Prelude

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For the past several weeks, the talk of the streets and taverns has all been about the so-called death curse: a wasting disease afflicting everyone who's ever been raised from the dead. Victims grow thinner and weaker each day, slowly but steadily sliding toward the death they once denied. When they finally succumb, they can't be raised – and neither can anyone else, regardless of whether they've ever received that miracle in the past.

Temples and scholars of divine magic are at a loss to explain a curse that has affected the entire region, and possibly the entire world.

Will you be the ones to solve this crisis? Or will you be yet more victims of it?

Who are you?

Character Creation

1. Choose a background. All available backgrounds are gathered here (See Backgrounds tab). If you wish to change a skill for another that makes sense feel free.
2. Complete your background by choosing 2 traits, and 1 of each of ideals, bonds, and flaws. (You can also choose a race if you want). If you do not have access to a specific background, feel free to ask me for it.
3. In short terms, create one person that you care for, and one that is your 'rival'. For example: Jane, my older sister, who raised me after our parents died, and Austin, my brother, who stole the love of my life away from me. Or Captain Cahuna, who promoted me to sergeant, and Duke Wellington, who knows I know his dirty, little secret, and wants me dead.
4. If you want to create a reason your character would be directly invested in the adventure (such as maybe a family member or friend dying from the death curse, or anything else), feel free to discuss it with me.
5. Use the stats tab in the link above to determine your starting statistics.
6. Consider the following questions:
   • If you could be anyone in a fantasy world – any person, any origin, any abilities - who would you be?
   • And, more to the point, how do you solve problems? Do you know a spell for every occasion? Are you always ready for a fight? Can you talk your way out of anything? Are you able to sneak past anyone in your way?
7. Choose a race and class (You can choose race and class before making your stats if you want, refer to the appropriate tabs).
8. Level yourself to level 2. For ways to roll HP, refer to the Special Rules tab. For the first level-up, we will do this in person.
9. Equip yourself! You either get what's listed in the class and background, or the maximum result possible with rolling, determined by your class.
10. Choose at least the broad strokes for a backup character. This is a deadly adventure.
11. Send your character to me, along with the idea (or maybe even a full sheet) for your backup character..
12. ...
13. Profit?

And that's it. You should now be ready. Are you really, though?

Welcome to Chult

A breeding ground for bloodsucking, disease-bearing insects, monstrous reptiles, carnivorous birds and beasts of every variety, and murderous undead. The farther one moves from the coast, the more humid, hot, and inhospitable the land becomes.

With the exception of a few coastal settlements, Chult is untamed tropical wilderness: dense jungles and snaky rivers ringed by mountains, volcanoes, and sheer escarpments. Walls of mountains to the west, south, and east shield the interior from the sea and from the view of sailors. The rivers are so sluggish that it can be difficult determining which direction is upstream and which is down. The rivers pick up speed only where they thunder down through steep-sided gorges.

Travel Distances

On your map of Chult, each hex measures 10 miles across. By moving at a normal pace you can travel 1 hex per day on foot through coastal, jungle, mountain, swamp, or wasteland terrain. You can travel 2 hexes per day if you're traveling by canoe on a river or lake. The rate of travel up or down river is the same; the rivers are so sluggish that the current is almost imperceptible. Without canoes, the normal rate of travel along a river is the same as through the surrounding terrain. Canoes move 1 hex per day through swamps.

If you move at a fast pace, there is a chance that you advance 1 additional hex that day. Moving at a fast pace makes you more likely to miss clues and walk into ambushes.

If you set a slow pace, there is a chance that you advance 1 fewer hex that day (in other words, 1 hex by canoe or none by foot). Moving at a slow pace lets you move stealthily. As long as you're not in the open, you can try to surprise or sneak by other creatures you encounter.

Guides

While you may think a guide is costly and not particularly useful, they have the added benefit of knowing the jungle and how things work in it. While a character's Survival modifier might be higher than a guide's, having someone to answer your questions or prevent you from making fatal mistakes could prove life-saving.

Navigation

You must designate a single navigator each day.

At the start of each new travel day, the DM makes a Wisdom (Survival) check on behalf of the navigator.

Moving at a fast pace makes it harder to navigate, while moving at a slow pace makes it easier. The faster you go, the more likely you are to attract unwanted attention.

Resting

In a place that's crawling with lethal creatures and strange phenomena, finding a secure camp site is vital to survival.

When sleeping in an area exposed to the jungle's elements, characters don't regain hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, a character can spend Hit Dice to heal at the end of a long rest, just as with a short rest. As stated, this rule does not apply if the characters spend a long rest in a city, underground, or in a relatively intact building.

This rule prolongs the amount of time that characters need to recover from their wounds without the benefits of magical healing and works well for grittier, more realistic campaigns. It is a more relaxed version of Slow Natural Healing optional rule found in the Dungeon Master's Guide, rewarding players for sleeping in secure areas and is subject to change if the DM deems the game is too rough.

Tracking Resources

You must keep track of your rations or food, along with your water supply. You can select a single person to keep track of these for the party, pooling your water containers and rations together.

Water

Chult is a hot, harsh place, and you need plenty of water to stay hydrated. The water found in rivers and on the ground is probably unfit for drinking.

At the end of each day, those of you who haven’t drunk at least 2 gallons of fresh water must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or suffer 1 level of exhaustion. The saving throw is made with disadvantage if you are wearing medium armor, heavy armor, or heavy clothing. Traveling at a fast pace instead of a normal or slow pace, induces a penalty on your saving throws against dehydration.

Food

A character requires a single ration per day of adventuring, or 1 pound of food.

While the characters can forage to survive on the wilderness, they also can hunt down and kill a beast to harvest the meat and use it as food. The meat they yield spoils after two days if uneaten. Eating spoiled meat might require a Constitution saving throw to avoid throwing up the food or getting diseased.

A character can make a Wisdom (Survival) check to try to collect meat as food. The amount of meat harvested is determined by the creature size, as shown in the creature food yield table below.

Keep in mind that carrying a decent amount of food that isn't rations might attract unwanted attention.

Creature Food Yield by Size

Keep in mind not all creatures are safe to eat.

Ammunition

You are not required to track ammo. Buy 100 at the start, and you can make it last forever by picking up arrows/bolts and fixing those that have broken.

Weight

You are not required to track weight, within reason. Carrying a dozen large items, such as two-handed weapons or armors, is not reasonable. Gold weight will not matter, again within reason.

Foraging for Food and/or Water

Characters can gather food and water as the party travels at a normal or slow pace. A foraging character makes a DC 15 Wisdom (Survival) check to find food, whether in a river or on land.

If multiple characters forage, each character makes a separate check. A foraging character finds nothing on a failed check. On a successful check, roll 1d6 + the character's Wisdom modifier to determine how much food (in pounds) the character finds, then repeat the roll for water (in gallons).

Setting

This is set in the Forgotten Realms, after the Spellplague. You don't need to know what that means, but if you want to pick a home town you can choose one yourself, or you can search your race on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, the quick info on the right will tell you their homelands.

The starting city will be Mirabar, you can find a reason for you to be there, or not. If you choose not to, I will provide means for you to gather with the rest of the party.

You can also decide you want to be a Chult local. In which case I can provide you with some information on Port Nyanzaru, and maybe a few other bits of information. You will not have the same level of knowledge as a guide would, as you are only level 2, therefore would not have explored Chult very much, if at all.

Gods

As this is set in the Forgotten Realms, I suggest that you please limit yourself to the gods in the Player's Handbook in the Forgotten Realms section. If you really want to use another god you can, it would just make less sense.