A Sliver of Despair

Adventure Location All of the characters travel to the town of Daggerford. Daggerford is located centrally in the Sword Coast, just south of Waterdeep along the Trade Way. Although small in size (population around 2000), because of it's location it plays an important role in the region. The town is walled with a central keep, a reflection of its origin as the feudal seat of a lord within a much larger kingdom. Its customs and laws are holdovers from that time. Rule is hereditary, with dukedom going to the firstborn male of the family. The current Duke is Maldwyn Daggerford, a selfish and arrogant man more interested in being lavished and admired than ruling. Daggerford is an important hub for trade, located next to the Trade Way and on the banks of the Delimbiyr river. The river becomes shallow at Daggerford, so boat traffic from the east must stop. This traffic meets with caravans traveling north or south on the Trade Way. Adventure Hook While the characters are in Da...

Setting The 'Sliver of Despair' campaign will be set in the Sword Coast area of the Forgotten Realms using the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition rule-set and homebrew rules changes as the need arises. Each of the characters are from different areas of the realms, so there will be some pre-adventuring time spent building a motivation to gather all of them in a single location. I decided on Daggerford as the initial gathering spot. It provides a convenient location for future adventuring, being located between the cities of Waterdeep to the north, Baldur's Gate to the south and the Sea of Swords a short distance west. The Characters Kalain Galathil Callin is playing a wood elf Ranger named Kalain Galathil. His early life was spent in a small village in the High Forest with his parents and two siblings. It was a peaceful, typical elvish life until the village was attacked by a horde of undead. The undead laid waste to the entire village, other than Kalain, who with ...

Inspiration I was inspired to start a campaign after reading the book "Empire of Imagination," by Michael Witwer. It made me feel nostalgic for my old gaming sessions growing up in the seventies and eighties. Those were great evenings spent with a large collection of friends in the Yocom basement. I felt like my life lacked the creativity that I had as a youth and I was eager to recapture some of that. The Challenges My desire was to run a game with some of my old friends from my youth. Luckily I have stayed in touch with a good number of them, some more loosely than others. My first concern was that I was not sure how many of them would be interested in playing again and willing to put the time into it. Next, there was the issue of logistics. I currently live in the Bay Area, whereas the majority of my old gaming buddies still live in the Salt Lake City area. The final concern was what version of Dungeons & Dragons were we going to play. It had been 8+ years si...