Sword of Cyric's page

how would one trick the Gnoll god into drinking of the water?

Additionally, how would one introduce this plot hook? And what aid would he send?

According to Dragon 358 Gorellik regualry drinks from the Styx out of his own will. The memory draining water makes him forget the missery he fels because of his lost dominion over the gnoll race and his fading divine power. Since he's still a divine being the water's effect never lasts long and the hunting memories return soon (so he drinks again and again).

Dragon 358 suggests that the PC can become aware of this fact with a DC 35 Knowledge (the planes or religion) check that he can often be found drinking from the Styx in Pandemonium.

It's suggested that the PCs should try to convince him that by slaying Demogorgon and becoming Prince of Demons he could become strong enough to punish Yeenoghu and take back his rightfull place as liege of the gnolls.

What kind of aid he can send is a little bit more tricky, because I don't believe that he has actually that many petitioners left. So his help wouldn't be annother great extra army, but more likely his primary aid would be he himself visiting Demogorgon's realm and tearing the defending armies to shreds with his teeth and claw.

He could also fill in for Orcus (if the PCs fail to recruit him) and fighting Demogorgon in his stead (which still means the PCs are missing Orcus' armies).

Gorellik looks like an impossibly large hyena with jaws giving the impression they could bite through almost anything.

His eyes show a strange mix of power, cunning, madness and despair and all in all he looks like he has seen better days. His fur is dirty, shaggy and has fallen off in many places. None of this has any impact on his statistics or combat ability as written, but anyone looking at him gets the impression that this mighty entity has been in decline for quite some time.

Gorellik is initially hostile to anyone and attacks on sight to feed. If approached while just on the way to once again drink from the river styx to get short oblivion from his missery he's especially aggressive.

After he had his drink of styx water however he becomes indifferent for some time and can be reasoned with. At this point the PCs have their only real chance to recruit him for their assault on Demogorgon.

If Gorellik agress to partake, he sends and gnoll petitioner to attempt the final strategy meeting. If the PCs are ever present during a time when Orcus and Gorellik meet, the can note the strange desire that creeps into Orcus' face whenever he looks at the divine entity (a DC 35 sense motive check reveals how much Orcus hungers for divinity of his own)

In the Savage Tidings article in Dragon Magazine Issue 358 it was suggested that the PCs might try to recruit the gnoll demigod Gorellik as an ally against Demogorgon.

Unfortunately this plot hook wasn't expanded any further in either Dungeon or Dragon.

So I made these stats for how Gorellik could look like in Savage Tide. To stay in line with the adventure path I oriented his stats on Kyuss and used only 30 HD and only MM, PHB, ELH and DDG (actually I only used the SRD instead of the actual books).

Gorellik
Divine Rank 1
Male hyena barbarian 20/ legendary dreadnought 8
CE Huge outsider (extraplanar, chaotic, evil)
Monster Manual, Epic Level Handbook 33
Init +12 Senses low-light vision 1 mile, scent 1 mile; Spot +23, Listen +48
Aura divinity (10 ft. radius)
Languages All; remote communication
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AC 38, touch 24, flat-footed 30 (-2 size, +8 Dex, +14 natural, +1 divine, +7 deflection)
hp 856 (30 HD); fast healing 21; DR 15/epic, 8/-
Immune ability drain/damage, acid, cold, death, disease, disintegration, electricity, energy drain, mind affecting, paralysis, petrifaction, poison, polymorph, sleep, stunning
Resist fire 6; SR 33
Fort +36, Ref +23, Will +19
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Spd 120 ft. (24 squares)
Melee* Bite +41 (2d6+25/19-20x2 plus Fort DC 27 or be stunned for 1d10 rounds [on critical hit, death (Fort DC 42 negates) plus 1d6]) and 2 claws +39 (1d8+8/x2)
*Gorellik's natural weapons are treated as chaotic, epic, and evil for purposes of bypassing damage reduction and hardness. His bite is also treated as adamantine and always resolved as a touch attack.
Ranged –
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Base Atk +24, Grp +
Atk Options Combat Reflexes, Irresistible Blows, Power Attack, Terrifying Rage, Trip
Special Actions Blinding Speed, Mighty Rage, Unmovable, Unstoppable
Deity Spell-Like Abilities (CL 11, CL 12 for [Evil] and [Chaos] spells, +31 ranged touch, DC 18+spell-level)
Animate Objects, Blade Barrier, Blasphemy, Chaos Hammer, Cloak of Chaos, Create Undead, Desecrate, Dispel Good, Dispel Law, Divine Power, Flame Strike, Magic Circle against Good, Magic Circle against Law, Magic Vestment, Magic Weapon, Power Word Blind, Power Word Kill, Power Word Stun, Protection from Good, Protection from Law, Shatter, Spiritual Weapon, Summon Monster IX (as [Evil] or [Chaos] spell only), Unholy Aura, Unholy Blight, Word of Chaos
Domains Chaos, Evil, War
_______________________________________________________________
Abilities Str 44, Dex 26, Con 42, Int 24, Wis 24, Cha 24
SQ automatic actions, create magic items, low-light vision, improved uncanny dodge, portfolio sense, remote sensing, scent, teleportation
Feats Blinding Speed, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Devasting Critical (bite), Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Overwhelming Critical (bite), Power Attack, Terrifying Rage, Weapon Focus (bite)
Skills Climb +61, Handle Animal +13; Hide +24*, Intimidate +51, Jump +61, Listen +48, Spot +23, Survival +33, Swim +61
*Gorellik has a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks in areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth.
SDAs Divine Fast Healing, Irresistible Blows
Possessions -
_______________________________________________________________
Automatic Actions (Su) Gorellik can make up to two skill checks per round as a free action, provided the skill checks are associated in some way with his dominion over the gnoll race or with hunting
Blinding Speed (Ex) Gorellik can act as if hasted for 5 rounds each day. The duration of the effect need not be consecutive rounds. Activating this power is a free action.
Create Magic Items (Su) Gorellik can create magical items related to his portfolio without any requisite item feat, provided he possesses all other prerequisites for the item. The item’s cost and creation time is unchanged, and cannot be worth more than 4,500 gp.
Divine Aura (Ex) Any non-divine creature within 10 feet of Gorellik must make a DC 18 Will save to resist his Divine Aura. Gorellik can reduce the radius of this emanation as a free action. He can choose any of the following effects to apply to his divine aura, and can change them as a free action. He can daze affected beings, cause them to become shaken (or frightened), or he can impart a +4 morale bonus on attack rolls, saves, and checks to his allies while his enemies receive a -4 penalty on the same. A character who makes his save is immune to Gorellik’s divine aura for one day. The save DC is Charisma based. This is a mind-affecting ability.
Divine Rank 1 Gorellik does not automatically fail on a natural attack roll of 1, or on a natural saving throw of 1. He gains a divine bonus equal to his divine rank on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and caster level for his divine spell-like abilities. All of Gorellik’s attacks are considered to be chaotic, evil, and epic for the purpose of damage reduction. Gorellik is not subject to death from massive damage, nor does he age, sleep, or breathe.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex) Gorellik retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses his Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. Gorellik can also no longer be flanked unless the flanker is at least a 24th level rogue.
Irresistible Blows (Su) When Gorellik makes a melee attack with his bite against a creature, resolve the attack as a melee touch attack (the weapon blow ignores armor and natural armor bonuses). If the weapon hits, the creature struck must make a Fortitude save (DC 27) or be stunned for 1d10 rounds. Gorellik’s bite is considered to be adamantine for purposes of bypassing damage reduction and hardness.
Mighty Rage (Ex): As a free action Gorellik can fly into a rage once per encounter. He gains a +8 bonus to Strength and Constitution and a +4 morale bonus on Will (+8 to resist enchantment spells). He takes a -2 penalty to his AC while raging. His rage lasts for 23 rounds and he does not become fatigued at the end of his rage. Gorellik can use this ability 6/day.
Portfolio Sense (Su) Gorellik automatically senses any event related to the gnoll race or hunting that involves one thousand or more people. When he senses such events, he merely knows that the event is occurring and where it is; he receives no sensory information about the event until he uses his remote sensing to observe it.
Remote Communication (Su) As a standard action, Gorellik can speak to any of his worshippers or to any other creature within a mile of where he can use remote sensing. This can be a telepathic message only one creature can hear or a great booming voice. All characters who receive this communication experience an inner sense of unease that makes their neck hairs raise, just as if they somehow know that they’re watched by a terrible predator.
Remote Sensing (Su) As a standard action Gorellik can perceive everything within a radius of one mile around any of his worshippers, holy sites, or other objects or locales sacred to him. He may also center this supernatural effect on any place where someone speaks his name, for up to one hour after the name is spoken, and at any location when an event related to gnolls or hunting occurs. This ability can cross planes and penetrate any mortal barrier, but cannot penetrate areas blocked by more powerfull deities. Remote sensing is not fooled by misdirection, nondetection or similar spells, and does not create a magical sensor that other creatures can detect. Gorellik can still sense what's going on nearby when he uses this ability, and may observe up to two locations at once.
Shrug off Punishment (Ex): Gorellik gains 24 bonus hit points.
Teleportation (Sp) Gorellik can use greater teleport as a spell-like ability at will at caster level 20. He can transport up to 100 pounds of objects with him when he teleports.
Terrifying Rage (Ex) While Gorellik is raging, any enemy that views him must make a Will save opposed by Gorellik’s Intimidate check of become panicked (if it have less than 30 HD) or shaken (if it has 30-60 HD equal) for 4d6 rounds. An enemy with more than 60 Hit Dice is not affected.
Thick Skinned (Ex): Gorellik’s damage reduction improves by 3/-. This stacks with his barbarian damage reduction.
Trip (Ex) When Gorellik hits with his bite attack he can attempt to trip the opponent (+2 check modifier) as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip Gorellik.
Unmovable (Ex): Gorellik can concentrate his power, making him unmovable twice per day. This power grants the Gorellik a +20 bonus on any one of the following:
A grapple check made to avoid being grabbed with the improved grab ability.
A Strength check to avoid the effects of a bull rush, trip attempt, or similar effect.
A Strength check against any effect that would move the character either physically or magically.
Any one saving throw. If an effect that would move Gorellik either physically or magically does not normally allow a saving throw, he can use this ability to gain a Will saving throw. He still gains the +20 bonus on the saving throw in such a case.
Unstoppable (Ex): Gorellik can concentrate his power, gaining a +20 bonus on his Strength check to break or burst a door or item twice per day. As a special use of this ability, Gorellik can attempt to break a wall of force (Strength DC 32, and Gorellik applies his unstoppable bonus to this check as well). Alternatively, Gorellik can apply the +20 bonus to a single attack roll.

