Get in Loser, we're going to The Constellation.
Ahoy! I want to try a thing of documenting the process as I run a 5e (2024) campaign for my lovely table. I previously ran a small campaign — my first one! — and it ended up being a heroic, epic fantasy in which the players freed The Dragons from thousands of years of banishment, destroyed The Comet that was being used to fuel The Conclave's mock religion, monarchy, and God Making Ritual, and changed the world back to its old self: The Titan of Wonder, previously known as the Titan of Light. Last campaign, we went big. This campaign, we're going small. Zooming in.
The idea of this world: it's a moving entity that takes the shape of a perfectly circular, sea-covered and island-dotted surface hosting a world of strange miracles, dragons, and, for the first time in thousands of years, dark nights. We used to have constant bioluminescence and light magic that kept things bright and beautiful, but that is no longer the case. The titan sometimes speaks. It hosts a world within itself (The Underlight, because meta puns are life). It used to be the playground of Gods from all kinds of planes, testing their miracles before performing them in their home worlds. The gods have all gone home, though.
In the new campaign, we're going to Oronu, a small town on a big island that is no longer as peaceful as it once was.
This is the information my players have seen ahead of Session Zero.
Going classic, we will start in a small town and let the adventure take us wherever it wants! The town is named Oronu and is situated on a larger island in The Constellation, an "archipelago" of islands connected by massive bridges. We're on the edge of civilization, here. The edge of the Titan, actually! And a few things might be good to know...
- Deadly dangers are emerging in the newly dark nights. We don't recommend nighttime travel. Unless you enjoy making good coin, that is.
- The river, the swamp, the woods, the hills: nature is "healing" and interest in nature's secrets is growing. Druids are IN. We just wish they weren't so smug about it.
- The old religion (The Originals) is disproven, disputed, desperately clung to. Clerics are OUT. Literally. We threw them out. We think they're starting all these damned fires. (You guys can still play clerics, of course).
- Magic has gone unpredictable and many have lost their ability to call upon the weave. Cast at your own risk.
- Our protectors, the Pax Pugnus, traditionally so ever-present across The Constellation, have left us to our own devices. Shit's bleak.
- Oh and one more tiny detail: the dead are rising. In droves. No one knows why or how. Wtf are they even doing?
- Considering the above, the fact that ancient crypts litter the island might be a very bad or very... opportune... thing.