AlastarOG's page

I'll add them as well.

I'll also ping KaruiKage from the AoN team to let them know this doc is now 22 pages long if they want to import it into the archives.

Here is an updated link to the document:

Sorry for lack of updates, I came here to check if there were new settlements, I will update all the new ones !

Thanks for posting these guys, I check occasionally !

Added Jula from Hurricane's Howl

AlastarOG wrote:

Yeah exactly.

By comparison the black plague killed 20 million people just in medieval Europe.

In my campaigns I often take the population for metropolises and just add a zero at the end to make more sense.

A 310 000 population Absalom is nonsensical for such a big city. That's the population of a middling sized town at an advantageous positioning, not the city at the center of the world.

3 010 000 makes a lot more sense, specially when you consider how big it is.

9-10 million worldwide is near extinction levels. A much better, and more reasonable, count would be near a billion.

Constantinople peaked at about half a million population, in 1000 and 1500 AD (considerably lower around the 1300s, both from plague and war.)

Paris in 1000 has about 20,000, climbs up to 300k before the Plague, drops to 200k after, and doesn't hit 500k until the 1700s.

Rome had a population of about a million during the Empire, which plummeted to 20,000 until the 1400s and didn't break 100,000 until the 1600s.

A 310,000 population Absalom makes sense, given that it's a medieval metropolis without an attached continent-spanning empire. A manorial economic system where 5 out of 9 people have to be agriculturalists to prevent mass famine simply can't support high population densities.

One thing to keep in mind is that the entire population of cities is supported by about an equivalent population of small villages surrounding it - that's where the food comes from. So while Paris in 1000 has about 20,000 residents, there's at least another 20,000 people in the surrounding countryside whose economic activity (i.e., farming) is required to support Paris. You can double the population of any given non-agricultural settlement in outlying farms, fishermen, huntsmen, and herders producing food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_European_cities_in_history#Ti meline:_Roman_Empire%E2%80%93Modern_Age_(1%E2%80%931800_A.D.)

Thanks for the stats!

A small note is that to me settlement stats should account for those farming field populations around it ?

Another note would be that Absalom, at least as couched in the lore books, is a city that is much more developped than what a medieval city would be. Medicine is much more advanced (to the point where even deadly diseases like cancer and the plague can be simply erradicated) the terraforming that they can do is miles above even current engineering projects (for god's sake they redid an entire city district in under a year, this would be a decades long project in modern times) and their industry involves an abundance of high commodity items that is commonly being purchased by non traditional big buyers which helps to feed a thriving and varied bourgeois class (I,m talking about magic items and adventurers)

Considering all of that, I think comparing Absalom to Medieval era paris or antiquity rome would not be accurate, probly more to 19th century New york which would be around 2.6M

Added Graydirge, Yled, Alkenstar City, Pagked, Sallowshore to the compendium.

Sorry it's been a while, was taking a break from forums and uploading my guides for mental health reasons.

Link me any towns you want me to add.

I might flag this to be repositionned to the advice forum, I don't think me adding Torch and Starfall in italics makes it homebrew.

Ok I'm going with 2, I'm at Barbarian for now.

For explanations, which format is best:

Ex 1:
Alchemist (total points: 15/25):
Reasoning: The alchemist is a poor damage dealer, either through bomber or mutagenist, the damage output is not there and you only scale to expert in attacks. With ultimately medium armor mastery and 2 saves at Master they are tankier than wizards, but still have 8 hp. Alchemists are great healers though, able to create healing potions on the fly, or in advance and distribute them. They have good debuff abilities through bombs and poisons, and great buffing. In exploration, they can whip out skill bonuses on the fly that are non negligible, and in downtime their heavy focus on the crafting skill will serve you well.

Or

Ex 2:
Combat:
Damage: 2 With proficiencies stopping at expert, damage alchemists struggle either through bombs or mutagens. Adding the fact that their key ability is not the main ability needed for their damage styles and that even if they manage an attack that has DC’s (like poisons or mutagenic breath) that DC does not go above Master. Overall, Alchemist are not a damage class.
Survivability: 1 Very late Master proficiency in armor, and 2 saves at Master, but 8hp per level. Better than mage, worst than tanks or semi/tanks.
Healing: 3 3 is for a chirurgeon alchemist, otherwise it’s a 1 or 2. Chirurgeon are first class healers though, and can give out a lot of healing in a turn.
Control: 2 Debilitating bombs, poisons, alchemical items and the such give alchemists a great many ways to debuff opponents.
OOC:
Exploration: 4 Alchemists can buff skills on the go, have the right tool for the job on a whim, recall knowledge like champs, and even be thievery or stealth focused.
Downtime: 3 Being heavily crafting focused helps alchemists perform well during downtime, no unique or auto scaling feature though.

I try to evaluate the class as a whole, into what it can potentially provide for your party.

As an exemple: Alchemist has potions which are abundant and heal for quite a lot (not as much as a heal spell though) but also has access to the chirurgeon field, even though not all alchemists will go that route. (2 or 3 in healing was a debate for Alchemist I'll grant, but in the end since I'd put investigator which has 2 paths that grant healing (tincture and forensic, the Alchemist can potentially have both at the same time, hence the 3).

I rated warpriest at 2 in healing because in my understanding most warpriests want to go for cast down+channel smite which means you either go versatile font or harmful font? That might be a mistake though.

For witches and other prepared casters, while in early levels they could struggle at having damage and control, eventually as prepared casters they can do both at whim, changing by what they want to be doing that day, the ability to pivot is key here. Yes some spell lists are better at it than others, but overall each spell list has an abundance of damage and control. The ability of witches to grab any one of those is core to their narrative power.

For downtime... Well it really depends on campaign ? Kingmaker is upcoming (and I'm running my own) and downtime has been quintessential, same thing in SoT where we are crafting our items at massive discounts. AoA has massive parts with downtime activities, specially in chapter 5, and ultimately, if you don't have a caster to teleport you to Absalom, crafting is literally the only way to get upper level items in mass.

Teleport and shadow walk are uncommon spells so if you're in a campaign within a set world with a max settlement level of 7-11, which is very probable, downtime is key to progression as otherwise your martials will be woefully undergeared and underperforming (this is currently happening in our EC siege of the dinosaur game despite us having access to Absalom! We got sieged in while being undergeared and are struggling) so while I agree that downtime takes MUCH less time than combat, it is proportionally just as important to determine how your character impacts the game.

I've had parties that shifted their entire class picks when an inventor got in the party because "f@%% yeah, we got a crafter dude!" And that's part of the perks of the inventor I'd say.

But definitely on downtime YMMV

Touché!

It's a nice overview, but to actually mean anything you should add why you come to these values, and also which variant of the class you're looking at for these values. Not all barbs do the same damage, same as rogues, same with rangers.

Edit: I missed your post where you mentioned to explain the ranking. Would be very useful indeed. I would love to see how a champion would do more damage than a two-weapon flurry ranger.

Edit 2: I agree with what I saw elsewhere about tiers also being defined by level. low level play can be a lot different than high level play, on all fronts.

I'll add a paragraph to each class definitely! And the values are up for debate anyhow.

I could also do further sub-divisions, such as healing font cleric vs harming font cleric.

For Good Champion damage vs Flurry Ranger I admit at the time I was thinking of Paladin, which has an easily triggerable actions per round that deal persistent good damage, which in turn triggers weaknesses very often. Levels 14+ it can do that reaction twice a round, on top of its actions, which can be incredibly damaging.

If I take the class as a whole with redeemer and liberator, a 4 would likely be more appropriate.

I would disagree.

Aid is a circumstance bonus that scales up to +4. Circumstance means that it stacks with status such as inspire courage, heroism and marshal aura.

It's also at 30 ft. range, affects any of your ally within 30 ft (meaning you don't have to say ''I aid such'') and keys off your strongest skill.

Lower levels, it's useful, higher levels where a crit success is guaranteed? great value

I also thought the geb vs whispering way schism was weird

Google doc is done, but will probably undergo several changes. I could also do a paragraph to explain the ranking of each class

I am still working on the google doc and excel, reason I posted here first is I had the whole forum coding done already and didn't want to lose it.

I'll post again to indicate when I'm done.

Through another thread, we have discussed much on what is power in pf2e, what is relevant, and which class is best at what.

Through that, I've devised a system of weighted ranking that I believe could be helpful to new players that are looking for an answer for the eternal ''which class to play'' question.

This guide has two goals

1 - To accurately represent the ability of each class to affect meaningful change to multiple areas of the narrative at broad, through only their core class kit, discounting archetypes, skill feats, general feats, items and ancestries as non-pertinent to the matter.

2 - In a broader sense, to accurately determine how these classes intermesh with each other in a party, so as to determine where a party, based on only their classes, might be weak or strong, and thus tailor further build options around that, if so desired.

To reach those objectives, I've devised a ranking system that will give a brief ranking to each class on scales described bellow. I will then aggregate those points for each class, but this is in no means a reflection of their power, merely of how varied and versatile a class can be. Every class performs differently based on campaign and classes that are weak in downtime could perform very well in a short timeline campaign, but less well in a multi-years campaign (such as AoA or SoT)

The rating system takes the class as a whole from level 1 to level 20.

The rating system is based on:

15 points for the combat rating:
Damage: 6 points
Survivability: 3 points
Healing: 3 points
Control 3 points

10 Points for the out-of-combat rating system
Exploration: 5 points
Downtime: 5 points

These premises stipulate a ratio of roughly 60% combat to 40% exploration in most campaigns.

These premises stipulate that damage is double the value of any other aspect of combat.

Overall I believe this to be a fairly reasonable rating system, not perfect, but not irrelevant as well.

I will post the rankings on this google doc, so I can keep it up to date as new classes come out

This calculator will enable people to come in and automatically get the stats for their party, to see where their party might be weak

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

Rules to be ignored: Shadowrun

Shadowrun is pretty edition-dependent too. Like, it has seen some serious shifts back and forth over the years.

I think of it as "Shadowrun is a big system, and 80% of it works". It's just that the 20% of it that doesn't work changes dramatically from edition to edition.

And then there's the piss poor book editing and review.

I remember one of the 5e books had an endless reference loop for drones and just.... No rules for drones when you parsed it. Despite drones being actively a thing that was in the game !

Also ultimately.... Yes you can cast lifeboost in combat but it's best use is to heal max spell level*8 every 10mins outside of combat.

Last I checked, a psychic can’t give you fast healing for 4 rounds equal to 2x your level so, not really invalidated, no.

Also something to be said for prepared casters that can just memorize remove curse on the day if they need it.

Yah and restoration, remove disease, etc etc. They can also easily prep utility like tongues, teleport, shadow walk, lock, glyph of warding, etc.

And lessons of life IS clutch

Castilliano wrote:

I'd say Monks have the most of what I'll call agency. They have the mobility to go where they want, the defenses to remain there if they wish, and the free hands to Interact/maneuver as needed.

...
Monks don't have good speed, they have the best speed, speed so far ahead it strains other builds to catch up, and backed by feats that build on that.

I agree, and I love how a monk's movement speed serves to further create action economy for the monk.

One of my favorite examples of this "agency" (I like that term) is on a monk with the Medic Dedication's Doctor's Visitation.

In 3 actions/1 turn, this monk can do what would take most characters 7 actions/3 turns to accomplish:

> Move 50 feet (2 actions for the price of 1... assuming a 25 ft movement speed for another character)
> Flurry of Blows (2 more actions for the price of 1)
> Doctor's Visitation (move 50 feet...administer Battle Medicine to an ally...that's 3 actions for the price of 1)

Is this an optimal turn/approach to combat? <shrug>

Does it feel good to play? It feels great to play

As a side note: in my iron gods game in the ultimate fight agaisnt Hellion, the swashbuckler with medic dedication did just that. With panache swashys have as much speed as monks so she was constantly moving around with doctors visitation and healing everyone, tripping the low ref DC boss and she did almost no damage, but she was the most impactful character in the fight.

Definitely a rewarding playstyle that the monk would also be great at.

Here is Ronald's Video

Perpdepog wrote:

Temperans wrote:

It makes it worse given that Clerics and Druids know all their spells (at least all the common ones). But then Wizard and Witch have to pay exorbitant amounts of gold for something that most of the time wont even be useful.

I shudder to imagine how tight your games have to be that half, or quarter, the price of a scroll of equivalent level to learn a spell is considered "exorbitant."

I am not calling a single spell exorbitant. I am calling the total sum of all those spells that people expect prepared casters to have exorbitant.

It really adds up! The level 9 witch in iron gods is easily 700-900 behind other PC's in gold because I've been generous on the spellbooks.

