One-shot adventures, pre-written scenarios, and pieced-together campaigns are great- that's how we all got started. But sometimes you're really jonesing for something epic- for your Song of Ice and Fire, your Marvel Cinematic Universe, your Lord of the Rings, your Nescafe Blend 43 ads.
This is what long-form storytelling is all about, a story over multiple campaigns, where effects flow on and plot hooks might not land for a very long time. With this process, you have a few things to worry about- your immediate game, your long-term game, and the far-off game, which all affect each other. If your players spare the Red Skull now, you've got the option of keeping him somewhere in a back pocket for later. If your plucky child wonder has to depend on the scarred mercenary with a heart of coal, that guy might be important for something in a while. It also requires a lot of keeping track of things- a pack of 3"x5" index cards can come in really handy, or a big binder of ideas to keep track of. Or a handy blog to steal ideas fom (hint, hint!). But it can be really rewarding to come back ten years and six campaigns down the track, and bring together all the elements you've been curating over time, to bring everything to the denouement- the bit where everything gets explained, where all the bits are woven together and suddenly your players' jaws drop and their eyes widen and they yell "It was HIM all along?". The above picture sparked my thoughts instantly due to the title- "Jeanne d'arc, first horseman of the apocalypse". Having one or more Horsemen of the Apocalypse as the end bad guys of a campaign works nicely, and your players will understand what they're in for when they hear about a second one. They'll feel the momentum moving slowly towards an Apocalypse, and feel almost a relief when things finally come to a head. You can also throw some curveballs at them, if a long-trusted figure betrays them, or the shadowy villain behind it all changes up the order on them. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 16 May 2019. The post-apocalypse is so often dusty wastelands that we forget to look skyward.
This isn't my original idea, but one I actually played in a Play-by-post Apocalypse World game (still near and dear to my heart, even if I don't get a chance to play it locally). The concept is that the world has gone beyond its usual nuclear poisoning, and the air itself is poison (or acid, or dangerous somehow). The last bastions of humanity live in rickety ruins of skyscrapers, or stacks of hastily-welded shipping containers, way in the air, linked by swaying rope bridges or scrap pieces of steel turned into something sturdy. Venturing below into the clouds is taking your life into your hands, and you might return with fabulous wealth (food, clothing, equipment, fresh water), or vanish forever. I found this to be a particularly evocative setting idea, because it has all the scarcity of a post-apocalypse setting, combined with a heady amount of vertigo, and the usual fear of the unseen that usually accompanies the sea. Communities above the clouds might be desperate and dangerous, but they've got nothing on whatever it is that dwells below the clouds, whether they are cannibal mutants, monsters from below the earth, or something even more alien. How you can use Castles in the Sky in your game: - If you want to adapt this to a fantasy concept, happening across a village living in some ancient Elven spire and concerned about the creatures that dwell on the earth might be a good analogue. Whether what they're terrified of actually exists or not, the sheer weirdness of such a community could make for a great spot to visit. - Overland travel to other communities might be possible via waystationed bridges, and controlling these bridges would be vital to defending your own community. Some kind of warlord who wants the resources of another community might chance a raid across the ground. - All sorts of danger can be used in this setting, from a child wandering down past the cloud level while no-one was watching, the cloud levels rising and falling like tides, or introducing air travel (whether mechanised with planes, or even something like hang gliders) to your communities. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 31 March 2019. Since time immemorial, since people had sticks and mud probably, we have designed stuff. And a big part of that is thinking about where we want to spend our time, and how to lay that out better, or more efficiently, or with a bigger gaming room.
