DOOM AND DAGGERS: A Grimdark Daggerheart Campaign
As the Blood Plague spreads like veins across the land and darkness falls; Heroes must sacrifice their humanity to fight back against the nightmares.
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Bi-weekly / Wednesday - 1:30 AM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
2 / 5 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
2/5
About the adventure
TONE AND FEEL Set in a custom grimdark campaign frame heavily inspired by the following works: Darkest Dungeon, Resident Evil, Berserk, Van Helsing, Evil West and Bloodborne This campaign will focus on action and horror as its two primary pillars; With exploration, roleplay, mystery and base management as secondary supporting elements. Veins of blood plague have spread across the land; A constant reminder of the vile corruption taking hold of everything you once knew and cared for. Those who have lost all hope flee as the nightmares claw at their heels, and those who fight back must face horrors and fates worth than death. As players, you will need to embrace that your characters will endure unspeakable horrors, phyiscal and mental trauma, and a high risk of death at any moment; With custom mechanics like Fear Saves that check your sanity when it matters the most, and the Death's Door system that replaces player death moves with a brutal dose of realism that forces tough choices to be made both in and out of combat. These mechanics are in place to crank up the difficulty and tension of every session and to make you feel the weight of what it means to be a hero in a world that is completely saturated in danger and doom, and rack and ruin. Thus true heroes are a dying breed, replaced by those who have learnt from the mistakes of morality; Like mercenaries, vagabonds, tricksters, thieves, scoundrels, occult fanatics, eldritch scholars, bounty hunters, monster slayers, and lonesome drifters. To get the most out of this campaign, you should lean into the gritty dark fantasy aesthetic. Create characters who are anti-heroes, reluctant heroes, pulp fantasy heroes, byronic heroes, and tragic heroes; And embrace their mortality as a powerful storytelling device that serves both the grander narrative as well as their personal character arcs. Death may close one door but open countless more. INCITING INCIDENT Delacrow; The dilapidated and decaying ruin of what was once a sprawling village has been all but abandoned as the Blood Plague creeps ever closer. The few who still linger only do so because of their loyalty to the duke, but when he suddenly relinquishes ownership of his entire estate to an unknown heir, the final nail in the coffin is struck and the hamlet falls to almost complete desolation. However, when all seems lost, there is a flicker of hope in the darkness; A stagecoach rattling down a cobblestone road towards the hamlet, its lantern cutting through the pitch of night, and its cargo filled with warm bodies ready to risk everything for a chance at revenge, wealth, ancient knowledge, and untold power.
Game style
Tactical / Crunchy
Combat Heavy
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(30)
Less than a year on StartPlaying
10 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Teacher, Rule of Cool
About me
I'm ready to roll some dice, so let's get a party together and make a collaborative story! I'm Keenan Bothma, I've been DMing for the past 10 years and I absolutely love game design, creative writing and nerds doing nerd stuff. It all started as a teen, hopelessly obsessed with D&D, begging friends to play with me. Of course, no one else would take up the mantle of DMing, so I gave it a try and discovered a lifelong hobby along the way.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Characters will be created during session 0.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
- Get Discord and create a free account. You will be sent an invite link to the discord server when you sign up for the game. https://discord.com/ - Create a free Roll20 account. https://roll20.net/ - Create a free Demiplane account. https://app.demiplane.com/home
What Keenan Bothma brings to the table
- Over 10 years of DMing experience in all kinds of genres. - Daggerheart core rulebook shared through Demiplane. - Audio and Ambience. - Visual aids. - Custom maps made using Inkarnate Pro. - Custom adversaries. - Custom campaign frame. - Custom homebrew rules.
Homebrew rules
- Death's Door: When you mark your last hitpoint, you are downed. While downed, you cannot make any moves and you must wait for an ally to check your vitals or heal you. When you recieve any healing, or when an ally checks your vitals as an action, you will roll your Death's Door Save. The difficulty for the Death's Door Save starts at 10 but increases by +1 after any player character action. The longer you are downed, the higher the chance that you will be found severely wounded or possibly even dead. - Fear Saves: The GM may call for a Fear Save whenever it seems appropriate. For example, when you first encounter a horrific creature, or when that creature critically succeeds on an attack, or performs actions that incite terror, or when you roll with fear at a pivotal moment, etc. Fear Saves are meant to ratchet up the tension and difficulty of the game, and to keep the players between 5-8 Fear so that they never feel safe. Failing a Fear Save while the GM has plentiful Fear Tokens may result in your character suffering from long-lasting psychological traumas. - Base Management Gameplay in this campaign is split between managing the village of Delacrow and going out on treacherous adventurers into the corrupted lands. Delacrow will need to be built back up to its former glory one building at a time, unlocking new NPCs and game mechanics as you do so. - Tag Team Hope Share This world is grim and brutal even at the best of times. In order to counter this, players may split the 3 Hope cost of Tag Team moves between them, and there are no 'per session' limitations on Tag Team moves. - Limited Rest Opportunities Everything costs gold; In order to recover hitpoints, stress, hope, or armor slots, you will need to stock up on provisions for longer adventures, and be prepared to spend bags of gold at the sanitorium, the tavern, and the blacksmith between adventures to prepare for the next outing.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Keenan Bothma creates a safe table
WARNING! This is a grimdark horror campaign that relishes in terror, gore, and disturbing topics. There are many Content Warnings because I am trying to cover as many bases as I can. This game is not for the faint of heart. If you are easily disturbed or squeamish then this game may not be for you. However, I also understand that there are some topics that you may want to steer away from in the game, or phobias that you do not wish to include, which we can cover during your session 0. SESSION 0 There will be a free session 0, in which we will cover the following: - A basic tutorial of Daggerheart. - A rundown of the homebrew rules. - Go over lines and veils. - Character creation. - Collaborative worldbuilding. LINES AND VEILS Lines = Topics you do not wish to see or interact with in any way. Veils = Topics that can be included but not interacted with or focused on. BREAKS During the game, anyone can ask for a 5 minute break when they need it. DEBRIEFING I like to spend at least 15 minutes after each session to discuss everything with my players. This is a good time to give me feedback and hopes for future sessions.
Content warnings
Safety tools used