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Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month April 2022: A Rising Darkness
Legend tells of a time when the Three Worlds of Chornalth – Beregond, Liga, and Krynn, were one. A time when science, not magic, ruled supreme. Of the deity of Destruction, Skotos, and his eternal struggle with the Creator God, Phos. A struggle which ended with Phos sacrificing much of his power to destroy Skotos, shattering the one world into three, ending science’s rule, and allowing magic to reign supreme. Located on Beregond, one of the Three Worlds of Chornalth, this is the world of A Rising Darkness, our April 2022 campaign of the month. Keep scrolling to find out more about this epic campaign in our interview with GM Keryth987 and party!
Thanks for taking the time to answer a couple of questions for us. So, as is tradition, why don’t you start off by telling us a little about yourself and what you do apart from run an amazing looking campaign and site.
Well, most of my info can be found on my Obsidian Portal Profile. However, I will add this to what is there gaming wise. As for IRL, well, I’m a School Bus Driver by profession, which actually provides a lot of time to think about campaigns. I have a girlfriend I adore and love, though right now it’s a long distance relationship. I have a great group of friends, all of who I met around the gaming table. And then there is my family – parents who supported their son’s interest in this crazy hobby, a sister who let me contaminate her with it, and two amazing nephews who I am working on converting into gamers.
Anyone who spends more than half a second on your site will see that you have perhaps a slightly less than traditional assortment of character races as options in your world. What was the process like for filtering down all of fantasy and scifi to an end result that includes Hobbits, Klingons, and Twi’leks?
My campaign world is part of three shared with two other GMs in our group (Collectively called Chornlath), and A Rising Darkness is only one campaign in one of those three worlds. Beregond, my world, is largely based originally on Forgotten Realms, the other two being based on Krynn and Oerth. We’ve each added things ourselves. As for the races, well Twi’leks and Klingons are only two of the ones I’ve added. The cleric in the group (an NPC) is an Asari from Mass Effect. I’ve also added Night Elves and Draenei from World of Warcraft. Why you ask? Because I think these races are cool and fun. And after 30 years or so of gaming, you get tired of the standard races of fantasy. This can be seen in the makeup of the party in A Rising Darkness. Only one half elf PC, the rest being a Klingon, Asari, Dragonborn, Satyr, and Minotaur.
It looks like you are managing to maintain a weekly schedule. What arcane rituals did you have to perform to lock a group of players into such a regular game? In addition, do you play in person, virtual, or a mix?
Well, we all just make the effort, and always have. It’s no different than someone’s weekly poker game, just more imaginative. Our wives and Significant Others are quite understanding in regards to our Saturday Night activities, which helps as well. However, I think the most important thing is we all feel that the friendship, fun, stress-relief, camaraderie, and memories we get out of our weekly campaigns are well worth it.
I also went to my players for answers there, so, I’ll let them add their thoughts to my response.
“We originally went with your standard ritual of “sacrifice a squirrel or pigeon” but that didn’t give consistent results. I was about to upgrade to “sacrifice a seagull” (not that I really thought it would work but any excuse to get rid of those flying rats, you know?) when the group collectively came to the realization that we all really just like to see each other suffer. The addition of Vorpal Board (when the electronic gremlins behave) drastically increased the ability of everyone “to make the game” any time family, health, life and/or work prevented someone from being there physically.”
“I for one have simply avoided entanglements that would require me to be elsewhere on a Saturday night. Mostly, anyway. I’ve only had to sacrifice one manager to the Elder Gods, because she kept scheduling me on Saturdays.”
“It is a good question, the answer is quite easy, practically everyone at the table is a GM, so we don’t have the issues that many groups do of GM burnout. It also does not hurt that we aren’t set to one specific system like many groups are, we have played many different systems, so we are willing to try other systems which keeps the games fresh. Third we also have a strict set of rules for GMs also to combat fatigue after you have run a campaign which can go from 6 months to a year or more on average you need to wait a total of 2 games before you have the chance to run again.”
“One of our secrets is that virtually every member of our group is a GM. It’s not the same GM or the same game system all the time. Over the years, we’ve done:
– D&D (all editions except 1st and 4th)
– Pathfinder
– Shadowrun (multiple editions)
– IN NOMINE
– MechWarrior/BattleTech
– Deadlands
– Star Wars
– Rune Quest
– D20 Modern
– Weird Wars
– Mutants and Masterminds
– Dresden Files
– Fate Core
– Spycraft
– And I’m sure I’m missing someWhen a campaign is nearing its completion, members pitch games that they’d like to run, and we vote on it. And the cycle continues.”
“There are two things a little different about me from the rest of the gang, so my perspective may be limited compared to their’s. First is that I’m the most recent player to join, so I wasn’t there for the 25-30 years that most of them have been playing together. The second is that I have degenerative spinal issues, so although I needed to take around a two year break from the group to work on adjusting to my new physical limitations, the offer was always there for me to return.
