For the first time since our 2019 trip, Quinn and I were able to re-attend the D&D in a Castle event at Lumley Castle in England, where we were paired with Dungeon Master Kelly Lynne D’Angelo, and players Vincent, Chris, David, myself, and Quinn, to play Kelly’s wholly homebrewed “Ruinview” campaign. Want to know more about the event? Here’s my post on our 2022 experience at the castle.
Repeated Insanity – Woo!
I truly didn’t intend on novelizing our campaign this time around because writing the last book was, frankly, a lot of work. For reference, here’s a picture of the book I wrote and printed (not published) for our 2019 D&D in a Castle group:
But, when I got home, I looked over the outline I’d written for the Ruinview game (I write outlines for every campaign I play to track items, NPCs, timelines, etc.) and thought…maybe…maybe I should do it? After all, I really liked the end product last time so…why not have another trophy/memorial on my shelf? Why not a Ruinview Book?
Yeah, I had to twist my own arm *really* hard on that (read: I did not).
Ruinview Book Pictures
Here are some pictures of the book and its interior and formatting. If you’d like details about the specific formatting measurements and printing details, check out my Ruinview book formatting post.
Ruinview Story Summary
A rag-tag group of outsiders have befriended one another in the salty, coastal town of Ruinview, where they ply their trades. When the town’s mayor warns that a nearby forest suddenly turned into a charred marshland overnight—and with it the reappearance of a mythical castle made entirely of bones—these heroes can’t stand idly by. They boldly meet the threat of a ghostly attack that leaves one in their ranks a literal day from death by old age, and confront an otherworldly water deity set on flooding the material plane to rule it all.
Ruinview Book Character Summary
Meet Chromie, a gnome moon druid, along with her adopted son, a tabaxi ranger named Binx, who run a carpentry shop in Ruinview. They often sell items “found” by their shop neighbors, a tortle dream druid named Shelldon Dreamcatcher, and his best friend Nae, a tiefling slam poet bard. Together, the two run the front that is their tea shop, called “High Tea,” but are known to certain circles to have a side hustle, which half-orc fighter Xlatan often assists with to procure said “found” items—always from those who won’t be back for their things after being caught breaking the law.
PDFs of our final character sheets are available at the bottom of each character’s “bio” (the link font is super small for some reason, but that’s what the hyperlinks go to.
Ruinview Players
DM Campaign Hook: You’ve all been enjoying your time in Ruinview together over the last year. It’s a gorgeous little town of no more than 500, just off a salty coastal bluff that’s ripe with good wheat harvest and strong ale. There’s been enough to do locally to make solid coin and names for yourselves as a group. So much so that the Ruinview town mayor, Nessie Rakken, has quietly come to you with some startling news: out of nowhere, a nearby forest has turned into a charred marshland overnight, and with it the appearance of what was considered lore before: the ruins of an ancient castle made entirely out of bones.
Nae, a tiefling bard, joined up with Shelldon after he, Xlatan, and Binx found his lost poems. Nae was a mysterious one, but always stuck around, always writing in his journal, but ever eager to help out as a way to repay the group for finding his prized possessions. Also, Chromie was a pretty good cook, and Shelldon had some righteous tea at the shop. They seemed to really like his poetry, and he often felt he helped inspire them to be greater at everything they put their minds to.
Character Specs: Level 7 Tiefling Lore Bard
Nae’s sheet is an estimate because I couldn’t obtain a copy of his bard sheet, nor the *oopsie* character he played after Nae suffered an unfortunate incident with the Deck of Many Things (also why Nae’s not level 8).
Raised in the Kingdom of Many Arrows, half-orc fighter Xlatan was separated from his family and friends when the Orc Wars drove all them from their lands, and most were lost to the battle. For a year or more, Xlatan travelled without direction, seeking work wherever people would accept him, as he knew in his heart that his family were casualties of war. Eventually, he made his way south, to Waterdeep, where his appearance was nothing out of the ordinary, and steady work was easy to come by. For a while, he worked as a merchant’s guard, protecting trade caravans travelling along the Sword Coast to and from Baldur’s Gate, but an altercation with the merchant’s son saw him once again driven for a place he called home. Continuing along the coast, he found work in Ruinview keeping order in the town and dealing with the occasional group of bandits. Xlatan befriended the small merchant group of outsiders because Chromie was always interested in buying items recovered from bandit raids that the others were “unable” to return to their rightful owners.
Magical Item: Tankard of Sobriety. Woe be it to anyone whom challenges this half-orc to a drinking game.
Character Specs: Level 9 Half-Orc Champion Fighter
Chromie was born as an older twin to a sister in a forest gnome clan far to the north. On their twentieth birthday, Chromie’s sister unintentionally received a cursed necklace as a gift. The village elder quickly ascertained that the necklace would continue to drain her twin’s life force until her death, but that the necklace could only be removed if accepted by another to bear its magical burden. Chromie’s druid mentor determined that the curse’s effects were lessened significantly by the proximity to living wood, and believed that perhaps in another 150 years or so would see the curse’s power faded enough to destroy. Her mentor, an ancient 450 years old already, offered to take on the burden of the cursed item, but Chromie refused, instead taking it on herself to bear her sister’s curse. When her sister still did not improve after a week, all assumed the item’s proximity to her sister was causing her continued decline. So, Chromie left her family, friends, and the forest she knew to either find a way to break the curse, or wait it out, if nothing else.
