DND Campaign - Ellerond

[Vaellin the Bard]

Welcome to Ellerond,

a small world that seems to be getting smaller with each passing day. Its growing population is only slowed by the spawning of dungeons—winding, senseless places where magical creatures spawn. Three nations stand and help fund adventurers to hunt down these magical creatures for materials and to close them before the creatures spread to the rest of the world.

You… are not one of these adventurers. At least not at first. Though your memory is a bit vague, you have no doubt in your mind that you were one of these magical creatures that resided in a dungeon. And not a small one. Either the final monster, a midway boss, or a secret creature lurking in hidden passages and sealed doors. However, an adventurer finally took you down and salvaged your blood crystal—a crystal that drops from all magical creatures. That is your last memory before you woke up in a strange facility. You hear passing voices refer to it as “The Lab”. As time drags forward you feel your consciousness return more completely. Your body isn’t your own, but it is as well? You have memories that aren’t yours but they mostly explain basics of civilizations—how shops work, the language adventurers use, basic table manners and the like—things that you would only need to know if you were human or similar. You are able to move the body—much to the delights of your captors—but you feel your powers are limited—both of your monster self and your lesser adventurer self. But every day you feel yourself regaining some of that original strength. You perhaps vow to kill the humans who treat you like entertainment as they watch you walk on two feet.

Then it happens. An explosion signals the start; big enough and loud enough that you can hear it in the lower, underground floors. It doesn’t take long—either while your escaping or waiting—to find the humans around you killed, slain by adventurers who seem to relish in hunting their own kin and others like you alike. Nevertheless, you escape. You rush out of facility you’re kept in, breaking free of it and stumbling into the night. The area is unfamiliar, trees surround you endlessly but after some time, when the moon hits its peak, you spy a small fire. Here you gather. The others around you seem to be like you. You can tell by the bare bones cloth you share like a pitiful uniform and by the awkwardness of how you all move in an unfamiliar body.

There is just one individual who stands out as different. One of the captors. He is the one who started the fire that gathered you. He is also obviously dying, but it’s clear before he passes he plans to pass on information to you.

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Setup Information:

Your character is to be a monster in this work—a boss of some kind (Final/Mid/Secret) that was finally defeated at some point. So you’ll pick a standard monster and we’ll work to alter normal settings to create a character at level 1. (I.e. if you were a dragon, you’ll be a dragonborn). We’ll talk details about what kind of monster you are, your dungeon, your history, how much your human side is involved, if you want to add your human’s history, your powers, your class (from your monster or from your human?)

As an aside, “Human” basically means humanoids. While most races are rare you’re likely to still occasionally encounter them. The most common races are: human, elf, dwarf, halfling, half elf. Other uncommon races include: Dragonborn, tieflings, bugbears, half orcs, aarakocra, goliaths, firbolg, kenku (and many others). These are often considered “dungeon touched” as their bear similarities to the creatures in the dungeon. Ones that do NOT exist but pass as other races easily: Aasimar, Changling, Kalashtar, etc. We’ll talk on individual basis for any that I don’t have immediately filed in one of the three categories, including having the races’ attributes but not appearing like the race or altering part of the world to fit it a little better.

Dungeons are a deep part of the world history. Some dungeons have been around for thousands of years, some only a few days. Some come back, some stay gone forever. Overall there are three types of dungeons: Environmental, Historical, Unknown.

Environmental are the most common, appearing in a given area (for example: a forest) and the dungeon reflecting that as well. These dungeons are typically the easier ones, both in creatures you face and twisted parts of the dungeon. They are recurring, like historical dungeons, some staying gone for at most a month each time it’s cleared.

Historical are rare but difficult. They’re always set at a place where some grand historical event occurred—usually a tragedy. Forest burned down killing thousands of animals? War scene where one side was massacred? Terrorist attack leaving a city crumbled and only ruins to remain? These dungeons also reflect the events, usually having undead monsters or replaying many of the scenes involved. They’re usually named after the tragedy as well.

