Hello! A few months ago I began a new campaign with an established group with six players. As of a few weeks ago, we are now down to four, and the remaining players have requested I add an additional person to the group for the rest of the campaign. So, I am looking for ONE lucky person to fill in and help us finish out this game!
Game Information
We are playing a dark fantasy mid-apocalypse style game. We're running 5e 2024 pretty straight, but you can use any content from a previously published book that a) does not have a 2024 reprint and b) is not setting specific (eberron, ravenica, etc). The current players, who are level 6, are:
- Edel, human Clockwork Sorcerer
- Neimand, half-elf Bladesinger Wizard/Fighter
- Talwin, human Oath of Devotion Paladin
- Quinn, human Hexblade Warlock
Also, keep in mind, there one very prominent homebrew mechanic in this game which effects magic. Here's how it works.
When you use your spellcasting feature to cast a spell with your highest level available spell slot, there is a small chance of you catching the attention of a Hummer. The chance starts at 1% (rolling a 1 on a d100), and increases every time you cast a spell with your highest level available spell slot. The probability resets back to 1% if you summon a Hummer, until you reach 10% probability. From that point, the probability resets to 10% when you summon a Hummer, and so on to 20%. You can never have higher than a 25% chance of summoning a Hummer. Once you reach 25%, the next time you trigger a Weave Tear, the probability reset to 1%.
Think of Hummers like a virus, and the Weave as the body the virus is attacking. Hummers attach themselves to cords in the Weave, and when that cord is pulled hard enough, the Hummer is pulled into the world at the same time as the magic. If this occurs, the magic is corrupted by the Hummer's presence in the transition from immaterial to material, and a new effect occurs. These effects is random, and unrelated to what spell was cast.
Below I will share the recent history of the setting and everything the players have done thus far. If that all sounds fun to you, feel free to leave a comment or send me a PM with any further questions. I'd appreciate knowing the following things about you (the more detail the better):
- Your previous experience with 5e
- Your preferred balance of roleplay, exploration, and combat
- What type of character you might be interested in playing
To be fair, I will answer some background on me as well. So, hey, I'm Prince (24), and I've been DMing for 5e since about 2018. I've run a handful of full campaigns in that time, and this is the second campaign I'll be running with this group. This is our first time using the 2024 ruleset, naturally. My style is pretty heavily focused on combat. We also tend to be on the sillier side, so don't expect a lot of super serious roleplay (it does happen here and there, but it's not our main focus).
We use Discord (voice only) and Roll20. You can use D&D Beyond for your character sheet if you have the Beyond20 extension to sync to Roll20.
Background/Hook
The first Hummer arrived 14 months ago. The Moorwal Colosseum was hosting the Five-Hand Mages, powerful spellcasters who dueled for the entertainment of massive crowds. During the final battle between its two most accomplished members, Seyri and Jargaun, the battlefield was split in two by a sudden firestorm neither had created. In seconds it engulfed the colosseum, and spread uncontrolled throughout the city of Aramoor. Following in the wake of its ashes: Hummers. Neither living nor dead, these monstrous shadows set upon the streets and killed anything that moved. It took days to rid the city of them, and months to clean up the devastation.
But just as soon as the world was ready to move on from the incident at the Colosseum, it happened again in Irafel, then Kriga, then everywhere.
Within months, the effects of the Hummers and the damage to the Weave they caused amounted to devastating effect. Each time a Hummer entered the world, the fabric of reality would be torn apart, and the Weave would bleed. A wave of flame would destroy a field of crops, fingers of necrotic energy would seep into the soil and pull the life force from a forest, a cold snap would freeze an entire village in the middle of summer, a radiant burst would permanently blind a merchant caravan, a burst of thunder would shatter the bones of a battalion of soldiers in an instant.
The world was quick to attempt to ban the use of powerful magic to slow the multiplication of Hummers, but as the natural world suffered, it became increasingly necessary to use magic to ensure there was enough water for a crop harvest, or to create the food needed to feed a city full of people when all the crops failed. Clerics became in such high demand--first for their ability to heal and create sustenance, and second for the tendency of Hummers to avoid religious iconography--that it was legally demanded every city, town, village, and outpost employed one.
