1 Player’s Guide to The Price of Dawn
Welcome to the campaign. This guide tells you everything you need to arrive at Session 1 ready to play - and nothing you’re not supposed to know yet.
1.1 What Kind of Campaign Is This?
The Price of Dawn is a campaign about a city that has not seen the sun in fifty years - and the cost of bringing it back.
It is not a campaign about defeating evil. The antagonists here are not villains. They are people who want things that are reasonable to want: safety, hope, a future for their children, the sun. The conflict is not between good and evil but between goods that cannot coexist - and between the people willing to pay different prices to get what they want.
Each session is built around a genuine moral dilemma with no correct answer. You will make hard choices. You will be wrong sometimes. You will leave sessions uncertain. That’s the point. The game is most rewarding when you engage with that uncertainty honestly rather than looking for a clever trick to make it go away.
Tone: Grief is present throughout this campaign - grief for the sun, for what the city used to be, for people who are suffering. The campaign handles this seriously. There is no gratuitous darkness for shock value, but the weight is real and intentional. If you want a campaign where heroism is triumphant and unambiguous, this might not be the right fit - or it might be exactly the challenge you’re looking for.
Pacing: Sessions run roughly 3 hours. Each has a distinct scene structure with space for investigation, roleplay, and decisions. Combat exists but is not the primary mode of resolution. Most of the interesting moments happen at a table, in a conversation, or at the edge of a choice.
1.2 Spoiler Map: What You May Read
Everything in the Player’s Guide is yours to read freely. Past that point — The World, the Sessions, the GM Toolkit — those chapters are for your GM’s eyes only. Reading them will cost you discoveries you’re meant to make at the table.
| Chapter | Safe for Players? |
|---|---|
| Player’s Guide (this document) | Yes - read everything |
| The World Around Varenhold | Yes - fully player-safe |
| The Gods of the Graymere Reaches | Yes - fully player-safe |
| Factions & Public Knowledge | Yes - fully player-safe |
| Pre-Session Handout | Yes - designed to be shared |
| The World (GM chapter) | No - contains campaign secrets |
| NPCs (GM chapter) | No - contains NPC secrets |
| The Sessions | No - spoilers for all five sessions |
| GM Toolkit | No - GM mechanics only |
If you want to do pre-session research, the four Player’s Guide chapters give you everything you need. Reading beyond them will reduce your enjoyment of discoveries you’re meant to make in play.
1.3 Character Creation Guidance
1.3.1 Almost Any Concept Works
The campaign is set in a specific city in crisis, but the player characters are deliberately framed as outsiders or returnees - people with a reason to be in Varenhold, investigating something, rather than lifelong locals. This gives every character concept room to breathe.
You could play: - An investigator hired by an anonymous patron - A scholar following a lead on a lost manuscript - A merchant whose route through Varenhold has become complicated - A former resident who left years ago and just returned - A cleric whose deity seems unusually present (or absent) in this city - A soldier between contracts who took the wrong job - A Dawnborn admirer who came to meet their heroes - or a skeptic who came to verify the legends
The handout chapter includes six specific background hooks if you want something more structured.
Need a ready-to-play character? Flip to characters.md in the Player Companion for five pre-made level 1 builds (returnee, Lowmark child, scholar, Parish farmer, Compact factor). Each comes with ability scores, moral hooks, and built-in connections to the Dawnborn. They slot directly into Session Zero questions.
1.3.2 What Makes a Good Character for This Campaign
Characters who ask questions thrive here. Passive characters who wait for the plot to come to them will find less to do. The campaign rewards characters with opinions, relationships to the material, and curiosity.
Characters with beliefs that can be tested generate the most interesting play. If your character has a clear value - justice, community, survival, truth - the campaign will find ways to complicate that value. Characters who start with certainty and end the campaign uncertain have usually had the best arcs.
Characters who feel things land better than characters who perform detachment. This campaign has weight. A character who engages with the grief and beauty of Varenhold will get more out of it than one who keeps ironic distance from everything.