That said, it’s always easier to commit to a hobby when it’s something you enjoy with people you like. Everyone in our group is good-natured, likeable, supportive, and we get along well outside the game as well. My first campaign with the group, I was able to make it in person without much issue. But my back got worse and I had to leave during my second campaign. Now I’m playing virtual from home, and while I’m in too much pain to play some weeks, the group is understanding enough to be fine with me missing sessions from time to time.”
For those that aren’t in the know, you’ve been on Obisidan Portal for a while, what is your favorite feature for helping to manage you campaign?
Honestly it’s a toss up between the Logs and the entire wiki. OP lets me organize my thoughts. Lets me actually put down in an organized and coherent manner what I have in my head. And the Logs let me keep track of what happens in a session and have it in an easily accessed location for later in the campaign
In thinking about the themes of A Rising Darkness, what made you choose 5e as the backbone of your ruleset as opposed to starting in Edge of the Empire or Star Trek Adventures and moving the more “traditional” fantasy elements intot hose settings?
First off, my last few campaigns had been FATE campaigns, and I really wanted to go back to my roots and run a D&D campaign. I started the group on a 2yr+ AD&D 2nd Edition campaign way back and it had been some time since I ran a “traditional” D&D campaign in my part of our shared campaign world. We had played 5e in a previous campaign (Shattered Empire, run by Marinex) and I really liked the system. I came into this hobby playing D&D and a lot of 5e hearkened back to AD&D for me, without a lot of the things I didn’t like. Also, I enjoy the streamlining from 3.5 and Pathfinder. Combat moves much quicker in 5e than in previous editions, and with less skills its simpler to figure what skill applies where – which f0r my group is great as we rarely default to dice rolls for anything that can be Role Played out.
What is your current favorite system outside of 5e?
My players might groan at this, but, being honest, probably FATE. I like Dresden Files usage of the FATE ruleset, as can be seen on my 4 campaigns of my Shadows Over New York campaign
If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? Do your players get involved on the wiki too?
The most? The ability to actually put together a coherent campaign. My GM style is very much on the fly and reactionary to player actions, so, OP helps me keep all that making sense. I spend plenty of time running through my head during the week what I’d like to see happen in the next session or two, as well as what the overall BBEG and his cronies are doing, but everything at the table still essentially boils down to me reacting to the players actions.
I know you give credit to a few folks on your home page, but outside of influences and help via the commmunity, did you do all of the design and implementation work on your site yourself or have you collaborated with anyone directly?
Yes. Everything from the layout, to the content, to the videos and images was done by me. I got plenty of assistance from the OP Community, both on the forums and on the Discord, when I was stumped on how to do something I’d want, but the work and design was all me. I’d also like to thank one of my players, Elvathadrin, for always being there when I needed a second opinion on how something I tried looked aesthetically.
What originally drew you to using Obsidian Portal as a platform for your madness?
How amazing many of the other sights looked initially caught my attention. I saw sights like Wolfhound’s Dresden Files Dallas and KillerGM’s A God Reborn, and I decided I REALLY wanted to do that myself. It didn’t hurt that at the time I had begun, on the FATE forums, to develop locations for the Dresden Files Campaign I was working on. I then found Wolfhound’s tutorial for OP (something I’d recommend anyone who wants to design an OP site look over, even though, since The Reforge, not all of it applies still)and I was off. Then it was just a matter of being able to easily work on my emerging Dresden Files Campaign (which surprised me by winning COTM and COTY)
Back to your game, what would you say has been the best moment your table has had thus far in your game?
Well, the game itself is still kinda young, the players only having reached 4th level as of this interview. However, for me, it has to be the first time the group met with Lady Sorsha, the commander of the garrison assigned to the Town of Goldshire (where the campaign is currently based). The characters interactions with the overburdened Knight was a delight to role play out and hearing the new characters come to life before my eyes was just wonderful.
For this question I’ve again gone to my players and will let them tell you in their own words.
“For me personally, I think the best moment so far is a toss up between either my wild magic sorcerer becoming blinded for a whole day due to backlash from casting Detect Magic in the ‘primal creation room’ or the point blank fireball on the entire group when trying to heal somebody’s missing 4hp (granted, at level 2 missing 4hp is kind of a big deal but … lol). WILD MAGIC, baby!!!!”
AaronSheffield (who decided to respond in reference to ALL our campaigns rather than just this one):
“This one is pretty hard to pinpoint, because there have been so many. But if I had to pick one, I’d probably say the time our youngest player finally graduated to be a DM, and completed his first game. Sure, it was a little rough, but it was his first outing, and he managed it from start to finish with a minimum of kibitzing from the table at large.”
