Player’s Guide · A’Erth

Crimson Twilight

A homebrew Ravenloft campaign, set in the world of A’Erth

What follows is what your character grew up knowing, or could learn from a well-stocked scriptorium in the Kingdoms. Sign in with your player account to see the entries your character would know.

§ Welcome to A’Erth

The year is 3462. The world is our Earth, stretched three times wider. Balkan mountains, Hungarian plains, Viennese counting-houses, Egyptian dream-priests, Norse spawans reading bones on the northern strand. The map is familiar.

The tone is dark Renaissance. Moon-driven magic. Vampires, werewolves, undead, and the Seelie Court are real, and every one of them has a policy on strangers. The road east runs from the Kingdoms into Hungary, and into the seat of Strahd von Zarovich, who broke the last Crusade and now seals the Iron Pass with undead legions.

The right knowledge on A’Erth can be worth more than gold. This page holds only what is safely knowable. The rest you will earn.

§ What Everyone Knows

The following is common knowledge. Anyone who reads a broadsheet, sits in a tavern, or attended a mission school has picked it up.

The Church of Lathander, the Morninglord, dominates the West. Its clergy runs hospitals, schools, courts, and crusades.
Hungary and Bulgaria keep the Old Gods. Their overlords are guided by druidic High Seers and fortresses raised on leyline nexuses.
Strahd von Zarovich broke the last Crusade and now seals the Iron Pass with an undead legion. The mist at the Gates of Barovia does not care whether you meant to enter.
The Vistani are feared, persecuted, and quietly consulted. They are the only nomads whose word travels faster than an imperial courier.
Public star-charts show a Night of Four Moons falling on the New Year, January 1, 3465. The last one was in 3437.
Astrologers in Vienna and Constantinople have both read a Black Sun prophecy: eternal twilight, over Hungary. Interpretations differ. None of them are comforting.
Nyxvasha’s visions are known to lie.
Trade caravans east pay crushing tariffs. The Church calls part of it a divine toll. Not everyone believes those routes are only trade.
Lights appear beneath Lake Ohrid on certain nights. The Sisterhood of the Black Vila will give an outsider one warning. Not two.

§ The Four Moons

Four moons ride the sky of A’Erth, each in its own cycle. Every full moon buffs a school of magic. Multi-moon nights rewrite the rules. A Fourfold Eclipse, once in a thousand years, is treated in every tradition as the herald of catastrophe.

Tonight's Sky

The Four Moons

Luna

Last Quarter

Full in 18 days.
19% illuminated.

Ignis

Last Quarter

Full in 32 days.
54% illuminated.

Umbra

Waxing Gibbous

Full in 5 days.
Necromancy surges. The veil between living and dead thins. The restless dead walk more freely.

Nyxvasha

New

Full in 38 days.
5% illuminated.

Luna, the Silver

28-day cycle. Growth, healing, protection. Buffs Abjuration, Divination, and Conjuration when full. About twelve full moons a year.

Ignis, the Crimson

42-day cycle. Passion, war, creation. Buffs Evocation and Transmutation, adds damage, doubles wild-surge frequency. About eight fulls a year.

Umbra, the Obsidian

55-day cycle. Death, illusion, deception. Buffs Necromancy and Enchantment, adds necrotic damage and range, keeps illusions running past concentration. About six fulls a year.

Nyxvasha, the Veiled

88-day cycle. Secrets, fate, prophecy. Doubles wild-surge frequency and buffs Divination. Her visions may lie. About four fulls a year.

Alchemists and enchanters watch the moons closely. Full Luna adds two potions of healing to any successful crafting batch. Full Ignis adds two destructive or fire potions. Full Umbra adds two illusion, necrotic, or poison items. Full Nyxvasha adds two nature or transformation items. Eclipses cut both ways.

§ Anima, the Living Current

Every spell borrows from a current older than any pantheon. Scholars in Vienna call it Anima. Druids of Hungary and Bulgaria call it the breath under the Old Gods. Norse spawans call it the Well of Memory. It is the same current, and it remembers.

When a spell surges past what its caster can hold, the excess Anima has to go somewhere. Some casters absorb it into themselves and are called Sustainers. Some let it spill into land and bystanders and are called Ravagers. Regional traditions have their own names for each. What none of them dispute is this: once a caster has defiled the A’Erth, there is no returning to the Sustainer’s path.

Two consequences you can rely on in the fiction. Any spell that would deal necrotic damage to a creature immune to necrotic instead deals radiant. And Detect Magic returns the same aura colors to every trained caster on A’Erth: Abjuration blue, Conjuration gold, Divination silver, Enchantment magenta, Evocation red, Illusion fragmenting purple, Necromancy deep green, Transmutation bronze.

§ The Nations You Know

Any literate character can name each of the following without a check.

The United Kingdoms. England, France (conquered), Ireland (resistant), Scotland (loyal), the Caribbean Isles under Arawak matriarchy, and New England. Church of Lathander enforces doctrine through Inquisitors; public witch executions occur.
Hungary. Ruled by Overlords guided by druidic High Seers. Fortresses on leyline nexuses. Carpathians isolate everything east. Strahd is Lord of Barovia; the Iron Pass is walled by his undead.
The Second Bulgarian Empire. Capital at Tarnovo. Mystic Tsars in pact with the Rhodope dragons. Zmey Tsarislav, the three-headed golden King Serpent, sleeps beneath Pliska.
Ohrid. Independent city of around twenty-two thousand. Boyars, Merchant Guilds, small Lathander presence. The Sisterhood of the Black Vila and the Oracles of the Lake give outsiders one warning.
The Byzantine Empire. Constantinople, still standing.
Rome, Greece, Egypt. Roman legions and law. Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Arcadia under the Olympian pantheon. Egypt under Pharaoh Menekhet II, court of Ra, Horus, Osiris, Isis, Anubis, Sobek, and Ma’at.
Russia. Orcs, trolls, ice and fire wizards. The steppe is not the friendliest place to be caught after dark.
The Norse Realms. Vikings and their spawans, seers who read bones.
Farther out. Dwarven shoguns in China. Samurai and yokai in Japan. Aztec Tenochtitlan in the south. Australia the magical prison continent.

The Underdark is real. Drow, duergar, svirfneblin, mind flayers, beholders. The Planes are real. Sigil, Feywild, Shadowfell, Nine Hells, Elemental Chaos. You may have been to one or two. You will not have been to Sigil.

§ The Dawnspire

Formally the Lathandric Scholarium of the Dawning Path. It sits on a hill above the walled town of Wels, on the Lathander Road between the western Kingdoms and Vienna. Fortress-seminary, monastery, and academy in one, built of alabaster stone and radiant glass, its spires cast golden beams into the valley at dawn. The Bell of First Light tolls from the highest tower; local legend says the sun rises there first.

The Dawnspire takes orphans, bastards, foreigners, and heretics-turned-hopefuls. Not out of pity. To be tested. Curriculum runs on three pillars, faith, arms, and arcana, and the first week of trials passes through fire, fasting, combat, and contemplation. Students arrive nameless and leave remade, if they leave at all. Graduation is a Writ of Dawnward Flame, sealed in saffron-gold ink on lambskin vellum with an ember drawn from the First Flame.

If your character trained here, you may have been Dawnward Servant of the Flame, Bearer of the Morning Word, Keeper of the Kindled Path, or Ordained Flame of the Lathandric Faith. If you did not, you have almost certainly met someone who did.

§ The Old Ways

The Church of Lathander has driven the primal traditions underground in the Kingdoms and Rome. East of Vienna they still hold ground. Druids, barbarians, and rangers who name themselves after their country and its spirits, not after a bishopric.

