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Campaign of the Month October 2025: Mike Brock’s Mummy’s Mask Campaign

Delve deep into the land of Osirion following an intrepid group of adventurers called The Desert Guardians as they discover hidden treasures in the Tomb of Akhentepi in this Pathfinder Adventure perpetuated by GM coastiemike and his team of table top role players as they explore Mike Brock’s Mummy’s Mask Campaign.

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 have been playing some iteration of RPGs since 1976 with my first ever GMing experience in 1982 when I ran one player through a short Star Frontiers campaign.  I really delved into GMing D&D/AD&D in 1985 while in high school.

I have also been lucky enough to work in the gaming industry when I oversaw the organized play program for Paizo from 2011-2015 with some help from a ton of amazing volunteers from around the world, many who I am still lucky enough to call friends.

I am originally in Georgia though work has moved us various times to Seattle, New Orleans, Reno, NV, and back to Georgia. I also spent time in Indianapolis, San Francisco, Connecticut and Miami when I was in the Coast Guard.

Aside from table top gaming, I paint 28mm minis for my campaign, as well as at the request of my players to match their PCs.  I have a pretty extensive Reaper Master Paints collection and have a dedicated paint workspace.  I also enjoy hunting, backpacking, and traveling.

My wife and I have been together for 22 years and have two awesome children and three amazing grandchildren.  

I don’t have a big on-line presence but I am occasionally on facebook.

How would you describe your Campaign in a nutshell.  Tell us a bit about the adventure group known as The Desert Guardians and their adventures in the Osirian city of Wati.

How long has your campaign been running and what made you choose Pathfinder as your gaming system?  Are you using Pathfinder Version 1 or Version 2?

We started this campaign in February of 2024.  We are using Pathfinder 1^st Edition.  When Paizo had it’s Dragon and Dungeon Magazine publishing ended, they created Pathfinder.  I had renewed my subscription to both magazines for three years and was offered to change it to the adventure path subscription. I absolutely loved D&D 3.5 and the progression to Pathfinder 1e was a no brainer.  We have stuck with it every since and have not considered switching to second edition as everyone seems to be having fun with PF1.

Please tell us something about your average gaming sessions.  How often do you play?  Online or Tabletop?  What is your gaming group like?

We are currently on a bi-weekly schedule, playing every other Wed night from 7-11 pm in our basement game room.  This is on alternate weeks of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path I am running for seven other players.  We play in person, around the table and it is an absolute blast.

Our players for Mummy’s Mask range in age from 18 to early 60s.  We have a few players who have been playing for 30-40 years, a few players with 5-10 years, and three players that this is their first tabletop experience.  This Mummy’s Mask AP is composed of four men and three ladies, a complete different experience from the Rise of the Runelords game with five women and two men.

All of my players take a keen interest in the game, providing character backgrounds that I like to weave into the storyline, and make their choices have real consequences in game.

Where have you drawn your inspiration from in creating the campaign?  Is it an existing Adventure Path?  If so, how have you added or amended it?  What other sources have been useful to you in setting up an Ancient Egyptian campaign?

It is an existing adventure path.  I have amended it by tying Legacy of Fire events into it from when we ran that AP 15 years ago.  Also, Mummy’s Mask is the jumpstart for an even longer campaign that will take the party into Planescape and mythic levels. I watched a good bit of History Channel and National Geographic documentaries, as well as documentaries on several ancient cultures on YouTube for inspiration and making the campaign world come to life. 

Most of the campaign seems to be centred around adventures in the Necropolis – in particular, the Tomb of Akentepi.  Give us an idea of some of the treasures and horrors encountered by your adventuring group, The Desert Guardians, in this hallowed place.

Book 1 of the AP centered around exploring the Necropolis.  The Tomb of Akentepi was one of three assignments the party received in the lottery to explore.  They lost one companion, a nagaji bard by the name of Serantis (and played by the same player who is running Corin now), to a Graven Guardian while exploring the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye found inside the Necropolis.  After exploring the Necropolis in book 1, they then moved into book 2 and the auction of items found by their group, as well as another 15-20 other adventuring groups.  During that auction, all hell broke loose with an undead uprising.  The party has finally tracked down the source of the undead uprising and now have entered book 3 of the AP in the Grand Library of Tephu where they are researching the artifact that caused the undead uprising and its origins. 

You have an extensive range of Adventure Logs, and it seems like you have good input from some of the players in your campaign.  How much do your team get involved in this and other aspects of the Campaign?

I award players who keep a journal a 10% bonus to XPs for the game sessions they write an in character journal entry.  Some of the players love writing their entries; others don’t enjoy journal keeping. I never force someone to write a character journal as it can be a lot of work btu like to reward players who take the time to do so.  My GM entries are more from a narrator stance.  Reading in-character journals of what they experienced helps me remember key events I may have forgotten, while also helping formulate ideas to better craft a character’s background and experiences to the overarching storyline of the AP. 

You can find both Zalina’s and Sidero’s character journals in the Wiki on our website.

Without divulging any major plots, what is your plan for the future of your central characters?

While in the Tomb of Akentepi, the Desert Guardians discovered a magical tapestry that serves as a direct portal to the River Styx as best as they can figure out.  They aren’t quite brave enough (or powerful enough) to enter just yet and have kept it a secret from all but themselves. They also haven’t divulged this info to Corin, knowing he may attempt to enter the portal to get back home back to Faerun.  Also within the past month, Zalina learned her younger sister had been kidnapped, and her parents (from Legacy of Fire AP) sent her a letter advising Zalina they were traveling to Sigil as that was the last known location they could find any information on their missing younger daughter.  Signs are pointing to, once the Desert Guardians put to bed the threat the Mummy’s Mask has presented, they may work their way towards Sigil, especially if Zalina hasn’t received any kind of update in months. By this time, we should be around 17^th-18^th level and looking towards a mythic level, Planescape campaign.

What would you say are the most useful tools available on Obsidian Portal, both in terms of Campaign Design and in terms of active playing?

The calendar is extremely helpful as it gives a full year of game days so everyone can make sure to keep their game nights free.  It is rare that we don’t have all seven players at a game as all players are invested.  The Wiki is also very helpful. Not only does it allow me to record experience points and treasure by game session to keep a running log, but it also allows us to keep a bestiary of creatures they have encountered in their adventures so they can harken back to the previous encounter for any future encounters.  The same applies to traps faced and overcome, though this is a more useful tool of the Rise of the Runelords group.  I can also use the Wiki to put general info on cities the Guardians explore so it is easy reference for players at the table.

Near the beginning of your campaign, there is mention of a rival adventure group, The Scorched Hand.  How much interaction has there been between your players and this group?  Did you plan this rival group from the beginning, and what benefits have there been to the campaign in keeping this rivalry alive?  Would you recommend the “rival group” notion to general campaign design?

The Scorched Hand was a rival adventuring group that was one of the other groups in the lottery to explore the recently opened Necropolis (at the Pharoah’s decree).  The party was assigned a location of special interest to the Scorched Hand. After the Guardians refused to relent to giving it up at the request of Velriana Hypaxes, leader of the Scorched Hand, it eventually came to a head when the Scorched Hand entered and took over the location and hired mercenaries to aid them in keeping it.  After a fierce battle, all of the mercenaries and half of the Scorched Hand were defeated.  The other two members of the Scorched Hand were released (though I suspect they may hold a grudge and the Guardians may see them again in the future).

The Scorched Hand was written into the AP from the beginning.  The party letting two of their members go after the confrontation has allowed me to write the two NPCs into the adventure later in the AP and we shall see how they end up resurfacing.  I would recommend it in some campaigns if it fits.  In other games, it doesn’t make sense to add a rival group.  It just depends on the background of the campaign and how the GM plans to interweave the two groups and their goals together.

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?

I always ask for backgrounds of characters, regardless of how detailed or how little is provided.  It allows me to tie in character backgrounds into the storyline in interesting and weird ways.  When a background nugget pops up during a game, it really grabs a player’s attention and keeps them invested in the campaign.  As a recent example, through two full books and the start of a third, Sidero has had no contact with his homeland of Jalmeray or seen much in the way of goods being sold in marketplaces from his homeland.  In our last game, he saw in the crowded bazaar in Tephu, a former competitor in the grandest of martial arts competitions held in Jalmeray.  This left a quandary about whether to split the party so he could converse with the NPC or stay with the group. He ultimately decided splitting the party was a bad idea, especially in a new city.  Now, Sidero will have the thought in the back of his mind, why was that NPC here so far from home and what might he learn from that NPC.

Investing character backgrounds is always hugely important.  Not only does it pay dividends in making an interesting side story that runs parallel to the main story arch, it also gives investment into the campaign by the players and they will not want to miss a game in case their background makes an appearance.

Another pearl I like to keep in mind when running games is making sure I keep notes on loose ends that I can tie back into the storyline later in the campaign. It almost always catches the PCs off guard but I always see smiles on faces when they see their actions, or inactions, are still alive and well (or undead in some cases). They know their actions in game have consequences across the life of the campaign. 

A third pearl, I never try to tell a player no when they come up with a good idea.  Even if the DC will be tough to make, I let them at least try.  If they succeed, it is my responsibility as a GM to make sure they didn’t waste their action on something I was going to say no to all along.  Again, if it is a dumb decision, the party knows it will come back to haunt them in a future game.  But I have awesome players who don’t take advantage of the situation.

A fourth pearl, I respect my player’s time.  If they are going to be gracious enough to spend four hours every other week at my house investing themselves in my campaign, I am going to do everything possible to give them the best possible experience.   I am going to put the work in to provide the best possible experience, including maps and minis, sound effect sand background music (we have Bose surround sound installed in the game room), and visual aids and player handouts.  If the players are going to trust me to run a game, I am going to do everything in my power to make every experience memorable.  I also like to thank my players with small gifts.  They bring food and snacks and a good time to my house every other week.  At Christmas, I gifted each a custom wooden dice box with a set of dice that fit the theme of their character.  At our one year anniversary, I had artwork commissioned of their characters per their descriptions to hang on the wall of our tavern we play in.  Always appreciate your players and let them know that you value their time and investment. 

Finally, we welcome all players regardless of experience level.  In our tavern, we have a leather-bound guest book.  After a player plays one game in our tavern, they can sign the guest book in character.  This gives a running reminder over the years of the different players we have been blessed to play with. This also sets it up so if a player has a friend or family member in town for the week, we always have an extra seat at the table for the guest to play that week’s game with us.  It helps us grow the hobby and make friends who we will hopefully game with again sometime.  Always welcome guest players when you can. It will enrich your gaming experience.

