Beneath Refulgent Nightskies - A D&D5e Survival HexCrawl

Creating your character

Characters will be imported onto Foundry VTT from D&D Beyond, so creation shall take place in the latter. Make sure you use the 2014 rule-set and not 2024's. I will be sharing content from PHB, XGtE and TCoE, so feel free to consider options from these books even if you don't own them on D&D Beyond. I will be helping you throughout the process if required. We're using Point Buy and you're free to build any character you want, though I recommend working with the rest of the players; covering each other's weaknesses will be essential to your survival. Characters start at level 3 but with nothing on them other than the clothes on their backs. The first few sessions will be spent trying to scrape by with whatever can be scavenged. For this specific campaign, backstories will be handled differently. They don't have to be as detailed as usual; they can be as detailed as you'd like. Most of the world outside of where the adventure takes place is left intentionally vague, to allow for as much creativity as possible during this stage. Bear in mind, however, that due to the nature of this campaign as one taking place in an unknown land, there won't be many opportunities for backstory-related additions such as coming across villages already visited or people already met (though there will be call-backs to your background). As such, backstories should be designed as fuel to a character's personality, morality and motivation. There will always be hooks to draw your characters into the adventure, but I've found in my tables that this campaign's storytelling potential is at its highest when the players themselves focus on specific aspects of the narrative of their choosing, creating their own unique situations emerging from their characters' unique personalities. I generally prefer top-down tokens of characters to keep everything visually concise but it's alright if you can't find one. I can work with just a portrait or, better yet, a full body picture I can turn transparent. While I do my utmost to avoid AI in my creative process and the assets I use in my games, I am alright with people using them to generate character art. However, I am against using it in the creation of your backstory (especially since you barely need to write anything much for this campaign) and I'd ask you to refrain from doing so. I want you to be emotionally connected with your creation, I want YOUR story.

Preparing for the session

Ensure you have a (free) D&D Beyond account for character creation and a Discord account. You can join the FoundryVTT server on which we'll be playing with any browser of your liking. A decent computer is recommended for smoother play, as Foundry can be a bit resource-hungry. Feel free to check this reference file for additional information related to the campaign, as this page can only fit so much: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1av-bBRmLt6rBIZ6CQ4F1fNdLpOj2Hmpu/view

What Vasilis brings to the table

• An immersive, high-quality hex-crawl in a mystical northern land full of secrets to uncover. • Survival mechanics striking a balance between simplified and involved. • Traveling system that replaces pointless filler fights with unique encounters and involved setbacks. • Challenging and dangerous combat requiring tactical planning and cooperation. • A gloomy atmosphere, enhanced by beautiful maps, ambient sound effects, moody lighting. • Plenty of opportunities for heavy roleplay. • A sense of character progression. • A degree of automation through the use of Foundry and multiple modules. • Friendly, flexible DMing that rewards creativity and respects player agency. • Support and material to assist with character creation.

Homebrew rules

We'll be using an XP-based system to track level up progress, rather than the more main objective-focused milestone system. XP will be awarded on clearing certain pre-determined objectives (defeating certain enemies, completing quests, finding treasure, exploring locations etc). XP for clearing an encounter will only be awarded once to discourage cases where, for example, a situation is resolved peacefully and XP is granted, only for the party to decide to kill everyone anyway for double XP rewards. We'll be using Variant Encumbrance, as the survival-related mechanics are built around its limitations. Two new systems are introduced, altering 5e's traveling and resting systems. "Journey", a system used on the world map to move from one hex to another, and "Camp Actions", a system that allows for the players to take additional helpful actions before long-resting, essential to the survival aspect we'll be focusing on. You can find more information in the reference file for the campaign (WIP): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1av-bBRmLt6rBIZ6CQ4F1fNdLpOj2Hmpu/view Additional homerules we'll be using are: • Non-lethal damage: Non-lethal attacks with weapons doing slashing or piercing damage count as attacks from improvised weapons and have their damage type changed to blunt. • Sentinel Feat rework: If the target creature is two categories larger than you, it loses only half its movement speed instead of all of it. • Healing Potions buff: You can use a potion as a bonus action. If you use it as an action, it heals for the maximum amount of healing possible. • Dice Roll Mistakes: In cases of a dice roll mistake by either the DM or a player (such as e.g. rolling Perception instead of Survival, targeting the wrong enemy, rolling from the character sheet instead of the chat prompt or clicking on the wrong weapon), we will ignore the result of that dice and repeat the roll, rather than keep the dice and manually add bonuses. Either way of resolving this would be fine, but it's better to stick to one way of doing this to ensure fair play and consistency.

How Vasilis creates a safe table

We will be going over expectations and any other questions the players might have, both during a collective "Session 0" chat and in our general communications leading to the first session and each session thereafter. Depending on initial player feedback, we'll be making use of safety cards if deemed a requirement. A break will take place around the middle of each session. If required, additional breaks might take place to ensure everyone is relaxed and focused on the game.