Sunhallow is divided into seven distinct layers, each featuring unique environments, creatures, and hazards. Difficulty escalates with each layer, introducing new mechanics like natural hazards, enemy adaptations, and increasing resource scarcity.
At the start of the game, only three levels have been discovered, with rumors of a fourth that remains unreachable. This gives players the chance to lead exploration efforts and potentially be the first to discover the way down.
Encounter Tables
Sunhallow's dungeon gameplay will come with a comprehensive set of encounter rolltables, organized by layer and biome, making every journey feel distinct and dynamic.
Encounters will be further sorted by small, medium, and large scales, as well as main-story-altering encounters—all fully described with guidelines and rolls.
Every encounter table will also be broadly categorized by encounter type, such as Natural Hazards, Rival Divers, Ancient Ruins/Lore, and more.
Characters' exploration roles (explained below) can influence which encounters are rolled and how players fare during each encounter.
Tentatively, I'm hoping to also include guidelines for creating custom encounters in Sunhallow, so DMs will be able to tailor the experience to their group.
Exploration Roles
During dives into Sunhallow, players can take on secondary "dungeoneering" roles (such as Scout, Medic, Quartermaster, Sentinel, etc); like "skill-trees" in video games.
These roles grant combat + exploration features when in the dungeon. For example—
Pathfinder: Identify signs of what's ahead, safely adjust paths / choose the next encounter type
Lookout: Keep watch for enemies, prepare traps or avoid certain encounter types altogether
Sentinel: Redirect heavy hits to themselves, provide cover during combat encounters
Medic: Better emergency healing, free stabilization of party members
Quartermaster: Reduce rate of resource consumption, improvise items with materials in the environment
Relics and Artifacts
Sunhallow is scattered with remnants of ancient technology and powerful relics, waiting to be unearthed. These artifacts vary in form—some might resemble familiar magical items, while others might be complex technological parts or devices with no immediate use to players.
When players recover these relics and bring them back to shops and experts in Fortune’s Rest, they open up new possibilities. Depending on how players choose to handle these discoveries, they can influence the development of the city itself.
For instance, selling a magical item to an artificer might lead to the creation of blueprints, letting Fortune’s Rest replicate or even mass-produce the item for the community. In this way, players actively shape the city's standard of living and available resources over time.
Faction Influence
Factions serve as the closest thing to law enforcement and governance in Fortune’s Rest—ranging from crime syndicates to divine orders.
Players can (and inevitably will) align with certain factions or oppose others, building or losing reputation in the process.
High faction standing unlocks unique quests, rewards, and equipment, while negative standing may lead factions to actively interfere with the players' efforts in Fortune's Rest and Sunhallow.
Social Dynamics
Close-Knit Community: Fortune’s Rest is a small, dense city of unique stores, establishments, and NPCs. Every district has its own atmosphere, and the city should feel authentic and lived-in—but still open to change.
Consistent Social World: NPCs in Fortune’s Rest have established beliefs and cultural views, reacting to players based on species, background, mannerisms, and reputation. There is narrative depth with every interaction, with reactions ranging from welcoming to wary or even hostile.
Roleplay-Rich: Players have many ways to engage with the city outside of combat, from picking up quests and solving mysteries to setting up small businesses—great for role-play-focused groups looking for ways to explore character interactions and social intrigue on days when they’re not being mauled by Mimics in the dungeon.
Companion NPCs
Fortune’s Rest is home to a rich cast of NPCs, each bringing their own stories, dungeon roles, and goals to the table. Players can recruit NPCs to support their party on dives into Sunhallow.
This can help fill gaps in party balance, and lets the DM join in on dives. Along the way, players can also build trust, help NPCs grow, and resolve their personal stories.
This system is entirely optional—totally skippable for a group with more interest in the dungeon crawling itself, but can be appealing for groups who like companion systems like in BG3 or Stardew Valley.
Living World
If it’s not clear by now, my goal with this setting is to create a richly layered foundation for a small world that players can truly make their own.
I’ve designed three main-story endings, each climaxing in a divine “boss fight” that brings lasting, world-altering consequences. Alongside these, I’m planning dozens of smaller narrative threads with satisfying, self-contained endings to wrap up personal story arcs and secondary plots.
Everything the players do—whether helping a bard find his lost lute or selling firearm blueprints to the Pyre—has the potential to alter the political and social landscape of Fortune’s Rest, gradually shaping the city’s future through their choices. The setting itself responds dynamically to these changes, evolving based on players’ decisions and growing richer with each milestone they achieve.
This "living world" approach is to create a setting where even seemingly minor actions can trigger large-scale events.
For example, uncovering relics of the Sun Goddess might finally spur the Solari order hovering around the island into action, while discovering lost technologies could draw an influx of curious gnomish scholars. Milestones like these give weight to players’ decisions, allowing them to impact the world in meaningful ways—even if the adventure is designed so that they never leave the island.
Ultimately, my hope is to provide a toolkit for immersive storytelling and player agency, allowing your characters to shape the city and discover their own paths within it. Sunhallow is a setting designed not just to be explored, but to be lived in, with players’ actions leaving a mark on a world that’s responsive, dynamic, and truly theirs.
