Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 1264468" data-attributes="member: 2804">SHARK is one of my close friends although I haven't spoken with him lately. I'll give him a call and tell him about this thread.In the meantime, I'll try to describe SHARK's world but I don't think I can do it justice. SHARK's world is a homebrew that he has been working on for well over 15 years and probably longer but I'm not sure.When I had the opportunity to play in his game in LA, I saw some of it. He has binders and binders stuffed full of papers, maps, NPCs, just tons of material.His world is loosely inspired by Warhammer, Tolkien, Moorcock, and tons of real world history. SHARK is a history major with a particular interest in military history and it shows in his world.He liked the concept of the forces of darkness and chaos threatening to overwhelm the world and cover the lands in darkness, but he felt settings like Warhammer were too pessimistic.  There wasn't a counter-balance to the forces of evil. So he invented the Vallorean empire. The Vallorean Empire are the good guys of his world.  But since his world is very dark and gritty, his heroes are also.The Vallorean Empire is famous for its paladins on ENworld. They aren't your standard PHB paladins. They are more closely based on the Knights Templar from the Crusades. They are ruthless and zealous warriors charged with bringing "fire and death to the forces of darkness!" as SHARK would say. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But in SHARK's world the villains are truly vile and evil. Dark cultists who would cut out their own mother's heart and offer it to Orcus, foul necromancers who think nothing of sacrifcing the innocent in their unholy research. Female NPCs captured by the forces of evil would be raped. Evil is EVIL is SHARK's world. No sugar-coating and no kid gloves. Brutal reality.Not to say there aren't shades of grey. While the Vallorean Empire is generally good, some consider them extreme in their methods.  There are also tons of internal politics in Vallorea. And Vallorea isn't even the biggest empire in SHARK's world. There are many other powerful nations.The thing to remember is that SHARK's world was also designed to encompass epic level gaming. His world is also big, and I mean BIG.  The Vallorean Empire is probably the size of U.S. and has an army with dozens of legions with millions of soldiers. Every legionaire is an 8th level fighter supplied with basic magical gear by the Vallorean government. Not including the elite paladin legions or entire units of powerful mages.20th level NPC's are common and even higher 40 or 50th level NPCs are not unheard of. Currently the Vallorean Empire invaded the kingdom of an ancient Vampire Lord named Mallenar. Mallenar is something like 80th level and is a virtual god. He commands millions perhaps even billions of beastmen, orcs, giants you name it.About a year ago I played a 40th level character in SHARK's world and took part in a Vallorean siege on one of Mallenar's fortresses. I was part of an elite strike unit featherfalled onto the upper courtyard of the mountain fortress from a flying Vallorean citadel. We had perhaps several thousand legionaires with us and were immediately in danger of being overrun by beastmen. We had our mages set up walls of force to provide some cover and give us a staging ground. My character, a 20/20 Sorcerer/Monk teleported over to a nearby rampart where about 20 15th fighter fire giants armed with +5 unholy flaming arrows were hammering our troops. I killed 3 fire giants before teleporting back. I was hasted (3.0 rules) and using my extra partial action to cast Wish as Heal every round since those giants were just wasting me. Although that fight wasn't that bad. It was taking on the 20 Winter Wights that was the real killer! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But SHARK's world is not just a powergamer's wet dream. It also has tons of drama and role-playing. My PC had a great scene where I met one of the Vallorean Commanders and he gave me a short tour of one of the cities they had captured. Later, I went to among some of those Vallorean soldiers who had been wounded or mutated by chaos magic. Standard clerical healing won't help them. You have to make caster level checks to overcome the dark magic. I tried to use my magic to help some of them (using Wish to cast clerical spells). It was amazing walking through there and listening to SHARK describe the scene. I felt like I was in some WW2 tent for the wounded. Walking around and looking at all their wounds and mutations. Some of them screaming in unbearable pain, others in shock. SHARK really brought the horror of war to life in vivid and cinematic detail. My encounters and conversations with other Vallorean officers and NPC party members were awesome. Unfortunately, I only got to play in his game during the middle of a war so it was very combat focused. But SHARK's games don't always feature war stories. I only wished I lived in LA so I could play with him more often. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification