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Everyone posted:That's what I was thinking. Czerina is sending the PCs against people who should absolutely be de-platformed/destroyed. She seems to be acting more as a guardian spirit for Wreythau than a Darklord. I think the module needed something more in it to push the idea that Czerina really is untenable and needs to be taken down. Like you said, with Strahd, that's not a problem. He's a sadistic tyrant who delights in bringing misery to the people of Barovia. Robindaybird posted:Yeah, Czerina feels like a Darklord the Dark Powers themselves would try to get rid of because she's not interesting in a way they like - like how the canon explanation for bahleeting lord Soth was because he actually realized it's his own drat fault for what happened in Krynn and thus no longer fun to torment. Nathan Timothy is okay with being a riverboat captain for life, so he was replaced with his son. The building blocks for the tormented darklord angle are already there in the form of "healing your wounded country" but a huge section of the body politic would instead prefer to prolong the status quo or make things worse. In true Ravenloftian fashion Czerina's attempts at using the PCs will inevitably make things worse in line with the Dark Powers' curse. Pulled off well this can tip off the PCs that Czerina isn't the kind of ally they thought she'd be. Pulled off badly, it can feel disempowering as "everything you worked to prevent happens anyway." It feels as though the Inquisition of the Morning Lord was meant to be the primary villain at some point during the writing process, but was switched over to Czerina cuz the domain darklord has to be the designated bad girl. Personally speaking, I would've played up the "vampire/church" conflict more and made Temelloth a later-game baddie. The fallen angel would definitely be a worthy replacement as Wreythau's darklord, and to the average villager can seem like the best necessary evil when the other alternatives seem to be "vampires who drained the family of your friend during the last annual blood tax" or "druids who revere a natural world that literally wants you dead." The Inquisition's presence definitely divides the country, but attempts at violence will only strengthen their resolve, and due to their nature they aren't the type to want to compromise with an undead queen. This would be the perfect building block for Czerina's curse in that the way it's written there is no clean solution that can really unite Wreythau without some neutral third party like the PCs who can tip the balance. And at that point it'd be clear that Czerina isn't the best leader, which in turn prevents her from getting what she wanted (if she remains unrepentantly evil) or finally comes to realize that sometimes as leader what you want isn't best for the country (if one wants to go with the "redeem the darklord" angle). Libertad! fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 19:58
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 Drive-Thru RPG Page Talking animals are a very popular staple in fiction, especially in fantasy worlds and fairy tales. While they do exist in Dungeons & Dragons, in gaming groups they’re often consigned to being sidekicks via a class feature or products the Awaken spell. But what if they could take a more prominent role in games? What if you could play one as a PC? Not a Tabaxi, not a Tortle, but a creature who is all intents and purposes a beast or plant but who can talk and reason? That is what this book is meant to do, along with providing a large gallery of awakened animal NPCs to populate one’s setting. Awakened Player Options goes over character creation and role-playing tips for awakened creatures. In terms of stats, all awakened characters increase their Intelligence by 1 and gain +2 to one of 6 ability scores depending on what their creature is known for. This can even be Intelligence again for a +3 bonus, which makes the race a rather powerful option for wizards. Bears can be easily argued to gain +2 Strength or Constitution, cheetahs +2 Dexterity, and so on. In terms of size they can range from Tiny to Large; Tiny creatures can share the same space as an ally, while Large creatures treat themselves as Medium for determining spell radii that emanate from their body/position. But no mention is made of melee reach, so they’re still pretty good for being able to affect a wider variety of squares. These size-based changes are in addition to alterations to carrying capacity and the like. They begin play knowing Common plus a language known by their Awakener, and treat their natural weapons as being magical upon reaching 5th level. Due to non-humanoid anatomies, Awakened PCs are not proficient with their class’ regular weapons, although they are proficient with any natural weapons they start with as well as armor. It doesn’t say anything about tools, which I presume means there’s special animal-optimized tool types out there. As the text mentions for DMs not to be too harsh on this along with being a fantasy world, I’m leaning towards this as an explanation. Creature Origins serve as the Awakened’s “race,” and we select from 14 broad families (aveformes/birds, feliformes/felines, planteformes/plants, etc). At 1st level the Awakened PC chooses 2 Diverse Features to further customize their species, and one more at 5th and 10th levels for a total of 4. They can also select such features in place of a feat or ability score increases. The 14 origins come with listed speed modes, natural weapons if appropriate (most are 1d4 or 1d6 and are treated as unarmed strikes), and default traits along with a recommended list of Diverse Features. Just about every origin has some unique feature the other ones don’t possess. For instance, Aveformes have a fly speed of 30 feet and 10 on the ground, always know where north is, are proficient in Perception, and have a bite and talon set of natural weapons. If you’re a flightless bird like a penguin you have just a 30 foot ground speed but can cast featherfall on yourself at will. Caniformes have advantage on Perception checks involving scent, a bite natural weapon, 30 foot speed, and can select one favored terrain as per the Ranger’s Natural Explorer class feature for free. Feliformes have darkvision 60 feet, are proficient in Stealth, have bite and claw natural weapons, and a speed of 30 feet. Meanwhile Scimiaformes (apes, monkeys, etc) have a climb speed of 30 feet and 25 on the ground, have opposable thumbs which grant them the ability to use humanoid-designed weapons, tools, and humanoid armor, advantage on Acrobatics when balancing, and gain a bite attack on top of a typical humanoid unarmed strike. Ursaformes have a 30 foot ground speed and advantage on Perception and Survival check for smelling and foraging for food and water, darkvision of 60 feet, natural armor of 13 + Constitution modifier, and a bite and claw set of natural weapons. Planteformes grant 20 foot ground and climb speeds, are vulnerable to fire but resistant to piercing damage, survive off of sunlight instead of food, have a natural armor of 13 + Constitution modifier, a rake natural attack, and can disguise themselves as a normal plant while they remain motionless. Icthyformes are perhaps the most restrictive choice. They have a 30 foot swim speed but 0 on ground, and can breath underwater but have to hold their breath out of it (6 times their Constitution score). They can Dash as a bonus action and have a bite attack as a natural weapon. Cephalaformes are pretty similar, although they have a 5 foot speed on the ground and their Dash takes the form of a jet which recharges after a long rest, and also have tentacles in addition to a beak natural weapon. I should also note that there are no origins for insects. I get that such animals are typically too small to be represented in the rules, but giant insects exist as monsters and are the beast type, qualifying them for Awakened status. Without taking into account Diverse Features, certain origins are better geared towards certain options. Feliformes make for good stalker type roles, and ursaformes are pretty good for melee roles. The flight of aveformes is great for ranged fighters, particularly ones making use of long-range attacks and spells, and the forms that grant a Dash as a bonus action (cephalaformes, icthyformes, musteliformes, rodentaformes, squamataformes) can make them mobile like a Rogue and keep them out of range of opponents. Cephalaformes may be a bit lacking as theirs is rest-based. The addition of 59 Diverse Features can alter creatures further to either diversify or reinforce such roles. Some have prerequisites such as possessing a certain size category or natural weapon, but a few are gatekept based on level. We have some self-evident Features, such as Darkvision 60 feet and Nocturnal that increases existing darkvision to 120 feet, Blend In where you can make Stealth checks without cover while in your native habitat, Improved Attack that increases the damage die of natural weapons by one step, Digger which grants a 15 foot burrow speed or +5 to an existing burrow speed, Enrage which grants a once per long rest use of Barbarian Rage, Frightening Roar with is an AoE fear-inducing attack that can be used once per short rest, Sensitive Strike which lets you use the Help action on an ally within 10 feet when you hit a creature with a weapon, Tough Hide which grants resistance to bludgeoning damage, and Vice-Grip which grants advantage on checks made to grapple. There’s a few features which are particularly supernatural or powerful due to being level-based. For example, Entangling Roots lets one cast Entangle once per short or long rest, Fruit Bearing can be used to cast Goodberry once per long rest, Pack Tactics is the monster ability of the same name but has to be taken at 10th level, Strangle causes a target you grapple by 5 or more to begin suffocating although your speed is reduced to 0 and attacks against you have advantage, and Summon Allies lets one cast Conjure Animals once per long rest but they must be animals of your own species. Conjure Animals is a really good spell, and even with this limitation there are still a few good selections one can make with it depending on your species. It’s also not level-gated either. From these options alone we have quite a bit of talking animal (and plant) creatures we can reliably make as a PC. But even so we have some limitations due to the sake of relative balance. How about a python? Let’s be a Large sized Squamataforme for the grappling capabilities (they can range from 22 to 33 feet long, easily fit within that size category). While Grappler grants the feat of the same name, it’s not exactly a great feat as one of its abilities also makes you vulnerable, so instead for our Diverse Features we’ll take Vice-Grip (advantage on checks made to grapple) and Reaching Bite. This last one lets you grapple a target with your mouth, which is our primary attack, and our bite attack’s reach increases by 5 feet. This effectively turns our natural weapon into a polearm but with none of the downsides. If we reach 5th level we’ll have Strangle as an option, but there are some downsides: as there are quite a bit of enemies which don’t need to breathe and like Grappler it makes us more vulnerable to attacks, taking Hard Biter may be better as that one increases our bite by 1 die type: 1d6 to 2d6. Okay, how about something sillier, like an armadillo? As none of the forms map to the Xenarthra clade, rodentaformes is the closest. The climbing capabilities and being able to store objects in our mouths may not be things armadillos are known for, but we’ll take what we can get. We’ll take Tough Exterior which grants +1 AC and is considered natural armor, and follow that up with Swimmer for a 20 foot swim speed as armadillos can actually move quite well through water. But what if we wanted to further improve our natural defenses which armadillos are known for? At 5th level we can take Bony Exterior to increase that Natural Armor to make our AC 14 + Constitution modifier. Which on top of Tough Exterior (which isn’t a prerequisite) will be a total of 15 + CON. Awakened Characters provides us with 21 new Awakened animal NPCs along with backstories, stat blocks, and 1d10 Interesting Interactions tables to find interesting encounters and adventure hooks in get the PCs involved with their stories. I won’t go over every character, just some of the ones I find the most interesting.  B. Peabody Pete is the goodest of boys, a canine bard who developed an appreciation for a piano in the house of his married couple owners. After the husband left the piano sat silent, and when the wife hired some men to move it the dog leaped onto the seat and the piano began to play on its own. At this point the dog realized his barks turned into speech, scaring off the men. But B. Peabody Pete was happy, for he also had newly-found magic which he could use to play it just like his old master did. Clio was the tressym pet of a young wizard, given as a gift for him going off to college. A magical experiment gone awry caused Clio to become self-aware as a side effect, which she used to fly out the window for a new life. She was never really close with the wizard and now lives as an alley cat, performing heists and petty theft in exchange for food and safety. Although she puts on the demeanor of a hardened criminal, deep down she needs direction in her life and sometimes wonders if her master is still alive. Dragiri is a goat, and her now-dead companion was a halfling ranger who died at the hands of a red dragon. Whether by a desire to avenge her companion or some residual magical bond, she awakened and now has one goal: to find and kill the red dragon that took the life of the best friend she ever knew. But Dragiri isn’t some angsty anti-hero, but a genuinely good-aligned soul who is willing to protect innocents from danger.  Giselle was once the warhorse of a great paladin of Helm. She awakened with a sense of proud purpose and similar divine abilities as her master. The paladin disappeared during a journey to the lower planes, and while Giselle refuses to believe they’d depart without saying farewell she seeks to honor them by spreading Helm’s example and vanquishing evil. Unfortunately, Giselle embodies the arrogant stereotypes of holier-than-thou paladins, which many find obnoxious. Gizmo is a hamster who, against his better instincts, forages far from home, a seeming vision guiding him to a halfling playing an ocarina with a small audience of hamsters listening. The halfling had an adventure in mind for Gizmo, and being newly awakened they became fast friends. Now, Gizmo acts as a courier for the nomadic tribes around the desert he calls home, eager to have some task or important thing to do, as surely someone out there must require the skills of a being as small, fleet-footed, and brave as he! Hermione is a cow bard who saved herself and her sister from being led to the barn from which none of their kind returned. They ran deep into the woods, forced to travel to exhaustion as nowhere seemed safe in this new and frightening place. Seeking to calm her sister, something clicked in Hermione’s mind and she began to sing a soothing song, which also had an entrancing effect on the humans pursuing them and giving the pair time to escape. The cows came to live with a small settlement of elves, and to this day Hermione travels to find someone who can awaken her sister as well. She one day wishes to head back to her old farm and lead a glorious revolution in freeing the rest of the animals, but that is more a dream than a goal.  Maeja is a heron warlock whose children were kidnapped by the fairy queen. The queen also took her, awakening the bird so that she may serve as a trophy to parade around. The queen promised to keep her chicks safe as long as Maeja remains the fey’s loyal servant. Now the heron roams the wetlands, doing errands and tasks for the fairy queen, be it treasure-hunting for beautiful objects or making deals with other powerful beings on the queen’s behalf. Maeja’s ultimate goal is to break free of the fairy queen’s hold and rescue her family, wherever they are. Monty is a winged snake whose egg was taken by a criminal gang to sell. He hatched before this could happen, and the criminals soon realized that he was no ordinary snake and they sought to train and raise him for their own purposes. Monty’s awakening occurred the first time he questioned an order, remarking with “no, that sounds silly.” He’s still a valued asset to the gangsters in serving as a lookout, although he is growing tired of the gang’s unambitious reliance upon petty crime and survival. So the snake has been gathering information on shipments made at the docks to become a more powerful crime lord. The gang isn’t ready to accept him as their leader, so Monty’s doing what he can to inflame tensions so that he can rise in the ranks. Ol-grodan is an octopus warlock, awakening as he along with many other aquatic creatures fell off the back of some rising ancient creature. He swam away in fright, all the way to shore where to his horror he realized he was going to drown. A voice in Ol-grodan’s head offered him the ability to use his powers on land in exchange for some unnamed services, and he accepted. The octopus became a warlock, and he uses his magical abilities to sustain a floating orb of water which he uses to travel around on land. Ol-grodan has a massive ego, and doesn’t like being subservient to anyone else; one day he hopes to grow more powerful than the mysterious being who gave him his powers and take its place.  Teng is a pangolin who stumbled upon the ruins of an attacked caravan. Being a bit too close to a strange magical pillar travelers made pilgrimages to, Teng’s first higher thoughts were looking upon an abandoned sword and thinking “I want to learn how to use this.” Taking the blade, he tried to teach himself to wield it effectively, but when it became clear that was impossible he embarked on a quest to find a teacher who can turn him into the best warrior the world has ever seen. He joined a group of human pilgrims and trained under a swordmaster, and is now eager to prove himself in battle by hitching on with a group of adventurers willing to take him on.  Awakened Profiles is similar to the previous chapter, with 20 different names and descriptions of awakened NPCs. However their entries are shorter, being more or less descriptive text without stat blocks or sample plot tables. A few belong to species that can’t be made in the default rules, such as Rudiger B. Preston IV, an elderly rust monster sage who is questing for a lich’s ancient tome to prolong his short lifespan. Some of the more interesting characters are Brot the capybara,a hard-drinking warrior who seeks to prove people wrong in thinking she’s an adorable rodent by hunting dangerous villains and monsters. Civit Gnu the squirrel, who passed out drunk on spoiled mead in a temple to the Goddess of Healing and became an awakened cleric of the faith who mentors others and is known for making delicious mead, but whose recent protege went missing after a murder and journeyed off to clear his name. Eudie Yet the otter pirate, who commands a crew of 30 sailors whose home (and thus awakened) was due to a group of dark mages polluting the waters with magical experiments. She and her crew are now competing against the mages in finding a lost legendary treasure which if it falls into their hands will make the mages supreme rulers of the land. Poe Daisun the albino raccoon, born awakened due to an auspicious birth beneath the full moon. When she came of age she left home, using her magic to help people out in secret via small acts of kindness and charity. She recently learned that a group of poachers captured her family, and one of the elders was spared because his hide was too old to sell. Now she is on a single-minded mission to find the poachers and rescue her family. Tyron, a triceratops who traveled into the lands of humanoids to gain fame as a hero. His beloved, a triceratops named Vesha, was unimpressed and told him that goodness should be its own reward. He set off for adventure again, eager to promise her that he would do so but in fact was in love with her. After an unfortunate encounter with a witch, Tyron was cursed to never meet Vesha again until he grows to know himself. Now he roams the land to find a way to break the curse and defeat the witch for good. Overall Thoughts: While not exactly a large book, I was rather surprised by the brevity of the PC generation rules for Awakened species. The statted NPCs all have interesting backstories and are built to be interesting reliable companions and allies, but I felt that more space could’ve been given to expanding on options for origins and diverse features which I feel is the major reason why most would buy this book. While the options provided allow for a broad variety, as I’ve noted there are some creature concepts that don’t fit easily into what we’re given. Sometime last year I reviewed another sourcebook with a talking animal PC lineage: Blue Rose for 5th Edition. If I had to compare I’d say that rhydan are the more faithful in regards to lifting the natural capabilities of creature stat blocks, but at the expense of being able to play the more powerful options such as bears, crocodiles, and lions. There’s also the fact that some animals screw you over mechanically as options, particularly some of the CR 0 ones without any useful natural weapons or movement speeds. Awakened is tighter and more consistent in having a universal set of options to draw from, so you’re less likely to end up with wildly unbalanced options which would be a no-brainer to take like you would in Blue Rose. But even then, there are some origins which aren’t as appealing, particularly the aquatic types who can’t operate on land for long. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 23:17
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  Drive-Thru RPG Link. It's been a while since I wrote a 5e mini-game sourcebook, but I found a short and sweet one to cover. There’s quite a bit of weapons in 5th Edition, but in practical play most gamers stick to a few, with some being suboptimal choices clearly outclassed by others. The authors of Choose Your Weapon sought to remake how weapons work by tying them directly to a character’s martial skill. Dispensing with simple and martial weapon proficiencies, their damage is tied to a new mechanic known as an heroic damage die determined mainly by class. This damage die can be further altered by weapon properties, and unlike properties of the core rules the ones here are reflective more of a character’s particular fighting style rather than an innate quality of the weapon itself.  The Heroic Damage Die is determined by the class a PC selects at 1st level, ranging from 1d6 for primary spellcasters to 1d12 for the Fighter and Barbarian. Paladins and Rangers have a d10, and Bards and Rogues a d8. Monks are a special case, for they have an heroic damage die of d6 but they can use the die of their Martial Arts class feature for monk weapons if it’s a higher value. The heroic damage die can be further altered in a number of ways up or down the damage die ladder in a process known as steps. Generally speaking, qualities which can be advantageous to a weapon reduce its damage by 1 or 2 steps, but ones which impose some kind of hindrance can raise it by 1 or 2 steps. A PC’s innate heroic damage die increases by 1 step if they multiclass into a class with a higher value, and subclass features that can grant martial weapon proficiency can also improve it by 1 step (up to a maximum of d10 unless it’s already better). Races which grant martial weapon proficiencies don’t alter this, and Blade Pact Warlocks and Bladesinger Wizards use a d10 for their signature weapon but d6 for all others. In the Bladesinger’s case the final base damage should be d8 or less. There is a problem with the above graphic in that it is missing the d10 value, although the sample text more or less confirms that it’s nestled between the d8 and 1d12/2d6 steps: quote:As a Fighter, your weapon damage die with the hand crossbow is reduced from d12 to d10 (one-handed), then from d10 to d8 (light), and finally from d8 back up to d10 (loading). You deal d10 + your Dexterity bonus damage with your hand crossbow. Already we can find several interesting impacts on the base system: for one, this makes non-monk unarmed strikes a lot more potent, for even with negative ladder steps a Barbarian or Fighter can deal 1d8 or d10 damage with their bare fists, and even a quarterstaff can deal a mighty 1d12 or 2d6 damage in the hands of a Paladin or Ranger with the versatile property applied. As for the monk, they get the short end of the stick in that they won’t be dealing a lot of damage; I’ll get into it further, but with how Choose Your Weapon works they’ll be dealing 1d4 damage base at low levels unless they opt to go for two-handers, which don’t qualify as monk weapons. As for light and one-handed weapons? That’s going to be a measly 1 until their Martial Arts die grows to 1d8 and 1d10 at 11th and 17th levels. They aren’t going to be batting at the same level as even Rangers and Blade Pact Warlocks. It feels wrong for me that Fighters and Paladins can punch better than Monks, so I would apply a personal rule where Monk Weapons use a d10 for their Heroic Damage Die. As for multiclassing, Choose Your Weapon makes starting out as a martial class a better option, particularly for gish builds. As such things were heavily encouraged in basic D&D with armor proficiency, those Fighter/Wizard builds have all the more reason to take their 1st level in Fighter with Choose Your Weapon. An unarmed character or one who wishes to be a monk would do better in taking their first level in Barbarian, Fighter, or a martial subclass such as Valor Bard. When players or DMs make a new weapon under these rules, it is known as a Template. They are character-specific means of wielding a weapon: for example, a mighty-thewed barbarian may wield a greatsword with wild, powerful blows and even throw it a respectable distance. They may deal 1d16/2d8 damage to reflect their inaccurate yet deadly fighting style: a base damage of 1d12/2d6, modified by two-handed for 0 steps, heavy +2 steps, and thrown 30/120 feet -1 step. Meanwhile a Pact of the Blade Warlock may use their innate magical abilities to fight with more precise strikes and keep their opponents at a distance. They may technically have the same weapon but deal 1d8 damage: a base damage of 1d10, modified by two-handed 0 steps, and with the reach property -1 step. PCs create new personal templates as they wield or acquire different weapons in play, and for DMs which desire added verisimilitude can use an optional training rule. In this case, PCs are treated as untrained with new weapons and have disadvantage on attack rolls until they spend downtime becoming proficient with them as per rules in the Dungeon Master’s Guide or Xanathar’s.  Properties for weapons both new and existing are outlined, along with how they may alter steps on the die ladder. One-handed weapons reduce damage by 1 step, and two-handed weapons leave it unaltered. Ranged and thrown weapons don’t alter the damage die at the lowest levels (ammunition 30/120 feet, thrown 20/60 feet), although higher ranges can reduce the die by 1 or 2 steps and in the case of ammunition weapons they cannot be one-handed. Heavy weapons are altered in this system: instead of being wielded only by Medium and larger races, they impose disadvantage on attack rolls but increase the damage die by 2 steps and can only be applied to two-handed weapons. One-handed weapons with the Versatile property increase the damage die by 1 step when wielded in 2 hands, which given that one-handed imposes a 1 step penalty this more or less negates it. The lance property (which works like a lance but without reach by default) adds 2 steps, putting it up there with Heavy. As for the double property, it is -2 steps and both ends of the weapon are used to attack: it is a two-handed weapon by default, but for two-weapon fighting both ends are created as 2 one-handed light weapons. For those with the Dual Wielder feat, an attack made with an action or reaction deals -1 step and an attack made with a bonus action -2 steps. In regards to 2-weapon fighting, a reading of this sounds like the weapon could have a total of -4 steps (-2 by default, -2 for turning the two-handed weapon into one-handed light weapons), which can be really punishing. Even a d12/2d6 PC will be reduced to 1 on the damage die ladder this way. As for Reach (-1 step), it is the same as in the PHB save with the caveat that Small or Tiny PCs can’t apply it unless they also apply the Heavy property, which has the effect of making gnomes and halflings rather inaccurate with whips. For very big monsters, there are Oversized and Massive properties, wielded by creatures 1 or 2 size categories larger than the PC. Oversized is like the heavy property but none of the upsides, while massive cannot be wielded at all. Neither property can be chosen for weapons at character creation. We also get a new sub-system for Entangling weapons, which don’t damage but restrain a target and use their own properties instead. Generally speaking, the only real properties are range and have their own prerequisites: melee the weapon cannot have the finesse, lance, or versatile properties, ammunition 30/120 feet requires the weapon to have the loading property, thrown 5/15 feet must be a one-handed weapon without the finesse property, and thrown 10/30 feet is only for two-handed weapons. In each case a target is restrained on a successful hit, and can only be used on Large or smaller creatures that aren’t formless (Oversized and Massive can be used against Huge creatures). A weapon can have the Dual property where it can deal damage instead of entangling at -1 step with its own properties, but in such a case both versions are built with properties as close as possible. The barbed property deals damage to a restrained target equal to the heroic damage die -2 steps at the beginning of each of their turns. Characters going for pure damage have the ability to really crank up values. A weapon with the Heavy and Lance properties can go up a whopping 4 steps, but as the damage die ladder tops out at 1d20/2d10 it is redundant to have more than 2 or 3 steps for martially-inclined PCs. As for ranged weapons, the only property that can increase damage is Loading, and only by 1 step which is perhaps for the best given how useful ranged attacks are in comparison to melee. We also get a table of Standard Weapon Templates showing how virtually every PHB weapon (plus a few new ones) can be built in this system. The notable additions include various polearms sized for Medium and Small characters, while weapons that would ordinarily be Heavy in the PHB such as greatswords and mauls lack this property. Generally speaking, the d12 and d10 classes do overall more damage with non-two handed weapons which would be Simple, but more or less the same values for martial properties. The d6 classes do less across the board, and in cases where it’s -2 steps (mostly in the case of one-handed weapons with the light property) deal a measly 1 damage! To showcase how this system can be used to make entirely new weapons, we have stats for a yklwa, a one-handed weapon with the 20/60 thrown weapon for a total of -1 step. We also see the return of the two-bladed sword, listed as a Double Sword which is a two-handed melee weapon with the Double property. I did spot a few errors: the whip has the one-handed and reach properties which would reduce it by 2 steps, but in the table only reduces by 1 step. The shortbow, light crossbow, and heavy crossbow list ammunition at 90/350 when the latter category should be 340. As for the Double Sword it lists -2 steps, although given the problems I saw in that property above there isn’t an easy way to put it in a table. Special Cases cover clarifications to the rest of the rules in using this new system. For one, natural weapons from a race’s innate features that don’t have special effects use the Choose Your Weapon rules, with some general guidelines like determining whether it’s one-handed or two based on how many hands are free when the attack is made. For weapons acquired through class features or a racial ability with secondary effects (like secondary damage from forced movement), the damage die of the default ability is used. For monks, any weapon that doesn’t have the two-handed, heavy, and oversized properties counts as a monk weapon, and uses the higher value of either their Martial Arts or Heroic Damage Die when making attacks with monk weapons. Enemies explains that in most cases the Choose Your Weapon rules shouldn’t apply to NPCs and monsters. Not only does it heft a lot more work on the Dungeon Master, the damage output of enemies are often already balanced with their default features. But for DMs who wish to make their stat blocks from scratch, the book gives six sample roles and their appropriate damage die: for example, Controllers focus less on direct damage and so have a d6, while Brutes tend to be physical melee types at d10. The Skirmisher has the highest at d12, being glass cannons that strike fast and hard. Overall Thoughts: From a broad perspective, Choose Your Weapon applies a net increase to non-monk martial classes and frees up characters to reflavor weapons as they desire without being forced into suboptimal choices (“but I really like flails!”). On the other hand, it has several side effects as a result of implementation, like all but requiring spellcasters to make use of cantrips or heavier weapons to deal respectable damage. For example, Clerics are now on par with Sorcerers and Wizards when wielding longswords (1d4 damage), and two-weapon fighting Rogues need to rely even more on poison and Sneak Attack for damage (1d8 -2 steps for light and one-handed weapon properties is 1d4). Due to this, the book’s reception among gaming tables will differ depending on what classes are being used by players: martial characters, particularly pure martials like the Barbarian and Fighter will love it, as will some gish builds like the Valor Bard, Bladesinger Wizard, and Pact of the Blade Warlock. But Monks, Rogues, and War Domain Clerics may not be as fond of the damage die drops for their one-handed and non-loading ranged weapons.
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Nov 20, 2022 23:55
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 It’s been over a decade since the last Dragonlance gaming book was published. On the tabletop front we had Dragons of Spring in 2008, while for novels we saw the revised version of the Dragonlance Trilogy in 2011. After that was an utter dearth of content, resulting in many branding Dragonlance a dead setting. After a long wait we saw the rebirth for a new era in 2022, with the Shadow of the Dragon Queen as an adventure and Dragons of Deceit as a Weis & Hickman novel. In a way it’s understandable that Wizards neglected Dragonlance for so long. Even discounting their whole lawsuit with Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, it’s been a rather divisive setting among D&D fans in a way that many other settings are not. And even among fans there’s been a lot of concern over whether or not a revamped Dragonlance will manage to keep the spirit of the setting for any number of reasons. But overall, I’m happy to see Dragonlance getting revived, and while it does have its problems they certainly aren’t insurmountable in making good stories from it. There’s a reason it ushered in entire generations of fans from outside the tabletop hobby over several decades. Its themes of how love can bloom on the battlefield, the prominence of dragons in the world beyond just hoarders of treasure, the romantic imagery of lance-wielding knights riding upon such mighty serpents, and being the trendsetter of many D&D tropes we take for granted all cemented Dragonlance’s place as a unique setting to stand on its own.  War Comes to Krynn Shadow of the Dragon Queen, in line with 5th Edition’s method of operation, is primarily an adventure sourcebook but includes a good helping of setting content. But on the setting front it’s not as comprehensive as prior edition sourcebooks or what was done with Eberron: Rising From the Last War. Shadow is at once broad in scope when talking about the world and its history, but rarely going farther or more in-depth when it comes to certain eras, regions, and places. Unlike Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, a large portion of Krynnish canon is kept intact, with perhaps the most notable changes being the removal of gully dwarves and making it so that Goldmoon is not the first non-evil post-Cataclysm divine spellcaster. This first section isn’t so much a “chapter” as a broad strokes coverage of the setting, beginning with an in-character letter from a Solamnic knight to the city of Maelgoth warning of a growing army of monsters and dragons in the east bound for Kalaman. What follows is an abbreviated overview of Krynn’s history, which is more or less left intact for those worrying about WotC blowing it to smithereens. Focus is placed on specific events from the four Ages: gods create the world from primordial chaos, the famous knight Huma Dragonbane wields the first Dragonlance to banish the evil goddess Takhisis from Krynn, the dragons retreat from the world as the theocratic Empire of Istar rises in power, Istar falls after its society grows zealous and intolerant and the Kingpriest seeks godhood for himself, the gods give many signs and take away their clerics before throwing a massive meteor at Istar, the Cataclysm marks three hundred years of the Age of Despair- -hold on a minute! So for those unfamiliar, the Cataclysm is one of the most controversial elements of Dragonlance. While it is an ode to old religious tales of God/the gods destroying the world in anger, such tales are reasonably dated given that killing millions of innocent people is recognized by right-thinking folks as one of the worst crimes of humanity. Given WotC’s more socially progressive ethos and revising setting lore in line with this, I am a bit surprised that they kept it in. Even Wesley Schneider acknowledges in this video that the gods of Krynn did a horrible thing, and they spent a lot of time thinking and talking about the implications it raised for the story. So their answer was that the gods didn’t hedge all of their bets in entrusting Lord Soth with stopping the Kingpriest’s mad crusade before bringing about the apocalypse as their Plan B. Instead they had several trusted agents, but they all failed so they resorted to dropping the Divine Hammer on Istar and plunging Ansalon into an Age of Despair before turning away from the world. The Cataclysm remains as the mark the world changed forever, turning Dragonlance into a technically post-apocalyptic setting. The architectural marvels, magical wonders, and lore of the Age of Might became lost to most, and even those who rebuilded are but shadows of what once was. Takhisis, the Dragon Queen who is known on other worlds as Tiamat,* knew that Krynn was under a cosmic power vacuum, so she plotted her return by transporting the Kingpriest’s ruined Temple of Istar into the Taman Busuk mountain range. She called on the evil dragons to come out of hiding, stealing the good dragon eggs to turn them into draconians while also blackmailing their parents from involving themselves in the upcoming war. The Dragon Armies gradually grew into an unrivaled international superpower, five military dictatorships empowered by the might of dragons and divine magic to conquer all of Eastern Ansalon. *Her traditional title of the Dark Queen has been excised from this version of Dragonlance, and Wizards made it canon that she and Tiamat from other settings are one and the same.  Life on Ansalon covers several setting elements useful to all characters. The languages of Ansalon are grouped into Standard and Rare categories and include much of the pre-5e languages, although Camptalk (mercenary/military jargon) and Gullytalk (gully dwarves) have been removed. Most standard languages are variant regional dialects such as Abanasinian, Ergot, and Solamnic plus the Common/Dwarvish/Elvish/Gnome/Kenderspeak, while rare languages cover Draconic/Primordial/Sylvan and most eastern Ansalonian tongues like Kothian (minotaurs) and Nerakese. Ansalon’s calendar system is the same as ours, although we only cover the Solamnic calendar’s names for days and months. There is one important change from prior editions: steel pieces are no longer the economic standard! Or rather, there are still bronze and steel pieces in circulation but they have the same value respectively as silver and gold pieces. The book explains this as post-Cataclysm times forced people back to the bare necessities by skyrocketing steel’s value, but over time it went back to pre-Cataclysm standards. I’m not sure I’m buying this; steel coins are highly impractical when gold would be preferred, which was probably what led to this change. The book even acknowledges the difficulty in forging steel, so making them into coins and not tools is still a waste when softer and equally precious metals can be used. Rumors of War covers things that PCs and the general population would know or have heard about the Dragon Armies. Most people in western Ansalon aren’t fully aware of their existence; it’s known that the nation of Khur has fallen into civil war and that various warlords are rising in prominence in the mountains of central Ansalon (Dragon Army HQ). There are rumors of said warlords using dragons in battle, but those are considered exaggerated “kender tales.” Again, while this is in line with the original Chronicles of the Dragon Army as an unknown force that seemingly comes out of nowhere, the Heroes of the Lance were in a remote corner of the continent in the beginning of the tale. This adventure takes place in Kalaman on 351 AC, the easternmost city in Solamnia and a short travel away from Nordmaar. Three years ago Nordmaar was swiftly conquered by the Red Dragon Army, and Kalaman and the surrounding lands are no strangers to travelers and merchants from farther away. Nordmaar isn’t some reclusive country of insurmountable terrain, it has several cities and long had positive ties with Solamnia. By this time it would be public knowledge in eastern Solamnia that Nordmaar is under new administration, not to mention the forced displacement of people fleeing war. Kalaman Region covers the province of Nightland, a Solamnic territory so named for frequent storms which are attributed to the wrath of the gods who left the world. The Knights of Solamnia are held in low esteem, as vague knowledge of Lord Soth’s failure turned into the broader claim that the Knights could have prevented the Cataclysm but chose not to, causing most of the populace to turn against them. Now most of Solamnia is a patchwork confederation of autonomous territories with different styles of government; in Kalaman’s case its government is presided over by trade guilds due to being a valued port city. Religion and the Gods gives a rundown of Dragonlance’s deities. They are separated into three pantheons associated with each moral alignment. I covered the gods before in an earlier Let’s Read so no need to go over them again, but I can focus on what’s changed. Details on individual deities are sparse, amounting to a sentence or two per god. Branchala is no longer chaotic good, instead neutral good, which means that there are no more chaotic good gods in the setting, whereas Mishakal changed from neutral good to lawful good. Each of the Gods of Neutrality are True Neutral in alignment: Shinare and Sirrion were formerly lawful and chaotic neutral respectively. As for the gods of evil only Chemosh has changed, from neutral to lawful evil. But the other big change, and one that rubbed quite a few fans the wrong way, is that Goldmoon’s discovery of the Disks of Mishakal isn’t the first instance of non-evil clerics coming back into Ansalon. The Gods of Good and Neutrality are playing a bit of a slow head start: while divine magic* is still largely unknown on Krynn (the Dragon Armies excepting), there are a few mortals who witnessed and received miraculous visions. Unlike the Mages of High Sorcery, divine spellcasting is a personal affair of a relationship between a deity and the cleric/druid/paladin. In fact, the vast majority don’t have other priests to train and inform them, nor congregations to build their numbers, so they’re pretty much religious in isolation. *There are many religious movements that arose after the Cataclysm, such as the Seekers of Abanasinia. Most who claim magical miracles are charlatans using arcane magic. quote:It’s easy to blame the gods for the Cataclysm. They sent the Thirteen Warnings and the burning mountain that followed. They sank Istar beneath the waves, shattered the continent, and withdrew from the world. They chose to cause the immense suffering of the disaster and the centuries since. Another portion of the text acknowledges the gods’ atrocities, but doesn’t have an answer and falls back into the “well it’s really our fault this happened” line that has been traditional for the setting.  Chapter 1: Character Creation This chapter covers what an enterprising player needs to know in creating their Krynnish PC. Peoples of Krynn covers the major races and their cultures. Although each of them save Kender draw upon existing racial stats in the PHB or Monsters of the Multiverse, ability score modifiers can be chosen by the player as +2 to one score and +1 to another or +1 to 3 different scores. Dwarves once claimed an extensive subterranean network of kingdoms beneath Ansalon, but the Cataclysm rendered most of them uninhabitable. Now dwarves are split into three groups, the mountain dwarven nations of Kayolin and Thorbadin, and the Neidar hill dwarves who lived above-ground and were denied entry into Thorbadin as refugees during the Cataclysm. The ensuing Dwarfgate Wars engendered a long-standing hatred between Thorbadin and Neidar dwarves that lasts to this day. Now, you might notice that some subraces are missing, most notably the gully dwarf! In addition to the Cataclysm and its moral system, one of Dragonlance’s other controversial elements is its three short comic relief races. While gnomes and kender still exist as playable options, the gully dwarves were perhaps the most problematic and least fixable. So WotC simply did away with them, with hill dwarves capable of filling a similar role where some are reclusive survivalists forced to live off of harsh lands. There’s also no mention of the dark dwarven clans of Thorbadin or the nation of Zhakar. Being one of the oldest surviving civilizations on Ansalon, the elves traditionally lived apart from the other races in the forests and seas. The Silvanesti are the oldest clan, with their Qualinesti cousins those who moved away in seeking a more egalitarian society after the Kinslayer War. They both use stats for high elves, and the Silvanesti became refugees once their leader resorted to using an Orb of Dragonkind* to protect his people from the invading Green Dragonarmy. Now their forest is an uninhabitable nightmare, and they are forced to take refuge in Southern Ergoth. *Another retcon. They were originally the Dragon Orbs and occupied a similar role as Orbs of Dragonkind, but with expanded powers. The Kagonesti use the stats of wood elves, being a group who sought to live as nomads and didn’t settle in Silvanesti instead opting for Ergoth’s forests. They welcomed the Silvanesti refugees and supported them, but “refuse to be overwhelmed by the Silveanesti’s numbers and distinct ways.” This is another change from canon; in the original Dragonlance Chronicles, both the Qualinesti and Silvanesti enslaved the Kagonesti to use as an exploitable labor force. And they were still good-aligned while doing so! WotC rightfully retconned this. The last group are the Sea Elves, made up of the Dargonesti who live in the deep sections of ocean and the Dimernesti who live closer to land and coastal shores. They are more isolated than their land-dwelling cousins, and use Sea Elf stats from Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse. Gnomes still exist, with rock gnomes renamed tinker gnomes and forest gnomes getting a mere two-sentence description of living in harmony with nature in Sancrist and Kendermore. Tinker gnomes primarily live on Mount Nevermind on the island of Sancrist, famed for their inventions far beyond Ansalon’s medieval technology level. Tinker gnomes still maintain their comic relief aspects, being absent-minded professors whose inventions are of questionable reliability. Humans are the most numerous race on Ansalon, split into many different groups, and there’s no more distinction between “civilized” and nomadic humans. We have brief write-ups on Abanasinia (settlers who are part of the theocratic Seeker religion and nomadic Plainsfolk), Northern and Southern Ergoth (the remnants of a prior empire who have good relations with the kender of Hylo and goblins in the North, and are in conflict with the ogres and giants of the South), Solamnia (inwards-focused autonomous provinces that are collectively the most prosperous society on the continent), and Tarsis (struggling former port city turned landlocked backwater). Other lands are briefly touched on, mostly in Dragon Army territory and amount to little more than individual sentences that don’t tell us much about the lands beyond broad geography.  We lost the gully dwarves, but the Kender still persist with a unique entry all their own! Due to their infamy they need no introduction. They’re still humanoids with an unquenchable curiosity and fearlessness, although their notable habit of “borrowing” has instead been pseudo-retconned into amassing impressive collections of various curiosities. As a race they are Small humanoids with a 30 foot walking speed, and gain proficiency with one of five rogueish skills of their choice: insight, investigation, sleight of hand, stealth, or survival. Their famed fearlessness is a nerfed advantage on saves vs the frightened condition rather than outright immunity like in prior Editions, although once every long rest they can choose to auto-succeed on such a saving throw. Finally their Taunt feature is activated as a bonus action against a nearby creature, who if they fail a Wisdom save have disadvantage on attack rolls against targets besides the taunting kender until the start of the kender’s next turn. The taunt is of limited use based on their proficiency bonus times per long rest, and its DC is based on one mental ability score of the kender’s choice at character creation. If I had to judge kender as a race they’re average, as overall their abilities don’t strongly push them to any particular role. Their skill bonuses would make them good rogues, but their lack of darkvision limits their capabilities for sneaking around in dungeons and dark places. Taunt can make them a surprisingly effective tank in drawing away enemy attention, although in being small they aren’t the kind of builds that gravitate towards heavy armor which tend to be on the martial side of things. In comparison to halflings they aren’t as good scouts: Lucky is overall useful, and Silent Speech or Naturally Stealthy of the subraces are good for sneaky pursuits. But what of other races not listed here, like a half-orc or warforged? Well the default assumption is that such people are extraplanar travelers or existed as pre-Cataclysm civilizations that are now isolated enclaves. In other words, it leaves that to the Dungeon Master’s discretion. Sadly, there’s no mention for Dragonlance’s other canonical playable races such as centaurs, minotaurs, and ogres. Draconians at this point are the enemy and not a playable option. Dragonlance has quite the number of iconic Organizations, most notably the honorable Knights of Solamnia and the Mages of High Sorcery. Wait a moment, did they use to be Wizards of High Sorcery? You guessed right, dear reader! You see, when Dragonlance was first made, it was as much a deconstruction of 1st Edition and the kind of world that the rules would make as it was a more epic “save the world” fantasy. Vancian spellcasting was a phenomena known as the Curse of the Magi, and the nine alignments which were new at the time made Good vs Evil prominent over Law vs Chaos. Every time a new Edition (or SAGA) came out, the world of Krynn was gradually updated with such changes. But Shadow of the Dragon Queen is set firmly in the original Chronicles era, but still wants the full variety of class options. Arcane spellcasting is still a unique kind of magic which can be channeled through the three moons, but there exist spellcasters who gain their powers from innate heritage as well as pacts made with…well, I presume creatures that aren’t gods, otherwise warlocks would be divine casters. The book doesn’t really elaborate on the place non-wizard arcanists have in the world. The Mages of High Sorcery reflects this change, although their number is still made up mostly of wizards as that kind of spellcasting is most conducive to shared resources via spellbooks. Otherwise they exist more or less the same as they did in prior Editions: a governing body regulating arcane spellcasters across Ansalon divided into three Orders pledged to a different God of Magic. The Test of High Sorcery is still performed, although there’s no hard and fast cutoff point of “once you learn 3rd level spells you have to take the Test or become a renegade” like in prior Editions. Instead, it’s a more relative line when a caster approaches a notable level of power that they’re no longer deemed a dabbler of magic in the eyes of the Orders. As for the Knights of Solamnia, their origins lie with Solamnia itself, where the founder Vinas Solamnus joined a rebellion in the eastern provinces of the Empire of Ergoth when he came to sympathize with their grievances. Three Gods of Good, Paladin, Kiri-Jolith, and Habbakuk created three orders of knights to justly rule and protect the realm of Solamnia. Before the Cataclysm they were a respected order by the goodly peoples of Ansalon, although they became vilified in their own lands and overthrown in being blamed for not stopping the gods’ wrath. Now most Knights fled to Sancrist Isle where they rule openly as a dwindling organization, and elsewhere in Krynn disguise themselves to continue doing good work. A major issue facing the knighthood is whether or not to cling to their old codes in the face of changing times, or adapt to a new world in order to better protect it. Feats provide us with 2 new backgrounds, 9 new feats for a Dragonlance campaign, as well as a new rule for bonus feats. At 1st level a PC gains a bonus feat, which is either the Squire of Solamnia if part of the Knights of Solamnia background, Initiate of High Sorcery if part of the Mage of High Sorcery background, or their choice of the Skilled or Tough feat if the PC belongs to neither group. At 4th level they gain another bonus feat, being their choice of one from the 1st level list, Adept of the Black/Red/White Robes if a Mage, Knight of the Crown/Rose/Sword if a Knight, or Alert/Divinely Favored/Mobile/Sentinel/War Caster if belonging to neither organization. The rationale for these bonus feats is that Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a harder than normal adventure, so bonus feats help give an extra edge to characters.  The Knight of Solamnia background is a pretty good one: it grants Athletics and Survival as bonus skills, 2 bonus languages of the player’s choice, and the Squire of Solamnia as a bonus feat. It oddly doesn’t provide tables for Personality Traits (neither does Mage of High Sorcery), instead only having a d6 table of trinkets and suggestions for appropriate classes. In prior Editions the Knights of Solamnia weren’t really known for their magic, with spellcasters mostly fighter/clerics with the return of the gods if Knights of the Sword or Rose, and paladins weren’t a playable class in 1st through 3rd Edition. But in Shadow of the Dragon Queen fighters, clerics, and paladins make up the bulk of their forces. Valor bards and zealot path barbarians who worship Habbakuk are suggested as more unusual options. The Mage of High Sorcery background reflects a character who isn’t a full member but is already fastening ties with one of the Orders of High Sorcery. They gain Arcana and History as bonus skills along with 2 languages of the player’s choice along with the Initiate of High Sorcery feat. They are typically arcane spellcasters from a wide variety of classes and walks of life, although the Orders have been known to recruit divine spellcasters if they’re considered promising enough individuals. Gish style classes and characters are rare but not unknown. As for the new feats, Divinely Favored has a prerequisite of 4th level and represents a god choosing the PC to have some of their power, granting one cleric cantrip and one 1st level spell of the player’s choice along with Augury. The 1st level spell is pulled from the warlock, cleric, or druid spell list depending on the deity’s alignment and it and augury can be cast once per long rest without a spell slot. It also lets the PC use a holy symbol as a casting focus, so you can definitely have a “Wizard-priest” of Gilean reflavored as a faithful seeker of knowledge. Overall it’s an alright feat; it’s nothing exceptional or a no-brainer for broad roles, but as it can be gained for free it’s not such a bad choice. Initiate of High Sorcery grants a bonus wizard cantrip and two 1st level spells based on an affiliated moon. Unlike Divinely Favored the bonus spells are not gate kept behind alignment, nor are the Adept Robe feats, so technically within the rules you can be an good-aligned Adept of the Red Robes or an evil-aligned Initiate choosing bonus spells from Solinari. The bonus spells can be cast from spell slots or once per long rest each if of a class without spellcasting. As for the particular spells, Lunitari’s selection isn’t that impressive with some spells that may be useful in only a few situations, but Solinari takes the cake with shield being one of the options among some utility divinations. Nuitari grants more offensive spells with false life and hex as the standouts. The moon you choose for Initiate also locks you into one of the three 4th level Adept feats from then on out. Each feat grants a 2nd level spell from one of the Order’s two favored schools (Abjuration & Divination for White, Illusion & Transmutation for Red, Enchantment & Necromancy for Black) along with a unique ability. Black Robe Adepts can spend their own Hit Dice to add to the damage of damaging spells, which makes this a great choice for gish builds. I smell some Barbarian/Wizards in the future! Black Robe Adepts can treat an attack or ability roll of 9 or lower on a d20 as a 10 a number of times per long rest equal to their proficiency bonus, which leaves me rather mum. Can be useful, but not a life-saver unless you’re already rolling with something you have a large modifier for. White Robe Adepts can spend a reaction to protect themselves or a nearby creature within 30 feet, reducing oncoming damage by xd6 + spellcasting ability modifier, with x being the level of an expended spell slot. Much like Shield, this can be a useful ability to save a party member from the brink of death. Moving on to the knightly feats, Squire of Solamnia provides 2 unique features: mounting or dismounting costs only 5 feet of movement rather than half, and a number of times per long rest equal to their proficiency bonus (use is expended only on a hit) can make a weapon attack have advantage and add 1d8 to the damage roll. Pretty useful, especially given it doesn’t cost you on a failed attack. The 3 Order-based knightly feats differ from High Sorcery in that they don’t lock each other out. While it’s traditional for Knights to join the orders in sequence of Crown-Sword-Rose, they retain the training they had in a prior order and mechanically there’s nothing saying that the Knight of the Crown feat is a prerequisite for Sword, or Sword a prerequisite for Rose. Each feat grants a +1 to one of 3 ability scores appropriate to the Order plus a special ability that can be used a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus per long rest. Crown gets a Commanding Rally activated as a bonus action to have an ally attack as a reaction and add 1d8 to the damage roll; Rose gets a Bolstering Rally activated as a bonus action to have an ally gain temporary hit points equal to 1d8 + proficiency bonus + ability modifier of the ability score increased with the feat; Sword grants a Demoralizing Strike which once per turn can be added to a successful weapon attack roll that imposes the frightened condition on a failed Wisdom save. Even on a successful save the target has disadvantage on its next attack roll. Thematically speaking, Commanding Rally feels odd for Crown name-wise as the Knights of the Rose are the archetypical “leader knights.” Rose’s Bolstering Rally feels more appropriate for Crown or Sword, as those Order’s themes (loyalty and endurance for Crown, courage for Sword) best represent the increased staying power of temporary hit points. But in terms of mechanical effectiveness, Crown’s Commanding Rally is very useful as most martial classes don’t make use of reactions and this is a good way to give them an additional attack. And in regards to Rogues it can be a means to get Sneak Attack more than once per round as Sneak Attack is restricted to once per turn, not once per round. Demoralizing Strike is perhaps the least broadly useful as there are many creatures who can resist or be immune to the Frightened condition.  The Lunar Sorcery Subclass rounds out our new options in Chapter 1, representing sorcerers who draw magical power from the moon or moons of the setting. It even mentions adapting it to other worlds, such as people blessed by Selune in the Forgotten Realms or those using knowledge of the Draconic Prophecy to draw power from Eberron’s 12 moons. Each of this subclass’ features has a variable effect depending on whether they are manifesting the power of the New Moon, Crescent Moon, or Full Moon. This is determined not by the phases of the moon as they are, but chosen by the sorcerer after finishing a long rest. They learn new bonus spells at every odd-numbered level up to 9th, with their own table based on moon phase which switches out said spell. Full Moon spells are geared towards protection and restoration, New Moon towards debuffs, and Crescent to illusions of various kinds. Additionally at 1st level the sorcerer learns sacred flame and can target up to 2 targets within 5 feet if they wish when casting this cantrip. At 6th level they can reduce the sorcery point of a metamagic feature by 1 to a minimum of 0 based on their moon phase a number of times per long rest equal to their proficiency bonus: abjuration and divination spells for Full, enchantment and necromancy for New, and illusion and transmutation for Crescent. Also at 6th level they can spend 1 sorcery point to change their personal phase and cast a 1st level bonus phase spell once without a spell slot once per long rest. At 14th level they gain a persistent buff depending on their phase: shedding bright light granting advantage in Investigation and Perception in Full, advantage on Stealth and impose disadvantage on attacks while in total darkness with New, and resistance to necrotic and radiant damage with Crescent. Finally at 18th level they can spend a bonus action to use a special ability based on their phase: a blinding AoE attack and healing one target 3d8 hit points with Full, dealing 3d10 necrotic damage and reducing speed to 0 as an AoE with New plus becoming temporarily invisible, or teleporting yourself plus one willing creature up to 60 feet and both gaining resistance to damage until start of next turn with Crescent. These can be used once per long rest, with 5 sorcery points for every additional time between long rests. Overall Lunar Sorcery is a strong subclass, although its varied phases have clear winners and losers. The bonus spells from Crescent are situational, with Full Moon having spells that are of broader use to a wider variety of builds and campaigns. New has the nifty blindness/deafness spell but as most of the other spells are Concentration you can’t make full use of them all in many fights. As for Lunar Empowerment, New Moon is a clear winner. At this level it shouldn’t be hard to create conditions of darkness, and disadvantage on attack rolls against you is more useful than resistance to two uncommon damage types. The small aura of light from Full is the worst of the lot. For 18th level the AoE blinding light of Full is pretty good given that’s a powerful condition and most creatures rely upon sight. Crescent’s teleport is basically a longer-range Misty Step with damage resistance and feels a bit underwhelming. Thoughts So Far: The player and setting-facing section of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a good yet brief rundown on the world of Krynn for newcomers. As far as retconning elements, it leans towards a more conservative end in comparison to Ravenloft’s more dramatic changes. Much of the changes are done for both progressive sensibilities (which is good!) and also for more freedom of option in character-building (a more acquired taste that may not always make thematic sense). At times it feels that the authors are trying to walk a tightrope in pleasing both sides: kender are left pretty much unchanged save for ridding their “borrowing” aspect, and the Cataclysm still casts a dark shadow on the supposed non-evil gods. Steel pieces don’t make economic sense so gold is now the standard…but steel pieces are still just as valuable. As for the Knights of Solamnia and Mages of High Sorcery, I feel that the openness in character creation is more a weakness than a strength. It certainly stands in contrast to the more restricted racial options, once again feeling like the authors are walking a tightrope than committing to a consistent strong vision. In the adventure it is possible for PC mages to end up in an Order they didn’t expect, and with their feat options may not necessarily be in an Order aligned with their lunar deity. The Lunar Sorcerer feels too broad in having a multitude of varyingly-balanced options at the expense of more tightly-focused options in other subclasses. The Knight of Solamnia feats stand out as appealing choices, and the idea of free bonus feats is already a popular house rule. Making the bonus feats ones that don’t grant Ability Score Increases or no-brainer options like Great Weapon Master or Lucky are also elements of good design. Save perhaps for War Caster, which is really good for just about any gish build or clerics who like shields. Join us next time as we begin the adventure with Chapter 2: Prelude to War and Chapter 3: When Home Burns!
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Dec 1, 2022 12:09
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 Before I continue, my last post received some good-faith criticism from dave2008, a poster on one of the forums I placed this review. They’re definitely worth covering so I’m including the quote as well as my own explanation and likely errors on my end: quote:@Libertad , I always enjoy your reviews and I am sure I will this one. However, I had to stop and ask when I got to this: It’s true that Shadow of the Dragon Queen doesn’t explicitly call out Goldmoon by name or mention who was the “first cleric.” In War Cromes to Krynn, the section on Religion and the Gods can be plausibly read a certain way to imply that divine casting isn’t “just returning” but has been around in bits and pieces: quote:The gods of Krynn are said to have abandoned the world, and in the great cities of Ansalon, temples and centers of faith are few. Nevertheless, small miracles occur across the world. Druids and hidden communities offer prayers in the old ways and employ mysterious magic. Long-lived peoples remember the worship of the gods and see their shapes in nature and the constellations above. Ancient, forgotten sanctuaries hold wonders beyond imagination, and divine whispers reach those with the minds and hearts to listen. The gods haven’t wholly abandoned Krynn, and as threats grow, mortals turn to them once more—sometimes after a remarkable encounter with a messenger of the gods. Additionally as I will cover in the adventure itself, divine magic PCs don’t begin play with their spells but “awaken” to them in a religious epiphany. But as Shadow of the Dragon Queen takes place in the vague time of 351 AC where Verminaard is down in Abanasinia, the mention of druids and hidden communities implies a longer-lasting presence than the literal days after Goldmoon’s epiphany where more people become divine spellcasters after hearing about her example. The book is more vague than explicit on this count like other things, so that’s why my initial reading was that divine magic preceded Goldmoon in the 5e version. quote:I also want to point out this is a bit misleading statement as well: The Tiamat/Takhisis link was something that Margaret Weis didn’t care for, and several sourcebooks often maintained a separation of Dragonlance’s cosmology from D&D. This was particularly so during the 3rd Edition line, where Cam Banks said in a forum post that the Abyss of Krynn wasn’t the Abyss of the Great Wheel. As the end of the War of Souls novels had Takhisis die, which were published during the 3.5 era and Krynn’s Age of Mortals made this canon in their own products, having Tiamat still be alive in other settings was used as a rationale for the separation. Naturally, the explicit references to five-headed dragons and Paladine’s association with platinum are a clear call to Bahamut and Tiamat of typical D&D cosmology. So TSR, WotC, and Jeff Grubb making the link explicit is an understandable one. I went with the Dragonlance conception by Weis and Hickman in being the foremost authorities on the setting, and as Weis was the publisher for the 3e line of products and had a hand in writing a few of them I went with that designation. Even so, Jeff Grubb also contributed greatly to the evolution of Dragonlance, so I was wrong on this account being a new thing. Now on with the review!  Chapter 2: Prelude to War The original Dragons of Despair module began with a party split, where PCs ventured to the village of Solace in smaller individual bands. During that time they’d encounter strange occurrences and people forewarning that all is not well, and Prelude to War follows in Despair’s footsteps. But before that, the book gives a rundown of what the various chapters cover along with the major villains of the adventure: Kansaldi Fire-Eyes is the Red Dragon Highmaster overseeing the Solamnic invasion. She is on orders from Verminaard to find a hidden weapon under the City of Lost Names. Lord Soth has been tasked with the Dragon Queen herself to help out Kansaldi, but isn’t a member of the Dragon Armies and is more or less allowed to do his own thing. Finally there are the draconians, who have a write-up that I’m not fond of: quote:As early as the preludes later in this chapter, the characters will face the Dragon Army’s secret weapon: draconians. These dragon-like monstrosities are unnatural creatures born of the Dragon Queen’s foul magic. All draconians are fanatically devoted to Takhisis and want nothing more than her conquest of the world. They are utterly loyal to the Dragon Army and those who speak in their god’s name. In the course of the adventure, present draconians as magical, monstrous, fanatical, and unknowable. They aren’t creatures with their own goals and ambitions. Rather, they are magical manifestations of the Dragon Queen’s thirst for conquest, and they wreak her will with lethal efficacy. With all the talk of revamping the always evil humanoid races such as orcs, this honestly comes off as hypocritical on Wizards of the Coast’s part. Even the Dragonlance sourcebooks and novels subverted the draconians in making them more three-dimensional over time, with a few breaking away from Takhisis and the Dragon Armies due to their poor treatment. This was also “G-level canon” to use Star Wars terminology, as Margaret Weis herself helped write the Doom Brigade which covered one such group of non-evil draconians who decided to build a nation of their own. I get that an adventure like Shadow of the Dragon Queen wants a straightforward “here are color-coded bad guys to fight without remorse,” but like I said before it speaks to the lack of a consistent vision on the writers’ part. As for the Preludes, the PCs begin at 1st level, and there are 3 sample ones suited to different character types. What unites the PCs is that they’re all good friends of the now-departed adventurer Ispin Greenshield, and are on the way to his funeral in the Solamnic village of Vogler.  Broken Silence is a Prelude suitable for divine magic-using PCs. They won’t have access to such holy magic and class features until the end of this encounter, which involves detailing the first vision of their deity-to-be. The PC(s) have a bad dream of being the survivor of a massacre in a forest clearing, spotting a glowing amulet held by one of the corpses. While traveling to Vogler their camp is ransacked during the night and tracking down their stolen supplies they find a strange amulet among their belongings that matches the holy symbol of their chosen deity. The surrounding plant life parts in order to lead them to some ruins which hold broken statues of Krynn’s deities. The statue of their patron deity glows as they establish mental communication with them, and how this scene plays out is up to DM Fiat. But in short the deity wants the PC(s) to become their herald in the world. This Prelude is written as though there’s only one divine spellcaster in the party. I suppose that multiple PCs can participate and get their own medallions of faith and statue-prophecies, but I feel that this would narratively cheapen what should be a unique once-in-a-lifetime encounter. Eye in the Sky is a Prelude geared for PCs who wish to join the Orders of High Sorcery. It takes place on the Night of the Eye, when all three moons of magic are full and lined in front of each other to look like a giant floating eye. The PC(s) is summoned to an old spire full of extradimensional rooms known as the Barb, where a red-robed mage by the name of Rovina presides over it. After engaging in some small chat, she reveals a test for the would-be mage(s) and leads them to the Hall of Sight. The Hall has a pedestal in the center holding a key and is surrounded by a maze of invisible walls. The key opens up a door on the other end of the room which the PC(s) must open in order to leave and pass the test. Spells such as Detect Magic and Faerie Fire can reveal the magical outlines of the walls, the former spell by their auras. Otherwise an Investigation check is necessary to “feel” one’s way through the maze, and an Arcana check on the wall around the rotunda can reveal a cipher for a one-time casting of the Knock spell as an alternative solution. The Prelude presumes that the trial is completed and doesn’t detail what happens for characters that end up hopelessly stumped. The adventure does mention that an NPC apprentice can accompany a PC if the DM deems that they need assistance. They use the Acolyte stat block, which is amusing as that NPC casts divine magic and at this point in the story such magic is a unique miraculous event. Upon completion Rovina will give each PC a scroll with instructions to take it to the wizard Wyhan in the city of Kalaman which is conveniently near Vogler. They’re also instructed to not open the scroll under any circumstances. This last part is a secret test of character which along with the mages’ alignment can eventually determine what Order of High Sorcery they’re inducted into. The contents of the scrolls aren’t detailed if the PC decides to open them up, so I presume that they’re blank; they certainly aren’t Explosive Runes, that’s for sure!  Scales of War is our final Prelude and is suitable for PCs who don’t fit into either of the above Preludes. It’s also the only Prelude which sees actual combat and involves the party coming upon a terrified fleeing commoner whose traveling companions were ambushed by strange cloaked figures. These figures are draconian scouts, one kapak and four baaz to be specific, looking through the dead bodies of the traveling companions who are actually uniformed Solamnic Knights.* The kapak and two of the baaz will attempt to flee so that they can report to their superiors, and all of them are wounded from their fight with half normal hit points. There’s no mention of possible developments for PCs who manage to take a draconian prisoner alive or decide to track down the fleeing ones, which is odd as many future encounters outline what soldiers know and can tell PCs if they’re taken alive (or cast Speak With Dead) to be interrogated. *Their armor has been rendered useless from the fight so PCs can’t loot them for good armor. I suppose that now’s a good time to talk about draconians. At this point in the story there are only five varieties of draconians in order of strength: baaz, kapak, bozak, sivak, and aurak. Unlike prior Editions their type is Monstrosity, not Dragon, although thematically they’re pretty much the same. All but the aurak have wings which they can use to avoid a certain amount of fall damage as well as unique death throes. Baaz are straightforward melee brutes who can multiattack with short swords and have advantage on attack rolls when they can see an allied dragon. Their death throes are different than in previous Editions: while originally they turned to stone and could forcefully embed sharp weapons in their petrified forms, in 5e they impose the restrained condition on adjacent targets and who then can turn to stone for 1 minute if they fail a second Constitution save. I can see this change being made to still be debilitating yet not frustrating in forcing PCs to lose their weapons when fighting hordes of baaz. In prior DL games it was common for characters to have bludgeoning weapons as backup (at least with the groups I gamed with) to get around these death throes. On the other hand, petrification for 1 minute is pretty much a Save or Lose effect, so this still hinders melee characters particularly those without reach weapons. As for the kapak, they are your sneaky assassin types who fight with daggers coated in their poisonous saliva. They get a bit of buff in 5e, being outright immune to the poisoned condition and poison damage, and their dagger attacks can poison and paralyze a target at the same time for 1 round if they fail a Constitution save. Their death throes remain the same in exploding into a cloud of acid. There is no real mention on draconian gender in this book; the Dragon Armies could identify the physical sex of dragons before they hatched, so in their rituals in creating draconians they only used the male dragon eggs in order to control their numbers. They hid this from draconians and kept them in the dark, which resulted in a number of them rebelling and taking the rest of the dragon eggs to have greater reproductive freedom once the ruse was discovered. I bring this up as kapak draconians could have healing saliva if they were women, and the book doesn’t mention this at all. Thoughts So Far: The Preludes are serviceable, although my critical eye can still spot some flaws in their make-up. They aren’t the kind of things that make encounters unbalanced or the adventure unplayable, but it is a throwback to the railroady nature of Dragonlance modules which presume a predetermined course of action without thought as to other likely PC actions. I had plans to review Chapter 3 tonight as well, although as I don’t know how long that could take I wanted to get out what I could for Chapter 2 tonight. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Dec 2, 2022 |
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Dec 2, 2022 04:36
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 Chapter 3: When Home Burns This is the first real chapter where the PCs all meet up, they and are now 2nd level after beating their respective Preludes. It starts out slow, with some fun and games in your stereotypical Starting RPG Village of Vogler…only to see it all burn down when the Red Dragon Army marches to war. During this chapter the PCs will go from 2nd to 4th level, where 3rd level is achieved after the first major battle at High Hill. Vogler is a village along the Vingaard River. During the Age of Might it was the scene of a border skirmish between Istar and Solamnia, with the latter country winning. The Kingfisher Festival, named after the bird that is the symbol for the Knights of Solamnia, is an annual holiday celebrating the country’s victory over Istar. Vogler’s major industries revolve around fishing and river travel, and the partially ruined keep of Thornwall is home to a non-binary tinker gnome by the name of Than. They built a catapult-like gnomeflinger device at Thornwall’s top that the town tolerates because it looks like an intimidating siege engine that can give raiders second thoughts.  The DM is encouraged to play up Vogler’s small town charm and has short descriptions of local vendors and notable citizens to make them care for the community. All the better to motivate them in saving the people from the Red Dragon Army! Ispin’s funeral begins after the PCs meet up with Becklin Uth Viharin, a lady Knight of Solamnia who dresses openly for the part and is tolerated by locals as she’s served the community in defense against bandits and monsters. They can also meet Darrett Highwater, Becklin’s pupil who isn’t like most Solamnics and is in love with the legacy of the Knights. He can share details about the celebrations, Vogler’s history, and an upcoming mock battle with some mercenaries of the Ironclad Regiment as an historical reenactment known as the Battle of High Hill. During Ispin’s funeral they will send his body to a boat to be sailed downriver, and to honor his memory his various friends and family members gather at the Sand Crab tavern to tell tall tales about his various adventures. PCs who participate can gain inspiration, but the good cheer will come to a stop due to the heckling of an arrogant boor of a man by the name of Bakaris the Younger. For those veteran fans you might recognize the name, for he was Kitiara’s second-in-command as the Blue Dragon Highmaster in the Chronicles. In this adventure he hasn’t yet defected to the Dragonarmies, but is a privileged bastard who harbors violent fantasies and relies on his father’s connections as a Solamnic noble to avoid being strung up. There will be several times when the PCs can use skill checks to distract or run him off during the festivities, although it doesn’t say what happens if someone loses their cool and decides to teach him what the five fingers said to the face. He and his father will be frequent foils to the party in challenges that aren’t meant to be solved with murderhoboing. Other events during the Kingfisher Festival include a fishing contest with skill checks and minor prizes along with Becklin approaching a party member. She will read Ispin’s will where he gives his signature +1 shield to the party, but Beckline will only do this if they agree to participate in the Battle of High Hill. Withholding a shield doesn’t seem very knightly. I presume this is meant to be played out as more of a gentle encouragement than a mandate.  The Battle at High Hill is meant to take place between the village militia and volunteers from the Ironclad Regiment. Although their leader Cudgel Ironsmile is a straight-shooter, there are secretly a group of warriors who’ve been bought out by the Red Dragon Army and plan to use real weapons during the reenactment to kill Vogler’s people-at-arms and leave the village defenseless. As professional adventuring types the various NPCs will convince the PCs to take part, at the very least as impartial observers to ensure that “nobody gets hurt.” Observant PCs can notice that the mercenaries aren’t using padded weapons, but whatever they hope to do is too late as all hell breaks loose and the PCs are immediately accosted by three mercenaries using Guard stats, one of whom is riding a warhorse. You might notice that the above map has some intimidating-looking flames surrounding the edges. These are special Battlefield Encounters representing a larger surrounding skirmish or war. The flaming edges of the map are the Fray, which is a zone of difficult terrain that deals damage to characters who fail a Dexterity save when entering it from stray shots and the din of flashing swords. Additionally Battlefield Encounters make use of a rule similar to Lair Actions where at initiative 0 or whenever a PC enters the Fray some random event happens. Each Battlefield Encounter has its own table and tend to be things reflecting the chaotic nature of mass combat. In this case we have options such as terrified horses running people over, the appearance of an allied or hostile unit close to the party, or stray arrows dealing an area of effect attack. PCs who dispatch the initial enemies will then come to face Gragonis, the half-ogre leader of the traitorous faction of the Ironclad Regiment and four more mercenaries with him. He uses ogre stats, and if the PCs are defeated during this or the previous battle then militia members can drag them to safety albeit at 1 hit point. Either way, the mercenaries are forced into a retreat but almost all of Vogler’s militia perished. Cudgel was also targeted by Gragonis’ goons for death but managed to survive, and she is just as pissed off as the villagers about this affair. PCs have several opportunities to take charge of things, and will be asked to by allied NPCs. Healing the wounded results in grateful villagers rewarding them with valuables, and magical healing in particular can have rescued NPCs eager to learn more about their healer’s deity. PCs can interrogate a surviving mercenary to learn what he knows via successful Charisma skill checks, although Becklin and the mayor will interfere if the PCs try to torture him. Little can be found out besides the fact that Gragonis met with some armed group in the forest and got paid a lot of gold, and if Gragonis was taken alive he doesn’t know his client’s identity besides the fact they wore red and black armor. The party will have a night to rest while Cudgel Ironsmile and villager scouts do some reconnaissance in the woods, although if they wish the PCs can also go scouting on their own. Either way the discovered information is the same: there’s a camp of hundreds of red tents in a shadowy valley. It is populated by hooded baaz draconians and Dragon Army Soldiers, and combat is meant more as a deterrence if PCs manage to visit. They won’t be overwhelmed or tracked back to the village if they decide to attack some of the warriors. Dragon Army Soldiers are a new enemy NPC type in this module. They’re indoctrinated soldiers a cut above the average Guard or Bandit at Challenge Rating 1. They have a high 17 Armor Class thanks to their armor and shield, and their weapons have been magically enchanted with the power of red dragon breath to deal +1d4 bonus fire damage on top of the base weapon damage. Like baaz they have advantage on attacks when within sight of an allied dragon. Needless to say they can be a threat in numbers to 3rd level PCs, although they can’t really do much other than fight. Vogler’s leadership is fully aware that they can’t win against this mysterious army in conventional battle. Cudgel is guilt-ridden and promises the support of the Regiment to Vogler’s defense if need be, and Becklin privately suspects the worst but puts on a confident face to the public. Lord Bakaris doesn’t care at all about the safety of the villagers but expects his half-baked ideas to be taken seriously. They will all listen to the PCs for advice, and once enough planning and debate is done a messenger from the Red Dragon Army arrives, speaking for the Voice of Takhisis demanding Vogler’s surrender and to quarter the soldiers of the Red Dragon Army. quote:Characters proficient in Religion recognize the name Takhisis as one of the gods of Krynn. A cleric of Takhisis or a character who succeeds on a DC 12 Intelligence (Religion) check recognizes a spiral symbol on the messenger’s armor as a symbol of Takhisis, the greatest of the evil gods, who is also known as the Dragon Queen. This same symbol appears on all Dragon Army armor. I love how this module takes into account the completely oddball chance that some gaming group out there has a PC who is worshiping the primary villain of the setting, but decides to fight her minions anyway. The messenger will leave peacefully but PCs who try to attack or capture her will be countered by four Dragon Army Soldiers throwing javelins from nearby cliffs. Only the Mayor is in favor of acquiescing to the Dragon Army’s demands, but Becklin and Cudgel veto her knowing that the villagers will suffer in being personal witnesses to the “horrors of occupying forces.” The plan is to find a way to keep the Dragon Army occupied for the eventual goal of evacuating the village. The PCs have two options for the former in scaling the cliffs to deal with Dragon Army scouts using its vantage point to keep abreast of the horizon. They can climb normally or use Than’s gnomeflinger to get up there. Sadly this plan doesn’t make any noticeable changes to the module, even if a Dragon Army Soldier retreats back to their main camp as the main force will invade and any buying of time won’t make a mechanical difference for the later encounters. The evacuation is a series of skill challenges, from Persuading the Mayor that it’s the best out of a series of bad options,* helping the Mayor avoid mass panic among an addressed crowd with Intimidation or Persuasion, using Survival to make impromptu boats out of ropes and logs to help locals flee by river, Investigation to convert the raft and boat pulley system of the ferry crossing to even more boats, and convincing the fishers to lend their personal boats to the evacuation effort with Persuasion. While the module mentions what happens for failures during some individual rolls, there’s no mention of how things turn out if the PCs fail to evacuate enough people in time. Presumably the casualties are higher, but this isn’t elaborated or reflected on in the Chapter itself. *This is pretty much a But Thou Must skill check, as the rest of the module assumes that she agrees. Becklin will aid Cudgel and the Ironclad Regiment in diverting the Red Dragon Army’s attention once they arrive at Vogler, and the PCs and Darrett will be asked to remain with the mayor to ensure that straggling villagers have protection if the Regiment falls. But Becklin has another piece of armor and private request for the PCs. She asks the group to give a large wooden box weighing 70 pounds to Darrett once he safely escapes town. The box contains a suit of Solamnic plate armor, which he will wear with pride for the rest of the campaign after this request is honored. You know, this raises the inevitable question of what happens if the PCs suggest that the armor would be of more practical use in the upcoming battle. Like getting Darrett to wear it immediately, or if a PC decides to don it themselves. The module doesn’t make any suggestions on how the NPCs will react in such a case. What’s that? Rules for incorporating the Warriors of Krynn board game into providing in-game benefits to groups running Shadow of the Dragon Queen? Say it ain’t so! Several times throughout this adventure we get Warriors of Krynn Scenarios telling what events to run from that strategy game to be in line with Shadows’ narrative. PCs who win or hold during a scenario often gain benefits such as a magic item, although they don’t suffer any penalties on a loss. In this case a victory causes the Mayor to gift the party with a Quaal’s Feather Token (Bird). While this sounds like a cool idea, the board game isn’t out yet, and according to this Polygon review one of the manuals actually spoils a later part of the adventure. So DMs seeking to use it will have to weigh the balance of spoiling some story details ahead of time vs enhanced simulation of the war-game aspects of Dragonlance.  The Invasion of Vogler is a series of combat encounters one after another, such as saving a messenger scout from a pursuing baaz draconian, a random 1d10 table of events such as a gliding kapak ambushing the party, and a mandatory encounter with four baaz draconians wheeling forward a dragon-shaped siege engine known as a boilerdrak to burn down buildings. The boilerdrak is not a monster in game terms, and requires three separate actions to light, aim, and fire a 60 foot cone of 5d10 fire damage. But it’s a gnomish device, meaning that every action triggers a d20 roll which causes the boilerdrak to explode on a natural 1 for the same amount as its breath weapon. The Vogler Battlefield table has an even mixture of fishers and militia helping out the party and enemy draconians throwing flasks of fire or dying from its death throes as potential results. Once the boilerdrak is destroyed, the ogre known as Fewmaster Gholcrag and two baaz minions will come to fight the party as the final battle during this chapter. The PCs will be forced to board a boat as Vogler burns in the background, and Cudgel’s lieutenant will arrive with Becklin’s horned helmet. The ultimate fate of Becklin and Cudgel are left to the DM, with a few sample events: the lieutenant is a traitor who assassinated Becklin and hopes to make Darrett his next target, he was sent by Becklin to warn the party their defenses failed and the knight has been captured alive, and so on. Sadly, none of these scenarios are further elaborated on as potential encounters in the rest of this module. At this point the party levels up to 4. Thoughts So Far: I’ll start out with what I like about When Home Burns. Its pacing and escalation are well-timed, and the important NPCs leave strong first impressions that even a DM with amateur skill can use to elicit the proper reactions from players. I can see Darrett in particular being a trusted ally, if by a shared bond of knowing what they’re fighting for if nothing else. I have mixed feelings on the Battlefield Encounters mechanic. The Fray is very clearly an invisible barrier that punishes PCs who get too far from the battle, and is rather punishing against mounted and high-speed characters who would use their mobility to their advantage. It doesn’t really act as a stopgap against PCs with a natural flying speed, for the Fray is at the edges of the map and not above. I do like the pseudo-lair actions which throw random events into the fight, which helps round by round combat from growing too stale. What I don’t like is the fact that this Chapter’s rather railroady, in that while there is the illusion of choice many of those choices don’t matter. The module suggests using Charisma checks to persuade the Mayor to go with the evacuation plan…and the rest of the module operates on her agreeing to this. The PCs can do recon to learn the Red Dragon Army’s numbers…or let some NPCs do it without any consequence. Vogler’s leaders and warriors will suggest the PCs kill the Dragon Army soldiers standing watch on the cliffs, but it doesn’t matter if any of them escape as the Army is going to besiege the village anyway. As for the enemies themselves, besides the Boilerdrak siege engine and kapak glider the vast majority of enemies are virtually identical in being melee-focused armored warriors without any special abilities or actions in combat to make them do things besides “I attack” or “roll to save vs the draconian’s death throes.” At the very least the Dragon Army could have domesticated monsters for some variety in battle, and it wouldn’t be out of character with the existing lore. Join us next time as we venture to the city of Kalaman, retake a fortress from the Dragon Army, and venture into some haunted catacombs in Chapter 4: Shadow of War!
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Dec 2, 2022 10:35
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 Chapter 4: Shadow of War I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something off about this image. The art style is noticeably different from the rest of the book in that it has that “screenshot from a video game” vibe. This is another 2-level chapter: the PCs reach 5th level before retaking Wheelwatch Outpost, and hit 6th level after they complete the Raided Catacombs at the end of the chapter. We first open up with an overview of Kalaman, Beacon of the East. Its walls and harbor beacons still hold strong long after the Cataclysm, and the city is run by a governor and the leaders of various trade guilds who are predominantly humans and hill dwarves. The PCs will first arrive with the refugees of Vogler, and after resolving business with Darrett’s armor and handling small conflicts between refugees the party will discover that both Lord Bakaris and his son are missing. Mayor Raven of Vogler will give the PCs the authority to approach Kalaman’s leaders to negotiate for the safety of her people. In fact, Bakaris the Younger and elder have departed from the village hours ago, and Lord Bakaris is currently addressing the city’s leaders! Both of them are selfish glory hogs, with Lord Bakaris convinced that he can attain more wealth and power by throwing Kalaman’s forces at the Red Dragon Army while he and his son sit back and claim all the credit. The PCs will need to attend the council meeting and provide their own more sensible advice and recounting of events. Marshal Vendri, the commander of Kalaman’s armed forces, will give the laydown of how various smaller villages have been attacked and razed but they couldn’t find the culprits, and Vogler is an exception in having a large number of survivors. Trusting that the PCs have proven themselves in the eyes of said survivors, they will be appointed as special operatives of the city’s military. Or as free agents under Darrett’s guidance for those independent-minded types.  The only major quest in the city involves PCs who are initiates of High Sorcery delivering the scroll they received to Wyhan. She is a black-robed wizard operating a local apothecary, and the scroll is enchanted to let her know the deliverer’s alignment and if they opened the scroll. From this she will make a prediction of which Order the PC(s) will join after asking them some open-ended questions on their ideologies and motivations for why they wish to study magic. Those of morally neutral alignment will be the Red Robes regardless of whether they opened the scroll, but those of Good alignment will be White Robes if they didn’t open the scroll and Red if they did. Vice versa for Evil alignment, which is Black if they opened it and Red if they didn’t. This is a first in Dragonlance material, and more or less explicitly spells out that moral alignment isn’t set in stone for the Orders. But the PC(s) isn’t an official member yet, for they must undertake the Test of High Sorcery at the Tower of Wayreth. But Wyhan first needs to hear from the Tower’s leaders for an opportune time to travel given the current political situation. I will spoil things ahead of time and say that at no point does a mage PC travel to Wayreth, as the Orders deem the war in eastern Solamnia too risky on account that they don’t want to be perceived as “taking sides” in the Dragon Army conflict. The PC(s) will be considered a provisional mage, and will become an official member after a test from an archmage in Chapter 6. While this makes sense in line with the campaign to avoid needless detours and additional material that may be bypassed by many gaming groups, I do wish that the adventure was better structured. In a way that the levels a PC may gain the Robe Adept feats at (4th) to better match them making progress in the eyes of NPC wizards of the Order. Speaking of which, there are hardly any Solamnic Knights for PCs to interact with in this adventure path either. The closest we have is Darrett, who is still a squire, and Becklin who is pretty much consigned to death or DM Fiat for the rest of the campaign.  Once the PCs finish up any errands in the city, they will be given lodgings in the castle and Darrett will meet with them to provide a series of missions in dealing with the Red Dragon Army threat. The first four are 1 plot-significant encounter and 3 smaller ones which can be summed up as random encounters in terms of length and importance and it’s up to the DM how many of those to run and in what order. At any time during these missions captured soldiers can reveal more workings about the Dragon Army such as their use of wyverns and dragonnels for flying mounts, or the capabilities of more powerful draconian types. The first mission involves leaving the city to find a gnomish artisan named Rookledust in the Vingaard Mountains; Kalaman wishes to hire her as a mechanical consultant for the boilerdrak and other possible devices the Dragon Army may employ. Coincidentally Rookledust is the creator of the boilerdrak and sold it to the Dragon Army, but they lied to her in claiming they needed it for weed control. When the gnome caught on to their bad intentions she refused to sell anything else to them, so the Army sent a warband of goblins led by a hobgoblin to teach her a lesson. By the time the PCs arrive they will see goblins engaged in a chaotic battle with various clockwork devices, and this Battlefield Encounter doesn’t have a Fray zone but it does have a table of various gnomish inventions going haywire such as thrashing whip cords or a mechanical chicken laying explosive eggs in midair. Rookledust is thankful to be saved and is willing to accompany the party back to Kalaman. She will also share a new device with them, the fargab, which is basically a backpack-sized walkie-talkie with a range of 18 miles. The next missions are smaller individual encounters. The book suggests running more scenarios from Warriors of Krynn to show how Kalaman’s soldiers are faring against the Dragon Army, but these interludes provide no in-game benefits if the PCs win. The missions involve ambushing a human Dragon Army Soldier training hobgoblin recruits, locating missing scouts who have been captured by draconians, and figuring out the motives of a mysterious third party of armed soldiers…who turn out to be the survivors of the Ironclad Regiment, and Cudgel is more than happy to ally with Kalaman’s military. The PCs hit 5th level once they’ve done all of these missions.  The next mission for the PCs is a big one: Kalaman’s southernmost outpost has been taken over by the Red Dragon Army and the PCs have to help them retake it. They won’t be doing this alone technically, as a detachment of Kalaman’s army will lie in wait as the party weakens the outpost’s defenses and opens the gate for them to charge inside. This mission encourages a stealthy pursuit. PCs can perform Investigation checks at a safe distance to mark sentry numbers and patrols, and the Outpost is home to 16 Dragon Army Soldiers, 1 sivak, 2 baaz, a Dragon Army Officer and a dragonnel who is the Officer’s mount. The soldiers are spread out around the Outpost, and PCs may be able to enter nonviolently if they can disguise themselves as Dragon Army soldiers. The prison holds two people: Lanal the human soldier of Kalaman and Elgo Duckditcher the kender. They are both willing to help the PCs retake the fortress, although Elgo won’t leave the cell until the PCs recover her hoopak which is found elsewhere in the Outpost. As for Lanal, he can tell them about the fortress’ layout and how to work the gate, but only if he’s separated from Elgo; he finds her annoying and she insists he is her long-lost cousin Flannel. Let’s go over the new enemies. Dragon Army Officers are tougher versions of Dragon Army Soldiers, but they can multiattack and perform a rechargeable Assault Orders ability that lets up to 2 other creatures make a melee attack as a reaction. Sivak draconians are Large-sized monsters with a flight speed and can attack up to 3 times per round with 2 swords and a tripping tail attack. They can take the illusory form of a humanoid they killed, and their death throes cause a shrieking image of their killer to impose the Frightened condition on a failed Wisdom save. Finally the Dragonnel is a Large-sized dragon who has some keen senses (blindsight 30 feet, darkvision 120 feet) and can only perform rending melee attacks but can avoid opportunity attacks when they fly out of an enemy’s reach. As for Lanal and Elgo their stats are nothing to write home about, save that Lanal can grant advantage to an adjacent ally’s saving throw as a reaction and Elgo is immune to the Frightened condition and her Taunt imposes disadvantage on all attack rolls of a targeted creature (not just on targets besides the kender) and can be used an infinite number of times. Hey, why do NPC kender get better abilities than PCs?! The “win condition” for this mission doesn’t necessarily involve killing the Officer or everyone at the Outpost, although if the latter happens it may as well be a win. If the PCs can open both the north and south gates then the Kalaman military will charge in and make short work of the Dragon Army. The gate control mechanisms are locked, requiring either thieves’ tools or keys found in a footlocker or carried by the commander to open. They take one minute each to fully raise the gates, and are obvious enough to attract the attention of creatures in the courtyard and nearby guard towers and fortifications. So even if PCs are stealthy and seek a “0 kill” run of this mission, it’s kind of inevitable that combat will happen. The Battle of Steel Springs takes place after the PCs are heading back to Kalaman, where they will learn from an aide that Lord Bakaris has taken Darrett and a group of soldiers to fight some Dragon Army troops who broke away from a larger force. Darrett cannot disobey but knows Bakaris’ poor judgment will lead them to ruin, so the aide slips the group a sealed note explaining the danger. The Battle occurs once the PCs ride out to the war zone, which is both a Warriors of Krynn interlude (winning grants the PCs advantage on their next Deception or Persuasion roll to influence a soldier of Kalaman) and a Battlefield Encounter. The PCs have to rescue six Kalaman soldiers (same stats as Lanal) from four Dragon Army Soldiers on warhorses, and the lair action table includes a Kalaman soldier collapsing from their wounds, a stray arrow AoE, the summoning of additional allied or enemy units, and a dragonnel-riding enemy soldier falling to their deaths near a PC. Darrett quickly takes command of the surviving forces, as Lord Bakaris has become unresponsive from a thousand-yard stare. Talk about a series of disastrous events! But back at Kalaman the city has received unexpected help with the unlikely arrival of the Knights of Solamnia! Things seem to be looking up!  Or are they? The knights have entered the city without a word to meet with the governor and guild leaders, and nobody has heard any new developments. In reality these knights are Lord Soth and undead wights, and they murdered Kalaman’s leadership! Caradoc, a ghostly undead who can possess the bodies of others, sits in the council chamber in the body of a possessed living Knight waiting for any nosy do-gooders (such as the PCs) to come in and find out what’s going on. PCs can quickly realize that something is wrong as the Knights are silent, and passive Perception can reveal that their armor is rusted and incredibly old. Caradoc will mock the PCs as he fights them, and he has a rechargeable ability where he can possess others and has a bonus action where he can force a target to attack an ally within their reach on a failed Wisdom save. He can be defeated the old-fashioned way, but if he is not possessing a target at the start of his turn he will be forcefully teleported back to Dargaard Keep (Soth’s headquarters) if he fails a Charisma saving throw. The knight Caradoc is possessing will be at 0 hit points if unpossessed, but if revived can help the PCs fight the undead. At the end of the battle the PCs will find a letter from Lord Soth proclaiming himself as ruler over the province of Knightlund (the former name of Nightlund), and one of Soth’s banshees will appear to point to a hidden door in the chamber telling them of a secret that Soth can’t be allowed to possess. For those Dragonlance newcomers, Lord Soth is tormented by banshees who in life were the elves who claimed that his wife was unfaithful, causing him to abandon his mission of stopping the Kingpriest to instead slay his wife in anger. This banshee, Leedara, is helping the PCs because she takes pleasure in making Lord Soth’s job harder than it needs to be, but won’t say anything else to them. The Raided Catacombs is our first real dungeon crawl in the campaign, being a 7 room haunted dungeon which served as a tomb-temple for fallen Knights before the Cataclysm. When the Cataclysm happened the cursed fires of that horrible event still remained in pockets across Ansalon, such as these very tombs. As the PCs go through the dungeon they will witness visions of phantom flames playing out scenes of Lord Soth’s old life and detailing his fall from grace. But what is this precious secret Leedara mentioned? These catacombs are also the resting place of Zanas Sarlamir of the Order of the Crown. When the Kingpriest of Istar built a floating pleasure-city powered by the souls of dead dragons atop one of their graveyards, the metallic dragons threatened to knock it out of the sky. Sarlamir was tasked by Paladine himself to broker peace between Istar and the dragons, but fearing the worst he took along a dragonlance that was his family’s heirloom. When the Kingpriest refused to back down, Sarlamir sided with Istar and used the dragonlance to kill the leader of the gold dragons, causing this sacred weapon to rust away and the dragons to knock the flying city out of the sky. None of the humans knew of what transpired, with the story then spun of Sarlamir defending the innocent from rampaging evil dragons. So his body and what remained of the dragonlance were taken back to Kalaman to be given a burial. As for the crashed city? Well it now lies in the wastelands of northern Solamnia, now known as the City of Lost Names and the rumored great weapon that Kansaldi Fire-Eyes and Lord Soth are trying to rediscover. As for the dungeon itself, it is light on monsters (all of which are undead) but heavy on magical treasure, including a new magic item: a Kagonesti Forest Shroud which gives advantage on Stealth checks and once per day lets the wearer teleport up to 30 feet and gain advantage on their next attack roll after doing so. Lord Soth used a portion of the Cataclysmic flame to reanimate Sarlamir as a Skeletal Knight to serve as the “boss” of this dungeon. The Skeletal Knight is a new undead type who has an Enervating Blade which prevents a target from regaining hit points until the Knight’s next turn but otherwise can’t do much else offensively. During the fight Sarlamir will drop clues, saying that he is commanded to destroy those who oppose Lord Soth and that he has been summoned to the City of Lost Names in the Northern Waste to rejoin Soth’s side. In the event of extremely lethal PCs he can relay this information as a “final dying breath.” The PCs can find the rusted spearhead of a Dragonlance as treasure, although its magic cannot be reactivated until later in the adventure when it’s consecrated in the Temple of Paladine in the City of Lost Names. Thoughts So Far: I like this chapter more than When Home Burns for several reasons. The first is that the missions have some more variety, such as an actual dungeon crawl and retaking an Outpost that encourages stealth and reconnaissance over straightforward fighting. Caradoc serves as an interesting puzzle boss in that his special abilities can put PCs in the unenviable dilemma of having to hurt their allies, and I like how the PCs can learn more about the Dragon Army via captured intelligence. I’m not as fond of the pre-Wheelwatch missions, in that they feel like very obvious filler content, and if done on separate days the PCs can easily overcome the enemies by making full use of spells and other per-day resources. I wish that there was more side content for PCs to do in Kalaman besides the High Sorcery sidequest, and Sarlamir’s predictable “melee fighter” tactics feel like a letdown in contrast to Caradoc’s more novel encounter. Join us next time as we embark on a hexcrawl in Chapter 5: the Northern Wastes! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 05:48
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 Chapter 5: the Northern Wastes This desolate stretch of Solamnia is a no-man’s land of dry canyons which get regularly flooded by seawater in a phenomenon known as the Wash. It is here that Istar’s floating city crashed into the surface, and the bones of dead dragons can be found throughout the region. In this chapter the PCs level up twice, although when they do is left more to DM discretion with some sample suggestions like completing 3 adventuring locations or when they find the passage to the City of Lost Names. Back in Kalaman, the sudden murder of the city’s leadership forced Marshal Vendri into keeping order, and Lord Bakaris is angry that is son went missing (he joined the Dragon Army). While Vendri doesn’t know much about the legacy of the dragonlances nor about a City of Lost Names, he does know that a sizable force of Dragon Army soldiers moved into the Northern Wastes. Based off of Lord Soth’s clues, he concludes that whatever they’re looking for must be very important. Darrett and a few hundred soldiers are to be sent into the Northern Wastes, and the PCs can accompany them serving as scouts. If the party has a prospective member of an Order of High Sorcery, it is at this point they’ll be contacted by Wyhan that they can’t take the Test. But they’re given a brooch of red, black, and white stones marking them as a provisional member from the Conclave’s blessing.  The Northern Wastes is a hexcrawl focused chapter with 11 locations of note. The uneven terrain plus the size of Darrett’s forces means that travel is slower than usual. PCs are expected to scout ahead and rendezvous with the army at predetermined points to report on things. Additionally the flash floods of the Wash can trigger at the DM’s discretion, and a Survival check can warn PCs ahead of time to retreat to higher ground. The City of Lost Names (area K) is the main objective, although the ways the PCs can find it are rather restrictive. If not by dumb luck via wandering, the only real way is via doing a series of tasks for a scholarly expedition of Silvanesti wizards in area B and whose sailing vessel is in a hidden cove in Area A. The elves are searching for ancient pre-Cataclysm ruins, and for some added fanservice one of them is Dalamar! Their homeland lies in ruins, so there is some hope among the elves that recovering powerful magic will help save their homeland. Dalamar is more skeptical of the success of their mission, but mentioning the City of Lost Names earns his interest. Via cross-referencing his own notes he can find its location if the PCs visit 3 specific locations (areas C thru E) in the Wastes and report back to him. Area C is an ancient shrine to Habbakuk, and a group of Dimernesti elves are making a pilgrimage to it. Some of their brethren have been taken hostage in a Dragon Army camp (area I) and the Sunward Fortress (area D). Rescuing the elves rewards the party with pearls and the location of secret passages in the shrine. The shrine is a 6 room dungeon crawl whose difficulty varies depending on how much respect they show to the deity: failing to wash oneself in the basins at the entrance summons water weirds to bar entry and disturbing the (treasureless) sarcophagus forces the party to fight some black puddings later on. If the other sea elves have been rescued, then their leader can accompany them into the shrine and help avoid such dangers along with giving them some expensive pearls as a reward. Area D is Sunward Fortress, an ancient pre-Cataclysm structure dedicated to Sirrion. It is home to a shard imbued with the power of the Spawning Stone which can transform nearby life into slaadi. A bozak draconian was ordered to stay and research it, although the shard’s corruption has turned him and the other draconians into slaadi-draconian hybrids which use slaadi stat blocks. This is also a short dungeon crawl, being 5 rooms with two captives that can be freed: a sea elf and a human hunter from Heart’s Hollow in area G. The hunter has been infected with a slaadi tadpole, and if his life is saved his hometown can award the party 1,000 gp. Area E is Wakenreth, an obelisk of Silvanesti construction marking the peace between them and the Empire of Istar. It broke off from the City of Lost Names as it fell, and its magical construction has frozen it in time to make it look like a half-disintegrated tower with its debris hanging in midair. It’s a vertical 5 room dungeon crawl inhabited by the wraiths of dead Silvanesti, some of which can be interacted with, and there’s some magic items to be gained such as a cloak of protection and dancing longsword. The wraiths can tell the party that the tower has become connected to the Shadowfell which is responsible for its cursed state. A PC can undo the curse by activating the runes originally meant to connect the tower to the Feywild, although the attempt can impose necrotic damage and exhaustion. While they’re doing this, an anhkolox will climb up the tower and attack. An anhkolox is a huge Challenge Rating 9 undead that looks like a massive half-decayed bear, and as is to be expected is a primarily melee monster who can grapple and restrain targets into its rib cage. Area F is an abandoned blue dragon’s lair that is now home to a family of dwarven prisoners fleeing the Red Dragon Army. Or rather, they were using it as a home before some draconians occupied it as a strategic spot, and there’s also a pack of gricks who have been attacking the draconians. A 3 room dungeon crawl with a rich hoard and boots of levitation.  Area G is Heart’s Hollow, a small circular town of several hundred people built around the inner walls of a large crater. It is a thriving assortment of people from varying walks of life, descended from the original inhabitants who were rescued from various dire fates by their community leader Nezrah. Although Nezrah appears as an elderly human, in reality she is a shape changed bronze dragon. PCs exploring nearby can meet and rescue one of its residents, Clystran, a scavenger who is knowledgeable about the Northern Wastes. In addition to being a safe place to rest, PCs can learn about other locations in the Wastes and hire guides to make travel easier. PCs who recover a dragon egg from Camp Carrionclay will be rewarded by Nezrah with a suit of dragon scale mail made from her own scales. That’s the furthest extent of her help, and she won’t take a more direct action against the Red Dragon Army. Area H is a spire inhabited by 12 wasteland dragonnels, who unlike the ones in the Red Dragon Army are good-aligned and have a ranged acid spit attack. There isn’t much to do here besides helping Clystran out on an errand to leave some meat out for them. Area I is Camp Carrionclay, a Red Dragon Army outpost serving as part of a supply line. PCs who are defeated in combat by Dragon Army soldiers will be taken here as prisoners, and it is a fortified structure surrounded by a moat filled with quipper swarms. In addition to the sea elves, there’s also a kender by the name of Kennah and a captured bulette, the latter which will go on a rampage and attack anyone in sight if freed. The rest of the camp’s inhabitants are a mixture of baaz and sivak draconians, hobgoblins, and Dragon Army soldiers and officers. The soldiers managed to find a bronze dragon egg which is kept in a chest of the camp’s leader, and once the PCs retrieve the egg or otherwise seek to escape an adult black dragon known as Akhviri will arrive at the camp. Barring canny optimization, she is well above the reasonable threat level for most groups and PCs are encouraged to run. In being the first real dragon the PCs likely encountered in this adventure they will have disadvantage against her Frightful Presence. She won’t pursue the PCs if they flee, instead delegating that task to the soldiers. Area J is an unassuming inlet known as Dread Wolf Cove, which Dalamar will ask the PCs to escort him to once they visit the three locations he requested. It is a fog-shrouded place home to another anhkolox, as well as the fractured shard of an Orb of Dragonkind responsible for the supernatural fog. This is the reason why Dalamar wants to go here, although he won’t tell the PCs of the shard’s significance. PCs who overcome his deception with Insight can press him into revealing its nature as well as the fact that he’s unsure whether to use it to help his people or use it for himself. He won’t fight the PCs if they keep it for themselves, but will try to steal it later. As to when he does so, the book leaves that up to the DM. Unlike Soth, Dalamar doesn’t have any unique stat block, simply using the Mage one.  Area K is home to the City of Lost Names, with a canyon running down the middle of a plateau being the major passage into it. This canyon is heavily guarded by the Red Dragon army, far more than in Camp Carrionclay, and their aerial scouts and mages can detect the PCs if they try to sneak on by.* The PCs will need the help of Darrett’s own forces to get through, and as you can guess it is both a Warriors of Krynn scenario (no special benefit for winning), and a Battlefield Encounter pitting the PCs against three Dragon Army officers and a dragonnel. The lair actions involve enemy reinforcements, threats from the sky such as a dead falling dragonnel or mounted sniper, and a cloud of dust obscuring vision. *Railroad alert! Thoughts So Far: The openness of the hex crawl is a refreshing change of pace from the railroady nature of the prior chapters. The multiple mini dungeon crawls are of perfect length, and the opportunities to reward the party for helping out the two elven groups, the dwarves, and the inhabitants of Heart’s Hollow encourage exploration and good-hearted heroism. Even so, the adventure has less freedom than it initially seems, as the PCs more or less need Dalamar’s help in order to find area K. But with the preceding elements this funnel is not as apparent, marking it as one of the better chapters in this book. Join us next time as we head into the City of Lost Names and gaze upon the lost wonders of the Age of Might!
