D&D5e: The Lord of Hunger

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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow,
Out of this stony rubbish?
Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess,
For you know only a heap of broken images,
Where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water,
Only there is shadow under this red rock,
Come in under the shadow of this red rock,
And I will show you something different from either,
Your shadow at morning, striding behind you,
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you,
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

--TS Eliot, the Wasteland

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I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

In the demiplane of dread, the land of G'Henna is a broken wasteland. Ruled over by High Priest Yagno Petrovna, chosen of the Devourer, Zhakata, it is a land that cries out for change. In the city, famine and disease spread. Those who are not of the priesthood or within Yagno's inner circle waste away, slowly dying of starvation. Illness runs through the city streets like wildfire, claiming countless hundreds of lives. And while the High Priest of the Devourer and his associates live easy and comfortable lives, around them they sit uncaring as their people die in front of their eyes.

None dare to speak out against their ruler, as whilst Yagno rules the land itself, his fearsome Inquisition rules the shadows. And as people are taken off the streets for crimes both real and perceived, the populace are cowed into submission by the threat of death, or worse.

Outside the city things are no better. The land itself is twisted and shattered. The badlands are a hellish mockery of the land that G'Henna once was before Yagno's descent into madness. A wind echoes through the broken outlands, a swirling wind that contains within it a mournful cry. It is a cry of regret, for the land itself recognises that it is slowly dying.

The wind brings no relief from the terrible heat that devours all those that survive the gnawing hunger. Instead, it carries with it swirling storms of dust. Worse than that, with the wind come the harbingers of death. Twisted misshapen monstrosities, silhouettes against the fading sun howl their lament. They see, just as the land itself does that this…..

….this is the end of all things.

Little do the beaten and cowed people of G'Henna realise though that change is coming. Deep inside the darkest bowels of the city, a small flame of rebellion flickers. A group of conspirators have taken things into their own hands. It is time, they say, to depose the High Priest and enforce change. They believe that there is another aspect of the god Zhakata, one not yet seen by this dying land. They believe this aspect, the Provider, will come with the death of the High Priest and then they will all be saved.

Yet, are their motives truly as pure as they would have the people believe they are?

G'Henna is a land calling out for change and the people will soon see change, whether they like it or not.

Into this demonic cauldron you come, pursuing a loved one lost inside this dreadful realm. Chasing shadows and fragmented dreams and memories, you soon find yourself in a situation beyond your comprehension and abilities to cope with. This is not just a fight against a terrible evil, it is a battle against the land itself that would strip you of all that you are. As you watch innocents die of starvation around you, even as you decide whether or not to hold onto your own dwindling supplies of food and water, there is one question that you will come to ask.

Which is the greater evil -- the one that you can see, or the one that lurks within the shadows waiting to strike?


About the Game and its Themes:  This is a 5th Edition game set within Ravenloft, the Demiplane of Dread. I will warn you in advance, this game will deal with some mature themes. If you like your games to be traditional heroic fantasy with happy endings, this is likely not the game for you.  

Here in Ravenloft there are no guarantees of you making it out alive, and there are certainly no guarantees of happy endings. Death is the only constant that you will know and certainly not everyone will make it out alive to see the end. Be prepared to say goodbye to characters if death comes for them.

As the introduction above might provide an indication, you will be forced to make some terrible, terrible moral decisions through the course of the game. Whilst your own food and water supplies dwindle low, and there is every chance of starvation, do you give some of what you have over to a starving peasant family, knowing what you give them may only delay their deaths temporarily, or do you hold back, knowing that they will not survive the night? These are the sorts of questions that I will pose to you throughout the game.  

There are no right or wrong answers in this game -- there is no black and white. The questions I ultimately ask of you are so -- will you do what is necessary to survive long enough to free the land from the circle of darkness that it is trapped inside, no matter the cost of those actions? Is taking an action for the greater good always the correct action irrespective of the ultimate cost?

What I am looking for are strong role-players and storytellers who will thrive in a situation like this. If you, using an example, as clerics and paladins of a god of light, fall during the course of the adventure because of your own morally grey actions, can you role-play this? That is the sort of player I am looking for here.

Character Restrictions: The character creation guidelines are as follows:

- 27-Point Buy
- Starting Gold as defined by background
- Acceptable Sources. PHB+1. The +1 may be from the following list: SCAG, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Elemental Evil Players Companion, XgtE
- UA Revised Ranger. This is the only thing I will accept from Unearthed Arcana sources
- Variant Human is acceptable
- Starting Level is Level 3
- Maximum HP at first level, you may either roll or take the class average for remaining levels
- You may take one magic item of no greater than Uncommon Rarity, however I will veto that item first before accepting it into the game

Game Duration and Post Frequency:  So first things first, I am new to the site and I’m aware that there have been issues before with people posting games and ghosting them, or games simply not starting. I’m hoping that through my pitch for the game and the way I wrote this you’ll see that I have put a fair amount of thought and effort into this game. I’d ask you to give me a chance, and in return I will give you an experience quite unlike any you will have experienced before (I hope!).

I don’t believe in trying to take on something too big or complicated to run in a slower format like PbP, therefore this is a one-shot with a definitive conclusion that will tie the story up, and I hope that with a dedicated post rate of about twice a week that we can wrap this up in the space of 1-2 years.

How to Apply:  First of all, as stated above I’m new to the site so I’m not entirely sure what interest I’ll have for this, for this reason I’ve not created the forum until I know that. That said, if you are interest then fire me over a high level concept for your character. By that I don’t mean what your interest is mechanically more give me a paragraph or two about your character background, personality, wants and desires. I like quirky and interesting characters with room for development.