1.3.3 Classes and Roles
No class is excluded, but some connect naturally to the material:
- Clerics will find Varenhold’s relationship to Auris (the sun god) an immediate source of roleplay and tension. Which faction of the church do they belong to? What does praying feel like here?
- Paladins will face the campaign’s core dilemma directly through their oaths. The campaign is designed to test oaths without breaking them - unless you want it to.
- Rogues and Rangers who rely on social skills and information-gathering are extremely useful. This is partly an investigation campaign.
- Wizards and Scholars will find the Spire scholars a natural peer community - and a bureaucratic obstacle.
- Druids who connect to nature will feel the twilight deeply. Fifty years without sun has changed the natural world.
- Bards have the most natural reason to be curious about everything, and Varenhold has art, stories, and sorrow worth documenting.
- Fighters, Barbarians, and Monks should think about why they’re investigating rather than fighting. The campaign will give them action - but their most memorable moments will likely not be combat.
1.3.4 Starting Level
The campaign begins at level 4. Characters have some history and competence. Think about what they’ve done before this job.
1.3.5 Multiclassing and Optimization
You can optimize if you want; this campaign will not punish it. But optimization is not the primary driver of success. A maximally optimized character who refuses to engage with moral complexity will have a less interesting time than a mechanically simple character who leans into hard choices.
1.4 Content & Tone Notes
Present themes: Grief, sacrifice, political desperation, the limits of hope, community under sustained stress, the weight of leadership, what people will do when they’ve been waiting too long.
Not present: Graphic torture, sexual violence, horror for its own sake. The campaign is serious but not cruel.
If something is uncomfortable: Say so. The campaign can adapt. The dilemmas are meant to be uncomfortable in a productive way - the kind of discomfort that generates interesting choices. If something crosses into actually distressing territory, that’s different and worth naming.
1.5 Session Zero Guide
1.5.1 Why Session Zero Matters for This Campaign
The Price of Dawn asks players to engage with grief, with the weight of life-and-death choices, and with moral dilemmas that don’t resolve neatly. Before the first scene, it’s worth spending thirty minutes as players - not characters - making sure everyone’s at the same table.
This is not a warning. It’s an invitation. The campaign is better when everyone knows what they’re walking into and has agreed to walk into it together.
1.5.2 Safety Tools
This campaign uses three tools. None of them are complicated, and using them is a sign of investment, not weakness.
The X-Card Your GM has (or will create) a small card at the center of the table marked with an X. Any player can tap it at any time - no explanation required. The scene immediately rewinds, fades to black, or redirects to something else. No questions asked, no judgment, no pause for discussion unless the person who tapped wants to talk.
The X-Card is for moments that cross into actually distressing territory. The moral weight of this campaign is intentional; the X-Card is for the moments that go past weight into something else.
Lines and Veils Lines are content that doesn’t appear in the campaign at all. Veils are content that happens off-camera - acknowledged but not described. Your table should discuss both before Session 1.
Suggested lines for most tables running this campaign: detailed depictions of child endangerment, torture scenes with extended description.
Suggested veils (off-camera but acknowledged): specific deaths of named beloved NPCs, aftermath of violence.
Add your own. Write them down. The table agrees before Session 1 and holds to what it decided.
The Open Door Any player can step away from the table at any time, for any reason, without explaining why. They do not miss anything that can’t be caught up on. The campaign will wait.
1.5.3 Lines and Veils Conversation
Have this conversation out loud before Session 1. It takes ten minutes. It prevents much larger problems.
- Is there anything you need to not see described at this table - even briefly?
- Is there anything you’re okay with happening in the story but want handled off-camera?
- Is there a topic you’d like the campaign to engage with more carefully or slowly?
Write the answers down. Put them somewhere everyone can see them. Update them between sessions if needed.
1.5.4 Six Character Archetypes
These are character concepts built specifically for this campaign’s themes. Each connects to the central moral dilemma in a different way. Use them as starting points, not constraints.
1.5.4.1 1. The Investigator
Concept: You follow evidence. You’re good at it. This case is different from most because the evidence leads somewhere you weren’t prepared to go.
Why they’re in Varenhold: A patron hired them to find the ritual documents. Or a previous case led here. Or they came looking for something else entirely and found this.