Unknown dungeons seem to have no origin. They appear once in a random location and disappear never to return again (as far as people are aware) once cleared. They’re the trickiest as their difficulty fluxuates wildly as well as what you face. You could be in a desert and step in to find yourself on top of a mountain facing down fish folk. They’re also a nuisance since they cannot be planned around and have been known to destroy towns just by virtue of spawning in one.

You should pick which of the above three you prefer as well as what your role was in it. Your role specifically isn’t that big of a deal, but we’ll talk underlings/your boss/your room/etc depending on what you choose.

What it means to be a monster mechanically: As you level up your power will slowly be returned as a monster. Essentially you’ll get bonus abilities–think of it as a magical item that gains powers as you grow too. They’ll be themed after your monster race so make sure you pick wisely! Your race will be decided by what monster you pick–we’ll basically be theming a standard race to yours (like the dragonborn/dragon example before)

How you pick your class: total freedom here for the most part. It either is something your monster self picked up naturally/historically or perhaps picked up from the adventurer who provides you with the basic human knowledge.

Restrictions: I am mostly flexible but I have some restrictions. You won’t have access to flying (if you’re aarakocra or something similar we’ll find an alternative). At least at first; I may reconsider at higher levels. I also ban two feats: Alert and Sentinel. Call me the fun police, but if a single ability makes me have to recreate fights/battles entirely, it makes it unfun for the rest of the group. Otherwise all things from the PHB are accepted (Well race gets complicated). Most things from the official books will be approved, just run them by me.

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House Rules: I have three house rules that will be in place.

First is potions. You may drink a potion as a bonus action to roll the dice OR take a full action to drink it for maximized healing. Maximized potions can be consumed with either action for full. Using a potion on another person will always take an action and will always roll.

Death Rolls. Stealing a little from PF2e. Standard rules in 5e include that when you go down in combat, healing you removes all negatives outside of having low HP. This makes going down have little tension so instead each time you go down you will receive a debuff. This debuff doesn’t do anything except increase each time you go down. Once you’ve received it four times, that’s it. You don’t get back up. At least without a revivify. This debuff is removed entirely at a short or long rest–or equivalent.

Inspiration. Also stealing from PF2e. At the beginning of each session each player will be given an inspiration die. This die can be used for one purpose. It lets the player reroll any roll that they do with a d20. It’s a use it or lose it, though. You do not get an extra one if you didn’t use one last session.It does stack with Lucky and similar features.

Additional considerations: There is an extra “currency” in this game. You’re characters will (hopefully) have it explained early on but the short version is that you will slowly be losing energy. For the most part, this will have no effect, but when energy gets low enough you’ll start taking levels of exhaustion. This is easily removed by consuming blood crystals. Blood crystals drop from monsters or can be bought in high trade/magic cities. And don’t worry! At the start you’ll have plenty of time to adjust to this minor extra system.

Game Day: Not fully decided. It will be held 6pm/630pm Pacific - 10pm Pacific (This is 1am-5am UTC according to google) either Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday. OR Sunday 11am-3pm Pacific (6pm-10pm UTC) every other week.

Okay! So all that is good to know but how do you sign up?

Do not reply to this thread. I will not be acknowledging sign ups here. Please message me on Discord (you can find me as “Vaellin the Bard” on the DRG discord channel but you all know that, right?) I have a cap of 5 people but it isn't a matter of first come first serve here, instead leaning towards best fit for the schedule.

With the POSSIBLE exception of one person, you will need to have access to voice chat. While I won’t require you act in character, you must be open to talk during the actual game. Not only does it get lonely if I’m the only one talking, but also things slow down by a LOT if most people are typing everything.

So send the following information through Discord:

Player Name:

Character Name:

Monster Race:

Boss Role:

Dungeon Type:

Class:

What day works best for you:

What day (if any) does not work for you: