[D&D-5e] The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

[Catsenti]

Game Name The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

Game System DnD 5e

Theme Generally your standard DnD fare, lots of RP

Flavour Fantasy, shady carnies

Plot Summary Once every eight years, a mystical, joyous carnival appears. It's called the Witchlight Carnival, and it is run by two enigmatic figures: Mister Witch and Mister Light. But there's clearly something amiss about the place. You come in search of answers, and to recover something you once had but have since lost. And perhaps, you may find out who is really pulling the strings.

So...here's some info:

* I'd like at least a few posts a week. No pressure to have something every day, but keep it consistent.
* You can use whatever *official* sources for races you want, just make sure it's something that makes sense for the setting. Sell me on it, basically, but please no homebrew races.
* We're starting at level 1. I would like it if people tied their backstories into the "Lost Things" hook, where a previous visit of the carnival stole some aspect of themselves as repayment for entry without a ticket. But if you can sell me on an alternative, I might allow it. The "Witchlight Hand" backstory is also in the book (namely, you're an employee of the carnival) and I wouldn't mind seeing some of that.
* I'm working off the 2014 rules. I don't have the books for 2024, and honestly I am not too keen on the changes I've heard about to begin with.

EDIT: Closing this up for applications on 10/18. Make sure you have your application in and finalized by then!

[Arkanis]

Oh dear....I simply cannot ignore this . I'm all over this like a rash . App incoming!

[Snicker]

Ooh! I was playing a WBtW game on RPGX, but it didn't get past Act I before it died. I'd love to give it another try!

In that game, the hook for the player characters is that they had lost something during a previous visit to the carnival, and are trying to get it back. Do you plan to use a similar hook in this game?

[Mitsubachi]

Well, that's a coincidence, @Arkanis. I am interested too.

Just a couple of questions for someone unfamiliar with this adventure;

1. This circus is in a DnD world, right? It's not, like, in the real world and we then turn up and get changed into fantasy avatars of ourselves?

2. Level 1?

3. Can we be from outside the village where the circus is performing (IE non-human) but have come to snoop around the circus anyway? (IE not an average paying customer.)

4. Am I being an idiot and we have to be performers in the circus??

Thanks for your patience.

Mitsy

[Catsenti]

Originally Posted by Mitsubachi

Well, that's a coincidence, @Arkanis. I am interested too.

Just a couple of questions for someone unfamiliar with this adventure;

1. This circus is in a DnD world, right? It's not, like, in the real world and we then turn up and get changed into fantasy avatars of ourselves?

2. Level 1?

3. Can we be from outside the village where the circus is performing (IE non-human) but have come to snoop around the circus anyway? (IE not an average paying customer.)

4. Am I being an idiot and we have to be performers in the circus??

Thanks for your patience.

Mitsy

Hi! Thanks for your interest!
1. It's in a DnD world, yes.
2. Level 1.
3. You can tweak your backstory that way, but I'm mostly using the "Lost Things" hook, where some aspect of themselves was stolen from them the last time the carnival came around.
4. Nope, but that is a possible backstory for characters given in the book if you want to do it.
EDIT: Also, I'll add this to the first post later when I have time

[Greyling]

Originally Posted by Snicker

Ooh! I was playing a WBtW game on RPGX, but it didn't get past Act I before it died. I'd love to give it another try!

Same.

FLEUR Name: Fleur Roux Laurent Race: Human (Variant) Class: Warlock Subclass: Celestial (Source: XGE p54) Alignment: NG Personality Traits: I begin or end my day with small traditional rituals that are unfamiliar to those around me. I'm haunted by fey laughter that only I can hear, though I know it's just my mind playing tricks on me. Bond: A trusted friend is the most important thing in the multiverse to me. Ideal: Friendship. I never leave a friend behind. Flaw: I have a weakness for the exotic beauty of new people. Mechanical Background: Feylost (Source: WBtW p9) Feymark : You have a sweet scent, like that of nectar or honey. Appearance: A young girl in her early 20s, Fleur stands tall at 5ft 7in. Bright red hair tied back or braided, striking green eyes, and freckles only add to her charismatic presence. Personality: Naturally inquisitive, Fleur is always eager to see new sight, meet new people, and try new things. Backstory Backstory: Born the daughter of Eleanor Laurent. Fleur never really knew her father. Her mother didn't like to talk about him. Painful memories. All she did know is that he was a traveler from a distant land. Fleur found some comfort in the local temple. A place that allowed her to see the beauty in life, and the world around. To help out there, young Fleur assisted her mother, an apothecary, collect ingredients for salves, balms and poultices. She was only about 7 when she last saw this carnival. Her mother and her waited in line, just behind another girl, her parents and pet black cat. There was a strange commotion when she spotted the other girl wondering away from her adults into the carnival. Her mother had always raised her to be kind and help out, so she ran after the younger girl. That's where her memories stop. Until two weeks ago, Fleur woke up inside a ring of mushroom in the woods. Now grown-up, Fleur has lost 16 years of her life. Hearing of the carnival's return, that's where she hopes she can reclaim the memories of the lost time. ... Lost Things: Lost memories (possibly spent in the Feywild), but I'm considering the addition of the ability to see colour.

