You look up from where you kneel at the tall figure stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight that surrounds you, alongside a handful of other individuals bound together by lengths of blue-white chain. The figure is robed in a red mantle, decorated with regalia of some import unknown to you. As they look down at you their eyes, rings of orange-gold with piercing pupils, study your expression contorted as it is with anger, confusion or concern, it is hard to tell. Their face is a morass of tentacles that undulate strangely to your own perceptions. A Mindflayer, you recall their race was called by those who feared them, or the Ilithid by scholars and among their own kind. Your wrists and ankles both are bound in adamant shackles, inscribed with runes to make your escape implausible, by magic or might, the light above is blinding and heavenly, but you feel an ominous and dangerous intent behind it. The Ilithid figure addresses you not with words but directly into your mind, the voice you hear one with both a tone of pity and judgement intertwined. “You have been found guilty of your crimes by the Judges of all worlds. It is my duty as Arbiter of such matters to address you and send you on your way. The decision is clear, for the crimes of uncountable murders, for the purposes of ritual sacrifice, assassination, genocide and personal gratification, serial or otherwise. For the crimes of terrorism against the innocent masses, forcing your world views onto others through acts of pain, terror and suffering. For the crimes of organisational villainy, aiding and abetting fellow criminals alongside a network in acts of thievery, drug pushing, and manipulation of innocents for the purposes of selfish monetary gain. For the crimes of grand larceny, having stolen valued historical artifacts to sell in illegal markets and the destruction of ancient relics of cultural significance. For the crimes of mortal trafficking, kidnapping your fellow people and selling them as stock to those who would use, torture and misuse such innocents in despicable ways, enslaving them to both mortal and undying servitude. Lastly, for the crimes of animal cruelty, organising illegal fighting rings and black market stores for both rare beast and endangered monster alike, mistreating them to do your bidding through starvation, physical harm, and even cannibalism." "For all of these crimes, and more, the Judges have decided upon your punishment. Though we are still a fair people, despite the crimes you have committed, and it has been decided you will be cast out from all mortal planes. Denied access to such places on an intrinsic level, your souls forever marred. Though this is surely to be a death sentence, it is not an execution. Should you find it within yourselves to survive this place, repent on your sins, learn from your mistakes, grow into a better person and eventually escape the sealed plane you shall be cast into, then perhaps you will come back as better souls. Souls worth joining civilisation once more. Farewell, may our minds never entangle again.” The figure steps back with their final words, disappearing into the shadow once more. The divine light above you blinks out and your stomach lurches, your mind expanding and contracting a thousand times over as you experience whatever spell has been cast. Then everything stops. As your eyes adjust in the dim orange light of the new plane you find yourself in, you find the shackles that bound you vanished. The others, this group of upstarts, criminals and ne’erdowells around you are alone, yet together, in an unknown place. You all lie far from the reaches of justice and the watching eyes of innocents. Lost. Imprisoned. Isolated, forevermore. If that little snippet interests you, then boy do I have a campaign to run for you. As you may have guessed, this campaign will run the narrative lines of survival, horror, and drama and will be a twist on the Evil Campaign, wherein your characters have already been caught for their crimes, faced their respective trials and jurors, and are summarily punished by being banished into a strange plane, far from the reaches of ordinary mortal beings to live out their sentence. In this sense, your characters will be Evil Aligned individuals who have committed heinous crimes in their life. You'll start at 5th level, and will initially have nothing but the clothing on your back. Starting equipment you choose to take as per your class equipment will be found in the initial foray of exploration of your immediate surroundings in the first session, and from there survival becomes top priority. There’s no limit on race or class options you can choose, save for homebrew options of which there’ll be none so things won't get too crazy, so feel free to create someone you’ve never played as before, or a personal favourite. We'll have an initial session 0 so everyone can get together to better talk over their character ideas, and iron out additional rules and details going forward. The origins of your characters will be varied, and you may not all originate from the same mortal plane, or even material dimension, so you have free reign for any wacky origin you want to pull, whether that be from the fictional location of a novel or book series, an animated show or film source, or other DnD source material, so long as you translate that character into a DnD Race and Class combo. Your character’s personal history, specifically the names of exact locations and important individuals they used to know, has all but been wiped from their memory as part of this sentence, so they may not recall specifics that would lead toward any retribution toward those who might have wronged them as part of the punishment when they were banished to this distant plane. The plane in question, the Isolated Plane, is a place of monsters, shadows, hopelessness and lost souls. Where those who fall through the cracks of all planes end up, one way or another, lost for all eternity. Now, this doesn’t mean escape isn’t an option, and only a clever individual, or a band of idiots, can hope to find a Way Out of this situation, however, survival always comes first. The Isolated Plane is a strange plane of broken landscapes, haphazard weather patterns, forgotten relics and cities, and dangerous flora and fauna alike, where near everything out there is trying to survive the hazards thrown at them one way or another. Now, you find yourself here, and will have to try your best to survive, and maybe find a way out if you can. The campaign’s ultimate goal is for the characters to escape this hellhole they have been flung headfirst into. Despite likely being evil aligned individuals, or those who are willing to go the extra mile for a certain result (zealous paladins, people trying to get their loved ones back by any means necessary etc.), working together to survive in this hellscape is going to be the top priority. If you're not the kind of player that works well with others, or you can't create a character that can, you'll probably have a bad time during this campaign. As stated in the headline, the session times will be weekly, every Sunday starting at 7pm GMT+1 (BST), and run between 3 to 4 hours depending on any player time constraints or personal hiccups that may occur. We’ll use Roll20 for battlemaps, rolling and sessions, and Discord for voicechat. I’m a pretty lenient DM, and won’t blueball you for not being able to make it to a session here or there because of conflicting schedules, but consistent back-to-back missed sessions will see you kicked from the game, as you clearly have other priorities rather than having fun with a bunch of folks who just wanna play a game. For some general information about myself; I’m Kris, he/him, and have been DMing for around 7 years now on and off, with lots of little oneshots and a few long form campaigns here and there. I’m 27, into a variety of music, games, films and media that would take a while to list off, and enjoy running games, though I haven’t been actively running anything for a few months now and am looking to get back at it. If you’re interested in joining this campaign, send me a DM on Roll20, along with some general information about yourself! Look forward to playing with folks :)
