Kjeller airfield, the first and oldest airfield in Norway, and one of the older ones in continual service around the world, is being closed and the area is going to be turned into housing and industry.
It was started in 1912. During WWII it was taken over by the Germans by a couple of dudes in motorcycle and sidecar and used to repair German planes. It was bombed by the Allies twice, leaving craters all over town my father would later play in. Since then it was mostly a military base with a small but dedicated community of hobby pilots that shared the runway. I'm pretty sure they worked closely with one of the local high schools, literally a stone's throw away, that has aviation maintenance as one of its courses.
I live just ten minutes or so away and drive past it regularly.
I never paid much attention to it, it was just a feature of the environment, but now I'm oddly affected by the news. Just showing my age, I guess, seeing everything I was used to for so many years disappearing.
Apart from hanging out here, I mean. I'm a world class procrastinator and an expert at finding other things to do instead of what I should be doing.
Right now I'm at work. Things are slow and I've done all the stuff things I can do for the moment so I should be hard at work preparing for game night tomorrow. Naturally, instead of focusing on what the PCs will be doing I've spent most of the last few days detailing one aspect of the game they will likely not interact much with, including a ton of NPCs. Today, almost involuntarily, I've been shipping two NPCs and coming up with a ton of scenes and scnarios or their courtship.
It's official, I've run out of Adventure Paths to butcher.
Mostly.
I just scavenge for scraps now, in this case some elements from Hell's Rebels and Council of Thieves but not following the plot of either.
Othariel Ainamar the Silver Arm, Princess of the Principality of Thunder Rift, has come to the conclusion that she is too effective for the good of her domain. She did an amazing job of unifying the disparate races in the Rift under a single leader through a lot of charm and diplomacy, with a little force to enfore the peace. This meant her heirs had too much to live up to and a country based on what was in many ways a cult of personality fell to bad hands and external threats.
Having seen this future, she determined the strengthen the Rift militarily so that it is better equipped to withstand external threats. This resulted in her paladin order becoming a lot less paladin-y and a lot more mercenary, and while this protected the Rift against the first threat of Wendar and then Glantri trying to take over and preventing the rise of Ileosa, the Order were out of town when another invasion happened nearly a century later. Othariel defeated the invaders fairly handily but left afterwards, leaving the Rift to clean up the mess. The then-leader of the Rift (Othariel's daughter Rahnee) was the target of local ire - if the majority of the supposedly military might of the Rift was always out campaigning, who will protect the Rift against invaders? What were they for if not protection?
Giving in to pressure Rahnee abdicates and her most vocal opponent, Dengar Thrune, takes the throne. Initially well-meaning, Dengar enacts a number of reforms that strip out the Good of the Rift and strengthen the Law, all in the name of security. Having been through a brief but devestating invasion, most of the Rift agrees. 70 years later and the Thrune dynasty has been in power and kept it that way and the current ruler, Barzillai, is enacting harsher laws and increasing taxes. Lots of people take this the right way and rebellion is fomenting in the Rift, primarily in the capital city of Stormhold.
Though many gripe about the new laws, the one person who voices the complaints loudly and clearly is Arael, a young elf from abroad. Unbeknownst to the locals he is Rahnee's son, who came to see the realm his grandmother founded and mother abandoned. He dislikes it, having been raised on stories from his mother about the golden age, now some 400 years past. Barzillai arrested the young elf for rabble rousing and sentenced him to doghousing.
His friends - fellow young revolutionaries, to be precise - currently under the nominal leadership of Janiven, who runs the Sarcastic Goat Inn*, devise a plan to rescue him.
The PCs are:
Pattinathar (don't call him Patty), a bugbear with an arnarchistic streak who will go into Alchemist when he gets his first level.
Marianya - an elf Phoenix Sorcerer with no fire spells. She wants to loosen laws and ensure freedom for all.
Dru - a half-orc/half elf outcast Rogue/Liberator who is best friends, possibly family, with Marianya.
Cirion - a breath-takingly beautiful young human male, lacking his right hand, and who is a bit vague about his capabilities. Maybe he's bard or something. He is very quiet about what to do and how to go about it, following the others' lead.
Fortunately for the PCs. they know where the doghousing takes place - in the couryard of Stormhold Castle, which is mostly inside the city. With at least two decent sneaky bastards in the group decides to sneak over the wall and extract Arael before being discovered. They scout out the guard shifts and know they should have the better part of a minute to get over the wall unseen. Having done so, they hope to hide, rescue Arael, then use the next opening to exfiltrate him.
They start the operation by worrying how to climb the sheer wall, but Cirion casts Spider Climb on Patty. A couple of the players are rather curious as to how he has 2nd level spells at 1st level. Some mumbled explanation about how it used to be a 1st level spell and he didn't know that things had changed, and a final explanation of 'I have a wand' - how a wand of 2nd level spells is better at 1st level than a single spell was left unexplained.
Not questioning the useful spell, Patty climbs to the top of the wall, fastens a rope to help the others and turns around to find a guard coming up the stairs after having visited the jakes. They stare at each other in amazement. (low Stealth and Perception roll for Patty, high Perception roll for the guard, bad Luck die roll for the party).
Patty wins initiative, reverses the spear to do non-lethal damage on the guard, and rolls a 1 on his attack.
At this point one of the players puts on Yakety Sax.
The other PCs scale the wall and orc guard is defeated through a combination of stabbing and being bashed in the face with a puch of gold used as an improvised sap, but not before he yelled an alarm. The PCs are in the process of carrying the guard away when the rest come. Combat is swift but surprisingly easy for the PCs Patty takes a little damage but is fully healed by the cure spell Cirion casts. Patty's player wonders what the hell sort of class Cirion has that let's him roll a handful of dice to heal at 1st level. The first wave of guards are defeated by Cirion, Patty and MariRanya (as she soon cme to be known as) while Dru uses the combat as a distraction to get Arael out of the doghouse unseen. Though they try to avoid killing the guards, Patty does manage to crit a charging orc with a braced spear, tearing through his stomach and severing the spine.
With Arael rescued, Cirion tells the others to get him to safety while he provides a distraction, and proceeds to toss alchemists fires on the empty doghouses nad along the wall. The three other PCs get Arael safely to the Sarcastic Goat Inn.
Some time later, bruised and charred, Cirion shows up, and the session ends.
As one of you, probably my only reader, may have guessed, Cirion is Othariel in disguise. She came to see how the Rift was getting on after the Ironfang Invasion and was saddened to see the current state of affairs. She could charge in, force things back to what she wanted and spend some more time putting things straight, but she's on the path to becoming Immortal and cannot afford to get bogged down in micromanaging people. So she adopts a new persona - Cirion. Using her best friend Grund's Amulet of Disguise, she puts most of her gear in a portable hole and secrets it on her person, then wanders around the Rift seeing if any people are willing to take a stand against the budding tyrant Barzillai.
She quickly fell in with Arael's gang. Arael is quiet about his origin because he doesn't want people to follow him because of his grandmother but because the cause is just. Also, trying to live up to Othariel's name is a helluva big task. Othariel suspects Arael might be Rahnee's kid, but hasn't asked him so as not to tip her hand. In any case, she feels a strong desire for justice from the kid and suspects he might become a cleric of hers should she succeed in her Quest.
Throughout the fight with the guards - members of the Order of Thunder**, the paladin order she founded - Othariel has done her best to keep the orc guards alive. Patty killing one of them was unfortunate. When she sends the others off, she uses her Ultimate Mercy to bring the slain guard back before melting into the night.
The orc guard who got killed, Garguax, had his world changed forever. He died, and while his spirit was still getting used to the idea Othariel herself appeared and offered her hand to him, giving him a second chance at life. Garguax knew of Othariel of course. Legendary uniter of the Thunder Rift, founder of the Order of Thunder he is a proud member of. but according to modern history someone who got by on charm and luck more than strength of arms. Now he was face to spectral face with her in all her glory and he realized just how wrong the histories were. She was by far the most powerful warrior he could imagine. He realized just how utterly insignificant he and his friends were to her skills if she had decided to kill them. But she didn't want that. She just didn't want them to die and his death had been a mistake. She offered him a way back. In awe, he took her hand.
When Garguax woke up he saw no sign of Othariel. Nothing but his superiors yelling at him and his squadmates for having let the prisoner escape. In a daze he gives his report but omits the part where he died. Formerly an adherent of Vanya, Garguax found his pro forma faith gone and rote worship now entirely meaningless, replaced with a fascination with Othariel. He knows Vanya is a powerful god and Othariel nothing but a mortal, but he actually met Othariel and she sure as spit seemed like a god to him. For now he's wrestling with his feelings, trying quietly learn more about her and find out why he suddenly feels less at home in the Thunderknights than he used to.
*
The Sarcastic Goat Inn was originally run by the eponymously epitheted dwarf who founded it - unfailingly polite to newcomers, increasingly sarcastic to those he considered friends. This is where Othariel and her friends first met and used as a place to relax every time they came to Melnir. The Inn was sold by the Goat's son, the old place closed and the name moved to a new place in Stormhold. To Othariel it's a bit like walking into what was once your favorite pub and finding it has become a Wetherspoons.
**
The Order of Thunder started out as a paladin order but expanded to accept non-paladins and slowly became a mercenary company. More like Phelani Company from the Deed of Paksenarrion than Wagner, but still mercenaries. During this time the orcs and bugbears of the Rift entered in great numbers and make up a significant part of the Thunderknights now. Though Othariel founded the Order, as it became more warlike and less paladin-y, they took to idealizing Grund as the ultimate warrior - harsh, strong and lawful and great at forcing other people to do what he wanted. Grund himself would have been wracked with guilt it if he had ever learned that this was how people saw him
During their work abroad they came into contact with the Heldannic Knights and many Thunderknights turned to the worship of Vanya. The Thunderknights have somehow acquired the nickname Helknights, despite having nothing to do with Hel.
The current Order of Thunder is strongly LN, bordering on LE. No paladins left, and with people who enjoy exercising power and force of arms in charge.
I know I know, I said I wouldn't do any more of these but hear me out, OK?
...
...
Right, I don't really have any good excuses for this one. I do have a bad excuse , however: it's a good start for a mini-campaign and a variant of the eponymous ritual is perfect for what I have in store for Tomokato, and this is definitely the highest personal stakes for one of the PCs even if it isn't the worst thing that could happen to the world at large.
Backstory:
Tomokato Katamura, rakasta smaurai, paladin of Ixion, was born in the Myoshiman empire on Patera, the invisible second moon of Urt. He left his home and his family to go on a sacred quest to the main planet below and there he met Arlynith, Ranya and Otheriel who all became his best friends. They had many adventures together and he eventually decided to attempt Immortality. In a surprising turn of events he did not turn to his patron deity Ixion an follow the Path of the Paragon but turned instead to the new, basically unknown Matter Immortal Lokena to pursue the Path of the Polymath. Ixion, old and experienced, did not take this personally as Tomokato was a good servant while it lasted and He had bigger things to worry about.
Tomokato's first two reincarnations went well but his third came to a sticky end. When trying to sneak around a temple in Oenkmar he was caught and sacrificed to Atzanteotl. The evil Immortal recognized the soul sent to him as something far more interesting than the weak kobold it thought it was. He realized it was a powerful spirit on the Path of the Polymath. Even better it belonged to his hated rival Ixion. Being able to stop a petitioner from becoming a Matter Immortal is prize enough but Atzanteotl loves corruption so he attempted to corrupt "Longjaw". He confronted the kobold persona and said he would return the kobold's heart if he just did a little job for him. Longjaw, knowing no better, agreed. Had Longjaw kept to the new bargain, not only would Atzanteotl have corrupted a powerful minion of Ixion, he would have guided a new petitioner to Immortality in the Sphere of Entropy. This would have been an immense win for him. As it was, Longjaw got a little hint that keeping to the bargain with Atzanteotl was a Bad Idea and was put on the right path again. Atzanteotl failed to corrupt Longjaw but was left with the beating heart of the kobold and as such a powerful spiritual connection to Tomokato's essence and soul. He could just kill the cat and be done with it and it would still count as a win but his ego wants him to press for a bigger win.
He invents up the Carrion Crown (or Charnel Crown, depending on the translation) a method of forcibly corrupting a powerful servant of good into his service, and sets his minions out to gather the necessary ingredients.
The Vaults of Pandius were rapidly emptying. The necessary meetings were done and few bothered to hang around and chat. Atzanteotl, in the shape of a handsome elf, lounged conspicuously in sight of Lokena and Ixion, two of the few who had some more business to conduct before heading to their home planes. When they cast a glance his way he tossed a little object insolently into the air and snatched it again. A small heart, still bloody.
