Base Game

• Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, 2024 Revision
  • Dungeons & Dragons 5th Editions (Used to fill in gaps of classes, feats, Sub-classes & Races not found in the 2024 revision)

Source Content

• Candle-keep Mysteries (Official D&D 5e Content Book)
  • An anthology of 16 smaller adventures that will be spread throughout the campaign at opportune times.
• Strong-Holds & Followers (3rd Party D&D 5e Content/Add-On from MCDM)
  • The Core of this campaign with detailed mechanics for base building, maintaining and mechanics for followers. this will act as the grounded content from where quests, Adventures and other gameplay will spread out from
  • The D&D 2024 Rev has mechanics for similar things known as Bastions. these rules will be used to expand building options and other mechanics for S&F.

Active Alternate Rules

• Xp Levelling
  • Player's will earn XP based on the creatures they defeat and the quests they complete, there are various ways to earn XP outside of just killing monster.
• Varied Levelling
  • Player's may level up at different times based on the XP they earn, sometimes a player may earn more or less XP dependent on the situation.
• Alternitive Rules (A List of In house rules can be found here, PLEASE READ)

Player Options

• Classes
  • Any Class (Aside from Mystic) that can be found Here
  • a Summary of available classes and their source books can be found Here
• Species
  • Any Species that can be found Here
  • A Summary of available Species can be found Here (Note not all available Species have been listed. Check wit your DM.)
  • Starting Level 1-3
    • Based on player's choice or background choices. for newer players who want to start ultra fresh at level 1 to more experienced players who want to start a few levels higher up to three. The Group feeling so far is Level 1.

Add-Ons

• Stibbles Codex of Companions
  • Mechanics for getting a cool pet friend, taming, looking after and even battling. will be a valuable ally
• Dragon's Stew Baker Classes
  • Baker Classes are a Dragon's Stew option allowing extra cooking themed abilities ontoip of class and subclass options.
• Grim Hollow Transformations
  • Various mechanics and rules for various monster transformations that players may encounter willingly or not.
• Group Manoeuvres, Arcadia Vol 13
  • Special moves for players to craft some major teamwork strategy.
• Master Worked Equipment, Arcadia Vol 16
  • Mechanics for various weapons, armour and other equipment crafting giving unique bonuses and mechanics.
• Ancestry Parental Bonuses, Arcadia Vol 22
  • Mechanics for expanded Racial options mainly available for Tieflings and Gemstone Dragon born but may be used for others if it works smoothly.
• Magical Item Upgrades, Arcadia Vol 28
  • Mechanics for enhancing magical items even further with additional boons and mechanics outside the standard +1 enchantment.
• I Cut off its Snoot!, Arcadia Vol 11
  • Mechanics for ingredients, cooking and a few monster themed meals.

Setting

• The Campaign will almost entirely consist withing the region Aquila's Wode within the nation of Uthasil with the starting location being a port town Ferrabreeze located in Covania for session 0/1.
• The Year is between 12353-12358(TBD) Timeline
• There will be some temporary dimensional travel but players will always return home to the stronghold.

Schedule

• Sessions will be held fortnightly (Every 2 weeks) running between 5-7 hours.
  
• Start time is normally around
  • 8:30am Australian Central Standard Time, Saturday Morning.
  • 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time (East Coast America), Friday Night.
  • 4:00pm Pacific Time (West Coast America), Friday Afternoon.
• Sessions will be done online via Discord and Foundry VTT (which is a virtual table top)

What Kind of Game can I expect?

• Role Play will be high and encouraged
• Major Combat will be planned for every two to three sessions however smaller encounters may appear based on player choices.
• Each player will have multiple things they are able to manage
  • NPC Followers
  • Pokeesqu Companions
  • An Individual keep

Gameplay will have a central grounded mechanic of building and maintaining the stronghold, Protecting it from raids, building trade relations, recruiting new followers. establishing your own personal designs and responsibilities while balancing the short quests relating to the mysterious library that seems to have attached itself to the strong hold.
After each small adventure the party always has the strong hold to come back home to, a base of operations where they have safety, storage and downtime.
The players will be able to build the settlement how they see fit with a few key locations that need to be built no matter what everything else is player choice. The buildings built will offer boons and bonuses to the players characters and open up new quests or opportunities.

This will extend partially to the town nearby, as it is in disrepair after years of neglect and attacks from bandits and powerful monsters. It will be up to the party if the extend their resources to help the town rebuild and flourish or leave it be and focus on their own task. But a whole town in your dept may prove very useful in the long run.

But its not just simple Base building
That's where the Fate's Weave Every so often the librarian will appear through the mysterious door to the party with a special quest that may involve planer travel, fighting big monsters, solving mysteries and collecting rare artifacts. the pay for these quests is normally huge and a massive progress filler towards the keep. The characters may also explore this library on their own time to find secrets or special quests in-between the downtime of building.