A century later, the necklace’s power was *mostly* manageable with Chromie’s constant connection to living wood, but its potency seemed not at all drained for the time passed. Chromie had long since given up on finding a cure, and wandered the realm, looking for anything that could give her a sense of purpose—something other than just waiting for life to pass her by.
When she discovered a nearly drowned panther cub on the banks of a river, she took him in, just as she’d taken in countless other injured animals, and resolved to see him healed. To her great surprise, the cub was fully sentient, and she raised him as her son, named him Binx, and was happy to help him in his quest to learn more about his people.
They ended up in the coastal town of Ruinview due to following a lead that ultimately went cold, and inadvertently settled in after a bit as we waited for more news from ships that would dock at the port. Binx took up tracking jobs in between wood hunting chores, and Chromie joined a local artisan guild, where she opened up a small shop for woodcarving and carpentry, called “Got Wood Carpentry.”
Magic Item: Moon Sickle
Character Specs: Level 8 Gnome Druid of the Circle of the Moon (shapeshifting specialty)
Binx was separated from his family as a very young cub—too young to remember why or how—and was left to fend for himself in the forest. In his mind, something terrible must have befallen his people.
As cubs are wont to do, Binx found himself in trouble, alone, clinging for dear life to a log on a raging river. Crashing against the waves and forced under many times by the current, he fought desperately to keep his head above water. Finally, somehow, he washed ashore on a riverbank, cold and freezing wet. Having the energy to do nothing else, he cried for help, hoping against hope that someone—anyone—would find him.
He has little memory of what happened thereafter, but he remembered finally feeling warm, being carried in the arms of someone small, and he eventually found a home with the gnome Chromie.
Chromie cared for him and named him Binx. She taught him the ways of the forest and, more importantly, how to respect it. He could still recall how big her eyes got when he first spoke, and she realized he was not merely a panther cub. In fact, he quickly outgrew her, standing a good three feet over her.
Two decades passed, and their familial bond grew stronger each day. While helping Chromie sell her wooden wares, he overheard talk of a group of travelers, but what made this story catch his attention is that these travelers were tabaxi. Perhaps they were his people or knew more of where he came from. He decided to track them down. With Chromie’s encouragement and assistance, they began tracking the supposed tabaxi. Week over week, they always seemed to stay one or two steps behind rumors of their travels. Eventually, their search led them to Ruinview, where the trail went cold. Obsessed with finding a new lead, Binx convinced Chromie to settle into the sleepy coastal town, but one month led to another, and then another. A year had passed, and before they knew it, Chromie was running her own shop, and they were comfortably living above it. While Binx was determined to find a link to his people and his family, for now he lead a satisfying life helping Chromie in the woodshop by day, and continuing his research in the evenings.
Magic Item: Longbow +1, handcrafted by Chromie!
Character Specs: Tabaxi Ranger (5) / Rogue (3)
Shelldon typically spent his time idly floating on his back in the Pond of Great Dreaming in the Feywild, staring at the clouds and reading portents—and, of course, drifting back to sleep as he floated along. Dreams have great power, you know, and you can learn everything about the world without ever stepping foot outside your backyard pond…or at least that’s what his master would always say.
One day, Shelldon had a powerful dream, unlike any other he’d ever had! The World Turtle that carries the material plane on its back told him the time of the next Great Dreaming neared, that the planes would collide and that the worlds would soon be changing—that this next dream cycle could be a great shared dream for all existence ushering in a new age of enlightenment and change…or it could lead to the Great Unravelling, severing all known planes from the worlds of dreams forever. Shelldon awoke with a shock, and left immediately (well, as fast a tortle can be expected to move), convinced that he would somehow play a vital role in weaving of the next Great Dreaming.
A lifelong “Sleepytime® tea” drinker, Shelldon soon discovered a “brown house” that served a most unusual brew—bitter, warm, yet highly stimulating! There, he met Xlatan, whom he’d assumed was fighting a hangover (it was just his demeanor). Shelldon, it turned out, was very keen at locating objects and people (such was the power of his dreams and portents…and perhaps a Locate Object spell). One thing led to another, and Shelldon set up shop next to Chromie’s Got Wood Carpentry, as a tea shop called High Tea, but in other markets was known as “The Found and Lost” business—a reverse lost and found service, where they would find stolen bandit goods and sell them to the locals. Shelldon would have dreams about the bandits, which were obscure but surprisingly accurate. Binx would track down the owners, and Nae, a tiefling bard with a penchant for slam poetry and Xlatan would retrieve the “found” items and return most to their rightful owners, while using Chromie’s shop to hawk the rest.
Magic Item: Winged Boots
Character Specs: Level 8 Tortle Druid of the Circle of Dreams
