ang | Scarlet Citadel Campaign Diaries #0: Character Creation

I'm about to embark on running the Scarlet Citadel D&D 5e dungeon-crawl campaign*.

Last night we had a short character creation session, and I love every last one of the weirdos my players brought to the table:

Razog, a minotaur barbarian, who is a ship's cook from Triolo. Considered blessed by Hecate, he was inspired by both his ship's captain and Admiral Golden Horn to become an adventurer and prove his worth via glory, battle, and the acquisition of treasure. In his travels toward Redtower, he disembarked in Schio to travel overland, where he met Morrigan, and the two have been traveling together for about a week.

Morrigan, a human rogue from Schio, a spy for the Lock who also took occasional work for the Temperance League. He has been traveling with Razog for about a week. Morrigan is seeking to discover the source of the bandits disrupting the trade route between Peltzenheim and Schio -- which is also a major trade route between the Crossroads and the Seven Cities. But he's also seeking information on the political allegiance of Gellert the Gruesome, who is rumored to have pledged fealty to both Melana and Magdar.

Murphy, a gearforged artificer from Zobeck. Lured here by curious rumors of strange mechanical trinkets found in the nearby White Forest, they are now the sole remaining member of a party that perished in the Citadel Ruins. They've been convalescing in the Temple of Rava, befriending the acolyte Norneth and the priestess Cecylia for the past couple weeks.

Arodan, an elfmarked cleric of Baccholon hailing from Salzbach. Arodan became lost on a Shadow Road in the Grand Duchy and arrived in the Crossroads, where he has been wandering ever since. Through sheer luck, Arodan has just now found himself in the village of Redtower, full of rumors and legends of far-off lands -- including the tale of an ancient elven library that once stood where the Scarlet Citadel's ruins now lie.

While the Scarlet Citadel is a cool dungeon, I would not recommend running this campaign unless you already have a lot of the Kobold Press third party books. To run it "well" really requires Tome of Beasts, The Creature Codex, The Midgard Worldbook, and Deep Magic, as well as the map pack if you're not playing online, since much of the overlay information isn't included in the adventure proper. It's well-designed, but Kobold Press is not very up-front about how many additional books are recommended-to-required to run the adventure.

Next - Session #1: "Redtower" >>