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It's easy to forget given how soft and round they seem, but hippos are mostly muscle.
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Oct 4, 2025 07:04
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Aabcehmu posted:It's easy to forget given how soft and round they seem, but hippos are mostly muscle. Also the hippo is one of the few herbivores that have canines among their teeth.
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Oct 4, 2025 13:46
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Pssh, hippos aren't so dangerous as long as the party cleric remembered to take the Turn Hippos feat, which was a real thing. 3.5 owns posted:PREREQUISITE
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Oct 4, 2025 14:10
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Nothing says 3.5e like the dedicated protection-from-hippos-and-only-hippos feat (which is available only if you are beloved of the hippo god and have personally defeated a hippo in single combat, and grants you the divine authority to command all hippo-kind) carving out an exception where a wizard can still make a hippo attack you
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Oct 4, 2025 14:23
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megane posted:Nothing says 3.5e like the dedicated protection-from-hippos-and-only-hippos feat (which is available only if you are beloved of the hippo god and have personally defeated a hippo in single combat, and grants you the divine authority to command all hippo-kind) carving out an exception where a wizard can still make a hippo attack you Truly, 3.5 was the most blessed of all editions. (I counted. It has the most blessings published in books.)
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Oct 4, 2025 15:20
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  This chapter is mostly exploration and combat with some potential non-combat roleplay elements. Anan’Thul was a particularly magnificent city in the Anubian Empire, serving as a hub for magical artisans constructing great works. While future scholars believed that it was the birthplace for the Divine Relics, in reality Anan’Thul was most famed for the creation of a unique model of golem known as Brass Sentinels* which are powered by Heka amber. Lord Ammu seeks to excavate the ruins in order to add these potent forces to his army, and entrusted with this project is a warrior known as Yz who leads a clan of Anubians known as the Bloodpaws. He is commanding a warband to survey the city and excavate the lower catacombs. *They use helmed horror stats, but climb instead of fly, have slashing adamantine claws, and are only immune to spells and effects from Divine Relics (save for the Hand of Brass) instead of immunity to virtually all spells. Also present in the ruins is Hakkari the High Priest. This Anubian’s body remains entombed in a sarcophagus. Having been crushed by great weights of sand and stone, Hakkari is immobile, relying upon a Divine Relic known as the Hand of Brass to speak through constructs in order to influence the outside world. The Will of the Sands gained influence over him as part of a pact made out of desperation with the entity. As constructs commanded by the Hand of Brass cannot be controlled or affected by other Divine Relics, Lord Ammu views its wielder as a potential enemy, and thus Yz is entrusted to take the Hand of Brass and ensure that Hakkari cannot move against him. Hakkari is aware that Lord Ammu views him as a threat, so while he can be an ally of convenience against the Anubian army, he has no love for Al’Kirat. Anan’Thul is northwest of the Center Spire, placing it deep within the Wasteland. Besides Prophecy as a potential information dispenser, Rumbold Tomekeeper and the other archeologists at the Museum of Anubian Studies know of its location. Although none have personally explored it due to it being a more dangerous location than usual. Anan’Thul is a pseudo-dungeon crawl, divided into 51 “rooms” across three large maps. The first map is the Ziggurat District, home to the bulk of the Bloodpaws (the rest of the city is undetailed, with the text saying that it lies beyond the scope of this adventure and the rest is filled with skeletons under the Will of the Sands). The second map is the camp of Bloodpaws outside the temple of the High Priest, and the third map is the Catacombs beneath the temple. All encounters are based out of specific areas, with roaming Rustbone skeletons of ancient Anbuians lair beneath the sand to ambush passersby to serve as random encounters as well as a unique roper that can burrow through sand in order to hunt live prey. Unless the party is already known to be on hostile terms with the Anubians or are openly bearing any Divine Relics, the Bloodpaws can potentially be nonviolently interacted with, as their primary duty is to excavate the ruins to retrieve the high priest’s Hand of Brass. PCs who approach openly and offer to parley can arrange a meeting with Yz. The city is home to many traps and monsters that are just as dangerous to Anubians as anything else, and the warlord is willing to hire mercenaries to deal with any problems before risking his own forces. As such, this is the only explicit area in the campaign that PCs can use platinum pieces at their full value in buying and selling items. While most Anubians aren’t fluent in Common, their clerics can cast Tongues if necessary. Several interesting locations in the Ziggurat District include an Oasis home to two mated giant crocodiles who can be nonviolently bypassed if the sick male is healed so that they can go off to mate; a broken bridge that serves as a vantage point to the Anubian camp, and thus presents various sample skill checks that can impart information to the PCs about their forces; a chained Brass Sentinel which is bearing the soul of a thief, who if powered up and freed can tell the PCs about the Catacombs and Hakkari’s influence over the constructs; and a house home to spectral Anubians who died during the Cataclysm. In this last case, PCs who destroy the magical bindings on their remains in order to help them pass on are gifted with a permanent +1 increase to an ability score of choice (as usual, cannot be highest or lowest). The Bloodpaw Encampment is home to 70 Anubians besides Yz, with 40 of them being combatant soldiers of various generic stat blocks, and the remaining 30 noncombatant slaves who use Commoner stats. The Anubians have a good amount of treasure and magic items in a tent containing the clan’s war chest, enriched by various findings from the excavation. If the PCs end up working for Yz as mercenaries, his two quests involve finding and awakening the Brass Sentinel to assist in construct (the Sentinel’s the one with the thief’s soul), and the other is to hunt down a particularly powerful giant scorpion known as Deathsting which has been hunting the Anubians. It makes its lair in an underground pocket of the Catacombs that can be accessed from outside, and the party can track its movements back to its lair. Upon completing these two quests, Yz will trust them enough to enter the ziggurat (and thus the Catacombs) to help with the final stages of the excavation.  The Catacombs are home to countless Anubian corpses, many of which are infused with necrotic energies due to the Ankh of Life being activated far too late. The sanctified cloth that prevents the slumbering souls from departing the Anubians’ bodies inadvertently caused them to be turned into mummies. Those few that became mobile exist in a state of ravenous half-amnesia, only remembering just enough to engage in the briefest of conversations before attacking the living to consume their life energy. When the Ankh of Life was used much later during Chapter 4 of this campaign, the magic was unable to enter their bodies. It thus lingers in the dungeon as a purple fog that enhances magic relating to life and death. For instance, spells that restore life to a dead creature require no material components when cast here, and spells of the Necromancy school are treated as being cast at 1 slot level higher. The bulk of the Bloodpaw clan’s excavation takes place in the Assembly Hall, a long passageway filled floor to ceiling with debris. The progress of the excavation is dependent on whether Experience Points or Milestone is used to level PCs for this campaign. In the former case, it occurs based on the number of days since Lord Ammu’s revival in the Great Pyramid, while with Milestone the excavation is underway at levels 5 to 7, with 1d4-1 weeks remaining. A result of 0 has it so that Yz dramatically obtains it as soon as the PCs stumble upon the location in the Catacombs. By level 8, Yz’s excavation will have already been completed. If the PCs do not interfere, Yz will successfully retrieve the Hand of Brass and deliver it to Lord Ammu. There’s quite a bit of interesting rooms in the Catacombs. The first is Deathsting’s lair, where magical communication with the scorpion reveals that it’s been driven mad by the Will of the Sands, but can be calmed down via music or anti-enchantment magic and items. Then there are the temple archives, which contain scrolls pertaining to law and civics. A good enough Investigation roll reveals more useful information such as spell scrolls and the location of a secret door in the dungeon. The High Priest’s personal vault is trapped with magical seals that summon mummies from elsewhere in the dungeon, but can be dispelled by magic or a Divine Relic. The treasure within includes a Manual of Iron Golems and various high-level spell scrolls. There’s a chamber bearing a particularly potent plate mail known as Telstang Armor (+1, grants immunity to magical transformation like a golem, can cast Shield of Faith that lasts 8 hours once per day), but the entrance to the room is covered by debris which has just enough of a crack for to gaze upon the valuable armor on the other side. Attempting to move aside or tamper with the debris will cause a cave-in to destroy the armor and room’s contents, forcing the party to find other ways in such as short-range teleportation or shrinking to Tiny size. The chambers of Ishva are home to a former servant of Lord Ammu of the same name. She has become a maddened mummy who is aware of Hakkari’s turncoat nature and was imprisoned by the high priest. Her findings (along with various other useful information about the ruins, its occupants, and the Hand of Brass) can be found as etchings in the room written with her sharp nails.  The Fane of the Brass Priest is the final location of this dungeon crawl, the room to which the debris-filled assembly hall leads. Hakkari is entombed, immobile but wearing the Hand of Brass to which he is attuned. If the excavation is finished, Yz will personally open the sarcophagus and give a speech to the assembled Anubians. The PCs can interrupt at any time, but at the end of the speech Yz will stab Hakkari through the heart to kill him, taking the relic and instantly attuning to it. The adventure notes that the DM should be kind in coming up with a means of letting the PCs take a Long Rest before the way to Hakkari’s tomb is cleared, as fighting Yz with the Hand of Brass will very much be a boss battle. Not only does he have reinforcements from the camp to rush to his aid, the Hand of Brass lets him control the Brass Sentinels. If the PCs get the Hand of Brass for themselves, any survivors of Clan Bloodpaw will hunt them down, causing the next random encounter in the Wasteland to be hostile Anubians from the clan. If Hakkari is made into an ally against Lord Ammu, months after the Siege of Al’Kirat he will assemble legions of mummies and Brass Sentinels to help reestablish him as the ruler of Anan’Thul, making it an evil place. The Hand of Brass lets the attuned wielder immediately sense if any creatures within 120 feet are of the Construct type, and also if a non-living object such as a phylactery houses a soul. During a short rest, the Hand can be used to transfer a soul into a suitable vessel (living creatures must be willing, incapacitated, or restrained during the rest), having the effect of either a Raise Dead spell if a corpse or instantly creating the equivalent of a Helmed Horror or Stone Golem if transferred into an appropriate artificial form (albeit such transference requires an expenditure of gold pieces per soul based on the desired construct in question). The wielder can also spend 1,000 gold in material components to enact a ritual over a construct bearing a soul to be permanently Charmed in regards to the wielder. As the Brass Sentinels have been so enchanted, they can serve as a loyal army. However, the wielder can choose to free them from service, in which case they are grateful and decide to find their own paths in life. Some may even choose to defend Al'Kirat and help out the PCs depending on how they were treated. Thoughts So Far: Making the ruins a three-parter citycrawl/dungeoncrawl with possible infiltration of the Anubian war camp is a pretty cool element. And while it may not come up for most campaigns, I do like how the combat encounters involving animals have non-violent resolutions, which can allow Druids and those capable of speaking with animals to flex their muscles for otherwise situational abilities. There’s a good amount of treasure and magic items here, although the opposition can be quite deadly just by the number of Anubians alone. My main criticism is that there aren't any presented plans or methods for PCs to get to Hakkari’s sarcophagus and the Hand of Brass without waiting around for the Anubian excavation to finish. At the very least, I can see many gaming groups deciding to hire their own workers to transport across the Wasteland to start digging, to say nothing of more magical methods like summoned earth elementals to burrow through and drag out the sarcophagus. But otherwise, this is a pretty cool chapter. Join us next time as we fight gun-slinging outlaws and hunt for a demiplane of treasure in Chapter 10: Sapphire Sandstorm! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Oct 5, 2025 |
