Hello

I'm a reasonably seasoned DM looking for a few players to join the crew in our homebrew 5e (2015) game. For the sake of saving everyone some time, I'm going to start with requirements, and if you fit those requirements, read on to see if you're actually interested in the game. Also, when you send me a DM, include the phrase "water under the bridge," so I can tell that you actually read through this.

Requirements:

must be CONSISTENTLY available on Saturday nights at 6pm EST, please check your schedule before applying. This is game night, we play for three to four hours every Saturday. You'd be surprised how many people have spent hours of my time working on their characters and tying their backstories to the game only to actually not be available for game night. Please do not be that guy.

must be willing to work with me to make a character which works in the context of the setting and the game, it would be best if you didn't come in with a highly specific character in mind, as it might not make sense or be well suited to the campaign itself.

must be alright with conflict, loss, and even potentially character death. You are of course allowed to be sad about it, but you have to be able to accept such things as part of the game as we play it.

must be willing to make a proactive character with goals rooted in the game world, I don't care if your dream is as monumental as ruling the world or as seemingly small as running a bakery, only that you have objectives and are willing to work towards them.

must play well with others.

must have discord and a microphone, we play on roll20 and use discord for voice.

18+

The game/campaign itself:

My campaign is an a bit of an acquired taste and I wouldn't expect all players to enjoy it. It is extremely intrigue and RP heavy, to the point where so many people, places, events, and things get mentioned and become factors in the plot that excellent note keeping is a near requirement if one wishes to understand what is going on. As an aside, please include the phrase "turns the waterwheel" in your DM to show that you've read this far. The players have exceptional latitude to change the world, and frequently do at both the micro and macro levels, however; they also have exactly as much freedom to get themselves into trouble, and I don't pull punches with that sort of thing. Every action has consequences, but they aren't always bad, and many retired PCs are important NPCs in the setting. This is largely why making proactive characters is so important: it is actually possible to do whatever you want to, as long as you are strong enough to get it, so actually having a solid idea of what your character really wants is a vitally important factor.

If this sounds interesting to you, and you fit the requirements, please respond to the survey then send me a DM, I will try to send you a link to the discord server as quickly as possible so we can talk.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdU6Qwer8SehCHor_FF5dNB1nHn0253q0dLcQ425GOuUBDl_A/viewform?usp=dialog

“The world does not care if you survive. The question is what remains of you when it is finished.”

Greetings Travelers,

I am looking for a small group of players interested in a long-term, roleplay-first, play-by-post D&D 5e grimdark fantasy campaign.

If you are looking for a heroic dungeon crawl where the party always wins, evil is clearly defined, and the world bends around your character’s importance, this will likely not be the game for you.

This is a campaign about desperate people surviving in a cruel world filled with war, hunger, corruption, monsters, faith, betrayal, disease, exploitation, and horrors that do not always grant the mercy of death.

Think Berserk, Goblin Slayer, Darkest Dungeon, Fear & Hunger, and grounded medieval horror fantasy.

The Setting

The campaign takes place in a harsh fantasy world where civilization survives by inches, not miles. 

Kingdoms rot from within, noble houses sell their honor for power, and churches preach salvation while hiding graves beneath their floors; villages simply vanish from maps; monsters stalk the roads; and Mercenary companies, cults, bandits, corrupt lords, and worse prey upon those too weak to resist.

Magic exists, but it is not clean or safe. Divine power may answer prayers, but gods are distant, silent, or cruel. Ancient ruins promise treasure, but they also carry curses, madness, and truths mortals were never meant to know.

From afar, the world may still look beautiful: candlelit cathedrals, ancient castles, misty forests, harvest festivals, noble courts, and songs of heroes long dead.

Then you step off the main road and see the truth.

• Someone’s child was taken last night.
• Someone’s village paid tribute to monsters to survive winter.
• Someone sold their soul for food.
• Someone came back from the woods changed.
• Someone begged for death and was denied it.

That is the world I want to explore: beauty, horror, hope, despair, faith, corruption, and the people caught somewhere in between.

The Story

This is not a campaign about saving the world; this world may already be too broken for that.

This is a campaign about surviving it, changing within it, and deciding what lines your character will cross before the end.

Your characters are not legendary heroes at the beginning. They are people with wounds, debts, fears, desires, sins, loyalties, and reasons to keep going.

You might be:

• A disgraced knight trying to reclaim honor.
• A peasant who survived something no one believes.
• A hedge mage hiding from the church.
• A sellsword drowning guilt in coin and blood.
• A runaway noble hunted by their own family.
• A priest whose faith is cracking.
• A survivor of a massacre who wants revenge.
• A thief trying to buy freedom.
• A monster hunter who fears becoming worse than the things they kill.

Everyone starts somewhere, and in this campaign, that “somewhere” is not glory. But rather it is mud, hunger, fear, debt, grief, and desperation.

