Quest Guide: For Players

Player Etiquette Guide

Please watch this entertaining and educational video on D&D player etiquette! By signing up for quests in Apotheosis, you agree to abide by the player etiquette guide.

Signing Up For Quests

React with a checkmark emoji on a quest posting that you are interested in.

Pay careful attention to the play style (Mic Only, Text Only, Mic Preferred, Text Preferred) and TIME of the quest. Only sign up for a style and time that works for you. You are expected to be available for the entire planned time of the session. If you cannot attend the entire session, talk to your DM.

The checkmark does not mean you are automatically on a quest. Party selection is not first-come-first-serve, so more than the "# of players" for the quest can react.

The quest DM will announce the selected party a few days before the quest. They may tell you to self-assign one of the quest roles so that they can tag you more easily. Remember to remove this role from yourself after a session ends.

PAY CAREFUL ATTENTION TO YOUR EXP TOTAL. You will no longer be eligible for a quest if you level up outside the level range.

EXP earned is a function of encounters overcome. The following difficulty guidelines tell players how much risk is associated with a quest and commesurately, how much EXP will be awarded for success:

• Low: Easy game. Roleplay-centric, minor combat, no consequences for failure.
• Medium: Normal game. Using resources was necessary to resolve combat, maybe some limited-use resources such as potions/scrolls were expended. Appropriate roleplay was used to solve typical problems.
• High: Strenuous game. Characters dropped to 0 HP, some might have rolled death saving throws. There may have been moments of brilliant roleplay with high-stakes consequences.
• Very High: Extreme game. One or more characters may have died, tears were shed, and roleplay was on point the whole time.
• LMAO: Exalted game. God tested the party with storm and fury and the party endured. Possibly one or more tarrasques. Roleplay was top-tier, and the players deserve an Academy Award for their brilliant performances and strong play.

When you sign up for a session, you accept risk to your character and any companions they bring on the quest commensurate with the quest level. "Risk" always includes character/companion injury or death and expending limited use resources (such as potions, scrolls, spell tattoos, and ammunition), no matter the difficulty rating.

In the Apotheosis setting, players will encounter epics and side stories. People with the moderator role & the DM role can run epics. Any server member with an approved character can run side stories.

All quests are reviewed and approved by a mod before they are run, so the DM of your session has the mods' blessing to run their encounters. Quests are given difficulty ratings based on the actual CR of anticipated encounters. DMs are not expected to minimize the consequences of player decisions (i.e., you choose to fight the ancient gold dragon instead of negotiating with it) or unlucky dice rolls. DMs are expected to make immediate, appropriate, situation-specific rulings to correct their own mistakes during play.

Epics & World Story Arcs

Epics are game sessions related to a particular world story arc. A world story arc is the main objective of those epics, and once the objective is complete, the world story arc ends. Roughly every 2-4 months, the group enters a new world story arc. There will be 4-week breaks between arcs.

Epics within the same story arc are plot-linked. Within a world story arc, there are two kinds of epic: foundational sessions that establish setting, NPCs, etc. and focal sessions that specifically advance the objective of the world story arc.

Mods set the world story arc. Story DMs and Mods then implement epics - i.e., the interconnected quests that advance the world story arc.

Story arcs are tied to particular locations. At the time of the first opening, the first story arc takes place in Darbek.

For example, a world story arc might have the objective: “Stop the Cultists from summoning Asmodeus”. Epics in the world story arc might feature sub-goals like finding out that a devil-worshiping cult exists, locating the cultist’s lair, researching the Summoning MacGuffin, finding the Summoning MacGuffin before the cultists do, infiltrating the cult lair, etc.

It is not possible to take everyone on every world story arc session. However, everyone DMing an epic is required to provide a summary of plot points within 10 days of completing the session or a minimum of 48 hours before the next story session (whichever is sooner). If you as a player are not in a particular session but want to get involved without feeling lost, it is your responsibility to read the materials shared by the DMs and Mods. If the materials provided are unclear, then it is your responsibility to ask for clarification.

Epics may contain NPCs, plot points, goals, or secrets mentioned in primary character apps.

Who can be a story DM?

Anyone with an active character in Apothosis is able to apply! This group works best with people willing to commit to help run stories, but being a story DM doesn’t make you a forever DM. Take a turn for 2 seasons, step down, come back after a break, whatever. It’s intended to be flexible. We anticipate 3-4 active story DMs at any one time.

Story DMs have no administrative responsibilities outside of quests.