[Ghrimm]

Posting interest as well. Only read briefly into the setting but looks fascinating. I'll work something up.

[Tacobob]

What races do you allow?

[Toad`]

What are you expecting the post rate to be?

-Grave

[delpinator]

name lewie levernetie
racehuman variant
class rogue
Background carnie( Criminal but with other performers)

[Arkanis]

What format would you like the applications to be in? What sources are acceptable for the game?

[Mitsubachi]

Changing my character idea...

[Arkanis]

Character application for consideration, pending any revisions or changes needed to fit the DM’s game.

Darver Ontuvya Basic Info Name: Darver Ontuvya Race: Human Class: Bard Alignment: Chaotic Good Personality Trait 1: I am easy-going and easy to get on with. Personality Trait 2: I have many stories to tell of my exploits, but not all of them are true Ideal: I believe that music unlocks the happiness trapped inside of others Bond: I need to find the happiness that I once had but have since lost Flaw: There is an emptiness inside of myself that I cannot quite fill. Appearance Appearances can be deceptive, because they can be manufactured in such a way that an individual wants you to see. So it is with Darver Ontuvya. At a surface level, Darver looks like a well-groomed individual, dressed in expensive looking clothes designed to pervade an aura of finery and opulence. Darver’s brown hair is equally neat, tidy and just clean-looking. His trimmed beard and moustached are all designed to create the illusory visage of a good-looking man who certainly earns enough to make a comfortable, if not extravagant living and is both content and happy in himself. Look a little closer though and the illusion begins to crumble. A ready smile that is designed to be both warm and endearing doesn’t quite touch his eyes, which themselves hold a strange, almost haunted look to them. The edges of his finery, slightly frayed and worn, seem to relay the fact that Darver is not quite living the life of extravagance he would perhaps like others to think. And most damning of all, when he sings and he looks over the expressions of the people listening to him, their faces bearing looks of joy and happiness, it is the visage of hollow emptiness that is reflected back from his own. Personality Like two sides to a coin, there are two sides to Darver’s nature, a duality that has come to define who he is and what it is he stands for. On the one side, there is his easy going, affable nature. Darver is easy to get on with, with a ready smile and a tall tale to while away the cold winter nights. Darver enjoys bringing joy and happiness to others, and it is this that he accomplishes with aplomb, whether it be through the medium of song or the medium of story. Darver makes friends easily and he is loyal to those friends, wanting to do the best that he can for them. Yet there is a hidden side to his nature that takes the form of a deep-rooted jealousy and bitterness. Even as he brings joy to others, he takes it away from himself, because no matter what it is he does, or what it is that he attempts to achieve, it does not fill the emptiness inside of him. An emptiness that is a void, and it is something that hungers, a gnawing hunger that seeks to consume him whole. There is a jealous hatred inside of Darver, and this is something that even though he enjoys the expression of the adoring crowd, he hates them for what they have and that he can not. This duality needs to resolve itself one way or the other, it cannot carry on the way it is as Darver searches relentlessly for that which he has lost without ever truly understanding what that thing is. Backstory Truth be told, there isn’t much that Darver can remember of his life before the Witchlight Carnival first came to town. That there was something there is indisputable, but his earliest years are shrouded inside a gloom so thick as to be almost impenetrable aside from the odd strange fleeting glimpse of some shining bright light. Perhaps something truly horrific lies behind this shroud and Darver has cast it over himself to protect his fragile mind from the horrors beneath it. Or perhaps the truth is that the Witchlight Carnival left such a defining mark on young Darver’s psyche that there was nothing before it save the ghostly remnants of a hollow emptiness, a yearning void that Darver has always sought to fill. Darver’s talent has always lay in music. In music he finds what little solace he can, and his music brings that same sense of soothing peace to those who would listen to it. And yet since the Witchlight Carnival, something has changed since the life before, and although Darver cannot really remember such a life, this is a single unmistakable fact that he knows to be true. Despite his relative youth, Darver travelled from place to place, allowing his talent for music to eke out a life for himself. It is not a grand life. It is not even a life of comfort, this life of a wanderer, but it is a life. And yet something is still missing, as it always has been since the last time he saw the carnival. A missing piece of himself, something small, yet an intricate, immutable part of his heart and soul that is now gone from him. From place to place he travels, and wherever he goes the music that he plays brings happiness and joy to all that would listen, except to himself. It is this part of him, this happiness deep inside of him that he has lost, and although he searches for it, deep down he knows it is this happiness that is forever beyond him. So it is that when the Witchlight Carnival comes into the town he is staying in that Darver sees it as a sign. He remembers the carnival from his youth, just as he remembers that things haven’t quite ever been the same since. So it is he comes to the Witchlight Carnival once more, just as he had done before all those years ago, in a last, desperate attempt to find the happiness that has eluded him all his waking life.