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Oct 5, 2025 08:46
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Apokalypse Part 4: Shooting, just like people, is bad and evil. FIRE COMBAT Awright, let’s shoot some folks! But in order to do that, you have to jump through some hoops to check whether you can see the enemy and are allowed to fire at them. FieldArc/Line of View/Fire A trooper has a 180-degree Field of View. When it comes to determining what they can actually see..  See, this isn’t POSER game of HUGE SHOULDER PADS where you check LoS by getting down to the level of miniature (which is the case with solid 95% of modern games still). You need to do some WWI-era crafting. Your tiny reverse trench periscope is also used to check LoS for troopers that are either prone or just short kings who can’t see over cover and have to peek around a corner. There's also such a thing as Line of Fire, connecting the shooter to target. Only Fanatics, Berzerks or lads on the Kill ‘em All order can shoot if their LoF passes within 2cm of a friendly trooper. They’re just rocking out with their guns out, with only 50% odds of hitting friendlies!   After considering that pickle, we stumble unto another thing that Marx has failed to consider: a model’s Field of View may not be the same as their Arc of Fire. For most modern games of squad based battles FoW/AoF is 360 degrees. Skirmish games where you boss around individual minis often do 180. But in the dark days when Apokalypse was penned, knowing better had not been invented yet. The default Arc of Fire is 60 degrees. However, you can take it up to 120 by arming the trooper with an SMG or a sidearm: just like IRL, shorter barrel means that you can point the gun faster. Does Apokalypse also have rules for AoF out of buildings as well for deadzones resulting from shooting through a window? Yes. And that's one situation where marking bases won't help:  I paint 180 arcs on my Infinity minis and painting 60 or 120 arcs seems super hosed. Overwatch keeps winning as troops on OW can ignore their AoF. Firing Modes and Target Selection So, finally, shooting: alternating during OwPh and MPh with immediate casualty removal or in Fph where shooting and dying is simultaneous. Firing at the closest is a genre classic, but treating two enemy units within formation distance as one (no clarification on which formation distance is used for different quality units) isn’t. Most modern games are only grudgingly giving permission for troopers with AT weapons split fire and and shoot at a different target (lmao 40K pre-8E), Apokalypse here gives you the opportunity, however small, for a single 8-man unit to fire at every unit in the enemy team if the the whole enemy army was positioned well enough.  The positioning has to be really right tho As seen in the documentary film The Mandalorian, robots can fire at a different target for every Weaponsystem[sic]. Roight, at this point, you have finally determined which units can fire. And if you know anything about the use of italics, you know this doesn’t bode well. For in Apokalypse, when a unit fires, each trooper has to target a separate trooper in the target squad. Yes, you resolve firing PER MINIATURE.   The blocked dude above? He won’t have to check for ammo expenditure - the only other time this happens is when a unit is under Conserve Your Ammo orders. Once you come back to your senses, head still spinning from the blow of such revelation, you'll notice you have only just dipped your toes into the firing sequence. Here’s what’s left to determine: *building your attack dice pool *determining modifiers *rolling to hit *checking what armor zone was hit, *checking for penetration *applying damage, *rolling for ammo expenditure *ISP, Duckback and Morale. You probably can wing it and just roll everything together when your squad armed with uniform weapons shoots at a uniformly equipped squad, but that’s for posers and such. Another bit of weirdness: Rate of Fire 1 weapons are semi-auto and RoF2 count as automatic. However, only guns with RoF3 or higher can attack more than a single target and use the automatic fire template; automatic fire has long been an unsolved issue in gaming. The autofire template is a rectangle. The long edge is turned towards the shooter. However, shooting into the building rotates the template, turning it into a fire tunnel. No, you can’t do that in the open: you’re a dumb warcrime bastard who’s in it for hurting people, not efficiency.     :science101: Of course, the devs having a questionable-at-best understanding of warfare doesn’t help. Shortly after breach loading bolt-action rifles were introduced, someone had the idea of giving them magazines. Those bandoliers may be sexy, but not everyone is Pancho Villa, you know? However, salty and farty 19th century generals thought that magazines would just let troops waste ammunition. So many early models had magazine cutoff; under normal conditions, the soldiers would manually load every round to fire - but when the enemy got close, the officers would order the cutoff disabled so that they’d be able to bang out the entire magazine. This state of affairs didn’t last long because more bullets fired faster makes the enemy keep their heads down and increases the odds of hitting someone. I’m getting flashbacks to the stupid Helvetic limited ammo/accounting for every round bullshit from Degenesis.  :science101: Back to the mechanics. Attack is a roll-under for the shooter’s combat skill + mods. Once again, you can’t spell OVERWATCH without a big, fat W: it gives you the highest to hit bonus of +4 and a defensive bonus of -2, same as being in half-cover. The dumbest mod is for small target - human head or smaller. Does it stack with cover? So if someone’s head is sticking out, do they get -8 (smoll target + full cover) or just the small target one? For range mods, handguns, machine pistols, handcannons, SMGs and buckshot-loaded shotguns get their own tables due to their close range benefits. “All Other Weapons” share a single one. All Other Weapons still excludes Thrown Grenade, Cremator, Urban Turmoil and Hydra IV! If I was less lazy, I’d go check if that doesn’t leave the “All Other Weapons” category just two or three weapons total. Apoaklypse is probably the only game out there that doesn’t treat buckshot like it’s a fart cloud that dissipates harmlessly three meters away from the barrel, but you can bet your rear end this isn’t implemented in any sensible way. Speaking of pants-making GBS threads insanity: cover rules. In modern games, the big struggle is determining whether something is cover. But Apokalypse takes it a step further as cover level depends on whether the firer’s weapon can penetrate the cover. Oh, and if yon target is hiding behind Full Cover and you hit, you need to reroll hit location until you get one that isn’t in covered. No Battletech half-cover leg-saving!  So, uh, penetration. Some of you may know how FFG 40K RPGs had hit locations and potentially different armor grades? Apocalypse is the same - except it’s a mass combat miniatures game, not an RPG. And hit locations change depending on armor worn!!! Armor grades go from Alpha (lowest) to Omega (highest). Weapons have penetration characteristics. If your weapon can penetrate Beta, then it can also penetrate Alph- HEY IT’S THE DOGSHIT ARMOR SYSTEM FROM FIVE EDITIONS OF 40K AND TWO OF HORUS HERESY. BOO THIS GAME! But wait, it gets worse! See, it’s cool to have a bit uncertainty in armor penetration because THE PERFIDIOUS SWEDE doesn’t know any sayings related to cake possesion-and-eating dilemmas. That’s why the GAME will give you Armor grades like Beta12 - which means that you need roll under 12 on a D20 to penetrate. I assume a Gamma-grade rounds just go straight through while Alpha just bounces off harmlessly. Cover also has the same armor grades, but penetrating cover lowers your penetration by one level because this game was made as an exercise to kill Cassa via his roll-to-roll allergies. For full grim darkness, the human body in light armor is Alpha-grade cover, power armored bodies is Beta. Now, how about that damage...  I’m saluting with both hands: magnificent show of Scandinavian restraint in using “hypocrite” instead of “poser” - and what a dig at 40K and Warzone both! For human targets, you roll d100 on the appropriate damage table to find out what happens. Who knows, maybe I’ll give the tables an out-of-sequence post of their own. They’re the last chapter in the book - probably the only concession to usability in Apokalypse. Landmates get their own tables - Damaged, Knocked Out, Destroyed - which are based on the rating of the weapon. Robots, naturally, have their own three tables. There’s are other sane game design choices, like how hitting a target with multiple automatic fire rounds is rolled on the automatic table for every two hits, and odd ones rolling on appropriate ammo table. The creators of Apocalypse mark casualties with flattened blobs of miliput painted red to mark dead/critically wounded enemies. It’s suggested that players may instead make models of wounded troopers, which would have been quite the feat to pull in the 90s, when minis were hard to obtain and made largely of metal, devil’s own resin. I hope rising metal prices and increased 3D printing adoption makes metals go extinct. gently caress metal. I’m paying a friend to assemble my Infinity minis for me. gently caress met-  OK, back to the game. Another extremely good idea in a mass battle game is tracking ammo per trooper. They can carry 8 mags for their main gun, 8 for the sidearms, and 4 grenades at the same time. You roll trying to be the Ammo Count score whenever you fire. Overwatch automatically eats a reload because the troopers are firing “concentrated bursts of fire instead of occasional snap shots.” Conserve Your Ammo makes the ammo roll easier... does this imply that snap shots now go from being “occasional” to “rare?” It is possible for you squad to entirely run out of ammo. Once all personal and support weapons run dry (after you had been playing the match for 5 real-life days), the squad tests Morale not to retreat. But don’t worry! A trooper can be ordered to loot a corpse : *it only takes a turn to do *you only need to keep them in coherency *you only need to know how much ammo the corpse had! You are running Men of War with paper and pencil at this point. I already mentioned the few forum posters capable of such a feat, but they absolutely shouldn't try it. You also need to contend with JAMMING.  Jams are ascertained in a regular manner: when you roll equal or above the weapon’s jam number, you, the player who rolled the dice, just read the dice from left to right from the position you stood at when rolling the dice, and only the dice to the left of the dice are resolved as fired. No mention on whether you spend ammo or not. There’s also stray fire. You draw a line from the firer to the target and beyond, and anyone behind the target that’s within firer’s LoS and within 3 meters of line can be hit on 1-2 roll on d20, but you can’t hit more people than you have shots that missed. This mechanic is meant to prevent, surprisingly enough, firing too close to friendlies - and not to make players spread out their forces to avoid instances of Napoleonic cannon shot bouncing through the ranks. When it comes to explosives, grenades can scatter and bounce around while grenade launcher grenades and rocket launcher rockets don’t scatter unless you miss. Shooting stuff at buildings is a trip, especially since you need to roll scatter inside the buildings and HEAT rockets apparently just pierce building walls and explode inside. There are missiles that act like that these days, but, uh, that’s not what HEAT does. The real trip is resolving damage, because you need to determine the range to the center of the explosion, and then look up a the severity of the damage when compared to the armor target wears, and then roll on the appropriate shrapnel table. Overwatch Now, for those on the incoming end of OwF, there are the duckback tests to see how they feel about getting fired at even if shot by weapons that can’t pierce your armor. If you get shot at or are within 3m of someone getting shot at (so, in a squad), you roll against the trooper’s DB score, and if you roll lower, you roll on the DB chart. 3/4s of the time, you hit the dirt, gaining defensive bonuses. 1/4 of a time, you go Headless Chicken: you run in a random direction, becoming a fire magnet with unclearly stated rules and can’t even defend in melee. Overwatch also gives an initiative bonus in melee, so charging an enemy on OW is like doubletapping your own unit. While many wargames can go 30 years without realizing that suppressive fire is a thing, Apokalypse has a specific role for it: making life uncomfortable for people in terrain. But first, your troops should be in the OW stance, because all good things can reach us through being on Overwatch. The you can fire at a piece of terrain. Only troops armed with GLs, RLs or guns with RoF 3+ need apply. What if you have a large squad of RoF2 types? Sorry, should have thought about that more in chargen. If there are no enemies in the zone, just tick off ammo. If there are enemies, perform normal fire attack against the unit. If the enemies are hidden, perform an attacking against the terrain feature And of course there’s a page of rules for targeting a hidden unit depending on what weapon you’re using because you made the game when you were young and hand infinite free time. Next time: punching and feeling.
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Oct 6, 2025 06:10
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 Chapter 4 Note: Thanks to a helpful person on the Sands of Doom playtest Discord, I noticed that the earlier text about the Ankh of Life not being capable of resurrecting Aru or those with their divine blood is a bit of a plot hole. For as Lord Ammu also bears that blood, the Ankh shouldn’t have worked on him. quote:Divine Child. The Ankh of Life is incapable of resurrecting an Aru or anyone bearing their divine blood. As a result, the Divine Child is not brought back to life. As such, this brings to question why Lord Ammu was revived by the Ankh, but the Divine Child was not. Personally, I believe that this is an unintentional artifact of an earlier draft, as the current adventure as its stands makes it clear that the splitting up of the Divine Child’s aspects (body, soul in the Onyxian Jar, divine essence in the Golden Spear) makes her unable to be revived. Still, it is worth bringing up as it is an important plot point of the campaign. Now, on with the review! The Roaming Treasury of Sekhmet is a legendary demiplane contained within the heart of a perpetual sandstorm. Its guardian is a gigantic lionlike Aru named Sekhmet that judges who is truly worthy to enter. Containing unimaginable wealth from many realities, the Roaming Treasury holds more than a few magic items and artifacts that can be helpful in the party’s quest to defeat the Anubian army. If the PCs are on the Path of Erudition, Malicia will contact the party, revealing her fears of Lord Ammu’s corruption by the Will of the Sands. She also discusses her research into a goddess known as Sekhmet, who is said to guard a vault of riches and wonders that must surely have something capable of countering the Will’s corruption. Malicia also knows that two halves of a scarab trinket are necessary for finding the vault, and that an outlaw band known as the Black Company is hunting for them. If the PCs are on the Path of Devotion or Benevolence, then Prophecy will contact the party in their dreams, revealing that the Roaming Treasury holds a Divine Relic known as the Sapphire Ring. Additionally, she will reveal that the demiplane also holds the Rite of the Solar Throne if the Path of Benevolence was picked. She’ll instruct the party to head to the Oasis of Zarai and seek out the druid Eli Elaia to find one half of the scarab key. The perpetual sandstorm circles the Wasteland in a loop, with its position based on whether the campaign is using experience points or milestone for leveling. The storm is overall very slow in moving only six miles per day. In addition to its dangerous winds, the sandstorm bears powerful immunities against divination magic, meaning that one requires the aid of an Animated Scarab Key to reliably traverse it. This key is separated into two halves, one in the possession of a dryad, the other half in the possession of either Malicia or Souk depending upon the party’s Path of Fate. Said character being one who is not an ally. This chapter features a recurring villainous organization known as the Black Company. Hewing closely to Old West tropes, these marauding bands of human outlaws used the gathering of adventurers at Kunaten Keep to establish a cover story, and they chose not to embark on the doomed expedition to the Great Pyramid. They were quickly stranded in the Wasteland, saved from starving by either Malicia or Souk as above in order to employ them in searching for the Roaming Treasury. The Company is made up of 90 individuals, using a variety of low-CR warrior-style stat blocks. Twenty of them are armed with Grimfire Pistols and satchels that hold 10 shots each, which makes fighting them very risky given how much damage they can potentially dish out. The Black Company’s leader is Garret Thorne, a psychopathic man afflicted with leprosy that resists magical healing, causing many to believe that the sickness is a curse from the gods. There’s shorter writeups for an outline of their hideout, which serves as an Oasis and holds quite a bit of treasure that’s very heavy to transport but is worth 1,200 gold collectively. There’s also a writeup for ideal spots to introduce the Company in the adventure as well as foreshadow their presence.  Finding the Left-Side Scarab takes the PCs to the Oasis of Zarai. In the Path of Erudition, it may be by happenstance the next time the party passes through, as Malicia’s instructions are much vaguer than Prophecy’s. The scarab half was originally found by Eli Elaia, a druid adventurer who visited Zarai to look into strange behavior by the local wildlife. He hasn’t been seen since, but the villagers don’t find this cause for alarm as Eli is known to take extended trips into the desert. In reality, he is being held hostage in the grove of Ashae, a dryad who made an alliance with perytons to reduce the influence of the Will of the Sands. By using still-beating hearts taken from living creatures, the perytons can then bury five hearts beneath the ground in the Wasteland which will create a vibrant spring functioning as an Oasis. As long as the hearts remain buried, the plant life emerging from the Oasis can survive despite the surrounding climate. The hearts are contained in amniotic sacs to preserve them, as consuming a preserved heart ensures healthy births in peryton mothers. Ashae is a sheltered girl, being about 12 to 13 years old in dryad years, and while aware that her actions are violations of the natural order, she believes that it is a necessary evil to weaken the Will of the Sands. Eli Elaia has been enchanted by Ashae to agree with her line of thinking, and the dryad doesn’t fully comprehend that other beings are going along with her plan out of magical compulsion and not out of seeing the merit in her methods. By the time the PCs visit Zarai, four members of the Black Company are staying here in a low profile, waiting for Eli’s return to capture him and find the scarab key’s location. At a moment the DM deems appropriate, the Oasis comes under attack by a massive flock of perytons who begin attacking townsfolk, ripping out their hearts and flying away with them. If the PCs intervene, seven perytons will attack them. When a peryton removes a heart in this fashion, the heartless creature still lives, but with an open chest cavity. While they initially appear healthy, the heartless are living on borrowed time until a still-beating heart is reinserted into their chest. Said heart doesn’t have to be their original one. Content Warning: Suicide Over the course of a week, a creature who remains heartless gradually loses the will to live, finding difficulty in committing to even simple tasks, with most eventually attempting suicide. The townsfolk will eagerly hire the PCs to track down the stolen hearts, promising 500 gold as a reward. Old Tusk, the resident boar, can be used to track Eli’s location as he recognizes the druid’s scent on the perytons. Two of the Black Company bandits lost their hearts during the attack, and one of them by the name of John will offer to accompany the PCs to save himself and his buddies. He won’t reveal the fact that he’s a bandit, is looking for the druid to steal the scarab piece, or that he intends on betraying the party at an opportune time. John will have a “change of heart” if he is given another person’s heart, which turns out to belong to a more moral individual that causes the bandit to rethink his place in life. In such a case, John will ally with the party against the Black Company if a confrontation happens. The perytons can be tracked over the desert to Ashae’s Grove, following patches of oddly-fertile vegetation and even an encounter with waves of charmed animals that attack the party. Communicating with the animals reveals that they seek to save the land “for the greater good.” Eventually, Ashe will send an Animal Messenger to tell the PCs to stop interfering, and that she needs to restore the desert. Along the way, PCs can find amniotic sacs partially buried beneath the fertile ground, containing still-beating hearts. The sacs require DC 15 Dexterity (Medicine) check to safely extract without rupturing them. Inside the sac, a heart can survive indefinitely, but once exposed to the elements the hearts die in one hour. The grove is home to Eli, Ashae, a pair of basilisks, a pair of awakened trees, and various mundane (yet still dangerous) animals. Five of the still-beating hearts from Zarai’s villagers are being held in a secret hollow in Ashae’s bonded tree. The dryad will be afraid of the PCs, knowing that they have the power to defeat her, and attempt to justify her actions while begging for her life. She is capable of being convinced that stealing the hearts is wrong, and will seek alternatives to experiments with living beings. The module has three potential alternatives: one is using crushed Heka amber to grow an Oasis; hearts of monstrous creatures can be used, with Gorgororth’s heart being potent enough to spawn a 2 mile radius of rainforest; or convincing the perytons to steal the hearts from Anubians instead. Eli bears great guilt for his aid of Ashae, even though he knows he was being mentally compelled. He is willing to let the PCs be the judge of what to do with the dryad, but is against any decision that would let her continue her current experiments. He will give the PCs the scarab key if asked for, along with treasure in the form of precious jewels. The scarab half has a map on it which leads to the peak of the Eastspire Mountains, which unbeknownst to the druid is the location of the other scarab’s other half. Members of the Black Company might be waiting for Eli to return, meaning that they might obtain the scarab piece if the PCs don’t already have it. In such a case, they can be followed to the Eastspire Mountains. Thoughts: I like this for being a kind of moral dilemma. Even should the PCs seek to return the stolen hearts, the fact that they can redirect the perytons to fight the Anubians or use the hearts of monsters can still result in characters pursuing “unnatural” means of mitigating the Will of the Sands’ power. Also, the ability to grow a new Oasis overnight is an extremely beneficial power. I like the use of the Black Company as a wild card, both for being a secondary antagonist and even for John as an unexpected ally if the PCs play their cards right. The Lunar Shrine is a much shorter and more straightforward event, involving a 3-day journey with skill challenges and possible random encounters with basilisks and fang dragons on the way there. The Shrine serves as an Oasis, with a fight waiting for them depending upon their Path of Fate. The Path of Devotion pits the PCs against Malicia, who wants the other half of the Scarab Key and threatens the PC’s lives while multiple members of the Black Company are lying in wait hidden among the ruins. If the PCs are on the Path of Benevolence, they will instead fight Gorgoroth, and Malicia might appear at the end of the battle to buy the Scarab half off the party in exchange for diamonds, but will relent if they refuse. If the PCs are on the Path of Erudition, then Souk and Prophecy will be waiting there, intending to violently dissuade the party from pursuing the Roaming Treasury. They won’t fight to the death, as they will want the PCs to participate in the Siege of Al’Kirat. If for some reason any of the above participants have been killed earlier on in the campaign before the PCs come here, the party will instead fight an adult fang dragon. Fang dragons are a unique species of true dragon whose bodies reject all forms of magic. While they lack the elemental breath weapons common to their kind, their fangs can dispel ongoing magical effects, and their scales can reflect spell attacks. They can also cast Detect Magic and Dispel Magic, and their tails have scythe-like blades that leave deep wounds that deal damage via bleeding every turn. Thoughts: I don’t have much to say, although Malicia’s demanding threat is explained rather poorly. The adventure says that normally the dragon would bargain with the PCs, but knows that the Black Company doesn’t care about their survival and thus hopes that the party acquiesces to her demand in order to save them. She doesn’t wish to side against the Black Company due to her unique sense of honor in not violating a contract. Given that the PCs are known to be the types of people willing to challenge an army of gnolls and maybe even fight a resurrected snake-god taking the form of a hydra, this very much smacks of the blackmailing Batman attempt from the Dark Knight film, and I feel that Malicia would know this.  Sekhmet’s Storm is a wilderness hazard-based event with the potential for combat. The storm imposes a bunch of penalties to those inside, ranging from reduced visibility to ongoing damage from the sands. Combining the two halves of the Scarab Key animates it to fly ahead, leading the PCs to the heart of the storm and is easily viewable. PCs can also follow the Black Company this way if the bandits have an intact Scarab Key. Both ways take 2d4 minutes, but locating the Treasury without the Key takes 40 minutes with Survival checks to reduce the duration based on the result of the check. A bad enough failure on Survival causes the party to end up lost and outside the storm. As PCs take 1d4 damage each minute and the storm ruins any cloth or leather items that take 10 or more total points of damage, this can end up punishing PCs who don’t use heavy armor for protection. Lastly, PCs must maintain concentration as if on a spell to avoid breathing in grit, and losing concentration causes them to suffocate. The Black Company and its leader Garret Thorne may or may not meet their end here. The bandits are arranged into six convoys, and during one of the fights a bulette may suddenly burrow up from underground as a hostile third party. If Garret Thorne has one half of the Scarab Key, he will throw it in the opposite direction he’s running to get the PCs off his tail after two fights. But PCs who seek to continue chasing him will find him willing to go down in a desperate last stand. Content Warning: Suicide Thorne has a dangerous amount of grimfire powder satchels strapped to him with a trigger in hand. He can press it as a bonus action, and PCs need a Passive Perception of 15 or higher to see the trigger. The explosion is 20 feet in radius, dealing 30d6 fire damage to those caught within the blast radius. At the Eye of the Storm, the PCs come face to face with a giant lion formed out of sand glowing with a radiant light. She loudly introduces herself as Sekhmet, demanding the PCs to state their purpose clearly and warning them that she can tell what lies in their heart should they seek to lie. She uses the stats of an Empyrean, which puts her well out of range of the PCs having a fair chance of winning a fight with her. Even so, the adventure still has a list of what happens if she hits 0 Hit Points: the sandstorm ends, but the PCs have only 1 hour to enter the treasury and leave before it collapses. Sekhmet also only permanently dies if slain with the Golden Spear, which will cause rainstorms to gather and fall up to 1,000 miles from her place of death, lasting for 3 days. The Roaming Treasury is entered via Sekhmet’s throat, and PCs can earn the right to enter via several methods. Uniting the Scarab Key is enough to qualify, but other deeds of great merit (quests determined by DM discretion) can also be used. Alternatively, the PCs can pay her in the form of a bargaining tribute with a valuable item worth at least 5,000 gold to trade for treasure within the demiplane. Lastly, she can administer a Test of Purity if a character explicitly seeks the Sapphire Ring. This involves a character demonstrating that they are pure of heart, and is judged by four open-ended deeds where the PC must tell of at least one time each they demonstrated this virtue during the adventure path. This takes the form of a DC 25 Charisma check, with a +5 bonus for each successful moral deed. Sekhmet will not let the PCs loot her Roaming Treasury willy-nilly. The characters will be saddled with restrictions on what they can take depending on how they proved their worth to her, along with a listed reasoning for why. For instance, the Test of Purity lets them claim only the Sapphire Ring, but using a valuable item as a bargaining chip lets the PCs exchange it with an amount of treasure commensurate with the offered item’s value. Entering by merit has PCs state precisely what they require and nothing more. Violating this social contract will result in a unique event, where the Treasury starts to collapse in a shower of molten metal and lava, and the PCs have 1 minute to escape. This event is even complete with a hazard-strewn map and 3 possible enemies seeking to rob the treasury (and the PCs): Malicia, the Black Company, or even the return of the Coiled Whisper cultists! The Roaming Treasury has no map, for it is vast beyond measure as it connects to countless planes of existence through which visitors can add to its vaults. PCs can spend hours searching for a particular item depending on its rarity, although they only have 24 hours before the Treasury collapses and they can never enter it again. But if they’re searching for an item that they explicitly told Sekhmet they sought upon being granted passage, she will instinctively guide the item to them.  There are 10 Fabled Treasures to find here on top of the Sapphire Ring and Rite of the Solar Throne, rolled randomly from a table until a number has been encountered up to the amount of PCs in the party. They can all be identified via DC 15 skill checks (almost always History) which reveals the item’s backstory. They are all unique items and include such things as the Babr- E Bayan (three-layered armor that makes the wearer immune to the effects of Wish spells as well as immunity to fire damage and can walk on molten rock), Feather of the Simurgh (+2 to ability checks and saves when held in a free hand, can be used to resurrect a dead creature by laying in on the corpse, but permanently destroys it), an intelligent Carpet of Flying named Gomorrah (it, along with the Enchanted Horse, can leave the Treasury of their own volition as an exception to Sekhmet’s rules, but the Aru doesn’t tell the party this), Gulnar’s Flower (a magic flower that only blooms once every thousand years in a heavenly plane of existence, cures a creature of all curses, diseases, poisons, harmful genetic abnormalities, and dispels and unattunes all magic items and effects when eaten; it can even overcome effects from the Wish spell, artifacts, and the gods), and the Magic Lamp (acts as an Iron Flask but only works on genies, can hold up to 4 genies at a time, and can be used to transfer a genie from a different prison). In the Magic Lamp’s case, Malicia the black dragon is seeking it in order to obtain the wishes from the imprisoned genies in Kirat. The Lamp already contains one genie, an ifrit efreeti known as Ziba. Aside from the Fabled Treasures, the Sapphire Ring is here as a Divine Relic, granted to Sekhmet for safekeeping. Its magical power is such that it cannot be transferred to other planes of existence and thus cannot be as easily hidden by Sekhmet as the other treasures here. Thus, PCs will have an easy time finding it if they know it’s in the Treasury. The ring is guarded by arcs of lighting and is surrounded by a moat of lava, and these hazards can be safely bypassed if that character is granted permission by Sekhmet to take the ring. The Sapphire Ring grants immunity to natural hazards to the attuned wielder, and they cannot be moved against their will by such hazards. They are not immune to hazards that come from living beings, such as disease-causing bacteria and thorny plants. PCs who are on the Path of Benevolence can find the Rite of the Solar Throne here. It takes the form of a scroll resting upon a throne, with twelve golden steps flanked by lion sculptures leading up to it. The scroll details the ritual necessary to enact the law of succession for the Anubian Empire’s Pharaoh, which involves passing on the divine authority from the current monarch to their firstborn. Its primary purpose in the adventure path is to forcibly unattune Lord Ammu from the Ankh of Life, but has some pretty strict requirements. It must be read for 1 minute by an Aru, both the Divine Child and Pharaoh must be within 300 feet at all times, and that 5 High Priests are present to act as witnesses. In this last case, the definition of High Priest is broad enough to include anyone attuned to a Divine Relic. If all five “priests” approve of the transfer, then the Divine Child attunes to the Ankh of Life and becomes the new Pharaoh. As for the Black Company, if Garret Thorne is dead and the fairweather ally had a literal change of heart, it’s possible for the outlaws to be reformed and gain a pardon from Al’Kirat in exchange for fighting the Anubian army during the siege. In such a case, they will set up camp southwest of the city, making great use of grimfire pistols against the gnolls. The survivors will abandon their life of banditry and turn to living off the land as hunters. If Garret Thorne survives, he will make his way to Al’Kirat and make a deal with the devils at the Temple of the Five-Pointed Star. He will be reborn as a tiefling capable of casting Fireball three times a day, and will seek to kill the PCs during a convenient time during the Siege of Al’Kirat. Garret is not allied with the gnolls, rather being a lone wolf acting on his own. Thoughts: The final part of the chapter has a cool potential fight with the Black Company, and I really like the Disney’s Aladdin vibes I get from the Roaming Treasury. I also like how PCs can defy Sekhmet’s offer and possibly abscond with more loot than they bargained for, albeit at the cost of a potential TPK. Thoughts So Far: While overall a well-structured chapter, I do feel that some of the encounters can be deadlier than usual. One, the Black Company’s arsenal of grimfire pistols makes them glass cannons. They’re otherwise easy for Tier 2 PCs to take out, but a concentrated barrage can greatly injure characters and might even KO a few party members. Additionally, the 30d6 damage from Garret Thorne’s last stand feels a bit excessive, even if it’s potentially avoidable. On the other hand, the treasures in this chapter number among some of the most potent that aren’t Divine Relics, so I also feel that the stakes are appropriately higher. Join us next time as we cover the adventure path’s climax in Chapter 11: the Siege of Al’Kirat!
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Oct 7, 2025 03:58
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How are you intended to leave with any of those fabled treasures, aside from the two you're looking for and the ones that might come with you on their own? I guess just trade for them, but how much are they worth?
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Oct 8, 2025 16:50
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 Note: I realized that I forgot to include the recommended levels for the prior chapters after the Great Wasteland. The Veil and the Flame and the Sunken City of Anan’Thul are intended for 5th or 6th level characters who should gain a level by the end of the respective chapters; the Enchanted Gala is suitable for characters of any level and should gain a level after they claim the Knife of Topaz; and Sapphire Sandstorm is designed for 7th or 8th level characters, and are expected to gain one level after leaving/escaping the Roaming Treasury. The final chapter of Sands of Doom occurs when Lord Ammu’s army reaches the city of Al’Kirat, and is suited for PCs of 9th level. They will level up to 10th during the progress of the siege, and then to 11th level after defeating Lord Ammu. The Siege is split up into four major sections separated by time, as the adventure takes place over the course of the majority of the day and to the dawn of tomorrow. To reflect the large-scale nature of the battle, there are two tables that add variable enemies and allies to encounters: Siege Reinforcements consist of both generic and named NPCs to aid the party, along with their stats and the conditions under which they’re unlocked. Siege Reinforcements cost Reinforcement Points to deploy during an encounter, and the PCs otherwise have more or less free reign on who they can choose for what battles. The party starts with a default number of Reinforcement Points based on how many days are left before the army reaches Al’Kirat by the time the party hunkers down in the city. Reinforcement Points can also be gained by accomplishing special objectives during the chapter. Conversely, Special Enemies lists both generic and named NPCs and monsters who can be deployed during particular encounters, with similar conditions for how PCs would “unlock” them over the course of the adventure path. Needless to say, most of these enemies are triggered by the party earning the wrath of a surviving villainous individual or faction, or otherwise failing to eliminate such an enemy earlier on in the adventure path. Strangely, while Asmara is present as a Special Enemy, she otherwise is not brought up at all in the rest of this adventure, either as a deployable ally or for possible involvement in the Rite of the Solar Throne. There is one supposed “ally” of Al’Kirat who actually threw his lot in with Lord Ammu in secret: Yasar-Al-Fajr, the efreeti ambassador from the City of Brass. As to why, his mission is to procure rare Anubian artifacts, and dealing directly with the Anubians will cut out the city of Al’Kirat as a middleman. He established contact with Lord Ammu a week before the siege via Sending Stones, and sent his agents to place satchels of grimpowder in key positions along the city’s walls to be breached during the siege. PCs will receive an urgent Sending spell if they’re not in Al’Kirat in four days prior to Lord Ammu’s arrival. If they cannot return in time, then Vizier Rashid will teleport to them to assist with a speedy return, or the Skylark will be deployed to pick them up. Al’Kirat is on lockdown, with citizens under curfew and the city fielding 4,000 soldiers to line the battlements. The army’s commander will establish a telepathic link between one PC and several other VIPs in order to share instant updates and reports. We get a rundown of the Anubian army’s numbers and major divisions. They include Anubian rank-and-file soldiers, magi who use Heka amber and magical runes to cast less-powerful versions of Meteor Swarm as long-range artillery, O’grillan orc quislings who sided with their invaders, a brood of fang dragons, and a gigantic Brass Titan construct that is basically a souped-up Iron Golem whose unique size grants it special rules in combat. Besides Lord Ammu, High Commander Annubarack is the primary general of the Anubian forces, who rides on a fang dragon and has magic items to aid him in battle. The PCs will be invited to a secret Merchant Council of Al’Kirat’s movers and shakers in order to determine major actions. Measures are determined by majority vote and we get a rundown of various NPCs, what factions they represent, and if they have any particular status or sway in the city to make their votes count more. None of this really comes into play, as the VIPs already planned major strategies and will instead consult the PCs about Lord Ammu and the Divine Relics. If the PCs have been particularly defiant of Prophecy during the adventure path, she will activate sleeper cell cultists who will first warn the party to obey “the Lady in Dreams.” If they refuse, other cultists will then kidnap an NPC the party particularly likes during the Noon of the Siege event. No matter how powerful or well-defended the NPC is, they will be tortured and killed, and the words “You Will Obey” are written in blood on a nearby wall. Content Warning: Suicide The kidnappers slit their throats after killing the NPC so they can’t be taken alive. Thoughts: I like the main set-up in that it rewards PCs who have been particularly quick and proactive, granting them additional resources and allies that will then pay off for the campaign’s climax. I’m not a fan of Prophecy’s off-screen murder of an allied NPC, as it’s very Deus Ex Machina. It can also stretch suspension of disbelief if said character is too powerful or canny to fall in battle against CR 1/8th NPCs. Yes, they use the Cultist stat block, my use of the word wasn’t as a generic descriptor!  Dawn of the Siege consists of three encounters that involve waves of enemies, and even with XP leveling there’s enough for characters to go from 9th level to 10th by the end. The first encounter takes place on the battlements surrounding the city, where the PCs and Kirati soldiers fight against pteranodon-riding orcs, High Commander Annubarack astride a fang dragon (he only participates for one round before retreating), and finally the Brass Titan mecha which can also attack the wall itself. If the Titan strikes the wall 10 times, it will create a breach that allows hordes of soldiers to effortlessly invade the city. This results in a Nonstandard Game Over where most of the city’s inhabitants will die, but the PCs can still achieve a pyrrhic victory by confronting Lord Ammu in the final encounter. There’s also placements of ballistae on the wall that can fire bolts coated in explosive grimpowder. The second encounter deploys the PCs to the Artisan’s Quarter, where the grimpowder satchels planted by agents of the efreeti traitor go off. By default, the PCs are aided by Kirati soldiers against Packs of Orcs, which are basically like Swarms of small monsters but applied to medium humanoids instead. If Annubarack is alive, he will arrive by fang dragon, not directly participating but shouting out orders to the orcs while the fang dragon casts Dispel Magic on any hindering AoE spells put up by the PCs and their allies. The party will get the opportunity for a Short Rest after this encounter’s resolution. The third encounter involves claiming key city streets as choke points to hinder the Anubian army’s advance. The battlemap for this encounter is a wide thoroughfare, with rows of buildings containing narrower allies and passageways to serve as additional entry and exit points. The PCs and their allies have 10 minutes to make preparations for the eventual assault, and gain additional Reinforcement Points to spend as rounds gradually pass. The enemies will enter the map via three different pathways, and there’s rules for setting up improvised barricades of debris. The enemy forces are arranged into three waves: the first is an orcish warlord riding a triceratops aided by packs of orcs, rock-throwing hill giants, and a pair of black dragon wyrmlings. The second wave involves Anubian warriors consisting of both traditional soldiers and spellcasters, and the third wave marks Annubarack and his fang dragon’s last stand. If the PCs can hold out for 10 rounds, reinforcements arrive to push back the Anubians and end the battle. But if the PCs defeat Annubarack, they will absorb the energy that comes out of his Obsidian Blade (a broken Divine Relic) and each gains +1 to an ability score that isn’t their highest or lowest. Thoughts: The wave-based combat encounters are quite innovative, and I like how they have alternative victory and failure conditions. My one criticism is that the adventure really wants Annubarack to die during the third encounter and not before, which feels rather railroady on account that many gaming groups will likely prioritize enemy commanders over faceless mooks. And 9th level is high enough for many parties to adequately deal with aerial opponents and also having ways to prevent their retreat. Noon of the Siege sees both the Kirati and Anubian forces digging into their fortified positions. The Anubians are confined to the Artisan’s Quarter, and combat shifts to hit-and-run house-to-house skirmishes on both sides. As a result, the PCs have some breathing room to explore the safe portions of the city to catch up with surviving allies. The book provides six social encounters, such as consulting with Rumbold Tomekeeper to learn that Lord Ammu is using enchantment magic on the fang dragon broodmother, and that ending it can rob the Anubians of their draconic allies; learning from Vizier Rashid that Lord Ammu’s palanquin throne is covered in an antimagic aura that might be disrupted by a fang dragon’s bite; visiting the slums, which are now reigned over by beastfolk who used the invasion to start a slave rebellion, and PCs who show sympathy for their cause can convince them to give 1,000 soldiers to fight the Anubians in exchange for universal manumission; or take part in a debate at the Temple of the Five-Pointed Star, where the devils of Asmodeus are willing to help fight the Anubians in exchange for being allowed to engage in Diabolical Contacts outside the temple grounds. This event lasts until the DM deems it narratively appropriate to move on, at which point the PCs gain the benefits of a Long Rest.  Night of the Siege focuses not on the Anubian forces, but the metaphorical enemy within. The Sultana Zanara Zin’Zara is scheduled to travel to the next war council via a secret, heavily-armed convoy. Yasar the efreet leaked the convoy to Lord Ammu, who intends to use an elite group of soldiers to assassinate the city’s leaders. However, Yasar is impatiently ambitious, and throws a wrench in this plan by deciding to attack the convoy first with summoned swarms of fire elementals and salamanders.* The PCs get wind of the intended attack on the convoy via telepathic communication regarding a potential mole, and are instructed to travel to the convoy’s current location to provide additional security. Yasar’s gamble was partially successful: several council members were killed, but the Sultana, her guard, and 16 Merchant Council members are still alive. During this time, multiple Special Enemies might attack the party, with the book providing suggestions for individual foes based on ideal skillsets and narrative elements. The combat takes place on an urban battlemap, with the convoy starting at the far south and the PCs at the far north. The party will need to pass through a gatehouse watched over by the Special Enemies, and the Convoy members are guarded by Kirati soldiers. The nameless Merchant Council members use collective stats of a large-sized (noncombatant) crowd with 160 hit points, where one NPC dies for every 10 hit points they take. *These plot-based summons make use of the efreeti casting Wish, as there are no spells in the default 5e rules that can summon waves of mid and higher-CR monsters. The more Merchant Lords who survive, the better support they can give to the PCs before the final battle in the form of fungible Treasure Point assets to “spend” on magic items. If the Sultana survives, she can accompany the PCs in the next encounter for 0 Reinforcement Points. The survivors urge the PCs to head to their intended meeting point at the Hall of Memories, fearful that it is also under attack. The next encounter takes place outside the building, where a remorhaz summoned by Yasar plus one Special Enemy is attacking the structure. After a mandatory Short Rest, the PCs meet up with the rest of the attendees in the Hall, and inevitable talk of a traitor within the ranks circulates as Vizier Rashid raises the issue. Ferreting out the traitor can be done via narrowing down the list of suspects in determining which NPCs are capable of commanding summoning magic, as well as skill checks that point to suspicious behavior on Yasar’s part. The efreet is concealing his Sending Stones in a small bag, and if the PCs previously encountered Hamza they will recognize the magic items as matching the ones he used to contact Lord Ammu. Yasar will fight to the death if confronted, and the Vizier, the Sultana, and any other allies present will join the PCs’ side. However, the efreeti isn’t alone, as he will have more fire-themed allies summoned in to join him in combat, although they will prioritize killing the Merchant Lords first. Alternatively, if the PCs accuse Vizier Rashid of being the traitor and persuade the Council, then they will fight him instead, where he is aided by Morgiana (if still alive) as well as 1d4 Invisible Stalker bodyguards. Once the dust clears, Anubian spellcasters will unleash more Heka-charged artillery on the Hall of Memories, forcing the PCs to conduct skill challenges to help evacuate people as the building collapses. Thoughts: Given the generous use of Special Enemies, the initial encounters are highly variable and thus cannot be so easily judged, but I like how the combat continues the themes of non-conventional victory/loss conditions in order to ensure the survival of Al’Kirat’s leadership. I also like how the PCs can end up fingering the wrong person of being the traitor. While Rashid is definitely a likely suspect, I wish there was more discussion on what would happen if the party casts the blame on other characters, like the Church of Asmodeus or heck, even the Sultana or her niece!  