You will never be completely at home again because part of your heart always will be elsewhere.
Miriam Adeney
That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.
First, you as a player should get a copy of the Boundaries Sheet. This will enable you to see areas that are present in the world setting, and you can mark items that your DM can, if you collectively so choose, skip over.
Characters on Wyrlde are exclusive to Wyrlde – the normal D&D 5e rules won’t work here, and as of this writing there is no support for a digital record out there.
Your character, on Wyrlde, is likely somewhat different from characters in other realms, because Wyrlde is a story based, player-driven open world, sometimes called a sandbox setting.
One of the key things about an adventure on Wyrlde is that you have to choose what to do. Even if there is a story that is to be told, or an adventure to be taken, the most that your DM is able to do is provide you with Hooks – things that lead to a story. It is entirely up to you if you choose to take the bait. The hard part for the DM is that they have to come up with bait that appeals to you enough to draw you into that story – but it is also perfectly acceptable for you to decide that you would rather go and start a merchant company or find “honest work”. Just do it as a team, a group, and with everyone on the same page.
At its heart, Wyrlde is meant as a place for you to explore, to learn about, to engage with, to become a part of. Your adventures will happen, without doubt, but they happen on your timetable, not the DMs – though story events will happen regardless of the actions of the PCs and the world will change around them. However, there are reasons to want to get connected to a story – you cannot advance in levels swiftly if you are not advancing a story, although you can advance many other things in your character’s life if you choose not to.
Wyrlde is intended for people who have the capacity to deal with the darkness that lies in others’ hearts, the recognition that vile things can happen, and the awareness that a stout heart and a strong will can turn a tide.
Wyrlde involves emotions, role playing, `and bad things can happen. There is slavery on Wyrlde, and there is rape. There is racism, and there is discrimination. These things lie beneath some of the larger conflicts – but don’t jump to a conclusion just yet.
As a result, Wyrlde is intended for people who are mature enough to handle these things. The Author feels that 16+ is fine, but your players and your group may feel that is too low.
For now, though, let’s get the rag up on this cantata…
Game System
The Game System in use is D&D 5e, with significant modifications and additions to work with Wyrlde. No standard Race or Class published in the game is used.
This book assumes that it and the Canonalia will all be in use. Changes otherwise can be reflected in this by your DM.
Books required by the Players consist of the Player’s Handbook, Codexalia Wyrldica, and Incarnalia Wyrldica. Useful books include the Canonalia.
House Rules
Optional Rules used are described in the Wyrldica books.
Standard Rules dropped are any covered in the Wyrldica books.
Modified Standard Rules are included in the Wyrldica books.
Original Rules remain as they are unless the Wyrldica books explicitly override them.
Character Growth & Advancement is done by milestone points using a modified system that is closer to experience.
Player Narratives are the domain of the player and include player actions and reactions.
Player Agency is a primary driver of Wyrlde – Players are responsible for identifying potential adventures and exploring the world, as well as being familiar with the lore of the world.
Where are the rules written down and collected? In the Codexalia Wyrldica, the Incarnalia Wyrldica, the Canonalia Wyrldica, and on the Wyrlde.com website. Rulings which change the rules and alter them, or which add additional material, will be included on Wyrlde.com.
How can they be accessed? Through PDF and website, by mobile device or PC.
Rulings
How much time, if any, should be spent to check a rule during play? Three minutes.
How are challenged rulings handled? A challenge should be noted during play, but discussed after the session, and will apply going forward, not retroactively. When questioning a call a DM makes, it is acceptable to say that you disagree, but arguing about it will happen after the game. The goal is to keep play moving along. Questioning a call regarding an NPC generally isn’t allowed, any more than questioning the actions of a player as their character.
When can a situation be taken back, redone, or retconned? When all players and the DM agree, unless it is part of a storyline.
How much can player knowledge overlap with character knowledge? This depends on the nature of the PC. However, the lore of the world is available to all Players.
Metagaming limits and freedoms.
