Warlock4Hire's page

Well, Sharoth was originally a Marquis Cambion Demon Assassin. A son of Graz'zt who specialized in "dealing" with those pesky kids that were always foiling "Dad's" plans. Of course, he rarely traveled far without his "sister", who was an Alu-Demon Magic-User. She was the magic backup that he often needed. ~grins~

Edit - If you want, I can try to stat up this despotic pair over the weekend.

Edited again - The original "stat blocks" were 1 edition AD & D from the Monster Manual II.

I would love the stats.

What if a gray render came into the inn and adopted a waitress as its family. I would kill all the people it saw as a threat to the waitress. In order to stop the killings, the PCs would have to locate the confused waitress and bring her to the render to calm her down. The only problem is that all the waitstaff look completely alike!

Also, does anyone have stats for The Innkeeper or waitstaff?

Perhaps there's an entire cabal of Illumians roaming the back halls. Are they secretly manipulating everything, or are the simply another group that can't find their way out?

Maybe there is a piece of the magic word that created the illumians but it got lost in the backrooms and is now in the possession of a 1st level goblin warrior who has been using it to wipe after using his chamberpot. The illumians try to kill him and take the word, but a great hobgoblin general who's Acheron army is resting in the World Serpent finds out and figures its a hate crime perpetrated by some bizarre humans. There could be a war in the back rooms involving hobgoblin cavalry on dinsaurs, illumian wizards, and the PCS, with lots of Scooby-Doo style antics (i.e. one hall with a ton of rooms that connect to other random rooms.)

What about a phasam lich or a half-neogi/ half-babau or a GIGANTIC slithering tracker or a minotaur blackguard who doesn't get lost in the back rooms and infinite halls because of his knowledge of mazes or what if the inn itself is eating patrons because someone stole its power source! Squee!

All these ideas are great so far. Stats are welcome but not crucial. What about some sort of serial killer who stalks the back rooms?

I'm about to start a campaign of plane hopping centered on a combination of the World Serpent Inn and the Four Winds (The Book of Taverns) and I need to stock the Inn with all kinds of crazy and bizarre patrons for the PCs to interact with. I also would like brief descriptions of interesting planes for the PCs to visit. The premise of the campaign is this: Mitchifer has hired the PCs to track down a plane for planar immigrants who are crowding(?!) up the world serpent to use. All NPCs should be around CR 15 if the PCs are to fight them. Otherwise, just go nuts. Thanks!

The whole concept of birds eating snakes is very Aztec mythology (just look at the Mexican flag!) so you could easily throw in stuff from the Dragon articles on Aztec religion. The snake, flying, and fighting demons remind me very much of coatles. The Aztecs believed that when a warrior died, his soul came back as a hummingbird (beak is his weapon.) You could make stats for hummingbird people (modified kenku?), have immortal human warriors with some kind of hummingbird totem/fetish, or you could have some kind of giant hummingbird creature that watches over the city (Huitzlipochtli was the Lawful Evil Aztec god of warriors, and was a hummingbird). I'd be happy to help put together an Aztec mythology based mission if you'd like.

MrFish wrote:

I am interested...and this may sound weird but my email isn't working right now, so please keep me in mind for a few days at least.

No problem, the pdf's aren't going anywhere.

And anybody else that requested it, I just sent you the whole set.

Yes please!

Check out some of the old Maztica stuff, particularly the module Endless Armies. Also, Isle of Dread is a classic. Maybe to city is full of skum and aboleths. The non-monsters could be dominated by the aboleths.

Archivist from Heroes of Horror is like a divine wizard with really high knowledge and focuses magic through a prayer book (like a divine spell book).

Thanks Rezdave! Quite some archive work there. I was thinking of a few of those missions myself. I think it would be fun to end the campaign on The Coming Storm as I really like that mission.

Perfect place to put incorporeal undead like allips

So I already DM for some of my friends at my high school, but there are also many I don't DM for. So it turns out I'm going to run a campaign after school next year and i figured I'd start writing it this summer. I'm thinking the PCs will start around 4th or 5th level and will meet under strange conditions. I really like the free adventure on the old wizard's site, A Dark and Stormy Night and will probably run a buffed up version of it. For those who haven't read it, The PCs start, not knowing each other, and take refuge from a severe lightning storm in a tor. Lighting smashes open the doors and a dungeon crawl ensues.
However, I don't really know where to take it from there. I definitely want these things in it:
1) Negotiating with barbarian tribes and humanoids like gnolls.
2) Either elemental or undead themes showing up every once in a while.
3) An overall mystery (possibly a missing or dead god)
Start storming those brains please!

Str 12
Int 12
Wis 9
Dex 6
Con 16
Cha 15

No freakin idea what this is...

Try switching things up for a bit. run a one off in which the players get to play their enemies and you can bring a whole bunch of your hooks together. Some of the characters can be from the pirates, another can be a servant of the evil prince, and some more could serve the evil warring nation. They could be contracted by the evil wizard to form an alliance to take over the land or do some big league stuff like kill the queen or try to convert the dwarves to their side. It would be interesting roleplaying and the characters would have the opportunity to be totally evil bad asses for a while.
Another option is to start a new campaign to take a break from your current one. The players could play characters who have had their lives disrupted by the villains the characters have been ignoring. If they for strong bonds with their new characters, they will fight harder to help them when the switch back to their normal PCs.

Here's a political jokes as it seems they're in short supply.

A dwarf and a gnome are in a market trying to sell some hammers, when across the street they see a crowd surrounding an elf selling mithril shirts at outrageous prices. They dwarf cries, "How is this fair? I mined that mithril and made those shirts for him, yet he's getting all the money!"
The gnome replies, "Well, that's lazy-fey economics for you."

People really sell halflings short (pun intended). They get +1 to hit (+3 with thrown weapons like slings and daggers), +2 to AC, +1 on Fort and Will, +2 on Reflex, and tons of skill bonuses. Making them a monk, barbarian, or scout counteracts the reduced movement and you can also make a riding specialized druid or paladin with a mount to make you go fast. The reduced weapon size is easily counteracted by elemental weapons (i.e. flaming, frost). They're no humans, but they're pretty good. That said, GNOMES SUCK!

Into the Wilds is my favorite. Its very old school Keep on the Borderlands style. At a con I played through Legacy of the Savage Kings with its writer as the DM. It was a great run and the mission was very balanced in roleplaying and combat, as well as a lot of puzzle solving.

The idea of a trapped god is interesting. You said that there were mutated insects, so maybe it is some sort of hive mind for formians or some other bug creatures. As for destroying it, there is an awesome item for that. In my group, we were fighting a noble who had a magic sword that absorbed spells and shot them back as lightning bolts. We were really scared of it, so another player used his rod of cancellation, destroying it forever. It was awesome!

Charm some thugs to break in for you. When they're dead just take the items. Summoned fiendish monkeys are also okay at opening doors.

Random outsiders always want stuff done. You could throw in some wierd mission like raiding a githyanki storehouse on the Astral Plane, catching a criminal in Sigil, or going big game hunting in the Beastlands.

I just bought the Dragon PDF with all the commoner flaws. I loved it so much that I decided to make a character based on them:

Ashley Burnstien
Male human commoner 1
NG/CE when asleep Medium Humanoid
Init: +3; Senses: Listen +4, Spot +4
Languages: Common, Ignan
AC 12, touch 12, flat-footed 10
Hp: 9 (1 HD)
Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +0
Spd 30'
Melee: Torch +2 (1d3+1 fire)* or Unarmed Strike +2 (1d3 nonlethal +1 fire)
Ranged: Molotov Cocktail +2 (1d4 +1)* Range 30'
*DC 20 Ref save to avoid catching on fire
BAB +0; Grapple +2
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8
SQ: Resistance to fire 5
Feats: Toughness, Pyro, Fire Heritage, Improved Elemental Heritage (Fire)
Flaws: Chicken Infested, XP Farm
Skills: Craft (Molotov Cocktail) +3, Listen +4, Profession (Arsonist) +3, Profession (Glassblower) +4, Spot +4
Possessions: Torch, 5 Molotov Cocktails, 7 Tindertwigs, Flask of Whiskey, Glassblower's Tools, Leather Apron, 9 sp, 12 cp

Ashley Burnstien has been mocked his whole life. He is grimy, ugly, and has a fairly hysterical name. During childhood, he would be humiliated when his father, a farmer asked him for a hammer and all he could find was a chicken or when local bullies inexplicably gained a level of fighter every time they knocked him out. Ashley hid away and took to glassblowing which helped to calm his nerves.However, his troubles are far from over. Ashley is actually a very, very, VERY distant relative of Inferias Deathcry, a evil sorcerer and one of the most powerful minions of the balor Shebang!. Ashley retained a bit of his fiery heritage and at times his hands sear with white hot intensity. While using these new found powers to good use (he owns a fried chicken stand which takes care of all the chickens that turn up around him) Shebang! has a more nefarious use for him. At night the balor possesses him and has him commit arson all over the city. At least that was the plan. The balor has had serious trouble getting the glassblower to do anything. When he goes into his cabinet for oil to light torches, he has pulled out bantams and once he tripped over his cat while going out the door. While he lay in unconsciousness, his cat enjoyed its new level in hexblade. The balor is at the end of his rope and is considering abandoning his whole (which, in retrospect, was kind of stupid).

This was perhaps the most fun character I've ever made and I'd strongly encourage people to make their own 1st level commoners and post them on this thread.

The orcs have annexed the dwarves from their ancient city and the dwarves were forced to set up rudimentary trading posts and towns to get by. Some of the dwarves created a monastery to train as guards against the orcs, however they were all killed by a plague created by Vecna, who the orcs worship. Vecna's whispers have reached the evil sister and she plots a coup of the castle using her new undead minions (shes a sorcerer or cleric) and the orcish high priest dispatches a group of orcs to distract the PCs from getting to the castle on time. The orc priest uses stone shape or something to make a roadblock to make them have to go through the dwarven city. They teams up with the dwarves after camping in the monastery and take back the dwarven city. WHen they get back to the castle, they find it in chaos and fight the evil sister and her orc body guards and skeletons.

The Enlightened Soul prestige class (Complete Mage) is for warlocks who convert to the side of good.

For half-elves there's Scar Enforcer (Races of Destiny).

Go through the monster manual an find a couple of your favorite monsters all at different CRs preferably. Take the lowest CR one and think whats a problem that it could cause (orcs raid livestock, rustmonster eats iron mine, shadow is a back-alley murderer). Make a town and the surround area as well as come up with some cool NPCs that the PCs are likely to meet (inn keeper, blacksmith, vendor, priest). Create a simple mission with a few encounters and point the PCs in that direction. During this time, throw some side quests at your PCs to learn their styles (Hack'n'slash, mystery, roleplaying). Have them fight the low CR baddie on the first or second session. Now why was that baddie there? Is a demon controlling the orc tribe? Was the rust monster forced from its lair by derro? Was the shadow animated by a crazy necromancer? Something this simple can be the base of a lengthy and heroic campaign.

WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!!!!!!! I can't stress this enough.

I'm tossing around the idea of running the "Rise of the Runelords" AP with a "warmup" campaign where the characters go off to an "adventuring college" to learn the ropes. Think Hogwarts rip-off.

Basically, the characters are 0th level and stripped down to basic stats. They'll start out with a stereotype or two (fat kid, cool kid, gimpy, etc) to help develop personality and overcome adversity. As the 6 year college goes on, they gain Ability Score bumps, Skill Points, Feats, and Powers (yes, I'm converting it). They'll also learn their class features, gain Healing Surges, basically what makes them thier character at 1st level.

There will be mini-adventures along the way, "Skill tests" as exams at the end of the year (maybe even a midterm), some random events along the way, and an American Gladiators Eliminator tie in!).

Anyway, I'm trying to incorperate the 7 sins into the adventures and need some help coming up with some ideas of how to taunt/tempt them. This will give me a gauge of how the players would react for the AP when the time comes.

How would you incorperate the 7 sins? Also, how would you do the 7 virtues to even things out? There's plenty of options for both, just trying to get a bunch of ideas and mix them in.

Maybe intelligent items to lure them into sin? Their community service teacher could teach virtues!

Swamp corns comin in reeeeeeeeeal nice.
*spits*
*drinks*
*rocks in rocking chair*

Dungeon Magazine still comes to my rescue when this issue comes up 'round here. Here's some generic or Greyhawk adventures:

Issue Adventure Level
84 Armistice 7
85 Lord of the Scarlet Tide 9
85 Flesh to Stone 7
86 Mysterious Ways 7
88 Make It Big 9
88 The Seventh Arm 7
89 Rage 7
90 The Elfwhisper 8
90 Tears for Twilight Hollow 7
91 Kambranex's Machinations 9
93 The Statue Gallery 9
94 Bloodlines 7
95 The Jackal's Redemption 9
98 Wings, Spikes, and Teeth 8
100 Woe to Mistledale 8
101 The Chasm Bridge 7
103 Glacial Inferno 7
104 Dragon Hunters 7
104 The Demonskar Legacy 8
107 Mellorn Hospitality 7
113 Practical Magic 9
115 Steel Shadows 7
120 The Forsaken Arch 7
121 The Styes 9
123 Crypt of Crimson Stars 7
124 Temple of the Scorpion God 7
125 Pit of the Fire Lord 8
126 The Clockwork Fortress 8
127 The Hall of Harsh Reflections 7
128 The Champion's Belt 9
132 Caverns of the Ooze Lord 8
133 Ill Made Graves 7
134 And Madness Followed 9
139 Requiem of the Shadow Serpent 9
140 The Fall of Garaymalkin Academy 9

-DM Jeff

Definitely The Styes or And Madness Followed. Also, The Styes has a sequal called The Weavers that's okay.

Age of Worms is an excellent gritty campaign. I don't know much about Shackled City and Savage Tide felt a lot more "epic" than Age of Worms but was a bit more repetitive in its adventures. For level 1-15 there's always Pathfinder.

Fill a closet with brown mold. Then laugh.

Abjuration: Yellow (stereotypical energy color)and Blue
Conjuration: Depends on creature or energy
Divination: Silver and White
Enchantment: Light Blue and Gold
Evocation: Red and Orange
Illusion: Many shades of Blue, Purple, and Green (I've always thought of illusions as like looking at the Northern Lights)
Necromancy: Purple and Black
Transmutation: Green and Brown (Very primal colors)

Oh man, I have a fever. Anyone got some more cowbell?

I don't know. The whole alignment mechanic is a bit iffy to me. People always argue that there are some good goblins and some evil elves, but you never see or hear about them. Also, the humans and elves and other PHB races have the best lands while the humanoids who, on the whole are stronger than the average human, are given the horrible lands. Every time a group encroaches into "civilized" lands, they are immediately butchered without any negotiation. Therefore, are the good races actually evil?
I think it boils down to outsiders and gods who are paragons of their alignment. Without them, there would be no role models to follow and no one-sided figures to immediately associate with. In a D&D world with no outsiders or gods, all races would be considered "evil".

Warlock4Hire wrote:

I always thought that rakshasas deserve more than they got.

Have you read Escape from Old Korvosa in the Curse of the Crimson Throne Pathfinder AP? If not, I highly recommend it based on this comment!

I'll check it out. I got the first 4 issues of the pathfinder adventure path but that was it. If I may recommend a book to you, I'd recommend Zobeck. That little book is great especially the kobold ghetto.

I always thought that rakshasas deserve more than they got.

In my campaign we got rid of orcs all together as they were just too cliche. There is a constant war going on between the high elves (Evil elemental wizards who are led by vampires and are obsessed with beauty) and hobgoblins (a fairly advanced military race and have replaced orcs) versus wood elves (Tolkien version; race for elven players) and halflings (crazy lion riding bushman rangers). The dwarves come in two types: mountain (fairly standard dwarves) or plains (merchant-clerics of Anu the Sky God who travel everywhere). The gnomes have almost completely removed themselves from society, going into giant cave cities under a tundra, where they are very high tech and magic and are run by dragons. To the north of the main human kingdoms, there are more humans who had a giant ecological disaster (kind of like the dust bowl) and were left for dead by the other kingdoms. A ton of druids came in and started to fix the environment and the people were so in debt, they converted to the druidic religion. The gods in my world are Babylonian, Egyptian, and Hindi.

Those are all cool, especially ogre magi. I always thought gnolls were pretty awesome because in Races of Wild there was a feat that gave then a bite attack when they charged. I found this Kalamar monster manual book with bugbear mages.

I recently ran an adventure about bugbears and got to thinking about just how many different humanoids there are and what an important role they play in D&D. Lots of times they're put in missions based on environment and challenge rating. If you have a mission about gnolls but want a swamp mission, switch them out for lizardfolk, etc. I'd like to know other people's takes on humanoids and humanoid giants (ogres and trolls) and which is your favorite.
I throw my support behind the hobgoblin. They're more than just smarter and oranger (yes those are related) orcs. They have a whole crazy caste based society. They could easily wipe out an entire kingdom if there were enough of them...
I think my favorite thing about humanoids is the crazy class combinations their leader's receive. Long live fighter/rouge/adepts!

You could try to go into the abberant heritage feats from Lords of Madness

It's by Richard Pett, who wrote the Skinsaw Murders.

Both excellent and vicious modules.

I ran a campaign in The Styes for a while, fleshing it out with my own ideas and other Dungeon modules.

My suggestion for the blackguard: if he's lawful evil, he may be working with Councillor Thornwell against Mr. Dory. And if he's got an interest in someday ruling the city himself, why would he want to allow someone else to destroy it? He may not like the good characters and they may not like him, but they have one goal in common. As for what happens next: it's up to you. There's plenty to work with; you may look into the background and note that another Councillor, one Mr. Rashlen, has a manor reportedly guarded by half-construct troops. Maybe the warforged has something to do with that or maybe Rashlen stole the construct limbs and the secret of those implants from Mechanus and that's the warforged character's original mission: to destroy them.

Thornwell was the one who contracted them to deal with Dory. I think I could easily put in an encounter in his manor with some half-golems and magical traps. I could also give out technomagical implants as treasure for Woody. When they kill Dory (and possibly Thornwell) there will be council positions open that maybe the blackguard could fill. I also kinda want the Lantern Man to come back as an evolved morgue or something. I think I'll go with the Mechanis idea but put more stuff in between. Maybe some clerics of Pelor come in and try to help the crippled city get back on its feet. I also would like to do something with mutant merfolk who have changed due to the chemicals in the surrounding ocean. I'm not sure what to stock Thornwell's manor with besides golems and traps tough.

What is "The Styes"?

I haven't heard of it.

The Styes is a famous adventure in Dungeon about a really disgusting city and a group of abeloths with a fiendish kraken who try to take it over for Thrazidun.

So my group got bored with the mission I wrote for them (ungrateful snots) and on a whim, we rolled up some 9th level characters and i pulled out a copy of The Styes, one of my favorite missions. Now that were about a third of they way through, the group is really having fun with it. But there are two problems...
1) One of my players was studying for finals and missed the first mission.
2) Another player made an... interesting character choice that never got explained.
3) I read the sequel to The Styes and didn't think it was right for my group. Now I need to figure out what to do next.
The characters are as follows:
-Walter NG human cleric of Pelor
-Rat Goblinsplitter LG dwarf fighter
-Brogli CG changeling rogue/sorcerer
and of course...
-Tozan LE human fighter/blackguard
Why is he with these people?! To make matters worse the missing player is playing Woody, a LN warforged monk with technomagical implants.

I was thinking that since we are about to enter a combat heavy part of the mission, Woody could be sent from Mechanis to try and stop Thrazidun from gaining a powerful foot hold on the material plane. Though the PCs will foil Thrazidun, Primus or some other great being of law will decide that the continued existence of The Styes is to risky and will send some officers with war machines to destroy the city. Woody will now find himself a splinter agent and the PCs will work with the councilmen and their former enemies to take out the war machines.

All feedback is good, especially from those DMs who have run The Styes before. I'd also like ideas for war machines. I was thinking of some sort of sentient Astral ship with a modron crew and some sort of devil or inevitable as the captain.