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The Broken Company | Open to All | Survival | Beginner Friendly
You were soldiers once. Men and women at war, but the war is over; and the Empire broken. Now you must survive in the shattered ruins of what remains.
$15.00
/ Session
Details
3 players following this game
Weekly / Friday - 9:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 2–3 hours
0 / 5 Seats Filled
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One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.
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About the adventure
Nobody won. That's the first thing to understand. The other side holds the field, and the field is all they hold. Their dead outnumber ours, their granaries are empty, and their king rules a country that no longer answers when it's called. The Empire's legions have not surrendered so much as simply stopped; unpaid, unsupplied, and finally unbothered. Somewhere there was an order to stand down. It never reached most of you. The roads are full of armed men with no one left to obey. Companies that were regiments six months ago sell their swords to whoever has grain. Villages pulled their gates shut and learned to feed the first riders who come, hoping that the second lot find nothing worth stopping for. The great fortresses of the frontier stand open to the weather, their garrisons gone, their cellars and crypts filled with things better left unnamed. You have your kit, your scars, and each other. That's the whole inventory. -- A grim, lantern-lit crawl through the wreckage of an Empire. You'll hire yourself out, or dig into ruined keeps and battlefield tombs for anything worth carrying home. Deciding again and again who gets protected and who gets left behind. Treasure is the only way any of you advance, so the pull is always downward and inward; Into the fortress, into the barrow, into the dark where the last emperor's household kept its secrets. Warlords, mercenary captains, starving priests and desperate reeves will all want something from you. Some of them will pay, others won't. You'll build your characters together as veterans of the same company, same battles, same grudges, same dead friends. Bring one thing the war took from you and one thing you took from it.
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(27)
Less than a year on StartPlaying
83 games hosted
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Creativity, Storytelling
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
About me
Hi there! My name is Chris! I'm a twice transplanted German formerly living in the US and now moved to the United Kingdom. I've played one form of TTRPG or another for nearly two decades now. Starting originally with Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition and quickly expanding into other systems. From the Old Modern Age, and Vampire the Masquerade system to 'forgotten' favourites like Edge of Empire. With a particularly expertise in Pathfinder/Starfinder 2e and Call of Cthulu. For the last ten years me and a close group of friends have been running our own 'One-Shots' among each other. Taking different systems and adapting stories to fit into them. In this group I've dabbled in everything from 7th Sea to Blade in the Dark. This quickly helped me find my three absolute favourite systems, Blades, Call of Cthulu, and Genesys. Which is what I try to run most of my games in! I'm looking to run games that are player focused and story driven. Though I enjoy many pre-written adventures from Chaosium, Paizo, and other 3rd party mediums I'm a big fan of divergent story telling and letting Players expand the universe they're in.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Character Creation will be done all together in a Session 0. We'll be starting out at level 1 and using a custom HTML App I've built for character sheets and creation. In Shadowdark your character can be rolled randomly on several tables, or crafted in various ways with more choice. For this campaign I'll let folk pick either option. If you join the Campaign after it begins, we'll simply craft your character together before the next session is scheduled. Figuring out how you fit into the group as well as getting your character up and running.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
To start with, you'll really only need to join the Discord! Preparation for Shadowdark is very easy. The rules are simple, and I'll happily explain how the game goes along the way to any beginners who want to try! However, if you're eager, the Core Rulebook as well as much of the ancillary content will be made available by me through my Google Drive. There's also tons of resources online which makes play very simple and easy to get into.
What Chris brings to the table
To me, Shadowdark is best kept as a theater of the mind type game. This is not a TTRPG for tactical-map based combat, but instead functions best when the players use their imaginations to construct the field of battle. Keeping that in mind, I'll be offering heavy descriptive scenery, the best character voices for NPC's I can manage, and a hopefully immersive experience into the dark fantasy world that we'll be playing in. We'll also utilise a hexmap for movement on a grander scale, allowing players to choose their path in the wider world. Just as characters in game would use a map to decide where to go.
Homebrew rules
There are several homebrew rules surrounding Shadowdark created by the community, during our session zero we'll discuss adding some of these to our game!
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Chris creates a safe table
Player Safety and comfort is extremely important to me. The world of Shadowdark is inherently more grim than some other TTRPG's, and with that in mind we'll be using several checks and safety tools to ensure everyone remains comfortable throughout the game. To start off with, Certain Lines and Veils will be in place from the beginning. Some decided by me, and then some decided by you the Players as we begin our first session. This will be a running list kept both in our Discord Server. I'll also be making it clear these can be DM'd to me at any time to ensure everyone is comfortable. Beyond that, I'm a big believer in debriefing and aftercare. I will always check in with folk and take in any feedback necessary. We're here to have fun, and I want to make sure everyone is having it. Keeping in mind that Blades can get intense, and Roleplay can too, we'll also let people call for 10-15min Breaks in sessions so people can have time to relax a bit or maybe make a few more jokes(or even just use the bathroom). Aside from this, though I've not used them before we'll also be implementing X, N, & O cards through digital messages to me. I think this will help curate content, though in truth with other measures in places my hope is that only the O card will ever be used.
Content warnings
Safety tools used