The Halls of the Blood King: Let's Crash the Vampire Conclave!
There will be blood. So. Much. Blood.
TYPE
SYSTEM
LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE
AGE
$15.00
/ Session
Details
1 player following this game
Once / Thursday - 10:00 PM UTC
Jul 23
Session Duration / 3 hours
0 / 6 Seats Filled
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About the adventure
tl;dr: Get in, save/loot what you can, and escape before the castle warps back to The Bad Place. --- You've heard horror stories of the Blood Moon Eclipse since you were young. Now it seems the legends are true. Dozens of your neighbors have gone missing already! Strange folk have been seen traveling to the mountains, beneath the red moon’s light. And tonight, after a hundred years, the twisted spires of the Blood King's manor have once again appeared amid the misty peaks! Grown folk cower behind locked doors, whimpering like babies, remembering the screams of their grandparents’ night terrors. The Reaping Night is here! The Hour of Shadows! They pray the myth holds true and the castle fades at daybreak... But you do not passively await some boogy man, you intrepid adventurer! You walk straight into the jaws of death, to flit amongst casually murderous aristocrats, conspiratorial plots, and ancient rivalries! To save poor souls condemned to exsanguination, and take the treasures of far flung worlds. Perhaps, even to avenge mortal kind against the lords and ladies of undeath! --- We will be playing The Halls of the Blood King (the ENNIE Award's Best Adventure of 2021!), originally written for Old School Essentials, using Cairn, an easy to learn rules light system.
Game style
Dungeon Crawl
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
2 years on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Creativity, Voices, Storytelling
Average response time: 3 hours
Response rate: 100%
About me
Hey hey! My name is Christof (Stofsky, Stofer, or Elstoferino if you're not into that whole brevity thing), and my brand name is Happy Chthonian 🤪👾—because being a brand is like being a person without all the complications of having a soul (or a phylactery)!! 🙃 Game Mastering is my absolute favorite, and while I am fresh to the StartPlaying platform, I bring a proven track record from the Real World, backed by 5-star reviews from my long-term, real-life players. I love facilitating exploration and creative problem solving in rich, fantastical worlds, seeing what schemes players come up with, and letting the world change, grow, and react in response to character actions. If you have any interest in playing, please reach out! I would love to welcome you to the table. I specialize in two fairly different styles of RPG. For busy adults, total newbies, narrative enthusiasts, and creative problem-solvers, I offer a "Rules Ultralight" experience. That means fiction-first play using streamlined mechanics (like Cairn-style auto-hit attacks, slot-based inventory, and zero stats/levels) and quick character generation in which we roll up unique weirdos in 60 seconds. These games rely on your real-world cleverness rather than character stats. If you prefer more crunch and deep immersion, I run a RAW sandbox in my favorite setting - Dolmenwood! These campaigns focus on long-term exploration of a vast world dripping with detail and folklore. Dolmenwood uses lore-integrated rules for everything from campsite cooking and blessing-based magic to specific wine inebriation effects and wilderness exploration, all adjudicated by your’s truly as a neutral referee dedicated to giving you the Dolmenwood experience as the authors intended :)
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Quick Character Creation: Characters are generated live at the start of the session using zany, flavorful gear tables. Each player chooses or rolls for their role / objective (Do-Gooder, Thief, Tourist, and Schemer) and then rolls on adventure-specific starting gear tables for six pieces of starting gear. You could be a scheming scribe with garlic and a jar of irresistible marbles! Or a goblin vampire courtier carrying a bag of tribute blood! Then we venture into the blood bath! I'll provide the tables here so you can see what I'm talking about: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1212qyMB8QF2h44IQEdwzavD71ta1b3h_/view?usp=drive_link And here's the template for the character sheet we'll use: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vqisPahz4dUl2xA8dUnTq3s9mJlrV_Kcfq6Cb7qvzE8/edit?usp=sharing
What to expect
Preparing for the session
🎒 What You Need to Bring A microphone with clear audio and a quiet background. A free Discord account for our voice call. A love for dark fantasy, intrigue, and lateral problem-solving (No VTT accounts or rulebook reading required).
What Happy Chthonian 🤪👾 brings to the table
🕹️ How We Play Rules Light & Zero Prep: We use a fiction-first framework designed to get out of the way of the story. No rules to memorize, no complex sheets, and zero homework before you show up. Theater of the Mind: No cluttersome digital maps. Just immersive description, breathtaking psychedelic art from the adventure book, and the power of our shared imagination 🌈! Fiction-First Heist: We play unbridled by skill lists and modifier numbers! You can attempt any clever trick, lie, or stealthy maneuver that makes comes to mind! Cairn-Inspired Combat Stakes: No to-hit rolls—all attacks hit and hurt. Trading blows with ancient cosmic vampires is typically a good way to get killed, unless you’ve got some sunlight or holy water on hand!
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Happy Chthonian 🤪👾 creates a safe table
Lines and Veils: I'll ask players their content preferences and avoid sensitive content Open Door Policy: All players are welcome to step away and take a break from the table without judgment. Breaks: We'll take a 10 minute break after every 90 minutes of play. Stars and Wishes: At session end, I'll solicit feedback about the session. Per Startplaying's rules, I don't tolerate players being nasty to one another. In response to minor transgressions, I'll point out the problem and give a warning. In response to repeat or unacceptable behavior, I will eject players from the server/campaign and then process the event with all involved. Finally, no character-on-character conflict (attacking or stealing from one another). The only exception is when such in-party conflict is enthusiastically endorsed by the whole table.
Content warnings
Safety tools used