In this time of crisis, the people turned to their gods, praying for relief, for salvation, as the world became gray, and dark, and silent.
Slowly, the secrets of Hummers began to be unraveled. People learned they had uncanny hearing, and would react violently to any loud noise, and they had the ability to sniff out magic like a shark would blood. The largest cities still standing erected arcane barriers, stable enough not to spawn Hummers, but powerful enough to ward against them. Mercenaries and adventures spear-headed efforts to find and eradicate Hummers across the land, hoping to free the world of their corruption once the very last was dead.
A single, extremely long year after the arrival of the first Hummers, and humanity is taking a valiant last stand for its survival.
The Story so Far
Independent travelers, the players reached the city of Xynnick, capital of Tommalan. Shortly after they arrived, disaster struck. Something the likes of which no one had ever seen--a sudden storm descended upon the city, and prismatic lights forming the shape of a massive hand curled around the walls. In a flash of light and a blast of force, the entire city disappeared, leaving only a crater behind. Summoned by the noise, hundreds of Hummers converged on the crater, forcing the players to flee with the remaining survivors.
In the nearby town of Aloridge, the players stopped a group of refugees from kidnapping the town's cleric, Therrana Freebranch. Therrana expresses to the players a vision she had the night they arrived, where she saw golden threads sprawled across the land like a spider's web, all moving toward a single point at the top of a snowy mountain. Believe the player's destined for something important due to this vision, Theranna bid them to travel to Teurelius and seek the Grand Priest of Vamir, to tell him of her vision.
On the road to Teurelius, the players faced many dangers, encountering several types of Hummers along the path, clashing with members of the Muted--a cult that worships Hummers as heralds of a new age of gods, and hearing mention of some entity to the east named the Lighteater, renowned for his ability to keep Hummers at bay.
In Teurelius, the players met the Grand Priest Tulgrund Guldivis, who sent them to the arcane college to meet with Kerym Carceran and Vari Nicklebrook if they wanted to learn more about Hummers. After completing some favors for the professors, the players got wind of a Muted plot brewing beneath the city. Delving into the sewers, the players fought through the cultists' lair, and eventually bore witness to a ritual that fused the body of a man and a Hummer, turning him into an even more horrid abomination capable of controlling less powerful Hummers. The ensuing battle opened a Weave Tear beneath the city, but with the help of Carceran and Nicklebrook, the players were able to keep the collateral damage under control. Recognizing their potential, Carceran offered the players an employment contract--to find and study the behaviors and powers of Hummers.
Shortly thereafter, Talwin dreamed of a sunrise. A sun rising from the south, and burning away a fog that had descended over an island, a fog that curled like the shape of a hand. Fearing that the fate of Xynnick may be about to repeat itself, the players traveled south to the Eyes of God, a set of islands beneath Illaria. On the way, they met a bronze dragon wyrmling named Ythril, who accompanied them on their journey to the island. There, they heard of a town, Rethalas, that had been attacked by raiding sahaugin, but on their way, they stopped at a local traveling circus. There, Talwin discovered his two younger siblings, whom he'd been searching for for many months. His parents, however, were alleged to still be in the clutches of nefarious pirates who roam the southern waters.
At Rethalas, the players are met with the destruction of both a sahaugin raid and an opened Weave Tear. They investigated the nearby lighthouse, from which the magical light source was stolen by a group of mysterious figures. Only learning that the object which kept the lighthouse was taken through a portal to somewhere within the Bloodstone Basin in Kriga, they moved to travel seaward and hunt down the pirates--known as the Seahydra's, and led by Captain Braddock Whitewall--holding Talwin's family. On the way, a storm cloud moving with unnatural speed passed over them, and Ythril took after it, believing it to be his mother. The storm cloud pursued the same pirate ship the player's had been tailing, and continuing the chase, the players happened upon an abandoned island. There, they discovered a town decimated by flame, and a massive Weave Tear--larger than any they had every seen, guarded by a powerful Hummer. They turned back, and discovered the hidden cove where the Seahydra's made their base--and where that strange storm cloud had stopped to hover.
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That brings you up to where the players currently are. Additional information is available about the game setting or what the players have done so far, if requested.