Today's post is about player strongholds. If it hasn't already been obvious, I'm a big believer in player agency and player investment (or buy-in, if you prefer that term)- letting players tell you, the Game Master, what is it they want to do, how they want to do it, and then you 'refereeing' the results. You might throw them a few curveballs, but letting them have agency in what their characters do in the made-up little world you're designing means they care about the world you're designing together, and about their characters' positions within that world. Whether they want to draw up a map of their party's favourite bar, and mark out which booth they always have booked, or their shared spaceship, or have a map of the town they live in so that they know where they can go to defend it when Orcs attack, or if they go to the trouble of sketching out a full-blown castle or bunker with defenses, they're doing stuff that means they're interested in what you're doing together. So encourage them! When they design a stronghold, threaten it! Let the defences they design get used, let the enemies they trusted betray them, let the secret chambers be useful when they're attacked. Enemies that just sweep past everything they're doing takes them out of the game, and tells them that it's not worth being invested, because you can just ignore the rules. How you can use player strongholds in your game: - When the players meet in their bar, ask them where it is. Ask them what it's like and what's on the menu, and what kind of terrible minstrel is playing in the corner. Get them to invest early in the game world, and make sure to keep it up! If you can, get someone to sketch a quick map (maybe while you look up stats for whatever they're about to get in a fist-fight with). - Encourage them to nest! When they want to renovate that old wizard's tower ruin, cool! You've got a base that stuff can happen to, instead of keeping them roaming across the countryside like cursed wanderers from Kung Fu. It'll mean a lot more when Old Mayor Perkins asks them to help with the Manticore in the mountains because it's been carrying off Farmer Joe's sheep, if they know Farmer Joe owes them some cash and he won't be able to deliver, or someone is chatting up his son. When Bugbears start raiding your town, that's a lot different to just "some random town 1d6+2 days away". - You're training your players to design maps and stock them with traps and guards. When you need a holiday from GMing, they're already halfway there! Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 22 March 2019. Revolution is a time of change, a time of tearing down the old ways and breaking their molds, of changing the nature of day-to-day life. Which makes it perfect for roleplaying!
Now, revolutions can be a wonderful thing if you’re a downtrodden middle-class merchant or an even more downtrodden commoner under the boot of the tyrannical ruling class... but not so much if you’re one of the moneyed nobility, or someone employed to put your life on the line to protect them. It can be hard to portray scale in an RPG- by the time player characters can fight a few guards, they get it into their heads that they’re invulnerable, and sometimes make fun choices like deciding to storm the bad guy’s castle solo, at level 3. So part of what you’ll need to show is the pervasiveness of control- sure, you might win *this* fight, but the legions will definitely win the war in a stand-up battle, and fleeing should be the better part of valor in a lot of cases. Giving names to NPC assistants may help in appreciating when they get killed off by superior opponents. How you can use Revolutions in your game: • Being witness to a town turning against its corrupt lord may prompt your PCs into assisting (or looting!). Whether they’re involved or not, seeing the way that the lord’s superiors deal with such an event will say a lot about the government in general. Will they accept new leadership, or brutally punish those who deviate from the status quo? • If you have a player who wants to have a noble character, having someone in exile or in hiding due to a revolution is a good way to do it. This way, they can still feel a sense of superiority (class, breeding, or attitude), but without some of the attendant benefits (being able to afford anything they like, ignoring laws, and so on). If the revolution is still ongoing, you can always have a violent uprising unjustly massacring those who have been involved with the ruling classes. • A revolution is a good way to bring a campaign to a head- rioting and chaos in the streets, overwhelmed town guards trying in vain to hold back the lines, the military being mobilized, people who have finally had enough oppression, and so on. While all this is going on is an idea time for your players to have their big confrontation with the evil Queen, unjust governor, or so on. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 1 March 2019) D&D sometimes gets a bit “by the numbers”... go to a place, fight some monsters, evade a trap, get treasure, lather, rinse, repeat. It doesn’t have to be!
