The Great Modron March - The Last Leg

We finished up The Great Modron March tonight. It was pretty awesome.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard   

The Modron Crucible

I was worried we wouldn't finish on time, so we got right into it. The hook for this adventure is that there's rumors that the modrons have created an artifact containing all kinds of forbidden knowledge. It's called "The Modron Crucible." The heroes are sent by Vrischika to find out if it is real (it isn't), and to try to get it from the modrons.

The Plane of Acheron

The march had passed into the plane of Acheron, which is this plane where there's all these giant cubes. The cubes crash into each other once in a while. All sorts of creatures live on the cubes. There's one cube that is full of orcs and goblins who are at war with each other.

The adventurers headed to the gate town of Rigus where they had to wait a week before they were allowed to use the portal. They passed through and began following their map, walking over a sea of dead orcs and goblins.

Their journey would take them through a few portals, sending them from one cube to another. This route would eventually catch them up to where the modron march was.

Grashmog

The heroes came to a goblin city called Grashmog. They were not allowed in unless they wore special magic bracelets (the bracelets allowed the goblins to paralyze them with a command word). The heroes weren't sure what the bracelets did, and flatly refused to put them on. They were kicked out.

The heroes decided to try to sneak in to the city, but it was a fiasco. Their sneaking rolls were about as bad as it gets (I believe it as nothing but natural 1's and 2's). When spotted, they killed a pair of goblin guards swiftly and hid the bodies.

They tried to sneak some more... more bad rolls. They'd been spotted outside the temple where the portal was. The shaman in the temple decided to humiliate them. In the adventure, it is said that the shaman won't let the heroes pass through the portal until they proclaim the greatness of Maglubiyet.

So considering how the heroes had been caught sneaking through the city, the shaman decided that they needed to really humiliate themselves, by shouting all the things they'd like to do with and to Maglubiyet.

What this shaman didn't bank on is the fact that these particular heroes have no shame and they will gladly shout anything, even when it involves performing certain carnal acts on the god of goblins.

Hammergrim

Our heroes passed through the portal and appeared in a duergar city called Forgegloom. They were not harassed. They got a peek at the Idiot King, who thankfully I had read up on. The Idiot King is.. an idiot. He resides in the Hall of Memory, where spirits of ancient duergar kings dwell. When the Idiot King sits on this dark serpentine block, the spirits can possess him and make rulings.

The adventurers thought that this guy was fascinating but they didn't want to get in trouble so they got out of the city. From here they needed to cross the Mountains of Despair to get to another duergar city. I cooked up an encounter for each day:

Day 1: They came across a floating gem. In Acheron, every time a spell is cast, a spell reflection gem appears somewhere else on the plane, containing the opposite spell. Bidam walked right up to it and grabbed it, and received a jolt of lighting. Then it went inert. Their mimir helped explain what it was.

Day 2: The adventurers were on a narrow mountain path. There was a cave. Out of the cave came a four-legged, armor-plated creature with antlers. I didn't say the words "rust monster". Every other time I use them, I can't help but tell my players that this creature is "rust colored" with a big, cheesy grin on my face. Not surprisingly, the players immediately know what they are dealing with.

In this instance, Bidam let it walk right up to him and touch him with its antennae. Bidam's armor began to corrode! The heroes screamed and rolled initiative.

After a few rounds, the rust monster was dead and Bidam had a -2 to AC and a -1 to damage. He ended up punching the rust monster to death while Theran pelted it with spells.

Theran thought for a moment, and tried using the mending spell to repair Bidam's armor. Looking at the mending spell description, I'm not sure if this would work. "As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension, you mend it.."

And: "This spell can physically repair a magic item or construct, but the spell can't restore magic to an object." None of Bidam's stuff was magical.

Mending takes a minute to cast and it is a cantrip. So maybe it would take a series of castings to repair the corrosion? No big deal, Bidam was able to get replacement gear at the next city.

Day 3: The heroes were climbing a steep incline and a massive flock of bird flew right through them. Acheron is full of birds like crows and ravens. Both heroes rolled extremely well and avoided a potentially deadly fall.

The Mines of Marsellin

The adventurers got to the final city and passed through the portal there. They'd at last appeared in the Mines of Marsellin.

The mines are on a cube made of broken weapons and armor. Everything on the cube turns into iron/stone after a week or so. It is said that all things "destroyed" by a sphere of annihilation appear here. The heroes got very nervous. In our previous campaign, the heroes defeated Orcus and an undead god by using a sphere of annihilation.

As soon as they appeared near the mines, 4 zombie hobgoblins attacked the adventurers. They were wearing tabards that depicted a rust dragon. This cube is ruled by a rust dragon named Coirosis.

The heroes made quick work of the zombies and saw an obvious trail. The modrons had recently marched here.They followed the trail and caught up to the modrons. The modrons had started the march with 8,000+ members. Now, at the end, there were only about 100 surviving modrons.

They saw one modron, a quadrone, watching the march while hiding.

This modron was Trictaculus, the rogue who had been forced to be a judge that the heroes freed a few sessions back. He explained that he'd been able to catch up to the march, but that the modrons rejected him. He'd been demoted to quadrone status (which apparently is what happens to all rogue modrons).

In this adventure book, the rogue is not Trictaculus, but a modron named "8." I decided to use Trictaculus to link things together a but more.

Trictaculus said he wanted to leave with the heroes, but then... a massive army of zombies attacked the modrons. Trictaculus then told the heroes if they'd fend off the attack, he'd tell them why the modron march had happened in the first place.

The Final Battle

We proceeded to have a massive battle where I threw waves of hobgoblin zombies at the heroes and the modron. Quadrones in 5e have 4 attacks. I gave the zombies just one hit point each, as I like "minions." So basically, Trictaculus was killing 4 zombies per round (he needed to roll a 4 to hit them). The heroes were handling the rest just fine.

Slowly, the waves chipped away at everyone, actually focusing on Trictaculus.

And then the leader of the zombie horde, Craggis, jumped in. Craggis is an evil, sentient sword who animated a suit of armor to act as his "wielder." Craggis serves Coirosis, the rust dragon.

I had foreshadowed Craggis last session, but the heroes didn't pick up on it. Heiron Lifegiver had created this sword and was sort of embarrassed about it.

Craggis waded in and started slicing up the heroes as waves of zombies continued to come. Eventually, Theran was cut down and making death saves. Bidam got dropped too! The bad guys took out Trictaculus and then joined the battle against the modron march.

Theran made his death saves and was stable. Bidam failed a death save, made 2 and then.. rolled a natural 20! Bidam was awake and had one hit point!

He quaffed a potion and revived Theran with one as well. They looked at Trictaculus.. he was dying and no magic could heal him.

I asked them what they wanted to do. They knew Craggis was hurt really bad. He had two hit points left. They decided to attack!

Bidam missed a ranged attack, but Theran hit with a firebolt. The armor of Craggis was destroyed. The evil sword clattered to the ground. Craggis was defeated! The modrons mopped up the zombies as the heroes tried to help Trictaculus.

