Campaign of the Month May 2025: Nightfall

The 2000 year old Tengen Empire is in turmoil. After an abrupt and mysterious end to their fifteen year war with the magic-believing people of Midros, the Tengen Gods, the Taywa, suddenly face an even greater, almost unthinkable threat – insurrection within their own lands, led by new heroes ready to challenge their divine power and end their enslavement of souls. Join us in talking with GM alliedaines through the beautiful and fantastic world of Nightfall!

Feel free to tell us more about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?

Hi guys. My name is Alison, I live in the UK and have been roleplaying for what seems like a lifetime, but in reality has been around forty years. I love writing, pc gaming, my adorable husky and of course DMing. When I was in my 20s I went through a prolonged period DMing every day, but now, as online play requires a lot more work and I’m starting to feel my age, a couple of times a week is enough.

Did you build your Night Fall campaign on Obsidian Portal yourself? While building your campaign, what tools did you find useful? Do any of your players get involved in the campaign website’s design?

I have a great partner called Justin who is a musician and a developer. He helped me a little with some of the CSS but a lot of the background code used on the site has evolved over time through trial and error and hundreds of tweaks. I use AI art sites these days to generate nearly all of the artwork and other things like tokens I create or manipulate myself using Corel’s Paintshop Pro.

Many of my maps are made in programs like Wonderdraft and Dungeondraft. My players also love to create things as well, but as they work full-time jobs and play in other games, I do most of the site myself.

One of my players, Cate, recently used Suno to make a whole album of songs inspired by the party’s adventures (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cby4zBjBfvs) and I myself created another album of songs for a musical town of Kenku that proved tremendous fun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AC6tLydHnU). Other players have created stories, in depth write-ups of their session 0s, assisted with the Previously on Night Fall weekly summaries and contributed art. It really is a collaborative effort and I am so happy to have such talented devoted players.

You’ve been running Night Fall with your group for over 2 years. Does your group, with your latest Chronicle (the 95th entry!) dating to March 10th, 2025, meet up in person or do you play online? Tell us a little more about your players and their characters!

We play regularly online using Roll20 and Discord, on a Monday night for around three hours and are all UK based. I think since the homebrew 5E campaign began, two years ago, we have only missed half a dozen weeks. I got to know my players first by playing with them in another game as I needed to know we were all going to be a good fit and I wanted them to get to know me first, my various foibles and sense of humour. It was still strange for them though as I did things a bit differently than other DMs they had played with. The biggest initial change was the amount of input I had on their backgrounds. They gave me a document outlining what they wanted for their character and I then took each of them, individually, through several session 0s of their childhood, teens and key events. I gave them families, friends, places in the world to grow up and we all relaxed into our respective roles. I have always felt like a character in a big campaign should feel connected to the world and NPCs in it and extensive session 0s help with that. The players immediately became invested in their characters’ fates. It takes a lot of work at the start, but it pays off long-term with plenty of content, mysteries and plot threads to explore.

I love to present the world as a living breathing place. Things happen in it regardless of whether the players are there or not and I believe almost every NPC should feel grounded to that world and alive, not just a sign-post for players to read and move on from.

The current player characters are Edlin (Cate) – a fey-cursed Living Spirit and Warlock of Valen with a Gloom familiar called Yarikh; multiclassed now as a Bard of the World Song. Nix (David) – a light-hearted Divine Soul Sorcerer, Torment (Neil) – a 3000 year old amnesiac war-forged sorcerer and Warlock of Skarkrux and Orel (Sarah) – a samurai paladin of the Taywa who is only around every other session and spends half her time as a ‘ghostly’ entity on another plane of existence.

Each of the players enjoys roleplay and piecing together things about the world and campaign. Sometimes they get together to theorise on what is happening when I’m not there. Which is crazy but they seem to enjoy it.

For those readers who haven’t yet read through Night Fall’s Timeline and the amazingly detailed Chronicles (Adventure Logs), could you give us a rundown on the story behind your campaign setting, and the events that are transpiring as your campaign progresses? In what direction, without spoilers, do you as the DM aspire to go with Night Fall?

The world is homebrew and fantasy with a hint of Eberron-style science and tech. When I first dreamed up Night Fall, I began with two premises. The first – the idea that everything in the campaign would revolve around events that had taken place during the previous Night Fall war, 1000 years before, then an event called The Long Night, 300 years before. And that these events, over the course of the campaign, would slowly reveal their importance to the players. Second – how the players themselves and the theme of lost memories would play a pivotal role in the unfolding story, with players and their characters piecing things together as they went.

The next idea that really appealed to me was this: What if at level 1, I gave the players access to an ancient powerful hybrid flying vessel, filled with magic and science, capable of travelling a 1000 miles a day, filled with several kingdoms worth of treasure and around 30 magical items left behind by the previous crew who had ‘died’ in mysterious circumstances? What would my players do with this? Where would they go? What would they discover and how could their actions influence the next Night Fall war?

Being a big fan of Julian May’s Many Coloured Land books I then incorporated her system of metapsychic powers, careful not to intrude too much upon the traditional D&D 5E rules. Then, as I am also a fan of the BBC Sci-Fi show from the 80s called Blake’s 7, I made the group prisoners, deemed criminals because of their magic, gave them the ship, the Ancient, and an evil Empire to oppose. And that’s kind of where it began.

There is a threat to the world – well, a few actually – but then isn’t there always in big campaigns? And each of the players has specific goals from their backgrounds to achieve. But overall, I like to think the core of the campaign remains: What are the characters going to do with their super-powerful ship? Where are they going to go and how involved will they become in world events?

We are now nearing our 100th session. A bit of a milestone, as I know many campaigns regrettably fizzle out, long before reaching that number, for a variety of real-world reasons. And we just concluded and are now in the epilogue of a major arc centred around David’s character Nix. The players often joke about how they thought they’d stop at the Dominion of Krel for a day, find Nix’s lost friends and then leave, but ended up spending a year there in real world time, around sixty sessions, and getting a bit traumatised in the process. Now that they have finally escaped again, it’s time to get back out into the world and have some crazy adventures. Well… until fate comes knocking.

Are there any specific sessions you have had that stand out in your memory as being particularly fun for you and your players? Feel free to add any pictures or links, as well as any feedback from your players.

I asked them and they said the following;

David – “I have 3 standouts that come to mind. The first being session 1 – the way the group met being VERY different to any other DnD campaign I’ve taken part in. How we had to work together to help some others, like getting Rain down off the cliff. I just liked how different it was to the usual meeting in a tavern or being summoned by some lord. Second would be the attack on the Syndicate. That was just an awesome experience stretching across multiple sessions and involving such a variety of skills being utilised. And the culmination of fighting Imada was great fun too. Finally, the battle in the city to kick the tyrants out and get the people to freedom. The use of a different system and bringing together multiple factions was so engaging and such good fun especially since I hadn’t really known what to expect beforehand.”

Neil – “Discovering the Ancient. And the eventual escape on the Ancient.”

Cate – “The first thing that came to mind for me was all our session 0s before we even started the main campaign. I know we did them individually, but I’d never done anything like that before. It took me from having a 1 page sketch of an idea for a back story to being able to imagine Edlin as a living breathing person and Tifa as a real place. There were even times I could smell the spring flowers and the mulchy scent of the woods. That grounding in my character and the world from the very start meant I was totally invested from day 1 and felt supported to role-play, as I had so much already to pull from.”

Sarah – “One session that really sticks in mind is session 73, which felt like a fairly momentous convergence of different storylines, especially in the rp afterwards, as we began to discover unexpected connections between our characters. Session 94, I am Krel, I really enjoyed for similar reasons, as well as having the opportunity for Orel to face some character-defining moments. I would also like to add the opportunities I’ve had to delve into Orel’s memories between sessions. They’re a great opportunity to flesh out Orel’s character, are always very compelling and completely above and beyond, since I had no expectation of anything like that happening when I first joined the game.”

Having been a member of Obsidian Portal for four years, what would you say are the most useful benefits for you as both a Campaign Designer and as a person running a campaign?

First and foremost, Obsidian Portal just makes things easier. I used to build my campaign websites from the ground up but the OP’s tools and interface allow me to spend more time focusing on the actual story and campaign. I don’t have to worry about hosting or updates to things in the backend and can just get stuck straight in. I also love the search function. With a campaign as complex as Night Fall, I struggle to remember everything. The search function can usually pinpoint even an obscure entry in a page quite quickly, which is truly a godsend. Yes I would like to see additional things – such as the ability to click on images in a carousel and expand them to full-screen – but as it stands, the Obsidian Portal is stable, reliable, customisable and perfect for my needs. I love it.

As a final question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

Hah. You want my pearls? I think my dog ran off with them. OK. Let me see

One of the best things I picked up in the last few years from another online DM was the idea of having a role-playing channel in Discord. I have a Discord server specifically for friends and players and whenever the players want to continue their rp outside of the session, we create a separate thread in the rp-channel to do so. This means the sessions tend to flow better and the players get to explore all sorts of aspects of their characters and NPC interactions during the week, at their own pace. Some weeks we have had half a dozen threads on the go, with more than 200 posts in each of them and it has really transformed the campaign. For a story-driven rp-heavy campaign, I cannot recommend this enough!

Finally, listen to your players. Check in on them regularly and ask them how the campaign is going. Leave any ego at the door. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been DMing, there are always new and better ways of doing things, if you remain open to them. Be willing to change plans, shift gears and direction for the campaign. Remain flexible, open to feedback and take time to relax. Role-playing games are meant to be fun for everyone involved. So make sure you find a little personal nugget of joy in every NPC, every plot twist, piece of world history and reveal, big or small.