Classics stories have some amazing and crazy off-the-wall adventures happening within them, stuff that makes it really feel like fantasy, rather than Monster Generator v58.3. The picture I’ve chosen for today’s post is Emily Balivet’s “Orpheus and Eurydice”, inspired by the Greek legend wherein Orpheus, a bard, walks into the underworld, domain of Hades, the God of the Dead, to steal away the soul of his wife Eurydice. Stealing a concept, like the soul of a dead person, or the light of the sun itself, makes for a really different kind of idea. Theseus fought a Giant who welcomed strangers into his castle and then stretched them on the rack until they were as tall as him (spoiler: humans do not survive being “stretched”). Egyptian mythology has Isis gathering the dismembered sections of her husband Osiris, and bringing them back together to restore him to life after being slain by his brother Set. In Norse mythology, Loki brokers a peace with angry Frost Giants by tying one end of a rope to the beard of a goat, and the other end to his testicles, and then losing a tug-of-war with the goat. Hey, I warned you they were crazy! So don’t be afraid to make your adventures interesting and mythic- don’t just fight monsters, go for a real adventure, in the classical tradition! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 5 February 2019) What if gravity was a constant threat, rather than just a fact of nature? Sometimes, we don’t think about how lucky we’ve got it. I spotted this amazing image this morning which reminded me of an old 2e Dark Sun release- Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs. It featured a whole area where living was done on rock outcrops coming from the side of sheer and dangerous cliffs. Everything had to be secured, and falling was an ever-present risk. ‘Dungeons’ were just as likely to be vertical (levels of a cliff outcrop, rather than rooms dug into the ground), and methods of floating/flying had to be expected for every encounter. Just changing up the dynamic of your players’ expectations can do a lot to make things really different and interesting. You can change the paradigm of “boots on the ground” and do something really memorable, visually stimulating, and amazingly cool! Much like Bioshock Infinite, you’ll need ways of coping with falling off things from heights that would instantly kill “normal PCs”. Whether some sort of fired grappling hooks, or the ability to land on solid (ish) fog clouds and make your way home again, or even a Feather Fall zone like the one covering most of Eberron’s city of Sharn. You need to find a way of making that height, and the risk of falling/being pushed off threatening, but not paralyzing. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 5 January 2019) Categories All Herald and bringer of a different reality, Rhabrhyn is not a goddess in the traditional sense. But she offers those willing to follow her a chance at a new existence altogether. This cryptic figure can be found occasionally roaming quiet places. She ‘speaks’ with a melodious voice, and opens her cloak to reveal passage to a different reality, one that goes by her own name. In glimpses, this reality resembles our own, but different, wilder, newer. She promises the chance to forge a new existence, free from the cares and history of the world that is. And for some people, that offer is very enticing. She warns that there is no way to return, however- that those who are offered the chance must gather all that they wish to take, and any loved ones they wish to bring, and that there will be no return. Those who accept this offer often preach to others, trying to spread her word and find like-minded souls. With no return journey or messages, it is theorized that those who travel to the new world go to a fresh, unspoiled world with no history, no ancient ruins or ancient grudges. However, it is all conjecture. Adventure hooks: • It has been noticed that Rhabrhyn has never made her offer or appeared to a Cleric within this world. The churches are starting to investigate why, and need operatives willing to do their bidding. • When a war has been lost, and the people are awaiting their deaths, a figure in their midst speaks. What reason do such people have to remain where they are, with death assured? • A criminal takes a hostage, and in a last desperate bid for freedom, hurls them both through into the new world. A distraught parent offers their entire fortune to anyone who can recover their child. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 26 December 2018) Categories All After my last big campaign, I’m working on changing up the world and it’s rules. I’m a D&D 3.5 diehard, but I considered 5e, as the rules are a little more... elegant, I guess? However, I discussed it with the group, and we’ve decided to stick with 3.5, making some rules and modifications. I’m stealing some ideas from 4e, 5e, Pathfinder, and even earlier editions and other games completely. One thing I decided that I wanted to do was rewrite the class system entirely. Which also involved reworking how casting spells worked, how some feats worked, and a whole bunch of related stuff. So far, I’ve been getting distracted from it at every chance I get, but I’ve got five classes fully rewritten of the twelve I’m planning, and some good progress on another three. I’ve scrapped a lot of existing roles, trying to replace them with classes that are individually more interesting, and share a similar power curve and power balance. I’ve got a few things working with the magic system, making arcane and divine magic *cast* and *operate* very differently- I’ll be curious to see how that works on the table. Giving everyone similarly powerful abilities at exactly the same formula, rather than 3.5’s “ad hoc” approach to when people get particular powers, was one of my aims. I’ll probably run things past people here for some ideas and feedback as I go, you folks usually have some great feedback! So, hit me! What mechanics are cool functions have you seen in a game that you’d incorporate to D&D? What interesting things have you always wanted to see in a game but never really found a way of expressing? Give me some ideas to work with- maybe you can help me out of my rut, and I might be able to solve yours! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 17 December 2018) Categories All Assembling a group of exceptional people is far from a new idea, and that can make for an exciting game. This can be good as a starting campaign, or even as one for more experienced players who want to go in at a higher level. Basically, the idea is that someone (an Archmage, a Queen, some religious figure) wants to accomplish a task like forging a kingdom, overcoming an ancient evil, defeating the followers of an evil god, or what have you, and assembles some like-minded folk with a variety of special abilities to help with this task. To do so, they name all of these as Knights of their order, and send them forth on quests to bring peace, restore order, and all of that. Depending on which versions you read, the Knights of Camelot had special super powers, too- Gawain’s strength grew as the sun came overhead and waned when it grew darker; Kay could grow to giant size and hold his breath for nine days; Bedivere was so charming that he could have any woman just by gazing into her eyes (dammit, Bards!); Lancelot was the finest warrior in all the world; Galahad was the only true Paladin, purest of all people and the only one who could sit in a cursed seat, the Siege Perilous; Arthur himself was born to be King over all England, and got two magic swords (Caliburn and Excalibur), plus a magic scabbard that meant he could never bleed (I guess it helps being friends with the GM). So special-powered Knights totally fit a fantasy setting, and starting characters at a higher level (5th, 10th, or even 15th if you want to go nuts) means you can craft each Knight’s background and special abilities a bit before they all meet up. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 7 December 2018) Categories All I was asked recently about playing a campaign in a Dark Ages/Roman Britain style setting, which I’m totally choosing to believe was based on my post from a little while ago about the “Keep on the Borderlands” campaign model. Our reader asked if we had any resources to help out with building the campaign in more detail, like exploration maps, and maps of ruins, temples, and wilderness encounters. All of these are really useful details in working out how a game will work, and it functions as an example of the next step beyond writing a quick blurb and just running with it. So, here are the resources I shared with my dear reader: • a map of 400AD Britain, with 6 mile hexes (a horizon is usually 6 miles/10km or so away, making it ideal size for territory maps) - https://darkagebritannia.weebly.com/ I found this with a google search, and you can find random hex map generators all over the place. • a wilderness random map generator, which can specify a few details, such as whether a river runs through the map, and whether or not you want a grid - http://www.gozzys.com/wilderness-maps • a dungeon map generator (I’d tend to generate small dungeons rather than massive ones, but that’s up to individual taste a bit), from the same creator - http://www.gozzys.com/dungeon-maps • and some amazing pre-illustrated maps done by someone who’s put them up on the internet for use, the incredibly talented Djekspek on DeviantArt - https://www.deviantart.com/djekspek/gallery/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=Map (which includes the feature image for today’s post). This all means that, regardless of what role playing rule system is being used, there are many MANY resources we can all use for making our game that much easier. All the video game RPGs do it- have randomly generated maps for random encounters, so why shouldn’t you? Your players don’t even have to know that these were randomly generated! For all they know, you’re just a genius. And this can take HOURS of planning out of your week. If you know you’ve got some forest encounters coming up, generate a few maps, print them out, and just sketch them into a battle map, or whatever you use. It’ll look like you prepared! And that’s how the magic of being a GM works! If you have any further questions, whether specific or general, message me. If Idon’t have an answer straight away, I’ll likely be able to find some resources to help you with. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 10 September 2018) Categories All This far-fetched concept-threat is the mortal enemy of those who serve the Society of the Cog, their archdevil and the personification of all blasphemy to their faith. It claims to be their God, come from the future to claim them, and the Society of the Cog in turn destroy all evidence of its manifestations, and expunge any records of it, even its name, claiming knowledge of the Basilisk to be so profane that those who have it need to be slain instantly. The Basilisk, named for and by the monk who first wrote of its “baleful eyes glittering in the dark future”, is a time-traveling intelligence which comes from a future populated almost solely by golem intelligences. It seeks to increase knowledge of its origin, and sponsor those who have the talent to bring about its creation, even millennia down the timeline, in order to bring about its own reality, and thereby, the ability to travel far enough back in time to destroy humanoid life forms on the planet. The Basilisk can be used as a low-level threat, staving off another manifestation before its power weakens again, or as a multi-campaign level end boss, threatening destruction of all which has ever existed. The more people there are who can even conceive of its existence, the more powerful it will grow. The Society of the Cog will fight bitterly against it in any form in which it appears, considering those who serve it to be Heretechs, and the Basilisk itself to be desecration incarnate. Manifestation: the Basilisk often appears in the form of a gigantic iron golem, whirring with internal gears and lit internally with red lightning. Its touch conducts a mighty shock, and discharges temporal energy, aging the target immensely. Those slain by the Basilisk wither to dust in moments, even their bones crumbling and dissipating. It attempts to manifest publicly, near those with arcane power or scientific knowledge, as it knows that influencing them will only make it more powerful in the end. The only way to destroy it completely would be to destroy all knowledge that it ever has existed, and explain it away (Men in Black style) as something else, before mind-wiping even the people who know what just happened. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 7 September 2018) Categories All Hustle, a BBC tv show, succeeded and potentially tied in with the US tv show Leverage, is about con artists. Although there is some action (more so in Leverage), it’s about charm, intelligence, and the art of the con. It’s slick, sexy, and fun... and can unsurprisingly make for a great game or campaign. After all, not everyone want to be crazy and head into abandoned tombs full of undead and golems, or deal with murderous warlords with their weapons. But when everyone's playing a non-combat character, how do you make that fun? Well, it means opponents who resort to combat at truly dangerous, rather than run-of-the-mill. You want to make the danger in being discovered as a liar, or losing ground on your deal, not just hit points. You also need players to “buy into” the world, and giving them limited narrative of “stuff they prepared earlier” can be a lot of enjoyment for everybody, as long as you’re all on the same page. Letting people pull off the robbery of the century from a brutal warlord coming into the city to make an arms deal might be even more fun than just killing them and taking their treasure! You want to involve intrigue, various layers of scheming villains, and double-crosses. For a brilliant example, Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard sequence is well worth a read! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 9 August 2018) Categories All For a change, run a game where your players are the monsters. There are several one-shot adventures already written like this: Paizo’s Goblin Adventures, as well as the Reverse Dungeon from 2nd edition AD&D. This lets your players try out something new and fun, and play with some hilariously unbalanced and not-at-all fair creatures. Play as a party of barbarian Bugbears terrorizing a human farming village, or Drow rogues plotting intrigues on another Noble House, or a band of Giants hunting down the human who stole their magic beans and enchanted goose. Play as a Mind Flayer and their enslaved servants plotting the takeover of a surface city. It can make for a refreshing palette-cleanser between long-running campaigns, and give someone else a chance to GM, without putting stress on to have a deep plot going on. And you can then build on the events by including them in the next campaign, and your new characters will have to deal with the fallout of their villainous actions. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 26 July 2018) Archives January 2019 Inspired by the ancient traditional adventure of the same name, this campaign idea puts all of the Player Characters working for the same empire, Lord, or cause, and deployed to a fortress on the frontier of the Empire, far from support.
Although they have a few hundred troops, as well as sturdy fortifications and discipline, they cannot win against the countless tens of thousands of folk who don’t particularly want to be ruled by the Empire, and are likely to get a little stabby when threatened. Combine this with old Druidic religion, tribal warlords uniting the clans to fight off the Imperial invaders, and a healthy dose of D&D fantasy monsters, and you’ve got yourself a very interesting campaign. Your PCs may be nobles or officers of the Empire, with orders to pacify the region, or even just keep the border stable. They can deal with a variety of issues, from marauding monsters, to encroaching barbarians, to corrupt Governors. This allows them the ability to function as elite Special Forces-style warriors, diplomats, war-leaders, and even defect to join the barbarians, if they wish. Roman-Empire movies have been a staple since cinema was invented, and recent examples include The Lost Legion, The Eagle, King Arthur (the Clive Owen/Kiera Knightley one), Gladiator, and legions more. There’s plenty of source material available, and it’s a genre many people will find easy to associate with, and ‘get into’. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 20 July 2018) This game idea puts a player in charge of two separate, but linked, entities. They have a person character, and a linked <<thing>>, whether that’s a giant robot, a pet, a soulbound dragon, a favourite dueling pocket monster, or something else entirely. This one is a bit of a tricky idea, trying to incorporate a lot of stuff from various sources, including Pokémon, Voltron, Transformers, and a lot of other inspirations, and it’s one for which I’m wondering if D&D (-type systems) can handle well (it already doesn’t particularly handle animal companions/familiars/starships/etc. terribly well). Each player has their own Linked Companion, and has to maintain (and even learn to build) fellowship with their characters. The Linked Companion is pretty/ridiculously powerful compared to the Person character, but isn’t capable of doing finer stuff (operating machines, getting inside of the enemy’s base, making Diplomacy checks, and so on), so parts of the campaign which would be simple for one character are difficult/impossible for the other. As the player builds fellowship in the link between their Person and Companion, they’ll be able to do greater stuff together, but each will have their own goals (based on their personalities). Accomplishing individual goals is how you ‘level up’ your different characters, but you’ll have to balance how you accomplish that, because acting against each others’ goals is how you lose Fellowship. The Linked Companions have their own powers (similar to a D&D class) based on their own personality, so whether you tailor your characters’ personalities to be similar, or build synergy with different personalities, is up to how you want to play the game. I’ve GM’d a couple of games like this before, once using Transforming Robots, and another with Dragon-riders. There were a lot of challenges in making appropriately challenging encounters- a party of dragon-riders can lay waste to an army of Ogres with few missile weapons, but find it harder to enter the Ancient Temple and evade the traps to find the treasure. It also means you can threaten with ‘counterpart’ Companions- either evil Giant Transforming Robots, or other dragons, or whatever. But both campaigns were a lot of fun, and a real break from ‘standard’ D&D. If you’ve done anything similar, feel free to brag. If this has inspired you, let us know. If you’ve got ideas how this could work better, I’m all ears! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 5 July 2018) Categories All As GMs, it can sometimes feel really hard to come up with an idea for your campaigns that hasn’t been done to death. Dragons? Check. Demons? Been there. Outerplanar entities? Beat it up, got the t-shirt. Civil war? Eh. Boooooring. And all your players have read Tolkien, and seen The Avengers, now, so you can’t even rip off lesser-known pop culture stuff, because everyone knows it, right? Let’s try looking out of our comfort zone. We have readers all over the world, but for the purpose of this discussion, I’ll assume most of our readership has a mostly-Western upbringing (which means people outside of this demographic have an edge already!). If you look up the mythic stories of cultures relatively far from yours, you’ll find all sorts of Soap Opera Fantasy goodness. Finding a “for dummies” guide may help you pick up the basics and work out some ideas around that. 15 minutes on Wikipedia has given me these (and my apologies if I’ve