The Spartan Show Tabletop Tuesday Group

Preparation for first session information.

As per questions from participants:

Player's Handbook (5th edition)

It is preferred that you bring your own copy, but if you do not have one, it is not required, the DM has spare books that can be borrowed during the game sessions.

Dice

You are encouraged to bring your own polyhedral dice, but if you do not have dice of your own, the DM has plenty of spare sets he can loan to players during the sessions. A typical minimum set includes 1x 4-sided, 4x 6-sided, 1x 8-sided, 2x 10-sided/percentile, 1x 12-sided, 1x 20-sided.

Character Sheets

We will create new characters at our first gathering (that usually takes up most of the session). All character sheets will remain with the DM between sessions.We will use custom-modified character sheets that include additional information and the Comeliness attribute.

Miniatures

Miniatures are used to help keep track of locations in combat situations, but are not stressed. Remember I focus on ROLE-playing over ROLL-playing, but maps and minis can be helpful to reduce confusion about "who was where" when it matters. You are welcome to bring your own miniatures if you wish, however the DM does have of his own miniatures (mostly old-school 1980s lead-based) so you do not need to bring minis unless you wish to.

I will also provide scratch paper, pencils, and other documents.

Campaign/Adventure Preparation Overview

As far as the beginning of the adventure...

You will each have been sent, or arrived, at the location for individual reasons, with an over-arching common cause. You will be meeting initially in a typical cliché tavern setting, this will begin the actual role-play part.

After the characters and their backgrounds are created, we will start out the initial adventure in a land that is set in a quasi-Aurthurian (as in King Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur, Mordred, etc.) setting.

You will all begin in the port city Balcoth on the southern end of Regnum Sapientium.

This area is very unfriendly to non-humans, so you will want to be sure to have at least a hooded cloak or disguise skill/kit/item/magic if you are playing a character that is a non-human race. You won't be strung-up or run out of town, but most human folk won't have anything to do with non-humans, and are especially fearful of the haughty Elves. However, any Drow and similar "Dark folk" will trigger physical hostility and likely bring the law in to try to capture immediately.

Once you have all gathered (bit by bit) at Numien's Inn & Tavern, here the actual story will begin to unfold.

An unseasonable heavy fog, and lack of winds has been worsening for days without breaking, all but stopping the shipping lines. Boats without oars (or other means of propulsion) have been rescued in recent days by other ships. The docks are packed full, with many ships wanting to leave, but waiting for the weather to improve.

Everyone is talking about a threatening armada with forces building from Mordred across the seas.

At points you will likely travel through lands that are quite the opposite of this human-dominant area. and will then rapidly transition through a variety of areas (and likely more friendly to elves but inversely unfriendly to humans).

If all goes well, you will also end up in locations reminiscent of the ancient Middle-east, ancient Grecian and Roman cultures, and potentially fully Oriental/Eastern Asian areas. Those are all in more "local" areas. During your travels you will very likely cross into other planes of existance with whole other worlds, where the laws of the physical and magical behave in unexpected ways.

You will begin in a sea-port setting, then likely travel cross-country. Your party will likely rapidly experience many terrain types; plains, high mountains, vast deserts, dense jungles, underground depths, underwater, and many other environments. This means everyone will have opportunities to shine in different ways.

There are some specific issues depending on your backgrounds, so each of you may have come to the port for different reasons, while others may be there for similar reasons. I will meet with each of you privately for a few minutes to go over the more private aspects of your backgrounds.

Remember, every character should have something in their background that they would nearly rather die than have others discover. These issues likely drive the character(s) in specific situations to react certain ways that the other characters may find surprising.