Until the release of the Critteralia Wyrldica, knowledge of the capabilities of creatures is going to be difficult to obtain, and there is only one section in any of the books (the Adventuralia in the Canonalia), that is considered metagaming on the part of players, and it is explicitly noted as such. In general terms, a Player should know the place their character comes from and possibly those areas nearest to it.
When deciding if knowledge is metagaming or not, the goal should not be to exclude everything you know, personally, but to see what justification there is in your character’s Personal History / Experience / Background / Backstory for them to possibly have knowledge of something. This is part of the reason that so much emphasis is placed on character generation of those elements. When in doubt, assume that anything you know from Earth is wrong.
Game World
Genre(s) of the Setting. Wyrlde is a Fantasy setting with elements of Comedy, Mystery, Thriller, Adventure, Western, Horror, Space Fantasy, Nautical Fantasy, Surreal, Absurd, and more.
Theme(s) of the Setting. The themes of Wyrlde are: Exploration. Survival. Action. Emotion. Culture Shock. Heroism. Defiance. Glory. Rebellion. Discovery. Consequences. PCs are seen as Change Agents, and the things they do have an effect on the world around them.
Mood: Serious, Absurdist, Pop Cultural.
Tone of the Setting: Lighthearted, Heroic. This is the kind of game where if you are willing to leap into the unknown or attempt something certain to kill you but is massively cool, you get points. That help you do it again.
Consequences: Death is a consequence, but a little coin and a quick trip can solve it. The other consequences are often worse — you can be outlawed, you can be executed, you can be branded or scarred, you can be ostracized, you can lose worldly goods — the world reacts to the actions of PCs in a realistic way, and those consequences can change everything about a character over time.
Grit: Social and emotional more than physical. Humor will win over gore every time, and there is a much more complex structure to the nature of alignment and attitude and there is no PVP.
Game Rating: 16 to 72
Sandbox or Plotted? Wyrlde is a sandbox game, player driven – it is up to the players to follow clues and storyline pieces, but this is not the only possible thing they can do, as they have the whole world to explore.
Linear or Non-Linear Campaign? This is a linear campaign that features timed events and occurrences.
Importance of Magic? Magic is important; this is a high magic world, and a great many things within it are magical, supernatural, paranormal, and otherwise odd.
General Level of Technology? Wyrlde is pre-industrial and does not use magic for technology (magic appears to hate that and react poorly). They do not have much in the way of an ability to deal with very small components, and certain Powers prevent the advancement of certain areas. Nearly everything is handmade, hand shaped, and built through individual labor and effort.
Notable variances from Earth Normal Science? The Powers That Be sometimes compete in how best to limit technology, and do not keep this a secret. It has not prevented guns from arising, nor has it kept airships from being developed. It has stopped gunpowder from working, and it has enabled some minerals to be easier to find and use, while others have strange tendencies to function in unexpected ways. As an example, plutonium is not radioactive, and gravity does not work quite the same. Space has an atmosphere and is not as cold as “real” space. Stars are prisons, as well as giant burning gaseous balls.
Understanding the World
Wyrlde is an expansion on 5e rules, with a different system for handling magic and completely new classes and races. There are many rules that it expands on, creating a more involved set of rules that can guide play.
On the surface, Wyrlde is a fairly generic pseudo-medieval generic fantasy world. Arabesque takes extreme umbrage at that description. It is not a version nor is it based on a version of a medieval Earthly world. It is not Earth. Technically, Wyrlde is a science fiction world that has degraded and been altered by beings of such great power that that they are able to rewrite existence and nature with a whim. A long time from now, it is colonized, and even later it is removed entirely from the universe as a whole. The Firmament – the dark sky of the night — is a solid mass beyond which there is nothing. The stars are burning orbs of hydrogen, but they are placed there by a will and with an intent, and some imprison living beings.
These great powers take an interest in those who worship them – and it is key to realize that most people do not worship them. Only about a quarter of the people on Wyrlde genuinely worship the Powers That Be. The rest wish they would just go away. Especially if they show up for dinner on a weekday night. Unannounced. As they do.