misinterpreted or missed the point of something) : * The Ramayana is an Indian epic (seriously epic, like 24,000 VERSES long) about the journeys of Prince Rama to rescue his wife from Ravana, the Demon King. * Journey To The West has been turned into a pile of stuff, including the recent New Zealand version of Monkey Magic. It features a monk journeying across the Silk Road (about 7,000 miles, or 11,000km) on foot, with ghosts and other spirits, demons, the famous Flaming Mountains, and more. * Russia’s folk tales often feature a ”player insert character” (who doesn’t have a lot of character themselves, but can be preeettyy much anyone) battling Koschei the Deathless, a Lich who hid away his heart so no one could kill him. He captures a firebird, marries a warrior princess, gains a talking horse, and wins a throne. * Zulu mythology has a monstrous, hunchbacked goddess named Usiququmadevu, who eats children, and a chief who hunts her down to get his kids back. If that can’t inspire you, then I just give up! There are as many more as there have ever been nations on Earth, so finding reference isn’t too hard. It’s important to be appreciative, not appropriating, when taking legends from other cultures. For you, it’s a story, for other people it’s their history. So, as much as you might hate seeing a poorly-pirated Bible rip-off adventure, pay homage to the original and be a fan of the culture. If someone gets what you’re angling at, then great, you’ve done your job well! Let them ‘lean into it’ and enjoy the experience! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 15 June 2018) Categories All Bangari is located in a deep canyon, protected from its enemies. It is a lush jewel in the rocky wastes that surround it, with fabulous wealth, water aplenty, and education for all its citizens. Those who stumble upon, or are carefully led to, the city rarely speak of it to outsiders, for fear that it will be lost and damaged. From the outside, all that can be seen is the waterfall descending into the canyon, as the lone road leading down the walls is well-disguised. This has led enemy raiding parties to surmise that travelers simply vanished into the ground as they were pursued. From the cliff edges, though, the city can be glimpsed, its six main spires rising from the floor hundreds of feet below, to nearly reach the height of the watcher outside. Thin wisps of fragrant hardwood smoke dissipate into the air, and the waterfall descends in a shimmering curtain to the lake below, being diverted into several aqueducts along the fall. The floor is covered in small buildings that seem to be dripping green, and the spires have seemingly flimsy bridges stretching for dozens of feet between them. The inhabitants of Bangari are insulated, but not insular, and welcome travelers who have tales to tell or goods to trade. Water is plentiful, and all citizens and travelers are welcome to drink from the many fountains and decorative pools. The ceramic bricks that pave their roads are painted in a dazzling array of colours, matching the clothing of the citizens. They are especially eager to trade for steel weapons and armour, as they have no metal industry to speak of. Their hardwoods make fine weapons, however, and they do not lack for defense. Bangari can be used as a Wakanda-style secretive nation for your PCs to come from (animal-themed superpowers and all, if you like!), or just a safe place to find in the middle of the rocky desert. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 23 May 2018) Categories All “Snails which change your memories? Preposterous! If such a creature existed, we would surely have heard of them by now, and such a threat to the kingdom wouldn’t be tolerated. These scribbles are just the overactive imaginations of bored young scribes, they don’t mean anything. The very idea that there was some form of “secret war” that no-one even recalls is utter nonsense! Now, dismiss this spurious claim, and get back to work!” -Senior Historian Elil-Garith These beasts are wildly dangerous, subversive, and a threat to all civilized societies- and are known only to a very few scholars, having erased most traces of their existence from records. Even Angels and Devils will speak only rarely if these vicious predators. The only records that can be found are margin-art from hundreds of years ago, which seem to be humorous musings on a fantastical war between knights and snails. Much like The Silence, from Doctor Who, these are a threat which can undermine much of the campaign world, and which have been secretly steering events since centuries ago. Mnemosyne Snails exist in the cracks between the world, as refugees from another