AlastarOG wrote:

I've never really liked the monk, that being said I think pf2e did a fair take on it.

I would however fix minor things like:

Monastic weaponry being included into the class without a feat.

Brawling focus being integrated at 7 like the other martials.

Right now monk weapons, a big part of the flavour and theme, are horrible for them.

Aside from that, not really my cup of tea but pretty decent.

Just a note that it would be 5 for Brawling Focus.

Noted, wasn't sure and had spotty wifi !

I've never really liked the monk, that being said I think pf2e did a fair take on it.

I would however fix minor things like:

Monastic weaponry being included into the class without a feat.

Brawling focus being integrated at 7 like the other martials.

Right now monk weapons, a big part of the flavour and theme, are horrible for them.

Aside from that, not really my cup of tea but pretty decent.

Thanks for the reference to my thread, love your channel keep up the great work ^^

Two things:

1: Electric arc can easily be added to a psychics arsenal through their ancestry magic class feat and ancestry powers (humans, tengu, etc. ). I'm looking at a tengu psychic build level 3 right now, and I got to say that the ability to shred out 2d4+8 damage on two targets as an int occult caster with the right DC has me excited!

2: spell attack rolls are tricky and a subject of many debates *gestures at thread*. I agree with the Dev's ultimate decision of not putting item bonuses, that being said as a Gm I have tentatively added consumable items that give item bonuses to spell attack rolls, as well as permanent items that add item bonuses to spell attack rolls but only ones with certain trait.

Ex: Souldrinker is a sacrificial +1 striking cunning dagger that allows you to gain death knell when you use it to kill an ennemy. It also gives a +1 item bonus to spell attack rolls with spells that have the evil trait. It is a level 8 item.

In my understanding of the scaling , if you do add item bonuses to spell attack rolls it should NOT be on par with potency runes. +1 at levels 8 and 16 would be my take.

AlastarOG wrote:

I have been running an undead game for a year now (kingmaker but with characters that are all dhampir and run a necromantic empire )

One of them is a cleric of Urgathoa and if you know kingmaker you know that there's undead in there (vordakai being the main one).

How I've presented it to my player is that... They don't know. Gods don't negotiate and deal with their followers, especially not goddesses like Urgathoa. You can get a phylactery of faithfulness to know when you'd violate anathema though !

That being said, Urgathoa is not the most merciful or understanding of deities, so I feel like players having "a logical and reasonable" reason as to why they're killing an undead would be lost on her. It doesn't matter to her, you devote yourself to her and in exchange she grants you power. Part of that devotion is the tenant that you will put undead life above all else's no matter the cost.

That being said, as mentionned above, if you're not DIRECTLY killing the undead but enhancing someone who is, well, Urgathoa also strikes me as a deity who enjoys a good loophole that craddles the line.

And if you're a GM and you think your players are playing loosey goosey with the Anathema, I'd like to remind you that Urgathoa's minor curse is HILARIOUS!

"You must overindulge or partake in forbidden feasts before you find yourself even remotely sated. You need to eat 20 times as much food as normal to avoid starvation, though you always feel hungry regardless of how much you eat. If you dine on the flesh and blood of sapient creatures, you need to eat only the normal amount of such meals and your hunger abates."

This would be my starting point to punish an anathema violator.

PS: cleric of anathema in Geb can be very potent because of anthemic reprisal. If everyone in your party is an undead, anyone attacking your party is committing anathema against your faith ;-)

I would not ask for the phylactery of faithfulness.

The PCs have been indoctrinated in...

**Gestures wildly at the entirety of catholic philosophy and ethics**

The thing with learning spells is that you don't try to learn spells of your highest spell level unless you really need that spell or otherwise it will be expensive.

I usually go for the spell level-2 rule, like if I have lvl 3 spells at the highest then I will mass learn lvl 1 spells as I will crit success almost all of them.

But at the same time as a prepared caster only having 2 spells for your 2-3 spell slots can be somewhat limiting, especially if you're picking one that's situational cause you need it right now (like turning level 7 and really needing the veil spell cause you're about to go on an infiltration mission)

Does the Psychic invalidate the Witch? No.

Does the Psychic make me wish the Witch was anywhere near as customizable and interesting as it? Absolutely.

Yeah I guess this reaches my sentiment more precisely.

I have been running an undead game for a year now (kingmaker but with characters that are all dhampir and run a necromantic empire )

One of them is a cleric of Urgathoa and if you know kingmaker you know that there's undead in there (vordakai being the main one).

How I've presented it to my player is that... They don't know. Gods don't negotiate and deal with their followers, especially not goddesses like Urgathoa. You can get a phylactery of faithfulness to know when you'd violate anathema though !

That being said, Urgathoa is not the most merciful or understanding of deities, so I feel like players having "a logical and reasonable" reason as to why they're killing an undead would be lost on her. It doesn't matter to her, you devote yourself to her and in exchange she grants you power. Part of that devotion is the tenant that you will put undead life above all else's no matter the cost.

That being said, as mentionned above, if you're not DIRECTLY killing the undead but enhancing someone who is, well, Urgathoa also strikes me as a deity who enjoys a good loophole that craddles the line.

And if you're a GM and you think your players are playing loosey goosey with the Anathema, I'd like to remind you that Urgathoa's minor curse is HILARIOUS!

"You must overindulge or partake in forbidden feasts before you find yourself even remotely sated. You need to eat 20 times as much food as normal to avoid starvation, though you always feel hungry regardless of how much you eat. If you dine on the flesh and blood of sapient creatures, you need to eat only the normal amount of such meals and your hunger abates."

This would be my starting point to punish an anathema violator.

PS: cleric of anathema in Geb can be very potent because of anthemic reprisal. If everyone in your party is an undead, anyone attacking your party is committing anathema against your faith ;-)

I fully agree that being prepared is the dividing line here.

An issue with prepared casters though that I have mostly only recently come to understand (and read the tier list thread to see just how much I understand the advantages of being a prepared caster) is the drop in purchasing power.

Learning spells in your spellbook costs a lot of money, vs spontaneous spellcasters who will need to use the learn a spell activity like 3-4 times in their career. Half of the wealth of the witch in my iron gods game has gone to making their familiar lick the pages clean of the spellbooks the group has found.

They're very versatile! But it's cost a lot ..

With the new class coming out, I find myself looking back over my currently running games and thinking to myself "wouldn't this character be better as a psychic instead of an occult with?"

The three characters I have in mind are:

Occult patron tengu who's a paranormal detective in a legend of the 5 rings style game.

Haughty elf witch who's known as a darkmaster to her elf peers, currently a curse elf witch.

Upcoming night curse fetching shadow caster witch, but the player is considering not playing witch cause psychic is so interesting.

So in all of these cases the answer is that I do want to play the psychic for that character role more than the witch. I did not necessarily want a familiar with all of these and it's not like familiars are unique to the witch class anyways (fetchling shadow caster build wanted a shadow familiar but shadow caster provides it...)

And outside of the familiar the witch class provides.... Very little.

Aside from that it was very synergistic with its INT key ability and occultism synergy but now... Well two of the subconscious minds have int as key ability, and psychic casts occultism and has better skill synergy with occultism through class abilities.

So I'd say that the occult witch has very much been made irrelevant by the psychic, who delivers a weird, dark take on occult casting and reliable, repeatable powers and focus point usage that the witch just fails at delivering.

Which leaves the witch with 3 more familiar powers. Don't get me wrong, I like familiars...but they don't make a class by themselves.

Also 1 spell slot more per level, which isn't that bad since you can use class feats as a psychic to even out, and the class feats are overall better too, giving you near spell abilities.

Share your thoughts.

Also reminds me of needle of vengeance

Greetings,

I have a bit of an interrogation about the forbidden thought cantrip:

You place a psychic lock in a foe's mind that prevents it from a specific action. Choose “Strike,” “Stride,” “Cast a Spell,” or a specific action you know the creature to have (such as “Breath Weapon” against a dragon). If the creature attempts that action on its next turn, it must surmount your lock to do so, causing it to take 1d6 mental damage plus your spellcasting ability modifier (with a basic Will save). The target is then temporarily immune for 1 minute.

Why use the "lock" terminology? Is the action forbidden until the save is successful? It doesn't sound like that from the cantrip, it sounds more like if they do the locked action they just take molding damage.

Then on an amp, if they fail they're stunned 1. Does that mean they lose all remaining actions in the round?

How do other people read this one ?

This is one of those few areas where I think 5e did it best with how they classify "monk weaponry"

It's simple, elegant, and you kinda make it work, and it unlocks exotic monk builds like bare chested samurai or exotically dressed fan girl monk fighter that are simply not viable in 2e.

I might actually homebrew that a bit in my Isekai game since one of the players wants to play a Monk.

Yes but my point was more along the lines of:

It's not a de facto bonus, it's a conditional one, even more so because brawling focus is in the same window as stunning fist.

For those saying: critical specialisation.

Monks don't get auto-critical specialisation, they need to pay a feat for it.

So that just adds to the feat tax.

Imo monastic weaponry and brawling focus should be part of the standard kit.

Cordell Kintner wrote:

aobst128 wrote:

One fun thing it looks like you could do with ammunition thaumaturgy is throw shurikens with a hand occupied by an implement.

While you can reload using the hand the hand you're holding your implement with, you can't Strike with it, so that doesn't work at all how you think it would.

We just need a shuriken gun and we're good. Yeah, wouldn't work like that but It would be fun. Hopefully we get some support for shurikens in the future so we can utilize it's reload 0 since currently, they're just worse throwing knives once you start putting runes on one so you need a returning rune, making reload 0 completely irrelevant

This is one GM's judgment but I'd definitely let you reflavor an air repeater as a shuriken gun !

For unicore, I edited this in:

Also I find item bonuses to skills to be much more practical, I rarely get weapons for this trait, cause armbands of athleticism give you +2 to maneuvers AND climbing/swimming/jumping.

Then the apex items just give you +3 across board and are am assumed item.

So AT BEST those traits are niche and situational. Stances are better all of the time.

Elven branched spear monk with an elven curve blade on their back looks amazing though, too bad it costs me 3 feats to match baseline stances and thus I'll never try it.

You know ... If I were to play a Monk one day.

Isn't the value of Monk weapons that they have lots of traits like disarm, trip, grapple, shove, etc? The value here is that 1 shifting rune pretty much gets you an item bonus to any combat maneuver you want to perform without spending feats on stances that have the matching trait.

Yah but the stances do too.

Also I find item bonuses to skills to be much more practical, I rarely get weapons for this trait, cause armbands of athleticism give you +2 to maneuvers AND climbing/swimming/jumping.

Then the apex items just give you +3 across board and are am assumed item.

So AT BEST those traits are niche and situational. Stances are better all of the time.

Right... I must be the one playing the TTRPGs wrong by wanting to use a bow and arrow without main class features stripped away for no good reason.

Toxic community much?

You're not playing wrong, but several other classes have great bow synergy.

Thaumaturge ain't ont of them.

And paizo is definitely not dumping on bows, we have a like 350 post thread that's about how bows are overpowered over everything else including guns.

With math

And excel tables and stuff.

So your comment kinda sounds like a "woe is me" comment.

Very nice, might steal some of that, my players are about to begin choking tower in my 2e conversion.

@mathmuse:

I think my favorite Oracle NPC was Cassandalee.

Ancestor Oracle that lived all her past android lives? So flavorful!

Precision ranger do have the action economy to make devastating gun sniper shots.

Gravity weapon+ hunt prey+ shoot , round 2: reload, shoot, reload.

Kinda works since precision ranger is all about that first attack.

My main question would be what happens when you cast a shadow reservoir spell with a ranged touch attack using a shadow signet.

Is it the highest of fort/ref DC or will DC?

(I concur with everyone else, this basically allows you to have more spells in your repertoire)

Before guns and gears came out I was kind of expecting the guns to have a high damage high risk reward, a bit like what the inventor gave us.

Something like an overturned damage option, I'm talking d10/d12 ranged weapons with the deadly trait and maybe backstabber for the big ones, and some d8 options with reload 0 and maybe agile. Something that's overtuned vs bows/crossbows.

But then you balance that out with misfires on a critical miss, making the weapon jam, taking 2 or 3 actions to unclog (less if gunslinger) and dealing minor damage to you.

I was a bit disappointed, but I can understand why it swung that way.

here is the breakdown, with the fighter assuming they have point blank shot and start it round 1. When greater striking runes come into play and longbow overtakes shortbow as best candidate for point blank shot, fighter switches to a longbow.

The gunslinger is better at outputting damage in the mid level ranges with the fatal trait, but that tappers off as the fighter styles just explode in the higher levels.

Overall though I'd say it's pros and cons

Just saw your post Michael, great points overall and I agree.

