General Information

This game makes use of MFoV's dark souls variant rules. As single player games are sufficiently lethal for the dark souls setting we will not be using the double damage rule. Here is a summary of the rules we are using from there...

Variant Rules
Comments from the Finger: Bonus post, because I just finished Dark Souls 3!

Undead

The undead in Dark Souls are quite unlike the undead of other fantasy roleplaying settings. While the undead cannot truly die, they gradually undergo a process called Hollowing as they die again and again, which ultimately robs them of their mind and spirit. Generally, an undead will continue being lucid and will not hollow completely while it still holds a deep purpose or mission.

When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you die without making any death saving throws. You then return to a bonfire and become partially hollow. Your maximum hit points decrease by 10 each time you die, to a minimum of half your hit point maximum. Consuming a humanity restores your hit point maximum.

You count as undead for the purposes of detect undead, effects that do extra damage to undead, etc... but you heal from positive energy, negative energy still hurts you, you can still be cursed, etc...

Humanity

A tiny black sprite found within living humans, humanity is an enigma to the residents of Dark Souls. It is certain, however, that all undead lack humanity, and find it fleeting. Consuming humanity reverses hollowing, but does not cure undeath; it merely postpones hollowing until the undead dies again. Powerful creatures, and sometimes the very lowliest, can be harvested for their humanity. It is said that humanity can be found in the deepest pit of the Abyss, but why it can be found in abundance there is a mystery.

Bonfires

The lands of Dark Souls are lined with singular points of heatless flame, each marked with a coiled sword and a heap of undead bones. These bonfires link the world and provide moments of respite for countless undead. When you take a short or long rest at a bonfire, you regain all expended hit points and refill all your estus flasks. Estus flasks and bonfire healing replace Hit Dice; you cannot rest apart from at a bonfire or recover hit points by expending hit dice.

Estus Flasks

The undead treasure these dull green flasks, which promise survival in a land dominated by death. Estus flasks provide swift healing, and are replenished at bonfires.

You have a number of estus flasks equal to half your level, rounded up. You can drink an estus flask as a bonus action, which restores hit points equal to 1d6 + your Constitution modifier. All empty estus flasks restore when you rest at a bonfire.

Ashen Flask

Undead treasure these dull ashen flasks. Fill with Estus at bonfires, and drink to restore a short rest power or 2 levels worth old spell slots. Quite befitting of the Undead, an Ashen Estus Flask turns a bonfire's heat cold. The blacksmith know the secret of transferring the flame from your Estus flask to these Ashrn flasks.

Character creation rules.

We are using humans only, Though there are a humans in the souls games they are few and far between, and I feel they belong in the domain of NPCs. If the default or variant human don't offer enough variety for you, feel free to use Rich Howard's Adaptable humans.

Feel free to use any class from the core rule book, dark souls draws from a similar fantasy repitoir to base DnD so there is no issue there. Feel free to ask me if some UA stuff is ok, I'll probably let it in so long as we can make the fluff match the aesthetic (sadly Artificer is out without some refluffing).

Build your characters starting at 5th level, using the standard methods of assigning equipment at that level.

Dark Souls story telling.

Dark Souls has a rich lore and compelling story, but this story isn't told through dialogue (mostly). It's told through the environment, combat and items. I'm trying my best to emulate this style of storytelling, there will be a lot of combat in this game, but I've tried to design each encounter to tell a story, there are a number of locations which can be explored which will also tell stories. Finally every item you get in the game can be examined. You can examine an item at any time with an arcane, history or religion check to determine its properties and a snippet of its story. If you examine an item while resting at a bonfire you succeed automatically.

Souls.

I will be handling wealth and xp in the same way as the source material does. When you kill enemies you will automatically collect their soul. The soul will have an xp value equal to twice the value you would normally be awarded for killing the foe. Why twice you may ask? Well these soul items are also "worth" an amount of gold equal to the amount of xp it grants you. (Conveniently it seems that expected wealth per character level is ~ proportional to xp). So when you collect souls you will need to choose between consuming then to level, and keeping them to trade. In other to consume a soul for xp you need to be at a bonfire. Sadly souls aficile, if you die half of the souls (and approximately half the do value of your inventory l) will drop at the site of your death. Boss Souls are exempt from this dropping rule.

Memories

The undead are cursed to forget, you should include this in your RP. Your character has forgotten much of they're past, but if you want to write some details for me to use feel free to do so.

Languages won't really be used, so if you get bonus languages from a perk feel free to swap them for a tool proficiency.