Trictaculus spoke his last words. He told the heroes that the modrons were marching because their god, Primus, was dead.

The heroes were shocked and wondered who or what had killed Primus. They carefully wrapped up Craggis and stuffed the evil sword in a backpack. They watched as the modrons got back in formation and marched to the final portal. The modron march was over. They had returned to their home plane of Mechanus.

The heroes spotted lots of weapons in the mines among the pile of zombie corpses - including magic items! Bidam got a fancy new sword, and Theran found magic bracers.

The adventurers decided they'd better get moving before the rust dragon sent reinforcements. The heroes headed back to Sigil.

Overall

We're done! This is a very good adventure that is full of fun ideas. I have been waiting about 20 years to run this, and it was definitely worth it. To me, the best chapter was the trip through Limbo.

The whole concept of chaos-shaping really made the game come to life. I also really liked the adventure in the Abyss and the final chapter. There's tons of great things you can do with Acheron. You could easily run a whole campaign there.

I think overall this adventure could have used a little more structure. It would have been nice to set up Craggis somehow as the big bad guy. The revelation at the end is cool, but I think the players might want a little more after all they went through.

I also think the adventure should have gone out of its way to make sure the heroes knew who Primus was before the final adventure, as obviously that ties into the big revelation at the end. I had caught this on my own, but it's an easy thing for a DM to miss. This book sets up the other mega-adventure, Dead Gods, so this isn't meant to be the end of the whole story.

If I were to run this again, I think I would have set it up where the heroes are part of an organization that is dedicated to protecting the modrons from the beginning of the march to the end. That would have made it easier to link the heroes to these adventures. I'd also have liked to run an adventure where the heroes protect the modrons as they pass through a layer of hell.

What's Next

Next week we're going to play an adventure based on a Monte Cook article from Dragon Magazine, where the heroes will go to the astral plane and search the giant floating bodies of dead gods. Then we'll play through the Chris Perkins adventure "Umbra". After that, we'll play the sequel to the Great Modron March - Dead Gods.

Check out the next session right here!

Dungeons & Dragons - Narrative Combat

Mike Shea of Sly Flourish is working on a D&D rules system for "Narrative Combat". What he means by that is a simpler, swifter system for resolving encounters in Dungeons & Dragons. It's an idea that's been batted around by DMs since 4th edition.

In general, this concept is used to handle minor encounters. There's only so much time people have to play D&D, and sometimes it can feel like a waste to spend more than a few minutes on taking down mooks or minions.

I am always obsessed with getting to a certain point in my sessions. I don't want the players to get bored with the campaign and I do not want to have a session where nothing gets done. I think we've all had those "shopping" sessions, where the group goes to town and buys stuff and that's about it.

Now, don't get me wrong. Shopping sessions can be really, really awesome. But you don't want a campaign full of inconsequential stuff that makes everything feel like a drag.

"Skill Challenge Fights"

I originally started cooking up "narrative combat" rules back in around 2009, when the 4e grind really started wearing down my groups. Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress in particular was excruciating. It was just hour-long fight after hour-long fight.

Ever since then, I've adopted a simple system to resolve minor combats and keep things moving:

• Roll initiative.
• Present a situation to a PC.
• Let them resolve it in any plausible way they can think of.
• When your bad guys go, have them do the kind of things you want your heroes to do.

Emphasize that this is a movie scene. Heroes should be doing unnecessary backflips, swinging on chandeliers and jumping on moving vehicles.

Sometimes I don't even roll initiative for the enemies. On each hero's turn, I tell them what a bad guy is doing. Then the hero does their action. A fail on the roll means the bad guy hits them. A success means the hero hits the bad guy. Be careful with this. It can make the game really weird if you are not running it in a clear and consistent manner.

It's important to remember that you need to think in terms of logical outcomes. You must present a very clear picture of the scenario at the start. List who is there and what objects are nearby (tools for the heroes to put to use, like an angry caged owlbear, a ceiling that could easily collapse or a pool of acid).

I once had a character use thunderwave to send an explosive barrel hurtling at a crowd of bad guys. That's the kind of thing you're looking for.

The trick here is that you have to define the boundaries. You're stepping outside the bounds of the normal rules, which is very weird for some players.

Another thing to note is that the more rules you use in your narrative combats, the more it gets bogged down and eats up time. Remember, the whole point of this is to not waste time!

Consequences and Rewards

In 4th edition, instead of doing normal damage, I'd have the participants do damage in healing surges. You could in theory do the same in 5e with hit dice.

Being that this is cinematic combat, you could also allow disarming. You could even have a bad guy target a hero's body part. Consult the lingering injuries chart in the DMG and put it to use.

Handing out piles of treasure in these encounters will feel cheap. You should probably just keep it to gold. No hero should be getting an awesome magic item in a throwaway, minor encounter.

Bar Fights

Bar fights are the perfect for narrative combats. They are fun, relatively low risk encounters full of fun opportunities:

• Hit a guy with a chair, smash a bottle over a lady's head.
• Chuck a dude through a table or window.
• Slide someone down the bar.
• Drink some booze, hold up a torch and spit fire at someone.
• Take the darts off of a dart board and pin an enemy to the wall with darts through their clothes.

Some Players Will Hate This

One of the main problems with narrative combat is that certain types of players aren't comfortable with it. I have had quite a few "numbers" players and "optimizers" in my games. They like using and knowing the rules and finding cool power combinations.

These players generally don't like narrative combats. Narrative battles completely remove all of their well-thought out strategies. Now, anybody can do anything. It feels cheap and "wrong" to them.

Also, some players draw a complete blank when it's their turn. When given unlimited options, they feel completely lost. It helps to tell them to imagine their character in a movie, but you're still going to have some players who are completely paralyzed in narrative combat.

This is why you, the DM, must always have a suggestion ready for them. Write down some ideas ahead of time. When the narrative combat starts, tell them some cool things they could do. You'll find that certain players will always immediately grab one of your ideas.

It is weird to think that in a game of imagination, some players cannot handle having to imagine something on the spot. But remember that people play the game in different ways and are at the table for a number of reasons that may differ from your own.

Narrative combat is most definitely not for everyone. If a large portion of your group isn't rolling with it well, you'd be better off not doing it.

Handling Non-Standard Encounters

I have found that narrative combat is the best way to handle mass battles, sorcerous duels and ship-to-ship combat. Each of these things have been notoriously difficult to resolve in an efficient way in the context of the D&D rules. Handling it in a semi-abstract manner seems to be the best way to go. Just be careful that you don't run it so loose that it feels inconsequential.

War: If a hero is in command of a unit of troops, ask them what they want to do. Think about what your bad guys are going to do, preferably before you hear the player's strategy. This way, if the player has a clever idea, it will legit take the enemy by surprise because you were surprised by it.

