LFP
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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I’m looking for one more player—possibly two, but two is the absolute maximum—for an ongoing, in-person D&D campaign in O’Fallon, Illinois, on the Metro East side of St. Louis. The exact address will be shared privately because, you know, the internet.
We play every Friday starting at 6:00 p.m. Central. The party is currently level 4 and will be reaching level 5 soon, and they’re approaching a point in the story where adding someone new can happen naturally instead of having a stranger fall out of a tree and announce that they’ve been assigned to the group.
(To be fair, this is a Feywild campaign. Falling out of a tree carrying legally binding paperwork is not completely outside the realm of possibility.)
Okay, logistical stuff first, because this is still an LFG post and not the back cover of a fantasy novel. I’ll get there.
So, What the Hell Is The Brightwild Bargain?
The full title is The Brightwild Bargain; or, Those Ever-Meddlesome Muddywillows because apparently I decided that if Tolkien could get away with semicolons in fantasy titles, so could I.
It’s a character-driven fantasy campaign about bargains, stories, family, consequences, and the increasingly unreliable boundary between Faerûn and the Feywild. There’s dangerous magic, fairy-tale logic, weird little creatures, unsettling mysteries, ridiculous bureaucracy, big emotional swings, and seven extremely powerful fairy sisters who keep appearing in places where they absolutely were not invited.
The general tone is colorful, funny, and high-energy—something like a Saturday-morning fantasy adventure that occasionally looks directly at the camera and realizes the consequences are real. There are jokes. There are serious character moments. There are dangerous fights. Sometimes all three happen in the same scene because somebody tried to bluff an ancient fey creature and rolled a nat 1.
The Feywild side of the campaign isn’t just consequence-free randomness. It operates on storybook logic, but the logic is real. Names matter. Promises matter. Hospitality matters. The precise wording of a bargain matters quite a lot, usually about thirty seconds after someone decides it probably doesn’t.
The Story So Far
The campaign began aboard an airship, where the party’s relatively straightforward journey was interrupted by a fairy pirate, one of the aforementioned Muddywillow sisters, and several indications that something was seriously wrong with the boundaries between worlds.
Since then, the party has survived a fey trial, rescued people caught in the fallout of a magical disaster, acquired a wolf who understands considerably more than an ordinary wolf should, negotiated with a half-elf apothecary over extremely expensive flower-dragon perfume, and dealt with local authorities who required an impressive amount of official paperwork before deciding how, exactly, a warforged should be categorized.
They also discovered a mysterious card hidden inside a magically stitched pocket, which eventually led them to a locked Deck of Fortunes. This is not a deck you simply draw from. You play against something called the Dealer, who accepts wagers, deals five-card hands, and is reportedly capable of granting very good rewards.
The records of previous owners become significantly less detailed after they begin playing, which I’m sure is fine.
The party is currently traveling from Daggerford toward Heroesmeet (The Dalelands Heroic Exposition and Merriment Faire...essentially Faerun ComicCon) in search of Galen Halfbright, a famous adventurer who may understand what’s happening to the boundaries between worlds. Or he may be another mystery. Or both. Meanwhile, one member of the party has abruptly been “called” elsewhere under circumstances that are technically "voluntary" only if you accept an extremely Fey interpretation of the word.
How I Run the Game
I do a frankly unreasonable amount of preparation, but the players’ choices determine what actually becomes the story. NPCs remember what the characters do. Actions have consequences, good and bad. Character backgrounds don’t disappear into a Google document after Session Zero; I use them, sometimes immediately and sometimes several sessions later when everyone has forgotten that one sentence they wrote about an estranged sibling.
My favorite kind of D&D is when a throwaway joke becomes binding Fey precedent three sessions later, a tiny character choice grows into an actual relationship, or something from a player’s backstory steps out from behind the curtain holding a knife.
The game includes roleplay, exploration, mysteries, social encounters, and combat, but not necessarily in equal amounts every session. Some nights are heavy on character interaction. Some nights involve a major fight. Some nights the players spend forty-five minutes interrogating a shopkeeper I invented twelve seconds earlier, and suddenly she has a family, a supply-chain crisis, and unresolved feelings about peony dragons.
That’s D&D. That’s the good stuff.
You don’t need to be an actor or speak in character for four straight hours. You do need to be willing to make decisions as your character, interact with the other party members, engage with the world, and let serious moments breathe when they happen.
The single biggest character expectation is no main-character energy. Your character should have goals, secrets, problems, and plenty of opportunities to matter. They also need to care about the other characters, share the spotlight, and possess some reason—possibly a deeply inconvenient one—to remain part of a group.
Beginners Are Genuinely Welcome
I’m a teacher in real life, so helping someone learn the game is not a burden for me. If you’ve never played before but this campaign sounds like something you’d love, please don’t talk yourself out of responding because you think everyone else will already know more than you.
You don’t need to memorize the Player’s Handbook. You don’t need to know every ability before the first session. You don’t need to perform advanced calculus to determine whether Sneak Attack applies.
We’ll get you there.
Experienced players are equally welcome, provided you’re comfortable playing alongside people who may still be learning and don’t treat knowing the rules as a competitive sport.
About the Weekly Commitment
Consistent attendance is a big factor for me.
Obviously, life happens. People get sick. Work explodes. Family emergencies occur. Cars develop opinions about whether they should continue functioning. Nobody is expected to maintain perfect attendance forever.
But this is a weekly campaign, and I’m looking for someone who can honestly make Friday nights part of their regular schedule. You have time for the things you make time for. If D&D is going to be the first thing dropped every time another possible plan appears, this probably won’t be the right table.
If you’ve been looking for a game you can protect time for, get invested in, and reliably show up excited to play, then we may fit extremely well.
The Current Table and Gender Balance
Our current player group is three men and one woman—plus me, the male DM, if we’re counting the entire room.
Anyone over 18 who connects with the campaign and sounds like a good fit is welcome to reach out. That said, I’d particularly love to hear from another woman. I value having a balance of voices and personalities at the table, and I don’t want our current female player to permanently inherit the unofficial position of The Woman at D&D simply because she happens to be the only one.
To be completely clear, that’s a preference, not an exclusion. I’m not looking to reduce anyone to filling a demographic slot, and gender is not going to outweigh reliability, personality, respect, or whether someone actually enjoys the way we play.
The goal is a welcoming, inclusive table where people can be themselves, get invested, laugh, take the story seriously when it deserves to be taken seriously, and make room for one another. Basic respect is nonnegotiable. Bigotry, cruelty, and deliberately making other people uncomfortable for your own entertainment will not fit here.
If You’re Interested
Reply here (or find me on Discord @theonlyseamus) and tell me:
You don’t need to send me a completed character sheet or a fourteen-page backstory before we’ve spoken. I’d rather talk first, make sure the table feels like a good mutual fit, and then help you build someone who feels like they’ve always had a place somewhere in this story—even if the other characters haven’t met them yet.