Welcome to the first of what may be many blogs about the Dungeons and Dragons campaign Eena. Chances are if you’ve been using the Mibbit channel, then you are already well aware of some rumblings of an upcoming D&D campaign. Let me set the record straight and tell you exactly what is up.

I am a noob to Dungeons and Dragons but I have grown interested in playing it, due to viewing many online videos of internet funny people (i.e. Spoony One) playing their own campaigns with friends. And so me and Melody aka Pixels, Pixel Prinny have decided to start a fresh campaign of my own creation. I will be your humble Dungeon Master and I will take you through the world of Eena.

What is Eena?

Eena is the land in which our campaign will take place. A Map of it can be found here. Eena is a relatively peaceful land populated by mostly humans. As Humans tend to do, there have been recent political tensions between the three kingdoms of Eena: Mosic to the East, Abura to the North and Niad to the South. Each kingdom holds a major capital city, Abura has Pereld, Mosic has Honund, and Niad has Tan-Derah. In the middle of all of this is a neutral city in the center-Baniton City. 

What is the lore surrounding this land?

It began as far back as four thousand years ago. Long before there were any elves or Dwarves, there existed a race now known as The Ancients or The Illuminated Ones, (depending on who you ask).

Who are the Ancients?

They were Proto-Humans, they lived in harmony with the gods, and together they created the glorious city of Awbel in the West. Their legacy and power hand been passed down through generation for thousands of years. However, as time passed, future generations showed less and less powers of their parents.

This greatly concerned The Ancients as they approached the Gods for answers and a solution to their problem. The Gods were puzzled by this phenomenon. They (the Gods) convened to discuss the situation. They sent out their best Champion, Dynar Mah; to search for an answer. She traveled past the Obsidian Mountains on her quest, the first ever to do so. But she never returned.  

As the centuries moved forward, The Ancient’s population dwindled to almost oblivion. Mortal Man had grown to such a formidable size that friction formed between the two. The mortals felt abused and inferior to their forefathers that a civil war broke out. It was a massacre, one that left their prosperous civilization in shambles.

Not a single Ancient survived the war. Mortal Man had declared dominance over their forefathers. Because of their cruelty and destruction, the Mortals left the great city to burn and moved past the Obsidian Mountains to form their own civilization. The Gods were so distressed by these events that they wailed in pain for a hundred years. The whole of the planet could hear their cries and the planet itself wept. The ground gave way just outside the great city and in its wake left a vortex in the sea. This effectively cut the once great city off from the rest of the world.

What happened to Dynar Mah?

Many people, to this day, believe that Dynar Mah will return and with her will be Man’s answer for reclaiming The Ancients’ lost power. They pray that it will bring about a new age of prosperity. This is known as the Great Return.

What you can expect from the campaign

Hollar back to me

Use common sense.

I know the idea of common sense may seem pointless in a fantastical setting, but it really goes a long way. If you need to enter a castle, but have to speak to the guard first, go and speak to the guard. Don’t think you can be sly and climb over the wall and sneak into the castle. NPCs are not real, but they will react and behave as close to human as possible. They can be reasoned with, they can be intimidated, and they can be bought.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat…who skins cats?!! Gross.

Be creative. There’s never a single solution to anything. Even in combat. Say you’re fighting a Lich in a room full of braziers; you may want to use those braziers to dump burning oil on top of the monster! Not only will it now take fire damage for a few turns but you’ve also set a portion of the room on fire to take out smaller enemies. Of course being too careless will result in not only burning yourself but your party mates as well.

Be creative but not crazy. Don’t try to MacGuyver your way out of situations; it’s not going to work.

Don’t take things at face value.

Never assume you have the full story. NPCs will try to hide things from you, either to save themselves or to hinder your own progress. This is where checks like Insight come into play. If you feel that the NPC is not giving you all the information, you may opt to delve deeper into their secrets. Information is valuable, the right information can make your adventure much more rewarding; the wrong information will cause more trouble than it’s worth.

Also, when going through a dungeon it is important to search each and every room. Many dungeons hold secrets such as treasures, alternate paths, or clues for your current quest. This will also help identify traps. Traps are common and if not careful could result in character death, which brings us to our next topic.

Death is permanent.

A staple of D&D is the Perma-Death. Usually only granted to players who do royally stupid things. Play smart and you shouldn’t have to worry about this. There are rituals that can resurrect dead characters but they are not at all easy, or cheap. Best to simply play safe.

There is no XP.

Now before you overreact, please note that there is still some XP, but not from killing monsters. Tracking character XP can be a tedious and messy issue, especially if a player cannot make it to a session-missing out on all that XP. Your characters will level at the same time as everyone else at certain points in the campaign. You can gain additional XP from effective role playing though. However this is for rare cases that often catch the DM off guard and result in a nice or humorous exchange with the character and NPC.

Role Playing or How to put on your robe and Wizard hat for dummies.

Role playing is arguable the most important part in D&D, it is what gives the world a colorful and rich atmosphere. Remember your characters are their own independent entities in this fantasy world. They all have unique backgrounds and character traits. They think and feel unlike anyone else. They have their own motivations and goals. So it is important that these characters are not simply clones of your own personality. Give them room to breathe and grow. This means affecting a certain attitude for when you are in character.

I encourage all of you to dive into your characters and act the way they would act. Are you a Dragonborn, then why would you be taking crap from a Halfling? Are you a lost soul on a vision quest, then why are you dancing naked on top of mailboxes?  

Now, What I expect from you

I expect you all to have fun. D&D is a game if nothing else. And games should be fun. So if you feel you are not having fun, please by all means I encourage you to tell me, maybe we can find a way to help make the game better. I wouldn’t be a good DM if everyone wasn’t enjoying themselves, and that is my biggest fear. I know what I have written so far may be a lot to swallow but I assure you it isn’t that much more work, than what is already expected from you when you first read the player’s handbook.

Before the festivities.

You will need to send me your finished character sheets, please talk to the other players or search online for help. Some of them are more informed on how to do this than me. You will need a full name, a brief physical description of what your character looks like, and what their weapon of choice is, so that I may draw a character portrait for them. You will also need to write a back story to your character, half a page to a full page should be plenty. You may use the map I provided for assistance in locations.

The group alignment makeup is Good-Unaligned. You may want to keep this in mind in case you feel you want to make a dark evil character. We are looking for heroes in this journey, there will be plenty more adventures in the future for more…colorful characters.

That’s all I have to say right now, if you have any questions, please PM me. I will be happy to help. We do not have a set day, but I believe our first session will be coming in the next month or so. Many of us still have school. School takes top priority. Don’t feel bad if you can’t make it to a session. We will likely continue playing, your character is not going anywhere, he/she will be along side the group throughout the entire session.

Read, and read.

Rawr! Bump for great justice! Not that you've posted this on the forums or anything.