Fantasia is a D&D 5e campaign inspired by popular western music. Season 1 played out over 27 mainline sessions and 4 one shots from spring 2023 - spring 2024. Season 2 started in Dec 2025.
Catch Up
After escaping Tensegrity, Maurice revealed the party isn’t from this verse. He offered a deal: destroy the instruments, break the Cantum cycle, and return home. The Knife of Transposition pulled them inside where half of Piano Man played a Tumbi and sang Yesterday. After Helia accidentally destroyed the instrument, he tried recruiting them as champions. They refused. He dismissed them to musical elevators operating on major scale intervals - navigating the whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half pattern through seven levels.
They emerged in the Shadowfell, trekking toward a Gothic Baroque spire surrounded by a lava moat. They discovered 36 camps arranged in a circle - delegates from the 36 Chambers, faction remnants of the War Against Hippity-Hops that occurred hundreds of years ago, gathered for a meeting. After a failed stealth approach, dark elf guards brought them to Master Flo, a young leader who has consolidated seven chambers and arranged this meeting. Impressed by their honesty, Flo brought them into the castle as part of their entourage.
At a Roman Senate-style meeting, Flo invoked “the mystery” - an ancient hip-hop tradition calling for a binding champion battle. The opposition accepted, declaring the challenge would be chess boxing. The party faced a gigantic toad creature, alternating between speed chess and physical combat. Through strategic play and teamwork, they achieved checkmate and won the challenge for Master Flo’s faction.
Detailed Session Notes:
Artifacts in Possession
- Knife of Transposition: Powered by souls, allows transposition between planes (good aligned souls up, evil aligned souls down). Currently inhabited by half of piano man soul.
- Dress of Love: Makes creatures believe the wearer is “the person they love the most”. Powered by moonlight; effectiveness diminishes with repeated use.
- Moon Orb: Reservoir of moonlight. Can act as a lens.
- Chess Pieces: A bishop, rook, and queen retained for future battles.
Core Mechanics
- Musical Reality: This world was created through music. The fundamental structure of reality follows musical principles - ages cycle like movements, cosmic forces operate as an orchestra, and songs can manifest as prophetic events.
- The Three Forces: Cosmic cycle rotating through ages - Percussion (war/chaos), Strings (order/diplomacy), and Wind (change/transformation). Each age has a champion. Currently transitioning from Piano Man’s Strings age to the prophesied Wind age.
- Cantum Cycle: The cosmic cycle of song that Maurice is bound to conduct. Breaking this cycle would allow the party to return to their home verses, but requires destroying the instruments anchoring each age.
- Orchestral Plane: A dream plane manifesting as a literal orchestra hall. Its physical state reflects cosmic order - the Strings section is weakening, Percussion is damaged with planar rips, and Winds stands pristine and ready.
- The Binding: Historical event where Piano Man united seven nations and used Chords of Power to bind Belle, separating the seven planes. Each plane received one Chord to maintain the separation.
- The Verses: This universe is one of many parallel realities. The party members are not from “this verse” and seek a way home.
- Transposition: Fundamental property of interplanar travel where time flows at different rates between planes (e.g., 1 second on the Material Plane = 2 seconds in the Feywild). Known methods: Knife of Transposition (uses soul-infused gems), Instrument Panel (Tinkers Guild device), and natural planar rips.