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

Campaign of the Month September 2025: Broken Shield

Enter the world of Golarion, where a group of adventurers fight against the devastating power of the mighty lich known as “The Whispering Tyrant” to save the area of Lastwall from utter ruin.  Follow 10^th_King and his team as they battle against world-shattering danger to the tune of German and Finnish metal in the dangerous, yet adventurous campaign known as “Broken Shield”.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM scr21een.  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?  

My name is Nick. I was born in Seattle, which always feels like home to me, but have lived in Richmond, Virginia for so long now that I should really stop telling people that first part. I am married to a phenomenal person who has been my inspiration for so many things. I actually had them come into this campaign to play as the former demigoddess Arazni. That reveal was one of the best moments early on because every time my wife came to watch us play, at some point in the session I had one of the PCs notice a scrying sensor watching the party, but none of the players connected the dots until the big moment.

You have a very prominent banner on your landing page that is both detailed and intriguing.  Why don’t you tell us all something about it.

One of my players commissioned a beautiful piece of art for the campaign featuring all the player characters in a Darkest Dungeon style. The video game was one of my early inspiration sources for the campaign’s atmosphere and I liked the artwork so much that it’s been my background on my home computer ever since. My players don’t know this, yet, but I altered the established adventure to make their characters functionally immortal partly because I appreciate this art and the enthusiasm for my game that it represents.

How long has your campaign been running and what made you choose Pathfinder as your gaming system.

This particular campaign is an adaptation of Pathfinder’s adventure path Tyrant’s Grasp and we’ve been playing it for about two years now almost weekly. Tyrant’s Grasp is a fantastic AP and Paizo used it to introduce some cataclysmic changes to their world of Golarion when they went to their Second Edition. My players and I have been playing in our own version of the Pathfinder setting (named by us Pathfinder Prime) for over 10 years. In that time, we’ve failed a lot of campaigns, both published and homebrew, resulting some sweeping changes to our own Inner Sea. I used Broken Shield to sell my group on PF2E and bring Pathfinder Prime in line with some of what I thought would be Paizo’s biggest alterations to the larger setting.

Do you play online or at a table?  Tell us something about your average gaming sessions.  How often do you play?  What is your gaming group like?

We play in person most weeks. Classically, everyone brings snacks and I always try to theme what I bring based on what will happen in the session. A quiet little hint for the players to puzzle out for my enjoyment. We play at one of my player’s houses so he can help watch his son who has also made an appearance in a couple sessions. As a whole, my players are very tactically minded, forcing me to constantly be on my toes to have any hope of challenging them, but since we have so much established history in this world we’ve built and between ourselves, we also have a lot of lore and cohesion we can rely on for character creation and role play. My group is all very creative, giving us a wonderful balance of fluff and crunch. Every one of their characters is my absolute favorite at varying points. Look into the OP page for some amazing examples of their talent, but for a brief overview we have Andre Goncharov (a.k.a. the White Spider, a now world-famous circus wrestler grown into his own tall tale), Raffletholomew Twice-Dead (the midwife “native” of the town where inciting events for the campaign begin and host to one of Pharasma’s most powerful agents now clinging to existence), Wil Scarborough (the orphaned child of a different player’s former character in our Carrion Crown game), Mathias Forest (the adopted son of that player’s own Carrion Crown character who was not concurrent with the character that died and orphaned Wil), and Apollonia (the daughter of that player’s own character in a homebrew game now carrying on that player’s many-year legacy and plans for the setting). Each of these was unknowingly and completely independently made to be perfect for the campaign and weaving their stories into the adventure has been delightful.

Tell us about life in Lastwall.  What dangers are still propagated by “The Whispering Tyrant”?  What sort of adventures do your characters get up to?  What are their quests?  What are the challenges?

For those unfamiliar with Paizo’s Pathfinder setting, the Whispering Tyrant is basically THE big bad. A classic lich necromancer bent on world domination and his own superiority over even the gods themselves, his power over death is unimaginable and nearly unstoppable. The AP as written is about him destroying Lastwall as a nation, leaving it a land of horrors and undeath. The characters have at this point traveled hitherto unseen parts of the world to try and find a way to stop his onslaught, and have only recently come back with any hope of actually being able to do so. They have been several catastrophic steps behind him up to now and have been repeatedly caught off guard by expecting things to follow normal game tropes. More than once, they’ve discovered the thing they set out to stop or learn about is either already in progress or has already happened. I’ve worked hard throughout to give them the impression that many of these events were destined to occur later in the story only to pull the rug out from under them. That has sometimes backfired, forcing my hand even earlier, bit it’s been a BLAST.

Is the main WIKI mainly set up by yourself?  Do any of your players help out?  Do you have any tips for newcomers starting to build their own campaigns?

I built the initial wiki, but life and time have gotten away from me. At this point, a couple of my players have largely taken control of it and are responsible for how incredible a resource it remains. From day one, I have rewarded player’s for adding content, bribing them with Hero Points, but their efforts have gone above and beyond. I am truly in awe of the work they do every week.

There are several musical links in your campaign, particularly in the adventure logs.  How important are these to your campaign?  Do you use music during your sessions?