Ixion, old and experienced, showed no sign of caring but Lokena could not hide her discomfort. Atzanteotl grinned a grin that could start blood feuds and sauntered over. "Looks like you both lose. My condolences" he said with a politeness made blatantly false by the look on his face.
Ixion shrugged slightly. "Mortals die. Even great heroes are not always cut out to become Immortal. It's a minor loss, all things considered."
Lokena kept her mouth shut but could not hide her shame and anger. Atzanteotl's grin widened. "For one of your age and stature maybe, but it is a sore failure for such a young one as this," he gestured dismissively towards Lokena. "Perhaps she was a bit too eager in taking on a petitioner when she has barely become Immortal herself."
"Perhaps." Ixion seemed ever so slightly bored with the situation.
Unable to contain herself, Lokena said: "You had a perfect set up to coup Tomokato and you failed in less than a month."
"Thanks to Ixion stepping in and ruining things. No matter how you look at this, any successes on the rakasta's part are in Ixion's favor and you are merely trying to steal credit."
"And you merely lucked out by having Tomokato fall in your lap with a perfect set up to make him fall and you spectacularly fumbled the corruption attempt. You couldn't corrupt him so all that is left is killing him, a poor consolation prize." Lokena managed to avoid shouting at the older and more powerful Immortal but could not avoid heaping scorn on the statement.
"But a prize nonetheless, one that cost me nothing and is, no matter how you look it, a loss for you two."
"And that is how you win these days, is it? Doing nothing and hoping fortuitous situations just happen upon you?" Lokena
"That is the meaning of 'fortuitous', is it not?" Atzanteotl laughed. "Tell you what. I can see this means a lot to you so I will be nice for once, young godling. I will give him, and you, a chance. He will be given a chance to finish his little quest but he will do so with no interference from either of you. No direct help, no conveniently placed minions with a vague impulse to aid, no favors from anyone else: only him. For my part, I will keep his heart but I will not kill him flat out. I will slowly forcibly corrupt him and your minions will not be able to directly oppose him afterwards. If little Tommy can figure out what's going on, find out how to stop it, and regain his heart and live at the end, I will consider it a loss. Any other outcome is a Sting against you both."
Ixion's eyes burned harshly for a moment then returned to normal. “It hardly seems like good odds for us, knowing you.”
“But there is a chance. Do you want to do the sensible thing and give up or put way more importance on your morals than they deserve?”
“I agree,” Lokena said instantly. “You failed once, now you will just fail faster.”
Ixion was silent a moment, studying the face of his hated opponent. “No allies for any of us, no outside interference, no information to Tomokato, only his own skills and experience and spells granted, minus Commune or similar direct contact magics.”
“And he must figure out what is going on and stop my minions and retrieve his heart within a month,” Atzanteotl.
“It seems very nice of you, giving him such a long time to win,” said Ixion. “You will cheat.”
Atzanteotl looked insulted. “Of course I won’t. I won’t need to.”
Everyone knew he was lying but there was not anything more to be said and Ixion excused himself and Lokena. “This is a foolish thing you have gotten yourself into,” he said once they were alone again.
“I know, Hierarch. It’s just…”
“You are still young. You have only barely become Immortal yourself. You grasped too greedily at attempts to improve your standing without considering the risk. Everyone here has had candidates fail their attempt to join our ranks. I have lost count of how many of mine have failed. Far better to conserve your strength rather than allow someone like Atzanteotl Sting you.”
Lokena stared defiantly back at the immeasurably older and more powerful Immortal. “So why did you agree?”
Ixion’s eyes flared. “Because I want him to fail. And because I can suffer a Sting better than you can in the attempt.”
Lokena brought up a scrying window. It showed Tomokato training youths at the orphanage he ran. An eclectic bunch of pupils filled the ranks, learning how to fight from one of the most skilled warriors in the world. “He will get no help from us shall keep his bow. It is his, not ours.”
Ixion frowned. “Atzanteotl can make a case that is violating the terms of our agreement.”
“And I can make a case it isn’t. That combined with whatever he is going to try to pull will let it slide.”
Ixion did not sigh but that was only because he had never gotten into the habit. “I suppose Tomokato does have a decent-ish chance of succeeding, even if the odds are against him.”
...
He awoke to a cacophony of thoughts and impressions. His ears were wrong, his eyes seemed to have spectacles with warped lenses on, his nose was not sensitive enough and his body felt wrong and misshapen in every way. He squeezed his eyes together and tried to make sense of things. Slowly, interminably, he began to understand. Four different sets of expectations and muscle memory were trying to make sense of a fifth, unknown body. Four different voices tried to make themselves known in his head, four different personalities. Aral, the human wizard who had found the Heart of Winter in the far north. Jaques, the rotting lupin who had taken the horn of Zargon. Longjaw, the kobold who had taken soul stones from the Shadow Elves’ City of Stars. Firstly, lastly, and most importantly, he was Tomokato Katamura, whose deeds were too numerous to list. He was all of these and now he was…he did not know.
His hands roamed over his face and head and quickly noticed the unmistakable ears of an elf. He opened his shirt and saw the gaping hole where a heart should be. So. Atzanteotl still had it. That was a pretty good indication of what he needed to do. Still, first things first: he now needed to know where he was.
He turned his attention to the outer world. He was standing on a small dirt road, somewhat muddy. He breathed in trying to learn how his new body worked. The sky was cloudy and the air was damp and cold and the woods it ran through was damp and the smell of rotting leaves exuded from it. Autumn, then. Wet leaves and….blood. He spun around and saw a corpse lying a few feet away from him. His hands shuddered for a second as four instincts warred on what to do: ready a spell, draw a bow, draw a rapier or draw daggers. He went for the weight he felt hanging on his back and drew his bow. That, at least, was familiar even if it felt subtly wrong in his new body. Seconds passed and no enemies showed themselves. He relaxed minutely, and turned his attention to the dead person. It was an elf, male. About Tomokato’s size, apparently killed by a heavy cutting blow through the neck and into the chest. The blood was semi-coagulated, only kept from fully drying by the damp mud. Several hours had passed since his death, Tomokato estimated. He looked over the dead man’s belongings, finding a small purse with coins, a sack full of nice, somber clothes and two letters inside his coat that had miraculously mostly avoided being soaked through with blood. One well-read, the other read only once or twice. Tomokato opened the well-read one.
Dear Silmeran
I know it has been many years since we last spoke and that we parted on poor terms but I hope you will at least finish reading this letter before you decide what you will do with it. I admit you have good reason to dislike me but I regret nothing of what happened between us because regret would mean I was wrong and I cannot believe that. In spite of this I beg you to set aside what resentment you might still bear for me and hear my plea.
I do not wish to say much in a letter in case it is intercepted or falls into the wrong hands but I can say it has to do with our work with the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, a secret I was certain we all would take with us to our respective graves. Either someone has come across this secret independently of us or - and I scarcely dare think the thought - one of us has given in to the temptation to use it for personal gain.
Silmeran, I beg of you, come to Ravengro and speak to me of this matter. I am an old man and cannot travel far or fast, and I must watch Harrowstone; else I would have come to you in person to plead my case. I would not tear open old wounds without good cause but there is something terrible afoot. You are the last person I would imagine breaking their word and in case one of our colleagues is involved in this matter we must work together to stop them. In any case, the Order must be warned and you are the only one I can trust.
With deepest humility,
Petros
Ravengro, 5 Ambyrmont
The second letter was much shorter.
Dear Silmeran Ovne
It is with heavy heart that I write to you to inform you of the death of my father, Petros Lorrimar. He died yesterday in a terrible accident. The burial will take place three weeks from today and I hope to see you there as there is something I must discuss with you.
Kendra Lorrimar
Ravengro, 12 Ambyrmont
The language was Thyatian, probably a Glantrian dialect. He was unfamiliar with Ravengro but the name could indicate Glantri as well. Better keep his divine abilities and worship a secret, then. Tomokato put the letters inside his coat and took stock of his possessions. His bow, a weapon as mighty as any he had encountered in his lives, with a quiver of arrows. Daggers, a rapier, a pack with some food and rope. Nothing else. He took a deep breath and use his daggers to dig a shallow grave for the hapless elf. Done he wiped off his hands and choose a direction on the road and started walking. There would be at least a 50% chance of heading to this Ravengro if his assumptions were correct. As he walked his thoughts drifted to his current position. Previously he had been given an audience with Lokena and then reincarnated. Granted he didn’t remember the audience or his previous life at the time but this time he remembered everything, just not any preparation by his patron. Tomokato….frowned. Tomokato was the wrong name now. He thought of the languages he knew, well over twenty, and tried to find the most esoteric and unknown of them and realized his native Myoshiman tongue was the best. Taking the name Saigo, he traveled on hoping to find more of a clue to where he should go.
The trip went quickly as he spent his time pondering his ultimate goal. Getting back his heart seemed the obvious endgame but he could not rule out there was something else going on. Hopefully once he found out precisely where he was he could get some hint about what he should do. No last meeting with his patron and the presence of his bow, a weapon powerful enough to make up for his clumsiness as he assimilated four sets of skills and retrained them to a new body. He was somewhat surprised he was allowed to keep it. Perhaps that was in itself a clue.æ
Some time after midday he came to a small town, smaller even than Melnir in the Thunder Rift where he had spent so much time. It looked a sleepy, bucolic town with plenty of fields of grain and grazing sheep. His eyes were soon drawn to the foreboding building on a hill just outside of town. “I know bad news when I see it,” Saigo said to himself. “Time to meet the locals.”
Said locals stared at him as he entered town, many blushing when he smiled at them. In the center of town he came upon an old man, almost comically wizened and grumpy. Introducing himself, Saigo inquires if this is indeed Ravengro. The old man confirms the suspicion and directs Saigo to the Lorrimar residence without any more inquiries needed. Upon answering the door, Kendra instantly assumes Saigo is Silmeran. Saigo corrects the misunderstanding and informs her of the corpse found on the road, and hands over the letters. Kendra thanks him and offers him the hospitality of her home. Not having suitable clothes for the funeral being held the next day nor having any connection to Petros, Saigo decides to enjoy Kendra’s hospitality the rest of the day and take a look at Obvious Bad Place when she’s at the funeral the next day. Though she doesn’t say anything outright, Kendra is obviously troubled by her father’s death and the death of Silmeran who she mentions she met only once years ago just before her family moved to Ravengro. She is equally obviously somewhat smitten by the handsome and charismatic mysterious stranger who showed up on her doorstep. Small talk and small tales of Saigo’s least interesting and important experiences are enough to keep the two up fairly late.
The day if the funeral is bright and cheerful, dimming even the impressive presence of Harrowstone. When Saigo mentions his intent to check the place out, Kendra begs him leave it alone and promises to speak to him about it after the funeral. Saigo respects her wishes and goes for a walk instead. He quickly notes the ruffians who go to bother the minimal procession (only Kendra was there as a mourner - the rest were pall bearers and chief Grimburrow). Saigo intercepts the ruffians, tries to talk them out of their intended actions, and rolls a nat 1 on his first roll of the campaign - an auspicious start. The ruffians turn to violence but Saigo easily disarms them even without Improved Disarm and dodges every attack they make. Faced with obvious superior skill, they mutter and leave. The rest of the funeral proceeds without interruption. Escorting Kendra home, Saigo is present for the reading of the will, which strictly speaking does not apply to him. Lacking any other recipients, Saigo offers to take care of the books for Kendra.
She is grateful and after having composed herself again - it has been a heart wrenching farewell for her - she allows Saigo into her father’s study. He looks at the books and understands why they are locked away. Religion is outlawed in Glantri and even religious texts are viewed with suspicion. Holy books of Thanatos, Alphaks and Orcus are even more naughty than most. The Palatine Eye book piques his interest but he doesn’t open it. He quickly spots a hidden door which reveals a small collection of potions, scrolls and arrows. The scrolls and potions are labeled as containing clerical magic, which makes them illegal.
Saigo reveals his discovery to Kendra and she claims ignorance of it and is more than happy for Saigo to take the things and get them out of the house. She has no need of arrows and does not want to have contraband in her house. She is surprised that her father even knew how to get this stuff. Kendra then tells Saigo everything she knows. She knew her father was fascinated with Harrowstone. Harrowstone started as a workshop started by Hawkran McGregor, a small twig on the family tree of the Klantyre’s ruling clan. McGregor was interested in using magic to treat criminals to prevent them from breaking the law again after being caught. He wanted a more permanent solution than a spell which could be dispelled, so founded Harrowstone and used it as a prison-laboratory. The rumors of what went on were unpleasant [think A Clockwork Orange only less family friendly] but things were pretty calm for the villagers. One day a fire broke out and killed everyone there. It soon became apparent that the ruins were haunted but soon after the fire another McGregor came and put up wards which limited the spirits to the grounds of the prison, unable or unwilling to lay them properly to rest. Since then Harrowstone has been a creepy but harmless feature of Ravengro. Children dare one another to spend the night there but few even make the attempt. No one in the town has actually been bothered by the spirits though plenty of people like to blame it for any bad luck they may experience.
When Kendra was a child she and her father moved here and he exhibited a great interest in Harrowstone. His interest and his outsider origin caused some friction with the locals, as evidenced by the ruffians at the funeral, but Kendra had no inkling that it was anything more than academic interest until just before her father’s demise. He had suddenly become very serious and spent a lot of time in his study or at the ruins, neglecting almost everything else, including food and sleep. Finding him dead only a few days after this sudden change in behavior was suspicious but Kendra found no one else interested in trying to uncover a possible murder - the rest of the town was more than happy to write it off as an accident and leave it at that.
Now that Saigo is so conveniently here and seems so trustworthy, she asks if he could possibly help her. Seasoned adventurer as he is, Saigo says he’s way ahead of her, stocks up and heads to Harrowstone.
He spends a few minutes outside trying to interpret the remnants of the arcane sigils on the walls and correctly identifies both the now broken necromantic wards that kept the spirits trapped and the newer ritual that summoned and trapped a specific spirit. He uses one of the Hide From Undead scrolls and makes his way through Harrowstone. The spell dulls most of the haunts as well as prevents him from being seen by undead. Sadly this does not help against stirges so the second scroll goes as well after that fight. It also doesn’t help against the gray ooze but instead of fighting it he just leads it out into the rest of the complex and lets it handle most of the lesser corporeal undead before it finally dies.
He sees the more powerful undead like the headless burning skeleton and decides he does need to clean things out but now that he knows to a large extent what he is facing he feels more confident in attacking things head on. With Hide From Undead still active he pulls a bed from another cell and blocks the room where the burning skeleton is pacing and then attacks. The first arrow deals about one third the creature’s hit points in damage. The skeleton turns and moves after Saigo but crashes into the barricade and spends its round getting past. The second arrow hurts it even more and the skeleton’s axe fails to connect with Saigo. The final arrow fells the fell dead and Saigo is immediately set upon by the Lopper. The Lopper hurts Saigo a bit but is no match for ghost touch arrows and a smite. Saigo cleans out the rest of the haunts and undead and nothing else comes close to harming him thanks to his good saves and powerful weapon. He converses with Vesorianna and learns the details of Petros’ death and the abduction of Hawkran’s spirit. With hostile spirits defeated and a a proper priest performing last rites and bathing the place in holy energy, the haunts of Harrowstone are no more.
Saigo returns to Kendra to inform her of his findings and make ready his next move.
So years ago IRL and more years ago in game, one PC pulled the Tyrant from the Harrow Deck of Many Things. He's been sitting on it so long I had forgotten it until he brought it up yesterday because he's in a bit of a pickle and this would be an easy out if it worked. Problem is, we disagreed on how the card is supposed to work.
Quote:
The character gains the one-time ability to issue a single command to any creature in the multiverse and have the order obeyed. The target is affected as if by the spell Dominate Monster, and even orders for the target to kill itself are followed. Any creature targeted by this effect knows that it is acting against its will, and knows the identity and location of the character. Immortal creatures cannot effectively kill themselves, and the act only causes them considerable but fleeting pain. Additionally, creatures with the ability to grant such boons typically also possess the power to revoke them, and do so as soon as the command releases them. The GM ultimately decides what this command can accomplish. The character may use this card’s effect whenever he wishes, but may only use it once.
I argued that since it says it works as Dominate Monster it is subject to the same limitations as Dominate Monster, with the noted exception that you can command the target to kill themself. The target still receives a saving throw and any immunities to compulsions they may have, and the effect is still subject to SR.
He argued that since the first line says the command is obeyed there are no limits to who can be commanded and no way of avoiding it. To make matters more interesting he's considering using it on an Immortal (i.e. god).
It's that time again! The time where I ambush an unsuspecting Adventure Path, abduct it and brutally alter it to fit my particular needs....
OK, that came off a bit darker than intended, but the fact remains that these things rarely come out looking the way they did going in. Strap in, this one is liable to be the shortest AP on record. It might well have been over in a single session had most of it not been busy doing other stuff before the AP got started.
Background:
Othariel Ainamar, Princess of the new Thunder Rift principality has spent a lot of time thinking about where she went wrong. Her last foray into the future to see how her domain was getting along found it nearly broken, having almost instantly failed to resist a variety of threats, leading to the ascension of Ileosa as queen.
After much deliberation Othariel decides that the best way to prevent future problems is two-fold. Wendar she plies with more diplomacy and gifts to keep the future king from wanting to renege on their deal. Preventing Glantri aggression is handled by building up a stronger Thunder Rift, militarily and magically. Rather than standard armed forces she wants adventurers, thinking that quality over quantity is the best way to keep the Rift safe. To this end she institutes public support for young adventurers to go out and gain experience and riches. Yes, the 'queen' sends out calls for adventurers to go off and do good and get money in return.
The idea is for the adventurers to come back to the Rift to settle down when they retire from that life, hopefully giving the Rift a solid foundation of moderately leveled ex-adventurers (and, if lucky, a small cadre or mid-to-high level people) to keep the place safe. She realizes this will likely lead the Rift to becoming more militant than she'd like, but even rich 20th level people can only do so much to make dreams a reality.
She spends some years organizing this and dealing with the public discontent (primarily parents who don't like the leader encouraging their children to leave their work and go off and die in some foreign country) until the system seems to be working smoothly. There is naturally a number of young adventurers that do not come back. Othariel tries to bring them back to life when possible (Ultimate Mercy is very nice for this), but some leave and are never heard from again. Others survive but do not want to return to the backwater that is the Thunder Rift once they have experienced the wider world. Still, things seem to be heading in generally the right way. Once this has been going smoothly for some years Othariel takes her cohort Grund, the ogre barbarian-paladin and heads to the future to see how things are going.
Othariel and Grund arrive in the mountains surrounding the Thunder Rift, wearing disguises. She hoped to arrive some 300 years after she left but she suspects the two of them would still be instantly recognized if they show up looking as they usually do. Othariel looks like a silver-haired young elf warrior with a bow, and Grund uses his Hat of Disguise+ (which allows him to change size as well as the normal effects) to look like a human man. Heading into the Thunder Rift they are pleased to see that the first two people to greet them are a pair of border guards, a halfling and a goblin, and the two seen perfectly at ease with each other.
They travel to the major settlements of the Rift and see how things have changed. The Rift seems far more densely populated than it was when they left, which comes at the expense of the vast tracts of woodland and empty plains that were there. There are members of a variety of races living in the towns, but it appears as though the majority of a race's population still dwells in their ancestral areas with few outsiders among them. This is about what Othariel realistically hoped for. Her ridiculous Diplomacy skill lets her find out that racial tension still exists to a degree but hasn't turned violent on any significant level for nearly 200 years, which gives her hope that her vision of a peaceful multi-racial society may last a while. She learns that the Order of Thunder, her gang of paladins trained as peacekeepers and magistrates, now allows non-paladins in their number and often hires out as a mercenary group. To her relief they still seem to be mostly decent folks and do not have the shady reputation many mercenaries have. At least not within the Thunder Rift. Most of them are currently on a mission outside the Rift, lead by Othariel's daughter, leaving the Thunder Rift low on defenders. The greatest surprise in their travel through the Rift was a large temple to the Immortal Ranya in the capital of Stormhold. Othariel and Grund spend many minutes staring at it unable to quite believe it. They decide to leave it alone and go on.
They come to the small town of Phaendar, a relatively new settlement name after the local archmage Phaendar who once saved the locals from a band of roving owlbears. Here they take part in the festivities going on. They roll low enough on their Perception checks that they do not notice the commotion outside until the door to the local watering hole explodes inward and Aubbrin the Green has a ballista bolt in her chest. Othariel moves to the door to block anyone trying to come in and channels, bringing Aubrin to full HP. Grund kills a hobgoblin with an arrow. Othariel fires up her auras and orders everyone in the tavern to stay there until they take care of things. The two split up and start killing the hobgoblins with ease. They can't help but notice the big stone tower in the middle of town that wasn't there before but do not immediately make a bee-line for it, electing to drive off the invaders first. It does not take long before the hobgoblins realize that opposition in this backwater is far greater than initial scouting reported, and retreat. Othariel takes Grund and flies after them once they see the invaders are heading towards the Tower.
We end the session there because much of it was spent writing up Grund so Ranyar's player could play him, Othariel's player trying to figure out what to do to avoid future disasters, and wandering around the future Thunder Rift to see how it looked.
I've altered the Ironfang to be basically raiders from the Adri Varma who found a powerful artifact from the age of Elemental Lords. They are not tied to any major political player in the area except incidentally, and not as of yet looking for a home. They have strict and decent rules for how to scout areas, what to do if faced with surprise resistance, and strict orders to pull out and destroy the tower if it seems likely that strong opposition will capture it. It takes some time to do these things but Othariel and Grund will have to work fast if they want to stop it (and they don't know they have to).
how the Ironfang conduct raids:
The Ironfang send out scouts well in advance and try to determine risk-reward of a place. So far the Thunder Rift seems ripe for the picking with most of its leaders and warriors gone. Advance troops will move to strategic locations with an onyx shard, then set up the tower and raiders come through. Since most of the Ironfang is low-level mooks, they do the bulk of the raiding. In the central cavern is a rapid response force of the higher-level Ironfang, ready to head out and stop any intruders that may make it into a Tower, and possibly help overwhelm any stiff pockets of resistance outside once the rest of the target areas are secure. The main tower is situated well outside the intended raid area and the leaders spend their time here and in the Vault, only rarely going to an actual raid target.
The session went pretty much as I assumed it would: Othariel and Grund wiping out the invaders with ease and heading straight for the onyx tower when the opportunity presented itself. If they manage to stop the invaders from destroying the tower and cutting off the raiding force, this AP will probably be over next session. Otherwise it might take a couple more. In any case, the Ironfang is not committed to taking over the Thunder Rift, so will happily leave and find easier targets if they seem to have bitten off more than they can chew. It may take a little while before they realize the exact power of those trying to stop them, however, and Othariel and Grund can do some serious damage before the Ironfang realize how badly they are threatened.
So Norway made another troll movie. It's basically Godzilla only with a troll. It's also basically a crappy American disaster movie, which I suppose makes a change from the slew of crappy* Norwegian disaster movies we've made recently. It's also straight to DVD Netflix without a theatrical release, which doesn't bode well in the best of times.
The CG is pretty decent and the scenery is nice. I suspect somewhere during the production a conversation like this occurred:
Producer: How's the movie coming along?
Director: Great! the CG is looking really good.
Producer: Good, good. And the script?
Director: Script? Uh...great! *whispers to an aide* Get the script for every crappy American disaster movie, run them through Google translate and call it a day.
Seriously, some times the dialogue and events felt so stilted and odd it was almost like they just made as literal a translation of some English line as possible. The characters and their backgrounds were flat and uninspiring, the dialogue clichéed in the worst way, people were dumb as f*$$, and the history reveal made no sense even in what was supposed to be a big monster/disaster movie.
The good bits are we got to see some nice nature, and seeing places I'm familiar with getting slightly roughed up was sorta fun. The troll looked fine. If you want trolls I recommend the far superior Trollhunter from 2010.
*I'm making assumptions here; I haven't watched any of them
Valerias, an Immortal so ancient She has long since forgotten her mortal life - if She ever had one, gazed upon the figure prostrating herself before Her in the grey void. The woman was strikingly beautiful and not a little vain.
"Come now, Ranya, don't you get tired of being on your knees?" Valerias asked.
"Only for some people, Lady; never for You." Ranya took the hint and lifted her gaze.
"If all goes well you won't be my servant anymore."
"But always in your debt, Lady Valerias."
Valerias took on the aspect of an ancient Nithian noblewoman, Her face solemn. "This is your final trial, Ranya. You have accomplished amazing things in your life but you have always had your friends by your side. Now you must stand on your own, accomplish everything on your own. Mistakes made will be yours alone to suffer. Bad fortune yours alone to bear. Should you fail this then all you have striven for, all you have done in your quest for Immortality will be for naught."
Ranya thought briefly about her past. Decades in service of Valerias, growing from a slip of a girl to be Her most favored servant this generation. Her life as the lithe and sneaky gnome who helped recover the Eversummer Orb. Another life as an elf who killed Zargon and removed the horn so it could not regenerate. Yet another life as the gnoll in the harsh Broken Lands, claming Soul Crystals for Valerias. Even events that she recalled as little more than distractions were greater accomplishments than many legendary heroes could claim.
"I will not fail You," she said after a while.
"Do not fail yourself," Valerias corrected.
The grey void in which the two floated turned into a green land full of bronze-skinned people laboring under the sun, creating vast monuments of stone.
"This is Nithia, at the height of its power. Nithia was the most powerful culture to spring up after the Great Rain of Fire. They eclipsed even Taymora and were powerful enough that Alphatia considered them equals or nearly so."
The vision changed, showing flying pyramids, floating barges casting destructive beams of power that flattened entire towns in one blast, swarms of summoned elementals conquering lands for their masters, legions of soldiers, uncountable numbers of laborers and slaves, and powerful spellcasters ruling over all.
"It looks like Thothia," Ranya said. "Why have I never heard of this kingdom?"
Valerias divinely beautiful face grew sad. "They were corrupted. So thoroughly corrupted that they were in danger of going the same way as those beings you know as the Carnifex."
Ranya gave a polite shudder. Her face showed nothing but serious attention to what her Immortal but privately she wondered if this was really as dire a thing as Valerias seemed to think.
Valerias fixed Ranya with a stare. "Do not think that the emaciated creatures you faced were any good indication of the Carnifex at the height of their power. As powerful as you and your friends are, they could defeat you."
The scene changed to show utter devestation. Ruins of cities with their stone buildings melted to glass, vast swathes of previously fertile land reduced to dust by powerful spells, uncontrolled elementals rampaging throughout the land, hordes of fugitives burned alive by maddened wizards. All the while, sinister shadows in the corner of the eye seemed to be watching, trying to creep in. Over it all, a hooded figure laughed in glee.
Ranya nodded, chastened.
"Make no mistake, Ranya, the Nithians were powerful and headed in the wrong direction. The corruption of their last pharaoh by Thanatos was bad enough but things were getting worse. Those of Us old enough to remember the Carnifex were unwilling to let their blasphemy happen again, so We destroyed Nithia and erased almost all traces of it. We cast the Spell of Oblivion so that all memory of it would vanish from those who knew of Nithia at the time and everyone thereafter, so no one could learn of even the hints of the blasphemous secrets. Thothia was merely a distant province of Nithia, one that was innocent of the crimes of the parent nation. There were Those who argued that Thothia should suffer the same fate as the rest of Nithia but some of Us argued mercy. The merciful faction won, leaving it an orphan country, easily absorbed by Alphatia."
Ranya frowned. "I seem to remember Thothia in the grip of a rather unpleasant Immortal and her daughter."
Valerias laughed. It was a laugh that would bring tears of wonder to a deaf person. "Ah yes, the little spider. She has not forgotten the humiliation she suffered at your hands. Be wary of her. But as cruel as She is, She is not as bad as the Outer Beings the Carnifex worshipped. The path which Nithia began to travel would end in something worse than what I showed you."
"I think I have bigger Immortals to worry about. Like Alphaks." Ranya looked smug rather than worried. "Anyway, what do You want me to do?"
"That, my dearest little Ranya, is something you will have to figure out on your own. There's no point to a test where I tell you everything." Valerias smoothed Ranya's hair. "I wonder what you'd look like as a dwarf..."
Ranya's eyes widened in horror. "A dwarf? NOOOO!"
"And it's time for you to learn how the other half lives. Don't worry, you'll have a wonderful beard."
Ranya felt her breasts vanish and a weird fleshy appendage appear between her legs. Her face sprouted in long, coarse, very itchy hair. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
general info:
We're baaaaaack.
Solo play this time around as Ranya faces her final trial on her path to Immortality. No help, no aid, no hirelings, just herself facing down every threat all by herself. This can be tricky, but becoming an Immortal shouldn't be easy (we're looking at you, Rafiel and Benekander).
Ranya now has the memories of all her previous lives and all her old skills from four different classes. She starts at 1st level as she is trying to reconcile four lifetimes of memories, integrate four different skill sets, and relearn four different sets of muscle memeory into a fifth body. Unlike how I normally do things, levelling will happen as we go rather than after a rest, so she may conceivably level up in the middle of a fight and suddenly fight better.
I will post Ranya's stats once I have a complete write-up.
In any case, she will have full BAB, all good saves, base 12 hp per level, and all skills she has put ranks in in previous lives count as class skills and get a rank every level. This may end up with her getting some more skill ranks than she had originally, but it will likely not matter much since it will probably only be things like Perform that benefit.
I am concerned that none of Ranya's lives invested in Climb or Disable Device, but I am old school enough to allow cleverness to handle traps instead of requiring skill rolls. We'll see if that works.
Ranya's player is physically incapable of playing a character who hasn't maxed Charisma. Even if Charisma is basically useless to whatever class he's playing, he will put Charisma as his best score. Also very fond of playing women. Playing a race that not only doesn't give a Charisma bonus but actually gives a penalty is torture. Making it a male character is just icing on the proverbial mudcake. And I can justify it in universe and out of universe.
*evil GM laugh*
Character creation of any sort with this player goes something like this:
Player: "I'm basically done with character creation. We can start playing."
Me: "Have you remembered CMB and CMD?"
P: "Um, no."
M: "Have you calculated skill bonuses?"
P: "Getting there."
M: "attack bonuses?"
P: "I know what bits go into it."
M: "And you've remembered X modifiers to Y score, right?"
P: "Oh right, forgot about those."
M: "Gear?"
P: "thinking about it now."
etc.
Still, we managed to get started this session.
Changes from canon.:
Mummy's Mask is pretty easy to adapt to Mystara, far easier than the other APs I've butchered. We have Nithia, the ancient faux-Egyptian powerful kingdom and its modern descendant Thothia to stand in for Osirion. Flying ships/pyramids/cities are nothing new. Nithia has a lot of undetailed history to shove the events laid out in the AP into, and the worst excesses of Hakotep are still minimal compared to the last pharaoh so I don't have to worry about this eclipsing official history.
Why, if Hakotep isn't so bad, is someone as powerful as Valerias taking a personal interest in this?
It boils down to two things. 1. the Spell of Oblivion, which leads into 2. Immortal politics.
There are a few ruins and hints of Nithia lying around, especially in the Alasiyan desert, site of current state of Ylarum and center of the former Nithian empire, and to make sure that whatever bits and pieces of Nithia that escaped Immortal destruction (and self-destruction) would not inform people at a later date, the Spell of Oblivion not only wiped all knowledge of Nithia from the planet but continues to do so. People may find ruins and hints of an ancient civilization in the desert, but they soon forget about it, remembering only the desert. The Spell isn't perfect, as proven by Haldemar of Haaken's discovery of what he called the Nithian Enchantment, but it has done a pretty good job for the past couple thousand years.
An ancient undead who is a powerful spellcaster may prove immune or at least resistant to the Spell, and in any case having Hakotep rise and bring a bunch of flying pyramids out from nowere to start conquering the Known World, even if he can't quite remember why he should be doing it, is bound to cause people to wonder where he came from and why he looks Thothian despite no records of him in the histories. Better to just nip the whole thing in the bud rather than cause a huge uproar that might cause more people to start thinking about Nithia. The various Immortals who agree to this intervention see what sort of assets they have in the area and try to nudge things in the desired direction. The Immortal whose servants pull it off will get some small measure of prestige. Valerias has managed to argue in favor of letting one of her pawns followers do the job. This cost her some minor favors but if Ranya manages it Valerias will have gained by having guided another person to Immortality in her Sphere and having said Immortal as an ally to call upon. Of course, other Immortals may secretly send their own followers to do the job, for various reasons.
Ranya came to consciousness, finding herself walking out of the dawn towards a walled city. The air was already warm and the sounds of a waking city soon filled the air. The architecure and locals made it clear she was in Thothia, though this particular city was unknown to her. Unsure of what she was supposed to do here she looked around and noticed the stage in the town square and large numbers of what ccould only be described as young adventurers. With her practised eye she didn't find any of them particularly impressive and figured only about half of them might have the luck and skills needed to survive even a small fight.
Needing information, Ranya struck up a conversation with a merchant selling breakfast. Getting some bread, hummus and nuts with honey to get him talking, she found out about the opening of the country's graves to graverobbers. The merchant was torn with disgust at the violation of the dead and belief that the pharaoh can do no wrong. Ranya was unfamiliar with the epithet "Ruby Prince", and the last pharaoh she encountered, Ramenhotep XXIII, was an ancient vampire (a change from canon) who sold out his half demon-spider wife and her Immortal mother to Ranya and her friends in a powerplay. That connection might be worth looking into down the line.
When the lottery starts Ranya gets in line and is assigned her tombs. The clerk recording who goes where gives her (I should say him now) a funny look since he's alone, but says nothing. When the gates to the necropolis are opened and the hopefulls rush in, Ranya is instantly stymied by the front door of Akhentepi's tomb. He neglected to get a crowbar so he rushes out to the market and gets one, to the jeers of some of his fellows. "U forgt a crwobar? LOL noob," or something to that effect. Ignoring the actual noobs he makes his way in to the tomb and is again stymied by a door. While straining to move it and failing to find any mechanism to do the job for him, the ghost scorpion attacks. He takes a few pinches but dispatches it easily enough with his sword. In frustration at being unable to get through, Ranya pulls his laser pistol and just blasts the stone door until enough of it is destroyed that he can move it. He attaches his own rope to the piton and descends, hoping to find enough stuff down there that he can make some form of ladder to climb up to the end of his rope when going out.
He doesn't bother to check for traps until he triggers the first one, luckily avoiding any damage. Then he starts looking for them. He makes his way to the trophy room where he is attacked by the little dolls. Their high AC convinces him to put away his sword after a couple failed attacks, pull his laser pistol and shoot them. He takes a little damage in the struggle, but the small, very dry wooden dolls don't put up much resistance to an average of 16 points of damage.
At this point we have to call it a night. There were a few interruptions in addition to the usual late start, but this time around it was mostly on me. So far Ranya (who may take another name for this life) seems reluctant to do any looting and is focusing entirely on trying to find out what he is here for. This is in one way admirable, but it may leave him severely undergeared later, at least as severely undergeared as someone with his ridiculous stats, a magic laser gun and an already paid-for Ancestral Relic can be.
As the title says I'm getting ready to run Mummy's Mask as a solo game for one of my players. I've read through the books and the forums a few times and I'm quite familiar with this player and what sort of things are likely to be an issue. Also, the PC will be a 4-class gestalt with really good ability scores and possibly some extreme racial benefits (we'll see what the dice gods say), so it probably won't be quite as bad as for a by-the-book 25 pt buy unoptimized character.
Still, bad luck and action economy are things, and I may have missed things in the books/forum, so I would appreciate any input the community might have about what sort of things to look out for. What sort of encounters might easily turn deadly if I don't retune them properly, SoS abilities I may have missed, opponents that seem OK on paper but turn out nastier in actual combat; that sort of thing.
I've just barely started a new mini-campaign and one of the players wanted to play a more traditional literary type of summoner, i.e. one who makes bargains with individual creatures and can then call on them with spells - think Elric of Melnibone. I love this sort of thing and at first we intended to just fluff it but I started wondering if there was some class or 3rd party mechanics that could do something similar.
If anyone has some suggestions, we would appreciate it.
Alternative titles: "OP pls er....wait, wrong group", "OP pls nerf 4 (or, Can't you think of better titles for these things?)
Part of Arlynith's quest for Immortality requires her to train at least six apprentices to at least 12th level. At least 12 BECMI levels, which probably ends up a bit lower than 12 PF1 levels, but there's nothing saying they can't go higher. Therefore we will run another AP to get them up to that instead of just handwaving it or merely throwing a ton of money at the problem. Yes, this means it will take longer to finally end this game but everyone wants a little break from the old characters, and playing low-level characters is fun. The characters did not roll quite so well as the last group - there's not an ability score of 20 in sight - and everyone is either a wizard or sorcerer. Considering they are legacy characters, I gave the players the option of having their primary PCs give them extra gear to start with. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get rid of all the low-level potions and scrolls and wands they have accumulated and don't use and haven't bothered to sell, as well as other gear they have a lot of, like bags of holding, various protection rings and cloaks, etc.. They were surprisingly reserved. Arly's excuse was that passive protective effects were fine but casting spells from wands didn't teach you how to cast spells properly, so no wands.
Dramatis Personae:
Arlynith's twin daughters Kat and Ravi.
Katherina Eliza van der Drachenflame
Firstborn daughter of Arlynith, heir to Drachenflamme, and Arcane Bloodline Sorcerer. Spoiled and can get away with things the others wouldn't but also put under a lot of pressure to live up to her parents' standards and show herself worthy of the family name and the throne of the kingdom.
Notable gear: Robe of Arcane Heritage, Sihedron Ring, Heward's Handy Haversack, a scroll of Plane Shift to Ranya's demiplane (in case of emergencies)
Ravinelle Leone van der Drachenflamme
Fire Wizard. A follower of Flame rather than the traditional Alphatian Air school. Also spoiled but to a lesser degree. Originally intended to inherit the fiefdom of Drachenfrost in Norwold, but the peace agreement between Thyatis and Alphatia nixed that idea and she's a little miffed. Also a wizard and not a proper sorcerer, so Arlynith considers her the lesser of the two. Lawful dumb.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Sihedron Tome (Wrath/Evocation)
True to fiction, these twins like to dress the same and be mistaken for each other.
Iziora
Human Diviner. High Intelligence, high Charisma, dumped Constitution (8) because this player is physically incapable of not maxing Charisma regardless of utility to the class. The only reason he chose to play a wizard was so he could get the Initiative bonus from being a Diviner. Super nerd and because she's played by this particular player, cute and sexy and charismatic. Described as "basically Hermione". Izzie comes from a family of undead hunters and lost her parents to undead at a young age. She was taken in and raised in the same temple Ranya was raised in, and Ranya, who keeps the temple running and drops by on a regular basis, took a liking to the girl. When she showed an aptitude for arcane magic rather than divine, Ranya sent her off to train with her BFF Arlynith and gave her a few things she didn't need any more.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, HHH, Ring of Invisibility, a ton of cure potions of various levels, a few wands of CLW. Unfairly, was given no Sihedron tome.
Alexandra Tiril Lilly Sofie Tormod Askefjell Stubberud
Gnome ("I'm not a gnome, I'm a human!!") illusionist sorcerer. Likes pranks, good with machines and definitely not a gnome. One of Tomokato's war orphans but one who didn't show any aptitude for fanatical religious murder paladinhood so was forced to become a spellcaster instead. Always the one to break the rules and try to do fun things, and can't sit still. In another world she would be diagnosed with ADD.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Bag of Holding type I with lesser Silent Metamagic Rod, potion of Shield of Faith, Potion of Invisibility x3, Potion of Jump x2, Potion of Cure Light Wounds x7, Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds x11, Potion of Cure Serious Wounds, Elixir of Truth, Potion of Blur, Potion of Fly, Potion of Lesser Restoration, Potion of Pass Without Trace x2, Wand of Cure Light Wounds 40c
Phaendar Earastil
Elf unicorn sorcerer with a focus on summoning. Quiet, reserved, the one student in class who never raised his hand. Also dumped Constitution. One of the orphans left behind after Scorch razed the Thunder Rift and taken in by Othariel. When his magical talents manifested he asked if he could train under Arlynith rather than the local Mage's Island. Phaendar only knew Ranya and Othariel from before but has seen Arlynith and Tomokato on occasion. He heard all the stories of the whole party. Ranya is a bit overbearing and weird with her insistence on looking 16 years old when she's in her 40s but still a nice person, and Othariel is the big shining hero all the stories about her indicate but very personable and fun to be around when she isn't princessing. tomokato was myserious, but Arlynith was imposing. Regal, powerful, magic oozing from every pore: she was what Phaendar aspired to be. Othariel put in a good word for the lad with her friend and Phaendar went to study with one of the most accomplished casters in the world. Living with Arlynith proved to Phaendar why you shouldn't meet your heroes. Arly is not cruel, but she is immensely proud and status conscious and not at all relaxed and fun like Othariel, and worst of all, Arly is seemingly blind to the injustices in the land she rules. Phaendar has a hard time believing that Othariel can be friends with this woman.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Ring of Invisibility, lesser Rod of Extend Spell, Wand CLW, Wand of Ghost Sound, potion of Lesser Restoration, 2x potion CLW
Duncan
Human transmuter from Drachenflamme. Born a peasant and grew up with hard work and back-breaking labor. His family were dirt poor from harsh taxes under Arly's grand-uncle, and young Duncan saw his family's farm burned by a dragon Arly released. They resettled and there was a brief period of hope when a foreign hero came and slew the dragon Arly had let rampage for years. Then Arlynith killed the hero and took over. Then his family was dominated and by a newly arrived vampire Arlynith welcomed to her country, and Duncan barely managed to escape. Rampaging demons and a mini-wightpocalypse just a few years ago made him an orphan and killed the kind family that had taken him in. By pure chance Arlynith noticed the magical talent in the boy when passing by one day and took him under her wing. Duncan doesn't like Arlynith but is not going to let an opportunity like that slip away. Diligent, clever, and the only practically minded character in the group. Arly feels bad for the boy but doesn't understand that she needs to fix her country, not Duncan's life. This is why Arly is not Lawful Good yet.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Sihedron tome (Greed/Transmutation), lesser Rod of Silent Spell, HHH, Wand of Identify
Common gear: 3x Spectacles of Understanding,
There's a bunch of other stuff I've already forgotten. A couple of us feel it was a bit unfair of Arly's player to only give Sihedron tomes to two of the three wizard's in the party. We will revisit this next session.
Changes from canon:
Again, set in Mystara with appropriate changes to divinities and cosmology. In the time of the Greater Carnifex empire, the serpentfolk were several reptilian races apart from the Carnifex, including troglodytes and serpentfolk. The serpentfolk were at least as old as the Carnifex but slower to change and adapt and less eager to grasp power at the expense of their souls. The serpents were conquered by the Carnifex and made into a slave race, though set above the troglodytes. The initially slow and sure nature of the serpentfolk lulled the Carnifex into a sense of security and the sauroids felt the chance of a slave from them revolt unlikely. However, the serpentfolk learned from their masters and soon a serpentfolk champion, Ydersius, emerged and quietly uplifted his people. He eventually organized a slave revolt. The revolt did not free all of the serpentfolk, but those freed escaped to Brun to establish a free city - Ilmurea - with Ydersius as its leader. He acended to Immortality and became known to many as Yig. The Carnifex were taken aback by the revolt and made a few minor attempts to destroy the upstart serpentfolk but to their surprise were repelled, mostly due to Ydersius' involvement. The Carnifex then made a concerted effort and with the help of their foul, nameless patrons, decapitated Ydersius, threw his body down a pit into the Shadowdeep and entombed his head, burying the serpentfolk city where this happened under the Carnifex city of Saveth-yhi. Saveth-yhi remained as a monument to the power of the Carnifex, and a warning to other slaves considering revolt while covering up the truth of how successful the initial revolt was and how powerful Ydersius had become. A few serpentfolk escaped Ilmurea as it fell and brought the story of Ydersius with them, creating small temples to their first Immortal and somehow receiving spells. They infiltrated back into serpentfolk slave society and carefully kept the memory of their brief glory alive. When the Carnifex were imprisoned in the Pits of Banishment by the Immortals, the free serpentfolk, having learned the lesson of speed and planning, quickly filled the power vacuum with the first Serpentine Empire. However, these few did not know the location of Saveth-yhi and most assumed it had disappeared with the Carnifex when they were banished.
The Smuggler's Shiv is an island in Thanegioth archipelago in the Sea of Dawn, near Isle of Dread.
In the wake of the return of the Runelords and their demise at the hands of the upstart apes...uh, that is, the heroes Othariel, Arlynith, Ranya and Tomokato, several ancient ruins were left only partially explored. Bands of lesser adventurers have braved these locations and cleaned out enemies the first PCs didn't bother with. Arlynith decides it is time for her students to get some practical experience and set them to gathering all the writings from the Thassilonian ruins they could find, the stuff Ranya didn't burn when she Conflagrated Sorshen's Eye of Lust, copy, collate and talk to members of various universities. After months of boring work, the PCs
are finally done and want to return home. They could call on Arly to come pick them up and save them the trip across an ocean and a two continents, but they are young and free and want to see some of the world. They hop on a boat from Magnimar and head towards Thyatis City.
Izzie immediately gets on the wrong side of almost every sailor there by getting in the way to get a good look at what they are doing, asking incessant questions, and generally being a pest. Captain Kovack does his best to steer her away from such things but he feels he can't get too pushy with obviously wealthy passengers like these, and he can't baby sit her all the time. Izzie does get to know one sailor, Ishirou, who blunt and poorly spoken though he is is flattered by any attention from an attractive woman and answers all Izzie's questions. Phaendar and Ravi spend the trip heaving their guts over the side. Kat saw the prisoner Jesk when he was brought aboard the ship and decides to investigate. Though initially told the cargo hold is off limits to passengers, the sailor nominally on guard can't be bothered to keep Kat and Duncan out when they pursue the matter and lets them in. Jask turns out to be an Alphatian citizen and a cleric of Palartarkan, and who uncovered corruption and crime in the upper circles of Magnimar's leadership and when he tried to bring this to light he was accused of being a foreign spy and troublemaker, clapped in irons and shipped off to Thyatis City. Finding another Alphatian on board raises Jask's spirits, especially one who is (or claims to be) related to the renowned Queen Arlynith. He hopes the PCs will free him.
The other travelers did not spark much interest in the players and wanting to hurry things along we got right to the cut scene where they wake up, nauseous and with a worse headache than when they stole some of Arly's extra strength whisky and got hammered (except Izzie didn't take part in that because she's a teacher's pet). They find themselves on a beach in burning sun.
WE had spent most of the session on finishing up the PCs so we didn't play much. On to the AP proper next session.
I'm starting up a new mini-campaign, by which I mean I'm going to run a fifth AP as part of an existing campaign, and one of the PCs wants to take Familiar Bond. I've already decided to ignore the prerequisite but I'm looking at the feat itself. It's a pretty harsh reduction in power for a familiar. I've considered just changing it to having your familiar gain abilities as though you were 3 levels lower, with Improved Familiar Bond removing that penalty. That's still two feats for a useful but ultimately not overly powerful ability.
So the questions are these: are there any good balance reasons to not allow Familiar Bond to just give a straight familiar with no nerfs?
If there are, is it better to keep the existing version of the feats and the improved version, or to have the late progression I was considering?
More races and more lands to explore. Not written by Glen Welch but by someone whose name is probably Viktor. Like Welch's work, these are good introductions to the setting and races, useful for reference but these are introductory and follow the 5e norm of avoiding detail and thus not wholly necessary for those with a fairly large Mystara collection and who have a decent knowledge of the Vaults.
Glen Welch, long-term Mystara fan, has made a 5e player's guide to the third oldest D&D campaign setting. It's an impressive piece of work. Even if you don't care for 5e (like me), even if you don't need this as an introduction to the setting (like me) it is well worth a look. For those who want an introduction to Mystara or to steal a little more by the way of cool races and sub-races (where do you think tortles came from?), it is highly recommended.
Welch also has a Youtube channel that introduces primarily Mystara to new viewers, but also features other games and settings.
The following adventures are not part of an actual AP, even severely truncated and altered ones such as my lastefforts. It is however based on the concept of Shattered Star (find the McGuffin pieces) and brings in the rest of the Runelords (Return of the Runelords + Krune from that PFS scenario). Considering it's at least AP-adjacent, I hope the mods don't mind me putting this little adventure log here.
The Runelords have all been bumped to 20th level if they weren't already and spell lists drastically altered to contain most/all spells from their specialized school - I didn't like the idea of many Runelords using primarily spells from other schools to get things done so I gave them a bunch of things from older editions and 3rd party sources.
Changes from canon:
As noted in the first installment, the setting is Mystara, specifically the southern continent of Davania. Thassilon was reimagined to be the proper name of the Second Serpentine Empire as noted by Francesco Defferarri in his fan history of Davania (itself incorporating what few hints we have of canon events and a ton of other fan-made stuff), a bitter enemy of fabled Blackmoor. Serpentfolk Xin, far from being a mostly benign visionary he was in Golarion canon, was the cruelest and most powerful of the mighty wizards of the serpentfolk at the time and developed Thassilonian specialization both as a method of giving great power to its practitioners at the expense of some flexibility and as a method of preventing his subjects from getting too powerful due to access to all magic. He also created the runewells, based on the ancient Greater Carnifex artifact the Everdawn Pool, which he discovered on his journeys in his youth.
The runewells granted his chosen lieutenants, the Runelords, limited immortality (not to be confused with Immortality) and numerous other powerful abilities beyond the means of normal spellcasters. This accounts for the various mythic abilities some of the Runelords have (no mythic in my game otherwise), and a bunch of other nifty abilities that they may have, such as the Occluding Field in Xin-Shalast, superior abjuration abilities for the Runelord of Envy, etc. The runewells also tied their Runelord to their own domain, preventing them from going to other domains or to the capital city where Xin made his home, except at the express invitation from the emperor or the relevant Runelord. This was done to try to prevent any Runelord from being a threat to Xin. All runewells were tied to Xin's master well, binding the Runelords to his will. He also created the Sihedron to aid him and as a symbol of his power and right to rule. The mental and arcane stresses of his binding and controlling of the Runelords eventually took their toll and he grew old and weak despite the powers of his runewell. To counter this he devised a plan to sever the Runelords' bindings from him directly and rebind them to the Sihedron as a sort of buffer. Unfortunately for him, the Runelords noticed their momentary freedom and pounced on Xin, defeating him just as he'd bound the Runelords to the Sihedron shards but before he could reforge the Star and exercise control. The Runelords each took the shard of the Sihedron appropriate to them - no one wanted leave a potent sympathetic link like that left in the hands of others, and returned to their domains.
