Panticles's page

Good to see you still alive and kicking kevin_video! Sorry to hear about your mum getting sick but I'm sending her the best wishes from my family and myself!

Definitely keen to see what you are coming up with in continuation of this adventure. I'm still running it in 5E but have had to got to monthly sessions due to running another DM collabrative campaign with a few other people.

I think there is definite desire out there for an underground kingdom building adventure, why not do your own take on it? I'd support the crap out of a kickstarter if you started one. Also happy to help contribute ideas for whatever you came up with.

Also I'm at a point where I'm about to have the party enter Dammerhall itself now. I'm currently in the midst of building a proper model so will post a few pics when it's done. I'm still trying to decide what the black fire is I'm thinking probably magical radiation but that could change after I review my notes.

Anyway glad to see you are still around and fighting the hood fight!

Not me!

So my adventure continues. Currently the PCs are clearing out an ancient yuan ti city and are about to face a reborn god or maybe join forces with him, then they are off to Dammerhall to face the black flames and the creatures that dwell within them!

Did the art guy say if he is going to put out a Throne of Night art book?

Oh, likely. About the only person that could give you that would be Michael Clarke. I'm wondering if he'd give it up to anyone if they asked super nice.

Other than that, I'd say just Google "dwarf city map", click on the Images tab, and choose one. I've seen a few good ones. One posted on reddit was even built over a lava flow.

That would be great if he did that but I'm pretty sure that will never happen. I have no artistic talent but I'm building a map in paint.net. I will post it when I'm done.

First time I have ever done this so it's terrible but at least it's free!

Some other ideas could be:.

Great stuff!

I have split the city of Dammerhall into districts. I imagine the city to be a vertical metropolis dug into a mountain. The Forge & mine district at the bottom moving into the main residential and agricultural district that then leads into a military/government/temple district with the guild & artisan district at the surface allowing easier access to trade.

I'm slowly figuring out encounters for each of the districts. I have rifts into the radiation Dimension opening in each of the districts allowing a wider variety of creatures and factions to be there.

This would be a lot easier with a map!:)

Some great stuff.

That helps a lot! I will have to convert some stuff because it's a 5E game but you've given me a lot to draw on.

I'm trying to have a a couple dozen encounter's in the city. Currently I have (and I've shamelessly stolen some ideas from this thread)

- dwarven ghosts driven to madness by their extremely painful deaths.

- dwarven constructs that repair the city and guard it's empty streets

- giant Irradiated insects that serve as prey for the mutated beasts from the radiation Dimension.

- An order of monks from the radiation Dimension that seek to learn the secrets of the rift but are unable to access the rift due to the monstrosities lairing in the area.

- warlords from the radiation Dimension clash amongst the ruins of Dammerhalls agricultural district.

- A vat of sentient liquid mithril that housed the Dwarven people's entire history. Let your imagination figure out the rest. (Stolen from this thread)

- a railway track connects the dwarven districts together, can you get this railway working again?

Feel free to throw some ideas out there!

If you're going radiation, an Atomic Adept could be an interesting NPC.

Got to look that up but it sounds pretty interesting!

So I'm still plowing through with my campaign. Currently the party is side tracked into fighting yuan ti and will probably be a couple of months on that before getting back to the main quest.

So I'm currently working on my version of Dammerhall and I have been reading through this thread looking for inspiration and ideas. I have done some draft work on the layout and have been thinking I will go with the dwarves finding a magical radioactive ore that they tried to use to build a primitive magic atomic generator that tore a rift into a radiation Dimension. This generated the black fire that killed everything in the city and still kills anything that attempts to get into the city. However this generated a whole bunch of ghosts and other incorpereal undead as well as creatures from the radiation Dimension that crossed over but can't exist outside of the black fire. Plus all the golems and other Constructs that roam the city.

As for the creatures from the radiation Dimension I'm thinking that they will have a B movie vibe but I'm still making up my mind on that.

Any suggestions for how I can improve things?

