The Tourist Brochure To Bramblebrush -old-

I love my friends. I wrote the initial ideas for this campaign while very-sad^tm back in 2020(ish), during the pandemic. Those strong emotions, and the desire to connect with the people around me, are still important parts of this campaign for me. As much as you want to invest in this game I will meet you and be thrilled. Many of us have laughed and cried together a number of times over this game. But I dont think there is anything that makes a game less fun then taking it too seriously. This is a game, and we should all be enjoying the game, or at least the spectacle of it. While I ask that our charachters stay fairly level while in charachter (in terms of like treating the world seriously, whatever that means for your charachter) above the table we are here to laugh and enjoy and have fun. Even when your charachters disagree or come into direct conflict, or die, it is in persuit of good times. Thus, while I am very emotionally invested in this world, and this game, and I love to be vastly over-specific about things; that is the way I enjoy this game, doesnt need to be yours. I love a challenge as a dm, and would love to make lil niches and vibes for different people and charachters.

_{^tm very-sad is a trademark of the Johnson&Johnson corporation}

Some ado before we procede without further:

We play in (a pretty heavily modified version of) Dungeons and Dragons 5e, 2014 rules*. I do not have all these modifications written down clearly and concisely (yet), but most of the important ones are in this document, and certainly any-things that you are expected to keep track of are in this document.

*If you are particularly interested in mechanics from 2024 lmk and I'm sure we can integrate stuff.

This campaign is in a west marches style which means a couple of things:

1. We use a 'stable of heroes' system. Each player should have 1-2 charachters planned beyond their primary/initial one. And are even welcome to/encouraged to have multiple in the campaign at once. Each time we play we form a party of charachters from the players that are present.
2. You return home every session^*. The outside world is dangerous, chaotic, and nothing feels quite as good as your own bed to sleep in. If our play-session ends before your characters achieve their goals than something forces them to return home. Maybe they have run out of supplies unexpectedly, harsh weather, an monster too terrible to face. Home btw, is a town called Bramblebrush.
   *If you guys plan ahead of time not to return (e.g. you're setting up a longer-term base, or going on a looong quest) we can discuss
3. Long rests can only be taken in town, and take 5 days, and short rests require a full nights rest.
4. Players are responsible for scheduling. Theres a bunch of you! Whenever you guys want to play, form a posse and state an intention (at least 48 hours before said session would ocur). If that date/time works for me I will confirm, and then we have ourselves a session scheduled.
5. To be clear I need to know:
6. who is coming
7. what those people plan to do (I'm up for anything doesnt count)
8. and when we are playing
9. Travel, and exploration are significant portions of the game. You will receive XP for going to new places, and sometimes your reward for a mission will be seeing what's over the next hill.
10. Xp works a lil differently. You gain Xp for:
11. Traveling for 3+ days in a new biome.
12. Surviving an encounter with a new creature.
13. Surviving against overwhelming odds

Show Spoiler

The system is Dungeons and Dragon's 5e. We play in a west marches style* which in my house means your charachters have a home that they develop and support. They return to this home after each mission to rest, recooperate, and venture out again. The narrative focuses on the way people make their lives among a vaiety of challanges, as well as how they answer the impossible questions. Combat is brutal and deadly**, preperation, and strategy will be essential. Exploration is in the union of danger and natural beauty, as well as feeding the human desire to push back the edges of the map. There are abundant reasons I started this campaign, the begining of this page will always be the most important, the second was to slay the worst of Dungeon's Dragons; scheduling conflicts. Among my other passions are: I wanted a campaign where charachters actually die, I wanted martials to be just as good as casters, I wanted to DM about a small village, I wanted Rangers to be good, I wanted charachters to need to manage resources, and I was/am writing a lil' world-building project that turned into this. Okay thats the ado, I promise thats the last of my first-person address.

Enter Bramblebrush, a lil' 995 German town, deep in the spooky woods. Most importanty come hang out :)

The year is 995. Twelve years since the death of King Otto II, the last Holy Roman Emperor. Slowly, the wilds have begun to creep back in pressing on a beleagured empire with nowhere to go. It is an age of exploration, of combat against a hostile world. A land where monster hunters live short wealthy lives, and the edges of the world are must be carved back out of the jagged stone. It is an age of maps.

Welcome to Hell bramblebrush:

Rules

Hey y'all, welcome to my first lil' attempt at getting all the homebrew rules together. Below are three sections, 'fun facts' which are quick/simple quirks about the campaign, 'the grindset' which iis new/changed systems and 'your first deal wirh rhe devil' which is a few social agreements we make as a group. Enjoy. Also this doesn't count as more first person cause its technically a quote.

~~Alex

Fun Facts

Rests

ύπνος και θάνατος

~~Mousoleim Inscription

A long rest takes 5 days, and can only be taken at home in Bramblebrush as part of downtime (which is explained below). A short rest takes a full nights sleep.

XP

For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:23

to level up you need to gain new XP rocks equal to the level you will be reaching (going from level 1->2 takes 2 rocks, and from 4->5 takes 5 rocks).