I create new playlists to use in session for each part of the campaign. Every major milestone means a change to the tone of the music I set. One of the first, as an example, used a lot of video game music, heavily featuring the Darkest Dungeon soundtrack which may have influenced the commissioned banner a player got. Currently I play a lot of German and Finnish metal as the players explore a Dwarven ruin and Elvish artifacts. My players also use music specifically to set the tone of some of their adventure logs and in particular I’ve been impressed with how many of Wil’s logs actually line up in their writing with the music playing as you read it. Line breaks frequently match breaks in the music if you hit play just before you start reading.

Without divulging any major plots, what is your plan for the future of your central characters?

We are honestly in the home stretch of the campaign, so my players and I are really all focused more on the legacy these characters will have on Pathfinder Prime at this point. I recently tried to force them into a difficult heroes choice where they had to risk that legacy to save the world itself. The characters all elected to do the right thing, but the players were very frustrated with my decision. They blamed the source material (sorry Paizo!) and will only learn I’m the culprit reading this, but I wanted the stakes to be real. I had to backtrack on that choice a bit, but we’ve worked it into the story and after some checks, only one of them will suffer the full consequences.

What would you say are the most useful tools available on Obsidian Portal, both in terms of Campaign Design and in terms of active playing?

I have used OP for every campaign we’ve run in our Pathfinder Prime setting. I find it incredibly useful for giving players background on the setting and character creation. Our group has talked several times about creating an Obsidian Portal wiki just to have our own wiki for our Pathfinder games and tracking all the changes from the published setting. By far my favorite part of Obsidian Portal, though, are the adventure logs and players’ ability to document their own perspectives on each session or other events in their lives. As both a player and a GM, the insight into another character and the creativity we all get to display even between sessions is incredible.

What have your main influences been in building and running your campaign?  Think of literature, films, games, anything else.

There are honestly so many influences I draw on for this game. I’ve mentioned Darkest Dungeon a few times, but I’ve also relied on one of my favorite video games, Bloodborne, for creepiness and atmosphere. Supernatural and the Castlevania TV show have also been big inspirations. I have steeped myself in classic horror from Dracula and Frankenstein to the Cthulhu mythos to guide my own storytelling. I also listen to playthrough recordings of Pathfinder every day to keep on top of rules, and steal techniques and ideas from fellow GMs. I’d especially like to shout out Find the Path who are also currently going through Tyrant’s Grasp and who are a phenomenal podcast.

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?

I am truly blessed to have a fantastic group of players who are just as invested in this ongoing story as I am. The best advice I think any GM can give is to communicate with your players and use them to help us all tell a group narrative. Take their ideas and their goals and rewrite everything if you have to. You can definitely still surprise them by twisting their expectations, but the involvement you get is incredible and unique. This is a cooperative medium and watching something grow beyond any of us has been truly beautiful. My thanks have to go to Obsidian Portal for giving us a place to store and refer back to our legacy!

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!

Campaign of the Month July 2025: Adoraith: Out of the Shadows

Make ready the main-sail and trim those lines! It’s time to brave the dark and briny waters of this month’s winning Campaign of the Month — “Adoraith: Out of the Shadows.” A maze of shattered islands awaits beyond the haze as we return to the world of Adoraith and ask this two-time winner how best to captain a crew who seek adventures on the high seas.

~ Obsidian Portal spoke with you last in 2016, when “Adoraith: Echoes of Epirus” won Campaign of the Month and we had the chance to get to know you. What’s new in your life in the last nine years?

Goodness, the last decade has been a whirlwind. I continued publishing 5e material, releasing several adventures, until my development work ground to a halt in 2019 when I broke my back in a freak accident. The accident landed me in a wheelchair. It took several years for me to get back on track enough to consider development again. Even then I had some setbacks that keeps me sidelined.

I don’t want to give the impression that my life is all doom and gloom though. My family and I moved to my favorite place in the world, New Orleans. The people, music, food and culture has been a real lift to my spirits. Obviously, I put together a gaming group and have been able to leverage nearly 40 years of content on the newcomers. It excites me to see firsthand how different groups react to the same content. 

~ Your current campaign, “Adoraith: Out of the Shadows” is a tail of sails and ships upon the Sapphire Sea that varies piracy with a little classic adventuring. Why are we all so drawn to stories on the high seas, in your opinion?

Our oceans and seas remain the last frontier we humans have yet to completely explore. There persists a mystery to the vast ocean depths that draws our wonder and imagination. Not only that, but there is a romantic notion that life on the seas somehow freeing for the body and soul. In a very real-world sense, adventure still awaits!

Turning to Dungeons and Dragons, I like to have just as much watercraft travel as overland. Many DM’s prefer to cut to the chase and get their party to their target as quickly as possible. I take a different view believing that the journey should be every bit part of the adventure as their destination. This is likely due to the tedious habit of some DMs rolling for encounters each and every day that their group travels.

My approach is to prepare a number of encounters that relate back to the main plot that I can use while traveling. Having varied terrain types opens a world of perils and creatures to encounter.

~ What’s the story, so far? And without giving too much away to your players, where does it lead next?

When the campaign began, the group wanted a chance to do achieve something that doesn’t happen too often. They asked for a story driven game where the characters reach 20^th level. After 3 years, playing nearly every Sunday (I think we have 130 adventure logs), they are now 19^th level and very nearly at the end.

