Vecna Versus Heliana's Monster Hunters!

Vecna Versus Heliana's Monster Hunters!

The greatest monster hunters in the multiverse must team up and gear up to fight the most diabolical threat in existence -- the archlich Vecna.

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

5–30

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

All Ages
5 NEEDED TO START
$25.00

/ Session

Details

5 players following this game

Weekly / Friday - 1:00 AM UTC

Session Duration / 3–3.5 hours

0 / 6 Seats Filled

Top Game Master

One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.

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This game will begin once 5 players have joined
About the adventure

If you've ever wanted a tour of the Forgotten Realms and all its many corners of the multiverse -- Barovia, Dragonlance, Spelljammer -- then look no further than my version of Vecna: Eve of Ruin. An adaptation of the classic first edition adventure, the Rod of Seven Parts by Skip Williams, this story will take the players on a roller coaster through Dungeons & Dragons' most iconic settings on their quest to reassemble the fabled Rod of Seven Parts and use it to destroy the most infamous villain in all of D&D history, the archlich Vecna! Have you ever wanted to fight Count Strahd and Acererak AND Lord Soth AAAND Tiamat AAAAAAND Vecna, but you just didn't know which campaign to join? Well have I got some great news for you. You'll fight all of them and more in this adventure. Have you ever wanted to cross paths with Alustriel Silverhand and Tasha the Witch and Mordenkainen the Magnificent? By the time we're done, you'll know what their favorite drink is at the bar. And that bar is more than just the stereotypical place to start the adventure. Lut's Tavern floats in the astral sea and is host to a wide variety of monster hunters. Its extradimensional rooms expand and contract to host and house whatever and whoever an adventuring party needs to track down the greatest villains of the universe. Full libraries, caravans full of traders, hidden armories of magical gear, all of this and more can be found at Lut's tavern, assuming the party can pull themselves away from the nightly burlesque show or the gambling tables. Through a magical flight of drinks, Lutecia -- the owner of Lut's Tavern -- can teleport you to anywhere or anything in the multiverse your heart desires. And what you desire is the same thing every adventurer desires: Loot. Loot isn't easy to get. You have to sweat for it and bleed for it, and the worst part is you have to just hope you find what you want. And like Dan Harmon said, hoping is just pouting in advance. A real monster hunter like you won't rely on hope. You make your own luck in this world. Your own luck, and your own gear. At Lut's Tavern, you'll meet a seasoned half-orc adventurer named Heliana who has written the guidebook to end all guidebooks. This book will teach you how to harvest body parts from all the monsters you encounter, including the most important part of all -- their Essence. The Essence is like a monster's soul, if they had one. You'll learn how to harness these Essences to create whatever magical gear you can imagine, and this gear will allow you to take on all comers. Even the archlich Vecna himself. So what are you waiting for? The door's always open at Lut's Tavern, and the world isn't going to save itself.

Game style

Combat Heavy

Roleplay Heavy

Sandbox / Open World

Game themes

Meet the Game Master

5.0

(34)

TOP GM
Published Writer

4 years on StartPlaying

738 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Knows the Rules, Storytelling

About me

**NOW TRYING OUT CHARACTER BUILDS FROM THE 2024 PLAYER'S HANDBOOK. YOUR CHOICE, 5E OR ONED&D!** Yes, I'm covered in blood. Yes, some of it is my own. Yes, I might have had a few too many drinks that night. But do you really want someone describing your party's fight in a tavern who doesn't know what a bar brawl is actually like? Let me tell you of the days of high adventure! I've been doing this for a decade now -- running D&D 5e, not getting into bar fights -- so you'll find a very experienced dungeon master in me. I thoroughly enjoy helping both new and veteran players realize their characters, then putting those characters to the test. I welcome homebrew and happily work with anyone to bring to life a fair vision of the character they want to play even if that vision has not previously been rendered through the class mechanics of the core books. Expect a good balance between social interactions, cinematic combat scenarios, involved exploration... and loot. Expensive, rare, magical loot. What's an adventure without a big old pile of shiny at the end of it? I specialize in incorporating a player's character concept and background into the story I run. Are you an escaped Thayan slave turned rogue? Perhaps you'll bump into your old master somewhere down the line and exact a bit of revenge. Did you accidentally burn down the orphanage in Waterdeep in which you were raised, practicing your nascent sorcery? Maybe as you refine your evocation skills, you'll be given the opportunity to make right this misdeed for which you've never forgiven yourself. As a young sailor, were you tossed overboard during a terrible storm off the Sword Coast? Mayhap in your new life as an accomplished fighter, you'll reunite with the captain who had been more a father than an employer. One important ground rule: Chaotic evil PCs are forbidden at my table. This is an alignment for monsters, and monsters don't play well with others. Likewise, keep this spirit of cooperation in mind if you're thinking of portraying the ubiquitous, brooding, silent character with a dark past. Even if you're just pretending to be a jerk, everyone else still has to spend three very real hours with that jerk. Besides, in real life, the people I know who've had the worst things happen to them are often the most fun to have a beer with. A dark character with a horrible past can still be a fun hang. Let's try to spend three hours a week pretending to be something we'll probably never actually get to be in real life: Heroes. It's therapeutic.

