The Realm of Ash'toria: Heroes of the Radiant Imperium
Beneath the gaze of a trio of Suns, a golden age of peace is coming to an end for the Radiant Imperium and heroes are called to maintain harmony.
$15.00
/ Session
Details
8 players following this game
Weekly / Friday - 9:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 2–3 hours
0 / 5 Seats Filled
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About the adventure
“No reign lasts forever on Ash’toria and the sun is setting on the Age of Celestials and their Radiant Imperium…” Welcome potential heroes, to the realm of Ash’toria! A world of beauty and tranquility overseen by the Divine Suns, a trio of Celestial beings that designate a champion to rule their realm and protect its citizens as their steward: The Radiant Imperium. For almost 200 years, the Radiant Imperium flourished beneath the rule of Empress Kalspira, the "Archangel," whose wisdom ushered in an era remembered simply as the Golden Age. Then the Divine Suns chose a new steward: Emperor Karrak Neiphilos and now, fifteen years later, his reign has become associated with corruption, nepotism, plague, and growing unrest. Then the skies changed. Brilliant auroras swept across the heavens in the miracle known as The Blinding Skies, the sacred sign that the Divine Suns had chosen Karrek's successor. By holy law, the Emperor was to send his royal Seekers to find the chosen heir. That was 2 months ago. Since the, silence. Far to the south, in the city of Al'alari, the young knight Ser Birel Qallos is gathering warriors, scholars, priests, and adventurers beneath her banner, she sends a message to every corner of the realm, the final sentence reading: "Join my Sun Spears. Come to the Temple of Joy in Al'alari, and answer these recent omens with heart and steel!" You have received her letter. You too have noticed an ominous shift in the air and wish to respond. You have decided to answer Ser Birel's call for aid! How will you transform Ash'toria's future and cement yourself as one of its greatest heroes? - This long-term D&D 5.5e campaign is set during the twilight of a golden age of peace and prosperity for the Radiant Imperium. PCs will journey through a character-driven, roleplay-heavy experience dedicated to providing them with choices that matter, long lasting consequences, and meaningful emotional connections in a world that is growing and changing as the characters do. This is a Legacy Fantasy campaign where the flavors of Heroic, Epic, and Mythic fantasies blend to allow an experience where PCs begin humble and not only end legendary, but age beyond legendary to engrave themselves in Ash’torian history and mythology. Time will pass in this game, large swaths of it. Expect your characters to age, change, retire, build organizations, meddle with politics, settle down maybe and have kids. Perhaps take control of the narrative for the next generation after your original characters’ stories are done. The possibilities “...but I will do all I can to keep the young and the innocent; the good and the trying in the warmth of the light until my dying day. Please, heroes, help me.” -Ser Birel Qallos, 4th day of Divinis of the month of Mintzos, 570 R.R (Campaign Inspirations: Romance of the Three Kingdoms & Total War: Three Kingdoms, Fire Emblem: Awakening & Three Houses, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dune)
Game style
Combat Lite
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Roleplay Heavy
Puzzle / Mystery Focused
Meet the Game Master
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: World Builder, Inclusive, Storytelling
About me
My name is Asher William Graves, but most of my friends call me Billy! I believe I began dungeon delving early 2017 while I was in the Air Force, playing an amnesiac archer and not being informed that the party I was joining was a very evil one. This first character of mine would meet their end trying to stop his party from massacring a church full of villages and subsequently getting mowed down by arrow fire from the village militia. This early confrontation taught me how crucial GM-Player and Player-Player discussion is for the tabletop gaming experience because no one was happy with how that PVP scenario went down. I took on GM-ing September 25, 2021, running a D&D 5/5.5e homebrew campaign for my wife and buddies from the military. That game finally reached its epic conclusion November 15, 2025 after 61 sessions, so I am happy and proud to say that I have one full campaign under my belt! Beyond that single D&D game, I have run ALIEN The Roleplaying Game and its Evolved Edition a few times and I like using the latter’s GM title for myself when I run any game now: The Game Mother! Beyond that I have enjoyed the tabletop gaming hobby now for almost ⅓ of my life and GM-ing has recently taken all of my free time the past few years, pouring hundreds of hours of effort into worldbuilding, narrative crafting, improving my improv skills, and just generally getting as acquainted with the rulebooks as I can while homebrewing things that serve the story and player enjoyment/engagement.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
I have a lore doc that will outline character creation process and offer which classes would be the best, second best, or third best to play in this setting. Nothing is off the table (except for third party sourcebook classes), but some options would require more workshopping than others. Ability Scores: - Standard Array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or - Point Buy using 27 points; minimum score 7, maximum score 16 Background: - +1 to three ability scores - Origin Feat of your choice - Proficiency in 2 skills of your choice - Proficiency in 1 tool of your choice - 75 GP to spend on equipment (Classes come with weapons/armor) - One Trinket rolled on the Trinket table I have my own set of 25 ancestries/species to choose from, most of the normal ones are altered (ex. There are no halflings so I altered Humans to have their Lucky trait). Primary ancestries include: Humans, Tieflings, Goliaths, Dragonborn, Aasimar, Pandafolk, Orks, Shifters, Ratfolk, and Gnomes. I will provide a healthy list of organizations and factions for you to tie your characters to integrate them into the world better. Languages are gonna be weird, I will provide an altered list of Standard/Rare languages to choose from. Use the spell points variant rule, not spell slots, described on page 289 of the 5E DMG or use the following link https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spell-points Any other details such as Personality, Flaws, Ideals & Bonds, will be decided before or during session 0. Starting level: 1
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Download Discord & Owlbear Rodeo, have a discord account and be prepared to be friends with me :). Also, a mic and internet connection are going to be necessities. For character sheets, I will provide a form-fillable PDF, so you should be able to open, view and edit those. Let me know if there is another method of tracking your character you'd like to do, I just want to be able to regularly check on them before, during, and after sessions. There will be Discord server that will provide a Lore doc, homebrew doc, Game Expectations & Consent Checklist that should be reviewed/filled out before session 1.