Before the party fully comes together, we will spend time grounding each character in the world: their life, relationships, fears, flaws, obligations, and reasons to continue. The group will then be brought together through circumstances that feel natural rather than forced.

You may play multiple characters over the course of the campaign due to death, retirement, corruption, capture, hiatus, or story reasons, but you may only actively play up to two characters at any given time.

What I’m Looking For

More than anything, I want players who enjoy becoming their characters.

I want people who love conversations as much as combat. Players who message each other after a battle because their characters need to talk. Players who build relationships, rivalries, romances, grudges, loyalties, fears, and complicated histories without waiting for the GM to hand them everything.

Some of the best roleplay does not happen during combat.

• It happens around a dying campfire after a terrible victory.
• It happens when the cleric admits their prayers feel empty.
• It happens when the fighter cannot sleep after what they did.
• It happens when the rogue finally tells someone the truth.
• It happens when the party argues over whether mercy was weakness.
• It happens when someone realizes that survival costs them something they cannot get back.

Those are the moments I am here for.

Morality

I do not expect your characters to be heroes.

In fact, I would rather they were not clean, perfect, or untouched by the world.

This setting produces survivors, zealots, cowards, martyrs, killers, liars, saints, monsters, and people who are not sure which one they are becoming.

Your character may do terrible things. They may lie, steal, kill, betray, sacrifice, abandon, or compromise their morals to survive.

What matters is that those choices feel earned.

I am not interested in random murder, pointless cruelty, or “that’s what my character would do” as an excuse to derail the game or make things miserable for other players.

If your character crosses a line, there should be a reason behind it.

Their choices should come from who they are, what they have endured, what they fear, what they love, and what they are trying to protect or achieve.

In this campaign, your choices matter.

• Your reputation matters.
• Your relationships matter.
• Your faith matters.
• Your sanity matters.
• Your soul matters.

Mature Themes, ERP, and NSFW Content

This is an 18+ campaign.

This world contains many of the darkest elements of humanity and fantasy horror.

The campaign may include violence, gore, torture, body horror, psychological horror, slavery, exploitation, abuse, corruption, religious extremism, war crimes, starvation, disease, madness, sexual themes, romance, ERP, and consequences worse than death.

These themes are not included for shock value or smut for the sake of smut.

They exist because this is a grimdark world where evil is ugly, suffering has weight, and survival can leave scars deeper than death.

ERP exists in the campaign, but it is optional and must be consensual between all involved players. Explicit ERP will be handled in private channels only. Public channels will use implication, aftermath, emotional framing, or fade-to-black where appropriate.

This is not meant to blur player and character boundaries. I do expect applicants to be comfortable with their characters experiencing horrifying encounters that one should never wish upon another, whether fade-to-black or roleplayed by player consent. 

This is not a space to harass players, pressure people, or use “in character” behavior as an excuse for out-of-character misconduct. Anyone who does so will be removed.

This is intended to be a safe space to explore more mature and darker elements of life that we wouldn’t wish to encounter in real life and how one survives and overcomes them. It is not meant to encourage, promote, or glorify behaviors taken by the creatures of the world. 

There will be mechanics provided within the form that will cover over all of the core mechanics expanded upon for this section of play, I have converted some of it into text cause the original PDF is very “suggestive art” heavy and VERY NSFW. 

Before joining, all applicants will complete a form covering expectations, boundaries, content comfort, Lines & Veils, NSFW preferences, and safety tools. This campaign will not have many hard restrictions by default, so it is important that players understand what kind of game they are applying for before joining.

Rules

We will be using D&D 5e 2014 and 2024, with house rules designed to support a slower, grittier, more grounded fantasy experience.

This will not feel like a standard heroic fantasy campaign.

The ruleset will include adjustments for things such as:

• Gritty rests.
• Downtime progression.
• Lingering consequences.
• Sanity and corruption.
• Injuries and recovery.
• Travel and survival.
• Relationship development.
• Reputation.
• Slower pacing.
• ERP Mechanics
• More grounded character growth.

The goal is not to make the game miserable or punish players for existing but rather they exist to make the world feel dangerous, natural, and consequential.

Combat should feel like something characters survive, not something they casually farm for experience.

Downtime matters. Travel matters. Rest matters. Wounds matter. Food, coin, shelter, allies, reputation, and trust all matter.

Your character will grow through more than leveling. They may train, study, heal, break, recover, build bonds, lose faith, find purpose, or become something they never expected.

Play-by-Post

This is an asynchronous play-by-post campaign.

I work full-time, so there will be times when I cannot immediately respond as GM.

That does not mean the roleplay stops.

One of my biggest philosophies with PbP is that idle typing is the death of a campaign.

If the party is waiting on combat, travel, or a GM post, characters can still speak by the fire, tend wounds, pray, argue, write letters, train, confess fears, seek comfort, share food, or sit in silence after something terrible happened.

I want the world to feel alive throughout the week, not only when I post.

The players should create stories together just as often as I create stories for them.