Then let them roll a single die roll, modified by whatever stat, skill or power bonus that feels appropriate. Let the dice tell the story. The lower the roll, the more casualties in your unit.

Wizard Duels: Pick the spell your bad guy is going to use. Then let the hero pick his or her spell. Both of you roll arcana checks. Whoever wins, hits. If the spells have some kind of connection, maybe that comes into play. For instance, one casts ray of frost and the other casts firebolt. Maybe those cancel each other out no matter what the roll. Counterspell obviously makes a very interesting wrinkle in these types of encounters.

If both cast magic missile, you could either make it a situation where the beams hit each other, and whoever rolls a higher arcana pushes through and hits the target. Or have each roll damage and whoever gets higher affects their foe with the overflow.

Pirate Ships: Narrative combat is perfect for this. Heroes will want to swing on a rope across to the deck of the enemy ship, climb the mast, and maybe even launch themselves in a catapult.

As far as damaging the other ship, be careful not to let this be too easy. It can be hard to think of how fast a fire spreads on a wooden ship right there on the spot. You'll need to think ahead when planning your encounter, to take in account what your heroes have at their disposal. You don't want to punish them for a clever idea, but you also don't want the encounter to come off as flat.

In the end, though, you'll know an awesome idea when it's presented and you need to run with it. That's a lot of what this is: you're digging for great stories to tell other people. Clever stuff is what this is all about, twists that take you by surprise.

Narrative Gladiator Combat

Here's an example of a narrative combat I used while running the Savage Tide Campaign. The heroes had somehow ended up in Demogorgon's abyssal lair of Gaping Maw. They were in the demon city of Lemoriax.

There was this big cage on wheels pulled by slaves. It went around a statue in the town square. Gladiator-type fights happened in the cages. Obviously our heroes ended up in there and had themselves quite a battle.

There were environmental hazards:

• The cage was moving, so that made moving around tricky.
• The cages had spikes, so if the heroes weren't careful, they'd get impaled.
• Demons would randomly stab through the bars of the cage at whoever was close.

The heroes battled a demon gladiator in the cage. At the start, I said that the gladiator was staring down the goliath, one of the heroes in the party. I wanted to establish what the bad guy's focus was in advance.

Everyone rolled initiative. I did not. Then on each player's turn, I presented them with a situation and let them run wild. So it went like this:

Player 1: A demon stabs at you with a barbed scimitar through the cage.

The player decides to try to dodge, snatch the weapon and cut out out that demon's eye. He rolls and succeeds.

Player 2 (the goliath): The gladiator lunges at you and tries to grab you and push you into a spike on the cage.

The player tries to spin the bad guy around and impale it, but fails. Our hero is impaled on spikes!

Player 3: The goliath is pinned on spikes! The demons outside the cage are closing in on him, hoping to tear off his pouches and gear to keep for themselves.

The player casts gust of wind and rolls an arcana to see if she can catch everyone in it without harming the goliath, and does.

Start of Round 2: The cage hits a bump. Everyone make a dex save or fall prone (including the gladiator).

That's the basic idea. The trickiest thing is deciding how much somebody can do in a round. It also might feel weird to let your bad guys go on each character's turn. I generally let them do a little more, but really they just make one main maneuver per round. 

I am running the final chapter of the Great Modron March tonight, so I should have the summary up tomorrow. I also posted episode 4 of the great modron march on youtube. Thanks for reading!

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to The Rod of Seven Parts

Today we're going to take a look at one of the major artifacts in all of Dungeons & Dragons: The Rod of Seven Parts. It is a D&D campaign all unto itself. I'd highly recommend that you check out the massive boxed set adventure about this item, which is very inexpensive in pdf form.

I wrote a few other guides that directly relate to this topic:

• The War Between Law and Chaos: All the lore I could find in various D&D products about the actual battles.
  
• Guide to the Queen of Chaos: The main villain related to the rod.
  
• 5MWD Rod of Seven Parts: Review of a DMs Guild product that converts some of the boxed set to 5e.

I'm going to go through each edition of D&D and see how the rod developed over time. All of the lore is collected in this article to give you a good jumping off point for deciding what material works for you and your campaign.

The Essential Information

• The rod is a lawful artifact. It was originally called The Rod of Law.
• The pieces of the rod are scattered all across the world and even the planes. You can use one piece to sense the location of the next piece.
• The rod must be carefully assembled. Doing it wrong will cause at least one piece to vanish and appear somewhere random hundreds of miles away.
• Each piece has a magic power, and more powers are unlocked as the rod is assembled.
• A demon lord called The Queen of Chaos wants the rod, so she can use it to free her demon general, Miska.
• Lawful humanoids called the Wind Dukes want to assemble the rod to kill Miska once and for all.

Eldritch Wizardry

The Rod actually first appeared in "Eldritch Wizardry," a supplement for the white box edition. It is explained that the rod is also known as "The Rod of Law," and that it was used in a war between the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the Queen of Chaos. The rod was used to imprison the Queen's general, Miska the Wolf-Spider during The Battle of Pesh.

AD&D 1st Edition

The 1e Dungeon Master's Guide has a massive pile of artifacts listed in it, including the rod. 

Here's what we learn:

• The first part of the rod gives you a sense of the direction of the next piece.
• Each piece has a different spell-like power.
• When pieces are combined, they "unlock" more spell powers.
• Every time a power is used, there's a 1 in 20 chance that the rod breaks apart and the pieces teleport to random areas up to 1200 miles away.
• If "out of order" pieces touch each other (the 1st part touching the 3rd, for example), the higher numbered piece teleports away to a random location up to 1,000 miles away.
• Once three sections are joined, the wielder is unable to let it go until all pieces are joined.

The book actually leaves it to you to pick out the rod's powers. That seems like a lot of work.

The "Dwarven" Quest for the Rod of Seven Parts

This "adventure path" was run in a series of AD&D tournaments in 1982 at various conventions. These were written by Frank Mentzer who you may know as the "jokiest" D&D adventure writer of all time. He's the guy who included the receptionist in Lolth's spidership in Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

From what I understand, you must use the pregens in this adventure. There's 5 dwarves and a human mage. AD&D Tournaments were meant to test your SKILLS in these three essential categories:

1. Role-Playing
2. Rules Knowledge
3. Cooperation

The heroes go through a series of 4 modules (some broken into two parts) on a quest to collect all 7 parts of the rod:

Igex Pass/The Fiery Fortress: A combat-oriented adventure that tests players on whether they know when they should run away.

Thor's Fountain: A dungeon with lots of vertical sections. Thor's Fountain is a large geyser.

Yog's Dessert: "Dessert" is not a typo. It's Frank Mentzer. A large castle with many levels, including a 10-level black tower. It's on an island, and the piece of the rod phases in and out of existence.

Tinker's Canyon: Part 1 has a battle with a family of red dragons. Part two has a wilderness journey and cave exploration. There's these magic pillars that summon guardian maidens.

Air Plane!: Yep. Air Plane. This is set in the elemental plane of air.  There's a donut-shaped city of djinn (air genies). The vizier of the city has the final piece of the rod.

There's piles of great details on this adventure here, including a rundown of the version of the rod created by Mentzer himself. His rod is more focused on protecting the wielder. If you try to disassemble the rod, you must make a saving throw with a -5 penalty or DIE.

This rod has a lot of fun effects. The wielder can speak any language. The wielder grows 3 inches and 15 pounds every time he or she uses certain powers. It changes your alignment to Chaotic Neutral (?!) and you lose one level! Get a load of this. It pollutes all holy water within 10 feet automatically.

AD&D 2nd Edition

 

The rod is featured in the Book of Artifacts. The art of the rod is basically a pile of sticks sitting on grass.

• The parts fit together in order of ascending length
• The pieces are 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 15 inches in length.
• Using the rod causes the wielder to suffer "...an immediate shift to an ultra-lawful alignment that would make a paladin seem unprincipled." The book actually says that this would make PCs unplayable and that the rod should only be used by NPCs. That's lame.
• Bringing two pieces within a foot of each other causes the larger piece to teleport to a random location d100 miles away.

The wind dukes actually impaled Miska the Wolf-Spider on the rod. His blood covered the rod, and his chaotic essence is what shattered it into seven pieces. This caused an explosion which sent Miska through a planar rift to an unknown plane.

The powers are given, from the smallest piece (the tip) to the largest:

• Cure light wounds 1/day
• Slow 1/day
• Haste 1/day
• Gust of wind 5/day
• True Seeing 1/day
• Hold monster 1/day
• Heal 1/day

The book also gives us the powers that can be unlocked as pieces combine:

• Two parts: fly at will!
• Three parts: 20% magic resistance
• Four parts: Control winds 2/day
• Five parts: Shape change 2/day
• Six parts: Wind walk 1/day
• Fully assembled: Restoration 1/day, and an aura of Law that causes enemies to have to make a saving throw or flee in panic!

Assembling the Rod: Combining two pieces is a delicate process. You have to spend a day inscribing wards and glyphs on each segment.

The suggested means of destruction are interesting. Apparently, if Miska and the rod are on the plane of Concordant Opposition at the same time, they are destroyed. The Plane of Concordant Opposition is also known as The Outlands, which is a frequent adventuring locale in my Planescape campaign.

Dragon Magazine #224 - A History of the Rod of Seven Parts

Author Skip Williams thinks he may have invented the rod. He created an adventure for his group that involved collecting four pieces of a magic item called The Staff of Cynnius.

"I shared the idea with the gaming crowd in Lake Geneva, and the actual Rod appeared shortly thereafter. For all I know, I invented the basic concept."

He actually stats out the Staff of Cynnius in this article.

Rod of Seven Parts Boxed Set Adventure

This is a gigantic adventure by Skip Williams. I have tried to run this two or three times, but every single time the campaign gets derailed (most recently, a wizard tried to assemble it and scattered the pieces and we just gave up).

The box has four books. Book one has three entirely different intro adventures for the DM to pick from. This is handy, as there is a chance a rod piece will get scattered and the extra adventures might be put to use. Here's the other adventures. This has spoilers galore:

Spelunking: The lair of an aboleth. The piece of the rod is actually in the slime on the aboleth's belly.

Uninvited Guests: The rod is in a cloud giant's home. The cloud giants have a visitor, a fire giant named Siiri. She is using the piece of the rod as a hairpin. She doesn't know what the rod is, but does use its magic haste power often.

Hospitality: Two parts of the rod are in the possession of a jackalwere who has been turned to stone by a medusa. The medusa accompanies a big pile of genies in a valley.

The Forgotten Temple: The sixth part is in a pocket dimension created by a pit fiend named Ulthut. He is trying to keep the piece out of the hands of the Queen of Chaos and her demons. This dimension is odd - it's just like a tower at nighttime in a regular world. It's crawling with undead.

The Citadel of Chaos: The seventh part is guarded by Miska the wolf spider himself. He's trapped in the plane of Pandemonium. The heroes must raid his home and have a final battle.

The third book in the boxed set is really awesome. It's got pages and pages on the rod - the powers, the command words, assembling and disassembling. It's got side trek adventures that tie in to the spyder fiends and the wind dukes in very direct and entertaining ways. It's even got a game of chance called Dragonfire.

There's cards and poster maps. There's this one piece of cardstock which gives you all the information you need on the rod. To me, this was the most handy thing in the whole box.

What is the Problem: Why is this boxed set forgotten? Why isn't this adventure talked about as a classic? It's well thought out. It's beyond epic. It has piles of art from TSR legends Erol Otus and Jim Roslof. It fleshes out a central D&D story first introduced in 1976!

I can think of two reasons why this adventure gets overlooked:

1. It's really ugly. The box is an eyesore and the covers are hideous. A lot of the interior art is not the best. The design is just not pleasing to the eye.
2. It is so high level that I think few characters could handle it. The third adventure deals with giants! Not many groups ever got high enough level to play this, and if they did, high level characters in 2e were more than a little problematic if I recall correctly.

The Novel

TSR published a novel, a tie-in to the release of the boxed set adventure. I actually bought it on amazon by accident a few years ago. I tried to read it but I couldn't get into it. The reviews are less than stellar:

"This is one of the least involving books I've ever read; I kept turning the pages, but only to get the darned thing over with; this is one book you can't help but start skimming through towards the end."

This one is a bit more positive and amusing:

"Don't go in expecting the sweeping, world-changing grandiosity of the original Dragonlance saga, or the deep-rootedness of R. A. Salvatore's seemingly endless saga of Drizzt the dark elf (and long may it continue). This is a simple standalone novel about a halfling and his rod"

D&D 3rd Edition

The Arms and Equipment Guide details the rod in 3rd edition. It has the same basic spell powers as the 2nd edition rod.

• A non-lawful character who possesses a single segment of the rod must make a DC 17 Will save or become lawful.
• Lawful wielders can make a concentration check to sense the location of the next piece, no matter how far away.
• The rod can be used as a melee weapon. As more parts are joined, it becomes more powerful, eventually becoming the equivalent of a +5 quarterstaff.
• When assembled, it has the power to cast true resurrection, but doing so causes the rod to scatter.

Age of Worms

This adventure path ran in Dungeon Magazine back in the 3rd edition era. It is regarded as one of the best campaigns of all time.

The Whispering Cairns (Dungeon #124): This is the first adventure of the path. It is a dungeon set in the tomb of a wind duke who died at the battle of Pesh! The wind duke's name was Zosiel.

A Gathering of Winds (Dungeon Magazine #129): The heroes return to the whispering cairn in this adventure. They head into the tomb of another Wind Duke, named Icosiol. There's awesome treasure in here, including:

• Ring of the Wind Dukes: Shoots lightning and gusts of wind.
• Sword of Aaqa: Whenever this sword gets a critical hit, the target is hit by a strong wind that knocks them down or send them flying up to 40 feet.
• A Strange Metal rod: The final piece of the Rod of Seven Parts!

