Synavir- A Ravenloft based custom campaign! Open world RP
Synavir is a custom crafted open world based on the Ravenloft lore and classes in combination with Grim Hollow classes. All content provided for free!
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Thursday - 11:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
0 / 5 Seats Filled
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About the adventure
Synavir is a sprawling open D&D world designed around the Ravenloft lore/classes/races supplemented with regular 5.5 content as well as Grim Hollow 5.5 content. The result is a dark gritty fantasy setting with vampires, werewolves, blood magic and all the expected dark fantasy that comes with it. This has been a passion project of mine to create the ultimate dark fantasy world in DnD! In a land taken by the mists after a terrible ritual, the gods have turned their backs, leaving those within to fend for themselves against the horrors of the dark. Chimera roam the forests, undeath and necromancy are rampant, vampires openly rule. People take what help they can find.. or afford. You begin this story as a mercenary in the city of Athanor. You and your newfound allies will have your pick of a dozen contracts. You can pick one, take them all, or take none all together. Perhaps you don't like the way the town folk treat you? Instead of helping them, why not travel instead to Cordova and work in the employ of vampire nobles? Too extreme? Then perhaps the monks at the Sea of Fire Temple can find work for you out in the desert. Go anywhere, fight for anyone, write your own story in a world that has HUNDREDS! Your backstory and origin will inform the major plot and progression of the world, but make no mistake, the world is alive. Everything you do has consequences, every friend you make, every alliance you break. But the world of Synavir is more than gothic castles and vampires.. It features frigid northern mountains plagued by white dragons, vast desert wastelands said to contain alchemical secrets, a bustling western coastline struggling with a pirate problem, a jungle ruled by kobolds, sulfur lakes patrolled by a scheming beast and much more. It is DnD as you know it, but told in a darker tone. Things to know: -The world has a full scale map with 3 major kingdoms as well as several city states. It features 11 distinct biomes with stories and characters in each. -I pay for the use of multiple patreon map makers and almost all locations will have a map. -Characters will be voice acted as much as possible, I do have professional voice acting experience. -Music and Ambience will be played during the sessions Disclaimers: -I do use AI. I don't use it for writing/maps/music/voices/etc. But I do use it for character token art. I'd love to avoid it and pay an artist but I use hundreds of tokens. -This is a roleplay heavy campaign. You will be faced with tough choices that have repercussions. Good stories have good conflicts, be ready to face them. -Session zero will determine combat difficulty, as well as how dark the campaign can get. -Be respectful of your fellow players. This is a story we all write and everyone should have their own voice. -Do not have excessive background noise. We want immersion, not chip eating Asmr. -If you have issues, bring them to me first. So many things can be solved with a little bit of communication.
Game style
Roleplay Heavy
Sandbox / Open World
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(6)
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: World Builder, Storytelling, Creativity
About me
I have been running games for around 8 years or so and was a player in older versions of dnd/pathfinder for a couple before that. I love worldbuilding and prefer custom campaigns to modules as that is what really captivates me. I am a hardcore gamer and have been invited to dozens of private testing sessions to develop and provide feedback on mechanics, systems and character progression for several online games and rpgs. I view TTRPG's as a chance to write a story with each player as a co-author, writing a new story and a new future in every single session. I spend countless hours creating alternative paths for every decision the players make. I don't just write one story, I write a hundred. Each path can shift dramatically with every choice. See, I want my players stories to inform not only the plot, but the world itself. Give me an idea, tell me your character's history and we can run with it and see where it goes. I want a world to feel completely open at all times. Go anywhere and do anything, and watch the consequences unfold. Your actions and decisions should have reactions that echo through the world if they are going to feel meaningful. That is what I aim to provide. Every relationship, every location, every npc. A living breathing world. When you sit down at my table, I want you to feel completely immersed in a sprawling fantasy epic. I encourage you to live through your characters eyes. If you aren't daydreaming about your characters adventures later in the week, then I'm not trying hard enough.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
The starting level for this campaign is 3. Each player will be invited to a discord containing information about the world and setting. Players can use this information to help inform character creation decisions as well as writing their backstory. The backstory can be submitted at any time after joining the campaign and will be used to help shape the lore of the world (characters, locations, etc) There will be an open channel for any questions regarding the lore of the world. Please DM your backstory! For specific or private character questions, there will be a private chat or you can just DM me. Players can write outside the established lore if they wish and we can discuss those changes to see if we can't make them fit into the world. Session zero will have time set aside for discussing character creation questions to help finalize characters before the start of the campaign. For creating the character sheet, we will be using DnD beyond. Once joined you will be given a link to a campaign that will provide with you all my paid content for free. You can use any content from 5.5 and 5.5 extended including Ravenloft:horrors within. We will be using the 2024 version of all spells/feats/races if they exist. If not and you want to use 2014 5e content that is okay! Just run it by me first so we can make it work.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
This campaign is ran through Discord, Roll20 for the VTT, and DnD Beyond for character sheets. You will need all three to play this campaign properly. DnD beyond has an addon called beyond 20 that allows it to directly interact with Roll20. If you need help setting up any of these, just ask in the Discord. In DnD beyond players will be invited to a campaign that will provide all the relevant purchased content to each player for free. This will open up many more races/classes/spells to create your unique custom character with.
What Zaroff brings to the table
This game will have voice acted characters, ambient music, character tokens and maps. It will include tactical combat (difficulty pending discussion session zero) and deep story telling opportunities with choices that permanently alter the game world and lore. You can expect handouts to contain art as well. Enemies/allies/npcs will all behave with according levels of intelligence and knowledge. Using fire or loud sounds to scare animals will work, but don't count on that tactic against goblins. Fighting a group of rag tag bandits is not the same as fighting an organized military group. Expect different tactics. Allies will operate with their own goals in mind as well and their relationships with you can change. The world is alive and what you choose to say or do will alter everything.
Homebrew rules
Bonus action to use potions. Spells don't require material components unless they have a gold cost. Death saving throws are rolled privately to the DM. Stats are Point Buy not rolled. Health is averaged. Nat 20= Success on attack rolls and skill checks Nat 1 = Failure on attack rolls and skill checks Interactions should generally follow the fantasy logic of the world. This means having realistic outcomes based on the worlds rules. If you can convince me it makes sense, I'll probably let you do it. If we discover a broken interaction or one that doesn't have a clear ruling, it will be decided on as it comes up to establish the rule from that point forward. If that ruling somehow negatively affects the way you created your character because expectations of an interaction were not met, we can talk about revising that aspect of the character.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Zaroff creates a safe table
There will be a session zero for this campaign where we will discuss all the settings the group wants to game to run with. This includes combat difficulty, player death, roleplay content(how dark do you want things to go), romance, pvp, etc. Breaks can be taken as needed so long as the group majority agrees. There will also be a discord available to submit questions in public or private at any time that will be answered at my soonest availability. We will do a short debrief at the end of the session.
Content warnings
Safety tools used