With nearly 700 hours of sessions under our belts, the thought of summarizing the events is a bit daunting. But, At the risk of oversimplifying the story, here goes.

Out of the Shadows refers to the rise of the Cult of Tharizdun revealing itself and attempting to free the chained god. It’s important to point out that I use the 1^st edition backstory of Tharizdun. One where he was one of the eldest gods and posed a threat to existence of the multiverse. Tharizdun’s attempt to unravel reality led the gods, both good and evil, to ally and imprison him. Even with the entire might of all divinity opposing him, the battle was still a near thing.

My one change is that I leaned into chaos and madness making Tharizdun a Chaotic Neutral deity. I wanted to give him a slight sympathetic angle by making his existence one of pain and madness which explained his desire to trigger the Armageddon.

Tharizdun was still responsible for the creation of the Abyss, which was formed from his wails and ravings that reverberated into infinity as his prison was slammed shut. At that time, the Abyss was a realm of chaos but the creatures that made the plane their home twisted it to their evil nature. However, any creature spawned of the Abyss would be an easy puppet for the mad god and his followers.

Tharizdun’s avatar took the form of a young black haired pale skinned child. Studying the Lament for Lost Tharizdun, the last few surviving scraps of the mad god’s scriptures, the cult learned that key to his release lay in a ritual to imbue a specific child’s body with Tharizdun’s essence. This child will be born on the “Day of Omens” October 13^th   but under a specific moon (a harvest moon). The cult knew that the moon played a role but their few tattered pages of the Lament did not reveal the specifics. Thus, the cult spent years hunting and kidnapping children with a birthday of October 13^th. With so many possible candidates, the cult wasted no time and began performing rituals to discover the vessel for the avatar.

Enter the heroes, several of whom were orphans who aged out of an orphanage found in the pirate hold of Freeport. For reasons unknown to most, Freeport was seething with a large orphan population. Later, these party members would learn that they were orphaned by the cult itself.

Against this backdrop, a very young, no older than 8 or 9 to most eyes, fire-haired elven girl named Exie appears in Freeport. She was not kidnapped by the cult but arrived in the pirate hold by happenstance due to her serial habit of stowing away on ocean going vessels. Exie would quickly befriend the heroes and would drift in and out of their lives frequently while the party was in Freeport.

Disaster struck while the party attempted to disrupt the cult’s activities. Exie tailed the party while they attempted to disrupt one of the cult’s rituals. With Exie present, both the heroes and cult were shocked to find that the ritual to infuse the power of Tharizdun into an avatar was successful. Exie, who had one the affections of the party, was stricken. Implanted with the seed of chaos on madness.

Determined to save Exie and stop the release of Tharizdun, the party has fought to help Exie keep a grip on reality and stop her from descending into madness. However, for all their efforts, the heroes know that the clock is ticking. In order to sever the tie between Exie and Tharizdun, they must repair Tharizdun’s crumbling prison.

These events were all nearly two and half years ago. Since then, the party has ventured from one side of the game world to the other, traveled the mists of Hades, and even delved into the Abyss.

The heroes now stand on the precipice of disaster. Exie has been stolen by the cult and taken to the Rift where a planar breech has torn a hole in the fabric of reality. Within the Rift, the heroes must do battle to rescue Exie and crush the Cult of Tharizdun once and for all.  

~ It looks like you published some adventures and supplemental rules in the past. Care to tell us about that experience?

I absolutely love game development but as I mentioned above, health issues have derailed my publishing. Releasing good content takes an enormous amount of time and cooperation from multiple groups willing to test the material. However, there is no better feeling than hearing from gamers how much they loved a product.

Most of the material I have published are adventures, but I did collaborate with Kelsey Dionne, creator of Shadowdark, on a book of monsters called the Monstrous Lexicon. I find monster creation much more fun than adventure writing. When creating a good beasty you don’t have to worry about how the monster ties into a storyline or whether the encounter is balanced. All you need to do is let your imagination loose and try and create something completely outside the box.

As for the publishing process, I have released material on Amazon, DriveThruRPG, and the DM’s Guild. Of the three, the DM’s Guild has been a very disappointing experience. Sales were fine but I did have a hard time working with the back-end folks. One must also be wary of their exclusivity clauses in their terms.

~ Your adventure logs and journal entries for “Out of the Shadows” have been a very enjoyable read, and the addition of images of miniatures, mid-battle, draw those of us outside the game into the story. Do these kind of detailed archives of the campaign help you and/or your players — as memory aids or inspiration or otherwise — especially as you progress into higher levels and more complex plotlines?

When I run campaigns, I prefer to engross the players in a plot line that takes a great deal of time and investigation to unwind. Fortunately, we have been lucky enough to be surrounded by players who embrace that style and take the necessary steps to stay on top of all the moving parts.

The adventure logs were meant to be written from the perspective of the character writing the update for that week. So, if that PC incorrectly interpreted clues or simply disagreed with another’s analysis the log may not reflect reality which I absolutely love. Groups of people can look at a particular event and come to very different conclusions. The truth always manages to bubble to the surface as either an opportunity for the heroes to prevent a catastrophe or as a bomb that blows up in their face.

That said, nearly every player keeps notes. Courtney in particular is very good about keeping minutes. She has a system for tracking NPCs, hooks, and events using a different colored pen for each subject. On multiple occasions her notebooks have saved the heroes from making disastrous decisions.

The pictures are something I insert now and then for posterity. I love documenting our adventures with photographs and have been doing it for years. I have pictures going back to the 1980s that I am fondly able to look back on.

~ What have been some of your favorite moments in this iteration of “Adoraith”?

As a DM, I find my favorite moments come when I am able to evoke a visceral reaction from my players. I don’t think there is any greater compliment to a DM’s effort than when the players become that invested in a campaign. I have been fortunate enough to experience many such moments but none more incredible than when Exie was taken from the party.

Mechanically, I truly enjoy creating magic items. In my world, every magic item comes with a beneficial enchantment and a curse. That said, I have removed the Identify spell from the game. Characters have to consult with the wise, research histories, and/or use trial and error to discover an item’s powers. I love watching my players weigh benefits against curses or stress about equipping an item without any idea of what the curse may be. Magic is a dangerous thing and not for the faint of heart!

~ Do you or your players have any other projects on the horizon for which we should keep a weather-eye? Any more plans for new campaigns in the world of “Adoraith” in the foreseeable future?

I have had to step back from game development due to health issues. I have done extensive work on Johnny Fraser-Allen’s, The Gloaming, 5e game setting. I also had a number of other projects in the works but everything is currently on hold. At least in regards to my involvement.

I really liked 5e until Tasha’s came out. I felt the features in that book and subsequent books were unbalanced and poorly written. I used to believe that it didn’t really matter what system you used. The only thing of consequence was the story and interactions of the players. Sadly, 5e became so lopsided in favor of the players that I spent far more time planning battlefield strategies than interesting plot lines.

There were really only two options left to me if I wanted to bring some balance back to my game. Either only use the core 5e books or switch to another edition of DnD. My table really didn’t want to return to an older system like 2e or 3.5e. As a result, for the first time in 45 years of gaming, I am retiring Dungeons and Dragons as my go to system. The plan is to run an Alien RPG Campaign to serve as a Fantasy RPG palate cleanser (I have already set up an Obsidian Portal page for the game here: https://alien-4.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page) and then start trying other game systems starting with Castles and Crusades.

~ And as we always do, Obsidian Portal loves to ask for any new tips, tricks, or general advice you’ve gleaned in the last almost-decade that you could share with other Game Masters, World Builders, and writers.

I am a huge proponent of homebrewing just about everything. I love to create new monsters, features, and spells that the players do not have access to or knowledge of. D&D has been around for 50 years and there are very few surprises coming out of the published material. If I want to challenge my players, especially when playing 5e, I have to customize just about everything.

Below are my player’s contributions to the interview:

Joe (Wade the human Ranger/Sorcerer)

Playing Wade, I’ve loved every minute of it, but there have been a few moments that have really stuck with me. It was around the time Wade was given his title of “the immortal” by Lin. We had found a mound that the evil lizard people were using to corrupt eggs and the group was going to go inside and smash them. Wade decided to stay back and be outside with Exie as to avoid the dangers there. Little did Wade know this would be the first of many many times when he stands in the back of the group only to get jumped but this time by a giant lizard man holding a club as he swings it, crits and hits Wade square in the chest caving in his chest and sending him flying 10 feet back. Only for the rest of the group to come out, kill the lizard man and then revive Wade for the umpteenth time in the short amount of time the campaign had been going.

For me the adventure logs are great it’s the first campaign I’ve been in where we’ve done something like this, when I started as the designated writer of them as the captain of the group I tried to give them a twist of not just a recap of the session but more of a POV from Wade, and when life got a little too busy for me to keep up I’m glad when Lin’s player took over for it, that he kept the same thing going. Of course, now we all chip in and I love how we all do it from our POV and add in a little personality to the retelling. As far as we are in this campaign however it can be very difficult to keep some things straight as to what comes next thankfully due to the journals and the notes that Meera takes, they help keep us on the right path.

The other favorite moment for me was the end of the Coraline arc when Meera finally accepted to be her “mommy” and broke the curse on her showing her true form of Sofil the Angel. It was a very emotional moment for Wade because of all the trials he had to go through to keep her safe and care for her in the landscape of Hades while also figuring out his new form of being a zombie. Wade growing up in an orphanage gives him a huge soft spot for children, and a very protective fatherly love for all of them and seeing her reach her potential filled me as a player full of love a pride that we were able to help her. I look forward to seeing her come back at the end of this campaign.

Scott (Reginald the halfling Paladin)

One of my favorite “moments” of the Adoraith campaign has been the planar travel.  I read and listen endlessly to planar lore and it’s such an exciting topic for me.  In my many years of ttrpg gaming and campaigns I’ve had very minimal time outside the prime material plane. (Except when I first me Pickled Dragon and he was running Temple of Elemental Evil).  I joined Adoraith while the party was in Hades and afterwards went to the Abyss as well as the outlands, getting to see Sigil atop the spire and visit the gate town of Tradegate.  Matt truly brought these places life making them unique and including game mechanics such as Gloom in Hades to set these places apart.

Another of the most memorable moments was when we were happy to see Demogorgon…. not because he is a swell fella but because the hatred between Orcus and him made it possible for us to escape Orcus’ palace alive.