Who This Game Is For

You will probably enjoy this campaign if you:

• Love deep character roleplay.
• Enjoy collaborative storytelling more than “winning.”
• Want your backstory to matter.
• Enjoy slow-burn character development.
• Like moral ambiguity and meaningful consequences.
• Enjoy setbacks as much as victories.
• Can handle uncomfortable themes maturely.
• Want relationships with the party to matter.
• Enjoy grounded fantasy horror.
• Are comfortable with adult themes being discussed.
• Want downtime, travel, wounds, fear, and survival to matter.
• Are interested in exploring what a character becomes under pressure.

This is not a power fantasy.

This is not a game where the party becomes untouchable legends overnight.

This is not a campaign where the world exists to praise your character.

But if you want to spend months telling the story of broken, desperate, flawed people trying to survive a world that devours the weak…

I would love to hear from you.

Here is the forum link. Please set aside time to read through it carefully. I went in-depth on expectations and alignment intentionally, because this kind of campaign requires everyone to understand what they are agreeing to before play begins: https://forms.gle/NvSzkfZ1Y5jNFjR39

Once united under the Enothian Empire, the continent now stands divided. A generation ago, the Emperor died leaving behind twin heirs and no named successor. Their struggle for the throne ignited a brutal civil war. It ended only when both heirs perished, leaving the empire with no ruler and no will to continue fighting.

In the decades since, Enoth fractured. Noble houses, city-states, and powerful factions now rule their own territories, settling old grudges and guarding new power. Every person alive remembers the war, either living through its chaos or growing up in its shadow.

Yet the old faith remains. Across Enoth, people still honor the Fourteen Twins, paired gods who embody opposing truths: war and strategy, secrets and revelation, life and storm, death and undeath. Though the gods remain silent, their influence can be found everywhere.

Your story begins in Rötterhof, a rowdy and corrupt port city that survived the empire’s collapse by becoming indispensable. Its twin docks bring in coin, its markets bring in trouble, and its ruling Council of Chairs keeps the city stable only so long as profit flows.

When citizens need a problem solved quietly, or violently, they often turn to the city’s adventurers rather than its mechanical guards.

Your party begins as newly sponsored members of the Crimson Coins, one of Rötterhof’s established adventuring companies. Together you’ll build your reputation through contracts, promotions, and the relationships you forge across the city.

Here, your party will take on jobs of all sizes: monster hunts, escort work, investigations, recovery missions, oddities the Cogs won’t touch, and favors for the powerful. Some tasks will be simple. Others will drag you into the city’s twisted politics, old imperial grudges, or forgotten truths best left buried.

This is a land of fractured crowns, silent gods, and mirrored destinies, a continent still healing from the war that split it in two.

Welcome to the Crimson Coins.

Welcome to Rötterhof.

Hi! I'm hoping to get 4-5 players together for a neat guild-based bounty campaign. I'm a huge handout heavy DM and so I love making actual bounty boards with written out quests so I decided to make a whole campaign based around that concept.

We'll be using Discord for voice and DnD Beyond for pretty much everything else. The primer is just a small snippet, this is a homebrew world with a lot but I won't bore you with the details, I'm thinking of doing one-on-one character creation with all the players to really tie your characters to the world and you can sort of learn the world through playing by having in-character conversations.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, I made a neat little Google Form just to have all the applications in one place, please fill it out when you can. Thanks and hoep to play with you!

"It is now the year 825 PD, during the fourth age in the world of Exandria...

Far in the Eastern seas, past the persistent fogbank known as the Fool's Curtain, a major archipelago invites seekers of adventure and fortune; The Shattered Teeth.

Inspired by legendary champions 10 years prior, many aspiring adventurers all across Exandria set off towards the islands shrouded in mystery, each hoping to earn their fame and fortune, and make their mark to become legends as well..."

Howdy, my name is Kenny!
I'm a long time TTRPG player that has played D&D 5e (2014), Star Wars RPGs, and Shadowrun for just over a decade.

After taking a long hiatus from GM-ing, I wanted to get back into the saddle again by kicking off with a campaign idea I've had for ages: A swash-buckling adventure set in the world of Critical Role, but with Samurais and Pirates!

The best way to imagine what to expect in this setting is a combination of feudal Asian culture and Pirates of the Caribbean, peppered with a Princess Mononoke-aesthetic.

We've got both Samurai and Pirates galore, which not only means swashbuckling with magical katanas and flintlock pistols, but also complex political drama, warring feudal clans, as well as fairy tale adventures involving both bizarre and/or horrifying asian-inspired mythological creatures like Yōkai!

If you are interested in applying as a player and want to know more, I humbly ask that you fill out the attached Player Survey linked below:

Pre-Campaign Player Survey Google Form

After filling out this Player Survey Google Form, please DM me or leave a comment below with your Name, Discord Username and/or your character name/concept.
Thank you, and I hope to hear from you all soon!