I kind of meant to do this before when I replied, but kind of just let it go what with the fiasco of what's happening, and the lack of caring starting to kick in at this point. Anyway, wanted to bring up again that I made my version of what I was going to do for that boss encounter. From the picture you can tell he was going for a lich, but we don't want something that's so mundane as a human lich, again.

Instead, I made mine was a cunning aasimar dread lich godling. Probably a little too high for a CR to go into that particular scenario, but whatevs. I think Gary was going for something more in the CR 13-14 range.

That's definitely cool. However I think I'm going to make my demigod some kind of Neutral or Good character, because the party are currently allied with Karthus Deepfire in retaking his old lair and I want to make it morally difficult for them.

They have just retaken Fasturvalt from the drow army led by The Seven, seven drow siblings, and forced the drow out by capturing them using potions of etherealness and the geas spell.

Now they are heading back to their home base to find out whats been going on in their absence. Plus lots of magical items will be doled out!

I just realized there was a promised exclusive adventure called Palace of the Half-God. Did that get sent out to the backers?

Also I wish the best to all those who got burnt by this kickstarter. It's a lousy end to what started so promisingly.

My impression of the Gnome kings highway is that it is broad and stable enough to use carts... evidenced by the fact that they have a cart on it. Vothys is a different kettle of fish. A typical large pack lizard (monitor) with Str 17 could Carry 500lbs as a medium load which would allow for a single block of marble 1’ x 1’ x 3’.

I imagine this would be made up of small bricks that that are carried in packs. That drow would use magic to shape smooth. So a 10 pack lizards would carry enough marble for just over 3 cubic feet of marble. Not a lot to be fair. That leaves the choice of either multiple trips, larger caravans, or magical means (bags of holding, transmuting).

In my campaign the gnomes will do most of their trade by cart allowing much more practical weight carrying. Up to that point the tribute to Vothys has been relatively small - mainly for repair and decoration work so 10 pack lizards would suffice. Once fastervalt is added to the empire the PCs will have to come up with their own approach - the dark road being the most practical - maybe altering it enough to allow small carts.

On a separate note I would make it clear that trade in the underdark is usually made up of portable expensive items. Otherwise you use what you have nearby. Weapons, cloth, magic, exotic foodstuffs, wood - all rare and expensive.

Yeah I struggle with the idea of trade in the underdark. Transporting stuff is a problem, but I'm solving it by handwaving it. I was figuring that the dwarves create a rail track and ship everything on carts, using magic elementals or something.

At the moment my campaign is pretty slow because I haven't been aboe to play much but it's taken a weird turn. They have finished about a quarter of book 2 but then my eye got caught by the Serpents Skull series so now they are exploring a ruined psychic orc city based on Saventh-Yhi while fighting off a bunch of yuan ti so they can finish off a coven of green hags that have been plaguing them throughout the Earths Wound.

My plan is to have the psychic orcs return in their "spaceships" to fight the resurgent yuan ti and their god after the players activate the seven spears, which instead of burrowing into the earth sends out a psychic pulse of energy into space. This should take about the next 3 levels and then we'll get back to the campaign proper.

Panticles wrote:

The Skisral got wiped out in my game so they were a non-starter. As for trade I think the majority of underground caravans are made up of giant lizards which have a climbing speed. So going up and down ridges and cave walls shouldn't be to much of a problem.

Hmm, I don't think that will work for me. The lizards by themselves might have no problems, but if Gunther's caravan is the example, they were using carts for which climbing simply is not an option. Even if they make the lizards carry the supplies in a different fashion, the guards still would have to make their way down. Sure, the lizard could be forced to make multiple trips, but with large shipments of marble of all things, I can't really see that working out so well.

In my game, I have simply added some ramps there. Surely with Vaustenstad being a major city at one point, there should be what is left of formerly established trade routes.