You get 1/3 rock for traveing for at least 5 days, and getting into any encounter

you get 1/3 rocks for hunting a *significant* creature (difficult, new, etc) as judged by DM (me)

You get 1/3 rocks for traveling 5 days in a new enviroment

Some more ado

The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience.

• ary Gygax

but also...

Gaming in general is a male thing. It isn't that gaming is designed to exclude women. Everybody who's tried to design a game to interest a large female audience has failed. And I think that has to do with the different thinking processes of men and women.

• ary Gygax

So yeah, never meet your heros or something

these feats are always part of the game for all characters:

I just think they're neat

~~Alex Prideaux

Charger

Grappler (str req applies)

When you crit with a melle attack with the relevent damage type you may use either of the once-per-turn or the on-crit part of the Slasher, Piercer, or Crusher feat.

money

You must be from out of town

~~Ben the Bartended on being payed in gold for drinks

I'm switching the economy to silver. If you are new then just treat any gold in the PHB, etc as silver, silver as copper, and copper stays copper. If you were playing before this, all your gold is now silver, all the previous costs of things in gold are now the same, but in silver. It just makes more sense for the base currancy in Bbush to be silver not gold.

Healing

There is a stark differece in effect on both body and soul between a hasty prayer of healing, sufficiant to help a warrior find glory in death elsewhere, and the sacred artistry of the true healer.

~~Brother Symon, Pontific Clerc

When healing in combat you only gain temporary HP. Temp HP does not stack with existing HP, cannot go higher than your 1.5x your max HP, and lasts until your next rest, where it becomes real HP - up to your max HP. You can only heal real hp during a rest (short or long), or with hit dice.

Staunch the bleeding:

You may spend 10 minutes recovering to roll a hit die to recover HP (like spending a hit die as normal during a short rest), you may not do this again until resting or taking damage.

The Grindset

Exaustion

Still-weeping wounds, haunting nightmares, bone deep bruises, and for all the never-ending soul-deep aching tired that comes with a life of violence. These are the marks the fortunate bear on return from their bloody work.

Please protect them, or let them into your light.

~~prayer of Myra Sooth, Valley Clerc

1) When interacting with others you must take some opportunities to take offense and add edge to your tone.

2) Your max HP is reduced by 1/4 of its original value. E.G. Someone with a max HP of 12, who is at 10 HP, would have their max and current HP reduced to 9. In addition you have disadvantage on inititive checks.

3) You gain disadvantage on all mental (wis, int, cha) or physical (str, dex, con) checks and saves, you may choose.

4) Your max HP is reduced by 1/4 of its original (unaltered) value. In addition, when you go down, you automatically gain one failed death save.

5)One random ability score is set to 1 (modifier -4), narrativly that aspect of your charachter is too wounded or shocked to function

6) Your max HP is reduced by 1/4 of its original (unaltered) value. In addition, you have disadvantage on all saving throws.

7) Down and out (you're incapacitated, but not nessessarily unconcious)

8) Dead

You can recover, and ignore the effects of exaustion in a couple of ways. During a long rest (see downtime) you automatically recover 1 level of exaustion, and you may make a DC 10, and if that is sucessful, a DC 20 constitution saving throw to recover a second and third level of exaustion. During any rest (short or long) you may spend a hit die to ignore the effects of a level of exaustion. And during an encounter, you may spend a hit die to ignore all levels of exaustion, but only for the duration of that encounter.

Practical Experiance:

As your charachters wend their way through the world they learn and grown simply through retredding the rut they carve through the world

~~I wrote this one before I gave the others attribution but I like it too much to change

When recovering levels of exaustion (as part of downtime), for each level of exaustion you remove, you may pick a roll you made that relates to how you gained that level of exaustion, and gain a +1 bonus to that roll going forwards.

For example, you might pick saves against manticore poison (if thats what downed you), grappling goblins (for... whatever it was you were doing with goblins), scouting in the deep woods (for a less suspicious choice), or bladed attacks against a boar (you get the picture). As you fight enemies or face challenges repetidley you will be able to stack these buffs reflecting your growing experiance in various circumstances.

You can always ask if a certain type of practical experiance is valid for a certain roll, or if a new experiance is close enough to one you already have to stack it on, but be ready to justify! Some other exampes of rolls you might buff are things like camping in the rain, hiding from a creature's smell, climbing without gear, or a dex save vs fire damage, but the sky is the limit! You can choose vine-swining in the tangle if youd like.

Your first deal with the devil:

When playing in this campaign:

The players tell the DM when they're playing, and what they're doing. (At least) 48 Hours before the session, have a list of who is showing up, with what charachters, when (IRL), and what those charachters are planning on doing.

Please talk/act from the perspective of your charachter while playing and planning. Its not taboo to speek as yourself or anything - love bants*-, but use charachter perspective for things that you want to effect the game, or other peoples charachters.

*Banter

Do your best to get back to Bramblebrush by the end of each session (but dont like go super out of charachter just to get back either, its just a bit of a scheduling pain).

*We dont use quite this set of rules, but this is the article that inspired me.
**These monsters will kill yout charahters ong frfr *** as opposed to people living in the wilds like Bramblebrush and Valley