There's a short info about him in the Living Greyhawk Deity Document on page 31.

His most common name seems to be Camazotz while Zotzilaha is only a seldom used alias

About the defending weapon issue: In this case using means at least taking the TWF penalty if you're also going to attack with annother weapon. There was a FAQ answer about this topic.

You can not merely hold a defending dagger in the offhand and attack with the longsword in your mainhaind without penalty while using the dagger's AC bonus.

If you want to benefit from the bonus, you take TWF penalties if you still want to use annother weapon (and you need a full attack action). Otherwise you can only attack with the dagger and use the AC bonus or only attack with the longsword without the AC bonus.

So if you have armorspikes and a second weapon, you need a full attack action and TWF penalties to get an AC bonus from your defending armor spikes

(OOP, mostly - one booth had OOP White Wolf stuff they sold for 2 Euro apiece),

Wow, I really hope they still have something to sale tomorrow when I will be there.

I then looked at the 2nd edition Faiths and Avatars for Forgotten Realms, and assumed that the avatars were indeed 1/3 as powerful as the god they came from.

Actually that's not true. The most powerfull FR avatar was the avatar of the demigoddess Shares (115th level avatar), while the goddess who now has the highest DvR in F&P (Chauntea) had a mere 60th level avatar.

This also made sense, as a demipower needed a year to creater her avatar and could only have one. So losing it was much worse for Sharess than for Chauntea who still had 9 others and could replace her loss in a single day. Also Chauntea's avatars were basically protected just by reputation. You don't attack the avatar of a greater power, no matter how weak the power decided to manifest him. But some foolish entities might be stupid enough to attack the avatar if a demipower :)

Well, a nice theory Forgottenprince, but your conclusion contains some flaws.

In Die Vecna Die, it describes the Serpant and the Lady of Pain as "contemporaries", with the Lady of Pain being able to use the Language Primeval to shore up the loopholes in Sigil's ban on deities. Also, Vecna crafted a tablet powerful enough to steal a god's powers under the tutelage of his mysterious benefactor, who also taught him how to become a God!

What DVD said about the Serpent was vastly different from what GtH said about the serpent true form of Asmodeus. DVD portrait the Serpent as something entirely different than the powers as we know them. Yet GtH clearly said what the Twin Serpents were: Two greater gods, nothing more, nothing less.

Note that DVD also didn't say that the Lady is one of the same kind of beings than the Serpent. DVD only said that "maybe" she was.

That she was able to speak to words is no prove. Other deities (Tenebrous) were able to speak them too. Even that she reordered the multiverse doesn't prove anything beside that Sigil is the place to stand at if want to do it, since Vecna (at this time a greater god) would have reordered the multiverse too had he been the winner (and he was a greater power).

All in all even the Lady did nothing in PS that annother greater god couldn't have done as well.

In Sigil (at least 2nd edition) we have a two organization that're pretty well tied to Asmodues. The Athar believe there are no deities, and under the GTH, such people are drawn directly to him upon death and serve to heal him. (Can we say "food source"). The second organization has a winged serpent for its symbol (sound familiar) and in the Factol's Manifesto, the head of that...

First: This didn't ty the Athar to Asmodeus

Conclusion: Asmodues and the Lady of Pain are the Twin Serpents.

GtH tells us whoe the Twin Serpents are: One is Asmodeus, the other ist the couatl deity Jazirian, and the Lady isn't Jazirian

About the origin of the serpent: Originally it was not supposed to be any real entity but simply a delusion of Vecna's madness. However fans liked the idea of the serpent and eventually other authors started to add own tibits about the serpent, so it has grown beyond what the original author (IIRC it was Monte Cook) intended it to be.

Except for the Dragon stats are generally highly epic, whereas the FC stats are in the 21-23 range, perfect for use as a 20th level end game villain. Also, the FC has the planes the lords are from described, for when the heroes want to take the fight to the demon, instead of the other way around.

At least a few Demonomicon articles had the realms descriped as well. On the stats, think neither stats do them any justice anyway, they used to be demi- and lesser deities, but's that a different topic that has already been done to death (60 HD and DvR 6 for Orcus and Demogorgon :) )

What's the last article written in Dragon about Orcus?

In any case much more recent than the last article about Lynkhab. ;)

Come on, Orcus is just annother "deity" of necromancers like you can get "a dime a dozen" on the planes. Lynkhab is a demonness who expressed desire so perfectly that she became a disembodied force. But then took a new physical form to be able to continue to express herself. Only to realize that by doing so she wasted her chance to ascend to divinity and now is stuck in physical form. She destroys herself time and again to reach her former state and always refroms because of her own inner desires and now expresses frustration as much as desire and is forever stuck with divinity within her reach but never getting to grap it.

IMO much more interesting than some run of the mil Lord of Undead.

but so is one on a Demon Lord that I, as someone who never played 1st edition, and never got a chance to play any of the cool modules that made that Demon Lord a legend, have never really known too much about.

You've got a point, but this way we won't be going to get new demonlords ever. 4/year and once they're through in 2008, well it's 4e time and all these guys need to be repeated for people that never had the chance to play them in 3.5e :)

Think of the FCI as the "Monster Manual" of demons, and the Demonomicon articles the "Everything else" articles about the Demon Lords.

In thise case it's still wasted money, only with the FCI being the waste, as Dragon has stats too.

These articles along with the AP support articles are the primary reason I felt compelled to subscribe to Dragon when I subscribed to Dungeon. They are amongst the most awesome articles ever to appear in Dragon.

They would be just as awesome about new demons. I believe the first article about Lupercio or Lynkhab would be even more awesome than the 20th article about Orcus.

You want Colossal, show me creature froms that game "Shadow of the Colossus"

Actually they have already been in Dragon.