I'm not in front of comp right now but to Michael's points I'll run the gauntlet excel calc I had going for the magus vs fighter thread and try to work in mechanics on both sides and check out an edge.

I already had the full calc from one to 20 for a shortbow fighter. Adding a gunslinger comparison should be easy.

Also afterwards I'll specify it, but the shortbow shooter has the edge in reactions, because of the reload mechanics the gunslinger is terrible at using shit reactions, where the shortbow user is great at them.

AlastarOG wrote:

@aobst128: I agree about combination weapons, right now they just kinda make me sad.

On the iron gods campaign, one of my players actually fell in love with the idea of a gunsword, but then upon learning it was 2handed and didn't work with quick draw dropped it cause just having a bastard sword was better for her flurry ranger build.

So as a gm I modded it, I made gunsword 1 handed (for melee) and allowed the switch to work with quick draw, and she really likes the feel.

I understand why the balance point came down that way, but sometimes as Gm's we have to allow our players to go SWOOSH SLASH CLICK CLACK PEW PEW PEW without too much hassle.

Wait, why wouldn’t a gun sword work with quick draw? There are no restrictions on the kind of weapons it works with.

I had understood that quick draw would not allow you to switch from the melee to ranged mode on a combination weapon, I could have been wrong.

Prologue - A Feast in Redwall

It is a crisp, clear, cool day at the set of winter in Mossflower Wood. The sun rose to greet a brilliant blue sky devoid of all but the most distant of clouds, with a gentle breeze only slightly stirring the trees to announce the oncoming spring.

Yet since well before the dawn - much of the day prior, and even through much of the night - it has been anything but quiet in Redwall Abbey. The people of the old fortress have been hard at work, bustling between this job and that, preparing the abbey for a crowd unlike any that has shared its halls in generations, and a feast to satisfy them all.

Today Redwall hosts visitors from throughout the known lands today, from the high reaches of Marshwood to the swamps and woods of Southsward, from the peaks of Salamandastron to the depths of the old caves, from the windswept Badlands to the mountains of the north to the far reaches of the western sea. Under banner of truce, peace, and welcome never before extended over all of Redwall Country, the gates of the abbey have been opened to any who would come to bear witness to this historic moment.

The lands of Mossflower and the surrounding territories to the north and west are well-known to the peoples of Redwall Abbey and its various extended allies and neighbors. But few have dared travel east, beyond the deepest reaches of Mossflower Wood, to find what lies beyond the forest's darkest groves - the land that, in recent months as the final plans and preparations have come together through the past autumn and winter, has come to be called the Deep Green.

Today begins the end of that mystery. A coalition of allies has chosen to sponsor an exploratory journey east, to travel into the great reaches of the Mossflower Wood and learn what resides there, perhaps even to establish a new domain in that unexplored territory. Legends abound of lost travelers, roguish bandits both vile and heroic, cruel monsters, and dread hauntings, and it will be their duty to discern truth from fiction.

Thus have the residents of Redwall been laboring for anywhere from the past day to the past fortnight, depending on the task placed in their hands, in preparation for today. The cooks have been busy beyond measure, creating among the grandest feasts that have ever graced the tables of the Great Hall. Farmers, hunters, and caretakers have gathered the supplies and resources needed to provide for such a fantastic spread. Woodworkers, fletchers, blacksmiths, tailors, leatherworkers, and craftsmice of countless other sorts have prepared supplies, equipment, and resources for the departing, ensuring they will be sent off with suitable protection - both from the elements and from dangers of the wilds - and armament when the time comes. Apothecaries and herbalists have done the same for their health against the ravages of poison, disease, and infirmity, as best they can, gathering and stockpiling what medicinal materials can be spared both for the intrepid few who will lead the way after today, and those who may eventually follow if indeed the Deep Green is suited for others to call home.

And of course, the warriors and defenders of Redwall have prepared themselves for the possibility that, among the many visitors they will see this day, not all come in peace. Bandits, brigands, and pirates still abound in the lands of Mossflower, as much as all would wish otherwise, and many would see such a gathering of seemingly-ill-defended visitors packed within the abbey's walls as a prime opportunity for foul-gotten gain; likewise an opportunistic owl, eagle, or serpent might well sense this many gathered prey as an easy chance to make one or two stragglers disappear unnoticed. It was the duty of Redwall's defenders to ensure this did not happen, that by neither malice nor by inaction was their promise of peace broken this day.

Thus, if one could name or even think of a person of import in all of Mossflower and the lands that surround it, and if they were even inclined toward the pretense of peace and civility, one would find them present at this great gathering today. All of Redwall of course was present, including its Abbot Dajali, Champion and bearer of the Sword of Martin the Warrior Eleine the Shieldsquirrelmaid, and Badger Mother Ardulia, as well as the sparrow Banchak of the Warbeaks. Sammson, Badger Lord of Salamandastron and elder brother of Ardulia, was present accompanied by several members of the famed Long Patrol hares. A delegation from the Toad Lands, led by Greatwart Olorg. Zjeva the High Seer, from the Gorge of Foxes. The Guosim shrews and their leader Log-a-Log. Kasskit the Egg-Keeper, Great Warrenmother of the Marshwood Lizards. Almost too many sailing captains and famed travelers to count. And more, so many more, too many to name, too many to remember.

It was a miracle Redwall could hold them all. Yet hold them it did, and with room to spare.

New arrivals were met at the gates, where their weapon were taken by a combination of Redwall sentinels, Long Patrollers, and lizard-knights, ensuring that none enter the abbey proper armed with anything beyond tooth and claw, that the peace might be better preserved. Then they are ushered forward through the open lawns and into the Great Hall. Even though no food has yet been served, the mingled scents of the countless dishes in the final stages of preparation or waiting for the moment of the feast to come can already be smelled wafting through the air, tempting and tantalizing the crowds as they mingle and converse, waiting for the events of the day to unfold. Even those with the sharpest of noses can't quite distinguish the individual scents from one another, so blended are they currently, but all are certain that the time is yet short before the feast will begin.

The clatter of the last minutes of labor in the abbey likewise mingles with the susurrus of countless conversations both quiet and aloud as the visitors and residents pass the time within the Great Hall. Eyes dart about here and there, looking for familiar faces, famous names, and most of all curiosity-driven glances toward the fortunate few chosen to take the first steps on behalf of all Mossflower into the Deep Green.

Who are these brave souls? What have they done to earn this privilege - or what crime are they being sent to repay? What skills, friendships, or leverage to they possess that I lack? Are the gazes those of envy? Of fear? Of pride? Of hope? Of trepidation?

All and none and more, it seems, depending on where in the crowd one glances.

Winter falls, spring rises, and today we feast - for tomorrow we tread into the unknown.

The lands of Mossflower and the surrounding territories to the north and west are well-known to the peoples of Redwall Abbey and its various extended allies and neighbors - the badger kingdom of Salamandastron, the bats of Mountpit, the Toad Lands to the south, and the like. But few have dared travel east, beyond the deepest reaches of Mossflower Wood, to find what lies beyond the forest's darkest groves.

You gather at Redwall Abbey for a final farewell feast before beginning your sojourn into the unknown. The Deep Green awaits!

That pretty much sums up the long and short of it. I'm looking for 2-4 players to help fill out a group for a Kingmaker(-based, loosely, expect some modifications to the story for obvious reasons!) campaign set in the world of Redwall and Mossflower. I'm aiming for a total party size of 5-6 and currently have a handful of potentially-interested people, but not enough for a full group. If you're interested, feel free to read through the rules below and consider if it's your sort of thing!

Ruleset: Pathfinder 1e

Character creation rules: Characters must be non-evil.

Create with a starting array 16 15 14 12 10 8 before race adjustments.

Race and class options listed below, feel free to ask if you feel you have a specific request that's not on the list but meets the same/similar feel and mechanics.

Ruleset: Pathfinder 1e

Character creation rules: Characters must be non-evil.

Create with a starting array 16 15 14 12 10 8 before race adjustments.

Race and class options listed below, feel free to ask if you feel you have a specific request that's not on the list but meets the same/similar feel and mechanics.

Introductory Premise: The lands of Mossflower and the surrounding territories to the north and west are well-known to the peoples of Redwall Abbey and its various extended allies and neighbors - the badger kingdom of Salamandastron, the bats of Mountpit, the toad lands to the south, and the like. But few have dared travel east, beyond the deepest reaches of Mossflower Wood, to find what lies beyond the forest's darkest groves.

Today begins the end of that mystery. A coalition of allies has chosen to sponsor an exploratory journey east, to travel into the great reaches of the Mossflower Wood and learn what resides there, perhaps even to establish a new domain in that unexplored territory. Legends abound of lost travelers, roguish bandits both vile and heroic, cruel monsters, and dread hauntings, and it will be your duty to discern truth from fiction.

You gather at Redwall Abbey for a final farewell feast before beginning your sojourn into the unknown. The Deep Green awaits!

You don't see a lot of cities in the Northlands, especially cities mostly full of humans and human-looking things. The Dragons don't tend to like it when mortal kingdoms try to carve claim to parts of the territory used for their Long Game, y'see. But there are a few exceptions here and there, small outposts and little towns where they're either securely in a friendly Dragon's territory where there's not much risk of losing them to a rival, or are in parts of the Northlands that nobody wants or cares about enough to lay claim to them or drive out softskinned invaders.

Torch is one of those places, the former specifically 'cause this place is waaaaaay too interesting to be ignored. The town is named for and built around Torch Hill, a place where a biiiiiig column of purple fire used to shoot up out of the ground, which was excellent for everything from alchemy to metallurgy to glassmaking. When it really got going, it could even melt skymetal!

Then it went out. Poof. No more torch in Torch. That's kinda a big deal here. Everything runs off the torch, it's what keeps this place alive.

So it didn't surprise me much when my Boss went looking for answers. I'm apprenticed to a mage engineer named Khonnir Baine, who's also a sort of town leader on the council that runs things here. So when the torch went dead, he gathered up a team to look into it.

A few days later, I get a message from another councilor, Dolga Freddert, asking for help tracking him down. I was kinda surprised it came to me instead of Val, but I guess she's also gotta keep the Foundry running, so I got the buzz instead.

I showed up early to get a drink while I waited, and didn't take me long to notice the others Freddert had gathered up to help with the search. There's Ellie, a nice human girl who's a healer priest of some god or another, she never really specified. There's Sully, a big orc guy with a weird hat who really likes to ramble about weird stuff, complaining about "Big Farmers" and "governments hiding ayleeins from us". There's Ratao, a quiet fellow with a scarf over his face. And there's Ratthew, a kinda scrawny human who kept ranting about working at a grindstone and how he's not in alpha testing anymore, which hey good for him, masonry's a respectable craft.

Freddert was a bit confused by some of us, but she eventually got the idea across that we were supposed to gear up for going into the nearby lake caves to look for the Boss; we were even advised to head to the Inventor's temple and have old Joram give us magic to breathe water so we could get through the lakes easier. It took a while to coordinate the group, especially since Sully and Ratthew really wanted to do a lot of weird talking about stuff I admittedly couldn't fully follow, but we did make it over there eventually, get a bit of chatting with old Joram, watch Sully get dizzy watching one of the gizmos spin and fall on his tail, then get our magic and head out on our way.

Granted, me and my heavy armored coat and big crossbow aren't much made for swimming. So I just walked across the bottom of the lake until I got to the cave side and climbed back out. Some of the others got across no problem, but one of 'em needed a bit of a helping hand from Ellie, though I didn't get a look at which one.

Inside the cave, almost immediately we found a body stuffed in a side chamber full of stalagmites - one of the town's local fighters, sliced up with a knife. CAVE MURDER.

I made my way through that passage, the others squeezing their way through as well, then we found a pile of junk and a bunch of weird drawings on the wall, three-legged beasties and four-armed people unlike anything I or the others've ever seen. I was able to tell they were a bit less than a month old - older than the torch going dead, but not reeeally old.

Whatever they were, they sure got Sully excited, and he got really loud about it being "proof" of something or other. This got the attention of a weird grey-skinned man slunking about the caves, and he ran up and stabbed Ratao something nasty before I could plug him with my crossbow, and Ratthew and Ellie could start flinging spells at him. We took him down pretty quickly, and nicked his knife. One of the others said it was a beasty called a Skulk, Sully I think.

This was clearly the Cave Murderer. One mystery solved! But there's a lot more cave to explore, and we still haven't found the Boss yet.

I'm looking (distantly) to run a modified Reign of Winter for my Neverwinter Nights server community one day, using a Spelljammer crew who have made semi-regular guest appearances and been part of small-scale "let's go travel to this other planet and do a one-shot quest for funsies!" stuff. I'd like some advice/suggestions for adapting the AP accordingly.

I know the plot's going to start on Faerun - since that's where the server's set - and Rasputin Must Die! and possibly Witch Queen's Revenge are going to be relatively unchanged as far as locale (plot modifications remain to be seen - I imagine there's at least a decent chance that the party/parties will decide "@#%$ it, we're helping Elvanna" rather than aid the multiversally-infamous Baba Yaga). Rather than just bouncing around Golarion's solar system otherwise, though, I want to go more Spelljammery and have the Dancing Hut lead the party/parties on a merry chance throughout the crystal spheres.

The Shackled Hut is possibly best to stay on Golarion - meaning the portals that appear in Snows of Summer will need to take people from Toril to Golarion, simple enough - to explain all the backstory stuff. What's still undecided is what to do with the other two chapters. My knee-jerk reaction is to revamp the one that's all about dragons to be set on Krynn somehow, and to plonk down the remaining one on Oerth somewhere there can be a guest appearance by Tashonna/Tasha/Iggwilv. I'm not quite familiar enough with Dragonlance (outside the barebones of the first few books) or Greyhawk to know right off the top of my head where those should go.

The alternative is to put The Shackled Hut instead on a different world somewhere, then revamp Witch Queen's Revenge to go to Golarion to tangle with either Elvanna or Baba Yaga - depending on which side in the conflict the PCs choose - rather than solely into the depths of the Hut, probably by going through Elvanna's backdoor portal there and into Irrisen proper, and having the final showdown there instead of in the depths of the Hut's demiplanes. This adds a third adventure that needs a location, if Shackled Hut isn't set on Golarion; could bring Eberron into the mix somewhere there, as either that adventure or one of the other two (though probably not the dragon one, given the near-complete absence of dragon interaction with humanoids in Eberron).

Advice, suggestions, and recommendations welcome! I saw how much this forum was good at providing alternative options for Rasputin Must Die! for players who don't want to have Earth show up in their fantasy game, so I'm quite eager and curious what you might all recommend in this case.

This seems like the most logical place to put this.

Hello! Long time no see for some of you. In the past year and change I and my fiancee Scintillae have been working on an idea for a YouTube project combining playing video games with discussing books. After a lot of discussion, procrastination, and consideration, we started Crit & Crit (short for Critical & Critique) in late 2021.

We currently just completed a series on the first Harry Potter book coupled with Final Fantasy V, and have two other series - Pygmalion by George Shaw and Mega Man X, and A Christmas Carol by Dickens and Pokemon Christmas - in our backlog. More HP/FFV is coming in the future, though we will be having short breaks between books to discuss other things and play other games.

Click here to view our channel if you think this is something you'll find entertaining! We upload on Sundays and Wednesdays, around noon US Central time.

So my party has basically done everything possible to derail this campaign - completely benignly, not out of malice or wanting to fhtagn with me as the DM, just that they're a very abnormal party as far as following the expected progression of events. And while most of this I can roll with fine, there's a few things I'd appreciate a little feedback or suggestions on.

Party composition, for reference: (We are playing a Gestalt game, since only 3 PCs)
Halfling Swashbuckler (inspired blade) |Magus (Bladebound/Kensai)
Changeling Oracle (Mystic Theurge)|Invoker (Star Pact)
Human Oracle (Life)|Harbinger (Crimson Countess)

First and foremost, Vanthus. At the end of Tides of Dread, the group did everything in their power to prevent him from being returned as an undead. They disintegrated his corpse after casting rest eternal, mixed the ashes with holy water, and buried the bottle in the hallowed graveyard in Farshore. This is obviously not enough to stop someone of Demogorgon's power from bringing him back, but I'm going to have to either explain how he got a physical body back in his undead form, have him come back as something incorporeal, or have him return as not-an-undead - and I don't want to make him just come back as a demon, that kinda nukes the reveal at the end with Ghorvash.

Secondly, Golismorga. The group was extremely suspicious of N'glothnoru, quickly discerned its true nature, and the party Star Invoker basically bullied it into a deal that keeps it from harassing the party - I forget the exact spell (if any) she used, I'll have to ask for a reminder - before getting as much info about the city out of it as they could. In addition, once there - and after getting some more info from Rakis-Ka - they decided to not shatter the Tlaloc's Tear and instead beelined directly for the Ziggurat and the Bilewretch, using a clever combination of magic and stealth to bypass most of the defenses, get inside quickly, and deal with the bosses and the problems of the shadow pearl-bilestone pipeline. Their main reason was that they feared the aboleth would be a greater threat than the kopru and their underlings, and that they didn't want to harm Barbas with the removal of the Cerulean Curtain and the flooding that would follow.

I'm not too worried about the deal - aboleth are schemey and I'm sure N'glothnoru will be able to weasel its way out of any parts of their agreement that it doesn't like - but without the city being flooded I'm not sure how he's meant to escape from his current prison. The state of Golismorga doesn't affect much of the plot going forward, admittedly, so I could just leave it all as water under the bridge (or not, as the case may be) but that feels kinda... anticlimactic. Like no Chekhov's Gun payoff for the deal with N'gloth.

Thirdly, I'm looking for a reason to get the group moving toward Scuttlecove and the later parts of the plot without pulling the damsel-in-distress thing with Lavinia; this group wouldn't likely respond well to that particular story beat, which hasn't aged well I admit and also doesn't jive greatly with how Lavinia's been played. I'm half tempted to have her run off on her own after Vanthus's return, instead. I'm also leaning toward pulling on a plot thread from the Wells of Darkness to lure the group down - apparently one of the imprisoned fiends there is very late for a meeting with an eldritch being from beyond the stars and has been receiving messengers demanding it pay its part of the deal, and I'm leaning toward having them approach the Invoker mentioned above and getting her to intervene on behalf of the dark places between stars.

And last but not least, I'm also wanting to bring back the ex-paladin Larcos from War of the Wielded, which I ran between chapters 1 and 2. The party made an enemy of him by keeping the intelligent blades (most of them, one of the really problematic ones they imprisoned) and killing the Kogloxen instead of using it to follow his scheme. He's particularly spiteful and vengeance-driven against the party Magus, who claimed one of the intelligent weapons as her Black Blade.

I replaced Rowyn with him in Chapter 3, since they had very thoroughly killed her in the first part before she could escape, and that worked well for the group; instead of killing him in this second encounter, they dumped him on a fortified island for the local authorities there to deal with. I'm thinking he's long since escaped and needs to show back up, though I'm not yet decided how.

Open to thoughts/suggestions all around!

In the mountains to the distant east, something stirs. Beyond the bitter cold of the barren lands, something wakes. A gasp, a scream, and an inhuman sound, as whatever slumbered forgotten in solemn Siberia comes forth from its prison once again, leaving the snow and stone red in its wake.

----------

As such things often do, word of the supernatural spreads along an unseen highway below the normal flow of information througout Europe and the lands beyond. Unbeknownst to the masses, secrets of ancient evils - the things barely spoken aloud for fear that even the thought of such could summon their wrath - are passed from hand to hand, mouth to mouth, ear to ear. From the shadows of the darkness beyond the boundaries of this known reality, on the leap day of this fateful year, CastleVania has returned.

As with all its previous resurrections, the Demon Castle's location has shifted once again. Those brave or foolish enough to seek its mysteries find themselves directed to the village of Băile Tușnad, little more than a stop on a well-used trade road passing through central Transylvania that received the occasional passersby but few permanent dwellers... until now. In the wake of CastleVania's appearance the village has become a gateway to the ancient keep and its haunted grounds, one by which nearly all travelers bound for the Palace of the King of Darkness - regardless of their purpose - will pass. The village, once nothing more than the site of a spring where traveling shepherds would pause to water their livestock and bathe, has opened arms to the trade and development, and the welcome growth of trained warriors, mercenaries, and opportunists to protect it against the growing threat of CastleVania's expanding influence.

And expand it has. In the mere three months since its reappearance, night has not been benevolent to the people of Băile Tușnad. The beasts of the wilderness about have become rabid and feral, driven into the city where before they would never venture, destroying life and livestock. The dead have become restless, and wander the lands aimlessly, assaulting any living beings they encounter. And within the past few weeks, nature itself seems to have turned against Băile Tușnad: weather has become erratic, storms and other maladies seemingly conjuring into existence from nowhere, and the coming of spring seems to be delayed by an onset of an extended winter.

As the capstone of this devastating malevolence, within only the past week the moon itself has inexplicably vanished from the sky on what should have been the week of the full. With each passing day the darkness grows, as if the stars themselves are following the moon's example, winking out of existence one by one.

----------

♫♪ Serenade of the Hearth ~ Michiru Yamane (Order of Ecclesia) ♫♪

Date: March 23, 1816 CE
Time: Noon
Place: Village of Băile Tușnad - five kilometers north of CastleVania's gates

By foot, by horse, or by caravan, you have made your way to the village of Băile Tușnad, following whatever contacts or informants have passed on the information of CastleVania's return and the location of its reappearance. Even during the day the blight of its presence is obvious: the air is frigid despite the strained glow of the sun, as if its warmth provides no lasting heat, and what should be fields of green sprinkled intermittently with color from the awakening of spring instead provides shades of brown and red not unlike a fall following a poor harvest. The village consists of no more than fifteen small homes as well as a few buildings that appear to be shops of some sort, a town hall that is easily the biggest building in Băile Tușnad, and an inn that claims second and strongly rivals for first.

The villagers seen on the streets are few, preferring the safety of their homes even during the day, but those you see are pleasant and welcoming despite their timidity. All requests for lodging, food, work, or information are directed to the massive inn at the village's center. Already present are several people who do not look to be natives of Băile Tușnad, and nearly all are in one way or another garbed as adventurers and travelers, not unlike yourselves.

Here, the next chapter begins.....

Well it's certainly been a while since I ventured into this part of the forums but here goes nothing!

This is a campaign I've been wanting to run for quite some time, a more open, freeform exploration story centered in the world of the CastleVania games and associated media (including the Bloodstained games and of course the CV anime). I'll be making some adaptations and adjustments for the sake of the system and the PbP format as well as the group dynamic versus the usual single explorer mechanic the games are built around, but I hope to get the feeling and atmosphere of the CastleVania setting and the open, nonlinear nature of exploring the castle and its mysteries down for your enjoyment and challenge.

I'm basing much of the early portions of the castle on the Maure Castle modules from Dragon Magazine, but pulling other sections from other areas and of course making my own adjustments as I go.

Feel free to ask any questions you have in mind, and I'll do my best to answer them swiftly and thoroughly.

This is going to be a fairly laid-back, casual project for me, so I wouldn't expect anything intense as far as expectation of schedule - if you can post two or three times a week, that'll be plenty for me, as that's about the rate I'll likely be making my own updates.

Character creation rules to follow; after that, feel free to start dropping inquiries and concepts and anything else you all feel like sharing. Thanks for stopping by and here's hoping this is fun for everyone involved =)

Trailer for Otosan (formerly known as Mother 4)

Demo link in video description.

I'm working on putting an adventure together, and part of the plot I want to do has several groups being instigated into conflict with one another by a fiend or some other evil creature with the ability to hijack divination, communion, and/or prophecy, thus convincing these groups' spiritual leaders that these conflicts are necessary and spurring them to action by divine command.

Does any creature already exist that possesses this ability or something like it?

Table of Contents link for convenience.

This is a story set in my group's homebrew gaming world that I have been working on and off on for about ten years now. I welcome any feedback, questions, or comments from anyone who would be generous enough to read it as I write. I can't promise a specific speed or rate of updates, though I will do my best to keep them semi-consistent around the general chaos of the rest of my day to day life. =)

Thank you in advance, and hope you enjoy!

Come one, come all, old aliases no longer seeing use due to lost PbPs, abandoned concepts, outdated jokes, vanished forumites, and changing community policies. Come and kick up your feet, lean back in a squeaky old rocking chair, and sip some old fashioned lemonade, and let's reminisce in a completely forum-legal and appropriate manner about the Old Days, how's that sound old chaps?

I recently started playing Dwarf Fortress again! It's been years since I'd touched it last and a lot of things have changed, but a lot have stayed the same. With the help of the DFWiki and some playthroughs on YouTube, I have begun making my way through the world of Dwarves and their Fortresses and the dangers, wonders, treasure, and chaos that come with them.

Follow along as I recount the tales of tragedy and triumph that I have to offer from the realm of Dwarf Fortress! =)

Shemmishthem, "Plankscholars"

Camade Liceva, "The Realm of Legends". What more fitting world can there be for our Dwarves to live and prosper in??

Of course, we'll need to select a proper location for our fortress. Can't just build in any old place. For those unfamiliar, you typically want most if not all of the following for your fort, especially if you're a first-timer: a nearby river, NO nearby aquifer, lots of wood in the surrounding area, and a ready availability of metals in both shallow and deep areas nearby. There are other things that you can prefer or not at your leisure - a temperate climate and calm environs helps, avoiding an evil-infested territory keeps some problems to a minimum, and not being too near other communities - especially those of goblins - can stave off hostilities for longer.

As you can see, I found a pretty suitable location here. My cursor isn't visible in this shot, but the place I've selected is in the inner curve of those grey mountains, alongside the green and gold areas in the bottom-center-right. It is to the descent of these mountains here that we will travel and build....

Plankscholars!! ... wait, what? Who picked this name?

Well, nothing for it now. We're in the southern foothills of the mountains and our dwarves are stuck in the open sun! Get digging, ladies and gents! We'll start by building a simple meeting area for people to gather whilst they wait for more instructions, then work on more detailed tasks.

It doesn't take us long to get a few rooms dug out. Most of these will be storage rooms for supplies - wood, stone, and so forth. That room at the bottom will be a kennel for our war and hunting dogs.

Meanwhile, all our chickens are underfoot! A coop is quickly constructed a short distance outside the main fortress entrance.

Stockpile rooms are made and designated, now it's time to start on workspace and residential. Dwarves don't want nor need a lot of room space unless they're nobles, at which point they get cranky and fussy and suddenly want a huge room all to themselves. So in the meantime, all these little apartments will do them just fine. And this big room here next to the stockpiles will be perfectly sized and located for a labor locale, where all our workshops will be set up.

That doesn't take long at all! A stockpile for finished goods is quickly added adjacent to the working quarters and a woodworker's is the first craftsdwarf workshop built, and almost immediately begins churning out the beds and doors that'll be needed for the residential areas. Meanwhile a food stockpile is constructed to the north, and work begins on a kitchen, brewery, and slaughterhouse.

Huzzah! A tavern is completed as well. So far so good! But there's already dwarves not at work. Let's do something about that.

... hey there little guy. Where'd you come from? I didn't bring you with me.

A representative from the homelands arrives and offers Kosoth Erithamen, our expedition leader, a barony title for establishing our fortress in such a remote, uncharted land. Here's hoping it doesn't go to his head.

We sent our miners down a level into the mountain to start delving, digging out stone and gems and carving open a large side space here to be used for eventual burials. Our chief miner, Led Medtobthimshur, carved out most of this on her own! Uhm, in fact, it's been a while since she's come back up. Led, you doin' okay down there...?

Oh. Oh no. Oh. Um.

So something I'd either forgotten or hadn't learned at the time, dwarves have... problems... with stairs. And Led here accidentally dug away the upwards stairs that would have been her way out. So with nowhere else to go and mining orders waiting, she dug and dug and dug until she got too thirsty to work, had a freakout, ran around the room, and died of dehydration.

Plankscholars's first loss. You will not be forgotten, deep delver.

A coffin is swiftly built, new stairs are built down - and properly back up this time! - and Led is the first to be interred into the burial chamber, along with a slab inscribed with the details of her life, accomplishments, and passing. May she rest easy.

... and the rest of the dwarves scarpered off with her belongings. Well, I guess she doesn't need 'em anymore.

I'm gonna need a new chief miner, though. And more labor in general.

... perfect.

Just another day on the Astral Plane.

The common room of the World Serpent Inn is as bustling and busy as ever, planar travelers coming and going at all hours of the timeless day, talking and arguing and bartering and threatening and all over a weatherworn table of unidentifiable wood or stone and one of a trillion different drinks and meals courtesy of the mysterious forces that occupy the realms behind the counter.

The Staff bustle about, carrying trays easily twice their gnomish size with impossible alacrity, dodging patrons and each other with acrobatic expertise that would shock any poor Primer to first stumble onto their demonstration. They vanish into doorways, under tables, through walls, and around corners, only to re-emerge somewhere else in the room, their trays refreshed and their vectors adjusted toward the next table on their list.

A thri-kreen weapons dealer argues in rough, ragged clicks and screeches with a mercane supplier, who looks down on the mantiswoman with that patient but condescending smile that says he's only willing to deal with her nonsense because it makes him a tidy profit by the end of the day.

A blue slaad babbles incoherently toward a roaring fireplace on the "east" wall of the room as if deep in the throes of a vibrant debate, and judging by the breaks in the frog's tirade it's almost as if something is actually responding and the beast is taking the time to at least hear its response before continuing its ramble. Meanwhile a panther-headed rakshasa and a woman apparently carved of obsidian speak in low tones from nearby couches.

An iron door at the "north" rear of the room occasionally swings open, emitting a low rumble of noise and a rusty creak as rough-garbed figures come and go - mostly harsher-looking mortals, planetouched, and the occasional fiend.

To the "west", a small band dominates a raised dais recessed into an alcove in the wall. A halfling woman plays an erratic tune on some kind of pipe instrument, while a vanara uses all five of her available limbs on an extensive drumset, an elf with serpentine scales plays long-clawed fingers on his piano, and a warforged strums vigorous riffs from a guitar built of gears and pistons. Behind them the alcove walls are strewn with a curve of windows displaying a spiraling night sky, stars and galaxies and nebulae whirling into infinity through an impossible void.

Nearest the door that serves as the entrance, the "south" and front side of the room, stands another slaad, this one a white, towering so tall it nearly scrapes the ceiling with its twisted crown of horns. The monstrosity's asymmetrical arms hang at its sides, the smaller right occasionally folding against its chest as if to cross its arms while the much larger, muscle-bloated left drags the ground like a glacial gorilla. The being is eerily still, almost anathematically so for a slaad, unmoving as a statue until it very occasionally shifts or blinks or breathes.

In the center of all, behind a squared bar of wood and stone with open seats in all directions save toward the rear, stands the man of the tavern - its bartender, server, host, and powers know what else, the man known as Mitchifer. Tall but not unreasonably so for a human man, with grey-white hair deeply receded and darkly-bronzed skin, it's only once you step close that you notice the oddities - how his golden eyes have slit vertical pupils, or how his thick bushy beard is actually composed of tiny wriggling snakes. Yet he exudes an aura of calm, comfort, and welcome, so despite his unusual appearance he provokes almost no anxiety nor unnervedness as he is approached. He waves as visitors both fresh and veteran enter the inn, welcoming them one and all to his establishment, inviting each and every one to pull up a stool or claim a chair at one of the many tables scattered about the room, order a drink and flag down one of The Staff for a solid meal.

Welcome to the World Serpent Inn, and the beginning of a tale that will span planes, realities, and universes abroad.

Welcome FAWTLfolk to "Orthos Tries PBP Again"!

Today's offering is a planar-based campaign centered at the World Serpent Inn, so characters can originate from the setting of player choice or none at all.

We'll be using Pathfinder rules with 3.5 stuff available by request - I as GM will be making use at least of monsters, races, classes, items, and possibly spells and feats, so those are on the table for players as well (so long as I have access to anything you request and I approve), only fair. Ditto with 3rd party PF stuff, though my usual declaration of "If it's on d20PFSRD, I'll probably allow it" is in play.

25 Point Buy for character creation. Go nuts.

We will be starting at level 2, with normal WBL - 1000 GP.

We will be using the d4 method for rolling HP from this point forward, but characters begin with maximum HP for these two levels.

We will also be using this Inherent Character Bonuses chart, so make sure you include its bonuses in your statistics.

Likewise, all characters receive 2 more skill points per level than normal.

Two Traits, as usual.

As this is a planar campaign (and I do mean planar - many different locales to be visited on many different planes and universes) with the potential to pull PCs from any setting, almost all character options are on the table. If you would like to use a 3.5 or homebrew race, let me know and I'll approve if necessary and/or tell you if any tweaks need to be made to the racial properties to bring it up/down to PF standard, or if it is still powerful enough that Level Adjustment or some other payoff feature is going to be needed anyway. (Not likely needed unless someone wants to play something really crazy.)

Evil characters are allowed, but with the caveat of that they need to be a flavor of evil that is capable of working with the party. I'm sure we can all manage that. =)

More information here.

May you whip angelic recruits into shape in the afterlife, good sir.

I made these for Scint's Babynerds game and thought I'd make them available for anyone else who wants some voice clips of a Mark Hamill's Joker-styled Rolth. I labeled them for use based on as he casts his spells, as per his default spell list in the original printing (not the rerelease, if it's been changed). Enjoy!

Rolth Voice Clips

Here comes Azathoth! Here comes Azathoth! Right down Azathoth Lane!
Nyarlathotep and all his Shoggoths drivin' you insane!
Men are dreaming, children screaming; all their faces are white.
Gibber like mad and say your prayers, 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!

Here comes Azathoth! Here comes Azathoth! Right down Azathoth Lane!
There's his avatar, piping madly for that sanity drain!
Hear those victims gibber and die, oh unspeakable sight!
Jump in bed, cover up your head, 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!

Here comes Azathoth! Here comes Azathoth! Right down Azathoth Lane!
He doesn't care if you're rich or poor, 'cause he's completely insane!
Azathoth doesn't know you, children; we're to small for his sight.
So fill your hearts with dread and fear, 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!

Here comes Azathoth! Here comes Azathoth! Right down Azathoth Lane!
He'll come around when the pipes go out, and Apocalypse begins!
When he wakes the world will end, ceasing his dream of our light;
So chant "Iä! Hail! Blind Idiot God!" 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!

Here comes Azathoth! Here comes Azathoth! Right down Azathoth Lane!
Nyarlathotep and all his Shoggoths drivin' you insane!
Men are dreaming, children screaming; all their faces are white.
Gibber like mad and say your prayers, 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!

When he wakes the world will end, ceasing his dream of our light;
So chant "Iä! Hail! Blind Idiot God!" 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!
Yes Chant "Iä! Hail! Blind Idiot God!" 'cause Azathoth comes tonight!

Some verses courtesy Irregular Webcomic.

link

No release date yet, but some FAQs:

From the FAQ

Will the server browser work again?
Yes, the server browser has been rewritten so you can once again find servers for multiplayer. At this time the original NWN restrictions apply: The server host must be reachable at the external UDP address and port advertised through your NAT firewall.

Will 1.69 clients be able to connect to NWN:EE servers?
No. While save games and modules created in older versions of Neverwinter Nights are usable in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, NWN 1.69 players won't be able to connect to NWN:EE servers. Like all previous patches, we change the networking model continuously to allow us to implement new features and fix bugs. You will need the same NWN:EE client version to connect to an NWN:EE server.

Jason Knipe: The graphics engine has been updated so that everything runs through GLSL shaders, including the toolset. The shaders reproduce the old hardware T&L functionality from the original NWN, and were not meant to add detail or fidelity that did not exist in the original. However, this means that you can create and apply your own custom shaders in the game which opens up a wide variety of graphical possibilities.

Bernhard Stöckner: We've done a thorough security audit of the codebase, removing all known exploits and crash issues in the process. We have also addressed a great many engine, game and rules problems, as well as improved server performance significantly.

On the big feature front, we have done work as well. In addition to things mentioned elsewhere, you can expect to see a collection of new scripting commands and ini configuration flags, hak loading before character creation, area instancing, and much more as the beta will progress and bring in feedback.

Last, but not least, we've approached the NWNX developers and are actively helping them with a clean and complete rewrite of the codebase to the new release, so that the majority of server transitions will go as smooth as possible. Future patches will receive the same loving attention!

Graphically, other than the UI scaling, it looks nothing more than an ENB mod, there certainly wont be a massive jump in fidelity but if it gets a decent level of community support the cell shading functionality will make for some interesting possibilities for community created content to look really nice and crisp

I am hyped, but lets set expectations, Beamdog are just very committed modders in terms of what they can actually do, I do not get the impression they are reverse engineering the combat system for example, however there was one bit what was VERY interesting and I think @firewraith might be happy with, (Haks loading before character creation).

Other than a break in college that led to skipping the entirety of Generation 3 - so not much of value lost - I've been heavily into the Pokemon series since I was a teenager. Unfortunately, while I did enjoy Sun (and Mimikyu jumped immediately to my number 3 favorite spot), the announcement of "Ultra Sun and Moon" as the followups was underwhelming at the time, and I had almost decided to skip the next games entirely and just wait it out for the unnamed Switch game announced for next year.

Then about a month ago I read the words that changed this from something I would likely pass on to something I could not wait to get.

Team.
Rainbow.
ROCKET.

Also new critters even from Sun/Moon and a very different looking story.

So yeah. Preorder already paid, just waiting for the end of next week to go pick it up. Anyone else?

