A cataclysm has broken the old world.

The empire fled across the ocean with warships, soldiers, supply fleets, refugees, merchants, criminals, and thousands of people hoping there was something waiting for them beyond the sea.

The crossing did not go as planned.

Ships have been lost. Fleets have scattered. Survivors have found shores that should not exist on any Imperial chart, and the first expeditions into the world beyond the old maps have begun.

We are now around eight sessions into the campaign and have reached a natural point for new characters to enter the story.

What began as a desperate ocean crossing is opening into the larger naval sandbox the campaign was built around: scattered survivors, competing factions, strange islands, dangerous expeditions, lost ships, ancient mysteries, and the question of what exactly the people fleeing the old world have sailed into.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m looking for a couple of players to join an ongoing D&D campaign set in a dark Age of Sail fantasy world, playing Wednesdays at 8:30pm BST.

The campaign began with the party caught inside a much larger movement of people, powers, and desperate factions crossing the ocean after the collapse of the old continent.

Since then, things have gone badly.

The crossing has fractured. Ships and people have been separated. Survivors are beginning to encounter strange shores, abandoned places, other expeditions, rival interests, and things that do not fit comfortably into what they believed existed beyond the sea.

The campaign has now reached a point where the world is opening up and characters arriving from elsewhere in the scattered crossing can enter the story naturally. You will not be expected to somehow insert yourself into an established adventuring party or spend weeks catching up on somebody else’s story.

Your character will have their own reason for being here.

You might have come from another ship, another expedition, another faction, or simply survived something the existing characters have not yet seen.

From here, the campaign will continue opening into a broader naval sandbox shaped by exploration, faction politics, dangerous expeditions, strange islands, ships, settlements, and the choices the party makes.

This is a campaign about survival, power, loyalty, fear, ambition, and what people become when the old rules stop holding the world together.

System: D&D 5e 2014

Format: Online

Timezone: UK / BST

Schedule: Wednesdays, 8:30pm BST

Age: 25+

Tools: Discord for voice, VTT/maps = Alchemy, AI-assisted art/maps/scene references for atmosphere and rapid sandbox prep

What the campaign is about

The sea will matter. Voyages will involve navigation, storms, scarcity, hostile ships, strange phenomena, and the constant question of where safety can actually be found.

Factions will matter. Imperial forces, scattered survivors, merchant interests, criminal flotillas, expeditions, settlements, and other powers all have their own priorities. None are purely good. None are purely safe. The party’s choices may create allies, enemies, debts, betrayals, and consequences that follow them across the campaign.

Ships will matter. They will not just be transport, but platforms for combat, navigation, logistics, upgrades, crew management, and bastion-like downtime mechanics. A ship can become a home, weapon, refuge, or lifeline... but ships are not guaranteed, invulnerable, or immune to loss.

Exploration will matter. The campaign includes island-hopping, scouting missions, ruins, dangerous shores, unknown peoples, supernatural mysteries, and the gradual discovery of what actually lies beyond the ocean.

Character stakes will matter. I’m especially interested in characters with something personal tying them to the collapse or the crossing: someone they lost, something they are fleeing, a duty they still believe in, a faction they distrust, a missing ship, a debt they owe, or a reason they might want to help build something new.

Expect opportunities to play as survivors, agents, deserters, prisoners, scouts, negotiators, troublemakers, reluctant heroes, or ambitious opportunists. People trying to carve meaning, power, or safety out of a world that has stopped making sense.

What to expect as a player

The player characters matter because the world is unstable, dangerous, and short on people who can act decisively.

You might be the person who can read a map when nobody knows where they are, negotiate with frightened survivors, command a cannon crew, scout a dangerous shore, repair a damaged ship, expose a faction’s lie, heal the wounded, or steal what the party needs to survive.

Expect:

- Naval travel, shipboard crises, and Age of Sail-inspired combat

- Faction politics between imperial, criminal, merchant, refugee, and settlement powers

- Strange islands, dangerous expeditions, and unexplored shores

- Resource pressure, crew tension, and survival decisions

- Supernatural mysteries, psychological dread, and unreliable information

- Violent combat where consequences matter

- Ships as tools for travel, combat, logistics, upgrades, and downtime

- A world that reacts to player choices

- Character-driven roleplay with moral complexity

You do not need to make a sailor or pirate.

Good character concepts could include cartographers, refugees, criminals, merchants, priests, scholars, exiles, scouts, mercenaries, failed nobles, disgraced officers, healers, engineers, artisans, interpreters, quartermasters, monster hunters, diplomats, spies, escaped prisoners, expedition members, shipwreck survivors, or ordinary people forced into extraordinary events.

Because the crossing has scattered, new characters can come from another ship, faction, expedition, or group of survivors. You will get everything you need to know before joining and will not be expected to read through eight sessions of campaign notes.

The best characters will have something to offer and something to lose.

What this campaign is not

This is not a light pirate romp, treasure-hunting comedy, or swashbuckling adventure. There may be criminals, raiders, ships, sea battles, taverns, songs, and bad decisions, but the campaign is more dark survival fantasy than pirate fantasy.

That said, the darkness will not be constant misery. It will be interspersed with moments of humour, warmth, and comic relief, often through companion NPCs, shipboard personalities, strange encounters, and the absurdity that comes from desperate people trying to survive impossible circumstances.

Player expectations

I’m looking for players who are:

Comfortable with mature, gritty fantasy

Interested in roleplay as well as combat

Able to make characters who care about the world

Happy with moral complexity and imperfect factions

Interested in survival, exploration, and faction consequences

Collaborative rather than chaotic-for-the-sake-of-it

Respectful out of character, even when characters clash in game

Reliable enough to join an ongoing Wednesday 8:30pm BST campaign

Newer players are welcome if they are engaged, reliable, and interested in the tone.

Application

If interested, please send me a dm but also comment below to let me know you have:

Name / age / timezone

Your D&D experience level

What kind of character you usually enjoy playing

What interests you about this campaign pitch

A rough character concept, if one comes to mind

Whether you can reliably make Wednesdays at 8:30pm BST

Whether you are comfortable with a mature dark fantasy world containing gore, cruelty, prejudice, and morally compromised factions

Feel free to comment questions below before applying.

A cataclysm has broken the old world.

The empire fled across the ocean with warships, soldiers, supply fleets, refugees, merchants, criminals, and thousands of people hoping there was something waiting for them beyond the sea.

The crossing did not go as planned.

Ships have been lost. Fleets have scattered. Survivors have found shores that should not exist on any Imperial chart, and the first expeditions into the world beyond the old maps have begun.

We are now around eight sessions into the campaign and have reached a natural point for new characters to enter the story.

What began as a desperate ocean crossing is opening into the larger naval sandbox the campaign was built around: scattered survivors, competing factions, strange islands, dangerous expeditions, lost ships, ancient mysteries, and the question of what exactly the people fleeing the old world have sailed into.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m looking for a couple of players to join an ongoing D&D campaign set in a dark Age of Sail fantasy world, playing Wednesdays at 8:30pm BST.

The campaign began with the party caught inside a much larger movement of people, powers, and desperate factions crossing the ocean after the collapse of the old continent.

Since then, things have gone badly.

The crossing has fractured. Ships and people have been separated. Survivors are beginning to encounter strange shores, abandoned places, other expeditions, rival interests, and things that do not fit comfortably into what they believed existed beyond the sea.

The campaign has now reached a point where the world is opening up and characters arriving from elsewhere in the scattered crossing can enter the story naturally. You will not be expected to somehow insert yourself into an established adventuring party or spend weeks catching up on somebody else’s story.

Your character will have their own reason for being here.

You might have come from another ship, another expedition, another faction, or simply survived something the existing characters have not yet seen.

From here, the campaign will continue opening into a broader naval sandbox shaped by exploration, faction politics, dangerous expeditions, strange islands, ships, settlements, and the choices the party makes.

This is a campaign about survival, power, loyalty, fear, ambition, and what people become when the old rules stop holding the world together.

System: D&D 5e 2014

Format: Online

Timezone: UK / BST

Schedule: Wednesdays, 8:30pm BST

Age: 25+

Tools: Discord for voice, VTT/maps = Alchemy, AI-assisted art/maps/scene references for atmosphere and rapid sandbox prep

What the campaign is about

The sea will matter. Voyages will involve navigation, storms, scarcity, hostile ships, strange phenomena, and the constant question of where safety can actually be found.

Factions will matter. Imperial forces, scattered survivors, merchant interests, criminal flotillas, expeditions, settlements, and other powers all have their own priorities. None are purely good. None are purely safe. The party’s choices may create allies, enemies, debts, betrayals, and consequences that follow them across the campaign.

Ships will matter. They will not just be transport, but platforms for combat, navigation, logistics, upgrades, crew management, and bastion-like downtime mechanics. A ship can become a home, weapon, refuge, or lifeline... but ships are not guaranteed, invulnerable, or immune to loss.

Exploration will matter. The campaign includes island-hopping, scouting missions, ruins, dangerous shores, unknown peoples, supernatural mysteries, and the gradual discovery of what actually lies beyond the ocean.

Character stakes will matter. I’m especially interested in characters with something personal tying them to the collapse or the crossing: someone they lost, something they are fleeing, a duty they still believe in, a faction they distrust, a missing ship, a debt they owe, or a reason they might want to help build something new.

Expect opportunities to play as survivors, agents, deserters, prisoners, scouts, negotiators, troublemakers, reluctant heroes, or ambitious opportunists. People trying to carve meaning, power, or safety out of a world that has stopped making sense.

What to expect as a player

The player characters matter because the world is unstable, dangerous, and short on people who can act decisively.

You might be the person who can read a map when nobody knows where they are, negotiate with frightened survivors, command a cannon crew, scout a dangerous shore, repair a damaged ship, expose a faction’s lie, heal the wounded, or steal what the party needs to survive.

Expect:

- Naval travel, shipboard crises, and Age of Sail-inspired combat

- Faction politics between imperial, criminal, merchant, refugee, and settlement powers

- Strange islands, dangerous expeditions, and unexplored shores

- Resource pressure, crew tension, and survival decisions

- Supernatural mysteries, psychological dread, and unreliable information

- Violent combat where consequences matter

- Ships as tools for travel, combat, logistics, upgrades, and downtime

- A world that reacts to player choices

- Character-driven roleplay with moral complexity

You do not need to make a sailor or pirate.

Good character concepts could include cartographers, refugees, criminals, merchants, priests, scholars, exiles, scouts, mercenaries, failed nobles, disgraced officers, healers, engineers, artisans, interpreters, quartermasters, monster hunters, diplomats, spies, escaped prisoners, expedition members, shipwreck survivors, or ordinary people forced into extraordinary events.

Because the crossing has scattered, new characters can come from another ship, faction, expedition, or group of survivors. You will get everything you need to know before joining and will not be expected to read through eight sessions of campaign notes.

The best characters will have something to offer and something to lose.

What this campaign is not

This is not a light pirate romp, treasure-hunting comedy, or swashbuckling adventure. There may be criminals, raiders, ships, sea battles, taverns, songs, and bad decisions, but the campaign is more dark survival fantasy than pirate fantasy.

That said, the darkness will not be constant misery. It will be interspersed with moments of humour, warmth, and comic relief, often through companion NPCs, shipboard personalities, strange encounters, and the absurdity that comes from desperate people trying to survive impossible circumstances.

Player expectations

I’m looking for players who are:

Comfortable with mature, gritty fantasy

Interested in roleplay as well as combat

Able to make characters who care about the world

Happy with moral complexity and imperfect factions

Interested in survival, exploration, and faction consequences

Collaborative rather than chaotic-for-the-sake-of-it

Respectful out of character, even when characters clash in game

Reliable enough to join an ongoing Wednesday 8:30pm BST campaign

Newer players are welcome if they are engaged, reliable, and interested in the tone.

