Session Zero

Session Zero — Player Handout

A short, conversational session-zero document. Read aloud or share before character creation.

The Pitch

You are playing in Fallen Machina — a D&D 5e campaign set in a mirror version of Exandria, the world of Critical Role’s first campaign. The premise is simple:

Vox Machina rose. They tried to take over the world. They lost.

The people who beat them were the figures Vox Machina killed in the original timeline — the Briarwoods, Dr. Anna Ripley, the Chroma Council of dragons, the Whispered One Vecna, and others. In our version, those figures are heroes. They saved Exandria. They are aging now, in their sixties through eighties, and most are still alive. The Concord of the Dawn keeps the peace.

You play young adventurers in the world they saved. It is twenty-three years after the war. The official story is mostly true. Some of it isn’t.

Tone

The default is hopeful fantasy — Exandria is a world that won, and the winning is recent enough to remember. There are festivals. There are bake-offs. There are children who don’t know the war’s details and grandparents who do. The Saviors are accessible, talking-distance NPCs.

There are also cults. There are Dawnchildren who want to bring Vox Machina back. There are deeper truths the Saviors have not yet shared. Whether the campaign leans bright (Aftermath stance) or dark (Reckoning stance) is something we’ll decide together.

What You Should Know

You don’t need to have watched Critical Role. The campaign is fully self-contained. If you have, try not to lean on player knowledge — the canonical “heroes” of CR are villains here, and the canonical “villains” are heroes. Reacting to them as the originals miscolors the campaign.

If you haven’t watched CR, you will be told everything you need to know, in-world, by people who lived it.

What I (Your DM) Need From You

A character with stakes. Not a backstory in three paragraphs — a feeling about this world. Hero-worship. Skepticism. Cynicism. Gratitude. Curiosity. Bring something to react with.
One small mystery in your past. Anything. A missing relative. A dream you keep having. A childhood friend who joined the cult. I’ll work two of the table’s mysteries into the plot.
Lines and Veils. Things you don’t want at the table at all (lines) and things you want only off-screen (veils). I have a list of likely heavy material below; mark anything that matters.
An X-card or equivalent. If anything during a session crosses your line, tap the card. We’ll change tack, no questions asked.

Likely Heavy Material

The campaign can touch any of these. Tell me which to dial down or remove.

War crimes, occupation, civilian casualties (mostly historical — the Vox Machina war).
Religious atrocity (one of the deeper plot threads involves a deity’s name being misused).
Child harm (historical references to the Whitestone purges).
Torture (peripheral, not detailed by default).
Body horror (a Tier 3 antagonist option involves grafted-flesh constructs).
Suicide (one of the deeper plot threads involves a character who chose death).
Plague / disease (Ripley’s pre-war work touched it).
Necromancy / undeath / exhumation (multiple plot points).
Cult dynamics (especially in the Reckoning stance).
Aging, death of important NPCs (a likely Tier 3 climax).

What This Campaign Won’t Be

A power-fantasy where you kill the seven members of Vox Machina. They are dead. The campaign is about legacy, not defeat.
A grim slog. Even in the Reckoning stance, the world has joy in it.
A Critical Role parody. The Fallen Machina are full characters with full motivations; the Saviors are people with dignity.
A railroad. This campaign has multiple possible arcs, not a script. Your choices will shape which ones we run and how they end.

Three Things You’ll Get To Do

Have audiences with the Saviors. You will, plausibly, sit across from Lady Delilah Briarwood. From Anna Ripley. From Vecna. These are the campaign’s most affecting scenes. Come ready to talk.
Find the hidden truth. The official histories are 90% accurate. The 10% they got wrong is interesting. You will discover pieces of it, and what you do with the pieces will matter.
Decide what kind of hero this world needs next. The Saviors are old. The campaign’s late tiers are about what comes after them. That includes you.

Homework Before Session One

Make a character (see character-creation.md).
Pick a background hook from the list there, or invent one that fits.
Send me your Lines and Veils privately.
Show up curious.

I’m excited. Let’s break this world open.