The players have a choice on what they want to build so if they want to start up their own business or start researching something particular that would take years to accomplish this is the way to do it.

The bastion itself may be attacked, may be inspected by guild members to monitor your progress. special offers may come in and more shady offers too.

Exploration, Not ever far from home
The party is not expected to do much long term traveling. With the home being the strong hold the planned playable area of the map is not intended to travel far. but is dense with things to find and explore. Multiple dungeons. caves, monster nests, bandit camps, strange ruins all such tings are within a weeks travel by foot. But to travel further the party will find little if not no content at all.

I am 1010% down to help with any character creation you may want to do, if you need help with backstories, relationships, ties in world with factions, wanting to create a new home town or group i am more than happy to help. its probably my favourite part of being a DM seeing all these different characters come to life

Homebrew Content
We have access to SOOOO MUCH main content and 3rd party content that making Hombrew content these days is rather negligible. If you REALLY can't find ANYTHING that matches your character idea talk to your DM but Hombrew Content is to be avoided unless you have a long discussion with the DM about your idea and have an open mind to changes that may be required.

• Class:
  • Proficiencies:
  • Starting Equipment:
  • Sub-Class:
  • Origin Feat:
• Race/Species:
  • Sub-Species:
  • Ancestries: Arcadia vol 22
• Story:
  • Where your character came from?
  • What your character's Goals with the group are
  • What your character's personal goals are
  • Any History with the world? friends? Family? enemies? Homeland? Pets? Major events?

The Inspiration & Idea
Perhaps you have seen a character in popular media you wanna try and pull inspiration from, Perhaps you have seen the classes and species available and want to try and make something cool.
It all starts with the inspiration and the easiest way to get that is to look through the Wiki's list of Species and Class

The Plot Hook & Fitting in
Creating a character for this campaign you should think about how and why your character joined the guild in the first place. Are they a young adventurer looking to make as story in their life?
Are they from a long liniage of adventures following in the families footsteps?
are they on the run and joining the guild was the perfect cover/protection they needed?
Are they having a midlife crisis having ever only done mundane jobs all their life and want some excitement?
Are they on a specific personal quest to find something or someone and the guild offered the resources to help that search?
Or any other creative idea. Talk to the DM about your ideas, they can offer guidance, clarification and make sure your idea works within the setting.
Your going to make a character in a pre-established world so there are already plenty of lore points to pull from or relate too. But there is also plenty of room in this world for new locations or factions or minor events to be added.

Things i should avoid when making a character
Unless you know what you are doing avoid backstories that involve any previous major feats such as killing dragons, saving nations etc, your character is a new adventurer and their adventuring career is just getting started.
Perhaps one of your character's friends or a family member has accomplished something grand and your character has set out to match.
DO not make a lone-wolf or “My character has difficulty trusting others”. You are playing a TEAM game, your character should be able to mingle with other players without it being forced. They don't have to be friendly but something is better than edgy grunting unless your committed to an over-the-top performance.

Don't hand me AI Generated content
If you hand me an AI Generated description or backstory i am more than likely to turn you away from the game. if you don't have the time, don't want to put in the effort or just didn't ask me for help in creation cause you were not sure on your own creative flow then i don't think D&D is the right game to play, as it requires time, effort and some creativity.

Do not hand me AI Generated images. I would 100% rather try even your first attempt at drawing ever than some Ai Slop. or even a blank square. there are plenty of tools out there that let you create some character with premade assets such as Heroforge that i will accept.

Ai is cool and has its uses, Generating art work and creative writing from 'scratch' is not one use I want to see in my future games. i am more than happy to expand on your ideas together and create something really cool and special but I ain't gonna give the time of day when people couldn't even give me the effort to MAKE something. If you have read this send the DM what was the 3rd party tool recommendation for character creation referenced in this section? Then add the word buggernuts.

Sessions will be held fortnightly (Every 2 weeks) running between 5-7 hours.
Start time is normally around

• 8:30am Australian Central Standard Time, Saturday Morning.
• 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time (East Coast America), Friday Night.
• 4:00pm Pacific Time (West Coast America), Friday Afternoon.

Sessions will be done online via Discord and Foundry VTT (which is a virtual table top)

How long will the campaign last?
There is a minimum of 16 sessions planned to run with the Candlekeep mysteries book but with events happening in-between i bet it will last several sessions longer.
If i had to bet i think it would be between 30-35 sessions.

When do we start?
After the conclusion of Whispers of the wilds i plan to begin final preparation for this campaign to start up not long after. I would like to finish Whispers of the Wilds by the end of 2025 but it may run slightly into 2026.
If your interested send me a message via Discord.

