The Hall of Justice rises above the populace and ancient buildings of Neverwinter amidst a hazy day. Off in the distance, the brooding and abandoned towers of Castle Never soar high into the sky, disappearing in the clouds. A broken metropolis, the City of Skilled Hands, nevertheless, offers unlimited opportunities for those driven enough by ambition to seize it.
The Threnody of Neverwinter
Welcome to the Threnody of Neverwinter! Set in the Forgotten Realms, the Threnody of Neverwinter campaign starts in and around the city of Neverwinter as Lord Dagult Neverember struggles to rebuild it. Various factions and figures vie for power within the city, for altruism, greed, or any other number of motivating factors. As a character in this campaign, your choices and actions will determine the fate of Neverwinter and perhaps the entire Sword Coast! With an intriguing backdrop and setting in place, it will be up to you to interact with the environment at your own pace and fashion.
That link will have everything you need to know about designing a character to participate in this adventure! All characters will be starting at level one with either their starting class equipment or starting class gold. You may use whatever gold you have available to buy what you can afford. Point-buy is used for determining ability scores and you'll have 27 points to work with. I'm looking for four to six players to participate in the Zhentarim installment of this campaign. Depending on how this campaign progresses, I might also open up another installment of this campaign where the players are faction members of the Harpers. I'll decide based on the applications I see what the limit to the group will be. Some other points to consider:
Activity. I want everyone to be on at least once a day. But, from experience, that doesn't happen, and I won't be super strict. I know that at times, schedules get busy, and real life can quickly take over. If that's the case, please PM me to let me know ahead of time. If you are consistently missing for extended periods of time without notice or warning, I will remove you from the campaign without notice or warning as well. It's not fair to the other players when we have to wait three days for an action from your character because you disappeared without any heads up.
Role-play and Knowledge. I'm looking for players who love to role-play and can type well. You can call me stingy, but I have a pet peeve with run-on sentences and when people do not capitalize their I's or the first letter of names or places. If you aren't good at doing this, consider this a great opportunity to improve your English grammar and proper punctuation! In regards to role-play, I want to see good conversations between your characters and them interacting with the environment. While I would love every response to be well thought-out, I know I can't ask for perfection, so I won't. Act how they would act; not how you would act. Sure, you might know the entire history of Neverwinter and have read the Neverwinter Saga by R.A. Salvatore, but your character certainly doesn't know all of that information from the beginning (though an elf having grown up in Neverwinter just might).
IC vs. OOC. Which leads me to my third point. Please keep IC and OOC separate. I'll explain what I mean. Let's say Dan loots a corpse and finds a ring. Dan doesn't tell the other characters about the ring. Suddenly, Phil is rolling Investigation, OOCly knowing that Dan has a ring, but no IC reason to suggest Phil would know (we'll say Dan rolled a natural 20 on his Sleight of Hand check to conceal it). Or one player's character's actions upset another player, who lets that upset fuel their character's IG response. Another pet peeve, if you will, but I fully believe in not letting your reactions to a situation IG impact you OOG, which will be crucial in participating in an evil(ish) campaign.
Respect and Courtesy. As many of you know, any cohesive and enjoyable D&D group requires a healthy level of respect and courtesy towards each other. We've all heard the horror stories of players and DMs who lack these two traits. Many of us love sarcasm and love to joke around too. But sometimes our sarcasm/personality goes too far and we either don't realize we're even offending or we don't truly mean it and are being sarcastic, getting caught up in the moment, etc. The problem is that sarcasm doesn't come off well over text. So please be courteous to each other, since the only things we see are the icon and name and not the person on the other side of the screen.
Discord. We will be using Discord for many, many things! In all honesty, I'd keep it all to just Discord, but I like sharing the adventures that I guide or take part in for readers! The vast majority of role-playing will take place on Discord, and copies of what occurs there will be posted here, as shown on Whispers from the Aeons and subsistcyber/firehawk2324's Whispers of Dissent. We've found that this significantly speeds up role-play, makes the flow of conversation more natural, and allows even those with constrained time to be able to participate. It's much easier to add a sentence or two to a conversation there than a long, flourishing post here (though I do love a good description and well-thought input!).
