The World of the Forgotten Realms

Chains of Asmodeus, abbreviated to CoA from now on, is a D&D setting and adventure module that typically takes players from levels 11-20. We will be doing some homebrew adventures before those levels to establish your characters.

This adventure will see a group of individuals (y'all) in desperate need for some coin taking an odd job, and leads into those same individuals delving into the nine hells to claim something of insurmountable value that has been lost to them.

Sixteen years after your first visit, you and your companions return to the wondrous Witchlight Carnival to recover what went lost, fulfill the wishes of a dying man, and perhaps save the Feywild from a looming darkness along the way.

The Witchlight Carnival is a fairground of kaleidoscopic tents and wagons crewed by wondrous beings, including many denizens of the Feywild. This is no ordinary carnival; it uses magic to travel from world to world across the Material Plane, visiting each world once every eight years and setting up business on the outskirts of populated areas. The carnival spends a few days at each location, then packs up and moves to another location on the same world until the decision is made to leave that world and visit the next. 

Your characters have a dim memory of sneaking into the carnival together as a child/when you were younger without paying for a ticket. That memory has grown foggy over time, though it still conjures a weird admixture of emotions--wonder and awe mixed with loss and regret. During this childhood visit, your character lost something. You tried to find it, but the carnival owners--a pair of elves who's names escape you--were decidedly unhelpful after realizing you came in without a ticket. The longing to retrieve that which you have lost has resurfaced, as though an old spell has faded away, allowing you to feel the loss as sharply as if it happened yesterday.

An old man named Madryck Roslof has beseeched you all to come meet him at the orphanage he owns on the outer edge of Berdusk, saying he knows of your lost items and has a proposition for you. You all vaguely remember Madryck growing up, as he has owned this orphanage for as long as you can recall.

Setting

You are located in The Sword Coast. The carnival is set up next to the town Berdusk, a hotspot on the Trade Way road. Though, the campaign will quickly enter the realm of the Feywild, so matters on the material plane will not be easily resolved if left open.

What You Need to Know about Witchlight

• The Witchlight Carnival comes to your land only once every eight years. It has always disappeared three days after its arrival.

• The Carnival is said to visit many worlds and rides the edge of the border between the world and the realm of the fey – the Feywild.

• A strange corruption is said to have set into the Fey and the borderlands between the realm of the Fey and our world. Some believe it is a collision between these worlds and another.

• In the land of the fey, the notable archfey Zybilna has gone quiet. Those attuned to Zybilna as their patron have not heard from her in more than a year.

• Beings from the fey know that within the Feywild, visitors and natives alike best follow the Rule of Reciprocity; the Rule of Hospitality; and the Rule of Ownership. What do those mean? You're bound to find out!

• For unknown reasons, the numbers eight and three have power in the realm of the fey.

How Your Character Relates to the Campaign

Eight years ago you accidentally snuck into the Witchlight Carnival after chasing a baby owlbear you were secretly raising with your friends, or you came to the carnival and didn't have coin for a ticket (depending on what we decide as session 0). Sneaking in, you enjoyed a day of fantasy and revelry whose joy you have never forgotten even if the details are now fuzzy. One thing remains clear, however. On this fateful day you lost something. Something you have missed every day since. Throughout your travels you’ve met others who, like you, lost something at the carnival and seek its return. Now eight years later you and your companions return to the Witchlight Carnival to recover what was lost, fulfill an old mans dying wish, and maybe saving the Feywild in the process.

What was lost to your character on that day? This decision is entirely up to you, but the following Lost Things table gives examples for you to use or even just to give inspiration.

My House Rules

Every GM has their list of house rules. Here's mine:

• Potions can be drunk on a bonus action, but it takes an action to apply it to someone else. Additionally, when drinking a healing potion, you can choose to drink it with an action instead and take the maximum amount of healing offered by the potion.

• Death saves are rolled behind the GM screen (by you) so that just the GM and the player who's dying know how close to death they are.

• If used applicably, some skills can be used with alternative ability scores. When you gain proficiency with one of these skills, your proficiency applies to either ability score. The ability score used is chosen in the moment before rolling, and should be thematic to how the skill is being used (for example, a Barbarian who specifies they want to use Intimidation to stand towering over someone of less strength then them can use Strength instead of Charisma for the roll).

• Intimidation: Charisma or Strength

• Medicine: Intelligence or Wisdom

• Nature: Intelligence or Wisdom

• Religion: Intelligence or Wisdom

• We are using the new One D&D mechanic Weapon Mastery, which can be found here in Weapons and Weapon Mastery Properties. Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue all have the Weapon Mastery class feature that allows them to use mastery properties with specific weapons listed in their entry.

• Any character that meets the prerequisite also has access to the Weapon Mastery Initiate (One D&D) feat when choosing a feat.

• The following character options are banned in the game:

• Spells: Silvery Barbs

• Subclasses: Echo Knight (Fighter), Eloquence (Bard), Peace Domain (Cleric), Twilight Domain (Cleric)

• If we are using standard array for determining ability scores, you gain a +2 bonus to an ability score depending on the Core Ability of your class.

• Races/species give a +2 to an ability score specific to the race/species, but also gives a free +1 to any ability score. Alternatively, if we decide we want Race to have less of a bearing on Ability Scores, we can do a free +2 and then a +1 specific to the Race (the +1 increase in this case is the Ability Score the +2 would have applied to if this alternate ruling wasn't being applied).

Some of these I am pretty set in keeping, but if there is a house rule you really don't like please say something and we can work on changing/removing it!

Fey Twists

During a normal session, you will get a one/a couple tokens that you can expend for a free reroll of any d20. When you use a token this way, you must roll on the Fey Twist table and take the result. Unless specified otherwise, all twists last one hour.

The following are examples of some Fey Twists I came up with, but I would like your guys help to make more!

Character Creation in WBtW

Use the God's Guide Dashboard to find the links to classes, subclasses and races that I allow in table formats. You may choose any race from the Official Races column of the "General List of Races" table, any class from the "General List of Classes and Subclasses" table and any subclass in the Official Subclasses column of the same table.

This campaign starts at 1st level, so many characters will not start with a subclass, but it is still nice to look if you want to plan for a subclass or if you are a Class which gets a Subclass at 1st level like Cleric, Sorcerer, or Warlock.

For a general step-by-step guide that leads you through character creation, go to this link: Step-by-Step Character Creation

Additionally, the following options are available for this adventure:

New Background Options (Feywild Character Traits)

• Feylost
• Witchlight Hand

New Race Options

• Fairy
• Harengon
• Ragborn
• Satyr

Thematic Race Options

• Bugbear
• Changeling
• Eladrin
• Elf
• Goblin
• Hexblood
• Hobgoblin

New Subclass Options

• Bard:
  • College of Satire
• Cleric:
  • Revelry Domain (cannot worship Xenagos, as he is from a different setting. Consider god's like Lliira or Milil.)
• Sorcerer:
  • Wretched Bloodline

Thematic Subclass Options

• Barbarian:
  • Wild Magic
• Bard:
  • Glamour
• Cleric:
  • Nature
  • Trickery
• Druid:
  • Dreams
• Fighter:
  • Eldritch Knight (if based in Enchantment and/or Illusion spells)
• Paladin:
  • Ancients
• Ranger:
  • Fey Wanderer
• Rogue:
  • Arcane Trickster
• Sorcerer:
  • Wild Magic
• Warlock:
  • Archfey
• Wizard:
  • Bladesinger
  • Enchantment
  • Illusion