🐺 Wolves of Black Winter [LOTR Survival Journey]

Creating your character

As soon as you join and get in the Discord, you can start playing around with character options. All characters will be of the Heroic Cultures (Race/Species), Callings (Classes) and Backgrounds within 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, so I'll distribute the character creation part of the book, and the custom character sheet, beforehand. Heroic Cultures: Bardings, Dwarves of Durin's Folk, Elves of Lindon, Hobbits of the Shire, Men of Bree, Rangers of the North. Each of these have their own Backgrounds to choose from. Callings: Captain, Champion, Messenger, Scholar, Treasure Hunter or Warden. BUT we will be finalising your Player-heroes in Session 0. This is partly to sort out party composition, but mostly it is for 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦: it's easy enough to write in why your characters ended up in a certain place at the same time, but it would be great if we could agree a reason for adventuring together, and perhaps a hard goal or end point that might differ between characters (a retiring point).

Preparing for the session

You will need a working mic and a Discord account. Owlbear doesn't need an account and works grand on most devices. Character sheets will be on Google Sheets (or at least reproduced there, if you want to use a physical one), but that doesn't need an account either. If you're not too experienced playing D&D, don't fret, there are no bad questions! You don't need to know the rules back to front, just how your character functions (and I understand that might take a few sessions). For those who want to read about the changes from 5th Edition to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, I've written up a cheat sheet (see the "WoBW" tab): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tg4JD95gbRCLGv0x1O4J4h-oM6tk9nDl3HwrnDrGfgg/edit?usp=sharing

What L Sunborn Games brings to the table

My utmost to bring this little area of Middle-earth to life, and completely reactive to your designs. This means it changes around the decisions you make and functions in reaction to your passions and convictions. I'm very comfortable with sudden shifts and thinking on the fly! The world for our purposes is Eriador, a massive landmass bordered to the east and west with mountains, with the Shire at its centre. I don't think it's likely your characters will need to venture farther afield than this, but anything's possible! We have a Google Sheets spreadsheet for everyone's character sheets. We use Owlbear maps for exploration and combat with ambient/atmospheric music, and voice chat on Discord. I'll also provide character voices galore, all (hopefully) in line with their cultures and personality! At the end of each session, I sketch out the main beats of the session while it's fresh it everyone's memory, then a few days before the next session, I post a proper write-up that everyone can collaborate on and will be used to introduce the next session. Combat will be pretty challenging, but always gauged by your interest in it, and against the lore-driven enemies of Middle-earth.

Homebrew rules

Many, but none too controversial! We are deferring to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, otherwise there are a bunch that I find make play more fun and exciting. With everything else, they're collaborative — I'll always be happy for critique and to make sure to bounce off you. You can read here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tg4JD95gbRCLGv0x1O4J4h-oM6tk9nDl3HwrnDrGfgg/edit?usp=drivesdk

How L Sunborn Games creates a safe table

The Session 0 will be set up as a character creation session and "mood board" rundown for anyone who joins. At any time you can let me know about lines and veils and I'll stick to 'em religiously. 𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨. The content/trigger warnings below are not exhaustive. Basically, let your mind delve into tropes of the lovely, adventurous, sometimes bleak and perhaps horrifying Middle-earth, and we'll probably get there at some point. HOWEVER there will be no majorly problematic content or themes, nothing outright abusive or discriminatory — if you have a concern, shoot me a line or veil.