An Evil(ish) Campaign:
If you know anything about the Zhentarim, you know their roots stem from evil origins, and such evilness is something I fully intend on exploring. Your characters will ally with unsavory forces and faces "for the greater good". It's up each of you to decide what that greater good exactly is. This storyline is a storyline of heroism. Your characters will be heralded as heroes (at least publicly) as you progress through the campaign. But, we all know that it's the intentions of one's actions that ultimately judge a character and determine their alignment. Your "holier-than-thou" paladin might save the family from the shambling zombies because he sees a bright future for the boy and family who will need each other through the oncoming winter. That's what makes him good. Why are you saving the family? Perhaps its for profit: you know that they have an ancient heirloom worth a small fortune that you think you could persuade them to give you in exchange for saving their life. Perhaps the boy has hidden magical talent you can exploit for your own gain. Whatever your reason, it's either amoral, evil, or down-right selfish. Or perhaps you sympathize with the family as their misfortune dredges up memories of your own. The choice is yours!
I'm restricting alignment choices to neutral or evil characters only for this campaign. If you're of good alignment, you're either a Harper agent who's infiltrated the faction or someone with a Wisdom and Intelligence of 8 or below, because I can't see any logical reasoning for why you'd pick the Zhentarim to represent your honest and good intentions when there are four other factions better suited for that choice.
If you do decide to play as an evil character (a choice I heartily support), I would ask that you craft such a character that at least tolerates working with other people. I can't stress how important it is that we each have fun as we unleash our evil fantasies and darkest desires (within reason...). If the other players aren't having fun in a situation, then something is going wrong. So please, when crafting your character, make sure that they're the type of person that isn't going to openly s*** on their teammate's faces.
Which leads me to the final piece of advice in this section. Red Fel is a god and he has made something beautiful called Compliance Will Be Rewarded: A Guide to Lawful Evil. This amazing guide will give you great insight into how to play an evil character that gets along well with others. To a degree, at least. I'm almost inclined to restrict players to only Lawful Evil if they do want to play an evil character, but I won't. But please, read through his guide and follow the tips he presents.
Submitting a Character and Character Creation:
When submitting a character idea, I won't require something fully fleshed-out. What I am looking for is the race, class, alignment, background, personality traits, backstory, and goal when you submit. Your backstory and your post history in the forums will be major factors in picking players for this game. The more thought you put in your backstory, the better chance I’ll be seeing you in-game. I also want a goal/goals that your character works towards. What is your character’s ultimate goal in life? What do they aspire to become? A ruthless tyrant? A lich? The merchantile leader of the Sword Coast? Why?
I'll probably ask questions about your character. I might even try to expand your backstory with you and see how I can work it into the campaign. I love backstories and threading backstories into the main storyline! Please give me knives. I want knives.
And please look through the player's guide! Ideally completely, but if you're crunched on time, pages 2, 3, 15, and 16 will be just fine too for creating your character.
I ask that you submit your character ideas to me by PM. It might also be best to present two character ideas instead of one. Feel free to either PM me or post here if you have any questions! I'm going to leave recruiting open probably till next Wednesday (the 23rd) unless I see enough character ideas that I like and want to use.
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (debatable. the alignment descriptions don't exactly cover people so desperate to rid themselves of a curse of sorts that they'd do pretty much anything and everything.)
Background: Haunted One
Personality Traits: (1) Unhinged. He lost himself throughout the years, and now evil is a part of his true nature, regardless of whether or not if he accepts it as fact. (2) He tries to control the way he looks to others. After all, how can you find help if you scare everyone away with how unstable you are?
Backstory: As a child, a creature of sorts invaded his dreams. At first, it was fine, as the creature did nothing and its existence was barely noticeable. It inhabited this host’s body for a time, and instead of directly controlling him, it helped a bit. It gave him knowledge, skill, and strength as he grew...Then, suddenly, it forced a curse upon his mind. Visions of horrible things, actions performed by any and all, for no reason. Death, torture, suffering of all kinds...He saw all of this, and in these visions, he was the one who performed all of them. He woke up in a panic. He didn't want that. Any of it. Yet, since that night, it kept repeating over and over, somehow getting worse and worse...
Then the creature that tortured him appeared in his nightmare. It gave him a choice: Suffer those visions over and over with no end to its creativity in how horrible it can become, or perform one of those acts every day, and sleep soundly. It left him afterwards, leaving a curse tailored to that detail. The dragonborn hesitated at first, but after smothering a traveler in their sleep, he felt the comfort that was promised...Perhaps that was what made him begin to break. He ran off into the wilds the next day, and suffered nightmares until he finally gave in and performed a horrid act again. He attempted to find ways to be rid of the creature's curse, but nothing worked.
With years of this state of living affecting him, he has become unhinged. Forgetting himself, and performing more acts of evil and cruelty than ever was necessary to sleep soundly. He's losing himself. He just wants to get rid of the nightmares.
Goal: No matter how long it takes, or what he has to do, or how subtle or unsubtle he has to be, he wants to fulfill every deed given to him by that strange creature, and finally be rid of it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Liam the Weak: Level 4 Human Fighter - Trying to fight against his other personality, and constantly losing.
Aodh: Level 20 Half-Elf Cleric of Life - Not really. It's a strange being that had possessed and broke down a level 20 Cleric of Life Domain, gaining his knowledge and power.
"*****": Level 1 Tiefling Sorcerer - Her family is dead, and her will is broken. She follows orders so that those that command her will allow her to die.
Personality Traits 1- Slow to connect to people. He's lost everyone that he ever called friend and as a result chooses not to get attached to anyone. Instead he uses them as tools to get what he wants; useful until they're not anymore, then disposable. 2 - After all the hardship in his life he has decided that strength is the only thing that can make a difference and therefore revels in his own. He is quick to intimidate or to solve problem with brute force.
Backstory Born and raised in a soldiers encampment, child of two mercenaries. Learnt the comradery and order of the military lifestyle as he grew up. Started to question the morals of a mercenary life and so when he came of age he enlisted in the kings army, hoping to fight for something greater than himself. Over five years serving he rose up in the ranks until he commanded his own 40 men. But his view on life completely changes. For those five years he and his fellow soldiers where used as pawns in other men's games, fighting and killing to increase the wealth and power of people they never met. He no longer believed in any sense of higher purpose or rightful cause. The world doesn't care about anyone but the elite. He only remained out of an sense of obligation to his men, they were his and he would not leave them to qualms of lesser men.
The final straw was when they were sent by a noble to put down a small raiding party of orcs. They were caught in a ambush and completely obliterated by a force far greater than was ever said to be in the area, at least four time the number of their 80 men. The orcs took their time with the last few, reveling in the pain that they caused. He only just survived, taking a cut to the head that took the sight from his right eye and rendered him unconscious. Believing him to be dead, he was left by the orcs in a pile of his own dead brothers. When he finally made it back to town a week later, he found out that the local lord that had sent them had never bothered to scout the raiding party, not deeming the lives of the soldiers worth his time or resources. Ever since Jotenheim has held a burning hatred for both orcs and nobles alike. He now wonders the country doing whatever he can to earn himself money, no matter what it takes. He no longer believes that there is anything greater that will judge him and if there is no purpose to fight for, then he's just going to fight for himself.
Goals Aims to one day show the lord that caused his mens deaths the error of his ways. He also aims to earn enough money, any way he can, to start his own mercenary company like his one he grew up in. If that helps him achieve his first goal then thats just a bonus.
This character was originally a Dragonborn but not a fan of have multiples of the same race and Girania got there first. Though it looks like they would be quite good backstories to intermix.
Thank you to all who sent me your character ideas! Recruiting is now closed and invitations have been sent to those accepted into the PbP.
If you still wish to participate in the setting for this campaign, don't lose hope! Keep an eye out for a recruiting channel for the Harpers installment of this saga in the upcoming months!
The Hall of Justice rises above the populace and ancient buildings of Neverwinter amidst a hazy day. Off in the distance, the brooding and abandoned towers of Castle Never soar high into the sky, disappearing in the clouds. A broken metropolis, the City of Skilled Hands, nevertheless, offers unlimited opportunities for those driven enough by ambition to seize it.
The Threnody of Neverwinter
Welcome to the Threnody of Neverwinter! Set in the Forgotten Realms, the Threnody of Neverwinter campaign starts in and around the city of Neverwinter as Lord Dagult Neverember struggles to rebuild it. Various factions and figures vie for power within the city, for altruism, greed, or any other number of motivating factors. As a character in this campaign, your choices and actions will determine the fate of Neverwinter and perhaps the entire Sword Coast! With an intriguing backdrop and setting in place, it will be up to you to interact with the environment at your own pace and fashion.
The Threnody of Neverwinter- Player's Guide
That link will have everything you need to know about designing a character to participate in this adventure! All characters will be starting at level one with either their starting class equipment or starting class gold. You may use whatever gold you have available to buy what you can afford. Point-buy is used for determining ability scores and you'll have 27 points to work with. I'm looking for four to six players to participate in the Zhentarim installment of this campaign. Depending on how this campaign progresses, I might also open up another installment of this campaign where the players are faction members of the Harpers. I'll decide based on the applications I see what the limit to the group will be. Some other points to consider:
An Evil(ish) Campaign:
If you know anything about the Zhentarim, you know their roots stem from evil origins, and such evilness is something I fully intend on exploring. Your characters will ally with unsavory forces and faces "for the greater good". It's up each of you to decide what that greater good exactly is. This storyline is a storyline of heroism. Your characters will be heralded as heroes (at least publicly) as you progress through the campaign. But, we all know that it's the intentions of one's actions that ultimately judge a character and determine their alignment. Your "holier-than-thou" paladin might save the family from the shambling zombies because he sees a bright future for the boy and family who will need each other through the oncoming winter. That's what makes him good. Why are you saving the family? Perhaps its for profit: you know that they have an ancient heirloom worth a small fortune that you think you could persuade them to give you in exchange for saving their life. Perhaps the boy has hidden magical talent you can exploit for your own gain. Whatever your reason, it's either amoral, evil, or down-right selfish. Or perhaps you sympathize with the family as their misfortune dredges up memories of your own. The choice is yours!
I'm restricting alignment choices to neutral or evil characters only for this campaign. If you're of good alignment, you're either a Harper agent who's infiltrated the faction or someone with a Wisdom and Intelligence of 8 or below, because I can't see any logical reasoning for why you'd pick the Zhentarim to represent your honest and good intentions when there are four other factions better suited for that choice.
If you do decide to play as an evil character (a choice I heartily support), I would ask that you craft such a character that at least tolerates working with other people. I can't stress how important it is that we each have fun as we unleash our evil fantasies and darkest desires (within reason...). If the other players aren't having fun in a situation, then something is going wrong. So please, when crafting your character, make sure that they're the type of person that isn't going to openly s*** on their teammate's faces.
Which leads me to the final piece of advice in this section. Red Fel is a god and he has made something beautiful called Compliance Will Be Rewarded: A Guide to Lawful Evil. This amazing guide will give you great insight into how to play an evil character that gets along well with others. To a degree, at least. I'm almost inclined to restrict players to only Lawful Evil if they do want to play an evil character, but I won't. But please, read through his guide and follow the tips he presents.
Submitting a Character and Character Creation:
When submitting a character idea, I won't require something fully fleshed-out. What I am looking for is the race, class, alignment, background, personality traits, backstory, and goal when you submit. Your backstory and your post history in the forums will be major factors in picking players for this game. The more thought you put in your backstory, the better chance I’ll be seeing you in-game. I also want a goal/goals that your character works towards. What is your character’s ultimate goal in life? What do they aspire to become? A ruthless tyrant? A lich? The merchantile leader of the Sword Coast? Why?
I'll probably ask questions about your character. I might even try to expand your backstory with you and see how I can work it into the campaign. I love backstories and threading backstories into the main storyline! Please give me knives. I want knives.
And please look through the player's guide! Ideally completely, but if you're crunched on time, pages 2, 3, 15, and 16 will be just fine too for creating your character.
I ask that you submit your character ideas to me by PM. It might also be best to present two character ideas instead of one. Feel free to either PM me or post here if you have any questions! I'm going to leave recruiting open probably till next Wednesday (the 23rd) unless I see enough character ideas that I like and want to use.
Name: (Still working on this part)
Race: Dragonborn
Class: Barbarian
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (debatable. the alignment descriptions don't exactly cover people so desperate to rid themselves of a curse of sorts that they'd do pretty much anything and everything.)
Background: Haunted One
Personality Traits: (1) Unhinged. He lost himself throughout the years, and now evil is a part of his true nature, regardless of whether or not if he accepts it as fact. (2) He tries to control the way he looks to others. After all, how can you find help if you scare everyone away with how unstable you are?