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Dec 4, 2022 01:08
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 Chapter 6: City of Lost Names The entirety of this chapter takes place among the ruins of the same name. It was once known as Onyari, the City Without Sin, a project by the Kingpriest to reward his most loyal (and wealthiest) followers with a heavenly paradise where in due time they can overcome their mortal limitations once he obtained godhood. What the Kingpriest and his inner circle withheld from others was that the floating city was built upon an ancient dragon graveyard, absorbing their essence to power its magic. For all the debates and arguments over the alignment and intentions of the Kingpriest in “going too far to wipe out evil” or that time Paladin authoritatively stated that he was a genuinely good man in the novels, I have to admire the sheer tenacity of Wizards of the Coast having him build a floating magical gently caress pad powered by the souls of dead dragons. This’ll certainly be an interesting wrench to throw into the future discourse of his moral compass! Although the city is thoroughly earthbound, the magical workings to make it fly again are still intact. There is no time limit for when the Red Dragon Army reactivates this and is designed to occur by the Laws of Plot. During this chapter the PCs will grow from 8th to 10th level, with the 9th level mark being malleable but suggested after they forge a dragonlance. In going through the canyon the PCs are funneled through tunnels in a 9 room dungeon crawl known as the Path of Memories. The monsters within this section are the immortal types, such as a passive stone golem guardian and dragon skeletons which have the stats of spell-less bone nagas. PCs who fail to convince the spirit of a vengeful dragon that they aren’t responsible for Onyari’s injustices will fight a new monster, a lesser death dragon. Death dragons are skeletal undead dragons who were resurrected by the fires of the Cataclysm. Both the lesser and greater versions have your typical dragon-themed abilities of powerful melee attacks and a Cataclysmic Breath weapon that deals necrotic damage and reanimates slain humanoids as zombies. The greater death dragon, in addition to being more powerful, also has legendary actions and resistance. The other interesting figure PCs can encounter here is the Red Robe archmage Demelin. She was an elf and chief magical architect of Onyari’s construction, and after the city fell she took on the self-imposed role as its guardian to ensure it won’t be reactivated. Given that the Dragon Army is present, she isn’t doing a very good job, but is willing to “help” the PCs by giving them information about the city yet nothing more direct. If at least one PC is a Mage of High Sorcery she can give them a proper Test to make them a full member!  The Test is short and has some guidelines on personalizing it for particular PCs based on their goals, personality, and alignment. The trials are not directly harmful but are meant to test their morality in determining what Order the mage joins. Death, the penalty for ordinarily failing the Test, won’t happen unless the character forsakes the use of all magic (fat chance) or refuses to engage with the Test at all. Demelin will conjure an illusory world portraying Onyari during the metallic dragon attack, and based on their alignment the mage will be met with a moral dilemma. For example, a neutral character is tasked to rescue some irreplaceable tomes from a building. Guardian scholars and innocents within are being attacked by a dragon, and a PC who prioritizes saving the defenseless innocents will be awarded induction into the White Robes along with an appropriate uniform magically summoned onto their person. But prioritizing the guardians or themselves will give them Red Robes, and taking the books and leaving everyone to fend for themselves will be awarded the Black Robes. I think these optional High Sorcery encounters are cool and fit perfectly within Dragonlance, but they make me wish that the Knights of Solamnia got as much screen time. The City itself has three major areas to explore: a sinister temple known as the Bastion of Takhisis which is heavily guarded, a ruined Occupied Mansion, a tower in the center of the city known as the Threshold of the Heavens, and the Temple of Paladine. You might have counted four just now, right? Although the PCs can explore them in whatever order they wish, the book warns the DM to discourage the PCs from approaching the Bastion. As to why? Well it’s supposed to be explored in Chapter 7, silly! Choo choo, there’s no stopping the Dragonlance Express! PCs who have a fargab will receive word from Rookledust to look for the Dragon Armies leaders and take them out in case they’re at a loss for what to do or plan while in the city. The random encounters are nothing to write home about, save one with a friendly death slaad who wants to eat one of each type of draconian. It will accompany the party as part of its hunt and reward them with a ring of feather falling if they help it with this task. Huh, a slaad DMPC. This must be a first for Dragonlance, or D&D in general! Given how powerful a death slaad is at this point in the campaign relative to the PCs, having him join the party is a great idea. The Occupied Mansion is a 2-story, 11 room building inhabited by a mixture of human Dragon Army soldiers and kapak and bozak draconians. In addition to having some nice treasure such as a pearl of power and javelins of lightning, the PCs can encounter the aurak draconian Captain Hask whose desk is full of reports concerning their work in the City of Lost Names, with the most pertinent details that two VIPs (the wizard Lohezet and the priest Belephaion) are working at the spire in the center on an important project. Much like Wheelwatch Outpost, it is entirely possible for PCs to move about without drawing a violent response if they disguise themselves as Dragon Army soldiers. As this is our first aurak draconian encounter, let’s cover what they can do. They are the mage-focused breed of draconians, lacking wings but possess a variety of spells. Their spells aren’t damaging but include things to help confound enemies such as invisibility, disguise self, and dominate person, and their primary damaging attacks are an energy ray, melee rending claws, and a noxious breath that can inflict exhaustion on targets. Its death throes turn it into a ball of lightning that strikes two nearby targets. I also realize that we didn’t cover bozaks in prior posts either. Well, they’re also magically-inclined albeit not as much as the auraks. They fight with a trident and can shoot discharges of lightning as their primary damaging attacks, and three out of four of their spells are battlefield control stuff like stinking cloud, web, and enlarge/reduce (the last being invisibility). Their death throes cause their bones to explode dealing force damage to nearby targets. And since this mansion is an important place, any soldiers killed will be noticed after 24 hours. There is no similar thing that happens regarding the Threshold of the Heavens, which I find rather amusing.  The Temple of Paladine is actually pretty short despite being technically 7 rooms. A beautiful building surrounded by shallow water, Dragon Army soldiers who previously investigated were killed by the treant sentry known as Duskwalker. PCs can earn its trust by displaying a holy symbol associated with one of the nature gods (Chislev, Habbakuk, Zeboim) to let them pass or otherwise convincing it of their good intentions via Persuasion. Duskwalker can tell the party a bit about Onyari (it was the caretaker of its gardens) and how it hates the Dragon Armies disturbing the plants. Some of the other monstrous guardians can be passed by nonviolently, such as nonevil mummies who relent in fighting if a symbol of Paladine is brandished at them, and the treasure here is geared towards a holy nature such as healing potions and scrolls of gentle repose. But the greatest treasure of all is at the altar dedicated to Paladine, and Sarlamir’s lancehead will glow if placed on it. Paladin himself will intervene, turning it into a fully-formed dragonlance so that they may “banish the shadow of the Dragon Queen with the light of this most sacred weapon.” PCs also get fully healed and any who were dead are resurrected and teleported to the altar if they’re not present. The Threshold of the Heavens is the final area of Chapter 6, and it is here the chapter will end once the PCs deal with its boss. It’s a vertical 5 floor, 10 room dungeon crawl packed to the gills with draconians and flameskull guardians. There’s also a new monster type, an Istarian drone, which are magical constructs designed during the Age of Might to build the marvelous structures of Istar. They are primarily melee attackers who have a rechargeable crystalline spit that can damage and restrain targets, although a Drone Monitoring room has a console which can let a character hijack a drone for direct control if they succeed on an Arcana check. PCs who take the “disguise ourselves as the enemy” tactic have the opportunity to learn some things about Lohezet and Belephaion, the Black Robe mage and priest of Takhisis, from a bone devil magically compelled to serve the former character. They can learn about the dangers of higher floors as well as the fact that the priest has some kind of secret power. Lohezet holds no real loyalty to the Dragon Armies, and if confronted will feign being forced to serve and leave if the party proves too powerful if they manage to kill Belephaion. He can share pertinent info with the characters about his research as a bargaining chip if they see through his lie, and the scrying mirrors in his room along with a magical map being read by aurak draconians one floor down can reveal that the Dragon Army is magically monitoring the active troop movements of Kalaman. Lohezet isn’t a typical wizard, but has his own unique stat block where in addition to typical (non-damaging) spells he can use a variety of necrotic and poison damage attacks such as a reaction-activated mist attack and a rechargeable poisonous miasma.  As for Belephaion, he is with two bozak draconians in the uppermost room. His secret power is that he’s a young blue dragon who can change shape into an eagle or humanoid, and after giving a typical evil speech will activate the throne to slowly cause the city to hover. The throne is attuned to the dragon and the process once begun cannot be dispelled, and Belephaion will refuse to lower it if captured alive. As the architects have not reinforced key points in the ruins yet, the raising will be only partially successful, causing parts of the city to dangerously break apart as it rises. The PCs will have to hurriedly make a break for it as the world around them crumbles. The most intact structure that rises into the clouds is the Bastion of Takhisis. With the Dragon Army personnel on it, it serves as a proper aerial citadel from which to launch devastating raids against the Dragon Queen’s enemies. The PCs will catch Lord Soth riding on a death dragon flying towards the floating temple. After a Warriors of Krynn scenario (gain healing potions and a ring of fire resistance if won) the PCs will gain 10th level as they share the bad news with Darrett that the Red Dragon Army is in possession of an honest-to-gods flying fortress! Thoughts So Far: Let’s start out with what I like. This chapter has perhaps the widest variety of enemy types and tactics seen so far in the campaign. The death dragon encounter, the blue dragon boss battle, the optional treant fight, the Istarian drones and their control panel, the introduction of aurak draconians and a unique Black Robe mage all look like interesting enemies that can make a fight feel fresh and engaging. I also like the Test of High Sorcery, in that instead of being an extended 1 on 1 encounter is more of a short moral test to avoid the Dragonlance equivalent of Shadowrun’s Decker Problem. But now on to the criticisms, and boy do I have a lot! The City of Lost Names is like a miniaturized version of the Northern Wastes in being heavy on open exploration with locations the PCs can visit in nonlinear order. It doesn’t hold up to that chapter, however, for a few reasons. My most major concern is that it is entirely possible for PCs to sequence-break and come to the Threshold too early, bypassing getting a Dragonlance. There should be more explicit hooks to encourage PCs to venture to certain locations beyond just getting a phone call from a gnome, like murals depicting a dragonlance being forged at the Temple or Dragon Army prisoners who if rescued can give the PCs information. Also after all that they’ve been through, the whole “there’s a lot of soldiers guarding this place” feels a bit weak of a deterrence in causing them to not go to the Bastion of Takhisis. While I have been complaining about this module’s ultra-linear nature, I do feel that there should be stronger clues pushing them towards the Temple of Paladine or providing alternate ways of reforging the Dragonlance. Playing a Dragonlance campaign without getting its namesake artifact is like running a Dark Sun game without the opportunity to kill slavers. Or Planescape without getting into a philosophical argument. Or Eberron without getting to use cool magitech devices. Or Ravenloft without getting to stake a vampire. Edit: I managed to miss a pertinent bit of text where Demelin will detect Sarlamir's lance on the party, and mention its presence even if not volunteered. She will tell them to take it to the Temple of Paladine as she doesn't think its reappearance is a coincidence. This mollifies my above criticism a lot. Beyond this, some of the potential allied characters, such as Duskwalker the treant and Demelin the archmage, feel a bit too inactive in regards to the Dragon Army threatening their protected charges. I can understand not having the manpower to take on an entire military force, but I can see many gaming groups try to cajole them into more precise strikes like assassinating the aurak captain in the mansion or creating a distraction while the party sneaks into the Bastion of Takhisis or the Threshold of the Heavens. Not to mention seeking out their fate once the city’s foundation crumbles! The fact that a death slaad is of more direct help than the holy guardians of a good-aligned temple is rather ironic. Another weak point is that the module doesn’t say or take into account what happens if a PC manages to magically force Belephaion to reverse the change, like with the use of enchantment magic. While I understand that this is unlikely even at this level (PCs would have access to Dominate Person and not Dominate Monster) you know that there’s some interesting build, magic item, or material out there a clever gaming group will take advantage of at such a crucial moment, and Belephaion isn’t old enough to have Legendary Resistance. Personally speaking it would be cleaner and simpler to just make the process one-way and the dragon can’t reverse it even if he wants to. I realize that I may sound a bit overcritical, but after seeing the high points this module can achieve back in Chapter 5 it’s a let-down to see it fall back down one chapter later. Join us next time as we conclude the saga in Chapter 7: Siege of Kalaman! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 08:27
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MonsterEnvy posted:I overall like the this adventure, and when I run it I plan to shore up a few of these weaknesses. I will probably have Demelin notice the Dragonlance and direct them towards the Temple of Paladine. As you made this post I realized that I missed a bit of text about Demelin auto-noticing the lance and telling the party about it, actually. This mollifies my specific criticism on that count a lot and edited the above text to account for that. I still have one more chapter to read, but I don't consider Shadow of the Dragon Queen to necesssarily be a bad module on par with something like Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I tend to highlight the critical parts as I notice that other reviewers are less apt to do so, and particularly when the weaknesses become a pattern. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 09:48
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 Chapter 7: Siege of Kalaman The final chapter of the book has a climactic showdown with the Dragon Army’s flying citadel as it moves across the horizon to besiege the city of Kalaman! Unlike prior chapters this one has a time limit when they enter the final dungeon. Once that happens. in three hours the citadel will reach Kalaman at which point it cannot be sabotaged lest it fall into and destroy the city. *At which point they’ll reach level 11. But first, once the party reunites with Darrett he will tell them to report to Marshal Vendri, and PCs who try to fly up to the citadel early on will be repelled by lesser death dragons. Once the PCs return and report, they will be grilled on the citadel’s nature and defenses, and once it becomes clear that they don’t have a surefire solution this will make her anxious. It won’t be long before word about the citadel spreads to Kalaman’s general population, and combined with the Red Dragon Army taking more and more territory this will cause panic to spread throughout the city. To set the scene there are various events the DM can use as set dressing, such as blacksmith shops running out of weapons and small crowds of refugees pleading to gate guards to be let through. But Darrett has a plan! Clystran from Heart’s Hollow has arrived with a wasteland dragonnel, and based on his aerial scouting he spotted a series of tunnels lining the flying citadel’s underside which the PCs can use to infiltrate the fortress and find a way to destroy it. And since we have to raise the stakes, this plan of entry will be best done when it attacks Kalaman, for the Dragon Army will have the bulk of its attention directed towards the city’s defenses. But before that happens, the PCs will take part in several encounters defending Kalaman’s walls from enemy scouts: they include any number of random encounters on a table involving draconians testing the defenses, such as shapeshifted sivak or dragonnel-riding bozaks. One involves a death dragon with a message hand-delivered to the PCs by Kansaldi Fire-Eyes talking about how she will bring about their end. The only mandatory encounter involves Lord Bakaris getting a letter from his son who defected to the Dragon Army, and decides to join him by raising one of the city gates with some fellow traitors to let several Dragon Army officers through. After all of this, the PCs get one last long rest for the rest of the campaign, for the Battle of Kalaman will begin in earnest! We get some more encounters as the Red Dragon Army’s ground forces attack attack the walls, with more random encounters with higher stakes: sivak draconians attacking ballistae the PCs need to defend/repair, dragonnel-riding officers throwing alchemist’s fire into the city, and auraks using dimension door to teleport next to and attack one of Kalaman’s officers. We have one more Warriors of Krynn scenario to play (Victory grants each dragonnel a PC is riding in the next encounter has advantage on the first attack or ability check). Once these are done, the PCs need to rendezvous with Clyrstran and the allied dragonnels via a gnomeflinger catapult, where they must fight alongside them against four red dragon wyrmlings in another Battlefield Encounter. The lair actions for this are pretty cool, including stray ballista shots, a blitzkrieg run of enemy dragonnels lighting fires on the ground, and the red dragons all recharging their breath weapons with a prayer to the Dragon Queen.  PCs flying up to the Citadel will be let through if they’re disguised as Dragon Army soldiers or have some other means of avoiding attention, but otherwise they will be intercepted by a pair of dragonnel riders: Bakaris the Younger who uses typical Dragon Army Officer stats and Red Ruin, the commander of the aerial forces who has her own unique stat block. She is a lance-wielding heavy armor + shield fighter who has 2 out of 3 benefits of the Mounted Combatant feat (no advantage on melee vs unmounted). Her unique Ember Lance can deal 2d6 bonus fire damage and force prone a creature that fails a Strength saving throw, and also has a rechargeable Explosive Hand Crossbow which is basically a Fireball spell with lower range but increased damage. All in all a pretty cool battle with some nice weapons as loot, but can be easily bypassed by canny PCs. Once they’re inside, the PCs need to find a way to destroy the flying citadel. It’s by far the longest dungeon crawl in the campaign, with 25 rooms split between the sublevels and the Bastion of Takhisis. The enemies here are light on draconians and heavy on undead, not all of which are hostile. One “friendly” undead includes Lorry Wanwillow, a kender vampire who finds the idea of trespassers to be a fun change of pace from her boring unlife (she was sealed away in the City of Lost Names for 50 years by her former vampire master who couldn’t stand her nonstop talking), and can tell the PCs about the other creatures in the dungeon. PCs can also meet Leedara again at the entrance, where she warns them about Lord Soth who is in the Bastion above and is powerful to the point that they won’t be able to match him in typical combat. Soth is guarding the Cataclysmic fire from Kalaman’s catacombs, which is being used as fuel for the flying citadel, and if the PCs can find the Mirror of Reflected Pasts somewhere in the sub-levels they can use it to distract Soth and find a way to quench the flames. The mirror in question is inside a treasure vault behind a secret door which can open if the PCs figure out a rotating statue puzzle that opens doorways which it is facing. A Silvanesti spirit known as Cithcillion can reveal more about the mirror and how it works if they find the bones of his friends elsewhere in the dungeon and bring them back to him. So what does the Mirror of Reflected Pasts do? Well when it’s activated it floats in the air and cannot be moved from that position, and those within 30 feet who look into it must make a Wisdom save or become paralyzed until the mirror is deactivated or they can no longer see their reflection. The Bastion of Takhisis is comparatively short, making up 5 out of the 25 rooms, although it is home to Lord Soth and two of his more powerful minions who (thankfully) are initially fought separately. Caradoc makes a return in the possessed body of a Kalaman soldier, and over time has come to believe that Soth’s alliance with the Dragon Army is a bad idea and offers to ally with the PCs if they can grant him control of the flying citadel. Such a plan is doomed to failure (the helm required to control has to be attuned by a spellcaster), but he doesn’t know that. The other minion is Wersten Kern, an undead former Knight who is Lord Soth’s most trusted champion. She has her own unique stat block where she attacks with a Banner Pike weapon that can impose a curse halving a target’s speed and imposing disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. She also has a rechargeable attack where she recites the names of everyone slain by Lord Soth, imposing psychic damage and the frightened condition. If Lord Soth is still around he will join the battle after 3 rounds have passed.  Much ado has been made about Lord Soth’s stats, as it was one of the first things revealed by those who got this book early, and specifically whether he was weak or a fair match for a CR 19 monster or even just for a level 11 party. Several have claimed that he’d be a cakewalk at this point in the campaign, which may be true if all the players are into CharOps and Soth was being fought in a white room scenario where the PCs have all of their spells, limited-use class features, and hit points at 100%. Between the many combat encounters between this and the siege of Kalaman, the possible aid of Wersten Kern, and him popping off a deadly ability such as banishment or Word of Death, most gaming groups are going to see at least one PC die or be taken out of commission when fighting him. However, the PCs have an ace in the hole for this: if the Mirror of Reflected Pasts is deployed, Lord Soth will autofail the save, whispering the name “Isolde” as he stares into it. Furthermore, the PCs don’t have to kill Lord Soth in order to get him off their back. If the big brazier holding the Cataclysmic fire is extinguished, then he will vanish into a pit of darkness and never show up for the rest of the adventure. The fire can be destroyed via a multitude of ways: throwing a relic of a good-aligned deity into the flames such as a dragonlance (this can be figured out via an Insight or Religion check) or if the four scaffolding supports reinforcing the brazier are smashed apart. And being a Load Bearing MacGuffin, the entire citadel will begin to slowly fall, forcing the PCs to escape. The DM can deploy one or more Scenes of Destruction to emphasize the race against time, from your standard falling rocks to fleeing baaz draconians falling into suddenly-appearing pits. The PCs will have to fight Karavarix, a greater death dragon and the dragon Sarlamir slain with the dragonlance. He believes one of the PCs to be Sarlamir and will fight to the death.  The PCs may have won the war, but what about the battle? Well after they land safe and sound, there is one more problem they must take care of: Kansaldi Fire-Eyes has vengeance in her heart, flying on the red dragon Ignia to kill the PCs. Kansaldi is a heavy armor-wearing cleric with a variety of offensive spells, and can multiattack with her pike and thrown balls of flame. She has a glowing ruby in an eye socket that grants her truesight out to 120 feet, and can heal herself or an allied creature 17 hit points as a bonus action. As for Ignia, she has young red dragon stats but is Huge-sized. This is also a Battlefield Encounter, meaning we have cool features such as debris from the falling citadel as multitarget hazards, bozak reinforcements, exploding siege engines, a stampede of panicked dragonnels, and a one-time vision of Takhisis watching down from the clouds that can impose disadvantage on attacks and ability checks. But anyone wearing a good-aligned deity’s holy symbol gains inspiration instead as they’re protected from the Dragon Queen’s gaze. We then get one last Warriors of Krynn scenario with some very nice rewards for a victory: a +3 shield or a Talisman of Pure Good if a good-aligned divine caster is within the party. Sadly, as this is the end of the campaign the PCs won’t get to use it unless the DM runs their own adventures afterwards. Celebrations are held, the dead are honored, and we get an epilogue for various surviving NPCs and what they are up to. For example, Darrett travels to the city of Malegoth in hopes of becoming a true Knight of Solamnia and Mayor Raven and the survivors of Vogler return to their hometown and start to rebuild. But sometime later, the PCs are given a message from a mysterious figure, the letter sealed in blue wax bearing the Dragon Queen’s symbol: quote:Congratulations, heroes of Kalaman. I toast your bravery and daring. I could use audacious souls, such as yourselves, and will be watching your exploits with interest. Your city has escaped the Dragon Queen’s grasp today, but none can defy her will for long. I hope that when first we meet, it won’t be among Kalaman’s ruins. The adventure doesn’t spell it out, but it’s Kitiara. Thoughts So Far: I really like this chapter. The stakes are high, there’s quite a few challenges, the final battle is suitably climactic, the PCs can take some long-awaited satisfying revenge against at least one Bakaris, and having the PCs level up before entering the final dungeon rather than at the end of the campaign like some adventures do is a great idea. As 11th level brings a variety of cool features such as 6th level spells for primary casters and 3-6 attacks per round as a fighter, this is a better “end level” for a campaign than 10th. My main criticism would be that Lord Soth takes up too much spotlight in comparison to the real leader of the Dragon Army forces. I get that Soth is fanservice for Dragonlance veterans, but I understand how Weis and Hickman felt when they were vehemently against WotC transporting him into Ravenloft. I feel that the true final battle should’ve been against Kansaldi Fire-Eyes in the room with the brazier, as a loss for the PCs then would spell out the doom of Kalaman. If the PCs lose against her in the typical adventure…well it’s sad that they died, but the flying citadel is irreversibly destroyed and Lord Soth has cut off ties with the Dragon Armies. [center]Appendices[/center] The 5 appendices cover new material introduced in Shadow of the Dragon Queen. As I covered quite a few of these as they showed up during the adventure, this section is going to be rather brief. Gear and Magic Items has a bit of gnome favoritism, as quite a few of the mundane items are the new gnomish devices and siege weapons. For the kender we get stats for the hoopak, which is basically a finesseable two-handed spear that can also be used as a sling with a longer range. The narycrash are gnomish parachutes which can be given to the PCs who express worries about the dangers of using a gnomeflinger at several points during the campaign. In true gnomish fashion Than and Rookledust genuinely won’t consider the danger in being flung unless the PCs bring it up. The only magic item we didn’t previously cover is the Flying Citadel Helm, which is an attunement-required wondrous item that grants control of a flying citadel. Basically you can move the citadel up to 80 feet per round and the wearer can see from the highest point outside the citadel at any time. Characters who are on the citadel or within 120 feet of its crash point take 39 bludgeoning damage, which at 11th level is pretty survivable. Friends & Foes doesn’t include any creatures or NPCs we haven’t covered. It does have a 1d100 table of Dragon Army encounters the DM can use for times when PCs may run into a place under Dragon Army control. It’s your typical selection of evil human soldiers, draconians and monstrous humanoids, and some more unique encounters such as Caradoc and some skeletal knights on a mission to kidnap a noble Caradoc’s possessing or soldiers hunting for escaped prisoners with mastiffs. Sidekicks gives us 6 DMPCs using the sidekick rules who can accompany the party on the adventure. Unlike Darrett or the death slaad none of them appear in the adventure by default, and it’s left to the DM’s discretion when and how they appear in the campaign. About half of them are spellcasters, including a human White Robe mage, a kender druid, and a dwarf war-priest of Kiri-Jolith. The other 3 DMPCs are more warrior-oriented, including a Khurish human archer…who doesn’t speak Khur, a human Solamnic knight who fights with a big sword and big armor and has Pack Tactics which makes her great to use alongside another melee-focused character, and a Kagonesti roguish type who fights with a poisoned dagger and is proficient in a wide variety of skills. All of these characters have progression for their abilities beyond 2nd level, allowing for a painless process in leveling them up. Story Concept Art & Maps are our final appendices, the former being a collection of rough sketches and notes. My favorite one is the draft of Kansaldi Fire-Eyes:  We only have 2 maps, 1 being the hexcrawl map of Kalaman and the Northern Wastes we saw earlier, and the other a map of Ansalon:  Beautiful, just beautiful. Edit: Today WotC put out a digital version of the poster map with locations added. It's very high resolution so won't directly post here, but here it is! Final Thoughts: Shadow of the Dragon Queen has all the workings of an epic fantasy adventure. You have a clear overwhelming villain, you have artifacts of legend that can decide the fate of the free peoples of Ansalon, and the emphasis on the backdrop of a larger war is mechanically reinforced via Battlefield Encounters and integration with the Warriors of Krynn board game. The initial setting overview is rather bare, but WotC did a good job preserving much of what we recognize about Dragonlance while making some necessary changes in places. I did notice a pretty high number of female Knights of Solamnia (and former Knight in Wersten Kern’s case) as well as women warriors in general. In the original setting that organization was pretty patriarchal, and while in-universe the knighthood is acknowledged as clinging too much to outdated mores to its detriment I can understand this change. One because knights are a cool and attractive option for players, and two to avoid the inevitable arguments about “Female Space Marines.” But with that being said, the adventure inherits the time-tested Dragonlance problem of narrow-minded adventures that don’t take into account the various twists and turns from likely methods of action by the PCs. There are also too many options that give the illusion of choice and consequences but don’t make a difference in the long run, which only adds to the problem. Additionally this is a bit of a personal taste, but the adventure accelerates at a rapid pace without much downtime. I can understand the rushed nature given the backdrop of an invasion, but it’s a recurring thing I see in quite a few WotC campaigns. In spite of being set in Solamnia we hardly get any screen time for Solamnic Knights, and while the PCs do get a dragonlance they don’t get to wield it while riding an actual metallic dragon which was one of the highlights of the War of the Lance. The dragonnels feel like a compromise option, as canonically in this part of the story the metallics are in hiding and don’t want to tip their hand, but even in the original adventures the PCs can gain the aid of Silvara and get to do this when rescuing the good dragon eggs. We even have a bronze dragon in this adventure that can be used for such a purpose, maybe even tipping the scales (pun intended) against that black dragon in Camp Carrionclay. But overall, these above problems don’t take away to the point that the bulk of the adventure is unusable. And I’m happy to see a Dragonlance product released, for this also means that the setting is opened up to the Dungeon Master’s Guild and already there’s some promising content in the works for it. I don’t know when or if I’ll review such products; I may veer over to Let’s Reading an entirely different line. Even after its birth nearly 40 years ago, Dragonlance still stands the test of time. Here’s to 40 more! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Dec 6, 2022 |
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Dec 5, 2022 01:59
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Kaza42, I'm really glad that you're reviewing this book. I still plan to read it, but at 600+ pages I know it's going to be a monster to get through so it's good having posts summarizing the content. I'm unsure how to feel about ability score modifiers moving into occupations. I feel that the freest option would be to make them customizable entirely on part of the player's side. Although it removes the min-maxing and pigeonholing of archetypes that come with fantasy races, it sounds like it will end up moving that onto backgrounds. A Wizard would be a fool not to take an Intelligence-increasing background, for instance.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:36
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Kaza42 posted:Every background has one set ability score and one "pick any". For second scores, Wizards get little out of strength, and the most out of dex or con, but any background can give +1 int. And there's an explicit "build your own" option where you just get two +1s I now feel silly for missing that.
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Dec 7, 2022 23:22
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srhall79 posted:Thanks for all of this. With some mixed feelings about past Dragonlance, it's still rooted deep in my gaming history (my current game, I'm liberally borrowing elements to put toward younger players unfamiliar with the source). I couldn't help but be curious about this release. From your review, it sounds worth getting and running. You're very welcome. If I'm going to TG's resident Dragonlance Lore Spouter, I should get around to reviewing the big sourcebook that brought the setting into 5e. The adventure is runnable from my non-playtest estimations, although will need a bit of tweaking to tamp down on the worst stuff. I can't make any promises, but I very well may review a DM's Guild Dragonlance sourcebook or two this holiday season.
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Dec 9, 2022 23:12
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PurpleXVI finds that his review schedule for the next 5 years is filled with nothing but Kingdoms of Kalamar sourcebooks, and the monkey's paw tucks in a finger.
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Dec 9, 2022 23:45
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 DM’s Guild Page It hasn’t been a full week since the DM’s Guild gave Dragonlance homebrew the go-ahead, but already we have several strong contenders. While there is the inevitable shovelware that looks hastily put-together at the last minute and titles tagged to the setting that have nothing to do with Dragonlance, the world of Krynn’s big strength is that it has a very passionate fanbase. Already we saw the Dragonlance Nexus release Tasslehoff’s Pouches of Everything plus Champions of Krynn, a general-purpose sourcebook and adventure full of options for both players and GMs. The Dragonlance Companion has been six months in the making and got a personal recommendation from Margaret Weis herself on Facebook. We even got an Aesthetic’s Guide to Ansalon series, a two-year project of converting the original DL1-16 adventures to Fifth Edition along with lots of other converted material set during that era from a variety of sourcebooks and novels. The original author of Chaos Reaver, a SAGA-era adventure from Dungeon Magazine, converted the adventure to Fifth Edition. The Test of High Sorcery ranks among these passion projects in being the work of long-time fans touching upon an iconic element of Dragonlance. It is a choose your own adventure that can be played by yourself, with one player and one DM, or a typical group of one DM and several players. The idea is that the PC is a prospective mage who is about to undertake the Test of High Sorcery in order to join one of the three great Orders of arcane spellcasters of Ansalon. It is balanced around a single 4th level character capable of casting spells from the spell list of one of the arcane casting classes,* and can be played on its own or as part of the larger Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign. In the latter case, the Test begins when the scroll is delivered to Wyhan in the city of Kalaman, teleporting the PC to the Forest of Wayreth. *Which allows for some interesting possibilities, like an Arcane Trickster Rogue or someone with the Magic Initiate feat. The product is structured in the vein of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, where you flip to specific sections (usually labeled things such as A5, B16, etc) based on choices the PC makes or whether they succeed or fail at a particular ability check, attack roll, or saving throw. Sometimes an action may result in the PC gaining a Trait, which has an effect on a later section or after the adventure ends. Some Traits are tied to moral actions or outlooks and can add points to one of the three Orders of High Sorcery, where the PC is inducted into the Order in which they have the most points. Additionally, there are no maps and this all takes place in the theater of the mind, and during the rare occasions when initiative is rolled the PC is encouraged to get into the mindset of the enemies and “root for them as much as your character” in a DMless game. Furthermore, to offset the disadvantages of a single PC they begin play with 5 Destiny Points. Destiny Points can be spent to avoid certain doom, such as turning a failed roll into a success, turning a successful attack into a critical hit, or regaining 10 hit points upon being reduced to 0. Remaining Destiny Points also determine how well they’re graded after the Test, with more Destiny Points resulting in increased rewards from the Order leaders. There are a few sections in the adventure that can restore a spent Destiny Point, but they’re rare and a PC may get 1 at most, 2 perhaps if they’re lucky. Last but not least, there is the option for a lone mage to take allies on their Test, but this makes the Test more dangerous: the Destiny Points are shared as a pool, the hit points of enemies are doubled if there’s 2 PCs, the damage of enemy attacks are doubled if there’s 3 or more PCs, the DC for ability checks are raised by 3 if the Help action is taken on them, and depending on the group/DM discretion the party may roll as a whole for ability checks or saving throws regarding effects and events of the adventure. Throughout the entire adventure the PC can take short or long rests at predefined points: specifically they can take 2 short rests and 3 long rests in total. While there are many sections with varying means of resolution, the overall structure of the Test remains the same in there being three major chapters, and some branching paths which put the PC in an environment to resolve a task. The PC can gain treasure and unique magic items along the way, although if being done as part of a larger campaign it’s up to the DM whether or not they retain such items afterwards. Outright combat is pretty rare, but virtually every encounter gives the enemy a weakness that can be learned based on prior checks and Traits such as a vulnerability for additional damage, or some effect that can cause the monster to flee, surrender, or otherwise not fight as well.  Chapter One: The Tower of Wayreth Technically there’s a preceding section called Welcome to Krynn, but that bears little consequence on this adventure and instead covers a general overview of the Dragonlance setting and recommended reading you can easily find elsewhere. The adventure technically begins before the Test although even then the PC is still judged from afar. These sections are a gradual means of determining aspects of a character’s backstory and personality via Traits, like the opportunity to tell a ghost why the PC seeks to take the Test of High Sorcery which can determine one of the future tasks. Upon reaching the Tower itself have the opportunity to interact with other mages also seeking to take the Test. Kyrian in particular is a shy mousy-haired woman; interacting with her can determine whether a PC is confident in their abilities or also have their own misgivings about the difficulties about the Test, as well as whether the PC intervenes in standing up for her against a bully and potential rival. The PC and fellow mages are led to a guest chamber with various creature comforts, and up to two kinds of activities can be performed in order to better prepare for the Test: taking a relaxing bubble bath can grant Inspiration and temporary hit points, using a scrying orb gives the opportunity to learn about a future task via a useful clue, a bookshelf can reveal more knowledge about the Test’s structure along with a communal “take a scroll, leave a scroll” program (stealing more than you need has consequences as Stole From the Community trait) , and a scavenger hunt where paper clues can lead the PC to a Wand of Fickle Luck that can auto-succeed a saving throw…or blow up in the wielder’s hand, damaging them. The Test itself begins with the PC being interviewed by the three Order leaders, who make use of Detect Thoughts and Zone of Truth to learn about the PC. Answers to their questions can determine future tasks, such as being asked about whether they’re weaker in fortitude or subtlety (answering neither marks the Overconfident trait), or an analogy where if they were in a dangerous situation who is likeliest to be there as their “anchor in the storm” or if they’d brave the storm alone. The Black Robe leader casts a spell where the PC is plunged into a nightmare world where they must make three saving throws to push away nightmarish visions. Failing at least one of these saves determines the “final boss” of the Test, where the PC fights a great foe at the end. Nightmares of seeing their own funeral will pit them against a ghostly bard, a pack of laughing hyenas a gnoll shaman, a tormentor from their childhood a minotaur mage, and if they succeed on all three the final boss will be a maddened wizard in a pocket dimension. The PC will wake up alone back in the guest room, and after a long rest they will be directed to the Testing Grounds. But before that happens they have an opportunity to peer into a featureless black portrait sitting among the likenesses of great mages from history. Although it’s not known until near the end of the adventure, the spirit of Fistandantilus will communicate with the PC, offering them a deal to grant them help in surviving the final task in exchange for a small portion of the PC’s life force after completing the Test. Spurning his help will anger him.  Chapter Two: High Sorcery This chapter is far longer than the last one, and the first one with real stakes of danger. Several tasks can result in damage on a failed ability check or saving throw, and in a few very rare cases a level of Exhaustion or lost spell slots. In many cases the casting of an appropriate spell can grant advantage or automatically succeed on the check. Death in the Test results in the death of the PC, but there is a “safe” way of losing the Test in the fourth task of this Chapter. The chapter opens up with the PC in the middle of a forest, where they are faced with one of 3 tasks based on the backstory Traits accrued during Chapter One. One such task involves the PC sailing on a Styx-like river full of spirits who try to instill doubt and psychic damage in their mind while being guided by a hooded ferryman. The second task involves restless ghosts guarding a treasure in some ancient ruins while competing against another Test-taker, and depending on how the PC resolves the check can grant them benefits such as temporary hit points or Inspiration. The third task involves the PC helping a siren look for a stone among a pile of rocks on a windy cliffside, where the correct stone is a new magic item that can grant temporary resistance to nonmagical damage, and failing to give her the right stone or trying to steal it can result in danger to the PC as they may get tossed off the cliffs from an earthquake or being pushed off by the siren. After completing the first task, the next one is determined by what the PC answered as their weakness during the interview with the Order leaders. Lack of subtlety places them in a medusa’s cave full of petrified statues; the medusa has the key to a locked door to get out, and there is a mirror among one of the petrified adventurers that can turn her to stone. While there are various resolutions (break down the door, blackmail the medusa into giving you the key by threatening her eggs, steal it, etc) it is possible that initiative may be rolled. Although she is far weaker than the typical monster stat block (27 hit points, no multiattack, lower DC for petrifying gaze) it is still a deadly encounter for a solo PC. If Lacks Fortitude was the gained trait, the PC must go through a claustrophobic narrow hallway full of swarms of crawling claws, and the doorway leading out requires the insertion of the caster’s hand as the ‘key.’ A PC who is Overconfident finds themselves in a dark room with a rakshasa who asks the PC to perform two challenges: to move the fire from the brazier in front of him without physically touching it, and then the PC’s choice of a challenge of knowledge (guess what kind of monster he is), a challenge of arcane power (PC casts a damaging spell upon the rakshasa who due to his magical immunity will resist it, and then he’ll cast a super-damaging fireball), or a challenge of willpower (staring contest as shambling undead try to distract the PC). Although unlike the medusa none of these challenges involve an outright battle, the challenge of arcane power is the deadliest as a PC will take 28 fire damage on a failed Dexterity save. While a Destiny Point may save them (and it’s encouraged to bring this up), the average 4th level arcane caster can be one-shotted this way. A D6 Hit Die class with 12 Constitution will have 22 hit points if average results are taken, and even a mighty Eldritch Knight with a 14 Constitution will have 36 for average results. A short rest can be taken afterwards, and the third task is dependent on an event in the forest back in Chapter One that involved pixies dancing around an unholy circle of Takhisis that the pixies seek to weaken. A PC who examines the circle can be contacted by Takhisis who offers them power in exchange for driving away the fey. Depending on whether the PCs accepted or stole bread from the fey, or if they drove off or let the fairies do their work, determines one of two possible tasks. The latter gives the PC the Mysterious Stranger trait, but it is mislabeled as the rest of the book references a Mysterious Friend which is what is clearly meant in regards to the trait and triggering task. The fey-themed option has the PC materialize in a hag’s cozy hut, where she will attempt to enchant the PC into helping her brew a potion…which requires either a still-fresh finger or eyeball as an ingredient. The PC can use bargaining or trickery in several cases to keep their body part, and a PC who ate the pixie’s bread if offered earlier has it activate, granting them temporary hit points and either reducing their Exhaustion level or regaining lost spell slots. The other possibility for the third task places the PC in a forest near three bakali (lizardfolk) hard at work in making a pentagram dedicated to Takhisis. They believe that the PC is here to help them, and if the character is either honest or fails to lie it will cause them to turn hostile where they’ll decide the PC will make a good sacrifice instead. A PC who decides to play along can either sabotage the ritual or reinforce it, the latter of which earns the goddess’ favor and the rewarding of a new magic item if they declare their loyalty to her. The Amulet of Takhisis has charges which can be use to make a cone-shaped breath weapon attack like that of a chromatic dragon’s. Even if the bakali turn hostile, initiative is only rolled if the PC opts to try to fight them rather than finding a means to stop the ritual. There’s 3 of them, and they are individually weak but their damage can add up against a lone PC. Their weakness is that the survivors will retreat if the PC kills an uninjured bakali in one blow. After completing this task, the fourth and final one of this chapter is based on what answer the PC gave as their anchor in the storm. Each of these tasks has a unique event, where some advantage or ideal resolution can be gained if the PC willingly swears to give up (arcane) magic forever. In such a case the Test will end, but this won’t result in the execution of the PC. Instead they will be permanently severed from using arcane magic and teleported away from Wayreth. The PC can retrain as a new class, including divine casters, although they can never gain access to the spell lists of the arcane casting classes, whether by feat or subclass or some other method. A PC who chose a lover as their anchor in the storm will be at a wedding for their beloved as the Cataclysm strikes. But it turns out they are to be wed to another, and won’t leave willingly as their bride/groom is trapped under fallen debris. The PC can save themselves, help their beloved, or convince them to come with the PC and let their betrothed die. A PC who opts to try and save one or both is faced with the opportunity to give up their magic to save their beloved, ending the Test so as not to see them die. A PC who chose a more non-romantic companion will instead be placed in a giant arena with Kyrian and several other Test-takers. The arena announcer declares that the Trial of the Terrorwind challenge is one of survival, as the last mage to remain standing will be the winner. Alternatively, one could renounce their magic forever to save all of the survivors and end the challenge prematurely. A gaseous monster known as a terrorwind will be conjured, its airy form picking up all manner of weapons on the ground to turn into a hurricane of death as it literally carves a path of destruction across the arena. And all the while, mages will turn on each other, making the assumption that the challenge will be sped up the more people die sooner. In spite of the immediate danger, this is not a “roll for initiative” type of task. Various actions can determine the PC’s moral compass or tactical nature, such as immediately running to help Kyrian vs waiting to try and analyze the terrorwind’s nature. The “will you give up your magic?” offer happens when Kyrian says she doesn’t want to be a mage if it will result in the death of others and says they can still have a future if they stop the Test. If a PC has no anchor in the storm and is a pure loner, the task instead will take place in a maze of mirrors. They will have only their own reflection as company, literally. The reflection will talk back to the PC in a judgmental way, asking if the risks and sacrifices are worth it if the PC will become just another minion of the Orders. The reflection will impose various challenges, such as shifting around and crushing them, and also a trick question of if they’d want to become a renegade mage for freedom. A PC who says yes will have the Test momentarily suspended, causing one of the Order leaders to go “we cannot allow that” as the mirrors explode in damaging shards, with an admonishment that they take such declarations seriously and they “have taken note of what’s happened here.” The Test continues on to Chapter Three, although it imposes the Renegade Mage trait. This task’s “give up magic” is when the reflection shows a possible future for the PC where they are living an ideal domestic life with a happy family, a fate the reflection will say is something not even powerful mages can readily attain.  Chapter Three: Soulforge This is the final chapter covering the Test, named after the process during the Test that results in a permanent (usually physical) alteration to a mage’s body marking the sacrifices they made for magic. It is in this chapter that a PC may gain Traits which alter their form or impose some kind of persistent magical effect that can often only be reversed via Greater Restoration or more powerful magic. The number of Destiny Points remaining at the end of the Test can also cause permanent changes, although in those cases the player has the choice in what forms they take. The first task is more of a resting point, where the PC can avail themselves of a long rest or in one case forgo a long rest and instead regain a Destiny Point. The PC’s choices are a cozy seaside town to stay the night, a scenic glade where a dead spirit will try to seduce the PC…and of course in reality she’s a corpse but still genuinely desires companionship. A PC who accepts still gets a long rest as they hug in the pond for hours. In each case a saving throw is done at the end of the long rest based on one of two choices, where success grants Inspiration but a failure can cause either psychic damage (hangover after partying in the town’s case, embracing the spirit in the glade’s case) or losing 2 spell slots. The exception is the childhood home where success grants nothing. The third option is the PC’s childhood home, which is empty save for blue dragon eggs which are just hatching. The baby dragons are harmless, although the text mentions that the PC knows they grow up to become fearsome servants of Takhisis and the dragons cannot be taken with them. Content Warning: Child Death A PC who decides to kill the hatchlings gains the Dragon Murderer trait, and at the end of the long rest their death cries may haunt the PC’s dreams as psychic damage on a failed save. Not only is this recognized as a Black Robe aligned trait, killing the dragons has no benefits in this test for it will guide the PC to a much more dangerous task in the future. A PC who decides not to rest and continues to journey gains a Destiny Point. The second task has a storm come up, and the PC must either climb aboard a ship or go into a raised sloped leading into a tunnel for shelter. In the case of the boat it is occupied by a stereotypical bearded captain who talks like a pirate and demands to set sail as Zeboim herself is causing the storm. During this storm an amphi dragon will menace the boat, and if the monster was scried back in Chapter One the PC may be able to prematurely end its threat by attacking its tongue (also a weakness that causes it to flee if initiative is rolled). The captain, if rescued from falling into the sea, can aid in combat…via just granting advantage on relevant attack and ability checks. The amphi dragon is a very dangerous enemy, with a high amount of hit points (51) and an acid breath attack that can deal 17 damage on a failed save. The tongue can also be attacked during combat for the same results of it retreating. Otherwise, the flooded tunnel is a linear series of challenges such as going through magical darkness, swimming out of range of a tentacle from an unseen creature, and the possibility of fighting a swarm of eye-shaped aberrations in the water. They are also deadly in that they can do a lot of damage and make the PC lose a Hit Die or spell slot on a failed Constitution save, but their weakness is that they are vulnerable to a wide variety of energy types (fire, lightning, radiant, thunder). The completion of either task grants a short rest and regains a Destiny Point if spent.  The third task is based on another backstory Trait from the first chapter. A PC who has a dead loved one will find themselves in a misty graveyard, confronted with the ghost of said loved one who has a number-based riddle. The PC must choose either a red, black, or white rose laying next to a numbered tome. The black rose is the right rose, and choosing the wrong one has the spirit take one of the PC’s bones, imposing the Lost a Bone trait as well as necrotic damage. The ghost can also be persuaded to let the PC go, which if successful lets them go on to the next task with a heartfelt goodbye and the Ghost-Touched trait as their hair turns white. If the PC used the scrying orb to see this location, they will have seen a vision of themselves doing a handstand, which reverses the numbers in their vision that can point them to the black rose as the answer. And of course, the specter can be fought in battle by a PC who doesn’t want to play along. It isn’t as tough as the previous enemies, but has many undead immunities and a variety of damage resistances. It has a once per day Ghastly Reveal which can paralyze for one turn on a failed Wisdom save, and age the PC 1d4 x 10 years if they fail by 5 or more. A PC who showed themselves to be either charitable or greedy and ambitious during Chapter One will instead find their third task inside a temple dedicated to the three gods of magic. The temple holds one of the Dragon Orbs, an artifact of great and terrible power that can influence dragons. There is also a thief who will try to take the Orb for themselves. Even just studying the Orb is deadly, with several challenges imposing psychic damage and other maladies such as Exhaustion or becoming vulnerable to psychic damage until freed from its control. The task can be resolved via finding a way to control the orb, shattering it, or merely observing it at which point the thief may try to steal it, triggering a deadly trap. A PC who intervenes to save them or leaves them to their fate will have the Order leaders comment on their actions, their approval or lack thereof depending on their Order in question. A PC who has none of the appropriate backstory Traits instead appears in front of an arcane door that can be opened if a hand (or skeleton hand from hidden tombs) is placed inside, where poisonous needles will pierce the hand in order to open the door. A PC who scryed this area back in Chapter One will see themselves running from a danger, which in fact is a gelatinous cube. The PC must outmaneuver said ooze in a series of narrow hallways, and is pretty deadly on account that if they get trapped they will take 11 acid damage per round until they free themselves with Athletics and gain the Ooze-Scarred trait. In such a case they may very well need to spend a Destiny Point to survive. The ooze is purely a skill-based obstacle and is not fought normally via initiative. The fourth task has the PC encounter either a gold or red dragon. The former is less dangerous and can even give the PC a useful potion. What triggers is based on two prior moral decisions: if the PC stole more than one scroll from the “take a scroll, leave a scroll” program in the Tower’s guest room or killed the dragon wyrmlings, they will end up in the red dragon’s lair. If not, then the gold dragon’s. The gold dragon can offer one of three potions whose effects last for an hour, although in exchange the dragon will impose a Geas on the PC in line with ensuring some kind of proper moral behavior such as telling the truth to those who deserve to know if the potion of insight is chosen. The dragon won’t say what the price is until the PC makes their decision. One potion if drunk can heal nearby allies whenever they cast a spell (choosing this is a White Robe trait), another can damage an enemy whenever a verbal spell is cast (this is a Black Robe trait), and the final potion can let the PC automatically gain insight into any viewed creature’s type, weaknesses, resistances, vulnerabilities, and immunities (this is a Red Robe trait). The PC can of course attempt to steal more than one potion, which pisses off the dragon and if they can’t be mollified will cast a deadly 44 radiant damage moonbeam spell which even if survived can impose the Moon-Scarred trait (claw mark appears during full moon on PC’s face). A PC can choose not to take a potion, in which case the dragon can cast Greater Restoration which is also capable of erasing one of the wound-based Traits attained earlier. The PC can also regain a spent Destiny Point upon saying goodbye to the dragon if they took no potion. The red dragon encounter takes place in the treasure hoard of a great cave. A PC can take some gems and coins for themselves and sneak out, although the red dragon will wake up at the last moment and try to breathe fire on the PC for 27 damage on a failed save as they flee. Otherwise if the PC is initially detected the dragon won’t be immediately hostile, and instead will be more curious. Depending on what the PC tells them may impose various challenges, and if they Controlled the Orb in the last task may have advantage on said checks. Failing to entertain the red dragon will have him breathe fire on the PC, a deadly 55 fire damage on a failed save with the Dragon-Scarred trait gained either way. The fifth task is another long rest point, albeit with the PC returning to a more forlorn and deserted version. The abandoned village will have the PC meet briefly with Fizban at a Temple to Paladine and gain a statuette that can restore Inspiration if taken. The glade will have burned down, and a PC who embraced the spirit will see them one last time before they disappear, also granting Inspiration. PCs who spared the wyrmlings at the childhood home will find a sapphire worth 1,000 gold that also grants Inspiration. If a PC didn’t stop to rest they will find themselves on an overlook with the abandoned village far below, gaining the benefits of a long rest as well as a regained Destiny Point. After the rest, there will be one more optional encounter depending on whether or not the PC accepted or spurned Fistandantilus’ aid. A PC who accepted his offer gains 14 temporary hit points and advantage on all saving throws, albeit if they angered him will have the archmage express frustration upon finding that the PC cannot have their thoughts read or future predicted, looking like a strange ripple in the River of Time.  The final task is a good old-fashioned boss battle. In three out of four battles there is a pseudo-Lair Action where a d4 table is rolled on to represent some aspect of the enemy: the fractured mage and gnoll shaman causes shifting terrain, and the minotaur mage has Traps in the maze. A PC who mastered all of their fears will face a Lost Wizard who died during the Test and was never able to pass on to the afterlife; he has aberration-like features such as multiattack tentacles, a rechargeable reactive barrier to reduce incoming damage, a once per day mindshatter that deals a deadly 22 psychic damage on a failed save and if both tentacles hit, and a ranged arcane bolt spell attack. His weakness is that he is vulnerable to piercing damage. The gnoll shaman occurs if a PC has Fear of the Wild and will fight a gnoll shaman in the middle of a burning forest. He can multiattack with either a vampiric-style HP restoring bite, a flaming skull staff, can curse the PC to become vulnerable to fire damage on a failed Charisma save once per day, or also summon spirit hyenas once per day to impose the frightened condition and restore his own hit points. The shaman’s weakness is he fears the light of Solinari that illuminates a 60 foot radius patch of woodland, dealing radiant damage to him if he’s inside* and healing the PC an equal amount if they Chose Solinari as their preferred god during the interview in Chapter One. *if the PC goes inside the radius, the gnoll will reluctantly follow them to do battle. The minotaur is fought if the PC has Fear of Bullies trait, where a tormentor from their past appears to mock them before turning into a minotaur. This battle is one of guerilla warfare, where the minotaur can turn invisible as a reaction if he hits with a hurled bolt of (1d8 thankfully) lightning, allowing him to escape and forcing initiative to be rolled again the next time he’s encountered. The PC must make a Survival check; failure leads the PC into a trap before initiative is rolled, while success avoids the trap the next time they fight. This boss doesn’t have multiattack like the above two, but he can still hit very hard with a greataxe or charging gore attack. His weakness is he is vulnerable to psychic damage and can be taunted via Deception or Persuasion into triggering his own traps. A PC who has the Fear of Death trait will find themselves in a tomb with named stone reliefs depicting the names of great heroes. A cheerful ghost of a kender bard will appear, asking why the PC “looks so grim” as death comes for everyone and the best they can hope for is dying for something that matters. The ghost bard is pretty weak having only 13 hit points and there’s no d4 environment table, but the boss’ unique feature is that he can possess the skeletons of one of four heroes, which have their own unique actions and basically refresh his hit points. For instance, the Knight Skeleton has a longsword that deals bonus radiant damage, the Soldier Skeleton can knock someone prone with a shield smash, and so on. And being a kender, he has a rechargeable Taunt ability, although this one forces the PC to reroll a successful ability check, attack, or saving throw if they fail a Wisdom save to resist the taunting. The battle is ended if all skeletons are destroyed, although a PC who can shatter or move aside the tomb lids can destroy the skeletons via an action before they activate. The other big weakness is that the skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. By eyeballing the boss’ stats and tactics, the kender bard looks to be potentially the easiest, with the minotaur and Lost Wizard being potentially the deadliest. PCs who are stereotypical fragile spellcasters can be quickly overwhelmed by the minotaur’s hit and run tactics combined with the maze-like corridors and emphasis on melee and charge attacks. The Lost Wizard has some pretty damaging attacks as well as abilities that can mess with the PC’s action economy such as stunning once per day Memory Trap and a shifting terrain that can poison, knock prone, or make them unable to take reactions. There is one result of the souls of prior Test-takers crying out for revenge that can be helpful in stunning the boss, although it’s only a 25% chance. The kender wizard’s skeletons are individually fragile and their attacks don’t do much damage individually, so a PC with a familiar, summoned companions, or other means of immobilizing or doing AoE damage to take out both inert and possessed skeletons may very well be able to quickly finish up this encounter. As for the gnoll, like the minotaur it is also rather melee focused although doesn’t do as much damage, although if it gets the PC vulnerable to fire damage that may put it up there with the Lost Wizard or Minotaur.  Chapter Four: Epilogue This chapter triggers either when a PC finishes the Test or voluntarily gives up their magic. Depending on the DM the PC may or may not keep the treasures they gained during this adventure and may or may not reach 5th level. In the case of giving up their magic they must retrain in a non-arcane class, and their order is determined based on how many Traits have been checkmarked in the below table:  If a PC has two or more traits in one category than others then they will be part of that Order. Having one more or the same amount or within 1 point lets the player choose based on what actions best represent that Order. If a PC doesn’t already have them then they will gain the Initiate of High Sorcery feat and one of the Robe Adept feats, both detailed in Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Additionally the number of remaining Destiny Points have the Order leaders make judgements, with more points granting the PC a free magic item of common to rare rarity, and those who have 5 Destiny Points also gain an additional feat provided they meet the prerequisites. At 0 points the PC’s exertion and injuries never heal entirely and cause them to act, look, move, think, or speak very differently than before. At 1 or 2 this is what the average mage has scored, and the PC has two lingering injuries that magnify in intensity on the night of a full moon. 3 or 4 has only one lingering injury that can be hidden from others. 5 or more has no lingering injury but the PC has a permanent physical change obvious to others. Additionally the Conclave is secretly terrified by the PC, as only a few mages in the entirety of High Sorcery’s history have done this well, and already they can respect and fear among Ansalon’s arcane casters. Raistlin notably scored this high on his own Test. Finally, there’s a list of Traits and Future Adventures that goes over the consequences of certain Traits and what they mean for the rest of the campaign if not a one-shot. Even the ones resulting in the PC giving up their magic can generate future events, like being contacted by former mages who feel that the Tests are too cruel and seek to reform the Conclave via diplomacy (Life Over Magic), or a resistance movement impressed by the PC’s selflessness wanting to recruit them against the Dragon Armies or whoever is the BBEG if playing in other eras (Friendship Over Magic). The Marked by Fistandantilus trait has a direct benefit of giving +2 Intelligence but -2 Constitution to the PC, and several months later they get a letter of invitation to become the wicked archmage’s apprentice. The Renegade Mage trait still has the PC part of one of the Orders, but due to what they said during the Test they are kept a close watch and restricted from resources that other mages have access to, albeit one other mage is sympathetic to their plight. These aren’t a complete list of long-term Traits, just illuminating several I find interesting. Our book ends with several appendices, covering new magic items found during the Test or which are unique ones part of pregenerated PCs, NPC and monster stat blocks, and 4 pre-generated characters suitable for the Test. Overall Thoughts: The Test of High Sorcery is perhaps one of the most well-known aspects of Dragonlance thanks in no small part to the legacy of Raistlin Majere. However, implementing it in a regular session of Dungeons & Dragons is hard: if done solo it runs into the Decker Problem where one player is doing something while others sit around, and as the Tower of Wayreth is in an isolated corner of Ansalon it may not be a reasonable goal for PCs to venture there depending on where the campaign takes place. There have been various workarounds in this product and others, such as the use of teleporting mages or letting the rest of the party accompany them. There does exist advice for crafting a Test as an adventure, although actual detailed steps don’t really exist in Dragonlance books save for the 3rd Edition Towers of High Sorcery sourcebook, although given the limitations of that system it is hard to create truly balanced encounters. This product is the first to my knowledge that actually turns the Test into an outright adventure, and from what I can tell can accommodate solo gaming without resulting in the inevitable TPK, or Solo Party Kill to be more appropriate. The encounters are concrete enough, yet can be easily customized to suit the particular backstories of a PC so that the Test feels personalized to them. There’s enough branching pathways and Traits to make the choices a PC makes matter, and the potential to gain gold, magic items, and perhaps bonus feats makes completing the Test feel like a real reward rather than an in-universe obligation for playing an arcane caster. My most immediate concerns are the lethality and fairness of a solo gaming format. Although it is rare, the parts where initiative is rolled can be very swingy and barring summoner-type mages the enemy can afford to focus all their attacks on a single PC who probably has a d8 Hit Die at best. The incorporation of monster weaknesses that can be learned and exploited takes the edge off a bit, but unlike the ability checks and saving throws that are more structured a battle can really turn things around for an unlucky PC. Even though the book says to play the monsters in an unbiased way for GMless play, there’s still that subconscious bias on the PC’s side of “if I die, I won’t get to experience the rest of this cool adventure!” While the adventure compensates by increasing task DCs and monster lethality for group play, taking on a full party still feels like a good idea if only to give a wider range of proficiencies and resources. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Dec 11, 2022 |
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Dec 11, 2022 02:28
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Halloween Jack posted:What was that stupid 5e game about fighting the evil Baron Drumpf or whatever? You're thinking of Monsters of Murka, a 5e campaign setting that turns the modern world into a meme-filled fantasy land. I can't recall if I talked about it here, but it has been a setting I've considered reviewing. Its big weaknesses are that it over-relies on puns for its humor and while the author is liberal, it reads like someone saw the Trump Derangement Syndrome insult and decided to wear it as a badge of pride. There's a half-dozen monsters explicitly based off of Trump with minor variations in the spelling of his name. Making fun of other fashy figures or the GOP as a whole just falls by the wayside. There's so much material here: imagine the Lawful Evil Church of Bane priding itself on maximum individual freedom and Chaotic Good values. The jokes write themselves when it comes to the modern-day GOP. There's also some other strange analogies that don't quite land and feel like it's written by someone who hasn't lived in the USA or trying to do political satire without having read up on the basics of American politics. Like making it so that antifa is primarily fighting the Church of Scientology, which...don't get me wrong, that latter group is awful, but antifa groups primarily protest and oppose white nationalist sickos and I don't know how and to what extent Scientology has been involving itself in the recent political discourse. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309974/Monsters-of-Murka-Campaign-Setting-5e Libertad! fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Dec 15, 2022 |
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Dec 15, 2022 22:13
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 Just for fun, I decided to run through this adventure with 3 original PCs to see how things hold up. I used 27 Point Buy for generating stats and, barring an alternative take on the Kender from Tasslehoff’s Pouches of Everything, I stuck to official sourcebooks for character building. While there is some inevitable metagaming as I have read this adventure, CYOA books are meant to be replayed by design. Even so, I made each character different enough to have them pick “sub-optimal options” in line with their personalities. I am happy to say that of the three, two managed to complete their test, with only one death. And that was at the final battle!  Adventure1, Elf Wizard For my first character I decided to make Azrifa Moondew, a stereotypical elven wizard. Given the emphasis on puzzle-solving over combat, I made her specialize in divination and chose a Stone of Good Luck as her free uncommon magic item. Combined with Portent, these were pretty powerful choices optimized to give her the edge in rolling the many ability checks and saving throws of the Test of High Sorcery. In her playthrough Azrifa survived, and went for the moral yet practical-sounding options when possible. The idea was that she was someone who preferred to act when she had all of the information, and didn’t want to intrude into unknown territory. Particularly if it involved her owing a debt of nebulous condition to a greater power: she resisted Fistandantilus’ offer, angering him, and when confronted with the gold dragon refused his offer of a potion as she didn’t want to make a deal without knowing the price; in exchange he healed her Ghost-Touched trait that was gained from an earlier challenge. Azrifa also gave up her Wand of Fickle Luck instead of making a deal with the hag, also reinforcing her tactics of risk-minimization. The final battle was with the Lost Wizard, and I have to admit the dice were luckily on my side, as the boss was unlucky with their own melee attacks and managed to exhaust their limited-use abilities. I won with 4 Destiny Points remaining. Azrifa wasn’t lacking in spell slots; combined with Arcane Recovery and being a Wizard, the High Sorcery feats also gave me a decent amount of backup spells. Shield and White Robe Adept’s Protective Ward were also helpful in prolonging my life during the final battle, while Magic Missile and Scorching Ray were my primary damage-dealers. Stat Block Azrifa Moondew Lawful Good Qualinesti High Elf School of Divination Wizard 4 Background Mage of High Sorcery Armor Class 12 (15 with Mage Armor) Hit Points 26 (4d6+8) Speed 30 feet STR 8 (-1) DEX 15 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 18 (+4) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 Saving Throws Intelligence +7, Wisdom +4 (added +1 from Stone) Skills Arcana +7, History +7, Insight +4, Investigation +7, Perception +4 (added +1 from Stone) Weapons Daggers, darts, longbow, longsword, shortbow, shortsword slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows Senses Passive Perception 13, Darkvision 60 feet Languages Common, Draconic, Dwarvish, Elven, Istarian Feats Adept of the White Robes, Initiate of High Sorcery Equipment Dagger Component Pouch Scholar’s Pack Spellbook Bottle of Colored Ink Ink pen Set of Common Clothes Pouch 10 GP Stone of Good Luck (+1 to ability checks and saving throws, attuned) Miscellaneous Abilities Adept of the White Robes: cast Locate Object and Mind Spike 1/long rest each Arcane Recovery: 1/day choose up to 2 levels worth of spell slots to recover after a short rest Fey Ancestry: Advantage vs charm, immune to magical sleep Initiate of High Sorcery: cast Protection From Evil & Good and Shield 1/long rest each Portant: roll and record two d20s at end of long rest, can replace any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw you or a creature you can see makes with the roll. Protective Ward: use reaction to spend spell slot, reduce damage by xd6+4, with x equal to spell slot level Trance: rest for 4 hours a day Spells Spell Save DC 14 Spell Attack Modifier +6 Spell Slots: 1st: 4/4; 2nd: 3/3 Cantrips: Dancing Lights (high elf) ©, Fire Bolt (feat), Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost 1st Level: Burning Hands, Charm Person, Detect Magic ®, Find Familiar ®, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Protection from Evil and Good ©, Shield, Sleep, Unseen Servant ® 2nd Level: Invisibility ©, Locate Object ©, Mind Spike, Mirror Image, Scorching Ray, Web © Feats: Locate Object 1/1, Mind Spike 1/1, Protection from Evil & Good 1/1, Shield 1/1  Adventure 2, Kender Mage-Thief This was the only adventure which resulted in a death. My backstory was that an enterprising kender known as Carbery Tanglefoot happened upon a spellbook and began to study the arcane arts, thus the Arcane Trickster subclass for Rogue. I built her as more of a support mage or one that relies on hit and run tactics, with her primary damage-dealing ability being Sneak Attack and the bulk of spells being stuff that debilitates the enemy like Hideous Laughter or Color Spray. I chose the Winged Boots as my free uncommon magic item, which was helpful in the two battles but bad luck still did the poor kender in at the end. As I figured that this adventure may be part of an ongoing campaign, not all PCs are going to be built with soloing challenges, so Carbery is very much one of those “abilities best in tandem with other party members” kind of mages. I played up Carbery’s incessant curiosity and good nature while also still being new to this whole world of magic. She examined the circle of Takhisis and watched the fey dance in the forests of Wayreth, tried to save two people at risk to herself during the terrorwind arena, “borrowed” some extra scrolls from the community pool, and was overconfident and managed to humor the rakshasa by talking his ear off about all the things she gathered from putting together his identity in the test of knowledge (“one of my favorite things is learning new stuff about the world!”). Sadly, she took a beating during the two fights. The amphi dragon lucked out and was able to immediately recharge their breath weapon which it used once again, and I had to burn through Destiny Points to keep Carbery alive. As I didn’t have much in the way of damaging magic, I had to rely on targeting his tongue and hoping to roll high enough to do 10 damage. The advantage from the captain fighting alongside me in combat was canceled out by the disadvantage and I had spent my Inspiration already in hopes of hitting with a Sneak Attack (I didn’t), so I lucked out in rolling the best result on a 1d6+4 a few rounds in. In hindsight I suppose I could’ve used Hideous Laughter or Color Spray to try and negate its actions, but as an Arcane Trickster I wasn’t brimming with spell slots. I also figured that given the storm my kender mage couldn’t fly around too much in what would at least be difficult terrain. My end came with the final battle against the gnoll shaman. I suppose that a kender’s fear immunity* from a narrative perspective would’ve made them get the Lost Wizard but I still wanted to roll for the “master your fears” if only to see some variance in the boss battles. My PC took advantage of her winged boots to stay out of the gnoll’s melee reach, but his Fire Bolt cantrip combined with the d4 terrain causing fire damage on a few results caused the tale of Carbery Tanglefoot to come to a premature end. *These rolls don’t specify how resistance or immunity to the frightened condition changes the challenge during the interview, and the Tasslehoff’s Pouches kender are immune to the frightened condition but not necessarily all forms of fear-based stuff. Stat Block Carbery Tanglefoot Chaotic Good Wanderlust Kender* Arcane Trickster Rogue 4 Background Mage of High Sorcery Armor Class 15 (leather armor) Hit Points 27 (4d8+4) Speed 30 feet STR 10 (0) DEX 18 (+4) CON 13 (+1) INT 16 (+3) WIS 10 (0) CHA 10 (0) Saving Throws Dexterity +6, Intelligence +5 Skills Acrobatics +6, Arcana +7, History +5, Perception +2, Sleight of Hand +6, Stealth +8 Weapons improvised weapons, simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortbows Armor light armor Tools Thieves’ Tools Senses Passive Perception 12 Languages Common, Ergot, Kenderspeak, Solamnic, Thieves’ Cant Feats Adept of the Red Robes, Initiate of High Sorcery Equipment Rapier Shortbow w/ 20 arrows 2 daggers Explorer’s Pack Thieves’ Tools Leather Armor Bottle of colored ink Ink pen Set of common clothes Pouch 10 GP Winged Boots (attuned) Miscellaneous Abilities Adept of the Red Robes: cast Blur and Knock once per long rest each, if roll a 9 or lower on attack or ability check can treat as a 10 up to 2 times per long rest. Cunning Action: Dash, Disengage, Hide, or control Mage Hand as bonus action. Expertise: Double proficiency on Arcana and Stealth. Explorer: add double proficiency for History checks regarding geography Fearless: immune to frightened condition Kender Pockets: pull random item as a bonus action, roll on Kender Pockets table. Remains for 10 minutes, this can be used 2 times per long rest Initiate of High Sorcery: cast Color Spray and Feather Fall once each per long rest. Mage Hand Legerdemain: Use mage hand to also retrieve or stow one object in a container, use thieves’ tools to pick locks and disarm traps at range. Sneak Attack 2d6 Taunt: bonus action targeted creature who fails DC 10 Charisma save is enraged, attacks against other targets take disadvantage and they cannot take disengage action. Can be done up to 2 times per long rest. Spells Spell Save DC 13 Spell Attack Modifier +5 Spell Slots 1st: 3/3 Cantrips: Gust, Light, Mage Hand (subclass), Message, Shocking Grasp (feat) 1st Level: Charm Person, Color Spray, Feather Fall, Grease, Hideous Laughter ©, Silent Image © Blur 1/1, Color Spray 1/1, Feather Fall 1/1, Knock 1/1 *Race from Tasslehoff’s Pouches of Everything  Adventure 3, Hobgoblin Battlecaster I debated between statting up an Eldritch Knight Fighter or Hexblade Warlock for a “gish build,” but I went with the latter because it felt cooler. Unlike the prior two characters I went for a darker and edgier character: Ret’jarvo is a hobgoblin warrior who came upon a fell spirit that taught him the gift of arcane magic to give him an edge in battle. As he wanted to learn magic to better vanquish his enemies, his spells and invocations reflected this. The Fiendish Vigor Invocation guaranteed that he’d always have a reserve of temporary hit points to draw upon during the challenges, and Devil’s Sight plus the Darkness spell gave him a great edge during the battles. I chose an adamantine breastplate as the uncommon magic item, and chose Warcaster over an Ability Score Increase for 4th level so he can cast with a shield and have a sturdy 18 Armor Class. I chose to use the hobgoblin race from Volo’s rather than Mordenkainen’s on account that Volo’s is closer to classic hobgoblins than the fey retcon of the newer book. Ret’jarvo was ambitious and used to currying favor with whoever seemed to be on the winning side, so he helped out Takhisis during the fairy and bakali encounters, threatened the medusa’s eggs into bypassing that fight, made a deal with Fistandantilus, kept the magic stone instead of giving it to the siren, and let the thief die when triggering the dragon orb trap. He chose to spare the blue dragon wyrmlings given their association with Takhisis, which in a rare twist was the moral choice for the wrong reasons. If anything, that decision came back to hurt him as the gold dragon geas for the offensive potion made it so that he wouldn’t slay innocent lives! Ret’jarvo’s two battles were against the swarm of swimming eyes which was prolonged due to a lot of misses on both sides, but he used the Amulet of Takhisis’ charges to do a lot of lightning damage; his Dreamed of Drowning let him auto-know the monster’s weakness. The warlock was actually a pretty craven individual, as he had both Fear of Dying and Fear of the Wild from the “face your fears” interview with the Order leaders. I figured that he’d be more scared of death, so chose that for the final battle. The battle against the kender ghost and skeletons was trivial. His pact weapon was a warhammer so he easily one-shotted each skeleton given their bludgeoning vulnerability, and given his high AC and temporary hit points he was able to destroy each one after the other. The skeletal knight was the most threatening due to its high damage with the lance, so he took advantage of the gold dragon potion by casting blindness/deafness to try and deal damage with it failing a saving throw in lieu of going for its AC. Ret’jarvo, unsurprisingly, was inducted into the Order of Black Robes. But he also passed the Test with flying colors, having 5 out of 5 Destiny Points remaining by its end! Whilst Ret’jarvo had the most hit points and a decent armor class which really helped him out, having a rechargeable pool of temporary hit points was perhaps the greatest boon. I tried to be “fair” in not refreshing it during times when the challenge had areas in which to be silent, like the medusa cave, in order to not trigger verbal components. Or when he had to avoid suspicion like with the bakali asking him for help. But I was able to more or less ignore the negative consequences of failing the less-damaging checks and he was able to perform the best when initiative was rolled. Stat Block Ret’jarvo Lawful Evil Volo Hobgoblin Hexblade Warlock 4 Background Mage of High Sorcery Armor Class 18 (adamantine breastplate + shield) Hit Points 35 (4d8+12) Speed 30 feet STR 10 (0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 8 (-1) WIS 10 (0) CHA 16 (+3) Saving Throws Wisdom +1, Charisma +5 Skills Arcana +1, Deception +5, History +1, Intimidation +5 Armor Light armor, medium armor, shields Weapons simple weapons, martial weapons Tools Senses Passive Perception 10, Devil’s Sight 120 feet Languages Common, Goblin, Ogre, Primordial Feats Adept of the Black Robes, Initiate of High Sorcery, War Caster Equipment Mace Spear Component Pouch Dungeoneer’s Pack Leather Armor 2 daggers Bottle of colored ink Ink pen Set of common clothes Pouch Shield Adamantine Breastplate Miscellaneous Abilities Ambitious Magic: Cast Blindness/Deafness and Suggestion once per long rest each without using spell slot. Can spend a Hit Die (d8) equal to spell level to add to damage of spell if creature within 60 feet fails save of spell. Hexblade’s Curse: as bonus action curse target within 30 feet for 1 minute. Deal +2 damage, crit on 19-20, if they die regain 7 HP (level + CHA). Can use only once per short or long rest. Hex Warrior: Whenever finishing a long rest can touch one weapon that is not two-handed. Add Charisma modifier instead of Strength or Dexterity for attack and damage rolls, applies also to pact weapons. Initiate of High Sorcery: Cast Dissonant Whispers and Hex once per long rest each. Invocation, Devil’s Sight: See in both magical and nonmagical darkness up to 120 feet. Invocation, Fiendish Vigor: Cast false life on self at will as 1st level spell without using spell slot or material components. Pact of the Blade: use action to create a weapon with which you are proficient, is treated as magical. Can turn a magic weapon into a pact weapon, it can then be dismissed into extradimensional space. Saving Face: If fail on attack or ability check, can gain a bonus equal to the number of allies you can see within 30 feet (max +5). Can use once per short or long rest. War Caster: Advantage on CON saves to maintain concentration when taking damage. Can perform somatic components even when hands are full. Can use reaction to cast a spell at a creature as part of an opportunity attack. Spells Spell Save DC 13 Spell Attack Modifier +5 2 2nd level spell slots per short rest Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mind Sliver, Prestidigitation 1st Level: Cause Fear, Charm Person, Dissonant Whispers, Hex, Protection from Evil and Good, Shield, Wrathful Smite 2nd Level: Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Branding Smite, Darkness, Misty Step, Suggestion Blindness/Deafness 1/1, Dissonant Whispers 1/1, Hex 1/1, Suggestion 1/1 Libertad! fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 01:57
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 Drive-Thru RPG page The Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook has described the RPG as supporting three pillars of gameplay: combat, exploration, and social. In reality, two of those pillars are vestigial in function and only one is holding up the mass of game rules. There have been various attempts at expanding the non-combat aspects of gameplay to be more meaningful and involved, and one of the more notable takes was Cubicle 7’s Adventures in Middle-Earth. Although many tropes of Tolkien became endemic to D&D, a truly authentic Middle-Earth experience was not like the dungeon-crawling epics of mages and murderhobos, so large portions of the 5th Edition rules were either cut away or changed to be more in line with the book series. The Journey system was one such new rule, an involved mini-game that turned traveling into an extended aspect of gameplay complete with its own choices, risks, rewards, and encounters with effects that persisted beyond the Journey itself. It was a novel idea, although the system had some flaws. One of the six classes, the Wanderer, was tailor-made for making Journeys easier to the point that they were vital to a large aspect of gameplay in a manner similar to how trap-detecting Thieves and healer Clerics functioned in old-school D&D. There’s also the fact that doubling proficiency in Survival made it easy for the party Guide to generate only positive effects and encounters, with negative ones becoming a distinct rarity. As I was the Wanderer in a 2 year old AiME campaign with Expertise in Survival, I can attest to this via personal experience. Although Tolkien’s 5eified world is now being published by Free League, Cubicle 7 had the essence of a great exploration-focused system on their hands, one which they sought to turn into a sourcebook of its own for D&D in general. DId they succeed or did they fail? Only one way to find out!  In spite of being nearly 300 pages long, the core mechanics of the Journey system are surprisingly brief. All the better to introduce to players so that they won’t feel overwhelmed, which I feel is a good thing. The bulk of Uncharted Journeys has DMing tools for generating the contents of the Journey. Roles are basically the special responsibilities which PCs can take before undertaking a Journey, and are divided into four types: the Leader, who is in charge of coordinating the group and providing morale, the Outrider who goes ahead of the group to scout for safe routes and threats, the Quartermaster who is in charge of gathering and maintaining supplies, and the Sentry who keeps watch of their surroundings for danger. Each Role has a unique Role Ability which they can use once per Journey, and they can select from around three skill or tool proficiencies to roll for Group Travel Checks. Group Travel Checks have every PC roll, usually to determine the outcome of an encounter based on total number of successes or failures. Roles are strictly for PCs, although there are options to get NPC Hirelings to fill in a vacant Role under the Preparation section of Chapter Two. As you can imagine, Uncharted Journeys favors larger parties over smaller ones: parties with less than 3 PCs can have a character occupy up to 2 Roles, where their “secondary role” rolls related checks with disadvantage but they can use both Role Abilities. For parties with more than 4 PCs, up to two PCs can occupy each Role (but only one can make use of a Role Ability), where one makes relevant checks with advantage representing helping hands. The Leader’s special ability lets an ally reroll a failed ability check or saving throw once per party member, and their Group Travel Check choices are predictably socially related such as Persuasion, Insight, Performance, or Musical Instruments. The Outrider’s special ability allows the player to roll for determining an Encounter type; the DM also rolls, and the player chooses which type to select. Their Group Travel Check choices hinge towards ranger-style options of Nature, Survival, or Cartographer’s Tools. The Quartermaster’s special ability automatically activates at the beginning of a Journey, giving them a number of d6 Supply Dice equal to their proficiency bonus that they can use to add to an ally’s ability check during the Journey. Their Group Travel Checks are tool-centric, being Athletics (they can choose Constitution or Strength rather than the default Strength), Blacksmith’s Tools, Leatherworker’s Tools, Cook’s Utensils, or Brewer’s Supplies. The Sentry’s special ability is similar to that of the Quartermaster’s save in that they generate Focus Dice which add to the result of a saving throw or initiative check. Their Group Travel Checks hew closer to the Roguish side of things, being Perception, Stealth, or Disguise Kit. While Uncharted Journeys mentions that some classes will be better-suited to certain roles based on likely ability score bonuses and proficiencies, things are still pretty broad. Only the skill checks mandate a specific ability score, so a high-Charisma Bard with a Disguise Kit can make for a surprisingly good Sentry, and the Quartermaster can be either a bulky porter or a keen-eyed bartender. With the right use of doubled proficiency a Bard, Rogue, or someone with the right feat can excel at a certain Role. The Journey rules make a pretty drastic change to one of the core assumptions of 5th Edition. Namely in that they alter how and when you can take short and long rests during the Journey. Rests during a Journey aren’t your typical 1 hour and 8 hour increments, but instead can be done only at appropriate times. This represents the tiring nature of regularly traveling for days or weeks on end, even if the party technically gets regular sleep. A short rest can only be done once, albeit doing it automatically adds an additional Encounter, which may not necessarily be a bad thing as Encounters can range from the beneficial to detrimental. A long rest cannot be performed during a Journey unless an Encounter specifies they can. Thus, characters during a Journey have an alternative means to refresh their rest-based class features between Encounters. Typically speaking they can spend 1 Hit Die to regain a single use of a short rest refresh class ability, and 2 Hit Die to recover a single use of a long rest refresh one. Spell slots are an exception, in that you must spend a number of Hit Die equal to the spell level of that slot. There are some exceptions in this system: a Monk’s ki points re regained on a 1 for 1 basis with Hit Die, a Paladin’s Lay on Hands refreshes 5 hit points per Hit Die, and Warlocks must spend Hit Dice equal to the level of their spell slots given that they always cast their magic at their highest level. There’s no mention of how Sorcery Points interact with this system, though. I can’t imagine that regaining them all for 2 Hit Dice is intended, for that will be really cheap. Overall, I like the spending of Hit Dice in that it gives a new use for something that isn’t always used evenly. PCs who are often guarded by other party members or can easily avoid harm will appreciate more uses to spend this resource. The alternative rest-based mechanic is something I’d need to see in play to accurately judge, although it looks like it can work as only really unlucky parties on the longer Journeys are going to generate more than a few combat-focused Encounters. My biggest concern is that several abilities, notably those of magic items, have refresh rates based not on rests but rather by the cycle of day and night. As “per day/until next dawn” abilities are on par with long rest abilities, this may cause such features to be more powerful during a Journey than they otherwise would be. But overall I’d say it’s a more reasonable step away from how overland encounters are done in default 5th Edition, where a single encounter may happen during a day allowing PCs to feel much more powerful in blowing through their resources. This was a pretty big problem with encounter balance in the Kingmaker adventure path for Pathfinder, I remember that much!  This chapter covers the rules for what happens before, during, and after a Journey. Journeys are separated into three Stages: Setting the Route determines the origin and destination along with Distance and Difficulty; Prepare has each PC do special tasks to ease the burden and gain benefits to use during the Journey; and Make the Journey generates the Encounters during the Journey along with the outcome on Journey’s End. Technically that’s four steps, but who’s counting? Set the Route is pretty simple: the Distance ranging from Short to Very Long determines the default number of Encounters, which can be modified by the party doing an initial Group Travel Check. A table is provided based on distance and travel time in imperial units, although this is relative and the book calls out other uses based on the context of the area and endeavor. For Example, a Journey entirely in a Great City may be anywhere from going to the next neighborhood (Short) to going from one end of the city to the other (Very Long). The Journey Difficulty sets the universal DC for the various tasks and challenges involving Encounters during the Journey. The DC is 10 by default (and cannot get lower than this) and further modified by Weather and Terrain, both of which have modifiers ranging from 0 to +10 each. Traveling on a well-maintained road under clear skies and comfortable weather can make the Difficulty as low as a 10, but adventuring in a region with constant volcanoes, earthquakes, and deadly storms can be a tortuous 30. There are ways during the next step to lower the DC, or raise it on unlucky rolls. Prepare is where the party assigns Roles and chooses from a table of 15 Preparations. Each Preparation is a DC 13 ability check involving an appropriate skill or tool. 4 Preparations have negative consequences for failure, such as increasing the Journey Difficulty by 2 or imposing disadvantage on all ability checks for that PC during the first Encounter of the Journey. The Preparations are pretty broad, such as Brew Tonics which can give each party member advantage on Constitution checks and saves for the Journey’s duration or until they fail such a check/save, Prepare a Feast allows each party member a one-time ability to not gain a level of Exhaustion when they’d suffer one during the Journey, and Procure Mounts can give each party member an animal which can allow them to substitute Wisdom (Animal Handling) checks in lieu of one of the three physical checks/saves during the Journey’s duration based on whether the mount is strong, agile, or rugged. 4 specific Preparations can reduce the Journey Difficulty, usually by 2 although one bears special mention. Chart Course requires a Cartographer’s Tools check which can reduce the Journey Difficulty by 5 on a success. Unlike the other 3 it has consequences for failure in increasing it by 2. Having a mapmaker during a Journey can be very useful, but miscalculations can make things harder. PCs can all take a Long Rest before starting a Journey, although PCs can forego this and gain a level of Exhaustion in order to perform 2 Preparations. I wouldn’t recommend this unless they have an ability to ignore or heal Exhaustion given that’s a pretty punishing condition to have. Most skills can be used for Preparation, with the outliers being Acrobatics, Deception, Intimidation, Medicine, and Perception. I can understand Acrobatics being a bit limited and Perception is already a useful and common enough skill, but it feels odd that Deception and Intimidation don’t get much play for social-based stuff, and Medicine is a shoe-in for Brew Tonics. The tool checks are pretty broad as well. They include Brewer’s Supplies, Cartographer’s Tools, Chemist’s Supplies,* Cook’s Utensils, Herbalism Kit, and any kind of Gaming Set. There are no Musical Instruments, although I imagine that the Leader Role covers this for group checks. And strangely, while there are Preparations for mounts, vehicle proficiencies don’t have options by default. However, Uncharted Journeys does cover this in their Open Waters section, where Navigator’s Tools and Water Vehicle proficiencies can be used for certain Group Travel Checks. The book’s one step ahead of you on this! Sadly there’s no rules for traveling through space or really weird planes of existence like the Far Realm, but as this isn’t a DM’s Guild product I can forgive the authors for this. *Presumably alchemist’s supplies. Make the Journey is pretty short, as specific encounters cover the final chapter which occupies the majority of this book. After Preparations are complete, the Journey has 1-4 Base Encounters based on Length, and the party makes a Group Travel Check based on the Journey Difficulty. Depending on how many members of the party succeeded or failed (based on more or less than half, not specific PCs) they can get anywhere from -1 to +2 to the Base number. The DM then determines the Encounters based on what Region(s) the party is going through, each of which has their own unique Encounters. There are 12 different Encounter Types which are determined via rolling a d12, and each Region (save Open Waters which is a special case) has a unique d10 table for each Encounter Type. As there are 16 Religion types in this book, that amounts to nearly 2,000 results! If for any reason the PCs have to abandon the Journey mid-way, such as taking too many casualties or resources drained from Encounters, there are rules for this. Generally speaking this is a bad thing that imposes penalties and calls for a Constitution save as though they made an Arrival detailed below, although the consequences for failure are worse in suffering Exhaustion and even losing remaining hit dice. If a PC is killed, kidnapped, or otherwise taken out of commission long-term then the party suffers a Catastrophic Failure which immediately ends the Journey and everyone automatically suffers a level of Exhaustion.  Journey’s End is the final stage, and occurs when the party reaches their destination after completing all of the Encounters. This is known as an Arrival, and each PC rolls a Constitution save but can add the Quartermaster’s Constitution or Intelligence modifier to their own result. Success gives them temporary hit points equal to their level, while failure imposes a level of Exhaustion. If the entire party succeeds they all gain Inspiration, but lose Inspiration if they all fail. The Sentry rolls a number of d12 (minimum 1) equal to their Wisdom modifier for an Arrival table, and takes the highest result. The Arrival table gives a general description of the circumstances the PCs find themselves in, with higher results giving more relative safety. For instance, 1-2 has an Unforeseen Danger where hostile creatures are aware of the party’s arrival and have one round to prepare before they’d normally roll initiative, 10-11 is Relative Safety that grants them the opportunity to take a Short Rest, and 12 or higher is Safety that lets them take a Long Rest. Unlike Encounters, the circumstances of dangers are based more on the DM’s discretion and what they have planned for the destination in question. Additionally, the DM can give out Rewards to PCs for completing a Journey. These can be narrative rewards such as allies or fame gained as a result of the Journey’s Encounters, short-term bonuses such as Inspiration or advantage on Role-based abilities for their next Journey, or even a table of Experience Points to give out based on the Journey Difficulty! Thoughts So Far: Uncharted Journeys does a good job in turning the exploration pillar of 5th Edition into an involved process on its own. There’s enough variety in Roles and Preparation activities to make it so that most character concepts can contribute in a positive fashion. Additionally the rules themselves are easy enough to copy-paste and hand out to PCs, with even the Preparation actions being a few pages at most. So much of the system can be boiled down to “roll an ability check/save” that it should be easily absorbed by non-newbie D&D players. There is still some risk involved in Journeys even for non-combat encounters, as will be detailed later: notably in the expenditure of Hit Dice, levels of Exhaustion, and disadvantage on certain rolls to reflect the taxing nature of long-distance travel through hell and high water. I do like this element of risk, although given how Exhaustion works this can lead to a “death spiral” effect as even the first level imposes disadvantage on all ability checks. My main criticism of the Journey rules is that they’re not ideal for 3 person parties, which pretty much mandate a Hireling to avoid disadvantage on rolls for the absent Role. Another thing that comes to mind is the interfacing with certain magic spells and the Journey rules. While Journeys can take place over a long enough period of time to end the duration of most spells outside of Encounters, I can see the party mage with Guidance casting it on PCs during Group Travel Checks and perhaps even Preparation rolls if they’re the kind of rolls that don’t have to be made immediately. Furthermore, there’s no mention of how Procure Mounts interacts with PCs who already bought or have their own mounts. Then there are higher level spells: can Control Weather be used to lower the Journey Difficulty for an Encounter if it makes the weather calmer, for instance? There’s so many spells out there that I don’t expect the book to have an answer for all of them, and due to how rest works PCs will still be expending valuable resources, but it’s still something I would’ve liked to see the book elaborate on. I will give Uncharted Journeys one thing: by altering the Rest system it solves the Goodberry problem of trivializing “survival-based” adventures and campaigns. As even Short Journeys can take two days to a week, the idea of casting the spell every day to feed the whole party isn’t something that can be casually done in this system. Maybe at higher levels when the party has Hit Dice and spell slots to spare, although I feel that at 3rd and 4th Tiers having a good amount of food is a trivial pursuit. Join us next time as we cover interesting people and places to stumble upon in Chapter 3: People Along the Way and Chapter 4: Ancient Ruins!
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Dec 20, 2022 08:54
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Siivola posted:Free League publishes The One Ring, not Adventures in Middle-Earth. While TOR also has a travel focus, it runs on its own system. There's a 5th Edition Lord of the Rings RPG which from what I heard is a newer version of Adventures in Middle-Earth. They also published the One Ring RPG. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/410268/The-Lord-of-the-RingsTM-Roleplaying--EARLY-ACCESS
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Dec 20, 2022 10:56
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  While the Journey Encounters chapter has plenty of scenarios to generate NPCs, the result of the sheer volume means that they’re described in very brief terms. People Along the Way is designed to flesh them out, hewing to die table chart generation of traits accompanied by general advice: use the flora and fauna listings for the Region Types along with time of day to set the scene; dividing NPCs into general types of Locals, Villains, and Strangers, with the last being more wondrous and bizarre characters that can be useful for expanding on your setting beyond the adventure’s immediate confines; and how to handle game balance for Journeys if NPCs decide to join the party as traveling companions. This last part is pretty brief, saying that they shouldn’t outright make rolls for the PCs but providing advantage to the PCs can make them feel helpful rather than dead weight. The chapter gives us 12 Sample Encounters, which provide a location, background of the NPC(s) in question, and a general description of what they’re up to. They include things such as a dragonborn teacher testing to see how well her young students can live off the land, a gnome scavenger sifting through the ruins of a manor he claims once belonged to a mighty mage, and an elderly halfling praying at a shrine to turn around his fortunes after being forced to flee his hometown. The tables are good enough, although this chapter’s brevity combined with the very generic information makes it less useful than the others.  As People Along the Way dealt with fleshing out NPCs, Ancient Ruins involves fleshing out…not generic locations, but ruins specifically. Uncharted Journeys takes the assumption that the setting is a typical fantasy one, where many elder species built great works before falling to disaster and now their legacies dot the wilds of the world. This chapter divides ruin creation into 5 steps: Who built it? How old is it? What was it originally? What does it look like now? What is it used for now? The first two steps are pretty short and rely heavily on die tables and generation. We have brief write-ups on the more common kinds of fantasy races and monsters and what they’re likely to incorporate into their art and architecture. Interestingly dwarven ruins are on average older than elven ruins, owing to the former race’s knack for lasting durability, and giants are presumed to be an elder race on par with dragons so the ages of their ruins range in results by millennia and not decades or centuries as is common with the others. What was it originally? is the longest and most significant section, with a d12 table of Purposes that come with unique results and rewards. Each Purpose has sample Points of Interest that provide treasure or some kind of benefit for PCs who manage to find or overcome the ruin’s obstacles or defenses, with the DC equal to the Journey Difficulty. Some interesting results include an Archive with Forbidden Knowledge that contains a spell scroll of Very Rare rarity, an Inn with a functional hearth that can let the party take a Short Rest and earn Inspiration by using the time to reminisce on their past, and a Place of Worship whose Sacred Ground can restore one use of Channel Divinity to a Cleric engaged in prayer. What does it look like now? is a simple d6 table of the ruins’ general outer appearance and how it got beaten down by the test of time (or how it’s been restored from new occupation), while What is it now? is a d12 table giving general descriptions of groups who may be using it today, such as animal-intelligence monsters infesting it as shelter or a curse holding dark powers imprisoned within its walls. Thoughts So Far: These two chapters are more flavor-based than the prior two’s hard crunch. The NPC and ruin generation isn’t anything we haven’t seen in other “DM Advice” products on the market, although the Ancient Ruins do have the benefit of Points of Interest which can impart useful benefits for PCs willing to delve into them. However, Ruins aren’t generated as the result of Journey Encounters by default, so they’re the kind of things a DM may make from inferred descriptions of said Encounters. But even then, as they don’t have tools for generating an entire mini-dungeon’s worth maps and threats* they can’t be used on the fly like the other features of this book. And probably shouldn’t, given how limited rests are during Journeys. Join us next time as we cover the final and largest section of the book in Chapter 5: Journey Encounters!
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Dec 21, 2022 00:49
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disposablewords posted:Uncharted Journeys looks really interesting, and I'm tempted to bring it to a friend's attention because it might be useful for a game he's been setting up where we PCs are members of a wandering caravan in a ruined, desertified land. Then again, knowing him, there's a very real chance he's been working on his own journey system, since part of our input as players was wanting some travel and survivalism aspects to the campaign so we had meaningful use of our skills and tool proficiencies in the caravan. I have one more post to do before I finish the book, but overall I would recommend it. It would be suitable for the type of campaign you're describing. Nessus posted:This journey business sounds a lot like Ryutama. I haven't read Ryutama, but heard great things about it in regards to the traveling aspect so I'll take that as a compliment to the book.
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Dec 21, 2022 00:51
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 The first four chapters were but a mere quarter of Uncharted Journeys. The remaining 235 pages (discounting things like KickStarter backers and the OGL) are given over entirely to the different Region Types and the Encounters therein. There are 16 Region Types, and 11 cover common terrain such as Forests, Mountains, and Open Waters which correspond almost identically to the terrain types for monsters. The remaining five cover more geo-political or supernatural places, such as War Torn Lands and Wild Magic Lands. I will note that three of these latter types feel ideally built for certain official 5th Edition campaigns: Haunted Lands is quite appropriate for Ravenloft (particularly Barovia and other gloomy Transylvanian-inspired places), Hellscapes is an extraplanar Journey like that of Descent Into Avernus, and Lands of the Fae brings to mind The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Each Region Type starts out with local flavor to make it come alive: Weather that is common to the region, Flora and Fauna to describe surrounding plants and (usually non-hostile) life forms, Local Inhabitants for the types of people who live off the land, Points of Interest that serve as neat local features that aren’t tied to Encounters, and Possible Journeys which serve as adventure hooks for the Region. Each Region also has its own tables for each of the 12 Encounter Types, although Open Waters bears its own special mention due to the changes involved with maritime travel. Encounter Types cover a wide range of functions, and only a minority involve guaranteed combat: A Chance Meeting or Fateful Encounters has the PCs meet fellow travelers, with the latter focusing on more unusual or momentous NPCs who serve as inspiration for recurring plot hooks; A Bump in the Road involves some non-combat difficulty or hazard that can tax the party’s reserves, and Needing Assistance is similar save that it’s NPCs who are in trouble; Natural Wonders, A Dark Place, and Old Memories can have the PCs come upon wondrous and/or disconcerting scenes that can affect their spirits and morale; Hidden Reserves and A Place to Rest give the party opportunities to get their bearings in the form of rest and/or resupplies; and Danger Afoot, Monster Hunt, and A Deadly Fight are encounters that are the most likely to roll for initiative. Every Encounter Type calls for one or two checks, either to resolve it or see who has the upper hand when initiative is rolled in the case of the combat-related ones. Some are individual rolls, usually Role-related, and others have the entire party participate as a Group Travel Check. Sometimes a PC with the appropriate Role can replace another PC’s result with their own, reflecting how they are optimally suited to handle that Encounter by filling in for the weaknesses of their teammates. Success on an Encounter imposes some kind of reward even in cases where there’s nothing to be materially gained: for example, Natural Wonders calls for a group Wisdom save, and if at least half succeed the party gains advantage on their next ability check or saving throw, and if they all succeed they gain Inspiration instead. Conversely, nothing happens if at least the party fails, and if all of them fail they feel overwhelmed by the vastness of nature in losing Inspiration and have disadvantage on their next saving throw! Some Encounters can even alter or add future Encounters, represented by helpful NPCs giving the party directions (or offended ones leading them into danger). Only Fateful Encounter has no built-in mechanical consequences, where success imparts some form of secret information from the NPC, and failure means that the party doesn’t learn the secret. The book also throws a house rule our way: as Inspiration is given out or lost for a few of these Encounter Types, the DM can make an optional rule where gaining/losing it further affects a PC’s morale in more drastic ways. Gaining Inspiration when you already have it grants temporary hit points equal to your largest hit Die, and vice versa for when you’d lose it but don’t have it. In the latter case this is more of a psychological drain and can’t kill a PC or reduce them below 1 hit point. Sadly it is in this chapter that errors in regards to spelling and grammar are most apparent, and judging by the version up on Drive-Thru RPG these mistakes still persist. Although they aren’t omnipresent, I have spotted things such as two periods instead of one or an NPC or monster entry that hasn’t been bolded when that process is the default in this book. A few monsters are mislabeled, like mentioning pteranosaurs rather than pteranodons, or giant anaconda instead of giant constrictor snake, and some to my knowledge don’t exist in the basic rules or more popular monster manuals such as Monks (just monks) and Zombie Knights. Something to note about the combat encounters: there are no results fixed by Average Party Level, and the book doesn’t list the Challenge Rating for NPCs and Monsters nor precise numbers. The intent is to allow the DM to better tailor the encounter to suit the party, and the authors also go by the adage that the world shouldn’t alter itself to be fair to the PC’s abilities. I’m not sure how to feel about this. While the book does mention that running from a fight is possible (in fact, Monster Hunt has a group travel check for avoiding the monster rather than pursuing it), as the death of a PC can lead to a Catastrophic Failure it is something I feel should have some forewarning. That being said, a good amount of the encounters I witnessed hew to the lower end of the CR spectrum, centered mostly around Tier 1 and 2 parties with only a rare few higher than 10.  There’s too many for me to do all 16, but I decided to compile the CR list of the first two Region Types, split between the 3 combat-risk Encounter Types: Coasts Danger Afoot: Sahuagin (½), Guards (⅛), Mimics (2), Specter (1), Weretigers (4), Druids (2), Blood Hawks (⅛) Monster Hunt: Pteranodon (¼), Giant Octopus (1), Violet Fungus (¼), Swarm of Quippers (1) and Giant Shark (5), Plesiosaurus (2), Hydra (8), Giant Constrictor Snake (2), Kraken (23) A Deadly Fight: Wights (3), Will-o-Wisps (2), Giant Crabs (⅛), Zombies (¼), Archmage (12), Storm Giants (13), Water Elementals (5), Ghasts (2), Aboleth (10), Merrow (2), Merfolk (⅛), Blue Dragon Wyrmlings (3) Deserts: Danger Afoot: Orcs (½), Dust Mephits (½), Mage (6), Bandits (⅛), Monks (N/A), Giant Scorpion (3), Giant Centipedes (¼), Mummies (3), Bandit Captain (2), Mimics (2) Monster Hunt: Ankheg (2), Giant Snake (¼ or 2), Manticore (3), Young Blue Dragon (9), Roc (11), Doppelgangers (3), Wyverns (6), Zombie Knights (N/A) A Deadly Fight: Young Blue Dragon (9), Scorpion (0) and Giant Scorpions (3), Blue Dragon Wyrmlings (3), Bulette (5), Lamia (4) and Jackals (0), Mage (6) and Invisible Stalker (6), Shield Guardian (7), Veteran (3), Gladiator (5) and Zombies (¼), Paladin (N/A). So there’s only one monster which can approach Tier 4, the Kraken, and it’s less a direct fight and more “attack the kraken tentacles that made it onto land and are menacing shipwrecked survivors.” In the Storm Giants’ case it’s two giants who are fighting each other as part of a contest and the party ends up between them in the “arena.” So even in the harder fight’s cases the authors took care for outmatched parties to have some kind of way out. Furthermore, the overall feel of encounters posits a rather high-magic world, or one that cranks up the supernatural wonder of the worlds of D&D a bit, albeit not to a ridiculous extent. For example one of the Bump in the Road encounters for Great Cities involves a stone giant construction crew tearing up the road to rebuild it. And in Grasslands, one of the Dark Place encounters has the party come upon the titanic corpse of a dead Tarrasque, possibly causing fear of something bigger and deadlier out there that slain the legendary beast. Notice that I said "a dead Tarrasque" and not "the Tarrasque." Several encounters of various types in War Torn Lands have local armies making use of magic and monsters to wage war, such as a Shield Guardian retrieving the bodies of dead soldiers as a Chance Encounter or magical land mines as a Bump in the Road. These aren't constant or the norm and certain elements can be changed on the fly by the DM, but as I know that there are some campaigns which have restrictions of various types (Dragonlance being low-magic, nonhumans being shunned in pre-5e Ravenloft, etc) this may be something to consider. I will cover several regions in very brief terms. This review would never end if I were comprehensive, so instead I’m going to showcase some of the more flavorful and interesting Encounters along with local color. Coasts are the last frontier where the land meets the sea. Strange things washing up on shore, pirates prowling for hapless people to rob, old shipwrecks holding treasure, marshy deltas home to thick plant life and camouflaged predators, and tidal caves which can have all sorts of things lurking in their watery depths. A Chance Meeting may have the party come upon your cliche message in a bottle, Hidden Reserves may have them stop on by at a sea-themed spa run by a succubus and incubus couple offering seaweed bath and salt exfoliation treatments, a Dark Place may have a trio of sadistic eagles who laugh like people and torture screaming fish to death in front of the party, and a Fateful Encounter may have the party come upon a dragon turtle who unknowingly holds a foliage-filled island on its back containing buried necromancers. Farmlands may be well-settled, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous or prone to conflict and intrigue. Those who harvest the earth’s bounty can be found in virtually every civilization, and even those who don’t farm may be attracted to the ample food stores. Cozy villages emitting hearth smoke on chilly nights, stables containing creatures both mundane and fantastic such as hippogriffs and wyverns, wagons of farmers headed to town to sell their produce, and wary treants hiding among the borders of the forest to ensure that not one inch is taken over by agriculture are some potential sights. A Bump in the Road may include a maddened water elemental bursting out of a stone well and thoroughly soaking everything nearby, the party the party may come upon a Natural Wonder of beehives and mushroom patches presided over by a friendly werebear and wereboar couple, an inn’s resident bard may challenge the party to a singing duel in a Place to Rest, and a Deadly Fight may pit the party against a cursed Knight in rusty armor who babbles incoherently. It is easy to take Grasslands for granted. Their wide plains can let you spot people from far away, they’re often associated with “beginner level” encounters in video game RPGs, and they don’t feature as prominently in Western folklore as darkened woods or monster-filled caves. But they too can be home to dangers all their own, from nomadic clans engaged in blood feuds to scarcity of resources pushing predators to desperate measures. The land itself can turn deadly during the dry season, for lightning can ignite brush fires. Griffons and axe beaks sail the windy fields, and huge herds of grazing animals ward off predators with the threat of a legion of horns and hooves. Sticky tar pits with safe mounds and corpses of creatures serving as the only safe way across may be a Bump in the Road. A small mountain among the steppes home to the shrines of various deities may serve as a Natural Wonder for those to take in the serene surroundings. The remains of smashed buildings and propellers scattered across the landscape may be Old Memories of a wondrous village that once soured through the skies. And fields covered with webs from Phase Spiders may encourage a Monster Hunt, for their webs are said to have magical properties and the corpses cocooned may have loot for the taking. Great Cities are those marvels of civilization, countless humanoids and other intelligent beings packed within walled complexes of glass, metal, and stone. Home to thousands and even millions of souls, the metropolises of fantasy worlds are packed with lifetimes’ worth of stories. Rain patters on shingled roofs, gathering into streams and drains. Packs of feral animals and vermin rush between the innumerable dark and tight corners on the hunt for food. The city’s nobility frequent a fancy restaurant adorned with a fountain in front, their jewelry and colorful fabrics shining in the sunlight. The PCs may have a Chance Meeting with a tiefling feng shui artist having a panic attack over the “street’s flow being all wrong.” A young pixie being raised by a human family may be Needing Assistance as she is overwhelmed in playing against her larger schoolmates in a local sports game. The party may head out on a Monster Hunt as someone accidentally planted Violet Fungi among the tenements at night. Lands of the Fae can take many forms, from enchanted forests to storybook towns, but their uniting element is that the fey, and not mortalkind, rule here. Fluffy clouds in pink, blue, and yellow hues fly close enough to the ground to touch. The land itself rumbles as a sleeping turtle that is part of the landscape shifts positions. Sprites riding giant owls act as the region’s aerial mailmen, and an ice cave may be home to someone with sculpted furniture and floating lights for a chilly yet functional residence. The PCs may learn of Old Memories from a heavy book full of captivated fairy tales dropping out of the sky in front of them. The Natural Wonders may include unusual things such as a sky of utter black whose stars rise from the ground, gradually forming a pictographic story of two friends turning into foes. A dwarf and his partner may be Needing Assistance as some mischievous sprites stole the latter’s mouth and stuck it to the belly of an elk. A goose’s golden egg may have Hidden Reserves when it is smashed, for it contains a single casting of Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion.  Open Waters is slightly different from the other Region Types on account that it (usually) takes place on a ship or some other maritime vehicle. The Roles are renamed to more nautical titles (Leader becomes Captain, for example) but the Role Abilities and Group Travel Checks remain overall unchanged although certain encounter types can make use of new things like Water Vehicles for tracking or avoiding a creature during a Monster Hunt. The biggest changes are that tables are grouped differently: they are primarily different bodies of water such as an Archipelago, Frigid Oceans, or Lakes. Each has d10 results for each Encounter Type save a Place to Rest or Fateful Encounters. There are no Fateful Encounters, for oceans are vast lonely places, and resting can be done on a boat by default. However, the size of the boat determines what kinds of rests can be taken, and choosing to rest can impose penalties when the PCs end up sleeping through the beginnings of Encounters, causing checks to auto-fail or enemies automatically getting surprise on the party. There aren’t default descriptions of Weather, Flora and Fauna, and the like which feels a bit of a letdown, but I imagine that the authors didn’t want to take up too much room and also due to the variety (and also uniformity above-water) of aquatic terrain. PCs venturing Beneath the Waves may come upon a Natural Wonder of a merfolk metropolis made of coral. A party venturing through seemingly Calm Seas may have a Deadly Fight on their hands if they mistake the mimics on an empty galley for treasure chests. A Chance Meeting may happen in Jungle Rivers as a friendly herbalist gathering plants is actually an assassin on the hunt for deadly poisons. Underground is a region which virtually every adventurer is going to be acquainted with in due time. The subterranean realms of D&D settings aren’t just dark caverns full of strange life, but are entire civilizations of cities, tunnels, crevices, and vents filled with deadly monsters and wicked creatures who never saw the light of day. Pale cave shrimp float lazily in pools of water. Bioluminescent fungi illuminates drifting dust passing through the air in wonderful hues. Svirfnbelin work crews direct a summoned earth elemental to build a way for their settlement. A local Bump in the Road may be a rapidly growing patch of red moss that dissolves and consumes natural materials such as leather or wood. The party may come upon a Natural Wonder as they feel an omnipresent tremor and roar that reveals they had been traveling inside an enormous worm which has just been killed by something even larger. They may need to find a Place to Rest in stranger conditions, such as an embassy populated by intelligent yet friendly giant centipedes eager to swap stories about the surrounding Underdark. War Torn Lands are those places where people are ordered by more prominent individuals to throw themselves against the enemy in wave after bloody wave. War is a terrible thing, even if waged for the most just causes, for it robs soldiers and civilians alike of the right to live in peace with a guaranteed tomorrow. Fields of slaughtered dead attract scavengers, from rats and ravens to looters and flesh-eating monsters. Refugees with nothing to lose walk across the land in tired masses, with no destination in mind save to escape the violence. Invading soldiers build pillared statues of their war horses for some unknown objective. Spies pose as servants of little consequence in claimed fortresses where officers consult each other on plans and plots. Villagers trapped in a city on fire may Need Assistance from the PCs if they hope to escape. It goes without saying that there’s Danger Afoot, for even centaurs and sprites seeking to not get involved may take up arms against the soldiers felling their trees for timber and mistake the party for invaders. Even where lives are not immediately threatened, death and wickedness is present in Dark Places as the PCs come upon a group of Shield Guardians breaking down the foundations of a slaughtered town to burn the evidence so that none may know their owners’ crimes. So that’s a brief covering of about half the Region Types. Still, I think I gave a good overview of the wealth of material to be found in Uncharted Journeys. Thoughts So Far: While individual Encounter Types may not be long in word count, their volume combined with the imaginative and inspirational potential of many of them serves as a great generator for events, people, and fights that will be immediately interesting to many gaming groups. As I mentioned before, Uncharted Journeys has a few Region and Encounter Types that may not be suitable for all campaigns, particularly ones that aren’t high magic, but given that D&D is meant to be a world of fantastic possibilities I feel that is a better option. It’s easier to “scale down” such material rather than having to “scale up” from material that goes for a more “realistic” or low fantasy flavor. Another thing to note about the Encounters, as well as the overall Journey system, is that its high emphasis on ability checks encourages options that benefit skill-user types. Stones of Good Luck, a Divination Wizard’s Portent, Guidance and Bless spells, and other things that can modify or reroll d20 results will be highly prized for games using the Journey system. And in terms of being a fair tax on party resources, having only a third of Encounter Types necessitating the rolling of initiative makes it closer to a “puzzle-heavy dungeon” for overall lethality. Getting 3 combats on a Journey isn’t going to be common save for longer Journeys and less-lucky parties. Presuming that such encounters are fair (or give the opportunity to flee from powerful enemies) I don’t foresee such Journeys turning into taxing slogs. Overall Thoughts: Uncharted Journeys is a strong showing for Cubicle 7 and a clear upgrade from its ancestor rules in Adventures in Middle-Earth. It expands the Exploration pillar of 5th Edition into a worthwhile mini-game of its own. One that can generate many interesting encounters for gaming groups without coming close to running out of material and thus does a great job in keeping Journeys feeling like new experiences. The new rules are relatively short and simple enough for gaming groups to absorb upon a casual reading, and barring the wonkiness of some spells it manages to avoid the One Class/Skill to Rule Them All that made AiME’s Journeys so easy to trivialize. This sourcebook can be a fun addition to virtually any campaign that has the PCs traveling through new lands, which makes it applicable to the vast majority of settings out there. That being said, I do have my criticisms. This book needs another editing pass to clear up grammar and spelling issues; even in the table of contents you can spot an inappropriately capitalized and misspelled “Open WatersS.” More precise language on some class features and spells such as Sorcery Points can be elaborated on, and while short the third and fourth chapters feel more like filler content. But these weak points aren’t enough to bring the whole of Uncharted Journeys down, leaving it with high marks overall.
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Dec 21, 2022 19:48
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Cessna posted:Thanks for the great review! That was very helpful. My first introduction to Dragonlance was via the 3rd Edition campaign setting in my FLGS. At that point I had never been exposed to the novels or the hatedom over kender/Cataclysm/Fifth Age, so when I first opened its pages it struck a more positive note. I will admit there are some RPGs I didn't bother giving a fair shot when they first came out; the steampunk nature of Iron Kingdoms turned me off, for instance. Falconier111 posted:The Wagadu Chronicles set off warning bells in my head when I first heard of it, but not for the reasons you’d think. I was close to backing this one, although as time went on it became clear that more attention was being paid to the MMO and not the TTRPG. This is kind of inevitable given the expense and effort of the former, but Warcraft and its kind aren't my thing. I'm still interested in hearing more from your review, though!
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Dec 30, 2022 04:35
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Kurvi Tasch posted:Hi Libertad! Thank you for the detailed share! There's an awful lot of books I reviewed that I never got the opportunity to test out in actual play given my own limited schedule, so it's always great to hear from people with "real experience" so to speak. In a way I'm not surprised to hear about the author's inexperience with sailing; there's an awful lot of things fantasy and gaming writers fail to realize about pre-industrial occupations or otherwise don't have the breadth of knowledge that specialists do. I know there's quite a bit of HEMA/martial arts/gunsmith channels who had some very animated critiques on things like gun rules in Pathfinder or AD&D's polearm fetish.
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Jan 2, 2023 08:18
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srhall79 posted:
quote:Mokmurian is encountered alone, a level 14 transmuter stone giant (which works out to CR 15; I'm not sure if this is better or worse than when we were being told the rogue 1/cleric 1 skinsaw men were legit a CR 2). He's had a chance to put on stone skin, so that DR 10/adamantium for 140 points. He'll fight for a while, dimension door away when injured. His first stop is the lamia, hoping for healing. If they're dead, he heads to the surface and gathers a dozen giants, which should curbstomp the PCs. If they've made an ally of Conna, she'll be in the group, and turn on Mokmurian. About half the giants join her, which seems the only way to avoid destruction. When Mokmurian is almost dead again, he'll try to use Limited Wish to escape, but Karzoug reaches through their connection to take control, giving a villain monologue where he points out that the PCs have helped him achieve his goal by killing so many giants with the rune. He severs the connection which kills Mokmurian. This is a serious reason why just about every Pathfinder game I've been in that had non-casual players had some form of Save or Lose spell. There comes a time in every 3.X player's life where hit points become a secondary stat, and you find yourself springing Stinking Clouds into crowds or chokepoints or kiting Entangled mobs on your summoned giant bat. Of course, such enemies can make their saves, and SoDs are higher level spells and thus limited in supply, but there's a part of me wondering if the adventure writers expected PCs to pull out such tactics at this point in the game. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 7, 2023 |
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Jan 7, 2023 23:33
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 Official Website. Itch.io Store Page. The furry fandom is a popular and well-enduring community that has existed for decades. Untied to any one specific property, furries have delved deeply into creating their own worlds and characters in addition to celebrating existing ones. Even in tabletop there have been worlds centering around people with animalistic qualities, such as Albedo and Ironclaw. In regards to Dungeons & Dragons, anthropomorphic animals have been around the game’s earliest incarnations, but typically took on the roles of hostile monsters, often low-level cannon fodder or non-magical brutes. While more recent Editions of D&D and spinoff clones have made playable options, the concept of a fur-centric setting in the vein of Ironclaw is overall pretty rare, and existing furry races such as kenku or tabaxi don’t have as much staying power in the game’s conception in comparison to dwarves or elves. The Delver’s Guide to Beast World was made as a love letter to the furry community, a 5th Edition-compatible setting where bipedal talking animals, from crafty and playful vulpines to patient and gentle ovines, are the dominant peoples of the world. The concept of adventurers, or more popularly known as delvers, are a recent concept created in response to a mysterious phenomenon of an extraplanar Dungeon appearing across the land. Delving crews stay on the move in tricked-out wagons to find and explore new Dungeon incursions. The book’s introduction opens up with a “Dear Reader” introduction by the author, followed by FAQ and Primers on Beast World to set up some ground rules. To briefly discuss some of them: Walking animal-like people are known as Beasts, and non-sentient creatures are called animals or “quiet-minded beasts.” Quiet-minded beasts are more or less treated as animals are in the real world. Beasts can reproduce with each other, although their children take on the physical form of one of the parents and not both. The overall technology levels are around the Renaissance, the setting is “high magic” in that spells and magical items are commonly used in most population centers, and the creation of the world was pretty recent, taking place 1365 years ago. Humans exist in the setting, but they are more colloquially known as Brethren and come from another plane of existence known as the Broken World. Fifteen years ago the Brethren governments invaded and failed to take over the Beast World. There is a pantheon of gods, although the most popular one is Pirhoua, the “Beast Mother” who is credited as granting intelligence to the Beasts of the world. The known world is a single continent surrounded by seas with some outlying islands, and it’s unknown whether the world is flat or a globe.  Chapter 1: Delvers and the Dungeon The first chapter covers the Dungeon and society’s response to it. The Dungeon’s incursions into the Beast World are recent, taking place shortly after the Pilgrimage which is when the survivors of humanity fled the Broken World and settled in the Beast World. Formed from veterans of the recent war, academics interested in studying its workings, and people seeking to get rich and famous from treasure hunting, delvers were drawn from many walks of life. It wasn’t long before their mutual experiences created a distinct subculture and even service industry revolving around “dungeon-delving.” A group of delvers is often known as a crew, commonly sharing a wagon, and multiple wagons and hangers-on make up a caravan. Caravans include delvers and those who support them such as artisans and merchants. The largest caravan is known as Littfeld, which is effectively a mobile town. Caravans serve as a safe haven for delvers on the road, and wagons rarely remain simple for long, becoming enhanced with magical reinforcements and machinery for a variety of needs. Delvers often like to brag about and compare their wagon features in a manner similar to drag racers showing off their rides. Beyond just the people who directly explore the dungeon, there are supplemental occupations and subcultures who interact with delvers. Scouts are people who collect rumors, conduct research, and search for leads of Dungeon appearances to point Delvers in the right direction. Dungeoneers are a disorganized subculture who believe that the Dungeon is a living creature, and in understanding its behavior can learn more about its essential nature: some dungeoneers believe that establishing communication can open up negotiation with the Dungeon in negating its dangers, to use for their own purposes, or merely for education’s sake. The strange treasures and odd life forms that come out of the Dungeon, along with the power and talents of Delvers, means that the political powers of the world have taken an interest in them both. Centers of learning are always in need of samples for research, nobles want unique items to show off in their collections, and towns appreciate the appearance of Delvers to keep them safe from dangers, Dungeon-related and otherwise. However, the newness of the subculture means that it doesn’t have the staying power of generations-long dynasties, and the danger of the occupation means that there are precious few true “delver veterans.”  The Dungeon’s true nature is a mystery of the setting, something for the DM to develop for their own games. Beyond this, the Dungeon has some common features: first off it doesn’t abide by the logic of a place meant to be lived in, being closer to the logic of a weird dream or obstacle course for adventurers to overcome than an architect thinking of how its monstrous inhabitants can live and move around in long-term. Basically, think of the dungeons that you see in a lot of video games. Monsters in the Dungeon aren’t willful creatures or sentient, even if they can speak and adopt tactics, as their natures are driven by instinct. This chapter ends with a brief table of “wealth by level” for PCs, listing the average amount of gold pieces per dungeon delve and total savings per PC delver. This is done for a purpose, as the Delver’s Guide introduces wagons as a new scaling piece of mobile base/equipment for PCs to spend money on, and the wealth per level guidelines were made in line with this. The chapter ends with 50 leads for potential Dungeon sightings, all sorted by common terrain types.  Chapter 2: Littfeld This and the next five chapters cover the major regions of Beast World. While mobile, Littfeld is special enough to have its own entry. Being the largest caravan of delvers, it is effectively a mobile town of around 200 people that makes a year-round trip around the major continent of the Beast World. Around half of its population are delvers, but the remaining 50% have never stepped foot inside the Dungeon and are made of family members, loved ones, and workers who help supplement the delving life. The caravan culture makes use of pictogram symbols that are woven into clothes and equipment, their colors and shape telling something about the wearer. One of the appendices in the back of the book has a detailed list of pictograms and how to make one’s own. Here are a few examples:  There’s an informal tax system known as the “spoils due” that is ten percent of money made on each delve, discounting magic items but does include anything of value that can be sold. In exchange, the spoils are used to pay for upkeep on magical maintenance, labor unrelated to delving, and other things that keep the wheels of Littfeld turning so that delvers can focus on what they do best. To better reinforce the tight-knit community feel, several NPCs with names, pictures, backstories, and personality traits are provided to serve as shopkeepers and important figures. We’ll cover a few of them here. Chief Cullen McGuire is the leader of Littfeld, a happy wolf who doesn’t take life too seriously and is the name and fursona of the main author. Holly is a wolf bartender of Holly’s, a popular gathering point for people to swap tales, gather information, and make deals. Shaman Eunice is an elderly Brethren who sells curios from the Broken World, which are of advanced technology on par with our world’s 1990s. Hugo’s Lifesavers is manned by a fox who sells common adventuring goods. And Lucas and Grier are a rabbit and bear married couple who make regular clothes and specialized garments for adventurers, and often argue over how stylish or practical to make the latter clothes.  All of the above shops have frequencies indicating how often they show up in Littfeld, and some have rotating goods of availability depending on when and where the caravan is located. While Hugo’s Lifesavers covers whatever you can find in the PHB, most other shops have unique items with their own prices and entries. Thoughts So Far: The Delver’s Guide to Beast World is off to a strong start. While its major selling point is D&D But With Furries, the setting has several unique points to make it stand on its own. Providing a built-in niche for the concept of adventurers is something I like, and making them part of a larger community in the form of caravans is a nice touch. Littfeld in particular is well-fleshed out, and in giving shopkeepers a face and also being mobile helps foster a connection with the economy/service side of adventuring no matter where the PCs go. Supplementary stuff in the form of custom wagons, pictos, scouts, and dungeoneers makes the delver culture feel both real and a growing yet haphazard one, highlighting the fact that it takes some very interesting and eccentric people to willingly journey into monster-filled dungeons. Join us next time as we cover the Kingdom of Allemance, our first major country in the Beast World! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 11:16
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  Chapter 3: the Kingdom of Allemance There are some commonalities scattered across the country chapters. Many realms are explicitly modeled off of real-world groups, with sidebars explaining some cultural peculiarities and inspirations. The Delver’s Guide has cultural consultants for such realms, so it’s not entirely written from an outsider’s perspective. With a few exceptions, most regions are multi-species, even if some lands and cultures are more strongly associated with certain kinds of Beasts. Additionally, every land has a brief section on how people worship Pirhoua, who has Three Divine Charges emphasizing what that culture views as her greatest tenets, and also a section on relationships with Delvers. Finally, there’s a list of “What to See in X” that covers a variety of interesting locations for adventure fodder. Of the various lands of the Beast World, Allemance is the one closest to Western European fantasy cultures. It is a large feudal realm with verdant fields, and its inhabitants are known as Allemagnians, or Alleys for short. Their culture is polychronic, meaning that they often switch between various labors throughout the day in lieu of specific schedules and appointments, and their society is polyamorous in that marriages still happen but people can still have other romantic partners. Children are often raised by an extended family as well as friends in their parent’s social circles. The nobility serves as an exception, for explicit claims of lineage is vital to the aristocracy. Allemance’s government is ruled over by a family of wolves whose eldest daughter traditionally inherits the throne. Queen Sophia Andolesia VI is the current ruler, and while popular she is beginning to come to blows with some unscrupulous lords and ladies taking advantage of serfs. The forest of Glasrún is Fantasy Counterpart Ireland and technically part of the kingdom, although its inhabitants have a bit of a hands-off-relationship with the rest of Allemance. This is due to a Pact made nearly a thousand years ago where a ruler sought to rid himself of having to govern “useless land” north of the Queensriver to anyone brave enough to settle within. In Allemance, the religion of Pirhoua’s bethels (the faith’s term for a temple) often serve as schooling centers for children, emergency shelter, and other community service functions. Their divine charges include raising large families, encouraging all forms of love and goodwill to others, and to indulge in life’s simple pleasures which is a good excuse for parties and holidays. As for Delvers and the Dungeon, Allemagnians romanticize the adventuring lifestyle and view them as wandering heroes, and ruins from the long-ago Mantle War (a conflict with the northern land of Oria) often serve as common access points to the Dungeon. Vampires are fond of appropriating Dungeon entrances to their own ends, finding value in a sprawling lightless realm. What to See in Allemance includes 27 locations of note. Some of the more interesting ones include the Crystal Plinth, an abandoned ligonine city whose Dungeon incursion is teeming with invading monsters and forgotten treasures; the realm of Dole which has a beautiful spotless capital but a cruel Baroness; Fort Kingsfang which is located on the Alley-Oric border used to train the Crown Guard; the Isle of Brass and Bronze, a neutral meeting ground for good-aligned dragons and their allies; Lake Reineblest whose soil is being warped by the Dungeon and the various villages along its shores are fiercely debating whether or not to evacuate; Molemill Well, a massive well that connects to the Loamlink, a continental subterranean network used by ligonines to travel through the Beast World’s dark depths; and Uriah’s Wood, a forest home to a sorcerer of the same name who possesses magic that can temporarily return a Beast to their quiet-minded self. For this last entry, many people seek Uriah out in hopes of coming to terms with some troubling memory.  Louvain is the capital of Allemance, a cosmopolitan metropolis at the metaphorical center of the Beast World. The Palace of the Lupine Throne has a garden of fruit trees open to the public every summer, and the Queen holds court on an island in the center of a pond known as the Moonpool Sanctum to hear petitions. Alchemical innovations known as Soda Lamps have created neon lights that are beloved assets for shops advertising their wares. The Night District is the seedy section of town, and the Thieves’ Army (organized crime syndicate made up of outlaws and veterans of the Invader War) operates openly as a barely-legitimate Veteran Union. There’s a growing and thriving industry catering to Delvers, and the latest fashion crazes are either clothes inspired by former civilizations of the Broken World or Delver-inspired “adventurer chic.” We get several detailed vendors here, ranging from Silas the rabbit clothing designer who earned a rivalry from a family of tailor squirrels; a trio of wolves making a living at a tea house who have a Dungeon lead for delvers in the form of a weird door in a house in the city; and a tavern and stagehall known as Twisted Whiskers which is owned by a dragon.  Patrie is the last surviving city of the Brethren, pulled from the Broken World by the goddess Pirhoua herself into Bluebell Valley of Allemance. It is ruled over by Diana, an officer who defected to Allemance’s side during the Invader War, and was granted the title of Baroness. The city is circular, its major districts forming spoke-like divisions, and the architecture is a mixture of old Broken World materials with newer construction from native resources. There is still a lot of empty space, and about a third of the city is still in ruins and being restored (or exploited) by Shamans, scavengers, and adventurers. The Jackals, a species of fey beings, were vital in Patrie’s growth, granting two gifts in the form of a seed (a coffee plant to give Patrie a cash crop) and a ziggurat structure known as the Junction. The Junction is lined with glassy surfaces serving as scrying and teleportation portals to areas all across the Beast World. Reception buildings in major cities link back to the Junction, and most facets link to minor places and are too narrow for a Delver’s wagon to fit through. Patrie has several major factions attending to its smooth operation: the Dungeon Brigade is a governmental agency that coordinates efforts with Delvers to monitor and defend against Dungeon incursions; the Light of Self is a sect of Aubade (one of the Beast World gods) formed by Brethren who are trying to find a new life in the wake of the Broken World’s abandonment; the Stargazers work at an observatory which they use to record stars in the sky and make celestial maps; the Demitassian Revelers are a club of coffee enthusiasts seeking to pay delvers well for coffee beans brewed in unconventional ways, such as being flash-frozen by a winter wolf’s breath or retrieved partially-digested from the stomach or a mimic; and the Shamans, a majority-Brethren organization of historians dedicated to studying the Broken World and making expeditions into that plane of existence to retrieve objects of cultural significance. The Light of Self has a large number of transgender and nonbinary members. The writer who came up with the organization is a transgender woman who has a sidebar explaining the creative process and inspiration: Empowerment posted:In 2006, I was hundreds of miles away from the place I’d grown up. It was my first year away from home, and I was independent for the first time. A friend of mine in college told me she wanted to study GRS or “gender reassignment surgery.” Something exploded in my mind, a question that echoed for years afterward: that’s an option?  Our section ends with some in-character fiction where a fox child and Brethren child begin an unlikely friendship in the aftermath of the Invader War. Thoughts So Far: Allemance isn’t exactly doing anything novel when it comes to fantasy settings. It’s your typical feudal realm of rustic idyllic countryside, two big Cities of Adventure, and some interesting dungeon crawls and a wicked aristocrat or two for PCs to thwart or overthrow. But it’s still a strong entry, for it has just a little bit of everything for a DM to develop into something further, and much like Littfeld I like the personalized touch of named NPCs as faces for organizations or vendors for shops and important services. The Brethren city of Patrie is surprisingly cool, showing that even the non-furry race in Beast World still has a unique niche to separate them from the boring, bland humanity of other settings. Join us next time as we venture into the frozen hinterlands of the Lodge Houses of Oria!
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Feb 28, 2023 00:51
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 Chapter 4: the Lodge Houses of Oria North of Allemance is a land of frozen mountains, taigas, and endless stretches of arctic grassland and tundra. Oria is sparsely settled in comparison to other lands of the Beast World, but the Oric people pride themselves on having thrived where others failed to survive. Society is structured around lodge houses, where to conserve firewood and minimize time spent outside, families would gather together into large structures. Lodge houses are led by batkos, who have absolute authority and hold lifelong positions although there are systems to oust them if they earn a community’s ire. Visitors to a lodge house meet with the batko upon arrival in a community, who determine whether they are trusted enough to stay. Lodge houses that grow beyond their sustainability are split into two lodges where one group departs to form another settlement elsewhere. A natural resource known as Summerstone appears in chunks on the mountains, radiating light and heat. They’re a valuable resource for surviving the land’s cruel winters, and many settlements are built in proximity to large formations. Summerstone is regarded as sacred and loses its powers if broken off from the main chunk; thus there are harsh criminal penalties for vandalizing formations. The Oric cultures are inspired by Scandinavian influences, with the lodge houses being close to Nordic longhouses. There are also Russian influences, such as their national leader being called a Berendey which is named after a shapeshifting bear of Russian folklore. While Oria has been settled for centuries, the modern incarnation of the lodge houses are the result of a war with Allemance back in 1090. The Howling King of that country sought to invade and occupy the “primitive, superstitious lands” of the north to distract from domestic issues. Yelizaveta was an ursine woman and national hero of Oria who was said to have gained powerful magic from the First Elk, the First Bear, and the First Mole. She united the scattered batkos of the land, uniting them into the Houses of Oria and became the first berendey. Oria was able to turn the tide for the next century, although over time both sides grew weary of war before signing a peace agreement in 1205 due to…alcohol. quote:A peculiar discovery finally tipped the scales. Moles scouting the Loamlink near the Mantle came across a forgotten storeroom underneath a deserted lodge house. Inside, they found dozens of crates filled with grappa. The strong alcohol had been a favorite among Orians, but it required grape skins traded from south Alley vineyards. The distribution of those bottles finally convinced the batkos and berendey to surrender. Most Oric people are cervine elks, ursines, or ligonines, although rats and Brethren have found a place in society after proving their worth. Oria is famed for its craftspeople; it was Oric artisans who built the original Covenant Forge, massive devices that imbue items with magic from ghosts from the Netherworld, and this is the most common means of creating magic items in the Beast World. In fact, the Stone of Sixth Strengths is a stone slab capable of being ten times as strong, compressive, and elastic as regular stone which allows people to build architectural wonders in Oria and elsewhere, such as the famed Causeway of Arneria. The religion of Pirhouanism in Oria views the goddess as a deity of creation, learning, and the forge, and communities treat their bethels as forges that are lit all day and night. Their Three Charges encourage the joy of creation in all its forms, encouraging the fruitfulness of education, and passing on one’s knowledge and talents to others. Delvers are all but required to add skis to their wagons when traveling through Oria and have a good negotiator to earn goodwill with the batkos. The Dungeon is frequently found in hidden caverns, worryingly near the more well-traveled roads, and the dangerous monsters known as purple worms are a recent addition to the ecology.  What to See in Oria includes 17 locations, quite a bit less than Allemance. Some of the more interesting places include Edelstann, a sea port which has a large community of Alley immigrants which has caused some friction between them and the native community; Fallensky’s Rest, a druid-guarded cave said to hold a piece of fallen sky and is often menaced by Dungeon monsters; the mole city of Podgorod, which has recently invented the steam engine which shows promise but its prototypes are currently unreliable; Suurin Forge, the most powerful Covenant Forge in the Beast World and also the hidden training center of Oric’s renowned War Mages, who act as both elite soldiers and the country’s secret police; and the lodge of Zaros, whose people are known for universally adopting odd fashion statements every season, and the community is undecided about the large influx of Delvers due to the nearby mountains being home to many suspected Dungeon Sightings.  Jegervalt is known as the House of Houses, the largest settlement in Oria in both size and population. It is a series of tiered levels and tunnels going through Mount Roet, and connects the eastern and western ends of the country. The moles maintain the Loamlink and can burrow into places most other species can’t reach, although recent Dungeon activity has been forcing them out of their subterranean homes. The Tunnel Market is made up of temporary stalls full of oddities and ends, and the Mountain Heart is home to a dense vein of Summerstone that is used to provide sunlight to an underground ecology of farms. A group of hunters known as the Circle of Rage, previously beloved for their heroism, have devolved into crooked criminals and are shaking down honest folk while helping the Thieves’ Army expand their smuggling ring. Every four years, an event known as the Housemeet is called for where batkos from across the country pay tax to the berendey, and after a month of feasts and celebration the remaining tribute is allocated to the public good of Oria. In addition to serving as a useful social function, it helps strengthen bonds between community leaders, and many foreigners visit Jegervalt during this time as the Housemeet celebrations are enjoyed by all. Our section ends with brief entries on the Jegervalt Forge and Twin Tusks, the latter being a watering hole with a menu of sample foods and drinks, along with unique named NPCs for each place. The Forge is used for making magic items, and an otter knight of Allemance known as Isella Brock is friends with a restored war mage who built her a magical prosthetic arm.* The Twin Tusks is frequented by Agidel, the descendant of Yelizaveta who doesn’t wish for glory and instead seeks the humble life of a craftswoman, and a Vinyotian lynx known as Niki who after supposedly giving up a life of crime is recruiting Delvers to find and steal a black dragon's hoard. *It’s a Witch Arm, a magic item that isn’t unique and once per day can add the wielder’s Charisma bonus to melee weapon damage and Strength checks for 1 minute. Thoughts So Far: Oria is another country that managed to pleasantly surprise me. I’m rather fond of the Summerstone and Stone of Six Strengths, which provide good in-universe explanations for some of the more impractical architecture and population centers for a fantasy world. There’s quite a bit of depth and versatility in local culture to be more than “tough, gruff northerners” you usually see of Fantasy Scandinavia/Russia in other settings. Join us next time as we set sail for the oligarchic Trade League of Vinyot!
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Feb 28, 2023 16:35
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 Chapter 5: The Trade League of Vinyot This seaside nation has 8,000 miles of coastline, making the ocean and its bounty of utmost importance to daily living. Commercial port cities and winds allow for its fleets to sail the fastest of all the nations, and its government is an alliance of merchant companies known as the Trade League. Vinyotian culture encourages looking towards the long-term as well as individual ambition, although there is a bit of a romanticized emphasis on generosity in the form of it “being an investment with good returns,” and people take around two weeks off for funerals on account that having time to grieve is an important aspect of life. Vinyotian businesses are mostly family-operated, often bringing in outside help when the rest of the family cannot contribute to that particular endeavor. Beyond this, the Trade League’s governance has several commonalities: the head of government in a settlement holds the deed to a town collectively, and is known as the trade lord. The deed can be sold to another which often happens when a trade lord falls into debt, but otherwise they have the freedom to run their city how they want. Beyond this style of governance, there are Mandates passed by the Trade League that affect everyone in the land, and sitting members can vote on proposed mandates. The standing army is made up of sellswords that contract with individual cities, social class is divided into varying levels of workers and business owners with the trade lords at the top. There is systemic prejudice against tenebrine (possum, raccoon) people, whose nocturnal nature has caused other Vinyotians to presume that they’re inclined to criminal behavior and thus withhold jobs and services from them. This causes many tenebrine to engage in operating outside the law or in shifty and thankless jobs, which reinforces people’s prejudice against them. The criminal justice system works on restitution where the wronged party is financially compensated by the wrongdoer in the form of money or labor to pay off the debt. Vinyotian art is closely intertwined with the faith of Pirhoua, and many artists join bethels which have some of the most beautiful and elaborate sculptures, frescoes, and other works of art. Musicians perform in groups and not solos, and compositions are often worked on for years. Comedy stageplays are popular among all social classes and incorporate common character archetypes from history and culture to tell a greater story. This last cultural detail is inspired by the Commedia dell’arte of Renaissance Italy. Pirhouanism in Vinyot is given over to airs of propriety, and its bethels spare little expense in making themselves look literally “holier than thou.” The Divine Charges include mercy and taking care of people around you, that wealth is the primary force which one can use to change the world, and to express the goddess’ love in the world by making use of luxurious materials. Delvers operating in Vinyot often reconfigure their wagons to be amphibious, as many Dungeon entrances can be found underwater. The fabled treasures and resources adventuring crews find have earned the interest of many Vinyotians, particularly the lower-class who view the occupation as a secure means of social mobility.  What to See in Vinyot has 29 locations, the most we’ve seen so far in this book. Some of the more interesting places include the Bella Madre, a Venice-like city built upon swirling rivers that converge in a whirlpool upon which a theater is built over; Dungeon Town, the only known place in the Beast World where the Dungeon is perpetually present, and is a semi-permanent encampment of delvers and adventurer-friendly industries whose streets and tunnels are prone to magically changing; the abandoned swamp town of Gonlaro, where a section of collapsed Loamlink resides as well as the personal fortune of the former armadillo foreman and ghosts of townsfolk who couldn’t escape; the Haven of the High Bethel, which is constructed around the last heartleaf tree whose fruits are believed to have been responsible for granting Beasts their willful nature; the Million Souls Overlook, home to a collapsed wizard’s tower contained in a sphere of frozen time; the city of Porta Strega, whose nearby woodlands are home to a large amount of animal ghosts* due to a thin separation between the real world and Netherworld; the city of Southwinds, which was the first to suffer casualties in the Invader War and until recent times refused entry to humans; and Wrightbarrow, a harbor home to the Wrightbarrow Shipping Concern that makes the maritime vessels Vinyot is most famous for, and is paying experienced delvers sweet contracts to live and patrol on the island to keep watch for Dungeon incursions. *a concept which doesn’t happen elsewhere, for ghosts are copies of willful creatures. Pristana sits on a peninsula but is more popularly known as a pleasure island due to its surrounding natural beauty and bustling entertainment industry. The Fifth Market is a long concealed attic home to all sorts of criminal enterprises where vendors can escape through trap doors if the authorities are spotted nearby. The Winner’s Square is home to casinos that also host magical entertainment, and Center Street Bank makes use of draconic holographs that serve as magical bills of exchange. Due to the peculiarities of the Draconic language, both the writer and buyer have their identities magically imprinted on it, making it almost impossible to create forgeries. Varasta, the fox god of chaos, has a particular cultural importance here. His first notable influence was when he left a twenty foot pillar of solid gold in a town square to impress a woman, and those who kiss it may be cursed or blessed by him. Secondly, his druidic followers gather in gardens magically transformed into pockets of nature within the city. Our chapter ends with a write-up of the Chapel of the Faithful, a church-themed casino complete with two new gambling-focused minigames and a writeup of Roza, a tradewind fox who is the champion of an illegal monster fighting ring. There is also the Crystalfox Hotel, a high-class inn complete with an overpriced menu of food and drink, an overqualified raccoon wizard bellhop by the name of Lorenzo who is paying off the debt of his mother who tried to rob the hotel, and Zenon the stage magician who is looking for a crew to steal from a group of trade lords planning to stay at the hotel.  Chapter 6: the Feline Isles of Al’ar This tropical island chain isn’t part of the continental mainland, located 1,000 miles to the west of Vinyot’s shores. Most of its population is feline, and they are ecologically conscious due to viewing the world as a gift from the Beast Mother. Most of their cities are made up of tent and hammock dwellings and wooden docks, with stone structures being rare, and they make use of crop rotation and wild-sown crops to make foraging a plentiful endeavor. Like Vinyot, maritime occupations are an important part of their culture, and their vessels range from personal sailboats to schooners designed for long voyages. It was Vinyotian sailors who made first contact with Al’ar, and relations were initially positive. However things took a worse turn when platinum deposits were discovered on the islands. Al’ar’s refusal to let them be mined caused the trade lords to go and try mining it anyway, resulting in several small-scale battles. The conflict would soon come to a close when the Vinyotian miners realized they were being used as pawns and didn’t view the risk to life and limb as worth it, so they allied with the cats and delivered a warning to the trade lords that Al’ar wouldn’t be colonized. The Al’ari are semi-nomadic, pulling up their belongings at the end of the dry season to relocate to another island where they build anew. This is known as a Storm Voyage, for it coincides with the passage of tropical storms that go through the isles in a semi-predictable pattern. Their greatest possessions are wearable jewelry and waterproof scrolls, the latter for being the best means of containing knowledge in the humid climate, and locally-grown spices are also a valued trade commodity. Pigments made from plants are used for colorful textiles and paints which they put on everything, and every year during December the holiday of Foxencat celebrates the Al’ar-Vinyot friendship. The holiday involves painting a feline and vulpine engaged in friendly activities on the side of a mountain; every storm season the rain washes the art away, meaning that the mural is always different year by year. There are of course pirates, who Al’ari have a sort of nonaggression pact with provided they are compensated and don’t get too violent; attacking migrating ships during a Storm Voyage is universally hated, as the lost resources can doom a community to starvation. Many former pirates have become Delvers, seeking to find fame and fortune in the Dungeon rather than on the high seas. Beyond this, Delvers have a mixed reputation in the isles: on the one hand, they provide useful skills in taking care of monsters and Dungeon incursions, but also bring the outside world closer which can also bring in the positives and negatives of tourism. Pirhouanism in Al’ar venerates the goddess as one of nature, wandering, and curiosity, and its bethels are dedicated to using divination magic and sea charts for maritime travel. The Divine Charges include spreading goodness through the world by visiting other places, giving back what you can to the natural world after taking from it, and piquancy where culinary skills are valued as an important part of life’s blessings.  What to See in Al’ar is a rather brief section, consisting of 13 locations. Five of those are the largest islands: Aurica holds the world’s largest platinum deposit and mainland pirates often use the place as a stopping point; Dakshin has a jungle home to druids and their quiet-minded pets; Jarik has densely-populated dock towns that feel more like mainland cities; Kandela has an active volcano and Dungeon incursions are feared to agitate it into erupting again; and Sampura has many Dungeon incursions that have forced dock towns to resettle. Other interesting places include Muraya, a “city of walls” that is located among the porous cliff sides of Sampura; the city of Tempestat, where most natives possess a Windstring magical item which can fill a sail with enough wind to quickly maneuver about the city; and Trebe, or the Three Babes islands, whose center holds a vast mangrove forest rumored to be haunted. Port Tonoro Is a pirate town and the largest settlement in the region, although it too is mobile due to the Storm Voyage. Its leader is a beloved tiger pirate known as Skull Charlie, and the city’s ill-gotten gains make their way into fence markets for crews looking to get rid of stolen goods. The port has few rules, the most notable being to not attack ships making a Storm Voyage, to warn the lookouts if naval vessels are spotted within a hundred miles, and to not steal from or attack ships that are docked in town. They’re also rather lax about the use of enchantment magic, viewing their use as no great offense provided that those influenced aren’t forced into any permanent decisions. Our section ends with two establishments and their occupants. The first is Anton’s Shack, owned by a tiger bartender who is a well-traveled sailor and his girlfriend Josie. One of its regulars is Crabman Chris, a fox who was exiled from his town after buying a malfunctioning steam engine from a mole conman to use on a ship during the Storm Voyage. This resulted in the ship capsizing and him being exiled from his community. The other establishment is the Surrender Parlor, owned by a bard known as Jaden who operates what can be most accurately described as an S&M Club. But instead of physical pain, he makes use of enchantment magic that can elicit various mental states in the client. Thoughts So Far: Vinyot and Al’ar are really good chapters. Both do a good job of explaining interesting factors in local culture and customs, and Al’ar helps weave a sense of verisimilitude regarding how society and resources are shaped by the Storm Voyage. While Al’ar has interesting people and places, I feel that Vinyot has won out in diversity of locations and adventures to be of interest to PCs. There were some elements that stretched my suspension of disbelief, although in that Beast World is meant to be more optimistic than other settings I can find it forgivable. The first is that aspects of Vinyotian greed can be curbed by charity and generosity, and that the Vinyot-Al’ar war was ended simply by the bulk of sailors defecting to the natives’ side. Couldn’t the trade lords just find even more desperate people to replace them, or did they sink too much money into the colonization that it became too costly? I presume the latter. Join us next time as we complete our terrestrial travels in the Beast World in the United Lands of Arneria!
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Mar 1, 2023 05:36
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  Chapter 7: The United Lands of Arneria Located in the east of the Beast World, the United Lands of Arneria is a nation of dual identities, different yet bonded by nearly a millennium of friendship. The western half of the realm is a lush rainforest known as the Bat’yan, and the eastern half is a sprawling desert known as the Beylik. An elevated stone road known as the Causeway is its most internationally known feature, spanning over a thousand miles through both lands with entire cities existing upon its foundations. The culture of the Bat’yan is inspired by the Philippines, while the Beylik is inspired by the various cultures comprising the Ottoman Empire. Mice are the predominant Beast in both lands, although ligonine sloths are common in the Bat’yan and bison and desert vulpines have traditionally lived in the Beylik, with armadillos and donkeys commonly found along the Causeway. The Bat’yan has a decentralized system of government, where local villages known as barangays are run by a datu, whose members are drawn from the upper classes or Pirhouan religious leaders. The closest thing they have to a regional leader is a raja, who is invariably a diviner possessing magic to link the minds of every datu, which is used to speak on behalf of them when dealing with the Beylik. Men and women tend to have more separate social lives divided by the time of day and labor, with women doing more indoors and domestic duties by day, and the men at night, and during the afternoon everyone takes a siesta-like nap to sleep through the hottest parts of the day. The book acknowledges that life can be tough for people who don’t fall in line with traditional gender norms, although there’s encouragement to be understanding for people in the process of figuring themselves out. The Bat’yan’s greatest threat at the moment is a region of utter darkness known as the Blackwild, which is roamed by demons on the outskirts. Anything entering the void is never seen again, and the paladins of Drapmphine erected a stone wall around it to guard against its dangers. The lands beyond the wall that don’t touch the darkness are known as the Ring of False Blessings, a seemingly-pristine land inhabited by delicious fruits, bodiless singing, and animals and plants with beautiful colors not found naturally among their species. There are 9 places of interest detailed in the Bat’yan: Castaway Point, a treacherous coastline and isolated port city home to a group of “sea rats” who make it their mission to prevent others from dying among the treacherous waters; Duyan Vale, a Causeway town famed for its delicious foods and rare herbs which are becoming harder to obtain due to Dungeon appearances; Kal’oro Grove, a community in the rainforest home to the Kapre Druids, sloths who are closer to Seelie than mortals and mastered the secrets of immortality; and the strange swamp villages of Mitalu Swamp, who prefer to be left to their own devices and are particularly suspicious of paladins and other people who can detect fiends. The Beylik is an old land whose harsh environs have encouraged the inhabitants to rely on tried and true means of architecture and resource management. From this, their society was among the first to develop advanced mathematics and a broader culture of learning. Broadgate University is the oldest magical academy in the Beast World, whose scholars invented the creation of crystal-clear glass and the Magic Missile spell. Gems are a popular trade good, and to facilitate their transport a network of roadside inns known as caravanserai were built across the desert. The Beylik has a more centralized form of government in comparison to the Bat’yan, and is ruled by a figure known as the bey.* Many lower-level government positions come from the bey’s many sons and daughters, who is married to many wives to make their numbers larger than just a few. Beyond his wives and progeny, the bey also has three viziers, the Eye, Star, and Hand of the Bey who have masterful knowledge in certain fields vital to good governance. The current bey is a bison known as Vartan who was leader since before the Invader War and is liked more than his father who ruled the land with a harsh grip. *The title is consistently lower-case for one time. The Beylik has 11 interesting locations detailed: some of the more interesting ones include Glimmerpool, an underground Loamlink city and considered the “ligonine capital” of the Beast World as it is an important religious pilgrimage site to all three of their species; the Omniscient Temple in Harik, dedicated to Yttrus the god of knowledge and secret keepers of the Vessel of Yttrus artifact which was used to terraform the surrounding desert into a more livable region; the Kavrama Mines, whose operations are suffering due to entire sections being compromised by Dungeon appearances; and the Sun Bull Dunes, the hottest place in the Beast World and a place of religious significance to the Aubadism religion, where worshipers enter a trance and venture to a gigantic pillar of black sapphire to smash a piece of it to carry back to civilization.  The Causeway is the primary means of transportation through Arneria, built over a thousand years ago at the end of the Attamek Wars to unite east and west in a symbolic gesture of peace. Before then, even the Beylik wasn’t a united land, and there were many wars that in modern times are remembered as doomed endeavors that only brought misery to everyone. In addition to transportation, the Causeway serves as a safer method of travel, particularly through the Bat’yan as its roads are above the rainforest canopy and out of reach of most monsters. Hanging gardens, elevators, and aqueducts are used to make living long-term on the elevated roads possible, and due to this Arneria’s common folk are more well-traveled than their peers in other lands. Pirhouanism in Arneria is a religion that emphasizes self-discipline, its bethels being quiet buildings of quiet introspection. Its three Divine Charges include using one’s labor to make the world livable, encouraging one to think what is best for the community, and order and mercy to ensure that everyone pulls their weight so that nobody is left starving or forgotten. However, there is another deity who is as popular as Pirhoua in Arneria: Aubade the Sun Bull. They exist with some begrudging tolerance, where it is determined that open warfare would be too costly and so are allowed to exist provided they channel their zeal into more productive means of allowing Arnerians to blow off some steam (violence is viewed as an art form among the Sun Bull’s worshipers). Aubadian chapels are common in most settlements and are tight-knit, having no formal leaders and instead being a gathering of equals. Far’soro is the capital of Arneria, a Causeway city home to the bey’s Sapphire Palace and located above a harbor that links the ports of distant lands to the United Lands. Although the bey encourages sticking to traditions, Far’soro has adapted well to the influx of foreign Delvers who use the metropolis as a hub for Dungeon operations in the country. The Arnerian General Post Office maintains legions of postal donkeys delivering messages and goods across the Beast World, and a fortress of Dramphinian paladins known as the Moon Needle is dedicated to some secret task their order doesn’t share with others. The Rooftop City is a collection of shanty roofs next to the Causeway where the poor live, and the rivers of Attamek Harbor are swollen with merchants and fences who braved swift currents and eagle-eyed authorities. The mouse Hiraya is the current raja of the Bat’yan, and he and the bey Vartan despite each other. This may seem a problem, but there is a tradition of having friction exist between the rulers of east and west in the belief that both act as a check against each other’s power. The bey’s viziers are thus legally bound to report to the datus if the bey and raja get along too much so that the latter can be replaced. This seems counterintuitive to me, but I won’t lie in that it creates some great adventuring opportunities.  The Storied Histories League serves as our end-chapter shop/service, although it is more detailed than the prior chapters. The Storied Histories League is but the official stamp of a long-lasting Arnerian cultural tradition, a combination fighter’s guild and theater troupe where members adopt colorful titles and melodramatic stories to engage in mock battles with each other for the purposes of entertaining crowds via a more involved story. Basically, it’s professional wrestling. Matches can happen anywhere, although the most prestigious rings are in the Far’soro Grand Arena where the reigning Champion has the right to wear a distinctive belt that they can keep for as long as they don’t lose to the many, many other fighters seeking a place at the top. This entry goes over common wrestling tropes such as heels and faces along with the concept of kayfabe, albeit reflavored for the fantasy world tropes of the Beast World. For instance, there are different League divisions tailored to the talents and capabilities of fighters, such as a Spellslinger Division where fighters don’t use weapons and instead engage in “mage duels,” or the Tag Team Division where two combatants share a gimmick and fight together in matches. For gaming groups that prefer all of their PCs to participate, there is a new Delving Crew Division where two teams of four combatants compete against each other. There are unique rules for kayfabe combat; generally speaking it follows the normal strictures of 5th Edition combat, but the goal of the fight is to gain Stars during a fight, which determines how much the crowd enjoyed the fight. There are a variety of ways to gain and lose stars, and the rules encourage making fights interesting and varied rather than straightforward: for instance, risky near-misses, expertly-landed hits, alternating between different actions and spells, and using Charisma skills to influence the crowd are good ways of building up stars than just trying to knock out or immobilize your opponent. We also get a sample establishment, the Pit, which is a bar that hosts SHL tournaments, and two unique NPCs include Prince Kemal who is one of the bey’s sons whose real passion is in the sport and not governance, and Umber the Dragon who is actually a bear* and the current reigning Champion. The other establishment is Ramil’s Crate Shop, a jeweler fennec fox who is particularly interested in art from the Dungeon, and two of his employees are interested in getting involved with the delving lifestyle. *He's called that for his signature dragon horns gesture of raising a hand to one’s forehead with raised index and pinky fingers. Our chapter ends with an in-universe journal by a Dramphinian paladin chronicling the final years of the Attamek Wars. Thoughts So Far: I like this chapter, although I feel that it is lacking something I can’t put my finger on in comparison to the prior lands. Although there are locations with Dungeon-related trouble, this is the only chapter that doesn’t have a stand-alone entry for how people treat the Delve, and the discussion of the rival faith of Aubade is pretty bare-bones in explaining why they are at odds with the worshipers of Pirhoua. The next chapter goes into more detail on the gods of the Beast World to help answer these questions, although as this chapter comes first I feel it could’ve used more fleshing out in detail. The professional wrestling minigame rules seem interesting, although I’d have to test them out in actual play to see how well they hold up. On the plus side, Arneria as a chapter has some pretty strong entries in wondrous locations to visit. The Causeway serves as a convenient means for efficient long-distance travel between locals in the nation, and the named locations in both the Bat’yan and Beylik contain sites of both cultural and adventuring significance. Join us next time as we go beyond the Beast World in Chapter 8: Cosmology & Religions! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Mar 2, 2023 |
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Mar 1, 2023 22:38
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 Part 8: Cosmology & Religions Note: This was addressed in the Introductory preface, but given this chapter’s contents I feel it’s good to bring up. There are some spells that don’t exist in the Beast World, and several of them are due to both setting conceits and the cosmological framework: awaken, create or destroy water, fabricate, gate, goodberry, guidance, plane shift, raise dead, regenerate, reincarnate, remove curse, resurrection, teleport, teleportation circle, true resurrection, and word of recall. Additionally, spells and abilities that make mention of the core transitive planes (Astral, Ethereal, Shadowfell) instead refer to the Astral Sea. Several of these spell restrictions help encourage the “free-roaming wagon train to the Dungeon” feel of exploration, such as getting rid of teleportation and water/food creation, while the removal of resurrection magic is designed to keep what happens after death a great unknowable. We covered the known lands of the Beast World in our prior chapters, but what of realities beyond? The setting has its own unique cosmology along with some common laws of reality. We first start out with a more in-depth distinction between quiet-minded and willful creatures: while the major dividing line is intelligence, what makes a creature willful is its ability to be aware of its own identity and what it represents, where it distinguishes itself from others for no other reason than its uniqueness. Additionally, the ability to build observations and thoughts beyond instinct and stimuli are important, such as moral frameworks for living. The ability to change and grow from such observations is also an important aspect of willfulness; while certain creatures may be intelligent, if their natures are locked into an innate mindset or programming then they cannot be willful. Worlds of reality are usually made up of three forces: Nature is the physical foundation, and Arcana is the “mind” that is the foundation of magic. Divinity takes the form of gods, who are personifications of concepts imagined by willful creatures. Curiously, gods are not willful creatures: they cannot transform or grow, as they see the world in terms of their portfolio and thus can only take actions in line with influencing that aspect. All forms of magic interface with these three forces in some way or another. Natural magic wielded by druids and rangers calls upon the automatic decisions of reality to make Nature express itself, arcane magic takes advantages of Nature’s loopholes by debating Arcana itself to make it “correct the discrepancy” in reality, and the god-given spells of clerics and paladins are derived from a relationship with a deity. Warlocks are considered a special category of their own, their patrons being powerful creatures whose nature and personalities can change over time. This separates them from gods, as they’re believed to be willful. The elemental forces of air, earth, fire, and water are present in all three forces, not pulled from separate elemental planes but from the elements already existing in a world. There are also different kinds of worlds, which drift aloft in the spacelike Astral Sea connecting them all together through an infinite void. The Absolute Veil is an analogy for extraplanar travel, where one passes through gaps in the fabric to enter other worlds. Material worlds are the most complex of worlds, and include the Beast World, Ancestral Homeland, and the Broken World.* Material worlds have the three forces, although the Broken World’s Arcana has been drained.* Thus, they are the only worlds that can create willful creatures. A solved world is one where reality has settled into a final state that cannot be altered by willful creatures; existing willful creatures lose the ability to procreate, which in turn causes deities to starve or leave. Solved words come about from the actions of willful creatures, and can range from intelligent life being exterminated to destroying the fundamental building blocks of Nature which thus becomes unable to enforce its own rules. The Ancestral Homelands is an example of a Solved world. *I presume that this is either an error or the Broken World being used as an example was it as a former Material World, for the book also mentions that it contains no Arcana. Manifested worlds are realities, usually small, created by the hands of others, such as an extradimensional spell made by a spellcaster or a god’s personal retreat. The Dreaming is a Manifested world, created by the thoughts of sleeping creatures. Finally, Coterminous worlds aren’t a category of their own but explain a world that overlaps another on an identical basis. The Netherworld is coterminous with the Beast World, being akin to the Ethereal Plane of core D&D in this regard. What happens to the souls of those who die is unknown, deities are unwilling to provide any information on the subject, and resurrection magic is virtually unknown. The devotees of Pirhoua teach that the dead live with her in a court of the afterlife, but beyond that there’s a multitude of belief systems with their own answers. We have d100 tables for spellcasting on other worlds, as non-Material worlds and distance from deities may have side effects. For instance, the Broken World lacks any Arcana at all, and arcane casters must roll on a table with random effects whenever they cast a spell. Spellcasters who gain their magic from a deity require their god to reach through the Absolute Veil, which can have random effects every time they prepare their spells on a long rest. Nature magic is enhanced in the Dreaming, has a chance of not restoring expended spell slots in the Ancestral Homeland, and cannot be regained at all in the Broken World. Finally, warlocks are immune to such randomness, for their patrons aren’t tied to the makeup of a particular world.  The Broken World is the homeland of the Brethren, whose reality began to gradually crumble for unknown reasons. The laws of physics seem to change with little rhyme or reason between regions, resulting in weird landscapes such as the horizon being a jagged line rather than a flat expanse, unbreathable atmospheres, the passage of time being slower or faster than normal, and so on. Travel to the Broken World can be accomplished via a Crossworld Well, a 4th-level magic ritual which acts as the catalyst for a portal requiring a variety of ingredients. There’s even an in-universe ingredient and instructions list for how to cast the spell. Furthermore, a magical suit known as bubble armor is used to safely travel without being exposed to the plane’s effects, creating a magical bubble around the wearer’s head. The bubbles are of limited duration, requiring fuel that is worth 200 gold pieces per 10 minutes of function, and explorers often make use of neckwear that casts the banishment spell on the wearer via command word. The Broken World itself is virtually lifeless, and so far no explorers have found any concrete animal life save for large shadows moving across the horizon. The environment is deadly enough, being best summed up as a Deck of Many Things but for an entire plane of existence. There’s a new condition known as Exposed that affects those who don’t have an item or effect that explicitly protects against it. We have twelve d6 tables that determine the current natural laws of a region, and they’re quite creative. The Nature of Flora may fill a region with immobilizing choking green spores harmful to exposed creatures, the Nature of Space may turn reality into a two-dimensional plane that grants inhabitants blindsight, the Nature of Sound may cause echoes to be eternal and any instance of thunder damage is repeated ad infinitum in the same space every round, and unique Other Natural Laws may make it so that all creatures and objects are super-fragile with 1 hit point. The book notes that the Broken World is quite dangerous, in that it makes death and fates just as bad to be likely scenarios, reflecting the fact that the characters don’t belong here. The Astral Sea is the metaplane connecting the known worlds of the setting. And every space in the Beast World has a corresponding location albeit there’s no guarantee that they’ll be the same size. Inhabitants move through the Astral Sea via mentally focusing on a point of reference and “fly” to the point. The Sea is made up of an immaterial substance known as Astra which can be shaped into virtually any material with enough mental discipline in a process known as astralcrafting. Bats are native inhabitants of the Astral Sea, who made contact with the Beast World last year, and they make use of astralcrafting to build mazelike cities with lighthouses to serve as flying waypoints. As astra can also be turned into edible substances, so bats and other inhabitants do not have to worry about starving to death. Astra’s major limit is that it can only exist in the Astral Sea, so objects made out of it fade when taken to another plane of existence. We have two pages of rules for Astralcrafting too, covering what kinds of items and structures you can make from it as well as their game mechanics (hit point, AC, duration, etc) when relevant.  The Ancestral Homeland is a Solved World and the birthplace of dragons and kobolds. Reality is made up of disc-shaped regions each ruled over by a single dragon who determines the physical functions of their region. Long ago dragonkind altered the laws of their reality to have perfect control over their domains at the cost of being able to travel outside their home domains. This turned the Ancestral Homeland into a Solved world, the dragons becoming prisoner-kings of their own lands. The surviving dragons are incredibly powerful, with even the youngest among them were elderly wyrms before the creation of the Beast World. There were wyrms who for various reasons found this alteration to be a mistake or not to their liking, and escaped in time before the world was completely solved. After sailing the Astral Sea for an unknown length of time, they found themselves in the Beast World. The dragon refugees were allowed to settle by the gods in exchange for having limits placed on their power. As they could reproduce and ensure worthy inheritors of their greatness, this was a worthy trade-off. As for the dragons still in the Ancestral Homeland, they too desired a means of creating progeny, and via contact with each other at the edges of their circles they engaged in a ritual to find a temporary loophole and create willful life from nothing. This was half-successful: they created kobolds, who weren’t willful but capable of moving beyond their parent dragons’ regions, swelling to tens of trillions and burrowing massive hive-tunnels through the realms. When gathered in large enough numbers kobolds could act with machine-like precision, entering something akin to a hive-mind like trance which effectively works as a growing intellect for the purposes of working together. Those kobolds who managed to find their way to the Beast World had a rare few become willful, gaining names and languages. The Dreaming is a reality that exists at the behest of sleeping creatures in the Beast World, shaped by magic into a mental landscape of individual dreams being less like locations and more akin to collections of memories and emotions. Its permanent inhabitants are the Seelie Court, the slumbering gods of an old solved world, whose resting place is a city that appears in every dream in the Beast World. Although it is often in the distance and can take different forms and shapes, the Seelie Court is as much a fact of life as the sky being blue. Travel to the Dreaming can be accomplished via the Daisy Walk, a 2nd level spell that has the caster fall asleep into a lucid dream where they enter the dream of another creature. Casting the spell at higher levels grants more benefits, such as letting other targets enter the lucid dream state with the caster or the ability to obscure oneself from the memories of the target dreamer. The Netherworld is a Coterminous world, a pale mirror to the Beast World. Its objects are hazy and dull, and sounds are slower and distorted. The Netherworld is inhabited by ghosts, who aren’t the spirits of the departed but rather copies of willful creatures, often coming into existence from strong emotions or persistent repetition of an activity or concept that “solidifies” the ghosts into the Netherworld. Ghosts are a vital resource in the Beast World, as simply being aware of their presence gives them more cohesion to continue existing, and thus ghosts crave attention like living creatures crave sustenance. While ghosts can appear as faithful copies of people, they rarely have the memories and talents of their creator in the Beast World. Magic items are created by finding its counterpart in the Netherworld and convincing a ghost to inhabit it via a Covenant Forge, allowing the ghost to become one with it and thus gaining a prolonged existence. The forge user and ghost often negotiate contracts, and those who specialize in communicating with ghosts are known as witches. We also get a new magic item, the Netherworld Intrusion Ritual Kit, that allows the user to create a double-image of themselves into the Netherworld.  Deities is our final section of Chapter 8, providing us with 8 gods of the Beast World. We start things off with an in-universe text on how the Beast World came to be: Varasta found a new world whose only inhabitants, the Seelie, were weak and slumbering. Seeking to find a fun new place for mischief, he manipulated his fellow deities into transforming the world into a living reborn one with willful creatures. They all found something of interest in this world, and Pirhoua made a deal with the Seelie to uplift the quiet-minded beasts into willful creatures, with the promise that she’d teach one of the uplifted species about the Seelie (the Jackals) and who would then have a role in helping shape the world. Veronette, Pirhoua’s spiteful sister, and Aubade, her head-strong brother, grew jealous of her and threatened to destroy the world if they didn’t have a place at the table. Varasta managed to quell their threats with a wager, where each would attempt to win over the newly-created Beasts with their own ways, and Dramphine and Yttrus would act as impartial judges. And thus, the various gods of the Beast World continued to play this cosmic game, and Varasta now had a whole new world of possibilities in which to have fun. One thing to note about the gods of the Beast World is that they have no listed alignments or domains. Instead, the text outlines their dogma and nature. That being said, the text all but says that Pirhoua is Good-aligned, Dramphine is Lawful Good, Veronette is Evil-aligned, and Varasta is almost certainly Chaotic. Not all gods necessarily have clerics, either: the majority of Dramphine’s worshipers are paladins, and that class is closer to classic D&D where the only allowed alignment is Lawful Good. The Ghost God only deals with Warlocks, and anyone practicing necromancy of the undead-making kind has to make a deal with Veronette in order to master those forbidden arts. The Seelie can make warlock pacts with Jackals, their dreaming state somehow granting them both the benefits of godhood and patronage. Pirhoua, the Beast Mother is the most popular deity in the Beast World, commonly appearing as a bovine woman. She encourages virtues of cooperation, mercy, and forgiveness as the best paths to making a better world. They aren’t necessarily pacifists, although the “vanquishing evil” aspect of holiness is better known among Dramphine’s followers. Dramphine, the Moon Wolf is the goddess of justice, the moon, and destroying supernatural evils. If Pirhouans knit wounded flesh together, than Dramphinians are the scalpels that excise tumors. It is said that the moon is Dramphine carrying a lantern as she travels the night, and like Pirhoua she too has Three Divine Charges. The first charge is the eradication of Unnature, their term for demons and undead and a manifestation of Veronette’s corruption of the Arcana. The second charge is to act as judges of mortal deeds, and paladins have jurisdiction to act as law enforcement in every land in the Beast World save Oric. The third charge is one of just rebellion, where the Moon Wolf permits her paladins to intervene, by force if necessary, against systemic injustices and tyrants who abuse their oaths of protection against their citizenry. Aubade, the Sun Bull is the god of the sun, holding sway over various passions from art to violence. The sun is said to be his watchful eye looking down upon mortals, and in lieu of Divine Charges he encourages his faithful to find their own inner lights. Thus his only universal commandment is to live life to the fullest, and a mental state known as Sunblood occurs among his worshipers in their most extreme emotional states. While many have used Aubade’s example to good ends, there are those who used his teachings to indulge in violent and selfish ends, who are responsible for giving the Sun Bull a reputation as a god of slaughter. Yttrus, the Knowing Mouse is the genderless deity of knowledge, whose achieved omniscience has given them a dispassionate view of reality for they know where all paths lead. While they are revered by the scholarly-inclined, there are only a few dozen “true Yttrusians” who dedicate themselves to understanding the god. First, one must dedicate years of study to different academic practices, calculating cosmic forces into a final data point through which Yttrus is understood. The Knowing Mouse’s only active duty is to act as a Guardian of time, where mages who try to alter the fundamental flow of time are given a warning in the form of an explosive sound that harms their mind. Further violations see the perpetrator hunted by Yttrus’ sphinx and mummy agents. Mummies are the sole undead who Veronette doesn’t hold sway over, instead being Yttrusian wizards made immortal. The Seelie, the Dreaming Court were the gods of the world that existed before the Beast World. They live within the Seelie Court of the Dreaming, eternally asleep and whose minds reach out to the jackals who serve their will. Other species can also worship them, although thus far only the jackals have been permitted into their Court. The Seelie have three Divine Charges: the first is that the Jackals are their chosen people, the second is to preserve the legacy of the world that came before in hidden places and treasured texts throughout the Beast World, and the third is to act only until the correct response is as clear as possible. Veronette, the Spiteful Sister is the quintessential evil deity of the Beast World’s pantheon. She does not wish to rule the world, only to watch it burn and tear down everything Pirhoua built. Those who worship her are the types who are consumed by hate and the desire for harm, or the misguided belief that they can use her power for a better end. She spread the art of necromancy to such doomed souls, and mindless undead who aren’t kept in control inevitably harm others due to Veronette effectively giving them permission to destroy their creators. Sentient undead lose their free will, becoming little more than puppets of the wicked goddess. Varasta, Handsome Idiot Dice Fox is perhaps the closest a deity can get to becoming a willful creature, for his portfolio of chaos allows him a wide domain of influence. He often takes the form of a tradewind vulpine in the Beast World, and unlike the other gods he can visit mortals and mingle among them, having a fondness for making various kinds of bets as a sort of cosmic bookkeeper. His three Divine Charges aren’t really edicts of conduct so much as explanations for his own behavior, where his only real edict has him act as someone earnestly willing to hear and negotiate the terms of any bet or contract. He becomes a deity of nature every day after 2 AM, representing the chaos of the wilderness and venerated by many (but not all) druids. Varasta holds in his breast pocket an envelope recording the odds of the bet between the sibling deities, and if any mortal were to read it it would collectively unravel the minds of every willful Beast. Sometimes he’s lost the envelope, but thankfully he managed to recover it each time. The Ghost God is like the Seelie in being a collection of deities rather than a single entity. In this case, they are the remaining memories of the gods of the Broken World, unable to save their reality and died in the wake of its gradual unmaking. Living on as the will of a pantheon to survive, the Ghost God forges a bond with warlocks in the Beast World. Its three Divine Charges are to remember the Broken World and to spread the god’s name, to scavenge the Broken World for whatever can be found and saved, and to use objects from the Broken World as a means of continuing the memory. The other deities have mixed feelings about the Ghost God. Pirhoua pities it and helps it to continue existing, Dramphine recognizes that it is not undead and tolerates it, Yttrus has no strong opinion like with everything else, while Varasta and Aubade are creeped out by it. Only Veronette truly hates the Ghost God due to Pirhoua being friendly with it. Thoughts So Far: I like how the cosmology is both detailed and different enough from core D&D while also feeling internally consistent with its own self-imposed rules. The explanation of willful creatures is a good means of determining sapience and the capability for change, and also explains why a seemingly intelligent construct or Dungeon monster isn’t actually “willful.” Additionally, it explains why deities care about mortal followers, given that their loss will fundamentally break the Divinity pillar of many worlds. When it comes to the planes of existence, my favorites are the Broken World and Ancestral Homelands in terms of themes and being interesting places for PCs to explore. The Astral Sea, Dreaming, and Netherworld feel rather barren in comparison, with the Netherworld being less a place and more an explanation of how magic items are created and powered in the Beast World. That being said, I feel that travel in the Broken World is too expensive. While meant to have a feel of unreachability, the bubble armor’s fuel source could be knocked down a peg or two: for a party of four to stay in the Broken World for an hour, they would need 4,800 gold pieces worth of fuel before they risk exposure. The deities work in being a rather tightly-themed pantheon whose history and workings are bound up in the setting. I do like the fact that they aren’t just for clerics and can empower worshipers in various ways, and their portfolios cover a broad range of concepts for most characters. Dramphine and Aubade cover the warrior aspects, Pirhoua your mercy/life “goodly good” faith, Yttrus and Varasta cover knowledge and trickery (and nature), and Veronette serves as your all-purpose evil/forbidden magic deity. I can see just about every official Cleric domain fitting under one of them in some way. As for weak points, the lack of certain spells in the Beast World means that certain classes will need to have bonus spells swapped out. In particular, Raise Dead for the Grave and Life domains and Fabricate for the Forge domain come to mind. Additionally, paladins being Lawful Good is a bit of a subjective taste, as 5th Edition explicitly attempted to decouple the class (and by extension the rest of the game) from alignment. Join us next time as we meet the setting’s power players in Chapter 9: Factions of the Beast World!
