Explore an Ancient Dwarven City. Find Treasure and Fight Undead

A long fallen Dwarven city is unsealed. Confront the waking dead and worse within its halls as you explore, hunt for ancient secrets and find treasure

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

1–5

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

All Ages
2 NEEDED TO START
$20.00

/ Session

Details

Weekly / Wednesday - 7:00 PM UTC

Session Duration / 2.75–3.25 hours

1 / 6 Seats Filled

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This game will begin once 3 players have joined

Meet your party members

1/6

About the adventure

When an earthquake exposes an entrance to the ancient lost city of Hardflint Hall, it's up to nearby Adventurers (you) to investigate. Why was the city sealed away? Why do the dead roam its halls? What do you seek in Hardflint Hall? Treasure? Artefacts? Knowledge? Power? Will you survive long enough to find it down there? This adventure covers character levels 1 through 5 is estimated at about 10 sessions in length. An often-goofy thriller suitable for all ages and game experience levels. You will assist a nearby town recovering from the earthquake with combat, puzzles, skill challenges and travel, your characters will meet some personal twists as the stakes for your exploration of Hardflint Hall are set, and then it's off through the wilderness to climb the mountain and explore the big dungeon within - a whole Dwarven city mapped out in 5ft squares on a single super-sized map. The module used as a base is "Shadow Under Hardflint Hall" by JVC Parry.

Game style

Roleplay Heavy

Rule of Cool (RoC)

Puzzle / Mystery Focused

Meet the Game Master

5.0

(17)

Less than a year on StartPlaying

26 games hosted

Highly rated for: Knows the Rules, Creativity, Storytelling

About me

I've loved telling stories for as long as I can remember, and got my first TTRPG experience playing MERP with my father and brother at a single digit age. At university, I played at but mostly ran for the Games Society. Every player who turned up had to be placed at a table, so these games were always oversubscribed, with the largest being 12 players. I ran mostly Call of Cthulhu, but also some D&D 3.5, and homebrew systems. One campaign was played in pure theatre-of-the-mind, with no mechanics, even dispensing with dice rolls to keep things moving with so many players. For years after that, I would run games with friends trying to perfect a homebrew system, before eventually being drawn into 5e by the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. My first 5e campaign was run at my workplace and helped build bridges between departments there, it was well loved and brought to an end by Covid. I promptly discovered VTTs, used them to reconnect with old friends, and now run 2 simultaneous casual groups with friends and friends of friends around the world. I also ran a OneD&D playtest campaign with players from different places. I'd like to run some non-D&D systems, mostly Fabula Ultima and the FFXIVTTRPG. Taking the step to doing this for a living is long overdue.

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Character creation

Creating your character

Characters start at Level 1 with no bonus feats or items. You can create your character in Foundry or on D&D Beyond and import them. Premade Characters are also available, these have been built for the adventure. The Foundry Server allows you to build a character without owning any books, and has a wide and expanding range of character options available including: - All 1st party 5e 2024 sources officially published for Foundry - A selection of 1st party 2014 options, tweaked to fit better into 2024 - A selection of 3rd party options including from Sebastian Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim, Kibbles' Generic Elemental Spells, The Crooked Moon and Call from the Deep - Additional Origin Feats salvaged from 2014 era backgrounds - Bespoke rules for characters with mixed-species lineages - At least 8 subclasses for each of the 12 core classes If you are creating a character on D&D Beyond, you can broadly use whatever you want there. I aim to fulfill wishes and empower players to express their chatacter's fantasy, and will only veto character builds if I think they'll overshadow other players or break the adventure. You may use a Custom Background - 3 ability score increases with max 2 in any score, any 2 skills, any 1 tool and any origin feat. 50gp to spend on gear as you see fit. Standard Array is preferred for ability score assignment, though Point Buy is permissable. The world beyond the immediate setting is also undefined, feel free to bring narratives and places from your favourite setting or invent your own places and peoples.

What to expect

Preparing for the session

The game will be played through Foundry, hosted on Forge VTT, with voice chat through Discord. Links to both will be sent to you on sign up, you need only click both and follow the instructions. Both require accounts, but are free and work in a browser. You will not need a D&D Beyond account, physical books or physical dice.

What Dax brings to the table

I bring ambient music (which you can mute), 100% human made battlemaps and character images, interesting combat with puzzles, gimmicks and diversity, and a willingness to both bend the game rules and work with you to nail the fantasy that you're seeking. I prep meticulously and I understand the design of the game very deeply.

Homebrew rules

Rests happen in whatever time is needed to produce the right adventuring day, durations and activation times scale with them. Simplified Hand Changes - worry less about how the right weapon gets into your hand without breaking the game. Readied Actions are a delayed part of your turn i.e. full attack on ready.

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Microphone

Safety

How Dax creates a safe table

Lines and Veils are handled on Discord, with a private channel that only I and those signed up to play with you can see. The Foundry World has a fully anonymous X Card button, as well as a Raise Hand button that you can use if you feel like things are moving without your input that also works as our O card from time to time. At Session 0 we'll get to know each other a bit as people, make sure the Lines and Veils list is complete, we'll talk about everyone's wishes for the adventure and make sure everyone is happy with the tone we're going for. Everyone will have an opportunity to make requests and raise any other topics that are important to them. In addition to listed warnings, be aware that the adventure prominently features an earthquake and building collapse.

Content warnings

Fire
Death

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions