Greetings and salutations, ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, neithers, boths, and in-betweens! I've got another recruitment thread up, this time for another duet! For those of you who don't know what a duet is, it's a single-player game. This means that the player has a lot more control over how the game goes, since they don't have to worry about the desires of other players as well as their own. Additionally, it allows the player to truly feel like the main character of the story. They will not always be on their own, since they're bound to encounter companion NPCs throughout the campaign, but they are still the most important character.
I've decided this time around to set the game in a specific setting of my own creation, known as the Wild Waste. It's a wild west-era world, with a lot of steampunk and grimdark vibes. Picture something along the lines of the Van Helsing movie, but set in the wild west. Without any further ado, I have a lore-dump to give out, so here goes! Don't feel pressured to read all of this, but for the interested this would be very good for crafting a character.
The Wild Waste:
The Wild Waste is a massive desert, stretching into the West. No one knows just how far it goes, or if it ever even ends. It is a hellish place, with massive beasts that lurk under the sand, and little to nothing in the ways of laws. Massive stone skeletons of ancient giants litter the sands, and it is upon these that Wasterners build their ramshackle frontier towns, for the sands’ inhabitants make them inhospitable.
Travel across the sands is impossible on foot, but are still a number of other methods. Above all others, however, are the rails. A train with the proper devices installed in the locomotive can create its own floating rails, assembling them from rune-inscribed scraps of metal scattered across the Waste by Barony Co., the closest thing to a government in the Waste.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of the Waste is its godlessness: the gods are simply absent in the Wild Waste. No gods means no clerics or paladins, or at least none with any real power. No clerics or paladins means that the Waste is a perfect haven for those typically hunted down and killed by the followers of gods. Sentient undead, fiends, lycanthropes, and similar unholy beings live free in the Wastes. The deal is only sweetened by the potentially overcast sky, due to the constant white smoke being pumped into the sky by Barony Co., burning white coal to promote ambient magic and allow the rails to function.
White coal? What’s white coal? Well, besides freedom for outlaws and the unholy, white coal is the other reason anyone would go the the Waste. It is an incredibly magically dense material, found inside of wastebones. The raw magical energy it provides can power all sorts of magical technology, and it has been solely responsible for the recent thaumindustrial revolution. Most surface wastebones have been mined out, and underground mining is largely impossible, so most white coal is found by hunting sand dragons. Sand dragons are massive molelike creatures that chew through wastebone, storing the white coal in a specialized organ for later use in a devastating roar of magical force. This organ is prized by mole-hunters, and the greatest export of the Waste is white coal harvested from sand dragons.
Notable Organizations:
Barony Co. is the closest thing to a “government” in the Waste. Of course, they operate on a basis of allowing the anarchy of the land to continue, so… maybe not. They maintain the rail network, which consists of the rune-etched rails, as well as a series of towers (called pylons) scattered across the Waste that burn white coal day and night. The rails need high ambient magic to operate, so releasing white coal smoke into the air is necessary to let them work. This has had the unfortunate side-effect of causing the Waste to be perpetually overcast, a fact which elates the sun-sensitive undead who call it home. The CEO of Barony Co. is known as the Rail Baron, and is very openly a vampire, though his baronhood is debatable. He is generally pro-undead, which means keeping the Waste kind of awful for everybody. Still, some amount of order must be had, and thus Barony Co. maintains a bounty board of all the outlaws who are just too awful to live, even in the Waste.
The Pioneers are the society that existed in the Waste before people came here, even before the orcs were here. Very little is known about them, but their ruins have rarely been found buried in the sands, abandoned and mysterious. (Note: these guys are pretty different from the pioneers in the Worldanvil thing, I never liked that version of them, especially the whole weird rune thing)
The Church of the Silent God is pretty much the only religion that has survived into the Waste, besides that of the orcs. They believe that the Waste is ruled by a single god who chooses to stay silent, for whatever reason. Their priests are called Mummers, and often maim themselves, removing their ability to speak or hear, or even rarely removing as many senses as possible. They’re freaky.
Cirque Solace is the most famous bardic troupe in the Waste. Since there are no clerics, bards are the greatest healers in the waste, and many traveling troupes go around the Waste in circus trains, healing the sick wherever they go.
Fire & Brimstone Trading Co. is a company run by twin tieflings by the names of Fire and Brimstone. Their company’s function is to create a simple and efficient way for outsiders to contact and make deals with mortals, only charging a small additional fee for the use of their service, typically a tax on whatever fraction of your soul you are selling. They are sponsored by a being known as Mr. Fer, a high-profile devil. The outsiders involved in the program are typically lesser beings, as the more powerful ones wouldn’t dream of stooping to the gig economy.
The Lahi’Gaur are the Orcish nobles of Anth’Tkur, the great Orcish city of spires. Orcish biology is unusual in a number of ways, but most notably orcs have an extremely high proclivity towards storm sorcery. It’s still very uncommon, but orders of magnitude less so than other species. Whenever an orc is discovered to have sorcery, typically when they turn thirteen and are tested by… essentially being shocked within an inch of their life, they are invited to join the Lahi’Gaur. The Lahi’Gaur control Anth’Tkur, and have considerable influence over Orcish society as a whole. Through their power, the water the Anth’Tkur sells as its main export is created, as the Lahi’Gaur fly into the sky on their Barh’Aht mounts, gather up the clouds, and shower the city with rain.
Some Outlaw Gangs of the Waste:
The Nightshaders - Led by Black Belle, a shadow sorcerer orc exiled from Anth’Tkur after she killed an important Lahi’Gaur. They are directly opposed to the Lahi’Gaur, viewing them as oppressive and stuck in the past. They partly stirred up the anger that led to the Mah Keh’Gaur, an attempted uprising against the Lahi’Gaur after the last Anth’Tkur-Hollowhome war.
The Court of Flesh - Led by the hedonistic Ghoul King, the Court is a primarily undead coalition of sentient undead, who believe fully in indulging every single desire one might have, even if it is… unsavory. The Ghoul King hosts the annual Red Feast at Gorejaw, where undead, lycanthropes, and all other who find themselves unaccountably peckish gather, and… well, yeah.
The Reckoners - A gang of outlaws, with their most notable feature being that every one of them has some sort of mechanical prosthetic or addition to their bodies to make them just kinda… better than normal people. Little is known about them, other than they are very hard to kill, and they specifically target white coal shipments. Their leader is Brasslung Bill, an enigmatic individual who has never really been seen publically, but rumours of his aberrant mechanical modifications abound.The Wild Hunt - As much a myth as they are a gang, the Wild Hunt are rumored to have somehow tamed the beasts of the Waste, riding moles instead of trains. They are led by a mysterious figure who has been given the name “Oberon.” He is said to be the last of the Pioneers, but no one really knows.
The Ghost Riders - In a place like the Wild Waste, do-gooders are practically criminals. Enter the Ghost Riders. They are a small, enigmatic group of gunslingers that seem to fight only to combat evil. They ride albino sandmounts(giant pangolins that are essentially horses) and all wear dark, billowing clothes. Many say that they aren’t even alive, and are instead just a group of ghosts.
The Evolutionaries - Automatons sometimes mysteriously gain sentience, and many of them have cast off their chains and joined the Evolutionaries, an outlaw gang composed of only beings of wood and metal. They do not have any apparent leader, or at least none with a physical form.
Some Stuff About Races in the Waste:
The most common races are dwarves, gnomes, orcs, and humans. Dwarves and gnomes, because they originally colonized the place. Orcs, because they've always lived there. Humans, because humans are goddamn everywhere. They're like damned cockroaches.
Dwarves and Gnomes - The empire that first attempted to tame the Waste came not from across the sands, but from below them. They made their central city in Hollowhome, a city set within the great hollow shell of a massive wastebone, perhaps the largest in the Waste. Unfortunately, this did just so happen to be the same Wastebone the Orcs built their capital city, Anth'Tkur, upon, which has led to a whole lot of tension between the two groups. The empire used to have a lot of power over Hollowhome, but since their power has waned, and Hollowhome is mostly self-ruled. It is a very powerful hub of commerce, and their main exports are water, pumped from deep in the earth, and metal, stone, other stuff you find in the earth. This puts them in competiton with Anth'Tkur, which also exports water, gathered from the clouds. The common language of the Wild Waste is not "common," it's actually a dialect of Dwarvish, though many Orcish slang words are often thrown in.
Orcs - Long before anyone else came to the Waste, there were the orcs. No one quite knows how they came to be, since no god could have created, though the Orcs maintain that Lahi, the storm spirit which they revere as their chief god, created them out of sand and his own spit and blood, after he killed the sand spirit whose great body formed the wastebone Anth'Tkur, their capital city, rests upon. Anth'Tkur, which translates to "City of Spires," is a towering city of... well, spires, that houses countless orcs, and is ruled by the council of Lahi'Gaur. Lahi'Gaur are orcs who have unlocked their latent storm sorcery powers, because for some inexplicable reason orcs are far more likely to develop storm sorcery than any other race. Another quirk of their biology is that orcs never stop growing. They start out as something more akin to half-orcs, (and indeed, are statistically half-orcs) then continue to grow much larger over their lifetimes. When they grow particularly old, they are so massive that their body does not have enough surface area to dispel all the heat it generates, and the oppressive heat of their body, combined with its inability to get oxygen to the brain, fries their brains, reducing them to dumb, violent brutes. Also known as ogres. It's very sad :(. Strangely, orcs show very few typical signs of aging besides growth, implying that if their size did not kill them, they could go on living much longer.
Elves - There are not a whole lot of Elves in the Waste. This is not just because most elvish civilizations are far removed from it, though this is also true. It is because elves who enter the Wild Waste feel as if something is... off. It's like a constant feeling of slight unease and queasiness, and it causes most elves to abandon the Waste before long. It is a similar feeling to that felt by druids who enter the Tides. Something is wrong with the natural balance of the Tides, and elves are especially sensitive to it. Still, some can't help but feel strangely drawn to this feeling...
Tieflings - The Waste is, naturally, a haven for tieflings. In the world of the Wild Waste, being a tiefling is not just passed down through one's blood, though it certainly does often happen, especially if the level of fiendish taint is especially high. It's not guaranteed, though, and like a sorcerous gift it might not appear in one's children, then might resurface in their grandchildren. The taint of tieflinghood is inflicted upon an individual typically when they make a deal with a fiendish being, such as a devil. Or even with The Devil Himself, a particularly powerful devil who is spoken of only in rumor. When one makes a deal with a devil, they are granted their desire, but their soul is damned to Hell after they die, and this damnation surfaces in their fiendish characteristics. No matter what a tiefling has done in life, they are going to Hell when they die. There is no way around it. Of course, most people in the Waste are going to Hell when they die. There aren't many good people in the Waste.
Now that that's all out of the way, we get to the application section of the recruitment thread! Please fill out the following form:
D&D Experience: How much experience do you have with D&D?
Activity: How active are you on the forums? How often do you post?
Character Concept: Note, this is NOT a finished character sheet. If you have a character that you would like to play and you think would fit into the Wild Waste, go ahead and type it up here. Feel free to include ideas that wouldn't ordinarily be possible in 5e. It's a one-on-one game, which means that balance is a lot more flexible, and you don't have to worry about being more unique or powerful than other characters.
Game Concept: What sort of game might you want to play? Just like the character concept, it's alright if this isn't fully fleshed out, probably better that way. Do you want to be a swashbuckling rail-pirate? Do you want to fight for a small frontier town, and watch it grow? Do you want to be a bounty hunter, tracking down dangerous outlaws? Any number of things are possible, I'd just like an idea of what you think might be fun.
I'll probably close this in a week or so, I'm not sure. Feel free to ask me any questions in the meantime. I'm going to probably only pick one person, though I might allow myself to select two. That's the hard max, though.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
This sounds amazing! Never actually done a duet game.
D&D Experience: I've been playing DnD for almost 3 years now.
Activity: I'm pretty active on the forums, able to post just about every day.
Character Concept: I'm thinking of an entrepreneur from out of town, crossing the wastes in order to reach a town far past the desert. They would definitely look out of town, perhaps being a Tiefling or some other rare race that doesn't show its head very often in the wastes. Hell, just for the fun of it, maybe the product they are trying to sell would be some kind of wristband, in order to bring creatures printed to paper to life, a la Yu-Gi-Oh. Another idea I have is a knight travelling to reach a base in a far-off kingdom, and gets caught up in some shenanigans in the wastes.
Game Concept: I really don't have much of a game idea at the moment, sadly.
Character Concept: Jackie "Red" Nailo. a rough and tough Bard Drifter, who rides on her trusty Steed, Arrow.
Game Concept: Ridden dusk till dawn across the West to join the Fire and Brimstone trading co.
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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." -Sun Tzu
D&D Experience: I've been playing for six years, and am the Dungeon Master for the AURYN series of PbP Campaigns featured here on DnDBeyond in the PbP Forum.
Activity: I post two to three times daily on average, though this can wain occasionally with me taking a couple of days off depending on what life has thrown my way.
Roland McCallick Knight of the Church of the Silent God
The last of his order, now exiled from the church for his refusal to maim himself in the name of the Silent One, Roland McCallick now lives a solitary life wandering the waste with only his warmount, a parasaurolophus named Gunpowder. Together, they ride the rails from town to town as Roland continues to do the work of the Silent God in the only way he knows how; through violence. He acts as an advocate for the oppressed, no matter who they are, always stepping in as an equalizer between the less fortunate and those who would seek to victimize them.
Openly opposed to Barony Co., and the Rail Baron himself, as his practices have directly effected the degradation of the lives of all those in the Wastes, an already miserable place to begin with, Roland actively seeks out Barony establishments in the small towns across the Wastes so that he can overthrow them and return power to the people. He maintains close ties to the Ghost Riders, though he doesn't affiliate with them as a member. He does what he can to run the fiends and undead from towns and villages, even though he knows that Barony Co has his number. Someday a bounty hunter or hired gun will show up that he can't best with his iron, and he knows it. Until that day, however, he has no plans of stopping his destructive, and self destructive journey through theWastes...
This character is a mashup of Roland Deschain (Stephen King's The Dark Tower series), Robert McCall (The Equalizer, specifically Denzel Washington's version), with a little John Constantine (specifically 2005's Constantine iteration) sprinkled in for flavor.
I took some big liberties with character creation since it seemed like that might be the theme and he'd be alone, but this can reallybe dialed back. I know you said not to be afraid of balance, so, as a high flying overview of what I built. Character creation is really fun, for me, so I went overboard...
Roland is a Level 7 Character (5 levels for Battle Master Fighter, 2 levels of Monk). He's a skilled hand to hand combatant. His fighting style of choice is dual wielding revolvers, which he is deadly accurate with. He's nigh impossible to surprise and is always on the alert for threats. He's as deadly up close with his irons as he is from a distance, and his skills as a battle master allow him to shoot the weapons out of the hands of foes, shoot their feet out from under them, and react to their failed attacks with a point blank blast from one of his irons. He's fast. His hands are like lightning; rare is the instance where an enemy shoots first. His riding skills are superb; knocking him off Gunpowder's back is a task in and of itself, and the parasaurolophus isn't afraid to take down their foes itself, especially if they get too close.
His status as a Knight of the Church of the Silent God often gains him rapport with locals and has put many free rooves over his head when an inn is unavailable (or unwilling) to offer him a place of rest. Some of the more distant temples of the church are still friendly to him...though not once they learn who he is and that he is persona non grata.
Roland's eyes and mind are keen, even for someone who is more adept at violence than academia. His perception his superb, and his ability to investigate is even better than that. He has the gift of gab, as they say, often able to talk people into things they'd normally be opposed to, and he's a professional at survival in the wilderness of the Wild Waste. He can even read the lips of anyone speaking if he can see them, at least if he understands their language.
Trained as a Knight of what is now a bygone order, Roland is still an expert warrior. He isn't afraid to employ dirty tactics and dangerous weapons, even weapons more dangerous than his irons, to even the odds. As a lone adventurer, he's used to being out manned...but doesn't like to be outgunned. He wears a set of half-plate that he can quickly drop by pulling a leather strap built into the arm pit in case he needs the mobility, and carries a shield in case things get too hairy and he needs the extra defense, with which he is a master from his knightly training.
Gunpowder
Homebrew Stat Block for Gunpowder, based on Warhorse stats but with the Hadrosaur tail attack.
Honestly, I just love making characters and seeing what I can do with them, so once this character concept solidified I went hog wild. Sorry about that. Still. Here! This guy was super fun to create and think about as I went through all his stuff.
Game Concept: Open ended. The character would roam the waste, seeking to survive while also abiding to a sense of 'duty' to those who cannot do for themselves. He is actively being hunted by the Barony Co, who will be throwing everything they have at him, and is seeking out their rail stations and coal tipples as he tries to hurt them as bad as he can while undertaking the task of throwing all the fiends and undead out of the land like he's a one man army. He seeks to help in any way possible, be it through a helping hand, or violence. A combination of harsh and exciting combat and fleshing out the people and places of the Wild Waste.
Activity: I postat least once daily unless i'm traveling which isn't often. Usually 2-3 times daily.
Character Concept: Not sure. Gunslinger comes to mind, perhaps an archery-based fighter or ranger. Warlock might work too. Human.
Game Concept: I'm thinking of a quiet rancher whose family was ambushed and attacked by a gang, everyone else was either killed or kidnapped, and my character was left for dead. He dragged himself to town, but no one was willing to stick their neck out for him. He recovered from his injuries and became a sort of unofficial (or maybe official?) town sheriff, determined to not let his own tragedy be repeated on other innocents. He defends the town from gangs, undead, keeps the peace, investigates crimes, and may chase the occasional rumor that one of his family members is still alive somewhere.
Activity: Can post daily on Weekdays at a minimum 2-3 times depending on my schedule, weekends I post at least 1-2 times.
Character Concept: I've got a few ideas that immediately come to mind for this type of setting. Perhaps a rough around the edges, but intelligent bounty hunter, traveling from town to town to relinquish their troubles. He doesn't stay too long, but builds connections for future visits. Or wandering monk from far away lands(could be an actual monk class or more of a cleric if he's more of a healer) spreading his teaching to nearby settlers and helping those in need. He'd be looking for a student to take his first steps into creating a school/temple or a mischievous warlock who entertains children by day, but causes chaos for his own amusement by night.
Game Concept: I like a mix of combat and narrative role play. I think it would depend on which character concept I choose from the above section.
Feel free to dm me on here or discord with any thoughts or questions! Dazedconfuzing#6064
Activity: I post at least once daily and most often I post more than once.
Character Concept: Madriga, undead necromancer. (Race Reborn Lineage) She gave her life in defending her daughter from a raid as they trekked through the waste in hopes of creating a settlement. Something in her would not give up even as she fell to be buried by the sand.
Game Concept: Yes I like fighting for a small town and watch it grow. Being able to shape what happens to the town is something I can sink my teeth into.
Greetings and salutations, ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, neithers, boths, and in-betweens! I've got another recruitment thread up, this time for another duet! For those of you who don't know what a duet is, it's a single-player game. This means that the player has a lot more control over how the game goes, since they don't have to worry about the desires of other players as well as their own. Additionally, it allows the player to truly feel like the main character of the story. They will not always be on their own, since they're bound to encounter companion NPCs throughout the campaign, but they are still the most important character.
I've decided this time around to set the game in a specific setting of my own creation, known as the Wild Waste. It's a wild west-era world, with a lot of steampunk and grimdark vibes. Picture something along the lines of the Van Helsing movie, but set in the wild west. Without any further ado, I have a lore-dump to give out, so here goes! Don't feel pressured to read all of this, but for the interested this would be very good for crafting a character.
The Wild Waste:
The Wild Waste is a massive desert, stretching into the West. No one knows just how far it goes, or if it ever even ends. It is a hellish place, with massive beasts that lurk under the sand, and little to nothing in the ways of laws. Massive stone skeletons of ancient giants litter the sands, and it is upon these that Wasterners build their ramshackle frontier towns, for the sands’ inhabitants make them inhospitable.
Travel across the sands is impossible on foot, but are still a number of other methods. Above all others, however, are the rails. A train with the proper devices installed in the locomotive can create its own floating rails, assembling them from rune-inscribed scraps of metal scattered across the Waste by Barony Co., the closest thing to a government in the Waste.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of the Waste is its godlessness: the gods are simply absent in the Wild Waste. No gods means no clerics or paladins, or at least none with any real power. No clerics or paladins means that the Waste is a perfect haven for those typically hunted down and killed by the followers of gods. Sentient undead, fiends, lycanthropes, and similar unholy beings live free in the Wastes. The deal is only sweetened by the potentially overcast sky, due to the constant white smoke being pumped into the sky by Barony Co., burning white coal to promote ambient magic and allow the rails to function.
White coal? What’s white coal? Well, besides freedom for outlaws and the unholy, white coal is the other reason anyone would go the the Waste. It is an incredibly magically dense material, found inside of wastebones. The raw magical energy it provides can power all sorts of magical technology, and it has been solely responsible for the recent thaumindustrial revolution. Most surface wastebones have been mined out, and underground mining is largely impossible, so most white coal is found by hunting sand dragons. Sand dragons are massive molelike creatures that chew through wastebone, storing the white coal in a specialized organ for later use in a devastating roar of magical force. This organ is prized by mole-hunters, and the greatest export of the Waste is white coal harvested from sand dragons.
Notable Organizations:
Barony Co. is the closest thing to a “government” in the Waste. Of course, they operate on a basis of allowing the anarchy of the land to continue, so… maybe not. They maintain the rail network, which consists of the rune-etched rails, as well as a series of towers (called pylons) scattered across the Waste that burn white coal day and night. The rails need high ambient magic to operate, so releasing white coal smoke into the air is necessary to let them work. This has had the unfortunate side-effect of causing the Waste to be perpetually overcast, a fact which elates the sun-sensitive undead who call it home. The CEO of Barony Co. is known as the Rail Baron, and is very openly a vampire, though his baronhood is debatable. He is generally pro-undead, which means keeping the Waste kind of awful for everybody. Still, some amount of order must be had, and thus Barony Co. maintains a bounty board of all the outlaws who are just too awful to live, even in the Waste.
The Pioneers are the society that existed in the Waste before people came here, even before the orcs were here. Very little is known about them, but their ruins have rarely been found buried in the sands, abandoned and mysterious. (Note: these guys are pretty different from the pioneers in the Worldanvil thing, I never liked that version of them, especially the whole weird rune thing)
The Church of the Silent God is pretty much the only religion that has survived into the Waste, besides that of the orcs. They believe that the Waste is ruled by a single god who chooses to stay silent, for whatever reason. Their priests are called Mummers, and often maim themselves, removing their ability to speak or hear, or even rarely removing as many senses as possible. They’re freaky.
Cirque Solace is the most famous bardic troupe in the Waste. Since there are no clerics, bards are the greatest healers in the waste, and many traveling troupes go around the Waste in circus trains, healing the sick wherever they go.
Fire & Brimstone Trading Co. is a company run by twin tieflings by the names of Fire and Brimstone. Their company’s function is to create a simple and efficient way for outsiders to contact and make deals with mortals, only charging a small additional fee for the use of their service, typically a tax on whatever fraction of your soul you are selling. They are sponsored by a being known as Mr. Fer, a high-profile devil. The outsiders involved in the program are typically lesser beings, as the more powerful ones wouldn’t dream of stooping to the gig economy.
The Lahi’Gaur are the Orcish nobles of Anth’Tkur, the great Orcish city of spires. Orcish biology is unusual in a number of ways, but most notably orcs have an extremely high proclivity towards storm sorcery. It’s still very uncommon, but orders of magnitude less so than other species. Whenever an orc is discovered to have sorcery, typically when they turn thirteen and are tested by… essentially being shocked within an inch of their life, they are invited to join the Lahi’Gaur. The Lahi’Gaur control Anth’Tkur, and have considerable influence over Orcish society as a whole. Through their power, the water the Anth’Tkur sells as its main export is created, as the Lahi’Gaur fly into the sky on their Barh’Aht mounts, gather up the clouds, and shower the city with rain.
Some Outlaw Gangs of the Waste:
The Nightshaders - Led by Black Belle, a shadow sorcerer orc exiled from Anth’Tkur after she killed an important Lahi’Gaur. They are directly opposed to the Lahi’Gaur, viewing them as oppressive and stuck in the past. They partly stirred up the anger that led to the Mah Keh’Gaur, an attempted uprising against the Lahi’Gaur after the last Anth’Tkur-Hollowhome war.
The Court of Flesh - Led by the hedonistic Ghoul King, the Court is a primarily undead coalition of sentient undead, who believe fully in indulging every single desire one might have, even if it is… unsavory. The Ghoul King hosts the annual Red Feast at Gorejaw, where undead, lycanthropes, and all other who find themselves unaccountably peckish gather, and… well, yeah.
The Reckoners - A gang of outlaws, with their most notable feature being that every one of them has some sort of mechanical prosthetic or addition to their bodies to make them just kinda… better than normal people. Little is known about them, other than they are very hard to kill, and they specifically target white coal shipments. Their leader is Brasslung Bill, an enigmatic individual who has never really been seen publically, but rumours of his aberrant mechanical modifications abound.The Wild Hunt - As much a myth as they are a gang, the Wild Hunt are rumored to have somehow tamed the beasts of the Waste, riding moles instead of trains. They are led by a mysterious figure who has been given the name “Oberon.” He is said to be the last of the Pioneers, but no one really knows.
The Ghost Riders - In a place like the Wild Waste, do-gooders are practically criminals. Enter the Ghost Riders. They are a small, enigmatic group of gunslingers that seem to fight only to combat evil. They ride albino sandmounts(giant pangolins that are essentially horses) and all wear dark, billowing clothes. Many say that they aren’t even alive, and are instead just a group of ghosts.
The Evolutionaries - Automatons sometimes mysteriously gain sentience, and many of them have cast off their chains and joined the Evolutionaries, an outlaw gang composed of only beings of wood and metal. They do not have any apparent leader, or at least none with a physical form.
Some Stuff About Races in the Waste:
The most common races are dwarves, gnomes, orcs, and humans. Dwarves and gnomes, because they originally colonized the place. Orcs, because they've always lived there. Humans, because humans are goddamn everywhere. They're like damned cockroaches.
Dwarves and Gnomes - The empire that first attempted to tame the Waste came not from across the sands, but from below them. They made their central city in Hollowhome, a city set within the great hollow shell of a massive wastebone, perhaps the largest in the Waste. Unfortunately, this did just so happen to be the same Wastebone the Orcs built their capital city, Anth'Tkur, upon, which has led to a whole lot of tension between the two groups. The empire used to have a lot of power over Hollowhome, but since their power has waned, and Hollowhome is mostly self-ruled. It is a very powerful hub of commerce, and their main exports are water, pumped from deep in the earth, and metal, stone, other stuff you find in the earth. This puts them in competiton with Anth'Tkur, which also exports water, gathered from the clouds. The common language of the Wild Waste is not "common," it's actually a dialect of Dwarvish, though many Orcish slang words are often thrown in.
Orcs - Long before anyone else came to the Waste, there were the orcs. No one quite knows how they came to be, since no god could have created, though the Orcs maintain that Lahi, the storm spirit which they revere as their chief god, created them out of sand and his own spit and blood, after he killed the sand spirit whose great body formed the wastebone Anth'Tkur, their capital city, rests upon. Anth'Tkur, which translates to "City of Spires," is a towering city of... well, spires, that houses countless orcs, and is ruled by the council of Lahi'Gaur. Lahi'Gaur are orcs who have unlocked their latent storm sorcery powers, because for some inexplicable reason orcs are far more likely to develop storm sorcery than any other race. Another quirk of their biology is that orcs never stop growing. They start out as something more akin to half-orcs, (and indeed, are statistically half-orcs) then continue to grow much larger over their lifetimes. When they grow particularly old, they are so massive that their body does not have enough surface area to dispel all the heat it generates, and the oppressive heat of their body, combined with its inability to get oxygen to the brain, fries their brains, reducing them to dumb, violent brutes. Also known as ogres. It's very sad :(. Strangely, orcs show very few typical signs of aging besides growth, implying that if their size did not kill them, they could go on living much longer.
Elves - There are not a whole lot of Elves in the Waste. This is not just because most elvish civilizations are far removed from it, though this is also true. It is because elves who enter the Wild Waste feel as if something is... off. It's like a constant feeling of slight unease and queasiness, and it causes most elves to abandon the Waste before long. It is a similar feeling to that felt by druids who enter the Tides. Something is wrong with the natural balance of the Tides, and elves are especially sensitive to it. Still, some can't help but feel strangely drawn to this feeling...
Tieflings - The Waste is, naturally, a haven for tieflings. In the world of the Wild Waste, being a tiefling is not just passed down through one's blood, though it certainly does often happen, especially if the level of fiendish taint is especially high. It's not guaranteed, though, and like a sorcerous gift it might not appear in one's children, then might resurface in their grandchildren. The taint of tieflinghood is inflicted upon an individual typically when they make a deal with a fiendish being, such as a devil. Or even with The Devil Himself, a particularly powerful devil who is spoken of only in rumor. When one makes a deal with a devil, they are granted their desire, but their soul is damned to Hell after they die, and this damnation surfaces in their fiendish characteristics. No matter what a tiefling has done in life, they are going to Hell when they die. There is no way around it. Of course, most people in the Waste are going to Hell when they die. There aren't many good people in the Waste.
Now that that's all out of the way, we get to the application section of the recruitment thread! Please fill out the following form:
D&D Experience: How much experience do you have with D&D?
Activity: How active are you on the forums? How often do you post?
Character Concept: Note, this is NOT a finished character sheet. If you have a character that you would like to play and you think would fit into the Wild Waste, go ahead and type it up here. Feel free to include ideas that wouldn't ordinarily be possible in 5e. It's a one-on-one game, which means that balance is a lot more flexible, and you don't have to worry about being more unique or powerful than other characters.
Game Concept: What sort of game might you want to play? Just like the character concept, it's alright if this isn't fully fleshed out, probably better that way. Do you want to be a swashbuckling rail-pirate? Do you want to fight for a small frontier town, and watch it grow? Do you want to be a bounty hunter, tracking down dangerous outlaws? Any number of things are possible, I'd just like an idea of what you think might be fun.
I'll probably close this in a week or so, I'm not sure. Feel free to ask me any questions in the meantime. I'm going to probably only pick one person, though I might allow myself to select two. That's the hard max, though.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
This sounds amazing! Never actually done a duet game.
D&D Experience: I've been playing DnD for almost 3 years now.
Activity: I'm pretty active on the forums, able to post just about every day.
Character Concept: I'm thinking of an entrepreneur from out of town, crossing the wastes in order to reach a town far past the desert. They would definitely look out of town, perhaps being a Tiefling or some other rare race that doesn't show its head very often in the wastes. Hell, just for the fun of it, maybe the product they are trying to sell would be some kind of wristband, in order to bring creatures printed to paper to life, a la Yu-Gi-Oh. Another idea I have is a knight travelling to reach a base in a far-off kingdom, and gets caught up in some shenanigans in the wastes.
Game Concept: I really don't have much of a game idea at the moment, sadly.
"Where do these guys get all their ideas?" - TommoBoi, to WOTC
DM of Night of the Nutcracker.
Eh why not.
D&D Experience: Been playing for a little over a year.
Activity: Very active, just not on weekends.
Character concept: A human outlaw drifter who really has no sense of right from wrong, but eventually will change over time.
Game concept: The Wild West during the Gold Rush.
Join the Town of Agreal! ----> LINK
Check out my photography on Flickr. ----> LINK
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde
I'm down.
Experience: Over 2 years.
Activity: Active weekdays
Character Concept: Jackie "Red" Nailo. a rough and tough Bard Drifter, who rides on her trusty Steed, Arrow.
Game Concept: Ridden dusk till dawn across the West to join the Fire and Brimstone trading co.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." -Sun Tzu
(bump)
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
D&D Experience: I've been playing for six years, and am the Dungeon Master for the AURYN series of PbP Campaigns featured here on DnDBeyond in the PbP Forum.
Activity: I post two to three times daily on average, though this can wain occasionally with me taking a couple of days off depending on what life has thrown my way.
Character Concept:
Some music to set the mood...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhv_yFMuwxs
Roland McCallick
Knight of the Church of the Silent God
The last of his order, now exiled from the church for his refusal to maim himself in the name of the Silent One, Roland McCallick now lives a solitary life wandering the waste with only his warmount, a parasaurolophus named Gunpowder. Together, they ride the rails from town to town as Roland continues to do the work of the Silent God in the only way he knows how; through violence. He acts as an advocate for the oppressed, no matter who they are, always stepping in as an equalizer between the less fortunate and those who would seek to victimize them.
Openly opposed to Barony Co., and the Rail Baron himself, as his practices have directly effected the degradation of the lives of all those in the Wastes, an already miserable place to begin with, Roland actively seeks out Barony establishments in the small towns across the Wastes so that he can overthrow them and return power to the people. He maintains close ties to the Ghost Riders, though he doesn't affiliate with them as a member. He does what he can to run the fiends and undead from towns and villages, even though he knows that Barony Co has his number. Someday a bounty hunter or hired gun will show up that he can't best with his iron, and he knows it. Until that day, however, he has no plans of stopping his destructive, and self destructive journey through the Wastes...
This character is a mashup of Roland Deschain (Stephen King's The Dark Tower series), Robert McCall (The Equalizer, specifically Denzel Washington's version), with a little John Constantine (specifically 2005's Constantine iteration) sprinkled in for flavor.
I took some big liberties with character creation since it seemed like that might be the theme and he'd be alone, but this can really be dialed back. I know you said not to be afraid of balance, so, as a high flying overview of what I built. Character creation is really fun, for me, so I went overboard...
Roland is a Level 7 Character (5 levels for Battle Master Fighter, 2 levels of Monk). He's a skilled hand to hand combatant. His fighting style of choice is dual wielding revolvers, which he is deadly accurate with. He's nigh impossible to surprise and is always on the alert for threats. He's as deadly up close with his irons as he is from a distance, and his skills as a battle master allow him to shoot the weapons out of the hands of foes, shoot their feet out from under them, and react to their failed attacks with a point blank blast from one of his irons. He's fast. His hands are like lightning; rare is the instance where an enemy shoots first. His riding skills are superb; knocking him off Gunpowder's back is a task in and of itself, and the parasaurolophus isn't afraid to take down their foes itself, especially if they get too close.
His status as a Knight of the Church of the Silent God often gains him rapport with locals and has put many free rooves over his head when an inn is unavailable (or unwilling) to offer him a place of rest. Some of the more distant temples of the church are still friendly to him...though not once they learn who he is and that he is persona non grata.
Roland's eyes and mind are keen, even for someone who is more adept at violence than academia. His perception his superb, and his ability to investigate is even better than that. He has the gift of gab, as they say, often able to talk people into things they'd normally be opposed to, and he's a professional at survival in the wilderness of the Wild Waste. He can even read the lips of anyone speaking if he can see them, at least if he understands their language.
Trained as a Knight of what is now a bygone order, Roland is still an expert warrior. He isn't afraid to employ dirty tactics and dangerous weapons, even weapons more dangerous than his irons, to even the odds. As a lone adventurer, he's used to being out manned...but doesn't like to be outgunned. He wears a set of half-plate that he can quickly drop by pulling a leather strap built into the arm pit in case he needs the mobility, and carries a shield in case things get too hairy and he needs the extra defense, with which he is a master from his knightly training.
Gunpowder
Homebrew Stat Block for Gunpowder, based on Warhorse stats but with the Hadrosaur tail attack.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/3075485-parasaurolophus
Honestly, I just love making characters and seeing what I can do with them, so once this character concept solidified I went hog wild. Sorry about that. Still. Here! This guy was super fun to create and think about as I went through all his stuff.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/88272388
Game Concept: Open ended. The character would roam the waste, seeking to survive while also abiding to a sense of 'duty' to those who cannot do for themselves. He is actively being hunted by the Barony Co, who will be throwing everything they have at him, and is seeking out their rail stations and coal tipples as he tries to hurt them as bad as he can while undertaking the task of throwing all the fiends and undead out of the land like he's a one man army. He seeks to help in any way possible, be it through a helping hand, or violence. A combination of harsh and exciting combat and fleshing out the people and places of the Wild Waste.
DM of AURYN: The Measure of Devotion - Escape from New York
DM of Legacy of NIMH
D&D Experience: Years and years.
Activity: I post at least once daily unless i'm traveling which isn't often. Usually 2-3 times daily.
Character Concept: Not sure. Gunslinger comes to mind, perhaps an archery-based fighter or ranger. Warlock might work too. Human.
Game Concept: I'm thinking of a quiet rancher whose family was ambushed and attacked by a gang, everyone else was either killed or kidnapped, and my character was left for dead. He dragged himself to town, but no one was willing to stick their neck out for him. He recovered from his injuries and became a sort of unofficial (or maybe official?) town sheriff, determined to not let his own tragedy be repeated on other innocents. He defends the town from gangs, undead, keeps the peace, investigates crimes, and may chase the occasional rumor that one of his family members is still alive somewhere.
bump
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
D&D Experience: About 4ish years
Activity: Can post daily on Weekdays at a minimum 2-3 times depending on my schedule, weekends I post at least 1-2 times.
Character Concept: I've got a few ideas that immediately come to mind for this type of setting. Perhaps a rough around the edges, but intelligent bounty hunter, traveling from town to town to relinquish their troubles. He doesn't stay too long, but builds connections for future visits. Or wandering monk from far away lands(could be an actual monk class or more of a cleric if he's more of a healer) spreading his teaching to nearby settlers and helping those in need. He'd be looking for a student to take his first steps into creating a school/temple or a mischievous warlock who entertains children by day, but causes chaos for his own amusement by night.
Game Concept: I like a mix of combat and narrative role play. I think it would depend on which character concept I choose from the above section.
Feel free to dm me on here or discord with any thoughts or questions! Dazedconfuzing#6064
D&D Experience: Over 2 years
Activity: I post at least once daily and most often I post more than once.
Character Concept: Madriga, undead necromancer. (Race Reborn Lineage) She gave her life in defending her daughter from a raid as they trekked through the waste in hopes of creating a settlement. Something in her would not give up even as she fell to be buried by the sand.
Game Concept: Yes I like fighting for a small town and watch it grow. Being able to shape what happens to the town is something I can sink my teeth into.
I fleshed my character out much better now that I've solidified what I want to do.
Also, bump.
DM of AURYN: The Measure of Devotion - Escape from New York
DM of Legacy of NIMH
This thread is closed, and PMs have been sent.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."