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Songs of Silnead - A D&D 5.5e Campaign
The barony of Silnead may be ripe with soldiers and adventurers, but they're all preparing to "save the world". It's up to your party to save Silnead!
About the adventure
Welcome to Winterheart, world of magic and peril! This campaign setting was constructed through years of tabletop gaming, with each group contributing towards its history. In this adventure, you’ll be picking up in the aftermath of the heroic deeds from the Skyfall Brigade - a hodgepodge group of adventurers who founded The Order, the world’s best chance for salvation. While The Order is transfixed on greater threats across the world, it’ll be up to local adventurers and heroes to take up arms and handle the problems on the homefront. From haunted forests to rumors of the Feywild infiltrating the mortal world, there’s a lot that needs to be taken care of in Silnead - but are these truly isolated incidents, or is there some grander machination at work tying everything together? This campaign features themes of horror, diplomacy, and sacrifice, which will serve as the anchors holding the party together and keeping their expedition from failing. Individual player skill levels are not important - what’s most important is the willingness to work together, as a group of players, to keep the game engaging and party connected! This campaign will focus primarily on combat, role play, and community. There will be many times when the party will have to decide whom they will save, and who will be left to fend for themselves. We will be sticking to the 2024 5.5 rules as written as much as possible, with no current plan to add any of the other rule systems from the Winterheart campaign setting at this time. This campaign will ramp up with time, with the stakes starting out small and eventually spiraling into something truly epic. Throughout the campaign, there will be depictions of blood and gore, intense action scenes, scheming NPCs that are willing to lie and cheat to get ahead, and a blend of both Lovecraftian and thriller horror genres that will become more apparent over time. If you’re a veteran looking for something new, or if you’re a new player trying to capture the essence of tabletop gaming without following a strict adventure module, then this is what you’re looking for!
Game style
Dungeon Crawl
Roleplay Heavy
Rules as Written (RaW)
Combat Heavy
Game themes
$15.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Tuesday – 11:00 PM UTC
Aug 19 / Session 0
Session Duration / 3–6 hours
Campaign Length / 32–180 Sessions
5 / 5 Seats Filled
GAME MASTER
Thayd
he/they
5.0
(16)
Schedule
Each player will be charged when a session starts.
Report Adventure
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(16)
3 years on StartPlaying
230 games hosted
Highly rated for: Inclusive, World Builder, Storytelling
About me
I'm a DM with almost 20 years of tabletop experience! I've been working as a professional DM for about 5 years now, and I'm eager to expand my list of games - and players! I'm available for hire for private groups at a rate of 50 dollars an hour, or you can join one of my games for much less! Hit me up for any additional information!
View Profile →Reviews (16)
Proficiencies
Players say this GM is great at:
Inclusive
World Builder
Storytelling
Tonystfns
Played 100 sessions
Auth puts a lot of time and energy into the games he runs and the world he's built to let us, as players, run amok. He has so many strings to work with and pull for the players, has a ton of information and homebrew to utilize, and uses a lot of fun references and voices to help the immersion.
Princely
Played 78 sessions
I've been playing in this group community for almost three years, and I've stuck around for a reason. Between the creative storytelling, thrilling twists, encouragement for roleplay and the wonderous song of steel and magic, the campaigns of Wintersong are mostly set in a homebrew world crafted over many years. Our DM is very open to creative characters, as long as things stay balanced. With unique classes, character abilities, and backgrounds with active connections. This is a safe environment, with optional features for things that might lead to a trigger. Consider trying it out♡
Leonardo N.
Played 74 sessions
This GM is fantastic! They constantly come up with intriguing ways to get the party involved, roleplay and combat are both balanced out and very exciting, and the game feels genuinely safe while still keeping a mature theme. Absolutely recommend!
Pandergöst
Played 71 sessions
Great Game, Great GM, really interesting story. His NPCs were fun and well done. Had a blast can't wait for the next session!
GMHudson
Played 54 sessions
Great worldbuilding! Having so much fun in Wintersong! Thayd is very inclusive, patient with players, and very welcoming, making it easy to start playing with a new group of people!
Gohandas Mandi
Played 54 sessions
Shows genuine effort to make sure not only the spotlight & buy-in is felt across the party, but also puts in a lot of effort since they've created several components to their homebrew campaign setting.
