Starblade Odyssey | Journey through the Drowned Desert
Join the Starblades guild. Take on missions across the continent, chase mysteries, and shape your own path in this open-world hexcrawl adventure.
$25.00
/ Session
Details
2 players following this game
Weekly / Wednesday - 12:00 AM UTC
Oct 28 / Session 35
Session Duration / 3–3.5 hours
Campaign Length / 20–30 Sessions
3 / 5 Seats Filled
Top Game Master
One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.
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Schedule
Meet your party members
3/5
About the adventure
Become a member of the Starblades, remarkable, reliable and certified adventurers for hire, whose work takes you across the Southern continent. Escort caravans across dangerous lands, hunt monsters threatening settlements, or delve into dangers in name of glory and coin! Every mission reveals more of the world and the forces shaping it through collaborative storytelling. This is hexcrawl sandbox built for player-driven discovery. Your choices determine which mysteries you uncover, which alliances you forge, and how the long-term story unfolds. Some quests you'll stumble upon; others you'll hunt down deliberately. For players who love exploration, character relationships, and shaping the narrative together, your odyssey begins here.
Game style
Realm Building
Roleplay Heavy
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Sandbox / Open World
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Rules as Written (RaW)
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
4.9
(30)
2 years on StartPlaying
259 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Rule of Cool, Storytelling
Average response time: 24+ hours
Response rate: 100%
About me
I've been running TTRPG campaigns professionally for over a decade and a year of doing so full time, and here's what I've learned: the best memories happen when player choices shape a collaborative story. I specialize in collaborative and cinematic narrations on my punished setting of Aetharis; a living, breathing high-fantasy world with deep immersive lore and marks left by all my past players, where the game system is just a framework to tell our tale. I come from a background in film screenwriting, television productions and indie game design, which is a fancy way of saying I narrate sessions in a dynamic and cinematic style, enhancing the drama and character reactions to the events. I'm always looking for ways to elevate the experience with impressive visuals, both shared through my video and used by players, such as Foundry VTT, Talespire, custom maps, background reference art, and enough prep to improvise anything you throw at me. I've delved into all kinds of systems, and trust me when I say that rules and mechanics are just a framework, we make rulings and use the game to tell our story, how we want it. Whether you're a veteran looking for deep roleplay or a newbie who wants to learn in a welcoming space, I'll meet you where you are. My games go from gritty intrigue to bombastic heroism; with just enough absurdity to keep us laughing years later. Your story, my world. Let's make something unforgettable.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
You'll receive a setting guide and adventure guidelines prior to our session 0, which will help in locating your character within the world. Characters will begin their adventure with a custom crafted evolving magical item that is of significance to their backstories. Characters will be created in D&D Beyond with the 2024 ruleset and rolling stats; We'll go over character creation together during session 0, giving shape to your character and a reason to join the Starblades on their adventures. The lore and origin of D&D Ancestries have been adapted to fit with the setting; though their mechanics will remain true to the rules, some species may provide variations and additions.
As members of the Starblades, a renowned adventurer guild, the party finds themselves in a daring escape from a forgotten dwarven mountain, avoiding collapsing tunnels and dangerous earth spirits, as the mountain itself has risen to enact revenge on the humans that built their society above the conquered dwarves. The party consists of four LvL 8 characters, focusing in frontline fighting and field control. Composed of an artificer, a cleric, a ranger and a Warlock. Their choices will leave a permanent mark in the world's history, as the beginning of the end draws near.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
This is an arc based campaign, where each arc takes on a player chosen main quest, with player driven downtime in between each mission. Expect a mixture of combat, Hexploration, intrigue and high stakes with heavy RP moments and high fantasy Aetherpunk vibes.
What Martin / Tinchi brings to the table
• D&D Beyond character sheets and campaign for an easy and everywhere experience. • A Talespire seat for beautiful 3D designed maps and miniatures. • In session music, ambience and sounds effects. ♫ • Visually stunning background and character overlays sitting game time, for total inmersión. 🪁 • Diverse NPC voice acting and deep roleplay immersion. • Narrative and descriptive storytelling with cinematic retelling of combat rounds. • Recording of each session, privately uploaded for players and their friends to relive, with an overlay of reactive PNG portraits, dice rolls and more • Inclusion of every player at the table, spotlighting and highlighting everyone's forte and style. • Many "Devil's Bargains" and exceptions to rules. • Great rewards for creativity and out of the box solutions. • Personalized Homebrew and encouragement to bring your own. • Immersive and deadly encounters with high stakes and impact through dynamic environments and objectives. • A background in Storytelling, Film making and Video game design. • AI generated and curated images to portray emblematic moments. • Out of session question answering and community assistance.
Homebrew rules
**Crucible of Fate** A volatile resource that switches hands between GM and players as it's used. It enables circunstancial additional rulings for benefits of the story and user. **Deadly criticals** On a natural 20 attack roll, weapons and features deal full damage and roll their dice on top of it. **Heroic spellcasting** As long as a leveled spell is used as an action, a non-damaging cantrip may be used as a bonus action. **Actually useful helpers** The help action can only be provided if a creature is proficient in the skill check. **Evolving cantrips** Your non-scaling cantrips will get better as you level up, based on the [Evolving cantrips PDF]( https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R1BhBtKxTHR4WfsIkX5nKnXgkCj9CeXa/view?usp=drivesdk) **No resurrection** Except for revivify, any other resurrection magic will require a ritual, where multiple creatures make skill checks. **True curses** The remove curse spell only shows you the way of removing a curse, be it a ritual, a quest or any other form of story development.
Equipment needed to play
Computer
Headphones
Internet
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Martin / Tinchi creates a safe table
Everyone's opinions should be heard and respected at the table, approaching roleplay with a Yes And open mentality. No comments on real world issues such as politics or religion are allowed during game time. Cameras will be encouraged, and accommodations will be put in place upon requests. We'll make use of a lines and veils rule, fading to black and resolving the outcome on a narrative form. After each session we'll take 5 minutes to go over wishes and requests for characters to go through, as well as a little bit of feedback and thoughts about the session.
Content warnings
Safety tools used