What Asher Gravemind Games brings to the table
-> Free Session 0 -> NPC voices (I will do my best!) -> Music for ambience & combat -> An immersive, emotionally engaging experience -> Maintain a healthy balance between encounter types: Social, Combat, Exploration/Investigation. -> Battle Maps! -> I will provide form fillable character sheets. I've got all the books (except for ravenloft) as well as guidance on character creation during session 0. -> I will provide a General Lore doc, Homebrew doc, listing docs for Ancestries, and links for Magic items, Spells and equipment. -> I usually use the Craig Voice Chat recorder bot for my own personal notetaking purposes. However, it will not be used if even one player that joins is uncomfortable with it.
Homebrew rules
-> Health! >When you level up, do not roll for health or take average values. You take the maximum value of each hit die of the chosen class -> Spell Points! > Use Spell Points instead of Spell Slots (Mana Potions exist). -> Carrying Capacity! > While you are below your Carrying Capacity your Speed is increased by 5 feet. If you carry weight over double your Capacity, your movement speed is halved. -> Exhaustion! > Effects all the Save DCs of which your character makes use. Spell Save DCs, Class & Subclass feature DCs, etc. The penalty is -1 per Exhaustion level to each of your feature DCs. (This goes for NPCs, Hostile or otherwise, as well) ->Rests! >Short Rests are 10 Hours Long. Limited to 2 Short Rests per Long Rest. > Long Rests are 3 Days Long. -> Ritual Spells take 10x longer to cast than normal. (ex. If a spell takes an action to cast, its ritual version takes a minute. If it takes a minute to cast, its ritual version takes 10 minutes, etc) -> Opportunity Attacks! >Picking up dropped items and standing up from Prone will trigger Opportunity Attacks, both for PCs & NPCs. -> Critical Hits! > Roll the attack's damage dice twice. Then, add the ability score modifier associated with the attack twice, if it was applied in the first place. -> System Shock! > Instead of requiring character's to deal "massive damage" from a single attack (deal half the hit point maximum worth of damage on a target), System Shock saving throw is triggered when a creature is Critically Hit while Bloodied (missing 50% of their Hit Points). -> More Downtime Activities and downtime focus in general. Expect a lot of timeskips. >Some activities include: learning languages, gaining tool proficiencies, and even gaining more feats. -> New Weapon Masteries and More Weapons! >Some previous weapons may have altered properties. >New masteries: Bleed, Gorge, Sunder, and Rupture. >New weapons include Arming Sword, War Scythe, Bill Hook, Poleaxe, Greatbow, Repeating Crossbow, Chainsticks (nunchucks), Tonfas, Hook Swords, Double-Bladed Scimitars. -> More Shields! >Bucklers (+1 AC), Kite Shields (+2 AC; +3 when mounted), Pavise Shield (plantable shield), Tower Shield (+3 AC)
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Asher Gravemind Games creates a safe table
I will provide the D&D 5.5e Game Expectations sheet for players to understand the expected themes and flavors I envision for the game. The sheet will allow players to put in their Soft/Hard limits on content as well as share their wants, hopes, expectations for the campaign and any concerns you feel you might have regarding table behavior. The RPG Consent Checklist will also be available. I love leaving time for unpacking sessions once they end, debrief and aftercare if necessary. I keep an open door policy for people and I am not afraid of confronting problem players. There will be a session 0 and all of this will be reiterated and open a forum for further clarification and conversation.
Content warnings
Safety tools used