This was for a game that never was so I’ve added additional notes on what I had planned. Please feel free to use any elements and let me know if they worked.

A tale of horrors and heroes

Introduction

The Empire of Calisham is locked in war with their neighbours Tethyr to the North. As the fighting has dragged on for years, those families with the means to do so have sent their children South to live with extended family or with farming communities. One group of such children have been on Bhȅn Farm for the last month, helping out and getting underfoot, all while waiting for the too-infrequent news from their homes.

Setting

Calimshan and neighbours from wikia

The Calim desert covers a sizable area of Calimshan, and dominates much of Calimshan’s life and outlook as a result. The lands bordering it are only slightly more fertile. In Calimshan, wealth is of the utmost importance, which is sought after so that the seeker can lead a life of leisure. While few attain this goal, most Calimshanites aspire towards it. Gadgets and magical items are commonly found in Calimshan, where they are widely used as labor-saving devices. Magic-users are held in high esteem, being the providers of the much-sought-after magical devices. Calimshan is ruled by the Pasha in Calimport, although each city governs itself in practice, with the Pasha being unable to carry out any major actions without the permission of at least some of the cities’ viziers. The magic-users of Calimshan have accidentally or intentionally summoned and released a substantial number of other-planar beings; after a good time running amok through their summoners’ homes and villages, those planar beings who are unable to undertake the return trip home on their own gravitate toward the Calim Desert, which they find greatly to their liking.

Successor of Coramshan, Calimshan’s capital is the sprawling port-city of Calimport. Other major cities includes Memnon and the coastal city of Schamedar.

Calimshan covers the southern corner of Faerûn, including the Calim Desert and the Spider Swamp.

This is a powerful empire; trading rivals with Waterdeep; ruled by emperor; has many powerful and wealthy “nobles” called pashas.

Faerûn from wikia

Themes

As we play the themes will change as I will be adapting the main thread based on each session and your feedback. That being said, it will start with Intrigue and Horror and be story-driven, rather than a series of endless fights.

I will warn you now, however, that at times there will be a real risk of your characters dying. I won’t intentionally set out to kill your character (unless that’s your kink) but Dungeons & Dragons is a dice-based game and sometimes the Gods are cruel.

Characters

The introductory session will start with your characters as children in a tutorial-like setting at Level 0. As such you can choose a race (the ones listed below are suggestions but if you can make a compelling argument for something else we can roll with it) but you won’t have a set class (barbarian, wizard, etc.) yet – although I do suggest looking at what interests you for later. Your character stats are going to be quite low to start with – see The Commoner character sheet as an idea but I’m going to be mean and say that your baseline ability scores is going to be 9/20, rather than 10/20 which means that most rolls you perform will have a -1 penalty – you are children, after all.

I’d also like everyone to bring a backstory – it doesn’t have to be long but think about the below basics:

Name
Age
Race
- Human
- Half-Orc
- Half-Elf
- Halfling
- Something else
Family
- Status (high-born, common, merchant etc.)
- Is there a family trade
- Do you have older family members fighting in the war, is everyone you know and love blasted into tiny pieces?

After the conclusion of the first chapter we’re going to skip forward about a decade. Your characters will be reunited after whatever adventures they’ve been on and will have gained the required experience to be Level 1 in whatever class you have chosen and we’ll be playing with standard character sheets.

As a Role Playing Game I highly encourage exercising a personality for your character. Put on a voice/accent if you want, think about what your character would do in a situation and have fun with it.

If your character stops being fun, let me know. We can either work out a way to bring back the excitement or you can create a new character which can be introduced at a suitable point (this may not be for a session or two though).

I will be available in the evenings before we start the campaign to assist with any questions, ideas and technical issues.

GM Notes - Session 1

The first half of session 1 will be styled like a tutorial level with farm-related skill checks and saves.
For example, a player could be asked by Uncle Bhȅn to stack hay bales with an Athletics check, followed by a Dex save to avoid the toppling stack.

