This Dark Souls D&D Campaign Comes Equipped With Stunning Key Art

We’ve been covering Dungeons & Dragons quite a bit as of late on this site, and for good reason! The long-standing role-playing franchise is a fan favourite for its immersive playstyle, incredible characters, and the creativity it inspires in its players. Because of that loyal following, mashups are galore and this D&D x Dark Souls one is definitely an addition to add to the books!

One Reddit user effectively made an entire Dark Souls sequel within the world of Dungeons and Dragons by taking the brutal game’s lore and entire world setting and simply placing it into their current campaign. According to Reddit user SnicklefritzSkad:

“Well over a million years into the future from Dark Souls 3 (not including the final boss of the second DLC which takes place around roughly the same time period), the entire world was conquered by a God Emperor known as ‘The Lictor’ who harnessed the power of soapstones to travel to other worlds and conquer them as well.”

The lore behind Dark Souls is what drew many in. Come for the incredible story, stay because you died a million times. But it quickly skyrocketed to fame because of its intricately woven tale so to put that world of fiction within an active campaign is beyond stellar. The conflict, the mystery, the weirdly horrifying characters – this is right up our alley and a project we think many other fellow D&D fans will enjoy.

You can see the full rule book and how the Dark Souls campaign works here, but here are a few tid-bits you should know before hopping in:

“To those that aren’t familiar, Dark Souls is a game that diverges from typical styles of RPG where you kill enemies while you progress through the game, usually only fighting the same enemies once and they’re dead for good. In Dark Souls, even the regular mobs are lethal, and succumbing to them means you respawn at the most recent checkpoint (bonfire) and the enemies also respawn across the area. In the spot you died you leave your ‘souls’, which are the currency you use to purchase things and also xp you use to level up. If you die before getting back to those souls you dropped, they are gone forever. The game is about learning enemies fighting styles to punish weaknesses or openings to make it to the next bonfire or to unlock a shortcut back to the previous bonfire that allows you to skip part of the area. Eventually you make it to a boss and fight it, often dying multiple times before you beat it.”

My 3 major pros:

• The dark souls universe is deep and interesting, also leaves room for making up your own stuff to add in.
• The difficulty means for intense fights, but the respawn mechanic keeps you from being too scared of death to act
• Linear area and ‘story’ structure means the players aren’t going to go and become pirates, meaning you can really spend time making everything really thought out without having to railroad

My 3 major cons:

• Fighting the same enemies multiple times can get tiring if you’re just trying to get to your souls/the boss again, especially with how cumbersome the combat mechanics can be occasionally
• Limited PC control over the world around them removes some feeling of player agency
• Representation of the game would be hard/impossible on a normal grid.

You can read how the pros balance out, as well as all of the rules for making this work, right here. Happy gaming!