Love to the OP community… x

Alison Daines, Feistykitten, Kittenchops, Husky Mom and DM.

Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure June 2nd, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

Update Post – April 20, 2025

Hail, Portal People!

The season clock has chimed again, so it’s time for another reckoning. See below for all of the new features and bug fixes that were added to OP since the previous Update Post.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, feel free to post them in the Community Forums, or email support directly at [email protected].

Campaign of the Month April 2025, Department 7: Crescent City

Greetings Adventurers, come gather ’round for a tale unlike any other we’ve shared before! Set in a modern landscape, our tale follows a series of individuals who serve as agents who walk the line between the known and the supernatural. Join us in talking with GM Dungeon Master Loki as he walks us through this fantastic world of intrigue and action in Department 7: Crescent City.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?

I’m an 8th generation New Orleanian of French Creole background, so I was raised in a storytelling culture. I started playing D&D in the White Box era while undergoing leg surgeries at Children’s Hospital, beginning a lifelong love of RPGs. After years of working in music clubs and restaurants I changed gears and began working in online communications (web content, community management and social media) for clients including the Open Society Institute, The National Association of Broadcasters, and The VCU Brand Center. 

In 2003 I took on the position of co manager of Planewalker.com, the Official Planescape fan site, where I stayed for over a decade. That and my involvement with Spelljammer.org gave me a taste for sharing my game oriented fevered rantings with others. Since 2014 I have worked as a Table-Top Role Playing Game designer. A two time Silver ENnie award winner, some of my design and writing credits since include the ENnie nominated DarkRoads and Golden Hells, the upcoming Gloomhaven RPG, XCrawl: Louisiana Rising, Bloodlines and Black Magic: The Crescent City, The City of 7 Seraphs, The Pop Culture Catalog series for Starfinder, and many others. 

In 2021 Hurricane Ida drove me out of my native New Orleans and I ended up in Cincinnati. Now I teach Introduction to Game Design at the University of Cincinnati and try to freelance enough to keep the bills paid. My family is pretty much all back home in New Orleans so I don’t get to see them very much. Up here in Cincy my family includes my girlfriend, who plays the party cleric / spelljammer pilot, a few close friends,  and my two preposterous felines, Puck and Gremlin. 

As to where I lurk online, I”ve cut down a lot on that due to spam, AI, and turbulent politics. My website (sorely in need of updating), my Obsidian Portal profile, and  my profile on Start Playing Games are really the best ways to contact me these days. 

Tell us about “Department 7: Crescent City” in a nutshell. How did you design the world? What was your inspiration?

When I decided to run a modern game using my home city was an obvious way to make it easy on myself. I’ve already written books about using the Crescent City as a site for modern occult and cyberpunk games so I even had a good bit of material already developed for it. 

Since several of the players have lived in New Orleans and played at my table ever since, I knew they had familiarity with the city’s culture and terrain. The others would play new transfers to the city from other branches of the Hoffman Institute. Additionally, it’s New Orleans. Our city is full of atmosphere, especially when you consider the folk tales and ghost stories to be true. 

Scouring the internet for fringe stories about dinosaur sightings, alien abductions, and ghost stories made it easy to rapidly build a robust and crazy urban fantasy world with some roots in reality. The ones I thought would add to the world or provide good plot hooks would then get added to the game’s Google map. In addition there was an extensive array of such incidents / locations in the original Dark Matter game that I added. 

How regularly do you play, and where do you play? Tell us about your current group of players.

We play on an irregular basis since the same players run different characters in some of the other campaigns in the series. Usually about once every month or two these days. We play online using my private server on Discord for Voice/Video/Text and Owlbear Rodeo for our VTT. 

As to the players, they are a delightfully motley krewe. 

Gary (Jacquemeaux DuBois) has played through several campaigns with me and is one of my old New Orleans crowd, now here in Cincy. Always good for extremely bad jokes and excellent food bribes for the GM (he’s a former chef). 

Drew (Leif Luftson) is another who started at my table in the 90s when we worked in restaurants together. Now in Colorado he has returned to the table via Discord. Survivor of three Planejammer campaigns so far. 

Desiree (Eulalie Anastasie “Stazzie” Dugas) another one of the New Orleans gamers at the table, despite now living in California. My former roommate (proving she is tolerant) and favorite Cajun  who I got to return to the gaming table for the first time in decades. 

Jaime (Michi “Michelle” Aoki) my girlfriend, and one of the team’s combat specialists. She’s been rolling dice with us since 2008 when I lived in Cincy once before. As a matter of fact one of her characters is an easter egg in City of 7 Seraphs. 

Zan (Cole Morrin) A  fellow pro game writer that I got to know while working with them on the City of 7 Seraphs. After playing Munchausen together at Gen Con 50 I knew they would be a perfect fit for the table. Zan rounds out the West Coast contingent at the virtual table. So far they have survived almost five years at my table without having to roll a new character. 

