Welcome to Aethermar

Aethermar is a world of shattered seas, pirates, merchants, and ancient magic. A voyage can bring trade, discovery, danger, or a chance to begin again. Your character enters that world with a personal reason to travel and companions whose choices will shape what happens next.

The opening voyage

You begin at level 1 aboard Mercy’s Wake, a merchant brig bound for Blackharbor. Captain Elias Thorn commands the vessel, Mara Flint serves as first mate, and Old Jory works in the galley. You are a passenger unless you and the GM agree on another starting arrangement.

You do not need to be a pirate or an experienced sailor. A traveler, craftsperson, scholar, performer, soldier, fisher, or aspiring explorer can all have a reason to make the crossing. Bring someone who can cooperate when a shared problem demands it.

What play will involve

Expect exploration, conversations with people who want different things, dangerous encounters, and decisions about trust and obligation. Nautical adventure can include storms, shipboard emergencies, scarce supplies, and the unknown beneath the water. Talk with the group about how much danger, horror, and bookkeeping makes the game enjoyable.

Your place in the world

Your character does not need to know every country, ruler, or god. Choose a home and connection from Aethermar’s existing articles with the GM. Ask what a person with that upbringing would reasonably know. A birthplace, species, or profession provides context; it does not decide your beliefs, loyalties, or personality.

This guide is an introduction for players. The GM can reveal additional information when your character learns it during play.

Create Your Character

For the established opening voyage, create a level-1 character using the campaign’s agreed D&D 2024 character-creation rules. The existing world articles provide setting descriptions and options; use the agreed rules source for the actual mechanics.

Choose your options together

Aethermar already has species, class, and background articles. Their presence in the world does not automatically settle which supplements a particular table uses. Confirm your chosen species, class, background, equipment, and rules version with the GM before finalizing the sheet.

Artificer and Blood Hunter appear among the world’s class options, but use distinct source material. Ask which version is allowed. The Aethermar-themed backgrounds are narrative adaptations of existing background packages: retain the approved package rather than adding an extra feat, skill, or ability increase.

Make five useful decisions

1. Identity: what name and pronouns does your character use, and what do strangers notice first?
2. Home: choose an existing region or settlement, or discuss an unrecorded personal home with the GM before making it part of the world.
3. Purpose: why are you traveling to Blackharbor now?
4. Connection: which other player character do you trust, owe, or want to understand?
5. Commitment: what would persuade you to help the others when the voyage becomes difficult?

Keep the backstory playable

A short backstory with one goal, one relationship, and one unresolved question gives the GM material to use. Offer secrets as possibilities for discussion. Do not decide another character’s actions, claim leadership over an established faction, or change an existing ruler’s history without agreement.

Starting ability scores, equipment method, permitted books, and character-sheet choices should be recorded by the group before play. This manuscript adds no new character bonuses or mandatory restrictions.

Reasons to Sail

Choose or adapt one of these optional personal hooks. They explain why you booked passage aboard Mercy’s Wake; they do not establish new world events or promise a particular campaign outcome.

• A fresh start: you hope honest work in Blackharbor will put a failure or disappointment behind you.
• A trade to practice: your craft, profession, or performance needs customers, and another port means another chance.
• A person to meet: you have arranged to meet a friend, relative, employer, or correspondent. Agree their identity and details with the GM.
• A question to answer: ships and travelers bring accounts of unfamiliar places. You want to investigate one for yourself.
• A life at sea: you have worked near water and want to learn the wider sailor’s trade, or you already know it and need a berth.
• A shared obligation: another player character helped you, and you have chosen to travel together.

Connect before departure

With another player, complete one sentence: “We first worked together when…”; “You trusted me with…”; “I promised to help you reach…”; or “We disagree about…, but we both care about…”. Each player decides what is true about their own character.

Three questions for the first session

What do you keep within reach during the voyage? Who aboard have you made an effort to speak with? What would you do if helping a stranger put your plans at risk?

You may prepare hopes and fears, but leave space for events to surprise you. You are not required to know a hidden conspiracy, possess a unique artifact, or arrive with a predetermined allegiance.

Life on the Shattered Seas

Merchants and pirates are part of Aethermar’s established sea travel, and ancient magic is part of its world. Routes, local customs, and personal loyalties matter. Use the existing regional and society articles for specific places rather than assuming every harbor follows the same rules.

Names you may hear

The Royal Iron Navy opposes piracy. The Crimson Brotherhood is a pirate fleet under Varek Bloodtide. The Black Flag Council brings together seven pirate lords concerned with their independence. Your character’s detailed knowledge of these groups depends on their background and what the GM establishes at the table.

A faction’s reputation does not tell you everything about an individual sailor. Ask questions, listen to witnesses, and decide whom to trust through the people and evidence you encounter.

Aboard a vessel

Ask who is responsible for the helm, lookout, navigation, stores, and emergency work. Explain what your character can contribute. Willing recruits and rescued people have their own choices; a conversation should come before assuming someone has joined your crew.

Food, drinking water, repairs, pay, and cargo can become shared decisions. The group should agree how closely to track them. Ship statistics and upgrades belong in the ship reference, while actual damage, purchases, and crew agreements belong in the voyage log.

What your character knows

Bring the GM two or three subjects your character has reason to understand: a home region, occupation, faith, language, sea route, or community. Ask for a brief account of that knowledge. A player can ask for context without their character knowing every secret in the setting.

Reading ahead in GM notes, treasure locations, plot outcomes, and artifact secrets can spoil discoveries. Ask which articles are intended for players before browsing beyond this guide.

Session Zero and Table Agreements

Use this checklist before the opening session. These are decisions for your group, not new mandatory rules or changes to Aethermar’s lore.

Agree on the game

• Tone: how much heroic adventure, humor, exploration, and nautical horror does the group want?
• Cooperation: what keeps the characters together, and how will disagreements be handled?
• Boundaries: discuss drowning, undead, captivity, violence, and any other subjects players want limited or omitted. Allow anyone to pause or redirect a scene without needing to explain publicly.
• Player conflict: agree beforehand whether theft between characters, secret betrayal, or character-versus-character combat is welcome.
• Rules: confirm character-creation sources, advancement, starting equipment, house rules, and how disputed rulings will be revisited.
• Voyages: decide how to handle sailing, watches, provisions, ammunition, repairs, wages, and treasure shares.
• Practical details: record session length, schedule, attendance expectations, and what happens when a player is absent.

A short shared record

Allowed character sources: ____.
Ability-score and equipment methods: ____.
Advancement: ____.
Optional rules adopted: ____.
Topics to limit or omit: ____.
How to pause a scene: ____.
Player-conflict agreement: ____.
Travel and supply tracking: ____.
Schedule and absence plan: ____.

Ready to play

Bring a character sheet, a reason to be aboard Mercy’s Wake, a connection to another character, and one question about the world. The GM can introduce the voyage from there. Your decisions during play will determine what your character becomes.