As some of you may know, in addition to Pathfinder one of my primary hobbies is playing on, DMing for, and administrating for a Neverwinter Nights persistent world, Cormyr and the Dalelands (username there is Edge). Starting about a year and a half ago, I began running a highly modified version of Rise of the Runelords set in Faerun as a series of semi-weekly events, each about 2-4 hours long. After a long absence on Paizo, I've decided to cross-post my summaries of the events in a journal here.

Note that this will be highly modified from the base Runelords plot between the change of setting and an intent to connect it to a much larger, overarching plot involving all the Runelords.

So with that... let's begin =D

Book One: Burnt Offerings

Characters of Importance:
Zander Jaredson - Male Half-Gold Dragon Human Paladin of Torm
James St. Bell - Male Human Paladin of Torm
Velenya Tevlanos - Female Half-Iron Dragon Human Eldritch Knight
Tessela Kennemen - Female Human Cleric of Kelemvor
Paythin Alderan - Male Human Fighter/Weapon Master
Sophia Leonsbane - Female Half-Elf Fighter/Weapon Master
Azonis Fulgate - Female Half-Elf Bard/Arcane Archer
Trent Dy'nei - Male Human Fighter/Weapon Master
Jason Fletcher - Male Human Fighter/Purple Dragon Knight
Cassandra Rosewood - Female Human Rogue/Shadowdancer

Quest One: Burn! Bobonga! Burn!

A cry for help came from the village of Collinwood, not far from the city of the Eveningstar, claiming goblins were attacking and the city was burning.

The party - composed of a combination of concerned or curious adventurers and locally-stationed Purple Dragons - heeded the call, routing the assault and tending to the fires and wounded. They discovered on some of the fallen goblins a curious seven-pointed star that none were able to identify. Goblins have always been a problem in Cormyr, especially in the forests around Arabel and Suzail, but to so brazenly attack the city was unprecedented, and especially the bizarre emblem they wore. Suspicions began to fly immediately that there was more to this than simple goblin troublemaking....

SO WE'RE DOING THIS AGAIN!

Welcome back to Orthos's insane attempt to run a Savage Tide campaign using the Gestalt rules. Like my now-completed Kingmaker campaign before - which I will be completing the journal for, eventually! when I have time! - this game is set in our homebrew world of Finiens, specifically in the country of Olympia and its adventurer-founded and adventurer-heavy southern port city of Port Haven in place of the standard starting location of Sasserine.

Dramatis Personae:
Aidan Trembell - TN M Human Harbinger [Crimson Countess]|Oracle (Life) (Player: Aszimar)
Audra Volante - CG F Halfling Swashbuckler [Inspired Blade]|Magus [Bladebound, Kensai] (Player: Scintillae)
Nashota - TN M Half-Giant Aegis|Soulknife (Player: Kamon Ishako)
Rin - NG M Human Investigator|Slayer (Player: Edward Falcona)
Twila - CN F Changeling Invoker (Star Pact)|Oracle (Theurge) (Player: ebon_fyre)

For quick reference: Audra's player played Elegy in Kingmaker, Twila's played Lilith, Nashota's played Takeshi, and Aidan's played Derrick. Rin's player is the new guy in the group, though an experienced player previously in his own right.

This is not an April Fool's Joke. I repeat, this is NOT an April Fool's Joke.

So if you've spent almost any time on YouTube within the past few months, no doubt you've seen the "Where's the Fair Use?" #WTFU movement and the mounting series of complaints about the abuse of Fair Use laws with regards to DMCA and copyright-related takedowns of videos and channels.

Well, unbeknownst to pretty much everyone, the government has had a form open for a while now for people to send in complaints and commentary as they prepare to re-analyze the DMCA laws and associated ordinances and consider re-evaluating and updating them. Unfortunately, this flew waaaaay under the radar and news only really got out last night/this morning... and the form closes at midnight tonight.

Here's a video explaining the basics, and includes links to the forms as well as phone numbers and other contact methods. I highly, highly, HIGHLY encourage everyone who is able to send something in.

JACK IS BACK!!

Samurai Jack was one of the BEST shows I ever saw growing up. I'd put it on par with Gargoyles or Batman:TAS. I am IMMENSELY thrilled to see it returning at long last.

So one of the PCs in my group is an Ifrit Wishcrafter Sorcerer who also happens to be a Harrow reader. Needless to say, she's the one who received the Cyclone card when Eloais's cart went up in flames upon their arrival, and after getting the fire put out and the rest of the opening scene under control, she sat down to do a Harrow reading while the rest of the party talked to the NPCs or scouted out into the nearby cactus forest.

Lacking an actual Harrow Deck of my own, I got her results by rolling d100 and rerolling any results over 54, then just counting down the list on the Pathfinder Wiki.

Looking not far from the mark, but just enough off to keep things interesting. =)

I'd like to allow her to keep the Harrow readings as a major part of her character and incorporate them more into the adventure as possible. As written, they really only make a direct appearance during scenes related to Eloais's death at the beginning; once the pugwampis have been found and dealt with, I don't recall the adventure ever making much of a deal of Eloais's ill-fated divinations, the repeated presence of the Cyclone, and so forth ever again.

Thoughts/suggestions?

So I know there have to be at least some Paizonians besides Icyshadow, Scintillae, and myself who are into this new little game that's part Earthbound, part Bullet Hell, and part gut-wrenching sucker-punch to your heart. Who's all out there, and which of us are trying to SAVE the world versus which of us are going to have a bad time?

Popup windows displaying "f", "38", "27" are appearing any time I load a new page, along with a checkbox for "prevent page from displaying more messages". Not sure why.

So I'm wanting to look a bit more in-depth into Australian history, geography, culture, and mythology for a project of mine. Wikipedia is a... decent starting point, but I was hoping some of the locals might be able to point me to something more thorough, precise, and/or detailed, and something that will avoid too many misrepresentations or biases. Any links or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Anybody else heard of/looked into this? It's pretty funny and kind of awesome thus far =) Also happens to be done by Stjepan Šejić AKA Nebezial, one of my favorite artists on DeviantArt.

Previews of current and future chapters, side character art, and other such things on his DevArt here.

Digital version of the first issue can be purchased here.

The Naga called me Sukoshi Toge, or "Little Thorn" in their tongue. Not an uncommon appellation, given the cloak of brambles and briars I wear, as much a part of my flesh and bone as anything else that grows from within them. The Dwarves on the ships hence and Humans of this land like simpler terms, of which "Thistle" seems to be the most common, along with "Ivy", "Monk", and "Archer". These callings are sufficient, all in all. A name that is not a Name is but a name, and I will answer to any that does not malign me. So long as it is not that which I hide, it holds no power over me.

I only hear my Name in my dreams, in deepest slumber and vague memories of a life I left behind long ago, or in the invigorating fevers and muse-images of a flayleaf haze. These have been more and more as of late, as I find my worldly possessions swiftly dwindling and with them any opportunity to escape the confines of this wretched bolthole of a town. Yet better this than the battlefield, where from the Shadowlands flow the Never Dead, the Oni, the Maho, and the Kage-no-Ongaku: the Music of Shadows. Yes, better this than the ever-lingering risk of the taint, the sundering of the soul, the endless dissonant song of corruption.

My countrymen - by life if not by birth - would call me a coward and denounce me as without honor. I would see no reason to argue such with them. But there is no weight of honor that is worth the danger posed by the creatures of the Shadowlands, most of all that dreadful song, that ancient otherworldly melody from the skies that sings of the end of worlds. I have heard its songs before, in my youth and in my nightmares, and there is no price I would not pay to put myself well away from its symphony.

Thus am I here, in the land of Storm and Wind, tucked away between the forests and the mountains in the miserable little hovel called Diamond Lake, stolen coin flittering away on days of pointless labor and failed pursuits and nights lost in a mist of illusions and inspirations, one ear open to rumors and legends of something, anything that might begin a road toward escape from this place. Safe I may be from the horrors of the Shadow, but a safe prison is no less a prison.

I have heard tales of an abandoned cairn, a tomb of lost treasures and old histories left fallow, secluded away and out of sight to all save the most perceptive of strangers and most informed of locals. Noted for the strange sounds and voices heard from within its dusty catacombs, this Whispering Cairn has received far less attention than some of its sister tombs, and may still have riches for the taking. And it's not as if my dwindling honor will be noticeably besmirched further by adding graverobbing to my crimes....

So long story short my players have been trying to do research on "The Queen of Forgotten Time". For the first time, they've dared to ask people outside their inner circle, and one of their allies - a council member from a neighboring colony - mentioned she'd heard the title before as part of a childhood rhyme. Figured I'd post it here for anyone who might want to make use of it.

The Queen of Forgotten Time
Lives in the land sublime
Where sapphire waterfalls gleam
And with ravens the canopies teem

The Queen of Forgotten Time
Has a house on the edge of rhyme
Just beyond the graveyard's snows
At the top where the beanstalk grows

The Queen of Forgotten Time
Drinks the finest of emerald wine
From vineyards in the forest’s depths
In the land of a thousand breaths

The Queen of Forgotten Time
Sings with harmonious chime
The ancient, unending song
And the wolf and the frog sing along

The Queen of Forgotten Time
To find her the tower you climb
In the fable beyond the looking-glass
In the halls where stained soldiers march past

The Queen of Forgotten Time
Lives beyond the palace of knives
Where the blooms reach up to the sky
Where the bear and the rook will fly

Have a dance at the crystal ball
With the swans and the tower of dolls
To the beat of the miners who dig
Dance the weaver, the spinner, and the pigs

With the maiden who tempered the fiend
And the daughter of frost who had gleaned
And the child in the pearl-laden tower
Woven into the ebony bower

Beyond the hedge of the thorn
And under the edge of the storm
Sing the voices of infinite prime
For the Queen of Forgotten Time

Won’t you dance with the dragon at dawn?
And the troll when the sun’s almost gone?
A waltz for the unending rhyme
In the garden of Forgotten Time?

I know I can't be the only person - player or GM - in this campaign whose group created a flag for their kingdom. Let's see what everyone has =)

Images if you have 'em, otherwise descriptions are fine =D

Here's Iomrall

New SquareEnix RPG... well, this thing has an awesome soundtrack, which is to be expected. But that's not enough to carry the game itself, sad to say, and SE just doesn't have the mojo it once had to guarantee anything they make is a must-buy for me.

So. Has anyone else managed to play it? Is the gameplay any good? And the story? Recommend or not, and why?

Orthos wrote:

Monrail wrote:

Having already been intrigued by the various lore snippets provided in your campaign journals, now I would really like to see an overview of your homebrew campaign setting somewhere!

It's been something I've been meaning to do... I'll see about posting it up somewhere in homebrew =)

You could start a blog {nudge, nudge}... easier to do in installments and update/edit/expand previous entries as you go.

You too, Mikaze.

Here goes nothing!

It's been over 7500 years since the first human, halfling, and dwarf expatriates left behind the shores of Paziou, ancient motherland of their kind, and set to the seas - the dwarves to never leave it, the halflings to ply the world over, and the humans to settle, beginning first in desert Anhur just across the Gulf then spreading to lands beyond and afar. In this time the old continent and its history have been lost to time, ancient civilizations of man and dwarf consumed once more by mountain and jungle, banished by neglect and forgetfulness back into the stones from whence they grew. History records almost nothing of this ancient time and the civilizations that once existed within these lost lands, and both our most coherent records and our counting of the years begin not from the emergence of intelligent life within the depths of the dark continent but on the year of the founding of the first civilization after departure.

My name is Siobhan. I am a historian, scholar, seeker of ancient truths, legend and lore, and the thrill of the hunt. A few years ago, I had learned that travelers had returned to the ancient continent and founded new coastal communities, the port villages of Sandpoint and Magnimar, providing an incursion for inquisitive and adventurous minds to return to Paziou and investigate the deep secrets of history. I and my sister Roisin, though somewhat reluctantly on her part, spent the next year preparing, gathering information and supplies, and at last catching a ship at Quenton to make the journey north around Anhur's coast to Sandpoint, where our investigation and adventure is soon to begin.

So rolled up a 10th-level Spriggan Arcanist (CR 13ish) in preparation for my Kingmaker session last night, and did some pre-game testing with her to have a feel for what I was up against. Note that this is pre-revision.

Her blood foci were in Conjuration and Protean Bloodline, with Spell Focus and GSF in both Conjuration and Evocation, Eschew Materials (bonus feat), and another feat I can't remember at the moment (sorry!). I actually was kind of lazy about the setup and didn't actually put together a whole spellbook for her, just what she had prepared at the time, but I can definitely see the appeal of having the ability to reshape your entire spell list when you find your setup doesn't quite work against your opponent - great for PCs for obvious reasons, as well as for recurring enemies or enemies who have the opportunity to study up on the PCs in advance.

In play, it really felt very little different from running a Sorcerer. Spells on-hand were about the same, spell slots available were about the same. She made very sparse use of Blood Focus, and the few times she threw it out, it was always to use her Protean Reality Wrinkle ability. (Saved her spell slots that would have been spent otherwise casting blur, likely, since she got it as a bloodline freebie.) It won't be missed. Combat-wise she tossed out some pit spells, ice storm, and black tentacles, flew away from melee threats, and plinked away at foes with Evocations when they couldn't reach her. Standard Conjurer tactics given she didn't have a BSF to go kill things for her.

Players should run into this NPC in next Friday's session so I'll be back then with live play results, hopefully using the revised Arcanist if it's re-released then.

I'll post her statblock when I get home, though that will be late tonight - it's going to be a long day here.

I love this blog! I just recently made an islander kahuna or priest, using the arcane healer bard archetype! I love to do this sort of thing with all kinds of classes! Thanks for this post, John! Awesomeness...

You place a curse on the subject. Choose one of the following.

* -6 decrease to an ability score (minimum 1).
* -4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks.
* Each turn, the target has a 50% chance to act normally; otherwise, it takes no action.

You may also invent your own curse, but it should be no more powerful than those described above.

That last line is a potential gold mine. I know I've seen another thread like this but my search-fu has failed me so let's make another one. Let's see some interesting, fun, flavorful, and/or just plain out-there curses that fit the bill of "no more powerful" than the listed three but are certainly more interesting alternatives.

1. "May you be just about to sneeze forever."
The cursed character always feels as if they are just on the verge of unleashing a sneeze, yet it never comes. The stuffed, congested feeling refuses to fade until the curse is broken. If the character sneezes due to another effect (such as sneezing powder, another spell, etc.), the feeling is not relieved.

This imposes a -4 penalty on Perception, Initiative, and Concentration checks due to distraction.

Act One: The Devil of Dark Wood

In the northern regions of Olympia, near where the Titans part to create the great mountain walls that separate the southern lands from the frigid terrain of the Ice Claw, tucked away in a series of valleys and plains between the mountain foothills and the westernmost edges of the Sentara Woods, is the city of Meinwenn. Northernmost true city in Olympia, this metropolis is sequestered at the foot of the mountains, built like its capital predecessor onto the slopes of the Titans through the masterwork combination of human ingenuity and kobold skill. A city of trade and travel, it is the last northbound and first southbound gateway of Olympia before entering or after departing the icy tundra of the lands beyond the mountains.

Yet it is not in Meinwenn that our story unfolds, merely where it begins. For in Meinwenn is where our protagonists receive word of trouble, adventure, and mystery. A couple of days to the east, at the edge of the elven wood, lies the village of Rybalka. There a strange rash of unprecedented crime has been unleashed. Animals and people have gone missing, seemingly without reason or hint as to their departure, frequently over the past few weeks. Furthermore, the city's temple and library, a shrine to Corian the Ascendant, has been raided and ransacked, seemingly without provocation. The villagers, wary of the dangers of the wood - this region, closest to human lands, is said to be fiercely haunted - have elected to request the aid of investigators from afar, and called upon the adventuresome population of Meinwenn's ever-shifting citizenry to answer their pleas.

Our story begins five days after the temple incident, as our would-be heroes complete the two-day journey to arrive in Rybalka at dusk's first dark.

"Prince of Demons" contains an extensive set of criteria and list of possible options and sidequests that the characters can undergo for the - eventual - purpose of powering-down Demogorgon so the PCs can take him on pre- or early-epic. Without this, in the original system, he was a CR 32 threat that could easily trounce a team of 20th-level (or higher!) heroes singlehandedly. However, today was released a ruleset allowing PCs to take on monsters of that kind of caliber without relying on extensive epic-level advancement, and thanks to the blog and Wrath of the Righteous we have a solid foundation for the expectations of dealing with Demon Lords.

SO. What are some ideas for Mythifying Savage Tide?

(Note that it's been quite some time since I read through STAP extensively, so my memory may be subpar.)

I'd say the optimal place for the PCs to pick up their first dose of Mythic power is the Shrine to Demogorgon in Chapter Four, with the battle against Olangru and the Lemorian Golem as the capstone that gives them their abilities. However, if you wanted to introduce the power sooner, you could tie it to the Idol of Camazotz in Chapter Three, or even go back to Chapter Two and have them pick up Mythic somehow during the investigation of Kraken's Cove and the Savage Tide there. However, IMO at least, those are a bit too early and a little underwhelming for Mythic triggers, while decimating the villain's temple and destroying a golem built in his image pretty much screams the perfect opportunity.

Defeating Vanthus in Chapter Five is the next obvious advancement point, and the Bilewretch in Chapter Six and Cold Captain Wyther in Chapter Seven after that.

Scatter further advancement points through the Abyss after that (navigating Divided's Ire and nixxing Vanthus for good for starters; after that, negotiating with Iggwilv, Charon, Red Shroud, Ahazu, Shami-Amourae, Orcus, Malcanthet, and many others are all notable points, as are defeating/negotiating with Demogorgon's generals), and heck just scattering a few through the last chapter for successfully invading Abysm as needed. In a few months, thanks to Wrath, we'll have an example of how it looks to sic a level-20/tier-10 party on a full Demon Prince, and can use that as a guide for how an encounter with a non-debuffed Demogorgon should go.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Alternatives? =)

I've gotten PMs from someone I'm not interested in speaking to. Is there any way to block these? Or am I just limited to deleting them as they come in?

Anyone else read?

Warning, today's comic is both a major spoiler and a massive heartbreaker. Click back to the beginning if you're new, do NOT look at the newest strips.

Gonna try a project. Link me a picture of something interesting-looking and I'll try to stat it. =)

Chapter One: Thorn Within

"So point your fingers, Point right at me;
For I am shadows and will follow you - One and the same are we...."

----

Noon rings twelve strikes on the great bell of the Grangoban, towering tall over the city of Suir - tradepost, military city, metropolis, and last leg of the first line of defense of northern Galadae against potential aggression and assault from the lands of Anhur. Despite the hint of impending threat, there is no brooding melancholy nor fearful hush over this city. High noon is a bustling, busy, noisy time of day as in any major metropolis, a vast swarm of activity milling about its many streets, market-goers and soldiers and travelers and simple passersby coming and going, living and loving, dreaming and doing. Were it not for the occasional sight of passing troops marking in formation as they move from base to base or go about their daily drills, it'd be easy to forget that the threat of war was only a few hours away, should someone choose to make the first move.

All is not peaceful, though, and that's where you've come in. Whatever your reason, you've found yourself in Suir, looking for work. The flyer from the military caught your eye: a simple bounty hunt, kidnapping, or search and rescue, it seems. Without enough information to discern which and no description of the missing, you've been forced to attend the scheduled meeting to glean more information. Noonturn, on the nineteenth of Ianuwary, at one of the military installations sprinkled across the city, Station Dair.

Dair is little different from any other Galad urban outpost: A large ring of buildings, some inventory, some barracks, some various training quarters, around a wide field used for drills, skirmishes, and the like, with a sturdy wall of stone and iron around its borders to prevent accidental or intentional civilian presence, patrolled by armed troops in groups of three to keep an eye out for too-curious flying passersby. For those familiar with the local timeline, Dair was constructed twenty-four years prior, after military forces being moved north to reinforce the border began to swell over the resources of the prior three stations. A fifth was built some nine years later, but none since, and the flow of volunteers and conscripts alike has slowed to where no excess appears needed.

The only entrance by ground to Station Dair is a single gate on the north side of the west wall. It is to here that your directions sent you, and a mention or a copy of the request flyer is enough for the attendants there to allow you entrance... albeit escorted by a soldier called, requiring a wait of a few minutes. Led in, you passed several barracks and training chambers before being escorted into a meeting and consultation area with a moderate-sized waiting room. Several simple chairs are arranged around a large wooden central table, where several pitchers of water and empty glasses have been left waiting for you.

You are left here in the company of other adventurers, bounty hunters, or would-be do-gooders, likely here for the same reason you are, with only a word of, "The Captain will be with you all shortly" from your escorts. Any attempts to leave the room are met by two armed soldiers stationed just outside, who ask you politely but forcefully to return to the waiting room until the Captain arrives.

"And now the dreams and waking screams that ever last the night;
So build the wall, behind it crawl, and hide until it’s light."

Link to the player info document, for easy reference. Apologies again that it's so big, I tried to narrow it down as much as I could without losing too much necessary information. Be sure to read the racial sections - some of the core races (mainly elves and dwarves, sorry Tordek/BT!) have had their core flavor changed for the setting.

Campaign Starting Information:
All your life, all you have ever known was darkness.

The sun is a legend, its light long forgotten. The moon a myth, empty and vain. The cycles and patterns they established, more habit or tradition than fact. Years, months, days are as they are only because they always have been.

The year, such as it is, is 887 SA. Which stands for “Surface Abandoned”. 887 years - or so the sages have reckoned - since the Above was devastated by the Catastrophe, driving the survivors deep below ground. None - even the long-lived elves, ael, dwarves, or arachnes - still live that remember that world firsthand, but the earliest years of exile below were filled with the records of the escapees. They tell stories of devastation and loss, cities reduced to ash in seconds, magic setting the sky aflame, summer turning to winter in an instant, people turning to stone or smoke or water on the spot, or - worse - warping into insane, hungry monstrosities and devouring their friends, family, and countrymen without hesitation.

This is where you were born, grew up, lived, learned, and worked all your life, never having once seen the surface in anything more than books and paintings. Such dangers are lost to you except as part of history - now, you simply have to deal with warring neighbors, natural dangers, the occasional earthquake, rampant lycanthropy, lurking unchecked vampirism, and the hidden dangers of the dark imprisoned within the stone.

You're an adventurer, tradesperson, wanderer, or whatever you choose to call yourself, currently located in Galadae. You've had some historical success, a few minor adventures of your own or with friends and allies you've since parted ways with, and gotten some practice under your belt (hence your characters beginning at Level 2). You are in Suir, a city in northern Galadae. You're looking for work or money, bored and looking for adventure or entertainment, or perhaps feel it your civic duty to assist the powers that be when a notice for help catches your eye at a local inn, tavern, bulletin board, or waystation:

Wanted: Adventurers, Bounty-Hunters, and/or Trackers to locate and return missing person. Meet Captain Milton at Station Dair on 19 Ianuwary 887 at Noonturn for details. Payment offered.

Thanks to the Grangoban, the massive clocktower erected in the center of Suir, knowing the current time is far from difficult, and any native of the city can point you in the direction of the various troop stations on request, so finding your way to your destination is simple. Station Dair is a secondary facility for Galad soldiers - a training hall, medical facility, and fallback point should ground be lost against the Anhuri in the conflicts along the northern border. Thankfully it has been years since the Sand Empire gained ground so swiftly, so you do not fear having to worry about a sudden influx of wounded or retreating soldiers during your meeting.

Further information about the city, the region, the ongoing Galad-Anhuri conflict, or other world details can be ascertained with appropriate knowledge checks, gather information, and such like.

Our story begins with your arrival at Station Dair. An aide ushers you into a large, spacious waiting room with several chairs and couches as you arrive, informs you that Captain Milton will be arriving shortly, thanks you for your patience, and returns to his post.

"Have come ye now to seek the wise
Vafthruthnir, sage, the knowledge keeper?
To tell the tale of light's demise
With sullen cry, oh darkness seeker?

'Tis boots much smaller than thy own
Shall scale the mount to enter the hall;
Thy bones shall rest far from thy throne
When time shall come for the sun to fall."

A most intriguing tale, is it not? And merely the beginning thereof, penned centuries before even I set foot upon this lowly earth. One might declare such things prophecy; in my time however it has become foolish to place too much stock in the ideals of such preliminary declarations. Everyone knows the tales of kings and tyrants undone by prophecy, when had the word of divination been discarded and ignored all would have passed without incident or notice. No, most prophecy is merely a skillful maneuvering of the mind into predictable, expected patterns and a series of desired reactions... or a hidden message that all things have been put in place, arranged in advance, to give the impression to the unlearned, unaware, or unobservant that mystical precognitive power rests within the hands of the declarer. Such is the case in this tale.

But I get ahead of myself.

Some of you may know who I am, by reputation or rumor if nothing more. Many of you do not. Allow me to explain for the uninitiated and clarify for the marginally aware. I am The Informant. A sage, much like Vafthruthnir of old, keeper of knowledge, learner of legends and lore, giver and seeker of information.

