Many of you are familiar with the story of D&D Duet—how Jonathan asked me for a year to play with him before I finally agreed, how him creating a world and characters just for me expressed love and thoughtfulness in such a way that I, too, fell in love with a game that had captured his heart and imagination—it’s almost Valentine’s Day, so let’s just let the cheesiness fly!
But what we don’t always mention when telling this story is that before we playing in our duet together, I participated in one group game. And for that game, I created a character—my first ever D&D character. Her name, Briseras Ravisthinia, a level 3 ranger with a loyal wolf companion named Vera.
And more than I had any way of understanding at the time, that ranger and her wolf would completely and utterly change my life.
That first session I played in was also Jonathan’s first session as a DM, and it feels so special to me that I got to be there for it.
If you prefer the video version of the story, you’ll find it here! Or keep scrolling for the written version below!
The very early stages of our adventures in Steymhorod
When our duet game started, I played Lady Iellieth Amastacia in the adventure that would later become First Blush and through the campaign that would later come to life in my epic fantasy series Age of Azuria.
Several months into Iellieth’s adventures, we hit a spot where I could bring in a secondary PC—a term we use for someone played by the character who’s more of an alternative PC or additional PC rather than a sidekick or adventuring companion. I can’t remember if this happened when we switched GM and player roles or if it was something else, but the important piece is—that PC’s name was Briseras.
We needed a pause in our main game, a feeling that’s become more and more familiar over the years, and Jonathan was getting ready to run Curse of Strahd for the D&D club at his school. So he asked me if I would bring in Briseras to run through Death House with him while he got accustomed to the campaign.
As has also become wildly familiar over the last few years, once we had completed the chapter, our duet game took a sharp turn away from the adventure as written, and what we ended up with would later become Land of Vampires.
What I love about this campaign!
I have been searching for the words for what makes Steymhorod—the world for Land of Vampires—so special to me. I think part of it is that it’s both familiar and surprising. The setting has the Gothic elements of Underworld and Van Helsing, each of which has its fair share of camp alongside intriguing characters and an immersive, captivating world.
Lord Draego, who takes an interest in the PC almost as soon as they arrive in Steymhorod, surprised me as a character by not immediately being offended by the fact that I was here to kill vampires. As the first vampire to ever exist and the blood-father of all subsequent vampires, he has a unique take on his progeny but, as was even more compelling for a duet game, he had a unique fascination with me/my character as well. (And if that’s not gripping, I don’t know what is 😉)
Briseras is a much more morally gray character than my other PCs, and she’s also a little bit anti-social, as we might expect someone who is prone to violence. One of the things that makes her so fun is that she’s exceedingly action-driven. If in doubt, Iellieth, for instance, is going to try to make friends or at least make sure she understands the situation. Briseras is going to start stabbing people or firing arrows (or both). This meant that sessions with her would absolutely fly. What would have taken my other characters a half hour of RP to work up to combat-wise, Briseras has already shot everyone. (This is how we accidentally burned down the Ring of Light in our version of Land of Vampires. Whoops!)
What I came to learn about her as we played though was how deep-set her emotions are. She’s probably my character with the greatest emotional depth, the most riddled with pain—but no one would see that from the outside, and certainly not if she could help it.
Her relationships with her companions are complex as well. We ended up with a very confusing love triangle between Briseras, Lord Draego, and one of her companions who is both the person who gets on her nerves the fastest and her best friend.
I had a pretty evolved—and dark—backstory for Briseras when our game began, and Jonathan still found world-altering ways of adding to that as we went along. (If you’d like help adding to character backstory as you go, check out this post!)
Another thing I love about the world and story setup in Land of Vampires is that Steymhorod has been waiting for the PC—they’re not invading and inserting themselves into a place where they don’t belong. They are the change catalyst in a land that’s been stagnant for hundreds if not thousands of years.
How the campaign came to be
We started releasing the campaign in chapters on our Patreon and even released those chapters as posts on the blog—we wanted to try out a serialized campaign, similar to serial fiction. This has allowed us to receive lots of feedback on the campaign, characters, and storyline over the years, and it’s turned into something we’re incredibly proud of.
I kept delaying taking the next step with the campaign—a Kickstarter that would allow us to do a print run and stock print editions, expanding our business model and offerings—because I didn’t feel ready. The last few years have been hard for all of us, I know, and for me and Jonathan, the period from late 2020 to even the beginning of this year has been full of so much loss. We’ve had some big milestones too—I finished my PhD, Jonathan is gearing up for a pretty big promotion/transition in the school system—and some of that has pulled us away from being able to spend as much time creating for tabletop gaming as we want to be. D&D Duet turned five on January 1st of this year, which I still can hardly believe!
We have really big plans for the future of duet gaming, for the stories we want to bring to your gaming table, and that’s why I went ahead and pushed myself with creating the Kickstarter, with not delaying anymore. It’s been kinda scary to stride out onto what feels like a stage in the gaming space and say “Hey! We made a cool thing!” This is a bigger project than we’ve ever attempted before with more moving parts and things outside our control.
But the experience of sharing the Kickstarter has also been such a great reminder for me of why we started D&D Duet in the first place—to help people just like you create a whole world just for two, to provide adventures and advice for one-on-one play with the people you care about or, if you prefer, a random person online, whatever works best for you!
I get emails from fellow duet gamers all the time, especially from people who are new to one-on-one, asking if it’s “normal” for them to spend hours RPing with their partner. These emails always make me smile. I don’t know if it’s “normal” across all 5e gaming spaces for everyone who plays D&D, but in our community, for the people we write for, the answer is overwhelmingly yes.
At the end of the day, that’s why Land of Vampires is so special and important to us: It’s a campaign we crafted to support your storytelling at the table.
We’ve played through all of the pieces and talked to others who have done the same. We know where you might get stuck, we’ve anticipated your PC having a few different really good options for what to do next, and we’ve made sure that every step along the way, the PC feels like the hero they are.
Vampire hunting is exhilarating, as is befriending fae and helping undead creatures work through their unresolved trauma. You can do all of that and more in this campaign, and we’ll be here to help you every step of the way.
If you haven’t pledged to our Kickstarter yet and you’d like to embark on your journey into Steymhorod, click here!—we’re so excited for where this adventure will take you, and here’s to this campaign being the first of many more to come.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and questions!