[SotDL (or D&D5E?)] Looking for players interested in a dark fantasy world?

[Kathadon]

The End Is Just the Beginning

I have been enamored by Shadows of the Demon Lord's world for awhile now. It has just the right amount of Grim Dark and horror for my tastes, without punishing players that want to play actual good guys and heroes. So I decided to do an interest check. The game is intended to showcase complex characters with good traits and bad ones. Even those who have virtuous inclinations might be tempted to do evil things, just as murderers, thieves, and other villainous sorts can be moved to do good. The players are free to portray their characters in whatever manner they like. But extreme acts of evil have a price, as does fighting the truly horrible things of the World. Corruption and Insanity. Will you fight the demons or will you burn it all down and dance among the ashes? Who will you become when the world dies?

The World

As the Demon Lord’s shadow creeps across the world, it creates the chance for heroes to seize their destinies and villains to accomplish their despicable goals. Sometimes the world needs heroes. But in the desperation of these last days, the world will take all those it can get: heroes, mercenaries, blackguards, madmen, and whoever else is willing to stand against the coming darkness. The world is held in the grip of a cosmic destroyer. Enter a land steeped in the chaos and madness unleashed by the end times, with whole realms overrun by howling herds of beastmen, warped spirits freed from the Underworld, and unspeakable horrors stirred awake by the Demon Lord’s imminent arrival.

On the world of Urth, and the continent Rûl, the greatest and mightiest civilization to appear in these lands now teeters on the brink of collapse. The emperor lies dead, strangled by the Orc King, who claimed the Alabaster Throne for himself and the legions of freed slaves that look to him for leadership. The uprising in the capital has sent shockwaves through the rest of the Empire. The Empire’s instability invites savage humanoids to run amok through the crumbling landscape. Beastmen spill out from the old forests and broken lands, while trolls and giants resume their age-old wars against the faerie. Worst of all, cultists devoted to the Demon Lord have grown bolder and even now work to hasten the arrival of their unspeakable master.
The fabric of reality has grown weaker with reckless magic and the actions of the mad and deranged who seek the final oblivion the Demon Lord promises. Cults of its servants have spread throughout the empire and perform horrid rituals to call forth lesser demons and tear holes in reality for the coming of their master. Given the troubles plaguing the Empire, many believe that the Demon Lord is close to emerging—and when it does, all will be lost.

The Gods Are Distant Powers

Whether the gods exist or not is an open question. People worship them, along with monsters and the spirits of the ancestors, but the gods never take a direct hand in mortal affairs. Instead, their devoted servants advance their aims in the world and make believers of unbelievers. Religion takes many forms in the lands of Rûl. The keepers of the Old Faith maintain customs and traditions going back to the dawn of civilization, while upstart faiths, such as the Cult of the New God, spread across the lands, bringing a message of salvation, rebirth, and war against the darkness festering in mortal hearts. Witches gather in secret places to honor the Lady and her Lord, while common folk whisper fervent prayers to their small household gods who watch over them. Despite their differences, religions offer salvation, explanation, hope, meaning, and so much more. In these dark times, people turn to the divine for shelter from the horrors unfolding around them.

Magic Is Real

The world is a magical place. Magic infuses all things, all that remains of the creative force that spun the universe out from primordial chaos. Magic’s abundance means anyone with the will, time, and talent can learn to harness its power. Some people have the gift for wielding magic and call upon the power from within. Others discover it from reading ancient tomes and scrolls. And priests, devoted to the distant gods, call on magic to champion their causes in the world. Aside from spells, magic sometimes lingers in objects infused with its power or created by it. Magical energy also gathers in certain places, making spells easier to cast or producing unexpected effects.

Mortals Live Many Lives

Unlike the immortal Faerie, death is not the end for mortals. It marks a transition from one life to the next. Upon dying, the soul pulls free from the flesh and remains for a short time before descending into the Underworld. In this gloomy place, the memories of the life left behind fade until nothing remains of the person that was. The soul then rises from the Underworld to live again. Not all souls go to the Underworld, however. Corruption weighs down the soul, and foul acts performed in life can be cleansed only by torment. Mortals leading depraved and monstrous lives find Hell awaits them in the afterlife. There, the twisted faerie known as devils and other, darker supernatural beings scourge the corruption from their souls, feasting on those dark acts and savoring the memories of them. The darker the stains, the longer the soul remains in Hell, with some never truly escaping the damnation they earned.

Ancestries

The following ancestries are among the most common to the imperial lands of the Northern Reach.
• Humans are a diverse people encompassing numerous civilizations, cultures, and ethnicities. They are the dominant people in the world. Humans excel in any path they choose.

• Changelings. Faerie create changelings to conceal the absence of children they steal. They construct a changeling from natural materials and use magic to give it the appearance of the missing child. The magic often fades after a few weeks, but sometimes it lingers and lets the changeling grow up to become a real person. Changelings conceal their hideous forms behind identities stolen from other creatures so they can move more freely through the lands. Changelings make exceptional magicians and rogues.

• Clockworks are people created by binding souls stolen from the Underworld to mechanical bodies. All clockworks have keys somewhere on their body and while wound up, they move, think, and act like creatures. Should the key wind down, a clockwork becomes dormant—an insensate object. Clockworks have many different forms, and their origins determine the paths they will walk.

• Dwarfs are an elder race that occupied their mountain holds long before the first humans arrived on Rûl. Cursed by the gods for their vanity and doomed to toil and dig in the earth for the treasures they covet. Gray skinned dwarfs make powerful warriors and priests.

• Halflings reluctantly share lands with humans in the empire. They are famed for their "resourcefulness". Most people consider halflings to be lucky and are pleased to count them as neighbors. Some also consider the lot of them to be thieves. Halflings often become rogues and priests.

• Ferran having lived among humanity for centuries, while keeping secret their shapeshifting abilities, ferren can transform their bodies into cats and back again. Ferren understand the fear that skinchangers elicit in other peoples, and many have been killed after being mistaken for one of those monstrous creatures, so they prefer to keep their true nature unrevealed. Stealthy and inquisitive, they make excellent rogues and magicians.

.• Goblins are exiles from the realms of faerie, forced to live among humanity or on the edges of human lands. Cursed with mortality, they are a filthy, grubby people of low character and malicious disposition. Goblins do well as rogues and magicians.

• Orcs were made from dark magic from jotun prisoners to be the ultimate slave soldiers in the Empire’s armies. Brutish, strong, and violent, they exceeded expectations and helped their masters conquer the continent. They have recently thrown off their shackles and taken their destiny into their own hands. Bred for battle, orcs make strong warriors and deadly rogues.

These ancestries are far less common.

• Fauns are mortal children who lived too long among the faerie in their hidden kingdoms or who were sired by them. Victims of their heritage, living between the two worlds and not quite belonging to either one. Children who escape the hidden faerie kingdoms have undergone a partial transformation, becoming something between mortal and immortal. All fauns display animalistic features to some degree as a mark of faerie influence. Most have human upper bodies and the legs of a goat or a deer. Fauns also have horns sprouting from their brows, ranging from mere nubs to ram horns or antlers. Fauns of both genders have such growths, though the ones found in females are ,usually, smaller than in males.

• Jotun. Though it has been centuries since the jotun ravaged the Empire’s western coasts, imperials still speak of the giant-blooded raiders in hushed whispers. Although most jotun remain in the frozen wastes, a few seek their fortunes in the north as mercenaries, guards, and adventurers.

• Elves are the immortal self-styled lords and ladies of the hidden faerie kingdoms. Many who remained did so by choice, being unwilling to give up all they knew to unworthy heirs. The length of their lives and the finality of their deaths combine to make it difficult for elves to care much about the consequences of their actions. Pleasure drives them, and they do whatever they need to obtain it, heedless of who or what they hurt in the process. Others might interpret their actions as selfish or evil, but elves don’t concern themselves with such concepts, making no distinction between plucking the pretty eye from a shepherd’s face and composing a sonnet to a beautiful flower. Both acts give them pleasure.

• Skinchangers are shapeshifters sometimes called weres, scions of the Horned Lord, or lycanthropes. They all bear a weighty curse, it causes a beast to come forth, transforming the skinchanger into a wild and dangerous animal, or, sometimes something in between. The forms skinchangers take vary wildly, from wolves to leopards, ravens to rats, and just about everything else in between.

• The Woad, the largely independent and wild tribes of humans, who have long resisted efforts to be either absorbed or destroyed by the many great civilizations that have risen and fallen in Rûl in the centuries since their arrival. The Woad’s steadfast refusal to be assimilated has resulted in a general view of them by most peoples of Rûl as hopelessly backward, beastly, and barbaric.

So anyone interested?

[SilkenVenom]

I would be all for  5th edition version of this idea.

[queenkam234]

I'd be interested!