The Skis'raal in my game escaped from another plan, where a sinister overlord kept them as a slave raise to do his bidding and supply him with silk. To keep them in check/bound to him, he put a curse upon them, making them all but infertile, and only he knew to how to suppress that curse. Eventually, the white spider led the other Skis'raal in rebellion anyway and they escaped, but not without her mate having to sacrifice himself keep the overlord from following. That's why they are in decline. They simply can't reproduce in enough numbers to maintain their population, and every Skis'raal lost is a serious blow.

Now I just need a better reason why the Skis'raal and Xan are in opposition.

Hmmm maybe the Xan really need the Skis'raal spidersilk for some reason?

Has anyone elaborated on the background and culture of the Skis'raal? I feel like we got enough to get going when it comes to the Xan, but the Skis'raal seem a bit bland to me. Yes, they are spider people, but where do they come from and what do they want? If they are the apex predator of the jungle, why are they in decline? What happened to the other females, how where their other caves/settlements destroyed/abandoned. The AP indicates that their latest settlement is only about 220 years old. Does that mean the Skis'raal have only been in the fungal jungle such a relatively short period?

I am also curious about how people have dealt with the marble shipments from Fasturvalt to Vothys. If the dark road is held a secret by the Drow, I would assume they would not use it to transport the marble back to Vothys, and it also does not seem particularly evil for them to make it easy for the Svirfneblin, so I would assume the Svirfneblin were responsible for getting the marble to Vothys as part of the deal, which would mean they would regularly have to travel through the Fungal Jungle with a trade caravan. Unfortunately, the way it is written, none of the entrances to the jungle are at all suited for such a caravan, requiring climbing, and there is also no indication of any Svirfneblin trade routes or structures along the week-long track they would have to travel for each shipment. Or am I missing something?

The Skisral got wiped out in my game so they were a non-starter. As for trade I think the majority of underground caravans are made up of giant lizards which have a climbing speed. So going up and down ridges and cave walls shouldn't be to much of a problem.

Panticles wrote:

2) I'm not really inspired by the Star God final boss so what can I replace it with? I'm actually thinking about replacing it with a couple of different threats so the players can choose the one that interests them the most.

Going through Volo's bestiary, what about an elder brain? Instead of aboleth you could go with mind flayers. Might seem a little cliche, but that's a perfect villain swap. Unless you want to go ultimate and do a mind flayer lich instead.

Mindflayers are a good choice. Also thinking about a race of intelligent giant insects that attempt to wipe out the underground kingdom. Possibly unleash a demon horde on them? Maybe some giant monsters aka godzilla

You can't get a copy of the map.

Suck. It's alright though I've been working on my own version but it's pretty basic. Like created in Paint basic.

I looked over the adventure you suggested but it doesn't really fit my idea of how the campaign should go so I will do my own thing. I appreciate the suggestion though.

5th Edition is definitely a lot of fun worth a try if you can find a group who runs it.

OK so my current campaign is a surface Explorer campaign with no actual dwarfs in the party. They aren't interested in running the kingdom so I'm kind of doing that in the background to amuse myself. I actually read through this entire thread a while ago and came across that post about 'Doing it right' and changed the adventure up so that they ended liberating an old Dwarven fort inhabited by Dark Folk and their slaves starting their underground kingdom.

They wiped out the Skisral, allied with the Xan, drove the drow out of Fasturvault, infiltrated Vothys, murdered the drow again, and have now travelled down the great throat of the world where they have come across the Earth sprite Tassius.

We start up again next weekend so I want to make sure I have everything prepped. I'm planning on the Dammerhall being wiped out by the opening of some kind of Negative plane that explains the black fire which literally sucks the life out of people that venture into its zone of effect. Might have them become some kind of negative plane creatures so they can explore the city. Still thinkino about that though, might go with something different if I can find something I like.

So I'm running this game as a D&D 5E game and i'very almost run out of book and map. I have 2 questions 1) where can I get my hands on a copy of the poster map and 2) I'm not really inspired by the Star God final boss so what can I replace it with? I'm actually thinking about replacing it with a couple of different threats so the players can choose the one that interests them the most. Suggestions would be appreciated.