Planescape - The Slags

On Sunday night we played through another session of my Planescape campaign. Right now we're going through a trilogy of homebrew adventures that will bridge the gap between Nemesis and Tales From the Infinite Staircase.

This is partly to buy me time while I read and absorb the staircase adventures. I'm pretty sure I won't be using all of the scenarios in that book, as a number of them don't appeal to me.

Ignus

This session revolved around an NPC from the Planescape:Torment computer game. His name is Ignus. He's a sinister wizard obsessed with fire. He is actually on fire, in fact.

In the game and my campaign, Ignus starts off immobile - an attraction in a bar. In the game, you can free him and have him join your group. In my game tonight, the heroes could free him and cure him, too.

I changed the story of Ignus. In my game, Ignus was tricked by Shemeshka the Marauder into committing arson on her enemies. Then she manipulated him into becoming an inert humanoid portal to the plane of fire.

The Arcanaloths

A'kin the Friendly Fiend

Shemeshka's enemy/rival, A'kin knows this. He helps the heroes free Ignus and use him to blackmail Shemeshka into leaving the heroes alone.

Shemeshka and A'kin are fascinating Planescape NPCs. They are both Arcanaloths, both possibly exiled from their home plane of Gehenna. They have what appears to be a love/hate relationship. Shemeshka has burned down A'kin's magic store three times in the last hundred years.

• A'kin: Always seems friendly. Some people hear him screaming and throwing things at night. The book suggests that he might have been an ally of devils in the Blood War and that he did something so terrible that he was exiled. No specific details, though.
• Shemeshka: She's an amoral manipulator. She has agents spying on everyone, and she secretly controls a number of organizations. I thought I had read somewhere that Shemeska is actually a male who lives as a female, but I can't find it now. Shemeshka is referred to as a "she" in Uncaged, but the gender symbol in the stat block says Shemeshka is male.

I decided for the purposes of my campaign, that A'kin cut a deal with the devils. He was going to hand over almost every single arcanaloth to them, so that the devils could enslave them/kill them/use them for nefarious purposes relating to the Blood War. A'kin was essentially going to commit genocide on his own kind! In return, he asked the devils to spare himself and Shemeshka, who he loves.

The arcanaloths found out about this plot, and A'kin and Shemeshka had to flee Gehenna, never to return. Shemeshka is mostly furious, but slightly flattered that A'kin wanted her spared. So now they do this dance where A'kin trolls her, she gets mad, and then he says sorry and they make up for a day.

Plans for the Infinite Staircase

Ignus

Last time we played, the Lady of Pain did stuff to the heroes. She did something to Bidam's heart, and enchanted Theran's spell book. My idea is that if each hero adheres to their core philosophy, they will be given tools via the heart and spellbook that can help them defeat the Iron Shadow (the villain of the Infinite Staircase). Here's my plan as of now:

Theran: He believes in reading and learning, basically. So each adventure, when an encounter is getting crazy, Theran's spellbook will glow. If he takes a round to read it, he will be given magical knowledge - he'll learn a bit about the Iron Shadow and he'll learn a magic item formula. If he doesn't read the page right then, it's gone forever. The book will also be a key tool in defeating the Shadow.

Bidam: He likes to love them and leave them, or as he says, "Hit it and quit it." Every adventure he will meet someone. He will have a choice of hitting it or quitting it. Either choice has ramifications:

• Hit It: The person is imbued with a metal coating over their heart. All of the people Bidam infects will become minor sources of pain in the multiverse. The heart of the Lady of Pain is failing, and she wants others to help her carry the burden of the void inside of her. Each of these people will have the lesser ability to look at people and cause bloody cuts to appear on their body like the Lady of Pain can.
• Quit It: If Bidam decides not to seduce somone, or if he tries to go back to someone he had a fling with a while before, a member of the Zactar faction dies. You may remember that the Zactars are the followers of Umbra - the Lady of Pain does not want new factions in Sigil, so this is a way to eliminate them. It hinges on whether or not Bidam stays true to his beliefs - belief is the most important thing in Planescape.

I used a lot of material from Uncaged: The Faces of Sigil. That book is loaded with NPCs and has a few detailed locations, too. I've been going through that book and taking notes, as that is how I retain all this stuff.

I also decided that from here on out, I will try and make sure that in each session Theran's robe of eyes is useful (see invisible) and Bidam's sword of sharpness is useful (cuts through stuff). I want them to feel like their magic items are useful and have a lot of value.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 3) 

Back to Deadbook Square

We picked up where we left off last time, In A'kin's office. He explained that Ignus knows things that they can use to blackmail Shemeshka into leaving them alone.

They left to go to the Smoldering Corpse to check out Ignus. They were stopped by an NPC that I stole from Curse of Strahd: "A small man with no legs named Filmore Stunk, who can drink whole casks of wine without getting drunk." He sold them two poisons - torpor and essence of ether (from the 5e DMG). Both of them can knock people out. I put this here to give the heroes a chance to buy an item that would help them in a later encounter. At the very least, it reinforces the notion that their choices matter in game.

As they finished their transaction, they heard A'kin screaming and trashing the upstairs area of his shop. They came very close to investigating, but decided against it. This is a trait he has that is unexplained in the books. For my game, I'm saying he's endlessly tormented by his failed scheme and the fact that Shemeshka won't be with him.

Festhall: Clients are becoming depressed. I had read this funny idea on reddit about how some people feel ashamed by the porn they watch, and that they could use a "post-porn depression councilor." I decided some "johns" at the festhall become depressed after their visits (I googled some vile acts on urban dictionary, and invented "the Sigil Hot Pocket"). The heroes hired a councilor named Aza Dowling.

Here's the deal. This councilor is actually an agent of Shemeshka from Uncaged. There is this NPC shapechanger named Fallow. He has multiple personalities. He is a member of every single faction, and he spies on them all for Shemeshka. Aza Dowling is the Sensate spy!

So the seed for Shemeska's revenge is already planted. A spy is in their midst.

The group checked out Ignus and talked with Drusilla. She's this real sad NPC (also from Planescape: Torment) who was in love with Ignus before all this happened. She continues to watch over him and hopes one day he will be free. The heroes felt sorry for her and gave her a job.

They did some research and learned they needed two things to free Ignus:

1. A decanter of endless water, No problem, they know a dabus who has one. The dabus gladly loans it to them)
2. A "Ritual of Hydration." I made this up. It's a ritual that creates links to the plane of water - it can counteract the link to the plane of fire in Ignus.

The Doomguard

The Armory

The heroes found out that the Doomguard faction created the ritual for their tower of salt. The group headed to their headquarters... to steal it!

The Doomguard is a faction that believes in entropy. They want to speed along the death of the universe. So they make weapons. The armory has four towers attached to the building, each of which also exists in a different plane.

The "Tower of Sealt" exists on the elemental plane of Salt. It is overseen by a guy called Roth, Doomlord of Salt.

Long story short, Fall From Grace shapechanged into the form of a Doomguard member. The heroes enlisted the help of Turia, the crabby tiefling from Nemesis.

The heroes got a look at the leader of the Doomguard, Factol Pentar. I want to introduce her now, as she is a big deal in the Faction War adventure.

Factol Pentar

The heroes sneak up to the room where the ritual is, and they poison a guard (torpor - knocks him out). They go into the room, detect and avoid a glyph of warding, cut a steel cord with the sword of sharpness and yoink the ritual, which is inscribed on a sheet of metal.

As they turn to leave, two guards come up the stairs. I gave them 5e thug stats and decided to give them this slightly modified 2e doomguard ability:

Entropic Blow: Once per week, a doomguard can attack with disadvantage. If they hit, they do half your hit points in damage!

The group subdued the guards. Turia came up and was most distressed. The group told her they'd go do the ritual and bring the sheet back. They could even cast mending to fix the steel cord!

The group raced back to the Smoldering Corpse bar, and they cast the ritual using the decanter. Ignus was free, but still on fire. And he was saying crazy crap like:

• "I live! Long have I slept! Dream of Flames!"
• "Ignus hears you all! Burn!"
• "The fires grow dim - soon, I shall perish."

The heroes had a hard time figured out how to de-fire him. Theran has this amulet of flowing flame that belonged to a demon lord named Alzrius (they stole it from an abyssal fortress long ago). He put the necklace on Ignus and poof - flames out. Ignus plopped to the ground, a withered up burnt fellow.

The Other Place

Iarmid, owner of The Other Place

After some healing and examination at the church, the heroes were having a hard time getting coherent speech out of Ignus. There was only one thing that could help him recover - take him to a magic spa. Yes, my campaign is stupid. This is an actual location in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil called "The Other Place." The heroes took Ignus, Drusilla, Fall From Grace and Selinza the cat lady (who is now a 3rd level wizard) to the spa and we had ourselves a montage:

• Bath: The heroes got a cleansing bath. Theran and Fall From Grace took a bath in holy water (Fall From Grace did not remove her chastity bodice for this - everyone else chose to be butt-naked).
• Grooming: Then there was skin-grooming, scale scraping, etc. Poor Ignus got a whole layer of charred skin removed.
• ManiPedi: They got their nails manicured/sharpened.
• Massage: Then they got hour-long massages from four armed reaves. A reave is.. a four armed creature with leathery skin. They are warrior mercenaries, except for these people, I guess.

Wouldn't you know it, Bidam and his reave lady masseuse hit it off! Bidam used the ancient art of seduction on her and had himself a romantic encounter. When it was all over, he felt his metal heart beat oddly. He somehow saw the reave's heart through her chest - he watched as a liquid metal coated it. Bidam was extremely alarmed, to say the least.

Jessie (she plays Bidam) eventually vowed that Bidam would purposely not seduce the next person to come along, to see if anything weird happened.

The spa worked. Ignus remembered! Sort of! He realized that he had stashed sensory stones in his house long ago. The sensory stones contained incriminating memories that would show that Shemeshka was guilty of a myriad of crimes. These stones were what the heroes needed to blackmail Shemeshka. Ignus was still too frazzled to record new ones or, really, be coherent for long.

I should note that normally, sensory stones are wiped when the are taken out of the Civic Festhall. There were some in The Tacharim base in the Modron March, but those also lost their power if they were taken from the room.

So the deal here is that the little box is the sensory stone's "room." If taken out - useless. Wiped. I'm going to say that to make a box like this is ridiculously hard, probably needing the blood or ashes of a past factol to power it.

The Slags

Before he became a fiery guy, Ignus lived in a section of The Hive (the worst part of Sigil). In the years since Ignus had last been there, the area his home was in had become The Slags.

The Origin of The Slags: The blood war spilled over through portals into The Hive. For weeks, devils and demons battled each other, destroying buildings and magically warping the area. Now it is a place that has earthquakes, ruined buildings, and there are tanari supply caches everywhere (magic crates full of demonic magic items!). Cool, right?

So the heroes go in and walk through the "crooked maze of ramshackle buildings." The whole place rumbled. Fall From Grace warned the heroes that earthquakes were common here.

A two-headed dog that was five feet long glared at them from a side alley. Bidam threw it some rations and made some great animal handling rolls! Bidam befriended this creature - which is an Aoskian hound. Followers of Aoskar bred the animals long ago. They have the ability to stun you with their bark.

The group continued on, and they found the remains of Ignus' home. It had been cut in half by an explosion. In the years since, razorvine had grown over it almost completely. A ladder led from the ground to the third floor, where Ignus' stash was.

Ignus had told them he had a secret compartment in the wall - it was a metal carving of the Lady of Pain's face that opened when you said the command phrase: "Dream of Flames."

The group climbed up. The saw some slimy eggs in a corner. They found the stones, as well as the spell book of Ignus. Then... an earthquake hit! The floor split wide open and Theran fell 3 stories, cut by razorvine the whole way down (that's 3d6 + 15 points of damage)! He had just a few hit points remaining.

Worse, a chasme flew toward them. Those were indeed chasme eggs in that building.

5e chasmes are really deadly. If they hit you, you take 16 damage + 24 necrotic! And the necrotic can't be healed until you take a long rest! It also has this droning power, which knocks you unconscious if you fail your save.

I knew this was a tough monster, but it only had 84 hit points. The heroes are 8th level. They can do a lot of damage in a single round.

As it turned out, I think the group barely got a shot in. This was a very deadly encounter.

The chasme did piles of damage to Fall From Grace and dropped Bidam unconscious with the droning aura.

Selinza jumped off of the building and used feather fall to land on the street next to Theran. She made him invisible.

Theran spotted a building nearby - an invisible building that he could see thanks to his robe of eyes. It was just ten feet high, and cube-shaped. It had demogorgon's face carved into each side and no visible entrances. It was a tanari supply cache!

Theran actually ran over to it, invisible, and began to study it.

There were some shenanigans. Ultimately, Fall From Grace got the chasme to chase her, allowing the heroes to flee to safety. Fall From Grace was ultimately able to lose the chasme thanks to some good die rolls.

Theran kept studying the cache. He really wanted to get inside it but he couldn't figure out how.

Bidam realized a way - they could get Ash Vodiran, the greatest thief of Sigil, to walk through by becoming insubstantial!

That was my idea when I made this. I just wanted to see if they would be willing to let Ash out prison, or if they could come up with some other clever way to get inside.

The heroes regrouped at home. They put the sensory stones in a magic vault to keep them safe (The Vault of the Ninth World, from Planescape: Torment).

A'kin delivered a message to Shemeska, then hid with the heroes in the shadows near his magic shop. He gleefully rubbed his hands together. Theran could see Shemeshka approach The Friendly Fiend shop invisibly. She was furious. She cast fireball and blew the place up!

A'kin cackled in delight and told the heroes that Shemeshka would leave them alone for a while at least.

That's where we stopped! It was a really good session. Planescape is so rich with material that it feels like we've barely scratched the surface of the setting.

Click here for the next chapter.

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 4 - Curse of Strahd

Episode 4: Flour Children

You can watch this episode right here on youtube.

Check out the dice roll stats for this episode here. Strix rolled very high on this one. 

There was no show last week, so we're a little crusty.

There's a new guy, a "guest star." He's very good. I'd say he should play every week, but I don't like more than 4 players in this format. The screen gets cluttered and the game slowed down a bit too much for my liking. If someone has to miss a session, he should definitely jump in, though.

Early on, there was a glitch which at first looked major but ended up being no big deal. Apparently the Twitch stream crashed. We miss virtually none of the session, though. You just have to skip ahead in the stream a little bit. I don't understand why they didn't edit out the dead air time. I guess they wanted us to see the dancing mind flayer, which was pretty amusing.

Last Time: We learned that Strix has family in the town of Vallaki. We learn that Diath was dirt poor and lived on the streets of Waterdeep. Someone gave him a ring of keys when he was panhandling.

The Waffle Crew+1

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Chris) Falkon - Wereraven
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard

There's a fifth player. He is Chris Trott, from Yogscast. His character at the start is listed as "A Raven."

The players don't seem to remember that they told Chris they were going into this tower last time. Chris says it starts raining, I guess he's trying to get them to go in.

This will be interesting! This location has really powerful creatures in it that can easily kill this party.

Evelyn casts detect evil/good. She detects both good and evil in the tower. The group was a bit indecisive here, so Evelyn again slips into the leader role and gets things moving. She is awesome.

The raven transforms into a naked dude! He's a wereraven! I guess he's one of the Keepers of the Feather.

And then... the stream crashed. We get a note on the screen that says we should skip ahead to 16:15.

At about 15 minutes in, we get audio of the session. So if you skip to 16:15, you actually miss a bit of the game.

Chris Trott has got a great voice. His character's name is Falkon, and he says that he wants the group to help him defeat the evil inside. Children have been abducted and taken into this place, which is called the bonegrinder. How the heck are they going to do that?

They go in and look around. There are pastries in the oven. The heroes are sure these are delicious "people pastries." The women upstairs yell at the heroes to go away. Falkon tells the adventurers that those women are hags.

They should put the bonegrinder map on the screen.

Strix wants to blow up the ceiling. Diath points out that if they do that, they might blow up the children.

Falkon turns into a raven and tries to sneak upstairs to take a peek. He rolls a one on his stealth check!

The hags taunt the heroes from upstairs. They say that "mother will be home soon." If all three hags are home and within 30 feet of each other, they can use a pile of deadly spells and our heroes are utterly doomed. In fact, if all three hags are together, they can kill the entire group in a single round with three lightning bolt spells.

Diath blocks the front door with a cart and puts down caltrops. The group heads upstairs and yup... two hags.

Evelyn leads the charge and attacks. The group misses a few attacks on the hags. The hags turn invisible. Evelyn swings blindly and hits an invisible hag. Falkon goes downstairs and grabs a bag of flour. Smart! Unfortunately, by the time he gets back upstairs, both of the hags are visible.

One hag becomes visible as she casts vicious mockery. Evelyn makes her save. So.. Chris is using green hags, not the night hags in the book. They're weaker than night hags, but they still have an AC of 17 and 82 hit points each.

Paultin pulls two kids out of crates and brings them downstairs and Falkon runs upstairs with the flour. He's naked except for a single sock.

There's a lot of back and forth, mostly missing. The hags are whittled down. The hags jump through a window to escape.

Diath looks out the window and he doesn't see the hags. They've turned invisible again.

Morgantha, the night hag

Someone tries to open the front door from outside! It's either the mother hag, or the two injured hags. Diath has a great idea. He asks Falkon to turn into a raven, fly outside and see who is out there.

Ohh no. It's the mother! She yells in through the door for her daughters to open the door. Falkon uses his mimicry ability to imitate one of the daughter hags and try to urge the mother not to come in.

Strix goes downstairs and checks a cabinet. She's sure this is the place mentioned by Madame Eva and she thinks it is somehow linked to her past. She loots three elixirs, respectively labeled "Youth," "Laughter" and "Mother's Milk." Strix checks out a barrel full of demon ichor. She tips it over.

Outside, Falkon gets a look at the mother hag. She has a cart with a sack in it. Ohh man.. she has a kid in the sack!

Holly's cat makes its second appearance on Dice, Camera Action.

Chris drops a hint that those other two hags might be nearby, but the group doesn't pick up on it. The adventurers are kind of messing around at the tower as they try to decide what to do. Evelyn tells the group to run and that she'll hold off the night hag. The group doesn't listen.

Most of the group ends up running over to the mother hag. The kids hide in tall grass, and Paultin keeps them company.

The invisible, injured hags close in on Paultin. Yikes! That's where we stopped!

They are really screwed! 

Timestamps

• (29:20) Let's blow up the ceiling.
• (40:30) I love it when Chris swears.
• (1:45:03) The hags return.

Thoughts

Learning is Fundamental: Now that I have read a good portion of the adventure, it is really fun to see the players go through it. I know what's coming up and it makes the show more enjoyable.

Chris Perkins Runs the Hags: This hag encounter has been talked about a lot online. It is very deadly! I was really shocked to see that Chris changed the night hags to green hags. He wrote this adventure and he made this section for level 4 characters! Why is he changing it? Clearly he wanted it to be a deadly place when he created it, but here he is holding back.

I understand that he doesn't want to wipe out the entire party because that will kind of suck for the show, but it still kind of rubs me the wrong way. He can always have the hags knock them out and try to cook them, I guess. There's a ton of NPCs in the adventure that could show up to help the heroes out, too - Ezmerelda is actually pretty powerful.

The New Guy: Chris Trott was very good, but I don't really get why he was on the show. As I said above, having a fifth player slowed the game down. This entire session was basically one combat. At this rate, it seems like it will take a decade to get through this entire adventure.

Overall: It was a pretty good episode. Diath is becoming a real solid dude. I like how Chris makes the combats very twisty. It's fun!

Click here to proceed to Episode 5.

Adventures in Eberron: The Heist

Yesterday I played in the Eberron campaign again. I wrote about the previous session here.

Each session is better than the last one. Yesterday's session continued that trend, and we really captured the "D&D feeling." I learned quite a bit about pacing and it has made me take a step back and re-think a few things.

Last time we did a lot of mini-missions. This time we basically focused on a single scenario.

In this campaign, we are assembling the deck of many things. The cards are spread out all over Sharn, the city of towers. One of the cards is in the possession of this woman, her last name is Tain. I don't know anything about Eberron, so I don't know if this is some kind of major NPC or not.

This Tain person had used the card to control an NPC and do some bad stuff. We decided to break into her place and steal the card.

The Plan

The DM had drawn some giant poster maps of Tain Manor and the compound. Our characters were able to obtain the layout to the manor and we planned our assault.

A good portion of the session just involved us players planning. As a DM, I hate this. I desperately try to avoid "wasting" table time on what I often consider to be abstract nothing-talk.

I like my sessions to be two, maybe three hours long. In this group, we play six or seven hours. So there's plenty of "breathing room." We can mess around as much as we like.

What I found yesterday was that the planning process was really about us taking control of the game. The DM was allowing us to tackle this map any way we wanted. It was quite liberating.

I usually hate planning because it tends to drag, but here it didn't feel like it dragged at all. We kept coming up with funnier and funnier ideas.

The vault we needed to break into was past Tain's bedroom. Her kids had rooms right down the hall. I was a bit baffled about how we could sneak through her room without waking her. I assumed there would be magical traps that would go off (I was right).

Another player said that we should plan our break-in during mealtime. Tain and her kids would be eating downstairs. The upstairs area would be free! That was such a smart idea, I was really excited.

Our Plan Goes Horribly Wrong

So it went like this. We paid off a delivery guy who was scheduled to deliver a crate of stuff for Tain Manor. All of us got in the crate, except for the fighter. The party fighter drove the cart, and the donkey pulling it.

The idea was that the crate would be dropped off in a storage area, we'd break out and get to sneaking.

But when we got there, the guards took the crate and told the fighter to go home! They plopped us in the storage room, but the fighter was gone.

We busted out of our crate, I cast invisibility and twinned it (I'm a sorcerer). So two of us were invisible, and poor Jenny, our sidekick NPC, was not.

We went and stole some servant clothes, using prestidigitation to draw two servants away.

The fighter climbed the wall, found us and put on some servant clothes.

We crept into Tain Manor. The wizard and I were invisible. The fighter and Jenny bluffed their way upstairs.

We made our way into Tain's room and encountered our magically-compelled NPC friend. We subdued her and made our way to the vault.

The Magic Vault

The vault was guarded by these three magic paintings. The contents of the vault magically changed depending on which of the paintings were hanging on the wall. So we had to experiment with them.

This is where our poor hireling comes in. It's Jenny's job to be trap bait. So she opens the door and goes in, and vanishes. Poor Jenny. We triggered a magical alarm and we knew guards were on their way.

We tried every combination, and there was all sorts of weird stuff in the vault. We finally opened the door and the interior of the vault was red. The card was on a shelf, and there was a gibbering mouther in there.

I've never fought a gibbering mouther before. It was awesome. It has two auras - one blinds you, one turns the floor to gooey madness.

The guards burst in to the room and we were in big trouble. We were on the third floor, and my character was ankle-deep in gibbering floor goo. I asked the DM if it was possible to actually slide through the goo to the floor below. He said yes!

So we're fending off the guards and the mouther, sinking into the quicksand floor.

Poor Jenny bursts out of the vault and tries to help us. As we sink through the floor and fall into a bathroom, we hear Jenny get murdered by the mouther (she has the stats of a commoner). That's our second hireling dead.

We plopped through the floor and ended up pinned in a tiny room with guards in both doors. Our fighter used a trip attack to drop the guard blocking one door.

Escape

Our wizard was getting hurt bad. I cast fly and twinned it, so our fighter could fly too. I grabbed the wizard and we flew out of Tain Manor. To our dismay, Tain's brother was on a griffon and chased us. The griffon was extremely fast.

Tain's brother cast fireball, which actually killed our wizard. I made my save but I was in bad shape. I made my concentration check, thankfully. I still had the unconscious wizard in my arms. I almost wanted to fail it, because then I could plummet and cast feather fall to put some distance between us and the griffon (we were way at the top of the city of Sharn, hundreds of feet in the air). 

The DM had described another tower right by us. I knew I couldn't take another hit, so I flew through a window in the tower that was too small for the griffon to fit through. I tried to get out of line of sight of the window.

There were two old men in there, quilting. I dumped a potion of healing in the wizard. She came to, made her way to the window and blasted the griffon and the wizard with a lightning bolt spell. She killed them both!

I gave the old guys money for the window and a bottle of frostmantle fire (eberron booze). They gave me a quilt.

I flew over to the dead body of Tain's brother. I put a pot of dirt next to him and planted a magic bean in it. I rolled on the chart, and I summoned a bunch of pink toads that I assumed would transform into grizzly bears when touched! A pretty nice present for Tain and her men, if you ask me.

We flew home. We only need five more cards to complete the deck of many things.

The other players were laughing and talking about how bad our plan was and how we bungled everything. I didn't see it that way at all. We got the card! And it was awesome. Very few D&D plans actually work out. I mean, the DM kind of has to throw in wrinkles, or else the adventure would be pretty boring, right?

Jenny was dead, so we recruited a new hireling. The DM rolled on the NPC chart. We got this old gnome lady who is "extremely ugly," according to the chart. As fate would have it, she is also on a search for romance.

That's where we stopped.

Managing Table Time

The whole thing has made me re-think how I run my games to a degree. As a DM, I am always cracking the whip. I hate wasted time. But in this case it wasn't really wasted time. We the players were, in a way, creating the adventure.

As a DM, generally I don't create situations where my players need to make a big plan, because it often leads to problems. If I do, I always have an NPC tell offer up a default plan that they can take if they want, so we can get to the action. Here are some of the more common issues I've seen when groups put their heads together to figure out how to approach a situation:

• Dominant Personality: One player takes control and talks over everyone else. Other players let it happen but secretly get more annoyed each time it occurs. 
• Arguing: Arguments break out. A lot of times, players simply can't agree on the best course of action. This is often caused by one player wanting a plan that allows them to use one of their special abilities or items, even though it may be extremely risky.
• Weird Ideas: You may have noticed this - some players have really weird (to you, at least) ideas of what would work and what wouldn't. I can't tell you how many times I've had a player say out loud that the group shouldn't do something because X will happen - and I have no idea why they think that. In those cases, I use an NPC to tell them X will not happen. 
• Not Understanding the DM's Style: People think really differently, and it can make for a bumpy D&D experience. A lot of times this is driven by players who think that everything in the world is scaled for their level. In my games, if you are thrown in jail for doing something terrible in town (such as killing a bartender to avenge an insult) - you're in jail. You're probably not getting out and you might have to make a new character. I make this very clear before the heroes do something that might get them arrested, but it still comes up now and then. My brother ran Drizzt as a character back in the 90's. He committed murder in a major city, and he's been languishing in prison ever since.
• Everyone is Passive: This is like that couple you might know, who say to each other: "What do you want to do?" and the other one says, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" And so they don't do anything. Sometimes you get a group like that. Nobody wants to take control. That can be really weird for you as a DM. It can be downright excruciating and will make you want to railroad them all the time just to keep things from grinding to a halt.
• Some Players Get Bored: Planning is also the time when some players mentally check out. While a few more involved players are brainstorming, other players just doodle or flip through a book or whatever. That only really gets annoying when these players then have the gall to complain later about the plan.

But in this group, it wasn't a problem. We all contributed and hammered out a fun plan that seemed logical (at the time).

It's so weird for me being a player. I have to keep stopping myself from trying to facilitate the game. That's not my job! I get to sit back and enjoy. It's actually kind of hard for me.

The DM has me keep track of initiative, which makes it even trickier. When combat rolls around I am keeping things rolling and telling everyone to take their turn. On one hand, I like it because I like to keep things moving. On the other hand, it puts me in DM mode and I kind of forget my role at the table.

How to Get an Art Commission

Today I'm going to write about something near and dear to my heart - getting art commissions for roleplaying games. I love getting professional art of characters from my campaigns. Having an actual visual representation of the heroes helps so much and helps the players get into the game more.

I have one artist that I go to. Well, they're twins, so it's really two artists. They are very inexpensive, really fast, and very professional. They are the Fraim Brothers.

I order black and white art. I think for younger people, black and white art is no good. I grew up with black and white interior RPG art, so it's fine with me. The Fraims do color, but it costs more. Sometimes I take a stab at coloring them on my own in photoshop, with mixed results.

Finding an Artist

I have tried other artists and it is almost always a fiasco. Most artists don't return my messages.

Some tell me they only take commissions of stuff they feel like drawing, and that my thing didn't fit the criteria.

The biggest pains are the ones who take your money and then take forever to do the work (if they do it at all).

I found one artist who drew art on a live stream. She was really good. She took my money to draw a dwarf (no background, just one dwarf) and told me it might take a few weeks. It took her 4 months to get around to it. Keep in mind, she drew on her livestream all the time. She just had to wait until she felt like it. It was a good piece of art, but it was not worth the wait.

Don't Be Vague

The key to getting an art commission is in your description. Don't be vague and make sure you send reference images.

I had one player who was in marketing. I asked him to send me a description of his character to send to the artists. His description of his character was the most bizarre thing I'd ever read. I don't remember the exact description, but it was something like:

"Think of a bodybuilder combined with the Hulk. He's got a helmet with one horn on it and the biggest sword you've ever seen. He's pro-active and screams INTENSITY." 

He included an image of an oily, steroided-up bodybuilder doing a posing routine.

Here's the pencils of the group image. See if you can spot his character:

This art came back and he didn't like how his character looked. Nobody liked it! In my opinion, his description was simply poor. I don't remember why we didn't get it corrected.

That player was quite a character. At least once every session, he'd get up and do something perverted with a remote control or a joystick or something. There was one time when he put a blanket over his body and pretended to be a ghost for about 5 minutes. By that point, we were desensitized to his antics and just kept playing while he waved his arms around and went: "OOOoooo."

I'm not much of a colorist, but I tried to dress it up. He was a goliath, so I could do some fun stuff with his skin:

Placing an Order

It's pretty simple. Here's how it works:

1. Send an email/message, get a price estimate.
2. Pay. I use paypal.
3. Send a description.
4. Check out the pencils, tell them about any corrections.
5. Enjoy your finished product.

My Planescape Commission

Here's the description I sent:

"There's two heroes looking at their planar compass. The lady of pain is behind them, looking ominous. They are in the city of sigil, but i don't really need any special detail, just something to indicate they are in the city. This is the city that is in a tube, so there's buildings up above them - but you will be happy to know that there is a haze that hovers in the air that pretty much blocks those buildings from view. This haze is the light source of the city.

The Heroes:

Theran - He's a dark elf wizard with long blonde hair. He wears a robe of eyes (attached image).

Bidam is a dragonborn fighter with platinum scales. He's got a sword of sharpness. He's wearing armor and has a bag of holding, which just looks like a normal D&D backpack.

They are looking at their planar compass, trying to find the location of the nearest portal in the city.

The Lady of Pain is this weird entity who rules Sigil. She is 12 feet tall, hovers off the ground and never speaks. She's got all these blades sticking out of her head. When someone makes her angry, she sends them to extra-planar Mazes.

Planar Compass: I don't know if we'd even be able to see it in this image, but here's the description. It's a 6 inch iron sphere. The two halves of the sphere split apart, revealing a hollow cavity within. When an object from a plane is placed in the cavity and the two halves are joined, the direction of the nearest portal of that plane is revealed - the compass has a small arrow that juts out of one of the halves, pointing the way."

I sent a pile of reference images. Here are some:

Two days later, they sent me the pencils and asked for corrections. The only thing I asked was to get rid of the fuzz around the lady of pain's mask:

Two days after that I got the final inked version emailed to me:

Four days after that, this came in the mail:

That's it! The original art always looks much cooler than the scan. I'm not sure how to describe it.. you can see every line and every shade of grey.

Here's some of my other favorite commissions from days of yore:

This is a scene from a game I ran at the tender age of 14. The villain of my campaign was Lord Soth, and he was wielding an evil sword called Ebonbane (which is an NPC/item from a Ravenloft adventure). One of the characters challenged him to a duel, and he was winning. Soth jumped through a portal to escape. The players really liked that session, so I had it immortalized.

These are the bad guys from a recent campaign I ran. They are a bunch of "zombie" gods and primordials:

From left to right, they are:

• Shar: The Forgotten Realms goddess.
• Piranoth: The primordial from Revenge of the Giants.
• Timesius: The primordial from E3 Prince of Undeath.
• Orcus: Orcus had been killed when my players went through E3. Here he's wielding the Orcusword.
• Aoskar: The god of portals referred to in many Planescape products.
• A former character who had turned into an evil lich-god and had the wand of orcus.

This is maybe my most infamous campaign - a "D&D Next" conversion of the Pathfinder Skull & Shackles adventure path. These were the filthiest, most perverted bunch of scoundrels you will ever meet on the high seas. It really got out of hand, but it was fun and fondly remembered.

Here's my colored version:

I don't think any of these cost me more than $60. To me, that is a great deal. If your whole group chips in, then it's going to cost you very little. I pay for them all myself. I do that so I get to keep the finished art.

If you have a campaign that has some legs and you think will be fondly remembered by your group, you might want to get a commission. Get it while everyone remembers all the little details, so that they can be included in the art.

Remember that sometimes the art isn't going to come out how you envisioned. Some players might not like what they get. I don't think I've ever had a bad commission.

Planescape - Undersigil

I got an art commission for this campaign. Above is Bidam looking at the planar compass, Theran getting ready to load it, and the Lady of Pain looming behind them. I like to get at least one art commission for each of my campaigns.

This week we are going through an adventure in Undersigil. I dug up all of the material I could find on it - which isn't much. A lot of the best stuff is from Planescape: Torment. Stuff I like:

• The Warrens of Thought: Home of the cranium rats.
• The Weeping Statue: A strange talking stone head that leaks polluted water through its eyes.
• A Weird Coffin Room: Glowing coffins and a dead body.

If you want an easy way to scan material to use in Planescape:Torment, check out this youtube playlist. You can skim the list and click on any places that look interesting to you. This game is overloaded with well-developed ideas that capture the Planescape feel.

Last Time: The heroes killed a swarm of 100 cranium rats. Now, the rest of the rats, known collectively as Many-as-One, are out for revenge.

Additionally, last week the heroes found an item that could possibly change Sigil and threaten the Lady of Pain. This is the Staff of Aoskar, an item that can supposedly create and alter portals. There is a sect called the Will of One (from Uncaged: The Faces of Sigil) who want it, as they want to bring Aoskar back. They are allied with Fell, the Fallen Dabus.

I actually had an art commission done a few years ago that depicts Aoskar:

Here, he's undead - That campaign was about "zombie gods" stomping around cities like Godzilla. I found a description online that said he had a big beard and a "universe" robe. It described his staff in detail. There are other people who think Aoskar has two heads. This is because his followers bred Aoskian hounds - dogs with two heads.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 1)

The River Styx

The heroes took my Donald Trump NPC to the River Styx and dumped his head in it. This wiped his memory clean. I am going with the 2e River Styx rules as opposed to the 5e River Styx, which feebleminds you.

They left memory-wiped donald trump with their wannabe-demonlord friend and went to their home. I had made a map of the place that the heroes live in ("Deadbook Square") and I gave the players each a copy.

On the way home, they gave the staff of aoskar to a dabus. They would learn a short while later that somebody attacked the dabus and stole the staff!

I did some more stuff involving Shemeshka using her political organizations to mess with the heroes. They did not figure that out she was behind it:

• Inspection: The heroes had their festhall inspected, and they learned that their staircase was not "centaur-accessible." They were fined and had to have the staircase widened or else The Guvner faction would shut them down.
• NPC Bar Fight: Members of the Adventurers' Guild came to the square and started trouble at the Smoldering Corpse Inn. Bidam and Theran had to break a fight up between them and the devils. This other adventuring group is an "alternate universe" version of the heroes in Chris Perkins' Dice, Camera, Action game. In this group, Evelyn is a paladin of The Raven Queen. These new adventurers chastised the heroes for not joining the Guild and for letting devils live in their square.

Revenge of the Cranium Rats

Shortly after that, the entire horde of cranium rats came to Deadbook Square to get revenge. 350 cranium rats attacked everyone in the square, letting off massive mind blast pulses. 20 devils rushed out to fight them, but many of them got stunned. The heroes started hitting the swarm with area effect spells and powers.

The 99 gargoyles came out of the screaming tower to help. Then the hag from the tower came out and started firing off spells.

The rats were starting to get slaughtered, so they scattered.

Parlakk Ratcatcher

The group met with a guy named Parlak Ratcatcher (from Uncaged: Faces of Sigil). He explained to the group that there are actually four different cranium rat hiveminds in Sigil. Many-as-One is the dominant one, the other three lie beneath the city in the realm known as Undersigil.

Parlakk Ratcatcher was linked to another hivemind, known as Vermin Supreme. A deal was worked out. Vermin Supreme would help the heroes recover the Staff of Aoskar if they would help destroy Many-as-One.

Undersigil

The group went down to Undersigil. They took out some wererat guards and there was a fairly epic battle and a blazing inferno. In the end, the heroes had wiped out Many-as-One. Vermin Supreme was now the dominant cranium rat hivemind in Sigil.

Vermin Supreme had seen people with the staff of aoskar in Undersigil. They led the heroes to a stone face in the wall. polluted water seeped from its eyes and mouth.

The Weeping Stone

This is a modified version of a scene out of Planescape:Torment. Here, the heroes talked to the face and learned that they had to give him some fresh water. They opened their canteens, and gave him some. He thanked them and slid up into the ceiling, opening up a secret passageway.

Fell and the Staff of Aoskar

Fell

The adventurers crept down the passageway. In a chamber beyond, they listened to the bad guys. It was Fell, the rogue dabus, and three scummy-looking people (members of a sect known as The Will of One). Fell was practicing the use of the Staff of Aoskar, trying to open portals. The heroes remembered that Fell was the dabus who actually started worshiping Aoskar way back when.

He opened a portal to The Beastlands, and a small mortai (cloud with a face in it) came through. The portal closed. The mortai started arguing with them - it wanted to return home.

That's when the heroes jumped in. They wanted to get surprise, but Fall From Grace rolled low and I guess her chastity bodice rubbed against the stone wall and made a clattering sound.

Fell cast phantom steed. He and a flunky jumped on it and sped off down a hallway at 100 feet per round! The other two flunkies didn't want any trouble.

The heroes cut a quick deal. They jumped on the mortai (who was marshmallow-like in solidity) and chased after Fell. In return, they told the mortai that they would get him back to The Beastlands.

The Chase

Coaxmetal, the iron golem

When I was cooking up this adventure, I looked through the DMG for assistance. I didn't want to make a boring final fight. I saw an option about having a chase, and I thought that would be cool.

So in this encounter, the heroes slowly close in on Fell as they race through Undersgil. They trade range attacks with the guy on the horse while Fell uses the staff to open small, temporary portals to the plane of fire that shoot out jets of flame and etc.

The group sped through:

• The Dead Nations: A vast complex full of sentient undead.
• The Silent King's Throne Room: A ruler of the dead.
• Symbol of Torment: A strange chamber with huge bladed symbols in the ground (that's the symbol of Torment, a room The Nameless One goes to in Planescape: Torment).
• Secret Dabus Area: A place with shimmering white walls and 30 dabuses.. This might be the rumored place where the dabus actually live. I read a really cool theory that the dabus might be what people are reborn as when they die in Sigil.
• Coaxmetal's Forge: The final area - a forge where a 30 foot tall iron golem hammered away. This is Coaxmetal, a really cool NPC from Planescape:Torment.

This was a way for me to throw concepts at the players, just to try to give them a taste of some of the cool stuff under the city.

The heroes fought Fell and his flunky. Fell revealed a really cool power. He's like other dabuses - he communicates with symbols that float above his head (called rebuses). Fell can actually make a rebus real!

Example of Rebuses - translation at bottom.

So I had Fell "say" to the heroes: "Can I axe you a question?" And the axe became a gigantic magic axe that starts hacking into them.

Theran went down during the battle, but he rolled a 20 on a death save and popped back up!

Once the flunky died, the Lady of Pain appeared. Fell cowered before her. She snatched the staff of aoskar from him and let him leave. Fall-From-Grace theorized that she lets Fell live because if he dies, the spirit of Fell gets to move on. By keeping him alive and a prisoner in Sigil, he has to live forever in shame.

Then she turned to the heroes and did weird stuff to them:

• Bidam's Void: She stared at Bidam. Bidam felt a void grow in his heart (literally). He also felt the exterior of his heart being covered in cool metal. My idea here is that the heroes will soon be chasing after the Iron Shadow, a piece of the lady of pain that broke off and now is wandering the planes causing problems. Bidam's heart can now act as a prison for the Iron Shadow.
• Theran's Spell Book: The Lady looked at Theran. His spellbook bean to glow. He heard the sound of a pen scratching on paper. Something had been written in his book. This is sort of "blank check" I wrote myself. I'm not sure what's in there yet - it's invisible writing. I'm going to think it over during the week and have it ready for next session.

The heroes vanished in a flash and found themselves back in their home up in Sigil. They took the mortai to the beastlands.

A'kin the Friendly Fiend

Unity of Rings

Upon returning home, an NPC named Unity of Rings sidled up to Theran. He is a guy who gives advice (he's also from Uncaged: Faces of Sigil). He told the heroes that A'kin the Friendly Fiend's magic shop was giving out free items. He 'advised' the heroes to check it out.

They did. As soon as they entered the shop, A'kin (a raavasta, like Shemeshka the Marauder) put a "closed" sign on the door.

A'kin listed the organizations that were harassing them:

• Mutual Trade Association
• Knights of the Cross-Trade
• Runners & Escort Guild
• Adventurer's Guild

All of them were run by Shemshka! A'kin said that he knew a way to get rid of her once and for all...

That's where we stopped. It was a pretty good one. I'm going to do two more semi-homebrew sessions and then start Tales from the Infinite Staircase.

Click here for the Shemeshka adventure.

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 3 - Curse of Strahd

Episode 3: What Sweet Music

You can watch this episode here on youtube.

Check out the Dice Roll Stats right here. Evelyn is rolling a steady stream of natural 1's, unfortunately.

Welcome to a summary of Episode 3! Timestamps are at the bottom.

It looks like there are some people who aren't thrilled with Dice, Camera, Action! so far.

I can see what they are saying, but it hasn't hampered my enjoyment of the show. I am assuming that it will take this group a bunch of sessions before they find a rhythm.

To me, this is a D&D game. I'm not watching this like it is a TV show where the performers need to entertain me. I am watching this to gain insight into how Chris runs an actual game, and to see his vision of how this adventure should be run.

Warning: You might want to skip the first 30 minutes of this video. There is a lot of sound interference. I guess it was rain and thunder from outside..? It's pretty hard to watch. The good news is that once it stops, I'd say this was the best session yet and the group really clicked.

Last Time: The Wafflers went to bury a guy and fought a vampire spawn, who ran away. We left off with the group in the cemetery, surrounded by dozens of wolves...

The Party

The Waffle Crew

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard

The wolves surround the heroes. The nearest wolf is about 30 feet away. Ismark says that they are the eyes and ears of the devil. Strix tries to intimidate the wolves and rolls a one. The wolves roll their eyes.

Lightning flashes for a moment - they spot a humanoid shape. It disappears. The wolves sort of back off.. it's kind of like the ending of The Birds.

In real life, Holly's cat jumps onto her chair.

Strix befriends a crow. It perches on her head, then flies over to a tombstone of someone named Escher. It flies out of town toward a place called Vallaki. The group decides to follow it.

The heroes walk down a road for a bit. They pass an old gallows. When Diath looks back at the noose, he sees a body hanging from it. The rest of the group sees it. Evelyn wants to go poke it. The body looks just like Diath. Diath examines it and is freaked out.

The group goes to Tser Falls. There are vistani (gypsies) camped there, and they are drunk. Paultin jumps right in to party with them. Evelyn does too.

Diath and Strix creep around. They slip into a tent and meet a fortuneteller - Madame Eva. Chris does a great Madame Eva voice.

Madame Eva knows a lot about Strix. We get confirmation that Strix was a member of the Dustmen in Sigil (they pick up dead bodies in The Hive and bring them to the mortuary). Eva says that Strix was actually born in Barovia and that the villagers would have killed her if she had stayed. The vistani brought her to Sigil when she was a baby.

Madame Eva says: "You were raised in the city of doors. All doors lead home."

Strix has an aunt, a brother and three cousins. Her brother is dangerous and special, like Strix. He is a "bad man." Madame Eva says that when Strix sees rotten wolf heads, her family is close.

The rest of the Wafflers gather in Madame Eva's tent. Paultin is drunk. Madame Eva knows much about them, and freaks everyone out.

Eva says that Evelyn was brought to Barovia by Lathander. Evelyn is the "key" to everything that is happening. "It is a wonder that Strahd hasn't noticed you, yet."

Madame Eva does the tarokka reading. It is fun to follow along in the Curse of Strahd book to see what the results mean. I won't spoil it here. This reading determines the most important details in the entire adventure.

The best part is that Chris actually mailed the players tarokka cards a month ago. The players haven't been allowed to open them until now. The envelopes are sealed with wax. Here's the results of the reading:

• (Diath's card) The Tome of Strahd: Bishop - They'll find it "..beyond the amber doors."
• (Evelyn's card) The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind: Abjurer - The symbol is in "a fallen house guarded by a stone dragon."
• (Strix's card) The Sunsword: Anarchist - "Wall of bones - remains of enemies long forgotten."
• (Paultin's card) Strahd's Enemy: Mists - "A vistana searching for her mentor at St. Markovia's Abbey."
• (Chris's card) Strahd: Raven - "Look to the mother's tomb - the mother of evil." Madame Eva straight tells them that the mother of evil lies under Castle Ravenloft.

Evelyn gets jealous when Madame Eva says the vistana will be very important to Paultin. Later on, she convinces Paultin to come visit a windmill with her once the adventure is over.

The Mysterious Envelope

Diath asks Eva why he saw himself hanging from the gallows. She says the land is trying to turn the heroes against each other and themselves.

Paultin, still drunk, almost barfs on the table. He wants Madame Eva to rank his mystery woman's looks on a scale from 1-10. Madame Eva starts swearing at the heroes, which is most amusing. 

Hanging out with the vistani, the group learns about a wizard who rallied the people to fight Strahd at Castle Ravenloft, but the wizard fell a thousand feet to his death during the conflict. The vistani went to find the wizard's body, but it was gone.

The group learns that Strahd once had a consort named Tatyana. They also learn that many Barovians have no souls - they have no charm and no spark. They don't cry.

Strix asks the vistani about ravens. Ravens carry lost souls with them. They don't associate with people. Strix gets on her horse and is described as a "moth-eaten heap of sadness."

The adventurers borrow horses from the vistani. Strix and Evelyn have to share one. It is named Valentina.

The group argues about whether or not to check out the windmill that they specifically were told to avoid.

The adventurers travel the road and pass numerous landmarks. They come to another set of massive gates.

They spot.. a windmill! And the mysterious crow is there. That's where we end it.

Chris asks the group if they want to go to the windmill. Everyone but Diath wants to go.

Time Stamps

• (22:00) "My son is gone!"
• (26:38) Ireena ruins Evelyn's happy place.
• (36:10) The hanging body.
• (58:36) The tarokka reading.
• (1:11:10) Madame Eva has a surprisingly foul mouth.
• (1:35:18) Diath and Paultin share a horse... and maybe more.
• (1:36:38) Comparing notes on the windmill.

Thoughts

The Water: There were some serious sound issues for the first 30 minutes. It honestly sounded like someone taking a pee. It was very distracting, to the point that I could barely focus on what was happening.

Everything Comes Together: I can imagine people tuning out from the sound problems, which is too bad because once we got past the flushing sound, the group really started to gel. The tarokka reading was really fun and all of these players are really fun and funny. You could sense the group forming a cohesive whole.

Good episode!

Click here to proceed to episode 4.