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Table Name
Danse Macabre! (We will be running “A House Divided” module, but I like this name better). Then moving into a sandbox campaign consisting of homebrew if preferred att. -
Free to Play
Free To Play! Mainly character and some times player backgrounds determine eligibility. -
Platform, Voice/Text
Foundry VTT on The Forge & Discord vc w/o cam.
Time, Timezone, & Day
-Unknown time with 4pm most likely.
-Chicago/CST
-Any day except Sunday. Once/week, using the new players + current players’ availability to later settle the dust on which day we’ll meet. Ergo if interested please have already been looking for a weekly campaign with which days you’re available in mind.
-Currently: Tues, Wed, Thu and Saturday are what equally fit the party’s availability. I’ll update this ad daily.
Rules
-18++
-Invite to the Discord server means you’re in, before that we can talk here or you can send me your discord handle.
-If interested, expect more play by post in Forge VTT chat, than high-energy vocal table. You’re more than welcomed to disclose all your ic actions and ooc both in Discord vc, just expect DM responses to be mostly play by post. (A small part of the time it’s just me ensuring I heard the question or action right by text responding. It also lets me game multiple plot lines when characters split off.)
-90% black trench coat 10% pink mohawk please.
-Game is free + no donations accepted so please only apply if you’re sure you can make it every week.
Synopsis
Players take a job for a young wizard who inherited 2/3 of a large merchant guild, and a haunted house. She wants you to investigate why an explosion occurred in her grandfather’s house 10 years ago; and more importantly, why it has become irrevocably haunted ever since.
Rumors exist that demons or even wicked fey have established a stronghold there; other rumors say that your employer killed her grandfather in the explosion to secure her own inheritance; there’s rumors that the house was sabotaged by a competitor of her wealthy family; even that her grandfather and/or the whole family was involved in black magic and brought the curse upon themselves.
It is up to the party to determine what may have happened, what they tell their distant and preoccupied employer about it, and just exactly how they should “save” this manse before Dracula decides to move in.
Gameplay
Lv.5-10 hp max.
I am a new forge DM w/experience in Maptools. This might slow down gameplay randomly over the first month of the campaign some times.
As a module the game is mostly centered around the haunted mansion. It is 3 days’ trek through overgrowth to the nearest civilization which has 200 people. From there, well-established roads connect to the rest of society. The haunted mansion is otherwise partly a survival game and is also the central foci. Once I learn Forge like I used to know Maptools, then more maps for the town and side quests will I make.
Gameplay is advertised otherwise as having complex combat, and characters with easily missed backtones that, while they may be freely dispatched without failing the quest, are otherwise paramount to figuring out the truth behind the rose. Mystics, drunks, magic-fearing mayors, and hunted psychopaths babbling on about “the red queen jumping the first of three brooks” might have to be routinely encountered to gather clues.
The Waldgeist & Me
The party consists so far of one person who I’ve enjoyed gaming with over the past 8+ years, a new friend of theirs, and a friend of mine from a different gaming.
My age is 35 and I’ve been gaming since 2005. Back in my day, we had to travel through the snow & ice to get to a gaming table, and it was uphill both ways. We didn’t have any of this “vtt” software so you know exactly how far away your enemy was, nor any of these fancy “macrons” that remember what your abilities invoke. Instead, we just threw dice at the DM, and hoped for mercy in battle. And we liked it. Once, in Cali, I had to ask a DM’s new 2yo son to spare my character and even had to call him “Q” you know from Star Trek. But it made me into the kind, loving dungeon master that I am today.
Something Wicked this Way Comes
“This adventure is influenced and inspired by the following works which we love. We have shared this list to help explain what type of content to expect from A House Divided.” And I have added a few as I intend to rewrite empty or cliche parts:
Hound of the Baskervilles, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Dark Crystal, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hawthorne, Darkest Dungeon, Penny Dreadful, The Dresden Files, The Dresden Dolls, Daft Punk, The Animatrix, American Horror Story: Coven, Twisted Metal: Black, Xenogears, and The Witcher books and games.
2/5 spots available
Though there is a small chance we might start with six if I like too many characters. The current party composes of LN Aasimar Cleric, an Aarokocra Druid, and someone who wishes to comport their character later with the party.
All alignments except CE are welcome, as well as some non-core races with a good enough backstory. No need to make a sheet before applying, and applications here or in private message are equally welcomed. In no particular order of relevance, applications will only be accepted based on player availability, character background, and maybe player experience in general.
Things which are irrelevant to getting into the game are the mechanics of your proposed character fitting the party and/or filling a niche, gender, nat’ly, and it isn’t first come first serve. If you make your character with others after getting in, an alternative to character background is fine.
Incidentally plot hooks for characters backgrounds given by the initial module, if one is not intending to partly flesh out your background with others, include combating or studying undead; investigating a wrong that occurred and/or might be ongoing; potentially harnessing a source of magic for good/evil/self; destroying or harnessing a plague source of evil for good or evil; and, she’s paying a lot-- if you can find any alternative to saving the mansion other than destroying it, that is. A hail Marry option that your employer admits is available.
However, whether or not you make up your own plot hook for why your character accepted the quest, since it’s starting level 5 then your character must’ve been somebody other than a tower guard before this campaign. Alignments & backstories fully or partially hidden from the party are welcome (I might ask later), and a physical description can give me a bonus clue about your writing style and expedite your app.
“I’m a General, not some paid Opera floozy!”
As Celes dictates, the campaign table will remain free w/donations not accepted until either its completion or the party decides to burn the house down to disband the spirits thither. After that, sandbox game would also be free for ongoing players.
What I’m looking for in any public or private application initially is:
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What interests you about the game, why do you want to join enough to commit free time to it?
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Writing example. Most commonly from background story. Can be an excert from a game you’re running or are in; doesn’t have to be made anew to fit this campaign, as long as the writing example is something you free wrote. Feel free to ask if you need to know what pink mohawk vs. black trenchcoat is, or anything else before submitting an application.
“If the character you want to play simply must have a short or bland backstory, then in place of that I will accept applications if they can otherwise demonstrate your RP ability. A thousand words describing a green bandanna they wear, or an excert from a game you’ve run.”
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Your availability if you get in, total and concise w/o things that might be possible. Please don’t apply if a Magic 8 Ball last-minute comports your weekly itinerary.
No need to mention in your application if you’re interested in gaming after the module or not. This makes it less awkward for me later. For those who’ve been in one before, you know the more plot hooks in your pc background you give the easier it is to involve you personally in the game without even planning with you. So include some if you might be interested in a longer campaign after this one. As for my rp example,
Something wicked this way comes,
Pulsing out from the darkest drums,
With censor, candle, book and sword,
Healing new flesh, red, then roared.
Nefarious sigils dot the veldt that belts the sky,
Whilst the barbarous bloodmoon prowls the clouds, dead-eyed
Prescribing which forlorn destinies be hung o’er our hunted enterprise.
Careful as we were upon Eden, whence every rose arbor and orchard we’d swept,
Invariably hid the hissing of sinister cretins, with catastrophe soon to be kept.
For what the rich broad didn’t seem to be able to divulge about your “holy” quest…?
Many have entered the crucible of oaken gables, but all have ended with death.
So spot the serpentine in the merchant’s eyes, while a thousand other maniacs muddy your guess,
And all the ghosts that the living grow to despise, say “wasn’t it yesterday, you drew your last breath?”