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Character creation

Creating your character

Character creation will occur before the first session. Stats are allocated via Point Buy (or Standard Array, which is just Point Buy for beginners). Players will start this campaign at level 5. Characters are created on dndbeyond, using all the official Wizards of the Coast source books. 3rd party or homebrew content can possibly be used, but I will have to review it prior to implementation. I reserve the right to alter, nerf, or buff any features, both official or unofficial. I like to run material as written whenever possible, but if this material was 100% balanced, the dungeon master would largely be irrelevant. For this specific campaign, players will also take one additional bonus feat from Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting: Part 1. The campaign conceit is that all player characters are renowned monster hunters, therefore each already has at least one feat from this source book. A player can (and most likely will) take more than one of these feats, but you are given the first for free right out of the gate independent of the ASIs or feats gained through normal class progression. Finally, I prefer non-multiclassed characters, and in this campaign, ultimately the player likely will too. Unlike many campaigns, we will reach level 20 and beyond. The epic boon feats are only available upon reaching level 19 in one particular class, so multiclass builds will not gain one, or at best, be delayed in gaining their epic boon feat. Moreover, I will be implementing 2CGaming's Epic Legacy Gaming for 20+ level play, and those character options only become available to players upon reaching level 20 in their respective class. Multiclass if you must, but you have been warned, and you might feel left out when the rest of the party starts getting their shiny new toys at levels 19 and up.

What to expect

Preparing for the session

Preparation for the game is simple. You will need to: 1) Join my Discord server which hosts our voice chat during the game. 2) Sign up with Forge-vtt.com which is the server hosting my Foundry VTT. 3) Pour yourself a drink, kick back, and have fun.

What ParryDuckKill brings to the table

I think it's a little sad most campaigns end at level 12 when Dungeons & Dragons has rules for levels well beyond that benchmark. I've spent the last five years running high level campaigns, and I've grown comfortable dealing with epic tier play. This campaign is meant to combine all the experience I've gained into one massive story that capitalizes on my ability to shepherd players through the heights this game has to offer. And beyond. Cue the supplementary material for my version of Vecna: Eve of Ruin: 1) Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting: Part 1 2) 2CGaming's Total Party Kill Bestiary, Vol. 1 & 2 3) 2CGaming's Epic Legacy Gaming Core Rulebook Heliana's introduces rules for players to harvest materials from the bodies of monsters they've slain. Once harvested, players can create any magic item in the game, even legendary artifacts! The more powerful the monster, the more powerful the magic gear that can be created, and that's where the TPK Bestiary will come into play. These books boast CR 30 creatures with which even level 20 characters can not contend. And so that's where the Epic Legacy core book comes in, to provide players with character options from levels 21-30! The point of this campaign is to realize the most overpowered characters possible so they can take on the most deadly monsters and most iconic villains in existence. Players can also expect: •A streamlined FoundryVTT complete with QOL modules •High quality maps from a variety of patreons to which I subscribe •Spell and weapon animations to bring combat to life •Tokens and artwork for every single NPC and monster •Custom playlists of curated music instead of generic fantasy scores •An active Discord server on which I can be reached at almost any time Also, in the spirit of Robert E. Howard and his peerless rendition of the most iconic barbarian of all time, I also run a true d100 table for the Wild Magic Barbarian. I've playtested it since the release of that subclass, and by this point, it's incredibly solid, balanced and thrilling. You won't find it at any other table.

Homebrew rules

1) Healing potions can be imbibed with a full action or a bonus action. If done with a full action, players receive the maximum amount of healing. If done with a bonus action, they get the amount they roll. I still use the 2014 rule that potions require an action to imbibe, not a bonus action, but healing potions have this carve out. 2) Standing does not require half your movement. You spend 10 ft to stand in light armor or less, 15 ft to stand in medium or armor or more. Add 5 ft in difficult terrain. 3) When players are downed, they enter the Dying Condition. Downed (or Dying) players may move and perform actions, but they suffer levels of exhaustion when they do. 4) Silvery Barbs can not force rerolls on critical hits.

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Microphone

Safety

How ParryDuckKill creates a safe table

I've been involved with role playing games long before content warnings were part of them. I look at D&D the way I look at The Princess Bride. That's a movie all ages can appreciate, but it's still ostensibly for children. It touches on some incredibly serious, adult topics -- torture, kidnapping, gaslighting, murder, emotional abuse, suicide, alcoholism, revenge, indentured servitude, romance and true love -- but the storytellers do it in a way that can be accessed by any audience. That's what I've always strived for in the games I run, a story which will thrill adults while still being appropriate for children. Also, I don't believe players should pay for a session zero. I handle session zero business prior to the first official session.

Content warnings

Ableism
Abuse
Alcoholism
Alcohol Use
Animal abuse
Animal Cruelty
Animal Death
Blood
Body Horror
Cannibalism
Character Death
Child Abandonment
Child Abuse
Child Death
Classism
Concentration Camps
Confronting Abuser
Controlling Parents
Curing of Disabilities
Deadnaming Character
Death
Deep or Large Bodies of Water
Domestic Abuse
Doxxing
Drowning
Drugs (addiction, use, withdrawal)
Eating Disorders
Emotional Abuse
Euthanasia
Execution
Extreme Violence
Fire
Forced Blood Draining
Freezing
Genocide
Gore
G-rated
Guns
Hangings
Homophobia
Hostages
Human Trafficking (adult only)
Illness
Incest
Insects
Kidnapping
Lifechanging Injury
Mass Death
Medical Issues
Memory Erasing
Mental Illness
Microaggressions
Mind alteration
Mind Control
Misgendering
Misogyny
Murder
Mutilation
Mutilation of Corpses
Nightmares about Traumatic Events
Pandemic
Panic Attacks
Paralyzation
Pet Death
Police Brutality
Prejudice
PTSD
Racial Profiling
Racism
Scars
Seizures
Self-Harm
Sexism
Sexual Assault
Sexual Content
Sexual Predator
Slavery
Small Spaces (Claustrophobia)
Snakes
Spiders
Suffocation
Suicide
Suicide Ideation
Talk of Superior Race
Terrorism
Torture
Trauma
Violence
Violence against Children
Warfare
Xenophobia

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions