Untimely Heroes Player Primer

Welcome to the Untimely Heroes Player Primer!

Untimely Heroes is a Dungeons & Dragons 5e persistent campaign about a group of unique and talented investigators from different times and places linked by a mystery, brought together by a dead man, and hired by a secret organization to reveal the true nature of reality.

The Setting

The 6th age City of Fallendrift is replete a cosmopolitan with damp & dark gaslit cobblestone streets, wharf and dock districts, and corruption in every layer of government. Guilds and gangs are thought to actually run things, classism is as common as one's own breath, and belief in the supernatural is something someone does if they live in the boonies or it's a curious hobby. The old religions are considered quaint while false spiritualism via charlatans is at its height. Meanwhile, the streets are filled with homeless, snake oil salesmen and street urchins vie for the penny, and whispers of darker things hide in the shadows.
As vile and corrupt as it is, this is normal for the Fallendrifters. This thin veil of normalcy is also the food people eat to survive; willful ignorance of anything worse is bliss. The burgeoning sciences are scoffed at in the light afforded by folk lore and superstition. The common person believes more in bleeding someone as a curative than in the application of science-based medicine or a visit to the apothecary. Falsehoods and conspiracy bring comfort to that which is perceived as unknowable. Ancient antiquities gather dust as simple machines and equipment of industry garner more curiosity with comically overengineered machines and billowing vaporous clouds. Museums are now only places of folly while parlors are filled with the acrid smoke of mind-shattering substances that provide the easy escape so many crave but never admit to needing.
Untimely Heroes is the story of those who have been accidently thrust into the true reality or dove head-first into the dark underworld to seek it on their own.

Character Creation

• May come 2nd through 8th age of Evindale (see right, "Ages"), but they have settled in and now live in 6th Age Fallendrift.
• Choose any 6th Age race
  • Thiraf - Thiraf occupy nearly every level of society but tend to heed their ancient call to the sea or fit in naturally as explorers.
  • Wardens (spinewarden dwarf)
  • Hillslider (hillslider dwarf)
  • Adri'il (forest elf)
  • Fayd'il (void elf)
  • Lithar'il (sun elf)
  • Myrad'il (desert elf)
  • Ryal'il (aquatic elf)
  • Sadrath'il (elf, descendant of the ancient italti)
  • Slindar'il (ash elf)
  • Theran'il (air elf)
  • Vaud'il (spirit elf)
  • Fleshwarp
  • Gnome
  • Goblin
  • Igyrlin (common halfling)
  • Tirfolk (nomadic halfling)
  • Hobgoblin
  • Klane (common human)
  • Aryosi (sun-touched human)
  • Fetchling (moon-touched human)
  • Ifrit (fire-touched human)
  • Korvad'an (spirit-touched human)
  • Oread (earth-touched human)
  • Sylph (air-touched human)
  • Tiefling (hell-touched)
  • Undine (water-touched human)
  • Kobold
  • Iruxi (lizardfolk)
  • Strix
  • Tengu/kenku
  • T'nao
• They currently hold any Victorian-esque profession.
• And will start at level zero for Game Zero
• More modern characters can have Skills that make sense for a non-fantasy character and will have with them something common from their time period regardless of starting wealth.

The goal is to have a standard balanced party of investigators. A healer, fighter, rogue, etc. Feel free to coordinate with the other players in advance of Game Zero to determine your class. Steer clear of wizard and sorcerer for your initial class. Magic has either been lost or bred out of existence for the most part, but it can be gained with experience. See Magic below for more details
Each character must have one or two of the conditions:

• doubts about what you've been told about your place and time of birth
• fleeting memories of childhood friends including one everyone said was imaginary, but you knew different
• thoughts you were born at the wrong time
• days of deju vu and moments of visions
• the occasional and awkward sudden ability to know what's going to happen immediately before it does

A fog of memory keeps the details of these secret from your character; do not develop these details. Over the course of the game the fog will lift and details will be revealed. Do not play them as a stereotypical and offensive psychosis or neurosis; these are real life things other people your PC have met have difficulty understanding... until now. These are conditions your character has turned into a strength be it a quiet and secret one, one that is embraced publicly as a "quirk", or even one that is benefitted from such as a psychic or seer in a culture that holds such people in high regard.
During play, these conditions will benefit your PC though times will also come when they will seemingly hamper your character.

Game Zero

Each character will have their own Game Zero session.