It is not a regular D&D world, even though it might look like it on the surface. This is important: things that might work a certain way on Earth, for example, will not work the same way on Wyrlde. The physics are different, the geology is different, the chemical properties are different. It is exceptionally difficult to metagame on Wyrlde, to bring in ideas for technologies and such, because they don’t always function – and as a default expectation, do not think they will or that they could. Physics that you understand do not work the same on Wyrlde. Chemical reactions that you understand do not work the same as on Earth. The level of technological advancement does vary but is slightly different because of the above. Above all of this, there is a reason for it to be so.
Adventuring is a job on Wyrlde, a profession with multiple specialties, and it is considered the most dangerous work that one can do. Adventurers are not the strongest people in the world at high levels – leaders who have attained high levels of responsibility and authority are often able to enforce that.
There are two empires that are constantly at war, one of which has the ability to do sneak attacks on the other pretty much anywhere. There are cyclic Crusades, and ruins and monsters abound everywhere.
Wyrlde is an Open World concept. Unlike normative D&D, it is not a world where there are riches beyond value at every turn, it is a world where things must be paid for, be it barter, coin, or in kind. There are vast hoards and piles of gold coins, but they are difficult to find, and even more difficult to claim.
There is still a story to it. This means that the story of any campaign exists but is something that the Players must find for themselves, usually when a lure, or bait, is dropped in front of them by the DM. But, generally speaking, the story is the tory of the characters themselves, as they wander about the world and learn about it. At higher levels, the actions of the Players will have an impact that expands as they grow, and any campaign is expected to have an impact on the world that alters the future.
Wyrlde’s people and creatures are not robots, nor are they generally lacking in creativity. As a rule of thumb, if a party of adventurers does it, then a party of Foes will do it.
Boundary Challenges
Elements of the Game World that may challenge Boundaries are on the Boundaries Sheet. While the Bright Lands do not have Slavery, they do have Indenture. The Dread Lands do have slavery. Women are treated poorly in Sibola, and men are treated poorly in Aztlan. Most of the people of Wyrlde have darker toned skin than one might expect.
Synopsis
General adventuring environment? Wyrlde has a very marked difference between civilized area and the wilds, or Crofts and Boonies.
Civilization, or Croft, surrounds and area roughly 24 to 30 miles out from any given settlement larger than a Steading, and out to roughly 6 miles from a Steading or smaller settlement.
Beyond that area, one is in The Boonies, and so in the wilderness and subject to the vagaries thereby, including random encounters and the like.
Both Crofts and Boonies have a problem with Monsters – specifically, Aligeka, which can appear without warning, and do not appear to have a reason or purpose and can reappear anywhere from 1 to 30 months after being slain, without warning.
Significant known threats? Although Dragons have been seen and rumor speaks of their terror, no one has ever brought any verifiable evidence of a dragon, and no one knows where dragons are. There is more about potential threats in the Codexalia Wyrldica.
What questions do the Players have?
Understanding the Stories
A typical Campaign for Wyrlde will be a combination of reactions to the Player’s actions and activities and the particulars of a larger storyline that continues around them, shaping the world and changing things.
Any official published module requires some significant effort to change to fit the world, and anything written for a place other than Wyrlde will have similar challenges, but the effort is always well worth it. A Wyrlde campaign can consist of any of them – we are particularly fond of Phandelver (which is usually based near Antilia) and the assorted heist adventures.
Adventures and campaigns written for Wyrlde, however, will often have a genre, theme, and structure that includes a change to the larger world and offers a mix of side quests and main plot hooks that can slowly build up over time into a larger overall scheme.
A full campaign will employ multiple different genres, including Mystery, Detective, Epic Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy, Western, Mafia, Action, Coming of Age, Horror, Thriller, Supernatural, Travel, Comedy, Noir, and Madcap, all of them linked together in some way to tell a larger story while still being self-contained stories in their own right. All of them also based in the fantasy style world that is around them. As things continue to grow, there may be journeys to space, where entirely new adventures within a fantastical area continue.