The moral engine: Investigators believe in truth. This campaign asks: what do you do when the truth is that finding it causes harm? When the correct answer to an investigation is to not have investigated?
Good classes: Rogue (Inquisitive), Ranger, Wizard, Bard
Background hook: You were hired by someone who gave you false context. They said the ritual documents were stolen property being held in the Archive. They didn’t say what the documents contained. You’ve now read them. Your employer is waiting for your report.
1.5.4.2 2. The Believer
Concept: You have faith - in a god, in a cause, in a person, in an idea. Your faith brought you here. Varenhold will test it.
Why they’re in Varenhold: Religious obligation (Auris pilgrimage, Morthis ministry, Dara community work). Ideological commitment to the Restorers’ cause. A personal promise made to someone you love.
The moral engine: Believers know what they stand for. This campaign asks: what do you do when your belief leads somewhere that contradicts your belief? When the god you serve is silent on the most important question?
Good classes: Cleric, Paladin, Druid, Warlock (with a patron whose agenda is unclear)
Background hook: A priest from your order sent you to Varenhold five years before the campaign begins and never returned. You’ve come to find out what happened. What you find is not a tragedy - they’re still here, still alive, and they have changed in ways that your tradition doesn’t have words for.
1.5.4.3 3. The Survivor
Concept: You were born in Varenhold, or you lost someone to the twilight’s effects, or you’ve been living with the grey sickness. This isn’t an abstract crisis. It’s your life.
Why they’re in Varenhold: They live here, or came back, or came because they couldn’t stay away anymore.
The moral engine: Survivors understand the cost of the twilight personally and viscerally. This campaign asks: does that give you the right to demand a solution at any price? Or does it give you the responsibility to understand all the costs?
Good classes: Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger
Background hook: Someone you love has Stage 2 grey sickness. You have been managing their care, funding Lira’s compounds, watching them decline. A Restorer contacted you six months ago with an offer: help us access the Archive, and we’ll make sure your person is treated with priority if restoration happens. You said yes before you knew what was in the Archive.
1.5.4.4 4. The Scholar
Concept: You came for knowledge. The Spire is one of the best research institutions in the Reaches, and there is no intellectual problem more interesting than what happened fifty years ago. You did not come to take sides.
Why they’re in Varenhold: A research position at the Spire. A fellowship. A specific question about a specific text. An invitation from an Archivist who has been writing letters for years.
The moral engine: Scholars believe that information, accurately understood, leads to correct action. This campaign asks: what do you do when the correct action is not one you can authorize unilaterally? And: whose knowledge gets centered when experts disagree?
Good classes: Wizard, Artificer, Bard (Lore), Cleric (Knowledge)
Background hook: You have been corresponding with Archivist Waide for three years. He has been feeding you carefully selected documents - not enough to understand what he knows, but enough to make you curious. You arrived in Varenhold thinking you were the investigator. You are discovering that you may have been recruited.
1.5.4.5 5. The Mercenary
Concept: You get paid to solve problems. This is a problem. You will solve it, collect your fee, and leave. That was the plan.
Why they’re in Varenhold: A contract. Payment in advance. A job that seemed straightforward.
The moral engine: Mercenaries believe in clarity: you have a job, you do the job. This campaign asks: at what point does “just doing the job” become a choice you’re responsible for? What happens when completing the contract requires you to do something you can’t take back?
Good classes: Fighter (Battle Master), Rogue, Ranger, Barbarian
Background hook: You were hired by someone who identified themselves as a Merchants’ Compact representative. The job: locate the original ritual documents and copy the relevant pages. Delivery to an address in the Compact city. Generous payment. You’ve done this kind of job before. Something about this one has been wrong from the start, and you’ve been ignoring the signs.
1.5.4.6 6. The Dawnborn-Adjacent
Concept: You know one of the Dawnborn. Personally. As a friend, a sibling-figure, a mentor, a former colleague, a rival. Your relationship with them shapes everything about how this campaign lands for you.
Why they’re in Varenhold: You came because they asked you to come. Or you came because you heard they were in danger. Or you came because you had your own reasons and the fact that they’re here is a complication you didn’t plan for.
