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Monday, November 14, 2016

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to Graz'zt, The Dark Prince

In this guide I am going to try to collect all the official lore on Graz'zt so that you can use it as a springboard for ideas on how to use him in your campaign. Graz'zt is one of the most powerful demon lords and has been featured in a number of D&D products in various editions.
This guide completes a "set" of linked concepts. Here are the other ones:

Guide to Azzagrat: The three layers that Graz'zt rules
Guide to Iggwilv: The witch queen is heavily intertwined with Graz'zt
Guide to the Demonomicon of Iggwilv: A tome that Graz'zt had a hand in creating.

If you just want to use one source for Graz'zt information, I'd suggest getting Dragon Magazine #360. It is massive and full of cool stuff.

For 5e stats, you'll want to get Out of the Abyss. Graz'zt is barely in the adventure, but he is fully statted out in the back of the book. Other useful sources:

The Essential Information

He has a love/hate relationship with Iggwilv.
He might have been a devil who served Asmodeus the Archdevil.
He might be the offspring of Pale Night, an ancient demonic entity.
He wants to become the Prince of Demons.
He wields Wave of Sorrow, a rippling blade that drips acid.
He rules three layers of the Abyss, the Triple Layer of Azzagrat.
He has a sidekick named Verin who is also a demon lord.
He has a number of siblings who are also demon lords.

Minions and Allies:

Verin/Ztefano: Pale skin, chief diplomat.
Unhath and Reluhantis: His personal marilith guards.
Rhyxali: His demon lord sister
Zuggtmoy: Demon lord of Fungi, they have a weird, secret relationship.
Pale Night: She might be Graz'zt's mother.
Ebulon: He once served Graz'zt as a general/ Is trapped in the Wells of Darkness.
Orwantz: A goristro in charge of Azzagrat border control.
Dark Myrakul: A lich-thing that guards an asylum in Carceri.
Arzial: The ruler of the barony of Vulderpayne in Azzagrat.
Saretta: She runs the Counting House in Azzagrat.
Lavendeth: A lillitu high priestess in the Grand Shrine of Zelatar.
Jenmissa, Katriksy and Ulanda: Succubus guards.
Anastasia: Human cultist who rules a town
Iha-Denarthun: A lamia cult leader who commands about 60 more lamias
Audry Lilybrook: A human cultist of Saltmarsh who runs an orphanage!
Tyralandi: A half-fiend thrall of Graz'zt who runs the Porphyry House in the Savage Tide adventure path.

Enemies:

Lupercio & Vucarik: His demon lord brothers.
Raxivort, lord of the xvarts: Hiding from Graz'zt in Azzagrat.
Malcanthet: Demon Lord of Succubi, who rejected him
Orcus: Demon Lord of Undead
Demogorgon: Prince of Demons
Baphomet: Demon Lord of Minotaurs
Yeenoghu: Demon Lord of Gnolls
Lolth: Demon Queen of Spiders, she refused to team up with Graz'zt.
Adimarchus: Fallen Angel/Demon Lord of Madness, imprisoned in Carceri.
Zivorgian, the Lady of Ripe Carrion: His demon lord sister.

Children of Graz'zt:

Athux: His mother is the drow Eclavdra, he leads Graz'zt's army.
Thraxxia: His daughter, an assassin.
Arzial the Blooded Baron: Half-fiend wizard who lacks ambition. He is supposed to take control of Vulderpayne, a barony on the Plain of Infinite Portals.
Belyara: A lamia who was imprisoned by an eladrin. She wants revenge on Graz'zt for not trying to save her.
Rule-of-Three: A major Planescape NPC trying to unite the fiends.
Iuz: An evil god from Greyhawk.
Liska: Daughter of Graz'zt a skulk assassin who has drow underlings.

Contradictory Origin: In 3e, it was said that Graz'zt's mother was Pale Night and that Graz'zt was a devil. In 4e, it says he was actually a devil who went to the Abyss and assimilated. I think the best solution to this is to say that his mother is Pale Night and his father is Asmodeus.

AD&D 1st Edition

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

This adventure deals with the witch queen Iggwilv. She had bound Graz'zt and accidentally freed him. They had an epic battle and he escaped into the Abyss.

He has a -9 AC! In 1e, low is good. Plate mail is AC 2. -9 is about as epic as it gets. Here is what we learn:

He is a dedicated for of Demogorgon and Orcus.
He was in a battle against harpies, troglodytes and bar-lgura when he was summoned by Iggwilv. He escaped eventually and was confined to his own plane for a century.
He has black skin, green glowing eyes and six fingers on each hand.
He is served by lamias.
In his lair are succubi and/or balors.
When he rolls a 20, inanimate objects (like armor) are often destroyed via acid.
He's got a big of spell abilities including teleport, disintegrate and trap the soul.
He can summon 1-2 balors "without fail."

How do you get in a fight with harpies, troglodytes and bar-lgura at the same time? Where did this take place? Was he drunk?

Monster Manual II

Graz'zt appears in the MM2 with pretty much the same info. There's a new picture of him by Jim Holloway.

AD&D 2nd Edition

Iuz the Evil

This is a Greyhawk supplement about an evil demigod named Iuz. Iuz is the son of Iggwilv and Graz'zt. It says here the Graz'zt is the "...ruler of several abyssal planes." Iuz was originally a cambion.

At some point, Iggwilv offended Graz'zt and he imprisoned her in the Abyss. Iuz hates Graz'zt for imprisoning her, but he is careful not to anger him.

Eclavdra, a pretty major drow NPC, is a representative of Graz'zt. Lolth and Graz'zt have some kind of nebulous arrangement.

A balor who serves Graz'zt is in a farming village called Stahzer. He has an army that battles an army led by a marilith who serves "Pazrael" (Pazuzu).

They even have his 2e stats in here. They're very similar to his 1e stats. Factoids:

He rules three Abyssal planes.
He is unusually self-controlled for a demon.
H uses Iuz as a source of souls and magic items.
He likes to defeat mortal foes through subtlety and twisting words rather than brute force.

Planes of Chaos

This Planescape boxed set fleshes him out a bit

He is also known as the Lord of Shadows and the Lord of the Triple Realm.
He enjoys contrasts that others find disgusting, such as a flower in a room of skulls or a corpse on a gilded throne.
Entire rooms of his palace are devoted to single colors or single themes like blood, storms, or darkness.
He likes to wear white and wield silver.
He is constantly surrounded by guards - 13 babau.
He can transform any weapon he wields into an acid-dripping terror.
He likes to use these magic items: Sword of sharpness, wand of frost, chime of opening, robe of eyes, and a cloak of displacement.
He spends his wealth on the Blood War.
He has many children who are demigods.
His ultimate goal is to drag an entire crystal sphere of the Prime (that's a universe, like all the worlds in the Forgotten Realms settings) into the Abyss to create a fourth abyssal layer.

Faces of Evil: the Fiends

This book has all sorts of details on demons, devils and other creatures.

Graz'zt has taken over three adjacent layers (45th through 47th.). The fictional narrator says this: "I don't think he'll claim too many more. That kind of domination would surely cause the lesser tanar'ri to rise up and cast out the one who would crush their freedoms; the fiends are capable of concerted action, after all."

We learn about Graz'zt's brother, Lupercio:

He's a a demon lord, the "Baron of Sloth."
He rules Slugbed, the 128th layer of the Abyss.
He has little lairs one other Abyssal layers that are cramped hovels, graceful castles and dung-filled riverbeds.
He is ebony-colored and has no distinct form.
His sharpened teeth glitter in the blackness.
He has a "basso-tittering cackle" and incredible strength.
He might be the embodiment of the strength of darkness
He goes through periods of sloth and short bouts of manic activity.

Pale Night

We also get details on Pale Night:

She is one of the oldest Abyssal lords.
She is the mother of Graz'zt, Lupercio and Vucarik of Chains.
She lives in a bone castle in the Endless Maze of Baphomet.
She looks like a female wrapped in a single shroud. There is no physical form inside.
She hardly ever speaks and nobody knows much about her.

We even get info on Verin:

He serves Graz'zt and may be an Abyssal lord.
He finds out the weaknesses of other abyssal lords.
He knows secrets and uses them to turn abyssal lords against each other.
Verin is pale, and he can shift to a dark form named Ztefano.
Ztefano can travel undetected.

For Duty and Deity

This is a really unique adventure. It combines Planescape stuff (the Infinite Staircase) and the Forgotten Realms.

The overall story is that Graz'zt has given asylum to a Forgotten Realms goddess named Waukeen, who had lost much of her power. She had wanted to pass through his realm to get to The Outlands.

She agreed to tell Graz'zt which Abyssal lords were blackmailing other lords, which were paying lords to fight or avoid the Blood Wat

She is his "guest" until they "renegotiate" their deal. She's his prisoner. This adventure introduces a lot of new ideas:

His plan is to steal Greyspace (the universe of the Greyhawk setting) but that scheme has "...centuries or millenia yet..." to come to fruition.
Graz'zt wants to place the psyche of Thraxxia, one of his children, in Waukeen's body.
Thraxxia is an alu-fiend and a personal assassin for her father.
Thraxxia can fire off multiple rainbow beams?! All within 60 feet of her take damage and must make a save or "be stricken dumb and wander in a trance for 1d10 rounds."
Rumor has it that Graz'zt swindled the devas of Mount Celestia into mining stone for his evil palace.
His towers are made from ivory stolen from huge, whalelike creatures from the astral plane.
Graz'zt created his city Zelatar entirely from the souls of mortals gained from his dealings on the prime.

D&D 3rd Edition

Book of Vile Darkness

This book is more "adult" than regular d&d books. That was sort of the gimmick with this and it is pretty funny. We learn some new stuff:

Graz'zt does "sexual favors" for witches and sorcerers.
He always travels with a retinue of female monsters - lamias, succubi or marilith.
At some point, he was summoned to the material plane by Zagyg. Huh.. that's weird. Iggwilv was an apprentice to Zagyg.
He wants to overthrow Demogorgon and become the Prince of Demons.

We get details on The Chosen, the cult of Graz'zt:

They are female priests of Graz'zt.
They make blood sacrifices in his name.
There are "sexual rites."
Here's a neat little quote for you: "His temples are dark, secluded places where orgies are common."

Example Cults: Anastasia runs a cult in the cellar of a tower. Isha-Denarthun has a large temple in the desert flanked by huge statues of Graz'zt. There's over 60 lamias there. They kill victims in an acid vat.

Servants of Graz'zt: We learn about some of Graz'zt's minions:

Unhath & Reluhantis: When Graz'zt leaves the palace, these two mariliths rule it with an iron hand.
Yattara: She is in charge of a squad of succubi who are spies and infiltrators.

Dungeon 98-116 The Shackled City Adventure Path

Shackled City was the first big paizo adventure path. I actually ran this in 4e and it's not perfect, but there's a lot of awesome stuff in it. Here's the Graz'zt related content:

A portion of Celestia ended up in the Abyss and became Occipitus, the 507th layer.
It was ruled by a demon warlord/fallen angel named Adimarchus.
Adimarchus did battle with Graz'zt and ended up imprisoned on the plane of Carceri.
Because the realm is from Celestia, demons avoid this place.
In "Test of the Smoking Eye," The 5th adventure in the path, the group goes to Occipitus and one of the heroes can become the new ruler. They gain new powers and a smoking eye.

Graz'zt has servants:

Dark Myrakul: He's a lichfiend who guards the cell Adimarchus is in. He was a half-demodand who underwent a painful and torturous process to become a lich with the aid of Graz'zt. If he dies, his lifeforce returns to Graz'zt's side.

Soulcage: Graz'zt made the prison Adimarchus is in. It is called a soulcage. It does a lot of things:

It prevents you from using spells or abilities.
It drops your strength to 3.
While in the cage, the prisoner is immune to all damage and magic effects.
The cage is impervious to magic.
Each soulcage has an "escape clause."

Athux: He is Graz'zt's son and he is linked to Adimarchus. This is one of the most prominent gay relationships in D&D. Athux was disguised as a paladin who went on a quest to redeem the soul of Adimarchus. They fought, but then sparks flew. Athux was his prisoner. They actually became allies.

Graz'zt abducted Athux and imprisoned him in Carceri. Adimarchus tried to go there and made a deal to trade places. It was then that Athux revealed that he was a double agent the whole time. This drove Adimarchus completely insane.

Dungeon 95 + 146 Porphyry House

Porphyry house is a brothel that appeared in two James Jacobs adventures. They both feature Tyralandi, who lives in an evil pirate city called Scuttlecove.

Her human mother died in childbirth when Tyralandi clawed out of her womb.
She fended for herself and eventually became a thrall of Graz'zt.
Her specialty is assassinating followers of Demogorgon.
She is a "gothic haunting beauty" with raven wings, red horns and talons.
She is a "sado masochist" and when the group meets her, she has lost up to 30% of her hit points from self-inflicted wounds. Hey, that's what it said.
Tyralandi will probably betray the party once the adventure is over.
She uses the bordello as her eyes and ears.
She plots to turn Scuttlecove into a personal paradise.

Fiendish Codex I

This book reprints old stuff and adds in a few new factoids:

Graz'zt is the patron of corrupt rulers and decadence.
He grants audiences to those who can provide him with aid or intelligence concerning this war.
Graz'zt was unable to take over Occipitus, the realm that once belonged to Adimarchus.
He is in a cold war with Malcanthet.
Iggwilv was able to summon Graz'zt by stealing lore from Zagyg. The two became lovers and had kids.

Expedition to the Demonweb Pits

Weirdly enough, Graz'zt plays a big role in this mega-adventure.

Graz'zt wants to team up with Lolth to fight Orcus but she refuses.
As revenge, Graz'zt starts stirring up trouble among the drow.
He wants to unite the demon lords in a Demon Council which he will run.
Graz'zt uses the heroes to cause problems so that the demon lords will think the council is necessary.
At the end, the group ends up busting in on the council meeting for an insane encounter with demon lords and their proxies.
Graz'zt is magically disguised as Malcanthet.

The group will likely fight an aspect of Graz'zt in there. He has three succubi who try to protect him: Jenmissa, Katriksy and Ulanda.

Dungeon 121 Fiend's Embrace

This adventure is about a cloak that Graz'zt made for Iggwilv. It is called Fiend's Embrace, and it was made from the skin of a pit fiend.

Iggwilv gave it to one of her mortal lovers just to screw with Graz'zt's head. Since that time, the cloak has changed hands many times. In this adventure, it's in a dungeon.

Dragon Magazine 359

Graz'zt is listed as the 12th greatest villain in D&D history. There is a special background...

Spawn of the Dark Prince: You have the power to get a huge bonus to certain charisma-based checks. Because you are self-absorbed, you are less aware of your surroundings and take a -2 penalty to perception.

Dragon Magazine 360 - Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Graz'zt

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest dragon magazine articles of all time. We learn about Graz'zt's parents:

It is noted that Pale Night has an "alien mind"
Pale Night is an obyrith.
Pale Night "beckoned something to her realm to impregnate her, so she could sire her own brood of children to vie for the crown."
The entity is rumored to be Asmodeus, Loki, Set or a baernaloth. Some think it was the Abyss itself.
She gave birth to countless monsters. A few survived to become demon lords.

We get some more details on Graz'zt's siblings:

Vucarik is humanoid in shape but he is completely covered in chains.
Zivorgian, the Lady of Ripe Carrion (!) is a bloated three-headed abomination, not quite vulture and not quite angel.
Rhyxali has no body at all.

Verin: We learn that he has pale skin, no body hair, and his flesh oozes "spiritual slime." Ztefano is a mirror of Verin who specializes in fueling wars and promoting schisms.

Ebulon: He is a demo lord general who failed Graz'zt. Ebulon was defeated by Demogorgon and imprisoned in the Wells of Darkness. Graz'zt sends armies and champions to try to free him but has had no success.

Factoids:

Graz'zt wants to absorb a world and trap it in the Nerebdian Vast the 48th layer of the Abyss - a desert)
Graz'zt wants to unite demons, devils and yugoloths together to go to the Upper Planes and destroy them.

Thrall of Graz'zt

Cults of Graz'zt: Cultists do some weird things:

Once a year, they befriend and corrupt a lawful good cleric or paladin.
The Hollow Feast: A naked cultist is chained to a frame and left to starve for a few days. The cultist offers prayers and, ideally, Graz'zt ends a minion to bless the cultist. The minion drinks acid and kisses the cultist, which obviously does damage.

Minions: Demons that serve Graz'zt include: Lamias, sucubi, harpies, lillitus, tieflings, cambions, half-fiends, rutterkins, carnevus demons, hezrous, vrocks, chasmes, and bulezaus.

Caligrosto

The Razor Legion: Cambion rangers that serve Graz'zt. They ally with caligrostos. These creatures are one of the newer fiend types known as loumara. Loumaras are demon spirits who possess things.

They can possess unattended blades.
As long as it wields a weapon, it creates a phantom image of the last creature it damaged.
Caligrostos are invisible when not wielding a blade.

D&D 4th Edition

Manual of the Planes

GRaz'zt has a giant entry in this book. New stuff:

He was once a devil, an advisor to Asmodeus.
His job was to invade the abyss and seize the seed of evil that created it.
During that invasion, Graz'zt took over three Abyssal layers.
It is possible that he is secretly colluding with Asmodus and the devils!
Aspect: Graz'zt has no connection to his aspects except that he knows if one has been summoned.

Wave of Sorrow: This is his massive, black greatsword that drips acid and can teleport those that it hits. The blade ripples and moves like a wave when he wields it.

Chosen of Graz'zt: They are mostly lamias. In 4e, lamias were different. They were people that could turn into a swarm. They have a bunch of powers:

They can speak the Word of Graz'zt and dominate enemies within 25 feet.
They can change shape.
Because they are technically a swarm, they can squeeze through the tiniest openings.
Their job is to spy and assassinate.

Six-Fingered Slayers: Usually some of the members are Six-fingered slayers, human assassins with six fingers on each hand. They have a power called Dark Veil, which lets them become harder to detect and they are insubstantial.

Dark Acolytes: Dark Acolytes make up most of the cult.

They're immune to being charmed
They are minions (1 hit point mooks)
When they die, they let out dying whispers that give their allies bonuses to hit whoever slew them.

Graz'zt sends certain type of demons to help his cults: Immoliths, Nabassu and hezrou.

Demonomicon

Faithful of Graz'zt: They can dominate foes, redirect attacks against them, and they can create an illusory duplicate while turning invisible. It's a way for them to escape.

Evanissu/City Corruptor: This is a new type of demon. They go to a mortal city, corrupt it and eventually the city slides into the abyss. They go to places in moral decay.

Ferrolith: These were succubi who went with Graz'zt when he first traveled to the Abyss:

They tried to betray Graz'zt, but he cast them into a pool of molten iron.
The metal merged with their flesh and they became the ferroliths.
Since that time, more ferroliths have crawled from pools of molten abyssal iron.
Their hair is made of razor sharp wire.
The Iron Maiden: She is a ferrolith who seized a fortress on the Plain of 1,000 Portals. She is trying to form an alliance with Asmodeus against Graz'zt.
They hate Graz'zt but are bound to serve him.

Incubus: Male succubi, "handsome vagabonds." They are Graz'zt's main scouts in mortal worlds. When Graz'zt first invaded the abyss, some of his Succubi turned into incubi and gained the ability to transform into any medium or large beasts.

Book of Vile Darkness

Graz'zt Storyline: There is a campaign outline in here that involves a cult of Graz'zt committing murders and trying to clear the land of the influence of Asmodeus. Graz'zt is mustering his army in the Abyss. Graz'zt and lesser demon lords kill the Dark Eight, the pit fiend generals who control the blood war devil armies.

Graz'zt Quote: “I live for the moment when I can to turn something pure into something perverse.”

Dungeon Magazine 212 - Court of the Dark Prince

In this high level adventure, the heroes break into Graz'zt's palace to try to free an angel trapped in the Whispering Library.

Graz'zt's throne room has a choir of succubi who are partially encased in amber, suffering.

What Happens if Graz'zt is Slain: If the group kills Graz'zt, potent rituals bound in the walls preserve his essence. The towers of the Argent Palace collapse! Hi body will reform, it is up to the DM how long that takes.

It says this: "These rituals leave him greatly diminished in power, even as they place Rauwend and Voorz'zt out of his control. Demons previously held in check by the Dark Prince embark on a riot of ruin, looting, and settling scores with rivals."

So it looks like Graz'zt loses control of two out of his three layers.

Dragon Magazine 414 - The Iggwilv/Grazzt Affair

They Keep Capturing Each Other: While imprisoned by Iggwilv, the information Graz'zt gave her was put into the first Demonomicon of Iggwilv When Graz'zt escaped, he eventually imprisoned her in his realm. They had a lot of "monstrous offspring."

Jealousy: Graz'zt jealously set out to destroy any fiend that had trafficked with Iggwilv in the past. Graz'zt would have Iggwilv seduce his enemies to learn their secrets

D&D 5th Edition

Monster Manual

We get a couple of paragraphs on Graz'zt on page 52. Nothing really new. He likes: "...sating his decadent desires with subjects and consorts alike, among whom incubi and succubi are often his favorites."

Out of the Abyss

Graz'zt has an entry in this adventure but he doesn't really appear in it. He apparently lurks in the drow city of Menzoberranzan.

He considers restriction the only sin.
His cultists wear alabaster masks with ecstatic expressions.
He wields Angdrelve, the Wave of Sorrow.

The area near his lairs have effects:

Flat surfaces become highly reflective.
Wild beasts break into "frequent conflicts and wild coupling." You might get madness of Graz'zt.

Madness of Graz'zt: All of the demon lords in this book have an aura that will give you a specific madness/insanity trait. Some of Graz'zt's madnesses are:

"There is nothing in this world more important then me."
"I will not rest until I have made someone else mine."
"Anything that can bring me happiness should be enjoyed immediately."

He's a pretty tough guy. He's got an AC of 20 and 378 hit points.

Links

Planescape - The Fortress of Life

We played some more Planescape and we are rolling really nicely.

The story right now is about how the group is friends with a "good" demon lord, Bazuuma. She has agreed to marry Graz'zt and merge her one realm with his 3 realms.

She secretly married one of the characters and is planning on trying to betray Graz'zt and take all of his realms for herself.

To prepare, I made a Guide to Graz'zt which is done but not yet posted. I might put it up later today. Doing the guide allowed me to dig up tons of useful info which has helped me create an outline for this little storyline we have going. Here's what I got for the next 3 sessions:

The heroes go to the plane of positive energy and get lifepearls ("creation seeds" that can form new races and planes).
The adventurers use the lifepearls to corrupt Graz'zt's three realms and things go wrong.
Graz'zt's sidekick tries to wrest control of Bazuuma's realm from her.

Here's some of the NPCs to keep straight:

Verin: White-skinned advisor to Graz'zt.
Ztefano: A mysterious ally of Graz'zt who the group briefly met last session.
Bazuuma: Demon lord of positive energy, one of my "good" demon lords.
Bechard: A demon whale and an obyrith who is friends with the group and Bazuuma.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Elf Wizard
* NPCs: Fall-from-Grace (level 11 Succubus Paladin)

The Chaos Ship

Graz'zt's realm and Bazuuma's were now connected thanks to the planar breach spell.

Graz'zt's demons flew in on the chaos ship (which I plan on using in some way in the upcoming blood war). On the ship was:

Verin: Graz'zt's demon lord sidekick who I am situating as the villain of this little trilogy of sessions.
Rule-of-Three: A prominent planescape NPC/son of Graz'zt. I'd read about an item he has that I really want the group to get a look at.
A bunch of mariliths and vrocks.

Verin inspected the planar connection and dumped a bunch of info on the group:

The connection isn't complete until the city of Zelatar is connected.
Zelatar is made of souls, and the mysterious Ztefano will be handling that.
Verin warned the group to avoid Ztefano as he is quite dangerous.
Graz'zt will be having some of his lieutenants coming in and running the city. This has created vacancies....

Surprise Election Victory

Verin says that there's a place in Graz'zt's realms called Vulderpayne that needs a Baron. Verin looked around at Bazuuma's followers and elected Gonard Flumph to be the new ruler.

Gonard is my Donald Trump NPC. I have used him as a satirical goofy character - an excuse for me to translate whatever Trump is doing into a D&D context.

Seeing how Trump was shockingly elected this week, I decided that Flumph should be suddenly given rulership of a realm, too.

I almost considered phasing Flumph out completely because the whole country is in an uproar. I decided to try it and the group died laughing, so it worked out fine.

The Abyss is Sentient

After that was done, I had the ancient demon whale Bechard talk to the characters. They got in his mouth, and inside him is a demonic version of the inside of the whale in Pinnochio. Bechard innards contains wrecked ships, howling winds, huge rib bones and animated gnoll skeletons.

