Session 0: And so it begins

General Summary

Everyone met to talk about starting the new campaign named "Odyssey of the Dragonlords". We discussed the following topics in this session report:

• Storm Kings Thunder review
• Lore about the new world
• What characters we plan on playing
• House rules for the new campaign

Storm Kings Thunder Review

Things we liked:

• World building
• Story telling
• Homebrew content and encounters
• Fire Giant fight
• Epic, cinematic moments
• Real sense of danger
• Ice Giants fight was a highlight because we were allowed to completely break the fight
• Puzzles

Things we didn’t like:

• More time for roleplaying
• World could be more fleshed out
• Epic boss fights should be more epic
• Imryth fight was a little unchallenging

What would Jake like to see more from us as players:

• When we are curious about things and start to pull at the threads of things

Thylea Lore:

The world is smaller, but more fleshed out. There will be a custom calendar with festivals and important dates and a deadline that we are up against. We will not see every corner of the world, but the world will be more completely planned out. Thylea has some specific in-game card games and mini-games.
Jake is not worried about us looking at the player’s guide for fear of spoilers. The player’s guide has a lot of specific goals, but Jake wants these to be more customized to our characters.
This campaign is inspired heavily by Greek mythology. The world of Thylea is its own pocket dimension created by Thylea for her and her spouse that had some godly children. The gods began creating some nymphs and things. Humans came in by means of getting lost at sea or waking up in Thylea, and no one knows exactly how. There is no real way to leave Thylea. There are a couple of major cities, and there are some minor communities for races like Minotaurs.
Thylea created this world and loves it, but her children are assholes. Her children started to corrupt her creation. Sidon, The Lord of Storms, Thylea’s son attacked the people with storms. Thylea’s daughter Lytheria attacked the people with horrible nightmares. One day the dragon lords showed up mysteriously riding on the backs of magnificent dragons and they were able to beat back the bad gods. They created an oath of peace between the people and the bad gods. Oaths are unbreakable in this realm.
Oaths have power over the world and the people, but they have even more power over the gods. The Dragon Lords came and started defending the people, and came to a truce with the gods. They settled on a 500-year peace.
While defending the city, many Dragon Lords died. There were Thyleria and her spouse, and their children Sidon, and Lytheria. 5 new gods appeared, no one knows from where. The 5 gods were bound by the oaths that the gods had made.
We begin this campaign as the oaths are about to expire.
Thylea is a small continent surrounded by the forgotten sea. Thylea is populated by the fae races and the humans. Oaths are very important. If you break oaths or Thylean laws, you may be afflicted by various curses. There are a few standard oaths.

• The Oath of Peace - no open warfare between the gods and people
• Oath of protection - When someone is protected by an oath of protection, if they are in danger, the protector must go immediately to help the person in trouble or else they may suffer the “Curse of the Treacherous”

There are other curses -

• The curse of the Harpy
• The Curse of Medusa
• The Curse of the Grave Robber - Curse related to desecrating graves
• The Curse of the Treacherous - can affect you if you break certain oaths, abuse guest friendships, or if you are being bad. The outcomes of the curse are proportional to your offense. If you receive the curse, you will face a monster that is sent to attack you by the furies.

Thylea has a concept of guest friendship. You are required to show friendship and generosity to people who are far from home. If you have a bond of friendship with someone and you break their trust somehow, you get the curse of the treacherous immediately.
In this world, deities are not some far-away creature that is not involved. The gods are active and involved and able to be interacted with. Over the course of the campaign we will meet these gods in person.
There are a lot of parallels to Greek mythology. Just because some of the events may be inspired by Greek mythological stories, that doesn’t mean that they mirror the events of the stories.
The campaign is written for level 1-20. In this campaign we are the chosen ones, and we are the only ones who are called to do what we are doing.
There is also an element of Fame in this campaign. When we start off, we get a first fame point. People in the local tavern will know our names. Once we get to 10 fame points, taverns and inns will be competing to offer us free room and board, or free food and drink to say that they have served us. Etc. Fame progression can be found in the player’s guide.

Characters:

Ben

Artemios - Oread, Soul knife rogue. Will not be trying to lead, but he is super impatient. He is a follower, but if plans are taking too long to make, he will rush in. Wants to try to play very opposite of Garyn. Tavient does not remember his back story. By the time we meet him, he will only be able to remember a week of his past. He is leaving the backstory as a little bit of a wildcard. Friendly and kind of new, not knowing much about the world and what happened to him.

Isaac

Astrea - Nymph. Monk/Druid multiclass. Chosen for flavor and roleplay. Wisdom and Charisma working together. Thinking of Monk 6, Druid 14. Or Monk 7 Druid 13. Player guide emphasizes how Nymphs are apart from regular human culture and they don’t see other humanoids as equals. Has a bit of a superiority complex. She thinks that whatever idea she gets is better than anyone else’s.

Tyler

Orion - Half-Elf Oath of Vengeance Paladin is number one choice. Multiclass into sorcerer. Starting as a sorcerer Demi-God background. Demi-god is able to use Charisma instead of strength modifier for attacks. Demi-God epic path. He is cocky with all of his powers. Oath of vengeance bends the rules and does whatever is necessary to get things done. Since we are going to level 20, probably do triple multi-class. Adding fighter.
Also open to playing a fighter or an artificer. (Notes from Jake - there are many cool things that can be built. Also, there is a big island, and a lot of smaller islands that you can explore with rules involving the constellations and how you navigate which Artificers may have cool bonuses for.)

David

Halcyon - Siren, College of Epic Poetry Bard. Gifted One Epic Path. She is mostly happy-presenting, with random sad days that affect her entire mood. She is very accustomed to getting her own way and not used to people going against her and her desires.

Campaign Information:

Tyler sent the link to the D&D Beyond campaign.
Jake would like to commission a local artist to draw our group, so as we create our characters we should make a list of or a visual guide to what our character looks like.
This will be milestone advancement, and when we reach our milestones, we will level up after our characters take a long rest, and at about midnight.

House Rules

• Isaac asked about a variant to rules involving spells. He would like to use spell points instead of spell slots. Jake would like to research this rule more.
• Jake would also like to vote at the end of every session to see who gets inspiration at the end of every session.
• We will be doing point buy.
• We will be able to drink potions as a bonus action as long as it is an uncommon or lesser potion.
• Tyler suggested a rule for crits. His suggestion is that we make crits provide a maximum damage die of their type along with another damage die of their type. The DM also gets to use that rule as well. Jake would like to research this rule more.
• We will use flanking. Jake would like for Ben and Tyler to send rules on flanking. The rule suggested is that as long as two people are across from each other next to a person or creature, they are flanked.
• Jake would like to use the rule that if you are knocked prone, you incur an opportunity of attack when you stand up.
• Tyler suggested using the bloodied condition.
• Jake suggested a rule that would allow a person to voluntarily lower their initiative. This would allow players to work more efficiently together as a team. This would keep initiative order from limiting our options.
• Isaac asked that a rule be considered. He would like to have taking 10 or taking 20 be considered. This would allow a player to take a 10 roll or a 20 roll to accomplish a task if the player is not under a time crunch or under pressure. If you are not in immediate danger or distracted, you can take a 10 or a 20. Jake thinks that this is an interesting rule. He would like to read more about it. Tyler mentioned that there is a movement in D&D to stop asking for roles, and instead just having players pass time.
• Ben brought up the idea of wounds. He introduced this in his Tomb of Annihilation campaign. He has a table that has various wounds that a player can sustain. If a player goes down, there is a DC check to see if they sustain a major injury. There are some injuries that affect gameplay depending on what is rolled. Ben will share the tables. Tyler has used it twice and in the campaigns that he used it in, there was not good access to healing. He felt like it adds a flaw that is not a fun flaw. Isaac feels like it might be too punishing. Jake will research wound tables or other ideas for enacting consequences for combat.
• Jake is leaning towards having us use encumbrance rules. He is wanting to be more realistic with rules regarding encumbrance.

Report Date

26 Aug 2022

Related Characters

• Orion Castellanos