D&D 4th Edition

The rod is quite different in 4e, because 4e is so different. The wind dukes are now 7 angels who serve Bahamut. Miska was a "demonic primordial of terrible power." The rod's goal is to be assembled, to tame the elemental chaos and to destroy all remaining primordials.

The 4e rod gives you bonuses and powers as you raise its concordance score by gaining levels and killing elementals. Flouting laws or codes of conduct lowers the score by 2. Once the score is 0, the rod shatters.

The 4e rules don't really lend themselves to the rod.

Surprisingly, the rod is not included in the D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. I guess we'll have to wait and see where it pops up next.

D&D 5th Edition

The Rod of Seven Parts is mention in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons:

"Artifact of Law. When an artifact called the Rod of Law was shattered into seven parts during the Battle of Pesh, seven ancient metallic dragons were assigned to be the guardians of its fragments. Even sundered, this mighty artifact was so powerful that great cities sprang up near the dragon lairs that house the fragments, forming the centers of civilization. The dragons are patrons of the seven cities, and their roles as guardians of the artifact are all but forgotten."

So we're continuing to go with the linking of dragons to the pieces of the rod.

Here's some details on the entities tied to the rod.

The Wind Dukes

Also known as The Vaati. They have smooth ebony skin, velvety black hair and white eyes. They once ruled a vast empire but were nearly wiped out when the war between Law and Chaos erupted.

• They can fly innately.
• They have various wind powers like dust devil and control wind.
• They do not age, and most are at least 3,000 years old.
• There's 7 castes in their society. The caste known as The Wendeam are the ones who wander the planes tracking pieces of the Rod. They actually have the power to follow a teleporting creature if they can find its tracks.

They live in an ideal place called the Valley of Aaqa. It's a secluded vale ringed by mountains. The only way in is to fly.

The Queen of Chaos

She is 24 feet tall, and has "...a corpulent humanoid torso that sits atop a mass of squid-like lower body that sports a mass of powerful tentacles." She's got blue skin. She really is a lot like the villain from The Little Mermaid.

She rules a layer of The Abyss known as The Steaming Fen. She commands demons known as Spyder Fiends and plots to rescue her general and lover (!) Miska the Wolf Spider.

Miska the Wolf-Spider

Miska is a giant drider with three heads and four arms. He has one human head and two wolf heads. His bite causes you to fall into a stupor for 2 to 14 hours. Worst of all, he can't die while the rod of seven parts exists!

He broods in a hidden citadel, imprisoned in a cocoon of Law in the plane of Pandemonium.

Spyder-Fiends

These demons are a combination of spiders and wolves. Some are as big as a pony, others are as big as an elephant. They have a poison bite that puts you into a stupor for hours! They shoot invisible silk rather than webbing. There's a ton of different types of spyder-fiends.

The Ultimate Adventure

Sword of Aaqa

To me, playing an entire campaign where you go on a quest to assemble an artifact is what D&D is all about. Traveling hundreds of miles over months or years of game time, hounded by demons along the way - it seems like it would be a lot of fun.

I know some people might think it's all a bit of a cliché. When I was younger, I used to desperately try to avoid using clichés in my games. I was always striving for something wholly original. What I eventually discovered is that certain things are a cliché for a reason. It's what people want, it's what they respond to. There's a reason almost every single movie ever made has two people who get together at the end.

I think the trick is in making it feel fresh. That comes from you, the DM. You have to communicate a feeling. I call it the "Reading a book and can't put it down" feeling. If you can infuse your game with it, you will find success.

Dungeons & Dragons - How to Start a Campaign

I've run many campaigns over the last 3 decades. Some went really well. Some were fiascos. I've learned a lot and I want to share the insight I've gleaned from my experiences. I am going to cover what I think are the most important things to do before you actually start running your D&D campaign.

For those of you brand new to D&D, a "campaign" is a series of linked sessions. It could be anything from running the starter set adventure over a series of sessions, to running a massive adventure book like Storm King's Thunder.

"Session Zero"

A lot of people throw this phrase around. Basically what "session zero" means is that before you run the game, you need to talk with your players and find out what they want out of the game. You'll need to establish things like:

• How lethal the game should be.
• Make sure the players aren't going to abandon your whole story because it conflicts with what they want to do.
• What the players like. Lots of combat? Lots of stealth? Lots of roleplaying?
• Whether the characters are noble heroes or vile scoundrels.
• What the characters are and how they'll interact. You'll want to nip any conflicts in the bud before the game even starts. The most common source of conflict is a party with a lawful good paladin and a selfish rogue who steals all the time.

The thing about "Session Zero" that I don't like is the actual "session" part. I don't want to have the group come over just to make characters for next time. To me, that is a waste of precious table time.

I prefer to have all of that stuff done over the phone prior to the game. It can be difficult working out people's schedules. If you actually have them at your house, to me it feels like a waste if you don't run a game.

Pre-game Communication

Let's say you have come up with a campaign idea that has you really excited and you can't wait to run it. There's a few I came upon recently that looked really awesome:

• The world is covered in a weird cloud/mist, and there's a few cities on mountaintops above the clouds that use airships to travel between them.
• The world is about to be destroyed except for a lone city. The heroes must race across the world to get to that city before it's too late.
• The heroes must go on an epic quest through each of the nine layers of hell.

Before you get to work on your campaign, run the premise past your players. If they don't want to do it, then you do not have a campaign.

One time, in 2004, I bought this mega-adventure called The Lost City of Gaxmoor by Gary Gygax's kids. I have always loved "death-trap dungeons" and campaigns where death of your character is a real possibility.

My players hated this style, but I was so excited by Gaxmoor that I kept bothering them until they finally agreed to try it because I wouldn't shut up about it.

A few of them showed up to the game with "joke" characters with passive aggressive names like "Lack." They were killed by a spider that lived in a tree stump. They pulled out their back-up characters (I told them to come with three characters, as death was very likely). They got to Gaxmoor, found barrels of flour and had a flour fight. They rolled around inside the barrels, attracting monsters.

They didn't care. They hated the style and basically revolted against me.

While I was deeply insulted that they wouldn't indulge me after all the times I'd tried to accommodate them, I learned a valuable lesson: Don't bother trying to force your players to play a game that doesn't fit their preferences.

I also learned that I needed to find new players, and I did.

The Beginning Hook

Unless you are running a completely free-form sandbox, your campaign is going to have some kind of over-arching story, however loose. In order to avoid a disaster, some ideas that get you excited will need to be run by your players.

If you are running a campaign that starts out with the heroes getting captured, tread very carefully.

Skull & Shackles, the best campaign I have ever run, starts off with the heroes being drugged and forced to work on a pirate ship. The drugging must happen for the game to progress. Your best bet is to tell the players about the opening scenario well before you run the game. Tell them how it starts. Tell them it has to happen. Make sure they are cool with it and can deal with it (seriously, some people can not). When you run it, you can hand-wave the whole thing and get to the pirate ship.

Character Backgrounds

This is always tricky. I've always had a difficult time weaving backgrounds into a story. If your player comes up with a story they're excited about, go with it and try to plant it into an early adventure. Sometimes the best NPCs come out of a character's background.

If the player doesn't have any particular idea on a background, rattle off some things you know are involved in the campaign and see if anything grabs them. If you know the campaign involves a dwarven hall, maybe throw that out there and see if maybe the player wants to say that their character worked in the mines, and there was a collapse, and some entity saved him or her.

Some players just don't care about their backgrounds. Not every character needs to have a backstory. In fact, past adventures will become their backstory. It makes sense that some heroes simply grew up in a happy home and a happy town.

Flashbacks: One thing that was a huge success for me was when I started using flashbacks in-game. They have to be really short, so the other players don't get bored.

Here's an example as to how a flashback works. The heroes are told by a wizard about a legendary sword. Suddenly, the party fighter has a flashback to his youth. He's 11 years old, his village is under attack. A huge, evil knight in red and black armor is holding the very sword the wizard is referring to.

The evil knight is about to cut down the hero's father. Our hero jumps in to save him.. roll initiative. Play out the fight!

The best way to handle this is to just let the dice tell the story. Don't have it set in your head that the hero's father is slain. The only thing that is certain is that the young hero didn't die (at least, not permanently) and that he does not have the sword presently.

Your first instinct might be to run that flashback encounter thinking that the hero's dad must die, and that the evil knight must get away with the sword, but you should always leave room for twists caused by player ingenuity and the roll of the die.

If the young hero is slain, that's okay. We play a game with raise dead in it, right? Our hero is killed and once the raid is over, the town priest takes the poor boy's body to a temple and has him raised. Now our hero has a deep connection to that sword. In fact, maybe the sword is intelligent and our hero has somehow gained a psychic link to the blade - he can sense it, and it can sense him.

If by some crazy twist of fate, the knight is disarmed and defeated, that's ok too. Our hero or his father gain the blade, and it proceeds to corrupt them and cause great evil to spread.

The best flashback I ever did was in a campaign based on Monte Cook's Books of Eldritch Might. The heroes flashed back to their youth, were they lived on a beach. They came upon a magic talking book (In fact, this was the actual Book of Eldritch Might). The flashback was so well-received that I realized that I should have run the entire campaign with them as kids, as it was far more interesting.

Running Flashbacks: The thing about flashbacks is that they require careful planning. If a character's personality is well-established after 4 sessions, when you run your flashback, the story can't violate what's already been established in your continuity. You'll need to run things by your player when you are planning to make sure you know your player's vision of their character's life.

When I run a flashback, I do not run it like a normal game. I don't want to lose the interest of the other players and I don't want to eat up precious table time. So, using the above magic sword scenario, here's how I'd run it:

I tell the hero the scene. I tell him or her what is around them. I describe the evil sword, what it looks like, etc. I ask them what they do. Allow anything they can think of that is plausible. They are not restricted to a single action.

They come up with what they want to do. It could be using an object to disarm the bad guy. It could be sacrificing their life to try to save their dad. It could be going for a called shot by stabbing the knight in the eye with a flaming, sharpened stick.

Then the player makes one fateful roll, modified by stat bonuses or skills, and whatever feels right. Also, if  the player came up with a good idea, maybe they get more of a bonus.

If the player come up with an awesome idea, it just happens. The d20 roll is just to help describe how awesome the already awesome thing is.

Characters Evolve

Something you must keep in mind here is that it is very, very likely that one character in your group is going to change in the first 5 sessions.

Once the campaign gets underway, you will probably have a player who will want to change classes, change their name, or take on an entire different personality. That is because once the game has started, the character is just an idea. As the game plays out, the player sees what works and what doesn't in game and they need to tweak it.

A character going from human to half-orc might might make you balk. Don't worry about it too much. Just retcon it. Having a player who is really into their character is far more important than a minor continuity discrepancy.

The funny thing about it is that in a few weeks, nobody will even remember. They'll think the character was always a half-orc. It'll be this weird piece of trivia, like a tv show where an actor was replaced in episode 4.

How Do the Heroes Meet?

You'll need to work out whether the characters already know each other, or if they are just meeting when the game starts. Talk to the players and see what they prefer.

If they already know each other, maybe sit down with them and brainstorm the things they've done before together. Remember if they are level one, they probably haven't done anything worthy of XP. Possible ideas include:

• They all trained together under a grizzled veteran.
• They were town guards in a town with few problems. 
• They were slaves who escaped their captors.
• They were the only survivors of an earthquake or a dragon attack.

If they are meeting at the beginning of the first session, don't worry too much about avoiding cliches. Some tropes are used often for a reason - they're fun or convenient. The key is to put your own spin on it, make it fun.

The two most common tropes are:

1. The heroes are all in the same bar at the same time
2. The heroes are all hired by the same person to go on a quest or mission.

Tavern Clichés

I personally like the idea of starting a campaign in a bar loaded with every single cliché all at once. You could fill your bar with all of this:

• A surly bartender with an eyepatch who shares rumors in exchange for tips.
• A shady rogue picking people's pockets.
• A hooded mysterious person sitting alone in the corner.
• A bunch of people loudly gambling, accusing one another of cheating.
• A well-muscled NPC who wants to arm-wrestle everyone.
• A guy hitting on a waitress who clearly wishes he'd leave her alone.
• A married woman looking to get into trouble.
• A group of NPC adventurers looking for work, just like the PCs.
• A bard singing songs by the fireplace. Her husband is probably the arm wrestler.
• And of course, a wizard bursts in through the front door out of the rain in desperate need of aid.

Once your campaign is underway, now your job is to keep it fun and to keep it going.

Links

Learn Tabletop RPGs - this is very newb-friendly
Nerdarchy has a nice post on this topic here.
Ask a Gamer - How to Start a Campaign 

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to Poison

In this article, I am going to discuss using poison in Dungeons & Dragons. I am going to focus on the 5th edition rules, but will include looks at earlier editions. I have also dug up quite a bit of material from old issues of Dragon Magazine which has content that can very easily be applied to any edition you are playing.

Poison is, in general, under-utilized in D&D. I think DMs feel wary of handing over such a potent, potentially game-breaking device to their players. Also, no player likes to have their character taken out due to a single failed save, which is what a number of 5e poisons do.

The Essential Information

Here's the basics of poison in D&D:

• There are four types of ways to contract poisons - Contact, Ingested, Inhaled, and Injury.
• A weapon coated with poison will dry out in one minute.
• When you are poisoned, you will usually suffer from the poisoned condition.
• Poison can be bought or crafted using the downtime rules and a poisoner's kit.
• Cures for poison include low level spells or anti-toxin.
• Truth Serum is listed under poisons, and is something I think could be useful in your campaign in many different ways.

