A Wrath of Wraiths

About the adventure

After many days of travel, you make your way through a particularly harrowing section of the Andor Wilds to arrive at the Gozmond river. Usually this area is rife with trade and travel being a main trade route, however you find it uncharacteristically abandoned. A number of others are also waiting for a ferry across. When one comes, it is partly destroyed. The ferry driver refuses you passage, saying the trade route is being closed down. While the edges of the Andor Wilds are usually safe for those who know the path, lately traders and travelers alike have been disappearing, victim to a pack of creatures until now known only in nightmares. Too many the past weeks have met their end at the shadow-like talons of these wraith beasts, and after an attack on the ferry itself, it’s not deemed safe to keep it operating until someone is brave enough and fierce enough to root out the nest of beasts and ensure the safety of those who travel through. Fortunately for you, the other bunch waiting for the ferry seem to be more than capable of handling themselves, and all seem eager for the only source of transportation to re-open. I anticipate this campaign being long-term and player-driven. While I have an idea of the overarching plot, it is fairly loose and subject to change based on how the PCs interact with the world and problems they are faced with. I’m a big believer in player autonomy, and make a point to make character’s actions and choices dictate much of the plot. Player’s backstories will be woven into various plot points. If you’re the sort of player who sends a ton of PC info, I am the kind of DM who will lap it up and incorporate it into the world. This is a homebrew map/world, but most of the areas feel pretty classic D&D. The main difference in this world is that the material plane was created by the earth, air, fire, and water planes and is to some degree ruled by them. The four elements are treated as overarching holy symbols, and each element has three gods that represent it, making 12 gods in total. If you are playing a cleric or other divine-related class, we can go over the pantheon specifics during session zero. As a result of the way it was created, each creature born of the material plane has an affinity for one of the four elements, manifesting as a kantrip. Everyone in this world is either a wisp, a smudge, a spritz, or a spark – meaning that they are born with the cantrip gust, mold earth, shape water, or control flames. Regardless of your race or class, you start with one of these four cantrips. The continent of Elion ranges from tropical to temperate, and while the higher altitudes may be cold, the bulk of the continent is warm year-round.

Additional Details

How to prepare

I do character art for all my PCs, so please come to the (virtual) table with an idea of what your character looks like (a written physical description I can reference is ideal but not necessary) Have a loose idea of what your background will be. If you want to keep it largely secret that’s fine as well, but we will go over possible connections at session zero in case some players would like to start the game with an existing relationship. Please make sure you have a working camera and microphone. Especially for role-play-heavy sessions, I find that having one’s camera turned off makes it harder to read and engage in role-play with the player, and I want to make sure everyone feels engaged and connected during their RP.

What I provide

Custom PC art, a roll20 with lots of visuals, a dnd beyond account with the basic books and a few extras (I'll be sending everyone a link to a campaign so you can create your characters with choices from all the books I have).

Gameplay details

Players can expect fact-paced adventures, interconnected stories, and sweeping fantastical roleplay moments. This campaign will have pretty equally balanced combat to role play, with some encounters being more puzzle-based. I like to set up my combat encounters so that maybe half of the time there are alternate solutions other than fighting. Negotiation, trickery, or bargaining is often possible, though of course not required if the party would prefer a combat encounter. I reward inventive ways out of a combat situations or role play during combat/ interesting tactics with inspiration. Level-ups will be via milestone, and both role play as well as combat contribute to when characters level up. I often time level-ups to happen right before pivotal story or combat moments (often they are the same thing). Everyone will start at level 1, but level up quickly until they’re not so squishy. The bulk of the campaign will take place during levels 5-15, with players leveling up quickly both before and after that mark. We will start with a session zero and get to know each other/go over any specifics regarding the plot and/or rules for the game before we start. I work as an illustrator and do character art for each PC, so please come in with some idea of what your character looks like (a written description I can reference is ideal). As long as the players think creatively and interact well with each other, any level of experience is welcome. We'll be taking a mini break in the middle of most sessions so people can grab food, stretch, etc. Breaks usually last about 5-10 minutes, but if you feel you need more frequent or longer breaks, please let me know. The usual amount of violence is expected, but nothing particularly triggering. If anyone has anything they're really not comfortable with bringing up in-game we will go over it during session 0 to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Content warnings

(none)

Safety tools used

Session 0

How will character creation work

Characters will be created at session 0. Characters will be 1st level (though plan to level up throughout). Feats and multi classing are allowed at the DMs discretion. We will be using mostly standard array, but instead of a 15 players will get a 17 so everyone can start the game being super good at at least one thing. All the basic races and most races from Xanathar’s and Volo’s are built into the world. Almost all other races I’m happy to allow and I can just make a section of the world have some members of that race. Warforged, Githyanki, and Githzeri are the exception to that, however if you can make up a really convincing backstory to sell a single member of that race as a PC I’m pretty open to it. The same goes for the artificer class and the gunslinger subclass (it’s a very low-tech world) Multicasting is allowed at the DMs discretion. Please limit your choices to just 2 classes total. Feats are allowed. If anyone plans on playing a wizard or a ranger beastmaster, I have some homebrew alterations to those classes (buffs to make wizards less squishy at lower levels and additions to the beastmaster subclass to make it less useless at higher levels). As a general rule, I don't allow evil characters unless the player wants to play through an early redemption arc. It just results in too much PvP conflict.

Players can expect

• Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.
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