I would love to see demonlords that are not covered in FCI. Still seems somewhat of a cheap move to use the demons already covered instead of giving new demonlords. Yes, the articles differ a little bit, but it's still buying the same things twice.

Hm, I wonder how they will manage to pack a huge mini with an issue of dragon magazine.

Annother piece of Errata: Her caster level check should be 1d20+47, not 1d20+40. As written she's missing her +7 infernal bonus on all checks

I finally got my dragon and I like these guys very much. The immortal spirit rule is a good idea, WotC should have used something like this in Deities&Demigods

Similar to and based upon, sure. Change Form and Mystical Force actually combine the effects of a number of salient abilities.

At first I though they are a little too powerfull, but at a closer look I noticed that she has fewer abilities than DvR 7 deity gets and if you divide these more powerfull abilities back into the single SDAs you end up with the appropriate number of SDAs. Really nice work Keith. I would like to see more of the Lords in future issues

Thargos wrote:

it hits the stands on oct 25

Except here in germany. :p No sign of 337 in my FLGS yet.

Indeed. I am waiting too and my favorite gaming store can't even tell me when I can expect it. They just keep telling me I should ask again in a couple of days :(

The new Dungeon already arrived two weeks ago

What I find funny is that Boccob, Greyhawk's god of magic, wouldn't stand a chance against Sul Khatesh in an arcane duel.

Was Sul Khatesh made with full epic rules? More important: Was she given a divine rank?

If she isn't at least DvR 0, Boccob won't have any trouble defeating her in an arcane duell (because deities are immune to Anti Magic Field and can still cast all their spells within, but beings without DvR can't).

Can't wait to get 337, I hope it will arrive where I live next week

Umm..isn't generic D&D basically Greyhawk?

Not really. It borrowed a lot of names from Greyhawk, but not the real Greyhawk background.

AS IN, THey WIll HAve STats FOr BOccob,

The stats for Boccob are in Deities&Demigods, and not something that's really usefull in (I just guess) 95% of D&D campaigns, even the most epic ones. He's just too powerfull (well, he's a god), not even anywhere near the CR 30 clowns that the 3.X archfiends are.

Well, I guess as long as they include the phone numbers of some lonely succubus it's going to be a huge hit ;)

but don't pretend you can't see my point.

Sorry, but I don't just pretend, I really don't see it. That's not intended as an attack against you in any way.

I don't know what a Nightcrawler is (MM2? MM3? FF?), yet this doesn't make the city of Balefire less usefull to me just because I have to either ignore or rewrite the Nightcrawler threat.

IIRC correctly the bard college article mentions Zhentarim spies. So if I don't have Zhentarim in my game, I either ignore the reference or maybe I have a secret organization of my own and replace Zhentarim with them, or make them spies for the different kingdoms of my campaign.

A generic setting is still a setting. If I can rewrite stuff from a generic setting that I don't play, I can just as quickly rewrite stuff from a specific setting I don't play.

Take issue 315 as annother example. It was full of articles and each was tied to a specific settings. I don't play any of them, yet to me an article about a foreign setting is just an article about an foreign setting.

Whether this setting is a generic setting invented only for this article of a huge setting with a long history, doesn't change anything. At first it's just an article about something I don't know, at second it's something I might adapt for my campaign.

Whether the stuff I have to ignore/change orignally belongs to Greyhawk/Ravenloft/Generic doesn't make the work any different to me.

The longest feature was on a bard college which could be used with some modification. However, it was "deeply tied" to the Realms, with references to a handful of powerful people that have known interactions with each other.

And yet I fail to see anything about this article that makes it more difficult to modify it for your personal campaign than the city of Balefire article.

It's just an interesting bard college that can be droped almost anyhwere into any campaign.

The powerfull people/organisations? Either replace them with things from your own campaign, or even ignore them completly and treat it as just a harmless college and not being overrun with countless spies.

How is it that setting specific content is perceived as any less usefull to people not using this setting than generic content? Fine, people may not play this specific setting, but nobody plays the generic setting either. In both cases people need to change a name here and a reference there to bring it into their own campaigns.

So why do people think it is any more difficult to change the names from the Waterdeep article from issue 336 to fit into their world than to change the names from the Balefire article from issue 322 to fit into their campaign?

Both are cities from outside their own campaigns, and both require exactly the same effort to include into their own campaigns. Both are equally usefull to the general public, but one also has an increased value for the people who actually play FR (without becoming any less valuable for the people who don't)

So this reader is complaining that FR issue was less usefull to him than an issue with only generic stuff.

But I ask myself: If the very same issue with the very same content had been printed with the only difference of renaming anything that might give away the connection to the FR in the Songsabers and Waterdeep articles, would he have noticed at all that these are not generic articles but actually setting specific stuff?

I don't get it. Why is it considered more difficult to have to change the name of Khelben into something that fits my campaign better than to have to change the name Acora-Shin?

PS: Note that this is not intended to go against this particular reader in any way, I want to question the general idea that setting specific stuff is less usefull to the readers as a whole than completly unrelated stuff.

See here for my version:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=392482&page=2

I really enjoyed the historical "background" of the various monsters. Particularly the "Petite Tarrasque". With those types of articles, I for one would appreciate a very clear indication of which parts are "real" and which parts are "fake". Obviously "moving between planes" is a D&D concept,...

Up until the new 3.X order of the universe, our real Earth was just one prime material world like any other in the D&D multiverse.

If you know the way you could sail a spelljammer from Toril to Earth or travel their through the planes.

Elminster and various other famous D&D wizards have visited Earth (as has the oerdian quasigod Murlynd)

The Forgotten Realms actually took their names from the many portals that once linked Faerun to Earth, but that now have mostly stopped working and thus Faerun has been forgotten by Earth.

Even some of the FR deities are not only named after real Earth deities, they're in fact the very same deities, who left their original pantheons to join the FR pantheon (see On Hallowed Grounds, a 2e planescape supplement, for their reasons)

Like other europeans already said in this thread, this seems to be a cultural issue.

In Germany no one would take any special notice about a cover like this, beer/playboy is allowed at the age of 16, and you see topless women (and the uncensored versions of the music videos that are censored in american MTV) on TV in the afternoon programm

Just a short question about one of it's class abilities:

Silently Enthralling Laugh, you may cast silent versions of you spell-like ability?

Aren't all (Sp) always silent anyway? So why this ability?

Remember that, hopefully, the person who hears your true name is either an ally or is incapacitated by the spell.

Well, even a close ally isn't someone who I would trust with knowing my true name.

And with the more powerfull beings, it's unlikely that a single spell will be enough to deal with them, so you're basically limited to use your true name only once, in the final killing strike, as any earlier use of it will result in automatically giving it to your enemies.

Those tiles would be good pdf downloads...

According to some WotC guy from the Mini Team, these tiles will eventually all end up as free downloads at WotC's mini site, just like the tiles from the first retailer kits did.

They will however kept exclusive for the kits for some time, so that the people having those kit can enjoy their exclusive tiles for a few month, before these tiles will be avaible to everyone

Keep in mind the new Dragon slant is to make the Ecology articles more for players than DMs (e.g. how to kill them and stuff), which is why adventure ideas will likely be vetoed (but I could maybe sneak stuff in for crafty DMs to use).

Actually I consider this a pitty. I would rather see Ecology articles which just tell how these beings life, think, and play their roles in their enviroment, without adventurers disturbing their natural cycles

About the question which ones we would like to see: I second the reader who wrote the letter asking about an Ecology of the Kraken

I consider them too weak, more precisely, I consider it too easy for a foe to learn a true name.

The check everytime someone uses his true name is a too easy way to discover true names. Especially since I also consider the DC for the check to be too low.

True names are most often used by really powerfull entities, yet these same beings easily have spellcraft checks with a bonus higher than the DC to learn each others true name!

Take Orcus as an example: DC 32 to learn his true name if he uses it to cast a wizard spell, or DC 34 if he uses it for his spell-like abilities.

Yet Orcus himself has already +46 on his spellcraft check.

Since we can assume that Orcus would need his true name power boost only against equally powerfull foes (no need against foes who are inferior anyway), and that this equally powerfull foes have equally high checks, his opponent would instandly automatically learn Orcus' true name the first time Orcus would use it.