Thanks for posting your ideas, @Guardian Angel Haruki.

I am happy to attempt playing here on RP Guild. I feel I must give the disclaimer though: I've never attempted a tabletop game via play-by-post before. I'll admit I'm slightly intimidated by both of your post counts as I want to be able to give you guys a good experience in line with your expectations but I'm not exactly sure how this will play out in regards to my post lengths and ability to answer back in a timely fashion (particularly over the weekends). If you guys are okay giving this a chance anyway, with the understanding that it might not be for one or all of us, I'm happy to give it a try. If you'd rather not invest your time into session zero and getting started on a full blown game that may not see completion, I understand that too. I just want to be upfront.

Now, assuming you guys want to continue, have you thought up some backstory? Do you guys prefer to keep your backstories private from each other until you have a chance to roleplay your secrets? Or would you rather brainstorm here? I do think I want to insist on at least a loose connection between your PC's prior to the game's start as that will go a long way towards your character's mutual cooperation.

I am still in the process of reading the module for Drakkenheim (there are two full sized books so it's a lot to get through) but I think the game offers two basic narrative options for getting started...

1. The PC's can start as caravan guards on their way toward Drakkenheim. This will give you guys a chance to get paid a bit of coin (which might be useful as the prices in this campaign are typically much steeper than in the DMG) as well as perhaps ease you two into a tenuous alliance if your previous connection was flimsy.

2. The characters can start in the village of Emberwood which is the last stop outside of Drakkenheim and the place where adventurers rest/refuel between expeditions into the city. In this case the two of you will need to already have a strong connection and reason to adventure together or you'll need to come up with a plan to roleplay one before your first foray into Drakkenheim. As a side note: you cannot take long rests inside the city. I mean, you can, but you do not regain hit points or spell slots. So Emberwood will be serving as your home base.

@rush99999 Do you have any inclination for which faction leader(s) your PC wants to kill? Feel free to PM me or use hiders if you want to be secretive. I'm happy to help you decide if needed as I think I have a pretty firm grasp on the politics of the factions and their leaders at this point.

I may be interested as well, though I am not 100% sure just yet. All that is if you will have me on.

I do have a rough idea for an artificer working towards the Blighted landscape quest line. It might change as I look into the lore more.

Hey Lurking! Yeah I think having you on could be great. With three players we'll be getting close to running the adventure as intended. Artificer could be a great class choice for Blighted Landscape. Might I direct you toward checking out the Apothecary class as well?

@rush99999 I think we might need to drop the sidekick thing since we potentially have three players now. Unless of course you had a narrative reason for wanting one. In that case we can talk about it and see what the best option is.

I will look onto it as that may be a better alternative or potential multiclass option.

I was looking at the alchemist subclass ideally for the artificer as it made some sense to me as a path for that.

Yeah I think an artificer would be perfect for that role. I only mention apothecary because that class puts me in mind of a "medical artificer" in terms of flavor. In terms of mechanics it plays more like a reskinned warlock that gets more and higher level spell slots. But it's totally up to you.

Honestly from the bits I've just read, I think apothecary might be the route I go. Kinda gives me blood hunter meets artificer vibes.

That sounds good to me. And thats a great personal quest to go with that class. I think we're at the stage of session zero where we are posing our back stories and trying to find connections between party members. Have you read my posts on page 1? I put a "Drakkenheim History in Brief" hider in there that will give you a very quick rundown of the settings history. Should be useful it crafting your backstory.

I'm fine with giving this a go still. Even if you've never done play-by-post before, IRL experience will map onto it well enough. And if it does fizzle out before the end, that's actually a pretty common occurrence here.

In terms of backstory, my guy is obviously gonna be some kind of assassin. Though whether he'll be a secular contract killer or a death bringer of the old gods is something I haven't decided just yet.

As for connections, meeting each other as caravan guards has my vote.

My guy will still be going for the Pentakill and I don't mind being open about it in the OOC chatter. If you'd rather we be secretive about it though, I'm up for that as well.

I'm happy to drop the sidekick if you think it needs to be done. But I would like to point out that we have three players and you said this game is designed with at least four in mind. If we don't manage to get that fourth player, might I be able to convince you to reinstate the sidekick?