Application

If interested, please send me a dm but also comment below to let me know you have:

Name / age / timezone

Your D&D experience level

What kind of character you usually enjoy playing

What interests you about this campaign pitch

A rough character concept, if one comes to mind

Whether you can reliably make Wednesdays at 8:30pm BST

Whether you are comfortable with a mature dark fantasy world containing gore, cruelty, prejudice, and morally compromised factions

Feel free to comment questions below before applying.

A cataclysm has broken the old world.

The empire is fleeing across the ocean with warships, soldiers, and supply fleets. Refugees follow in overcrowded ships. Merchants form floating economies. Criminal flotillas gather those abandoned by power.

Somewhere beyond the sea is a rumoured new world.

This campaign begins as a desperate ocean crossing and grows into a gritty naval sandbox about survival, faction politics, strange islands, settlement, and the cost of building something new from the wreckage of the old.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m looking for players for an upcoming D&D campaign set in a dark Age of Sail fantasy world.

The campaign starts with the party caught inside a much larger movement of people, powers, and desperate factions crossing the ocean after the collapse of the old continent. At first, you will be passengers, recruits, survivors, prisoners, allies, enemies, or opportunists swept along by events bigger than yourselves. Over time, the campaign will open into a broader naval sandbox shaped by exploration, faction politics, dangerous expeditions, strange islands, and the choices the party makes.

This is a campaign about survival, power, loyalty, fear, ambition, and what people become when the old rules stop holding the world together.

System: D&D 5e
Format: Online
Timezone: UK / BST
Schedule: TBC, likely UK evening
Age: 25+
Tools: Discord for voice, VTT/maps = Alchemy, AI-assisted art/maps/scene references for atmosphere and rapid sandbox prep

What the campaign is about

The sea will matter. Voyages will involve navigation, storms, scarcity, hostile ships, strange phenomena, and the constant question of where safety can actually be found.

Factions will matter. Imperial forces, refugee groups, merchant interests, criminal flotillas, island settlements, and other powers will all have their own priorities. None are purely good. None are purely safe. The party’s choices may create allies, enemies, debts, betrayals, and consequences that follow them across the campaign.

Ships will matter. They will not just be transport, but platforms for combat, navigation, logistics, upgrades, crew management, and bastion-like downtime mechanics. A ship can become a home, weapon, refuge, or lifeline... but ships are not guaranteed, invulnerable, or immune to loss.

Exploration will matter. The campaign will include island-hopping, scouting missions, ruins, new settlements, dangerous shores, unknown peoples, supernatural mysteries, and the slow discovery of what lies beyond the ocean.

Character stakes will matter. I’m especially interested in characters with something personal tying them to the collapse of the old world: someone they lost, something they are fleeing, a duty they still believe in, a faction they distrust, a debt they owe, or a reason they might want to help build something new.

Expect opportunities to play as survivors, agents, deserters, prisoners, scouts, negotiators, troublemakers, reluctant heroes, or ambitious opportunists. People trying to carve meaning, power, or safety out of a world that has stopped making sense.

The campaign will involve dangerous voyages, shipboard crises, strange shores, faction entanglements, hard choices, and the gradual discovery of what lies beyond the old maps.

What to expect as a player

This campaign will give characters reasons to matter beyond simply winning fights. The player characters must be useful because the world is unstable, dangerous, and short on people who can act decisively.

You might be the person who can read a map when the fleet is lost, negotiate with a hostile island settlement, keep order among frightened refugees, command a cannon crew, scout a dangerous shore, repair a damaged ship, expose a faction’s lie, heal the wounded, steal what the party needs to survive, or decide which desperate group deserves help when there is not enough to go around.

