A brand new world to explore- the Sandbox- do what you want

Creating your character

Character creation happens at a free Session Zero — a full session on Roll20 with voice over Discord where we build the party together. You'll leave with a finished character, the shared backstory in place, and the table's lines and veils agreed. Join mid-campaign and we'll build yours together before your first session. The premise you're building into: you are children of the fallen House of Vey — or fellow survivors chained on the same Iskari slave galley. Someone betrayed your family. Someone else, for reasons unknown, struck your chains. You wash ashore with nothing but rags and a slaver's brand — equipment is earned in play, and because of that it matters. The mechanics: for House of Vey Characters -starting level 3; standard 27-point buy, race bonus, then +1 STR and +1 CON (years at the oar hardened you); a great house's education grants proficiency in History, Religion, Insight, and Persuasion plus two bonus languages. A custom Players Handbook (provided free) walks the entire build step by step. Species and classes: every officially published species and class is welcome — mixed heritage is common among the children of Vey and actively encouraged. One setting-specific species exception is explained at Session Zero. Third-party content: ask me first. Books: 2014 core rules are the baseline; the free Players Handbook and Player Primer cover everything setting-specific. You don't need to buy or read anything to play. Rather skip the homework? Several pre-generated Vey siblings are ready to play including — Grael (half-orc barbarian), Bryn (half-dwarf cleric), and Sela (half-elf ranger) — each with a full backstory tied to the opening.

Preparing for the session

Before Session Zero, please: Create a free Roll20 account at roll20.net — we play in the browser, nothing to download. I'll send the game link after you book; click "Join Game" so you're in the campaign before we start. Create a free Discord account and install the app (desktop recommended) — all voice runs through Discord. You'll get an invite to the campaign server after booking; pop in and say hello in #introductions so I know you made it. Test your microphone. A working mic and reasonably quiet space are the only hardware requirements. Camera is welcome but optional. Skim the free Player Primer I'll send you (10–15 minutes) — just the opening pages on who you are and how you got here. The full custom Players Handbook is provided too, but you don't need to read anything else before Session Zero; we build characters together there. Come with a character concept, not a character sheet. A class you'd enjoy and one idea about who your Vey child was before the betrayal is plenty — or ask for a pregen (Grael the barbarian, Bryn the cleric, Sela the ranger) and skip prep entirely. That's it: two free accounts, a mic check, and fifteen minutes of reading. No books to buy, no software to purchase, no painting miniatures at 2 AM.

What Matthew Shepherd brings to the table

What I provide: A living original world — a homebrew setting built over years and hundreds of pages: custom player materials (a free Players Handbook and Player Primer written for this campaign), original factions, peoples, and places you can't have read spoilers for. A visual experience — a curated slide deck runs alongside every session: commissioned-quality scene art, NPC portraits, and maps, so when you meet the goblin alchemist or the lights come dancing through the trees, you see it. Full Roll20 setup — maps, tokens, and character sheets prepared for you; battle maps for combat, theater of the mind for everything else. A persistent Discord home — session recaps, character art, scheduling, and between-session questions all live there. The game doesn't stop existing between Thursdays. Pregens and session prep — three ready-to-play characters of the Vey bloodline, and a prepared session every week. I take the craft seriously; your seat time is play time. My style at the table: Character voices, yes — from aristocratic demigod chihuahuas to weary village elders. You'll know who's talking with your eyes closed. The world remembers. This is a true sandbox: NPCs track how you treat them, kindness and cruelty both compound, and consequences are real and durable. No railroad — I prep situations, not plots, and follow where you go. Rule of Cool, played honestly. I lean rules-as-written for combat's spine — your choices need reliable footing — but a brilliant idea will always get a fair ruling over a rulebook citation. What I don't do is fudge outcomes: dice mean what they say, death is possible, and that's why your victories are real. Combat is consequential, not constant. Fights are dangerous and worth avoiding, worth winning, and never filler. Many of this world's best encounters have no initiative roll at all. Tone: tragedy and delight in the same hand — real darkness in the premise (you begin as escaped slaves), real warmth in the world, and more whimsy than the brand on your cheek would suggest. Spotlight discipline. Five players means I actively steer scenes so everyone drives something every session.

Homebrew rules

Both fixed — here's the revised field: This campaign runs on 5e with a custom setting layer rather than heavy rules mods: You start with nothing. Characters begin in rags — equipment is found, earned, or gifted in play, and it matters. Village-forged gear is honest but rough: −2 damage (minimum 1) and it breaks on a natural 1. Real weapons are treasures here. Survivor's build: everyone starts at level 3 with +1 STR and +1 CON (the oar-bench hardened you) and a great house's education (proficiency in History, Religion, Insight, Persuasion, +2 languages). Scale-change adventures. Rare relics can shrink the party to 1/20th normal size to walk among the world's smallest peoples — and at that scale the world is run with the stat blocks it deserves: an ordinary snake is a giant snake, a house cat is a dire predator, a rain-swollen gutter is whitewater. Same rules, new perspective, some of the campaign's best adventures. Faction Standing: your reputation with the world's powers is tracked on a standing ladder — kindness, cruelty, and Heat all compound. Prices, doors, and rescues depend on who you've become. Downtime matters: between adventures you can work, train, investigate, and build relationships from a structured downtime menu. Death is real — and so is 5e magic. No fudged dice: at low levels, when nobody can afford a temple or a scroll, death will likely stick. As you grow, the normal remedies open up — a high-level cleric, a scroll of revivify or raise dead, your own party's magic. Dying is a costly setback, not a deleted save file; it's just genuinely possible. Everything else runs close to the book — no surprise mods to crits, initiative, or spellcasting.

How Matthew Shepherd creates a safe table

This campaign begins with escaped slaves and a family betrayal — mature themes are baked into the premise, so safety isn't a formality here; it's part of the prep. At Session Zero we cover it as a group: the campaign's content warnings in plain terms (slavery and captivity in your backstory, betrayal, consequential violence), how the table's tools work, and what everyone's hoping to get out of the game. Lines & Veils, collected privately. After Session Zero I'll send each player a short form (or just DM me): Lines are content that never appears, Veils are content that happens off-screen. You never have to explain or justify an entry, no one else sees your answers, and the list stays open — you can add to it any session, for any reason, including "I just don't feel like it." In play (we're voice-first, so tools are digital): a simple "pause" or an X in the Discord or Roll20 chat stops or redirects a scene, no explanation required — from anyone, about anything, including things on nobody's list. I also check in proactively when scenes run close to the campaign's heavier themes rather than waiting to be flagged. Aftercare: we close each session with a quick Stars & Wishes round — something you loved, something you want more of — and my DMs are open between sessions for anything that didn't sit right or didn't feel worth saying in front of the group. Concerns raised privately get handled privately. The standing rule: the world can be dark; the table never is. Everyone at it, including me, is here to have a good time — and any content, rule, or scene bends before that does.