Courtney (Meera the half-orc Fighter/Barbarian)

The adventure logs and journal entries are especially helpful when one of us has to miss a session. It’s also fun to hear another character’s version of events and how their perception differs from your own. Favorite moments: Some of my (Courtney/Meera) favorite moments include:

>Meera’s first awakening as the Dawn Champion, when all of her physical stats became 30 for the day (I’ve never felt so invincible),

>When Meera and KeeWee set off on a low stakes reconnaissance mission and ended up beating up some guy for being a jerk (not sure why a guest player thought Meera and KeeWee were too reckless),

>Anytime Meera pulls out the severed undead head in a birdcage she’s been carrying since session 2 in order to show (scare) a new PC or NPC

Jeremy (Lin the elf Rogue/Sorcerer/Cleric)

Favorite moments

Matt let me try something I’ve never done in a game before.. actively work against the party. We all came into the game as strangers from the internet, and my character wasn’t trusted at the start due to having a somewhat fancy introduction. Despite the distrust, I presented a character that proved his worth while at the same time set the party back along the way. One of my character’s goals was to get out of the organization he worked for and eventually came clean to the party. We were several months and levels into the campaign, and I felt my character had been through enough ‘party attachment’ events to have courage to reveal his ploys. I even brought cheesy, character specific Christmas presents (IRL) to the group when my character confessed. I got some grumbles, but oh boy the laughs that came out of some of the confessions were priceless.

At one point in the game, my character was cursed by hags and being controlled during long rests. I was only aware of the lack of resting for the longest time as exhaustion (2014) kept stacking up. Once it was revealed to my character that he had been up to nefarious deeds, I tried to take measures to disable my controllers’ abilities by setting nightly traps for myself Moon Knight style. When those weren’t proving to be sufficient, I turned to my most trusted party member and had them babysit my character that was bound, gagged, and blindfolded. Some of the other characters walked in on the scene and a couple of hilarious exchanges were had at my expense.

One mission we had to scale a massive cliff face to reach a fort. Some people’s initial attempts at climbing didn’t go so well, so I had my character begin stretching as I did the same around the table. My character succeeded in scaling the cliff, and other people indulged the goofiness of stretching out of game. The next time we had to climb an even more tumultuous wall, I had my character once again take time to stretch and encouraged the group. We succeeded with a minor, but quite scary hiccup. Matt was even shocked at the success of this climb, and we later found out we skipped weeks of planned content by making the climb. Stretching around the table became a thing after that anytime we had a seemingly monumental task before us. I still get a chuckle when people join in on the goofy suggestion around the table. Remember kids.. Stretch!

Matt does custom magic items complete with lore and potentially even curses. A favorite magic item that we have come across is the Gremlin Bag. It is a Bag of Holding with a Gremlin inside that is one of the vanest characters one will ever meet. My character took on the challenge of appeasing the Gremlin (more or less the curse of this item), of course many times lying to it, and haven’t looked back since. I even aided the Gremlin from an ailment at one point, and the Gremlin has honestly been one of the most valuable NPCs to the group in my opinion. The Gremlin revealed to my character his nefarious deeds while he was being controlled by the hags. We have utilized the bag in a number of instances to temporarily house people in need of saving. We used it to liberate an entire squad of harpies that have now become part of the hilarity of the bag. I even upgraded the bag at a magical forge, and some of the party suspect the Gremlin will wind up being the end game encounter as a result of my brown nosing. Despite all the vanity and requests, the Gremlin actually has standards… Please, please ask Matt about the Gremlin Bag!

Overall

Matt’s campaign and world is unlike any other I’ve ever played in over all my years of the TTRPG hobby. The world is gritty, dark, captivating, and best of all.. organic. All of our choices matter, even seemingly insignificant ones, and have consequences unforeseen for potentially months. Our characters wear their scars and have definitely learned from them. Some of our choices have even resulted in gods being

winked out of existence and going silent. We find out about them later when the general populace has no recollection of the deity. How big of a ‘whoops’ moment is that for a player?!?

I have never been in a game that encouraged complete journaling as a collective either. Took notes here and there sure, but never told the whole story. The journaling of the campaign has been awesome. Matt incentivizes it and we all enjoy it. It keeps the players invested and gives us all reminders of the previous session(s) if needed. I feel it also gets the players more attached to their characters as they are detailing thoughts and emotions they had at the table in those journaled moments that get brought to life for all instead of locked away in memories. I know I especially enjoy the creative liberties in telling moments from my character’s point of view, oftentimes including pokes at others that carries on party banter. The world, players, and characters all become more organic in how everything comes together as a resultl.

I even feel I have become a better player and GM from playing in Matt’s world. I took the journaling aspect to other games as a player and the GMs really appreciate the investment. I have taken the heavy consequences aspect of Matt’s game and applied to my own. Players get that shock factor in the moment, but usually laugh and change their approach to situations the next time while mentioning a previous big consequence. The worlds and games need to have consequences, even sometimes as a result of the party succeeding at a current, dire mission.

Raise up that anchor and make haste, mateys! We’ve strayed too long in these isles and I sense a storm coming up. Many thanks to the treasure-laden team of Adoraith and his crew as they write more grand tales worthy of a sailor’s song. And if you know a campaign just as worthy as this, be sure to nominate it in the community forums for consideration and even a chance to win the coveted Campaign of the Year!