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Mar 2, 2023 11:30
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 Chapter 9: Factions of the Beast World The prior chapters have covered the groups and societies specific to nations, along with Delver culture in general. This chapter focuses on groups who aren’t limited to one region but still have a prominent role in the Beast World. The Motherguard are an order of Dramphinian paladins dedicated to hunting demons and undead above and beyond regular paladins whose duties typically reflect a broader range of smiting evil. Their single-minded dedication doesn’t leave much room for variance: their organization only recruits people who identify as women, they must not be in a relationship or have children as dependents can distract from the mission, and they prioritize the killing of Unnature’s enablers rather than risk them continuing to do evil via a false surrender. They may allow an evil person to live if doing so means they can destroy a greater evil. The Shamans are a mostly-Brethren organization of historians and preservers of human culture. The unraveling of the Broken World didn’t happen suddenly, but was a gradual process over generations; the Shamans' precursors were those that grew aware of what was being lost and what would be lost, creating isolated enclaves and exploring the dangerously-changing landscape to save who and what they could. Now that humanity lives on in the Beast World, their dedication is stronger than ever to preserve their culture. The exact causes of the Broken World’s deterioration is unknown, but several side effects contributed to the loss of Brethren history: the loss of skilled technicians and resources for creating their world’s technology, combined with magic robbing knowledge of most of their languages, reduced much of their culture to skills used for survival. While written languages can be found in the Broken World, the unstable natural laws means that even magical attempts of discerning the texts fail. As of now, shamans are the ones best capable of understanding Broken World items, which are popularly known as curios in the Beast World and tend to be things light enough for survivors to carry.  The Thieves’ Army grew out of the Invader War, which touched the lives of virtually every inhabitant in the Beast World. It wasn’t just the leaders of nations and soldiers who found themselves fighting the Brethren, but also the dregs of society defending a home that didn’t necessarily want them. Smugglers, pirates, gangsters, and other criminal malcontents had useful skills in hindering the extraplanar occupation, and their various organizations banded together under a greater Thieves’ Army. But now the war is done, and they went back to their old lives, now stronger than before. The Thieves’ Army operates like a more “civilized” organized crime syndicate. They recruit among poor and disenfranchised groups, including even Brethren, offering them food and shelter in exchange for service, and they create dependents out of local legitimate businesses by paying off their debts and loans. Overt “street crime” like muggings are discouraged, for they give a negative reputation as they still rely on public goodwill for their roles in the Invader War. There is one line the Thieves’ Army won’t cross, and that is slave trafficking; the more violent criminals are given an outlet via a “Special Section” to hunt down and murder slavers, and as a result of these hard-edged methods outright slavery is extremely rare in the Beast World. Sunset Lounge is an exclusive and secret club headquartered in the Astral Sea, counting among its number some of the most famous and powerful individuals in the Beast World. Their members rarely arrive in person, instead having proxies or magical projections interacting with each other at this neutral ground, and entry to the Lounge is via a magical invitation card that can summon a submersible within the nearest body of water to transport the holder. The Sunset Lounge is a high-class place with all manner of diversions, but their entertainments are far stranger than your regular “rich people games.” Chess is played by trained animals on giant boards, fighting rings have dueling golems controlled by contestants, and one famous mixer had a contest where every guest was polymorphed into a peasant named Ned, where Ned would win the title of nobility if nobody could correctly guess his identity. Ferals are an anti-Brethren hate group that has not forgotten nor forgiven the death and destruction wrought by the Invader War. They believe that humans are still plotting their destruction, as soldiers-in-disguise adopting the role of civilians in order to stage a second war once everyone’s guard is down. And like many real-life bigots they engage in the act of projection by doing exactly what they accuse their enemies of doing. Ferals put on more respectable faces in public, but don iron masks when they seek to perform more violent acts of terrorism. Beyond decentralized acts of violence, the most lasting legacy of the Ferals is the invention of lycanthropy, where a scholar in Beylik created a disease that could turn humans into rampaging monsters and was fatal to Beasts who became infected. One town with a Brethren minority was to serve as a testing ground, with the hopes that the Beasts would purge the humans out of a sense of grim necessity. Instead, the townsfolk took pity on the first lycanthrope when it was found they had no memory or control of their actions, and other infected humans fled the town to avoid hurting others. Lycanthropy has since sprung up throughout Arneria and is now spreading to other lands. Vampires are different in the Beast World, namely in that they are Fiends rather than Undead. Their origin dates back several hundred years when some upper-class hobbyists sought out immortality by trafficking with demons, who possessed their bodies after a fell ritual. Most vampires today belong to or stem from this foul origin, invariably being well-connected masterminds who had generations worth of plots and schemes to build upon. In spite of their power, every vampire struggles against the demon within, who has no pretense of civility and wishes more than anything to ruin all of existence. Due to this, many vampires seek out an “archenemy” in the form of a heroic person, playing out a parody of a storybook tale but one where the vampire seeks to quench every trace of life and goodness from their chosen foe. The Intruders, or demons inhabiting their body, reward the defeat of an Archenemy with indescribable euphoria. Vampires can reproduce, and while their children thankfully don’t bear demonic possession they still require blood for sustenance. Such progeny are known as fiend-vessel spawn, and unlike vampires they can run the gamut of alignments although many are evil. We have several stats for vampires and their ilk: Fiend-Inhabited Vampires are a variation of the standard one, being equally powerful with many of the same features but whose unique features are more suitably shadow-themed or demonic. For example, they change into a shadow instead of gaseous mist, have a weakness where they can be Charmed by a sphere of annihilation, and they summon batwolves instead of wolves, bats, and rats. Intruders are CR 1 creatures who inhabit the bodies of vampires, and they don’t have any threatening abilities or actions of their own save the ability to inhabit the bodies of willing creatures to turn into vampires as well as take control of the vampires they inhabit if they go without drinking blood for 3 days or otherwise damage themselves. Batwolves are CR 2 monsters who are basically flying vampire dogs which can shapechange between a bat, a mastiff, or their true form. Finally, Fiend-Vessel Spawn are CR 5 fiends who are basically less powerful vampires, with their major abilities of note being able to regenerate hit points and a draining bite and claw attacks.  Laurent and the Ecclesiasts are an alliance of those who would otherwise be foes directing their mutual hatred towards a shared enemy. Laurent, the Dread Advisor, is a wolf lich who disguised his true nature and wormed his way into the court of an Allemagnian queen. During the Invader War he secretly met with the Invader Kings, offering to help the occupation in exchange for experimental subjects to enhance his necromantic knowledge. As the war started to turn against the Brethren, Laurent recruited the leaders of the Broken World most loyal to him into his tower. He melds the bodies and minds of helpless Beasts into their human forms, making them powerful mage-warriors in their own right. These souls are known as the Ecclesiasts, and with the Invader War over they view Laurent as their true master. However, known only to Laurent and a rare handful, one Invader King still survives in an unknown location, and he and Laurent regularly communicate. Laurent has the stats of a lich, although his secret tower has its own unique lair actions appropriate to a necromantic mad scientist. We also have stats for three different kinds of Ecclesiasts. Their Challenge Ratings are pretty high, being 8, 12, and 16 and their roles in battle can be summed up as necromantic gishes. They fight primarily with greatswords and can let loose necromantic ranged attacks, and they can cast up to two related spells with one action, which include combinations such as Heal and Harm, Cloudkill and Flame Strike, and Fireball and Blight. Thoughts So Far: I don’t have overall thoughts on this chapter so much as individual thoughts on the organizations. About half of the groups are “PC friendly” in having aims that would align with delving crews or certain classes. The Motherguard and Shamans are ones who would have plot hooks relevant to many adventurers, and the Thieves’ Army can serve as an origin or contact for a Rogue/criminal PC who still wants to have a sense of “honor.” For that reason the Shamans and Thieves’ Army are my favorites. The Sunset Lounge isn’t an organization with an explicit goal so much as a strange and whimsical place the PCs would go to in order to make contact with a powerful figure, so its use in a campaign can vary but is pretty broad. The Ferals, Vampires, and Ecclesiasts are unambiguously villainous entrees. I like how the Ferals and Ecclesiasts represent two toxic sides of the outcome of the Invader War, although the Ferals may be a bit one-and-done in what kinds of plots they can be used: “protect Brethren communities from violent bigots.” I’m a bit mum on vampires. The author does explain why he changed the creature type to give them more of a unique niche in the world: there’s already a bevy of predatory undead archetypes, and he wanted there to be a demon-worshiping analogue to liches rather than having two “powerful undead” types for mortals to become. Still, I feel that the stat blocks could’ve instead been “use vampire, but with X” rather than a full-page entry, which could’ve easily gone to fleshing out the existing factions further. For that reason the Ecclesiasts are my favorite villainous faction. Join us next time as we finally get to the playable furry options in Chapter 10: Species!
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Mar 2, 2023 22:07
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 Chapter 10: Species We’re at the chapter that really gets into the crunchy bits for furry role-play, with 18 unique species and their various subspecies and cultural traits. The species of Beast World are similar to the concept of race in other 5th Edition settings, albeit with some changes: the species serves as the main race (for instance, murine covers rodents), then there are subspecies (in the vulpine example, there are mice and rats), and finally a homeland which grants abilities based on a character’s culture and upbringing rather than being explicitly biological. These do not supersede or replace a character’s background. To give a core race analogy, an elf’s weapon proficiencies would be considered a homeland trait, while their darkvision would be a species trait. Every playable species in the Beast World is some variety of mammal, with dragons and kobolds being the reptilian exceptions. This is pretty inline with the most popular kinds of fursonas, where after hybrid combinations the most popular species are various kinds of canines and felines with dragons being number 5. As Beast World inhabitants “breed true” when having children, hybrids aren’t an option, which may be regrettable for those with fursonas of that type, but understandable given how complicated it would make options. The book also has a handy sidebar for creating one’s own species not covered in the book. It isn’t a detailed system, but rather gives some broad guidelines to keep them relatively balanced.  There aren’t really “racial languages” in the Beast World, even if certain species are more common in certain regions. The Common tongue is a magical language which was designed during the earliest history of the Beast World to enable interspecies communication, and even the Brethren were able to master its use nearly instantly. But there still exist other languages, which mostly map up to the major countries along with counterparts and naming conventions of real-world cultures: for example, Allemance is French, Glasrúnish is Irish, Al’ar is Caribbean with some post-Colonial Portuguese, Carib, and Indian names, Draconic is Greco-Roman, and so on. Monstrous languages exist as Dungeon inhabitants. I will not be going over every trait of a species, but rather highlighting some of the more interesting or iconic parts. I will also be giving my brief thoughts on each species’ utility for builds. One interesting thing to note among the species is that Darkvision is very rare. Only the Tenebrine species and Mole subspecies of Ligonine have it, and Murines have low-light vision where they can treat dim light as bright light. Some species still have special “greater than human” senses, such as vulpines being able to detect magnetic north and bats being able to see echoes of ethereal creatures and blindsense in the Astral Sea, but torches and lamp oil will be a pretty important commodity in Beast World parties more so than in core 5th Edition. Additionally, all of the species have the humanoid type, save for Jackals which are fey and Dragons which are…well, dragons. Bovines are physically-imposing people who have a natural connection with the Beast World’s plant life. Their traits reflect this, such as the species gaining advantage on melee attacks if they move at least 10 feet towards a creature they’re attacking, or the bison subspecies being able to wield two-handed weapons in one hand and treating versatile weapons as being two-handed even when wielded in one hand. They can touch a plant to communicate with it for 1 minute and learn about what it sensed nearby. Their homelands reflect how their people adapted to the needs of their particular regions, such as Vinyotians being hired for muscle at businesses which grants them proficiency in Perception and one gaming set, or Oric bovines having the ability to repair broken magical items with cost and DC based on rarity. Thoughts: It goes without saying that bovines encourage the player to go for melee builds. A bison doesn’t have to sacrifice the defensiveness of a shield in order to use a heavy weapon, and the advantage on a charge attack can be easily exploited to get Sneak Attack as a Rogue. The plant whisperer ability has some creative uses, such as carrying around a “pet plant” to pick up on things the party might miss or gift one to a person they wish to spy on.  Canines are a widespread species, with dogs being found in every region but most wolves live in Allemance. Their species traits are pretty broad, including +2 Charisma, advantage on Survival checks when tracking, and advantage on saves vs ingested poisons. They are natural team players, with wolves having a limited form of Pack Tactics where they gain advantage on attack rolls if they and at least 2 allies are adjacent to the target, and +2 on Charisma checks if within the presence of at least 3 allies. Dogs, by contrast, have advantage on attack rolls when they’re fighting 2 hostile creatures adjacent to each other, and their keen ears give them +1d4 on initiative rolls and advantage on Dexterity saves vs magical traps and spells when surprised. Their homelands reflect their particular peoples’ history in the region, such as Allemance soldiers being trained in backswings which once per round grants a free 1d4+ STR or DEX base weapon damage attack if they miss with a melee attack. Thoughts: Wolves really shine if you have at least two other PCs or allies who engage in melee, and their ability score increases encourage Charisma-based martials such as Valor Bards and Paladins. The dog’s advantage on attack alternative works well with a reach weapon and appropriate feats, in that a target’s ally may provoke an opportunity attack should they try to move away and thus deny the advantage. Bonuses on initiative rolls are good for just about anyone. Celerines are rabbits and squirrels, innately magical people who prefer to live in the big cities and keep up with the latest artistic trends. Their base species hews towards being agile, such as a 35 foot base walking speed and are immune to being surprised as long as they’re conscious. Rabbits begin play with the Prestidigitation cantrip, and squirrels can climb vertical surfaces as part of their movement. Their homeland traits determine how their particular culture learned to shape their inherent magic, such as Arnerian celerines being able to grant themselves and adjacent allies a speed boost for one minute once per long rest. Thoughts: Prestidigitation is one of the more useful cantrips, and vertical movement is nice but kind of peters off at higher levels when Spider Climb, flight, and the like become more common. The Oria trait’s restraining tentacles are a good means of crowd control, and Vinyot’s personal aura of silence is good for shutting down enemy spellcasters if the celerine has some means of preventing movement (like grappling). Cervines are elk, which is also their only listed subspecies, and most of them are native to Oria. Although they may seem introverted, they have a great curiosity for the world, leading quite a few to explore beyond the snowy north. Their species and subspecies traits encourage them towards gish builds, where they have a hoof and/or gore* natural weapon attack and can treat either their eyes or their antlers as an innate spellcasting focus. Their homeland traits can trace back generations to some esteemed individual or group who made a name for themselves in new lands, such as Al’ari cervines having arrived as cultural ambassadors, being proficient with two artisan or musical instrument tools and can knock enemies prone with their natural weapons while charging. *Some cervine have antlers, some don’t, and unlike the real world it’s not split by biological sex. Thoughts: Treating your eyes or antlers as a spellcsting focus frees up one’s hands to hold other things, making them good martial casters. Neither their species nor subspecies gains a bonus to any mental abilities, which is kind of a loss. The Vinyot homeland trait can be used on the party’s wagon to help reduce damage and deal more damage when ramming, which is good for Ironaxle wagons. Equines are born to move, and horses and donkeys alike hail from nomadic cultures. Both the species and subspecies traits have features centered around movement, such as the horse being able to double their movement speeds (not just base walking, which is 35 for equines) during the first round of combat and donkeys being able to sleep for 4 hours and continue walking even when nonmagically asleep. Donkeys also make for good mages, for they have advantage on Constitution saves to maintain concentration on a spell. Their homelands reflect things they picked up on the road, such as Vinyotian pilgrims who are proficient in Religion and learned how to hide ciphers within written documents. Thoughts: The base species has +2 to Wisdom, which strongly pushes them towards being a Cleric, Druid, Monk, or Ranger. The horse subspecies’ special stomp attack (move through an enemy square, damage and knock them prone) counts as an unarmed attack, which should mean that as a monk its base weapon damage die can increase with level. Donkeys as mentioned before are good for Concentration spells although their sleepwalking trait is of more limited use.  Felines were born in Al’ar, and even those who moved to other lands still carry with them nearly a millennium of island culture. Unlike dogs they are choosier in who they befriend and associate with, and even among good company they still prize having some “alone time” every now and then. The species is predictably agile, such as treating their Strength score as 6 points higher for jump distances and a 35 foot movement speed, but have some supernatural traits such as being immune to divination spells lower than 6th level and being more aware of their surroundings while asleep. The Chikitu subspecies represents smaller felines and gain the benefits of Dodge whenever they take the Dash action,* while the Grandi represent tigers and other big cats and have a cleavelike ability where they gain a free melee weapon attack if they drop a creature to 0 hit points with a melee weapon. Homeland traits represent how they adapted to a more inland lifestyle if away from Al’ar, such as Allemagne (Alley Cats) having a climb speed if they can brace against two parallel walls and being proficient in brewer’s supplies. *The text could afford to be a bit clearer, as one could ask if a Feline Rogue using Cunning Action could thus Dash and Dodge during the same turn, which would be really powerful. Thoughts: Felines are heavily pushed towards the physical classes, in that only Chikitus gain a mental ability score increase and that is from Wisdom. As mentioned above the Chikitu’s Dash may be powerful depending on how it’s read, and Oria’s Cat Got Your Tongue can be useful for shutting down an enemy spellcaster; the only downside is that the DC is low (8 + proficiency bonus) and they use their primary casting stat to save. Laetines are ferrets and otters, one of the Small-sized races who share flexible bodies and curious and inventive mindsets. They make for good Artificers and Wizards, with the species granting a +2 Intelligence, and their noodly bodies treat their size as Tiny for determining where they can fit and squeeze into. Otters have a swim speed and can hold their breath for 15 minutes and add double proficiency bonuses to Dexterity and Intelligence checks when using ropes, while Ferrets have adaptable minds which lets them become proficient in their choice of one of four sensory-based skills (Insight, Investigation, Perception, Survival) every long rest. Their homeland traits reflect expertise in some local industry, such as an Orian architect capable of performing a falling rubble-based AoE when hitting the weak point of a structure or Al’ari laetines being proficient with nets and are capable of building ones with higher escape DC and AC for purposes of breaking free. Thoughts: The noodle body has all sorts of creative applications, as Tiny is the smallest size category in 5th Edition. The otter’s double proficiency on rope isn’t so hot, although the ferret's bonus skill proficiency is nice if not exactly amazing. Oria’s AoE rubble is perhaps the most potent ability, although Vinyot’s jury-rig effects can also be useful albeit a bit situational. Ligonines are a bit of an exception for the species, as instead of being linked by similar physical features or ancestries they are instead linked by those who live in the highest and lowest places of the Beast World. They have three species, being armadillos, moles, and sloths. The ligonines help maintain the Loamlink network of subterranean tunnels running throughout the Beast World, which they allow others to use although most people find them inconvenient to travel. The eruption of the Dungeon in recent years has been disastrous for the species, who have memories of those lost from their appearance. The main species traits are brief and reactive, granting +2 Constitution and adding proficiency bonuses to mental ability checks that aren’t skills. Moles are built for underground travel, such as a burrow speed, darkvision, and once per short or long rest can grant themselves tremorsense. Armadillos have mobility and defensive-minded traits, such as a natural armor of 14 plus Dexterity bonus, and can curl up into a defensive ball that lets them move twice as fast while dashing and subtracting 3 points of nonmagical physical damage whenever they Dash, Disengage, or Dodge. Sloths are built for melee, having a Climbing speed, claw natural weapons, treat their unarmed reach as being 5 feet longer than normal, and have advantage on their first Strength or Dexterity contested ability check they make against a creature if they haven’t moved that round or used their bonus action or reaction. Homeland traits are different, being based on whether they spent their lives underground, on the surface, or in the forested canopies. Thoughts: The subspecies are different enough they may as well be treated as their own entries. Moles are basically the dwarves of the setting, and being one of the few races with darkvision they do not need to rely on light sources or magic to function in the dark, which is very useful. Armadillo rogues are quite potent, as they can go really fast when using the Dash action and two out of three actions that trigger their defensive ball are Rogue Cunning Actions. Sloths are pretty good for grapple and shove builds, as they have reliable means of gaining advantage provided that the enemy doesn’t move away from them.  Murines are the rodents of the Beast World. Both mice and rats called Arneria their home, but the rats moved en masse to other lands after losing their ability of silent speech that mice still possess. Rats are famous for starting and operating the first independent newspapers of the Beast World, motivated to keep in touch with friends and family across vast distances. The species main traits are rather interesting, including the aforementioned low-light vision and also being “mazeproof” in being able to retrace their steps over the last 7 days. The mice subspecies can communicate via subtle nonverbal cues with other mice, and can expend a spell slot* as a reaction if a creature would ordinarily lose concentration on a spell in order to maintain it. Rats can go for twice as long without food and water, and once per long rest as a reaction to seeing a spell cast within 60 feet they can cause the spell to affect them as well. Mice follow typical homeland traits separated by country, although the rats are an exception: in having spent generations living among others for much of their history, they can choose their homeland trait from any non-murine species list. Those living in Arneria can choose Blackwild Feedback, which is the result of a magical catastrophe that robbed them of silent speech, where as a reaction once per long rest can gain resistance to necrotic damage until the start of their next turn. *slot level equal to the spell at risk. Thoughts: Rodents are very good team players; mice can help maintain concentration effects, and rats can turn single-target beneficial spells into multi-target ones benefiting themselves as well. Arnerian mice’s homeland trait can let them teach their voiceless speech to non-mice allies, and use the Help action at range with them which is a pretty strong ability. The rat’s basic homeland trait is rather underwhelming as necrotic isn’t a super-common damage type, which likely means they’ll choose some other species’ homeland trait instead. Ovines are another single subspecies entry, representing sheep who have a reputation for being gentle and patient. Their people inherited the ability to communicate with quiet-minded beasts, a peculiar gift from Pirhoua. As a result, sheep are more likely than others to be vegetarians, and work well as shepherds and in other occupations involving animal husbandry. The bulk of their traits come from their species, which include being able to communicate with creatures of the Beast type, can cast Animal Messenger once per long rest, a climbing speed of 15 feet, and are capable of eating any form of green vegetation. The sheep subspecies causes their wool to deal +1d4 lightning damage whenever they make an attack that does damage of the same type. Their homelands exhibit various interpretations of their green thumbs and sagely natures, such as Allemance ovines being able to do a trip attack with reach weapons that can knock a target prone on a failed Strength or Dexterity save, or Al’ari ovines capable of affecting multiple targets with their Animal Messenger if the animals in question live in water. Thoughts: Most of the ovine’s features are rather underwhelming and strongly push them towards specific archetypes. The lightning wool’s bonus damage only works with a specific damage type, encouraging them to pick up Shocking Grasp or related spells, and even then +1d4 isn’t a whole lot. The perpetual beast speech is perhaps the most broad ability, although its utility will depend on DM Fiat. This is getting to be a long post, so will continue in Part 2.
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Mar 3, 2023 11:27
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 Tenebrines are raccoons and possums, Beasts who are traditionally active during the night. Their people can be found everywhere in appreciable numbers in the Beast World, but are the most common in Vinyot’s cities. They greatly prefer urban centers over rural areas, having an indescribable love for cities for which they feel truly alive during nightfall. Their main species has darkvision, are immune to diseases both magical and nonmagical, and when in a settlement of at least 10,000 people they can reroll an attack, ability check, or saving throw once per long rest. Raccoons have great tactile senses, having advantage on checks to open locks if they previously felt the teeth of a key used to open it and automatically open locks they successfully opened before, while possums can use their tails as a bonus action to knock a target prone with a contested Athletics or Acrobatics vs the target’s Strength save along with dealing +1d4 damage to prone opponents. Their homeland traits are in line with the large population centers of their region, such as Oric tenebrines being trained by War Mages. This gives them double proficiency when using Stealth to blend in with crowds, and attacks they make with daggers and shortswords while hidden and can delay their damage and the target noticing for 1 round. Thoughts: The raccoon’s lockpicking bonus feels too situational to be useful, but the possum’s tail trip attack is really good for just about any build that relies on melee combat. They also have Darkvision, which makes them good scouts in dungeons and other light-poor environments. Their homeland traits are pretty situational and of limited utility save for certain kinds of adventures. Ursines are a strong people who have been divinely blessed with long memories. They are most common in Oria, and their culture places a high degree on honor and bringing pride to the family name via trophies and titles from great deeds and competitions. They are a single subspecies race, that being Bear. They have eidetic memories which allow them to accurately recall anything they’ve seen, and can commit spells they witnessed to memory which in the case of being used to copy what they witnessed into spellbooks can be done at a library or university within 7 days and an Arcana check. Their subspecies trait is more physical, allowing them to spend Hit Dice upon rolling initiative to add the results (not modified by Constitution) as temporary hit points for 10 minutes. Their homeland traits reflect how they committed their strong minds to use, such as Allemagnian usrine substituting their Intelligence in place of Charisma for Performance and Persuasion, and once per long rest can grant a nearby ally a second save vs charming effects via an encouraging word. Thoughts: The ursine’s amazing memory is great for wizards, and their subspecies even has a +1 Intelligence bonus. Ironically none of their species or homeland traits are specifically combat-related, with Arneria being the exception (proficient with war picks and deal +2d6 piercing if you hit a creature during the first round of combat). This pushes them more into being brainy mages. Trading out Hit Dice for temporary hit points can be useful to extend their survivability if a short rest isn’t guaranteed.  Vulpines are tradewind (red) foxes and desert fennecs, their traditional homelands being Vinyot and Beylik respectively. Both people are known for their cleverness and seemingly-supernatural senses to monitor instances of cause and effect. The base species can discern the direction of north at any time, can make an Intelligence saving throw to extend a concentration spell beyond its normal duration with a newer, more difficult save every round after, and once per long rest can make an Intelligence check to gain information from the GM about the result of an action when presented with multiple choices. Tradewind foxes are capable of detecting illusions as a bonus action and have advantage on Investigation checks to suss them out, along with substituting an Intelligence save with a Dexterity save once per long rest. Desert foxes who don’t move for an hour can sense any creature within a 90 foot radius arriving in the area, and can choose to wake up upon such a creature’s arrival. Their homeland traits draw upon their innate senses and cleverness, such as a Vinyotian fox having a limited number of “emergency fund” gold pieces if unable to access their main source of wealth and can use any combination of ability and skill for the purposes of negotiating costs and services. An example used is a fox using Intelligence (Athletics) to give a merchant advice for a diet regimen in order to get a better deal on food. Thoughts: The desert fox’s senses effectively act as a nonmagical alarm spell, and their Intelligence bonus pushes them towards being wizards, artificers, or eldritch knights/arcane tricksters. Their deduction abilities are broadly useful for just about any character concept, although several of their homeland traits are rather situational. Bats are the newest species to the Beast World, where one of their number against all odds managed to find said world afloat in the Astral Sea. Their existence has been of great curiosity to the other civilizations, for the Astral Sea isn’t known to have any quiet-minded bats, and the bats themselves were initially unaware of other gods and don’t worship any of their own. They’re the only willful species in that plane, and due to their natural talent at Astralcraft they do not want for space nor resources. So without having to spend much of their existence to survive, they prioritize the arts and shaping astra into aesthetically pleasing shapes and patterns. And while they can track time, bats don’t have a cultural concept of history, having skills passed down by parents and caring mostly about firsthand knowledge. Those bats who do go to the Beast World are curious explorers, arriving in a portal at the Junction in the city of Patrae. Bats have no subspecies, and their only homeland trait is the Astral Sea. Those not in the Astral Sea have a cheiropocket, an extradimensional space connected to the membrane of their wings which they can use to store nonliving objects, and have a glide speed outside the Astral Sea but a flying speed while in it. A limited number of times per long rest they can create a supersonic shriek which in the Beast World causes creatures of the Astral Sea to be visible to them, but gain blindsense out to 120 feet while in the Astral Sea. Finally, their sole homeland trait lets them add their proficiency bonus to Astralcrafting checks, and they also know the Charles’ Chunk cantrip which basically lets them summon a piece of solid Arcana they can reshape to a limited extent. Thoughts: Overall, the bat species is kind of underwhelming unless the DM makes heavy use of invisible extraplanar beings and adventures in the Astral Sea. The cheiropocket is the kind of thing that would be most useful in a game where encumbrance matters, although by the time the party gets a Bag of Holding (or can make one as an Artificer) it may peter off. Brethren are a new but incredibly populous race, comprising 33% of willful creatures in the Beast World.* Twelve years ago almost all of them lived in the Broken World, but after that the survivors were rescued by Pirhoua to relocate into the Beast World. The Brethren soldiers who fought in the Invader Wars were forced to labor for seven years as reparations, being given tattoos as a mark of shame and are colloquially known as Reparators. Although there are still old wounds of those dark times, most Brethren have integrated into the wider society of the Beast World with the younger generations having never known life in the Broken World. *This makes me wonder how the continent’s resources were able to adequately handle this huge population explosion. The book does explain it as the Jackals helping them out with magic and new engineering techniques, but it’s still a notable amount. Brethren use the traits of Variant Humans from the Player’s Handbook. However, their homeland trait is the Broken World, giving them a curio for free. Curios tend to be handheld objects with a technology level akin to 1990s Earth, although some more advanced curios exist such as a solar-powered toaster. Generally speaking, curios that mimic the effects of a cantrip can operate indefinitely, but ones that mimic a 1st-level spell can be used once before needing to be recharged by switching out batteries (which are known as acid buttons). Acid buttons are also renewable, recharging when plugged into a curio after 8 hours of exposure to sunlight. Thoughts: Just like the core rules, Brethrens are a great option in terms of power and versatility. On top of their bonus feat, they also get what is effectively a bonus cantrip or long rest-based 1st level spell. Kobolds, particularly willful kobolds, are another of the newer guests of the Beast World, a lucky few having escaped notice of their draconic masters in the Ancestral Homeland. Generally speaking, a kobold is most likely to become willful when they gather in large numbers, as the mental enhancement of their minds coming together provides that special something to achieve self-awareness. There’s believed to be under a thousand named kobolds in the Beast World, and most others don’t know what to make of them or their simple-minded peers. In terms of stats kobolds are great at getting their hands on all sorts of things, letting them steal non-held objects from enemies in combat as a reaction to being attacked via Sleight of Hand. Additionally, they gain +1 to +5 on an ability check they don’t have existing bonuses on besides their ability modifier. This number is dependent on how many other kobolds are within 60 feet. Finally, they have no subspecies or homeland traits, instead having a lineage related to their draconic creators where they reduce damage taken from an elemental type chosen at character creation by 1d6 to 3d6 depending on their level. Thoughts: Kobolds are rather underwhelming in that their most potentially powerful feature is one that really only works if you have a party of kobolds or kobold allies following you around. And even then, it won’t apply to checks you’re proficient in so it won’t be aiding the things at which you’re actually skilled. The damage reduction against a specific energy type probably won’t come up often unless you pick fire, and the “combat pickpocketing” may be highly situational in usefulness as it can’t be used to disarm an item the target is holding.  The next two races are rather interesting in that they were explicitly made to be more powerful than the others, given that they have special places in the history of the Beast World. The book has a sidebar explaining to take caution with the power discrepancy, but also mentions doing lots of playtesting to ensure they don’t trivialize encounters either. Jackals are the rarest species in the Beast World, long believed to be mythical creatures. They made their existence known at the end of the Invader War, with hundreds of jackals appearing to help resettle millions of brethren into the new world. Although they have worked as envoys and engineers for doing this monumental task, much about their culture and even their home cities are still kept secret, shrouded in ancient illusions. Jackals have a reputation for acting slowly and for being exceedingly polite and formal. Still, they do have leisurely activities, and one of their more famous games that has recently spread to the Beast World is the Three Acres War, a cross between a tabletop wargame and LARP whose players (mostly Jackals) organize conventions to meet up and play. Jackals have no subspecies nor homeland traits. They are unique among the species in that they have a net +6 to ability scores, with +2 in Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom. Their immortal natures make them immune to age-based effects, and have double proficiency in one set of artisan’s tools and one of the knowledge-based skills (Medicine and all Intelligence-based ones save Investigation). They also can treat one non-heavy martial melee weapon as having the finesse and thrown property. They also get some bonus spells reflecting their connection to the Arcana, gaining Eldritch Blast, two wizard ritual spells, and once per long rest can cast the Dream spell that can additionally make the target forget about the Jackal’s presence if they fail an Intelligence saving throw. Thoughts: Being able to treat a single non-heavy weapon as finesseable really opens up a lot of options, and there’s a variety of useful ritual spells. Alarm, Find Familiar, Identify, and Unseen Servant are pretty good choices. While the free Eldritch Blast may look tempting for a Warlock dip, Agonizing Blast still explicitly calls out Charisma which is a downside. Their more powerful version of Dream is pretty good, as it can really mess with a target by interrupting their rest if they get unlucky on a save; not something of great use in traditional battles and dungeon crawls, but can be useful for more intrigue-based campaigns.  Dragons come in two varieties. Those elder wyrms still in the Ancestral Homeland and those eldest who escaped are closer gamewise to Monster Manual dragons, and the descendants of those who resettled in the Beast World are a better representation of the playable options. While the latter may be Medium size, they still possess the might of the creatures that bear their name. Newborn dragons have translucent skin and become metallic or chromatic based on the moral choices they make in life, which are their subspecies. Their lineage is their homeland trait equivalent, which is based on the environment of their parents’ lairs. In terms of stats dragons gain +2 to a single ability score of their choice, and have +3 to another ability score depending on their subspecies. They are the only species besides bats to have a natural flying speed, and unlike bats have no restriction on when it can be used. They have natural weapons and natural armor which make them formidable foes even without equipment, and the maximum for all of their ability scores is 22. There are five subspecies, each of which have a metallic and chromatic type to which I assume most readers are familiar. Each subspecies grants +3 to a relevant ability score, proficiency in two skills or appropriate tools, and one 1st level spell at 1st level and a unique kind of dragon magic spell that only dragons can learn at 5th level. The subspecies are Monarch (all about impressing people with your sheer presence), Bulwark (bulky scales to better protect you), Dancing (agile movement and fine-tuned breath weapon shapes), Scholar (skills and spells for knowing and identifying stuff plus limited Metamagic options), and Whispering (social knowledge, can hear through stone and solid barriers and have venomous claws). The lineage options determine a dragon’s breath weapon, special movement modes beyond just flight, and what damage type they are resistant towards. The breath weapons are the most notable feature, being pretty powerful effects of various shapes and ranges whose uses per long rest are based on their proficiency bonus. Most breath weapons have a secondary effect beyond damage, such as a Glacier lineage’s cold breath being capable of creating solid cubes of ice, or Cove’s acid breath dealing half damage to targets adjacent to the primary target. Thoughts: As the book says, dragons are really powerful. The most powerful species in this book, I might add. There’s enough subspecies and lineage combinations to make them good at just about every role, and their breath weapons are effectively free uses of powerful AoE damaging spells that scale with level. Add a fly speed on top of that and you really can’t go wrong in picking them. Thoughts So Far: While it’s virtually impossible to do a holistic overview of every anthropomorphic creature type, this chapter did a good job at giving stats for the more popular species. I also like the separation between biological abilities and more cultural homeland traits, and the latter had several options which played against type so many of the animals aren’t pigeonholed into certain predetermined roles. The setting is rather mammal-heavy, and I feel that a few of the choices are a bit unbalanced. That being said, I felt that most of the “races” had some features and roles at which they could excel, and with 18 main species there’s more than enough options to not feel sparse. Join us next time as we explore new and existing options of might and magic in Chapter 11: Classes!
