Where Evil Lives
Evil stirs in forgotten lairs and ancient ruins—each a deadly gauntlet of traps, monsters, and treasure. Will your party rise to the challenge, claim
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Tuesday - 6:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 2–3.5 hours
1 / 5 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
1/5
About the adventure
There is evil out there. It lurks on the edges of civilization, in the savage wilds. It rises from ancient ruins, and is born anew in the hearts of the greedy. In a land of power, magic, and wealth, evil will always rise. But for every new evil, heroes are called! Some are paragons of good and virtue, who face evil for the sake of protecting those more vulnerable than themselves. Others are reavers, seeking only fame and fortune in the crypts and wilds. Some may have nefarious goals of their own, and face the monsters of the wilds only to amass power or exercise violence. Regardless of their motives, they are bound by friendship and a desire to face the greatest challenges that their world can provide. This will be a high-power 5e campaign built around Where Evil Lives by MCDM publishing. It is a book of monster lairs and boss battles balanced for levels 2-20, with each lair taking 2-3 sessions to complete. In between lairs, we will have at least one session covering the downtime activities that your characters undertake, including recruiting followers or even building strongholds. This campaign is meant to deliver a few specific things: 1) Tactical combat at every level with classic monsters re-balanced to be more varied and challenging. 2) Lots of loot, magic items, and gold; that is to say, you'll get high-power rewards, and you'll NEED them. 3) Accelerated progression; by skipping straight to the big boss's lair, we can play all the way to level 20 in a reasonable amount of time! 4) Free-form, RP-heavy interludes between encounters, highlighting your characters' progression and using the new Bastions system in the 2024 DMG. 5) Extra detailed character building that will give you a character with real motivations and depth! We will use the City of Greyhawk as a hub for the campaign; when you join, I'll be happy to bring you up to speed on what's available in the city in terms of lore, character connections, and political tensions!
Game style
Combat Heavy
Roleplay Lite
Tactical / Crunchy
Dungeon Crawl
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(100)
4 years on StartPlaying
618 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Teacher, Storytelling
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
About me
My first experience with TTRPGs was two and a half sessions of Rolemaster. If you know that system, you know it's not the greatest starting point for a beginner. Added to that, our GM was trying to run this game while taking care of a newborn and finishing up med school. Despite the rocky start, I was hooked, but I didn't know anyone else at the time who could run a game at all. So I started my own D&D campaign and have been GMing ever since! I run RPGs for the stories, the surprise, and the drama. My goal is always to create an atmosphere where the whole group can explore the stories that interest them. My favorite moments in any game are when things feel cool, cinematic, heartfelt, or badass. That moment when the barbarian leaps through the wall of flame, clothes smoldering, screaming in rage. Or that moment when the Netrunner finally breaks into the top-secret mainframe to loot secrets from the rich and powerful, as a desperate firefight rages around them. But most importantly, the very best moment is when I can tell that the players have forgotten that they're sitting in a chair at a desk, and are having a shared experience that takes them away from their lives and which they'll remember for years. But I've never been satisfied with just a standard D&D campaign or two; I've run games in a dozen or so systems at this point, and I'm always excited to try new ones! I even have experience running custom one- and two-player campaigns, which can be a great way to have a more in-depth, character-driven experience, and also help to alleviate scheduling difficulties. If you're interested in something like that, please feel free to message me or hit the button that says "Book GM," and we can start talking about the specifics!
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
We will cover the majority of character creation during our Session 0. Feel free to come up with character concepts before meeting with the group, but please make sure to be flexible in case of any overlap or conflicts. We'll start at level 1 with a short, non-combat introduction to the setting and the overall adventure. Then, the meat of the campaign will be lairs balanced for characters of level 2 through 20!
What to expect
Preparing for the session
At minimum, you will need the basics for online communication; microphone, headset or headphones (or at least a very quiet room in order to avoid background noise), and a free account on Discord. You will also need free level accounts on Roll20 and D&D Beyond. I'm happy to help anyone who is new to any of these services! As for rules, I'm assuming that this is a campaign for people who are fairly familiar with D&D 5e. You certainly don't need to have everything memorized, but you should be familiar enough with the system to make an effective character who both fits in with the party, and can survive some particularly deadly encounters!
What Colby brings to the table
I'll have everything set up on Roll20 for each session, including maps with dynamic lighting and background ambiance! You're welcome to maintain your character sheet either on Roll20 or D&D Beyond, using a browser extension to send your rolls to the VTT. The core of this game will be intense tactical combat as you clear out the lairs of each subsequent enemy. We'll run things as close to RAW as makes sense in the moment, although I'm always open to unusual solutions that aren't strictly covered by the rules! I will recommend using the character options in the 2024 Player's Handbook for most characters, although I'll be open to using older character options. We'll talk more about how we can handle this during the Session 0.
Equipment needed to play
Computer
Internet
Microphone
Headphones
Platforms used
Safety
How Colby creates a safe table
We will have a free in-depth Session 0 to start this campaign, not only to set expectations for the campaign, but also to ensure that the characters you build fit well with each other as a group and can inhabit the world we choose to play in! During that Session 0 we will go over my personal Lines & Veils, and you'll be able to add items to that list at any time during the campaign. During sessions, I'll have at least one break as an intermission, and all players are also welcome to get up for any reason and at any time (open door policy), whether to run to the bathroom, get a snack, or because something has made you uncomfortable.
Content warnings
Safety tools used