Through Wednesday, November 4 – for just over one week! – we conclude the October Horrors in fitting fashion with the all-new Black Ballad Bundle. Bad news: You’re dead. Good news: The Black Ballad, the epic Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition campaign from Storyteller’s Forge Studios, starts where other campaigns stop, with a TPK (total party kill). You and your fellow heroes wake in the Sunless Crossing, the great waiting room of the dead, with your obituaries written and survivors calling dibs on your boots. Maybe a cleric can pull you back to the living world, or maybe you’d rather push on to your final reward. Will you accept the fate written for you, or rewrite it? Either way, you must survive (if that’s the word) the politics of Nox Valar, the city of the dead, and a catastrophe that strikes the afterlife itself. And in the course of ten cinematic chapters, you’ll fight at least one god.
Every unlucky gamemaster knows the moment: The dice turn bad, the party falls, and the players ask, “Now what?” Reroll a new party of strangers? Hope a wandering cleric happens by? The Black Ballad turns that awkward pause into the campaign. Funded in a big March 2023 BackerKit campaign, The Black Ballad plays like a savage heavy-metal opera of cosmic proportions. The Sunless Crossing is a crossroads, not a final destination, so whatever your characters believe about heaven, hell, or somewhere in between, their faith can shape the road they take. The campaign is designed for Tier 4 heroes (levels 17-20), but you can run it at any level, whether your party fell at 3 or 19. The party gets a guide to shepherd them toward the afterlife they seek, though time runs strangely here and the journey can take weeks or even years. Your players can wander the Crossing, push on toward their final rest, or wait to be dragged back by a still-living friend.
The 320-page Black Ballad campaign book presents new domains (Dream and Regret), new monsters, and playable species: Gargoyles, Scions of the Storm infused with divine energy; the Unhallowed, mortals touched by the afterlife whose souls journey to the lands of the dead when they sleep; and the Soul Stitched, undead who rebuild themselves from slivers of memory before they unravel entirely. New mechanics, including Last Wills, Obituaries, and Unraveling, cover what happens to characters, loot, and legacies while they’re dead. (Who, exactly, inherits that cherished sword?) Encounters use new mechanics like Divine Grit, which lets you take unique actions at a cost, and every NPC comes with a social stat block – including whether they’re romanceable. Not even death can still the roving heart.
For GMs who want a campaign that starts with “you’re dead” – that kicks off with a kickoff, so to speak – The Black Ballad is the answer to “Now what?”
This all-new Black Ballad Bundle gives you everything you need (aside from the D&D 5E rules) to send a party of the newly dead into the great beyond: the complete non-watermarked, DRM-free Black Ballad campaign book (and its free Pathfinder 2E Conversion Pack), along with the Map Pack and the one-shot adventure Gamble of Fates – a retail value of US$50 for just $9.95.
Get this Black Ballad offer before the gates of Nox Valar swing shut on the Sunless Crossing in just one week, Wednesday, November 4.
