Dungeon Legends : Welcome to Mythton
It has been three hundred years since this universe was torn asunder. Tombs lie empty and forgotten. Dungeons are left barren and bare. There is nothing of value left to find, and nothing of interest left to explore. In the wake of the Dragon War, what is left is hoarded in corners of the world, coveted by the most dangerous of monsters. Adventurers.
Those who remain sought refuge in the only places left standing after the dragons fought their battle. One such place is Mythton, a light in the darkness for all those left alive. Not too long ago, it was naught but a small, dishevelled town, surrounding a tower, long locked tight. A tower that stretched to the heavens, built of ancient stone, with iron supports spiderwebbing up the side. Atop it, black smoke curled out from the nose of the victor of the Dragon War, the only of his kind left in this universe. A red dragon, by the name of Mythos. There, he slept for a hundred years, while the people lived below.
But Mythton is different now. The tower has wizards once again.
The Wizards Return
Less than a year ago, Mythos came to a skilled few in the town below him, to ask of them a favor. A test of their worthiness. They would go out in the world, this one and the planes beyond it, to find wizards of the highest calibre, masters of their craft. Each group was given a task, and a target, and soon each returned, their tasks complete and their abilities proven.
Mythos held a council with the wizards, and offered them all a deal. He would grant to them each the knowledge of universes beyond this one, left untouched by the Dragon War and pillaging, and the ability to travel to them. In return, they would stay here in the tower, with him, and be as servants unto him, at his beck and call for any purpose.
Most of the wizards, some out of fear, others out of boredom, accepted the offer. They learned of how to travel to these unqiue alternate worlds, the secrets revealed to them by the dragon. With their own lives being so precious, and the adventurers' being comparatively less so, they hired folk from the town to make the journeys in their stead. And so, Mythton became a capital of interdimensional adventurers.
Statues in the Dungeon
One of the strangest things the wizards found when they got into the tower is a set of golden statues, arranged in a circle, on the lowest floor of the tower. Each is remarkably different, eleven in all, and each shows a single figure, at what most assume to be life size, placed upon marble pillars. Some theorise these are heroes from a forgotten time, others that they are villains who ushered forth the end. But the wizards agree that the statues cannot be removed. They tried. They do not budge.
Alternate Dimensions and You
As a Dungeon Master in this campaign, you will be sending your party off on an adventure to complete a task in a single session. This adventure will likely be of two types; Extra-Prime Adventures, being ones that take place outside of the universe that contains Mythton, and Intra-Prime Adventures, being ones that take place within. The universe containing Mythton will, from here on, be referred to as the Prime Universe.
Extra-Prime Adventures
Normally, this adventure will take place in an alternate dimension, alternate universe, or any other name for a world completely separate to the Material Plane which contains Mythton. What this allows is complete freedom to run the session completely separate to anything that other Dungeon Masters are doing, without needing to rely on the adventurers' previous accomplishments. If you wish, you may return to a previously explored world for a future session, but generally, players will be exploring entirely new areas each and every session.
Intra-Prime Adventures
That's not to say you aren't allowed to have adventures in the Prime Universe. There are plenty of adventures to be had there, but it is important to note that since this is common ground between Dungeon Masters, you will have to check that your adventure has either negligable effects on the Prime Universe, or effects that other Dungeon Masters agree upon. The other planes, other than the material, of the Prime Universe are a good playground for adventures of this kind, of which there are seven. Most of these planes have limited world-building surrounding them, although the plane of fire is particularly developed. Any adventures featuring it should probably go through Lexie (DarthLlama#8416), The Rainbow Wizard.
Credit to Nero (GelatinousCat#9487)
The Amulets
A key component of the adventures run by the wizards are the amulets given to every adventurer. These magical devices, unimaginatively referred to by most wizards as 'Amulets', are twists of brass wire, looped in a circle, and holding an iron bead in the middle, free to spin and slide along its wire. They are held around the neck on a leather string, and are attuned to the other members of an adventurer's party. Their purpose is to allow adventurers to return home, either upon an adventure's completion, or when the odds are stacked too far against them.
To do this, two requirements must be met:
- All members of the adventuring party must have used their own action on their previous turn to activate the amulet (Dead or unconscious characters automatically qualify).
- No adventurer may be carrying more than their carrying capacity would allow.
Only once both of these are true does the party instantaneously return to the point from which they left the Prime Universe, usually inside the office of the wizard who sent them.
A Wizard of the Tower
In order to send the adventurers off, you require an in-world NPC who is totally under your control, a person for whom the adventurers are completing tasks. This person is one of the wizards who Mythos sent adventurers to find. They may be any race, or in fact any creature (barring dragons), and may technically be any class who has some kind of spellcasting. All of the wizards are assumed to be nearly limitlessly powerful, and thus, should not be given stats.
To create a wizard, you need to know four things about them:
- Their name
- Their race (non-standard races are allowed)
- A colour, pattern, or other distinctive design element unique to them and them alone
- Their school, be that the traditional wizard subclass schools, a school borrowed from other sources, or a completely new school that you create yourself
Outside of those, your wizard is freely customisable as an NPC in the world. How do they cast their spells? How do their portals to other dimensions work? Are they happy with their position, or would they prefer to have not accepted the deal? All of these are extra personality traits that you are free to play with, as in actuality, the wizards are more like plot devices than characters.
Examples
- Phineas Dregs, Human, the Blue Wizard, Conjuration School : Has few interests outside of his work.
- Commander Vamiris, Eladrin, the Rainbow Wizard, War Magic : Believes victory is paramount, no matter the cost.
- Barthold, Human, the Green Wizard, Abjuration School : Owns a very lucrative soap business.
Shared Campaign
Since Dungeon Legends is a campaign with multiple DMs and a large group of players, there are a few considerations that need to be made. Specifically, these include party groupings, handing out loot, and levelling up characters. There are rules on pages 172-174 of Xanathar's Guide to Everything, but they are briefly outlined here, alongside some slight alterations.
Parties
To make things simple, characters are placed into different tiers dependent on their level. Generally, parties may only contain characters of the same tier, but some exceptions can be made. These tiers are as follows:
Level-Tier Relation
| Level | Tier |
|---|---|
| 3–5 | 1 |
| 6–10 | 2 |
| 11–15 | 3 |
| 16–20 | 4 |
Planning an adventure for a certain tier should generally be done by assuming the party will have 4-5 players of average level for the tier. For example, an adventure for tier 2 characters should be planned for 4-5 level 8 characters. Don't be afraid to alter encounters on the fly to suit a slightly different party composition.
Levelling
Put simply, rather than using experience points, players gain 4 checkpoints per adventure. You need 12 checkpoints to reach the next level, and it is the players who level up, not characters. Any future characters made by that player will be of the same level.
If a player completes an adventure for a higher tier than their own, they gain 2 experience checkpoints more than they would normally. At the end of a session, if a character has enough checkpoints to level up, they must do so before their next session.
For example, a level 4 character with 8 checkpoints completes a tier 2 adventure. They thus gain 5 checkpoints, and end up with 13. They use 12 of their checkpoints to reach level 5, and have 1 checkpoint remaining towards their next level, which will occur when they reach 16 checkpoints.
Loot
Generally you will not be giving out much loot inside of adventures. One or two magic items per adventure is fine, as well as a few low-tier art objects or gold pieces, but the majority of a character's loot will come from completing adventures.
For every adventure a character completes, they will earn an amount of gold relating to the tier they are currently at. The rewards are as follows:
Adventure Rewards
| Tier | Reward |
|---|---|
| 1 | 20 |
| 2 | 50 |
| 3 | 100 |
| 4 | 300 |
Gold can be used at the start of an adventure to purchase any items on the equipment tables of the PHB, as long as a DM is there to witness the purchase.
Magic items are a different matter entirely. Characters may purchase these using a new resource called treasure points. At the end of an adventure, a character recieves a different number of treasure points depending on the tier of the adventure:
- 2 treasure points are awarded for completing a tier 1 or tier 2 adventure.
- 3 treasure points are awarded for completing a tier 3 or tier 4 adventure.
At the start of each week, there will be a table of magic items that are currently available. Some items on the list will always be around, whereas some may instead be randomised. These items are all found in the DMG, and the table on which they are found determines their availability to certain tiers, and their cost:
Magic Items by Tier
| Table | Tier Availability | Point Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1–4 | 4 |
| B | 1–4 | 4 |
| C | 1–4 | 4 |
| D | 2–4 | 8 |
| E | 3–4 | 8 |
| F | 1–4 | 8 |
| G | 2–4 | 10 |
| H | 3–4 | 10 |
| I | 3–4 | 12 |
To purchase an item, you must bank the treasure points you recieved from the previous session into an item on the list at the start of the next session. When you have banked enough points into an item, you recieve that item.
As with levels, completing an adventure of a higher tier than the character is will grant 1 additional treasure point.
What Do I Get Out Of It?
As a DM, the session alone may well be its own reward, however, this is likely not the case. If you complete a session, and you are the DM running that session, you gain 4 experience checkpoints, and 2 treasure points, grantable to one of your characters.
Rules and Regulations
As a final matter, there are a few things that are best to clear up early. Firstly, clarifying vague rules that are frequently left to individual DMs, so that Dungeon Legends has more consistent rules, and secondly, what to do when something goes wrong.
Rule Clarifications
Hiding
Hiding may only be attempted when you are completely obscured from an opponent. It is up to the DM if this includes the opponent not facing you, but medium or smaller opponents are generally considered active enough in combat to be aware of all directions. You can peek out of hiding to attack from range, but your location is revealed if the attack hits or misses, and future Hide attempts have disadvantage while you stay in that general location.
Invisibility
Creatures that are Invisible cannot be seen by normal means, and thus, cannot be normally targeted by attacks. Attacks may be made at disadvantage at locations the creature is believed to be, though the DM should not say if a miss was because the attack missed, or because the creature was not there.
Flanking
There are optional rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide for Flanking. We are not using these rules, as they encourage a very silly conga-line of attacks.
PvP
PvP (Player versus Player) is allowed, but only under certain circumstances. Both players initiating the PvP must agree to the interaction, as must the DM, in the interest of saving time. Stealing the items of another player is almost always prohibited, unless, again, the interaction is agreed upon by all parties concerned. Charisma skills, such as persuasion and intimidation, may not be used to mechanically influence players.
Homebrew
There are to be no homebrew races, classes, feats, magic items, or anything of the like in DL, to reduce the chance of other DMs having to deal with your creations. Homebrew monsters are fine in this regard.
Critical Fumbles
We do not use critical fumbles. If you roll a nat 1 on an attack, you simply always miss.
Conflict Resolution
As should be usual, the DM has final say in all matters, and in the interest of speeding up the game, the players are encouraged to only argue immediately provable points. If the player cannot prove a point quickly or definitively, it is up to the DM to choose how to continue. You may discuss it further after the game. If you are really uncertain on a point, ask another DM at a nearby table.
If an argument escalates, a player becomes difficult, or any other issue is blown out of proportion, and you do not think you will be able to reign it back in, then stop play immediately, and get help. Inform Elise Gott (SmolBean#9310) of the incident, and she will handle it from there.