Game Overview

Campaign: Hulks & Husks Setting: medieval fantasy System: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5e) Style: heroic/pulp wilderness adventuring and dungeoneering Themes: belief & faith, teamwork, post-war recovery, cold war, xenophobia, artificing, automatons/automata, others themes as they emerge Key Inspirations: Pacific Rim (movie), Shadow of the Colossus (video game), Eberron (D&D setting), Dark Sun (D&D setting), some military scifi

Overview: For more than twenty years, the Shangon Empire and the Freelands Republic fought against one another in the Bloodstone War. Armies of unprecedented power and brutality devastated much of the continent and populace of Shango. The Empire was the first to offer a truce--ostensibly in response to its citizens' rising discontent--but rumors suggest more a complicated impetus. Four years have passed in uneasy peace. Deep in the densely-forested neutral zone, Imperial and Republican forces are grudgingly cooperating. Their mission: tracking down and neutralizing the dangerous remnants of both sides' forces, especially the last of the Empire's graven hulks--autonomous, gargantuan killing machines. The PCs are fresh trainees from the Shangon Defense Academy, on their first deployment as prospective members of the Imperial Spearguard. The Spearguard are elite special forces often tasked with extended independent operations. The trainees begin the campaign at a frontier fort in the neutral zone.

Tools:

• Discord for voice & text chat
• New players can fully participate (and taste-test the DM, party, and campaign) with the D&D Basic Rules (free, see below)
• Long-term players will likely want a D&D 5e Player's Handbook ($25 on Amazon) and/or other D&D books
• Gaming dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) or an online dice roller (there are plenty of free options); regarding rolling, I trust my players' honesty
• Tabletop Simulator for tactical combat; prospective players can participate by watching the stream
• Long-term players will need their own copy of Tabletop Simulator ($20 on Steam, $60 for 4 copies) to connect to my server and move your own miniatures (i.e., characters)

Schedule: every 1-2 weeks, Friday night, 9-11:30 pm EST (120-150 minutes; I try to wrap up around 120 minutes and guarantee no longer than 150 minutes); we'll finalize the initial schedule based on who's playing

Adding/Dropping: it's usually OK for a player to miss a session, or to join after the campaign has begun; I try to wrap up each session such that adding or dropping characters is reasonable; I respect Real Life (RL) aggro and schedule conflicts, because I have them, too.