Image by Pamela Dixon
The Hushstar Reckoning | Decide the Fate of the Stars
Race across the Aeon Drift, outwit rival factions, and decide who controls a weapon that can silence stars.
$20.00
/ Session
Details
3 players following this game
Weekly / Thursday - 4:00 AM UTC
Oct 22 / Session 6
Session Duration / 2.5–3.5 hours
Campaign Length / 50–70 Sessions
4 / 5 Seats Filled
Top Game Master
One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.
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Schedule
Meet your party members
4/5
About the adventure
The stars of the Radiant Reach are connected by the Aeon Drift, a luminous realm of impossible currents, living memories, and ancient secrets. When a derelict exploration vessel returns carrying a fragment of forgotten technology, your crew is drawn into a galaxy-spanning race to find the Hushstar Engine, a lost machine powerful enough to silence a sun and erase every star-lane connected to it. Across this long-form Daggerheart campaign, you will explore singing jungles, drifting cities, shattered asteroid kingdoms, twelve-sun megastructures, and the heart of an immortal armada. Expect cinematic ground and starship battles, strange discoveries, political intrigue, heartfelt rivalries, and difficult choices where even your enemies have understandable reasons for what they do. Your decisions will shape alliances, transform entire factions, and determine whether the Hushstar is destroyed, hidden, shared, or remade into something new. This campaign is designed for players who enjoy hopeful science fantasy, character-driven storytelling, colorful space opera, and high-energy anime adventure. It is especially suited to players who want their backstories to matter, enjoy building relationships with recurring NPCs, and prefer meaningful choices over simple good-versus-evil plots. New and experienced Daggerheart players are welcome and rules support will be provided throughout the campaign.
Game style
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(30)
3 years on StartPlaying
721 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Storytelling, Inclusive
About me
It all began Thanksgiving Day when I was 10 years old. I found my uncle’s Dungeons & Dragons red box with the warrior on the cover battling against a dragon. I was instantly drawn to it and begged my uncle to teach me how to play. Less than a year later, I was running adventures for my friends, igniting their and my imaginations as we told stories of heroics and fantasy. As the child of a Navy sailor who moved around a lot, D&D was always my constant and my way of connecting with like-minded people I met. Fast forward to now. Over the years, I have told hundreds of stories with adventurers and friends. Focusing on heavy roleplay and cinematic combat, I aim to bring years of improv theatre to life by driving stories focused on the player’s characters and the decisions they make. Nothing is too wild as we collaboratively build worlds and create adventures that will fill the halls of the legends of those worlds. Come join me. There are still so many tales to tell.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Characters can be created before the start of the campaign or we will allocate time during Session Zero to create characters or assist those who may need it. We will also use part of Session Zero to introduce our characters to each other and develop Connections. Characters will begin the campaign at level 1 using any options from the Core Rulebook, Hope & Fear, or The Void. Characters will be created using Demiplane and all content will be shared with you when you join the campaign there. As this is a science fantasy/space opera adventure, equipment choices are purely for mechanical purposes. The narrative and flavor of your equipment is completely open to your interpretation.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Players should: ✅ have a working headset and microphone available for each play session; ✅ have a PC or Mac that is capable of running a lightweight VTT and Discord reliably; ✅ sign up for a Demiplane account if you don't already have one (it is free to do so); ✅ sign up for a Discord account if you don't already have one (it is free to do so); ✅ remember that this is a game and we are all here to have fun; ✅ be clear with expectations without being discourteous; ✅ see that this is an opportunity to learn from one another as well as teach.
What Anthony McKinstry brings to the table
✨ 33 years of experience running TTRPGs. ✨ A GM who is a fan of your characters and want to see them succeed despite hardship and adversity. ✨ Immersive and story rich narrative. ✨ Tactical and cinematic combat encounters. ✨ A living narrative where player's actions have real rewards and consequences. ✨ As many voices as I can, particularly for NPCs of significance. ✨ Access to my library on Demiplane. ✨ A dedicated Discord server for audio and text discussion, as well as a vibrant and growing community of D&D, Daggerheart, and other TTRPG players.
Homebrew rules
- If a PC is currently full on Hope and rolls with Hope, they may gift the Hope to another PC. - I have developed starship rules for this campaign as well which are lightweight and easily utilized with the basic rules of Daggerheart. We will discuss them during Session Zero and also when they become necessary in the narrative.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Microphone
Computer or Mobile Device
Platforms used
Safety
How Anthony McKinstry creates a safe table
A Session 0 will be run before the campaign starts and will last the length of a normal session. In the first part, we will have an open discussion on the different levels of player experience and on the themes and tone we will explore in the campaign. We will also identify areas that might prove difficult for participants and how the other safety tools will be used to mitigate these and help player enjoyment in general. In the second part, we will as a group finalize your player characters and give you all an opportunity for players to collaborate and get to know each other little before we begin play. Outside of Session 0, we will conduct debriefings/above the table discussions in the first 5-10 minutes of the session as required, and Stars & Wishes in the last 5 minutes of every fourth or fifth session. Players will be free to take breaks as life demands and I will initiate a break around the halfway point of each session. Unless your character was already in a combat, then your character will be absent if you as the player are absent from that session. This gives you the player surety that it will remain your character in your absence.
Content warnings
Safety tools used