Campaign of the Month June 2025: Shadowrun Returns

In 2050, a Shadowrun team was obliterated in an explosion that lit up the Redmond Barrens.

Official story: gas leak.

Unofficial story: no one’s talking.

Reality: a megacorp cover-up with body bags and black ink.

Every trace of the team was scrubbed. No names. No records. Just scorched ruins, whispered rumors, and a few scattered ashes.
But the dead left behind people.

Each player character is connected to someone who died that night. A sibling. A lover. A partner. A friend. They never worked together – until now.
Brought together by grief, by questions, by fragments the corps missed, the runners are chasing a truth that got six people killed. And if they find it, they’ll have to decide what to do with it.

This is a campaign about mystery, memory, and revenge.

About digging through the ruins of a lie and finding out what was worth killing for.

The Sixth World doesn’t care if they succeed.
But someone does.
And they’re watching.

Come join us in exploring the world within Shadowrun Returns in our interview with Grand_dm below!

Let’s start with the crew. Who are the players behind the runners? Tell us a bit about your group: how did you all come together, and what led you to dive into the world of Shadowrun specifically?

I run with a crew that bleeds story. No rules lawyers, no tourists – just folks who want to make something unforgettable. They’re the kind of players who don’t ask what the bonus is, they ask what it costs. Some of them are friends I have been gaming with for four decades. My wife and adult son are also part of the crew, which is really special to me.

Why Shadowrun? It’s a dirty mirror, and we wanted to see what stared back. We set our campaign in 2050 for a reason – before wireless, before upgrades got sleek. This is a world of tangled cables. We didn’t just choose Shadowrun. We made a deal with it.

What’s your play setup like? How often do you run sessions, and do you play in person, online, or somewhere in between?

Roll20. Custom sheets. Homebrew logic. House rules with claws. We play once or twice a month, adult schedule permitting. The latter is the ultimate final boss of TTRPGs. Every November we get together in person to play a long weekend. Our group is scattered to the four winds so it’s almost like a mini con.

For newcomers to the Sixth World, how would you describe the tone of your campaign? Shadowrun has a wide spectrum of vibes, where does your game land on the scale from neon noir to full-on dystopian chaos?

The tone? Street-level survival with mythic echoes. It’s not just dystopia – it’s personal. It’s rusted chrome, smudged rituals, and memories that bite back. You won’t find shiny futures or sleek solutions here. You’ll find a warehouse full of tagged bodies, a decker staring too long at the static in their feed, a burned-out shaman muttering to something only they can see.
The world doesn’t explain itself. It pressures you until you adapt. This isn’t about saving the world.

It’s about stealing back meaning in a world that already sold it.

The visuals on your campaign site are incredibly cohesive and atmospheric. Can you walk us through your process for sourcing or creating the artwork? Any tips for maintaining such a unified visual style across characters, maps, logs, and wiki entries?

Everything gets filtered through intent. I don’t care if it’s stock art or AI generated – if it looks like it’s right, I will use it. I’m picky when it comes to imagery, since with an RPG you’re deleting the mind’s eye. If you decide that THIS is how the thing looks, it needs to be right.

You’ve clearly spent a lot of time wrangling your campaigns on Obsidian Portal. Which features have become absolutely essential to how you organize and run your game?

The wiki comes first. Not for the players – for me. It’s how I understand the world. I make one for just about every campaign I run. It’s not a vault of facts – it’s scaffolding for story, memory, and consequence. I recommend that approach to new gamemasters. YMMV

Your site design has a unique and gritty feel that’s perfect for Shadowrun. Where did the inspiration for your site’s look and layout come from?

I mine like a pro and reshape it like a hammer to the skull. Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Neuromancer, Hardwired, Dirty Harry, random junk from old game manuals – I take it, twist it, and make it bleed my tone.

The site isn’t “designed.” It’s assembled like a weapon.
I homebrew everything. I borrow anything. So should every GM.

Steal it all. Make it yours. The game doesn’t care where the pieces came from – only what you build out of the wreckage.

Your adventure logs are rich, detailed, and consistent, clearly crafted with care. How do you approach writing them? Do you use them to recap, expand the world, or even foreshadow future events?

Give us a highlight reel moment. What’s one scene or session that still gets talked about to this day?
Whether it was hilarious, heartbreaking, or just plain badass, we’d love to hear about it.

The Garden of SIN. A graveyard for the forgotten of Seattle. A cleansing.
The new group of PCs came to clean up the wreckage – ashes of a team that never got to finish the story. They consecrated ground. Bled for it. Made it matter again. It changed them. A quiet kind of rebirth, soaked in rain and ruined memories. That was the moment the team became a crew. Not because they survived. Because they refused to forget.

And finally, we always ask: What’s your ‘secret sauce’ for running a great campaign? If you had to bottle up your GM philosophy, what are the key ingredients that keep your game compelling and your players coming back for more?

Everything is earned. Everything costs.

And when the big moments come they shine brighter because of the darkness they rose from.

That’s my job. That’s the gig.

I build the pressure. I light the fuse. But the story? That’s on them.

The players shape it with their doubts, their decisions, and their scars.

I don’t give them the win. I give them the weight.

Because when they finally pull it off – when something truly lands – it’s not luck. It’s not XP.

It’s the long shadow of a story they helped build with both hands.

That’s the kind of game they remember.

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

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!

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!