Mention the several outbuildings, including a partially rundown shack half-hidden towards the back. A Perception check (no DC) reveals it looks unsafe and eithe Cousin or Uncle warn to stay away from it as they haven’t got round to tearing it down. Inside are old tools, used tins of turpentine etc.

Introduce Cousin Renny, a young wounded soldier returned from the war to recover. They’ve got a bad leg that’s taking a while to heal properly and are frustrated with waiting, although they try to hide this from the children. Build the character up to be tough and capable in a fight. Use Uncle and Cousin to practice social interactions. Cousin can also play-fight with the characters and give them some sword lessons.

Use Wild Dogs as a (very) small encounter - have the dogs run off after one is knocked down. If a player expresses an interest you could allow them to try and tame it over time.

Once the players are getting more comfortable with navigating the character sheets begin the plot-hook…

Plot-Hook

The characers go to bed in one or two of the rooms at the front of the farmhouse, the window overlooks the rest of the farm including a partial view of the shack.
[Perception check: DC10] A small earthquake and a rumbling sound rouses any character that passes the check. Uncle and Cousin check on the characters and tells them to stay in bed. Both leave to investigate the noise and don’t return.

Any characters watching out of the bedroom window see the 2 approach the shack with a lantern. Light from the lantern leaks out of gaps in the shack as the figures enter. Suddenly the light flares and dies. A Perception check (DC15) allows a character to hear a cut-off shout.

Encourage the players to investigate, allow them to arm themselves with pitchforks etc. if they ask. Cousin’s sword is resting by the door.

Inside the shack there is a freshly-dug tunnel with unnaturally smooth, rippled walls. Cousin’s voice comes from the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel is a heavily-damaged Nautiloid at the bottom of a spherical cavern. Near an entrance Cousin stands over Uncle’s body, facing a wounded Mindflayer. The Mindflayer will stun Cousin and take control of their body, positioning them to stand guard, then proceed to feed on the brain of Uncle. Make it clear that there is no hope of winning a fight here and to run away.

The players can now decide what they want their characters to do for the next 10 years - stick together, run far away, join the army, become a pirate etc.

Continuation

After 10 years each receives a summons, regardless of where they are. The summons is from someone who is tracking the Mindflayer and attempting to thwart them but lacks the ability to do so themselves. Those that have stayed within Calisham will have noticed a weird MLM-scheme gaining influence and the populace starting to turn away from magic. Events held by MLM members mention an enigmatic leader that has a core of charismatic presenters surrounding them. This could be the Mindflayer from earlier, perhaps a character catches a brief glimpse through a tent.

Big Bad Motives

Perhaps the Mindflayer is trying to build influence in Calimsham in order to obtain something to repair or power their ship and return home. Using the local citizens as pawns to further it’s cause is perfectly correct for the Mindflayer as they are not equals and are very easy to influence. The Mindflayer has to be careful to stay out of sight though as they know they could not defend themselves physically against a determined oposition.

Session Times

As we are all busy people (plus I’ll be making up a bunch of stuff as we go) I am going to suggest we play once a month for 2 hours. If possible I would like to start the first session mid-July later this year – please let me know if this is suitable and what day of the week and time would work best for you.

Resources

Roll20

We’ll be playing using the virtual tabletop Roll20.net which will contain maps, your character sheets, creatures and people that you meet etc. Most of the dice rolls you’ll need will also be point-and-click but one-off rolls are handled easily as well.

It is worth remembering that this is not a video game though. What you see on-screen is an abstraction to help you visualise the world as you interact with it. (Also I cannot guarantee the quality of the maps etc. as I’ll have to bodge some of them together myself).

Discord

Discord is a voice (and video) chat service designed around games. There is a tiny bit of lag but it’s normally pretty reliable. There are mobile and desktop apps on a bunch of platforms as well as a web client and I’d recommend some kind of headset if you can scrounge one up.

Basic Rules

The Basic Rules PDF is essential but you won’t have to read all of it. Read the Introduction and How to Play first then Parts 1 & 2. Part 3 is only important if you want to be a magic user.

Any questions then let me know but the first session will be geared around getting used to the mechanics as well as establishing how you want to play your character.

Calimshan Crisis – Invite