Bechard loves the heroes because they freed him from eternal torment in Yeenoghu's Realm. He gave them some info I learned from Faces of Evil: The Fiends, an utterly fantastic supplement on demons:

Abyssal layer are dimly sentient.
When you try to take over an abyssal layer, you must have a strong force of will or the layer will literally swallow you up.
Certain layers are feared because they swallow up everyone who tries to take them over.
Layers must feed on demon princes/princesses or else they shrink and eventually merge with another layer.

These ideas are going to play a big part in the session after the next one.

Return to Sigil

Coaxmetal is from Planescape: Torment

Then the group met with Bazuuma. She asked them to go explore the positive energy plane. They agreed to do so.

The heroes went back to Sigil. Bidam finally went to get the Orcusword and gave it to a giant golem named Coaxmetal to repair.

Seoni begged Theran for help - the Codex of Infinite Planes was slowly devouring her soul. He didn't know how to help her.

I decided to squeak in stuff I made a month or two ago. The heroes own mansions in the Elemental Plane of Earth and I had found a fun side adventure in Tales of the Outer Planes that I thought would be amusing. It was!

The Slayer Genie

Bidam's Slayer Genie

The heroes learned that their dwarf miners had uncovered something. They went through the portal to the plane of earth. They checked out their mansions being built by the builder genie. One mansion had a magic jacuzzi, which was pretty sweet.

Theran has an earth genie "wife" who is very intense. Bidam has a goliath "wife" who is very laid back.

The builder genie is a servant of Theran. Bidam has a slayer genie. Those things are badass.

The slayer genie knelt down before Bidam and asked whom it should slay. Slayer genies have an innate need to kill.

So, the group thought for a minute, looked at me smiling and I said, "...Oh no." They laughed. They hate Gonard Flumph. They want him dead.

But that's not all. They hate Ash Vodiran, the greatest thief in all of Sigil who stole from them twice. He robbed them of the wand of orcus! And 18,000 gold!

The slayer genie has his targets. I have no idea the best way to handle this. I guess I'll go with the most interesting outcome. I don't want to use this to somehow screw the group over, but it also feels kind of lame to have two prominent enemies killed "off screen" by an NPC assassin.

I'm going to have to think about it and read around to see what other people have done in this kind of situation.

Profit: The heroes have 100 dwarves mining for gems. I had made of gems found and the group was quite thrilled as they each pocketed about 1,000 gp worth.

The Garden of Floating Crystals

Earth Genie

The dwarves had unearthed an ancient chamber while mining. The group went in to explore what turned out to be a mini-dungeon.

The Faces: The first room had two giant faces on a wall. In one of their mouths was the passage to the next room. In the other was a death trap. The stone faces told them this, laughed, and made fun of the heroes.

One stone face had only one eye. Bidam poked it in the eye and opened its mouth for a moment. Theran has epic eyesight thanks to his robe of eyes but saw darkness and just a spot of light.

They did something similar to the other face and saw a death trap in there.

They went through the one-eyed face's mouth and made their way to the next room.

Cousin of Grumbar: This one is weird. It's a circular room half a mile long. There's a lot of sand and a huge fist sticking out of it. On the fist is a giant ring. You need the ring to exit the room and continue on.

The hand came to life and tried to flick Bidam but he dodged. Bidam eventually pulled off the ring and the group ran as the creature that was buried in the sand began rising up out of it.

The Garden: The group came to the final room, where there was all of these floating crystals. Trapped in four of them were different creatures. This room also had a magic trap where arrows charged with kinetic energy were up by the ceiling, ready to launch at whoever freed someone from a gem.

The story here is that this place was the lair of a villainous earth genie who is long dead. I had his face appear magically to interact with the group, mostly so I could do a mustache-twirling villain schtick. His name: Axalachite, the gleaming sultan of stones best left unturned.

The heroes were amused by the bad guy and intent on freeing the people in the gems without triggering the trap. After a lot of thinking, they ad their buddy Fall From Grace fly up and mess with the arrows so that their kinetic energy was discharged.

They freed a few creatures who'd been trapped for centuries:

Lymph Dilutius: A water genie who had been tricked by the evil Axalachite. The genie promised the group a wish - a twisted genie wish, of course. The group will be using the wish very soon. Lymph plane-shifted home and will respond to the group should they use a sending spell.

Kristal: Her rescue is the point of the original scenario. She is the daughter of a duke, has an 18 charisma, long blonde hair and she is "small and frail."

The Lifepearls

The group went back to Sigil. Bidam lives by the code of "hit it and quit it." He didn't try to put the moves on Kristal.

Fall From Grace pointed out something to him that I noticed last session - Bidam is changing. Since he married Bazuuma, he might actually want to be monogamous.

Bidam denied this. It was funny, this is not something Jessie is roleplaying, it is just sort of happening. So her reaction was very real - she was shocked and put up resistance to the idea but I could see that there was some truth to it.

The next day, the group sought out Lissandra the Gate-Seeker and learned that there was a portal to the plane of positive energy in The Great Gymnasium, home of the Transcendent Order faction. The Order believes in the mind-body connection. They exercise a lot. It's cooler than it sounds.

The group did no research at all. This plane is dangerous. They just jumped right in. A bunch of stuff happened right away:

They were floating in a realm of light.
They couldn't see far at all, just distant black blurs.
Their eyes hurt from the light. If you look at the robe of eyes stats, you know that light is really bad for Theran.
They immediately started getting pumped full of positive energy, gaining 2d10 hit points per round.

They were "overhealing," piling on temporary hit points. The group got nervous and decided to start flying toward a black blot. This is really bad, because they left the portal behind and had no way to find it again.

Explode: I got alarmed because there was a very good chance both of the characters were about to die. The deal here is that once you "overheal" to the point you double your max hit points, you explode in a burst of radiant motes. You die, and you die as if you were disintegrated. There is nothing left of you!

I decided that if they died, we'd stop the session there and I'd see what options there were during the week.

Then they got really wacky. On their own, they realized they were going to blow up. They proceeded to fly towards the blot and attack each other each round to keep their temporary hit points off. Bidam has a sword of sharpness! If he rolls a 20, he has a chance of cutting off one of Theran's limbs!

I was beyond amused. Spell damage is maximized here. Theran dropped a freaking fireball on Bidam and did piles and piles of damage. Bidam tore into Theran, carving away with the sword of sharpness.

Thankfully, they decided to use their cubic gate to get out of there and regroup.

They got back to Sigil and did some research. Fall From Grace got a spell called Positive Energy Protection, which would make traveling in the plane safe.

The group went back and found their way to the Fortress of Life - the stronghold of the Transcendant Order in the plane of positive energy.

After a bunch of talking, the group learned that the Order was in the plane searching for lifepearls. They had 10 already! Lifepearls are balls of energy that you can use to make races or planes, according to one sourcebook. They have charges. You can spend a charge to heal diseases or raise dead.

The lifepearls are "concentrated creation." The Order was willing to hand over some pearls in exchange for control of one of the Abyssal layers.

Corrupting Azzagrat

Ultimately, the group cooked up a plan. They are going to use three lifepearls and place them in the core of each of Graz'zt's three realms. The hope is that the pearl's positive energy will "corrupt" the planes toward good and send the demons running.

I asked them how they planned to do that next session - at the same time, or one at a time.

They decided to use the water genie Lymph Dilutius. They're going to use their wish to have all three pearls implanted at the same time.

They know that the genie is going to try to twist their wish, so this one will be very tricky.

I have a good idea of how next session will go and it's going to be utter chaos. These planes are sentient and they are not going to like these mortals trying to "poison them" with positivity.

No idea what's going to happen! I guess we'll see soon enough.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Dungeons & Dragons Podcast Reviews 11/9/2016

I sampled some more podcasts out there. I think all of these were suggested by readers of the last podcast review I did. Thank you!

Total Party Thrill 64: Narrative Control & the Master Illusionist

You can listen to this here.

This show is run by two guys named I-Hsien and Shane. They seem to play a lot of games and from what I can tell they live very close to me. I'm about 45 minutes away from New York City. I wonder if they are caught up in the Trump stuff going on over there.

They both have good radio voices and are quite likeable.

They talk a bit about getting ready for their new Dark Sun campaign, which they are pumped up for. Right now they are playing in a campaign called "Mourning Glory," which is set in Eberron.

Then we get into the main topic of the show - narrative control.

New DM Mistakes: They make an interesting comment about a mistake new DMs make. New DMs often follow every rule every time, to the detriment of the game.

That's an interesting comment, as I think there are a lot of players who would not consider that a mistake. I personally toss rules all the time, but I guess the important thing here is to remember what the goal of the session is, which varies depending on the preferences of each group.

Players Gain Control: Then we go into a topic that I fin unnerving: Giving narrative control to players. They bring up the Critical Role "how do you kill it" thing, where the DM lets the player describe how they kill the monster.

My beef with this is that in my opinion, the DM must always have veto power. 95% of the time it's fine, but sometimes players will start trying to use it in a way that is inappropriate or start traveling down a path that will cause tension. I think that if a player gets used to telling you what the outcome of their actions are, it leads to all sorts of entanglements.

Whenever I let a player do something like that, I try to have it where they give input but don't have final say. Most of the time what they say is great, but I always want to have one hand on the wheel, so to speak.

Retcon: They talk about a pretty nutty idea where the DM gives his players a chip that they can cash in to retcon something. For example, say the player decides to jump over a river of lava, fails their dex save and dies. They can cash in the chip to say that never happened.

That also hives me the heebie jeebies. To me, the entire game hinges on actions and consequences. When there are no consequences, the game loses all of its impact.

That said, maybe it would be a fun experiment to try one session just to see what happens. Who knows, maybe it will lead to hilarity of some sort.

Cheating: They talk about letting players cheat. In 2e, there were a suspiciously large amount of characters with an 18/00 strength. In 2e, if you have an 18 strength, you then roll a percentile die to see exactly how muscly you are. 18/20 is Vin diesel, 18/00 is that bodybuilder guy with the veins exploding out of his neck.

They talk about letting players hide their death saves, essentially allowing a player to decide if he or she dies or not. You're essentially taking consequences completely out of the game. Although then again, you don't really have a campaign if the heroes die all the time. Death in RPGs is quite tricky and I really am not sure the best way to approach it.

This was a very good show. It is definitely worth checking out.

Adventure Zone Episode 51: The Suffering Game

You can listen to this right here.

This is an ongoing campaign. The heroes are:

Merle
Taako
Magnus

I'm not sure what the races and classes are.

We start off with music, sound effects and voices. The intro music is very 70's-weird and I like it.

The Hook: The group has been training and now they are ready to go on their next mission. They have a boss known as The Director and they're not sure if she's trustworthy.

Apparently they are collecting relics. Their next relic in a place called "Wonderland," a place where your wishes come true. Apparently, other adventurers are there.

Side Quest: One player takes the DM by surprise. He wants to break into a prison to ask an NPC about these red-robed wizards. The character runs into 2 guards and the DM doesn't want to roll out the battle, he wants to do an opposed strength check. Yikes. One roll. I get that he wants to keep thing moving but a fight with one PC vs 2 NPCs won't take long, and the outcome is important. The character makes his roll. He stuffs the guards in some kind of bag of holding.

He doesn't really get any info from the imprisoned NPC. The DM was really not ready for that, poor guy.

There's a commercial break halfway through. This show is quite professional, I must say.

Cannonball to the Realms: Apparently the adventurers travel in a giant cannonball/sphere. They soar over the realm which is.. the Forgotten Realms. Cool, I like it when people use official stuff.
They land and are attacked by a chimera.

They pummel the chimera and get some aid by... the ruler of Neverwinter. That's where we stop!

This was pretty good. That player who went solo seems like he might get annoying after a while.

The Id DM

You can listen to this here.

The Id DM is apparently a psychologist in real life. I absolutely love the idea of him doing pseudo-D&D therapy sessions in podcast form.

On this episode, he basically winds Mike up and lets him go, which I think is a good way to do an interview. He gives Mike the spotlight and lets him go wild. Mike seems like a guy who could talk for 4 hours straight on D&D with no problem.

Truth: Mike mentions a hard-learned fact of DM Life: The players will not read your flash fiction or summaries.

Then he goes into a thing where he points out that talking about D&D with your friend is playing D&D.

Mike has some great advice on running villains. Think about the villain's mindset and what their plans are based on what they know.

DMs Are Online: They talk a bit about how there are a lot of blogs about DMing and not a lot about player-focused advice blogs. They agree that DMs are more hardcore, so they'll go online and read. Many players just show up and play and that's it.

Mike talks about creating and selling D&D material and how there are gatekeepers trying to keep certain products being made? I don't really understand what he is referring to. He says that there are people who want to write adventures, but they feel like they need to please someone else.

Really good show! Top notch. It's kind of scary that this is episode 1.

Sneak Attack Episode 73

You can listen to this here.

This is another actual play show. The DM is a guy named Reed. Here's the group:

McCannell
Brenna
Sherwood (he is a horse right now, I think)
Grayek

I am a little hesitant to listen to podcasts of games because it's a big investment, especially if the shows are 5 hours long. This one is only an hour long, so what the hell.

Chortling: The group is very fun and they have a really amusing dynamic. It's like when you know your friends are about to say something funny.. it's like that the whole way through.

The Hot Orc: We learn that previously, a character had been tricked out of two suits of plate mail. It isn't long before they belly crawl towards a statue in a clearing. They get in a battle with an 8 foot tall "hot orc who is ripped." He's got gold armor on his arms and thighs.

This fight took quite a while. It was cool, I just think that for a one hour show they shouldn't let one battle eat up the clock too much.

Brenna decides to dole out a roundhouse kick to the orc. DM gives her disadvantage on that. I wish he wouldn't have done that. Maybe it makes sense, but I would never want to discourage a player from handing out a roundhouse kick.

Portal: Once the orc is dealt with, they enter into the area inside the statue. They find a magic gem with a portal in it.. this is the portal home. I guess they've been looking for a long time.

Fun show! Very quick and easy to listen to. Everyone has a good voice and a distinct character.

Thanks to everyone who suggested these shows. Please feel free to suggest more shows for me to check out in the comment section below.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 28 - Curse of Strahd

Episode 28: Everything's Fine

It's been two weeks since the last episode. The consensus online is that the last episode is probably the best of the whole show so far, so definitely check it out if you missed it!

The Party

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

Last Time: Diath stabbed a little girl with the hag pin and killed her, the group set fire to the vistani camp and Murderbot the evil puppet seems intent on revenge.

Evelyn had just summoned her undead horse with a lovely magical song. The group had also stolen a horse from the vistani.

They are near Argynvostholt, where the Holy symbol of Ravenkind is supposed to be.

Van Richten says that the ritual to kill Strahd will take 10 minutes and that he will have to swallow an egg. Evelyn asks him if he's ever done that before.

The group is kind of "waffling" here on whether or not to do the ritual. The ritual kills Strahd! Why wouldn't they just do it right away? I assume that they are sure that there's some kind of catch or twist.

There's a bunch of discussion about what to do. Diath accidentally calls Madame Eva "Mommy Eva," which made me laugh.

It seems like Chris really wants the group to cross the river nearby, but the group isn't into it.

The heroes go to Argynvostholt, which is a ruined mansion with the statue of a dragon outside. The right side of the building has crumbled away.

This will be interesting to see how Chris runs this. When I read it, I couldn't figure out the best way to handle it.

Dragon Statue: Diath sees the dragon statue move and gets weirded out. Strix smartly tries to figure out what type of dragon it is. It's a silver dragon. They normally are good guys.

Evelyn tries to talk to it and make friends. Nothing happens.

The group climbs up to a higher floor, barely getting up there. Van Richten sits down and pulls out the Strahd Puppet. Ritual time!

Egg-Swallowing: One member of the group will have to crack open the egg and dump it down Van Richten's throat.

The ritual is done. Van Richten says the group will need to get Strahd to look at it and utter a phrase which they may or may not remember.

This is Van Richten from 2nd edition

Paultin vs. Van Richten: Paultin wants to kill Van Richten now. They had made a deal that once Strahd was dealt with, Paultin could kill him and get revenge.

Diath urges him to stop. Paultin draws his longsword. Diath tells Paultin that he can't let Barovia turn him into a monster. Paultin decides not to do it and punches him in the face.

It looks like the group wasn't going to let Paultin do it. I'm surprised Evelyn didn't intervene. This group really hates Van Richten.

Entities: The group looks for a room to rest in. A few ghostly creatures bows materialize and attack.
Diath throws a dagger at one through glass.. natural 20! This is especially sweet because Diath rolls so low whenever he chucks his dagger at someone.

Anna keeps rolling high and she becomes very amusing yelling stuff like "Get wrecked" as she proceeds to maul these guys. She is awesome every single week.

The group busts through a door and on they see two red-eyed beings looking at them.

Paultin's Waffle Dome: The group needs a rest bad. Paultin points out that he can cast Leomund's tiny hut aka the "vampire pillow fort." Wait.. they call it "The Waffle House." This spell creates an impenetrable dome that the group can rest in. It even has adjustable mood lighting.

Paultin summons the Waffle Dome and the group is dismayed to see that they are about to run out of rations. Diath eats the last of his food and gets sick. He throws up right there in the confines of the waffle hut. The group thinks this might be a result of the vistani curse from Arabelle.

Evelyn casts Lesser Restoration on Diath by mushing his face with her hand. It doesn't seem to do anything.

The group rests. Diath doesn't gain the benefit of a long rest. He does get a short rest and spends his last hit die. Wow, he is in trouble. He right now has at least three different weird conditions going, at my count.

The Exalted Deeds of the Doodly-Doo: The group resumes exploring. Those red-eyed people are gone. The heroes find a room with the icon of ravenkind in it. There are a ton of ravens in here. Strix holds out her arms for one to perch on. 17 ravens flock to her and she is quite thrilled.

Then someone utters this phrase, referring to the icon of ravenkind: "...before you touch the doodly-doo."

Evelyn picks it up and feels a bond with it. She feels like she's held it once before. She remembers the first time she entered a church of Lathander, she met a young priest wearing it and he let her look at it.

It's the end of the session. Anna hilariously works in the title of this episode to close the show. She goes, "Don't worry guys, everything's fine." They should try to do that every week.

Anna says that Evelyn has a shield and she never roleplays it. Chris allows her to say that she uses her bracers as a shield to block attacks, Wonder Woman-style.

ProJared has proclaimed that next month is D&D-sember. ProJared will be doing a bunch of D&D stuff on his channel which sounds pretty fun.

Overall

Good show! It wasn't like last week, but it has a lot of stuff worth seeing. This one is more about the amusing antics of the group rather than death-defying feats of derring do. I like these kind of episodes so it worked for me.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen it, Wizards of the Coast actually gave a free preview of the Icon of Ravenkind before Curse of Strahd came out. I'm going to stick it right here so you can take a gander at it and see what it can do.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Planescape - Planar Breach

Grazz't and Iggwilv

We just finished up another session of Planescape and, as always, it was fun. Planescape is ridiculously deep. I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of the setting. You could easily run an entire campaign in the city of Sigil and not even use the Outlands or the other planes at all. I'd actually like to do that someday.

Marvel Movies & D&D: I have been sick this past week and I watched a lot of movies. I saw Captain America: Civil War and it really exemplified what I think is one of the most important things when it comes to telling a story that people care about. There's a scene where the heroes fight each other. It's not to the death. They pull their punches. But there are still high stakes and concrete consequences. A lot of reviewers said that was the best scene in the movie.

Not Always to the Death: I think it is important to always keep in mind that not every battle should be to the death. When you vary the stakes, it adds a lot of realism and communicates the feeling that your world is alive.

I decided to put in an encounter like this tonight since it was on my brain. At the end of this one, the group has to try to take a tapestry from a greedy ally who is probably too powerful for them to kill, and killing this person would be "political suicide."

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Elf Wizard
* NPCs: Fall-from-Grace (level 11 Succubus Paladin)

Last Time: The group is friends with a "good" demon lord named Bazuuma who rules an abyssal lair called Burningwater. She has cut a deal with Grazzt, a demon lord who rules three abyssal layers. She is going to marry him and together they will rule all four layers.

The problem here is that Bazuuma is secretly married to Bidam and that she's going to try to steal Grazzt's three realms from him!

Downtime

Seoni, who is probably doomed

We started off with a bunch of little stuff that follows up from the events of last session. This always goes over really well. I want to make sure that the players feel like their choices from last time mattered.

The group tidied up their new abyssal domains:

Skyshrine: Theran's earthmote and former home to air genies:

Living Spellbook: Theran's assistant offered to let Theran tattoo spells on her. I wonder what a 'living scroll' would be like?
Old Feller: Theran interacted with this old air genie who's been sitting in a sauna in Skyshrine for 3 years. He's just a comedy character and an excuse for me to do an old man voice.
Iggwilv Getting Grabby: Iggwilv wants to use this place as one of her lairs. Theran was quite annoyed at this. Each session, Iggwilv is getting more demanding and sinister.

Allagash: Bidam's "demon sex farm":

The Orcusword: Bidam reached out to Tenebrous (aka undead Orcus). Bidam was sent another vision telling him he needed to repair the Orcusword for the Rot Harbingers to follow his orders.
Meatballs: Three sad sack demon males showed up to sign up for the breeding program. Bidam realized it will be easier to recruit males rather than females.

Secret Plans: Bazuuma had a secret meeting with the group. She wants them to go check out the plane of positive energy. She's a demon lord of positive energy and thinks she might need a place to flee to if things go badly.

Next session the group will go there. I'm excited, because there is a lot of really cool material for that place.

The group did some stuff in Sigil and then it was time for the main adventure.

Nalen Blackstar

Spell from the Codex of the Infinite Planes adventure

Planar Breach is a 7th level spell. It is going be cast by Nalen Blackstar, a wizard from "Nemesis." Nalen has some cool items from that adventure:

Shaktari's Necklace: In 2e terms, it lets you cast spells as if you were a wizard 5 levels higher.
Wizardbane: A mind flayer's soul is trapped in this sword. It grants the wielder magic resistance and the ability to cast levitate, detect thoughts and plane shift once per day.

I played up that Nalen is self-conscious about his hairpiece, as that factors in to the final encounter.

The group took Nalen and some agents of Grazzt on a tour of Bazuuma's layer. A few things happened:

Tension: The group noticed that Grazzt's marilith guard hates Nalen. Nalen did some really awful things to a marilith in "Nemesis."
Secret Demon: There was a hooded, dark demon with Nalen. The group didn't pay him much mind. This is Ztefano, a demon lord. I was wondering if the group would learn his secret, but they didn't pay him much mind.
Cabiri: Nalen got a look at the shrine of Cabiri, the obyrith who used to rule this layer. I want to play up Cabiri because he factors in to an upcoming Blood War adventure.

The Bay of Choking Bile

Chaos Ship flying in the Abyss

Then the group went to the Bay of Choking Bile in Grazzt's realm. The 4e Demonomicon says that Grazzt keeps his ships here, so I detailed a few.

Grazzt's Chaos Ship: I am planning on using this in the Blood War. Back in 4e, my group got the chaos ship of Orcus and it was pretty awesome.
A manta ray ship: This is a smalljammer, a "shuttle" that is linked to the actual Spelljammer vessel.
The Ebony Queen: A ship made of obsidian (taken from Secrets of the Lamp) with an incubus captain known as "the dark-eyed stranger." I saw that phrase and thought it was funny, so I worked it in. Whenever I described him, I went into dramatic detail about his black eyes and mysterious pirate nature.

Grazzt Woos Bazuuma: I had an avatar of Grazzt skulking around. Grazzt really wants to marry Bazuuma so I had him try to woo her. It was very interesting. Bidam got jealous. Bidam lives by the philosophy of "hit it and quit it" but it seems like he is changing.

I want to put the pressure on a bit as far as this goes. She is not going to want to marry Grazzt, so that means the betrayal and coup attempt will need to happen soon.

Merging of the Planes

The rest of the session involved the planar breach. The adventurers set themselves up on "Accomplishment Island," where Bazuuma's "Spire of Encouragement" is. Connecting two abyssal realms causes all sorts of chaos as the elements of each plane merge with the other:

Merging: The River of Salt poured in and formed a new island that will be the home of Grazzt's temple and his city of Zelatar.
What Does Alkaline Do? It started to rain alkaline. I have no idea what alkaline does so I had the group save vs wetness. Fall From Grace failed her save and was covered in alkaline and suffered alkaline-related conditions.
Thrusting Winds: Winds kicked up and blew demons people through the air. The group made their saves but some demon unicorns didn't and the group took some horn stabs in the chaos.
Blue Sun Appears: A blue sun appeared, half-submerged in the ocean. This sun is like the one in Grazzt's realm. It let out solar flares that destroyed buildings on Accomplishment Island. The heroes ended up buried in a collapsed building due to bad die rolls. Fall From Grace dug them out.
Rain of Blue Fire: It started raining blue fire and now the storm was raging.
Evil Crustaceans! A tornado kicked up. Burningwater is full of "demon crustaceans." Our heroes had to battle a tornado full of crustaceans - a Crustnado!

Bidam was horrified to see that his baby dragon son, Pyranicus, was sucked in. Bidam dove in to the watery tornado, swam up and saved his kid.

The Crustnado sucked Theran in and he actually went down. Bidam swam down with his kid and pulled Theran out. Theran failed two death saves and barely got healed in time.

He then backed up and busted out a spell I didn't know he had: Disintegrate! He destroyed the Crustnado.

Trump in Danger: The heroes spotted my Donal Trump NPC in the fight of his life against a demon crustacean. This monster was slightly larger than a real life crab, which the group found very amusing. I put this here just to see if the adventurers would help him or not. I was intent on rolling out that fight and seeing what happened.

Bidam decided to help. He sliced the crustacean in half with a single swipe of his sword of sharpness.
Cabiri, the Watching Master

The storm began to subside, but the breach had disturbed the realm. A sunken tower of Cabiri suddenly rose up. The group saw the Ebony Queen in the ocean - It had traveled through the planar breach. The spell was a success!

The Ebony Queen changed course and headed for the tower. The demon pirates and Nalen were going to loot that place!

The heroes jumped in their pirate ship piloted by a skeleton. It is fitted with an orrery of the planes, meaning it can pass through stone and other elements.

Inside the tower of Cabiri was a tapestry of demon skin that held some of Cabiri's findings:

Cabiri wrote about Sibriex flesh crafters - they create demons. Cabiri wondered if the Sibriex were slain, if demons would go extinct.
Cabiri wrote about the Maeldur - a singular entity that was apparently the source of demonic abilities (immunities, resistances, spell-like powers). Cabiri posited the theory that if the Maeldur was killed, demons would lose all resistances and powers.

The Maeldur is the focus of the third adventure in the Hellbound boxed set, and I want to start setting it up now.

The Ebony Queen pulled up and Nalen came into Cabiris placed with the dark-eyed stranger. Nalen came in and wanted the tapestry. The group objected, so Nalen cast time stop and started rolling up the tapestry. When the spell ended, the group had one round to stop Nalen before he planeshifted away with the tapestry of demon flesh.

Bidam tried to just pull the tapestry away from him with an opposed strength check. Bidam has a high strength, Nalen has a -1. Nalen rolled really high and won!

At the last moment, the group had an idea. They decided to mage hand his hairpiece. Nalen freaked out, embarrassed. He begged the group not to tell anyone about it and pointed out that the hairpiece was an item he had specially crafted.

I did not expect what happened next. The group made friends with him. Nalen gave them the tapestry. The group invited him to come visit them in Deadbook Square.

I fully intended for this guy to be a jerk and be hated, but it just worked out differently.

The Plot Against Grazz't

In the next few sessions, we're going to play out this scheme. Next session I am going to have the players give me their plan. There are a ton of possibilities when it comes to trying to overthrow Grazzt and steal his three realms:

Lifepearls: The group could get one or more lifepearls from the plane of positive energy and do wacky things with them.
Truthers: The heroes could recruit those weird creatures in the plane of positive energy who want to commit genocide on all liars. Grazzt and his demons are definitely liars.
Earth Genies: The heroes might be able to recruit the earth genies in some kind of deal with the earth genie ruler.
Air Genies: he group might be able to recruit air genies, who surely aren't happy with how Grazzt's right hand man killed so many of their kind at Skyshrine.
Obyrith: The group is friends with Bechard, a very powerful obyrith. With the planar connection, he can swim to the Bay of Choking Bile and cause great havoc.
Devils: The group could enlist the devils! They are friends with Drokkarn the pit fiend, who is about to be given his own army for the blood war.

There's two other factors:

Another Planar Breach: Bazuuma might want to create a planar breach, connecting her lair to the plane of positive energy. I imagine this would be quite an "infection" on the abyss which would leak into Azzagrat. Grazzt's land would be poisoned and he'd have to cut ties.

Iggwilv the Witch-Queen: Iggwilv does not want Grazzt marrying Bazuuma. I run Grazzt and Iggwilv as a dysfunctional couple. They want to be together but they are really petty and always playing games. They spend decades scheming against each other.

I think one way for all of this to end is for Grazzt and Iggwilv to get together. This might placate Grazzt enough to let the group and Bazuuma off the hook. I don't think it is possible for the group to steal these three layers, that just seems unlikely. If they have a great idea, then fine. But even if they get them, how can they control them?

There's also Verin, another demon, to deal with. And the thousands of demons already in Azzagrat that aren't exactly going to be thrilled with Bazuuma.

Next session, We'll play through the positive energy realm and then I'm going to lay out their options. The players will need to tell me their plan for Grazzt's realm.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to the Plane of Positive Energy

Today I want to look at a weird little corner of the D&D universe that doesn't get a lot of attention. The Plane of Negative Energy is pretty easy to imagine - it is a place of blackness and evil. Positive energy, to me, is interesting because I can't think of how to make it a cool, fun place to have an adventure in.

What can be done in a realm of healing and light? It turns out there's a lot of awesome ideas for this plane that have flown under the radar for years.

Here's what I learned: This is the place that souls come from.

I am going to try to present to you an outline of published content for it so you can check it out and see if it fits into your campaign in some way. I'm also going to detail the Quasi-plane of Radiance, because it is linked to the plane of positive energy and there was a pretty epic article about it in Dragon Magazine.

This guide uses material from a few main products:

Categories of Planes: This plane doesn't appear to even be in the official 5e cosmology. In older editions, it is one of the "Inner Planes." I've always found the subdivisions of the planes very confusing. Here are the main categories:

The Inner Planes: These are the elemental planes (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) as well as the Positive and Negative Material Planes.
The Outer Planes: This is where most planes dwell, including The Abyss, Hell, Celestia, etc.
The Transitive Planes: The Ethereal Plane, Astral Plane, the Shadowfell and the Feywild.

I feel that I should also note that the ethereal plane is loaded with demiplanes - planes within a plane.

There is also The Outlands (aka The Plane of Concordant Opposition). This is a central area that spans from the center of the multiverse (the city of Sigil) to the Outer Planes.

The Essential Information

The plane of positive energy bombards you with healing until you explode.
You need to cast positive energy protection to safely traverse this plane.
You need to protect your eyes or you will go blind.
This plane is connected to the quasi-planes of lightning, minerals, radiance, and steam.
Lifepearls: Sometimes, positive energy congeals into lifepearls that can heal the sick and restore the dead.
The Bastion of Unborn Souls: A place where souls grow on crystal trees. This is where souls come from.
Quesars: These constructs built by angels guard celestial treasures and are incredibly powerful.
Energy Pillar: A huge wall of advancing white brilliance, swallowing and immolating everything in its path.
Rainbows in the material plane sometimes have portals that link to the rainbow bridge in the Plane of Radiance.
There is a rainbow waterfall that is a portal to anywhere you want to go. It is guarded by a radiant titan.

AD&D 1st Edition

In the Manual of the Planes, we get a snazzy overview.

You Explode: When you go here, you gain 2d6 hit point per round. Once that number exceeds twice your max total, you... explode!

Overhealing: If you get out of the plane before you blow up, you keep those hit points for d20 turns (an AD&D 'turn' is is 10 minutes).

Protection: To travel here, you need to use a spell called positive plane protection. It can't be cast in the plane, it must be done prior to the visit.

No Oxygen: You can't breathe here - you'll need to have a spell or item that can sustain you.

Other Notes:

There is no ruler of this plane.
Vision is limited to 30 feet.
Items created by spells that create matter are destroyed by the plane in one round and become "...a rainbow of harmless motes.."
Spells always do maximum damage.

Towers: In this plane are a scattered group of great floating towers made of blue flame, lead, solidified clouds or ice. Most are abandoned. Some contain wizards, druids, or exiled Powers from the Lower Planes (!).

There are four Positive Quasi-Planes: Lightning, Radiance, Minerals, and Steam.

The Quasi-Plane of Radiance: When you go here, you need to make a save or you will go blind.

Darkness spells let you see normally, or you could wear glasses with "smoked lenses" (sunglasses).
There are actual rainbows of flame here.

Radiant Quasi-elemental: These creatures span the entire spectrum of color. They are very hyper, continually move and change. They can be driven off by darkness spells.

AD&D 2nd Edition

The Inner Planes: This book has a lot of great little ideas in it. I love the notion of a party of adventurers coming to this plane to find a life pearl to raise a fallen friend.

In this plane, you gain 2d6 hp per round. Once that number doubles your hit point total, you are blasted into pulverized flames.
Objects appearing here save vs disintegration or are destroyed.
Darkness magic is snuffed out.
Protective Spell: Positive Plane Protection (the 3e version of this spell is right here).
You can't breathe here, but the plane sustains you. You have no need to eat here, either.
You will go blind within a day. You can wear a blindfold to negate the effects, and you will be able to see through it. You also gain danger sense 25 feet
The Planescape faction known as the transcendent order has a "Fortress of Life" here.

Lifepearls: This is "concentrated creation," an energy seed that could form a new race or plane. These items can heal the sick and restore the dead! These pearls have the powers of a staff of curing and a rod of resurrection with a total of 4d10 charges

D&D 3rd Edition

In the 3e Manual of the Planes, this plane is "...a continual furnace of creation..."

Energy Bursts: Regions that erupt like miniature suns, doling out 3d10 temporary hit points. You also must save or be blind for d10 rounds.

Animating fields: Invisible regions that can animate objects. If you stumble into one, there's a 50% chance each round that one of your items animates and attacks.

Edge Zone: Safe, hospitable places that have floating towers and shards of other planes.

The Hospice: A floating citadel that is home to holy knights.

They restore badly-wounded individuals back to health.
Protected by golems.
Home to good-aligned individuals from a dozen planes.

Imprisoning Cells: Powerful individuals get imprisoned in floating cells here. They are eventually opened by a curious traveler or sucked into a vortex to another plane.

Energon: Coalescence of energy with an alien intelligence. Xag-yas are from the positive plane, xeg-yis are negative.

They favor places that birth or death is occurring.
Blow up if killed.
Can infuse targets with positive energy, healing 2d8+5.

Bastion of Broken Souls

This is a really high level adventure dealing with Demogorgon and a powerful red dragon named Ashardalon. It has a massive section set in the positive energy plane and it is really fantastic.

It has flavor for the plane:

"This is a place of brilliant white. Pulsating brilliance bleaches out the spectrum and creates stark shadows. Anything more than 5 feet away becomes an indistinct blot of darkness moving against the white background—the blots nearby are certainly your companions. Distance is impossible to gauge within this brilliant environment."

The Bastion of Unborn Souls: This floating building is made of solidified positive energy. It is impenetrable to magical/psionics/scrying.

"Only a deity could bring sufficient force to bear and physically force an entrance..."
The exterior constantly changes - 3d snowflake, a pulsing crystal, etc. It is 10 miles in diameter
To get to the center of the complex, you must be "attuned" to the building by passing through 8 specific rooms.
This building is "...one of many soul fonts.."
Inside, crystalline trees sprout preincarnate souls.
When a 'ripe' soul falls from the tree in a flash of brighter light - the preincarnate soul takes off, soon to incarnate somewhere in the multiverse.
"If picked before it is ripe, the preincarnate soul withers and dies within 10 rounds."
Eating or destroying a soul "...dooms a creature somewhere in the multiverse to a soulless birth."

Creatures: There are a lot of weird creatures inside the bastion:

Soulsippers: They can pull out your soul and eat it. You can't be raised. You are gone forever.
Soulscapers: Sentient gardeners/druids of energy that fight on the side of the cycle of life.
Crystal Screamers: Parasites who feed on unborn souls

Getting In: Gaining entry to the bastion is really hard. You need a piece of the soul totem, an item that has been shattered into three pieces. In fact, you can't even find the bastion unless you have a piece of the soul totem.

Ashardalon has one. He's the colossal red dragon villain of this adventure. He's already inside eating souls.
Demogorgon has one.
Desayus has one. Desayus is a god who tried and failed to gain control of all unborn souls. He is trapped in a vault in the plane of Pandemonium.

Ring of Positive Energy Protection: This black iron ring enables the wearer to ignore the blinding effect of the Positive Energy Plane. The wearer does not gain the fast healing ability usually conferred by a positive-dominant plane, nor does the character gain additional hit points when he reaches his normal maximum. Spells that channel positive energy - typically healing spells - have no effect on the wearer.

Here's monsters linked to the plane of positive energy from a variety of 3e books:

Glimmerskin: This is a thrill-seeking parasite. It inhabits a willing host and takes the form of radiant armor or a robe. It has a craving for combat and urges you to get into a rumble. It heals you for 5 points per round and gives you a bonus to hit and to your AC.

Lumi: This is weird. These guys don't have necks. Their heads float slightly above their bodies. They build towering cities in the plane of positive energy. They worship light as a concept. They shed light at all times, can't be blinded, and because they have a floating head so they can't be suffocated.

They have rulers known as "High Ecclesiastics" who meet in hidden cathedrals. They are devoted to wiping out liars and deceivers. They literally want to commit genocide on every liar in existence.

Movanic Deva: They are the "rank-and-file soldiers in the never-ending war of good against evil." They can cast raise dead once per day and they are immune to magical death effects.

They serve the needs of the material plane, the negative plane and the positive plane. They have milky white skin and silvery eyes. No animal or plant will attack them and they can deflect spells with their flaming swords.

Quesar: These creatures are constructs created by angel to guard over treasures.They have blue skin and they emit radiant energy "..like a star brought to ground." They have the power to blind everyone in a 120 foot radius! They can fire off bursts of energy that hits all within 15 feet for 22d6 and acts as a disintegrate spell.

Ravid: These are 7 foot long serpents. Inanimate objects near them come alive and follow them around. Their tail injures undead and doles out an "..unpleasant tingle in living creatures..."

Vivacious Creature: I find the name very amusing. This is a 'template' to slap on a creature. They can fly. They can shoot a ray of positive energy that heals the living and harms the undead. They have an aura that heals you one hit point per round. This creature is vivacious indeed.

Dragon Magazine #371 - The Limitless Light

This is "a tour of the plane of radiance."

The sky is full of shimmering, ever-changing lights. Below is a "twilight bowl" with no gravity filled with stars of every color.
There are drifting islands that coast about on planar winds.
When you arrive, you must make a DC 15 will save or be fascinated indefinitely unless someone snaps you out of it.
Light spells are enhanced.
Darkness spells require a check.

The Rainbow Bridge: There's a 15 foot wide indestructible rainbow bridge that connects floating islands. The rainbow bridge extends to other planes. Whenever a rainbow appears on the prime material plane, there is a chance it has a portal to the plane of radiance.

The Portal to Anywhere: One part of the bridge leads to a huge, roaring multi-colored waterfall that pours from a gigantic, crystal prism onto the bridge. The place where the waterfall strikes is a portal to anywhere, any time. It is guarded by a radiant titan name Riis, who wields a sword called crystal lightning.

Radiant Clouds: Enter one and you might be dazed for d4 minutes.

Chromatic Tornado: It 6d6 damage and hits you with a color spray spell (!!) every round until you are expelled from it.

Glimmerfolk

Creatures: This quasi-plane is home to couatls, lammasus, will-o-wisps and lillends. There are also some harpies, rakshasas and ravids.

New Level 6 Cleric Spell: Rainbow: Summon a rainbow-hued longbow, along with a full quiver of arrows. each color arrow has a different effect.

Floating City: This is Conil-a-ald (aka the Harp of Glass) It is a vast city on an island with towers of spun glass and streets of opal.

Violence is prohibited in the city.
Ruler: Chysera of the Luminescent voice, a lillend.
She has 7 childen who preserve and create art.
Citizens are glimmerfolk, lillends, sphinxes, and a few gnomes and humans.

There is an accompanying article with a few new races and monsters.

Glimmerfolk: Humans with gold skin and halos known as "nimlis." They nimlis are 3 globes of immaterial colored light floating nearby. Glimmerfolk can use them to cast a spell, causing it to 'burn out' for the day. The more nimlis they burn out, the more powerful the spell:

Use 1: Dancing lights, daze, flare.
Use 2: Color spray or magic missile.
Use 3: Mirror image or invisibility.

Prismfly Swarm: Flesh-eating prismflies look like fireflies, have crystal abdomens that flash different colors.

Radiant Creatures: "Afire with the light of a rising son.. a semi-translucent mass of shimmering, shifting colors and sparkling lights." They have a rainbow aura which dazzles people within 30 feet.

Rainbow Dweller: Humanoid shape made up of flowing, luminescent colors and bursts of sparkling life. They have a translucent humanoid form and alien psychologies. They have all sorts of powers:

Color Burst: 15 foot radius burst of shocking, brilliant light.
If you fail a save, looking at them fascinates you for as long as it is in range.