The moral engine: You know what it means to care about someone specifically - not abstractly, not as a symbol, but as a person who is funny in a certain way and bad at mornings and remembers your birthday. The campaign asks: can you make a good moral choice when the cost falls on someone you love?
Good classes: Any - the character concept is relational rather than mechanical
Background hook: Sera Voss pulled you out of a burning building seven years ago. You were a stranger. She remembers your name. You have been corresponding since. She wrote to you six weeks ago asking you to come to Varenhold because something was happening that she didn’t feel safe writing down. Her letter arrived two days after you’d already bought passage.
1.5.5 The Session Zero Questions
Answer these five questions as a group, out loud, before Session 1. They don’t have right answers. The point is to know where each other stands before the hard choices start.
1. What is each character’s relationship to hope? Some characters are optimists who believe things can be fixed. Some are pragmatists who believe things can be managed but not fixed. Some are past hope and operating on principle alone. Know which you’re playing, and know which your tablemates are playing. A table of all optimists plays differently than a table of mixed stances.
2. What kind of story do we want to tell about the Dawnborn? The Dawnborn will become real people to your characters. By Session 3, you may genuinely not want to hurt them. By Session 5, you may be required to make a choice about their lives. Is this a story where we try to save everyone? Where we’re honest that not everyone can be saved? Where the tragedy is the point? Agree loosely on tone.
3. Where is the line between “engaging with difficult content” and “actually distressed”? Not everything uncomfortable is bad for the story. But your table should talk about where the productive discomfort ends for each person. This is the lines-and-veils conversation but framed for this specific campaign.
4. How do we handle disagreement between characters? This campaign will create genuine disagreements. Two characters may reach opposite conclusions from the same evidence. That’s interesting. Establish early: are we playing characters who can disagree and remain a party? How do we handle it when characters are genuinely at odds?
5. What does success look like for us? Not mechanically - emotionally. What makes a campaign of The Price of Dawn feel complete? Reaching a specific ending? Making choices your characters could stand behind? The conversations at the table after the final session? Know what you’re aiming for.
1.5.6 Before You Leave the Table
After session zero, everyone at the table should know: - The lines and veils that were agreed - Which archetype or concept each character is built around - The rough tone the table wants (lighter moral weight vs. heavier) - That the X-Card exists and where it is
Then go home, build your character, read the player chapters, and come back ready for Session 1.
1.5.7 Where to Find Player-Facing Reference Material
Once characters exist, point the table at these additional resources when they want to plan between sessions without hitting spoilers:
- City Shops & Reputation (
shops.md): Six establishments with reputation tracks and side quests that convert downtime into tangible advantages. - Travel in the Reaches (
travel.md): Route guides that describe what each road feels like plus hidden GM encounter tables for when plans change. - Campaign State Trackers (
tracker.md): Printable sheets the GM updates between games and shows the table so everyone feels the city’s pressure.
The Player Companion chapters are safe for players; everything beyond that remains GM territory.
1.6 Using the Offline NPC Chat Tool
Between sessions, you can talk to the Varenhold NPCs through a simple offline chat tool. Ask them questions, test ideas, or just explore who they are. The tool uses their OGAS profiles (Occupation, Goal, Attitude, Secret) to stay in character.
Ask your GM to share the relevant prompt file so you can use it between sessions. The NPCs in the tool do not know the campaign’s secrets - they know only what they would actually tell you. Trying to extract information they wouldn’t share will get you their polite (or impolite) deflection.
1.7 The Character Interview
Do this before Session 1, ideally one-on-one with your GM. Ten minutes. Answer out loud, not in writing — the answers change when you say them.
Your GM isn’t collecting backstory. They’re listening for who you are. There are no wrong answers, but there are boring ones — you’ll know if you’re giving one.
1.7.1 Part One: Arriving
1. You’ve been in Varenhold a few days. What surprised you?
Not the twilight — you knew about that. Something smaller. The way people here do a specific thing you didn’t expect. A smell you weren’t prepared for. The sound the city makes at 3 AM. Something about the market. What was it?
