Notes

World Name: Yarros
Thematic/Visual Design: 1700-1800s London-esque city. Very gothic.

-----------KEY WORLD CONCEPTS-----------
THE ATMOSPHERE:
-Yarros if described in a word, would be bleak
-The people of Yarros are all manners of extreme states of being. It is KEY to the world that there are no normal people. It should be a rather lonely experience, with those very few they can get close to either being deranged or vulnerable to being lost.
-Most people would be violent or rash
-Many are snappy and defensive
-Some are depressed and melancholic
-Some are more level headed and able to be communicated/reasoned with
-These people would be either very cynical, nihilistic, or deranged in some way (either mental or physical).

THE MOON:
-The world is in a stagnant night
-The world will start at a paused state of dusk, which will then move to midnight, and then to witching hour
-The Night cycle will progress upon the players completing tasks of importance. Potentially things that unravel the mystery, or defeating powerful beings that could be causing/affecting the stagnant nighttime.
-The final part of the cycle, Witching Hour, will have the moon shift into some sort of arcane power. (Think of blood moon from Botw/Totk)
-This will have some sort of affect on the residents of the world. Below are some ideas (None of which are final in name/design):
-Betrayers moon: Causes any and all friendly npcs in the world to either outwardly or subtly work against the players. Could be outright attacking them, or sneakily plotting their demise.
-Cyan moon with black accents. Skies would darken dramatically
-Beastial moon: Causes the people of Yarros to take on a Beast-like form and ravage everyone around them. Consciousness/ego is essentially lost as Yarros turns into a bloodbath.
-Blood red moon with blackened skies. Could also be an eclipse like moon with a red light around the edge of the blackened moon.
-Witches moon: Floods Yarros with intense magic. This could animate all sorts of typically inanimate objects. Bestow powerful magics or curses to the people of Yarros. NPC's would potentially go mad or depressed and try to hide away/kill themselves.
-Deep purple moon with streaks of purple/cyan energy flowing through the skies (kind of like the northern lights.)
-Eldritch moon: Yarros becomes corrupted with eldritch energy, causing terrible mutations and insanity in its people. Terrible abominations would appear, not necessarily all of them would be hostile.
-Sickly green moon that could either look almost like a mouth, like it is lined with eyes, or burst into pieces. Clouds would swirl in all sorts of ways to make it looks like the sky itself was writhing.
-Potentially, all of these moons could be an outcome depending on player choice in the story. Would have to be a very carefully crafted dilemma though.

-----------KEY GAMEPLAY CONCEPTS-----------
PLAYER DEATH:
-Death is significantly altered for this campaign
-When a player character falls unconscious, they will perform death saves are normal. If successful nothing changes.
-If the death saves are unsuccessful, the player will be given the option to perform a dc10 wisdom save with advantage
-If the save is successful, the player character will return to life with a PERMANENT -2 to their wisdom. Wisdom based spell casters could potentially lose charisma or intelligence instead.
-If the save is unsuccessful, the player character will lose their minds. Could potentially be combatted with techniques/items given/learned throughout the campaign. This however would still very much have detrimental effects to the player character.
-If a party wipe were to occur, the player characters would be carted off to a corpse pile by "The Ferryman".
-The Ferryman would be a very mysterious character who the players could potentially spot around the world, always carrying a cart of corpses.
-If the players were to ever try and attack The Ferryman, he would prove to be an incredibly powerful creature.

DIFFICULTY:
-Given the increased option for players avoiding death, the enemies will be significantly challenging with increased resistances and immunities.
-Enemies will also have more defined weaknesses. This can be exploitable through player investigation or knowledge.
-The campaign will be designed with player character death in mind. It shouldn't be a "could happen" but rather a "will happen".
-Players will have an increased number of consumable items like healing potions or blade oils, so that they can take on greater challenges.

-----------CHARACTER OPTIONS-----------
-All classes & subclasses should be legal.
-Options like bard or wild magic sorcerer should be made with the bleak depressed world in mind. While its okay to have a more optimistic character, having overly goofy or sexual characters probably won't mesh with the world well.
-Martials are going to have a couple changes thrown their ways so that they have more options
-Potentially creating a more interesting weaponry system for martial characters. This could be things like having a more wide selection of weapons with multiple states (like hunters weapons from BB) or a weapon mastery system.
-Basic flintlock firearms are going to be available. More advanced firearms could potentially be created by an artificer.
-Players will be asked to have their character make sense for the world they are playing in.
-A handful of races will be banned
-No flying races, as I am not experienced enough as a dm to create encounters with a flying player in mind.
-No overly goofy fantasy races. This is to help keep the tone of the world. This would outlaw races like Fairys, Grungs, and Tortles.