Divine Right to Rule - A Small Westmarch

Divine Right to Rule - A Small Westmarch

This small Westmarch campaign allows players to explore a homebrew campaign setting! There are four potential plot hooks that can be split among you.

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

3

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

18+
3 NEEDED TO START
$5.00

/ Session

Details

Play by Post (Asynchronous)

Billed Weekly / Sunday - 5:00 PM UTC

Session Duration / 3–4 hours

0 / 8 Seats Filled

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This game will begin once 3 players have joined
About the adventure

This continent-spanning campaign takes place in 535 PA. In the wake of a war that is still relatively recent, tensions are high between the countries of Ingentes. Banditry has been rising to alarmingly common levels, Druidic and Arcane magic is outlawed and seen a "Witchcraft" by the Holy Elysian Chamber, and no matter where you go, fear of the other countries and monsters that lurk in the dark is prevalent. This negativity is exactly what the forces that would destroy Ingentes need to spark the fires of war. In this campaign, each player makes their own character and their own decisions. I have an overarching storyline, but there are plenty of branching paths and objectives that allow the heroes to do as they please. Forming a group among yourselves can be expected, but if any of you want to form a splinter group or go on a solo adventure, that's allowed too! This campaign features hack-and-slash adventure, dungeon crawling, mysteries, and political intrigue. There's something for everyone in this campaign, and a full map to explore with a campaign that's written as you progress! To make this easier for everyone, this is a playbypost campaign, a text-based adventure over Discord with no official start or stop: I'll be regularly available almost every day to DM, the payday is simply "Sunday" for the sake of the weekly payment to play the game.

Game style

Play By Post

Puzzle / Mystery Focused

Realm Building

Roleplay Heavy

Rule of Cool (RoC)

Rules as Written (RaW)

Sandbox / Open World

Theater of the Mind

West Marches

Meet the Game Master
LGBTQ+
Neurodivergent

6 years on StartPlaying

131 games hosted

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Inclusive, Creativity

About me

For the past 12 years, I've been DMing 5th edition D&D, running games for a steady group of friends the entire time, quickly finding I had a knack for it, especially when I took Writing courses in College! Inspired to play by the Adventure Zone, I came upon my own when I took the role more seriously after watching Critical Role. I enjoy expanding and taking advantage of lore, and rewriting existing adventures to be more interesting to the players, to the point that the earliest Campaign in my world's timeline is an expansion on Lost Mines of Phandelver! Recently, I’ve had issues finding work, since I hit a rough patch during the virus. However, I was able to make a bit of money during the virus as a DM for hire, so I've decided to come to startplaying to make everything official!

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Character creation

Creating your character

Because this is a playbypost, we won't start playing until everyone's characters ready! I'll be going over things with each of you over private messaging on Discord to help build your characters on D&D Beyond and fit your characters into my world, no matter how much or how little of a backstory you'd like them to have.

What to expect

Preparing for the session

All you need is a Discord annount and a D&D Beyond account, and I'll take care of the rest.

What CipherWrites brings to the table

I have a number of homebrew rules meant to enhance things and make a unique d&d experience for the players. It's a playbypost that I plan to keep open every week, so we can hopefully all play a little bit of d&d every day!

Homebrew rules

I have twelve homebrew rules, as follows (these will also be in the discord server): 1) Drinking Potions can be done as an Action or a Bonus Action. Drinking a healing potion as a bonus action will get you normal effects, but drinking it as an action will allow you to regain the maximum amount of health from that potion (i.e. a Potion of Healing gives 10 HP). 2) When you ready the Attack action, you can ready your full Multiattack if you have one. 3) Critical hits double the total damage, rather than the dice damage. 4) Getting a Nat 20 for a skill check automatically succeeds, while a Nat 1 automatically fails. 5) A Nat 1 on a saving throw subjects double the total damage, and a Nat 20 avoids all damage. This applies to both Players and NPCs. 6) Getting a Nat 1 on a melee attack while within the target’s attack range allows the target to make an attack of opportunity on the attacker. This applies to players and NPCs. If the weapon they are fighting with is nonmagical or breakable, they can choose not to risk an attack of opportunity by allowing their weapon to break. When this happens with an enemy, the player the NPC targeted can choose to let the weapon break or for them to attack (unless the weapon is magical or unbreakable). 7) We use Matthew Mercer's Resurrection Ritual rules when it comes to reviving a creature (if you're unfamiliar, we'll go over them if it comes to that point, since they're a bit lengthy). 8) Giving someone the Help action requires both characters to be proficient in the skill (this is to prevent Help spamming, though Guidance spamming is still fine, so long as you understand it’s a Concentration spell). 9) You can substitute skill checks with other ability scores when appropriate. 10) Any attack or spell can be nonlethal if you want it to be. Making a weapon or cantrip attack nonlethal is as simply as declaring it when you make the attack...but if you want to make a *leveled spell* nonlethal, that gets a little more complicated. You must make an Arcana check using your spellcasting ability with a DC of 10 + the spell's level. On a success, you can curb the spell enough that it becomes nonlethal. On a fail, it becomes a deadly spell, but all's not lost: your intent to prevent death has still aided you, and rather than outright killing the target(s), the spell instead knocks them down and has them begin making Death Saving Throws. 11) Regarding the 2024 rules, you are free to use the new rules or the Legacy Rules, at your discretion and what works best for your character. If you choose a 2024 option, you cannot also choose the Legacy version, and vice versa 12) Not only do I use Heroic Inspiration in my games, but I will also allow you to gather as many as you like! (To balance this, the new human can only gain it once per ooc week) There are also additional uses for Heroic Inspiration both in and out of combat...but I'm running out of room! I'll go into more detail for those who wish to join the game.

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Safety

How CipherWrites creates a safe table

I will ask my players privately if they have any triggers. I'll keep an eye out for anything like that and make sure their triggers are exempt from the campaign.

Content warnings

Abuse
Alcohol Use
Blood
Child Abuse
Classism
Controlling Parents
Cults
Death
Deep or Large Bodies of Water
Devils / Demons / Fiends
Emotional Abuse
Execution
Fire
Genocide
Hostages
Insects
Kidnapping
Language/Cursing
Mass Death
Murder
Racism
Spiders
Snakes
Violence

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions