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Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – Dark Myth a Custom Campaign Setting

Hello, my name is Art Wood. Some of you may know me from the Nerdarchy YouTube groups. Dark Myth is my first endeavor to create a role-playing game all my own. Currently I have taken the core story and theme mechanics and transferred it over to Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition rule set.

Before that I had spent about three years off and on working on the game mechanics using a percentile based rule system all my own. I had included  crafting as well as a unique system of “Corruption” dealing with the Darkness in my world slowly trying to corrupt
and change the inhabitants into demonic and twisted monstrosities.

Dark Myth a Custom Campaign Setting

Currently I run my D&D version of the game each Friday night with my friends Garret and his brother Tony and their two nephews Chris and Nick, as well as Lauren and her boyfriend Brandon. Six players in all. In this world of darkness and horror, I have created a few new races using my own system as well as the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition system.

The races include the winged Avloreons who are ruled by a female dominate society quite like the Romans of our own time-line. The females bring life into the world so they are closest to the gods. The next race I have created is the Rahu Ja’ which are a race of very large humanoids that have four arms, and bony ridges along their spine and fore-head.

Would you Enter the Dark Myth in Dungeons and Dragons

They live in the hidden valley of Shangri-La and before the great war they were only a myth themselves. They lead a peaceful monastery-like existence and value strength of mind as well as the body. My last unique race was the Methuselah who are basically humans with one major difference in that their heritage hundreds of years ago were that of cereal-killers and psychotic criminals. They were forced to live underground and became accustom to madness and the dark. They actually start the game with an insanity gained from my diverse
insanity table.

I have also incorporated a few races from other sources like Shifters from the Eberron D&D world as well as Lizardfolk from all the D&D worlds which in my game are playable characters. These races all have ties to the roles they played during the great war.

Making this custom setting was a challenge in that I had no actual input from friends but a little from my daughter Claudia Wood. At the time I was stuck in-between finding a good game to play and some personal setbacks. Which I’m sure everyone has had. My goal was to create a game that was balanced, had a good story including a horror aspect, as well as having interesting races and environmental settings to explore.

In closing I just want to let all of us role-players know that making your own world to play in isn’t as hard as it may seem. If you look at my game setting/world I just started with the gods and the time-line and went from  there. Hopefully it can give others ideas for their own worlds to play RPGs in and how to set them up and get going.

My thanks to all the guys at Nerdarchy (Dave, Ted, Ryan and Nate) for allowing me to share with you my world of Dark Myth. Hope to see you all running your own games soon and wish you all the best of luck and fun!
As always…STAY NERDY!

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