Shadow of a Broken Empire | Dark Fantasy, Cosmic Horror

Creating your character

Character creation takes place during free-of-charge session 0. I will introduce you to the world, setting, story and give you some points to hook your character to – but you are free to deviate from those! We will use DnDBeyond for the creation and levelling-up throughout the campaign. You are free to use content of all official Wizards of the Coast books. Through DnDBeyond I supply you with a great number of content creation options, so you don’t need to own any book. The characters start at level 1, and we will play with the Legacy Rules from 2014 – which still have access to far more content than 2024. For your ability scores, you can either use the point-buy system, roll through the stat-discord-channel or use your own physical dice while rolling in front of a camera. When you roll your ability points and the sum is below 69, you can reroll your stats once and chose which roll to take. I apply the ideas of proactive roleplaying to my games, so we will work with character goals that are regularly updated during the game and lets you set the focus of the story. Additionally, we make sure your characters are tied into the story and adapt NPC’s and factions to that. If you don’t know where to start with a character, you can choose from a few different premade characters, I provide you with. Should you already have a character you would like to use, we check where we might need to tweak it a little to adapt it to the story. During the adventure we will be using milestone advancement: You will get a new level whenever you achieve a milestone of the adventure.

Preparing for the session

We use Discord as a voice channel and a place to store information for the campaign. You need to have an account on DnDBeyond that is tied to my campaign. We play on FoundryVTT, but use a Server-provider ForgeVTT, for which you will need an account. If you have never used FoundryVTT before, send me a message so I make sure you get to know the details, although we will go through a few details in Session 0, and please read the info in this 5-minute-read-tutorial: https://foundryvtt.com/article/player-orientation/ You need a desktop pc or a laptop to play through FoundryVTT, a tablet or mobile phone won’t work. Please have a working headset ready for communication or headphones and a microphone, as well as a webcam. Be sure to have a stable internet connection and find a spot where you can play without major interruptions. You don’t need your own dice, we roll through FoundryVTT, but it doesn't hurt to have some at the ready. The same goes for pen and paper. You can use Foundry to make notes, but if you prefer it the old-fashioned way – as do I – be sure to have pen and paper with you! You will get all links after joining the campaign!

What Yarnickle brings to the table

I enjoy working with character voices to capture the personalities of the characters I portray. To set the mood, I handpick professionally crafted ambient music, specifically designed for pen and paper. We will play with FoundryVTT, a powerful virtual platform with several advantages: - Automation for a good flow of play - Animation of attacks and spells - Animated maps and line-of-sight principle I apply the Cool of Rule. If you find a way to use your abilities that stretches the rules, but either makes sense or leads to a fun or creative outcome, I will try to find a way to make it work! You will get access to a vast option of rulebooks, including the classics: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. If you happen to have access to a class or species that I don’t provide, I will work it into my version of Foundry, so you get access to it! Don’t worry to know every rule or skill your character has, I’m here to help you navigate through the rules we need for the adventure!

Homebrew rules

• Drinking a potion takes a Bonus Action • you can take an Action to heal yourself for the max amount • giving a potion to a different creature than yourself takes an action • You roll your death saves yourselves, but only the GM sees the result, to keep up the tension. • You gain 1 point of exhaustion when dropping to 0 health points • Extra proficiency if you connect your character to another player's character during creation (or before starting the game) • Rules for Horror and madness are used • You can turn a narrow failure on a skill check (missing the DC by 1) into a success, but suffer in turn a narrative disadvantage that I will decide upon situationally.

How Yarnickle creates a safe table

To make sure everyone feels good I will implement several safety rules. The adventure has a few content warnings, please note them, they are highly likely to be part of the game. You will get a link to a Monte Cook RPG Consent List, where you can mark topics that you are uncomfortable with, so I can avoid them. I apply a policy of open door, where you can leave at any moment, if you feel unwell. There will be breaks after intense situations and X, N, and O cards incorporated into FoundryVTT always ready to be used. We will have a short debriefing every session that will include how you feel, if there anything that has been troubling you and also how your character is doing and if there is any change to his goals. In Session 0, we go through the meaning of these safety tools and their application and pin down topics to be avoided or to be veiled. This might seem like a lot up front, but don’t worry. Nearly all of this will be available all the time, but in its essence be mostly invisible during the game. The existence of these tools helps ensuring that there won’t be any pent-up feelings that lessen the joy this game brings.