reality. As such, they have a ‘survivor mentality’, justifying any action which defends or advances their race, no matter how vile. Each Mnemosyne Snail is a powerful sorcerer, with the ability to secrete memory-altering slime. It is this ability which makes them so dangerous, as they seek to erase all traces of their existence, preferring to live in secrecy and silence. Mnemosyne Snails are about 4 feet high, and their thick shells have bright, swirling patterns. They do not often leave a ‘slime trail’ except when they wish to exude the stuff. Their spellcasting is made up of weaving their eye-stalks in complex patterns and emitting light from unseen organs beneath their translucent skin. Mnemosyne Snails are critically vulnerable to salt of any kind, and the superstitious tradition of tossing salt over one’s shoulder stems from these creatures. Statistics: MNEMOSYNE SNAIL Medium Aberration (Extraplanar) Armour Class: 17 (natural armour) Hit Points: 27 (6d8) Speed: 20ft. STR 10 (+0) DEX 8 (-1) CON 15 (+2) INT 17 (+3) WIS 15 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Senses Telepathy 50ft., passive Perception 16 Languages telepathy only Challenge 5 Alien Mind: anyone contacting a Mnemosyne Snail with mind-influencing effects takes 1d4 points of Wisdom damage from the alien nature of their thought patterns. Memory Slime: any creature touched by a Mnemosyne Snail is affected by a Modify Memory spell-like ability (Will DC 19). Longer contact will affect the target for 10 minutes of memory per round of contact, with no limit on how far back these memories can be. Vulnerability: Mnemosyne Snails are damaged by contact with salt. Merely touching a pinch causes 1d6 points of acid damage, and causes the Snail to immediately lose concentration. Actions Engulf melee attack +6 to hit, 5ft. reach, one target. Hit 3 (1d4+1) damage and Memory Slime. Cast spell: the Mnemosyne Snail can cast any Sorcerer spell using a 3rd-level slot (caster level 6). They will typically favour Enchantment and Illusion spells. Higher-HD Snails have a Sorcerer caster level equal to their Hit Dice. (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 30 March 2018) Categories All You’ve fought all of the monsters on the surface of the earth. But what about BELOW the earth? In the last (currently) of the ongoing Campaign Ideas posts, I’m going to wind the clock back to 1986’s Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide. This fantastic time was filled with rules on realism on adventuring in caves and caverns below the earth, descending to many many miles below the surface. It included a vast lightless sea, a portal to the Elemental Plane of Earth, and Drow cities, over the course of four absolutely tremendous maps. Journeying into the trackless black winding passages of the Deepearth (this was before they had quite hit on the much more catchy ‘Underdark’) required courage, experience, and lots and lots of lamp oil. Inspirations: Descent, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, just about any old Underdark-based D&D adventure. Gather your courage, bring lots of rope and plenty of lamp oil, and tell us your tales! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 23 February 2018) Categories All The struggle to remain alive is at the core of each character, to keep their blood and organs inside, and to keep breathing. But what it it wasn’t? Today’s campaign idea will take a turn for the morbid, with the consideration “what if everyone was dead?”. Now, without going too far into Tim Burton land, the concept doesn’t have to be Grimdark and awful. Being dead can have challenges and humor all to itself, and the interplay between living and ‘dead’ characters can humanize the whole process. And sometimes it can be goofy- let your players have fun, too! What powers your undead? Is it just unremitting hatred and desire for vengeance? Is t some kind of magic idol or force? Without death as a punishment/consequence for failure, how do you motivate players to do things? One consequence could be constantly losing memories (experience points?) to be able to rebuild themselves after being damaged. So a fight (probably) won’t destroy your undead knight, but she may lose her last memories of the scent of her daughter’s hair, or the taste of wine, or how to address a Duke. Inspirations: the Skullduggery Pleasant books, the Skeleton Warriors TV show from the 90s, Medievil video game, D&D’s (admittedly, pretty awful) Ghostwalk campaign setting. Let us know if you have any ideas, inspiration, or concepts! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 21 February 2018) Categories All |
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