“For me it was when my character a Klingon Monk by the name of Torg, gained the second most important weapon to his people a Mek’leth by the name of Hurgh’lI’Iw (klingon, meaning Drinker of Blood), it was gained when Torg went and destroyed the altar/statue to an evil deity the group had stumbled upon, as he was slashing down to strike the statue his weapon was replaced by the weapon slicing the Statue is half destroying it. acquiring the weapon was completely unexpected, yet quite memorable.”
“Hard to say, as the campaign is so young yet. Probably the most dangerous moment came when our characters contacted the local (quite powerful) local mage. He was in a very foul mood but had a local girl accompanying him to his tower. She was obviously charmed, and one could easily see where this was going. This could have ended the campaign, but through a combination of tact and firmness we diffused the situation (and got the girl going to her home). This was definitely one of those encounters where combat wasn’t in the cards.
I’d say the best is yet to come, though.”
“I love exploration and discovery in my games, and I am most definitely a fan of the combat for its strategy and it’s occasional “Wow, that made me feel really powerful” moments. But on the rare night when we’re able to pull off nothing but role-play, I sit back when it’s all over and just marvel at our collective ability to be dropped into this fantasy world and have an impact on it with our collaboration and decisions. Sometimes we all come to the same conclusion on how we should handle a particular situation, sometimes it takes serious discussion of our different ideas, and sometimes it even comes down to a vote because there are 2 or 3 viable paths we toss around as potential solutions to the conflict we’ve found ourselves in.
So yeah, I’d say my favorite moment in this particular campaign was the realization at the end of the no-combat session that we’re all vastly creative storytellers. Anyone can roll dice and kill monsters, but having a creative narrative is just priceless.”
Let’s round this out with one of our favorite questions for our featured GMs! If you haad a secret sauce for running a great game, what would be the most important ingredients?
To quote “Dorkness Rising” – Story trumps rules. Have an idea of what you want to do, and nudge your players in that direction, but also let everyone have fun and explore what they want as well. It’s a careful balance. And most importantly, remember, you are all there to have fun. Gaming is NEVER about GM vs Players.
That’s it for this month, folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
Until next time!
2020 Campaign of the Year Results!
Let’s do this!
It was a long and trying year, but we can finally put a capstone on 2020 and call that sucker done. Yes my friends, the results for the Campaign of the Year voting are in! Now is when we take one final look back and then put one in the win column early on in this newest trip around the sun.
So with all of that said, let’s dive into the results!
Vote for Campaign of the Year – 2020!
Show your love!
It’s February 14th, so you know what that means! No, not Valentine’s… Campaign of the Year! That’s right friends, it’s time to show your love for your choice of the best campaign from 2020! Last year might have been a rough one, but we tried our hardest to keep it afloat with some tremendous featured campaigns. The pay-off for all that effort comes now – in the form of a really awesome list of contenders for Campaign of the Year!
CotY 2019 Results!
It’s been a long time coming, but at last we have a bit of closure for the tabletop gaming world. Yes friends, the results for our 2019 Campaign of the Year vote are in! Dark forces out in the universe tried really hard to keep us from our proverbial “appointed rounds”, but they could not stop our diligent Selection Committee, or your vote. The best that they could achieve, was to slow us down but a little (maybe a tad more than “a little”, but hey, we’re being optimistic here!).
So let’s not permit another moment to slip by! Onward, to the results!
Vote for Campaign of the Year – 2019!
Make Your Voice Heard
It’s the beginning of a new year, so you know what that means! That’s right, it’s time to take a long, nostalgic look back at all of the featured campaigns that came before, and pick our collective favorite! “But wait” I hear you say, “Isn’t this 2021? Why are we looking at the campaigns for 2019 when we should be looking at those for 2020?”.
While we could make a joke (or two, or a thousand) about how rough of a year 2020 was, the truth is that we need to set right a certain wrong before we can get to 2020’s featured campaigns. You might not have noticed (and frankly, who could blame you), but we never got to crown our 2019 Campaign of the Year – and that’s just not right! This being the case, the Selection Committee has decided that the best way to give 2019’s contenders their due recognition is to give them the distinct CotY vote they should have received (instead of a ‘double header’ style vote like we did the last time we got behind). Having said all of that, let’s take a moment to look back at 2019’s featured campaigns!
Savage Worlds Campaign Spotlight Contest
CONTEST COMPLETE! – WINNER: “The Color of Night” by The_CDM – CONGRATULATIONS AND THANKS TO ALL FOR PLAYING!
Salutations, Savage World-builders! As we build up to our Campaign of the Year voting events, which will occur in the next few weeks, we thought we might get everyone in the voting mood with a special contest. We’ve chosen 5 Savage Worlds campaigns and will post about them on our Facebook and Twitter pages at Noon (Eastern). Vote for your favorites by sharing or re-tweeting the posts containing the campaign(s) you like best. The post with the most shares/re-tweets wins!
Pinnacle Entertainment Group, publishers of the Savage Worlds system has graciously donated a $25 store coupon as a prize for the winning campaign! Huzzah!