[Xurtan]

SotDL definitely has interest. Going to watch this.

[Kathadon]

I see one vote for 5E. Anyone else have a preference?

[Xurtan]

Of the two I think SotDL is more interesting, tbh

[wander]

I'd play if it was SotDL, it's the better system.

I would GM also for it, though I'd need convincing and I'd likely do the Tales of the Shadow Lord meat-grinder pregen campaign if I did.

I own nearly everything printed for SotDL and it's genuinely easier to play than 5e whilst being similar enough to it (it came from Schwalb leaving the 5e dev-team to concentrate on his version - a version he could 'teach to drunks, whilst drunk himself'.

[Rummy Tum Tum]

DnD 5e absolutely

[Kathadon]

Well wander you have me beat then. I have alot of Schwalb's poisoned pages, the core books, companions, and path supplements. I think I am only really missing a few of the books and the most recent Pages drops on DTRPG.

I would far more rather play in the game, finally, than GM it if I had a choice. The problem for me is getting my IRL friends to play anything other than D & D.
That said, I know 5E is the preferred system most everywhere so that was why I left it open. It is a fairly easy system to learn.

SilkenVenom and Rummy Tum Tum would you be willing to try it out?

[SilkenVenom]

Well wander you have me beat then. I have alot of Schwalb's poisoned pages, the core books, companions, and path supplements. I think I am only really missing a few of the books and the most recent Pages drops on DTRPG.

I would far more rather play in the game, finally, than GM it if I had a choice. The problem for me is getting my IRL friends to play anything other than D & D.
That said, I know 5E is the preferred system most everywhere so that was why I left it open. It is a fairly easy system to learn.

SilkenVenom and Rummy Tum Tum would you be willing to try it out?

I don't really have the time or energy to learn a new system game at the moment. Especially one I don't have material for.

[Rummy Tum Tum]

Unfortunately don't think I could either.

[Miroque]

hmm...for 5e, absolutely, as I dont know the SotDL system.

[queenkam234]

I'd be good with either.

[pdragon]

haven't played SotDL but I'd be willing to give it a try

[wander]

If say one more person comes in with interest for SotDL and all those who posted interest for that so far are cool with it, I'll run Tales of the Shadow Lord for those rpers, from start to finish. The entire campaign, Level 0 all the way to the Level 10 finale. Long as interest is kept.

Fuck 5e and the grip it has on people.

The setting in OP's request is literally SotDL's Urth & it's system is easier;
it's roll d20 and the DC is always 10 (outside of attacking things, then it's the Defence of the target) and your stat mod is your stat -10 (so a stat of 12 gives +2, whilst a stat of 8 gives -2). There's less stats and less janky sacred cows bogging everything down. I literally cannot think of something simpler than that whilst keeping to the d20 model.

I'll go one better. You get four main stats instead of six; Strength (equal to HP, used to melee attack), Dexterity (equal to Defence, used to ranged/finesse attack), Intellect (decides Perception modifier, used for some spellcasting & social lying tests) and Will (decides Insanity cap, used for some spellcasting and for social rolls like persuasion/intimidation).
For a starting Level 0 Human these all start at 10 and you get the choice to add 1 to a single stat. You can also reduce one stat to 9 to make another one 11. Outside of rolling 3d6 to decide your starting gear and some rolls for fluff, job done you got your character.

So who's in?

[Kathadon]

Well now that is an offer. An entire 11 session campaign?

[wander]

If we get enough players (4 will do, including yourself) and it'll be here, so Pbp.
Each session translates to one of the pregen adventures, so in essence I'll run the 11 one-shots one after the other as a single group game here in the forums. If players keep posting, I'll keep running until the end, with the 11th one-shot where the players will have their Level 10 characters.

I've tried this prior and people were slow posting, wanted their characters to go against the campaign backstory (then not post at all due to that) and I will run this, though I need the interest to invest myself to do it.

[Miroque]

Ok, il give it a try. How about classes/occupations/what nots in the system?

[Kathadon]

Miroque if wander is planning on 0 level, all you have to do is pick an ancestry, maybe pick stat adjustments (everything starts at 10+/- for race and optionally you can also reduce one stat by 1 to make another one plus 1), random roll or pick a background, random roll or pick 2 or more professions, and make up a backstory. After the first adventure you pick one of the Big Four archetype Paths; Warrior, Rouge, Priest, Magician. The choice can be chosen by playing certain ways (ie: want to be a mage? do mage stuff, like read magic scrolls, read books found, or touch obvious magic do-hickies) or the DM may just have you pick. It is a fairly open system and you build your character up from maybe a woodcutter who also was part of the town militia, to an adventerous warrior. Who then becomes a stealthy ranger. Then to a skilled monster hunting gunslinger.