Backstory: As a child, a creature of sorts invaded his dreams. At first, it was fine, as the creature did nothing and its existence was barely noticeable. It inhabited this host’s body for a time, and instead of directly controlling him, it helped a bit. It gave him knowledge, skill, and strength as he grew...Then, suddenly, it forced a curse upon his mind. Visions of horrible things, actions performed by any and all, for no reason. Death, torture, suffering of all kinds...He saw all of this, and in these visions, he was the one who performed all of them. He woke up in a panic. He didn't want that. Any of it. Yet, since that night, it kept repeating over and over, somehow getting worse and worse...
Then the creature that tortured him appeared in his nightmare. It gave him a choice: Suffer those visions over and over with no end to its creativity in how horrible it can become, or perform one of those acts every day, and sleep soundly. It left him afterwards, leaving a curse tailored to that detail. The dragonborn hesitated at first, but after smothering a traveler in their sleep, he felt the comfort that was promised...Perhaps that was what made him begin to break. He ran off into the wilds the next day, and suffered nightmares until he finally gave in and performed a horrid act again. He attempted to find ways to be rid of the creature's curse, but nothing worked.
With years of this state of living affecting him, he has become unhinged. Forgetting himself, and performing more acts of evil and cruelty than ever was necessary to sleep soundly. He's losing himself. He just wants to get rid of the nightmares.
Goal: No matter how long it takes, or what he has to do, or how subtle or unsubtle he has to be, he wants to fulfill every deed given to him by that strange creature, and finally be rid of it.
Liam the Weak: Level 4 Human Fighter - Trying to fight against his other personality, and constantly losing.
Aodh: Level 20 Half-Elf Cleric of Life - Not really. It's a strange being that had possessed and broke down a level 20 Cleric of Life Domain, gaining his knowledge and power.
"*****": Level 1 Tiefling Sorcerer - Her family is dead, and her will is broken. She follows orders so that those that command her will allow her to die.
Name Jotenheim
Race Goliath
Class Fighter
Alignment Neutral Evil
Background Soldier
Personality Traits 1- Slow to connect to people. He's lost everyone that he ever called friend and as a result chooses not to get attached to anyone. Instead he uses them as tools to get what he wants; useful until they're not anymore, then disposable. 2 - After all the hardship in his life he has decided that strength is the only thing that can make a difference and therefore revels in his own. He is quick to intimidate or to solve problem with brute force.
Backstory Born and raised in a soldiers encampment, child of two mercenaries. Learnt the comradery and order of the military lifestyle as he grew up. Started to question the morals of a mercenary life and so when he came of age he enlisted in the kings army, hoping to fight for something greater than himself. Over five years serving he rose up in the ranks until he commanded his own 40 men. But his view on life completely changes. For those five years he and his fellow soldiers where used as pawns in other men's games, fighting and killing to increase the wealth and power of people they never met. He no longer believed in any sense of higher purpose or rightful cause. The world doesn't care about anyone but the elite. He only remained out of an sense of obligation to his men, they were his and he would not leave them to qualms of lesser men.
The final straw was when they were sent by a noble to put down a small raiding party of orcs. They were caught in a ambush and completely obliterated by a force far greater than was ever said to be in the area, at least four time the number of their 80 men. The orcs took their time with the last few, reveling in the pain that they caused. He only just survived, taking a cut to the head that took the sight from his right eye and rendered him unconscious. Believing him to be dead, he was left by the orcs in a pile of his own dead brothers. When he finally made it back to town a week later, he found out that the local lord that had sent them had never bothered to scout the raiding party, not deeming the lives of the soldiers worth his time or resources. Ever since Jotenheim has held a burning hatred for both orcs and nobles alike. He now wonders the country doing whatever he can to earn himself money, no matter what it takes. He no longer believes that there is anything greater that will judge him and if there is no purpose to fight for, then he's just going to fight for himself.
Goals Aims to one day show the lord that caused his mens deaths the error of his ways. He also aims to earn enough money, any way he can, to start his own mercenary company like his one he grew up in. If that helps him achieve his first goal then thats just a bonus.
This character was originally a Dragonborn but not a fan of have multiples of the same race and Girania got there first. Though it looks like they would be quite good backstories to intermix.
Updated and finalized racial options to reflect Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
Thank you to all who sent me your character ideas! Recruiting is now closed and invitations have been sent to those accepted into the PbP.
If you still wish to participate in the setting for this campaign, don't lose hope! Keep an eye out for a recruiting channel for the Harpers installment of this saga in the upcoming months!