I’m more interested in story and role-playing over a mechanically sound character build, give me that and you have my attention.

As for acceptance criteria, that depends entirely on what I get in terms of interest. Let’s see where we are this time next week and take it from there.

Welcome Marginalized Groups: This game is explicitly friendly to LGBT and any other minorities or marginalized groups.

I don't have room right now for another game, but I thought I would take a minute to welcome you, wish you luck, and tell you it us a great pitch.

I hope to write a character for this game but that will take some time :)

Could I use the Ghosts of Saltmarsh Book just to grab that cursed magic item? I don't know if you've read that module, so I won't ruin it here. I was thinking about playing an human ex-soldier, who is trying (and failing) to move on by becoming an alchemist. I'm not sure what class I'd play, maybe a fighter? Either that or a warlock whose patron is especially evil and is purposefully egging on this self-destructive behavior, for their amusement.

This sounds very interesting.
I prefer to play a good guy or I suck at playing evil. BUT! I envision an arcane trixter rouge that will do anything to survive. That would place me in an interesting gray area. Like stealing an inquisition badge, to get out of trouble with the inquisition by pretending to be an undercover inquisitor.

And @Vaynol, I am not new to this site, so I will be able to offer advice on useful tools, and the mechanics of the gamersplane or whatever you need. I want to make you feel welcome.

That sounds acceptable to me.

@runekyndig, thank you, very much appreciated.

And looking at the image, it got me thinking about would be an interesting character contrast and I am thinking what a forest gnome, would really struggle to survive in such a place.

Nice pitch! This sounds really neat and I would love to join in. I would be interested in playing a stubbornly optimistic human cleric (Life Domain, probably?) who is trying to find a cure for a cursed loved one and believes they might find that cure in Ravenloft (or something along those lines...)

I’ll PM you a more detailed character pitch and background later today when I have more time to type something up 😊

Awesome, looking forward to seeing it.

This looks cool. I just got into a 5e game, so though I'd like to play here too, I'll wait to see if there are still spots open after your initial wave.

No worries at all, if you’re interested feel free to fire in. I’m probably looking for about 4 players, of which I’ve accepted one into the game so still three slots available.

I might post something later after I have a concept, but I highly recommend for games with mature concepts to review if your players have any lines they don't want to cross, so it's a positive experience for everyone. For example, I have young kids, so I don't want to read explicit in-depth descriptions of child murder, torture, etc., but it's a wasteland, so obviously it's not going to be sunshine and roses and starving families are a thing, etc.

Aalastar 'Star'

Aasimar Rogue 1/Sorcerer 2 (Divine Soul)

'A young woman of some means beset by the misfortune of her circumstance, in an unsympathetic world.'Star 's life could have been grand. But it wasn't. She was different. Suitors weren't suitable. Hell, she wasn't even interested in them or their gender in an intimate way. So, she ran away and hooked up with a band of bandits freedom-fighters. When the voices started calling to her, it irritated her no end. Where had this guide been all her life.

Eventually, Star was captured and most of her crew killed by the forces of a nobleman. During her interrogation and sham trial, she discovered the nobleman's wife was a cousin she had not seen for years. They had never gotten along. As punishment, instead of death, she was sent into a forlorn place no one has ever escaped from...well, except that one guy who had gone insane.

Her life was to be forfeit for what? A sacrifice to unknown powers that her barren cousin could produce an heir for her husband's seat?

Star is morally ambiguous already...

Character is fully developed. I created her for a game that died abruptly two scenes in. I will only need to adjust her levels down to 3rd (from 7th) and reskin her background details to fit in Faerun.

That is a fair point, and I think I should clarify here that by mature themes I don’t mean strong child violence or other taboo subjects. With this game although I am going to explore themes that you don’t typically see associated with a lot of vanilla fantasy games, those themes are more psychological in nature, such as the twisting and corruption of good-aligned characters and on the flip side of the scale whether it is possible for a black-hearted villain to be redeemed irrespective of their crimes.

Although there will obviously be violence in the game, that violence in itself won’t stray from the sort of violence you would see in a typical fantasy game. The deviation and maturity inherent in this game is more in the tone and the fact that I intend this to be a dark, somewhat psychological and certainly very cerebral experience.

I hope this helps or at least allays some of your concerns.

thank you - I am with Pax here. I have a hard time with kids being hurt (my dauther is 4)

It does. I just figure mature themes can mean a lot of stuff, so I'd bring that up now. I'm pretty busy this weekend, but I'm thinking about maybe playing a halfling bard who used to play in courts before the world went sour. For the longest time, he has tried to ignore the descent into chaos and squalor, but now that he's lost his patrons, he's been thrown into it. In true halfling fashion, he is trying to maintain a positive outlook, but with each day seeming to grow worse than the last, it becomes harder and harder to put on a happy face and those around him become more and more irritated by the misguided attempts at positivity.

On second thought, I do have a lot about to start, so maybe next time. This looks really solid

No worries at all, I have two slots taken and two slots left for anybody else who wants to join.

This forest gnome (to be named later) was in druid training. A scam artist took over her training and she learned his trade reskinned at druidic practices. When they were invited to a secret grove for a holy day celebration, he stole something sacred and left her as a patchy and a distraction while she got away. She was distraught and banished from the druid orders. Fare from home and alone she is trying to refind trust and a place to belong.
I think Boots of Striding and Springing would give a nimble high jumping gnome.


Rase: forest gnome
Class: arcane trixter rouge
Background: a custom one, a mix of the akrolyt and outlander

Ok, so that gives us a rogue type character. I have one slot left for anyone who wants it, and we could do with a martial/fighter type character if anyone wants to step up to that role.