For instance Creating A Changeling:
Starting Attribute Scores: Strength 9, Agility 10, Intellect 10, Will 10, Perception (equals your Intellect score + 1) 11, Defense (equals your Agility score) 10, Health (equals your Strength score) 9
Healing Rate equals one-quarter your Health, round down
Size 1, Speed 10, Power 0
Damage 0, Insanity 0, Corruption 0
Languages and Professions: You speak the Common Tongue.
Immune damage from disease; charmed, diseased
Iron Vulnerability: You are impaired while in contact with iron.
Shadowsight: You see into areas obscured by shadows as if those areas were lit.
Steal Identity: You can use an action to alter your appearance to match that of a target living creature you can see within short range. The target must be Size 1 or 1/2 and have a humanoid shape of flesh and blood. Your body changes so you look like the target, though your clothing and possessions remain unchanged. The effect lasts until you use this talent again. If you become incapacitated or touch an object made from iron, you immediately revert to your normal appearance.

Or Creating A Human:
Starting Attribute Scores Strength 10, Agility 10, Intellect 10, Will 10. Choose one attribute and increase it by 1.
Perception equals your Intellect score
Defense equals your Agility score
Health equals your Strength score
Healing Rate equals one-quarter your Health, round down
Size 1/2 or 1, Speed 10, Power 0
Damage 0, Insanity 0, Corruption 0
Languages and Professions: You speak the Common
Tongue, and you can either speak one additional
language or add a random profession.

The first question is what ancestry would you want to play?

[Kathadon]

This is a 0 level character random rolled.

Matthaus Lawson
Human, Age 22

[ ABILITY SCORES ]
Strength 11(10+1)  Agility 11 (10+1) Intellect 10   Will 9 (10-1)Perception 10
Defense 11 Health 11 Speed 10
Healing Rate 2

Size 1 Power 0 Damage 0 Insanity 0 Corruption 0

[ PROFESSIONS ] Human Choice: 3rd Profession.
Childhood: Apprenticed to an Artisan Leatherworker. Start with a leatherworker's toolkit.
Militiaman You start with a spear and uniform.
Woodcutter You start with an axe.
Gambler You start with a pair of dice or deck of cards.
Life Experience: You Worked! Choose one of your professions. You worked in your profession and saved a little coin. Gain a +1 bonus to your Starting Lifestyle roll.
Life Experience: As a young man you exposed a foul conspiracy in your community. You make attack rolls in social situations against members of your community with 1 boon.
Starting Lifestyle: Wealthy

Languages Common, Illiterate

[ COMBAT ]
Health 11
Speed 10
Defense 12 ( 11, small shield +1)
Dagger., Melee: 1d3 (Finesse, thrown (range short))
Axe, Melee: 1d6+1
Small Shield:
Spear: 1d6  (Finesse, range (short))

[ EQUIPMENT ]
2 sets of well-made basic clothing, a militia uniform, a set of fine clothing, and a fine cloak. A dagger, an axe, a spear, and a small shield. A leatherworkers toolkit. 2 silver shillings (ss).
A backpack, a week of rations, a waterskin filled with water, coil of rope, a tinderbox, lantern, and 2 flasks of oil. A healing potion and a deck of cards.

[INTERESTING THING]
A box of six fine white candles.

[Personality Traits]
Loner: You are quiet and withdrawn. You are most comfortable when you're alone and become uncomfortable in large crowds.
Relationships: You distrust other people and find yourself questioning their motives.
Desires: Redemption
Fears: Isolation
Obligations: You obey the law and keep up your oaths when it suits you.
Morality: You are a pragmatist and do what you feel needs to be done, even if such an act would cause others harm.
Religious beliefs: You belong to a minor religion centered on a small god.
Piety: You are skeptical about your faith.

[ CHARACTER ]
Height 5'11" / 190 lb. ; Age 22 years
Eyes Blue ; Skin Tan and wind scared ; Hair Black

He would make a good fighter/ranger. All he needs is a back story.

[queenkam234]

Okay, I'm in! I'll try to get something up soon.

I'll go and play a clockwork, I think.

[wander]

Also as a warning to let you know gang, do not write huge backstories for your characters, Tales is lethal af.