[Remorazz]

Taft Opparius Name: Taft Opparius Race: Human Class: Warlock (Archfey? Genie? OldOne? accepting ideas here) Background: Guild Artisan Age: 27 but looks 45 Appearance: Much older than he should look. The other villagers always tease him that working in dusty libraries made him age faster. Decent clothing Personality: Taft used to be a fun guy, some say, now he's so damn serious.. everybody told him to go to the fair, as if the clown can't make him laugh, nothing will at this point. WIP Backstory: Years ago the young scribe went to the circus, it was plenty fun, but he can scarcely remember that. Taft remembers the nightmares he had for months about the fair. Something left him after that night. He stopped laughing. He stopped smiling too. He started ageing at almost triple speed! Well, working in the library he found something.. something that should have been forbidden.. a source of power..

[penbeast0]

I don't want to apply as a starting character having played most of the carnival portion very recently with Snicker and Greyling, but if someone drops out, a character who has played the opening part might be a good replacement character Character name: Bernadette Brightly, AKA "Burny" Race: Rock Gnome Class: Wizard Background: Guild Wizard (custom)   Personality: Burny is normally cheerful, full of energy, a bit scatterbrained. She always wants to please everyone but doesn't always succeed. Her problem is that she obsesses over what she sees as her addiction to death. She loses focus when people are talking about anything else, her necromancy spells work better than her "normal" ones, she listens to the acoustic equivalent of My Chemical Romance, and worst of all, she has a tendency to tell people about her struggles with this obsession and why she is powerless to do anything about it. Sometimes, you just want to pick her up and shake her until she either accepts it or just snaps out of it. Physical Description: Burny is short, a bit plump, with blotchy skin, and a face that seems a bit out of balance. Her nose is too big, her chin recedes, and she isn't the most coordinated person in the world either. On the other hand, she smiles a lot, is nice to everyone around her, and while her laugh is a bit screechy, she seems to genuinely like the people she is with.   Backstory: The daughter of two guild wizards, Burny was trained early in magic. Her father hoped she would be a divination wizard like her mother or maybe an abjuration wizard like him. And for a while it went well. But, after her visit to the carnival, she seemed to fixate on necromancy. Invisible hands (mage hand and chill touch), reading every trashy vampire novel ever written, a few Wednesday Addams moments with her dolls, her bent for the magic of death and the undead colored her life. Her parents did everything they could to discourage it, from time outs to having her talk to the cities resident expert on personality and insight. But she just wanted to shrink head. Literally. As a good daughter, she went on to Magical Academy and being naturally proficient and well trained, she graduate with honors. Then she took service with her parents' guild and settled into a straightforward, but boring, life among the living. It was an easy life and a good living, but the dead kept calling her back. She tried to go without necromancy, which is naturally frowned on among reputable mages, but always ended up sneaking over to the graveyard and casting just slightly inappropriate spells. Lost Item: You wonder why Burny can't leave the dead alone? Her parents know, or think they do. When she was born, a bad fairy laid a curse on her that she would live her life among the dead. Her parents, being quite adept at wizardry, created an amulet for baby Burnie that would shield her from this curse and impressed on her that she must always wear it. And she did, until she went to the carnival of the Fey and it was gone.   People in My Life: Mom and Dad: They are both still alive, both contract wizards (Mom is a divination wizard, Dad is a scribe), and both worried about me. I talk to them pretty regularly but it's not like we actually communicate. We just go through the ritual of saying the same things that we've been saying since I apprenticed to the college at 13 without actually telling each other anything. Roget the Mortician. He caught me hanging around his workrooms but instead of going off into some kind of tantrum, he was right decent about it. We got to talking regularly; he's shown me how to make a corpse look real life-like and all. Roget may be old but he's surprisingly strong. I guess it's all the digging and stuff. The statue of Jeannette Clarke. Jeannie, as I call her, is probably buried there. I'm not completely sure as the statue is older than I am. But I like to think so. Burny and Jeannie has a nice ring and Jeannie has a really kind face. When I get caught up in my troubles, she's the one I tell everything to. One nice thing about the dead; they aren't all judgy and everything. They listen real good. Jaime. Jaime and I, we were a thing and it was good, well, until it wasn't. He helped find a life outside my parents and we shared our interests. He was my first; but things didn't stay good. He was too into his necromancy. I mean, it attracted me at first, but he didn't have proper limits. He talked about killing people to use their corpses and stuff. I mean, ugh, that's just wrong. And it didn't help that I seemed to have more of a natural gift for it than he did. He had to sweat and work and memorize everything; it all just seemed natural to me. I guess that was part of it too. But I miss the company and the having someone to share troubles with. We had a deal that if one of us died, the other would bring them back and take care of them. How many people could you say that about?   https://www.rpgcrossing.com/profiler/view.php?id=92581   https://www.rpgcrossing.com/showthre...ny#post9891032