Hungary keeps its Thorn-Bound and Bloodroot circles, its Ironjaw Hounds, its Highland Wilders. The Zealots of the Black Sun preach eternal dusk and openly reject the Church.
Bulgaria keeps its Veil-Keepers under the Bogoviti, its Samodivi in the mountains, and the Dragonbound Clans of the Rhodope descended from Zmey Tsarislav.
The Norse Realms keep Rime-Seers who take the Well of Memory and the Roots of the World Tree literally.
Greece keeps Thiasoi in the hills, followers of Pan and Dionysus and Demeter, and Oath-Hunters of Delphi guided by prophecy.
Egypt keeps Horizon-Walkers wardening the thresholds, and the Circle of the Hidden Barque reads dreams for the Pharaoh’s court.

If your character walks these paths, expect wildlife to notice. A fallen Ravager will find deer bolting, wolves refusing to meet their eyes, sacred groves twisting shut, the wind gone still. The land has a memory too.

§ Making a Character

The Basics

Starting level: 3. Max HP at levels 1 through 3, then average or roll.
Ability scores: 4d6 drop lowest. If one player rolls high, that array becomes an opt-in Standard Array of 17, 15, 16, 12, 12, 12 for the rest of the table. Fallback is a 38-point Variant Customizing build with a pre-racial max of 16 and a minimum of 10.
Starting gear: class and background equipment, plus two common magic items, plus 500 gp on top of class starting gold.
Races: Human-centric. Non-humans meet fear and hostility from most townsfolk. Dwarves, elves, half-elves, and halflings are rare. Orcs, hobgoblins, goliaths, tieflings, and half-orcs are very rare and will be treated accordingly.
Classes: PHB 2024 and Tasha’s, plus subclasses from Grim Hollow Player Pack, Mythic Odyssey of Theros, SCAG, Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, and Xanathar’s.
Seeds of Fear (VRGtR): pick up to two at creation, lifetime cap of three. Roleplaying through one earns Inspiration.
Flavor is Always Free. A cosmetic reskin of any RAW feature is fine on request.

Languages

There is no “Common” on A’Erth. Start with two languages plus your INT bonus. The regional set includes Hungarian, German, Russian, French, Romanian, English, Greek, Bulghar, Spanish, Italian, and Latin. In play, English, German, Romanian, and Bulghar carry most conversations. Druidic and Sign Language are available; Sign Language costs a slot and must attach to a spoken language you know.

A working motto for scribes in this world: Bulghar serves the people, English governs the Church, Latin preserves the faith, Greek preserves wisdom, and Farsi preserves secrets.

§ House Rules That Matter

These are the ones you will feel at the table.

Critical Hits

Double all damage dice and modifiers, then draw one card from the Pathfinder Critical Hit Deck. The GM adjudicates the card’s effect.

Healing Surges

Once per short or long rest, spend an action to burn up to half your total Hit Dice (round down). Each die plus your CON mod. You can stop between dice.

Assistance

Helping another PC grants advantage. Advantage does not stack. Two helpers is still one advantage.

Stress and Madness

Track a Stress Score on D&D Beyond. Your current Stress applies as a penalty to every attack, check, and save. Only the GM adjusts it. Short-Term, Long-Term, and Indefinite Madness tokens work by VRGtR rules. Immunity to the Frightened condition grants advantage on Madness saves.

Ability Drain

Shadows, wraiths, ghosts, and ancient vampires drain ability scores on top of HP damage. Recovery is one point per drained score per long rest. Persists through death and resurrection. This replaces the RAW exhaustion and level-drain effects for those creatures.

Anima Instability

Any spell with a material component rolls d100. On a roll equal to or below the spell’s level, the spell surges. You choose where the backlash lands: yourself (Sustainer), the land and bystanders (Ravager), or a nearby target. Draining the land repeatedly makes you a Ravager permanently. Cantrips are exempt.

Firearms are legal, licensed, and misfire on a natural 1. A flintlock pistol runs 250 gp, a musket 500, a hold-out pistol 150, and bullets by the ten cost 3 gp. Weather them at your peril; smoke and powder are disadvantaged in rain.

For Players

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