(What you notice tells us what you’re comparing it to — which tells us where you came from and what you’re missing.)
2. You came through one of the city gates. Someone was there — a guard, a vendor, a child waiting for someone — and they said something to you. Not important. Just something.
What was it?
(It doesn’t need to mean anything. It just needs to be specific. The first voice of the city.)
3. There’s a painting in the Lowmark care house. “Lowmark Market at Noon, Year 0 (Before)” by Ceva Doss. It shows the market in real sunlight — the light comes from the left, high up, shadows pointing right, people squinting. You’ve heard about it, or you’ve seen it.
What do you feel when you look at something that shows a world you’ve never seen and never will?
(This is the campaign’s central loss in a single painting. How your character carries it is everything.)
1.7.2 Part Two: People
4. The Dawnborn are beloved in Varenhold. Beloved the way certain people become beloved — protectors, healers, the ones who show up. Before this campaign begins, before you know anything about the ritual or the cost — what do you actually think of them?
Not what you’d say in public. The honest version, the one you’ve never said out loud.
(Some characters admire them. Some are suspicious of anyone who is too beloved. Some feel something more complicated — longing, or shame, or a protectiveness they can’t explain.)
5. Someone in Varenhold already knows your character exists before you arrive. Not a faction. A person — first name, last name. Maybe someone you know well. Maybe someone you’ve only heard of.
What’s one thing they said to you the last time you saw each other?
(If you don’t have anyone, invent someone. A contact you’ve never met but who knows you’re coming. The name your character would look for in the first few days.)
6. Someone in your character’s life has the grey sickness. Stage 1 or 2 — early enough that they’re still mostly themselves. It could be a stranger. It could be someone you barely know. But it can’t be nobody.
Who? And what does your character do when they see it — the slight lag, the slight grey, the beginning?
(The grey sickness is Varenhold’s grief made visible. How your character responds to it is how they respond to the fact that the world is already partway through losing.)
7. Cormac Drell is a Dawnborn dockworker — one of the ten, but not famous for it. He doesn’t talk about being Dawnborn. He just works. At some point before the campaign, your character crossed paths with him, or with someone who knew him, or with his reputation in a specific district.
What did you hear? What’s the one-sentence story someone told you about Cormac Drell?
(Cormac is the campaign’s version of ordinary grace. What your character makes of that — admiration, confusion, dismissal — tells us something about what they value.)
1.7.3 Part Three: The Real Stuff
8. The Restorers believe the sun must be restored and that moral hesitation is a luxury the city can’t afford. The Desperate believe the same thing, but they’ve stopped waiting for anyone’s permission. The Council says they’re working on it.
Which of these sounds closest to right? Which one makes your character most uncomfortable?
(These aren’t just factions. They’re positions on the question: when is it okay to stop being patient?)
9. The twilight has been here for fifty years. Someone made decisions that led here — the Archmagister who designed the ritual, the Council who commissioned it, the Auris faith who approved it, or just the accumulation of a hundred small choices nobody thought were important.
Who does your character blame? And is that fair, or is it just the story they need to tell?
(This question is about how your character handles the absence of a clean villain. This campaign has no clean villains. How they navigate that tells us everything.)
10. Last one. You don’t have to answer out loud if you don’t want to. But you have to know the answer.
What would your character refuse to do, even if they believed it was the right thing? Not can’t. Won’t. What is the line they won’t cross, even at cost?
(The campaign is going to find this line. Every campaign does. Know where yours is before you start.)
These answers aren’t fixed. Characters are allowed to be wrong about themselves. What you say now is where you’re starting from — five sessions from now, you’ll see which of these held and which broke under pressure. That’s the story.
1.8 Three Questions to Answer Before Session 1
These are the short version if you don’t have time for the full interview. Bring the answers to Session 1.
Why is your character in Varenhold right now? “I was hired” is fine. “I followed a rumor” is fine. Know the answer.
What does your character want from the sun returning? Hope? Commerce? Something more personal? Everyone in Varenhold has an answer. So does yours.
What is one thing your character believes so firmly they’ve never seriously questioned it? The campaign will question it. Know what it is before it happens.