Among the things that should be discussed at the earliest part is if there is any desire for Romance sub-plots relating to the characters, how establishing a family works, and if there are any additional custom rules relating to how the campaign will go, as well as the style of play that is to be agreed on.
Wyrlde is not particularly gritty, though it has elements of it, and it is not particularly suited to generic play.
As the use of Hero, Milestone, and similar points will ultimately indicate, Wyrlde is meant to reward and invoke a sense of the PC’s as heroic characters who struggle with their own personal challenges while facing overwhelming odds and helping others.
Character Creation
For Wyrlde, character creation is best done as a group activity. Although Wyrlde is 5e based, it uses new ability scores, new ways of doing things, and has different systems. A collective effort allows everyone to explore that process together and helps the DM when it comes time to create encounters.
It also enables them to determine skills and styles and other factors that will maximize their ability to survive a world that is often challenging and not safe.
Fundamentals. Every character has five rules they must abide by. It is the player’s responsibility to create characters that abide by these.
- Your character has the ability to work with a team.
- Your character has the desire to work with a team.
- Your character has a reason to adventure.
- Your character has a reason to put their life at risk.
- Your character is part of the world when they are present in it.
For item 3, there is a list of possible reasons we will get to in the section on character.
Disallowed Character Concepts. Wyrlde generally does not support, encourage, or work well for those who seek to play traditionally “evil”, narcissistic, or solo operating characters. Evil, gimmick, and uncooperative characters are not successful in a world where a party needs to stick together and rely on each other. It can, but the setting is one where the usual actions by these sorts are indeed punished, and there is ample ability among the general population to push back against such people. Creating a character that is always off on their own doing their own thing, or someone who attacks without provocation is going to create friction and likely die early.
Special Character Concepts. Character concepts are best derived from the setting itself, as opposed to being pushed into the world. Classes and Races normally found in 5e do not exist here. This is not Earth, so archetypes which are grounded in Earth generally will have a hard time.
That said, consult with the DM; odds are pretty good that as Wyrlde was designed by a DM from player desires, there is a good chance something close to what is sought can be done, as long as it is still based within the general fantasy core.
Expectations of Characters. It is the responsibility of the player to create a character than can work with the other characters in the party.
Grounding in Setting. All characters have to be grounded in the setting. As you will soon learn, beign grounded in the setting is startlingly easy in many cases, as that grounding is built into your choices for Species and Class, but the goal remains to have a grounded character that is either learning about the world as it is or is part of the world as it is.
Collaboration and Teamwork. Parties which do not work together and collaborate are less likely to succeed in tasks and survive, as the setting is structured to make challenges and encounters that turn violent very difficult. Not all encounters are violent, and even violent encounters may be able to be swayed.
As a Player driven, heroic action supporting setting, creative problem solving, tactics, and strategy are often rewarded and overcoming an opponent does not mean that they need be killed in all circumstances.
Player vs Player. Wyrlde is not structured for Player vs Player, and generally does not enable nor encourage such. There are some rules for such, but generally speaking, the normal rules for combat and other activities would apply. The DM has the final Say and is able to override any group desire for such.
As noted above, this is a game where folks need to get along – when creating characters, they should be focused on that, as opposed to creating characters that do not fit well with others.
New Players
Coming In. New players can join so long as a majority of players and the DM allow it.
Creating Characters. New players may create characters at the average level of the party to start.
Consequences
PC actions. Every action a player takes has a consequence in the game. From an immediate one to one that might not show up for a few sessions to one that changes the shape of the world as a whole, the setting is built on the nature of consequences and outcomes, and some of these cannot be as readily undone as certain dice rolls or through the use of magic.
In this game, a character can and will die as a result of their actions.
This is not a game where monsters are evenly matched;
This is a game where a lucky blow from a low-level monster will take you out,
and where a casual sweep of a high-level monster can erase an entire party.
In films, novels, and fairytales, the hero must work to overcome things that are always more powerful than they.
For this game, that is the standard in use.
Assume you can die in any encounter if the Fates (dice) so choose.
If you are so invested in your character that you cannot allow them to die, you need to play a different character.
Environmental. There are consequences to travel and existing in the environment, and Fatigue is a major factor in the game.
Chance, Fortune & Fate. The dice are the dice, and the Sisters let them roll where they may. Note that Wyrlde offers all characters the possibility of changing their fate – see Destiny Scores. The dice are represented in the game by the deity like figures of the Triplets.
Plot Armor. PCs do not have plot armor, even in their own subplots. What they do have are Destiny scores, which are quite powerful in one way, and of course they have the Triplets, who are represented in game by dice.
Raising, Resurrection, & Reincarnation
Death. Death is a possibility at all times, but Wyrlde does have spells which are relatively easy to find and engage throughout the game, even if at a cost (such as a Temple or Shrine, or through hoards or magical items) that can overcome and temporarily defeat death.
What matters most, should a PC die, is that in game the party is able to get those people to a place or are able to do themselves some form of magic to bring them back to life within a week of time, and that the Player of that character is willing.
The 7-day period has great importance, as beyond that the task becomes both more difficult, has greater risk of changes to the PC, and can be much more expensive. Given that it is already out of reach of most people, even some lesser nobles, and that there are other limits on it, such as age, this is of great importance. Many Adventurer’s Guilds will have people available as well.
Raise Dead, Resurrection, Reincarnation. Each of these spells has a different sort of structure to them, with all working best within one week of a PC death. After a week, only Resurrection or Reincarnation is possible, and after 10 months, only Reincarnation is possible. Beyond 15 years, it cannot happen.
New Characters. New characters can be introduced at any time, but a player may only run a single character in game at a given time unless the DM allows otherwise. They will be the average level of the party to start
Session Etiquette
Disagreements
In-character disagreements should be handled in a manner that remains in-character, and do not lead to violence among the party members, as PVP is not permitted.
Out of Character disagreements should be held away from the table and during off times, not hashed out in front of the entire player group. If a DM is involved, it must be as the referee and moderator.
If the disagreement is with the DM, it should be handled in between sessions.
PVP
Wyrlde does not handle PVP, and PVP is strongly frowned upon. It is whispered that parties who engage in internal conflict may be struck by mysterious lightning bolts.
Table Language
The group of Players should decide what language is acceptable and what language is not acceptable. These rules can apply to in character, out character, or both.
In terms of terminology, it is suggested that during roleplay, terms revealed in the lore be used.
Combat
45 second turns: On your turn, you have 20 seconds to decide, then 25 seconds to do rolls and be ready for your next turn. This was instituted to stop people from doing the pause and decide thing that is common in most circumstances. It is very common for Players to decide on common tactics they will use and write them down for their own use.
Establish ground rules and expectations.
Boundaries
The Boundaries sheet lists several sensitive topics with a degree of permissiveness and allowability after each item. Spaces which are highlighted are spaces where such information may appear within the game as a whole. These are broken down into elements which are going to appear in Play, which do appear in the Lore, and which may happen in lay but out of direct sight.
For the other Boundaries, a Player can choose what items are allowed when, with the understanding that Lore can only be ignored somewhat, and that in some cases the DM may have to change an entire encounter.
Note that the element of racism does not apply to real world racism or even analogs to real world racism. Wyrlde’s racism exists in a different way and to a different degree than that of Earth and may not (and likely will not) be immediately visible, but rather something that people become aware of over time.
Physicality
Not everyone is what folks think of as able bodied. Nor is being able bodied any kind of requirement.
Wyrlde has, since its earliest years, sought to provide assistive devices to those who needed them, and so there are people with clockwork limbs, clockwork wheelchairs, and other features. These are treated as if they were a part of an able body normally, with exceptions noted under gear.
Note that Wyrlde does not use Conditions named Blindness, Deafness, Crippled, and so forth. Instead, it uses sightless, soundless, silenced, and other terms.
