The Matter of Norsark: A 5e Adventure: Interest Check/Sign Ups

So, I'm writing a 5e adventure which I intend to run in person later but I sort of want to give it a test run on TV Tropes first. It's going to be Play by Post if it comes up here. I'm hoping to keep things fairly fast paced with 24 hour rounds, though I could do 48 and generally players posting at least once a day or once every couple of days for up to a month or do. If you don't think you can commit to that you are still interested, PM me and we can discuss things.

Characters can be bought or rolled for (but players need to consult me for the latter on a case by case basis) and I highly recommend Mythweathers for character sheets, but however you get them through to me is fine.

The design of this setting is for a sort of 3-5 episode run with what I hope will be a definitive ending. Though I have a hook for a follow up and would be able to get that running if people want to continue forward. The setting is intended to be a rough Germano-Celtic Dark Ages analogue in the fictional Kingdom of Norsark, roughly 10th Centuryish. I am fairly flexible with world building, but this should give you a feel of what I'm going for (ie. No Jim Darkmagiks of the New Hampshire Darkmagiks) but if you PM me a concept, I'd be more than happy to help flesh it out. Bonus points for drawing on Shakesheare or Mythology.

Characters will start off at level 3 and may advance over the course of the campaign. The common connecting thread/plot hook is a mutual aquaintance, namely the son of an Eorl who recently died with a history of adventuring.

You've been summoned to his deceased mother's holding in Edinhelm by a letter from the new Eorl. I'll add more details as people sign on.

Cheers!

edited 11th Feb '15 3:38:42 PM by Fauxlosophe

I am interested.

I just need to know, is the whiskey free?

Bing. I'm in.

I am in.

I'm also down

Damn. I take a nap and I have enough interest for a full party.

Alright; a warning to people who post after this; I intended for this to be a 3-4 person party so I'm going to want to take a look a party composition before approving further characters.

To those interested; The planning of this has a GMPC (In the sense of "NPC who participates in Combat for with the Party") for the group who'll be around for a significant part of the adventure. I'm leaning towards making him a fighter, so free meatshield there. However if two or three other people are also so inclined, I'd be okay which changing that up a bit depending on party comp.

If there are further questions about character building or setting, feel free to post here or PM me.

For instance; I'm on the fence about Dieties. There's a part of met that would be interested in doing Norse and Celtic Pantheons as listed in the Rule book. This would be interesting to me as I've never actually been in a campaign with real dieties and I know enough about their mythologies to have a bit of fun with it.

Alternatively, I'd be willing to roll with a particular setting based off of popular vote. I'd be inclined towards Forgotten Realms which seems a good balance between potentially rich flavour and easily transplantable (I like Eberron as well but it'd be hard to set up their various belief systems without derailing the setting as it is current planned.)

The setting itself is that you're living in Northern penisula of a continent, roughly divided between three realms;

• Norsark: A northern realm, actually held together by the loose alliance of petty Kingdoms, settled by human sea raiders nearly two centuries (fivish generations ago), they have largely settled into the area as peaceful traders and intergrated with the native population, though rivalries remain. This is where the adventure is set. Many members of Nobility have knowledge of Giant Tongue, which is a language of hunters and warriors in their native land where Giants are relatively common.
• Sassenmark: The southern half of the peninsula, largely human as well. They settled the area some time before the Norsarkers arrived only for their ruler to be displaced by them, though old tales say they conquered it from the Dwarves. Similarly composed of petty Kingdoms, though they've largely come under the rule of one house. Still bitter towards Norsark.
• Yr Ynysoedd: The last of the Dwarven holds in the region, they rule over a chain of mountainous islands over looking the Northwest of the peninsula, fairly friendly towards Norsark but also isolationist.
• Brecqhoulon: The Elvish forests to the southwest of the Peninsula, relatively isolated and tribal, typically wary of Human kingdoms and dealing with incursions from other human kingdoms on the continent.

Halflings communities are present in backwater regions of both human Kingdoms. Players who want to play another race should talk with me, but the common races are somewhat preferred since they make my life easier in terms of tone.

Edit: A note on languages; I'll be including Common in the setting but specifically, it's the common language of the Northern Peninsula (ie. the setting) but not the continent as a whole. This only matters if you want to make a foreignner however. Rather than a unique language, Halfings speak a dialect of this common, which I'll give partial understanding of to the players with a successful roll of Perception or (Or Knowledge: History/Streetwise with proper background). I haven't really built more than these handful of languages and only a couple more will be appearring in the story but if you want to speak a major Continental language for Humans, I'll try to include it.

