Rise of the Runelords | Classic Zero-to-Hero!
The classic Hero's Journey epic - returning now with a new, fast and fiction-first system! Experience Varisia like never before!
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Wednesday - 12:00 AM UTC
Session Duration / 3–3.5 hours
Campaign Length / 35–50 Sessions
5 / 6 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
5/6
About the adventure
🪙 Defend the town of Sandpoint against a multitude of threats! 🪙 Uncover the mysteries of the ancient magic civilization! 🪙 Travel across the wilderness, solving crises and helping people in need! ...and finally, reach the legendary city of gold. The town of Sandpoint needs you! Recently perturbed by what they called the Late Unpleasantness (what with their cathedral burning down and a serial killer on the loose), the folk of Sandpoint are coming together to put all of this behind them. As the festival to consecrate the new church gets well underway, the town is about to experience a new, far more insidious threat coming in with torches and sharp wicked blades. And goblins are merely the beginning! This Adventure Path will take you all across Varisia, from small hamlets to big cities, from forest to a marshland and to the mountains, all in opposition to a great and ancient evil awakening from the ruins of a magic empire of old... Step forward, adventurers, and claim your destiny!
Game style
Dungeon Crawl
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(31)
5 years on StartPlaying
918 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Storytelling, Knows the Rules
Average response time: 1 hour
Response rate: 83%
About me
Greetings from Central Asia! I’m a full-time professional Game Master based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with over 800 sessions hosted on StartPlaying and over a decade of experience running roleplaying games. I specialise in long-form, character-driven campaigns, particularly dark fantasy, science fiction, horror, and faction-heavy adventures. My games combine the structure and depth of published campaigns with the freedom of a home game. I reshape adventures around the characters, their relationships, and the consequences of their decisions rather than forcing the group through a fixed script. I bring more than a decade of professional experience as an interpreter and international tour guide into my games, too.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Characters will be created together during Session 0. Should you join the campaign at a later stage, I'll schedule a 1-on-1 with you to help you build your character and advance them up to the group's level.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
You'll need a Discord account and a decent microphone. Preferrably a quiet environment with low background noise for the duration of the session. The only other requirement is signing up to the Forge (the VTT where the game will happen) It is free to create and use as a player. You will also need to join the Discord server where the game is going to happen. You will receive the link to it in the Prep Materials section when you sign up to the game.
What Sergey Sakharov brings to the table
I'll bring a fully set up campaign on Foundry, complete with scenic art, battlemaps and tokens - everything you need to visualise your journey through Varisia! The majority of the game takes place in Theater of the Mind, so I will have illustrated scenes, tokens and other visual aids to facilitate your imagination. Battlemaps may be used occasionally for complicated scenarios. I tend to follow the players' lead in the games. Most of the time my adventures are shaped as "landscapes", with multiple ways to achieve your goals. Railroading is usually not something I do.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Sergey Sakharov creates a safe table
Varisia is a harsh land, and some of the stories within take on a darker shade. Despair, death, horrors both mundane and eldritch - you can expect that aplenty. That said, there are a few lines that won't be crossed under any circumstances: - Explicit depiction of sexual encounters. They may be hinted at, but never "on screen". - No sexual assault of PCs or NPCs. - Gory naturalistic details of violence will be mostly given "at large". I don't delve into the massive amount of bloody details. We'll go over all Lines & Veils during session 0.
Content warnings
Safety tools used