Ancient Roots: Session 1 - Sacaea Setting - New Player Friendly
Deep in the enchanted forest on the outskirts of Felhardt, an ancient power stirs, threatening the people and possibly the fabric of the world itself.
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Once / Thursday - 2:00 AM UTC
Mar 5
Session Duration / 2–3 hours
1 / 4 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
1/4
About the adventure
Welcome to "Sacaea: Ancient Roots", an adventure set in a divergent world following a great calamity, which has fractured existence, creating many reflections of it's origin, each with their own history, timeline and peoples. Players will take on the role of adventurers in the origin world of Sacaea during the Age of Emergence in the year 1247 AGS (After Great Sundering). The world has entered a time of great leaps in discovery as science, magick and exploration have taken those brave enough to the edges of the known world and possibly beyond. What will you discover as you test the very limits of what is possible in a world forever changed by magick? "Ancient Roots" is designed to appeal to fans of high fantasy, epic adventure and exploration. Regardless if you are brand new or a veteran of TTRPGs, this module is intentionally written to be both a great learning experience but also surprise those that know the standard materials inside and out. Step into the shoes of a hero of Sacaea, forge your own legend and decide the fate of the cosmos! -SETTING- "Sacaea is a world built upon the echoes of a fractured past, where veins of raw, pulsing magick run deep beneath the surface, rapidly changing and evolving life into something new, fantastic and at times, terrible. Beyond the edges of the known world, the world bleeds into strange, distorted mirrors of itself - realms where the elements have run wild for a thousand years, birthing both wonders and powers that the history books have long forgotten. In an age of discovery, ingenuity and adventure, the path to survival lies in uncovering the secrets of these divergent horizons and mastering the ancient power that binds them all together."
Game style
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Dungeon Crawl
West Marches
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
Less than a year on StartPlaying
1 game hosted
About me
My name is Aaron and I'm a long time fantasy fan, RPG enjoyer and forever DM. When I was younger, I didn't have the benefit of modern technology or a circle of friends who enjoyed tabletop games, so I came to D&D later in life. As a college student with aspirations to be a writer (but pivoted to IT), It always fascinated me but I never found the opportunities to play. Fast forward to my move to the PNW and I found myself with an abundance of time on my hands. With what started as a one-shot for some friends at work (who went on to be my closest friends and family), I built my own setting. I was and have been fixated on just how enjoyable it is to create content and bring it to the table for my players to break. That is the short and sweet version of what drives me to tireless make content and run it for my players. It is addictive, fun and there is nothing else in the world quite like playing D&D. I have been a DM for over a decade now, I've run pre-written campaigns but honestly, I spend the bulk of my time writing my own setting. I'm also currently working to adapt Shadowrun to the Cyberpunk RED Interlock System. I'm an open-minded, easy going individual who believes to my soul that inclusivity and fun are the pillars D&D is built on. I genuinely hope we meet at the table and I get to share this wonderful game with you!
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Character creation will happen during the session zero in an aided experience by yours truly. We will be utilizing Standard Array and we will have the standard D&D5e options available, as well as some setting specific race variants and classes. This time is meant to be for questions, lore explanations and fun creative time. Character building is meant to be fun and I view it as fully a part of the experience. I will make myself available after the session to answer questions via Discord if things need to be worked out, so there is no pressure to have everything 100% done during the session zero. We will be starting at level 3 (choosing your subclass, I believe, is core to a character's identity). I'm very open to whatever official D&D manuals you wish to pull classes from, but we will refrain from homebrew materials outside of the ones provided here. If you've got an idea, we will work with it!
What to expect
Preparing for the session
The only things we need to have prepared before the session is your Discord and Roll20. Roll20 will be the platform we play on and will store your character sheets digitally. I'd like for all my players to have their accounts set up and ready for invites at the beginning of the session. If you require assistance or get stuck, reach out to me so I can assist! I generally recommend Heroforge for making characters or tokens, but if you've already got an idea for a character in mind, images and stuff is always good to bring in!
What Aaron brings to the table
My GM style is very focused on rule of cool and storytelling. I want my players to live out the characters they want to be and I try to find opportunity for that to happen, whilst challenging them mechanically. I do make a lot of DM calls, especially on obscure rules for the sake of keeping the action moving. I also employ Dungeon Turns as a mechanic for exploration. I'll elaborate more on this during the session, but essentially, every turn is 10 minutes in a dungeon. This allows for every player to get their moment to shine, work together and for me to realistically move the environment in a way that makes things feel immersive and cohesive. That being said, the rules of the game exist for a reason and bad things happen. But, every hero is challenged and heroes sometimes fail. Failing tells good stories, so I encourage my players to accept the ups and downs to let the story be told. I also embrace creativity at the table. If you want to use a spell or ability in an unorthodox way, convince me! Describe to me what your character does, how it works! As to support materials, I will have manuals and whatnot available for players to use so that you can have a wide breadth of options available to you. I write my own ambient music, I will have art and maps available to aid with immersion. If there is any additional materials needed for the enjoyment of this content, I'll do my utmost to accommodate. We will also be going over the tone of the setting, story and elements of the adventure during a brief powerpoint. You can sit back, eat snacks and ask questions!
Homebrew rules
-CONCURRENCY- This setting is written with the intention of being a west marches style of play, with world activities being affected by parties throughout the world. As an opt in bonus feature, I will be offering concurrent play, which will allow other tables to loosely affect the world state. We will establish this during Session 0 and can be completely opted out of, if the table desires. -RULE CHANGES- I do embrace a few home rulings that I feel increase the enjoyment of the game. -Drinking a potion is a bonus action. -Travel is handled through imagery, music and decisions. I generally forgo the "random table" survival approach for a more Lord of the Rings inspired grounded ruleset. -Unless discussed otherwise, we will be using the most recent 2024 rebalance of classes. For classes that are heavily impacted such as Paladin and Druid, it can be discussed on a case by case basis, but I like to maintain balance for the good of the entire table.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Aaron creates a safe table
For each session, I will be setting aside time for a debrief and we will also being doing a session zero. Every player will get time set aside to have a private 1:1 after the session zero if they desire. I will also be utilizing X, N, & O which can be signaled via Discord or within Roll20. Players are also absolutely welcome to message me privately at any time and it can be addressed in a sensitive manner. In addition, we will be taking regularly scheduled breaks and we have an open door policy. If you need a break, tell the table and we can take 5 minutes to catch a quick breath. It's all about having fun and if you book to my table, I'd like us all to share a mindset that this is for enjoyment and a low pressure environment.
Content warnings
Safety tools used