Character creation
Creating your character
We will begin creating characters at level 2. We’ll be using tools provided by the DM and from the VTT platform to make our character sheets, and after this, we’ll be doing a session 0 encounter before leveling up characters to level 3 as the official launch of the campaign. Character creation resources will be provided, from books to tutorial videos. All official and partnered Dungeons and Dragons content will be allowed, with the exception of content from the 2014 PHB and DMG. Material published prior to the 2024 rules update will need approval from the DM, which will normally require slight modifications before it’ll be ready. In addition, several new classes will be available upon Session 0 for players to choose from. Players get to choose how they would like their stats, either from a generous array or from an equally generous roll system. Players may choose between the stats of 15, 14, 14, 12, 10, and 8, or they roll. Our roll system uses 4d6 - players drop the lowest of the die, and the resulting number is the ability score. They perform this 7 times, and drop the lowest total result to get their 6 stats.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
The most important thing to bring to the table is personality! We want to see players who aren't afraid to speak up, who don't need to be called on before joining a conversation, and who are willing to keep the other players' interests in mind while we play! Energetic, understanding, inclusive, and compassionate - with a minor penchant for overwhelming violence and excessive drama. That's what we're looking for! In order for players to prepare for this campaign, they will need a Discord account, as well as a webcam and microphone. Camera and mic use is mandatory. If players aren’t aware of the new 2024 rules, material will be provided for them to help get caught up. Players won’t be expected to memorize the rules, but once we hit around 10 sessions played, it’s generally expected that players should know how to handle their characters during combat at the very least. Again, skill levels are irrelevant - there will be plenty of time to learn, with lots of leeway to new players.
What Thayd brings to the table
To begin with, it should be noted that I spend an excessive amount of effort making certain that all of my tables are inclusive. Bigotry, harassment, and intolerance will not be tolerated at any of my tables, without exception. Now then... When you’re playing an adventure with one of my campaigns, you can expect an immersive storytelling experience fraught with intrigue and danger. Musical ambiance, sound effects, animated attacks, custom-tailored encounters, and professional battlemaps will bring the world to life through the digital screen! Non-player characters aren’t just static signposts to deliver exposition, but are a part of your stories. They’ll grow around your characters, just as you grow into the world around you. Diverse cultures with varied beliefs abound in the world of Vetrhjarta, and inclusivity and community are cornerstones of all my campaigns! Adventures I host try to stick to the rules as much as possible, with a small handful of exceptions. When there are rule disputes, we try to keep things as close to RAW as possible, but there are reasonable exceptions - for example, using Shape Water to change the shape of a block of ice. The main reason why we stick to the rules is to make sure that combat is grounded before initiative is even rolled; while I normally help new players get used to the system with a few light encounters to begin with, combat in my adventures is brutal. If you aren’t paying attention, if you’re alt-tabbing, if you’re not thinking about how you can help your allies and exploit your enemies’ weaknesses, you’ll fail even lesser-difficulty encounters. Using your environment to your advantage is a very important piece to my encounters. Another aspect of my DM style is to make sure that players manage their inventories well. There are ways to conserve magic and class resources by spending the time to get your gear in order and properly prepare for combat. Food, water, shelter, protection for hirelings and mounts - while these seem like a tedious distraction, the rewards for properly managing your logistics may result in an encounter turning from a certain loss to a complete victory! There’s a lot of roleplaying at my tables. We can sometimes go several sessions of pure combat, and immediately chase that with multiple sessions in a row of roleplay, shopping, logistics, and even more roleplay and diplomacy to top things off! I don’t expect players to be perfect improv actors, but I do expect my players to be active participants in the conversation. If players just stay in their seats with their microphones muted, it hurts the experience of every other person at the table. Players need to be able to plan together, or else it will become one or two people making all the plans while everyone else goes along for the ride. Not only is this incredibly dull, but this will also almost certainly get you TPK’d! The more ideas, the higher your chances of survival!
Homebrew rules
We use very few homebrew rules outside of RAW. We use an alternate version of the Flanking system, where creatures who are flanking receive +3 on all attack and damage rolls. Yes, the damage doubles with a crit. We use critical hits on attack rolls, and critical successes on saving throws. We also use critical failures on these rolls, although there are no negative bonuses to crit failing an attack or a save. We do not use criticals for any other d20 test (skill checks, etc).
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Webcam
Platforms used
Safety
How Thayd creates a safe table
For safety tools, we use hard lines and X-Cards. During our Session 0, we’ll be creating characters together. It is at this time we’ll also discuss whether or not there are topics we feel are completely off-limits, or topics we’d like to avoid. There are already several topics we have banned, as a community, which will be discussed at the table. X-Cards are encouraged to be used at any time and for any reason. If people feel anxious about using them, then they don’t actually work. There is no problem with using an X-Card because something made you feel uncomfortable, and then changing your mind later. We’d all rather the card be played than take that risk. When someone declares an X-Card, we immediately stop the game and take a break. I’ll chat with the person who declared the X, and we’ll work on a solution together! If there was a particularly intense session dealing with dark subject matter or an excessive amount of gore, or if things started to get personal for characters and could potentially be overwhelming to the player, we’ll normally spend a bit of time after the session and unwind as a group. Most evenings, players tend to stick around for 15-30 minutes after stop time just to chat, and we use this time to clear the air of any potential issues. We also take a 30-minute break during the session to help cool down.