What's that, you say? My name? Such information is highly prized, my guest, and all things come with a price. No, spare your coin; I only accept payment in such triflings for information of equal value and availability. Gold, for all its assigned worth, is plentiful enough that it passes through the hands of all of us from time to time, some more than others. Information, knowledge, truth, however... these have true value. Rarity, indeed, shared only sparsely and available to few, and as a merchant of the highest caliber I will accept only something of equal worth for that which I wish to distribute. Sometimes a favor, sometimes a task, sometimes a secret of equivalent value. My price? Nay, not the method by which I work. Rather, name your own price, curious one, and I shall determine if it be significant.

But we may attend to such business at a later time. For now, we are distracted from my true purpose here. My title you have, and it shall have to suffice for now.

The strange events of the past year have demanded answers from across the lands and over the seas, as far as the Isles of Senkaku and yes even the distant shores of Wachara and Teremvor. And the blame lies at our dear kingdom's feet, and dare we blame them? For the lands to the north have no king, answer to no lord, and did the storms of vengeance not sweep through our forests and our plains, ravaging the land and scarring the sky? But no, the blame is not ours to bear. Thus have I been summoned before the queen and court, to provide our questioners with the answers they so seek.

For knowledge is my business, and it is business I do well.

Still yourselves. The tale is long, and there is much to tell. We shall return to the mysteries of Vafthruthnir in time. His name shall mean much, you shall soon see, but more important are names with which a sparing few of you will be familiar, and the rest no more so than that of a long-ancient giant sage. This is a tale far more recent, for it begins no more than a trifling few years ago, at the closing of the year, in a village of our very own - a tiny hamlet upon the border of our lands, neighbor to Sentara of the Elves, a little place called Somerset.

It is here that we begin the tale of Fimbulwinter, the Storm of Storms.

To avoid taking over Magical Beast's thread, I'll just move this discussion over here. Sorry for the derail MB!

So as stated in the prior topic, my players have voted four-to-one to scrap mass combat entirely. Which, I don't blame them. Any mass combat system complex enough to be interesting will likely be a pain in the neck for us to learn, and the extremely simplistic one packaged with Kingmaker/Book of the River Kings doesn't have the detail and complexity wanted by the one player who wants mass combat and is sluggish and boring for the rest of the group.

What they'd rather have is a system in which they get to be the superheroes that Pathfinder PCs level 5+ are supposed to be - shock troops and one-wo/men armies who can stand their ground against entire hordes of lesser opponents. And, for situations over even their head, the option and opportunity to find, mentor, and train NPCs with similar superior potential to fight alongside them in the "small army" of their kingdom.

Well, it certainly supports the Royals Who Actually Do Something trope. =)

While this saves me having to learn a new mechanical system, it also requires me to replace the mass combat sections of the story with massive fields of mook soldiers, preferably with a handful of superior general "boss fights" for the party to actually have difficulty with after mowing through or fireballing down the mass of enemy forces. From what I remember, the places where Mass Combat is a big thing are in Chapter 4 (where there's some barbarian gangs, if I recall?) and Chapter 5 (versus Pitax).

For the Barbarians, I'm heavily considering just using the 3.5 Mob Template to create massive enemy swarms for the party to fight. For Pitax though, they're more likely to have regimented soldiers who will hold the lines and fight in a more traditional warfare manner. By this point, also, Irovetti (or in my game, Havelock) would be well aware of the party's shock trooper techniques and have prepared ways to face off against it, either trying to overwhelm them with sheer numbers or to face them with equally-few but superior forces of his own.

Thoughts? And any scenes I missed?

By suggestion of this thread, here is where I shall be displaying some of my ideas for magically-potent versions of ancient animals.

Let's begin!

----
----
----
----

Amorphous Elasmosaurus
CR 10 - XP 9,600
N Huge magical beast (aquatic, water)
Init +8; Senses low-light vision, darkvision 60 ft., scent; Perception +17

DEFENSE
AC 26, touch 13, flat-footed 20 (+4 Dex, +1 dodge, +12 natural, –2 size)
hp 132 (12d10+72)
Fort +16, Ref +12, Will +11

OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 60 ft. (90 ft. in elemental form)
Melee bite +21 (2d8+13/19-20) or 2 slams +21 (2d6+9)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 20 ft. (15 ft. in elemental form)

STATISTICS
Str 28, Dex 19, Con 22, Int 4, Wis 16, Cha 9
Base Atk +12; CMB +23; CMD 38 (42 vs. trip)
Feats Dodge, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical (Bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Toughness
Skills Perception +17, Swim +20
Languages Aquan (cannot speak)
SQ amphibious

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Compress (Ex) Due to its semi-fluid nature, an Amorphous Elasmosaurus can squeeze without hindrance through spaces that would normally not allow a creature of its bulk to pass. As a full-round action, an Amorphous Elasmosaurus can move up to its Speed through a Space narrow enough to permit the passage of a Medium-sized creature or larger without penalty; it can force itself through a space only large enough for a Small creature, but its speed is halved and it is considered flat-footed during this process and until its next turn.
Elemental Form (Sp) An Amorphous Elasmosaurus can assume the form of a Huge Water Elemental as a standard action; this functions as an elemental body VI spell except the Elasmosaurus does not gain any of the size bonuses, penalties, natural armor bonus, or swim speed increase (though it does gain the greater swim speed of the elemental itself, listed above). It can return to its normal form as a free action. While in elemental form, an Amorphous Elasmosaurus is effectively invisible underwater, and gains a +30 racial bonus to stealth as long as it is submerged.
Vortex (Su) In its water elemental form, the Elasmosaurus can create a whirlpool as a standard action, at will. This ability functions identically to the whirlwind special attack, but can only form underwater and cannot leave the water.
Water Mastery (Ex) An Amorphous Elasmosaurus gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls if both it and its opponent are touching water. If the opponent or the Elasmosaurus is touching the ground, the dinosaur takes a –4 penalty on attack and damage rolls. These modifiers apply to bull rush and overrun maneuvers, whether the Elasmosaurus is initiating or resisting these kinds of attacks. These bonuses and penalties apply regardless of which form it is currently in.

Amorphous Elasmosaurs are seafaring predators who evolved from lesser common plesiosaurs due to frequent exposure to elemental energies, often due to their hunting grounds or lairs being near a rift to the Elemental Plane of Water. They have developed the ability to dissolve their bodies into liquid form, mimicking the elementals from which their power is inherited, and hunt stealthily through the water near-invisible and unheard as they pursue prey, then reverting back to their natural form to attack - these Elasmosaurs almost universally prefer the taste of live prey, and always fight in their natural form unless on the hunt or forced to take elemental shape.

In areas with a high population of Amorphous Elasmosaurs, especially if there are large levels of competition among packs or within a pack to establish an alpha, it is extremely common to see Amorphous Elasmosaurs with a second neck and head replacing their tail, due to two of the creatures accidentally or deliberately retaking physical form while in the same location and merging. These Elasmosaurs have the Amphisbaena template in addition to the extra abilities of the statblock above.

Hello SS folks =)

After nearly four years of hiatus, I've decided I want to run Savage Tide again. However, save two of my players I have a completely new group these days, and the chances of gathering up the remains of my old one - even after the coming year or so it will take to finish the Kingmaker game I'm in the middle of - are slim to none, so I've decided with the approval of the two players who remain to restart STAP from the beginning.

Unfortunately, my last group was halfway through The Lightless Depths - at level 10, and halfway through the plot - when the game I ran back in 2008 finally died out. So that's six chapters of STAP that, while some things might be different, would still be pretty repetitive to the two returning players. To keep it interesting for the people who have run through this bit before, I decided I'd use another adventure to insert new plot threads, new dungeons, new NPCs allied and enemy alike, and possibly shore up some parts of the plot. As the title suggests, I obviously decided to go with Serpent's Skull. (Skulls and Shackles was actually my first choice, given the shared pirate theme, but one of my players has expressed repeated eagerness to run that one, so I decided I wouldn't steal it from him.)

So I'd like this thread to be collective advice for merging the two. Fleshing out weak encounters in both plots, fitting things together, interweaving the various details. There's a good bit of fortune in that there's already some bit of a decent-sized snake theme in STAP - a few Yuan-Ti are encountered in early chapters, building up toward Serpents of Scuttlecove - and it doesn't take much reflavoring to paint Demogorgon as a major patron of the snake people, now even superior to Ydersius since the latter's decline. It also allows me to move STAP's plot out of Greyhawk, where I ran it previously, and into my own homebrew setting, something I'm really enjoying converting over for my current Kingmaker game.

Here's the basic ideas I have so far for plotting things out:

1. Run There Is No Honor as normal. Maybe replace some of the Lotus Dragons with Yuan-Ti.
2. Run The Bullywug Gambit as normal, up to Kraken's Cove. Have a few Yuan-Ti in the ruined Cove, to note their resistance to the Savage Tide (as blessed of Demogorgon, one of their gods, I'll be allowing them to add their Poison resistance save bonus to their saves versus Savage Fever), but at least one to show they aren't immune. Possibly change the Bullywugs/Boggards to something else. (Not Yuan-Ti though - have Harliss despise them.)
3. Mingle The Sea Wyvern's Wake with Souls for Smuggler's Shiv and possibly Racing to Ruin. As the Factions won't be a thing, RtR may need some further adjustment, but I recall SWW being the chapter that bored my players most; the only part they really enjoyed was the Sargasso. Perhaps have them get caught in Journey's End, and have Smuggler's Shiv's islands be inhabited floats within the mass? Then discovering the cannibals, instead of worshiping a Ydersian ghoul, they revere the Mother-of-All? (And yes I know the levels won't line up, but I'll be running the thing Gestalt again so I'll be adjusting everything anyway ;) )
4. Run Here There Be Monsters as written, or with the adjustments I made prior. Other than utterly grossing out everyone (including myself) with Olangru's temple, the players LOVED this chapter. I had them actually make it to Farshore, but they had gained a third ship, the Nightshark, from one of the pirate encounters and let the NPCs sail off with the Sea Wyvern, so I turned it from an escort-the-squishy-low-level-NPCs mission to a rescue-the-squishies one, which I think they enjoyed better.
5. Mingle bits of City of Seven Spears and Vaults of Madness into Tides of Dread. Replace most of the Olman ruins on the island with old Yuan-Ti stuff, or have the Yuan-Ti predate the Olmans. Tie the strange, demonic worship into the serpent theme. (Yes, my setting uses Yuan-Ti rather than Serpentfolk, so all SS's guys will become Yuan-Ti.)
6. The Lightless Depths? This is where my last group left off. They enjoyed the first parts - dealing with Emraag, the descent (even the Black Pudding, which scared the daylights out of the Barbarian and Cavalier), the Mongrelfolk village. But once they got to Golismorga, despite having tons of fun with the Lovecraftian flavor (which I am VERY loathe to lose, otherwise I'd simply just replace the whole chapter with The Thousand Fangs Below), they seemed really frustrated about the railroady nature of it, especially when we got to Tlaloc's Tear, which was the very last thing that happened in my prior play-through: they were already wary of the aboleth-disguised-as-trog-ghost's advice, and thus unanimously decided not to smash the Tear and flood the undercity. Advice would be very welcome.
7. Really play up the snake themes in Serpents of Scuttlecove, possibly integrating parts of The Thousand Fangs Below not used in Chapter 6. This chapter is probably one of the stronger ones for the purpose of tying these two together, but I never got to run it myself so I can't say how well the adventure itself holds up. I also want to tie the Lemorian Half-Fiends to the Yuan-Ti somehow: in my setting, Yuan-Ti have a process they call Petitioning where, after performing rituals for some time (involving consuming certain meats, being subjected to venom via injection and ingestion, wearing the shed skin of a Yuan-Ti, various ritual activities, etc.) they can transform another humanoid into a new Yuan-Ti, usually a pureblood but on rarer occasions a Halfblood, Abomnination, or even Anathema. I'd like the Lemorians to be a specialized variant of this ritual, used by the Demogorgon-worshiping portion of the serpentfolk.
8+. Beyond...? No real concrete ideas for the later points in the story. Adding Sanctum of the Serpent God to Wells of Darkness somehow is really the only solid idea I had thus far: WoD was frequently viewed as the weakest STAP adventure, so it seemed like the best place to stick Ydersius (or whatever I convert him to) so that he'd be able to have his moment without upstaging Demogorgon.

Any advice would be appreciated! I also posted this over in the STAP forum, so hoping to get input from both sets of players and GMs in the long meantime between now and when I actually begin running this again. Greatly looking forward to it, and would like to use all that time to make these two plots work together as well as possible. =)