Essentially lemme say you get 10 Health and most enemies will do at least d6 damage and a fair few have + mods to hit. Your Defences are going to be 9-11 for the most part, which is the total needed for an enemy to roll on a d20 after mods are added.

If your damage equals your Health, your character is in a state called 'disabled'. Defence drops to 5. All rolls and actions outside of Perception auto-fail. You're floored though awake, essentially. You get Fate Rolls then to see if you either stay like that some more, get up or fall into unconsciousness dying.

When KO'd and dying, you roll a d6 each turn, on a 6 you awaken and return to disabled, on a 1 you are dead.

You will also insta-die if damaged again when knocked out, though it'd be a rare case an enemy will target a knocked out PC if active ones are nearby. Also if damage ever equalled your Health from a single source (a 10 Health PC suffers 10+ damage in one go) that insta-kills the PC right off.

To make you worry less, Health in essence isn't ever reduced, it's actually a derived stat to show how much Damage you can take. Damage increases on a character, though Health will always equal your Strength and few things will actually reduce it.

For example if a character with 10 Health had suffered 8 Damage, he isn't suddenly Health 2, he still has 10 Health, though if he suffers 2 more Damage he will be disabled.



So, your characters are squishy. However as your character stats are easy as fuck to throw together, if your PC dies you can just make a new one and jump back into the IC thread at the earliest convenience, even in the middle of a fight if you wanted. Who wouldn't want to play the Big Damn Hero guy coming in like the cavalry as the party is getting their ass handed to them? 

[Kathadon]

Yeah I will second wander on the don't get very attached to your starting PC. They are very squishy early on.

Creating A Clockwork
Starting Attribute Scores Strength 9, Agility 8, Intellect 9,
Will 9
Perception equals your Intellect score
Defense 13
Health equals your Strength score
Healing Rate equals one-quarter your Health, round down
Size 1, Speed 8, Power 0
Damage 0, Insanity 0, Corruption 0
Languages and Professions You speak the Common
Tongue.
Immune damage from disease and poison; asleep,
diseased, fatigued, poisoned
Key: You have a key somewhere on your body that you cannot reach. When the key is cranked and turning, you count as a creature. When it stops, you become
an object. Your key stops turning when you become incapacitated. It also stops turning at the end of any round in which you got a total of 0 or lower on an attack roll or challenge roll.
While you are an object, you cannot use actions, move, talk, or perceive your surroundings. Any creature that can reach you can use an action to wind up your key. If you are not incapacitated, you become a
creature once more.
If you are incapacitated, roll a d6.
On a 3 or lower, there is no effect. On a 4 or higher, you
heal 1 damage and become a creature at the end of the
round.
Although you are an object while you are incapacitated, you are still subject to the rules for incapacitated creatures.
Mechanical Body You do not eat, drink, or breathe.
You do not age and you cannot be transformed into an undead creature. Your mechanical body makes it impossible for you to swim, so you sink to the bottom when you are submerged in liquid.
Repairing Damage While a creature, you heal damage as any other creature. If you are an object, a creature can use an action to start repairing you with a tool kit. The creature must work for at least 4 hours. At the end of this time, it makes an Intellect challenge roll with 1 bane. On a success, you heal damage equal to your healing rate.

For Clockworks there are a bunch of random tables for everything from Maker, Maker's Nature, Age, First Experiences, Purpose, Appearance, to the form of your body (ie: you don't have to be humanoid) and Background. Mostly these just take the form of a 3d6 roll or 1d20. You begin with two professions. You can choose any profession you like or let the dice decide. Choices are from the categories of : Academic, Common, Criminal, Martial, Religious, Wilderness. Depending on how wander wanted to do it I'd let the player pick Purpose, Appearance, and Form. Then I'd highly encourage random rolling for Maker, Maker's Nature, Age, First Experiences, and Background. Your Age might also give you a Life Experience. Which may be good, may be bad.

[pdragon]

For example if a character with 10 Health had suffered 8 Damage, he isn't suddenly Health 2, he still has 10 Health, though if he suffers 2 more Damage he will be disabled.

I'm a bit confused, how is that functionally any different from just being dropped to 2 health?

[wander]

It isn't, it just clarifies the auto-death rule (if you suffer damage equal or more to your Health, you're insta-dead).

In essence it clarifies auto-death means your Max Health, as say you had 10 Health and took 8 damage (so you were dropped to 2 Health), you wouldn't insta-die if you suffered 2 damage from a hit after that.