u/prophetofreach

The Witnessed Lands — a slow-burn, horror-tinged D&D 5e play-by-post (Discord)

The Witnessed Lands have always been at war. Not the same war — kingdoms rise, draw their borders in blood, and fall, and another takes their place — but war all the same, returning like a tide that never quite goes out. The histories call these the Cycles. Scholars argue over how many there have been. Common folk simply know that peace, when it comes, is only the pause between one catastrophe and the next.

You begin in the middle of the latest one. Thermark and Verenthi, two old rivals, have taken up arms again, and the machinery of war grinds forward the way it always has — levies raised, supply lines drawn, the dead counted and then forgotten. To most, it's just another war. But a comet has risen in the sky — the Pale Witness, the almanacs name it — and where it climbs, the gods seem to grow quiet. Prayers that once kindled go cold. Healers watch their miracles fail by degrees. Something is thinning, and no one with power will say what.

You are not heroes. Not yet, anyway. You are people the world hasn't bothered to notice — soldiers and scholars, the faithful and the faithless, the desperate and the merely curious — pulled together as the seams of an ordinary war begin, very quietly, to show something underneath. The Witnessed Lands are called that for a reason the living have forgotten. And this cycle, for the first time in a very long while, something is different.

This is a game about what it costs to keep a world turning. About memory you can't quite trust, history that won't stay buried, and the slow dread of realizing the ground under an ordinary life was never as solid as it looked.

A few things about the world. This is a custom setting, so a heads-up on what departs from default 5e: the gods are entirely my own — a pantheon built for this world, not the standard ones — so if you're playing a cleric, paladin, warlock, or anyone with a faith, your deity comes from my list and I'll walk you through it. The world's history, its nations, and its cosmology are likewise bespoke. It'll also feature some custom backgrounds tailored to this world, which you're welcome to take but never required to — standard published backgrounds are perfectly fine if one of them fits your character better. You don't need to study any of it before applying; bring a concept and a hook, and I'll give you the grounding your character would realistically know once you're in. The short version: come with an open slate, and don't worry about clashing with established lore — there's no canon here but ours.

How it runs. Play-by-post on Discord — asynchronous and text-based, so you contribute around your own schedule instead of locking down a weekly slot. We use Avrae for dice and mechanics, which means characters live on D&D Beyond (preferred) — or Dicecloud v2 or a Google Sheet if you'd rather not use DDB, anything Avrae can read, set to publicly viewable. I'm accepting most published 5e content, and I don't mind whether you build on the 2014 or 2024 rules; mix within reason and we'll sort any edge cases together.

Who I'm looking for. 4-5 Players of every experience level are welcome. What I ask for in return is maturity and respect: maturity because of the tone (more on that below), and respect because play-by-post lives or dies on a table that treats each other, and the shared story, with care. Reliability matters more than speed — a thoughtful post every few days beats a rushed one every hour.

Content warning (Not rated E for everyone). This campaign leans into horror-adjacent themes and will, at points, touch on concepts some players may find disturbing. I won't spoil specifics here, but no one selected goes in blind: before play begins, everyone joining gets a clear, honest picture of the kinds of content involved, and we'll set lines and veils together, so the table stays somewhere everyone actually wants to be. The horror is meant to unsettle — never to harm.
(This adventure will NOT feature disturbing content of a sexual nature!!!)

If that's your kind of game, Send me a DM with a little about yourself: your experience with 5e, what draws you to a darker, slower-burn story, and any character concept rattling around your head. I read everything and I'll follow up.

A note on transparency: this world is a living work in progress. The foundation is built and ready to run, and play-by-post's pace is exactly what lets me keep expanding it as we go — the campaign deepens alongside the story.

What is the point in the physical card? I've literally never had it work and it always tells me to go into the app to set up a plan before I buy.

Then you go into the app and set up a plan, just for it to give you a one time virtual card to use on the transaction.

Am I using it wrong? I've tried twice now to use it like a visa and it didn't work.