These, then, can be aspects to your character. They are not seen as limitations, but neither do they come with special abilities – you cannot suddenly have Keen Senses because you are blind. Conversely, a club foot does not inherently limit speed or motion, and a peg leg is going to be more common than an ornately carved clockwork limb.
Disabilities are linked to skills in terms of their impact in play. A person with a not quite fully working leg may take a penalty to Athletics, for example.
On Wyrlde, prosthetic Limbs are common for those who have been subjected to loss of limb. They do not change the functionality of the character and do not have an impact on play.
Mobility Disabilities can be addressed through the creation or use of something such as a wheelchair. In looking at wheelchairs, look to modern examples, not historic ones, and the only real difference is that there are no powered options for such.
Sensory disabilities can be addressed through penalties – limited eyesight penalizes Perception checks relying on vision, vision distance reduction, and similar.
The key is that each case needs to be taken individually. Disabilities do not grant abilities – they remain disabilities, but they do not deny a character access to the world or to the task of being an adventurer.
There are no hard and fast rules presented because there is no “one size fits all” approach to how people deal with or handle their disabilities, and they are expected to be handled primarily through role playing.
Of note is that encounters must be adjusted and adapted when there is a disability to account for such and enable such. That is on the DM, however, to do.
Lastly, the loss of a limb or related function is a matter of roleplaying over mechanics, and a chosen effect, not an enforced one. Sightlessness can always be cured, Blindness may not be able to be cured. A DM cannot inflict a disability or hack off a limb – and neither can a player character, without the agreement of the other party (the DM for NPCs and monsters). These are descriptive, flavored decisions, not mechanical ones – the game does not have a means by which one can do these things, after all.
Adult Themes
Wyrlde includes, built into the core fabric of the world, certain adult themes relating to violence, cruelty, and related wickedness. Wyrlde is not intended to have many overtly sexual elements. They may or may not have an impact on adventures, but the backdrop in which they take place are still going to include such things.
Ogres are the products of rape, for example. Women are treated poorly in Sibola. Themes of oppression, discrimination, and cruelty exist within the world. Gender Diverse people are a basic and core part of the whole, and people have many different kinds of issues. There is slavery and indenture, and a harshness to the legal system that does not often choose to use prison or jail, and never tries to solve the reasons behind crime.
It is a world where the highest crimes are those against human rights, and where humanity is far more than merely human.
Boundaries Sheet
|
Element |
NO |
MAYBE |
Off-Screen |
|
Example |
X |
X |
X |
|
Blood & Gore | |||
|
Bugs | |||
|
Cancer | |||
|
Claustrophobia | |||
|
Demons | |||
|
Disability | |||
|
Extreme Poverty | |||
|
Body Horror | |||
|
Gaslighting | |||
|
Harm to animals | |||
|
Harm to children | |||
|
Homophobia | |||
|
Mind Control of PC by DM | |||
|
Mind Control of PC by Player | |||
|
Personality Change | |||
|
Paralysis/Petrification | |||
|
Physical restraint | |||
|
PVP by choice | |||
|
PVP by mind control | |||
|
PCs stealing from PCs | |||
|
Racism | |||
|
Rats | |||
|
Real-World Religion | |||
|
Historical Genocide | |||
|
Torture | |||
|
Romance Subplots | |||
|
Romance Between PCs | |||
|
Romance Between PCs and NPCs | |||
|
Romance : fade to black | |||
|
Self-harm | |||
|
Sex : fade to black | |||
|
Sexism | |||
|
Sexual Assault | |||
|
Slavery | |||
|
Spiders | |||
|
Substance Abuse | |||
|
Terrorism | |||
|
Transphobia |
Please mark which of the following things are difficult for you to deal with.
No means that you would prefer not to allow that element in play.
Maybe means you would allow it to be played out in game, but reserve the right to wait until it comes up.
Off-Screen means that you would prefer it happen “off screen”.
As a note, the default expectations for Wyrlde are that Mind Control of PCs, PVP, and PCs stealing from each other is disallowed. They are left as options should your table or group choose to allow them.
