Unless there are unique circumstances, campaigns run in the world of Kyor rely on these house rules.

Alignment is dead. Unless it is important to your character to have one, please feel free to choose “Unaligned” as your characters' alignment.

The text of the Counterspell spell should be changed to this:

You attempt to interrupt a creature in the process of casting a spell that takes an action to cast.

Make a contested check against the original spellcaster using the spell attack bonus (Spellcasting Ability modifier + Proficiency Bonus) plus the spell level of the original spell or counter spell. If the counterspeller's check is higher the creature’s spell fails, and they lose the spell slot for the failed spell. If a creature's spell is counterspelled, they may only use their action to cast a cantrip instead.

Spells that take a bonus action or reaction may not be counterspelled.

Adventurers in Kyor are all awesome. Please choose from feats and feel free to use the alternate human character heritage as well as the alternate heritage rules from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

This campaign world uses a twist on the flanking variant rules that follows the 3e flanking rules rather than the 5e alternate rule.

When making a melee attack, you get a +2 bonus to hit if your opponent is threatened by a character or creature friendly to you on the opponent’s opposite border or opposite corner.

When in doubt about whether two friendly characters flank an opponent in the middle, trace an imaginary line between the two friendly characters’ centers. If the line passes through opposite borders of the opponent’s space (including corners of those borders), then the opponent is flanked.

Exception: If a flanker takes up more than 1 square, it gets the flanking bonus if any square it occupies counts for flanking.

Only a creature or character that threatens the defender can help an attacker get a flanking bonus.

Creatures with a reach of 0 feet can’t flank an opponent.

This campaign world allows creative players to gain advantage through creative storytelling. Injecting cinematic advantage into your game is all about offering deals; trading in-world fiction and a skill check from players for advantage on their next attack or check. This helps draw players out of the mechanics of their characters and into the story of the situation itself.

A good description that involves interacting with the environment in some beneficial way is the easiest way to do this. Singular acts of epic greatness, stunning bravado, and visual poetry that leave the other players slack-jawed in astonishment could win the player a better bargain up to and including automatically gaining the advantage.

Most of the time the transactions of cinematic advantage comes down to the following:

• The player describes how they want to use a feature to get a cinematic advantage.
• The DM determines what attribute and skill (or skills) might be used to accomplish the feat and how difficult it is and offers a difficulty class. The DM tells the player what the DC is and what penalty they face if they fail so they can make an informed choice.
• If the player takes the bargain, they rolls the check as part of their move or action. On a success, they get advantage on their next attack or check. On a failure something bad happens depending on what they tried such as falling prone, losing their reaction, or taking disadvantage instead.

View this video for more details on this technique.

Consuming a healing potion can be done as a bonus action. Other potions and administering a healing potion to others takes an action. Healing potions consumed as an active action heals the drinker for the maximum amount possible on the roll.

The world of of Kyor does not include all the languages of the PHB. See the language section to learn more. Players may feel free to choose their languages during play, not at character creation as long as they create the appropriate backstory.

Be warned, player characters die in D&D games. Players of dead characters are welcome to help play monsters or NPCs for the remainder of the session. At their first opportunity, the player may create a new player character of the level of all the other still living player characters. This new player character may choose to take as much non-magical equipment they can physically carry. In these cases, we'll probably have a cut scene introducing the new player character to explain their arrival.

These rules aim to make it more flavorful and impactful when player characters are revived from death. This means that characters who are reckless with their lives may find that they are almost impossible to bring back from the dead. Additionally, the rules transform the simple spell cast into a ritual that involves the whole party, with up to three close friends of the dead performing skill checks and in-game offerings that make reviving the dead character easier or harder based on success. If a revival ritual is failed, the character is lost forever, as their soul doesn't return to their body.

These powerful spells along the lines of Revivify and Resurrection are treated as a challenge. This means that players can undo death, but its success is determined by the player's capabilities as a spell caster and their character's attachment to their companions. Whenever a character does die, a resurrection can be attempted but it is a challenge. This means there is a possibility of failing in which case the resurrection fails, the soul is lost and the character is deemed permanently dead.

Death DC When a creature is resurrected, a roll is made against a DC, which begins at 10. For each time the creature dies, their death DC is increased by 1.

Rapid Resurrection If a player attempts a resurrection spell that only takes 1 action, like revivify, there is no contribution from close friends, and no way to lower the DC of the resurrection check. This means that spells like revivify have a maximum of 75% chance of working, but luckily failing these checks doesn't completely kill the character; it only means that players need to attempt a proper resurrection ritual. However, it still does increase the DC of future resurrection checks.

Resurrection Ritual When a creature is targeted by a resurrection spell with a casting time longer than one action, such as Raise Dead or Resurrection, a ritual is initiated in which up to three creatures can contribute in order to call the creature's soul back to their body. The creature makes an ability check with a skill the DM deems appropriate for the action, against a DC that the DM also determines.

For each successful check, the creature's death DC is lowered by 3 for this ritual. For each failure, it increases by 1 for this ritual. The DM makes the final roll against this DC. On a success, the creature is returned to life if its soul is willing. On a failure, the creature's soul is lost, and further resurrection rituals fail automatically.

Only the strongest of magic can bypass this ritual, in the form the True Resurrection or Wish spells. These spells can also return to life a creature whose soul was lost from a failed ritual.