The Heart of the Swamp

About the adventure

The scholars call it "Ridgar's swamp", from the name of an ancient wizard that was supposedly murdered there. To the locals, it's simply "the swamp". No matter how you call it though, everybody know that this is a strange place. It's safe enough in general, but from time to time it can play tricks on you- it makes you get lost, it lures you out of the safe trails, and some even say that the trees are alive there. And recently, the strange events have become more frequents, to the point that the coal diggers, the lumberjacks and the hunters all but refuse to set foot into it... and it doesn't help that trolls have been sighted. I have homebrewed heavily for this game, and many of the monsters you will encounter are my own creation that have nothing to do with the monsters in the MM. This game is intended to be a bit on the silly side, and it can be a good adventure for the whole family! Stinky trolls, magic mysteries, and clearly powerful NPCs with unknown goals. Are you in? The game can be tweaked to fit different groups: both silliness and darkness can be cranked up, depending on what kind of game you wish to have.

Additional Details

How to prepare

You will need: - Microphone (a webcam is not required: if you do not wish to show yourself, it's perfectly fine) - Roll20 and Discord accounts - Have at least an idea of how your character works and about the basic rules of combat - Have a little bit of a backstory ready: you don't need a huge, hyper detailed backstory, but at least be able to answer to the "who are you? where do you come from? why did you decide to go adventuring?" questions.

What I provide

I will set up the roll20 table and create tokens for you with HeroForge.

Gameplay details

I tend not to plan too much the sessions, and I like to let the players do their thing: I love when the players roleplay a lot, but please do feel free to roleplay as much as you are comfortable with! Optimization is perfectly fine, and I will try to create encounters so that every character will have their time to shine. Creative solutions and thinking out of the box are very much welcome! I will do a "session zero" over the chat on discord, where I will give you all the details you need, will answer to your questions and help you.

Content warnings

(none)

Safety tools used

(none)

How will character creation work

The starting level will be LV3. Stats will be filled out using the standard array [15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8]: this way the party will be much more balanced. Nobody likes to find themselves with an unusable character because the stats are too low while another party member rolled exceptionally well and has godlike stats! All published material is fine to use, Unearthed Arcana has to be approved by me beforehand. Homebrew is not allowed.

Players can expect

• Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.
• Book your session and wait for the Game Master to approve you.
• If you don't have a blast with your first game, your next game is on us.