Though they were free of Xin the Runelords were still bound to their runewells and incapable of leaving their domain even if they could now freely visit the capital city. The master runewell was hidden away and left alone - they wanted freedom from it but did not want the other Runelords to possibly take over Xin's position as lord or somehow cause the other runewells to self-destruct or something. After this a long period of war followed as the Runelords fought against other great powers on Davania and the mighty empire of Blackmoor. After a resounding defeat by Blackmoor at the end of a long period of overt and covert war, Thassilon spent time recovering. The Runelords spent much time and effort trying to see if they could keep the benefits of a runewell without the limitations, to limited success. Karzoug tried altering the basic enchantments to enlarge the limits, Alaznist had her minions build lesser runewells outside of her domain to allow her to travel to them, Seliarius (serpentfolk don't have lips so no labial phonemes for them) worked on selectively destroying parts of her bindings, Zutha became undead (something not normally approved of by serpentfolk) and transferred his soul to the Gluttonous Tome and had minions sneak it out of his domain with the hopes of reforming outside. Krune was lazy and didn't mind being stuck at home - he had minions to go other places for him. Xanderghul had his whole Cult of the Peacock Couatl Spirit thing going and hoped to achieve Immortality through a modified Path of the Paragon, and Sorshen mostly gave up on trying to leave directly and tried to control everyone through a web of magical compulsions, blackmail, favors and total control over supply of goods and services - once that was accomplished she could get others to work on the problem of freeing her from her limiting enchantments.
Then the Great Rain of Fire ruined everyone's plans as ancient contingencies created by Xin kicked in and drew everyone into their runewells, keeping them trapped. Xin didn't want any Runelord to be out and about in the event of a catastrophe that might distract or even incapacitate him, so the runewells were made to draw their Runelords in and keep them captive until Xin released them. Xin was dead so the Runelords were stuck until about five years ago when Mokmurian discovered Xin-Shalast and managed to waken Karzoug, whose tampering with his runewell had allowed outsiders to at least partially free him. This also released the other Runelords, except Seliarius, whose runewell had been sabotaged by Karzoug, trapping her entire city in an imprisonment effect.
Recent events unbeknownst to the PCs:
The newly freed Runelords were technically aware during their long imprisonment but had all gone into a long-term hibernation after centuries of trying to escape with the limited resources of their Eyes. Waking up they realize the world outside is far different than they remember and they have spent time trying find out who's who and what's what. Mostly, they soon find out about Thyatis and Alphatia and, memories of Blackmoor still strong in their mind, they talk to each other and decide to somewhat stealthily rebuild the might of old Thassilon and try not to provoke powerful empires until they have a good understanding of their power. Being Runelords they cannot help but scheme against each other as well as try to work together, so they are not as effective as they could have been.
Alaznist's old domain is mostly inhabited by small city-states and vast deserts with small tribes of inhabitants, so she immediately gets to work blasting people and taking over. A few rumors circulate in neighboring realms of a potent warlord going around, but hard facts about her are not to be had at this point, and the major players in Davania aren't aware of Alaznist's conquest. Karzoug did as he did in RotRL. The current Serpentine Empire (much reduced in size and power compared to Thassilon) is neatly divided between Xanderghul's and Krune's old domains and both immediately revealed themselves to the shocked serpentfolk and claim to be the old and rightful lord of the empire. Xanderghul killed the emperor and wastes no time training cultists and sending them out to all corners of the old Thassilonian empire to spread the word of the Couatl Peacock Spirit (rebranding because Marketing thinks mammals will react more positively to peacocks than couatl). Krune set about recreating old deals with powerful outsiders and binding lesser ones to him. Sorshen had the good fortune of having the Thyatian Hinterlands be in her old domain so she soon took over there, unbeknownst to the humans and the Empire of Thyatis at large. Zutha is in a sort of limbo, trapped halfway between his runewell and the Gluttonous Tome, split into three parts during the GRoF. He can manifest only in reduced power incorporeal form outside of his Eye and concerns himself mostly with trying to get the three pieces of the GT brought together so he can free himself fully. Seliarius is stuck underground.
Then suddenly the active Runelords notice Karzoug is killed. They initially have no idea who was capable of this and immediately suspect each other of having somehow managed to do the deed. Divinations soon indicate that a small group of mammals were to blame. The idea that one of their own could so easily be defeated did not sit well with the surviving Runelords - even the fabled technomancers of Blackmoor had not managed such a feat - and they set about trying to learn all they can about these beings. Scrying is of limited use, considering the use of Mind Blank and generally high Will saves. Talking to certain powerful extraplanar beings helps some since there are a few Entropic Immortals who don't like the PCs and will gladly share what they know to get rid of them.
After the events of Rise of the Runelords Arlynith spent a couple of weeks working on her Staff of Wishes, defeating another 20th level sorcerer as part of her quest for Immortality and examining the Shard of Greed she recovered from Karzoug. The curse is annoying. She can't wear much by the way non-magical clothes since everything she owns is magical in some way so she ends up just using her Wish-component diamonds as earrings. More interesting is the need to make Will saves to sell or give away stuff. The player thought it would be easier to remember and more fun if Arly needed to save any time she spent any money in any way. We now have a haughty, superior, snobbish queen with the greed of Scrooge McDuck. Despite several strong hints the player didn't pick up on the idea of putting an ioun stone in the shard, so we are looking forward to what will happen as more shards and more curses start piling up. Othariel's player, being attentive to detail and having played the first book of Shattered Star already, knows what to do but we think it's more fun to let Arly get saddled with more and more curses.
Arly realizes the shard has an arcane connection to the others and can be used to find them, specifically to its neighboring pieces. Going by the order in which the shards are found in Shattered Star the next one in line would be Lust and Pride. Going by a poster's (for the life of me I can't remember who or find the post they are in but it's someone on these boards) take on the Sins of rule which I quite like, the supporting shards were Lust and Envy. I tried to plan for two encounters so the Arly could decide which she was going for but ended up only making one. Fortunately my players are cool with a bit of railroading for sake of plot and convenience so they ended up going after Envy. They don't know who they are going after because they didn't bother to research this, even though they have the Therassic library and the Anathema Archive at their disposal.
After a trip back to the Therrassic Library and some light reading of old maps of Thassilon Arly discovers the location of Xin-Edasseril, gets her friends and heads off. Despite some very heavy hinting from my part about Do They Want To Cast Commune or Greater Commune Before Heading Out? (homebrew spell that works as Commune but you can ask any question and get a short answer, not just Yes/no) they settle for a Discern Location and head off, first to get a scroll of Freedom, then to the site of Xin-Edasseril. They end up in a small village deep in the a fjord in Davania. The village is populated by simbasta (lion rakasta) fishers and pastoralists. They are a bit surprised to see outsiders, particularly humans, of such power show up but are generally peaceable and helpful. Some concern is shown for the locals at the thought of just freeing a powerful Runelord who might start blasting away the moment they come up, so they create a hut of Walls of Force and ready an action to cast Dimensional Anchor on the Runelord as soon as they are freed. As the PCs start casting, all the locals stand shocked for a moment then start running for their lives, a sensible reaction to the sight of a bunch of obviously ridiculously powerful strangers coming to your town and casting magic without so much as a by your leave or a warning. The idea of encapsulating the freed Runelord was not a bad plan in and of itself, but the PCs were unaware of the fact that all of the city was Imprisoned, not just the Runelord, and the simbasta village is obliterated as Xin-Edasseril emerges from the ground.
The newly freed serpentfolk immediately start buzzing like a hive of disturbed bees. From their point of view the sky flashed and there was a brief moment of violent motion (as the GRoF spews thaumo-radioactive fallout all over the planet and shifts the axis of rotation) before the contingency imprisoned the city. Suddenly they are in another time of day, the temperature is all wrong, and the surrounding mountains look different than they used to. They rush about wondering if Blackmoor has attacked again. Since the PCs put up their Walls of Force where they did, Seliarius' palace emerges right under it, resulting in a magically strengthened stone building trying to push away the Walls. They ruin each other and the PCs take some crush and fall damage as the roof of the palace pushes up against the walls, then collapses, dumping them inside. The massive disorientation and damage is a boon in many ways because there is no coordinated defense to discover or hinder the PCs. First Arly casts Veil to disguise themselves as serpentfolk. This fails at the first encounter because they don't have the right uniforms, and there is a fight with a patrol of Emerald Guards, which the PCs easily defeat. Altering the illusion to now give them the right uniforms they rush through the ruined palace, encountering various groups of guards and bluffing their way past. When they find interesting -looking doors they fail to bluff their way in and have to kill more guards. They enter and see a giant emerald floating in mid air. Having already encountered Karzoug's entrance to Eye, they rush forward and touch the emerald, transporting to the Eye of Jealousy.
Inside they are immediately greeted by Symbols of Dispelling, Revelation and Vulnerability, before being hit by a Disjunction from the Runelord. My house rule of Disjunction is that it automatically shuts down all non-artifact magic items without save, but they aren't destroyed unless specifically targeted for that purpose. This saves a LOT of time rolling saves for items and recalculating everything. Now you just need magic/no magic stats, and you can spend a standard action reactivating a magic item with an appropriate UMD check. Othariel casts Time Stop and spends her three rounds getting her armor and stat boosters online. Ranya uses a Miracle to get all their gear up and running again, which only marginally annoys Othariel who just wasted around and a 9th level spell. Arly attempts a Time Stop but is countered (one of the Runelord's runewell abilities was once per round reactive counterspell outside of normal actions). When that fails she quickens a Dimension Door and takes everyone past the tzitzimitl straight to Seliarius' side. Tomokato, having correctly identified the tzitzimitl, does not want a Mass Heal suddenly turned into a Mass Harm, so smites and shoots the giant skeleton with a full attack, nearly destroying it. The tzitzimitl uses its eye beams on Arly, who takes only 61 damage - a lot of 1s and 2s were rolled. Xoxl and the gold golems on the lower level start flying towards PCs. Xoxl reaches them but the golems are slow and need another round.
Seliarius casts Spell Turning and a quickened Seven Eyes. Othariel attacks Xoxl who takes a lot of damage but doesn't quite go down due to some unlucky rolls on Othariel's part.
Now comes the point where I drop the ball and forget all the details of the fight, which only lasted two hours or so. I remember bits and pieces but can't remember a blow by blow account and have probably messed up the order in which things occurred. The long and short of it is while the PCs handled the muscle in the room quite easily, Seliarius was, as expected of an Abjuration specialist, hard to take out. Decent AC, good enough saves, strong resistance/immunity to energy types (which was assumed by the players and they avoided most elemental damage), tons of counterspelling and mitigation against weapon damage made taking her down a chore. Unlike Karzoug who had more hp but worse protections and spent the combat hiding and sniping before going down hard when he was forced to reveal himself, Seliarius stood toe to toe with all the PCs the entire combat, shutting down several attacks, stealing powers and spells, having contingencies to heal her, spells that made her immune to entire schools of spells, Aroden's Spellbane, and reaction spells like Repercussion to reflect damage back on dealers, and Weaponbane which renders her immune to a single weapon type, and more.
The PCs prevailed however, and it was not even close. Unlike Karzoug who at least managed to kill one of the PCs and came close a couple other times, Seliarius could not dish out as well as she could take, and action economy is a thing. As usual, I look back on what I had planned and realize I could have done something better with what I had, had forgotten other things I had planned to do etc.; the GM version of winning an argument in the shower, I guess.
Next session, claiming the Shard of Envy, destroying the runewell (probably), and finding out what the hell they are supposed to do with a big city of serpentfolk that they dumped in the middle of unsuspecting peaceful lands. Also, another Runelord if they get their act together, either Sorshen or Alaznist.
For the runelord's altered spell list I used a lot of the official abjuration spells, spells from Encyclopedia Arcane: Abjuration, and the following 1e, 2e and BECMI spells:
Dispel Enchantment
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 8, witch 8
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S, M
Range: touch
Duration: 10 minutes/level (item) or 1 round/level (field) (D)
Area: item touched or 120' radius
Saving throw: special
Spell resistance: no
Choose one:
Spell negation field: A more limited version of antimagic field, all spells in the area in effect at the time of casting are immediately dispelled. All spells cast in the area afterwards are subject to a dispel magic effect from you, and all potions must make a Fortitude save or be destroyed. Your spells, however, are not affected by this spell.
