Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk
Dungeons & Dragons 5e | Campaign
About the adventure
Greetings, adventurer! Have you ever wanted to try Dungeons and Dragons? Have you ever wished to delve into a fantasy realm, filled with magic, monsters and wonder? To stand side by side with your peers while delving through dark caves, uncovering long lost secrets and lore hidden away in dilapidated crypts? No? Then what are you doin' here!? This is a beginner game, focused around newbies that wish to get into this wonderful hobby! We'll be exploring the Forgotten Realms, an ancient and enigmatic setting where hundreds of tales of adventure have appeared over the centuries. Where heroes rise and fall, villains fight for control and everyday life can be a struggle, or a beauty. Nestled on the northern Sword Coast, between Neverwinter Wood and the Sword Mountains, is the town of Phandalin. Centuries ago, Phandalin was a thriving settlement with deep ties to its neighboring communities. But then bandits overran the town, and Phandalin lay abandoned for centuries. Only in the past few years have settlers built a new village on the ruins of the old. These townsfolk hope to grow Phandalin through hard work, camaraderie, and the shared purpose of building a lasting home. Threatening their efforts and their survival are bandits, brigands, and monsters. Whatever your reason for travelling here, one thing's for certain: There is much to explore, and many to save. Will you rise to the occasion, hero, when the people of Phandalin need you most? This adventure will span levels 1-12, and will see your characters start from humble beginnings, all the way to becoming legendary heroes. Let's see if you have what it takes!
Game style
Roleplay Heavy
“Roleplay Heavy” games place the focus on the story, the characters, and the world they live within, and tend to lean hard into the various roleplaying elements of the game. These games will frequently find the party talking with NPCs, exploring the personal elements of their backstories, or even having emotional moments around the camp fire.
Combat Heavy
“Combat Heavy” games emphasize the combat mechanics within their systems over roleplay or puzzle solving. There are frequent and longer battles with enemies and a greater emphasis on tactical game play.
Rule of Cool (RoC)
“Rule of Cool” emphasizes creative story beats over sticking to a system’s rules as written. Players have the ability to push the limits of the rules or even break core rule mechanics at times if the Game Master thinks it is interesting, fun, or cool enough.
Rules as Written (RaW)
Games that are ran “Rules as Written” emphasize realism and stick to the letter of the rules, allowing players to explore creative solutions while still operating under a consistent rule set. Players have the ability to utilize the rules in creative ways to create awesome characters and moments in the game.
Dungeon Crawl
A “Dungeon Crawl” is a scenario where players navigate a dungeon or labyrinth-like environment for the entirety of the adventure. It emphasizes battling monsters, collecting loot, and avoiding traps to survive to the end!
5.0
(8)
1 year on StartPlaying
11 games hosted
Highly rated for: Teacher, Creativity, Sets the Mood
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
Additional details
How to prepare
A decent internet, and mic. A Discord and a Forge (https://forge-vtt.com/) account. A general understanding of some core ideas of tabletop games (such as what dice you use, what skills are, etc.) If you prefer, I will explain these to you myself.
What I provide
I run my games using Foundry VTT, which I'll brief you on how to use during our session 0. I will also teach you how to make a character using the program, and give you a step by step of the process. I use some custom maps from time to time, but since we're playing a pre-written adventure, it will mostly be maps from the adventure. I do utilize the remade maps from The MAD Cartographer for this particular adventure, since they are very beautifully crafted. I do character voices a lot, and consider myself fairly good at doing them since I took acting classes and have practiced voice acting and singing for years. You're not required to match the level of commitment to character voices or roleplaying that I engage in, but the heads up is always good. I also utilize ambient music, be it through tracks directly played through the Foundry VTT music player, or through a music bot on the Discord server. Combat will hopefully be hard enough to provide a challenge for newer players, but I'll be sure to accommodate to you if you bring any concerns or complains regarding the difficulty of encounters. I have a tendency to lean towards Rules as Written (Which means to stick to a more literal interpretation of the rules) over Rule of Cool (Which is to hand-wave some rules in favor of a cool moment). This does not mean I won't allow you to do cool, creative ideas, but if anything is already supported by a Rule found in the Dungeon Master's Guide or the Player Handbook (or other books like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) then I'll try to stick to those for consistency. Don't be afraid to try, however!
Gameplay details
We'll be discussing your do's and don'ts when you join up, so that if they come up (which I'll try to avoid if you've relayed these to me beforehand) we can avoid the topic and move forward, discuss it if need be, or accommodate to said topic in a particular way
Content warnings
• Body Horror
• Death
• Hostages
• Kidnapping
• Violence
Safety tools used
• Breaks
• Lines and Veils
• Luxton Technique
• Open Door
• Session 0
• X, N, and O Cards
How will character creation work
We'll be using Point Buy for character creation, and will stick to the regular classes and subclasses of 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. Point buy is a character creation method where you get 27 points that you can allocate across your stats, which all start at 8. The cost of how many points it takes to raise a stat from a certain threshold varies (Raising an 8 in your strength stat to a 9 would cost a single point, while raising it from a 13 to a 14 costs 2 points). I will assist in this endeavor when you join the game and I help you create your character. We start at level 1, and all characters will be created within Foundry VTT. Refer to all published Wizard of the Coast material for your class and/or subclass (Coming to me before choosing a certain one). No Unearthed Arcana content is allowed.
Players can expect
Combat / Tactics
High
Roleplay
Medium
Puzzles
Medium
Experience level
Beginner
Platforms used
• Foundry VTT
• Discord
$15.00
/ Session
Each player will be charged when a session starts.
Details
Weekly / Monday - 9:00 PM UTC
3-5 Hour Duration
0 / 6 Seats Filled
Requirements
Experience required: Beginner
Age: 18+