@James Willetts @Jonah Fishel @Jamison Burton Yeah so I am doing session 0 on Friday and forcing myself to take a freaking CHILL PILL until then because I dont know crap about three of the PCs. I just have anxiety and really want this to be a good time, but I've also been playing for years with an amazing DM so the pressure is real! I will update after sesh 0 this friday with more deets 👀

so guys! had session 0 finally. we have four characters. two of them are kind of research type characters. A druid that is studying creatures for what is essentially their thesis, and a wizard that is doing their own personal study of how the weave interacts with the natural world (newer world, still a lot of undiscovered creatures and barely explored zones because of dangerous creatures/terrain). Then we have a cleric that was apart of a cult when they were young, but managed to get out with the help of their sister. Eventually stumbled upon a city dedicated to the moon goddess and finally found purpose again pursuing a new faith that aligned more with what they felt. Then we have the fourth character, a paladin. This paladin has kind of a crazy backstory that I still need written out but in short they were a general to their sister who is the queen of a royal family that has the blood of a phoenix running through them. The city she is from is built around protecting that phoenix from outsiders. There is a whole magic council that helps the queen and everything, but in short the general got ambushed and badly injured in battle. Her husband dragged her far away from the city to try and cure her and did. Her husband also happened to have issues with the queen so he went kinda crazy and tried to send an undead army (I think) after her. Sorry it was a lot and this player has not written it down lol. But yeah! what kind of BBEG and plot do you think we could play with here? I was thinking since they are kind of exploring a new world we could have some sort of leak occuring from other planes maybe effecting the flora and fauna? Maybe someone involved with the paladin's backstory orchestrated it? I think the cult from the cleric's backstory could potentially be the group that ambushed the paladin. If things sound vague, its because players intentionally left them like that to be used for my own evil schemes.

@Tristan Fishel This is extremely helpful. Thank you for being so specific. My only thought was doesn't making a huge list of important NPCs, locations, etc kind of spoil it? I was under the impression you wanted players running as blind as possible, but I suppose its hard for them to come up with goals completely blind LOL.

@Jonah Fishel You might be onto something. I've played with two of these players before and they are NOT notetakers lol