Item negation: target magical item is rendered inert for the duration, without save. Limited use items like scrolls, potions or feather tokens, charged items like wands, some staves etc. are destroyed instead.
Material Components: a token of meteoric iron worth 1000 gp
Dispel Illusion
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 4, wu jen 4
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S
Range: medium
Duration: Instantaneous
Target: 1 illusion
Saving throw: none
Spell resistance: no
You automatically dispel a single illusion in range.
Counterspell Immunity
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Casting Time: 1 round
Components: as the spell protected against
Range: touch
Duration: special
Target: creature touched
The target becomes immune to a specific spell. You must know the spell or have it available on a scroll. The spell lies latent until the target is exposed to the spell, then is active for 1 round/level.
Target creature becomes immune to all spells of 3rd level or lower (as per a mobile globe of invulnerability) . Spells of 4th and 5th level have half normal effect for any numerical effects, including duration, or 1 quarter on a successful save. You gain DR 20/magic (+3) for the duration. You may concentrate as a standard action to drop the protection for 1 round, to allow spells to pass through.
A carefully worded wish or miracle can increase the benefits to protect fully against 4th level spells, half effect from 5th and 6th level spells, and increase DR to /epic.
Material Components: a small replica golden shield worth 2000 gp
Power Word: Banishment
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: close
Target: 1 creature
Duration: instantaneous
Saving Throw: special
Spell Resistance: yes
You banish one extraplanar being, sending it home with no save. It cannot leave its home plane under its own power for 366 days after this spell has been cast (natural abilities or spellcasting abilities). A wish or miracle can lift the confinement effect. You must correctly name the home plane of the creature. If you fail, you must make a Will saving throw against this or be banished to that plane yourself.
Seven Eyes
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 7
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S, M
Range: personal
Duration: 1 round/level
Area: 7 'eyes'
Saving throw: Will Reflex Fortitude negates half partial none
Spell resistance: yes no
You create seven magical eyes that float about you, each granting 360 degree vision (preventing flanking). Each can grant a one-time protection against a single effect and then wink out of existence. The eyes automatically protect against the first appropriate effect that targets you. They can also be expended as a standard action to create a specific effect.
Eye of the Mind: protects against mind affecting effects. Expend to cast charm person
Eye of the Sword: Protects against a single physical attack. Expend to cast magic missile (five missiles).
Eye of the Mage: Protects against one elemental or force attack. Expend to cast a 5d6 lightning bolt.
Eye of Venom: protects against 1 instance of poison. Expend to make a close range touch attack that deals 1d2 Constitution damage (1 save negates).
Eye of the Soul:Protects against a negative energy attack (negative levels, ability damage from undead, etc.). Expend to cast enervation.
Eye of Artifice: Protects against the first attack from a magical item. This can overlap with other Eyes and you may choose which Eye will block. You may expend it to cast dispel magic at CL 10.
Eye of Stone: Protects against petrification, stun, daze, paralysis, staggered, fatigued, exhausted. Expend to cast hold person.
Material Components: seven blessed gemstone worth 100 gp each.
The target is immune to one spell or magical item specified at the time of casting. This applies even to instantaneous conjuration effects such as wall of stone or Melf's acid arrow. The target treats the effect as though it were not there, allowing him to, for instance, see and hear and walk through walls of iron as though they weren't there. Rendering the target immune to a +3 long sword protects against +1 and +2 long swords, but not +3 spears or a +1 keen long sword. This spell cannot protect against artifacts or similar levels of power.
Spelltrap
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 7
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S, M
Range: personal
Duration: 1 round/level
Target/Area:
Saving throw: Fortitude partial
Spell resistance: yes
You create a silvery oval that hangs in the air over your head that absorbs spells cast at you, and allows you to release as a standard action later. Any spell or spell-like ability that has you as its sole target is absorbed. The oval absorbs a total number of spell levels equal to twice your level. The oval keeps trying to absorb spells and if it exceeds its maximum the oval explodes dealing 6d6 points of untyped damage to all within 20' radius. Affected creatures are allowed a Fortitude save to avoid being stunned for one round. If you decide to release a spell, it is randomly chosen from the spells absorbed. You can target it as you will but the spell is wasted on illegal targets. If dispelled or otherwise canceled the trap explodes as if overloaded.
Material Components: 2000 gp of mixed diamond and moonstone.
Sunshield
(Abjuration) [fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Casting Time: 1 day
Components: V, S, M
Range: personal
Duration: special, until triggered
Area: special, 30' radius burst
Saving throw: Reflex half
Spell resistance: yes
You enchant a special gem that grants you a +6 deflection bonus to AC that lasts so long as the gem is kept on your person. You can cause the gem to explode, dealing 1d6/level (max 20d6 level) to all creatures in the area, including you. This fire damage bypasses normal fire resistance and immunity.
Material Components: a specially prepared sunstone worth 1000 gp
Symbol of Entrapment
(Abjuration) [teleport, mind affecting, compulsion]
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S, M
Range: touch
Duration: until triggered
Targhet: creatures touched
Saving throw: Will negates
Spell resistance: yes
This symbol is inscribed on a surface, usually the floor, and any creature touching it must make a Will save or be transported to a prison demiplane and are subject to a confusion spell (though they wil never get the 'act normally' option). The symbol can trap any number of creatures, and they are trapped for 10 minutes/level. Any form of dispelling as well as freedom will free the trapped characters.
Material Components: Glue, a bag and gems worth 4000 gp.
Spellstrike
(Abjuration)
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V
Range: medium
Duration: Instantaneous
Area: a single spell
Saving throw: none
Spell resistance: no
You retroactively remove the effects of a single spell cast no more than one round ago. The spell's effects are entirely removed as though they never occurred, but any slots or charges used, as well as any other spells or effects used to attempt to alter, mitigate or undo it are still used. This does not affect limited wish, wish or miracle.
Setting: Forgotten Realms
I hadn't actually intended to run this one but I needed something for Othariel while Arly's players is gone for a bit, and my brain wasn't working too well, so here we are. This is looking like the shortest AP on record. This AP needed even more rewriting to make things fit, but I made it work. Korvosa is replaced by the Principality of the Thunder Rift, a small valley nestled between Glantri and Wendar. The city is reduced in size and is on a small lake rather than the coast. Otherwise the basic plot is the same: useless king marries hot evil chick, gets poisoned, and evil chick sparks riots in the streets. She's planning on releasing a plague in the city and using gathered blood and misery from people to make herself super powerful using a leftover magic item under the castle, mwahahahaha!
Most of the other elements are present, like most of the NPCs, various smaller tasks to do around town, getting hold of powerful artifacts in a barren land, etc.
Dramatis personae:
Princess Othariel Ainamir of the Silver Arm, Lady Defender of the Thunder Rift (Ranger 2, Paladin 18 of Mealiden and Khoronus)
Heading off to the future to see if her grand vision of multiple sentient races living together will work.
Ranya (Cleric 20 of Valerias)
Along for the ride
Tomokato Katamura (paladin 20 of Ixion)
Wants to shoot things
Othariel is fiddling around with the core of the time travel mirrors she and her friends picked up when fighting the Oard. Her highest level of technological know-how is 'there are things in the past and future called computers which are good and there are things called 'reactors' which blow up and shift the axis and orbit of the planet and cause thaumo-nuclear winter', so how hard can it be to make something like this work? With a little help from some gnomes, a piece of solidified time she picked up many years ago, and the firm belief that if she just fiddles with it long enough something useful will happen, she makes it work.
Thinking that the best way to see if something immensely dangerous like a time travel device will work is by jumping in head first, she gets her friends together. Arly is busy sucking up to other mages in hopes of getting Wishes out of them, so no arcane support for this adventure. They may have to *gasp* walk to places. Othariel fiddles with her innocuous-looking device and they disappear.
They end up in an unfamiliar city that seems to be on fire. They quickly realize there is a riot going on and split up and set about trying to calm things down. With the lowest Diplomacy score being in the mid-30s, getting people to stop rioting isn't too hard. A few bucket chains and Create Water spells take care of most of the fires.
They spend the night calming things down and keeping things safe. The next morning they head up to the castle and ask to see the ruler. The guards stutter something about not being able to let people in. The PCs act Diplomacy their way past the guards and go to a receiving room and wait for someone to show up. Guards of various ranks show up and try to get information out of the PCs and order them to give over their weapons. The PCs don't oblige. Queen Ileosa shows up and Othariel immediately gets on her bad side by not giving more than a perfunctory nod rather than a deep bow befitting Ileosa's status. Being an excellent actress, she doesn't let this show other than a raised eyebrow.
Not being a total fool, Ileosa expects some interference from 4-to-6 meddling do-gooders trying to stop her. She has made plans for this. She did not expect some very rich and dangerous-looking folks to show up the same day as she puts her plans into motion, speaking an archaic dialect of the local tongue and immediately make everyone in town feel in awe of them. She really didn't expect people claiming to be the founder of the kingdom and her legendary friends to show up. Only three of the four (or five or six - accounts vary) people are here but the names are right and they do look and sound rather old fashioned.
In short, she starts getting worried. With some elegance she dismisses the PCs' immediate claims about their identity but promises to arrange a proper test as soon as possible (it would be foolish to take them at their word or administer easily cheated tests, after all) and refuses to let them inspect the corpse of the king. She does give them guest rooms in the castle and offers full hospitality. The PCs spend a bit of time talking to servants and visiting the library, trying to figure out when they are and what has happened since they last were in these parts. To Othariel's great sorrow it seems that her dream of a multicultural realm has mostly failed. Several of the humanoid races were suppressed and killed or driven off, others live as second or third class citizens or have mostly isolated themselves in remote areas of the Rift. Even worse, her son disappeared and his fate was unknown, and her daughter died when the Rift was subjugated by Glantri.
Still, no time to grieve. The PCs cast Commune and ask some obvious questions like "Is Ileosa evil?" , "Did she kill the king?" and "Is she doing this for the good of the country?" While Misdirection stopped any Detect Evil from the paladins from seeing anything amiss, Ileosa has no protection from Commune. The PCs quickly make their way down to the crypt where the king's body is lying ready for disposal, incapacitate the guards and start trying to cast Raise Dead.
Ileosa catches them in the act, having brought her guards and many nobles with her in hopes of disposing of the king's body before the PCs got there. She spins the PCs' presence here to be proof of their heinous nature, trying to do unspeakable things to the corpse, and her uncontested lies do seem to work. Her guards, including Sabina, move forward to engage the PCs and she retreats up the stairs to not be in the line of fire. The guards are basically useless. A few lucky 20s on attacks still doesn't do more than annoy the PCs. Sabina is a bit harder to handle and gets in a blow or so eery round, and after turning his bow to a cosh to bludgeon her safely to unconsciousness, Tomokato gets frustrated that this takes more than 1 round (due to lesser attack bonus and lower damage) so he makes his bow a bow again and puts her down.
Togomor shows his face and dispels the Antilife Shell Ranya put up to stop people getting past her to bother Othariel, but he then eats a Destruction and pops like a bloated tick. ileosa's projected image is used to buff her guards, but even Bardic Performance, Haste and a few failed attempts at debuffs on the PCs can't put them on even footing with the PCs, so they go down (to mostly non-lethal damage) and Ileosa flees. Eodred does not wish to come back to life, so the PCs are stuck wondering what to do. We end the session there.
So in one session we played about half a chapter of the first book before the PCs skipped to the end. No Everdawn Pool thing going, even if I'm using those stats for Ileosa, though. I suspect that things will wrap up fairly quickly next time and more time will be spent on trying to find out what went wrong so Othariel can take steps to make sure they don't do so again (pre-gain?). Or maybe she'll accept it as a lesson in learning that you can't fix everything with time travel.
Will Mind Blank stop Karzoug scrying on PCs through worn Sihedron medallions/rings?
My first instinct was 'no', since I consider wearing them more like giving K. a back door or an automatic acceptance, but I just wondered if there was anything official on the subject.
I need a long adventure for one of my PCs and a mash-up of the three Runelord APs sounds just right. The PCs have been 20th level for years, two are lords of their own domains, they are well-liked by several rulers of other nations, including the two most powerful in the world, WBL is a joke, and they all have in excess of 50 point buy ability scores (62 in one case - that was an impressive set she rolled), they have the enmity of three Immortals, the personal support of a few others, and have already saved the timeline from clone cyborgs from the future intent on all magic, stopped ancient reptilian overlords from escaping their inescapable prison, stopped a world war from happening, and a many other things of lesser note (like stopped a 400 meter tall steam mech), and now they want to become Immortals themselves, so something like these APs sounds like a nice step on the way.
The APs are heavily rewritten to fit in Mystara, but the most important things are there. Part of the reason I chose to run the entire APs rather than just the more level-appropriate bits was to let the players experience just how far they've come since level 1. Knowing intellectually is one things but if you nearly always meet level appropriate stuff and gloss over minor stuff you don't get to feel like the gods they are attempting to become.
TLDR: 20th level characters run through an AP or three.
Dramatis personae:
Queen Arlynith Tirielle Drachenflamme, Lord of Drachenflamme (human sorcerer, red dragon disciple). The product of many unspeakable experiments by her grandundcle who was very fond of vivisections and clones. Needs an artifact to study to help make her own. Haughty and proud.
Lady Protector Othariel Ainamar, Princess of the Thunder Rift (elf paladin, ranger 2). Local girl who decided to make the Rift a unified nation where all local races live in harmony, and reminds herself that she is a paladin and can't go back on her word on a daily basis at having to wrangle 11 races (most of whom hate each other) into a cohesive whole. Nice.
Ranya Eliander, high priestess of Valerias (human cleric). Sexy, flirty, seductive, meddling, and more of a cocktease than a cockplease. Tries to hide her indiscretions from her husband (high priest of Khoronus), who knew what he was getting into when they married. A major point of contention is which Immortal their son will become a cleric of. The son's opinion on the matter is unknown.
Tomokato Katamura (eh? eh? get it?) rakasta paladin of Ixion, samurai from the invisble moon, but left his flying sabertooth tiger back home. Likes to shoot things with his bow.
Dealing with the recent magically created famine in her realm, the public unrest at the new laws allowing undead full citizenship, and the embarrassing issue with the rabbit, Arly is not in a good mood. It's not made any better when she realizes she has been paying a bunch of idiot students at the university to research a subject she is finished with, and this has been going on a few years.
Her mood changes when she sees the notes she received from them mention an artifact from an ancient race that has been portrayed in various art on the southern continent of Davania. In need of an artifact to study to help her finish the Staff of Wishes she's working on, Arly decides a quick trip to the other side of the world makes for a nice little break from queening. She picks up Othariel and Ranya for some company. Othariel also needs a break from princessing and it will give her son a chance to get some hands-on experience with ruling. Ranya has nothing better to do than watch the 100 foot tall statue of her for ten years, so she tags along. Tomokato is out roaming, as tom cats are wont.
The PCs teleport to Magnimar, formerly Raven Scarp, capital of the Thyatian expansion into the Davinian Hinterlands. They try to find Brodert Quink, formerly Baravan Quincinius, who authored the reports Arly received. He apparently had just moved to the little town of Sandpoint, the first major settlement outside of Magnimar in the Hinterlands now that the locals are subjugated or driven off. Another teleport and the PCs are in Sandpoint. Their appearance draws stares, not surprising since they are wearing enough valuables to buy the town many many times over. A quick meal at the Rusty Dragon and on to Quink, who is overjoyed to find someone interested in his research on Thassilon, overjoyed enough that he completely fails to be impressed by the obvious wealth of his visitors. He mentions the festival the next day, and the PCs shrug their shoulders and say they might as well stay the night, since they could use a nice party.
Ranya visits the new temple, charms her way past the acolytes who try to tell her Father Zantus is very busy, and speaks to the man himself. She is overjoyed to see he's a Valerias worshpper as well, and wants to take him out drinking. He protests he has a lot to do before the next day, and, pouting, Ranya leaves. The Rusty Dragon is bustling with business. Most of the town is present, trying very unsuccessfully to pretend they are not there to see the three strangers who all have at least 26 Charisma, and a few even try their luck but fail miserably. Ranya, in an uncharacteristic display of tact, uses her +29 bonus to Perform to not entirely outclass Ameiko Kaijutsu but rather just accompany her.
The next day the festival is a success, though Ranya wonders what this Peacock Spirit thing Father Zantus was talking about is. Certainly not anything Valerias-relatesd she's ever heard of, possibly even heretical. She'll have to talk to him about that later. When the goblins attack the PCs almost laugh in disbelief. Ranya debates using a Stormbolts but thinks it wasteful if she only gets two in it, so settles for a Searing Light. Arly takes out two more with a Scorching Ray, and Othariel whammies all of 4 with a Holy Smite. They then fly out to clean up the rest of the town. The only death was Aldern's loyal dog, who Othariel tries to use Ultimate Mercy on. The good boi didn't want to come back, sadly. She never even notices the whiny noble who tried to profess his gratitude. Arly takes one commando alive and, once the rest have been killed, decides to question him. After restarting the goblin's heart, which gave out when faced with 56 on an Intimidate roll, she gets nothing useful. She hands the goblin over to the town and they are surprised to see the thing cry like a baby and ask to be protected from the scary scaly lady.
The next day the PCs are a bit annoyed at the whole thing want to get out of town before anything else happens. "Why can't we just go somewhere without having something stupid like this happen to us?" they ask the uncaring heavens (aka the DM).
Eager to get back to more important things, they decide to talk to Quink and see if he has any direct leads to this ancient artifact he rambled about. If not, they're going home. Just then, in the middle of Quink's lecture on the big ruin on the edge of town actually being far older than the Milenian empire other scholars attribute it to, Corwina bursts in asking the PCs for help.
"Don't they have local guards for this?" they wonder. Upon hearing Ameiko was kidnapped and reading the letter from her brother they sigh, mutter something about "back home I have people for this sort of thing" and cast Locate Person. Othariel was not going to bother running all over town following clues if Ameiko turned out to be somewhere else than the glassworks. Arly and Othariel head on over, leaving Ranya to talk to a few people. Othariel and Arly wonder how the hell no one notices a bunch of goblins in the glassworks and Arly Fireballs them. Tsuto survives, thanks to the spell being Merciful. The PCs go into the basement and rescue Ameiko, then sigh in annoyance at the sight of the tunnel in the wall. After interrogating Tsuto, their suspicion that this is more than a simple tunnel to bring goblins in is confirmed and they head down.
Final thoughts for the session. The players had fun, even if they were a bit exasperated at the whole thing. There is a significant chance that they'll just pony up some cash to hire adventurers and tell Quink to contact them if he turns up anything interesting. However, they'll probably go straight down to the Scribbler when they find the collapsed staircase, so I'll have to make sure to note how Sihedrony the Catacombs are, and how much more useful it will be to hang around for the rest of the AP than to let other people handle it.
I'm gearing up to run a few major adventures for my players and to try to ease my burden I'm looking into seeing if there are some adventures I can use. I need two fast adventure path (ish) things to take the PC from 1st to 12th, and one big adventure for 20th level characters. All of them should be McGuffin questing, or at least rewriteable to become something like that.
I'm fine with putting in the effort of rewriting the adventure a to fit my game and rebalancing encounters, but I like to have something to work with. I'm fine with any edition or even different systems, I just need some ideas and basic plots to work with. Any recommendations or ideas are welcome.
In fact, if there are any adventures of any kind that broadly, as well as any that are or can be made to be 'protect kingdom from destruction or radical change in leadership', please let me know. The higher level the better.
So I recently allowed a player to play a kineticst in my game and I've regretted it every session.
Most recently was the Spark of Life utility, which says that you "breathe a semblance of life" into element, indicating that it is something you create on the spot. However, the very same sentence also says it works "as if summoned". I would have ruled it to be a creation effect because of the 'brethe life into' and using your own life force to give it a mind, but considering Spark of Innovation explicitly says they are summoned...
It's kind of important in this particular adventure since they are in a locked demiplane where they can't summon anything, but creating an element and imbuing it with your own power would work.
We all know how Tongues and Comprehend Languages are meant to work: PCs can read any non-magical language or speak to any creature and avoid having the game grind to a halt while they play charades or visit libraries and scholars. That's fine but what I am interested in is the limits of the spells and how they might fail or give misleading results.
How faithful is the translation? To what extent do they convey cultural content? For instance, in Norway for many years, and to an extent today, 'krigen' (lit. 'the war') referred to WWII unless context made it clear you were speaking of some other war. Would Tongues pick up on this and convey it correctly or would the listener have to ask which war?
Would Gandalf have instantly understood the door of Moria was "say 'friend', and enter" if he had cast CL instead of relying on this knowledge of Sindarin?
Are homonyms/homographs explained? Do the spells explain puns and double entendres? Could you understand the multi-layer meanings of, e.g. certain Japanese poems? Are idioms, common sayings and memes translated and explained? Will words that have different meanings of the same word at different points in time be explained?
If my group is anything to go by, everything is just translated into our native tongue and whatever linguistic oddities and uncertainties there are are magically translated into our tongue with all its cultural flavors and biases or ignored. This is because even if people know more than one language, thinking of translations and the problems of two or more in a general sense is something they don't usually do.
In the current Mystara campaign two of the PCs are going for the Path of the Polymath that includes randomly determined race/class combos for three additional lives.
The other players thought this sounded like fun and decided to do the same for their supporting characters, and one ended up being a troll bard with crappy stats.
In an upcoming game one of the players will playing a troll bard with a Charisma of 1. I know all the reasons it can't/shouldn't work but I'm trying to think of possible options to make it work. An archetype that got rid of casting for something else would be perfect but I can't think of any. Alternatively something that allows spellcasting with a physical ability score.
I can always bash something out for the player but I'd appreciate knowing what I have to work with in the RAW or other ideas from people.
And just to head off some possible comments, 'do something else or just give him a good Charisma' isn't an option; this character will stay as he is with crappy Charisma and everything because everyone loves the idea and I haven't seen the player this excited for a D&D character in, well, ever.
Tanith Lee died on the 24th of May at the age of 67 after 'a long illness'.
She was a prolific author, having in excess of 90 books and 300 short stories to her name, too many of which I haven't read (yet). She had a wonderful ear for language and wrote comfortably in that sparsely populated borderland of literature where poetry and prose are the same.
She was the best example of Goth literature you could find. Dark, imaginative, dangerous, sensual and sexual and wonderfully written. In the hands of a lesser author her themes and stories would be pretentious and ridiculous, but in her hands it was evocative.
She could be funny, she wrote good children's literature, she wrote fantasy, SF, horror, fairytales and more. She was my first introduction to the concept of anything beyond heteronormative love and sexuality and gender (I can't comment on how accurate or in/offensive her treatment of the subject is but I never felt it to be anything but respectful), and the first to show me that however much I liked the work of Tolkien and Lovecraft and Howard and their ilk, fantasy literature could be so much more.
She was one of my favorite authors and wrote some of the best fantasy you can find: The Flat Earth stories, which have very little in common with other masters like Tolkien, Leiber, Vance, Howard etc. being less about the success of protagonists and more about their failure and the world around them.
I could list dozens of good books here, along with a few not so good (though by no means bad). We've lost so many good authors in the last couple of years. I guess it's easier when they were already dead by the time you read them.
Looks disappointing. He really doesn't give the impression of being the second most powerful being in existence after God and just slumming it for fun. He seems to silly, not poised or removed enough.
Let's hope the show is better than the trailer promises.
Considering how good X was, especially compared to the several preceding seasons, I'm excited. I doubt it will be as good as the first three or four seasons but looking at X, especially "Lemons", this promises to be a blast.
I've seached and couldn't find an answer, so if it's out there, I apologize in advance.
The general rule of feats is you can't take them more than once unless it says you can. Does this apply to Unsanctioned Knowledge as well?
Arguments for: it gives you a different bonus (spells) each time, and you can generally take feats that grant slight different bonuses each time ( Weapon Focus(different) or Skill Focus (different), and this feat can easily be understood as Unsanctioned Knowledge (spells w, x, y, z) or even US (bard - specific spells) preventing you from choosing from the same list more than once.
Hello.
I'm sorry if there is a thread about this already floating about somewhere but I haven't been able to find it if there is.
I've been trying to use the kingdom building rules from Ultimate Campaign and have run into a slight snag: I can't seem to find any rules for taxation, specifically the taxes a vassal (the PC) owes to a liege lord. As far as I can tell, taxes are almost negligible in these rules, with wealth magically accumulating without actually taking much at all from the people who live in the domain - you can have a thriving domain without taxing anything.
I could have understood that income assumed taxation if nothing else was mentioned but when the rules say you don't have to tax anything, and you are almost as well off mechanically not doing so, I'm puzzled.
Are the rules actually lacking, or is there something I've missed?
(For those interested, I'm running Mystara with the PC having been granted a domain by Ericall of Norwold. Standard taxation in the old Companion rules, and which all of the Mystara products support in part or in full when the subject of taxation comes up, is 20% of income. Granted, this is net income because general upkeep and similar expenses were assumed to have been subtracted but I've had a long and frustrating argument with the player about taxation in general with the UCam rules and I'm trying to make him see that if the rules are lacking, I'm going to implement changes to keep the feel (and certain plot critical elements) of BECMI. I started off with a 20% tax on income in the form of BP, but have considered increased Consumption)
