Blood and Brine

Hello, I’m looking for one or two more players for a nautically themed monster hunting campaign, this is a relatively small game as it contains only two other players right now. Sessions are held online on Thursdays at 2:00 pm GMT over Roll20 but chat is done through discord.  I try to keep sessions roughly 50% RP and 50% Combat/Intrigue challenges when I can. The system is mostly DnD 2024 but has a few homebrew elements and a naval combat and ‘Leviathan Hunt’ system entirely of my own design. You would be starting at character level 7 Below is the premise if you’re interested! ⸻ “Welcome to the Shattered Belt, traveler. If you came for riches, glory, or gods help you, peace, then you’re about five decades too late and five leagues too deep. Still, if you’ve got a sharp sword, a clever tongue, or a fast ship, you just might survive. Thrive, even.” —Captain Varia Mekkos, former privateer, now independent smuggler of the Sunshard Compact ⸻ The Belt Between the twin beasts of Thalassene and Draxos lies a chain of islands known as the Gilded Reaches, though no sailor calls them that without a smirk. To most, they’re just the Shattered Belt—a sprawl of rocky isles, sun-baked ports, and storm-scoured straits. For centuries, they were the neutral spine between two proud continents. Now? They’re the only thing stopping both sides from finishing what the last war couldn’t. To the South: Thalassene, the Veiled Ecclesiarchy A land of alabaster temples and silken lies, ruled by the High Synod in the name of the Many-Faced Flame. Faith here is law. The priest-kings trace their bloodline to the Dawnfire itself, or so they claim. Heretics burn. Truth bends. Gold flows only to the sanctified. Their missionaries wear smiles like masks, but their fleets bear fire in their hulls. To the North: Draxos, the Living Empire The Imperial Throne rests heavy on the shoulders of Emperor Kaledros IV, descendant of the Sun-Hammer. Power in Draxos is earned by blood. Literal and otherwise. All nobles must prove descent from the imperial line. Their legions are battered but unbroken, veterans of a war that drained their coffers but not their ambition. The Isles: The Last Free Waters. Dozens of island-states speckle the sea between the giants. Each island flies its own flag, speaks its own dialect, and spills its own blood when necessary. But each island has chosen allegiance to a faction, lines were drawn—two major alliances divide the Reaches: The Sunshard Compact – Mercantile, coastal, bound by trade and common cause. Their coin is strong and their navy is swift, often bolstered by former pirates with new banners. The Corvine Accord – Harder, older, and more superstitious. Bound by mutual defense and shared hatred of continental meddling. Their Tide Priests whisper of things stirring beneath the waves. Neither alliance trusts the other completely, but both agree on one thing: if either Thalassene or Draxos sets foot on their shores again, the sea will burn before it bows. The Sea Is Not Still The war may be over, but its scars run deep—some deeper than the seafloor. Old things stir beneath the coral and silt. Fishermen speak of islands that move, lights below the waves, and voices calling from the deep. Entire ships vanish without a trace. Storms howl with strange music. Some say the gods of the sea have awoken. Others whisper of ancient engines buried since the First Collapse, now reactivated by bloodshed. What’s certain is this: the ocean no longer belongs to mortals alone. Blood Calls to Brine With trade strangled and coastal villages swallowed by the sea, the great powers whisper of a desperate measure: the reformation of the Deep Hunt. Once, this ancient order hunted the leviathans that stirred beneath the waves in elder days—sea-born horrors too vast for fleets, too old for gods. Bound by blood-oaths and armed with relics forged in salt and fire, the Deep Hunt sailed where no banner dared. But they were disbanded generations ago, their legends scattered like bones in the tide. Now, with the deep stirring once more, their blood has begun to call. You are the heirs of that forgotten order. Your bloodlines traced. Your names summoned. Letters sealed in sea-wax arrive at ports and outposts across the Gilded Reaches, bearing a crest not seen in centuries—a harpoon entwined with a kraken’s eye. The Compact, the Accord, and both great continents have agreed on only one thing: the old monsters cannot be faced by navies or priests alone. The Hunt must rise again. And it begins with you.