“This world has no regard for your happiness; can you still find it? At what cost?”
Greetings Adventurers,
I am looking for someone interested in a Duet Campaign where we would run two storylines simultaneously in my setting. It would be roleplay-focused, but the amount of combat entirely depends on what naturally makes sense for the character. A bard’s tale might have very few combats, while a fighter trying to be a knight of the realm would have more combats in comparison. This is designed to be a grimdark fantasy. While I would love to use systems better suited to it, 5e is such a mainstay for so many people that I have simply conformed to its base rules and made adjustments to make up the difference as best I can.
This world is one where desperate people try to survive in a cruel realm filled with monsters and magic that can shift the scales of fate on a dark whim. If you are looking for a heroic tale that is easy, you always win, and it’s all “black and white” against evil, or a world that bends to your character’s importance, then this is not a campaign for you.
Examples for the theme would be Darkest Dungeon, Fear & Hunger, Berserk, and Goblin Slayer; think grounded medieval horror fantasy.
We’ll use Avrae for dice rolling and Tupperbox for characters. Discord for messaging; I will set up the servers for use. We’ll try Roll20 for maps where necessary (if you are on mobile and Roll20 isn’t viable, I will take screenshots of the maps for reference and post them in the Discord).
Starting Date: Oct 19th. If you have not applied by this time or have not heard from me, it is safe to assume you were not selected. I would like to make sure that I do respond to all applicants, but I am not certain how reasonably I will be able to do so, depending on the number of applicants; we shall see.
Campaign Overview
This world was devastated by a collision among several worlds of existence, such as the Forgotten Realms, resulting in massive casualties and chaos, leaving civilization hanging by a thread for myriad reasons. Lands are filled with those seeking power for all the wrong reasons, and with the distortion of the realms, it has opened power vacuums for those who seek power to obtain it. Existing kingdoms rot from within as trade deteriorates; noble houses sell their honor to survive another day or to gain further power to advance their status. The gods of all realms have gone quiet on a global scale, while many churches preach salvation; none has yet provided indisputable proof. They would much rather manipulate those into their fold for more power. Monsters stalk the roads, some even wearing humanoid flesh, hunting those that dare to venture upon them to survive. Villages simply vanish from maps as indecipherable evils sneak in and swoop them away.
Arcane and Divine magic exist, but some nations fear or envy them; some of either practice try to remove the other from their nations to assimilate more power for themselves. While other nations call a truce and let both exist openly, even if they clash in the shadows.
A standard adventurer is called a Reclaimer; most seek to discover lost or new lands, find ancient ruins, ward off monsters, and undertake many other tasks that people or those who can afford them require. Reclaimers are viewed with unease; many have chosen this path out of foolish greed and ambition, leading some to be considered “Legal Bandits”. While some guilds and Reclaimers try to prove otherwise, it is a struggle for many who venture into this occupation.
This world once had unparalleled beauty upon “The Fall”, but maybe, from a distance, one could still admire the candlelit cathedrals, misty forests, noble courts, and songs of heroes long dead. But many blame the “Ancients” for this event known as “The Fall”; there were said to be one or more ancient civilizations that nearly dominated the entire world until they tried to reach beyond their station and were condemned by the Original Gods, being swiftly destroyed. The races enslaved by the “Ancients” would later rise to power and claim their own nations. It was said that the Gods' wrath was too powerful and that, in several thousand years, the world would be ripped apart once more. No one knew exactly when until it was too late.
But now… the daily horrors that transpire are numerous; a village leader paid tribute to monsters to survive the winter since the lord denied them aid; someone came back from the woods, but they aren’t the same anymore; someone was murdered in cold blood because they coveted their partner; someone begged for death only to be denied it again…
This is the campaign that I want to explore, one with beauty, horror, hope, despair, faith, corruption, and the people caught somewhere in between, where you aren’t the hero that will save the world by birth, one where you will have more scars than the ones in combat, where you have to make choices that make your stomach turn to reach your goal or to live another day; the expectation of another day for the character is uncertain.
The Story
In either campaign, it should not be designed around saving the world, so you may argue that this world may already be too broken for that.
The story should be about surviving it, living it, changing within it, and deciding what lines your character will cross before the end.
Our characters should not be legendary heroes at the beginning, but rather, they are people with wounds, debts, fears, desires, sins, loyalties, and reasons to see another sunrise.
Everyone starts somewhere, and in this campaign, that “somewhere” is not glory. But rather it is mud, hunger, fear, debt, grief, and desperation.
We both will likely play multiple characters over the course of the campaign due to death, retirement, corruption, capture, hiatus, or story reasons. Still, you may only actively play up to two characters at any given time, just enough to switch between or have them party up, but not too many that we slow down too much.
What I’m Looking For In This Duet
More than anything, I want a person who enjoys becoming their character and who loves story-building as a DM as well.
I want people who love conversations as much as combat. People who love to build relationships, rivalries, romances, grudges, loyalties, fears, and complicated histories.