This is mostly fluff (I'm a bit world building obcessed) and you should get by fine with Common and one of the above regions or if you want to take a wild stab at some of the wierder languages that may feature. Even if the Campaign continues, it shouldn't leave the Peninsula for a while anyway so Common will work for quite a while.

Double Edit: Also! Fun pro-tip: I'm not a huge killer GM but I'm not afraid to let a character die if they do something dumb or the dice just really hate them. I do have at least one "BAD END" planned as a potential outcome which ends with TPK and the quest more or less undoable.

Thus having a back up character isn't necessarily a bad thing but you'll probably not need more than one and even then, you shouldn't really expect to use it.

edited 11th Feb '15 4:46:29 PM by Fauxlosophe

Are there going to be any class roles like Healer, Tank, etc?

This is going to run by Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Rules.

Officially, there isn't "Healer"/"Tank"/"Mezzer" and my understanding is that it blurs it a bit more than say 4e but which roles these classes generally fit and how your character uses them should be fairly evident.

Rules are publically available here; http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/PlayerDnDBasicRules_v0.2.pdf

Could go with Nordic Pantheon.

There are a bunch of character concepts I want to try, but at the moment I'm going with either a Storm Domain Cleric or a Tome Pact Warlock of the Great Old Ones.

Ah. My issue is that I use to DM for a group that hated fourth so I did a kind of mix of third anf fourth that I like to call 3.75. I know nothing about fifth but I could go look it up. I guess.

5e is much closer to 3.5e (and I'm informed 2e) than 4e.

In fact the main change is that powers are significantly tonned down.

4e's influences are still there but in terms of mechanics, I think this edition feels more like 3.5e with stricter rationing of abilities than anything else (for instance Feats are an optional rule and have to be taken in place of stat growth).

Nice. I'm down for that. I tend towards either rogues or glass cannons.

Gotta agree with Dalt. If you're going Norse with the setting, might as well go full Norse and use their pantheon too.

Yeah, you get tired of the typical Western or Egyptian stuff people overuse.

Hell, replace planes with the Nordic cosmology too

...I think Norse technically qualifies as Western and Thor isn't exactly too rare in media... but it suits the setting and we're at 3 votes so Norse Pantheon is elected. Celtic Pantheon is also an alternative, but fairly back water.

Oh Norse Norse. Ithought we were making stuff up.

Nah, the rulebook lists out rules for Norse and Celtic Pantheons. There are fictional pantheons listed but I wouldn't be interested in creating one whole sale.

@Ampodieus Rex: You're fairly low level and I'm including enemies that aren't necessarily Germanic in Origin (plus Celtic elements, especially for Dwarves and Elves), so I'd rather leave the nature of the planes slightly ambiguous, leaning towards old school Syncretic Planescape where I absolutely have to have them for fluff.

edited 11th Feb '15 6:19:06 PM by Fauxlosophe

Yup, I think I'm going Warlock. Got a surge of inspiration and already made the character mechanically.

This looks really cool, and I have a character concept all ready and everything (mostly because they're an alternate version of a character from a different RP), but the party's full already. ;_; Though I guess I can just watch and/or be a replacement in case anyone dies or has to stop R Ping.

Sounds good! I'm currently in another 5e game and a PC dropped out before we even left the starting town, so I'll keep you updated and we'll assume your character recieved a letter but was late to the party.

Oh, cool! Thanks! I'll most likely roll up a character sheet tomorrow.

edited 11th Feb '15 10:27:17 PM by Tojin

Awesome.

As the setting implies, a Germanic (Especially Medieval Norse or Archiac English) sounding name is probably best for the setting and since I don't have a clear hook for you, I'd recommend leaning towards freewheeling adventurer somewhat, without explicitly knowing the Prince. That way, even if the players are fairly regular initially, I'd be able to contact you down the road so I could slip another plothook in (Maybe you're adventuring through the Elfwoods for a component that party will need but over looked, Hunting the same bandits as the P Cs or Employed by the Dwarven King to serve as a "body guard" or "emassary" to the P Cs; whatever gets you into the party faster).

Sound good?

We can swap. You can give Tojin my spot, and if anyone drops let me know.

Oh, looks like I'm late to the party...