Expect:

- Naval travel, shipboard crises, and Age of Sail-inspired combat
- Faction politics between imperial, criminal, merchant, refugee, and settlement powers
- Strange islands, dangerous expeditions, and unexplored shores
- Resource pressure, crew tension, and survival decisions
- Supernatural mysteries, psychological dread, and unreliable information
- Violent combat where consequences matter
- Ships as tools for travel, combat, logistics, upgrades, and downtime
- A world that reacts to player choices
- Character-driven roleplay with moral complexity

You do not need to make a sailor or pirate. In fact, the campaign will work best with characters who bring different kinds of value to a desperate crossing.

Good character concepts could include cartographers, refugees, criminals, merchants, priests, scholars, exiles, scouts, mercenaries, failed nobles, disgraced officers, healers, engineers, artisans, interpreters, quartermasters, monster hunters, diplomats, spies, escaped prisoners, or ordinary people forced into extraordinary events.

The best characters will have something to offer and something to lose. A skill, a secret, a loyalty, a debt, a faith, a grudge, a duty, a lost family, a ruined homeland, or a reason to believe the new world might be worth reaching.

What this campaign is not

This is not a light pirate romp, treasure-hunting comedy, or swashbuckling adventure. There may be criminals, raiders, ships, sea battles, taverns, songs, and bad decisions, but the campaign is more dark survival fantasy than pirate fantasy.

That said, the darkness will not be constant misery. It will be interspersed with moments of humour, warmth, and comic relief, often through companion NPCs, shipboard personalities, strange encounters, and the absurdity that comes from desperate people trying to survive impossible circumstances.

Player expectations

I’m looking for players who are:

Comfortable with mature, gritty fantasy
Interested in roleplay as well as combat
Able to make characters who care about the world
Happy with moral complexity and imperfect factions
Interested in survival, exploration, and faction consequences
Collaborative rather than chaotic-for-the-sake-of-it
Respectful out of character, even when characters clash in game

Newer players are welcome if they are engaged, reliable, and interested in the tone.

Application

If interested, please send me a dm but also comment below to let me know you have:

Name / age / timezone
Your D&D experience level
What kind of character you usually enjoy playing
What interests you about this campaign pitch
A rough character concept, if one comes to mind
Whether you are comfortable with a mature dark fantasy world containing gore, cruelty, prejudice, and morally compromised factions

Feel free to comment questions below before applying.

A cataclysm has broken the old world.

The empire is fleeing across the ocean with warships, soldiers, and supply fleets. Refugees follow in overcrowded ships. Merchants form floating economies. Criminal flotillas gather those abandoned by power.

Somewhere beyond the sea is a rumoured new world.

This campaign begins as a desperate ocean crossing and grows into a gritty naval sandbox about survival, faction politics, strange islands, settlement, and the cost of building something new from the wreckage of the old.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m looking for players for an upcoming D&D campaign set in a dark Age of Sail fantasy world.

The campaign starts with the party caught inside a much larger movement of people, powers, and desperate factions crossing the ocean after the collapse of the old continent. At first, you will be passengers, recruits, survivors, prisoners, allies, enemies, or opportunists swept along by events bigger than yourselves. Over time, the campaign will open into a broader naval sandbox shaped by exploration, faction politics, dangerous expeditions, strange islands, and the choices the party makes.

This is a campaign about survival, power, loyalty, fear, ambition, and what people become when the old rules stop holding the world together.

System: D&D 5e
Format: Online
Timezone: UK / BST
Schedule: TBC, likely UK evening
Age: 25+
Tools: Discord for voice, VTT/maps = Alchemy, AI-assisted art/maps/scene references for atmosphere and rapid sandbox prep

What the campaign is about

The sea will matter. Voyages will involve navigation, storms, scarcity, hostile ships, strange phenomena, and the constant question of where safety can actually be found.

Factions will matter. Imperial forces, refugee groups, merchant interests, criminal flotillas, island settlements, and other powers will all have their own priorities. None are purely good. None are purely safe. The party’s choices may create allies, enemies, debts, betrayals, and consequences that follow them across the campaign.

