Mundus II: Dark Discoveries

"This world has been forgotten. All is lost."

One hundred and fourty years ago, the sun cease to rise. Collectively, the churches and priests throughout the realm lost their divine connections and the world was plunged into an eerie, eternal darkness. The humans, elves, and other surface-dwelling races fled into the earth, with the dwarves and gnomes. Many died as the surface became a snow-ridden wasteland, the cities of the dwarves became overcrowded, the drow were pushed back to extinction, and food supplies dwindled. The survivors of the apocalypse above now live in the darkness below, without their gods to comfort and guide them. The future, both before and after death, is uncertain.

Today, the world is becoming adjusted to the new reality. The different races have founded and retainer their differing factions and settlements, mimicing their old life above ground. But, food is scarce, violence is normalized, and the creatures of the Underdark have not taken kindly to their new neighbors. In the absence of divinity, many have turned to technology and extra-planar forces, as forms of power and even as religions in these dire times. Civilization has advanced and declined in new ways simultaneously, modern life is a strange parody of the old ways, still fresh in the minds of the older generations.

The world is dark and filled with danger, but it is rife with opportunity in the same regard. Be it fortune, glory, might, unity, peace, any other principle or lack there of, the world is in need of direction. Take the plunge, & rise above.

Campaign Style

This campaign is set in a recovering apocalyptic society, where the sun has dimmed and the gods have left. Society is surrounded by danger and the unknown, both above and below. The campaign features a unique physical and political landscape, with humanity in decline and the races more suited to underground life (dwarves, kobolds, gnomes, etc.) being just as common.

The party is a group of adventurers, as is standard, and will be free to roam Mundus in a very open-world manner. The gameplay mixture between combat, exploration, and roleplaying is fairly balanced between the three. It can and will lean in the direction the group takes it. There will be plenty of sidequesting opportunities alongside a central story plot that will progress over time, with or without you.

This campaign will feature survival elements. They won't usually be central, but food is scarce and the world is filled with disease and danger. The wealth of a successful adventurer allows you to ignore a good deal of this at a price, but getting lost or running out of food on an expedition is a potential threat. This is in addition to the general scarcity of healing magic with no divinity. There will be the need for some planning on the party's part to make sure they are being wise with their resources.

Given the free-roam style of Mundus, there will be much more opportunity for personal goals. There will be a central plot, open ended with choices to make, but having character drive beyond this is highly encouraged.

Player Buy-In

All players will start at level 4. Your characters are fairly experienced and considered capable adventurers. This campaign will be a long one, but because of the free roam nature, it's hard to tell exactly when it will end. It should finalize at the end of tier 3 or early in tier 4 of play.

Players must create a defined character that fits into the world. There are many different factions and groups to come from, details can be found here. This includes custom backgrounds, factions, and plenty of homebrew. The setting is still in development, however, and I would love to integrate your ideas into the world.

However, character class has specific restrictions due to lore. No Clerics, Paladins, Druids, or other divine/nature based class or sub-class period, for thematic consistancy and balance.

Rangers still exist in a modified form to be more arcane. There will be plenty of homebrew content available to make up for this. Healing magic will be quite rare, but healing potions are very common and relatively cheap. Mana potions will also exist for all spell casters to use.

Characters must be willing to deal with difficult circumstances and a harsh reality of life. Many people are willing to undercut others for survival and this includes the party. Xenophobia, thievery, betrayal, and social manipulation are present in the world and players must be willing to play in a game featuring this kind of amoral behavior, but not nessisarily act in this way themselves if you wish.

The open-world design of this campaign leaves much room for the characters to grow. I heavily encourage your character to have a defined, long-term goal. This can be simply helping your faction or a specific goal of your own. There are many curiosities and powerful forces, both in and out of civilization.

Details

Character Creation

All character stats will be generated using the standard array. As standard, the stats generated in this method apply before racial bonuses or and ASIs.

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Homebrew character options are valid, but must obey the general themes of Mundus and the specific rules I have set forth earlier. Ask me if you have any questions or concerns over validity, I am inclined to say yes unless something specific sticks out. This is especially true for crafting or exploration based character options. The following is a list of pre-cleared homebrew classes all of which can be found on my drive:

The Warlord class, The Alchemist, The Evolutionist, Kibbles' Artificer, Benjamin Huffman's Magus & Pugilist classes, The Occultist, Kibbles' Psion class, The Scholar, and The Tweaked Sorcerer class.

Homebrew & Variant Rules for Mundus

Fear & Horror (Vanilla):

When confronting threats that are beyond what any normal person would experience, you may find yourself unable to handle the sight. In this senario, the party may need to make a wisdom save to be able to confront any perticularly disturbing encounters. This might prevent character from looting certain corpses, starting combat against monsterous foes with the firghtened condition, and make monster lairs even deadlier.

Gritty Realism Rest Variant (modified):

Adventurers are still mortal, requiring both physical and mental rest to recover from intense or traumatic experienced. In Mundus, a short rest is considered 8 hours of sleep and a long rest is at least 5 consecutive days of living in relative safety (as opposed to the vanilla 7 days). But, classes who are capable of changing prepared spells after a long rest by vanilla rules are able to do so after a short rest in Mundus. Given this, certain spells with long durations (Mage Armor, Darkvision, Detect Magic, etc.) will have increased durations, which is laid out in a seperate reference document.

Additionally, there is a new form of rest: a breather. This is simply 10 minutes of light activity during which adventurers can expend hit dice up to or equaling half their proficiency modifier (rounded up), gaining additional health equal to their constitution modifier for each dice expended. This can only be performed after a character exits initiative while conscious. This does not allow for the recovery of burnout dice size as per the dangerous magic rule as found below.

Firearms

Blackpowder is common in Mundus, weaponry that uses them is also easily found in the hands of many who want for simple protection or long range offense. This campaign will use a modified version of Arcane Artillery that is better suited to this level of technology and abundance. Note: Only firearms will have counted ammunition, arrows and bolts are cheap enough to discount.

Environmental Hazards

The Underdark is an untamable wilderness of a perplexingly strange nature. Flooding, cave-ins, toxic gases, corrosive sludge, stale air, and volcanic ash is allpresent within the depths. The are not very common near civilization, but has doomed many explorers down on the lowest levels of the Underdark.

Additionally, your map is just a map. A fallible piece of guesswork that is missing information and might be off on the smaller details. Getting lost is quie possible without a skilled survivalist leading the way. You might not even know until you expect to reach your destination, only to find more empty tunnels in your path.

GiffyGlyph's Darker Dungeons Ruleset

This ruleset can be found online for free. It adds numerous, modular rules to make D&D more harsh and survival focused, like Mundus itself. We will be using the following rules: Fate points, simple lingering wounds, flasks, slot-based inventory, dangerous magic, and deadly diseases. These may change based on player input.

Healing & Alchemy

With the absence of healing magic, a much more mundane system of healing has been created. While there are physicians or surgeons one may go to for treatment, mechanically identical to godly temples in more traditional settings. However, in the field you will have to rely on healing potions and healer's kits. Expect alchemy to be cheap, but not always reputable. Buying alchemical supplies from shady dealers may lead to unexpected side effects. Additionally, anyone who is proficient in medicine is considered to also have the Healer feat at no additional cost.