Morality
The characters should not be “White Knights”; they should just be people trying to live another day.
This world produces survivors, zealots, cowards, martyrs, killers, liars, saints, monsters, and more. Each may call the character's morality into question, and that is encouraged.
The characters may be villains, capable of doing terrible things. They may lie, steal, kill, betray, sacrifice, abandon, or worse to further their own agenda.
What matters is that those choices feel earned.
If a character crosses a line, there should be a reason behind it, and it should come from who they are, what they have endured, what they fear, what they love, and what they are trying to protect or achieve.
Mature Themes, ERP, and NSFW Content
This is a 21+ campaign, due to the very dark elements, I will not compromise on this, please do not alter age in application to apply. The world contains many of the darkest and most horrific elements of humanity and fantasy horror.
The campaign may include violence, gore, torture, body horror, psychological horror, slavery, exploitation, abuse, corruption, religious extremism, war crimes, starvation, disease, madness, sexual themes, romance, ERP, and consequences worse than death, all of which depend and vary based on character choices and dice rolls.
These themes are not included for shock value or smut for the sake of smut; while characters, as noted, can be villains who do evil things or a bard who never leaves the brothel, it should make sense in the world or character, not just DM impulses.
These elements exist because this is a dark setting where evil is ugly, suffering has weight, and the cost to live another day can sometimes leave scars deeper than death.
ERP exists in the campaign; we will have rules for it in the document. It would be advantageous to be very comfortable or willing to embrace that should it present itself in-game.
Main story channels will use implication, aftermath, emotional framing, or fade-to-black where appropriate. Explicit ERP will be handled in separate channels.
As noted, I do expect applicants to be comfortable with their characters experiencing horrifying encounters that one should never wish upon another. As a player, I have no limits on what can happen to my characters, as long as it makes narrative sense.
This is intended to be a safe space to explore more mature and darker elements of life that we wouldn’t wish to encounter in real life, and how one survives and overcomes them. It is not meant to encourage, promote, or glorify behaviors taken by the creatures of the world.
For D&D, there will be mechanics provided within the form that will cover all of the core mechanics expanded upon for this section of play. As a warning, the original PDF has VERY NSFW art. These rules will not be used exactly as written in the book, since it's a bit too comedic and over-the-top, but they provide basic inspiration to draw from.
Before joining, all applicants will complete a form covering expectations, boundaries, content comfort, Lines & Veils, NSFW preferences, and safety tools. This campaign will not have many hard restrictions by default, so players must understand what kind of game they are applying for before joining.
Rules
For D&D campaigns, it will use D&D 5e 2014 and 2024, with house rules designed to support a slower, grittier, more grounded fantasy experience.
This will not feel like a standard heroic fantasy campaign.
The ruleset will include adjustments for things such as:
- Gritty rests.
- Downtime progression.
- Lingering consequences.
- Sanity and corruption.
- Injuries and recovery.
- Travel and survival.
- Relationship development.
- Reputation.
- Geslalt
- ERP Mechanics
- More grounded character growth.
The goal is not to make the game miserable or punish players for existing, but rather they exist to make the world feel dangerous, natural, and consequential.
Combat should feel like something characters survive, not something they casually farm for experience.
Downtime matters. Travel matters. Rest matters. Wounds matter. Food, coin, shelter, allies, reputation, and trust all matter.
Your character will grow through more than leveling. They may train, study, heal, break, recover, build bonds, lose faith, find purpose, or become something they never expected.
Sex will have its own pillar of experience just like Exploration, Combat, and Roleplay. The additional book has similar combat features and is roughly the same length. This allows characters to find other ways to progress: a bard could work their way up later by sleeping with all the nobles on their way to the big city; a ranger or barbarian could be a different type of monster hunter; or casual encounters/one with a partner, can advance the character.
Play-by-Post
This is an asynchronous play-by-post campaign, as I work full-time and reside overseas, so there will be times when I cannot immediately respond as GM.
Therefore, I am looking for a player/DM who can respond in both campaigns at least once or twice a day, to ensure both our characters' stories are played out roughly equally.
Closing Thoughts
If you got this far, thank you for your time and consideration. This is my first time looking for this style of game outside my normal circle, so I look forward to hearing from you.
If you are considering this game at this stage, here are some final notes as a summary: You will enjoy this campaign if you value the following: love deep character roleplay, enjoy collaborative storytelling more than “winning.”, want your backstory to matter, slow-burn character development, moral ambiguity and meaningful consequences, setbacks as much as victories, can handle uncomfortable themes maturely, are comfortable with adult themes being discussed, want downtime, travel, wounds, fear, and survival to matter, and are interested in exploring what a character becomes under pressure.
If you want to spend months telling the story of broken, desperate, flawed people trying to survive a world that devours the weak…
Then please apply and set aside time during the application process; I go into more detail there to ensure alignment and that expectations are met.
https://forms.gle/eo7AsXFkt6HfMHcg8
