Those who are slain violently sometime return as short-unlived spirits, burning with rage against their slayers. They lash out angrily against anyone nearby, but focus on anyone who committed violence against them.
Finality is a fate for those with strong wills and a burning anger, often people who have a quest or other cause they are serving. However, as they turn to undeath, they are unable to be raised without all but the most powerful resurection magics, often rendring their quest or cause hopeless. Finalities are vicious and rageful spirits, exaggerating all of the original person's most hapeless and angry traits into a sprit with a will strong enough to affect the material world. How you can use a Finality in your game: - A Player Character who is murdered or slain during a game might choose to return as a Finality (with your approval) in order to take revenge on their slayer. - A villain who is defeated in the middle of their Dastardly Plan might return as a Finality, surprising those who think they have emerged victorious. - A finality sustaining itself on murdering bystanders might devastate a marketplace or other crowded area. Player Characters who happen to be the "person on the spot" dealing with a vicious and murderous spirit might find themselves out of their depth and under threat. Statistics: Medium Undead (Incorporeal) Hit Dice: 6d12 (average 39 hit points) Initiative: +3 Speed: Fly 40ft. (perfect) Armour Class: 15 (+3 Dex, +2 deflection), touch 5, flat-footed 13 Base Attack/Grapple: +3/- Attack/Full Attack: Incorporeal touch +7 melee (2d6 negative energy and vengeance, see below) Fighting Space/Reach: 5ft./5ft. Special Attacks: Vengeance Special Qualities: Burn-out, darkvision 60ft., incorporeal traits, +4 turn resistance, undead traits Saves: Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +3 Abilities: Str -, Dex 17, Con -, Int 6, Wis 6, Cha 8 Skills: Intimidate +12, Listen +3, Spot +4 Feats: Ability focus (vengeance), Blind-fight, Weapon Focus (incorporeal touch) Environment: Any land and underground Organization: Solitary Challenge Rating: 5 Treasure: Standard Alignment: Always evil (any) Advancement: 7-18 HD (Medium) Level Adjustment: N/A Vengeance (Su): A Finality's touch is nearly fatal to any creature which harmed it, immediately prior to its death. A creature which damaged the Finality before their death must make a Fortitude save on being hit (DC 13) or take an additional 2d6 damage. Burn-Out: A Finality loses 1 Hit Die per minute. If it slays a creature, it gains 1 Hit Die permanently, but these can also be lost due to burn-out. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 7 April 2019. The citadel of Maelona's Bastion is a fantastical location, supposedly crafted by the hands of Maelona, the War Goddess, herself. It is established in savage and dangerous lands, and reaching it is quite a journey.
The citadel itself consists of a tower surrounded by a winding staircase, with a wide courtyard balcony, enough to march thirty men abreast in a circle. The tower is overshadowed by a colossal statue of Maelona, hundreds of feet tall and carved from a single mass of white marble. In the fields and mountains surrounding this citadel, warriors can learn the arts of battle with other warriors of many other races, both against and with one another. It is a place of friendly learning, of sodality in soldiery, where Maelona's sacred warrior-priests of all races punish those who would actually seek to slay one another. How you can use Maelona's Bastion in your game: - Your players might need to travel here to seek the wisdom or aid of Maelona's warriors. Persuading them to choose a side in a conflict will be a difficult battle. The warrior-priests will demand proof of purity in meaning and of ability, by ritual battle to the third blood or more. - Outsiders might be sought out if a crime against Maelon's Pact has occurred- a murder using most foul magic, or use of prohibited coward's agents. Your players could be called upon to investigate who has committed such a murder, and settle the growing schism between those who serve the art of battle for self-glorification and power, and those who seek to learnt these arts for protection of themselves and others. - It is said the the diminutive halfling janitor who has been here for generations knows more than she lets on. She has swept and served for many years, and observe the rites of war of a hundred years' worth of warriors training in thousands of techniques. Those who serve Lilandrea, Goddess of Self-Perfection, would do well to seek her here. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 6 April 2019. Making a villain feel effective can be hard- you want to give them enough resources to be useful, without just making them boringly omnipotent.
Possibly the best resource I've read on this was FFG's Living Gods, for the Stargate SG-1 game. It gave a system on assigning resources to your 'bad guy' and how they could spend these. D&D's Leadership feat gives you at least an idea of appropriate levels of minions and cohorts as resources. You can find it free for usage on the 3.5 System Reference Document here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership This can be used if you want to give your villain an approximation of appropriate numbers of minions- I'd use this table as a "per encounter" number rather than their total power base- for example, a villain with a Leadership score of 13 can afford to lose 10 1st-level Warriors for an encounter, and might have a 9th-level (or 9 Hit Dice) cohort as their 'boss monster' backup. But it's not a perfect tool. You can go all-out and draw up an entire organization chart, planning out each boss and lieutenant, their groups of minions, and what they're up to. This can also lead to fun if you decide to introduce multiple groups of minions- differently uniformed gangs, with separate themes and abilities, but can also be a lot of work for an already hard-working Game Master. It may be easiest if you just draw from the top down, marking out important lieutenants and giving you an idea of what forces are at their disposal. How you can use effective overlord villains in your game: - An effective overlord villain can make use of their minions tactically, not only deploying enough of them to pose a challenge to your players but also using the right ones in the right situation. - Having a good idea of your overlord's resources means you'll have a good idea of when your players are harming the villain's power base. Monitoring this means that you're able to know when your villain gets desperate and either calls in more resources, or makes some risky choices. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 5 March 2019. Gatekeepers are hideous monsters which halt entry by visitors or even those who have legitimate business. They began as part of a community, but have become so devoted to stopping entry that they have passed beyond the bounds of death, and interfere even with those who know the proper passcodes.
These creatures originated from religious communities, and then passed on to wizarding schools, and even mundane community groups at times. Many started with good intentions, but hen became so dedicated to the concept of purity in their community that they refused to accept change, even their own death. No matter the type of group, if there is at least one Gatekeeper, which makes it difficult for new people to join them. Gatekeepers lurk around the fringes of a community, often taking up positions where they can exercise their fell power. Gatekeepers can often suppress their monstrous nature in order to pass as an ordinary member of the community for a short time. Statistics: Gatekeepers are Lawful Evil undead creatures, with about 4 Hit Dice. They can use Open/Close and Command as spell-like abilities at will, and maintain an Alarm spell constantly around the area they protect. Gatekeepers are entirely devoted to keeping 'undesirables' out of their communities. They will confront those 'lurking' in their domain and quiz them to make sure they have the 'right' qualities and knowledge, often commanding those they confront to answer their Knowledge skill tests. The secret is that although they can seem unpleasant, Gatekeepers have little real power to actually stop those who need to pass through or join the community, and end up as gargoyle-like protection on the outside of the community anyway. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 4 April 2019. If you've finished up a big campaign, and you want to move the world on, one way to build this into your game is to give new options to your players. If you start with rules, the worldbuilding can follow and be informed by how this works for your players.
So if your last game finished up with defeating a big Orc army, having some elements of that Orc army settle in peacefully (or with some tension, which you can use for creating drama within your world) to "inhabited lands", and then be available as a player race for the next game can change the way your players view Orcs as a race. Suddenly, someone might be interested in Orcish ancestor-worship, Orcish language/culture/bladesmithing, Orcish warrior-culture, and then suddenly Orcs are more valuable to your players within the world, and not just a race of barbarian monsters. This can apply to different classes and feats, too- allowing secrets of elemental magic, or shadow monster heritage, or secrets of Numenorean bladesmithing, as options for your players, means that those players who were present know some of the 'Easter Eggs' and what too look forward to, or look out for, which lets them feel special and knowledgeable. The players who weren't present get to find out about these things, along with all the other new stuff you've written into your world, and get to feel like they're actually finding out new knowledge. Doing this builds player investment in an ongoing campaign world, and makes them more likely to make decisions for reasons which affect the world in an ongoing manner, thn to do them because they'll get a bonus, or make a short-term benefit. How you can use New Allies in your game: - As previously mentioned, building new options in for your players like allowing Orcs instead of (or as well as) Half-Orcs can help to "bake in" the idea that Orcs aren't "monsters" now, they're people. They can still be cranky, barbaric, and raiding people, but it gives them a complexity they don't usually have when their main presence is in the Monster Manual. - Allowing a player to be an atypical or different member of the race as a transitional phase might assist (like the Arbiter in Halo 2, for example)- a member who is still not a best buddy, but at least shares the same goals and perhaps even some similar outlooks may help with realizing that not all monsters are Monsters. - This lets you explicitly build in conflicts to your world between different racial groups, religious groups, or any other groups you choose. If, like me, you sometimes struggle to find reasons for objectively reasonable peoples to have tension or conflict between them, this can definitely help orchestrate conflict for generations down the line (sadly). Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 3 April 2019. Madame Terenna is a maestra duelist, and owns her own dueling school, the Scuola degli Sventratori, where she'll happily teach rich nobles to scar each other with a sword, or those with more coin how to kill people.
Terenna walked into the Free City wearing soft black clothes, high boots, a gauntlet and a sword, and strode into the dueling square by all the coffee houses. That day, she fought fourteen bravos, three maestros and a grandamaestro. She took two scars and gave seven, and won her place as an acclaimed maestra in her own right. She speaks rarely of where she learned the arts of the sword, and maintains a professional demeanor at all times. Madame Terenna is willing to teach her fighting style to others for money, and learning her art is difficult and sometimes counter-intuitive. She is a hard teacher, and has no mercy for lapses of concentration or memory, but rewards those who pick up new skills and techniques with praise. Statistics: Madame Terenna is a highly-intelligent human woman, and a 9th-level duelist. How you can use Madame Terenna in your game: - The Scuola degli Sventratori is a famed dueling school, and someone who wants to learn particular fighting techniques, particularly those who wish to learn swashbuckling or dueling techniques, may wish to visit. - Those who have earned Madame Terenna's admiration either for their prowess on the dueling field, their acts, or some other reason, might over time earn her friendship. This means that her enemies, whether they are open about this or otherwise, might take the opportunity to strike at her new allies. - Alternately, Madame Terenna might be forced to seek aid from outsiders if faced with foes beyond her ability. Although Madame Terenna is an accomplished warrior, she may face trouble from local crime gangs who might attack anyone supporting her or even selling her goods, a sorcerer, a coven of Warlocks, or some other threat which doesn't obey her usual rules of engagement. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 2 April 2019. Playing Houses and Humans can get dull and repetitive after a while. Here's a tip to shake things up: Try playing as the humanoids, and explore dungeons inhabited by fantastical monsters, like dragons!
You can invent all sorts of imaginary scenarios, move outside of the regular house basements, schools, and game shops where your characters have encounters, and venture into towers, castles, and underground caves! Use the very dungeons you live in for inspiration, and base encounters on the kinds of creatures that live next door, those goblins down the hallway, or that tentacle-faced Mind Flayer who gives you orders! And if you want to change up your Advanced Houses & Humans rules, you can forego writing complicated political stuff that just spirals into terribly depressing awfulness, and have Orcs invading the Sword Coast, Sahuagin raiding up and down the shore, rampaging dragons wanting hoards of treasure. This is a change-up of the game that can really bring some life back into your tired old Friday Night in the Dungeon with your encounter-table buddies. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 1 April 2019. |
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