The Dawn of Annwn

(Abigail in her wedding makeup.)

Meet Abigail Murphy!

Owner of Rosaleigh Arts and full-time creator, Abigail has developed a number of skills throughout her 15 years in the professional arts. A teacher, theatre kid, cosplayer, crafter and artist, her background lends its helpful hand to taking her D&D passion by the reigns.

She began DMing right into her second game of Pathfinder in 2017, after only a short game with her future husband, whom was also the one to teach her how to be and improve as a DM after her first table nearly turned her off of the game by taking advantage of her naivety by mid-maxing (sneakily over powering their characters early on) and pressing her to rush the module along without caring about the beginning of the story. Now in 2024, she’s constantly working on settling on her own style of DMing, with focus namely on the atmosphere, storytelling, and flow of the game.

“My goal as a DM is to make sure my players are all comfy and having fun! Otherwise it’s just not going to be a pleasant experience for anybody.”
-Abigail

Overall, her DM style when it comes to smoothness of writing and improvising during games involves knowing the world well, studying it closely whether a pre-written module or her own created world.

Many of her previous shorter campaigns were inspired by classic literature, such as “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Hawthorne, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, and “1984” by George Orwell.

“Taking ‘Early American Literature’ [in college] gave me a lot of ideas once I got more into [D&D] even though I honestly slept through the class.”
-Abigail

Other campaign inspirations have come from the video games “Ib,” “Overwatch,” and even as recent as an alternative take on “Baldur’s Gate 3.”

D&D Experience & Inspiration

“I had the idea to write a campaign inspired by the 7 deadly sins and Dante’s Inferno. The concept of Annwn came from when I had an overnight job in 2020 watching security cameras for a parking garage for 9 hours. I’d bring the Pathfinder Bestiaries with me to flip through, and when I learned that devils, demons, and daemons were all different, it made me mad, so I combined all of them. Then the chaos of Annwn came to be so I could use all three in a context matching the general of Pathfinder lore I was learning.”
-Abigail

Originally “The Dawn of Annwn” was written for Pathfinder 1, as that was was Abigail’s first version of D&D she had grown accustomed to, but “After playing Baldur’s Gate 3, I fell in love with the [D&D] 5e system!” she said.

Other influences for “The Dawn of Annwn” include a series of songs by Japanese Producer MOTHY using Vocaloid characters telling a story as personifications of the 7 Deadly Sins, but that ultimately turned into a focus on the classic “Dante’s Inferno” and the very history of D&D worlds’ lore regarding Hell throughout the editions from 1e to Pathfinder to 5e.

(Abigail/Rosaleigh as a Lady Loki original design)