Beneath the continent of Arden, a dying megastructure sustains everything above it- the sky, the light, the failing cities. It descends further than anyone has mapped. Entering is deadly; delving deep is suicide. This is a story about the descent.
A dying megastructure. A civilization that doesn't know it's next. A descent with no guaranteed return.
(Recommend DeepSeek v4 Flash + SANA)
Something vast and failing runs beneath the world. Civilization exists on the wafer-thin surface of THE STATION, a moon-sized megastructure epochs older than the most distant memory of the faltering civilization it sustains. It maintains the sky above ARDEN, the weather, the maglev lines, the light of a rendered sun. It is winding down.
THE DEEP is what remains of its interior: vast, unknown, and descending further than any map. Entering it is monumentally dangerous. Descending beyond the surface layer is suicidally stupid. Delvers go in for salvage, for the relics and power that the barons will pay fortunes to acquire. Few come back.
This is a story about the descent.
CIVILIZATION ON A THIN CRUST
ARDEN is the surface of something it does not understand. The rendered sky, the weather in the wilds, the maglev network, all of it runs on a machine no one can comprehend and few have survived entering. The machine is failing. The surface is shrinking.
5e MECHANICS IN AN UNFAMILIAR SETTING
The rules are familiar. The world is not. PITCH runs on D&D 5e classes, spells, armor, the works, in a setting where a sword and a shield are exactly what you need - almost. What you find below demands more powerful tools to match the setting. The power ceiling climbs with the descent. The mechanics stay grounded.
THE DEEP IS NOT A DUNGEON
It is an ecosystem. A failing immune system. A place with its own ecology, geology, and physics, descending through bands of increasing strangeness toward something myth can only gesture at.
INFORMATION IS THE PRIMARY RESOURCE
Knowing what's below - how it's organized, what threats reside within, which routes have been partially mapped by expeditions that did not return- is worth more than any relic. Parties that invest in intelligence survive. Parties that don't, die.
THIS IS INCURSION, NOT EXTRACTION
You are going in. You may not come out. Descent/incursion gameplay means every decision about depth versus preparation versus pace matters and most of them are permanent. There is no "farm this dungeon for loot." There is only how far you go and what it costs.
DEATH IS EXPECTED AND NORMAL
Friends die. Plans collapse. The margins are thin and the world does not pull its punches. The successful parties are those who escape with one or two survivors. This is not grimdark cruelty, it is the consequence of real stakes. When survival is uncertain, survival means something.
THE DEEPER YOU GO, THE STRANGER THE POWER
Relics, boons, and knowledge available only at depth make characters capable of things the surface has no framework for. The power ceiling is extraordinary. It is balanced in kind.
POLITICS BEFORE YOU DESCEND
To go deep, you need backing, supply lines, intelligence, and permission, all controlled by barons, enclaves, guilds, and churches with their own agendas. The political game on the surface is part of the descent. Failure to prepare adequately means certain death.
NO CLEAN WIN
The central crisis has no happy ending. The dramatic choices are about cost, mercy, and who survives, not victory. What you do with what you know is the whole game.
TL;DR: DONT LOOK AT THE QUEST FILES.
TL;DR #2: Use Deepseek v4 flash. Deepseek runs the scenario better, faster, is cheaper and has great adherence to complex instructions. You get longer sessions and better storytelling.
TL;DR #3: Don't read quest files or game files unless you want to get spoiled and worsen your experience. Unless that's your thing, I'm not here to judge ;). If you have questions, the GM has a good (okay) memory.
This is an active work-in-progress. The bones are there, but unintended behavior is expected right now. I'm QA testing a lot right now and things are working...sort of decently right now. But there's obvious room to improve.
The setting thrives on information-gating, and a great deal of work has gone into avoiding GM "slips," keeping track of who knows what, and making knowledge *earned.* The direction and details of the campaign are up to the GM, but the "bones" of the setting are preset from turn zero - the balancing, dynamics, and deep lore are all preset and designed meticulously. Spoilers will diminish your enjoyment of the game. I highly recommend avoiding looking deeply into game files unless you're more interested in backend stuff. Seriously, don't look at the quest files. I've tried to hide a lot of deeper mechanics and spoilery stuff in filesystems that never touch the player, but it's far from perfect. If you look in the Quests, Lore, Entities, Boons, Relics or GM Instructions folders, you're going to end up spoiled and disappointed.
Tested with Deepseek v4 flash, MiMo, Minimax and Hy. Most work quite well, but I currently recommend Deepseek. I find that Minimax and mimo tend to burn through tokens quickly and perform equivalently or even a little worse. Mimo is great for agentic stuff but you're not using that much in a campaign, and Deepseek tends to act a little smarter and "get the point" better. Avoid Hy if you like not being spoiled.
Recommend using SANA for image generation so you don't burn through credits.
I welcome feedback. This is a world I've wanted to build for a long time, and a setting that's been bouncing around in my head without a good way to build it out. This is obviously my first time with Craft, and I've made a lot of mistakes. So please provide feedback so that I can learn and improve this beast!