Game Play Style

This game will focus on heavy roleplay with mature themes addressed responsibly, though much of it will also be light-hearted fun as we face the challenge of out-of-time characters facing the world before them. Play should be done in the first person as your character speaking, with 3rd person narration replaced by first person exposition whenever possible.

• Cosplaying is 100% optional but encouraged.
• At all costs, play-to-lift/play to lose should be a driving force. Sucking at an action should be even more entertaining than merely #winning. Fuck winning. Dare to suck.
• Active listeningshould always be engaged. For all the effort we all put in to it, throw your co-hosts some focus and react to everything to show the love.
• Improv. "Yes, and..." the fuck out of everything. Hype your co-hosts.
• F the rules. They suck. Tell a story. That's betterer.

House Rules

Magic

• Magic is no longer commonplace knowledge. To most, magic never existed.
• Those exposed to magical effects unexplainable by talent, mechanics, or chemical, characters can go mad. Refer to Dungeon Master's Guide, Chapter 9: Honor and Sanity for more information.
• Starting spellcasters: describe any magical effect your PC may create as the result of something mechanical, chemical, or talent driven as an initial roleplay challenge.
• To learn actual, real magic it must be discovered.
  • The elements are Sun, Moon, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Void, and Spirit.
  • Spells in D&D must be studied or created by you to include an element.
  • Entire cults have spent generations trying to master these elements and then marvel when they can cause a small flame. In fact, summoning demons, devils, and other things is far, far easier than learning how to heal even a scratch via magic. For this reason, your PCs are more likely to encounter such beings than normal.
  • To reflect your PC's knowledge of the elements, Element: Sun, Element: Air, etc. can appear on your D&D Beyond Sheet.
  • No one starts with a proficiency in an element.
• Potions, salves, balms, and oil are alchemical or apothecarial creations. They can heal but are slow.
• Staves, wands, amulets, rings, belts, boots, cloaks, etc. are extremely rare.

Additional Systems

Challenges

• Two 1s on a disadvantage roll will result in something horrific happening to the PC that YOU must describe; but it most likely be a fail forward as well. Make it an epic fail!
• Two 20s on an advantage roll will result in something horrific happening to the opponent/challenge that the DM will describe
• To aid another in small tasks such as picking locks, only one character is the primary user of the skill. Any who wish to assist must be proficient in the same skill and roll. Primary user of the skill uses highest roll.
• To move through an enemy's square, you may attempt a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check opposed by the enemy's Strength or Dexterity check. Success means you are able to move through their square as if it were difficult terrain.

Death & Unconsciousness

• Any unconscious condition is also met with one point of exhaustion
• Death Saves are 15, not 10

Spells

• If you have the actions to support it, you can cast multiple spells in one round

Roleplay & Dice

• Replace dice with ingenuity. Don't roll dice unless in combat or the DM asks for it. Many times, you'll succeed if you come up with an ingenious plan.
• Your character sheet should only be a guide used when you can't think of something they can do.
• Please know your character and the rules surrounding their abilities. It'll speed things up a lot! :)

The Ages of Evindale

Second Age - "Chaos & God-Kings", a time of tyrannical italti overlords and tribal people
Third Age - Birth of Civilizations, the rise and fall of the Fannuel Empire; a time of high adventure
Fourth Age - Dark fantasy in a civilized world with ancients slowly rising
Fifth Age - Post-apocalyptic fantasy world with dying religions and the slow rise of science
Sixth Age - Religion replaced with industry; rise of machinery, secret societies, and cults in gaslight
Seventh Age - Rise and fall of the Syndicate and galactic oppression
Eight Age - "Dawn of Hope", religion returns, the Syndicate falls, and magic rises to be combined with science

Districts of Fallendrift

Ashwater
Berger Row
Cannon Row
Carriage Quay
Chelsea Gardens
Cooper's Barrow
Crown Flats
Dredgen Graves
Dustyard, The
East Chapwark
East Gate
Fenmore Downs
Hightown
Hive, The
Kennings Ward
Lyche Downs
Mason's Crawl
Mendington
Morsten Hill
New City
North Cross
North gate
Old Bailey District
Rips, The
S. Haning Station
Scorum Heights
Shards, The
Slight Tomshold
Smithsfield
South Castleton
South Cross
South Keep
Sterin Heights
Templeton Gardens
Turning Wheel
Wayton Station
Westdock