- The remote icy land of Thalruhn, to the north
- The tropical and mysterious Xandoral to the south
- The wasteland of Kairenyato the west
- The enormous, fertile continent of Illenfar to the east, homeland of the Daethian Empire.
Cosmology
Scholars, sages, philosophers, madmen and even entire religions have attempted to categorise and structure the cosmos, all with some short comings. All that can be said for sure existence is made up of two forces, intertwined and opposed; Chaos and Kosmos. Kosmos, in a sense, is conceptual order that encompasses all forces, whether that is light, dark, life, death, fire, ice, the material world and whatever else. Chaos is the space between and outside of Kosmos, it is both everything and nothing at the same time, it mostly manifests in our world as raw unaspected magic.
yes with a K
Spheres of Influence
A sphere of influence simply refers to a kosmic power, or more specifically the shaping of a specific magical force. The most commonly known of these are:
- Light
- Dark
- Life
- Death
- Fire / Heat
- Ice / Cold
Realms
The planes beyond the material world are infinite and unmapped. The realms layer over one another, intersecting seemingly randomly like scattered sheets of ethereal paper. At the centre lies the Material World. Some of the realms are said to be more ancient than the world itself, some are lifeless, some are ruled by Ascended beings, some are no bigger than a room, others are seemingly endless. All are perilous.
Gods
new: see Illenfar gods.
Different parts of the world have different religions, pantheons, gods and beliefs. Whether they are real or not is up to the individual. Gods as widely understood generally align with a sphere of influence and hold a realm as their own, though not always. Many gods are Ascendants, mortal heroes who have become gods themselves.
The worship of principles and values, such as in the Daethian empire, or the worship of mighty beings such as dragons is also moderately common across the world.
I'm intentionally keeping it vague and open ended. Clerics, Paladins, Druids and anyone else who wishes to have a relation to a God, Realm or Sphere of influence - talk to me and I can open up extra notes or we can come up with it together.
Gameplay
Broken out to Gameplay
The Party
I know at this point theres probably 7 or 8 of you who want to play dnd. However, as you may know dnd is kind of designed with 3 - 5 players and doesn’t scale super well beyond that - combat takes ages, everyone gets less time in the spotlight, proficiencies and spells don’t stack etc. It’s also just more effort for the DM. I’d love to quit my job and run two groups of 4 a week but apparently I can’t do that.
I suggest we stick to 4 or 5 players who will be here every week. I will however have an intermittent ‘guest’ spot(s) open. These spots will probably have to be invite only, or talked in advance. I’ll have to figure out exactly how it’ll work as we go.
I’ll talk a bit more on alternatives in misc.
If you plan on being in every session: I want you guys to feel invested! This means i’ll need a little more from you guys going forward, including:
- Knowing all your class & spell rules, and what they do.
- coming up with your own ideas about characters and the world.
- talking to me about what you would like to see.
- paying some attention to whats happening/happened
- giving some feedback when you have some!
As a guest player: The above is still relevant, but I won’t be expecting it. You’ll be far more drop-in drop-out. It may be useful for you to come up with something else your character might be up to when not with the party, even if its solo adventuring.
If you want to be a ‘main’ player in this campaign, let me know asap. It isn’t first come first serve, I will have the final say
Scheduling
I am still planning on running a 3 hour session from 7pm to 10pm UK time, day TBC. This will be run on the same day every week.
If you can’t make the session, but there are at least 3 people who can, the session will continue unless the session is a major plot point or very focused on your character. At which point, we will reschedule.
Misc
One shots:
I think its healthy to have a random one shot every so often. It lets non-campaign players play, and lets everyone try new things. I don’t think we need a specific schedule, perhaps every few weeks. Either run by me or you guys, whoever wants to run one.
My character sucks and I hate it:
You can reroll your character to a different class / subclass. Optionally you can have a story beat around becoming that class if you so wish.
Alternatively, characters don’t have to die. They can simply quit and walk away. If you want to retire a character then talk to me, retire it and make a new one.
Two parties?
Hello it is me Critical role I am running a dnd campaign with 3 parties every week full time.
Jokes aside, I’m trying to cut down the time spent preparing. Also as I learn more, it should get faster to make and run. However, 2 sessions per week is kinda mega, I’d have to quit gaming forever and I will probably burn out.
Perhaps this is something I can manage every so often for a couple of weeks at a time. Alternatively…
Multiple DMs
To keep things fresh I’m happy to periodically let someone else DM an adventure inside the campaign. I am a control freak so I would like to keep in the loop even when not actively DM’ing. I think this likely wouldn’t start at least for the first few weeks of the campaign, but i’ll let anyone interested know when there’s a slot.
One solution to the party size is a second DM for group 2. I’m not really sure on this, but I thought i’d mention it here anyway.
Next Steps: Session 0
More info coming soon!