Emily (Victoria Union) our campaign artist and mad journaler. Em is another Cincy gamer that came to the table in 2008 when I lived in Cincy a decade ago. Over those years she has become integral to the look and feel of the game. For example, the upcoming Planejammer Tarot deck coming soon from Evil Robot Games. 

What made you choose Pathfinder for your system? How does that system complement your campaign?

The campaign series started back in first edition Dungeons and Dragons days, and has evolved embracing each edition until Pathfinder forked from DND 3.5. Since then Pathfinder 1e has been the baseline. My players like the granularity of control over their character the system gives them. Since it is a system I have written more products for than any other it’s also a matter of rules familiarity and comfort zone I suppose. One more point in its favor is that translating rules from one d20 based system to another is comparatively easy, opening up even more options for my players. 

Your campaign integrates the real world with fantasy. Can you tell us a little bit about the immersion of the two? How do you decide which parts of fantasy are too much for the real world, and what is acceptable?

One reason I decided to run a modern sci fi / occult game was an idea I had for leveraging Google Maps as a game tool. Using a custom Google Map (OSIRS Worldwatch Global Anomaly Tracking) I was able to create entries for a lot of the high weirdness from Dark Matter, and other weirdness from Louisiana folklore, to create “known sites” around the world. Being able to fire up the map and see everything from reconstituted dinosaurs to secret alien colonies really helped my players with immersion.

It also allows for a lot of improv based on current events. The news and weather reports of the day set the tone  If we are playing during Essence Fest or  Jazz Fest, for example, they will have to deal with crowds, traffic and hordes of drunken tourists as well as chance celebrity encounters and the occasional musical interlude..Since it is a present day game I often use Google Street View to show them where their characters are and use screencaps from an aerial view to create any battlemaps I need.  I’ve found that from the GM side of the screen it makes it a lot of fun and adds a lot of verisimilitude without a lot of extra effort.

As far as what is off the table? Not much. It’s a low to mid level game at present, but I do like big and flashy games almost as much as I love convoluted conspiracies.

Can you explain the structure and setting of your campaign? Your adventures are “cases” that your characters solve as agents in their agency?

In Dark Matter the players are agents in an X-Files style setting, so they work as paranormal agents for the Hoffman Institute. Much like the Men in Black movies reality is not far from what you see in the craziest tabloids.

This means that most of their adventures are assignments, while a few here and there are during their character’s personal time. This simplifies a few aspects of game play. Equipment other than personal items is requisitioned on a mission by mission basis easing the gear tracking part of the game. It also provides clear direction on what the mission goal is each time. For instance their most recent mission was testing out the Tangent Tunnel, an experimental device for travelling to alternate realities. While trying to rescue a lost exploratory team they ended up stranded in the Land of the Lost for three sessions. The upcoming session takes place after more testing of the Tangent Tunnel with them arriving on an asteroid city in the Tears of Selune in the Forgotten Realms. 

That ties us in to the big picture. This campaign is part of a linked series of games that started in 1979. Events in one game can directly influence the others as they are all in a shared Omniverse. Currently one of the NPCs in the game is the cohort of Emily’s PC in The Spelljoined who got bounced into an alternate reality during a massive battle with the illithids (mind flayers).

How much time is usually spent preparing your game sessions? Describe a typical session.

It varies. Some of the episodes require several hours of prep time, but with the amount of info I’ve developed for the series over the decades, session prep is usually a short and sweet two to three hours if I’ve kept up with my notes (always a challenge). Since it is more of an event based sandbox game with an overarching metaplot, the players control a lot of the direction things take. 

Sessions are usually about ⅔  investigation / role playing and ⅓ combat. Usually it takes about three sessions to resolve a case so far. Each case starts with a mission briefing and familiarizing the players with the mission and the current gear assigned. From fighting escaped, genetically engineered velociraptors through the streets of the Bywater to communing with nature spirits under Audubon Park’s Tree of Life the missions can encompass many story styles and objectives. 

What can you tell us about the art presented in your campaign? Who is the artist? What made you choose this art style?

Things like the Hoffman Institute logo are taken directly from the Dark Matter game. The character art and most of the other incidental art is created by a freelance artist in our group: Emily “Syreene” Vittori. She’s been playing at my table since 2008 and has been the primary artist for the campaign series. She is also responsible for hundreds of pages of journal entries and campaign notes.The style is entirely her own choice and there are a variety of styles in her art for our games including classic game art, art nouveau, and even a few chibi images. 

In addition there is art created by various players over the decades and a few professional pieces by Jacob Blackmon,  done for the Starfinder game in the series, Catch My Drift. 

How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?

Roughly 15 years nos. I stumbled across it ages ago and upgraded from the simple wiki I was using prior to that. When it comes to the things that keep me here the wiki is a big one, especially the ability to have sections that are for private notes between the players and myself. I also find that player participation away from the table, i.e. journal writing and such, increased when the adventure log became an option. It has a great set of features and solid organizational structure. All in all, other than some improvements to the backup downloads it is pretty much perfect for my needs. 

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?

Creating an atmospheric portal for my players that organizes the ridiculous amount of house rules into a (hopefully) useful and appealing format. Even without knowing any CSS it is pretty easy to make it sing and it has much greater “out of the box” functionality than setting up a fully customized website. In addition the community is pretty great across the board. 

What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far (please also provide images and links if possible)?

During one of the adventures that led them to Greyhawk I had the honor of having a special guest. Mike Nystul played with Gary Gygax in the days before D&D was published and the game has included spells named for his wizard, Nystul, ever since. Nystul’s Magic Aura being the most well known. Having him join us and play an updated version of his original character from Gygax’s table was an honor and a pleasure. 

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

It’s all about a combination of organization and improv. In the hopes it will be helpful to someone here is my approach. 

If you have trouble making stuff up spur of the moment make a few lists as part of your prep. Each one can be as few as five items. 

• A list of names appropriate to your setting
• A list of species/class combos that are common in your setting. 
• A list of quirks or behaviors, i.e. constant toe tapping, a lisp, or a tendency toward puns.

With these three lists you have instant NPCs, just roll or choose one item from each list when you need it and the three combine to give you the basics. 

For organization I use a triple monitor rig set up as follows: 

Left Monitor – Combat Data Browser Tabs:

• Initiative Tracker Opponent Initiatives already pre-rolled and added. I advise adding the Dice Roller plug in. 
• One Tab for each creature, trap, or hazard in the encounter

Middle Monitor – Interaction Browser Tab:

• Discord Video and text chat

Right Monitor – Maps and Rules Browser Tabs:

• Owlbear Rodeo Virtual Tabletop
• Obsidian Portal – Planejammer Hub for Core House Rules
• Obsidian Portal – Dept 7 Crescent City or current campaign
• Archives of Nethys Pathfinder 1e rules 
• d20pfsrd.com Pathfinder Psionics rules

I keep a pad and pencils on my desk for notes. If I create an NPC on the fly their name / class / and defining mannerisms get noted as does any loot acquired, or major events / accomplishments of the session. (Add these to your wiki on OP immediately after the game because if you’re like me they can easily get misplaced before your group meets up again). It’s also worth noting that if you have trouble taking notes during games you can try recording audio or video of the sessions and go back to them to write your notes and recap. Just make sure to let your players know if you are recording! 

That’s about it! May your 20s be both frequent and natural! 

Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure May 1st, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

Campaign of The Month March 2025: Age of Conan: The Rise of Yig

Between the years when the oceans drunk Atlantis… and the rise of the sons of Aryas… there was an Age undreamed of. Onto this, CONAN! And also to a lesser extent YOU, the reader! For you have wandered the wastes to find our newest Campaign of the Month winner — “Age of Conan: The Rise of Yig” by award-winning game-maker and author jasonvey of Elf Lair Games. So, put on your best horned helmet and sharpen those two-handed swords before you read the tales of this troupe of talented travelers and hear the wise words of the wizard on the hill…

Obsidian Portal last spoke with you in 2017, when your “Nocturnum: Rebirth” Unisystem game won Campaign of the Month and we had the chance to make your acquaintance. What’s new in your life since then?

Hah! My entire life has changed since then. As with all of us COVID altered our whole world. I am no longer working as a content writer. My day job is now an SEO consultant, while I have also since launched my own gaming company, Elf Lair Games. The game that powers the Age of Conan campaign, Wasted Lands, is one of my games, using the O.G.R.E.S. system (which I’d love to see added to Obsidian Portal, but I have no ability to program character sheets!). I’m still working as a staff writer for Troll Lord Games as well, and we just re-released a new “reforged” printing of Amazing Adventures.

Your current campaign, “Age of Conan: The Rise of Yig” reads like a tale right out of a Robert E. Howard book. In your opinion, what makes games set during the Hyborian Age feel so wonderfully different from other sword-and-sorcery fare to which many of us might be more accustomed (e.g. D&D)? What draws you personally to these kinds of stories?

That’s actually a great question. For me I guess it’s just having been steeped in Howard and Conan since I was a kid – my dad introduced me to the old Ace Paperback series when I was 10 or 12, and it was a formative thing for me. The Hyborian Age is as richly detailed a setting as any other, and more than many, from Howard’s own seminal essay through the many pastiches (of widely varying quality) that have been done throughout the years. So I really think that’s it – what sets ours apart is just that I know this world like the back of my hand. I understand the appeal of the gods and men of that world, of the struggle between barbarism and civilization, and the rich history and cultures that populate the world. Conan and the Hyborian Age, to use a cliche, are much imitated, but never exceeded.

Tell us a little about the rules of “Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age”, the “Powered by O.G.R.E.S” system, and what you like best about using them for your campaign.

O.G.R.E.S. has three mechanics, inspired by the earliest days of role playing games. The first is a d20 mechanic, wherein you roll a d20, add attribute bonus and other applicable bonuses, and try to get a 20 or better. This powers attribute checks and combat.

The second is a straight percentile check, which powers skills and class abilities (including spellcasting). When you need to do something specific to your character’s skills or class abilities, you roll percentile against your chance of success.

The third is the Rule of 2. This is a GM-only mechanic that serves as a quick way to adjudicate any situation you’re not sure how to otherwise resolve. Just pick a die, roll it, and look for 1 or 2. On a 1 or 2, something happens. This governs things like surprise, trying to listen for noise when you don’t have a perception class ability, whether someone hears you sneaking up if you don’t have a stealth ability, whether you notice a hidden panel in the wall, and the like.

O.G.R.E.S. is drawn from and inspired by the earliest days of gaming, and the three mechanic approach offers an elegance in that it’s intuitive and quickly lets everyone at the table know exactly what’s going on based on who is rolling what dice at what time. It cuts down on “Hey, what is she doing? Can I try that too?” It’s also very fast playing and intuitive. It was specifically built for the kind of gritty high action play that swords and sorcery represents. It is also scaleable for different levels of gritty through cinematic play, so it lets you customize your game for the exact style you like.

We noticed that, as an author of games yourself, you seem quite adept at kit-bashing together exactly what you need for the rules, genres, and adventures that you want to run. We must assume that the advantages outweigh the potential problems with this approach or you wouldn’t do it that way — but what advice would you offer to those of us who want to mix and match our own systems and settings?

Don’t overthink it. Make a call and run with it. Learn to adjudicate things on the fly and do not ever overanalyze what you’re doing. In the end, as we used to say, the play is the thing. If the game is moving forward and everyone’s having fun, you’re getting it right. I’m also not a fan of re-inventing the wheel. If you’ve got a mechanic that works, there is absolutely ZERO reason to create a new subsystem. Just use what you have and 99% of the time you’ll find it works just fine.

You have some extensive experience in writing for the gaming industry and quite a few projects under your belt. Which ones have been your favorites, so far? Any upcoming titles that we should keep an eye out for?

Of course my own Elf Lair Games products under the O.G.R.E.S. system are my children right now – Night Shift is our modern urban fantasy game, Wasted Lands our Swords and Sorcery, and Thirteen Parsecs our sci-fi game. All 100% compatible, all using the same O.G.R.E.S. rules. Other than that? Amazing Adventures from Troll Lord Games sits right alongside my ELG works. That was my first ever core role playing game and it will always be my favorite child as a result.

What have been some of your favorite moments in “Rise of Yig?”

That has to be going back to the earlier days of the campaign. We were running the old Mongoose Betrayer of Asgard campaign, and the characters had sought an old soothsayer named Mimir deep in the Asgardian mountains for the answer to a prophetic riddle. Alas, as happens to all of us, we had a bunch of things come up and gaming was put off for like a month. So when they got back, we picked up. They found the lair, and Mimir, who says, “Why have you come seeking Mimir?”

There was dead silence for a minute. Then, one of my players (Robert, if I remember right) went, “Oh, s–t, why DID we come seeking Mimir??”

Laughter erupted, as the entire group had forgotten what they were doing in the ensuing month.

Your wiki and adventure logs have been a joy to read — lost kings, thwarted assassins, and ancient evils slithering back into the world, it’s just fantastic! Without giving away too much of the ending, what can we expect to see as the rest of the campaign proceeds?

You’ll have to wait and see. I will say that for die hards of Conan, some familiar faces and references will absolutely be turning up! You may already have noticed that I canonized the much-maligned Conan the Destroyer by having Jehnna as the current queen of Zamora and her retinue as of the end of that film still serving her. That was a fun little wink-and-nod. I have also mentioned in passing that one of the Hyrkanian city-states is currently ruled by a fiery-haired she-devil of a woman whose swordplay knows no equal. I’m not sure if she will actually show up (and I’m not sure that bit made it into one of the logs), but again, little references.

And as always, Obsidian Portal loves to ask for any new tips, tricks, or general advice from the last eight years since your previous win that you could share with other Game Masters, World Builders, and writers.

Again, the big thing is to never overthink it. Dive in with gusto and as long as everyone’s having fun, you’re getting it right. It’s okay to make rulings on the fly, and always stop to think, “do I already have a mechanic that will handle this?” You rarely need a whole new character class, or a new subsystem, or something like that. Never try to be innovative just for the sake of being innovative. It’s rarely needed. Stick to the KISS principle, and you can almost never go wrong.

Also, let me just say it’s a real honor to be named Campaign of the Month again – in the same month, I think, as our last one, no less! We’re excited for this, and stay tuned! I’m a little behind on adventure logs right now but am working to get caught up!

The honor is ours, Jason, and we thank you for sharing your creativity with the Obsidian Portal community once again! We look forward to reading more adventures from the Hyborian Age, soon.

We’ve passed along your request to the OP Support team to get your game systems added to our library. And for anyone who would like to add their own games or ask other questions, don’t forget you can always reach out via email to [email protected] for just about anything. Be sure to check out the help articles, Discord server, and community forums too — which is where you can nominate your own favorite campaigns for Campaign of the Month consideration.

Until next month, fellow barbarians!

Campaign of the month February 2025: Stream of Kairos

So, have you ever wondered what it might be like to be the Captain of a Timeship on the Temporal Sea? Well, wonder no more, because when you delve into the depths of imagination on this particular campaign, you can do just that! Join us as we chat to previous Campaign of the Month winner, Abersade, discussing The Kairos Delta, Realspace, and the dreaded Orkehds in his new campaign, Stream of Kairos.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?

Hi! My name is John and I’m from Flatlandia, also known as Northwest Ohio. Being born and raised here, there really isn’t much to do except for gaming, gardening, and reading in my opinion. I’ve been with my wife (user Saintdiane) for eighteen years now, and both of my daughters are grown, in their twenties, and have long since fled the proverbial coop.

You had previously won Campaign of the Month in April 2020 for” Core: The Ashes of Alcarna”. Both that game and the new one are using the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Systems. What keeps you motivated to designing your Campaigns within this system?

There are four main factors at play for me here:

1. I have almost every official rulebook that was published for 3.0 and 3.5.

2. 4th Ed D&D, 2nd Ed Pathfinder, and 5th Ed D&D all lack the sheer number of crunchy options for characters, rules, feats, and classes.

3. Everyone who’s playing (with one exception) is already very familiar and comfortable with 3.5

4. We use a bunch of tacked on systems like Roleplaying Points (an extra way to advance characters) and House Rules that are specific to 3.5 and which were developed over several years.

How different is your current campaign from the previous one? Are any of the players the same? Are the characters related in any way? Are there any cross connections between the two campaigns?

Have you ever had a concept for a game that was probably too weird or borderline nonsensical, but that you just couldn’t get out of your head? That sort of idea just stays there lodged in the bizarre section of your brain, fermenting like juice that’s gone a bit off.

Most of the time these sorts of ideas slowly wither away, eventually fading completely, leaving only a mild sense of relief. Sometimes though, instead of fading away the idea persists, eventually becoming a monster that must be freed. That monster is Stream of Kairos, which slowly morphed from “an underdeveloped idea involving a stream of water with islands in it, floating in the Astral Sea” into “the Grand Unifying Theory of every TTRPG game that I’ve ever run, while still somehow involving streams of water just sort of floating around with bits of land in them”.

Though it links everything together it is important to know that Stream of Kairos is drastically different from Core, and that Stream of Kairos is also drastically different from Rise of the Durnskald, despite it literally containing multiple elements from both games. Also, some Old World of Darkness content for questionably good measure with just a dash of Warhammer 40k thrown in because who doesn’t like it when things get Orky?

As for the players, the players who returned for Stream of Kairos are some of the same players who were around for Rise of the Durnskald and the last game I played in called The Price of Magic. I have a whole page dedicated to them on our wiki, which can be found here.

Your current landing page outlines future journeys on the “Great Temporal Sea”. These adventures seem like they will incorporate some pretty “deep” concepts. Can you give us all a bit of information about the Temporal Sea and the use of “Timeships” in your campaign.

It all ends with a time loop… all the best nonsense does, really.

The easiest way to picture the Kairos Delta (and thus the Great Temporal Sea) is thusly: imagine an unbelievably large cloud of dark grey faintly luminescent fog, which takes up the entire known volume of the plane, throw a mess of looped waterways floating through the fog, and plonk down a landmass floating in a small ocean everywhere that the waterways intersect. Now consider that the streams of water are composed of this grey fog, but condensed, and flow in specific directions. These streams of time will either cause something to drastically age upon contact, or will do the opposite, depending on which end of the timestream you entered it from.

In order to traverse the streams folks need protection, which is usually composed of the combined auras of intelligent life. Get enough people together, along with enough Stillwater, and their combined auras will push back the ravages of time. Stillwater isn’t exactly travel friendly though; it takes up literal tons of weight and touching it causes you to become locked in stasis until you are removed from it, so captains aren’t exactly keen on keeping it on board.

That’s where the fuel cells come into play! Maybe don’t ask too many questions about how they are charged though. Slap a couple of fuel cells into a Timebreaker class ship and you have a vessel that can not only traverse the streams, but can forge new ones too, provided you brought a Navigator along.

You remembered to bring a Navigator with you, right?

From where did you draw your main inspirations for the current campaign? Books, gaming modules, films, a vivid imagination? What concepts can explorers in your world expect to encounter?

This one is equal parts easy and difficult to answer. Inspiration comes from all sorts of places, but in this case mainly three sources: a story called “Timeless” from a very popular webcomic (Sluggy Freelance) from back in 2005; the short story “All You Zombies” by Robert Heinlein which I read when I was about ten years old; and the concept of “Arcane Resonance” from a game I’m still fleshing out called Forbidden Empire, which is the second game in the Wrath of the Fallen Goddess planned trilogy.

