Dungeons and Dragons: Hiorbis

This is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that I am running as Dungeon Master. As of writing this, the campaign has been going for six months, and the players will be reaching level six very shortly.

I could never quite grasp games like D&D or Warhammer when I was growing up. Being autistic made it hard to understand how something could work without solid, irrefutable rules, which was one of the reasons I gravitated towards video games. In more recent years, however, I've come to readily embrace and enjoy it when rules in a game are bent, broken or worked around: something I definitely credit to my time at university.

This D&D campaign is more-or-less completely homebrewed: I utilise spells, items, and creatures from officially published D&D material, including all the extended editions, but the setting, lore and story is all original. It's something I'm very proud of, as it allows me to go wild with the storytelling, and also prevents any metagaming, since the players cannot sneakily look up things outside of the sessions!

SPOILER ALERT: If any of my players are reading this, stop now or face the consequences!

Characters

This is Celsio. Celsio is my Dragonborn Barbarian/Warlock. He is steadily going down a path of villainy and I am beyond excited to see where he ends up.

As an accompaniment to his story, I did illustrations of him at specific moments of his adventure. In the first image, he has just emerged from his home and entered the world: a strapping young Dragonborn with a head full of draconic pride and nothing else.

In the second, he has just struck a deal with an old, evil being for the power to bring his new-found friend back from the dead, which has made its mark upon his body by granting him wings.

In the third, his power is growing, and he has gained a new set of scars to attest to his trials.

In the fourth, he has finally been given some nice clothes and a fancy mask, and has found that he rather likes them.

Who knows what the fifth picture will show? Only time will tell!

These two are Granny Gazmora and Sister Marina: two NPCs from my campaign. A central theme of my campaign is faith, and these two represent different aspects of it.

Sister Marina was once a truly faithful woman, but her faith was broken, and so she fled her church and sought solace elsewhere in a faith she didn't believe in. Granny Gazmora, on the other hand, lost everything, but has found a cause to believe in by helping others who have lost things. Together they present a dichotomy: one shows faith but does not feel it; one shows disbelief but is a believer.

Their impact on the players is to make them think about their own characters' beliefs, and how they might change.

These three are also NPCs from my campaign, but they are effectively the main antagonists and catalysts of the entire story. Another core theme to my campaign is Death: in fact, the players were initially brought together because they had all died. However, the key story that is driving the whole campaign is that Death has been bound, its power cut short, and as such, the entire world is slowly unravelling.

I was very much inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and the Dark Souls series of games, and I love it when the rules of magic mingle with philosophy. The result is that, in my campaign, the saying 'in Life there is Death and in Death there is Life' has taken on a whole new meaning. Death is a concept, without a measurable beginning or end, and so the Life within Death could theoretically be very much alive. In this case, Death has chosen to take the form of an elegant noblewoman who likes the colour red.

As is the case with Life, to live is to be finite, and so in her living form she was bound, and a piece of her was cut away. However, at once, a piece of infinite Death has been cut away, which renders Death itself finite: a metaphysical impossibility, yet it has happened regardless. As a direct result of this, things that should die are not truly dying: primarily the players, but as Death is a concept that affects all things that are temporary, it also means that ideas, thoughts, faiths and discoveries are not being forgotten.

This setup allows me to bring in all sorts of ideas: long-lost bloodthirsty beliefs bubbling up through the minds of the people is just one, but that alone gives me boatloads of story for the players. With Death's power limited, it also gives a very interesting dynamic for characters like the Dark Lord: in any other setting, such a character would be the ultimate evil, but for evil incarnate it would know that without living beings, it too cannot exist: and yet, with nothing dying as it should, there is no telling what chaos may unfold. In this way, the Dark Lord could even become an ally to the players, at least for the time being while they tackle the looming metaphysical apocalypse.

Finally, I have to mention what happened to the piece of Death that was cut away. This piece was bound to the body of a child whose body lived but whose mind was gone: in a sense, someone who was both alive and dead. This child has now become a living Death, a horrifying weapon of mass destruction that can be ordered and directed. The man who created this weapon is now sitting on the throne of the land, and yet as far as the players know, he is a just and fair man. And so the conundrum: is this man evil? Are his actions justifiable? What if the child he used was his own daughter, against the wishes of the mother and brother?

That is for the players to decide...and quite honestly I cannot wait to find out.

Monsters

This is The Aria, my interpretation of a faerie creature, and the first 'boss' fight that the players encountered. I was inspired by the work of Jessica Sheron on 'The Other Happy Place', a body of work that draws upon cosmic body horror and the fear of pain and mixes it with the unsettling beauty of insects.

For The Aria, she is a being of otherworldly power who was summoned into the mortal world to provide comfort and beauty to a village of suffering and deprived people, which she does so to an extreme level by dancing them to death, and then causing their bodies to continue dancing. The players find her in a mist-filled hollow, surrounded by the shrouded forms of the reanimated villagers, singing an ethereal song that threatens to enthrall the players as well.

After defeating her, the players found a small injured butterfly and decided to take it with them. Throughout the campaign, it is revealed that the butterfly is in fact The Aria, given a new chance at life due to their actions.

This creature is the Old King's Chimaera, a horrific amalgamation of a pair of lovers. They were created in a ritualistic sacrifice in order to create a living weapon to be used against the enemies of the Old King and the Church of Divine Light, and are the second boss that the players encounter.

I was very much inspired by the Magisters of Divinity: Original Sin 2, who use 'Weaponized Monks' as part of their forces. These monks are people who have been broken, fitted with blades and claws, and turned into feral monsters that attack like hounds. These monks are in turn inspired by the stories of saints and martyrs who, for their faith, were tortured, flayed and abused in horrendous ways throughout history.

For me, the Chimaera serves to both show the horrors that the Church of Divine Light are capable of inflicting, and to serve as an example of how dedicated people are to that faith. True faith, so strong that one is willing to forsake their body and mind for the cause, is an incredibly powerful thing, and something that I find both awesome and terrifying.

This being is The Weaver, a natural manifestation of symbiosis and harmony. They are so-called because they are responsible for weaving and reshaping the first 'offspring', shaping them into the various forms that grew into the races and creatures of the modern world.

I was indirectly inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, where the world is balanced atop four elephants, who in turn stand upon the shell of a great turtle who glides majestically through space. More immediately, I also took some inspiration from Mabel, the wise turtle bishop from Elden Ring. The idea of a character being some great wise, ancient being is a very appealing one, and I wanted to include them in order to both provide lore to the players, and potentially even a way for them to alter their characters should they wish it.

The Weaver is intended to look both sinister and serene, in order to create conflicting emotions in the players. It is reflective of nature itself, where many beautiful things reside, mixed with things most savage and brutal.

This fellow is the Mirrorprince, the true form of the current ruling Prince, and a possible boss fight. As the true Prince is limited in his movement, I wanted this form to resemble a butterfly mid-metamorphosis, yet with an angelic grace that makes his power easily visible.

Whether the players ever encounter him as a boss fight is entirely up to their actions. The Prince is secretly an ally to the Church of Divine Light, and a de facto enemy of the players. Even more secretly, he is a double agent, working to destroy the Church from within. However, should the players discover him or attempt to harm his physical form, he will reveal this form in order to battle and detain them.

I was inspired by the Orphan of Kos from Bloodborne for his appearance, in particular for his wings and thin, spindly limbs. Since this form is a manifestation of his mind, it made sense to me not have it look physically imposing, but instead look light and ethereal. The Prince's mind is sharp and powerful, and the players will need their wits in order to survive it.

This being is the Deep Singer: the first true living organic being, and the ancestor of every living being on the planet. I was very much inspired by deep-sea creatures like sea angels, and according to numerous critics it also resembles feminine genitalia. I wish I could say that such a resemblance was intentional, as it lends itself to the 'original lifeform' very well.

I once again took some inspiration from Bloodborne for this design, but I leaned more towards real-world sea creatures because I wanted this being to look organic and alive. This being is not an alien or a god, it is the first true living thing on the planet, and as such I wanted it to look both weird and familiar.

The Deep Singer is worshipped by the Church of Song, in a manner very similar to Cthulhu, and the plot goes that the Church wish to find a way to bridge the gap between generations in order to attain its knowledge and wisdom. To do this, they lure powerful and promising folk to them before feeding them to the Singer. Their next targets are the players.

These designs are all my original work, and are part of my efforts to create a more original world for my players to explore and understand. I love writing and creating stories, and Dungeons and Dragons giving me the ability to create an interactable one for my players is fantastic. Many of the story elements have shifted and changed due to their own ideas and iterations on their characters, which I love because it makes the world feel organic and alive. I'm a sucker for lore that I can dive into and immerse myself in for hours on end, but leaving the story ajar for my players to indirectly change keeps it exciting. Not to mention the absolute joy that I feel when a player correctly understands the story I've been showing them and remembers it for the future!

There will be more monster designs on the way as the story unfolds, you can be quite sure of that! This tale is far from over!