Dear Petunia,

How’s everything in Weybodden? I guess you’re probably getting ready for a harvest, or will be when you get this letter.

I’m in Veltalar! It’s the capital of Aglarond, a whole country of fancy mages who seem like good guys but they could use some help with strategy and stuff. They hired us to take on the greatest undead threat on the planet: Szass Tam. He rules Thay, which I know you’ve heard of, and while they hired us for a slightly different mission technically I think I might be destined to destroy him BUT now I’m getting ahead of myself.

We started in Urmlaspyr and caught a boat to Veltalar. I fried an evil fish-guy with the Light of Oberon. Here’s a quick sketch:

Then we were attacked by an airship! Well, not the airship exactly, but a dimension door from it. They sent some kind of angry serving girl to fight us (?) and a really super nasty zombie called a slaughterwight. But hey, I know how to trap a zombie so Liliwyn (and our new friends) can poke it to death, and we did that. It did kill a crew member, but don’t worry, I saved everyone else’s life with my quick thinking and warnings. And Lili’s Bane of the Undead and our other friends’ weapons put that wight in his (final resting) place. I hope his soul in in a better place!

Once we got to the Paladin Inn in Veltalar, it seemed like a fancy city type of place, but they had a nice inside forest that I could sleep in with Mercy. (She still won’t roll over!). But even there we weren’t safe. My new Dragonborn friend Vance got sliced by an assassin, but my other new friend Oola took him out with his own knife. Great fight!

Oh, so Vance is this amazing guy. He is also chosen by his god! His god is folded over a couple times and loves vengeance and torture but that sounds worse than it is. Vance hates slavery and I love his focus. I think he can teach me lots of useful stuff, and he seems to like kids.

Oola is a gnome, which is awesome! She didn’t like my forest greeting, though. And she yells a lot of awesome curses all the time, which is funny but is really a disease called Freemouth. Apparently the Sad Gnomes from the feywild have it, and I feel sooooo bad for her. But she’s pretty fast and good with blades, so she’ll help us kill a lot of zombies.

Then this really important guy named Dhorial came in, took our assassin, and told us we’re going to hunt Eniais Mythraheal, a descendent of angels who knows all their secrets but they still sent into enemy hands. Like I said, they need strategy help! Anyway, the angel guy seems to have turned against them, but Vance had a vision from The Folded God and realized he’s probably undead. I don’t even think Vance realizes it’s a vision, but it probably was.

So now we’re going to go up the Umber River in Thesk to try and capture this Mythraheal guy so he doesn’t give all of Aglarond’s secrets to the Thay. We’ll defeat him, and then maybe that’ll lead me Szass Tam.

I’m kinda worried I’m already about to face my destiny as Scion. Szass Tam seems like he’s gearing up to hurt a lot of people, and I might have to take him down. But first things first. We’re gonna meet some copper dragons, bring along a forest lady named Groa, and go find this fallen angel guy. Wish me luck!

A particularly gruesome specimen. This slaughter wight was unfortunately able to turn a brave sailor into an ordinary wight before we were able to arrest and finally terminate its undeath. Luckily, the other sailors on the ship escaped before this monstrosity was able to turn more.

Slaughter wights are not unheard of, but quite rare. This one was tougher than any I’ve read about and took a great deal of hacking and slashing to kill. As with most of its kind, he was able to turn the recently dead, which is how I was able to determine he was certainly a slaughter wight. However, he turned the dead with a speed that has never been recorded in the history of undead observation, leading me to believe that this particular one is being animated by a necromancer of immense power. A magic check on the corpse indicated that its animating power was far away indeed.

Beyond his immense strength and apparent ties to a shockingly powerful necromancer, this slaughter wight was what we’ve come to expect in slaughter wights: Brighter than regular wights, strong, and able to turn the newly dead into wights. While these haven’t been spotted in decades, part of me fears that if a necromancer was able to create one, he will be able to create more.

Hey there! Watcha doin’? Where did you grow up? I grew up in the village of Weybodden, which you probably know is in the woods of Cormanthor on the south coast of the Moonsea. You’ve never heard of it? Yeah, I guess we are like totally hidden and secretive. But you are missing OUT, friend. We’re this really wonderful group of good-hearted gnomes who protect the creatures of the woods from encroachment by annoying outsiders.

They say there is fey blood in all the villagers of Weybodden. What, you doubt me? Well, think again, because once every few centuries or so a child with great magical potential is born into our midst. This kid is called the Scion of Oberon and is marked with a leaf tattoo somewhere on their body at birth. As they grow, so does the tattoo, like a living vine.

And yeah, since you asked, I do happen to be the newest Scion of Oberon! Good guess!

When my mom and pop found the Mark of the Leaf on my foot, a great celebration was had with all the friendly woodland folk of the Corthmanthor forest. It had been almost four hundred years since the birth of a Scion, or so Oda told me, and everyone took great interest in me. Pretty cool, right?

I was, you won’t be surprised to hear, a FANTASTIC student. Even Oda said so — sorry, that’s Oda Rutenoak, who before she was all wrinkled up was a companion to the last Scion, the great Bronna Burblewyn. Now, sometimes Oda said I got a bit ahead of myself and tried things I shouldn’t have. Sometimes this… caused problems. But Oda was real patient and tried to get me to slow down a little, too. She gave me Bronna’s Stone, which helps me rethink a rash decision, or at least try it again a little more carefully once per day.

Eventually, word of a new Scion being born gets out, and the Blighters, a collection of druids who had lost their way and turned to the dark arts, definitely were not keen on me coming of age.

The Blighters eventually found Weybodden -which an accidental lightning storm I set off miiiiight have had something to do with -- and descended upon it. They were super evil and killed some of my friends and family, but thank god for Gunther Krahl and Liliwyn Moss. They were totally hunting the Blighters and we teamed up.

We won. We killed all the Blighters. But the Blighters did plenty of damage too. Oda was dead, my parents were dead, and Lili’s mentor Gunther was dead. This was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life. This was my fault, and not just because of the lightning storm, which could’ve happened to anyone. This was my fault for being born.

But I knew that was the forces of evil would want me to quit, to give in to my loss and my guilt. And that would probably doom the whole realm to whatever great evil I was destined to defeat. So I was not gonna let that happen.

Liliwyn and I both lost a lot. But we also found each other. I knew she had a whoooole lot of cool stuff to teach me (she still does!) and while she was pretty skeptical of me at first, the fact that her awesome direwolf Mercy liked me (I am pretty likable!) tipped the scales and she decided to keep me around.

By now, the Mark of the Leaf has crept up my leg a fair bit.

Usually, at least once during the life of a Scion, a great and terrible battle with the forces of evil will be fought, and the Scion will save the realm from destruction. I am 100% confident that my adventures with Lili will prepare me for that battle. In the meantime, I should probably groom Mercy. Do you have a brush handy?

Wondering how to get started? Here are a few tips:

1. Invite your players

Invite them with either their email address or their Obsidian Portal username.

2. Edit your home page

Make a few changes to the home page and give people an idea of what your campaign is about. That will let people know you’re serious and not just playing with the system.

3. Choose a theme

If you want to set a specific mood for your campaign, we have several backgrounds to choose from. Accentuate it by creating a top banner image.

4. Create some NPCs

Characters form the core of every campaign, so take a few minutes to list out the major NPCs in your campaign.

A quick tip: The “+” icon in the top right of every section is how to add a new item, whether it’s a new character or adventure log post, or anything else.

5. Write your first Adventure Log post

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.

That’s it! The rest is up to your and your players.