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Mar 3, 2023 11:28
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 Chapter 11: Classes This chapter is rather self-explanatory: it goes over how the various classes fit into the Beast World along with a new subclass for each of them. Artificer is an exception, for that class isn’t OGL. Barbarians aren’t technologically-primitive warriors too undisciplined to learn more “proper” fighting styles. In the Beast World, they come from all walks of life, but what unites them is harnessing a rage that is a form of ego death which strips away part of their willful nature in order to focus on sheer might and power. The Path of Thought’s Tremor is a representation of this trance, and its features initially include explicitly physical abilities such as adding one’s Constitution modifier to melee damage on the first 1-2 hits when raging depending on level, doing bonus psychic damage on a critical hit, and at higher levels levels gain preternatural senses such as always active tremorsense and being able to form a Telepathic Bond when raging. Thoughts: Flavorwise I like how the setting is divorcing the Barbarian class from the unfortunate implications of technologically primitive people being prone to anger and lacking knowledge in more “refined” forms of combat. As for the subclass, Strength and Constitution are almost always going to be the highest ability scores of the Barbarian, so this subclass makes them better at doing what they do best: damage. The tremorsense feature is permanent and isn’t dependent on raging, so it also turns the Barbarian into a rather good scout/“ghost-slayer.” Bards interpret the power of Arcana as a Universal Symphony of rhythm connecting all facets of creation, and influence this force by eliciting emotion from magic itself. Bards in the Beast World are evenly split between learning their powers via formal colleges vs informal self-taught techniques. The College of Witches specializes in using magic to gain influence over the ghosts of the Netherworld. Initially they can call a ghost into service for one hour that acts as a harmless scout, and can attract a limited number of ghosts to haunt creatures or objects as part of a long rest. These latter kinds of ghosts have Essences which provide minor bonuses and features to creatures or objects they haunt for 1 minute via Bardic Inspiration, such as the Scoundrel granting a bonus to ability checks and +1d6 force damage on a hit. At higher levels they can temporarily learn spells they don’t know from ghosts as part of a long rest, and can create ghosts from dying humanoids to perform special actions the creature possesses. Thoughts: The ghost scout is like a more limited version of the Echo Knight’s phantom double, but even then it can be useful for scouting purposes. The class feature doesn’t explicitly say that it is incorporeal, so that makes it less powerful it may initially sound. The ability to learn bonus bard spells is extremely strong; unlike the Lore Bard they can only learn from their own class’ spell list, but they can learn a much higher number in being equal to half their bard level minus one. The capstone ability can be abusable a la the Bag of Rats trick, but the text does mention that creatures who know they will be resurrected via Revivify will not produce a ghost. Overall a really strong subclass. Clerics serve the various gods of the Beast World (and potentially in worlds beyond), and Pirhoua has the most clerics due to having a close motherly bond with her creations. The Mercy domain represents those souls who seek to to turn the defeated to a brighter path and bring down death as a last resort. At 1st level they are proficient in Persuasion and have a longer-range multitarget Sanctuary, their Channel Divinity can negate the damage from a melee attack as a reaction, and at higher levels they can bestow providence on themselves or a friendly creature (treat a d20 roll as a 15) whenever a hostile creature surrenders or dissolves hostilities. At higher levels they can have all of their damaging spells be nonlethal in nature, and at 17th level has their Sanctuary cause attackers to autofail Wisdom saves when they attack the spell’s target. Thoughts: The thing with the Mercy domain is that a player who chooses it is communicating that they want to play a particular type of game, one that would require more input from fellow players than other subclass options. While there is no penalty for choosing violence, a fair amount of its features revolve around avoiding death and being reactive rather than proactive. The book does mention these considerations in a sidebar to an extent, but its usefulness will really depend on the DM as much as the player.  Druids most commonly live in forests and spend their whole lives in the shadows of the trees. They are organized into circles who induct members by burying them alive beneath a tree, after which they are reborn in a seed pod. Druids are horrified at the Dungeon’s existence, viewing it as an affront to nature, swelling the ranks of Delvers with their kind. The Circle of the Wild Card represents those druids who follow Varasta’s example and emphasize nature’s unpredictability. Their main feature involves crafting a special deck of magical Wild Cards which can be randomly drawn from a limited number of times per long rest based on their level. At higher levels they gain features to better control the odds at what card results they get. There are 23 different card results, and include a variety of features such as summoning a scimitar of moonlight that can be used in melee or expel a slash of light as a ranged attack, one where the druid and their allied creatures can communicate as though they were adjacent to each other for the next 8 hours, can turn their body incorporeal for 1 minute, and growing magical fruits which cause those who eat them to recover the maximum possible die results from healing spells. Thoughts: The good thing about this subclass is that when you draw a card, you don’t have to immediately activate its powers, instead being any time until the next long rest. Barring a few exceptions you can’t use the cards or have the ability persist while you’re wildshaped, which thus makes the Wild Card druid more of a “classical caster.” The deck’s randomization and wide abilities hurt it a bit in that you can’t always guarantee you’ll get exactly what you need, although given you can “hold onto” a card’s use this lets you save it up for the right moment much like prepared spells. Fighters are the most varied of adventurers, reflecting a diverse array of combat styles across countless cultures. Most fighters who were old enough fought in the Invader War, and many who survived became Delvers upon discovery of the Dungeon. The Main Event martial archetype reflects a professional wrestler of the Storied Histories League, who mixes special moves and grapples with showmanship. Their main ability involves generating points known as Heat, which have a variety of ways to be gained such as an ally hitting an enemy you have grappled or successfully hitting with an attack roll that has disadvantage. At higher levels the subclass grants them additional ways to gain Heat. Heat can be spent on special moves known as Spots, such as Hot Tag where you touch a creature which then uses its reaction to move and melee attack a target, or Clothesline where you spend a reaction to make a melee attack against a creature entering your reach and reducing their speed to 0 feet while knocking them prone. Gimmicks are basically more advanced Spots, which include passive effects as well as a more powerful Finisher move. Thoughts: One cannot help but draw comparisons to the Battlemaster Fighter in that both subclasses learn special moves as they level up. However, unlike the Battlemaster Fighter the Main Event requires generating Heat before they can be used as opposed to automatically using them, and Heat is lost as soon as the battle is over and must be built up again during the next battle. As such it is a less attractive choice in its abilities being more situational. Monks aren’t formal mystical fighters performing rote exercises and meditation to achieve enlightenment. Or at least, that is but one of many possible ways of mastering themselves. What unites monks is discovery of a process where they separate themselves from the world, glancing at hidden truths impossible to understand via conventional perception. The Way of the Kidney Punch are those who glanced upon a rather controversial truth, that to win fights is the greatest goal. They start out with being able to make a special Kidney Punch unarmed attack by spending ki, imposing one level of Exhaustion on the target if they fail a Constitution save. At higher levels they can reduce the damage of incoming melee attacks in much the same way Deflect Missiles works for ranged attacks, can waive the ki point requirement for Kidney Punches if they hit with their first unarmed strike in a Flurry of Blows, and at 17th level they can gain additional unarmed strikes by spending 3 ki points per bonus attack. Thoughts: Being able to “deflect melee blows” is an extremely useful ability, as most monks will be punching up close. Although still requiring a reaction to activate, it makes Kidney Punch Monks reliable tanks when engaging 1 on 1. Exhaustion is a pretty good condition to inflict on enemies, although requiring a Constitution save means that a lot of big monsters will be resistant to it.  Paladins are those empowered by appropriate gods to use their might and skills to make the world a better place. They have high standards to live up to, but it is these standards which have communities place their trust in them in the first place. Before the Dungeon’s arrival undead and demons could only enter the Beast World by those making offers to Veronette, but the Dungeon provides a worrying new way for such creatures to menace mortals. This has caused paladins to take an intense interest in the Delve. The Oath of Revolution Paladins are the checks and balances against the political leaders of the Beast World, having sworn oaths to empower and uplift the meek of the earth. Their bonus spells tend towards divinatory aims, such as Comprehend Languages, Speak with Dead, and Scrying. Their channel divinity can force a target to kneel prone for 1 minute and answer questions truthfully for the duration (can save each round to end the effect), as well as an Evincive Strike they can make the result of a d20 attack roll they just made usable by friendly creatures in treating it as their own attack roll until the start of their next turn. At higher levels they get an aura granting a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls to friendly creatures (up to a mile at 18th level), can detect lies and become immune to charm, and at 20th level can sing a song granting them free uses of Divine Word, a fly speed, and allied creatures can reroll the result of a d20 roll once. Thoughts: This is what I’d call a role-play heavy class, in that it emphasizes more non-combat and investigative abilities for the paladin. The Channel Divinity is kind of weak in that there are spells like Hold Person, Entangle, and Zone of Truth which can achieve similar effects but require spell slots rather than being one use per rest. The Evincive Strike is so-so. If you crit with it, then you can share the benefits with nearby allies; parties with rogues and mages with spells requiring attack rolls will see a very nice boost to their damage when this occurs. But as you must declare your use of the strike before making the roll, this is rather unreliable and is thus better used to ensure that party members are guaranteed to hit a well-defended opponent instead. Rangers are the protectors of the road and its travelers, learning the magic of the wilds to better protect both it and the civilized world from each other. The Carrion Master ranger archetype are those doomed souls who decide to enter into a pact with Veronette. Their bonus spells are appropriately necromantic, such as False Life, Animate Dead, and Death Ward, their magic can affect undead as though they were of the Beast type, and they have the ability to transform a corpse of a Beast type creature into a Carrion Companion which is like an animal companion but undead. Every long rest the Ranger can choose a different carrion companion provided they have access to an appropriate corpse, and there are different stat blocks with their own special abilities and attacks. At higher levels they can turn the corpses of Humanoid and Beast type creatures into zombies, choose from more powerful stat blocks for their Carrion Companion, can graft body parts onto said companion to give them new abilities such as a scorpion sting or wings for a fly speed, and at 15th level the ranger can gain some of the benefits of being undead for a short time and they can order commands to their companion and undead without spending a bonus action. Thoughts: This subclass immediately invites comparisons to the Beastmaster Ranger, but I’ll be comparing it to the revised version on account that the original is nigh useless. The Carrion Master’s companion can be easily revived and/or replaced if destroyed, and combined with raising undead they have a reliable supply of meat shields although by the time they get these features regular zombies and skeletons are pretty weak companions. Conjure Animals is a more reliable means of generating meat shields to be honest, although raising zombies isn’t limited-use which works in its favor.* The carrion companion stat blocks have a few clear winners, which tend to be the higher-level ones: ghoul-touched have paralytic claws much like the monster, but have a weak non-increasing DC 10 Constitution save, and the mummy-touch has a dreadful glare ranged attack that can impose the frightened condition. As such, it’s a rather strong subclass due to the action economy. *They’re still limited in how many zombies they can raise. Rogues come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but are united by those who prefer finesse and panache as problem-solving tools, ranging from conventional criminals to smooth-talking politicians. This entry talks briefly about crime in the Beast World, notably that prisons are rare as punitive justice is the exception rather than the norm, and legal penalties vary ranging from hard labor to tattoos marking criminals as a felon. Fell Infiltrators are those rogues who learn and use the powers of demons to better fight them…or so they say. Initially they gain proficiency in Religion and fiendish languages, and for a number of hours based on their rogue level can take the form of a demon which grants them a variety of benefits, such as turning the Sneak Attack dice into d8s instead of d6s, resistance to cold and poison (damage and condition), and darkvision. They can also generate an aura of silence on a creature they deal Sneak Attack damage towards until the end of their next turn once per short or long rest. At higher levels they gain features such as becoming immune to Zone of Truth and being able to shield themselves and nearby allies against divination spells, and can inscribe demonic sigils into objects and creatures with a variety of effects such as rotting away from necrotic damage each round. Thoughts: Increasing your Sneak Attack damage is a very attractive option, and given the rarity of Darkvision among species this helps the Rogue act as a competent scout in nocturnal and dungeon-like environments. The downside is more role-play related as fiends and fiendish-looking creatures are as disliked in the Beast World as they are in other campaign settings; perhaps even more so, as tieflings aren’t a “common race.” The higher-level abilities are more situational, particularly the sigils and immunity to specific spells. As its lower level features are broadly useful, this is a dip-friendly subclass. Sorcerers are those with inborn arcane magic, not necessarily from ancestry but being born in a magic-rich environment or influenced by a force manipulating the fundamentals of Arcana. If anything, sorcerers are extra real in that they create magic through their own existence, and the world attempts to overcorrect them. The Frosturn Eclipse sorcerous origin are those who follow Aubade’s example and use the state of Sunblood to enhance their magic. They are Muscle Wizards, using Strength instead of Charisma for their spells and abilities, and gain proficiency in light armor and Aubade’s trademark war pick and morningstar. They also have abilities that encourage them to fight in melee, such as ignoring disadvantage on ranged spell attacks when adjacent to a hostile target and can spend sorcery points to continue staying conscious if reduced to 0 hit points. At higher levels they gain Extra Attack and can enter a special state known as Eclipse if they deal fire or cold damage to an adjacent enemy, which has several of the benefits of Haste plus dealing additional damage with melee attacks and gaining temporary hit points. Their 14th and 18th level abilities grant them the Penetrating Spell metamagic option (downgrade immunity to resistance and resistance to normal) and can cast a cantrip in place of a weapon attack. Thoughts: Dispensing Charisma to use Strength makes this subclass an attractive choice for melee-focused builds that aren’t Valor Bards and Paladins. However, multiclassing may be more or less required to get the full benefits, as being proficient with just light armor and a puny d6 Hit Die makes the Frostburn Eclipse Sorcerer a surprisingly fragile fighter. Staying conscious at 0 hit points isn’t as attractive an option given that sorcery points are a precious resource, and a party with Healing Word can reliably get you back into the waking world if the group needs you up and running. Warlocks gain their magic from patrons, creatures that don’t fit within the cosmic understanding of gods and mortals. As such, many people are suspicious of warlocks, leading many to believe that their powers come from demons…which can be true or not true depending on the warlock in question. Patrons can differ in personality and goals, but their alien minds make for strained relationships between them and their servants, often expressing impatience due to a different perception of time. Warlocks with the Ghost God as their patron were chosen from a young age, expressed in unpleasant ways such as migraines and nightmares as a result of the pseudo-deity calling from across the cosmos. Their bonus spells don’t really have any consistent theme and include such options as Enlarge/Reduce, Sending, Confusion, Geas, and Fabricate. Hey, I thought that last one wasn’t available! Initially they can shift into the Broken World while holding an object bearing their likeness and are immune to the negative effects of that plane’s environment. They can also gather material during a long rest in the Broken World that adds +1 to their spell attack rolls and save DCs of warlock spells. At higher levels they can twist space and time as a bonus action a limited number of times per long rest to teleport or force creatures to spend extra movement, can create a 120 foot cube of safe space in the Broken World, empower an NPC to become a 1st level Ghost God Warlock who gains a level every time you do, and at 14th level once per long rest can cast Banishment on multiple targets to send them to the Broken World. Thoughts: Being able to add +1 to spell attacks and save DCs is already a strong bonus, and as it costs virtually nothing there’s no real downside to it either. Getting an NPC warlock who levels up with you may be good depending on how they’re built, although as they are 9 levels lower you’re most likely going to keep them out of combat and rely on more utility talents. Being immune to the Broken World’s environmental dangers and ability to set up a safe zone will only be of use if the DM decides to have adventures centering around exploring that plane. As a result, the most useful features of the Ghost God Warlock come in at the early levels, making it another very dip-friendly option.  Wizards are scholarly mages who use spellbooks to perform mental exercises, holding a thought in their minds to be released as a spell at a later time. The Somnomancy arcane tradition was created by sloths studying the Dreaming, realizing that the plane’s connection to the thoughts of all living creatures can allow them to bestow the powers of wizardry onto others. Initially they cannot be magically put to sleep and recover one level of exhaustion on a short rest instead of a long one, and during a long rest gain bonus spell slots that they can only use in granting to other creatures albeit they use the wizard’s attack bonus and save DC. At higher levels they can make it so that such shared spells can be cast as a bonus action if they’re normally cast as an action, can fall unconscious* as a bonus action to gain blindsight to 60 feet, and at 14th level they can create a remote sensor they can view through while in such an unconscious state. *Same as the condition, but with less penalties. Thoughts: Sharing spell slots is by far the most broadly useful and potentially abusable ability. While the number and level of spell slots is dependent on your Wizard level, the text doesn’t specify that the spells have to be Wizard spells, which opens up some interesting multiclass combinations. And even just with Wizard spells, there are some nice choices: you can’t really go wrong in giving the Shield spell to your allies, and letting fellow party members share the load in maintaining Concentration spells themselves rather than relying on you opens up a lot of possibilities. Thoughts So Far: For the subclasses that are mechanically powerful and effective in conjunction with their parent class, the winners are the Thought’s Tremor Barbarian, Witch Bard, Kidney Punch Monk, Carrion Master Ranger, and Somnomancy Wizard. These subclasses all have good abilities in both low levels and high. The Fell Infiltrator Rogue and Ghost God Warlock suffer in that their best abilities are at the earliest levels, leaving the higher level ones feeling too little, too late. The Wild Card Druid is hard to judge at a glance without seeing it in play given its random nature, and the Main Event Fighter, Revolution Paladin, and Frostburn Eclipse Sorcerer feel the weakest of the lot. The Fighter in that the Battlemaster archetype feels more reliable and broad, and the Paladin and Sorcerer in not really synergizing with their main class’ strengths. Join us next time as we learn about the delving crews’ homes on wheels in Chapter 12: Wagon Customization!
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Mar 4, 2023 00:15
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 Chapter 12: Wagon Customization ”You’ll come for the beasts, but you’ll stay for the wagons.” The delver’s primary mode of transport isn’t just for getting to Point A to Point B: it’s a combination vehicle, base of operations, mobile weapons platform, and depending on the customizations can be all sorts of other things. The rules for wagons are in-depth in this chapter, from using them in combat and races to buying enhancements for them. Delver wagons are special objects with their own rules: like PCs they gain levels in line with the party, which determines their hit points, Maneuverability (a special stat which can be spent to do fancy movement-based abilities), Adaptability (special stat that can be spent for a variety of things such as rerolling a drive check or making swift repairs), and the number of Attachments (basically customized enhancements) that can be placed onto the wagon. The rules are pretty detailed, ranging from existing and new Conditions that can affect the wagon’s function, special Drive checks for driving the wagon, and making repairs to the wagon via wainwright tools due to damage and Conditions. Draught is a term for animals, steam engines, or other things responsible for a wagon’s locomotion. With the aid of druids and rangers, all wagons are built with something known as a Ranger Fetish that safeguards draughts from harm. While a draught is hitched to a wagon, they are not treated as creatures and cannot be specifically targeted by attacks or effects that affect one creature. The book notes that single-hand reins (for Drive checks) and wainwright’s tools (used to repair wagons) are tool checks, and suggests giving PCs free proficiency in one of them if the campaign plans on using wagon rules often. This is twofold, to prevent a “proficiency tax” for an important ability, and also making them not skills prevents Bards, Rogues, and characters with the Skill Expert feat from dominating wagon encounters. The book does mention as an optional rule to fold tinker’s tools into wainwright tools and land vehicles into single-hand reins if the DM would prefer to focus on existing tool proficiencies.  There are three broad types of wagons that serve as “classes,” which provide their own unique benefits based on level. They do not have to be purchased like other attachments and are unique to that type alone. Windsprinters are sleek, swift wagons that prioritize maneuverability and speed but are the most fragile type: their special features include things such as +2 on Drive checks made to race, ignoring difficult terrain, and gaining Jackal-Reared Axe Beaks as special draughts which are the fastest known mounts in the Beast World. Ironaxles are slow, sturdy wagons built to dish out and withstand punishment, and their special features include a ram attack, gaining resistance to damage from nonmagical attacks, and a steam engine as a special draught. Rocksteadies are built for versatility and reliability: their special features include being able to make repair patches no matter where you are on the wagon (normally you have to do so at the service hatch), delaying the negative effects of a breakdown (the “bloodied” condition for wagons), and can gain a pair of autotrotter draughts that can act on their own like programmed constructs and store spells to be released at a later time. On top of their practical functions, wagons provide a useful service for 5th Edition gaming groups: they give PCs something to spend money on! Wagons require gold pieces to gain levels, and on top of that attachments that customize the wagon also cost gold. It’s for this reason that a suggested “wealth by level” table was made based on dungeon delves and funds saved up. Special additions known as attachments can be added to wagons. It’s not enough to have the gold, for attachments are separated into Grades which can only be taken by wagons of sufficient level, and they also take up physical space so you’re also limited to space (measured in cubic feet) as well as weight. Some attachments can only be taken by certain wagon types: for instance, the cannon weapon can only be installed on an Ironaxle.  Components are the first type of attachment, usually having abilities which require them to be used in order to gain their function. They include such options as various types of weapons such as ballistae and cannons, a quick-retract winch which if attached to a character allows them to be pulled to the wagon’s roof for no movement cost, metamagic crystals which if touched provide free sorcery points to apply to a metamagic ability possessed by the crystal, soul orbs fueled by ki points that let the user create a distant image double they can attack through as if physically present, and a speed mirage which can create illusory duplicates of the wagon when Maneuverability is spent to gain extra movement. Fittings are the second type of attachment, being passive or persistent effects. They include such options as an intruder chime that lets out a loud warning when certain creatures not specified as “safe” get adjacent to the wagon, a block of privacy to soundproof the wagon’s walls, an auto-raft and sail that allows the wagon to cross bodies of water, and tremor caps which give tremorsense to the wagon’s inhabitants if the vehicle is in contact with the ground. There is one interesting attachment that defies the magical restrictions of the Beast World. Eighty-Eights are four wheels which contain one quarter of a teleportation circle, and as a reaction the driver can imagine a location the wagon has been to before and teleport to said location. As this attachment is a high Grade, functions only once a week, isn’t pinpoint perfect, and works well with the primary function of wagons (to travel) I can let this one slide. Last but not least, Furnishings aren't attachments in that they aren’t limited by wagon level, but are mostly cosmetic features. They’re usually things that make wagons more comfortable spaces to live in, such as beds, storage spaces such as safes and crates, light sources such as oil lamps or permanent dancing lights cantrips, fold-out patios, built-in plumbing systems such as water tanks and baths, and work stations for various types of tool proficiencies. For delving crews that have a lot of gold but are low on space, they can purchase extraspatial cubes that add more physical space within a wagon. The cubes’ prices increase exponentially, being affordable for just a few cubes but going into the thousands when you approach and exceed double digits. Extraspatial cubes are actually the product of the Broken World, with the cubes reaching into that plane’s existence to pull its space into them. Which sounds rather dangerous, although there are no negative side effects to using them in the rules. Our section on wagons proper ends with stats for unhitched draught types. They aren’t anything to write home about, with dire horses known as Draydrivers being the default type and steam engines being huge objects instead of creatures.  Wagon Encounters provide new rules and alterations designed in mind with vehicular play. The first rule, Enormous Enemies, is a special addition to all creatures that are naturally Huge and Gargantuan, where they take less damage from Large and smaller creatures until reduced to half their hit points, and automatically crit when attacking creatures in melee if the target is one size smaller. Most wagon weapons ignore Enormous creatures’ damage reduction, so this encourages gaming groups to use wagon weapons when fighting big enemies. Mobile Encounters are a new encounter type representing larger-scale events such as races and battlefield skirmishes where tracking individual feet is impractical. Squares of terrain are expanded from 5 feet by 5 feet into 120 feet squares called “grounds.” Friendly creatures on the same ground collectively move and act as a “force.” There are new special actions, such as Scout where a creature can learn about hidden threats and creatures in nearby Grounds on an opposed Perception vs Stealth check, or Entrench which must be performed collectively and grants all members of a force cover until they spend movement. Movement and range involving attackers and targets are more fluid, represented as speed in grounds. For melee fighters and those who prefer to battle up close, there’s a special action known as Pass where spending a ground of movement plus contested Dexterity or Drive checks can narrow the gap and allow for advantage on melee attacks and opportunity attacks for the winning side. We also have unique rules for racing, which are treated as a Condition where all focus is spent on movement and one can maintain this condition a number of minutes based on Constitution before suffering exhaustion. Rallies are a sample encounter for such races along with other events taking place on a straight path, and we have example rules along with visuals for how a rally may go down:  Our final new rule is for Hordes, where many enemies are combined into a single force resolving actions collectively. A horde is a group of creatures acting together, and are typically used in concert with Mobile Encounters. There are three different horde types based on number: Ambush, Unit, and Mob. The larger types have more creatures and thus more potential attacks, but cannot take certain actions due to their size, such as hiding. Attacks are resolved based on the target’s AC minus the attack bonus of an attack type, which determines the number of attacks that hit. Hordes targeting wagons split their attacks based on wagon locations. Hordes can suffer morale losses, where they must make a saving throw based on the number of creatures killed, and on a failed save half their number will flee and scatter. This sounds like quite the number of rules, right? Well this chapter thankfully ends in a Quick Reference covering them all, easily turned into handouts for gaming groups! Thoughts So Far: The rules for wagons are involved to the point that I feel that I’d need to see them in actual play to find out how they work in practice. That being said, I do like how the authors didn’t scrimp on details in making wagons a useful feature for games. The vehicle weapons in particular have good damage, range, and debuffs to make relying on them in battle a viable option, and attachments such as Metamagic Crystals and Soul Orbs directly enhance existing capabilities and class features. PCs will surely appreciate wagons for being more than a simple house on wheels. None of the rules are setting-specific, meaning that they can be transplanted into non-Beast World campaigns easily enough. I am a bit wary about the Enormous Enemies rule: such creatures tend to be pretty powerful already, and there will be times when parties run afoul of dinosaurs, giants, and other such creatures away from their wagon such as inside a dungeon. It’s another rule that ends up punishing melee characters, who will be the most likely to get critted in battles with them. Join us next time as we finish this book in Chapter 13: Magic Items & Spells and the Appendices!
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Mar 4, 2023 07:20
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 Chapter 13: Magic Items & Spells It wouldn’t be a proper high magic setting without a chapter full of eldritch loot and tricks! This chapter is relatively short at 11 pages, but these pages are packed with 18 magic items and 27 new spells, so you get quite a lot in spite of its brevity. Of the magic items, about 11 require attunement, and two of them can only be used by a limited number of classes. They range from common magical tools used by Delvers and people of the Beast World, to famous legendary items that have their own place in history. 6 of the magic items are legendary rarity, 4 are uncommon, 4 are rare, 3 are very rare, and one’s rarity varies depending upon the level of spell it can absorb (the Self-Teaching Scroll). Odd that we have none which are common…well, besides the Stone of Six Strengths which isn’t technically part of this chapter. Some of the more interesting items include the Blanket of Safekeeping (teleports the attuned character to a bed it is spread across when they take damage), the Carrion Staff (a legendary item of Veronette that can spend charges to create undead beings but can “lie” about how many charges it restores due to the goddess’ spiteful ways), Jyristä the Lightning Blade of Oria (first item made in a covenant forge, +3 longsword that deals bonus lightning damage and can absorb and channel lightning attacks into it to supercharge melee attacks), Lantern of Nature’s Unveiling (undead, fiends, and creatures under their influence have black halos when within its light), Scrolls of Self-Teaching (wielder can spend a reaction to divert a spell cast on them into the spell scroll), Soil of Fecundity (plant-like teapot which can pour out emerald dust that makes farmland super-fertile), and Wiletaper the Contract Candle of Vinyot (candle used to enforce the most important contracts in the Beast World, has two creatures magically bound to an agreement with a variety of contingency-like effects regarding the contract’s enforcement/breach). The spells are a different story: 11 are cantrips, 9 are 1st through 3rd level, and 5 are 6th to 9th level. So we have a bit of high-level magic, but an awful lot of easily-accessible spells. The more interesting spells include Borrow Concentration (4th level, shift the concentration restriction of a spell you’re maintaining to a friendly humanoid), Enthrall (9th level, permanently charm a humanoid and maintain a telepathic link with them), Forecast Harvest (1st level, learn qualities about nearby soil and the state of herd animals), Inflict Empathy (3rd level, target is charmed as long as you and your allies don’t attack it as they reflect on the harm they caused in the past), Mannequin Mage (9th level, friendly targets gains spell slots of a 7th level wizard which they can use to cast spells you prepared for an hour), Moment of Resolve (cantrip cast as bonus action, damage can’t break concentration on a spell until the end of your next turn), Provoke Hiccup (1st level, cast as a reaction and target must make a Charisma save to cast a spell with a verbal component), Stagecraft (cantrip, basically bardic prestidigitation/thaumaturgy that does things such as recording and play ingback a performance you do, or a magical camera transcribing whatever you see onto a sheet of blank paper), and Swift Invisibility (1st level, as Invisibility but cast as a bonus action, duration is one round, and doesn’t require concentration).  Appendices The final pages of our book end in four appendices. Only one appendix is of any notable length, having brief discussions and random tables for why your gaming group’s party of delvers decided to meet up together, along with some sample adventure hooks and common means of how delvers split up loot and magical items. Nothing exactly extraordinary. The remaining appendices include how to make pictos that were discussed way back in Chapter 2, an index of names and terms, and a character sheet for wagons including a pseudo-map for placement of components and the physical makeup of the vehicle. Thoughts So Far: I like how the magic items include a range of unique treasures, ones practical to the adventuring lifestyle, and those more broadly reflective of regular life in a high magic setting. I would have preferred all of the magic items in the book to be located here, as some are spread out in prior chapters such as the Bubble Armor in Cosmology & Religions or the Stone of Six Strengths in Oria. As for the magical spells, there are quite a few that are pretty powerful in being broad, although they have some built-in limitations. Borrow Concentration is pretty potent, but as it ends if you cast the same spell it is used for concentrating again, meaning you can’t do things like give every party member the benefits of Divine Word. Moment of Resolve lets you ignore damage for concentrating on a spell, but as it’s a cantrip with a bonus action you cannot cast any other “real spell” on the turn you cast it which makes it less useful for non-primary mages. It’s cleric-only, so the clerics most likely to use it are going to be warpriest types. Enthrall may seem potent, but as it can only affect Humanoids and even then only one at a time it is rather lacking in comparison to more broad spells of that level such as Shapechange, True Resurrection, and Wish. Swift Invisibility is a useful way to gain advantage on an attack or to quickly hide. And like Forecast Harvest, there are a number of spells that may not be immediately useful to typical adventuring crews but help flesh out the “practical magic” side of life in the Beast World. Overall I like this chapter. Final Thoughts: There are many things to like about the Delver’s Guide to Beast World. It is a fully-imagined setting with a built-in rationale for the adventuring lifestyle, has unique things to set it apart from other settings on the market such as customizable wagons and humans being the exception rather than the norm, manages a good balance between macro-level surveys of realms and regions while having enough of a personal touch in the form of interesting NPCs and their establishments, and the author’s love and respect for the fandom he is part of shows through in his work. The new mechanical options have some unbalanced options here and there, but enough of the material looks steady enough to be usable in most games. It is for these reasons I highly recommend the Delver’s Guide to Beast World, be you a furry or a furless outsider!
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Mar 4, 2023 23:53
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Kurieg posted:As written a level 18 Sunblood sorcerer can cast eldritch blast twice as an attack action, if they somehow gain access to that spell with say, a feat or being a Jackal. Capfalcon posted:At level 18, you probably have better things to do, honestly. It's definitely a powerful option, particularly if taken with Eldritch Adept to get something nice like Agonizing Blast. That amounts to 8d10+40 damage if all of them hit the same target. And if you used Evoke Eclipse for a bonus weapon attack, you can cast it three times! It really plays to the strengths of a blaster caster. However, given that at 18th level you're already stretching the limits of what can conceivably fit within the balanced framework of 5th Edition. And as noted, at that level you probably have access to more limited use yet more potent options like Disintegrate, Insect Plague, Prismatic Spray, Psychic Scream, and other damaging AoE spells that can impose additional negative conditions on top of damage. Don't get me wrong, it is pretty powerful, but amounts to straight damage which tends to be the least powerful of high-level combat options.
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Mar 5, 2023 00:04
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 Note: This product isn’t yet available to the general public, but it is available to KickStarter backers. Around a year ago, I reviewed the Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible, a first-time product from a new publisher that blew me away. Set during the first century in Roman-occupied Judea, it was an historical fantasy world where archdemons plotted to thwart the Messiah’s goals of saving humanity, and the PCs would travel around the land doing what they could to stop them. Roughly a year later, we have a pseudo-sequel to that product in Azrael’s Guide to the Apocalypse. This adventure is strongly inspired by the Book of Revelation, detailing a cosmic war between the forces of Heaven and Hell while also focusing on a near-future world where the Antichrist rules over most of Earth. The PCs in this case are mortals who recently died and are recruited by the angel Azrael into an elite organization known as the Reapers, celestials engaged in spiritual warfare by safeguarding souls from demonic influence. Just as Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible featured characters, locations, and events from the last years of Jesus’ life and ministry, Azrael’s Guide to the Apocalypse features characters, locations, and events from the Book of Revelation. It is more linear than Adventurer’s, more combat-heavy, and goes from levels 10 to 20 for a party of 4-6 PCs. It is less an historical fantasy and more what I’d dub as Biblical Cosmic Horror. The world is ending, in one way or another, first through global totalitarianism and then by demonic forces reducing most of human civilization to ash. Many adventures are set in unearthly locations, from the dark void of space to the liminal Veil separating the mortal world and afterlife. While this adventure can possibly be run as a sequel, it is as different from its predecessor as Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage is from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Azrael’s Guide opens up with an introduction with a brief overview of the book, as well as general pointers and tips such as talking about content warnings and triggers, how this adventure isn’t meant to be an authoritative source on Revelation, example formats for boxed text, etc. We have a brief explanation of some general rules for the setting: much of the adventure takes place in the Veil, a kind of liminal space between the spiritual and physical realms of reality, a neutral zone between celestials and fiends. The souls of living creatures who die enter the Veil and are then shepherded to either Heaven or Hell, and the environment looks like a hazy reflection of the world. It’s similar to the Ethereal Plane in this way. PCs can move and interact with the environment of the Veil as they would the Material Plane, although they cannot interact with still-living souls, and when aspects of the landscape are damaged and changed they will be “reversed” to their original position and state in a few seconds. Characters in the Veil can spend a bonus action to attempt a DC 18 Intelligence save to make short-term changes to the plane’s physics, such as creating a single nonmagical object worth up to 1,000 gold or passing through one nonmagical barrier. Furthermore, money and supplies are less of a concern in the spiritual realms in general; barring unique plot MacGuffins and magic items, it can be assumed that most PCs simply conjure most non-valuable nonmagical items, and they don’t need to track ammunition and spell components. More valuable objects and magical items can be “purchased” from celestials who rely on a sort of reputation system, where the person first proves their worthiness and good intentions. For instance, an item worth 2,000 GP or of Uncommon rarity requires an Act of Diligence, where the next time the character spends a short or long rest they don’t gain the benefits from that and instead devote that time to prayer. But an item that is 10,000 GP or Very Rare requires the PC to do an Act of Kindness by showing mercy to someone who doesn’t deserve it. When it comes to starting equipment, PCs who are newly created can spend up to 12,000 GP on any combination of mundane or magical equipment in line with the preceding price guide (but no required Acts). PCs who are transported from Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible (presumably at that campaign’s end) begin play with whatever possessions and magic items they had from that adventure. Additionally, this particular adventure adds new relevant terms and creature types. Enigmas are a type of being that are incarnations of ideas; they’re native to the Spiritual Realm, and include beings such as the Four Horsemen and Babylon.* The other creature type is an Amalgam, a fusion of two unrelated types into one being. Most commonly these represent the Antichrist and his minions on Earth, of demons going about in mortal shells (self-created, not possessed humans). Any trait that can affect one of the Amalgam’s base creature types can affect the Amalgam. For example, an Amalgam drawing upon Humanoid and Fiend registers as a Fiend to Detect Good and Evil, but can also be targeted by spells that only affect Humanoids. *Better known as the Whore of Babylon, but was renamed in this adventure given the book explains that the contemporary languages at the time spoke of a lack of faith and idolatry in general as metaphors for sexual infidelity. And due to this, it can be hard when going by “original translations” to tell when particular Bible verses are discussing literal or figurative adultery. Or so the book claims, I’m not a linguist or theologian. Furthermore, the term Realm is used for clusters of related Planes of existence. For example, in DnD’s Great Wheel the Lower Planes such as the Nine Hells and Hades would be part of a “Lower Realm.” In regards to this setting, the Physical Realm refers to the realms of the living, which also include the Feywild and Shadowfell…which I’m pretty sure aren’t in the Bible. And Heaven and Hell are not single planes but entire Spiritual Realms. Plane Shift thus acts as a plane-by-plane transportation, allowing one to hop between Planes within a Realm but not to new realms. Inter-realm travel is more of a plot device and thus very rare. Relatedly, the Plane Shift spell can be used to go through different moments of time in the Veil, but this isn’t true time travel as the Spiritual Realms basically move at the Speed of Plot. Going on to character creation, PCs who arrive in the Veil instantly gain knowledge of a universally-shared language that is basically Common. Furthermore, PCs have 1-2 Eternal Traits, which are basically like Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws. But what makes them different is that these Eternal Traits explain why they’ve been chosen by Azrael and why he didn’t just simply take them to their final reward/punishment. In short, Eternal Traits represent driving motivations that spur on the soul, a sort of “unfinished business” preventing one from earning spiritual rest. They can range from someone who spent their lives trying to make their parents proud but cannot bear to face them in Heaven (Eternal Bond), to an ideal to help other people before passing on (Eternal Ideal-Redemption). They could also be Flaws where their souls are in jeopardy of damnation but Azrael sees a worthy spark of redemption, or even Talents in the war to come that Azrael personally requested as candidates for Reaper induction. The DM is heavily encouraged to prioritize these Eternal Traits throughout the adventure, from making PC-specific scenes to sources of strength as well as infernal temptations by Satan.  Azrael’s Guide has five new subclasses representing broad archetypes from across human history. The Exorcism Domain Cleric represents one who has undergone special training in protecting the free will of mortals. Demons and other creatures who take over the autonomy of other beings are considered especially dangerous, and exorcists are well aware of the unseen battles raging beyond mortal perception. Their bonus spells revolve around abjuration and divination, from Detect/Protect Good and Evil, Dispel Magic, and Guardian of Faith. At 1st level they gain proficiencies in new languages, the herbalism kit, and possess special exorcism tools that can be used as a spellcasting focus and grant Thaumaturgy as a bonus cantrip. They can also turn and destroy fiends as well as undead when channeling divinity, and at 6th level they can spend an action to automatically remove the charmed, frightened, or possession condition on a target (infinite use) and damage the creature who imposed that condition if they fail an Intelligence save; at 6th level they also gain personal immunity to charmed and possession attempts themselves along with advantage (and later immunity at 17th level) to the frightened condition; at 8th level they can add their Wisdom modifier to damaging cantrips, and at 17th level the cleric can deal extra damage to creatures that attempt to use or innately possess abilities that inflict those three conditions. Thoughts: Overall, this domain’s use is situational in that it’s specialized for specific kinds of enemy tactics, but as the charmed and frightened conditions are so common this is a very strong subclass. Being able to end such conditions at will (albeit as an action and with a 30 foot range limit) is also really good. Furthermore, being able to turn and destroy fiends is particularly great for this adventure, as that creature type is incredibly common. The Commando Fighter Archetype represents soldiers trained in modern warfare, from firearms to explosives. At 3rd level they gain proficiency in firearms, enemies provoke opportunity attacks from their ranged weapons like they were melee weapons, and they also gain two Weapon Specialties. Weapon Specialties basically grant the Commando a specific weapon type for free, and they can magically summon it along with ammunition to their hands. The Commando can gain more Specialities as they increase in level and swap out old equipment with new ones, as many of them are locked behind higher level progressions. At 7th level the Commando can treat their Specialty Weapons as magical, gains immunity to being Surprised as long as they’re not Incapacitated,* treat any Perception rolls of 7 or lower as an 8, at 15th level they can automatically exclude a limited number of creatures from damaging area of effect attacks equal to their Dexterity modifier (minimum 1), and their 18th level capstones make creatures provoke opportunity attacks whenever they move more than 5 feet within their ranged weapon’s normal range and they gain an additional reaction each round for the sole purpose of triggering opportunity attacks. *If you have this condition, then you can’t really do much during an ambush anyway.  Let’s talk about Weapon Specialities. We have 21 weapons here, all of which are pretty solidly modern or post WW1 at the very least. Just about all of them have special properties or rules. For instance, a Combat Pistol doesn’t provoke disadvantage on attack rolls when adjacent to a hostile creature, the shotguns can move a Large or smaller target up to 10 feet away and knock them prone if they fail a Strength save, automatic weapons can expend more ammo to do a damaging AoE cube, the grenades create damaging or debuffing 20 foot radius attacks (gas does poisoned, stun does stunned, both can last up to 1 minute), the Flamethrower is a 60 foot cone of fire damage, and Anti-Material Rifles deal double damage to vehicles and ignore any cover bonus to AC less than total cover. Another thing is that those who wish to use this subclass in other settings have listed prices for the weapons and ammo. Given that most settings don’t let you conjure items out of thin air, the DM is encouraged to have PCs who learn Weapon Specialties automatically find such weapons at the earliest possible convenience. Furthermore, these aren’t Commando-specific weapons. There are NPCs in this adventure that wield some of them, such as the Sniper Rifle, meaning that other PCs can make use of such gear. This exposes a rather unbalancing aspect of the adventure: PCs can come from any era of human history. So when it comes to whether you want your Rogue to have a hand crossbow or silenced pistol, firearms in general are just plain better. The Combat Pistol alone is double the damage of a hand crossbow and can be used for similar Two-Weapon Fighting Sharpshooter builds for generating lots of damage. And a sniper can outperform a longbow user in both range and damage. Even the reloading properties are less punishing than that of crossbows, for a character can still make multiple attacks in a round provided they have the ammunition loaded up, and new ammo can be inserted as an action or bonus action. And if a PC has the Gunner feat, can ignore the reloading property altogether! Thoughts: But even so, this subclass can make the Fighter really fun to play. For one, it gives the class access to things like AoE attacks, conditions to inflict on enemies, and even non-physical damage types such as with the flamethrower or demolition charge which deals thunder damage. And since a grenade is a thrown weapon, an 11th level Fighter can do something like throw a stun grenade into a cluster of enemies with one hand, throw a frag grenade from the other hand to take advantage of stunned enemies’ inability to succeed on DEX saves, then pull out a flamethrower as their free weapon switch that round and torch the survivors! Or Action Surge, throw a grenade in one hand, take out two Combat Pistols at once via the Dual Wielder feat, then shoot 5 times with the remaining regular Attacks and a sixth time with an off-hand bonus action attack! The Way of the Pilgrim Monk is someone who wanders the world as part of a spiritual journey. Their reasons can be many, but what unites them is their supernatural ability to travel across reality. Initially at 3rd level they gain the Druidcraft cantrip and can spend 2 ki points to cast a limited number of movement-based spells such as Find Steed and Misty Step. At 6th level they can gain a fly speed until the beginning of their next turn when they use Step of the Wind, at 11th level can cast Find the Path once per long rest when they complete a short rest, and their 17th level ultimate ability lets them spend 7 ki points to teleport themselves and up to 10 willing creatures into the labyrinthine dimension known as Trasna. While there, they can make a DC 15 Wisdom or Grace* check to arrive at a named destination. Failure causes them to arrive at an unintended destination instead. *A new ability score introduced in Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible. It gets virtually no play in this adventure, though. Thoughts: When it comes to judging this subclass, Way of the Pilgrim has stronger low-level features. Blur and Misty Step are pretty good spells for a monk to have, as is a short-duration fly speed. But its higher levels features are more situational; Find the Path is but a single 6th level spell, and Trasna is more akin to a combined Plane Shift and Teleport requiring an ability check. As such I don’t find them as impressive. As for how useful they’d be in this adventure specifically, there are two chase scenes and some infiltration scenes that may be useful for this monk, but there are NPC allies and even a magic item freely given by Azrael* that can substitute for these features, which blunts its impact a bit. *Mantle of the Reaper, a cloak that lets the wearer grow wings and gain a flying speed for 1 hour once per short or long rest.  The Paladin Oath of the Templar represents knights belonging to the Order of Solomon’s Temple, an organization tasked with defending travelers and pilgrims traversing the roads of the medieval era. They were well-respected, which earned the jealousy of some monarchs. At one point the King of France and the Pope conspired to turn public opinion against them, causing many to betray and kill the knights. Even when they became outlaws in the eyes of authorities, many Templars still sought to live by their tenets. This subclass tenet’s involve not swearing allegiance to any earthly authority figure, reserving that devotion to God alone; be willing to stand for one’s beliefs in the face of defeat and death; a vow of poverty where you only own the possessions of your trade and rely on the kindness of others for sustenance; and to protect society’s poor and vulnerable. All of which are pretty easy tenets to follow for a typical Paladin, and also within the confines of this adventure. The bonus spells this subclass grants tend towards abjuration such as Warding Bond and Death Ward, with some typical “holy magic” spells like Revivify and Holy Weapon. Their Channel Divinity options include imposing the frightened condition on a nearby hostile enemy or praying to God for material aid. In the latter case this takes the form of a friendly mortal providing the paladin with goods, a magic item, or favor whose expenses and scope is based on their level. Their 7th level aura grants a number of temporary hit points to allies whenever the paladin is damaged, a value equal to half the damage rounded up. At 15th level they can force a creature attacking a nearby target other than the paladin to make a Wisdom save or have that attack fail. And their 20th level special form grants nearby allies advantage on saving throws, can spend a reaction to have a dying ally reroll a death save with a +8 bonus (meaning they only fail on a natural 1), and nearby enemies have disadvantage on attack rolls against the paladin and their allies. Thoughts: One of the Channel Divinity options is rather situational, and based on the unique rules for the Veil may not be very important for this campaign. Frightened is a good debuff but as that may have an enemy run away and most paladins specialize in melee, that may involve the Templar going further away from the allies they seek to protect unless they first corner that foe. The aura ability is extremely powerful, given that even moderately damaging attacks can grant an awful lot of temporary hit points. The downside is that the aura forces characters to cluster together, making them vulnerable to AoE attacks, but that’s a problem for paladin auras in general. The forcing of a Wisdom save to attack people other than the Paladin is a pretty good ability too, particularly when paired up with a Rogue using Sneak Attack in melee. The Warlock Watcher Patron is so named for a race of celestials placed on Earth during the time of Adam and Eve. God assigned them to observe the mortal world without interfering, a task to which they failed to commit. The Watches fell in love with humans, giving up their immortality to live with them on Earth, and producing children who would later become known as the Nephilim race. A few Watchers became fiends, siding with Satan when he rebelled against God. Now, most Watchers act as covert operators, not trusted for their initial defiance against God but still willing to give mortals the secrets of celestial magic should they prove worthy. The expanded spells are a mixture, ranging from divination (Detect Magic, Augury) to Cleric-lite (Spiritual Weapons, Spirit Guardians) to offensive (Bestow Curse, Pillar of Fire which is in Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible). At 1st level they can take on a radiant form as a bonus action for 1 minute, granting them a variety of minor benefits such as dealing radiant damage to adjacent enemies whenever they take damage, +5 to Perception checks, and float 5 feet above the ground and become immune to the prone condition. They can only assume this form a number of times equal to their Charisma modifier per long rest. At 3rd level they gain an enhanced version of a regular Pact boon: for instance, Pact of the Blade lets them choose between dealing the weapon’s standard damage or radiant damage, Pact of the Chain grants them a Chalkydri Fledgling (new monster) as a familiar option, and Pact of the Tome has the book’s text tell legends of heroes and angels in times long past, and the warlock can pick a single proficient skill to add double their proficiency for as long as they’re holding the Tome. Said skill cannot be changed once chosen, in case my paraphrasing of the text is unclear. At 6th level the Watcher Patron gains the Eye of the Watcher. It’s a magical scrying eye that is basically a modified version of Arcane Eye but with limited range (within 100 feet), their patron can see through it as well, is summoned and commanded as a bonus action instead of an action, and can be summoned a number of times equal to their Charisma modifier per long rest. At 10th level their Radiant Form gains more benefits in the form of a fly speed and resistance to necrotic and radiant damage. And at 14th level their Eye gains darkvision and truesight, can be summoned an infinite number of times, and has no range limit. We get three new Eldritch Invocations that improve existing Pacts. Apocryphal Blade turns a Pact of the Blade weapon into a spellcasting focus as well as adding +1 to spell attack rolls and save DCs; Song of Sunrise lets the warlock roll one saving throw with advantage once per short or long rest provided their familiar is within 100 feet; and Atlas of the Wanderer adds a new blank page to a Tome Pact’s book, where they can write the names of a number of creatures equal to their proficiency bonus on that page. They can then cast Locate Creature without using a spell slot or material components to locate one of the named entities. Thoughts: It’s a bit hard for me to judge this subclass, albeit it looks to be strong with the right builds and focus. The Chalkydri Fledgling’s most useful feature is the ability to cast at-will Guidance as a bonus action to those within its natural illumination of 20 feet, but otherwise don’t have any other real useful abilities like the ever-favorite invisible imp. The Hexblade is still the best option for Blade Pact warlocks. Double proficiency when taken with the right skill can be quite good. The Eye of the Watcher is basically extra free castings of Arcane Eye, and gaining access to spells such as Divination and Commune can make the warlock a pretty good Divination Wizard equivalent given that they can recharge their spell slots on a short rest instead of long. Spirit Guardians is also a great spell in general to have, particularly for the rather squishy warlock. Apocryphal Blade, which doesn’t require this subclass, is really good given that adding +1 to attack rolls and save DCs can nicely stack with Bloodwell Vials. Thoughts So Far: The explanation of the Veil, planar realms, and a reputation-based celestial economy do a great job in reinforcing the otherworldly nature of this campaign. I am not as fond on introducing entirely new creature types: most Amalgams can just be new features in a creature’s stat block, and Enigmas as personified ideas I feel can easily be folded into close enough otherworldly types (celestial, fey, or fiend) or possibly even construct. The Eternal Traits really bring the Bonds/Ideals/Flaws concept to the forefront in making them prime reasons for being involved in the adventure at all. But given their broadness, a lot of situations that call for them are little more than telling the DM “make something up.” Which is inevitable, but ends up making more work. As for the new subclasses, none of them really strike me as underpowered, but the Exorcism domain Cleric looks to be the one with the most broadly-useful abilities for most campaigns. The others have some really nifty features which can be exploited with the proper builds, although the Commando introduces a broader problem of the unbalanced nature of modern weapons. While “adventuring in the modern world” isn’t a major part of this adventure, it does happen often enough that we see such concepts D&Dified, some in ways satisfactory and others not so much. In fact, there’s no real upside to having PCs come from pre-modern eras overall, which is a bit of a minus. For example, during the infiltration of the Antichrist’s headquarters, there is a scenario involving hacking into computer systems. It’s handled as an Investigation check, but those who didn’t grow up with access to such technology will take disadvantage on the roll, but those who had prior experience with modern technology have advantage on the roll. Last but not least, this is a recurring problem throughout the book: making reference to material in the predecessor book of Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible, but not repeating such material in Azrael’s. We see it for some of the bonus spells in the new subclasses, but it also pops up with general and specific monster types, magic items, and so on. So Azrael’s isn’t completely self-contained in that you need the prior product to get the most out of it. Join us next time as we learn more about how Earth fares in the End Times in the tie-in product, Rise of the Antichrist!
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Aug 1, 2023 22:48
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