Welcome. This is everything you need as a player — the world, the places you will go, the people you will meet, and the real history holding it all up. Nothing here spoils anything. What your Dungeon Masters know, they are keeping to themselves.
The Pitch
The Crossing at Benares is D&D 5.5e (2024 rules), set in and around York, Upper Canada, in 1837. It is historical fantasy: real geography and real events form the surface of the world, with the supernatural kept mostly hidden underneath.
We are anchored hard to actual history — the Gooderham & Worts distillery opening in 1837, York’s population boom, a post–War of 1812 Fort York, and the real Benares Historic House, which Captain James Harris genuinely purchased (not built) that same year.
Tone
Grounded colonial-era setting with real research underneath the fiction. This is not a settler-vs-Indigenous conflict story. The relationship between the settlers and the Mississaugas of the Credit is portrayed with mutual respect, and Mississauga knowledge will be essential to solving the mystery — not the source of it.
One thing worth knowing
Your characters are not related to the Harris family. You come to Benares as outsiders and helpers. Everything you learn about that place, you will learn honestly — by asking, watching, and earning it.
Three Core Locations
I. THE TOWN
II. The Garrison
III. The Valley
Background
The Party
Who’s who