• Responsibilities
  • Schedule and run at least 1 epic during a world story arc
  • Post a synopsis of the epic within 10 days of completing the epic session or 2 days before the next epic (whichever is earlier)
  • Share game resources, such as maps, tokens, and NPC descriptions, in a timely manner for use within the group by other DMs (i.e., if you ran a quest at a location that will be revisited, provide maps for that location)

• Benefits
  • Earn extra rewards (your choice of EXP or GP) for DMing sessions
  • New characters get to roll an additional starting trinket
  • New characters start with an additional common magic item (Au or Bu sub-rarity)
  • One ‘get out of death free’ card that immediately reverses a death effect caused by 3 failed death saving throws, an instantaneous death effect, or death from massive damage.

Side Stories

A side story is any quest that is not part of the current world story arc. Side stories may be a single-session (one-shot) or a sequence of interrelated one-shots. The point of sidequests is to allow more freeform play, focus on the stories of individual characters, and tell stories that you want to tell but don’t fit with the world story arc.

All epics and side stories occur at that location or nearby locations of the current world story arc (with some exceptions). For example: if the current story arc takes place in Darbek, then Darbek, Phoebek, Aman-Tal, the Everwood Glade, and the Bheuric Ocean would be available side story locations. If you have a method of fast travel (i.e., teleportation in both directions) baked into the side story, you may go farther afield. At lower levels of play, easy, fast travel will be exceptionally rare. Farmer #47 can’t pay a mage to use a level 7 Teleport spell to bring you back and forth to find out what is stealing his potatoes, but maybe the mages of Luumvistra University can. You can run a side story involving another plane of existence any time that you have a sensible way of getting back and forth.

Everything that happens becomes canon

Unless explicitly stated in the quest posting, all quests are considered canon. This means they really happen in the setting and they happen for all characters involved. If you don’t like how a particular quest went down, you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. When retconning is on the table, it is a discussion that has to involve everyone who was affected by the original quest.

Ascending to Godhood

The final trials of apotheosis are a special kind of epic. You can initiate the trials of apotheosis at any time once you meet the requirements. The current story arc does not need to be taking place in the Godswood. To challenge the Spire of Ascension:

• Your character must be level 10-14
• There must be 2-4 other characters (min 3 and max 5, including yourself) in the level range to take the challenge with you

What to know about ascension

The Spire of Ascension takes multiple sessions (4-6) to complete. If your character is level 15+, they are not eligible to challenge the Spire. The level requirements are an OOC abstraction, though you can invent an in-game justification for your character if you wish.

Ascension quests are private sessions, i.e., only a predetermined party can participate in a given Ascension sequence. The trials are uniquely tailored to the characters who take them. Because Spire of Ascension quests are considered epics, only someone with the DM or Mod role can run them.

The Spire of Ascension is the endgame for all characters involved. When you sit down to begin play at the first session of the ascension quest, you are locked in. No more side stories, shop purchases, etc. The only thing left for you is the Spire. There is no retreat and try again later. There is no “I’ll just go in to help out So-and-so and leave the Spire without ascending so that I can see what it’s like and come back later with Blah-de-blah”. This is it, the moment of truth. The moment you find out if you succeed or if you die.

Ruthless play at high stakes. Except as noted (i.e., that the trials are tailored to the party), the difficulty of the trials is extremely high and your DM will not make arbitrary rulings to enable your success. At the start of the Apotheosis adventure, only ONE person since the Spire’s creation succeeded. Presenting the challenges of the Spire as anything less than a grueling, final test standing between you and godhood undermines the entire premise of the story. Please keep this in mind when you take the trials on. It’s ok to be upset if you fail, but please don’t be rude to the DM or your party members if it happens. Characters who fail the Spire cannot be revived.

If you succeed, your character becomes a god and takes their place in the Evaran pantheon. A new constellation is born in your honor, immediately marking the creation of a new realm in the Divine Dimension. Your physical body is transformed into the stuff of gods as you gain divine insight, senses, and powers. Whatever goal drove you to pursue the Spire’s trials is now within your grasp. Your ascension and your actions will literally change the current state of the world. A new religion is yours. And after what you went through to get there, you earned it.

What to do when you're ready to ascend

1. Gather your party. A party may consist of 3-5 characters. The max party size (including your character) is 5. There are no exceptions.
2. Designate a “party leader”. This person is OOCly responsible for liaising with the Mod/DM team. Create a Quest Review ticket to tell the DM team that you and your party are ready to challenge the Spire.
3. The DM team (mods + story DMs) will determine the best person to run your trials based on your party’s shared availability. It will take some time and effort to set up your trials since they are personalized, so expect 6 - 8 weeks between your story DM being picked and the first session of your trials. Keep this in mind when providing availability to your story DM. For example, if you’re a student on holiday right now but in 2 months you go back to school, your availability should reflect your school schedule, not your holiday schedule.
4. Test your might.