For the Players - Sub Rosa Stories

Sub Rosa Stories Player’s Guide

Build your characters using the Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) or point buy.
You may use options from any officially published WotC D&D books, including Eberon, MtG, and One D&D, but not Critical Role, Acquisitions Inc., or Unearthed Arcana.
No player characters with Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, or Chaotic Neutral alignments
All player-controlled NPCs will be built using the same rules.
New characters are level 1 or, once the game has progressed, one level below the average player character level.
You start with: one tablet, one laptop/desktop, one phone, and a firearm (if you are proficient) or machete (short sword) as well as a wardrobe, backpack, and miscellaneous resources commiserate with your Lifestyle.
Also at a quality appropriate to your Lifestyle: An apartment (up to age 35) or a house (WIS 10 or more) or condo (WIS of 10 or less). A car (new if WIS 8 or less). A skilled or unskilled civilian job depending on your character’s preferences, experience, and schooling.
With every two levels up through 6, if you do not already have one through the story, you will be given one of the following (your choice): +1 weapon, +1 ring of protection, +1 shield, light, or medium armor, or miscellaneous uncommon magic item.

2024 D&D rules are allowed. Guidance can be used as a reaction and a nat 20 grants inspiration.
Critical successes and failures apply to all checks, if success is possible. There are some things that just aren’t possible, and a natural 20 won’t change that.
Characters proficient in bows and/or crossbows are also proficient in guns of a similar damage level.
Books and other educational media on a topic grant the user advantage on the next skill check based on that specific topic as well as benefits listed in2024 PHB .
Potions take a bonus action, not a full action, to imbibe.
All rules that apply to characters apply to NPCs, monsters, and other entities. This can include death saves.
Experience is awarded based on milestones, not (necessarily) combat.
You may choose that your character may not know magic exists. This doesn’t mean they can’t use it, just that they explain it away or do so subconsciously. They may go out of their way to be skeptical or may believe in a form of magic that doesn’t work.

It’s our Earth, October 2024. You were alive and living there, so you know the drill…
Magic, superscience, aliens, and so on are real. Titans slumber under mountains, Yeti and Sasquatch are fighting a millenia-old race war with flying saucers, techno-wizards shroud nations in protective shells to keep prowling undead gods and the fey at bay, Gray Aliens farm fake blood to sell to vampires, and the general populace, including many characters, is none the wiser.
Dragons and their kin (dragonborn, lizardfolk, kobolds, and so on), as well as other similar creatures, are avians and have feathers. Yuan-ti, tortles, etc. are reptiles. They tend to wear glamors, heavy clothes, and/or prosthetics. Healthcare can be problematic.
Silver Creek is a small town of roughly 40,000 people in northeastern Georgia at the edge of the Appalachians, an hour from Chattanooga. It is large enough to host both a Walmart and, recently, a Target, but not a decent mall. Odd things happen here because, unbeknownst to most, it is in close proximity to a very large, very thin part of reality, although everyone has their own theories.