The End of the Siege has the PCs emerge from the wreckage to the sight of a crowd of citizens scarred and wounded from the siege, but still willing to provide aid and assistance in what ways they can. As the sun rises in the east, a rainbow-hued giant bird soars across the sky, recognized as the Simurgh of legend. It sheds feathers which fall to the city, resurrecting corpses and providing Heroic Inspiration and the benefits of a Long Rest to the living. Even if the PCs are indoors, fate twists to have at least one feather touch each party member somehow. As the Anubians were already miraculously resurrected by the Ankh of Life, they do not receive the benefits of the feathers. This is a great morale boost to the people of Al’Kirat, and each friendly named NPC who died during the Siege has a 25% chance of being revived. Lord Ammu resides in the Burning Ring arena to the city’s south, deep in Anubian territory. The Merchant Council convenes as they discuss ways to defeat the Pharaoh once and for all. PCs can come up with their own plans, but the book suggests four proposals by NPCs: using an underground network of tunnels previously used by the Veiled Syndicate for smuggling operations, feigning a letter of surrender to get physically close to Lord Ammu, or gaining the aid of Asmodeus’ devils or the beastfolk slaves in exchange for their aforementioned demands. The Ember Ring is technically a five-room dungeon crawl, but the bulk of the events and combat takes place in the center, where Lord Ammu resides on his magically-warded palanqain. Besides his many faceless Anubian minions, Lord Ammu also has Ma’rut (a unique monstrous pet based off of the Egyptian goddess Ammit, and is a physical fighter with a fire/necrotic breath weapon that can consume the souls of dead creatures), a dominated fang dragon adult who is the broodmother, and the possibility of either Yasar-Al-Fajr or Malicia as Special Enemies if either survived during the course of the campaign. Malicia is only an enemy if the PCs are on the Path of Devotion and possess the Golden Spear, and during combat will plead for the PCs to not destroy the Ankh of Life. As for Lord Ammu, he is a CR 14 opponent, already attuned to two unique Divine Relics which grant him increased stats as well as unique abilities. He doesn’t have any Legendary Actions or Resistance, but he can perform up to 3 Reactions per round which include casting spells and imposing unique debuffs on enemies. Lord Ammu is also proficient in all saving throws and has access to a wide variety of divine spells, making him a pretty tough opponent. His antimagic throne is selective, meaning that it protects him from magic but he can freely cast spells while on it, and will not get up unless he is forcefully moved off or if the throne’s protections are dispelled. At some point during the battle when things are looking against him, Lord Ammu will demand the divine intervention of Anubis, which takes the form of the sky tearing open to a vast, purple cosmos as the Pharaoh is bathed in powerful light. At this time, pillars of red sand begin reaching up towards the rift, as the Will of the Sands seeks the life force of the Duaat. Anubis does manifest, but will choose to bless the PCs with the benefits of a short rest. Lord Ammu does gain 100 temporary hit points, and the arena becomes difficult terrain due to all the red sand. The Pharaoh cannot be defeated as long as he is attuned to the Ankh of Life, for it will immediately resurrect him should he hit 0 hit points. The means of defeating him depends on which of the three Paths of Fate the PCs are on: Devotion requires destroying the Ankh of Life with the Golden Spear, targeting it as an object; Benevolence requires performing the Rite of the Solar Throne which forcefully unattunes him; and Erudition requires a Wish spell cast to unattune him once he hits 0 hit points. Although in this last case, the Ankh grants limited access to its power to an unattuned holder in casting the Heal spell as a bonus action without expending a spell slot. Once this special condition comes to pass, the true final battle occurs as the Will of the Sands asserts itself, using its corruption of Lord Ammu to commandeer the Pharaoh like a puppet. Lord Ammu has a new stat block for this, where his magic is instead innate spells related to earth-based elemental attacks, such as a modified Tsunami that takes the form of sand rather than water. He also automatically conjures living motes of sand which mimic the effects of Bigby’s Hand, but can move of their own accord. Besides his spells, the Will-controlled Lord Ammu can cause a mote to take damage in exchange for firing concentrated streams of sand at targets, and also can take 3 reactions per round which include casting spells, shifting damage from one mote to another, transforming into a whirlwind of sand, and entombing a single target. Any surviving allies of Lord Ammu and enemies of the PCs will flee, recognizing that this is no longer the Pharaoh they once knew. Anyone besides the final boss standing in the arena’s sands begins sinking into it if they fall prone or don’t move during their turn. Trying to use the Magic Lamp to imprison the Will of the Sands will fail, destroying the lamp but dealing 70 force damage to it and nearby creatures in an AoE. Much like the first phase of this battle, Lord Ammu’s true defeat depends on the Path of Fate: Devotion requires striking Lord Ammu at least once with the Golden Spear, which also robs him of the use of being able to shift damage between motes; Benevolence requires that the PCs protect the Divine Child, basically fighting Ammu as normal but also ensuring the survival of the new Pharaoh; Erudition requires casting another Wish spell to sever the Will of the Sand’s connection to Lord Ammu. In this final case, Lord Ammu can then be touched by the Ankh of Life to be resurrected, but this will leave him in a coma. Souk will teleport into the arena to try and stop this process, attempting to destroy the Ankh which immediately breaks if it takes a single hit from the Golden Spear. Thoughts: Lord Ammu looks to be a powerful opponent for 10th level PCs in both phases. My main concern is that the amount of NPCs on both sides of the battle (PCs get a lot of Reinforcement Points) can result in a lot of factors for the DM to juggle. Add onto this the special conditions for defeating Lord Ammu plus the terrain effects,there’s a good chance of something being forgotten about in all the note-taking.  Sand’s of Doom’s Epilogue takes a look at likely endings for the adventure path. Once Lord Ammu is defeated, Al’Kirat uses the capture of various high-ranking Anubians to force the army to retreat from the city as leverage to end the war. The Anubian Army is still much larger than Al’Kirat’s, so the nobles and army are allowed to depart after hostage exchanges during a ceasefire, and they don’t have to pay any reparations to the city. The PCs are rewarded each with 10,000 gold pieces, a parcel of land in the city, a grand statue in their likeness, and permanent position in the council with full voting rights. If Sultana Zanara Zin’Zara is dead and not resurrected, her nice Zaluna will take her effective place in leadership after inheriting her wealth, setting policies to make Al’Kirat more welcoming to outsiders and beastfolk. Zanara’s will included having most of her wealth dedicated to renovation and construction in the Slums, which are now filled with tidal waves of red sand that ends up quarantined. The will also bequeaths the collective ownership of Kunaten Keep to the PCs, along with 50,000 gold pieces for its reconstruction and upkeep. As for O’grila, its eastern half becomes territory of the new kingdom of Anubia, with its western half a decentralized assortment of various kingdoms. Anubia is ruled by various gnoll noble families, whose first major policies involve searching for more of their buried cities and the missing Aru. The Great Pyramid, called Ankhara in their language, serves as their capital city. Further developments depend upon which of the 3 Paths of Fate the PCs followed. Devotion results in the Will of the Sands fully taking control of the Anubians, as the destruction of the Ankh of Life robs them of their last bit of supernatural resistance to the foul force. The Will-puppetted gnolls will grow in number as they kill more of their independent brethren, before eventually going to war against the Darakni. All as Prophecy intended. Benevolence causes the Will of the Sands to withdraw back into the Wasteland with Lord Ammu’s corpse, becoming permanently imbued with supernatural sapience as the result of feasting on his divine essence. Lord Ammu is born anew, albeit it is uncertain to what extent this new being is the former Pharaoh, the Will given physical form, or a hybrid of the two beings. Anamnesis, the Aru guardian of the gates of the Duaat, appears back in the mortal world to validate Amen as the new Pharaoh. This Anubia has a much more peaceful foreign relation policy with Al’Kirat and O’grila. The Ankh of Life is used to keep its citizens shielded against the Will of the Sands, although its corruptive influence remains. It is this corruption that will subtly push Anubia to expand eastward, going to war with the centaur tribes and thus causing more corpses for the Will to claim. The Will takes the skeletons from Anan’Thul to raid more Anubian tombs to expand its army for an eventual war with the Darakni. Prophecy finds this arrangement acceptable but not ideal, as the Will lines up with her ends but isn’t controllable by her. Erudition has a reawakened Lord Ammu establish contact with Anamnesis, who learns of Prophecy’s role in the death of his daughter. He shares these findings with Anubia at large who devote themselves to hunting and thwarting the sphinx’s influence. The Pharaoh will also undertake an extensive policy of cleansing the Wasteland of the Will of the Sands’ influence, using the Ankh of Life to drive back the red sand and also unearthing more Anubian cities in the process. This reduces the Will of the Sand’s power, allowing the Darakni to make headway against the Will’s undead warriors and expand their territorial holdings. Prophecy is now fearful, realizing that she’ll need to put her plans in motion before they’re ready. As for what these plans of Prophecy are? Well, according to a potential sequel to this campaign, they involve clones of the sphinx using the stolen divine essence of various gods to create a new Divine Relic in a city overrun with Darakni. This relic will be used to unseal a gate to the Abyss and summon a primordial serpent known as Sera’Aku, as this supposedly is “the only way to prevent this world from turning into ash and dust.” The last surviving Aru will meet together once again, preparing to wage war against Sera’Aku. Unfortunately, this sequel product is unlikely to be made anytime soon. In a video made by the author, he explains how writing Sands of Doom forced him to take more time away from his YouTube channel, which is his main source of income. While the book indicates that future content is planned, it’s unlikely when or if we’ll see such products. Thoughts So Far: From determining the city’s survival to the fate of the Anubians and the region of Kirat as a whole, this chapter makes for a dramatic climax to the Sands of Doom campaign. Lord Ammu isn’t a pushover either, and combined with his ample access to spells and battlefield control abilities, the combat should be quite fluid and tactical in feel. I also appreciate how various decisions made during the siege, as well the survival and deaths of key NPCs, further cause long-term changes to the region. I do wish we had some more opportunities to reveal Prophecy’s end goal to the PCs in actual play. At the very least, the party will surely be asking what was the point of all this when they find out her role in the death of the Divine Child, and thus the crux of the major events in this campaign. Join us next time as we finish up this review with several Appendices! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Oct 11, 2025 |
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Oct 11, 2025 01:51
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Glazius posted:How are you intended to leave with any of those fabled treasures, aside from the two you're looking for and the ones that might come with you on their own? I guess just trade for them, but how much are they worth? The many treasures are designed to be temptation of leaving the Treasury richer, but at risk of Sekhmet killing everyone inside. The bargaining route is the best means of getting these additional treasures than the story-specific ones via trade. Valuable objects without a defined worth has Sekhmet give estimates of 5k gold for rare items, very rare 10k gold, and one-of-a-kind items at 20k gold. It doesn't say the value for Legendary, as that's technically the rarest non-artififact cateogry but doesn't automatically denote the item being "one-of-a-kind." Most tributes the PCs would have as a worthy trade are estimated to count as either rare or very rare by the book.
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Oct 11, 2025 01:55
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 This isn't going to be the largest of posts, for quite a bit of the Appendices' content have been covered earlier as part of the relevant posts for this review. We get five Appendices covering material that doesn't fit neatly into any of the prior chapters. Appendix A: Timeline in Sands of Doom provides a chronological list of various events, beginning when the PCs meet Prophecy in the Temple of Time all the way to the day of the Siege of Al'Kirat. This takes the form of a two-column table spanning 3 pages, with numbered days highlighted in certain colors pertaining to particular factions and areas. For example, the red color highlights the position of Lord Ammu's army through the region of Kirat, while white colored days measure the progress of the excavation in Anan'Thul. As the milestone leveling has a lot of major events happening at the Speed of Plot, the timeline is less exact, instead having events on particular days start when the PCs reach a certain level. Appendix B: Creatures covers monsters and NPCs. Here we get entries for Lord Ammu, his monstrous pet Ma'rut, and a one-page writeup for his mobile War Camp complete with a map of his personal tent and how many NPC soldiers are present. Following Ammu's retinue, we get stat blocks and variations for the various types of Anubian NPCs found throughout this adventure, along with non-Anubians such as Lilith, Fang Dragons, Malicia, the sphinxes Prophecy and Anamnesis, Souk, and Packs of Beasts/Soldiers which represent swarms of faceless enemies. The more fleshed-out NPCs, such as Malicia and Lord Ammu, have more detailed write-ups on roleplay notes, goals, and particular magical items in their possession and how they'd use them.  Appendix C: Divine Relics covers the 14 Aru-forged artifacts that can be found in this adventure path. Unlike other magic items, a character can only ever attune to one such Divine Relic at a time, although Lord Ammu can get around this limit via a headdress magic item that lets the Pharaoh attune to two at once. Beyond their particular abilities, every Divine Relic imposes a set of universal benefits to an attuned wielder: an increased amount of hit points equal to twice the attuned's level (NPCs/monsters get +30 HP instead), take less damage from Necrotic sources, hit point maximum cannot be reduced by spells or effects, ages only 1 biological year for every 10 years, can instinctively recognize any other Divine Relic, and can speak, read, and write the Anubian language. Each Divine Relic also grants various Relic Spells themed around the item's purpose and capabilities. The higher-level the user is, the more powerful spells they can cast. Such spells can be cast once per long rest without a spell slot or material components, although they can be cast again using appropriate slots. We also get a table going over where each relic is initially located in the adventure path. While we covered pretty much every Divine Relic's powers broadly in an earlier post, there is one still uncovered that earns special merit: the Emerald Hourglass, the artifact that starts out useless until it's restored by the use of expensive Heka amber. Well, what can this Divine Relic do once fully functional? Well, it lets the attuned user see into the future by choosing an activity or goal that they or the group will attempt within the next 7 days during a Short or Long Rest. The DM then rates how likely or unlikely they are to succeed at that activity, and then learns what action they should take in order to increase the odds of success. This function of the Hourglass can be used only once per day. The Emerald Hourglass' other major ability is teleporting the user or a willing creature anywhere from 1 round to 24 hours forward in time. They disappear from existence, becoming untargetable and untraceable for the duration, before reappearing in the same location (or nearest available location if occupied). The Relic Spells are a broad grouping, such as Arcane Lock, Divination, False Life, and Modify Memory. Appendix D: Genies in Sands of Doom talks about the wish-granting NPCs in this adventure path, particularly in regards to the uses of their wishes. Unlike the default 9th-level spell of D&D, the wishes granted by genies in this campaign abide by a number of Unbreakable Laws: namely, that only a mortal may make a wish, which precludes not just deities, but undead and sentient constructs, although genies are an exception when they use a wish for their own benefit. The Aru managed to find a loophole by enslaving genies to target themselves with Wishes, which we see demonstrated during this adventure path such as the Center Spire or an optional final battle with Prophecy. Wishes also cannot make the impossible possible, such as creating a squared circle or gaining "invulnerability to all damage." As for why the latter, the word "all" encompasses infinite possibilities. Wishes cannot create matter from nothing or erase something from existence, and furthermore can only change the present, not the past or the future. There's also rules discussions of how these altered wishes interact with gameplay elements, and we also get detailed writeups on the individual genie NPCs. Particularly in how they'd go about fulfilling the terms of wishes and what they will do in the campaign once they are freed from their imprisonment.  Appendix E: the Grand Bazaar details the main shopping center for the Sands of Doom campaign. It includes specific prices on a wide number of magic items divided by type, as well as poisons and a new type of item that is added to existing equipment known as an Enchantment. For instance, the Elemental Power enchantment can make a weapon deal 1d4 bonus damage of cold, fire, or lightning for 300 gold, or 2d6 bonus damage for 3,000. There's even enchantments for spell foci, such as Magical Control for 1,500 gold: that one adds +1 to spell attack rolls and save DCs and can let the user recover a spent spell slot of up to 3rd level as an action once per long rest. There's an awful lot of items that are several hundred gold pieces, meaning that the bulk of the material in this appendix should be purchasable by PCs relatively early in the campaign. But the more powerful items hew towards the more expensive side, such as a Cloak of Protection for 3,000 gold or a snazzy Ring of Invisibility for 10,000 gold. We even get a list of 9 new Desert Magical Items optimized for travel in the Wasteland. They range from the merely thematic and don't directly help with wilderness hazards and survival, such as a bag full of Slashing Sand for 500 gold that can be thrown like more powerful caltrops. But there are some utility-focused items such as Goggles of the Desert for 400 gold, which make the wearer immune to eye-targeting effects and let them see up to 60 feet in a sandstorm. But perhaps the most popular item in campaigns will be the Skin of the Desert Camel. Although it costs a mere 300 gold, it can hold up to 1 gallon of water, and once emptied it will magically refill itself over a period of 4 hours. As the magic item was created by a genie's wish, it can work even in the Wasteland. I can see most gaming groups buying this item as soon as possible. Thoughts So Far: The individual Appendices are useful collections of material, easily accessible at the back of the book. Unfortunately, the PDF does not have bookmarks linking to them, which is an inconvenience. I was initially surprised at the brevity of Appendix B, as the vast majority of monsters and NPCs in the adventure path draw from the core rules. But that's not necessarily a negative, as it makes the adventure very friendly to DMs, and some enemies (such as the Anubian soldiers) have sufficient diversity of stat block alterations to make up for this. I particularly like the breadth of items in the Grand Bazaar, as it handles a common criticism of 5th Edition in not having enough things to spend money on at later levels. The Appendix on Wishes feels a bit constraining, but as such a spell is campaign-altering and Sands of Doom only goes up to 10th-11th level, I can understand why the author wanted to put some breaks on it while still keeping it a potent reward. That being said, such restricted Wishes are still open-ended enough that creative players might still be able to pull out all kinds of clever tricks with it. Final Thoughts: I initially did not have high expectations for Sands of Doom. Beyond the fact that adventure paths are the white whale of RPG publishing, the KickStarter had numerous delays and the author didn't realize the magnitude of work he had set in front of himself at the time. But I'm happy to say that the wait was worth it, and what we have here appears to be an engaging, functional, and novel campaign for Dungeons & Dragons. From a unique setting to generous amounts of player freedom via alternate outcomes, Sands of Doom exceeds the quality of even some Wizards of the Coast adventure paths recently produced. While I am sad that this campaign's sequel is unlikely to be made, what we do have is enough for a gaming group to tell an epic and memorable story. As for what I'll review next, normally I'd be reviewing Ravenloft products from the Dungeon Master's Guild for October. But as that storefront's more recent entries are overwhelmed with AI slop and a lot of the more popular ones are actually setting-neutral horror modules, I don't have as much material to cover as in prior years. However, I do plan to review a highly-rated cosmic horror sandbox adventure for D&D 5e. See you all next time, in the Dungeons of Drakkenheim! 
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Oct 12, 2025 05:23
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This World Summons Too Many Heroes!!: Definitive Edition How many heroes is too many? … Ooh, yeah, less than that This World Summons Too Many Heroes!!: Definitive Edition (TWSTMH from now on, because I value my fingers) is a 2025 Kickstarter-funded compendium of the 2023 second edition of a 2021 RPG by Nick “Duffo” Duff. The Definitive Edition expands the original core rules and includes supplemental material written by forums darling Paul “Ettin” Matijevic, plus Tom Harrison and Joe Anderson from the Anime Sickos podcast. TWSTMH is an homage to/takes the piss out of otherworld isekai fiction like Konosuba, Re:Zero, Overlord, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Uncle from Another World, Speedrunner Cannot Return from the Game World, So I’m a Spider, So What?, Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon, and a gazillion other light novels, manga, and anime that all have titles like that. If you have no interest in that stuff, this might not be the game for you. If, however, you're amused by the concept of several hapless doofuses from 21st century Earth bumbling around in a medieval fantasy world with cheat powers, this might be the diversion you didn’t know you were looking for. Small note: Normally I like to break up reviews with masterfully captioned pictures from the game. I won’t be doing that (much) for this one, for reasons which will become clear. What a World, What a World A hero ain’t nothin’ but a sandwich A few years ago, the generic fantasy world of Ceria was having its poo poo pushed in by this generic fantasy villain fella called the Cryptlord. Powerless before the Cryptlord’s generic evil powers, the various generic fantasy kingdoms pooled their magical resources to create a powerful spell. Once cast, it would force Launrith, the Goddess of Resurrection, to pluck a person from another world, give him a super powerful magic Gift, and bring him here to fight their battles for them. Luckily, it worked out. Their reluctant hero, a man named Yuya Muto, had the Gift of creating spell scrolls out of thin air, which allowed him to become the greatest spellcaster and sage the world had ever seen. With this mighty power, he managed to depose the Cryptlord. Then he promptly retired rather than taking his revenge on the people who yanked him out of his world, which may be the least realistic thing about this whole story. Maybe he’d been something unpleasant in his previous life, like an advertising copywriter or IT professional. Before running off, Muto told the assembled kingdoms that he would leave them with the means to save themselves in case another generic overlord might appear. He used his Gift to create hundreds of scrolls containing the very spell which summoned him to this world, and left them in the care of his closely trusted mage friends with strict instructions to only use them if absolutely necessary. So of course almost the second Muto vanished, war broke out between the kingdoms to gain control of these scrolls. Soon whole caches of them had fallen into the hands of petty monarchs with scores to settle. Soon after that, the world became littered with summoned heroes who have been tricked, brainwashed, or threatened into fighting each other. The world now shudders before their mighty conflicts, yet Muto is nowhere to be found. The PCs, as you might have guessed, are recently summoned heroes as well, given the task to contain any unused scrolls, mitigate the damage done by their peers, find out what happened to Muto, and maybe (if they have time) see if there’s a way to get all these “heroes” back home. The Hero System Wait, not … that is … you know what I mean TWSTMH is based on the LUMEN rules system, or I suppose “Illuminated by LUMEN” because of marketing or something. Characters have three Attributes: Might, Mastery, and Mischief. Cute. Might is simple raw punch-em-up strength. Mastery is the character’s “control of the situation,” which could be anything from aiming a weapon to making a plan. Mischief is stealth and trickery and making people believe your lies. All three overlap conceptually in weirdly fuzzy ways. GMs should be ready for arguments about which Attribute works in which situation. Players have 7 points to divide between these Attributes, which can be as low as 0 and as high as 7. This number determines how many d6 they roll when attempting a relevant feat. (They still roll one die even if the Attribute is 0.) The outcome of the roll is determined by the highest die rolled. If it’s 2 or less, they fail with a consequence. On a 3 or 4, they succeed with a complication. If the high die is 5+, they simply succeed. The probabilities of success with this dice system shoot up very quickly. By the time you’re rolling 4d6, the chance of a failure is less than 1% while a full success is over 80%, and it gets even more ridiculous from there. GMs may struggle to keep things challenging. Since the PCs are supposed to be superhuman, though, it tracks. Characters also start with 8 HP and 6 SP (“Special Points,” which activate their Gifts). It’s Heroing Time! And then he heroed all over those guys To build your very own isekai hero, start by choosing an Archetype.
People who know the genre will easily be able to recreate their favorite tropes here, except one: the person who changes the primitive world with their encyclopedic knowledge of some modern niche subject (16th century castles, miso making, book publishing, WWI artillery, eclipses and other natural phenomena, etc.). Sadly, out of the box, you can’t save the world with your knowledge of actuarial tables. Guess it’s not that kind of story. With Archetype in hand, it’s time to choose a starting Class. There are 26 different classes, from the mundane (Blacksmith, Brawler, Mage, etc.) to the exotic (Beast, Living Weapon, Phantasm, Vampire, etc.). There are also four extra-powerful classes, Magus, Sage, Champion, and Servant, which can only be acquired during the campaign at great expense. Each class gives a character two basic Class Abilities, plus a unique third depending on their highest Attribute. For example, the Blacksmith Class gives anyone who takes it the Metalwork and Signature Weapons abilities, plus Full Potential (spend SP to power up your weapon) if Might is your highest Attribute, Mana Forging (able to create magic weapons) for Mastery, or Cursed Weapons (able to create and wield jinxed weapons) for Mischief. The player gets to choose if the character has two equally high Attributes. Leveling up either unlocks one of the other Class Abilities or increases the power of one you already have. For instance, the Blacksmith above could change their Full Potential ability to Full Potential+, either doubling its damage, halving its SP cost, or increasing its area of effect. Multi-classing is possible if the character buys a class treatise to learn a new class. Common class treatises can be found in any town, but the more rare and powerful classes may require some questing to find. No matter how many Classes they have, a character can only have three Class Abilities active at a time by default. Known abilities can be swapped around freely outside of battle. Happy birthday, it’s time to receive a Gift. The Gift a character receives depends on their highest Attribute, and the rules encourage rolling them randomly. Each character only gets one Gift and can never gain another. Gifts are, frankly, super powers. There are 36 enumerated Gifts, but GMs and players are encouraged to come up with others if they think of something interesting. Here’s a smattering of the examples given in the book:
Lastly, a new character receives their Weapon(s), as determined by their Class choice. Weapons are semi-abstracted into the categories of Small Melee, Large Melee, Ranged, Tomes for spellcasters, Unarmed, and Shields. Weapons also have at least one Tag to customize them. Some Tags increase damage under certain circumstances, like a +1 when wielded by a Mischief hero, or have special effects, like paralyzing enemies anytime you roll doubles. Weapons can be enchanted with more Tags if you can find an enchanter and spend the required cost. Tomes are the basis of the game’s magic system. Each Tome contains one fairly simple spell, and anyone can use it. Certain Classes can also unlock Ritual Spellcasting versions of each Tome’s spell, which requires spending SP and making multiple Attribute checks. The Ritual versions are far more versatile and powerful, however, so it’s usually worth the effort. For instance, a Fire Tome can be used by anyone to poof out a small bolt of flame which does +1 damage. Yawn. With Ritualized Spellcasting, however, a caster could use the same Tome to create a wave of flame which sweeps over the entire battlefield, doing 2 damage per round to all enemies for 5 rounds. Decidedly not yawn. Fighty Bits Heroically punching goblins in the throat Fighting evil in TWSTMH is your usual affair of going around the table, choosing a target or targets within reach, and attempting to thump them. Initiative order is up to the players. One interesting peccadillo is, if a PC rolls 4 or less on their action, one of the enemies takes an action immediately afterward, before the next player gets a turn. That doesn’t necessarily need to be the enemy that PC is fighting, either. After all the players finish, the GM gets three more actions for the enemies to take, rolls Drops (HP, SP, or Materia) for each enemy defeated that turn, makes any changes to the battle (introducing reinforcements, changing the terrain, etc.), and then the process loops until one side is out of the fight, one way or another. The GM-us interruptus nature of gaining an action on a player failure is an interesting mechanic in theory. However, it also incentivizes players to always use their strongest abilities, which could become dull or repetitive depending on the circumstances. The GM needs to stay on their toes and throw out varied challenges to keep things fresh. Battlefields are divided into three ranges, Close, Near, and Far. There’s no blocking movement, so characters can charge around freely. Positioning is general and theater-of-the-mind. It’s very very abstract. You just gotta vibe with it, man. Weapons and powers do set damage: all Small Melee weapons do 1 damage, Large Melee weapons do 3, etc. Armor is mostly not a thing, though Shields will always reduce damage by 1. Characters brought to 0 HP will fall unconscious and have their SP set to 0. Next turn, as long as any allies are still standing, they’ll reawaken with 1 HP. If all the PCs are knocked out in one turn, it’s a TPK. The characters reappear before the goddess Laurinth and have to bargain for their lives. If and when they return, it’ll be without their weapons and possessions. Goddesses and Monsteresses Pantheism and You! The world of Ceria has several goddesses who oversee the world and their worshippers. Launrith, Goddess of Resurrection, for most of her existence, was a mysterious figure rarely thought of outside of births and funerals. After the hero-summoning scrolls put her front and center, her popularity exploded. Launrith discovered along the way that she loves the attention. Her personality has become bright, informal, and cheerful, almost like an entertainment idol, which scandalizes some of her older priests who preferred her all distant and spooky. Henritte, Goddess of Law, has directly placed the crowns on the heads of state for time immemorial. She also polices said kings to ensure they follow the laws of their respective lands. This doesn’t prevent the monarchs from being objectively awful, but as long as the laws allow their awfulness to flourish, she’s cool with it. Henritte holds regular god-meetings so they can all discuss the best way to administer their power. Her sisters rarely attend. Mellennia, Goddess of Drink and Festivities, has another title: Mother of Monsters. Mellennia has a dozen children with a variety of powerful beasts, like dragons, giants, elementals, and worse and weirder still. The Cryptlord was (secretly) one of these, in fact. In her mind, Mellennia’s demigod spawn were supposed to be the true rulers of this world, and she’s not happy that plain little Launrith’s heroes are stealing her thunder. Cloe, Goddess of Secrets, is a recent addition to the upper god pantheon after Muto banished their previous fourth member, Death, back to the underworld. Cloe is obsessed with hiding objects of power all over the world, and is the source for a lot of the treasure chests and magic items heroes might find in otherwise empty 10’x10’ dungeon rooms. She particularly enjoys hiding hero-summoning scrolls where the weirdest people might find them. There are several other minor gods and goddesses about, but Raphaelle, Goddess of War and Chaos, is a real up-and-comer. Henritte’s younger sister, Raphaelle likes to disguise herself as a human and sow discord wherever she goes. She dreams of a day when every kingdom uses their remaining summoning scrolls all at once, bringing a great war which will transform the world. People, Places, and Things That which is seen The book goes on to describe a number of realms around Ceria. Some of the more interesting ones are: Checkout: Deep in the frozen north, there lies an enormous, twisting, non-Euclidian supermarket. Many believe it was the Gift of a summoned hero. Now that hero is gone, but the supermarket remains, and has become home to multiple communities of raiders, scavengers, and cultists who sentence shoplifters to gladiatorial combat at their brutal Food Court. Prosperity: A summoned hero had the Gift of 10% Commission, which he used to become quite wealthy. Merchants and kings begged him to use his Gift to their benefit, and everyone became stinking rich as a result. Unfortunately he was tricked by the goddess Raphaelle into being unable to use his Gift, and now the only thing that keeps all his deals afloat is mounting loan debt. The hero will beg the PCs to help him find the stolen object which will restore his Gift. If they can’t, the entire kingdom will fall to financial ruin. Volkovia: A bustling factory town full of skeletons and zombies, all working under the Gift of a summoned necromancer Demon Lord-turned-hero. The living people here relax and enjoy the fruits of undead labor. Other necromancers think the summoned hero has made necromancy boring, and skulk about painting graffiti on the walls like gangs of pouting mall Goths. Despite the peoples’ distrust of the undead after that whole Cryptlord business, the ease of life has won most of them over. This area is surprisingly peaceful. Smells a bit though. Each realm has its own set of NPCs and monster mobs. The following chapter gives thorough descriptions of the more important NPCs, including (for the first time, here on page 70 of 122) illustrations. I hadn’t realized how much I missed having incidental pictures until we got a few. I mean I wasn’t bored per se, but it just kinda startled me that it was even a possibility. And while I’m usually the first one to poo-poo extravagant page-wasting art, there’s a difference between big multi-page spreads and occasional line art to break things up. Sadly, the pictures abruptly stop after page 77, and there are only three more pictures in the whole rest of the book. Ah. What might have been.  FOUND ONE (Addendum: After some research, I learned the lack of imagery is due to the Kickstarter not reaching its stretch goal for full internal illustrations. I’m totally sympathetic on that front. It’s still kind of a shame. Even a little more would have gone a long way.) The book continues with over 40 mob, monster, and minor NPC listings. These run the gamut from your typical wolves and skeletons to feral catgirls and giant enemy crabs. Some mobs are gathered into groups which the GM can drop in to give the PCs some instant rivals to vie against. My favorite is the Egg Boy Gang, a group of bandits led by a juvenile dragon who has yet to break entirely out of its shell, so it’s just an egg with two feet sticking out.  “Breathe fire out the leg holes” is my new favorite power NPCs and monsters can also gain Class Abilities at the GM’s whim, either to fill them out or shake them up. There’s not a lot of guidance in this, so it’s possible to inadvertently make something overpowered for an encounter. The flexibility is appreciated, however. The Frame of the Campaign Falls mainly on the plain The book wraps up with two mega-adventures that could well be campaign outlines. These were previously published as additional supplements which Nick (do you mind if I call you Nick?) has kindly bundled in with the Definitive Edition. .Dungeon//Tower, by the Anime Sickos guys, outlines a 99-story dungeon tower which was the Cryptlord’s base of operations before he himself became … non-operational (pinky to corner of mouth, wry smile). Once the major threat was past, the tower became a popular location for newbie adventurers to grind its infinite monster spawners for XP. Everything was hunky-dory until a group of heroes made it to the top floor and slew the main boss. This caused a cascade of magic energy to flow through the entire tower. All the monsters suddenly powered up, trapping dozens of lowbies in a dungeon way above their level. This became known as the “New Game+ Incident.” This supplement suggests skipping past a lot of the boring dungeon exploration and getting straight to the boss fights, which include such iconic villains as The Bird Which Is Too Big, the Glitched Protagonist, and Slingo da Blue Mage. Then there’s Mr. Gun. The kobold who found a gun. And will shoot you. With his gun. Season of the Sage is more of a traditional adventure. The PCs are hired to find a lost caravan which was carrying a summoning scroll, along the way discovering a grand conspiracy which involves goddesses, the lost Sage Muto, idol concerts, chaos demons, ninja, and even more silly things. Both of these supplements are fun in different ways, and show off how a TWSTMH campaign can unfold in this weird-rear end world. .Dungeon//Tower is by far the goofier of the two, and also the least focused. The Dungeon Tower is more a setting than a storyline. It’s mostly up to the GM to find a reason for the players to enter this cursed place. On the other hand, Season of the Sage has, like, a plot, and is set up like a proper intro adventure with motivations and everything. Thoughts and Prayers My Goddess Can’t Be This Cute?! And that’s it. Presentation-wise, the game is workmanlike. Previous editions are somewhat infamous for their questionable design and Comic-Sans-like font choices, but the Definitive Edition is quite legible, even approaching the level of attractive, thanks to a bang-up layout job by Ettin. Too bad about the art situation. Darn capitalism. Content-wise, there’s quite a bit here, a lot more than you’d expect from a high-concept comedy RPG in fact. Locations and NPCs, from goddesses all the way down to a kobold with a gun (who will shoot you, with his gun), all come with a passel of motivations and story hooks. Of all the parts of this game, I think the world as presented is surprisingly my favorite bit. It’s not always consistent, but it’s consistently entertaining. What more could you ask for really. Rules-wise, it’s LUMEN with some extra stuff bolted on. It can be a little clunky but it mostly works. I guess that’s better than some games. It helps that most isekai fiction has a very video-game-y veneer to it already, so a simple mechanistic ruleset works in its favor. Gameplay-wise … that’s the deal, isn’t it. The player experience will depend heavily on their understanding of the underlying trope and/or their willingness to go along with the gag. In practice, I can see the base game feeling something like Drawn Together, where you put several similar but disparate character types in a pressure cooker and see what happens. If you’ve ever wondered how the Shield Hero might interact with Bakarina, then (thrusting hands palms-up toward you) there ya go. The humor of the setting mostly lands. .Dungeon//Tower really pulls out the stops on the wackiness. Everything else is vaguely more grounded (as much as a game like this can be anyway). Despite a few slight nods to dark anime tropes, the game remains positive and aboveboard, and very much discourages anything really awful like slavery and incest and the other stuff that gives some stories in this genre a bad name. As a celebration of isekai craziness, this game works. As an actual game, it’s fine. To really have fun, you have to want what it offers. If you’re into that, I can totally recommend it. One-and-three-eighths thumbs up. Mirage fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Oct 14, 2025 |
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Oct 14, 2025 02:25
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I don't know, the Reader seems like they might be a good fit for e.g. "saves the world with obsessive knowledge of heavy metal".
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Oct 15, 2025 01:36
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I'm not really the audience for isekai stuff, but it's hard not to like the kobold with a gun (who will shoot you with his gun).
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Oct 15, 2025 07:08
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Explodingdice posted:I'm not really the audience for isekai stuff, but it's hard not to like the kobold with a gun (who will shoot you with his gun). It’s not an inherently bad plot element or anything, but it’s usually lazy, wasted, perfunctory or so tied to the tropes established by the 500 works that immediately preceded it that you wonder why they bother. 99% of the time the protagonist doesn’t even really miss their old life for a second. No friends or families to return to, they don’t pine for modern conveniences while wallowing in the sewage-streets or even miss the structure of their old 9-5 job, nothing. Then they also usually make the protagonist/protagonists instantly succeed at anything and be the best at everything that once again you wonder why they even bothered to write it like that. It’s a “genre” (premise, really) that seems to have far more than its fair share of bottom-shelf effort (writing, design, animation, music etc), which is fascinating in its own way. I understand not every show can be a top performer in every metric, but isekai just seems to be bottom-heavy in that regard. That doesn’t mean there aren’t still gems, but you really do have to dig for them if you want to turn one up. Kobold-with-a-gun-sama is real and is my friend
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Oct 15, 2025 16:30
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I wonder if they do reverse isekai, like a horrid spiderlike monstrosity that sits on a hoard of gold and eats adventurers awakes as a human in our world and has to get a job. Does that exist? E:VVVV- That sounds like no fun at all IMO. By popular demand fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Oct 15, 2025 |
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Oct 15, 2025 16:39
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By popular demand posted:I wonder if they do reverse isekai, like a horrid spiderlike monstrosity that sits on a hoard of gold and eats adventurers awakes as a human in our world and has to get a job. There are at least a few reverse isekai, though I can’t think of any with grotesque monsters as the protagonists. Typically it’s the all-powerful demon lord gets reincarnated into our world and now lives in a lovely apartment, has bills piling up and works at McDonald’s, or has to become a Vtuber etc. E: sometimes I wonder if popular stories like isekai aren’t dissimilar to Harlequin romance novels, where the publisher hands the potential author of their next light novel a generic plot outline, complete with name suggestions and a list of do’s and don’ts. That might help explain some of the issues Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Oct 15, 2025 |
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Oct 15, 2025 16:45
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Lots of reverse Isekais tend to be more humor-driven, or even outright satirical looks at society. The Devil is a Part-Timer was actually hilarious... then it ended with an ending that utterly alienated everyone to the point when the mangaka announced a new series, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative.
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Oct 15, 2025 17:07
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I know this is weird, but there's one little thing that rubs me the wrong way: what's this thing where the Gods of Niceness intervene in the world to make sure that the ruling class are Good and the class system is objectively Good so don't worry about it? I feel like I've seen this in some other games where it's very on-the-nose that the world only exists to support Adventurers. There's a fine line between being cozy and being infantile.
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Oct 15, 2025 17:15
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Halloween Jack posted:I know this is weird, but there's one little thing that rubs me the wrong way: what's this thing where the Gods of Niceness intervene in the world to make sure that the ruling class are Good and the class system is objectively Good so don't worry about it? I feel like I've seen this in some other games where it's very on-the-nose that the world only exists to support Adventurers. There's a fine line between being cozy and being infantile. it's an infantile genre, what do you expect
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Oct 15, 2025 17:17
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Halloween Jack posted:I know this is weird, but there's one little thing that rubs me the wrong way: what's this thing where the Gods of Niceness intervene in the world to make sure that the ruling class are Good and the class system is objectively Good so don't worry about it? I feel like I've seen this in some other games where it's very on-the-nose that the world only exists to support Adventurers. There's a fine line between being cozy and being infantile. The lesson would probably wear off every few generations, and people would try to get around it in various ways, but 'getting around it' probably just means the hammer drops extra hard. e: alternately, the gods summon their own hero, whom they fully brief, and you'll never know when they did
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Oct 15, 2025 18:46
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Halloween Jack posted:I know this is weird, but there's one little thing that rubs me the wrong way: what's this thing where the Gods of Niceness intervene in the world to make sure that the ruling class are Good and the class system is objectively Good so don't worry about it? I feel like I've seen this in some other games where it's very on-the-nose that the world only exists to support Adventurers. There's a fine line between being cozy and being infantile. Blame Tolkien (he says, inciting a flame war). Or else blame how "the divine right of kings" collides with "gods that are real and can hurt you." This particular game goes sideways with that, with the divinity behind rulers being the Goddess of Law. As long as the kings follow the law, she'll support them. The law may say "the king must kick everyone he sees in the jimmies" and, as long as he's putting the boot in, she's totally cool. Now if he stops racking everyone, she'll withdraw her support and he'll likely be deposed in no time. She's also the first to quash any heretical thoughts of people governing themselves. By popular demand posted:I wonder if they do reverse isekai, like a horrid spiderlike monstrosity that sits on a hoard of gold and eats adventurers awakes as a human in our world and has to get a job. Does that exist? Ssssort of? There's one, Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy (also sometimes called Moonlit Journey) where the main character ends up with several monster friends, including a lich, a dragon, and a Lolth-like giant poison spider, who take human form and need jobs and stuff. They don't come over to our world though. Explodingdice posted:I'm not really the audience for isekai stuff, but it's hard not to like the kobold with a gun (who will shoot you with his gun). Mr. Gun is a beautiful treasure, but my actual favorite is The Bird Which Is Too Big, which is just a gigantic fuckin' bird so stuffed into a dungeon room that it can barely move, with feathers sticking out of the doors and windows. It's moves include rolling over on you, hitting you with desperate wing flaps, and laying eggs on your head which hatch into smaller giant birds.
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Oct 15, 2025 18:54
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It’s on-point for the isekai genre that the gods are mostly useless or even actively harmful petty meddlers. In an isekai, the gods’ brilliant plan to fix a problem is almost always to summon an angsty teenager from another world by violently murdering them via Truck-kun, giving them minimal guidance (if any) and then granting them unlimited power. They just assume it will work out and go back to being busy existing in a white void. E: Aqua from Konosuba is the perfect encapsulation of these kinds of gods and goddesses. Just a beautiful idiot failson alcoholic narcissist. I love her. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Oct 15, 2025 |
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Oct 15, 2025 19:29
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By popular demand posted:I wonder if they do reverse isekai, like a horrid spiderlike monstrosity that sits on a hoard of gold and eats adventurers awakes as a human in our world and has to get a job.
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Oct 15, 2025 21:01
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I bet there's a Nobel prize in economics waiting for anyone who can quantify how, rather than suffer from market saturation, the Japanese media market seems to reward flooding the zone with a million works in the same genre. I mean, at this point, isekai is so oversaturated that there's an entire second market devoted to subversions and parodies (Uncle from Another World, The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, etc.). Though, one effect of the market saturation is the stupidly long and overly descriptive titles so many works are burdened with. Because the webtoon and light novel markets are so insanely competitive, anyone trying to enter the space needs to grab a potential reader's attention immediately, so laying out the whole premise up-front is how they do that, a lot of the time. The only authors with the luxury of non-descriptive titles are the ones being published or marketed by one of the big corporations. Like, Dandadan is the new hotness in anime, but it's published in Shonen Jump so it gets to have that kind of title. If it were being independently published, it'd likely have been named something like "This Cool Girl is an Esper and My Junk got Cursed By an Old Lady Ghost and We Fight Aliens and Demons!"
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Oct 15, 2025 21:38
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EclecticTastes posted:I bet there's a Nobel prize in economics waiting for anyone who can quantify how, rather than suffer from market saturation, the Japanese media market seems to reward flooding the zone with a million works in the same genre. I mean, at this point, isekai is so oversaturated that there's an entire second market devoted to subversions and parodies (Uncle from Another World, The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, etc.). True. Isekai even has thriving sub-sub-genres like the “reincarnated into my favorite shojo dating sim for girls, but as the villainess who dies at the end, oh no gotta change my fate,” genre, which also has at least one direct parody where the brother of one of the women that loves those games is reincarnated into it as a background character.
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Oct 15, 2025 22:06
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Pvt.Scott posted:True. Isekai even has thriving sub-sub-genres like the “reincarnated into my favorite shojo dating sim for girls, but as the villainess who dies at the end, oh no gotta change my fate,” genre, which also has at least one direct parody where the brother of one of the women that loves those games is reincarnated into it as a background character. I actually saw a pretty good parody of that recently, something like "Bureaucrat Becomes a Villainess", where a middle-aged otaku dad gets reincarnated into his daughter's favorite dating sim (his words and actions are auto-translated into Fancy Noblewoman as his obligatory "cheat skill"), and uses Dad Wisdom to vastly improve everyone's life and also does this.
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Oct 15, 2025 22:16
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EclecticTastes posted:I actually saw a pretty good parody of that recently, something like "Bureaucrat Becomes a Villainess", where a middle-aged otaku dad gets reincarnated into his daughter's favorite dating sim (his words and actions are auto-translated into Fancy Noblewoman as his obligatory "cheat skill"), and uses Dad Wisdom to vastly improve everyone's life and also does this. Oh yeah, I need to check that one out! I was referencing Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games Is Tough for Mobs
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Oct 15, 2025 22:23
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Pvt.Scott posted:It’s on-point for the isekai genre that the gods are mostly useless or even actively harmful petty meddlers. In an isekai, the gods’ brilliant plan to fix a problem is almost always to summon an angsty teenager from another world by violently murdering them via Truck-kun, giving them minimal guidance (if any) and then granting them unlimited power. They just assume it will work out and go back to being busy existing in a white void.
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Oct 17, 2025 15:11
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Is DIE an Iseki? Ironically player characters don't die to get sucked into the fantasy world.
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Oct 17, 2025 23:40
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Sure. I think the first TTRPG isekai was actually Guardians of the Flame. I seem to recall Andre Norton did a similar book that might have preceded it.
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Oct 18, 2025 00:36
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Halloween Jack posted:Sure. I think the first TTRPG isekai was actually Guardians of the Flame. I seem to recall Andre Norton did a similar book that might have preceded it. Too bad the author was such a fuckin weirdo.
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Oct 18, 2025 00:43
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They put something in the water in the 70s that made all male speculative fiction writers just utterly obsessed with sexual assault.
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Oct 18, 2025 00:53
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Pvt.Scott posted:True. Isekai even has thriving sub-sub-genres like the “reincarnated into my favorite shojo dating sim for girls, but as the villainess who dies at the end, oh no gotta change my fate,” genre, which also has at least one direct parody where the brother of one of the women that loves those games is reincarnated into it as a background character. This one's very funny because it's an extremely specific riff on the first game of a long-running otome strategy game series by Koei, Angelique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelique_(video_game_series) The funny thing is there's multiple endings to the first game and in a number of them you can befriend the villainess and everything works out well. And then there's the endings where the villainess gets loving executed. And learning that she could've been saved and redeemed probably caused no end of grief for the girls who played and got the execution ending. It's easy to interpret the spread of this particular isekai subgenre as a bunch of webfiction writers working through their collective trauma.
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Oct 18, 2025 01:19
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Halloween Jack posted:Sure. I think the first TTRPG isekai was actually Guardians of the Flame. I seem to recall Andre Norton did a similar book that might have preceded it. The Norton book was Quag Keep.
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Oct 18, 2025 15:47
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Does Ravenloft count as isekai?
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Oct 18, 2025 16:02
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Traveller posted:Does Ravenloft count as isekai?
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Oct 18, 2025 17:41
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No, for the same reason that the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror specials aren’t isekai.
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Oct 18, 2025 17:43
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Traveller posted:Does Ravenloft count as isekai? Isekai just literally means “another world” so Wizard of Oz, Narnia, John Carter of Mars (etc etc) and yes, Ravenloft (as typically experienced by a party of adventurers getting lost in the mists) all qualify on the very basic level. E: super powered protagonists and harems and all that poo poo are just common bolt-ons for commercial and or lazy writing purposes IMO Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Oct 18, 2025 |
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Oct 18, 2025 17:43
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