Ships will matter. They will not just be transport, but platforms for combat, navigation, logistics, upgrades, crew management, and bastion-like downtime mechanics. A ship can become a home, weapon, refuge, or lifeline... but ships are not guaranteed, invulnerable, or immune to loss.

Exploration will matter. The campaign will include island-hopping, scouting missions, ruins, new settlements, dangerous shores, unknown peoples, supernatural mysteries, and the slow discovery of what lies beyond the ocean.

Character stakes will matter. I’m especially interested in characters with something personal tying them to the collapse of the old world: someone they lost, something they are fleeing, a duty they still believe in, a faction they distrust, a debt they owe, or a reason they might want to help build something new.

Expect opportunities to play as survivors, agents, deserters, prisoners, scouts, negotiators, troublemakers, reluctant heroes, or ambitious opportunists. People trying to carve meaning, power, or safety out of a world that has stopped making sense.

The campaign will involve dangerous voyages, shipboard crises, strange shores, faction entanglements, hard choices, and the gradual discovery of what lies beyond the old maps.

What to expect as a player

This campaign will give characters reasons to matter beyond simply winning fights. The player characters must be useful because the world is unstable, dangerous, and short on people who can act decisively.

You might be the person who can read a map when the fleet is lost, negotiate with a hostile island settlement, keep order among frightened refugees, command a cannon crew, scout a dangerous shore, repair a damaged ship, expose a faction’s lie, heal the wounded, steal what the party needs to survive, or decide which desperate group deserves help when there is not enough to go around.

Expect:

- Naval travel, shipboard crises, and Age of Sail-inspired combat
- Faction politics between imperial, criminal, merchant, refugee, and settlement powers
- Strange islands, dangerous expeditions, and unexplored shores
- Resource pressure, crew tension, and survival decisions
- Supernatural mysteries, psychological dread, and unreliable information
- Violent combat where consequences matter
- Ships as tools for travel, combat, logistics, upgrades, and downtime
- A world that reacts to player choices
- Character-driven roleplay with moral complexity

You do not need to make a sailor or pirate. In fact, the campaign will work best with characters who bring different kinds of value to a desperate crossing.

Good character concepts could include cartographers, refugees, criminals, merchants, priests, scholars, exiles, scouts, mercenaries, failed nobles, disgraced officers, healers, engineers, artisans, interpreters, quartermasters, monster hunters, diplomats, spies, escaped prisoners, or ordinary people forced into extraordinary events.

The best characters will have something to offer and something to lose. A skill, a secret, a loyalty, a debt, a faith, a grudge, a duty, a lost family, a ruined homeland, or a reason to believe the new world might be worth reaching.

What this campaign is not

This is not a light pirate romp, treasure-hunting comedy, or swashbuckling adventure. There may be criminals, raiders, ships, sea battles, taverns, songs, and bad decisions, but the campaign is more dark survival fantasy than pirate fantasy.

That said, the darkness will not be constant misery. It will be interspersed with moments of humour, warmth, and comic relief, often through companion NPCs, shipboard personalities, strange encounters, and the absurdity that comes from desperate people trying to survive impossible circumstances.

Player expectations

I’m looking for players who are:

Comfortable with mature, gritty fantasy
Interested in roleplay as well as combat
Able to make characters who care about the world
Happy with moral complexity and imperfect factions
Interested in survival, exploration, and faction consequences
Collaborative rather than chaotic-for-the-sake-of-it
Respectful out of character, even when characters clash in game

Newer players are welcome if they are engaged, reliable, and interested in the tone.

Application

If interested, please send me a dm but also comment below to let me know you have:

Name / age / timezone
Your D&D experience level
What kind of character you usually enjoy playing
What interests you about this campaign pitch
A rough character concept, if one comes to mind
Whether you are comfortable with a mature dark fantasy world containing gore, cruelty, prejudice, and morally compromised factions

Feel free to comment questions below before applying.