Thanks for the general encouragement. I'm pretty excited to give this a try.

I like the potential options for backstory you've presented so far. Keep us posted.

When you say you're going for a pentakill, do you mean you want to dispatch all five faction leaders? That feels like a seriously difficult undertaking but I'm all for letting you give it a try assuming you can think up a compelling motivation for such a gargantuan feat. And no need to be secretive OOC unless you want to be.

As for the sidekick, I'm not opposed to letting you keep it if we can't find a fourth player (and assuming no one has any balance/fairness objections).

It just occurred to me that having a character who wants to kill all five faction leaders may make it difficult for your character to cooperate within a party that may want/need to ally themselves with certain faction leaders. What I want to avoid is a lone-ranger type character who murder-hobos his way through the story to the detriment of his party. Maybe you've already considered this and have some ideas for keeping things from going that direction?

...Yeah, that had just occurred to me as well. That might have worked had this been a solo game, but now I'm not so sure. I may need to do a little rethinking.

I'll leave this link here for anyone who's interested. Someone posted a very nicely laid out summary of the rules/lore/background for Drakkenheim on this website several years back. Most of it appears to be reprinted from the source books.

https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/188689-dungeons-of-drakkenheim/ooc

Now, assuming you guys want to continue, have you thought up some backstory? Do you guys prefer to keep your backstories private from each other until you have a chance to roleplay your secrets? Or would you rather brainstorm here? I do think I want to insist on at least a loose connection between your PC's prior to the game's start as that will go a long way towards your character's mutual cooperation.

I am still thinking over my backstory for the details. I don't mind brainstorming here or if you want me to keep it a secret from the other players.

I am still in the process of reading the module for Drakkenheim (there are two full sized books so it's a lot to get through) but I think the game offers two basic narrative options for getting started...

1. The PC's can start as caravan guards on their way toward Drakkenheim. This will give you guys a chance to get paid a bit of coin (which might be useful as the prices in this campaign are typically much steeper than in the DMG) as well as perhaps ease you two into a tenuous alliance if your previous connection was flimsy.

2. The characters can start in the village of Emberwood which is the last stop outside of Drakkenheim and the place where adventurers rest/refuel between expeditions into the city. In this case the two of you will need to already have a strong connection and reason to adventure together or you'll need to come up with a plan to roleplay one before your first foray into Drakkenheim. As a side note: you cannot take long rests inside the city. I mean, you can, but you do not regain hit points or spell slots. So Emberwood will be serving as your home base.

I think with my character, either of these prompts would work. I could definitely see the group meeting my character in the tavern/inn, and my character definitely would have taken the job for extra cash along with getting to the crater.

@Guardian Angel Haruki No need to be secretive unless you want to be. Brainstorming on here is likely to help others brainstorm a connection between your characters so my vote lies that way.

And it sounds like starting out as caravan guards is the way people are leaning.

Also, could you guys let me know generally what your posting frequency is? I think it would be helpful if we all had an idea so that we know (once the game gets going) if it's better to wait for you or just move on.

Personally I have a fair bit of freetime on my hands. I can be counted on to post daily (at minimum) on weekdays. Weekends are up in the air. I might be MIA a whole weekend or online most of the time. It just depends.

According to my profile's posting frequency calculator, mine is 1.85 posts per day. I too have a lot of free time on my hands. The only real obstacle I have is how easily I can get the wheels in my head to start turning whenever I try to make a post.

@Guardian Angel Haruki What would you say to the possibility that you've seen the other PC's in dreams or visions? Might give your character extra reasons to stick to the group even if your character isn't certain of those dreams/visions actual meanings.

@Guardian Angel Haruki What would you say to the possibility that you've seen the other PC's in dreams or visions? Might give your character extra reasons to stick to the group even if your character isn't certain of those dreams/visions actual meanings.

I do like that idea! XD
It would certainly make for a hilarious first meeting with the other characters.

It could definitely be awkward, yes, Haha.

Once Rush and Lurking come up with their character ideas I might even send you a summary of what your visions of those characters entail. It will depend on how much inspiration I end up with.