How Many Players?
After running a game with 7+ players at a time (there were 10 but never all at once so far) i really would like a smaller dedicated group. However i am addicted to abuse and will want to invite all my previous players and try to bring in new ones as well.
Personally i think 3-4 players is the sweet spot for focused story and strong connections.
5-7 players is a healthy team, you have wiggle room if one or two miss a session and strong combat so you can throw cool encounters there way.
8-10 players is not impossible but alot of work. Not only are you trying to manage spotlight time but individuals feelings also. With more people they may feel their voices less herd. Its certainty a strong dynamic if everyone works together and is on the same page. But The DM has to work overtime. I would recommend if the group gets this big talking to the players about sacrificing some character specific story for your own DM’s sanity make the story about the party more so than individuals.
11+ players, i am sure some DMs out there can handle it but i don’t even want to try, gonna have to kick some out or maybe put them on the side line to tag in when you have a player or two drop out. Offer that if the player is cool with it

Drop In Drop Out
as with my previous games, I am aiming to run sessions for 2 players or more. so as long as i have 2 players ready and eager to play the session will go ahead.
Players are more than free to join in on what ever session they feel like but please be a wear. the more reliable you are as a player to attend sessions the more story content, loot and other special gameplay will be made available to your character.

Swapping Characters
As you may have seen a requirement if for players to make 2 characters. you can start the game as either but are locked in until a major downtime event takes place or the unfortunate death of a character.
Your 2nd character will ot level up along side your playing character. so during downtime moments it may be a good idea to gear up your 2nd character or get them doing some training for some levels.

Brand New players
Players who have not played with me or have not played with a majority of the players already in the group may be asked to join a session as an observer as a sudo 'Probation' test. This will let the new player see how the rest of the group plays, what their personalities and gameplay is like. as well as how i Dungeon master a game. If the new player can vibe with all of that they are free to join the following session.

XP Levelling
The other thing i want to do is try out XP levelling rather than milestones. so characters can more tink about what quests they want to do to grind out xp if they wish. some thigs will need to be established such as summoned creatures not giving XP otherwise they can spam summoning magic over weeks of down time to max level.
The other thing is varying levels. i would lie to try varried levels with players so they don't all level up together. im not sure how well tis will work but i feel like it would make the game have a unique vibe. some players characetrs being more expiranced than others. this would also put a major penalty on characters leaving or death where they would have to start at a lower level, but if thier bastion and other resources have been well maintained the new characters could at least be geared up. Balancing encounters is not an issue for me.

Time
This would take place after C10 Whispers of the wilds but before Plague of the Underdark

Now D&D is a very emotional game there is alot of acting and its easy to let emotions run higher than normal. And it is normal so there are a few things that i will need to state and clarify to each player individually.

If the player starts to have issues with how i the DM is running the game, perhaps i ruled a specific interaction you thought was unfair or are playing favourites with other players or even picking on certain players.
If you are having issues with another player, their gameplay is irritating or they are nakimg decisions in game thats affecting the party negatively. Or what ever other reason.
I REQUIER you to come talk to me, via Discord is the best way , private message me i won’t tell the rest of the group and if i want to then i will ask permission first.

I will try to correct problems that are happening or clarify problems that cannot be fixed or just part of the game. If a problem can’t be fixed its up to you as a player if you are alright to deal with it or have to leave.
In the event of a player leaving i like to wrap it up in game as well for closure to me AND the other players. If you can’t then i will normally make a closing statement in game.

I can only fix problems relating to the game. Problems outside i can’t fix but i can try to listen at least.

Content Warnings
Games i run will most likely have elements of violence, sexism, xenophobic behaviour, sexual behaviour, Sappy romance, elements of war, Silly moments, serious moments, cosmic horror, regular horror, pop culture references, pvp, cliches, character death, consequences to player actions, homebrew content, custom made loot, altered original content that may work differently then how it says in the books, no take backs, Character call backs, character relationships. Spiders, snakes, bugs, Darkness, holes, any kind of phobia.

If any of this content is not your style please let me know before playing and i will tell you if this campain will contain it and how much of it. Some players can deal with it so long as its not directly affecting their character while others can’t deal with certain content even being mentioned.

Players who have expressed a desire to play this campaign and have given the DM some Basics as to what character they want to play.

Player 1
Current Idea: A Classic Dwarf all about the craft of smithing and forging

Player 2
A wizard of some sort eager to expand thier arcane knowledge in the new world.

Player 3
A Warforged artificer

Level 00

Class Any officially published or listed in the Class Culture or Classes list

Species Any race in the Species Culture or Species list.

Background

Gear & Other

Mysteries of Fate
Campaign 11
Story

Sessions
Calendar

Bon Samdi
Paprika Decota
Silas Araxis
Karel Northstar
TBD (Ranger)
TBD
TBD