Arcane Resonance was also featured heavily in Rise of the Durnskald, and also Core, though it wasn’t named. Basically, magic causes ripples in the fabric of reality, bigger magic means bigger ripples, and ripple something hard enough and new stuff happens. Crash a big enough magical meteor into a planet and you can hurl the collective idea of the planet straight out of time itself, left to float around all shattered in a cloud of energy, while the original version slowly heals. Now add a bunch of power hungry Kjerne Runecasters to the mix and, well, though that all happened in the past I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I stated before, Stream of Kairos is my TTRPG Grand Unified Theory, bringing everything and everyone together. I remember reading that D&D cosmology, at least back in the day, theorized that all of the games that everyone ran were tied together by existing in the infinite deep astral, with each game existing within its own prime material plane. In Stream of Kairos, the Kairos Delta exists as the broken shadow of the astral plane, and features scenes and elements from many of the games that I’ve run in the past.

This time around though, the players are seeing the events from different perspectives. Helping to complete the missing portions of the narratives that they played through years ago, and in at least one case drastically changing the course of a doomed world. I mean, it’s probably still doomed, but now it’s different doom.

Sometimes you just have to focus on the small victories.

For more info on all of these concepts and sources, look here: https://streamofkairos.obsidianportal.com/wikis/behind-the-screen

Your campaign has some very innovative design elements. What tools did you use to create it and set it all up? Any recommendations for new GMs starting to design their campaigns?

The campaigns look is done via CSS, paint.net, and flamingtext.com, with a generous splash of google image searching thrown in. W3Schools.com can be a great resource for folks who are interested in learning to use CSS, as can the Obsidian Portal forum and Discord.

What is the importance of the “Orkehd Raiders” in your Campaign. They seem to be integral to the geographic area of “The Kairos Delta”. Please, tell us more…

The Orkehd Raiders are among the most fearsome opponents a ship captain could ever have the misfortune to meet. Piloting vast ships made of iron and steel, armed with cannons and rockets, and frequently protected by powerful energy shields, the Orkehd are a foe you don’t want to meet lying down. Or standing for that matter. Hailing from a different dimension, the Orkehd are powerful and quite technologically advanced, though their skill in magic is extremely lacking.

Oh look, here’s one now: https://streamofkairos.obsidianportal.com/characters/oggie-bigteefs

Without divulging any major plots, what plans do you have for the player characters as they progress through your campaign?

What the characters know: That they are eventually all killed by their sorcerer, ReDyns.
What the players don’t know: One of the players actually knows how this happens, and hasn’t revealed it as of yet.

Having been a member of Obsidian Portal for over ten years, what would you say are the most useful benefits for you as both a Campaign Designer and as a person running a campaign?

I quite like a cohesive theme, and easily accessible info, and eleventy billion rules and systems. Obsidian Portal is, in my humble opinion, still the best platform that allows for easy customization and wiki building without explicitly requiring proprietary software or access fees for everyone involved in the game. Also, I really like the community.

Are there any specific adventures you have yet to have that you are particularly looking forward to that you can give us a glimpse of, without ruining the surprise for your players? You can be as cryptic as you like.

I would suggest that folks read up on what Kairos is, and how it connects to the theme of this game and others I’ve ran. I don’t think that there’s enough clues around to actually ruin the surprise, but maybe someone will figure it out.

Here’s a hint: It all starts with a time loop… all the worst nonsense does, really.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

Previously I mentioned learning CSS, and spending extra time getting the world ready to play in so that it sort of becomes self-sustaining.

While those concepts are important, I want to focus on something else this time around. Engage with your players, and your world. Create unique concepts, or monsters, or classes, or races. Create new legends and folktales, maybe songs that tell tales of heroes long gone. Anything really, just make sure to create something, to bring life to your world and vision. You and your players are far more likely to tell tales of the door that made a friend and sacrificed itself to let the heroes continue on their quest than of yet another encounter with a pile of orc guards.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, or to be extra goofy with the world (depending on the theme of course). Maybe your world is infested with giant insects that lay eggs that look suspiciously close to oranges, but not quite? Maybe the sewers have Gelatinous Tubes instead of Gelatinous Cubes? Maybe one of your characters is named Lolph Dundgren and you’ve said it so many times over the course of the game that you no longer can remember which way is the actual actor’s name? Maybe try D&D&Space?

And if you’re one of the players?

Maybe, just maybe, play a talking horse who goes out of her way to teach one of her friends how to speak horse. It’s a heck of a story.

Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure March 1st, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

Update Post – January 20, 2025

Hail, Portal People!

The season clock has chimed again, so it’s time for another reckoning. See below for all of the new features and bug fixes that were added to OP since the previous Update Post.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, feel free to post them in the Community Forums, or email support directly at [email protected].