Building Your Character

This campaign rewards characters with roots in the world — people who have something to lose, a reason to care about the outcome, and a genuine conflict between their loyalties. The questions below are worth thinking through before Session Zero.

What Kind of Campaign This Is

Moral Complexity

There are no pure heroes or villains here. Ironhold is wrong and understandable. Verdanya is right and complicated. Your character will be asked to choose — probably more than once — between two things they care about.

Faction Identity

Who your character is from matters. An Ironhold soldier and a Verdanya native in the same party create natural tension — and that tension is a feature, not a bug. Lean into it.

The Verdant Curse

Corruption is a real mechanic. Your character might transform. The campaign is built so that has meaningful consequences — social, mechanical, and narrative. Think about how your character would respond before it happens to them.

Session Zero Questions

Your GM will ask these (or something like them). Worth sitting with them before you arrive.

Where were you when Ironhold invaded?

Were you there? Did you flee? Did you fight? Were you on the wrong side? The right side? Does your answer still sit right with you?

What did you lose?

To the occupation, the Verdant Curse, Ashlung, or just the way the world used to be. Loss is a good engine for character motivation — know what yours is.

Why did you take this job?

Coin? Coercion? Belief? Desperation? The answer shapes how your character behaves when the job stops making sense.

Do you have family on the other side of this conflict?

Someone in Ironhold dying of Ashlung. Someone in Verdanya who joined the Resistance. Someone transforming in the wilderness. You don't need one — but if you do, it adds stakes.

Have you seen someone transform?

What did it look like? What did you feel watching it? How does your character think about the Verdant-Born — as monsters, as victims, as something else?

What would you do if you started showing signs of the Curse?

Tell the party? Hide it? Lean in? This is worth knowing before it becomes a live question at the table.

What's the one thing you will not do, no matter the consequences?

Every good character has a line. Know yours. The campaign will find it.

Character Hooks by Background

Starting points — not requirements. Take what works, ignore what doesn't.

Ironhold Characters

Why did you join or stay with the invasion — belief, orders, or no choice?
Do you have Ashlung, or does someone you love?
Do you still believe Ironhold is the good guy here?
Have you ever looked a Verdanya local in the eye and thought: we're the problem?
What would make you defect?

Verdanya Characters

Are you Resistance, collaborator, or just trying to survive?
Who did you lose to the occupation — or to the Curse?
Do you hate Ironhold, or can you see why they did what they did?
Have you been touched by the Verdant Curse at all?
What does it mean to you if the Curse can't be cured?

Outsiders

What dragged you into this — coin, accident, or something you can't explain?
You have no side. Is that freedom or just a longer road to picking one?
What did you know about this conflict before you arrived?
Has anything you've seen here changed your mind about anything?

Anyone

What does your character want the party to think of them?
What are they hiding — or haven't admitted even to themselves?
Who in this group do you have a reason to trust? To distrust?
What would it take to change your mind about the side you're on?

Come Prepared to Be Wrong

"The hardest choices aren't between good and evil. They're between two things you actually care about."

This campaign will put your character in situations where every option costs something. There are no clean hands here — only people doing what they think they have to do.

The best character isn't the one with the right answers. It's the one who keeps showing up after the wrong ones.