The Poisoned Condition

Poison obviously is often tied to the poisoned condition. Here's the definition from page 292 of the Player's Handbook:

Poisoned: A poisoned creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.

There's four types of poison:

• Contact: It touches exposed skin.
• Ingested: You swallow a full dose. Swallowing a partial dose might have a reduced effect or easier save.
• Inhaled: Powder or gas that creates a cloud that fills a 5 foot cube.
• Injury: You coat a weapon with this stuff and stab your victim. The poison enters the victim's blood stream.

Common Ways to Overcome Poison

Antitoxin: Antitoxin costs 50 gp (PH page 151). When you drink this, you gain advantage on saves vs. poison for 1 hour.

Lay on Hands: Paladins can lay on hands, and choose to neutralize a poison affecting a person.

Use Downtime: If you spend three days of downtime, you can make a DC 15 Con save. If you make it, for the next 24 hours you have advantage on saves against one poison currently affecting you.

Magic Potons: There's a bunch of potions in the Dungeon Master's Guide that can help you deal with poison:

• Potion of Resistance to Poison (DMG page 188): You take half damage from poison for one hour.
• Potion of Vitality (DMG page 188): This very rare potion will cure any poison affecting you.

Spells: There are a bunch of spells that handle poison in 5th edition. There's a good chance your PCs won't have these, as in general players take the same small crop of spells for their casters in the early levels. You might want to make these spells available at a church in exchange for a donation. Here's the list of spell costs from the adventurer's league .pdf:

The important one there is Lesser Restoration. It's a 2nd level spell, and costs 40 gold. That should be a good guideline for pricing. Here's the spells that deal with poison:

• Detect Poison and Disease (PH page 231): The caster can sense poisons within 30 feet. It's a concentration spell that lasts up to 10 minutes.
• Purify Food and Drink (PH page 270): All food and drink within 5 feet is purified and rendered free of poison.
• Protection from Poison (PH page 270): This spell neutralizes the poison affecting a target. The target has advantage on saves against poison for 1 hour.
• Lesser Restoration (PH page 255): This spell can cancel out the poisoned condition.

Raise Dead and Poison
In the raise dead spell, it is stated that when the spell is cast, it neutralizes any poisons that affected the creature at the time it died. 

Buying Poison

This is discussed on page 258 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. The DMG kind of leaves it up to the DM as far as how to handle if it's available to purchase and if so, where. There could be black markets or unscrupulous apothecaries who might have this stuff available. There's a few basic items to buy when it comes to poison:

Basic Poison 100 gp (PH page 153) You can use this to coat one weapon as an action. The poison is only potent for 1 minute before drying. A creature hit has to save or take d4 damage. So basically, you do +1d4 damage for ten rounds.

Potion of Poison (DMG page 188): This will look like a potion of healing, but it's actually poison. You take piles of damage each round until you make a saving throw.

Poisoner's Kit (PH page 154): If you are proficient with it, this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to craft or use poisons. Rogues who choose the Assassin archetype gain proficiency with the poisoner's kit.

Crafting Poisons

Crafting a poison can be done with a poisoner's kit during downtime using the crafting rules (PH page 187). A character can try to harvest poison from a poisonous creature. It takes d6 minutes and a DC 20 Intelligence (Nature) check. Success means the harvester got enough to make a dose. Fail by 5 or more, and the character is subjected to the creature's poison. Risky, but very cool.

In Dragon Magazine #349, there is a poison-making guide that is pretty awesome. A lot of it deals with 3e mechanics (based on the poison-making skill from Complete Adventurer), but there's plenty of stuff that can be lifted for whatever system you use.

Buying materials to make the poison costs 1/3rd of the price of the poison. If you are in a region where the materials are plentiful, then the cost is 1/6th.

You make a check after a week of crafting, and the better the roll, the more in gp value you made. So if you're making a poison that costs 100 gp and you roll well, maybe you made 70 gp worth, so you've almost made a full dose.

Harvesting poisons from giant spiders, wyverns, etc is probably something any character with a good bonus to Nature should be doing. It seems like a fun way to make extra gold.

According to this article, the raw materials only last d6 days. You could extend this with a successful "alchemy" (Nature in 5e, I guess) check. This prolongs the shelf life of the materials for one week. Gentle repose and unguent of timelessness also can extend the shelf life of the materials.

AD&D 1st Edition Poison

The 1st edition poison rules kind of took shape as time progressed. Some found the DMG rules too sparse and contradictory. There were a number of articles in Dragon Magazine that revised and overhauled the poison rules, including an article in issue #81 by Chris Landsea which sort of took everyone to task. This article, from what I can tell, became the accepted rules method for using poison in 1e and was the foundation on which the 2e rules were built.

In "Taking the Sting out of Poison", Chris Landsea  includes information on extracting poisons from monsters, which involves this handy chart:

The tone of this article is quite amusing. The author seems to be scolding the D&D community at large, including Gary Gygax himself over the inconsistencies in the poison rules. He ends it with a warning:

"It has been repeatedly stated in this article, directly and indirectly, that only assassins have the ability and the permission (in the context of the AD&D social and ethical structure) to use poison frequently and effectively. The Dungeon Master is honor bound to simulate this by making poisons difficult for most characters to obtain and employ, and by creating penalties and dangers to be coped with by those who try to disregard the laws of poison use."   

Dragon Magazine #121 - "The Deadliest Perfume"

This article is for "Oriental Adventures", and details everything you would ever want to know about lotus blossoms. These flowers generate a fragrance that is either an aphrodisiac or a powerful sedative.

"As an aphrodisiac, the lotus affects any person inhaling its sweet aroma. Failure to cover one's nose or escape from the aroma causes the victim to become enamored with the first person of the opposite sex he or she sees."

Lotus flowers can be made into poison, either as a dust that hangs in the air for one to four minutes (!) or it can be ingested. Here's the basic idea of each type:

• Black Lotus: Inhaling this dust will either kill you or knock you out for 1-6 hours.
• Brown Lotus: The victim becomes mentally like a child for a few weeks.
• Green Lotus: Inhaling this dust causes temporary paralyzation, lasting four to twelve hours.
• Purple Lotus: Once digested, after one to twelve hours, the victim will suffer from a debilitating sickness for one to four days. They die from it if they fail their save.
• Red Lotus: Inhaling this dust causes intense hallucinations for five to eight hours. Failing a save can cause permanent insanity.
• Yellow Lotus: Inhaling this dust causes lethargy, weakening the character for several weeks.
• Gray Lotus: Inhaling this causes a "state of catalepsy". This is used by necromancers to create mindless servants. The victim is basically a living zombie, with the effect lasting for up to nine days.
• Blue Lotus: Causes mildly pleasant hallucinations and can give you clairaudience and clairvoyance for a time. Using this more than once per week can kill you.

AD&D 2nd Edition Poison

Check out this confusing chart. Poisons are broken into classes, represented by a letter. They kick in at varying "onset" times. The strength stat is the damage. The number before the slash is what you take if you fail your saving throw. The number after the slash is if you make it!

So a quick glance shows you that even if you make your saving throw, you are taking damage. And if it is Type O, you're paralyzed no matter what! You can't move for 2d6 hours.

A "debilitating" poison weakens you for d3 days. All of your ability scores are cut in half and you move at half speed. On top of that, you cannot heal by normal or magical means!

If you die with poison in your system, it remains active for 2d6 hours after you die. So if you are raised during that time, you'll need to make an immediate save or suffer the effects of the poison again. Wow, that's not cool.

D&D 3rd Edition Poison

3e poisons work like this: If someone tries to poison you, you make a Fortitude save. If you fail, you take initial damage (usually it affects your ability scores). Then a minute later, you save again and take more damage.

Temporary ability damage is pretty cool and scary, but in my experience calculating the myriad of effects of losing points in a stat grinds the game to a halt. In my opinion, it's better to have the poison simulate the effects of stat loss through a single effect.

Here's some of the poisons:

• Nitharit: You lose 3d6 points of Constitution.
• Dragon Bile: Lose 3d6 Strength.
• Striped Toadstool: Lose piles of Wisdom and Intelligence.
• Id Moss: Drains Intelligence.
• Lich Dust: Drains a total of 3d6 Strength.
• Drow Poison: Knocks you out for up to 2d4 hours.
• Shadow Essence: Drains 2d6 Strength and one permanent point of Strength!

The Book of Vile Darkness also covers crafting poisons, with identical material to the Dragon Magazine article. It also includes a weird new type of poison called psychic poison.

Psychic Poison: "A psychic poison is a magical toxin that affects those who cast certain types of spells on the creature, object or area". Those who cast divination or mind-affecting spells on a certain area must make a Will save or take stat damage like other poisons. These psychic poisons have weird names like "Karadrach", "Vashita" and "Blue Unlyn".

Dragon Magazine #355 - "The Market is Bad"

This article is part of the awesome Savage Tide adventure path, and details locations in the extremely seedy pirate town of Scuttlecove.

One such location is "Snake Charmer Poisons", in the city slums. It is run by Riordan Darkly, a fellow who has a small lab in interconnected basements under run-down shacks. He's been working a few poisons that will affect yuan-ti as well as people:

• Skinshedder: Strips portions of the victim's skin, causing flesh to blister as though burnt.
• Skinvice: Hardens skin and causes paralysis.

Positoxins

In the Libris Mortis sourcebook, there's information on a type of poison that affects undead.

Positoxin: "Positoxins are special alchemical substances distilled from holy water and laced with positive energy." This stuff does permanent ability damage to undead. It doesn't affect incorporeal undead. Here's some of them:

• Bloodwine: This is a drink meant to be given to vampires. It's got garlic in it.
• Lichbane: A bone-white unguent that drains INT/WIS/CHA from spellcasting undead.
• Liquid Mortality: This stuff can actually destroy undead.

The other positoxins have great names like boneshard paste, celestial essence, gravedust, and sunlight oil.

Ravages

The Book of Exalted Deeds says that the only poison that is acceptable for good-aligned characters to use is oil of taggit, because it only knocks people out. This book presents holy poisons that are ok for good-aligned characters to use, called "Ravages". Ravages deal ability damage like normal poisons.

• Golden Ice: This crystalline stuff is cold but never melts. Touching it to evil creatures drains their DEX like crazy as the cold spreads through their bodies.
• Celestial Lightsblood: This is holy water with jade crystals, drains INT and WIS.
• Purified Couatl Venom: Drains piles of Strength.
• Unicorn Blood: "Drawn from a willing living unicorn, unicorn blood retains its potency as a ravage only as long as the unicorn that donated the blood remains alive." This stuff drains a bit of Strength. I figured it would be more powerful.

D&D 4th Edition Poison

Poison in 4e is much weaker than in earlier editions.  Most of the time it just does a bit of damage and maybe deals out a status effect that you save against every round until you make it. Here's a list of poisons in the DMG:

• Stormclaw Scorpion Venom: Ongoing poison, immobilized.
• Deathjump Spider Venom: Ongoing poison damage and slowed.
• Carrion Crawler Brain Juice: Ongoing poison damage, and if you fail a few times in a row, you become immobilized and then stunned.
• Ground Thassil Root: This stuff must be ingested, and kicks in 2d6 minutes after it is consumed. Immobilized and then knocks you out.
• Dark Toxin: Ongoing damage.
• Drow Poison: Weakens and then knocks you out (until the end of the encounter).
• Hellstinger Scorpion Venom: Ongoing damage, weakened.
• Demonweb Terror Venom: Ongoing damage, -2 to defenses.
• Black Lotus: This must be ingested and kicks in d6 minutes later. Causes hallucinations that compels you to attack the nearest creature.
• Insanity Mist: This dazes and stuns.
• Pit Toxin: This is venom from the fangs of a pit fiend! It does damage and weakens.

D&D 5th Edition Poison

These are listed on page 357 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. 5th edition poisons have a very wide array of effects.

• Assassin's Blood: Damage, poisoned for 24 hours.
• Burnt Onthur Fumes: This keeps damaging you every round until you make three saving throws.
• Carrion Crawler Mucus: You are poisoned and paralyzed for one minute.
• Drow Poison: Poisoned for one hour. If you fail the save by five or more, you're unconscious.
• Essence of Ether: Poisoned and unconscious for 8 hours.
• Malice: Poisoned and blinded for one hour.
• Midnight Tears: This kicks in at the stroke of midnight, doing 9d6 damage!
• Oil of Taggit: Poisoned and unconscious for 24 hours.
• Pale Tincture: Poisoned and d6 damage, save every 24 hours or take more damage. This also prevents healing by any means. This doesn't end until you make.. 7 saving throws!
• Purple Worm Poison: This does piles of damage: 12d6!
• Serpent Venom: 3d6 poison damage.
• Torpor: Poisoned and incapacitated for 4d6 hours.
• Truth Serum: Poisoned for 1 hour, and can't tell a lie (as if under a zone of truth spell).
• Wyvern Poison: 7d6 damage.

Using Poison in Your Campaign

I can see a lot of fun being had in pitting the heroes against a thieves guild, with both sides going nuts trying to poison each other. Tricking foes into a room and gassing it, capturing a foe and interrogating them with truth serum, and wondering if the meal you're about to eat has been dosed with pale tincture seems like it might be cool.

Also, the idea of a character who adventures so he or she can extract poisons from monsters to sell or use seems like a really awesome concept.

Sources

2e, 3e, 4e & 5e Player's Handbook & Dungeon Master's Guides, Dragon Magazine #81, #121, #349, #355, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Libris Mortis.

Links

AD&D Downloads - Poisons and Herbs

SRD Poison list

A Poison List from Giantitp Forums

4th Edition Poison

Using Poison in 5e