Undertow: lies, treachery and treasure in a floating city

Creating your character

Characters begin at 1st level. I'll work with each player separately to create their character before session 1, including helping you to create an interesting backstory that fits into my home brew world. We can either bounce ideas around on chat or have a quick call to talk through details. If you've never created a character before, don't worry at all, I'll walk you through all the details. Ability scores: we roll these from your D&D Beyond character sheet while we're on chat or during our initial call. The specific method I favour is to roll 4d6, 7 times and drop the lowest roll. You can choose to boost one or more scores by a max of 1 by subtracting 1 from another stat.

Preparing for the session

For character sheets, you're welcome to initially create these however you prefer, whether that's with paper and pencil or digitally. However, for the sessions we'll be using D&D Beyond, mostly because it's a handy way to roll dice in a way that's visible to all the players and to me as the GM. It also simplifies things a lot for new players especially as it automatically calculates things like bonuses to rolls. So at some point you'll need to transfer your character details into D&D Beyond. You can create a free account here: www.dndbeyond.com. Once you sign up for the campaign on StartPlaying, you'll have access to a link that lets you join the campaign on D&D Beyond as well. If you've never used D&D Beyond, again, don't worry at all, I'll walk you through the entire process. Apart from that, all you need is a computer with a microphone and webcam. Note: my game style is 'theatre of the mind' with lots of role playing. This works much better on video than audio only, and comes closer to recreating the vibe of an in-person session. So I encourage all of my players to have their webcams on. If you have a specific reason why you'd prefer not to do that, please let me know in advance of session one.

What Simdariak brings to the table

I'm all about creating an atmospheric and flowing game. Vivid Non-Player Characters, using voices and acting to make each one distinct and memorable. Occasionally, when you encounter a bard, I might even sing you a verse or two from an original song, or tell an exert from an epic poem! Rich, detailed descriptions to let you really envisage the scene in front of you. Deep history and lore woven naturally into the story to give you a sense of the realness of the world. Combat is only occasional, but when it happens, it's usually intense, pressurised, with a real sense of danger. If a monster is charging towards you, I'm not going to give you 10 minutes to workshop your response. You need to act within a few seconds or that monster will be swinging its talons at you before you know it! Characters can and do die in my campaigns. I'd much rather see all the characters survive, but your character's fate depends entirely on your decisions. Encounters will not necessarily be perfectly calibrated to make sure the party can win the fight. If you see an obviously superior opposition force approaching, the smart choices may be to run, hide, bluff or negotiate. Choose wisely!

How Simdariak creates a safe table

Before the session, I encourage everyone to add their Lines and Veils to the shared document (link provided once you sign up for the campaign). Lines are hard limits. Topics behind a Line cannot appear, be referenced, or be discussed in the game at all. Veils are soft limits. Topics behind a Veil can exist in the game's world but must not be described or played out in detail. They happen "off screen." During the session, we use the X, N and O card system. Either write one of those letters on a piece of paper and hold it up on video, or just say 'X/N/O card' at any point during a game. 'X' signals that content needs to be removed, changed, or skipped with no explanation required. 'N' means that content is heading towards a potential 'X' card. 'O' cards are a way to check in with the group and check that everyone is comfortable with the current content. After each session, we use the Stars and Wishes system. There's no requirement to do this, but for players who would like to they can DM me with: A Star: something you enjoyed from the last session. A Wish: something you're hoping for in the next session, or something you'd like to change. Also, if you have any other concerns at any time, please feel 100% free to DM me about it. I will treat your concern with respect and with complete confidentiality.